DAY 16-18 // THE SOUTHERN DRAKENSBERG // SANI LODGE

I can't explain why but mountains makes my heart beat faster, they make me feel lighter. Maybe it's growing up surrounded by forests and a flat landscape or the fact that every time I'm in those surrounding I'm on the road exploring. Me and my new friends arrived in the afternoon at Sani Lodge Backpackers and wow what a place, I can highly recommend stoping here. It's a fair trade hostel and 2016 it was rewarded a silver award in the category Best for Poverty Reduction by the Africa responsible tourism. It lived up to all the things I had read about it and the two nights I stayed there were beautiful. I didn't dare to do the longer hikes they offered at the lodge because of my problems with my feet but that didn't stop me from getting up before the sun and doing smaller hikes close to the lodge. Not so many people got up that early to hike which gave me the privacy I needed to be creative. During that whole backpacking trip I found myself alone a lot in nature with only my thought to keep me company. At times it was wonderful and at other times hard. I'm planning a book project with my friend Tuva Minna Linn who write so beautifully about life and emotions. Before leaving Sweden we had a meeting where we came to the conclusion that I need to make some images that also represents light and happiness. I find it easy to tap into the "blue" we all have more or less of but to create those positive once is harder. I thought I had found something rare in Cape Town and even if I felt it slipping through my fingers I tried to remember that feeling and connect. When you meet someone special it's a new beginning, it's a bright and warm place where you want to stay forever and you feel your heart is light from hope and expectations. The picture of me sitting in the grass, looking into the sunrise is all about this. But when you allow another person into that place that you normally don't then you have a lot to loose, the fall is dark and you know it will hurt, no matter what shape you take to protect yourself it will draw you in. Back home in Sweden again I created another image that told another story and today the sunrise one feels like a distant dream. There are times when I wonder if I'm sharing too much here but then I remind myself that we are all humans with similar emotions, desires and dreams. In this time we live in, where social media has become a theater to show off the perfections of our human lives I find myself craving the opposite and the people who inspire me are the once that are not afraid to be real and tell it the way it is. "We are all somewhat damaged and in that realization we are all beautiful"