After one night in the very filthy hotel room, we decided to change. Our new accommodation clearly had seen better days as well, but felt like home in this city.
Baghdad, a once glorious city that never recovered it's shine since the Mongols, now stood tall despite the battle scars. Fancy shopping districts try to mask the battered facade of the city: the dust, open sewers, piles of trash, battered roads, and dilapidated building; signs of a post conflict country. Power cuts were frequent and barely an eyebrow raised by the hardened resilient population who picked up the pieces and continued with their lives. Still, Baghdad, as with the rest of the country, felt safe, and we liked our place. With unlimited black tea, it gave us a base to do laundry and catch up on admin.
We got to know Jordi, a Catalan hero on a Himalayan, on the way back home after having circumnavigated the peninsula. He looked beaten up after having seen some stuff crossing vast deserts and militia threatened regions, yet full of life and good advice.
An inspiring guy to have long ass conversation with, sitting in a smoke-filled lobby until the morning shift takes over.
Then Christmas arrived, as spontaneous as ever. We found the Cathedral of Al Sayyida Al Nejat, and we are happy they let us in to take some pictures: the heavy security this day was not (only) due to religious tensions, but rather because the prime minister himself was coming today to direct some words to the community - a beautiful sign of inter religious inclusion and a step forward, we believe.
Christmas morning, an oil change in a workshop just around the corner. In the evening we wandered through the more bourgeois neighborhoods, where really some Christmas decorations could be found.
Finally, after again one entire week of being settled, we were ready to push on: crucial here is to get up at half past four, shovel enough coffee in and kick it at 6 before the rest of the world wakes up to block the roads. We managed it, crossed the Tigris at night, and rode out of the city at dawn...Read more
December 23, 2025 in Iraq ⋅ ☁️ 15 °C