Free world

My attention has repeatedly been brought to the fact, that most people in the "Western World" have never experienced roaming about. I mean . . . deciding in the morning in ca. what direction to walk. Not following any trail or a track - simply because there is nothing of that sort to be followed.

I experienced this for the first time in 2008, when I was leading a backpacking group on a 7 days, unsupported tour. We stepped off the bus by a hut in the centre of Iceland. After walking for an hour, no signs of human activities were seen or heard. Barren nature with sparse vegetation, a small glacier to the North and an overwhelming glacier ahead, to the East. No birds were heard the first two days of the hike. Walking on black sand, passing multi coloured Rhyolite Mountains. Hot springs of mud and clay, smelling sulphur. The guide looking for and finding fords, to cross glacier-fed rivers, where these rivers had never been crossed before. Never crossed before, simply because of their ever changing nature. As the map would show a river, we would walk on gravel with some marks of a former riverbed. Coming to a river, where there shouldn´t be a river, according to the map as the maps were showing last years "reality".

What about you? Do you think you would like to walk - fast or slow, just as you like - for days, not seeing other people? Not having paths to follow but walking free? No camping sites. And of course, no nasty creatures. No wolves, no bears, no snakes. If it is not raining, one can sleep under the clear skies, with a creek with crystal clear drinking water flowing by. In the free world.