My 5000-mile drive from the Middle East to Europe

After years of living in the Middle East, writer Jenny Walker recently set off on move back to Europe, driving the whole way. Here’s why.

Sitting at a table overlooking the Red Sea, a be-thobe-d Saudi gentleman sat sipping a latte and toying with his full English breakfast (minus the pork products).

Apparently entirely at ease with his five-star surroundings, he nonetheless revealed his relative newness to luxury by his shoes – not to mention the Bedouin songs playing audibly on his phone, which didn’t quite harmonize with the hotel’s Kenny G–esque soundtrack. Every now and then, in time with the mix of melodies, our neighbor bent down to stroke his new sneakers, as if the shoes were living extensions of his legs.

At length, and with a surreptitious glance towards the waiter, he slid them off and sat cross-legged on the seat. Apparently now more comfortable, he gave up on the chicken sausage and tucked into the local bread and honey instead. Breakfast done, he unfolded his napkin, blew into it with enough gusto that it rattled the teacup, and folded it up neatly on top of the discarded sausage. It was at that moment that he caught my eye. Wholly unacceptably given the circumstances – I was sitting with my husband – the gentleman and I shared a smile.  

To the degree that one can really know anything of another person or another culture, I think I know what that smile meant. It was a moment of sensed connection. I was sitting demurely in my seat, playing the same game: twitching at my abaya (the one I wasn’t sure I even needed to wear), adjusting a scarf that kept falling into the fuul medames and pretending I knew exactly which combination of condiments to use to garnish the dish. We were visiting, in other words, each other’s world, seeing how we fit in – and editing out the parts that didn’t quite suit us. 
 

The long way home

And that’s where husband, Sam, and I have been these past two weeks: crossing borders of both an imaginary and literal kind on our overland journey between Muscat and a very small hamlet above the clouds in northern Spain. If you’re wondering why we didn’t just get on a plane, I’d like to tell you it was because of genuine concern for climate change – but that would be a tad disingenuous….