Grand Adventures. Alastair Humphreys

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      © Alastair Humphreys

      A SHORT WALK IN THE WESTERN GHATS

      I once walked 600 miles across southern India because I wanted a challenge but didn’t have the time or money to walk 6,000 miles. I was trying to understand what drives me to go on all these adventures I feel addicted to. In order to understand, I felt I had to push myself really hard…

      Head thumping, heat shimmering, sun beating. The loneliness I felt in crowds of foreign tongues, staring at one foreign face. Bruised feet, dragging spirit, bruised shoulders slumped. Can’t think. Can’t speak. Just walk. The monotony of the open road.

      These are common complaints on a difficult journey. I often get them all in a single day, and I know there will be more of the same tomorrow. Most days involve very little except this carousel of discomfort. It doesn’t sound like much of an escape.

      Yet escape is a key part of the appeal of the road. All my adult life I have felt the need to get away. The intensity and frequency of this desire ebbs and flows but it has never gone altogether. Perhaps it is immaturity, perhaps a low-tolerance threshold. But there is something about rush hour on the London underground, tax return forms and the spirit-sapping averageness of normal life that weighs on my soul like a damp, drizzly November. It makes me want to scream. Life is so much easier out on the road. And so I run away for a while. I’m not proud of that, but the rush of freedom I feel each time I escape keeps me coming back for more. Trading it all in for simplicity, adventure, endurance, curiosity and perspective. For my complicated love affair with the open road.

      Escaping to the open road is not a solution to life’s difficulties. It’s not going to win the beautiful girl or stop the debt letters piling up on the doormat. (It will probably do the opposite.) It’s just an escape. A pause button for real life. An escape portal to a life that feels real. Life is so much simpler out there.

      But it is not only about running away. I am also escaping to attempt difficult things, to see what I am capable of. I don’t see it as opting out of life. I’m opting in. Total cost: £500, including flight

      (Extract from There Are Other Rivers)

      CROSSING A CONTINENT

      With three weeks to spare, my friend Rob and I decided to cycle across Europe. We flew to Istanbul and began riding home. The maths was quite simple: we had to ride 100 miles a day, every single day. We had £100 each to spend (plus money for ferries), which meant a budget of £5 a day.

      I remember the stinking madness of the roads of Istanbul. I remember our excitement as we made it out of the city. I remember reaching the Sea of Marmara and how refreshing it felt to run into the water to cool down. Then it was back on the bike and ride, ride, ride.

      Cycling 100 miles a day was really tough for me back then and this was a gruelling physical challenge. But that was what we wanted. We were invited into a family’s home for strong coffee and fresh oranges. We peered at a dead bear beside the road. I waited for my friend for ages at the top of a winding hairpin pass in Greece. I was annoyed at his slowness. But then he arrived with his helmet full of sweets – like a foraged basket of blackberries – that a passing a driver had given him. Those bonus free calories tasted so good!

      I remember the satisfaction of seeing the odometer tick over to ‘100’ each day. I remember the simple fun of finding a quiet spot to camp, in flinty olive groves as the sun set over the sea. Those were good days. Total cost: £100 plus flight