I finally went on that life changing trip

I finally went on that life changing trip
7 july 2017
From that blog I started but closed down again 

I first came to Puglia in 2008, it must have been early October. I'd had an awesome time in Tuscany, Rome and Calabria and was arriving by train, filled to the max with beautiful experiences and electric connections, not really expecting much else than just a half-boring yoga teacher training that I had signed up for, not really knowing what else to do with my life after finishing my degree in Eastern Philosophy at SOAS, University of London. 

As the train cut through Basilicata and into Puglia, the amount of olive trees that swooshed past started to be shocking. After a while I realised that it just wasn't going to end. Endless amounts of them, large, proud, thick. Planted in perfect rows, with no end in sight, nor a horizon.

My eyes widened as I started to think I was hallucinating. Was I going insane. It went on for hours. Endless olive trees. I felt as if there was a movie on repeat outside of the train window.

As the train finally stopped in Bari, I waited for my ride to the yoga retreat place, sitting on top of my faithful long term travelling companion the green backpack.

Sitting in the taxi on the way to the place where I would do the yoga teacher training, my eyes widened even more as I now was sure that I was in fact hallucinating for real. What I saw there as we rode deeper into the Vall D'Itria was something so otherworldly. How come I had never seen a picture of this place? How come this had existed all my life and I'd had no idea about it?

I walked into that beautiful building with, heavy backpack on my back, and as I entered that house, it was like being swallowed up by a UFO, catapulting me into a different time and space. I was only spat out four months later, three months after finishing the yoga teacher training. 

I always thought I'd come back here, to remember, and to see this mysteriously beautiful land through more mature and secure eyes. 

But somehow I thought it would be far away into the future, like when I would be in my 60's, eyes cushioned by wrinkles, mind filled with wisdom and life experiences. I didn't think I'd have the guts to face this place so soon. 

But circumstances pushed me and convinced me to go in this direction, and in February, I landed in Bari. 

I spent three days in my rented Fiat, driving around the endless trulli and olive trees, and it was one of the most exciting times of my life. Alone, in this fantasy. As if it wasn't really happening. As if it was a dream. All so beautiful, my heart broke in a thousand pieces and expanded itself to the edges of the universe. So overwhelming. My children, at home in Ibiza, a distant dream. My life, my work, all like another parallel dimension, very far away. 

I started writing, finally. That thing I have been planning on writing for so long, there at the hotel, so aptly named Casa d'Autore, located in an old restored townhouse with magnificent gardens, in Ostuni. 

Life changing and as if it never happened. I long to go back there, to this sacred land that engulfs my soul, and makes me feel as if I am hallucinating from all the surreal beauty around me. I was so lucky with the weather as well - it was my favourite. Not too cold, quite humid, light rain, thick, soft, grey clouds that wrapped themselves around the treetops. It calms my soul when it's like this; it softens the edges of life.

I drove around this magical fairy tale, thinking about what I was going to write, and how to start it. I drove around inside my own head, around and around, playing with different ideas, as I got lost and the GPS in my phone had no internet connection to work with. And that feeling of being completely lost, not a human in sight, only more and more of these little seemingly abandoned trulli houses, made me so insanely happy. This is definitely my kind of adventure! 

Now that I am back to my reality, I think back to those three days filled with wonder. I was like Alice in Wonderland. It was like the Rabbit Hole of my inner eternity. I sometimes get flashbacks and I stop what I am doing, and stare into my own darkness. My darkness has purple light shining deep down inside. I can almost reach it.

On my last morning - it was a Monday, I had my coffee and my Italian sweet breakfast, and then I went to the lounge and sat myself in the royal antique sofa. I opened my computer, and I started writing. 

That was the beginning.