MENU

The return: A new beginning on my hero’s journey

March 29, 2024
by Jens Hevike
0 Comments

After a year and a half journey across two continents and ten countries, I am returning to Germany to begin a new chapter in my hero’s journey. Hiking has proven to be a central part of my experience, covering over 5000 km on foot and overcoming more than 12000 meters of altitude. However, despite my return, I don’t see this as the end of my journey, but the beginning of a new chapter.

Dhamma Vipassana – Meditation retreat on trial

February 8, 2024
by Jens Hevike
0 Comments

After everyone had arrived, there was a light dinner and then the introduction that began the seriousness of the silent retreat, absolute silence. Basically no contact was allowed, not even with gestures or eyes. Part of the program was to hand in our phones. Reading, writing, sports, everything was forbidden.

11 questions at the end of the year

January 4, 2024
by Jens Hevike
2 Comments

A year is coming to an end that was completely different for me in many ways to the previous 20 years. It was the first year in which I didn’t earn any money from my work. It was the first year in my life that I wasn’t in Germany. I answered Matze Hielscher’s questions about the year in review for myself.

Wanderthirst

December 6, 2023
by Jens Hevike
0 Comments

Nature will remain a big part of my future life. But it can’t just be hiking. I love nature, but I also love civilization, I love contact and interaction with people. I am sociable, nature is not.

I don’t want to be a tourist any more – Guajira Desert

August 10, 2023
by Jens Hevike
1 Comment

In the past, the people in the desert could survive well without outside help. But at some point came tourism, from which they live in part. They make a little turnover with the tourists, sell cold drinks and homemade bags. The bags are nice, but I have no use for them. Coal has also been found on their land, which they are hardly compensated for mining. But with the roads, the dirt and the rails they don’t need, they have to live now.

So (a)social

July 18, 2023
by Jens Hevike
3 Comments

Yes, I am a very social person. I love being with other people and getting to know new people and their experiences. Yet, I also have an “anti-social” side where any interaction with people takes energy. Extroverts who charge in social settings like someone struck by lightning often can’t put themselves in our introverted shoes. In the past, I have sometimes been mocked for this, that I was tired again. Yet I was doing my best. Alcohol often helped me temporarily calm the introverted part of me – at least for the evening. I paid the cost later with even more tiredness.

Cities – Sydney and Newcastle

April 13, 2023
by Jens Hevike
2 Comments

Soberly, cities don’t really know what to do with me, except to shove things in my mouth and let me run aimlessly through the area. They try to stress me out with their noise and hectic pace, which they haven’t succeeded in doing very well so far. When I think back to how I was doing just two weeks ago, I have now ascended to the spheres of a champion.

Australia – Blue Mountains

March 27, 2023
by Jens Hevike
0 Comments

The wilderness of Australia is so much wilder than that of New Zealand and the biodiversity much richer. I have only been here for a week and have already seen countless wild animals. Different kinds of parrots, crows, all kinds of butterflies and other birds. Today Josie and I ran into a monitor lizard about 60 cm long, plus tail. This was the first time we both saw one in the wild. Later he was creeping along the other side of the river, about 5 meters away from us, when he suddenly made a leap from one branch to the other to attack a snake that must have been over a meter long. He tried it a few times and also bit into it until it finally managed to free itself and fled into the water.

Fallen into the water

December 9, 2022
by Jens Hevike
0 Comments

The unsettled rainy weather keeps us from running the trail as it is intended. Rain keeps us from crossing rivers and paddling down, and strong winds from crossing higher passages in the mountains. Because of the circumstances, I tried to make the best of the situation and run sections that were not problematic, rather than just letting time pass by waiting.

Auckland – almost 600 km

November 8, 2022
by Jens Hevike
0 Comments

We had a beautiful summer day to get a few miles on the beach behind us. The weather was glorious and the feet did well. Somehow the slim 15 kilometers along the beach dragged on. The tide was at its maximum towards the end.