I want to go everywhere. But, despite my obsession with travel and discovering, there are a few places that never really caught my attention nor made me increasingly want to go. But it all starts to change when I really carve into the history and magic of every place.
For example, in 2009 I went to Bolivia. Bolivia, now increasingly fashionable, is for Argentineans the closest thing to a dirty, poor and unromantic ‘wild west’. After all, there are millions of Bolivians living in Buenos Aires crying about how bad Bolivia is.
I never thought I would go there, but on my way to Peru in 2009 I decided to pay a visit. And I was surprised – what I thought (and what many still think) of as the worst place to visit in South America was exactly the opposite. I was amazed by the Uyuni Salt Flats, the Potosi mines and the part of the Amazon rainforest that lies in Bolivia.
Really. Back then it made me think – is there any place in the world that is really not worth visiting? The obvious, cultured answer would be ‘no, every place has something special’. But if you think about it, there are 200+ countries and half-countries to go.
Though I’m dying to go to some dodgy and off-the-radar places as Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan, some others have been so far less attractive. Yemen, for instance, a country south of Saudi Arabia, poor and often refered as a terrorist haven, had never been in my list of priorities. But as a Wikipedia-freak I am, just for the sake of it I started to read more and more about Yemen yesterday night.
And Yemen surprised me. Now I’m desperate to go there in the next few years, and here’s why:
These are just a few photos of what you would find in the Socotra Island, off the coast of this Arab country. I’m not a biologist or botanic superhero, but I’m still very excited by seeing these extraordinary plants and animals.
They are endemic to this small island, and nowhere else in the world to be seen. It’s magical – just that island. I accept that I might be a bit more geek that the norm, but this really excites me. To see these things makes me think and realize how amazing our world is, and how much I want to see it all.
Thankfully, there are many Socotras in the world. A mysterious language, a hidden culture or a whole new ecosystem wait for us in far away corners of the world. It’s my passion to know them all, as I love experiences and that’s what I live for.
Mind – the aim of this post is not convince you to go Yemen. What I want to achieve goes a bit deeper – it’s to make you realize the whole bunch of places you never heard about and might be really exciting for you.
(More love: as I write this, my roommate is telling me that the world’s most exclusive and expensive honey comes from Yemen. Wow.)
I hope you can think together with me on this one. I still feel completely unseduced by East Timor, Somalia or Suriname. But maybe you can help me change my mind.
Going everywhere, then, might not be a bad idea. While not among my top priorities, I hope that I’ll have the chance to visit all these beautiful islands and countries.
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Copenhagen, Denmark.