Woman who travels to dangerous places came face to face with the Taliban
A woman crowned officially the most intrepid traveller in the world headed straight for Afghanistan as soon as the Taliban brought down the Western backed government.
The extreme traveller community is full of determined globe trotters who like to see how remote they can get, how many countries they can visit, or how much of a scrape they can get themselves into while making it out the other side.
Among their most notable characters are Harry Mitsidis - who sits atop the rankings of the most travelled people in the world - and Gunnar Garfors, who has visited every country twice. The latter happens to be engaged to Jacqui Kunz, officially the 'Most Intrepid Traveller' in the world, according to NomadMania.
Since she swapped her native New York for Sudan in 2015 in what she describes as an "impulsive decision after a really bad day at work", Jacqui has found herself in a string of incredibly dicey situations and in the heart of global events most people would instinctively run from rather than towards.
Jacqui swapped her life in the US for one in Sudan (instagram/@jacqkunz)
The 32-year-old travels to remote parts of the world (instagram/@jacqkunz)The now 32-year-old had no intention of staying in Khartoum for longer than six months when she moved there eight years ago, but quickly realised she had begun to call the Sudanese capital home. While the city would often go dark in rolling power cuts and be roasted in 45C during the summer, Jacqui found the people were among the most welcoming she'd met anywhere and loved her life there.
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All was well until April this year war broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, resulting in the displacement of over 3.3 million people, according to the UN. Jacqui was out of the country when the troops rolled in to her neighbourhood.
"I live right in the middle of it, the worst place to be. The militia took over my apartment. About 10 days into the war they came and said they were taking over my flat," Jacqui told the Mirror from Oslo, Norway.
"I had two cats there which my neighbours were looking after. They didn't want to leave my cats behind so they managed to evacuate one of them in a backpack and took it five days to the Egyptian border. The militia gave them just 10 minutes to get all their belongings and leave."
People from five different countries, themselves fleeing war, helped bring Jacqui one of her cats. The other ran during the violence of the home invasions which saw a once thriving part of Khartoum all but emptied and rendered unrecognisable.
"I try to check maps online to see if my building is still standing. Some days I get really upset, some days I'm more at peace with it. You grieve the loss of a home. It has crossed my mind 'How the hell did I end up here?', but I don't regret it'," Jacqui said.
The answer of how she did seems to be a curiosity to explore and understand parts of the world that others are a little quicker to overlook.
"I have worked a lot in Darfur over the years, most people think of it as genocide and war, but when I've been it's lovely. The culture is very rich," the education development specialist explained. Last year Jacqui made the decision to head to Afghanistan just as Kabul was falling into the hands of the oppressive Taliban regime.
Her reasoning was that following the mad dash out many made out of the country, and with "the bad guys in charge", some kind of stability would be restored. While this suspicion tallied with her experience, Jacqui still found herself a little too close to comfort with one Taliban member for her liking.
Jacqui has had her fair share of scrapes during her travels (instagram/@jacqkunz)
The 32-year-old is married to one of world's most extreme travellers (instagram/@jacqkunz)"I was taking a bus to Kandahar, and at a check point the Taliban got on and made every sit up so they could sit down. They all had guns. I was wearing a full niqab so I blended in fine, so long as I didn't speak," Jacqui said. "One man sat behind me and rested his feet on my head for a few hours. I sat down and felt his toes on my head. The way they see women in the country... it was an eye opening experience. They see women as furniture."
"Later I met a family who invited me home with them. They said they were very sad for the outlook of women, but they said they were happy there was peace now."
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Jacqui was met with similarly warm welcomes when she visited Iraq, a country she decided to explore by hitchhiking. "There are a lot of check points in Iraq, but they're very friendly. They ask to take selfies with you and very excited to see a foreign woman," Jacqui continued.
"A lot of Americans can't separate governments from people, but I found in Iraq and Afghanistan they could. People showed me around every single city."
Jacqui’s recent trip to Afghanistan has inspired her to adjust her education work in Sudan to help more women and girls in the country access teaching.
The American met Gunnar, her now fiancée, through the extreme travelling scene. Due to his seemingly relentless levels of energy and enthusiasm for whizzing across the world, and now her slightly slower efforts to visit every country, the pair have to take every opportunity they have to see each other when on the same landmass.
In terms of her future plans, Jacqui is not taking it easy. "I am probably going to the DRC in a couple of weeks. It is a horrible visa to get, but I want to travel on the Congo River. I am very excited."
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