Our lives are like the journey of a wanderer in the night.
Everyone has something in their track that causes them grief.
But unexpectedly, night and darkness disappear before us,
and the heavy-hearted find relief from their suffering.
Brave, brave, dear brothers, give up your anxious worries:
Tomorrow the sun will rise again in the sky.
Therefore let us go on, do not flinch in despair!
There, in those distant heights, our happiness still awaits.
Despondent and discouraged, even somehow depressed, we are now at home with our MAN. Our mood can be roughly compared to the song above. It is the Beresina song that the Swiss sang during the retreat of Napoleon’s lost war against Russia. But that’s how we feel.
The actual plan was to ship from Europe to South America next. However, we do not currently have the strength to do this and the shipping of passenger vehicles is problematic anyway due to a lack of capacity and the increased risk of burglary and theft on ships.
We have our MAN overhauled in specialist workshops. Replacement of the clutch, new turbocharger, new air pressure valve, and, and … We are also going to a Bosch specialist to overhaul the injection pump and improve the power curve in the range between 0 and 1600 rpm. We are replacing the 5-year-old, worn-out mattresses with thicker and harder ones, making changes to our electrics and much more.
this low mood does not last long. In our helplessness, I watch all the travel videos of the “4×4 Mercedes Vario Clique” on YouTube.
“Mankei Travel”
,
“Benny goes Overland“
and
“Womo-Adventure“
are traveling through the Middle East from 2022 to 2023. We’ve been there before, but we haven’t seen anything of Saudi Arabia and Oman yet. So I start writing down all the sights in Saudi Arabia and entering the coordinates in the navigation app.
As I deal with Saudi Arabia, joy, enthusiasm, courage and strength return. I suggest Verena: let’s do the “Middle East”? She agrees immediately, as we don’t have to let the vehicle out of our hands on this trip. So the plan is quickly made. However, work on the vehicle delays our departure a little longer.
October 4 is the day. In beautiful autumn weather, we drive to Ancona, take the ferry to Igoumenitsa in Greece and head for the Turkish border.
