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Eco123 Revista da Economia e Ecologia
For me, every walker is also a tourist. I notice that especially at this moment as I am walking through Romania. This country and its culture are so unfamiliar to me that discovering them becomes almost as important as walking in nature. And this slow form of transport makes this discovery easy. In my own country, this tourism aspect is of less interest to me – I’m already familiar with it, Christine Thürmer tells ECO123. Hungary is already behind her and she’s on her way to Bulgaria.
Seeing the world through new eyes. For ten years, Christine Thürmer has been travelling Mother Earth on foot, by bike and in a canoe. She explored 4,000 km of the Mississippi alone in a canoe. She travelled alone through Australia and New Zealand by bike. She has crossed the USA three times: the Pacific Crest Trail, which runs from Mexico to Canada and is 4,260 km long; the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine covering 3,500 km and the almost 5,000 km of the Continental Divide Trail in the mountains.
“Life is short,” she stresses in the conversation. That’s why she finally gave up her job at the age of 40, she says, adding that she hadn’t worked in her profession for ten years and was almost always travelling on foot. After all, you never know how much time you have left, or if you might fall ill, or … She had never seen a fitness studio from the inside and had been slightly overweight when she started to explore the world on foot at the age of 36.
That was after she was dismissed by a logistics company that she had just restructured as a holder of procuration. When asked if she wasn’t afraid as a woman walking alone, she answered confidently that she also had many advantages as a woman during her walks. In comparison to the bearded variety of hiker, people were also friendlier towards her because men often aroused feelings of caution and rejection to start with. She said she had never had problems when asking for directions or for water, and as a woman you encountered much more goodwill. She had had more positive experiences. And at a height of one metre eighty-four centimetres, she wasn’t exactly petite.
“I walked through France and the whole of Spain as far as Andalusia and I never had problems of people harassing me.” ECO123 asked her whether intuition on a walk helped her to react more appropriately? Yes, she said. We asked how she coped with bears or rattlesnakes and whether she could trust someone who suddenly appeared in front of her out of the bush and wanted a cigarette. You shouldn’t let yourself be dictated to by fear was her reply. “I also wouldn’t get into just anyone’s car. If there are three guys inside, I would think three times before getting in.”
While on the subject of men and women, no matter whether it’s walking, cycling or swimming, the longer the distances became, the better women performed in comparison with men, she said. Christine Thürmer: “I think that women are actually made for long-distance walking owing to their biology. Men always want to climb mountains and are designed for one-off top performances. As a woman, I am inferior at hill climbing. But that’s not what matters at all with long-distance walking. What matters is stamina. Men are able to mobilise their reserves of strength rapidly, but they also use them up quickly. With women, speed is not that important. Although I’m terribly slow, I can walk up to 14 hours a day and define myself in that way”.
While male colleagues always wanted to conquer mountains, she looked for ways that led around the mountains, she said. If men walked through the desert, there would be nothing to conquer. Difficult for men; women were better at long walks, she added, with their greater stamina. I think the path is my goal.
And where do you feel at home?
In my tent. I don’t have a flat any more. I put my things in store. I have a base in Berlin. But I carry my home around with me, in my rucksack. That’s my tent. You have to find peace in yourself. That’s where you’re at home.
You’re planning to write a new book, this time about Europe.
Yes. At the moment, I’m walking in two major projects. I’m walking north-south and west-east. North-south is from Nordkapp to Tarifa and west-east is from the Black Sea to Santiago de Compostela. I actually wanted to go to Istanbul, but I decided to skip that because of present circumstances. Both walks are about 10,000 kilometres long, so a total of 20,000 kilometres. What I still need is the route from Göteborg to Nordkapp. At the moment I’m also walking in places where the exchange rate is favourable. I only have limited means.
How much money do you need per month?
About 1,000 euros. I couldn’t afford my walking if I hadn’t been extremely successful professionally. My special field was medium-sized manufacturing companies. Places where people really do some work still. I have done everything from making porcelain to welded aluminium parts. I really enjoyed my work. I wasn’t frustrated and it wasn’t that I wanted to get off a treadmill. I was just curious and thought that can’t be all there is. I had studied business administration and calculated everything exactly: the small store for my things, the running costs of walking. I need about 1,000 euros a month. And that allows me to stay in a hotel and go out to eat sometimes. I sleep in my tent for five or six nights and then I stay in a hotel for one or two nights. That’s my luxury.
Do you still cook yourself?
Yes, of course. When I’m on a walk, I carry about five to six kilos in my rucksack. I mostly have just packet food with me. You often can’t go shopping in the wilds. But cooking is psychologically important. A lot of my fellow hikers who focus on speed just eat cold stuff. But hot food is something I look forward to every evening. The best time is the evening when I’ve found a nice place for my tent, have put it up and then cook. Afterwards I crawl nice and warm into my sleeping bag. What’s more, as hikers, we are able to enjoy eating a huge range of fruit every day. Hungary is the land of plum trees and in Andalusia there were these wonderful oranges. And the best thing of all is that they are all roadside trees. And there are the blackberries and raspberries too that accompany me on my journeys through the summer.
Change of subject. One important aspect that was often forgotten, she said, was that Europe had a much bigger network of footpaths than the whole of the USA. Because what are known as forest rights of way in Europe permit a footpath to be used. In many places, the forest is a public space. In the USA, it was completely different. In the USA, all land was privately owned, she said. Although the few footpaths were better signposted and more shelters were built, many paths were simply not passable. In contrast, the footpaths in Europe were designed more for tourists who typically walked from town to town, who walked with little luggage, and who stayed in a hotel here and there and ate there too.
Given her experience as a very well-travelled walker, how could the footpaths or accommodation be improved, ECO123 asked Christine Thürmer. “As a long-distance walker, I would like to be given more information, for example where I can find water. I would also like to know where I can shop. Those are my main points. How to satisfy my basic needs.”
Are we witnessing a renaissance of hiking in Europe? Yes, she said, especially in southern Europe, because there were also EU funds for this. Spain had a lot of new hiking trails and they were well waymarked. The Portuguese Rota Vicentina was also a good project of this kind, she said.
Can we talk about the shoes she wears for walking? The answer is surprising. Plain running shoes. She didn’t know of any professional walkers who wore walking boots. Wet walking boots took a terribly long time to dry out. They were hard and simply too heavy. The weight was the decisive factor. Everything that had to be lifted on your feet tired them out much more quickly. The key point, however, was that you had to force your feet into walking boots like into a corset. When you walk, hiking boots forced your feet to always make the same movement. Your muscles, tendons and feet became tired more quickly in boots. She wore a pair of shoes out every six weeks and, as a matter of principle, did not purchase them in big brand shops, where you just pay for the name. She bought shoes and clothes cheaply as they were disposed of again after a short time. She used everything until it was completely worn out, she said.
LAUFEN, ESSEN, SCHLAFEN Malik Verlag, München (ANDAR, COMER, DORMIR)
