At the end of May 2022, it was time for my last awesome beach on Evia in Greece.
This one was like a little bathtub in the ocean filled with crystal clear water, fish, and surrounded by rocks. It was great and from time to time some locals came by. Some fishermen gave me fresh fish and I trained to prepare them.
At that time, I decided to improve my swimming skills and so I started watching YouTube videos about proper breaststroke techniques and learning these techniques. Before, my swim style had been… I would say: underdeveloped. I learned a bit freestyle as well but I still prefer the breaststroke because with this one it’s cooler to dive for a short period and then swim again. And it’s more comfortable to watch the fish while swimming.
After having spent a week on a beach at the end of May 2022 on Evia in Greece, a storm came up and I decided to seek shelter from it. And I think, I found the most beautiful shelter in the shadows of a small mountain surrounded by the wonderful facets of green.
When I moved on, the storm was still blowing and spinning the huge wind turbines on Evia. These turbines are really massive. Maybe they have the size of small offshore ones. And because there is nothing preventing the wind to hit them, they have pretty small towers in relation to their blades. Standing underneath these blades feels like they will cut you right through.
A friend reminded me that standing underneath these wind turbines is like Don Quixote’s famous battles against the windmills. And that’s where Rosinante’s name is coming from: I love sci-fi and was enjoying the book series “The Expanse” a lot when I bought Rosinante. In the books, there is an interesting crew living adventures on a space corvette called Rosinante. They name it after the horse Don Quixote is riding on. I like how the name sounds in German more than in the English version “Rocinante” and the name stands for more than just a spaceship and a horse. As far as I got it, nobody can say for sure what the stories about Don Quixote are standing for. I like the image of a confused guy who thinks that he is a noble knight riding on his noble steed and accomplishing adventurous missions, taking glorious battles in the name of his princess love, followed by his loyal companion Sancho Panza and therefore getting highly regarded by the people. But in truth, he’s just an old, run-down guy on his old nag confused by having read romances and doing stupid things. I think we are all Don Quixote. Some more, some less.
When I had started my journey, I had been more Don Quixote than I’m now, I would say. I’m quite sure, that a part of me wanted to go on a glorious world tour in a magnificent offroad camper to have breathtaking adventures and get highly regarded by others for it. That part had been like chasing happiness by fighting windmills and I’m happy to have given up that fight.
And there is another cool story about the name Rosinante and overlanding. But I spare that one for one of my future posts.
