Our paths converged 5 decades ago somewhere in eastern Turkey. Our companionship was sealed on the spot and we headed off down the road, eastward into the sunrise.
We strode wide-eyed over backroads and along goat trails, through villages and towns whose names we couldn’t pronounce.
To where? Anywhere as long as it was exciting and new.
By bus, by rail and by any possible mode that moved us along. Was there a goal?
It was as if the journey itself was the goal -the wanderlust.
We came across others like us on “the road”. A rambling tribe of sorts, vagabonds, scouts.
Spreading out across the globe, wanderlust flowed from their backpacks.
Tehran in ’71 glimmered like gold in the desert, Herat was dusty and wild.
In Peshawar, it seemed like there was a marishnacoft slung over every shoulder.