Arctic to Africa - mission complete

I’m sat in a sign-printing shop. The room to the left of me has a ginormous guillotine with tiled pages of “Melilla ayuda Ucrania” (Melilla supports Ukraine) posters still on the machine, waiting to be cut. Next door in the workshop, I can hear the squeaky sound of vinyl rolls being cut and the room smells of plasticcy rubbery stuff. 

Tony is outside removing the “2021 / UK – OVERLAND – JAPAN” white glossy vinyl lettering from Smiley’s sandstormed bonnet and I’m sat inside, taking the opportunity to capture a bit of what’s been going on for the blog. Our “2021-2022 / ARCTIC – OVERLAND – AFRICA” stickers are being prepped.

We may not have got to Japan, or into any Russian territory, but we’ve walked on the Baltic Sea in Finland, crossed the Gulf of Finland into Estonia, travelled through Estonia into Latvia and Lithuania, chanced the border into Russian Kaliningrad, cut through the Suwalki Corridor to get into Poland, dropped east to the Ukrainian border to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with refugees, witnessed first-hand the tragedy of a 21^st century war, helped a Julia and Cheeka create a new life for themselves, delivered a husband his wife in West Poland, repaired a mother’s car to ensure the safe transportation of her and her family from Kyiv to a new life with their grandmother in Italy, stood at the feet of a big ass Jesus in the pilgrim site of Poznan, hopped on and off a minibus in Prague, ate pretzels and drank beer in a garden in Munich, seen the wonder that is Liechtenstein, crawled through the super picturesque Austrian and Swiss alps, scoffed raclette in Savoie with auntie Mala, soaked up the sun in Marseille, shuddered at the sound of bullfighting in Valencia, been told off by the police at the port in Almeria and now visited my sweet, sweet Melilla. <3

We’re in Africa and we believe our mission is complete, though we do still need to get home and there is still lots to see on the way. Next stop will be back to Almeria, then Gibraltar.

(Another entry all about Melilla will come. In time. For now, we’re enjoying!)

Besos.

One proud owner!