Some thoughts before traveling

The closer I get to the leaving date and the more research I do on the various destinations, the more vividly I can see the faces and roads and towns that I'll be passing. Each country - and possibly even different areas of a country will be wildly different to everything that went before. The historical development of the cultures will be such a contrast to those we experienced in South America.

Historically, South/Central America was inhabited by the Aztecs and Mayans in Central America and the Incas in equatorial South America, and the indigenous people of Patagonia and the Tierra del Fuego (sadly I don't recall their name). They inhabited latin america until the tidal wave of conquistadors from Spain and Portugal enslaved and murdered whole societies, the common theme of colonialism. This covered the whole continent with a layer of one culture upon several others and resulted somewhat in an homogenisation of many aspects of the cultures (language of course) in South America.

I'm not saying there wasn't amazing diversity in the people and the cultures of each region (especially North vs South and the African influence in Brasil), but the historical development of Latin American culture is extremely different to the countries I'll pass through over the next 6 months.

Central Asia and Persia, being the cradle of modern civilisation, and part of the silk road, have had the influences of empires sweeping back and forward across them through out recorded history. Even now the West is attempting another counter-conquest of the region, with it's culture and politics rather than with swords and horses.

If you could overlay the reach of every empire throughout history on top of one another, I'm sure that Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan would be the most densely covered regions as the forces of the 'East' and 'West' play tug-o-war.

Obviously religion, Islam in particular, has stamped an everlasting footprint on these regions and to a great extent characterises them now. But when I travel there I hope to be able to see behind the hegemony of Islam and understand the people as they really are, and not the servants of an ancient superstition holding their minds captive behind bars of false promises and fear. I want to see (if indeed they are) the gradual changes in faces, practices and personalities as one moves further East, like the spectrum of colours blending into one another until you have something in glaring contrast to where you started from.

But I also hope there is an unchanging underlying spirit of humanity beneath it all that helps to restore my faith that humans are animals worth saving from extinction. Because given the evidence of what a 'developed' world would look like from the examples of the West, I don't feel for a second that the utter extinction of mankind, in whatever way we destroy ourselves, should be delayed for a moment, lets just hope we don't drag the rest of the world down with us.