On my way back to Chamonix I stopped in Montreal, QC and now New Jersey, to visit family and friends. Sunday I will arrive in Geneva and head home to organize my “kit” as the Brits like to say. As per usual I have crammed too much into too little time and the idea of landing in Islammabad with all it’s sights, smells, sounds, culture, and chaos is hard to imagine. I’ve been pouring through newspapers trying to follow the current events of the Pakistani government, and Googling phrases in Urdu. I can only wonder what was racing through the mind of Fanny Bullock Workman over 100 years ago when she embarked upon her adventure.

It is so easy to get lost in our little bubble of a world, North America, and lose perspective on the fact that much of the rest of the world doesn’t live the way we do….to understand our materialism, our consumption, our over consumptive culture. I just spent the past few days lusting over boutiques, shops, lotions, jewelry, all the gluttonous traps of marketing and materialism captured within cities. Living in the mountains a majority of my life, spending days, weeks, months on expeditions, at base camps for the past 8 years, leaves me pray to the phenomenon of “Want versus Need” when I explore a city. I try to remember what so many people live with and without ...

Traveling to developing countries brings me back to a place where I can remember how much I ALREADY have, and that I don’t really NEED anything else, anything new. I look forward to the minimalist part of this adventure.

And I am lost in the idea of what roles women play in Pakistani culture. Today, the next week, I will be free to express myself, my femininity, my sense of style and dress as I please. And next week, I will do my best to respect the laws of the land, of the culture, of the role I play as a woman, as a Westerner, as a blue eyed, fair skinned lady. How did this effect Fanny I wonder??

I hadn’t realized how much this connection to another trip, another era, another woman, another climate would make me think, wonder and compare. I look forward to all the “truks and choses” (French for things and things) and nooks and crannies over the next month.