T-1

I have just had the best ‘transition’ weekend that I could possibly think of for leaving work and heading off on my adventure. My firm kindly sponsored me and two colleagues to run the Athens marathon on sunday. There were about 15,000 people (including 250 from the private equity industry) all following in the footsteps of Pheidippides who inspired the Marathon event by running the 26miles from Marathon to Athens to announce that the Athenians had defeated the Persians. The race on sunday commemorated the 2,500 year anniversary.  It was a fantastic, brutal event. The temperature was in the late 20’s and about 20k of the course was uphill! Which made me very glad for all the training and cutting back on drinking that i’d done in the preceeding weeks….

So the time is nearly here to head off to Ecuador. I leave in 22hrs. My bag is packed (just) and my liver has recovered (who am i kidding) from all the farewells. Thanks to everyone for such a great send off!! Its been phenomenal.

This trip in unlike any other in many many ways including that i’ve spent almost all of my time over the past few weeks concentrating on organising my life in london and almost none spent on planning the trip itself. It’s been incredibly liberating to cancel every direct debit, gym membership, council tax, water bill etc and to take the car off the road, rent out my room, put everything in storage and get ready to live a more simple and spontaneous life for a while. I know its a bit cliche, but it really doesn’t matter that much what I own, what I wear, what I drive or even where I live. I don’t think any of that will be missed. What does matter to me are my friends and family. And saying goodbye IS NOT EASY.

The next post will be from the equator! All the best everyone. See you all in a year and some of you even sooner…