In January 2022, Spanish adventurer Santiago Sanchez started his journey on foot to Qatar from Madrid, Spain.

His journey to reach Doha was to take 11 months for his 6,800 km journey. As per a report on 18 October 2022 by the Spanish newspaper, El Mundo, after almost nine months of touring Europe and Asia, track of him was lost on 2 October. He was about to reach the border of Iran.

The report said that uncertainty had grown and his family decided to start their search because they had never been so long without hearing from him before.

As per the report, a close friend of Santiago, Miguel Bergado said, "I last spoke to him on October 1. He sent me his location, and it was in the area of ​​Iraqi Kurdistan, five kilometers from the Iranian border".

Miguel also said that on 2 October, Santiago sent a WhatsApp message to another friend called Coque and said "this is hot, but everything is fine". "I imagine it would be in reference to the Iranian women's protests against the government. But there the contact is cut. My feeling is that due to the political issue they will have blocked or retained him in Iran for being from outside until the situation calms down", Miguel adds.

According to El Mundo, "during the trip, Santiago visited five European countries. When he arrived in Iraq, he had two options - to go through Saudi Arabia, which usually makes it very difficult to cross its borders, or divert to Iran, which was what he ended up doing. The last step left for him was to take a ship across the Persian Gulf and reach Qatar, where he planned to set foot during the first week of November. There he would stay for about a week, to finally return to Spain hitchhiking."

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Source: El Mundo
Cover image credit: Santiago Sanchez

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Vrinda Abilash

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