Caravanserai 2015 Lou Vir Tound: a round trip

For those who love to travel and see the world merely looking at a map proves exciting, especially if this a prelude to physical movement. Under the watchful eyes of a traveler colors and symbols on the maps transform into a tangible reality, populated and lived, full of smells, tastes, sounds and sensations.

Drawing a line on a map creates a virtual journey, one which is consumed within. With one swift flick of the wrist you can cycle up the mystic Gurla Mandatha pass, that millennial crossroads used by pilgrims on their way to sacred Mount Kailash in Tibet; you can wake up in a remote Tibetan village; and all of a sudden you’re on top of majestic Shishapangma 8013m, towering high above Tibet’s sacred plains. Oxygen becomes scarce and movements seem slow and blurred.

“The power of imagination!” some might say. But it is not within the imagination, within the inner drive, that you must search for your dreams?

We wanted to devise a route that was not only interesting, but one which was also sufficiently "extreme", unusual and fascinating to truly capture our imagination. I wanted to continue along the route I’d started years ago that joins mountains and the highest peaks in the world with the culture of the western lands to which I belong.

I'm excited today, am doing the final preparations, my colleagues at work pat me the back, maybe they even envy me a bit. Joyfully they remind me that my prolonged absence is in part thanks to them, too!

My wife manages to be intimately close to me, it is she who usually bears the brunt of my passion, she who manages to respect this selfish quest for adventure.

But today I and Valter, my climbing partner on this adventure, have to make some important decisions. We have failed to receive permission to cycle to the foot of sacred Mount Kailash. Our journey has produced its first surprise, the first problem we’ve got to deal with. In short... our adventure is about to begin!

Sebastiano Audisio