Not such an early departure this morning. Leaving my home and family this time was harder than expected. The bike is way to heavy to ride across the many “off road” roads that we have planned on maps and GPS many month prior. To make me feel better I tell myself that I will have time to lose some pieces of cargo along the way.

I arrive in Ancona early to pick up the tickets for the ferry for both Matteo and myself. As soon as I get to the check in office, I already can feel a sort of excitement because I am immediately surrounded by people from different ethnicity and countries. Strange enough not many Italians boarding at this time of the year toward Greece. It is unusual, I was expecting many bikes on that ferry. I order myself a coffee and I am enjoying the moment.

Couple of hours later, here comes Matteo. I can see immediately that something is wrong. Not even the time for him to take off his helmet and he tells me he is not coming. WHAT ? Completely shocked I asked him. His answer was that to many things went wrong with his bike arriving from Voghera to Ancona and he thought of that of being a sign of destiny. To be honest I thought about a similar scenario in the past so I was somewhat ready to depart alone. Maybe not all the way to the Wakhan Corridor but I was determined not to give up such an opportunity to visit territories that always created great imaginary attraction to me. No way I would have missed this opportunity to visit Iran and the Pamir. By that time I was ready and determined to board the ferry and complete the trip alone. I wasn’t happy about it. That is for sure. Having Matteo with me was a much better scenario. We travel so well together.

Some time passed and It was almost time to board the ferry when I tried to convince him one more time before it was too late for him to join. Thankfully I managed to get him a coffee and talk it over with him. He said that the bike did not feel right. I managed to persuade him to board the ferry and that the following day we would have stopped at a mechanic to have a look at every concerns he had with the bike. He was obviously just tired and stressed.

I really did believe he was not going to go. Ouch!!!!!