Supplies have been stocked and the camper has gone through a thorough check, so we’re all ready to go! After driving for just over a week we’ve reached Turkey, a beautiful and welcoming country. Sometimes when we stop for gas here, we end up chatting with some local residents. Sometimes the language is an issue, but we mostly manage to get by, speaking with our hands and feet as much as regular words!

Anyway, so here we are, waiting for the tank to fill up, when this guy comes up to us and starts asking questions like “Where do you come from?” and “Where are you going?”. In this case we found out he was Polish and was completely fed up with the pandemic (aren’t we all!). He had had both his vaccines, had gotten into his car and basically just started driving. By now he’d been driving around for about two months and he had repurposed his regular station wagon as a little campervan. He’d folded down the back seat and had put a big, 2-meter-long mattress there. The back of his van had some kind of installation with a folding bike and a DIY-shower (just a simple bag with water, which would get heated up by the sun, and a hose attached to it). On the passenger’s side he’d made a small ‘kitchen’, basic, but it all worked! He passionately talked about the places he’d been and what his plans for the next couple of weeks were. Once we were done filling up the tank, we waved goodbye and each went back on our way.

We love little encounters like these, learning about each other’s experiences and journeys on the road. Perhaps even more so now that we’ve all been in isolation for so long!