Taking into account that I have now traveled to more than 110 countries, many of them several times, I have encountered more or less all the situations that “normally” they happen to travellers, even though I have always been lucky enough not to find myself in really dangerous or serious situations. Indeed, the small difficulties that one finds oneself experiencing during travels then become a source of fun and chat on the return.

I remember being summoned to a Yemeni court to defend our taxi driver who had had a small accident and as a result had been imprisoned with chains on his feet or the effort (always thankless for me) of the Nepalese treks to Annapurna or the climb to the Erta Ale volcano in Ethiopia with stays in tents in the most isolated villages of the Omo valley. Perhaps the one I remember with greatest anxiety, however, was a night on a train on the new border that had been created between Lithuania and Russia.

In January '93 when the USSR had dissolved and at 2 am the drunken customs officers couldn't accept the fact that we didn't have a visa to enter Russia since when we left the USSR still existed and no visas were needed between one country and another and they wanted to throw us off the train in our pajamas in the middle of the countryside with -20°C. Then 20 bucks fixed the situation but it wasn't a good time.

Or when I left Moscow airport with the passport of one of my colleagues, given that we had mistakenly exchanged it in the morning when leaving the hotel and no one, in four very strict subsequent checks, noticed anything except the Frankfurt gendarmes who continued to ask themselves how I had managed to leave Russia with someone else's passport. In short, small things without damage.