Adventure She magazine, Issue 14, August 2021
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Adventure She Empower Educate Entertain
Featuring Interview with Vendee Globe sailor Pip Hare Controlling Fear in the Pyrenees India’s Little Tibet Volunteering in Serbia Hiking to Rome and lots more
Issue 14, August 2021 www.adventureshe.com
1 Price £5.00 for 1 issue or £15 for all 3 of 2021’s issues
Adventure She magazine, Issue 14, August 2021
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Welcome From Our Editor for local cultures and local economies, with people being more focused on their own personal satisfaction that on considering the culture, heritage, landscape, economy, and people, of the places they are visiting. So we’re very glad to include Sal Bolton’s story about Waka canoeing with the Māori in New Zealand. Sal is very interested in learning about people from a culture different to her own. Of course, we can’t learn everything from one article, or one day, or even one month or a year. So please, if there’s any Māori or other indigenous people reading this, it would be great if you could share more with us about your culture.
Welcome to the August 2021, the 14th issue of Adventure She magazine. You might be wondering, how do I in my role as editor, choose a theme for each issue? The answer is a mixture of the stories that land on my desk, and what’s going on in the world. This time around ‘control’ leapt out at me. What can we control, what can’t we control? No doubt the lack of control I had over shoulder pain from which I was suffering, influenced my choice of theme this time around. I couldn’t control the shoulder injury, but I could control seeking out help from doctors and physiotherapists. I also took control over the publication date and decided given the pain I was in; publication of this issue would have to wait. You see, using a keyboard and a mouse exacerbated the pain. So thank you everyone for putting up with me and for waiting patiently for this issue.
Another who was interested in learning more about the indigenous population is Lenka Hanzelova who was eager to learn more about the Tibetan way of like by visiting Tibet. We can’t control when accidents happen, but we can control our reaction to accident. Lenka may not have made it to Tibet, but she did the next best thing, learning about the plight of Tibetans in northern India, where the Dalai Lama and many other Tibetans have sought sanctuary.
Whilst following an ancient map in Ecuador, Jo Costello found she couldn’t control her altitude sickness. But she could control how she dealt with the situation. Carlota Salazar couldn’t control the crowds she knew she’d find on the Camino Frances to Santiago de Compostela during August, but she could control her own decision making processes, choosing to hike to Rome instead. Jessica Stone couldn’t control the roads in Guatemala, but she could take control her motorcycling ability through step by step increments. Another amazing example of what taking control over our life and our decisions can result in, is Pip Hare. She’s the big interview this time around. I am sure you will both love and be inspired by what she reveals regarding her Vendee Globe campaign.
During the COVID-19 pandemic which alas is still all around us, many in person talks moved online. One was the 2021 Micro lectures organised by the Royal Geographical Society’s Younger Member’s Committee. This time around instead of a book review (a bumper edition of which will be back big time in our December issue), Ellen Piercy has reviewed these micro lectures. Like her, I very much hope that talks will continue to be streamed online, so people all over the world can access them, and accessibility isn’t restricted to those living nearby. Another victim of the pandemic has been many mass participation sporting events. As such, I’ve waited before publishing the third and final instalment of my 2019 UTMB diary, choosing to hold it back until just before the next event. Well I’m happy to
One thing we all have control over is whether we show respect to locals during our adventures. Alas a growing trend I’ve noticed in various outdoor / adventure a lif groups on social media, is a lack of respect 2
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say UTMB week looks like it’ll be taking place at the end of this August, so part 3 of three UTMB trilogy is now here for all of you to enjoy. If you are a trail runner / UTMB fan, hopefully the trilogy will enhance your enjoyment as you’re dot watching your favourite runners on the last weekend of this August. Due to shortage of space, our UNESCO feature is a short one. Let’s just say though that running around Rome is a fabulous way of exercising and practising map reading, whilst exploring this amazing UNESCO world heritage site. Adventure She’s What A Woman award is however here in all its full glory. I hope you agree that octogenarian windsurfer Anastasia Gerolymatou, deserves it. Her story isn’t just about windsurfing, it’s also about resilience and tenacity during tough times. I think we can all learn from her. Another person who’s been through tough times is Martha Rose Ormerod. Many people are too scared to talk about mental health issues. That’s why we are particularly grateful to Martha Rose for sharing her story, of getting into cycling as a step towards taking back control over her life and as a way of helping her deal with post-traumatic stress. We need more people like her to destigmatise mental health issues, so that talking about them becomes are normal as discussing physical health issues, whether minor like a broken toe or major like a heart transplant. Martha shares about Taff Trail Of course many people in the world aren’t as fortunate as us. They don’t have access to clean water, health services, or peaceful governance in their country. For some of them, they see the only possible way forward, the only way to survive, is to up
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and leave their homeland. Having taken back control by leaving famine, war, or oppression, many then lose all control, over their own destiny, whilst waiting at or near various borders. Adventure She magazine doesn’t do politics. We do however want to share stories about this world. One person who took control over her life during lockdown is professional organist Hannah Parry. She chose to try and help people who currently have so little control over their own destiny but heading off to help in the camps of first France and then Serbia, so she could try and help some of those people currently stuck. . Now my apologies, there’s a lot from me in this issue. Why? Because Adventure She tries to have a range of stories and cover a range of activities. Fearing there wasn’t enough adventure stuff this time around, I’ve included an article on learning to take control over my fears, whilst doing Via Ferrata. Please do keep sending me your stories, for it’s great when Adventure She magazine can share them, for there’s so many stories out there that deserve to be told, plus I’m sure you’d like to read stories by women far more interesting than me. Plus when we share our stories, we share a greater depth of knowledge and different perspectives, things which are surely good to share.
Here’s to empowering, educating, and entertaining each other.
Jane Front cover courtesy of Pip Hare Back cover by Richard Langdon/Ocean Images
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Adventure She is published by TNA Consulting Services Ltd, the address of the registered of which can be obtained from Companies House. The entire contents are protected by copyright and all rights are reserved. Reproduction without prior permission is forbidden. Every care is taken in compiling the contents of the magazine, but the publishers assume and no responsibility in the effect arising therefrom, Readers are advised to seek professional advice before acting on any information which is contained in the magazine. Neither TNA Consulting Services Ltd nor Adventure She 3 magazine accept any liability for views expressed, pictures used, or claims made. Copyright © 2021 TNA Consulting Services Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
From The
Adventure She magazine, Issue 14, August 2021
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Topics In This Issue Of Adventure She Magazine Page 6 – Tough Times In Ecuador
Page 16 - Controlling Fear In The Pyrenees
Page 30 – Hiking To Rome
Page 39 – UNESCO Feature – Running Rome
Page 40 – Interview With Pip Hare
Page 56 - Control 4
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Page 64 – UTMB – Part 3
Page 60 – Chernobyl, Micro Lectures, And the Royal Geographical Society
Page 96 – What A Woman
Page 84 – Exploring Guatemala
Page 102 – India’s Little Tibet
Page 114 – Waka Canoeing With The Māori
Page 134 – Cycling And PTSD
Page 124 – Volunteering In France And Serbia 5
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TOUGH TIMES IN ECUADOR BY JO COSTELLO PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF JO COSTELLO
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Going on an expedition, not just any expedition, but one that follows an ancient map over the Andes and into the Amazon, is surely the stuff of stories, or dreams, something for other people to do. But why should other people have all the fun? Why can’t ‘we’ be those other people? We might not be able to control what others say and do, we might not be able to control the outcome of an application process, but we can control whether we apply to join an adventure into the unknown. That’s how Jo Costello joined an adventure into a remote part of Ecuador. History is of course full of stories where expeditions haven’t gone according to plan. What would happen on Jo’s adventure?
That’s the problem, altitude sickness has been my constant unwanted. It’s the 30th of November and the heavens are throwing every bit of rain they can find straight at us. I’m frustrated there has been no improvement from the altitude sickness. I’m struggling to sleep, have no appetite and each step is flipping’ torture.
ight place on the right day or mad cap adventure? It’s certainly unforgettable and boggy, so boggy.
R
It was only last year, 2017 that I’d attended that talk on the Amazon. Poof, fast forward to now, November 2018, and I’m part of an all- female team heading out with a 500 -year- old map to locate a lost Inca trail in one of the world’s most inhospitable and remote environments.
After some discussion, the decision is made that I stay here, in the ruins of an old mountain dwelling and the team will continue on the trail.
The Llanganates is located in Central Ecuador and much of the land is unexplored, untouched and therefore largely unmapped. The terrain has numerous dark, deep, and cold black lakes, razor grass which slices the skin and endless swamp and mud. The altitude varies 1200m in the Amazonian rainforest to over 4500m in the Andes.
The others put together a First Aid kit to leave with me and make sure I have enough food. Hugs all round and they head off with Mario, the second survival guide and porters, Luis, Segundo, Vidal, and Jose.
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I am not alone, with me is Angel, a survival guide, and three porters, Milton, Jerry, and Gabriel. They have no English, and my Spanish consists of a six week course taken earlier in the year.
Angel and Milton have gone fishing and return with seven trout. In the quiet of late afternoon, sun blazing and socks drying over the fire, Angel and I communicate over his book of birds of Ecuador.
The hut is a haven for mosquitoes and many butterflies, certainly more welcome than the former. When I say hut, it really resembles some planks of wood and a lot of gaping holes through which the rain and wind batters the head off you.
Time for dinner. Milton flours and fries the trout. We continue our conversations and I manage to understand Angel is describing One Thousand Years of Solitude! I tell them the trout is delicious and they are now all saying it.
The day is spent with Gabriel and Jerry alternating English and Spanish words like schoolchildren, lots of pointing, wild gesticulating, and odd facial expressions, it would have made an interesting/terrible “Give us a Clue” episode for those old enough to remember, or charades if you don’t.
Night falls very quickly. I asked Jerry earlier in the day to show me a spot to pee, who knows where we went, but I’d never find my way back. The ruins are perched on the only patch of dry land; two steps in any direction will have you sinking in bog, so it makes for interesting balancing / squatting routines.
Jerry cooks lunch over the open fire, simple rice, onions beans and tuna but so welcome after days of freeze-dried fare.
My tent has been erected inside the hut over two huge holes in the wooden planks. To ensure I don’t fall through, I place my large bag over one hole and lay all my socks out over the other, so I know not to step there. I spend the
The sun eventually appears, you really do get four seasons in one morning here.
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night in my sleeping bag at a very odd angle, slightly concerned at falling through the floor.
Angel’s snoring - Milton likens it to a bull charging down the mountain. This is the fifth day of the same clothes and wet wipe washing but it’s “no problem”, Angel’s phrase.
There is hardly any intact floor space, so the men are all in a row outside the tent covered in various clothes, blankets, and a very large plastic sheet. Jerry coughs constantly, someone yells at him and the plastic rustles throughout the night.
Angel and Milton catch what looks to be a huge wasp. They take out the sting to show me and talk about intense pain and swelling, I start waving my hands around even more frantically!
1st December There’s early morning noise, the water is boiling, Angel is chopping firewood and Milton is wrapped mummy style in a blanket. Breakfast is a slower affair today; Jerry has made a vat of pancake batter and Angel constructs a wooden tripod to hold the skillet.
Milton saw a kingfisher down by the river this morning and is checking the book of birds, he was also incredibly lucky to spot a Harpy Eagle. 2nd December Breakfast time. Jerry is feeling unwell, lack of sleep and dry clothing I would think. Jerry and Gabriel are cousins, they walked from their homes in Venezuela to Ecuador with no money or food on a journey taking 15 days.
The sun is starting to move around but is closely followed by the mountain mists and the inevitable lashing driving rain. I am writing this at the open broken side of the hut, swiping at anything buzzing and listening to my four new friends and work out we are all discussing Jerry’s coughing and
Neither have adequate clothing, footwear, nor socks. Jerry is asthmatic
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and has tried to keep that secret for fear of not getting further work. I’m not worried or concerned about being here with the guys, they are enjoying the down time as well. Milton is a Shuar, one of the indigenous people of Peru and Ecuador. He’s about 5ft 3, strong as a team of oxen and has three wives. Angel is a softly spoken gentle, caring man who you can’t help but love. He looks out for the younger guys in the team and there is great camaraderie, you don’t need to speak Spanish to see it. I am wondering how the team are getting on and hoping the rain is staying off for a while at least. This hut is definitely an oasis in the boggy marsh land. I don’t feel like walking as
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nothing is firm underfoot. It’s nice to sit and just listen to the river below and the birds, I could do without the mosquitoes and waspy/stingy things! More about the hut. Over half the floor, half of one side and some of the back panels are missing. The fireplace is just utilising space where floor planks once were, they are now rotten and almost nonexistent with what passes for the door stuck half open. There is a lot of graffiti, mostly Spanish and the team have added our names in charcoal. Socks, jackets, bags, and trousers are hanging from the rafters in the hope of some drying. Today I’ve gone fishing with Angel and Milton. It’s the same site as. yesterday but they decide the
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fish aren’t biting and tell me they’re going further upstream, leaving me on a sandy bank with two machetes, mosquitoes, and the sound of the river.
through the inner. The following morning and the men have slept through the rat visit. They find my mime of El Rato (I know that’s not Spanish) amusing, and I get to spend two nights with my new pal, thankful he didn’t bring the family along.
After a short time, my imagination is working overtime, have they left me for a laugh, hoping I’ll find my way back to camp? Have they just abandoned me (don’t be a fool, they wouldn’t leave their machetes behind)? What will I do if a puma appears for his morning drink? I decide I’d run at it shouting. After what seems like an hour or more, they appear with eight fish.
The morning arrives with blazing sunshine, and it is the day we begin the return journey to our river camp. I had pushed it to one side how boggy and arduous this walk had been, and I can’t wait to get to the river. The crossing is particularly hairy, two long trees have been felled but the height means you are bent double holding onto the top one, not an easy task with a backpack on.
The afternoon is spent in our makeshift English / Spanish lessons before Milton cooks for us again. The evening comes in bitterly cold, and the fire is blazing. I go to bed and it’s only 19.30 but drop off really quickly.
Sitting on the riverbank washing muddy clothes and I hear some very odd animal sounds. Looking up I see Luis followed by everyone else. The whole team is back together.
I’m woken by noise and movement which is coming from under my sleeping mat; it feels like the worst vibrating chair massage. Gradually the moves up by my head and the penny drops, rats. Running around the tent and I’m hoping they don’t get
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About Jo Costello From being an avid reader of travel and adventure from a young age, Jo joined a team and went on her first expedition in 2018 at the age of 52 – now a grandmother of two, she's looking for the next adventure. Born in Dublin Jo comes from a military background and travelled extensively with her family. Her father was in the army and instilled a love of the great outdoors – from being thrown in the sea in Hong Kong for a first swimming lesson to being plunged into darkness potholing in the Devon countryside. After training and working as a chef for several years, Jo moved back to Germany where she taught English to kindergarten children and made the most of being able to travel around Austria, France and Germany. She has also travelled to Egypt, Australia, Mauritius, Canada and the US, camping and hiking through Utah and Arizona. Should you wish to contact Jo, send us your details and we will forward them to her.
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Controlling Fear in the Pyrenees By Jane Harries
Fear. Is fear the most important word in the English language? After all, fear can be all encompassing. Fear can stop us attaining our goals. Fear can stop us moving to a new city, country, or continent. For some, fear can stop us leaving our home. So what would our editor do when faced with her fear of ropes and falling, when finding herself doing Via Ferrata in the Pyrenees?
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W
ay back in 1997 I discovered I had a fear of falling. Unfortunately I discovered this fear whilst halfway up a snowy ridge on a mountain in New Zealand. I was on a 10 day technical mountaineering course for beginners. With one foot in the west of New Zealand, one foot in the east of New Zealand and the ridge in between up to my knees, you kind of get an impression of how steep the drop offs were on both sides. It’s a good thing I was on a course with 2 guides, for if it had been just a few friends, I’m not sure what would have happened. I was fine on exposed icy faces, but the drop offs had me scared out of my wits.
would be in my element. So when I opened the detailed itinerary, I was dumbfounded. How could I have missed the references to rock climbing and via ferrata? What planet had I been on? What had I done? It was too late to cancel. I’d even roped in (no pun intended) my best friend to join me on the trip. We spoke about renting bikes instead of climbing, of my horse riding instead of doing the via ferrata. With those intentions we landed in Toulouse airport. Enter Judy, my age, from Colorado, the third of the four of us who’d be on this trip, and an ice climber! I learned the fourth Helen, had just ridden a bicycle from Canada to New Mexico. As for my best friend Caroline, well she’d cycled the length of the Alps and the Pyrenees. What had I left myself in for? I was worried.
21 years later I found myself signing up for a trip in the Pyrenees. I thought it was a week of adventure hiking. I
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Next morning What’s App told us rock climbing was cancelled. It was too wet. Hooray, I had been let off the hook and could chill out in Luchon’s thermal pools. Monday morning and finally it was time to head for the mountains with organiser, Penny from Adventure Creators, who’d put this trip together, and mountain guide extraordinaire Rolf, from 360 Expeditions. Dressed in Gore-Tex, with gaiters, hiking boots and thermals, plus a lightweight pack of essentials only, I was ready. Who cared about the
Photos this page and opposite pages – Day 1, heading off into the Pyrenees. The rain soon turned to snow. All photos unless otherwise stated courtesy of Jane Harries
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drizzle, the rain, the sleet, the hail, the snow? Who cared about the 9 hour hike to our remote mountain hut? Who cared lunch was grabbed quickly during a few minutes stopped here and there? I didn’t. In fact, I loved it, I was so in my element. This was me, despite my being no alpinist. That experience in New Zealand all those years ago had put paid to any such dreams of mine. Yet here, amidst the Pyrenees’ first snowfall of winter 201819, I was relishing the slush, the ice, the snow under my feet. Narrow paths, some steep drop offs, they were of no concern to me, I felt safe, and I had no fear.
having pushed them into a new zone of fun and adventure. That night it snowed some more. We were meant to summit a nearby peak. But the early snow had put paid to that, after all we were kitted out for all weather hiking, not winter climbing. Penny was taking no risks with us, after all, there was plenty of other stuff we could do. So we descended and as we walked, we talked of the pancakes, omelettes, ice cream, myrtle tarts and ice cream we’d consume at the café near the car park, where we’d be collected in a few hours. The faster we hiked, the longer we’d have to indulge our taste buds.
Reaching the hut some 9 hours after setting off, and just in time for that photographic golden hour, I was still smiling. Sure my legs were a tired, but it was a happy tiredness, the tiredness
Photos this page and opposite - Early snow fall in the Pyrenees
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With snow having prevented our original summit hike, we had a day inhand. It was time to explore another part of the Pyrenees near Luchon.
border with Spain, a frigid, cold, biting wind hit. We zipped up our jackets, put our heads down and braced ourselves. The col, a few metres wide, was like a dragon, only instead of sucking in air and breathing out fire, this was a wind tunnel, sucking in Spain’s wind and turning it into a mad frenzy as it hit France.
We hiked up, up, up, up, and up some more, visiting a mountain hut along the way, where we temporarily rested and snacked. Then it was up some more. As we approached the col that was the
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We were equipped for the conditions and in Rolfe, we had a world class guide. I couldn’t help but wonder about the conditions encountered by the French and other allies fleeing the Nazis in the Second World War, and the Spanish who’d fled in the opposite direction during Spain’s civil war. What conditions had they encountered and what type of clothes and shoes did they have? Did they have any water to drink or snacks to sustain them? We were on a day out; they were fleeing for their lives. Fear can be disabling, but fear can also be good. Hopefully the adrenalin that can hit with fear, sustained them long enough until those poor people made it to safety. A few metres down from the col and now in Spain, the wind subsided. Or so we thought. Gusts came and went and then it hit. Not us, just me. That’s how localized the gust was. It literally picked me up and
Photo opposite page - heading off from the hut after more overnight snow. L to R – Penny, Caroline, Helen, Jane and Judy Photos this page: Top – heading towards the hut Middle – Rolfe leading us up towards the col Bottom – attempting to seek shelter from the bitter wind at the col. L to R Caroline, Penny, Helen and Rolfe Photos next page – more hiking in the ever-changing landscape of the Pyrenees.
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transported me across the ground. Rolfe the guide and I had been chatting. He leapt to, grabbing my jacket, holding onto me before the wind got a chance to take me with it and do me some damage. Later one of the others did the maths. She figured that freak gust must have been about 60 mph. Thursday was a rest day. Someone forgot to give us the memo. Bikes hired we headed off for a 60 kms ride including a mountain climb used in the Tour de France. Rural villages, a visit to a specialist nougat shop to deal with an emergency sugar low (far tastier than the gels I had had for emergencies), a tapas lunch (for we’d ridden into Spain), and a cycle up a col used in the Tour de France, before the long descent back to Luchon. It was the perfect ‘rest’ day. We had one more day in the Pyrenees with Penny. It was time for me to go horse riding and for the others to go do Via Ferrata. For me fear of falling was such, there was no way I was going to subject myself to those horrible heights, drop offs and ropes. Only, we were such a team, I forgot to book the horse riding, I forgot to say I wasn’t going to do the Via
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Jane on the via ferrata. This photograph is courtesy of Penny Walker of Adventure Creators www.adventurecreators.com
environment. Being scared wasn’t going to help me, I needed to get a grip of myself. As I clung on to the ladder I did what I could. I couldn’t control my mind or my fear of falling, but I could control my breathing. So I breathed, purposefully, in, out, in, out. No hyperventilating, just plain and simply focused breathing. Before I knew it, I was climbing once more. These moments of fear hit me a few times. But with each one, the fear level subsided a notch, until I realised that I was actually enjoying the experience.
Ferrata and I forgot to admit how much I hate drop offs. There was nothing for it. Helmet on, harness on, off I went. The guide ahead of me, the rest behind me (Judy, Helen and Penny had all climbed before, so brought up the rear so the guide could keep track of Caroline and me). Within probably two minutes of stepping onto the first ladder I stopped. I clung onto a metal rung cemented into the rock face. What was I doing? Why was I here? I hated this
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Across the sheer rock face. This photograph is courtesy of Penny Walker of Adventure Creators www.adventurecreators.com
Penny and Helen making the wire traverse look easy
Judy showing how it should be done
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Max our guide showing Caroline the next stage of our climb The second wire traverse.
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rung. It didn’t matter if I paused and took a breather between some rungs. I was totally reliant on the work of the people who’d installed the ladder, the ladder manufacturers, the rope manufacturers. The list goes on. I had to trust them, and I had to trust my feet and I had to trust my hands as they opened, moved then closed a carabiner, one at a time.
That was until we came to a wire traverse. Max our guide told me to go first. I gave the others an excellent demonstration of how not to do it, for three quarters of the way across, fear hit me big time. Below me was nothing but a big void leading down hundreds of metres. I felt as if I was about to topple over backwards, down towards that void. Only the rational side of me knew I wouldn’t tumble that far, that the safety gear would hold. No, I wouldn’t tumble to my death, I would simply be extremely uncomfortable dangling in mid-air over a massive void, whilst attached to a wire by ropes and my harness. Still that feeling of being about to topple over backwards increased.
Yes I had fear, but this was a healthy fear. This was a fear of knowing I was in an unnatural situation. A fear that I needed to respect, to worked with, not against. For this fear warned me to be careful. To take it step by step and carabiner by carabiner and if I did so, that bar some horrible malfunction. I should be fine.
I counterbalanced. Now I was stuck. I was safe. But stuck.
Of course I was fine. We all were. We had a blast. We had our challenges. Each our us had our own fears, but you know what, through admitting our fears and trepidations Caroline, Judy, Helen, and I bonded even more.
There is no shame in asking for help, in admitting when help is needed to get one out of trouble. I called out for Maxime our guide, for I was going nowhere, and I really didn’t want to spend the rest of my life like a bird on a wire. Maxime of course sorted me out.
Embracing and controlling fear is hard to do. But I’m trying to learn to control and even love fear, to thank fear. For fear is a key survival instinct and when used as such, it can help us survive. As for other fears. I’m declaring war on those. I’ve wasted far too much time not doing stuff because of fear. Hopefully I’ve learned my lesson just in time. No more holding myself back because of my fears.
After that episode, the other wire traverses were fine, as were the ladders, for I had felt such fear, and I had dealt with it. I hadn’t panicked. I hadn’t fallen. I hadn’t ended up dangling in mid-air over that massive drop. So when we encountered a metal ladder hanging from above, whilst nervous, I didn’t panic. Instead I told myself, step by step Jane, rung by
If you have fears, anxieties, etc. you may want to look at the following How to overcome fear and anxiety | Mental Health Foundation https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/publications/overcome-fear-anxiety/
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Caroline hanging in space This photograph is courtesy of Penny Walker of Adventure Creators www.adventurecreators.com
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WALKING THE VIA FRANCIGENA By Carlota Salazar Photographs by Carlota Salazar and Cédric Raskin
A foggy Monteriggioni
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Photo courtesy of Cédric Raskin
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Pilgrimages were traditionally thought of as a journey to a religious shrine. More recently many people choose to go on a pilgrimage for other reasons, including taking time out to reconsider their life plans. Here Carlota Salazar shares the physical and mental journey she went on, whilst undertaking a pilgrimage to Rome.
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was working as a Hospital Pharmacist in Barcelona, where I was in charge of a couple of medicines commissions. I hadn’t been on holiday for such for a long time and I needed a holiday. My first Camino from Somport on the French Spanish border and high up in the Pyrenees, to Santiago de Compostela in Spain’s Galicia, some two years before, was still in my head. From Somport I had taken the Camino Aragones until it met up with the better known Camino Frances at Puente La Reina, which led me all the way to Santiago de Compostela. That Camino was like a first love, a love you never forget.
The Via Francigena starts in Canterbury and goes through France, Switzerland, and Italy until it reaches St Peter’s Cathedral in Rome. There’s a wide history behind the origin of this path, but I won’t go deep into it. I’ll just point out that it was followed for the first time by Sigeric the Serious, Canterbury’s bishop in 990.
But I could only leave on holidays in August, and I knew every Camino to Santiago de Compostela, would be crowded, so I discarded my idea of another pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.
The whole route would have taken me at least 3 months to go over its 2000 Km path and I only had available the first two weeks in August for my walking. I didn’t have much time to get ready either and all the available guides I found were in English or French or Italian, even German, but nothing in my mother language, Spanish. Luckily, that wasn’t a problem for me. There was also an App which even worked without internet connection, though most of the information I found only referred to the Italian part.
I believe everything occurs for a reason. That would explain why I found out at the dentist about the amount of hiking routes in Italy. After that, Google did the rest. I discovered the Via Francigena. I couldn’t sleep anymore without knowing more and more about it. I also found some groups on Facebook and got in contact with pilgrims that had already walked along it.
Two weeks before I had to leave, I decided to start in Besançon, France and walk, if possible, until Aosta, in Italy. I wanted to avoid the heat in Italy’s Tuscany. Hiking from Besançon to Aosta would give me a lot of time in and around mountains. I love the mountains which have a kind of magnetic power for me. Since I was little I always tried to climb as higher as possible as I refused to follow the
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Lake Geneva Photograph courtesy of Carlota Salazar
conventional paths to get to the top. I guess that’s why my family used to call me “goat” whenever this happened.
I walked, for my two week holiday happened to be enough to turn my life upside down, in a positive way.
As I packed I thought about the mountains and the two frontiers I would cross in the mountains. First from France to Switzerland through the Jura Mountains which lie north of the Alps, and the second one over the Great St Bernard Pass in the Alps, that connects Switzerland and Italy. It sounded as celestial music to me. At the same time, I couldn’t help to ask myself many questions with no answer. Would it be safe? Would it be easy to follow? Would I have trouble to communicate with people in case I needed to ask for help, especially in France, where the not quite universal English and my native Spanish are not as spoken.
It took me a while to get to my start point: Besançon. After taking a plane, three trains and walking under heavy rain, I felt tempted to go back home. My first impression wasn’t as I expected, and I had communication difficulties since Spanish and English seemed useless where I was. But I discovered another language with lots of potential and no words at all, gestures! My first day of walk wasn’t successful either since I missed a sign and arrived to Thise, in the north, instead of Ornans, my destination in the south of Besançon. My perseverance and the beauty of the path made me continue. The magic of the way was too powerful to miss a thing of it or just let it go.
There was only one thing I knew for sure. I would leave alone, just with my backpack and the basics for a two week walk, which included a guide in English. I couldn’t know by then that I wouldn’t walk alone after all, nor of the life changing decision I would make as
Green forest and water were the main protagonists during my first days in France. The waterfalls surrounded by
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trees were followed by more water, this time from Lake Geneva. Switzerland was a very positive surprise for me, full of contrast, from the flat path that goes between the lake and vertical vineyards to the mountainous path in the Alps reaching the top of the Great St Bernard Pass. It was a stormy day when I arrived. Even then, under the heavy rain I felt like dancing of pure happiness in the middle of the mountains, amazed by its magnetic effect.
“The way reminded me what really matters in life”
pilgrims that made me reconsider everything. It wasn’t a tough decision to make once I took distance from my daily life. Why had I postponed it until then? I guess it was easier to stay where I was, in my comfort zone. But after making this decision, I felt finally free, as if I was carrying heavy shackles until that very moment.
The first thing I remember from Italy, apart from the beautiful landscapes of Aosta Valley was its coffee. The most delicious one I’d had since I left. I could taste the love while preparing it, with lots of cream, nothing to do with the former ones coming out from machines, even at coffee places!
Once in Aosta, I took a flight to Barcelona to have a meeting with my boss, who felt sad about me leaving, but left the door open for me, in case I wanted to come back. After a couple of weeks to recover from an injured foot (yes, I started to
By that time I had decided to quit my job in Barcelona. There were many
Grand St Bernard Pass Photograph courtesy of Carlota Salazar
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A quiet moment in an Italian church Photo courtesy of Cédric Raskin
feel pain while walking through the Jura mountains, but kept going on), I was back at the same point where I had left the path: Aosta. Apart from that, nothing else felt the same. People make the way more than the path itself and, in my case, they had all passed away, so it felt like starting again. A new start of a new life. Again, I started to walk alone and remained like this until the second day.
part of my way. He looked like Indiana Jones and was too busy talking pictures to even notice me. Or that’s what I thought because he followed me then and, although we decided to walk separately twice, we arrived together to Rome and our paths kept together afterwards. What can I say about the Italian part of the path? That nature combines well, here and there, with overflowing beauty emerged from countless churches. People were so opened
I won’t ever forget that 1st of September, when I crossed him, the very first pilgrim I met in the “second”
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Scenes from along the way, Photographs courtesy of Cédric Raskin
minded and talkative, and they did so in such a musical way, always ready to help. The path was that well signalized and there were so many pilgrim hostels to stay in, that it reminded me of the Camino to Santiago de Compostela. Some of them offered dinner for the pilgrims staying overnight. By sharing food, we all shared much more, our reason to be there as well as other experiences. Fellowship, curiosity, interest in others and big smiles were always present. With some of them, like an English couple, a deep friendship was about to
start. Although we only knew each other for a couple of hours, it felt like we knew each other for ages. New mountains appeared after the ones I left aside leaving Aosta Valley. The beauty of Berceto, known for its sparkling water fountain, was enhanced by what came later, Cisa Pass. On the top, even the sea could be seen. That day I arrived to Pontremoli, the beginning of Tuscany. Walking on ancient Roman roads led me to
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I had the first view of my destiny at Monte Mario. I’ll never forget that moment of happiness. We had walked from the noisy and smelly La Storta to that quiet, green, and fresh hill which gave us a full view of Rome as a reward for the kilometres walked.
Almost there
The big smile and tiny eyes say it all in the picture we’ve got with St Peters Cathedral in the horizon. It’s funny but my eight kilos bag felt suddenly light while going down that hill following the point where the Cathedral was.
magical places such as Sarzana, Massa, Pietrasanta, Lucca, San Miniato, San Gimignano, Monteriggioni, Sienna, with so much history behind and art inside that all of them beg us as pilgrims to come back and discover them with no backpack and more time. Apart from the pain I still felt on my left foot and a blister that wanted to join the party and, later, an
unfortunate episode with bedbugs, my way to Rome was easy going, even if I got lost at some points. There were some long walks on the road as well as some dangerous road crossings with terrible traffic, but most of the path went through natural beauty and places full of a wide and well cared culture and a delicious gastronomy.
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I left home alone but never felt lonely on my way to Rome. Freedom became my best companion along my walk to which love, and friendship joined my thoughts. I arrived full of energy and all kind of experiences that enriched my steps. It wasn’t my first time in Rome, but it was as a pilgrim, and I had a heartened welcoming at the pilgrim hostel which included a foot wash by one of the “hoteliers”. It was great to see there again pilgrims I had met on
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the way. We all shared with each other our experience while walking to Rome. Mine caused some tears, happy ones, though. It was tough to say goodbye to my new friends and to my walking shoes, which I left at the Square where St Mary Church is, thus a bit of me stayed in Rome. Once I was back home, I felt the story of my way to Rome was too beautiful to keep it just for me, so I decided to write it down. During the next few months, I woke up early for my
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“After making this decision, I felt finally free, as if I was carrying heavy shackles until that very moment.”
new full time job: writing. It was worth it if that way I could encourage other people, specially other women, to travel along this path, first through my eyes and then through their own. If I had written the last chapter of my book four days later, it would have been very
different. The pandemic started right after and that made it tough both to get editors and even more to reorganize my new life. I imagine life as a path. I cannot see its end – luckily. Paths can stray, twisting and turning in unexpected ways. The path to my new life now strayed. I returned to
Approaching Rome - Monte Mario Hill
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Hospital Pharmacy to help in the task of receiving and preparing the vaccines against COVID-19 before its distribution to the different vaccination points of Aragon.
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Whilst my career path has twisted and turned, there is another path that is a constant. That the path of loving the people that surround me, the ones I love and
who love me. “To love and be loved, that’s all that matters to me, what really fills in life.”
How To Follow Carlota Salazar On Social Media Website:
www.comeconc.com
Book:
https://www.comeconc.com/mi-libro
Blog:
https://www.comeconc.com/blog
LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlota-salazar-santander/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/comeconc Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carlota_con_c/
Made it, - St Peter’s Basilica
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UNESCO Feature Running Rome Rome, the eternal city. What other city in the world can claim to have been founded by two brothers, Romulus and Remus, raised by a she-wolf? The Roman empire took more than armies and a love for straight roads and spas into other lands, it also took Latin. Though no longer spoken as a language, many languages can trace their roots back to Latin, including Italian, French and Spanish. Yet more languages such as English – which belongs to the Germanic branch or languages, and Welsh – which is a Celtic language, also contain numerous words with a Latin base. Law is another feature that spread with the Roman Empire and many countries owe the basis of their legal system to Roman law. . Rome and Christianity also go hand in hand, though early Christians weren’t tolerated in Rome, with throwing Christians to the lions being treated as entertainment. Christianity was legalised under the Emperor Constantine in 313 AD. Almost 6 decades later in 391 AD worshipping the old Roman gods was made illegal. Of course, one can’t forget all that Renaissance architecture and art, including St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City, which is surrounded by Rome. Ancient Roman architecture like the Colosseum and Pantheon, Rome and the Vatican’s role in Christianity, plus Renaissance and other works of art and architecture, all combine to make Rome and the Vatican fascinating places for any history buff. Rome’s historical centre is also a beautiful and comparatively easy to explore on foot over a series of days. So grab a map and go for some purposeful walks, for you are almost guaranteed to behold site after site of major historical, cultural, and social interest. Alternatively, if you are more energetic, how about going for an early morning run around the sites before they are enveloped by the crowds, something our editor did when she visited many years ago. She found it a great way of seeing more of the city, plus when she got tired, there was usually a church nearby where she could pop in and have a rest. Just be sure to ensure you are dressed appropriately. Or why not time your visit to coincide with an event like the Rome 5km or the Rome marathon, thereby making way for all that delicious pasta and wonderful Italian ice cream. Be warned though, taking selfies in front of the Colosseum during a race, might just get you a personal worst time, rather than a personal best.
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The Big Interview with Vendee Globe sailor, Pip Hare By Jane Harries
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What does it take to sail around the world nonstop and solo? Pip Hare knows. Pip is actually the first person I interviewed for Adventure She magazine (see Issue 6, June 2019). In that interview Pip talked about her background, seizing the moment, and turning dreams into goals that we actively work towards. Pip’s big goal was the very next Vendée Globe, set to start in November 2020. Earlier this year after 95 days 11 hours 37 minutes and 30 seconds alone at sea, Pip Hare become the 8th woman ever, and only the 108th person ever, to complete the Vendée Globe non-stop, solo, round the world sailing race. Compare that to climbing Mount Everest when in 2019, according to haexpeditons.com 876 people summited. Yes 876 in one year! Here’s another statistic, more men, 12. have walked on the moon, than women who’ve successfully completed the Vendée Globe, being a total of 10. A few weeks after Pip finished we caught up over Zoom. So how did Pip’s campaign fare and what did she learn during the process of preparing for and doing the race? Finally, a huge thank you to all of Pip’s volunteers, supporters, and sponsors. Without you the volunteers, supporters and sponsors, a lot of people may never get to realise their dreams.
Photo credit Richard Langdon / Ocean Images
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What sort of fears did you have going into in the campaign? For example, did you ever fear not making it to the start?
individual. Medallia’s involvement enabled us to take what we’d already done and polish it. I think, if Medallia had not got involved, then I would have been nursing the boat around the world. I would have been so so so scared of pushing and breaking the boat and think I would have been repairing things all the way around. It would have been a very different race and I would not have been able to show my ability or potential as a sailor.
It's strange but I didn’t fear that, I always knew I would make it to the start, I never questioned it, because in my mind, if I questioned that, then what was I doing? If I didn't believe 100% that I would be on that start line, then I shouldn't have been going down that path.
Before Medallia got on board, I’d managed to scrape together enough money to hire Joff [Brown], my technical person, as project manager over my winter refit. I was also hoping to have him as sort of a helpline whilst I was out racing. He’s got an incredible history and great results. In the five Vendée Globe campaigns he’s worked on, every single boat has finished, and that is unheard of. When Medallia came on board as title sponsorship, Joff joined the team pretty much full time and was able to work on all the boat upgrades with me. Because of that, he had a much better knowledge of the boat, and was able to support me a lot better as I sailed round the world.
I started with nothing. I took out a bank loan. And I spent all my savings on living. I was prepared to make that sacrifice to get the return of finishing the race. My fear was, I'd made that sacrifice and lost everything personally, yet end up on the start line with a boat that wasn't sufficiently prepared, because I hadn't been able to invest in it. That the boat would break, that I wouldn’t get the chance to have the race I so desperately wanted, and that I wouldn’t make it around the world. I guess that was kind of the black dog that was chasing me the whole time. As well as the bank loan, you crowdfunded, gained many wonderfully supportive sponsors and then Medallia came on board as headline sponsor. What difference did it make having Medallia come on board?
As your campaign grew and there were more people involved, how did you balance the demands of leading the team, dealing with sponsors and the media, plus getting your boat ready?
By then I knew I was going to make it, but I wouldn't have been able to invest a lot in the boat, though the really key things were already covered. What Medallia allowed me to do, was to really really perform.
It was actually really quite difficult. The transition from a one man band to a team is a really hard thing to do, the hardest thing being to let go. It's learning to trust other people to do something, as well as you would do it.
Medallia boosted all of us, every single person that had contributed, every volunteer, every business, every
In a way the boat side of things was easy because I respected Joff’s experience, and I trusted him from the
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Photo credit Richard Langdon / Ocean Images
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Photo credit Richard Langdon / Ocean Images
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start. So letting go of that side was easier than letting go of the business side of things, especially as all my sponsor relationships were my relationships. To allow somebody else to come in without micromanaging them, was difficult and I definitely got it wrong. Fortunately I have a very patient team, and everyone was very passionate about what I was doing and where I'd come from.
amazing boat in the middle of an ocean, doing the Vendée Globe race. I remembered how much I’d wanted to do it, how long I’d wanted to do this and how much effort I'd put into making it to the start line. Then I refocused and thought about how grateful I was to have the opportunity to be there and how happy I was to be taking part in the race. With that kind of zoomed out focus, I understood that what I was dealing with in that moment, what might me getting me down and make me feel bad, was mere detail. It may be a detail that is getting you down and making you feel bad. But it is just a detail, and the general picture is good. So I think that's one aspect of it.
I think my greatest asset through all of this was Lou [Adams], who picked up the business side of things. She had to prize it out of my fingers because I didn't want to let go. Lou diligently shadowed me and then started to take on more and more. She put up with me interfering and eventually kind of kicked me off. When I got to the start of the race, I literally kind of threw the rest of the business at her with no briefing and went off to sea for three months. I would say if anyone was going to follow my example, don't follow that one.
The other aspect is all the preparation and training that had gone into the campaign and the confidence which that gave me. Out there though it is stressful, it is frightening. Every time I got to the stage where I was frightened, or I was doubting what would happen next, I literally kind of sat myself down and went through, what is it that's scaring you? Why is it scaring you? What have you done? If I thought something was going to break, what and for what reason? So it was a very methodical running through of all the preparations that I’d made.
How did you handle the mental health aspect of being out there alone, and in conditions that were probably life threatening at times? I think it is a multi-layer approach. Firstly, and most importantly, I always had to remember that I’d chosen to challenge myself with this race and that choice meant choosing to be on my own. There were things that happened to me I wouldn't have chosen to happen. But the environment that I was in, was somewhere I very much wanted to be. So whenever things felt difficult or particularly challenging, I did this thing that I kind of called ‘zooming out’. I stopped focusing on the detail that was getting me down and thought about where I was. I pictured me on my
During the race your rudder broke leading to your having to change it in the middle of the ocean. What was your thought process in terms of taking a spare rudder? Part of the whole experience is understanding and accepting things are going to break. Part of my job as an athlete. Is to spot problems before they happen. That means maintaining
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the boat, so those problems don't happen and to correct problems when they do happen. My technical director Joff (who was on his fifth Vendée) and I sat down and went through every part of the boat from the bow to the stern asking what could break and what do we do if something broke?
The rudder steers the boat. The Vendée Globe boats are so wide, 5.6 meters wide, you have two rudders. When the wind is in the sail of the boat, it leans over. The rudder on the downhill side of the boat is then in the water, steering the boat, but the rudder on the uphill side is out of the water completely free. That's why, if you break one rudder, you can only sail with wind on one side of the boat, or you have to sail the boat completely flat all the time, which is very, very challenging when the wind gets strong.
On board I had tools and spare equipment to fix every single part of the boat that we believed might break and which would be possible for me to fix. A spare rudder was one of the spares I carried. The last time my boat did the Vendée Globe, it broke a rudder. In fact, in the 2016 race (the last time the race was run), three boats broke rudders. For me that's a frequent enough problem to say, ‘okay, that could be one of the things that will happen to me’. I also needed to have a technique for replacing the rudder at sea, and all the equipment required, for that technique. I practiced changing the rudder before setting off.
How did you find the demands on your time in terms of making videos and talking to people and taking calls, etc. It is time consuming. All of the content I sent off the boat was my content, which probably might sound like a little bit of a strange thing to say, but that's not always the case. A lot of times bank photos will be used, for example, by PR teams on the shore, or a comms team will get a couple of bullet points from a skipper and will write a blog on the skipper's behalf, or raw video footage gets sent [by the skipper] then that gets edited. But I did everything myself, I created my own content.
When the rudder broke, it was devastating, absolutely devastating. But on some level, I’d expected it to happen and had prepared for it to happen. My shore team was so good, they’d prepared the boat so well, it actually only took me 45 minutes to replace the rudder.
I was quite firm that was what I wanted to do, because it was my story to tell. A huge part of my story has always been integrity and honesty. Sometimes it would take me two hours to film and edit a video and then send it off. But that was part of my job, part of what I was there to do. That was the return for the race, it was the return for the sponsors. It's also paying it forward for everyone else who wants to get involved in this in the future.
Could you have finished the race without that spare rudder? I could have made it to the nearest port in Chile on a single rudder (the boats are so wide, they have two rudders, one on each side of the boat, so one rudder is in the water at any point in time), but I wouldn't have been able to carry on to the finish. For non-sailing enthusiasts, can you explain the role of the rudder?
I had a certain amount of media that I was contracted to deliver per week,
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and I looked for opportunities to meet that delivery. The media requirements were on my to do list in the same way that sail changes, sleeping, eating and boat maintenance were on the list. It just was part of the daily routine. Any time I thought of something interesting, I incorporated that into my day. Sometimes I ended up having to deal with a situation on the boat for six hours and then I could go back to [the blog or video]. Priorities shuffle up and down on the list, according to your environment and what's happening.
The longest I slept was two hours straight, and that was by accident, but the average was between 30 and 40 minutes normally.
You mentioned sleep there. What was the longest sleep you had and how did you learn to develop a sleeping strategy that enabled you to last the distance in such a physical and mentally taxing environment?
Part of my daily routine on the boat is always this kind of internal self-check, when I try to self- assess how tired I am. If there was an opportunity to sleep, I take it because you always want to bank sleep. But I just had to be really really honest and self-aware
I've been developing my sleep pattern program over the last 12 years of solo sailing. It started with a sleep diary and loads of alarms, loads of different ways of waking me up. Every time I had a sleep, I recorded how long I’d slept for and how I felt when I got up. In this way I learned 30 to 40 minutes was about the right timeframe for me.
Photo credit Pip Hare
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Photo credit Richard Langdon / Ocean Images
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and keep asking myself, would I perform better if I slept right now? What do I need? Do I need to sleep? I think when you really tune into yourself, then you can learn the signs that your cognitive ability is impaired you're starting to drag your feet walking around, or you're struggling to pick up a heavy object. You learn the warning signs that you're close to the edge and you have to sleep.
Oh it's awful, the worst bit of the whole thing. It's really intense. During the day, you get this potential energy that ends up in the clouds and you can have thunderstorms at night. There's this kind of heavy feeling around you. It's insufferably hot and there's no wind. You’re hot, you're sweating, you're uncomfortable. You're also massively frustrated because the boat’s not moving forward. There's this terrible noise of this slapping and cracking of the sails and then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, a cloud arrives with a fierce wind in it and the boat’s laid over on its side. But you're still not getting where you want to go, because the wind’s normally coming in the wrong direction, or you weren't ready for it. So it's just these really, really intense feelings and changes. It's actually a merciless place to be I, I really hate it. I really hate it.
So it's creating opportunity and also understanding when you absolutely have to do it and prioritising that. If you see an opportunity to sleep, are you sufficiently tired that you can sleep? Always. On the boat, I would normally be asleep within two minutes of lying down. You're just so tired all the time.
How long did it take you on the way down on the way back up to get through the doldrums?
The only time I couldn't sleep was on Christmas Day. Loads of friends had given me tiny little presents. I got the most amazing chocolate covered coffee beans. I hadn't had chocolate or coffee since the beginning of the race, so since November the eighth. I opened [them] live on BBC Breakfast. I was so excited I ate six of them and then I couldn't sleep for 24 hours.
About 48 hours. I never actually stopped moving. Sometimes I would just be going at one knot, when my average was probably 12 or 13 and fastest was 27. What were the conditions like in the Southern Ocean?
That’s funny. Did you go cold turkey on coffee before you went out there to avoid caffeine headaches?
In the Southern Ocean, the air temperature was between four and six degrees. I never closed the [cabin] door so it was four and six degrees inside the cabin too and very very damp, just always damp. With the windchill, it could be minus 10 outside. I did acclimatise to it, but it was the kind of cold that your fingers go completely numb and your feet are like stumps. I was layered up all the time, so I was quite bulky moving around the boat.
No, I don't get them. I'm not addicted to caffeine because I can just stop it like that. In fact, I think I probably had four espressos on the morning of the race. But I never drink coffee when I'm sailing because it messes up my sleep routine really badly. There's been a lot of poetry about sailing through the doldrums. So what's it like?
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The waves were huge, seven, eight meters regularly, with a lot of power in them and there were blizzards. The blizzards were like squalls anywhere else in the world, it's just that the rain was snow, so the sky would be very dark with really inky black clouds and the visibility disappeared. The snow came at you in your face. So you can’t see because there’s snow in your eyes and it settled on everything, making everything wet. It was horrible. You shouldn’t be sailing in snow. It’s not good.
Also I always found a way to push myself in terms of my own development as a sailor, I was leaping forward all the time, and I love that. In circumstances that I'd never been in I was finding new ways to push the boat and a new confidence in my ability. I was also trying different strategies with weather systems. It was a combination of pushing myself mentally and physically. What gave you that confidence in the Southern Ocean, to try out new stuff and in a place you hadn't been before?
How did you sleep in those conditions?
I think I did it, bit by bit. Each time I thought I'd got to a plateau, or each time I thought about pulling back or slowing down, I thought okay, ‘what would be an acceptable risk to you from here’? I never pushed it without thought or attention, I just incrementally pushed myself. I was almost nurturing myself, like in any training program. It's the same way you train with weights, or for running. It’s setting achievable goals that are going to move you on each time, but not set you back by scaring you or making something break.
You have to stay in all your gear because you never knew when something might happen. So it was a choice, sleeping on a damp beanbag, or keeping the beanbag dry. When it was very wet, I just slept on the floor. If it was dry enough to sleep on the beanbag, then I rolled my dry sit down to my knees and sleep in my Gore-Tex mid layer, so everything was relatively dry. And if I needed to go out, then all I had to do was pull my dry suit up and over my head. But my boots would be on, and my legs were in my dry-suit already.
What was your most stressful time? What was your favourite time? Ironically the last six hours of race were very stressful. Because there was a lot of traffic around. For the whole of the rest of the race, I spent my whole time avoiding traffic. But because the finish is tied into this geographical location that you have to go to, now I couldn’t avoid the traffic. There was one point in those last 6 hours when 12 fishing boats were on my radar, and that is really stressful.
There were so many of them. Pretty much every day something made me smile and made me glad to be where I was. I enjoyed the Southern Ocean a lot more than I thought I was going to. In fact, I think probably the best times for me, was going fast in the Southern Ocean, because we exceeded the expectation of what the boat was capable of.
The keel lines [also] broke.
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Photo credit Richard Langdon / Ocean Images
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What are the keel lines and how significant was that for you?
Is this something that if it had happened earlier, it would have put an end to your race?
On these boats, we can move the keel from side to side. The keel is basically a four meter long stretch of metal that has a four ton weight on the bottom of it. When the wind pushes the sails over, it's the keel that brings the boat back upright again.
No, it already happened several times. I just fixed it every time, but because there was so much traffic around and I was only six hours away from the finish, fixing then wasn't the right thing. On reflection, what would you have done differently?
The keel lines are the things that move the keel from side to side. When they broke, it basically meant I was working on a decreased righting moment. Even with less wind, the boat would lean right over to the point that it wasn't controllable. What that meant was that coming into the finish, I had to sail really slowly, I could only have a small amount of sail up, because I didn't have the mechanism to keep the boat upright with a lot of wind in the sail.
I wish I'd taken a better variety of food and I would have eaten more so I didn’t lose so much weight. I would have taken a heater as well. It was very very cold and having a heater wouldn't have cost me much in terms of weight, but I think it would have made a big difference.
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Photo credit Pip Hare
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WHY CONTROLING THE CONTROLLABLES IS SO IMPORTANT
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Royal Geographical Society Micro Lectures, March 2021 Reviewed By Ellen Piercy
O
ne thing I hope continues in a post-lockdown world are the online lectures and talks that have been made available. Living in rural Cheshire, popping down to London for an evening of talks would never have been possible, but with everything moving online I spent a fascinating evening attending the Royal Geographical Society’s Micro lectures.
different topic but throughout them all several themes resonated strongly with me. Research and science were, probably unsurprisingly, a thread that ran through most of the talks. Alex McDermott’s plans for the summer break in his A-levels in 2020 had been to walk the coast of Cornwall but instead he and three friends canoed 120 miles of the River Severn carrying out 4 studies along the way. The studies they undertook included sampling the water for plastic pollution and mapping the locations of Himalayan Balsam, a fast growing invasive plant that is rapidly colonising the UK’s riverbanks. It was fascinating to hear the impact that covid had had on the river, both positive and negative, from the reduced human presence.
Organised by the societies Younger Member’s Committee and hosted by Mary-Ann Ochota, the evening was a series of 10-minute lectures from eight speakers. Set up as an evening of thought-provoking travel and inspirational journeys, it certainly proved to be just that, and helped to fill a little of the adventure gap in my life. The eight talks covered the globe both in the content of the talks and the location of the speakers, from Greenland to Antarctica via Ascension Island, Wales, the route of the Iron Curtain, Chile, Ukraine, and the River Severn. Each talk had a quite
Continuing the field research topic, Richard Phillips spoke about leading a team of students from Edinburgh on an incredible expedition to Greenland.
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The students undertook studies of arctic plant life as well as a taking advantage of the summer equinox and determining the mass of the planet: I’ll admit a tinge of jealousy of such a fantastic opportunity to have had at that age.
When thinking of big adventures its often easy to forget that there is adventure to be had close to home rather than in far-flung locations, and Zoe’s description of feeling like she could fly when she closed her eyes and walked in the sand dunes showed that taking little risks and facing fears can bring joy on the hardest of journeys.
The adventures of a digital detective talk given by Emma de Heveningham was an adventure for lockdown times. Using the virtual world available to anyone with a connection to the internet she travelled virtually to South America to trace the route her grandfather took in the 1920’s and 1930’s when he left the UK.
The kindness of strangers flowed through Laura Scott’s story as much as it did Zoe’s. Laura cycled the length of the Iron Curtain from the Barents to the Black seas, her journey was filled with the positive message that there are far more good, kind people in this world than bad, especially the ones that leave you a packet of sweets in on your bike for you to find in the morning. Passing refugee camps in Germany left Laura overwhelmed by the privilege of being able to travel freely, I for one will never take that freedom for granted again.
With only a few photographs with just a location name, she hopped across digital islands of data; through shipping records, satellite images and historical photos she was able to trace his journey from Chile to New York and virtually walk down streets and stand exactly where her grandfather’s photos were taken. Through social media she was able to contact the places he stayed and even find out more about the people in the photographs, all without leaving her home: it struck me how fortunate we are to have this incredible resource and the adventures we can go on without even leaving home.
The most remote location for a speaker to present from and reinforce the power of connecting people was Charlotte Austwick, joining the event from Ascension Island, mid Atlantic. She talked about recording the voices of the Maya and their languages under threat from globalisation, fewer than 10,000 people speak Mopan Mayan and Charlotte worked with the schools and communities in Belize to record the myths and legends. Globalisation has the power to bring diverse people together, but that togetherness can come at a consequence of reducing that one thing that makes diversity special and the unique environments become homogenised.
A journey of a different kind, and the one I joined the event for, was Zoe Langley-Wathen’s talk on the Welsh Coast Path. Zoe was the first woman to complete the path which in itself is a world first being the only complete national coastal path. The 870 miles of path traverse the contrasting environments of heavy industry and spectacular nature, though it is often easy to dismiss the industrial landscapes they can be equally dramatic and surprisingly bountiful in wildlife.
A very different place that is at risk of losing what makes it special is Pripyat. Better known as the city closest to the
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Chernobyl nuclear power plant it has lain abandoned by people for decades.
was very different: there was no preparation, no knowledge of how to approach the situation and their equipment was poor. They were inundated and surrounded by a state of panic, but special bonds are formed within a team working in extreme circumstances. The whole evening was thought provoking, enlightening and for me the connecting of people and places resonated the whole event.
Yulia Savchuck was born in Ukraine and was 4 months old when the disaster happened and the radiation cloud passed overhead, she was a ‘Chernobyl Kid’ with regular medical checks and summer camps for children like her. She visited Pripyat twice, in 2017 and 2020 and two things she spoke about really struck me. The first is that of all the items left behind, there is no plastic or single-use waste only traces of the circular economy of reusing materials. Secondly, commercialisation and higher visitor numbers following the release of the HBO series changed the Pripyat from a poignant and reflective place to an attraction to be ticked off the list: perhaps just because you can go doesn’t mean you should.
It reminded me of the power we have to do good, that there are plenty of passionate, kind people on this planet and if we support each other and care for our environment all of us become stronger. The one message from the whole evening of talks that has stayed with me and will continue to stay with me was from Alex’s talk: Resilience is a team sport. The lectures are free and available from the RGS, alongside many other recordings and are well worth a watch. Royal Geographical Society Geographical journeys: micro lectures 2021 (rgs.org)
Dr Alex Brazier compared his experience of being part of a team crossing Antarctica in 2016 to his more recent experience as an anaesthetist in a London hospital covid ward. The intensity of the covid ward felt very similar to the expedition but the game
About Ellen Piercy Ellen Piercy is a Hill and Moorland leader, a keen hiker and cyclist, who is training to an expedition on Svalbard in the high artic. Her training has been going on rather longer than anticipated, as the trip was originally intended for 2020, then 2021 and now 2022, the postponements being due to the Covid -19 pandemic. You can follow Ellen Piercy on the following social media channels: Instagram:
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Chernobyl before and after Photo courtesy of Yulia Savchuck
Chernobyl sports hall Photo courtesy of Samuel Copley
Entrance to Chernobyl Photo courtesy of Samuel Copley
A young Yulia Savchuck with Lenin Photo courtesy of Yulia Savchuck
Yulia Savchuck with Lenin Photo courtesy of Samuel Copley
Devastation and abandonment Photo courtesy of Yulia Savchuck
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UTMB Week – Part 3 Words and photos by Jane Harries Finally, it’s here. The third and final part of Adventure She magazine’s UTMB week trilogy. We know it’s been a long time coming, but then again, it wouldn’t be fair if our editor hogged the whole magazine, so we’ve made her wait before publishing this article. Actually including it now is rather timely, as like many races, UTMB week was cancelled in 2020. So this report remains from the most recent year in which the race was held. Hopefully the COIVD-19 numbers will be low enough to allow it to go ahead, but with new variants surfacing, who knows? So let’s enjoy a journey back in time to 2019, when social distancing, face masks, and lockdown, weren’t really in our vocabulary. 64
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Thursday evening
world’s best ultra-trail runners. This is a race they all want to win.
Chamonix’s Triangle de l'Amitié was buzzing, for that’s what happens when there’s three parties going on at the same place at the same time. OCC and TDS participants and their families celebrated, as runners from those two races ran, walked, and staggered the last few hundred metres through the town. As they approached the finish line the crowds of supporters, both local and visitors, got deeper. Relief at finishing, celebrations all around, the joy they felt was infectious. Apart from those runners crying from relief and exhaustion, everyone else was on a high from vicariously living the success of these runners, who by this time, were all amateurs, fun runners, if very dedicated and focused fun runners.
The red hot women’s favourite was Courtney Dauwalter, a 34 year old from the USA, who until two years previously had combined her running with teaching middle school and high school in Denver Colorado. Famous for her running in baggy shorts, could or would anything stop her from winning this race? The other fancied runners included Beth Pascall, a doctor from the UK (and the winner of our June 2020 What A Woman Award). Presentations over, it was time to move on to a nearby hotel for the interviews. I’d put myself down to interview Courtney Dauwalter, so on finding myself walking alongside her to the hotel where the interviews were being conducted, I merely made small talk about her shorts. Stupid me. I lost her in the crowd and in doing so, had lost my chance of interviewing her. But I did get interviews with Russian Ekaterina Mityaeva, Dr. Beth Pascall (see our June 2020 issue for more on her) and Catherine Poletti herself, yes that Catherine Poletti, one of the cofounders of the UTMB race and this whole illustrious week.
Meanwhile a few yards away, the fancied runners in the men and women UTMB race, the week’s biggest race, were about to be introduced to the waiting crowds. In front of the UTMB stage lay the press pen. Right in the middle of the pen, in the best position, I sat on the ground. As time for the introductions approached, other members of the press fraternity joined me. They had more experience than me, and far better cameras, but I had the best position. Me, a newby at this game. Timing as they say is everything, and I had got here early, hence my spot.
Back in the square, runners were still coming in, mass relief and happiness all over their faces. The crowds though were starting to dissipate. I’m glad I hung around and took photo after photo, for most of the press had long since gone. Yet here were the runners who had suffered for the longest hours out on the course, e.g., the fastest man completed the 145km with 9,100m of elevation TDS race in 18 hours 3 minutes and 6 seconds. Contrast that with the effort needed by the slowest finisher, who had to
One by one the five highest ranked men and women were presented to the awaiting crowd of adoring fans. I snapped away with my camera, admiring the poise of these athletes, on the eve of a race which if they won, could lead to pages of press coverage, better sponsorship deals and the knowledge they had beaten the world’s best. For the UTMB attracts the
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sustain that effort for the 41 hours 8 minutes and 39 seconds which it took them to complete the race, over twice as long as the winner. These finishers also deserved to be lauded at the finish and to have their success recorded by the press. [Editor’s note – see our September 2020 issue for photos of the OCC racers and this issue for TDS finishers].
Ekaterina Mityaeva
Friday 30 August 2019 - 5.30pm Days of summer heat had given way to rain. Not much, just enough for many of the UTMB runners in their holding pen, to have donned their lightweight rain jackets. With 30 minutes to go and the skies having darkened, would the runners have to cope with rain and slippery trails, possibly turning muddy especially for the slower participants? I felt for them, about to head out into the mountains for anything up to 46 hours and 30 minutes (the maximum time allowed).
Dr Beth Pascall
Yet the rain didn’t dampen the spirits of the runners, as they waited for the start. Behind them years of training, of multiple other ultra-races to gain enough qualifying points for this event, and then the stresses and strains of waiting to hear whether the name had been drawn in the ballot. Now they were here, finally on the start line of what might be their biggest ever race experience. Nor did the rain dampen the crowd’s enthusiasm and support for their running heroes, for every inch of space was taken, with balconies overlooking the start packed.
Race co-founder and race director Catherine Poletti
As Vangelis’ Conquest Of Paradise boomed out of the huge loudspeakers, I snapped away with my camera and as I did so, inadvertently found myself amongst the participants. I was being carried along with the throng of the mid
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and back of the pack runners, as they slow walked those last few metres to the huge start banner, when their timing chips would be activated. Oh to have been a participant, heading off for 171 km and 10,000m of elevation gain around Mont Blanc, before returning to Chamonix. If only I weren’t injured. If only I were fit enough to do this. If only I were one of them. I couldn’t do anything about the injury I’d sustained, and which had put me out of the OCC race held the previous day. But I could control how I managed my recovery from injury, and I could control my attitude. I promptly stopped the momentary pity game and instead returned to relishing the fact I was here at all and that I had a ticket for the press bus.
Friday 30 August 2019 - Saint-Gervais A mere 21km into the race the press bus had its first stop. Here the town was out in force. Pavement cafes full, first floor balcony tables in high demand thanks to their bird’s eye view of the course below. We were early and got escorted to a bar for drinks. Someone though was dot watching, and with plenty of time to spare we all lined up for the best view possible. The leading woman, Miao Yao from China, wasn’t far behind the leading men. The Chinese camera crew looked happy. Later though she started slipping down the field and was ultimately a DNF. Had she gone off too fast? Was she injured? Was it the altitude? Was it the heat from earlier in the day, had that got to her? Perhaps cramp, or stomach ache? Who knows? Not me. There in Saint Gervais she was flying and like the
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The start line
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Checkpoint 2 - The all important race volunteers
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rest of the front runners and the volunteers, most efficient at the aid station. That’s the thing though with ultra-running, a strong start doesn’t mean a strong finish,
Friday 30 August 2019 – Les Contamines Montjoie Darkness waits for no one. Just as darkness makes no compromises, neither does injury. The next scheduled stop for us involved a gorge walk. With my meniscus torn, for me, that was not going to happen. Lucky for me, Mr Bus Driver very kindly dropped me off in Les Contamines Montjoie. If Saine-Gervais was celebrating the race, Les Contamines Montjoie was
Checkpoint 2 – Saint -Gervais The leading woman - Miao Yao refills her water bottles with the help of a volunteer
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celebrating it on steroids. The vibe was incredible. I can really only compare it to Christmas cross Après Ski rolled into one, but with warmer weather.
Street entertainment at Saint Gervais
This was also the first place support crew could meet up with their runners and provide them with food, change of clothes, shoes, massage, whatever the asked for. The race was still early, and the field of runners not yet totally strung out. In other words, it was busy. After all, no crew wanted to miss their runner and miss the chance of giving them whatever gear they’d need to get them through the night stage high up in the mountains. As from here, the runners would be heading off to Italy via some serious climbs, including the Col Du Bonhomme before climbing up to the French – Italian border at Col de la Seigne.
It’s dark by checkpoint 3
So this time the leaders were ready for a bit more of a break and a feed. Looking around at the runners, I realised one of the currently highest placed women Kristin Berglund - hadn’t been amongst the fancied runners. The efficiency with which she and her support crew (restricted to one inside the tent at the checkpoint), did the necessaries, was to be admired. She looked strong too, even if the outline of her headtorch was clearly indented on her forehead. I felt sorry for the runners, the likes of me pointing a camera at them, going snap snap snap, as they
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To avoid overcrowding in the help zone at Les Contamines Montjoie, support crew wait for their runner to near the checkpoint, before being allowed into the assistance tent.
Female winner Courtney Dauwalter checkpoint 3
She might not have been in the 10 most fancied runners before the start, but with her second place, Kristin Berglund showed the power of performance on the day.
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A moment’s tenderness before heading out over the Alps
Tape helps hold some runners together
13th place finisher Maifa Oravamäki
They right amount of hydration is key to performing at one’s best
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When I’d booked my accommodation, I’d booked it on the basis I’d be participating in the OCC. Having a press pass hadn’t entered my mind. Of course, by the time things changed, the small apartment (with no wifi much to my horror, apparently wifi in reception, which was in another building, was sufficient to meet the ‘with Wi-Fi requirements’) I’d booked, in fact every apartment in that complex, was full. It had been great staying in Chamonix, right in the thick of things. But by now I was exhausted. The previous day I’d taken myself off for coffee and cake in the peace and calm of nearby Argentiere, at this time of year a laid back village, though goodness knows what it’s like in ski season, for it’s even higher up than Chamonix and has multiple ski lifts. There amongst the pot plant flowers I rejuvenated myself. I also happened to find a hotel with a vacancy. I couldn’t believe my luck. Even better, it was gorgeous. Really gorgeous.
grabbed some food or changed their water bottles. But how else does one share the true story of a race, of the work that goes into the race, of how important checkpoints are, in terms of not wasting time, but spending enough time to do what’s needed, be it eating, refilling water bottles, going to the toilet, having a hug, or a motivational pep talk, changing kit even shoes, or something entirely different. I could have stayed there for hours watching the runners and their teams. So few press people were there, I was allowed into the Zone A access area, even though my pass was a mere level D. Here is where one could really see what was going on, for even if I couldn’t hear or understand them, for multiple languages were flying around, there was still body language to read between runner and their support crew. I needed to move on though, for the organisers had laid on a late dinner for us at a restaurant in town. Race organisers understood different press people had different needs and wanted different shots. So post dinner there was two options, one to return to Chamonix for a quick sleep, before heading out again, or, to keep following the runners through the night, including a hike up to a stunning viewpoint. Clearly the hike was out for me. But I also decided to forgo the other option. It had been brilliant following the lead runners so far, and all day for the OCC race earlier in the week. Now though I wanted to see more than just the front runners, I wanted to follow the mid and back of the pack. After all, two of them had written for Adventure She, I wanted to support them if I could.
Saturday 31 August -Vallorcine So now I lugged my bags onto the tram style train to Argentiere. After more coffee and cake I trained it to Vallorcine, the last checkpoint where runners can meet with their support crew during the UTMB. I’d been following the runners online. It was already Saturday afternoon, and I knew I’d missed the leading men and the leading woman, Courtney Dauwalter, but I’d already seen them last night. I wanted to see the likes of Dr. Beth Pascall and Russian Ekaterina Mityaeva, whom I’d interviewed on the Thursday evening. How were they faring? Was Kristin Berglund still looking strong? What about the other women? Did it look like the last few kms to Chamonix would change the placings?
Saturday 31 August - Argentiere
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Medical volunteers ready to help when needed
Family members supporting their runner at Vallorcine on the Saturday afternoon
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2nd placed Kristin Berglund looking good at Vallorcine, the final checkpoint where runners could meet their support crew.
3rd placed Maite Maiora seemed untroubled by the heat. Behind her Ekaterina Mitvaeva’s support crew awaits her arrival.
4th placed Ekaterina Mityaeva raced through the Vallorcine checkpoint, and in so doing passed Beth Pascall, who’d entered the checkpoint in 4th place.
5th placed Dr Beth Pascall and her support crew, doing their stuff in front of the cameras
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Following runners and getting their photographs takes time and patience. Boredom though was something I didn’t suffer from, for there was simply too much to take in and so many wonderful support teams to chat with, like Frances, Mike and their family from the UK and Haley from the USA who was supporting her brother Ryan. Soon though chitter chatter had to give way, for the runners we were all watching came in.
on the shutter of my camera. No such barrier though for the official race camera crew. Whilst Beth got some calories in, Russian Ekaterina Mityaeva came, refuelled, and went. She too looked tired, but on a different level. Mind you, wouldn’t most people look tired if they’d just run 150 km around a mountain chain in well under 24 hours? Actually, very few people in the world could probably achieve such a feat.
The previously unheralded Kristin Berglund was still good. Likewise the smiling third place woman, Spain’s Maite Maiora. Perhaps that’s why they were lying in second and third place, for the then in currently lying in fourth place, Dr, Beth Pascall looked tired. I so felt for Beth, for she had to eat her pasta in front of cameras galore. At least I was several metres away and behind a cordon, whilst clicking away
The runners may not have been able to control their tiredness, for a lot of the men also looked spent. But they could control their kit and their food intake. At least, those in front of me could eat and drink something. Elsewhere some runners were struggling to keep anything down.
Haley Ghelfi liasing with her runner, brother Ryan, prior to his arrival at Vallorcine
Haley helping her brother Ryan
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With food stalls outside and a train connecting Vallorcine to Argentiere and Chamonix, it would have been very easy for me to stay there. But it was time to find and support some of the main field, for they too deserved to be supported and lauded. First though, having foregone the press bus, I needed to queue up with everyone else for the general race bus. The organisers were so efficient, they even had a timetable printed up. Alas, more people wanted to head across the French – Swiss border to Trient and Champex-Lac, than there were seats. I was lucky, to get one of the very last seats on the bus. Seeing how crowded it was and the queue at Trient hoping to climb onboard, I chose not to disembark there, but to continue to Orsières. There it was a bus change for the uphill to Champex-Lac. This time there was no seat for me, merely floor space. I’ve sat on the floor of trains and buses before, so that was no problem for me. At least I’d managed to get on the bus.
This page and opposite, runners approaching Champex Lac on the Saturday evening.
Saturday 31 August -Champex-Lac In the mountains, a hot day can mean afternoon or evening thunderstorms. It had been hot, very hot, with the sun blasting all its rays down on the Alps that afternoon. Now with evening approaching storm clouds were amassing. I heard claps of thunder and felt for the runners out there in those mountains some distance away, from whence those thunderclaps came. The poor runners would surely be drenched just as they were heading into their second night. Not ideal. Plus what state would the trail be in? Would it turn to mud for the runners to slip and slide on? Not something they’d want to contend with? Would there be water run off? Would their
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feet be encased in soaking wet muddy shoes, making blisters an even greater threat? These were all things they couldn’t control. All they could control was the kit they had with them. What quality rain gear did they have? Did they have enough batteries? Food wise were they carrying the right snacks, should they need something between checkpoints? Were they walking / running with someone else and thereby be able to save some mental energy by taking the turns in leading, as they headed into their second night? In Champex Lac though there was no visible sign of the rain. Here the overwhelming sense appeared to be one of relief at seeing their support crew, relief at making another cut off and with time to spare, and relief at being able to sleep for a while on a cot in a ‘sleep zone’.
Saturday 31 August -Chamonix I’d grand plans of heading back to Vallorcine and seeing Zoe Pye and Lucja Leonard. Both of them have written for Adventure She magazine, and I wanted to show them my support. Alas it was not meant to be, for sleep ruled. That’s the thing I find with collapsing into bed way into the early hours for several nights running, it gets to the point when I simply can’t get up when I want to. So rather than risk missing them altogether, I ate yet more cake and drank yet more coffee in chilled out Argentiere, before heading to buzzing Chamonix. Surprise surprise. Crowds thronged the street. The winners had finished the previous afternoon, but still the crowds hung around, cheering in each
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This page and opposite, runners celebrating completing the UTMB on the Sunday afternoon
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participant who’d made it this far, whether they were running, jogging, walking, limping, or crawling – ok, not crawling, I didn’t see any crawling.
could cause a wet trail to turn into a muddy trail. Why on earth do some race organisers think a 6th placed man should be recognised but not a 6th placed woman?
The joy on the faces of each participant as they made their way up the last few metres to the grand finish arch, was immense. Each one of these people will have devoted so much time and effort into finishing their qualifying races and then training for this event itself. Sacrifices will have been made along the way.
I sat there, right at the centre of the press pen. The joy of most of the podium athletes was palpable, thrilled with their achievement. Dare I say it, a few did look tired though. Not surprising really. All that was left, of UTMB week was the after party. I may not have run a race, but I too was shattered. I’d done enough socialising during my time in Chamonix. What I needed now was sleep. So I left the racers and their support crews to their party and headed off to bed with thought of how could I recover quickest from my knee injury, how could I regain my running fitness so I could build up to and survive enough qualifying races, how could I be a true part of this week, rather than an observer? Watching was good, but oh, to have been a part of it would have been ever better.
Successfully completing an event like UTMB takes tenacity, perseverance, grit. And then there’s those who are timed out, right at the end. One woman, arrived to discover she’s been timed out, there was no UTMB finishers gilet for her. She was distraught. I overheard her say she’d been told at the last checkpoint it was ok, she could continue. Somewhere there must have been a mix up. She was told she hadn’t completed the challenge in the time allowed. She hadn’t successfully finished the UTMB. Goodness knows how many blisters she had, or what pain she’d endured, enroute to the finish line. She’d done the miles and metres, but not in within the maximum time allowed of 46 hours and 30 minutes. UTMB knows how to through a party. Whilst the recent finishers still looked bedraggled, the winners had enjoyed a night’s sleep, shower, and sparkling clean clothes. Now was their moment, the podium presentations, but unlike the Olympics, at UTMB the top 10 women and men are invited onto the podium. Hopefully other race organisers will take note, if 10 men are lauded, then 10 women should also be lauded. After all, they run the same course. If anything, conditions for women are harder, as the leading men
Adventure She contributor Zoe Pye after completing the UTMB
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This page: Courtney Dauwalter 2019 Female Winner stepping onto the stage for the victory presentation Opposite page Top: The top 10 men and women at the 2019 UTMB Middle: These two have successfully completed every UTMB race that’s been held
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Bottom: Time to say goodbye from the UTMB crew
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Crashing Around Guatemala
By Jessica Stone Photographs courtesy of Jessica Stone unless otherwise stated
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In 2014 Jessica Stone was disappointed that she couldn’t explore Guatemala as she wanted to. The problem was a lack of control over her motorcycle, on challenging back roads. But she could control her skill level, through practice, practice, practice. Here Jessica shares her story from frustration and disappointment in 2014, to the joy of exploring Guatemala properly, when she and her partner Greg, returned to live and work there.
y first introduction to Guatemala came when my stomach was in a knot, my heels were dug in, and my face was in a nearly permanent grimace. A whimper inside my crash helmet or spitting venom at my partner, Greg, it was all I could do, not to drop my motorcycle by the side of the road and buy a plane ticket back to Toronto.
those gems are quite hard to reach by motorcycle. And that’s why I was in such a bad state during our first visit to the country in 2014, during an eight-month Northto-South America motorcycle trip when I was just a novice rider, I was eager to explore Guatemala but too petrified to tackle the challenging road conditions that it required. It was enough just to keep to the main roads, avoid potholes, and look out for kamikaze chicken buses ripping past at lightning speeds.
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It’s a beautiful, rugged Central American country that’s filled with natural and cultural gems, so it hardly deserved this viscerally negative reaction from me. The north half is hot, humid, and swampy while the southern half is crowned by rugged highlands.
Deciding to Go Back – Second Chance After our big motorcycle trip, we went back to the States and went back to work: Greg in public health and me in digital marketing. As ex-international aid and development workers, we kept our eyes out for non-profit positions based in Guatemala. A couple years later, we came across a US-based non-profit called Friendship Bridge, which provides microfinance and education services to Guatemalan women.
Guatemala has a population of 17 million, many of whom speak Mayan languages (there’s 21 Mayan languages plus two non-Mayan indigenous languages). Traditions are also maintained, including wearing traditional dresses such as the colorful cotton frock called a traje, with each region and every village having developed their own colorful and unique patterns.
They needed a grant writer and a health specialist, and we wanted to go back. It was a perfect match. So, we packed our bikes and rode south to a touristy little village called Panajachel, that is surrounded by three volcanoes
So, traveling among all this natural beauty, tradition, and diversity, what could have me so bent out of shape? The problem for me was that, with minimal infrastructure and challenging topographical conditions, much of
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Panajachel, Lake Atitlan
beside a picturesque lake called Atitlán Shores of Lake Atitlan
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and lies on the shores of Lake Atitlán. It’s a common destination for foreign visitors. The stunning beauty of the region and wonderfully friendly people, leads many visitors to extend their stay for weeks, months, or even years.
They needed a grant writer and a health specialist, and we wanted to go back. It was a perfect match.
Eleven small villages populate Lake Atitlán and the village where we settled, Panajachel, with its backpacker hostels, boutique hotels, cafes, and a thriving artisan crafts market, is one of the two largest..
Jessica Stone
The city is filled with cafes, restaurants, and old churches. During Holy Week, or Semana Santa, the narrow streets are filled with parades, whilst at Christmas, the central plaza is bathed in colorful lights and holiday decorations.
UNESCO World Heritage Another place many foreigners permanently or temporarily relocate to, particularly with technological advances and increased employer flexibility enabling more remote work opportunities, is Antigua. It’s a Spanish colonial city that has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Centre.
For the motorcyclist however, Antigua has one ugly drawback. The original cobblestone streets, which are meticulously maintained in their 16th century state of disrepair, are merciless on the suspension.
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Antigua - Image by Otto Garcia from Pixabay
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Turquoise Pools, Semuc Champey
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Semuc Champey – Turquoise Pools With my motorcycling experience far greater than when I’d been here in 2014, I was now a better and more confident rider. We could now use our motorcycles to explore as many places as possible. We rode into the hinterlands, through cloud forests on the way north from the capital, Guatemala City, to Cobán where much of the country’s famous coffee is grown. Not many tourists venture this far, but we were heading even further north, to Semuc Champey, where the Río Cahabón forms crystalline, turquoise pools. Reaching there however was easier said than done, with a 24 km sinuous off-road descent along rough sloping, rocky hillsides. Despite being a more confident rider, I still whiteknuckled my way through most of that ride. Then just before reaching the pools, an oncoming vehicle surprised me on a blind corner. Rather than maintaining speed and holding my half of the road, I let off the accelerator, slowed, hit a rock, lost balance, and tipped over. Fortunately my bike wasn’t damaged and a while later we were enjoying the cool water of the turquoise pools.
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Local weaver
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Chichicastenango
and my motorcycle bucked into the air like a horse spooked by a rattlesnake. Miraculously my bike was undamaged and so was I.
As well as exploring the natural sites, we also wanted to explore as much as possible of Guatemala’s culture. So our next trip took us to Chichicastenango. Being the largest weekly market in Central America, Chichicastenango receives a fairly large number of visitors despite the twisty mountain road which leads there. There we walked among the stalls where they sell local textiles, leathers, and all manner of artisanal crafts. It was truly like entering a kaleidoscope of colors, smells, and sensations.
As for the cenote, it’s very pure and unpolluted, in large part because so few visitors reach this backwoods destination (Editor’s note – we’ve not included the name of the cenote, as we love it when magical places like this, with very few visitors at present, remain the preserve of those who put in that extra effort to discover the location and who find a way to get there).
Riding with My Dog
A Natural Spring At this point, my experience of exploring Guatemala changed dramatically – and for the better. Shortly after arriving in Guatemala, we adopted a German shepherd puppy, that we named Moxie. We decided it was time Moxie joined us on our adventures.
From Chichicastenango we rode north through the 3000+ meter highlands of the Huehuetenango region. Near the Mexico border and past the frontier village of Nenton, we veered off the pavement and began a 15-kilometer off-road adventure. We were heading for a ‘cenote’ - a natural waterhole that appears like a spring without an obvious source like a river or creek to feed it.
It turned out that designing a motorcycle dog carrier to secure her 75lbs of furry beast on a motorcycle was the easy part. For me, the hard part was the anxiety I had to overcome, when I decided Moxie should ride with me, not with Greg. It was a decision that I didn’t have to make; Greg would have been perfectly happy to mount Moxie’s K9 Moto Cockpit to his bike and ride with her. But she was my dog, and I felt the responsibility to have her and keep her safe with me.
You guessed it, I crashed, not just once, but twice. The first crash occurred when my rear wheel hit a rock that I wasn’t prepared for. My bike went over, and I suddenly found myself pinned between the motorcycle and a tree. My second crash was even more dramatic. As the sun began to set and we were just a couple hundred meters from our destination – a natural spring - the exhaustion I was feeling became overwhelming. All it took was a moment of failing concentration on my part for my front wheel to strike an enormous rock. The jolt caused my wrist to turn, giving more acceleration,
Volcan Atitlán – Camping on a Volcano My first motorcycle trip with Moxie on board was a two-hour ride around Lake Atitlán to the village of San Lucas Toliman. Whereas our adopted home
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Riding with Moxie in Antigua
village of Panajachel is considered a waypoint by some tourists, San Lucas Toliman isn’t even on their map. Still, there’s a very good reason why we visited. It’s the departure point to hike
up and camp on the 3,000+ meter summit of Atitlán Volcano. The next morning, we left our bikes at the hotel and arranged for a three-
Jessie and Moxie
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Atitlán Volcano
wheeled taxi called a tuk-tuk to carry us and our packs to the trailhead.
humans and a dog, we reached the summit near dusk. Rather than stopping by the rings of piled stones which provide crude shelters against the blasting winds at the peak, we kept
Loaded with cameras, a drone, camping gear, and provisions for two
Summit of Atitlan Volcano with Moxie
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going. We crossed to the north slope where an outcrop and a narrow ledge provided a wind-block and enough flat ground to set up camp.
motorboat which took us up the southeastern fork of the river for an hour, until we reached a lodge in the Petexbatún Wildlife Refuge. At our lodge a nearby spider monkey who seemed to be annoyed at our approach, launched into hysterics. He moved closer, perched himself on a branch maybe 10 meters over our heads, and began to pee and defecate. It plummeted down through the leaves and branches and struck Moxie and me, while Greg stood by at a distance filming the whole thing!
Petexbatún – Into the Jungle On another trip, we rode a couple of days north out of the Guatemalan Highlands to a town called Sayaxché and the Mayan ruins of Aguateca. From there we continued to the island village of Flores, which is popular in its own right but also as the launching point for visiting the magnificent Mayan ruins at Tikal – another UNESO World Heritage Site. These ruins were far grander than those at Aguateca, but the Aquateca ruins were still unforgettable, for being secluded deep in the jungle.
Go On or Off the Beaten Path – Just Go There! Not every visitor’s experience in Guatemala involves motorcycle crashes and being pooped on by spider monkeys. But it can involve history, culture, and magnificent landscapes, for Guatemala is a country that has something wonderful to offer for every type of traveller.
In Flores we had a choice. As the local ferry operators won’t allow a bridge to be build, we could take a barge across the Río De La Pasión, or we could have a different adventure. We found a safe place to leave our motorcycles and then boarded a small
About Jessica Stone Jessica Stone is the founder and “pack leader” of RUFFLY ethical outdoor dog gear, which is based in Los Angeles and Lake Atitlan, Guatemala, where the gear is made by indigenous women artisans, tailors, and craftspeople who work in small, home workshops in the Guatemalan Highlands. You Can Follow Jessica and Moxie on the following social media channels: Website:
https://www.goruffly.com/on-2-wheels-and-4-paws/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Ruffly
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Tikal Temple 1
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What A Woman Award Feature
So what is in Anastasia’s past, to make her the world’s oldest windsurfer? How on earth when aged 81, did she manage a 6 hour windsurf between Skala on the Ionian island of Kefalonia and Kyllini in Peloponnese, a journey that should have taken only 2 hours. (Alas, due to a problem on the morning necessitating a late start, the winds changed, turning a 2 hour crossing across the open sea, into a 6 hour journey). How does anyone cope with such a change? How does one continue in adverse circumstances? How did she get the strength of body to continue, for it could be tough perhaps for a 25 or 30 year old, but for a 81 year old?
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n magazines all over the world, youth and beauty are celebrated. Yet youth is fleeting, and beauty can exist whatever our age. Besides, beauty is so much more than the shape of our head, the quality of our skin, or a whole load of make-up, lights and photoshopping. Enter Anastasia Gerolymatou, now aged 82 and the Guinness World Record holder for being the oldest windsurfer. Immaculately dressed, hair coiffed, pearls around her neck, Anastasia recently spoke with us through her friend and interpreter, podcaster Angelos Stavrou. We needed him, for whilst between us Anastasia and I speak at least 5 languages, none of them were mutual languages! At least, not at a level necessary for a good chat.
Anastasia Gerolymatou was born on 16 October 1938. Her earliest memories are of that part of the Second World War when Kefalonia was occupied by the Italians (later the Germans). Life was tough. The Italian and the German soldiers stole potatoes from the locals, who ended up with just the potato peel. The rind of fruit was also eaten.
To understand Anastasia, her tenacity, her resilience, her courage, it’s necessary to dive into her past. I firmly believe the past made it what we are today. Given tomorrow, today will be in our past, what we do today, of course impacts our future.
One day Anastasia found a grenade. To her, it was a toy, for she didn’t
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realise what it was or its significance. Some of the islanders traded with the Italians, for it was a way to survive, exchanging oil for food. To the young Anastasia, the Italian soldiers were no threat. After all, she was too young to understand war and occupation. With the grenade in her hands Anastasia approached the soldiers. They had a rather different view of the grenade. Not wanting a child to accidentally setting off the grenade, they made a
deal with Anastasia, swapping biscuits for the grenade. After the Second World War Kefalonia was desperately poor. Age 10, Anastasia was sent to work as a maid for a rich family in Athens. She lucked out, they were kind to her, even loved her. Five years she stayed with them, returning home age 15.
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Only the return home to her family didn’t go well. So one day Anastasia ran away. With no money she stowed away on a boat. The captain found her part way into the crossing, threatened to throw her overboard. Her response ‘go ahead, no one will miss me’. He let her stay on board. A poor family with four children of their own took pity on her, giving her some food and water. During our chat Anastasia is happy, bubbling, enthusiastic. But as she regales this story, tears well up. Recalling what happened to her is clearly very emotional.
old fashioned bread oven (she interrupted the interview to take me on a Zoom tour of her most homely of homes). For Anastasia they next couple of decades saw a huge change. She went from a 15 year old stowaway, to getting married and having two children. Age 41 she’d recently married for the second time. Now instead of stowing away on a boat, she was taking a holiday with her new husband and two children in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria. There she saw windsurfers. Mesmerised, her managed to persuade one of them to let her have a go.
Fast forward four years. Now age 19 and living in Athens, Anastasia read in the newspaper that there were jobs in Switzerland. Her plan was to go for one year. She still lives there, though for the past year has stayed in Kefalonia, where she has vines and an
As a child, she had a dream that she was flying. That first time on the windsurfing, she had that flying feeling. It was a total surprise to her, but it was as if her dream had come true. It may
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have been Anastasia’s first time on a windsurfer, but it clicked instantly, she found it amazing, and she was instantly hooked.
was time for him to be surprised. He couldn’t believe this was only her second time windsurfing. Over time she developed her skills, not through tuition, but by watching others, for Anastasia is self-taught. To her, windsurfing is like flying, in fact Anastasia feels so at ease on the board, it’s as if she and her windsurfer are one.
For one year Anastasia tried to persuade her husband to buy her a windsurfer. Then one day he took her out for a coffee. Only, the coffee was a ruse, he surprised her with a board. Seeing Anastasia windsurf though it
All photographs courtesy of Anastasia Gerolymatou
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It took 25 years before Anastasia returned to Kefalonia. The island she knew no longer existed, not even the buildings, for a horrific earthquake in 1953 had destroyed most of the buildings, so even the buildings had changed. Tourism had also taken off, bringing new money and much change to the island.
moving one’s arms and legs, so they didn’t stiffen up.
Anastasia loves Switzerland. After all, it’s been her home for more than 60 years. Her children and grandchildren live there too. Kefalonia however cannot leave her heart. It’s there. It’s special. She has an extra love for that place. Anastasia couldn’t help but think back to her journey as a stowaway when she left Kefalonia. She wanted to do that journey again, but in a different way, she wanted it to be a celebration of how despite adversity, we can triumph. And she wanted to do it by windsurfer.
Given the planned for 2 hour crossing took 6 hours due to changed wind conditions, of course others could go and windsurf that stretch of water far faster than Anastasia.
What about water and food, had she needed any? Once, when she was becalmed for an hour she had some water from the boat. But, she’s stayed on the board, sitting it out until the wind stirred once more.
Speed though isn’t the point of her story. It’s about courage, resilience, tenacity, it’s about making the most out of our life and it’s about accepting that we can’t control everything in life. We can’t control being sent away as a maid aged 10, we can’t control how others feel about us and we can’t control the country’s economy. But we can control how we react to those situations.
So the idea was born, to windsurf the 18 nautical miles from Skala on Kefalonia to Kyllini in Peloponnese. Time of course waits for no one. The years had flown by, and she was now 81. Yes eighty one, 81. To be clear, the 8 is not a typo.
We can seize the moment to take up a job opportunity, as Anastasia did by moving to Switzerland. We can choose to learn from others, as Anastasia did by studying other windsurfers. And we can help others by sharing stories of triumph over adversity, so that others who might be struggling, can hopefully take the positives from people like Anastasia and realise that no matter how tough life might be, where there is life, there is hope.
Inspiring others of course means sharing the message. So a support boat with a film crew followed her. Only, the boat had an issue before the end of the crossing, meaning Anastasia arrived first. Was she tired, exhausted, shattered by the 6 hours crossing? No. I asked again using different words. Three times I asked. The answer was the same, no. In fact, she put on a show for the crowd which had assembled. Did her body hurt? Another no. The secret apparently being to keep
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Adventure She Magazine’s August 2021 What A Woman Award
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INNER PEACE IN LITTLE TIBET BY LENKA HANZELOVA PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF LENKA HANZELOVA How do we react when life takes an unexpected turn? Do we wither, or do we grow? How would Lenka Hanzelova react after suffering an eye injury in Northern India?
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had always wanted to go to Tibet, for I find Tibetan culture, entangled with Buddhist philosophy of loving kindness and compassion for all sentient beings, one of the wisest and kindest cultures in the world. Yet, under Chinese occupation, Tibet is literally diminishing in front of our eyes, and I fear, that in few years’ time, it will vanish, like other non-violent cultures did in the history of humanity. I had also wanted to go to India for quite some time, for I have heard so much about it. My Indian friend once told me ‘You will come to India when India wants you’. In 2014 India finally wanted me. After a few days in Delhi where I stayed with a friend, I headed for Rishikesh, a town in the foothills of the Himalayas and situated where the Ganges and Chandrabhaga rivers meet. It’s known for its temples and Ashrams, for its meditations and yoga studies - the Beatles went there in the late 1960’s and it’s been labelled the ‘Yoga Capital of the World’. My friend in Delhi had however warned me about Rishikesh,
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saying – “It’s pilgrimage time; I don’t think you should go to Rishikesh, as you will not enjoy it, as it is absolutely crazy there at the moment. There are thousands of pilgrims in Rishikesh every day and it is a time of chaos rather than peaceful time there right now. You should go to McLeod Ganj in Dharamsala instead, which is a Tibetan town where Dalai Lama lives.” I didn’t listen to him. At first, I loved Rishikesh. I found the pilgrims walking the streets and bathing in Ganges fascinating. Then things changed. I found it hard dealing with thousands of people on the streets, mostly young men, many of whom starred at and even harassed me. One time after walking into a shop, the shop keeper had to close the shutters, as the shop was filling up with men who wanted to look at me. So despite finding a lovely Ashram, where I went every day for meditations, after four days I felt a need for some peace. I took my friend’s advice and together with a new friend I’d made in Rishikesh, I headed off
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to McLeod Ganj, a 12 hour bus ride away. On arriving in in McLeod Ganj, also known as ‘Little Lhasa’, I instantly fell in love with the place. Situated in the Dhauladhar mountains (part of the Outer or Lesser Himalayas), it was peaceful. Whilst not exclusively Tibetan, Tibet and the Tibetans are front and centre of any visitor’s stay in McLeod Gang, what with its Tibetan Buddhist prayer flags, Tibetan temples, and Tibetan government in exile. Yet it wasn’t Tibet and I still hoped to make it to Tibet proper on this trip, but for now, I figured I could savour Tibetan culture in exile. At least that was my plan. However, the best laid plans often go awry. When I woke the next morning I was overwhelmed with sudden nausea and a cold sweat. I ran to the toilet, threw up everything left in my stomach, and then threw up some more. I washed my face with cold water. I felt exhausted. I sat down and the immediately my tummy was hit with that feeling of about to explode diarrhoea.
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Rishikesh – one of the most holy places for Hindus
Pilgrims crossing the old bridge in Rishikesh
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Pilgrims in the culturally rich city of Haridwar, 13 miles south of Rishikesh.
Haridwar (below) and Rishikesh (opposite) were in 2015 ear marked for development, to further enhance their reputation as yoga and spirituality centres of international renown.
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Everyone talks about ‘Indian tummy’ and now it was my turn to experience it. It felt like a truck had run over me, I could barely stand and struggled even with that most basic movement of negotiating bed to bathroom. I felt in so much pain, my whole body ached. Still ill, the following day I changed to a better room, one with a TV to help me through those hours of lying in a heap on the bed.
McLoed Ganj
It was 3am when I woke with a start and in yet another cold sweat. Oh my God, I’d forgotten to retrieve the money I’d hidden in my original room (I’d thought it best not to carry all my money on me). I simply had to get it now, as by the morning there would be new guests in the room.
Prayer wheels and flags, McLoed Ganj
Like a panicked wild animal I leapt up and raced to the door, my diarrhoea temporarily forgotten. Bang. Without warning I’d fallen. Knocked down to the floor. Blood streamed everywhere from one of my eyes. Dalai Lama Temple complex – entrance 2
I found and turned on the lights, then checked myself in a mirror. I could see, but I knew I needed a doctor, only where could I find a hospital at 3am? I wrapped a T-shirt around my eye, retrieved my stash of money from the other room and went to look for
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my friend, Bharat. Only I didn’t know where his room was, so I headed to reception.
Hospital
There I found people sleeping across the floor, which was a surprise to me. I found out later, that these were people working at the guesthouse, or at other places in town, and it’s common for them to sleep like this every night. It wasn’t just here though. In fact many workers who migrate to India’s towns for work during the week, sleep wherever they can at night, like on the floor of their workplace or in their tuk-tuk, if they are a tuk-tuk driver. Then they go back to their wives and families for the weekend.
McLoed Ganj
I woke my friend up and we found out that luckily one of the people sleeping on the floor was a taxi driver. He took us to a nearby hospital. Now the state of shock I was already in got compounded, for this was like no other hospital I had seen. There was a pregnant woman clearly in a lot of pain, yet everyone seemed disinterested in her, instead moving sleepily around her, as if unmoved by her suffering. Then there was the dirt, which even with an injured eye, I could still see. Thirdly, there was the slow pace at which the doctor appeared to be working.
McLoed Ganj
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Eventually I was given some medicine, a plaster was put on my eye, and I was told to come back in the morning to have my eye stitched. Morning arrived, and along with it a terror of returning to that filthy hospital. I spoke to my friend from Delhi, and he instructed me to find a private hospital. It took some time walking around, asking people, before Bharat and I learned of a Tibetan hospital nearby. – It was very simple, but extremely clean and everyone was professional and kind. They told me about a (Fortis) private hospital about one hour away by car.
“Now with one eye temporarily closed, my remaining eye saw what was actually around me. It was now, that my mind was truly opened.” Lenka Hanzelova A few hours later Bharat and I were in a taxi heading back to McLeod Ganj. I was under instructions from the doctor to have the bandage changed every couple of days, so my eye didn’t get inflamed. I’d planned on heading on to Tibet proper, via Nepal. Travelling on to Nepal and then with a tour group through Tibet, was now out of the question. My eye had to come first. Either I returned home, or I stayed here in McLeod Ganj and explored as much of the Tibetan culture and history as possible, by learning from the Tibetan exiles. After all, I now knew where the hospitals were, and where I should go if I needed more treatment. So why go home?
By now my eye was extremely swollen. I felt sorry for myself, fearing I might end up as a one-eyed Lenka for life, with a big scar where there used to be an eye. I’d only known Bharat since Rishikesh, and he was supposed to fly home that day. Travelling though can make friendships extra intense, there’s that bond of looking out for each other when so far from home. Bharat changed his flight so he could stay with me until my eye had been stitched.
When I first arrived in McLeod Ganj I saw what other visitors see. Now with one eye temporarily closed, my remaining eye saw what was actually around me. It was now, that my mind was truly opened. There was so much I hadn’t taken in, like the Tibetan part included not just the Dalai Lama’s Temple, but also a beautiful old library where the monks gave teachings a few times a week, the Norbulinka Institute of Tibetan Arts and the Tibetan Children’s Village, where they look after children who fled from Tibet, many of them being orphans, or from families that do not have the means to support them.
At the Fortis they found me their best surgeon. I asked him what I should do, to which he replied, “don’t worry, I can fix it, you will be ok”. I wondered whether to believe him and so asked him “doctor, if this happened to your wife, would you stitch it, or would you send her to a plastic surgeon?” “I would do it myself”, he replied. “Ok then” I retorted “in that case let’s do it”.
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Old manuscripts inside the Tibetan Library
Tushita Temple orbulinka Institute
Norbulinka Institute
Prayer wheels at the Norbulinka Institute
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Norbulinka Institute
There are also doctors providing Tibetan medicine, an Astrology Centre, English schools, and volunteering organisations that help the Tibetans, plus places which show movies and documentaries about Tibet – films captured using a secret camera and shown daily - to educate people about the horrors of what is going on in Tibet.
“Almost every day my heart bled, and I cried on learning of loved ones being beaten, tortured, or killed, stories of people having to walk for one month through the majestic Himalayas to find refuge. What I learned is beyond belief.”
At one of the English language schools I asked if they needed a volunteer English teacher for a week or two. I was ecstatic as they agreed to take me on. After explaining how they worked, they told me I’d be teaching English to mainly refugee Tibetan monks.
Lenka Hanzelova One day I was sitting in a hotel café,
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when a man approached me and asked if I could help him with a letter. We ended up talking for three hours about his life first in Tibet and then India. He told me about the torture, the running away and the atrocities he’d experienced and how five of his family, including his brothers, had either died or are currently in prison.
the real life stories of people who have suffered and whose families continue to suffer. How does one deal with their mother being savagely beaten for having a picture of Dalai Lama at home? Every day I listened, I shook my head and I wept. Back to my eye. I’d been feeling good, then five days after my mini surgery when the surgeon had stitched up my eye - I suddenly felt like the world was spinning all around me. All I’d done was lie down. What was going on? I couldn’t close my eyes, for every time I tried, I felt like my bed was spinning and that I was about to fall off it. I was alone, for Bharat had now left and I was scared.
He was not my only source. As I met more Tibetans I heard more stories. [Editor’s note – we have removed certain details provided which might have assisted the authorities in identifying him, and thereby potentially causing further harm to any people he knows who are still in Tibet, whether currently free or in prison]. Almost every day my heart bled, and I cried on hearing of loved ones being beaten, tortured, or killed, stories of people having to walk for one month through the majestic Himalayas, not for pleasure, but to find refuge. What I learned is beyond belief. These aren’t stories we read about in magazines or see on TV, yet they are
It took two days and two hospitals but finally I had a diagnosis, concussion. The doctor told me “You have to go home and rest in silence. Don’t go out as there are too many holes in the streets and too many cars. You can’t risk falling over and you should be in a quiet environment.”
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I returned to the guest house (a better one which I’d moved into after the accident). An overwhelming sense of relief came over me, for this guest house had a nice café, at least I wouldn’t starve. It also had a library. Whilst I couldn’t watch TV, I could read. So I borrowed some books on Tibetan Buddhism and its philosophy. With nothing else to do, I also started to meditate every day, sometimes two – three times a day.
that was interrupted when I had another dose of Delhi belly) I returned to teaching. But teaching is not my profession. I wanted to help more, so once I felt stronger (for that second dose of Delhi belly had left me feeling very weak, so weak there were times when I could barely walk out of my room to even buy soup from the hotel’s café); I also started consulting with local NGO’s about their marketing and fundraising. Hopefully the work I did on developing a communications plan was of value.
Despite the fact that this was meant to be my holiday, a holiday I had saved up for long and hard, a holiday involving food poisoning, an eye injury and delayed onset concussion, I felt happy and at peace. I was in fact calmer than when I am at home, and everything is supposedly in perfect order.
When I tell people I had an accident in India, everyone thinks it’s tragic. I try to explain to them that it was one of the most amazing life changing five weeks in my life. I had wanted to go to Tibet to learn about Tibetans, their culture, and their country. Yet here in India, I learned more about native Tibetans than I ever would have in Tibet. I found real people that I could talk with, real stories, and real life. For in Tibet, the tourists can look, but no tourist is allowed to talk to the locals, and no tourist is allowed to ask about life there or about the Dalai Lama. Here I could look, listen, and learn.
Yes I had contemplated going home, but despite everything, I realised I really wanted to stay here. I knew this was a one off opportunity. When would I ever again have so much time to teach, interact with and get to know so many lovely people and with such a different background to my own? So once I started feeling better (and even
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About Lenka Hanzelova Lenka Hanzelova is an International Business Psychologist, Coach, Therapist & Wellbeing Trainer with 10+ years’ experience working with Leaders and people from all walks of life to help them make positive changes, improve their emotional wellbeing, and increase happiness. She has worked with a large variety of people within the private and corporate environments, helping them make the changes they seek and reach optimum wellbeing. Originally from Slovakia, Lenka came to the UK in 1996. In 2001 she self-funded her bachelor’s in business studies in Melbourne, Australia, and subsequently returned to the UK for her MSc in Business Psychology in London.
How to follow Lenka Hanzelova on social media Website:
www.wellbeingcentrelondon.com
Instagram: @wellbeing.centre.london Facebook: @wellbeingcentrelondon
Lenka Hanzelova with students from Thailand
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Waka Canoeing with the Ngapuhi By Sal Bolton Photographs courtesy of Sal Bolton
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'Kia Ora, Kia Ora!' bellows
Sal Bolton has always been fascinated by the ways of cultures different to her own. She couldn’t but wonder, how did the original people of lands scattered across our world, live and survive?
from deep in the lungs of the hefty dark-bearded native, dressed in nothing but a flax belt and a feathered pouch dangling down below his belly button. He belongs to the Ngapuhi tribe, the largest of the 33 Māori tribes, and the tribe native to this part of New Zealand. His bare, swollen stomach grazes against me, as he hands me a long, black, wooden oar, tipped with a square block of white paint streaked across its flat head. The effort, determination and skill involved when the Māori’s ancestors navigated across the turbulent oceans of the Pacific from Polynesia to New Zealand, using only the stars and traditional navigation skills, is something I can only imagine. My own paddle will be far tamer, simply down the tidal estuaries of the iron-blue Waitangi River in a forty-foot twin canoe named 'Te Hoenga Waka'. With me are my own tribe of other curious 'pakehas', a term used for the contrasting race of those of European descent.
Wanting to immerse herself and connect to, the deep-rooted culture and minds of the Māori, the original inhabitants of New Zealand, and the people located furthest away from her native Great Britain, she headed off to New Zealand, in the hope of learning about and understanding more.
Wading knee deep in water that sloshes against my legs, I take the man's rough fingers as he helps me aboard the 'waka taua' (a double Māori war canoe). Once I’ve wriggled into a comfortable position on the damp wooden seat, I study the intricate patterns carved into the wooden canoe. I understand some of these carvings symbolise the legacy of Māori ancestors, and the spiritual and cultural cohesion between the
Here she shares her experience of paddling a traditional Māori canoe and what she learned from her local Māori guides.
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living and deceased indigenous populates of New Zealand.
out onto the river. It rocks from side to side as another feather-cloaked man and woman from the tribe heave themselves onto the canoe, and take their respective positions, in front and behind us. Then at the behest of our
With the team of willing paddlers loaded into our tightly packed seats, I feel a push as the waka began to drift
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guides, we bow our heads as a Karakia (prayer) is said in respect of the awa (river), the water spirits, and the forebearers, both for guidance and to keep us safe on our journey down the Waitangi River.
stroke. Our lead guide then unexpectedly cries out again, bringing us to another halt. The sultry summer air’s penetrated by the call of a conch shell from the nearing shore. 'We are approaching the Taiamai Village,' explains our guide, as we began to paddle towards the echoing noise.
From the front and the helm, our guides bark a series of loud chants. The thrill of thrusting our way down this historic waterway, like warriors going into battle, courses through me, for thanks to the grunts of our guides, and the pounding of our oars, I can’t but feel transported back in time, to the days of our guides’ ancestors who used the waka as a valued mode of transport.
Forty minutes after our journey began, we arrive at a reconstructed traditional Māori village and marae (a meeting house). Now on foot we approach the entrance of the marae, framed by a wooden archway, and flanked on both sides by a tall ochre-coloured totem pole, adorned with the intricate carvings of ancestors. It’s believed the spirits of these ancestors protect the site from outsiders, through the shimmering paua shells embedded in their foreboding eyes.
From up front our bearded guide calls out again. We respond, coming to an abrupt halt. The waka wobbles slightly as our hulky framed guide rises from his seat. He stretches out his broad arms, and gazing into the distant greenery, begins to share fascinating stories and insights. He tells us of the rich cultural beliefs and rituals of this land owned by the Ngapuhi people and of the legendary connection with Ranginui, the sky father, and Papatūānuku, the earth mother, the creation of the world and their relationship with their sacred awa.
In a mark of respect to Māori custom, you cannot enter a marae without a formal invitation. We elect one of the male members of our group (a German) to act as our 'chief', his role being to face the Ngapuhi leader of the marae on arrival. Our guide, hands the German a lush native silver fern leaf, telling us that this is a sign of peace to present when confronted by a Māori chief. “The ceremony is extremely sacred” he says. “Think if you really feel the need to take photographs of it”.
We listen intently, our attention only interrupted when the waka starts to shake to the accompaniment of a chorus of shrill noises. The faces of our native guides and crew are now contorted, their eyes bulging intensity and tongues stuck out full stretch to their chins - a clear demonstration on how the Māori have traditionally met oncoming wakas, in an attempt to intimidate any potential enemies.
After several beats we hear the soft whistling and hoots of an approaching bare-footed, stocky Māori man dressed in traditional warrior flax and feathered attire. His facial features are nearly indistinguishable behind small spiraling black tattoos, ta moko, that also adorned his bare chest and legs. His long hair, streaked with grey, sways as he manoeuvres side to side with a challenge dance known as a
With gritty determination we paddle hard downstream, the blast of moist spray cooling our skin with each
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haka. Wielding a swishing staff in front of us, his eyes lock onto those of our chief. The German places the silver fern on the ground in front of the stocky Māori. In response the Māori lowers his weapon in reverent acceptance of our peaceful intent. Then he turns his back to us and walks into the marae. Our guide, still wearing nothing but that flax crotch piece explains “we follow him”. Led by our German Pakeha chief, we walk into the heart of an official welcome ceremony, each step accompanied by the harmonic trills and chanting of Māori women from inside the marae. Having entered the marae, us women are expected to walk and be seated behind the men, supposedly a means for protection their cultural etiquette. Upon arriving into the courtyard, we are cordially invited into a modest wooden panelled dwelling known as a whare. I nearly bang my head on the small doorway as I hunch down through it. At the back of the dimly lit room sits a table, exhibiting a framed photograph of a man situated among paua shells and other native artefacts and items symbolic of a memorial site. Another indigenous mask hangs high up on the wall just below the sloping roof, the engraving of a wise face and tongue protruding out towards us.
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It is a tight squeeze inside the dusty gloom of the whare, murky shafts of light penetrating through the thin gaps in the walls. We shifted up, knee to knee with each other, so everyone can come in and learn from this opportunity to learn more about the deep-rooted culture of New Zealand’s original inhabitants.
future bearers to keep the bloodline of their whakapapa alive. After a few questions from our inquisitive group, the bare-chested chief still standing in the shadows of the dwelling concludes the ceremony is over. Casting his eyes down, he bows, bestowing a final karakia for our departure.
The ceremony is a token of something extremely tapu (sacred) to the Ngapuhi tribe, ideas and beliefs are shared and dialects exchanged within the meeting house, in accordance with the doctrine passed down by generations from the long line of their whakapapa (genealogy).
Upon leaving the marae, we reboard the waka and continue our expedition, paddling further down the Waitangi to the roaring maw of the waterfall Haruru Falls, meaning 'big noise', where the Ngapuhi people believe the taniwha (sea monster) lives deep within the plunging waters of the lagoon below the falls.
In the cool space of the small room the chief begins to speak, sending up clouds of dust as he prods the floor with his wooden staff. 'That on the table is a photograph of my wife's father, and that is a photograph of my father’. I study both pieces, appreciating the way the Māori preserve the memory of their deceased by immortalising them through their own craftsmanship, placing them as hallowed guardians over their maraes.
I am learning much on this trip. I am fascinated to learn of the beliefs in the wisdom and creation of demi-gods, the spiritual significance of nature’s energy, that all living things have a purpose, and that we all co-exist in a network of respect that binds us in the world we inhabit – as one big whanua (family). Under the warm glow of the Southern summer sun, I acknowledge the privilege of having been welcomed to feel the beating heart of the foundations that laid New Zealand. A swell of sympathy overcame me towards another victimised aborigine population, suppressed and bullied over generations to dilute their indigenous souls and heritage through invading western colonisation.
The older Māori man begins to speak in a low measured voice. He places his fingers on the decorated patterns adorning his nose and cheekbones, imparting gruesome details about how traditionally the procedure of the 'ta moko' tattoo was carried and still is carried out today, by carving the skin with bone chisels, a sign of supreme status within iwi hierarchy. I shudder at the pain Māori women must endure, to have these permanent body markings embedded in their lips and chin. He continues to share ancient customs and the importance of women being 'the house of humanity', providing
I feel a shameful bitterness towards how my European ancestors once upon a time bullishly attempted to oppress and break down the deeply spiritual and respectful culture of the Māori’s. How frustrating it would be to
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have my own home invaded and my own language suppressed, to be forced to speak another language, to not be able to freely express my deeprooted cultural identity.
'Kia Ora', he says in a soft whisper, pulling his decorated face away. 'Kia Ora', I say.
'Kia Ora.'
We show our gratification for the Ngapuhi chief’s sage teachings and bid farewell to the elder with the hongi: the act of pushing noses and foreheads together in unison with mutual respect to our roots and origins, wherever that may be in the world.
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About Sal Bolton This is the second time Sal Bolton has written for Adventure She magazine. Her first article ‘Kilimanjaro, Fatigue and ME’ was published in our March 2020 issue. Since reading Geography at the university Sal has travelled widely, including spending five months living in Ghana, West Africa. Volunteering to teach tennis to children there, led to the founding of non-profit organisation 'Africa Tennis Aid'. She’s also spent time in Ecuador’s Amazon Rainforest of Ecuador and lived with an Aborigine community in Australia. Her travels with a circus in Australia led to the publication of her first travel book, 'The Show Must Go On - Being with an Australian Travelling Zoo'. She lives in London, currently working on her new adventure book 'Letters From The Amazon' about her adventures living in the enigmatic endangered Amazon Rainforest of Ecuador which you can follow, along with future stories, on her social media platforms.
How to follow Sal Bolton on social media Twitter:
@SalBoltonAuthor
Instagram: @salboltontravel Facebook: @insalsfootsteps Website: www.insalsfootsteps.com
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VOLUNTEERING IN FRANCE AND SERBIA By Hannah Parry Photographs unless otherwise stated courtesy of Hannah Parry
Imagine you’re living the life, no longer planning, but actually doing your dream trip. What could possibly go wrong? Up until February or March 2020, food poisoning, a missed connection, perhaps a lost or even stolen purse, that’s the worst many of us would have faced on our travels. Then of course the pandemic hit. Hannah Parry couldn’t control what the pandemic had done to her dream trip. But she could control her reaction to the new reality. Hannah was not going to let a pandemic stop her living her best life. Here she shares her story, a story that we find rather shocking in so many ways, a story that because of that, most definitely needs to be told.
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Clothes distribution in Calais
My dream trip in Mexico had involved spending a month backpacking around the southern part of the country - eating amazing street food, meeting fascinating people and exploring ancient ruins. I’d also completed my professional scubadiving training. The plan had been to stay in the beach paradise for another month or two, working as a Divemaster, but the pandemic forced me back home to the United Kingdom. As a professional organist, I had no prospect of work any time soon.
I couldn’t control the pandemic or the lockdown rules. But I could control how I responded. I packed my bags, farewelled my mum and headed off to Calais, France, to volunteer with an aid organization, Care4Calais. This would be my third time volunteering in Calais. I first visited Calais in 2018, as I wanted to do something for other people before my selfcentred trip to Southeast Asia. I’d spent two weeks during that harsh winter, helping those in need,
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before I headed off to enjoy myself in the sun. I returned to Calais in January 2020. That time I’d seen hundreds of people sleeping rough, including families with children. Some had erected donated tents inside half demolished warehouses, others in a partially hidden woodland. The police had always performed regular evictions, they would clear tents, sleeping bags and personal belongings every few days. On my previous trips, I’d found meeting people on the day their
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and businesses were online, and people couldn’t visit family or friends. Yet, volunteering gave me the opportunity to meet loads of people and make wonderful new friends and even family. My ‘little brothers’ from Sudan are happily now safely in the UK, where they’re enjoying school and playing football the beginnings of a normal life.
Dunkirk, France
things had been taken was always tough. Now in April and May 2020 I found the police presence was more intense than it had been in January or in 2018. Because of the pandemic I had to have the correct paperwork on me whenever I moved around, whether from my accommodation to the organisation's warehouse, or warehouse to distribution sites, or even to the shops. Those same pandemic restrictions meant I
could only exercise up to one kilometre from where I was staying. I ran almost every street in my one-kilometre square - certainly a different way to see the city. It felt like any one of our small team could be stopped and questioned or fined at any moment. One volunteer, craving the touch of the water, strayed onto the fenced-off beach, and was rewarded with a hefty fine. That time in Calais was so strange. The world was closed. Schools
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Our organisation, Care4Clais, was a ‘bubble’ so our eight team-members could interact normally with each other, whilst sorting donations of clothes in the warehouse. We each found our own accommodation and there were strict rules about visiting each other. Making and eating lunch together plus the occasional after-work picnic in the warehouse, meant I was probably having a lot more interaction and socializing than people stuck in their homes for the lockdown. The freedom we had when solely within our bubble didn’t however apply elsewhere. While handing out food and clothes, the PPE we had to wear was quite intense - overalls,
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two masks and surgical gloves - but we could still make a joke, have a chat, and play games with those that we were there to help. There’s nothing like running after a football or cricket ball in multiple layers of clothing to make you sweat. After nine weeks in France, the strictest level of lockdown was lifted. More volunteers were arriving from the UK. I’d spent the last nine weeks volunteering with Stephanie from Germany. She had a long-planned sabbatical from work, and I knew my music work in London wasn’t going to restart for a long time. With the arrival of new volunteers we thought we’d be of more value elsewhere. Another volunteer told us about the organisation No Name Kitchen and their work in Serbia, Bosnia, and Greece. After an intensive application process and some online training, they provided us with a letter of invitation – an essential document to enable us to drive from France to Serbia.
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our belongings, and my piano (I have a full-size digital piano that just fits in the length of my car - I managed to teach online every Saturday term time from multiple different countries). Crossing borders during the pandemic seemed daring, despite the essential nature of our work, and each of the eight borders we crossed felt like a victory. The Serbian town of Šid (pronounced Shid), is a border town. Croatia is visible, yet
indistinguishable. Field after field stretches out around the town, and it’s almost impossible to tell where Serbia ends, and the European Union (EU) begins. That’s why there are refugees there. Šid is the last stop on the ‘Balkan Route’ to the EU. I already knew about Greece and the overcrowded camps, and about the perilous journeys people take from the African continent over the ocean, but I knew little about the ‘Balkan Route’. This land route
Mask distribution with Stephanie in Dunkirk, France
As we set off on the three-day drive, my small car was piled high with donations,
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to Western Europe makes sense if you’re from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, or Turkey. Most of the people we met in Šid were from Afghanistan. Our first job in Serbia was to figure out how to help. The operation of our organisation No Name Kitchen had been stopped during the tightest days of the lockdown. Later I learned the Serbian lockdown had been even stricter than the French lockdown, some Serbian friends I made told me how they
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were only permitted to leave their home to buy groceries, and even that was strictly policed. The people-on-themove (the easier term to use for refugees and asylum seekers who may have differing legal statuses and the name used by No Name Kitchen) had been forced into the camps. There are EU funded camps outside of the town as well as a Family Camp in the town centre. One building was a disused motel, with tents
Sleeping arrangements in Serbia
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erected around the rundown building. The high fence bordered the highway and was patrolled by Serbian military. As restrictions slowly lifted, camp residents were permitted to leave for a few hours, provided they had applied for permission. Many people though preferred to live in the woods than stay in the camp. These were the ones we tried to help. The first people we were in contact with told us about the lack of nutritional food, the
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boredom without anything to do and their fear of the authorities. Helping them was easier said than done! The first couple of weeks I was there, it rained non-stop. The organisation’s decrepit van - already battered and bruised from previous expeditions got stuck in the mud on the way to meet some young lads who were sleeping in tents donations sent to No Name Kitchen – and which were reinforced with tarps to make a small and basic shelter.
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They’d got in contact with us via former volunteers who’d been there pre lockdown. I’ll always remember professional event planner and fellow volunteer Helen taking a work phone call - her London client had no idea that she was walking barefoot in the mud whilst the rest of us tried to free the van! It was only after we burned through all the diesel that we sought help from the nearest farmer. Despite no common language, he kindly towed the van free with his tractor.
Cooking with ingredients provided in the old factory, Serbia
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Later that evening, Stephanie and I trudged back through the mud to deliver the food and the power banks which we hadn’t been able to handover earlier. The smiling faces of the guys who met us made the trek through the rain worthwhile. Previously, No Name Kitchen had been helping by providing food, laundry, plus phone and power bank charging. We asked the people- on-the-move how could we best help them? What would be
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Literally stuck in the mud, until a kind local helped out, Serbia
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most helpful, food cooked by us, or the raw ingredients to make their own food? Then we organised a schedule of different meeting places at specific times, when we could meet them and deliver supplies. After a few weeks, our team of four volunteers and the people-on-themove, had developed a routine. Each day we shopped for fresh vegetables. Then in the garden of the organisation’s house, a large, drafty building where we stayed, we peeled and chopped before using enormous cooking pots on huge gas burners to cook food for around 100 people. We also washed clothes in the laundry room, charged power banks and each evening drove either the van, or my car, to deliver the food to several different groups. Alongside this, we helped with medical situations for those sleeping outside and for those in the camps whose medical needs went unsupported. No Name Kitchen has a fund called Health on the Move which matches individual donors to individuals with more expensive health needs. We could
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help with paying for specialised prescriptions that couldn’t be covered in the camp and with organising dental treatment and optician visits. But organizing appointments wasn’t an easy task, as some Serbian businesses refuse to serve peopleon-the-move, so we had to research and approach dentists and opticians very carefully, to ensure that everything went smoothly. Waris was one of those people who needed optical help. I met him when we took food to a location quite close to one of the camps, and which was a long way from the town. His eyesight was terrible, he was extremely short-sighted, and his glasses, which he’d had since the beginning of his journey in Afghanistan, were broken. He held the legless frame on his face with one hand as we used Google translate to work out how we could help him to get a new much needed pair of glasses. It was too far for him to walk to the optician in the town centre, and it was illegal for us to take him in our vehicle - a measure against people smugglers. The
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only solution we could come up with was for me to take the broken pair to an optician, get a new pair made for him and then return with his new glasses. The optician helped me pick a robust frame and we used a picture I’d taken of Waris to make sure they would fit. It was a real sense of achievement to watch Waris try them on, especially as he’d had to manage without any glasses at all for two days. Everyone around cheered! No Name Kitchen also helped with First Aid. As part of my professional scubadiver training in Mexico, I had completed an extensive First Aid course. Little did I know that the first application of my new First Aid skills would involve cleaning wounds and dressing injuries in the woods of Serbia. Šid is a tiny farming town, fresh vegetables and fruit are abundant in the summer, and the fields all around were filled with sunflowers which are grown to produce oil. It was jarring to know about the hardships of my new friends when walking around the town was so peaceful.
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Hannah in the warehouse
There is no one-sizefits-all explanation as to why people leave their home countries and attempt to claim asylum in Western Europe. For many, it is war or terrorist groups that make their home countries unsafe, for others it is persecution for religious reasons or because of sexual orientation. One of the people I met was Waleed, a 16year-old Afghan who had left his family, as his father was a police officer and had been threatened by the Taliban. Waleed managed to look cool despite dressing in donated clothing and living in a tiny tent in the mosquito-infested
woods. One day we had a fun photoshoot with him wearing my sunglasses and posing like a model while two other young guys from Afghanistan chatted with Stephanie. Our joyful day was interrupted when a police car arrived and blocked in our van, which we’d parked on a dirt road next to the highway. After some time, they asked for our vehicle and personal documentation, checked them, and then let us go again. For Waleed and his friends, interacting with the police wouldn’t mean being let go. If Waleed had been caught, the police would have taken him to a camp. There he’d
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have to quarantine and only then could he ‘escape’ and walk back the 20km plus to his tent, not what he wanted at all. Waleed and his friends ran away. Waleed had already crossed into Croatia but together with those he was travelling with, had been pushed back by the Croatian authorities into Serbia. Pushback is when the authorities forcibly return someone over a border without respecting their human right to claim asylum. Learning of these illegal pushbacks particularly shocked me. No Name Kitchen is a
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member of the Border Violence Monitoring Network. Members collect testimonies from victims of pushbacks by conducting interviews with people. After receiving training, part of my volunteering work with No Name Kitchen involved taking testimonies from people-on-the-move and writing up reports based on their testimony. One of the reports I wrote up was Waleed’s story of his interaction with the Croatian authorities and his return to Serbia. Waleed’s story has been included in the Black Book Of Pushbacks - printed in
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two volumes, it contains hundreds of testimonies, and was prepared and presented to the European Parliament. I was one of a team editing the Black Book. Whilst back in London in December 2020, I spent hour after hour rereading the illegal actions faced by vulnerable people in Serbia, Bosnia, Greece Greece, and other Balkan countries. It was heart wrenching. Šid had literally been life changing. I had learnt about the situation, made wonderful new friends from all kinds of
backgrounds, and realised that I was actually pretty good at the diverse tasks that had been required. Life in Serbia might have seemed tough for the people-on-the-move, but we learned that it was even tougher in Bosnia, that people-onthe-move choose to travel on to Serbia, to get out of Bosnia. For me and for Stephanie, it was time for us to leave Serbia, though we weren’t heading back toward the EU, we were going where we thought we could make a bigger difference. It was time for us to move onto Bosnia.
How to follow Hannah Parry on social media. Website:
www.hannahparry.co.uk
Instagram: www.instagram.com/hannah_the_traveller Facebook; www.facebook.com/hannahthetraveller
Further reading and websites related to this article Illegal pushbacks:
https://www.borderviolence.eu/
Calais CRS clearances: https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/33218/beatingshumiliations-burns-police-violence-against-migrants-in-calais-on-the-rise Waleed’s story: https://www.borderviolence.eu/violence-reports/july-162020-0000-batrovci-border-crossing-serbia-croatia/ No Name Kitchen:
www.nonamekitchen.org
Care4Calais:
www.care4calais.org
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CYCLING AND PTSD By MARTHA ROSE ORMEROD Photographs courtesy of Martha Rose Ormerod
How do you react when the unthinkable happens? How do you process being in an accident when a friend dies? How do you deal with subsequent post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)? These are all situations Martha Rose Ormerod has faced. Here’s she shares her story of taking back control over her life.
ou could say I was partially raised on a bike. My mum had a city bike with a kid's seat, on which she would cycle us everywhere; to the shops, to visit friends, on adventures. There's a photo I'm rather fond of with a questionable “seat” she made by tying a cushion to the bike frame during a trip to Spain. At around 5-6 years old I learnt to ride my bike without stabilisers and the next day cycled from Splott in Cardiff to Castell Coch and back, over 14 miles - I caught the cycling bug early!
seven years ago, when my fiancé Tim, gifted me with a spangly new Specialized hard tail mountain bike I affectionately named Clarice (“Chewy” when it misbehaves), so we could hit the local trails together.
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Unfortunately, the next year I was in an accident where there was a rockfall and my friend Georgie was hit, unfortunately dying due to head injuries she received. The accident affected many people badly, Georgie was well loved and is missed by many people. I went on to develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which was
Over the years I moved many times and dropped cycling until around
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compounded by pre-existing mental health disorders of anxiety and a depressive mood disorder. I dropped out of my aircraft engineering course and shut down in many ways. PTSD can affect you in ways you wouldn’t imagine, ways that can seem completely unrelated.
degree in Aircraft Engineering and will be starting an internship in propulsion engineering come August. I graduated at the start of the COVID19 outbreak, and like many others the lockdown hit hard. I suddenly didn’t have access to many of my mental health coping mechanisms and the lack of structure to the day was an added burden.
After a year's break I returned to studies, it definitely wasn’t always easy but I progressed to the point that I can now proudly say I graduated last year with a First-Class Honours
Although I live in an absolutely beautiful rural coastal area, due to my
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PTSD there was huge areas that I couldn’t go to and the feelings of being trapped intensified. Part of PTSD can be avoidance; and for years I have avoided even thinking of the coastal walks or beaches in the area for fear of triggering a panic attack. As a way to try and keep fit during lockdown and to help encourage me back onto my bike we bought a stationary exercise bike. Due to associating bikes with helmets, and helmets with head injuries, bikes too had become a PTSD fear of mine, so I hadn't ridden in years.
legs were taking me there, I felt so much stronger when I was on my bike and knowing I could cycle away quickly if I wanted to, helped me do it. I picked up a bike seat shaped stone off the beach and cycled home as quickly as I could to hand said stone to my partner with the biggest smile on both of our faces, and much happy relief crying on my part! The beach still is, and I think always will be a difficult place for me, but each time I go I manage to stay a bit longer and reclaim a bit more faith and self-belief. I’ve given myself permission to readdress and redraw lots of personal boundaries around myself and those around me, admitting to myself my vulnerabilities that are being exposed and allowing myself personal time to recover. Cycling has given me the strength and the courage to stand up for myself and do that and allow myself that personal space and time.
Come March this year my cousin joined our bubble before she moved for her new job. She is incredible, runs every day without fail and runs marathon lengths randomly for fun. I started on my stationary bike, worked my way up to wearing my helmet once on it to help desensitise myself to it and get used to it, then finally ventured outdoors. With my cousin running alongside me and cheering me on the whole way, I started with cycling just a couple of miles to the end of a farm lane and back. I got home and cried my eyes out, with pride and with relief. PTSD can sneak into so many unexpected areas of your life, and it felt so good to regain more power over it.
My mental health is in the best state it has been for years. I find cycling so mindful; it not only blows away the cobwebs and gets good natural chemicals and hormones flowing, but also allows reflection time. When I'm cycling, I can really sort through my thoughts, it helps clear the fog and rationalise my anxieties, something that’s not always possible when stationary and those anxieties overwhelm.
Reclaiming cycling gave me a massive confidence boost – if I could take cycling back, what else could I do? So much more seemed possible. I started making my rides a bit longer and going out without the aid of my lovely cousin, until one day I found myself riding back to the beach where the accident happened. It was an area I had avoided like the plague, although it was recommended that I go back as part of my therapy, it was a place I evaded even thinking of, let alone visiting. All of a sudden though, my
In May I started looking at cycling charity events to challenge myself and decided to take part in Social Bite’s “Break the Cycle” charity ride campaign. I chose a solo ride of 60 miles to be completed mid-June. With my rides at the time being around 1014 miles long I had a lot of work to do to get up to the 60-mile mark. With the aid of Komoot and several social media cycling groups I began planning
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my rides with the aim to increase my mileage by 10-15 miles a week.
Nearly nine hours later, with 6h54 moving time, 4225ft of elevation and 66.8 miles later my ride was complete having raised £345 for Social Bite in the process.
The original route planned was from Cardiff Bay to the Brecon Beacons along the Taff Trail; but unfortunately, due to lack of available public transport in the Beacons I had to reassess. I chose a location – Pontsticill Reservoir - circa 33 miles into the route, as my return point; it looked worth the extra 6 miles for the views!
As soon as I was home, I was planning my next rides; 300km across the first few weeks of July to raise funds for Breast Cancer Now and 120–140 mile solo bike ride over 2-3 days from Llantwit Major to Aberystwyth; the latter is sure to be an adventure and a half.
Ride day came and I was very lucky with the Welsh weather, sunny but not too hot with a slight breeze in the air but not gusty. Knowing I could do 40 miles made me feel confident I could do the 66 miles. I’d planned my route well (avoiding Castell Coch’s oh so steep off hill section this time!) and had packed all provisions I might need while keeping as light as possible.
Having something to work towards and push myself for really helps; it takes away personal excuses, don’t feel like riding? Tough! You’ve got to get that milage in to train in time and meet those goals! I can’t wait to see what adventures me and my hard tail bike go on next.
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About Martha Rose Ormerod We feel really privileged that Martha Rose has chosen to share her journey with Adventure She magazine. She’s not that active on social media, but if you would like to get in touch with her, let us know and we’ll pass on your request.
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Coming Up We hope you’ve enjoyed this issue and have found it to be empowering, educating, and entertaining. Here are some ideas we have for future articles, but please do let us know what you’d like to read about and please do keep sending us your stories. We love publishing them.
Competing In The Eco Challenge
Drinking Tea With Xinjiang’s Uighurs
Ultra-Running Nepal
Getting Your Film Into A Film Festival
The Importance Of Attitude
Protecting Our Wilderness
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The Grand Canyon - Rim to Rim
Australia’s Kakadu National Park
Navigation For Hikers And Runners
New Zealand’s Coast To Coast Race Cycling Victoria’s Rail Trails
Cycling In Ireland
Romania After Ceausescu
Nepal After
Living With The Locals In Nepal –
Interview With Publisher Hilary Bradt
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