The boat from Venice to Alexandria crossed my route with Janek. Africa had got under his skin, and while I was to circumnavigate the globe, he was on his way to Sudan in his epic Land Rover Defender.

Our common ground was a love of adventure, so we gathered together to share meals and memories from the past and hopes and dreams for the future, but also to follow up-to-date briefings on the changing political landscape in the region. In the meantime, the Egyptian borders got closed and there were army and thousands of people on the streets across the entire country. This was it.

It was for the first time I faced the adversity and was forced to disembark the boat in Tartus in Syria and progress with my trip from there. I couldn’t quite believe that I wouldn’t go to Egypt and what that meant I wouldn’t see the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the Suez Canal, the Pyramids and the Nile. Missing these things meant however coming across another. This thought me to cope with whatever challenge my itinerary presented. The joy was in the struggles and in the lessons.