Rosa Maria Calaf

I’m going to have two very different types of summer this year: an academic one and an adventurous one. Until the end of July I have a lot of summer courses and talks scheduled in a number of places, including Avila, Malaga and Baeza. I’m also going to London to see one of those English-style graduation ceremonies because my nephew is graduating from the London School of Economics. But the real adventure is going to begin for me when my companion and I take a car and set off for faraway places. We usually do one long trip every year in a four wheel drive vehicle. Two years ago we drove from Barcelona to Mongolia and back. We were away for almost four months and we drove more than 36,000 kilometres. This year we’re going to do things slightly differently and we’re heading first for Finland and the Baltic countries and then I’m coming back to Barcelona while he’s carrying on to Poland. I’m going to rejoin him in the Caucasus. From there we want to explore Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan before entering Iran. We’re going to cross Iran and then take the car by ship to Oman and visit the Emirates. This second part of the journey will take some two months and then we’re heading back to Barcelona by car. This type of planning is often open to surprises but the vehicle is prepared for us to sleep in it and we will be able to be self-sufficient for a whole month. It has a water tank and a double petrol tank and it’s quite spacious. In any case, we always improvise a lot and stop wherever we feel like stopping, in places that we take a liking to, and we practically always find somewhere to sleep. We know from experience that the people we meet tend to be very hospitable. In fact, we have always met people who have invited us to have lunch or dinner with them. And that’s what we like the most, speaking to them and getting to know people and their cultures. We do take books and music with us, but we like to spend our time among people, discovering new things every day.