Hossein Naseri, an avid Iranian voyager, has recently come back from an epic journey to the North Pole. He tells us about the expedition in an interview with the Tehran Times.
“Planning for my journey took some 35 months because it concerned some fitness measures to enhance physical strength needed for kayaking and ice-climbing to name a few,” Naseri explained.
He said that the journey required some time-consuming paperwork and legal issues, including a Schengen Visa, adding “Even in an earlier attempt last year, I was deported from one of the Norwegian islands, because I didn’t have a visa for entering the free zone.”
“Prior to the tough voyage, I made massive efforts to win support from the [Iranian] government or the private sector. Unfortunately I wasn’t successful. However, Iran named me a goodwill ambassador of the environment to the North Pole. I also stayed some time in Canada to complete some fitness programs.”
He stated that his departure point was from Imam Khomeini International Airport, when he left Tehran for Istanbul on August 14. Paris and Oslo were his following stopovers.
“We (travelers to the North Pole) were a group of 12 people from nine countries, including Finland, England, Australia and the U.S., the Czech Republic and Iran. We had a year of interaction in order to plan our journey,” he said.
In response to a question regarding how they organized the journey, he answered, “We coordinated our departure date and got together in Oslo. That wasn’t easy at all because everyone wanted to come from somewhere in the world, some from long distances, but eventually we were together; beginning our adventure.”
“Well, so many are traveling to the Arctic by boat or car, as tourists but our itinerary was the same as that of Iranian brothers, Abdullah and Issa Omidvar, had some 65 years ago.”
In the 1950s, the Omidvar brothers set out on a 10-year expedition around the world on motorbikes and in a Citroen 2CV, a journey that deliberately passed through places that include Congo, the Arctic Circle and the entire length of the Andes.
“It might be interesting to know that we had about two trucks of burden that included security devises, guns, medical supplies, tents, boxes of food and clothing, amongst many other things such as kayaks, motor boats. Bringing together such stuff by icebreakers was a huge and tough project itself.”
He added, “We eventually left our campsite, moving some eight hours per day. However, every two hours at night, two of us were guarding with open eyes to notice polar bears, which were abundant there.”
Talking about tough moments, he noted, “During the darkness, two of us were guarding others during posts that changed every two hours. Our special outfits helped us to tolerate 60 degrees below zero.”
“The weather in those days varied between 17 to 33 degrees below zero, as a very fierce wind was blowing. There we examined environmental issues such as extinction of animals, clean Earth, clean air, melting polar ice, rising water levels and global warming.”
Talking about cultural scene of the journey, the adventurer said, “In addition to our adventurous journey, I carried three flags as ambassadors of Iranian artists, ambassador of Iranian music, and ambassador of Iranian sports, which the three were planted there for the first time.”
“I came back home on August 22.”
Naseri has so far visited 75 fascinating spots of the world including, the Grand Canyon, the Antelope Canyon, Amazon rainforest, various waterfalls and mountains and the most recently the North Pole.
MNA/TT
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