Tag 147+ - After the trip is before the trip

"You should write the end first. Always. You should start living and shaping your life in such a way that one day - hopefully soon - you wake up and deep inside you feel that it would be okay for you to die on that day. Not because you wanted to die, but because you would have reached a point where you could die without regret. [...]

Either we write the ending we want and shape our lives to achieve that goal, or we live someone else's story and then experience an ending that, compared to the ending we would have written for ourselves, is a pale reflection. It's that simple."

- John Strelecky, The Big Five for Life

In one of our travel readings, we stumbled across this paragraph by John Strelecky, and even though we were not going to read it until later, these few sentences sum up very well what prompted us to "pause" our everyday lives for a few months and hit the road. This decision cost us money, time, sweat, nerves, and courage. But it was more than worth it.

Life in the van focuses on different things than the everyday life. Water suddenly becomes a finite resource, internet is not available everywhere, and due to limited storage space, you leave behind a large part of your possessions. The crazy thing is, we didn't miss these things. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to be able to take a warm shower again. However, the more minimalist life on the road has left its mark and is already having an impact on our everyday life back home. In fact, independently of each other, we started to sort out useless things and made a promise to ourselves to spend our free time here reading or playing chess rather than on our phones. Funny how we only started to make better use of our time when we suddenly had so much of it.

It was not always easy on the road, we had breakdowns, electrical problems, setbacks, changes of plans, and encounters with the police. But what would an adventure be without challenges? The beautiful moments definitely outweigh the tough ones.

Since we returned, I have been asked countless times where we liked it the most. The first answer is always the same: I cannot possibly decide on one place. The honest answer is different. The more I think about it, the more I believe that the most beautiful place on our journey was our bus, our home. Even though technically, it was always at different locations.

Our tour started in Austria, where we cheered on world-class female boulderers at the World Cup finals in Innsbruck, climbed in the Zillertal for the first time (and certainly not the last time), and followed in Sissi's footsteps in Vienna.

Then we spent three weeks in Slovenia, a country that is definitely one of my highlights. Thanks to the diverse landscape in a relatively small area, there simply wasn't a place here that wasn't beautiful. We visited the big lakes of Bled and Bohinj, confronted Jan's fear of deep water through canyoning, stood in front of numerous waterfalls, and always found ourselves in the mountains - and of course, climbing was also possible, what more could you want.

In Croatia, we explored the climbing areas of Istria, braved the intense October sun and dangerous wildlife, and provided a temporary home for a kitten.

We took the ferry to Greece, where we spent an incredible three months, two of them alone in Leonidio and the surrounding area. It is impossible to summarize what we experienced in this country in a few sentences. We visited historical sites like the Acropolis in Athens and the Oracle of Delphi, swam in the sea in December and had the most beautiful beaches all to ourselves. We visited the monasteries in Meteora with their incredible atmosphere and climbed our first multi-pitch routes together. We met so many amazing people, travelers, climbers, and locals. We got stuck in the snow on Mount Olympus and drank raki with olive farmers in Crete. We drove all over Greece and experienced so much, and yet it doesn't feel like we have seen even a fraction of what the country, its people, and its rocks have to offer. And that's a good thing because otherwise, we wouldn't have a reason to come back?

Well, except for climbing maybe. We spent two months in Leonidio and still only managed to climb a fraction of the routes there, there are so many - and even more potential! It was a huge privilege to escape the gym for so long and pursue the most beautiful and original form of climbing. It is the rock that makes climbing so diverse and provides ever new mental and athletic challenges.

A five-month climbing trip definitely changed my relationship with climbing. Normally, you can only spend a limited number of days at the crag, which comes with a certain pressure to make the most of them. You want to have fun, you want to climb a lot, and of course, you want to be successful. And all of that is definitely desirable, but sometimes I forget about what I actually love about this sport and, even worse, I forget to have fun. When the time pressure disappeared, it became much easier for me to keep in mind what I actually feel like doing and what is important to me about climbing. Some days, that might be the 137th attempt to solve a certain move, on other days I would rather climb ten easy routes, and on yet other days, I might not want to climb at all but just take photos and hang out at the crag. It's great to send a hard route or even reach a new grade, but for me, it's much more important to climb beautiful routes and be satisfied - regardless of the difficulty level. And surprise, the more fun I had, the harder I could climb.

We are happy that we both achieved our personal goals for the trip. Not only did Jan, the machine, climb his first 8a and I climbed my first 7a, but we also trust each other even more than before and have made technical and mental progress (- climbing over bolts has practically become de rigueur in Leonidio).

Climbing has become a huge part of our (shared) life, with all that it entails. We want to travel to many more countries and their climbing areas, but we have also made a vow to give more space to other forms of climbing. For our next two vacations, we have planned bouldering trips, in Greece we climbed our first multi-pitch routes together, and who knows, maybe we will soon try our hand at trad climbing or ice climbing.

We are motivated and have set new goals for ourselves for 2019 that we need to train for. But even if we don't achieve them, we won't let them take away the joy of climbing from us anytime soon. Or, to put it in the words of professional climber Jernej Kruder from the "Bin weg bouldern" podcast, which shortened some of our long drives:

"There's just one climbing goal: I want to stay in climbing until I die." - Jernej Kruder

But even the longest climbing vacation comes to an end one day. The return to Germany was suddenly very fast: two days on the ferry, one day of driving, one day of unpacking. And suddenly you're back in everyday life and the big trip is in the past. What remains are countless memories, thousands of photos, and of course, our beloved Gretchen. After the trip is before the trip, and we will definitely continue to work on expanding and equipping her. We now know that the tea kettle we never used can stay at home next time, but hot water bottles and slippers are a must. Hopefully, we will finally solve the problems with our battery charger and electricity and make minor repairs to our furniture. A van is (fortunately?) never completely finished.

As I write this, I still can't believe that five months of traveling are supposed to be over just like that, and it is hard to accept that we will not be falling asleep and waking up next to each other every day for the time being. Fortunately, we have our Gretchen and will escape everyday life with her as often as possible and experience new adventures, although not for several months at a time. After the trip is before the trip, and I am confident that even without living in the van, we will never be bored together. Because my greatest adventure is you, Jan.

That's it, the last blog post about our trip. I thank you crazies who actually read this far for your interest. Who knows what there will be to report in the future? You will definitely be the first to find out.

Until then,

travel on!