PRIZREN, Kosovo (Reuters) – Scotsman Mike Elm and his partner Rosie Watson, who are travelling from Europe to Asia to raise awareness of climate change, have been trapped in Kosovo for more than a month due to border closures caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Elm and Watson are allowed to go out for 90 minutes each day to get essential items in the western town of Prizren and even their interview with Reuters TV had to be approved by Kosovo authorities.
“I am extremely fortunate in the place I ended up, it is a beautiful city,” Elm told Reuters.
“I can imagine it would be much more challenging if I was just here on my own twiddling my thumbs and having no one to debate with and laugh with.”
Elm, a 32-year old from Edinburgh, had planned to pedal his bicycle 10,000 kilometres from Austria to Mongolia in two years, but he had covered only 3,000km before reaching Kosovo.
Watson begun her journey last year from her home in the Lake District, northern England.
“Eastern Europe has more natural resources and more to hold on to and not let go, down that root of destroying,” Watson said.
(Reporting by Bardh Krasniqi; Editing by Ivana Sekularac and Ed Osmond)
