The road began to climb just after sunrise. What started as dry desert terrain slowly turned into sharp bends, colder air, and mountain passes that seemed to stretch endlessly into the distance.
I stopped more than usual that day. Not because the riding was difficult, but because every turn opened into another landscape that felt impossible to ignore. Villages appeared suddenly between cliffs, small cafés sat quietly beside the road, and every few kilometres the scenery changed completely.
The higher I climbed, the quieter everything became. Fewer cars. Less noise. Just the sound of the engine and the wind pushing across the mountains.
At one of the roadside stops, an older man walked over to the bike and asked where I was heading. I told him I didn’t fully know yet. He smiled, nodded once, and said, “Good. That’s how these journeys should be.”
I stayed there longer than I planned.
By late afternoon the light had turned soft and orange across the valleys below. I found a small place to camp just outside a mountain village and watched the last of the sun disappear behind the ridges.
Days like that remind me why I started riding in the first place.
