Monday, December 10, 2007

Perú, Peru, my Peru

Polona again and Simon for the first time have fallen in love with this country. Even though there were only 17 days, we experienced Peru in its depths. It was just enough time to visit a majority of Polona’s old friends and families and for Simon to see the most popular attractions.

According to Polona, the country has changed a bit, since her last stay 5 years ago. Streets are far cleaner now and people less disturbing. Services are better, more personnel speak English. Unfortunately the prices have also gone up, particularly for tourists. However, in general Peru is cheaper than Brazil.

We stayed couple of days in Lima, which didn’t appear as sad, dirty, polluted and dangerous as years before. In contrary, it welcomed us with clean streets, beautifully arranged parks and the most significant change – with the sunshine. It will be difficult to continue arguing that it is one of the ugliest cities in South America.

During the whole trip we willingly tasted variety of delicious Peruvian cuisine. We gastronomically enjoyed all types of food: the one from the coast (sea food mainly), the “criolla” cooking (Andean food) and the international one. Additionally, we tried some fruits not found elsewhere, primarily Polona’s favorite tuna (Opuntia fig / cactus fruit). Polona had been longing for the Peruvian food for such a long timeJ. And on the trip every taste and every smell made her remember her previous stays in this country.

From Lima we headed to Pisco, the city that suffered an earthquake of Richter 8th degree in August, just months ago. It was sad to see the misery that is what is left of the city. Almost 85% of the adobe houses have been damaged or collapsed, and hundreds of people died. It was heartbreaking to meet all those desperate people, living in “temporary” tents. However, there could be noticed a small glimpse of hope in their eyes, since the government has promised to build a new city, made of bricks.

In that area we visited the national park Islas Ballestas, which are some islands rich with marine fauna: sea birds, sea lions and Humobold penguins. The excrement from the sea birds (guayano cormorant), a highly nutritive fertilizer, used to be collected and exported to Europe.

Cusco, the capital of the Incas, has now turned to become our beloved city. Many indigenous people, descendents of Quechuas, who came from the rural places to live to the city, were a great attraction to Simon. They normally wear colorful clothes and speak the quechua language. People, together with the beautiful main square, plentiful Inca ruins, small streets and modest adobe houses make the city of Cusco enchanting. While Simon was exploring the city and its surroundings, Polona was visiting friends, who were all glad to meet after such a long time.

The peak of the trip was definitely the visit to Machu Picchu, Inca’s sacred place. It has recently become one of the New 7 Wonders of the World. The fact has brought even more tourists, has established an incredible number of tourist facilities and has tripled the prices. We arrived early in the morning to avoid the mass of tourists and be able to get some nice pictures and peacefully enjoy the Inca heritage site. The beautiful weather made our visit even more pleasant, so we could fully enjoy the marvelous historical work of sanctuary in “The Lost City of the Incas”.
It was difficult to depart from Cusco, but we promised to soon come back. It has grown to our hearts.

We toured south to Lake Titicaca, to see the Uros population who live on floating islands made of totora reeds. An excellent view was offered from the top of the hilly island Taqule, where majority of people still live like some hundreds years ago (of farming and fishing). The typical scene of men knitting colorful hats has also brought tourism to the island, which has for some local people become the only occupation. This island was also the highest point of our journey, reaching over 4000 m above sea level! It was difficult to hike on this altitude!

With a night bus we headed to Arequipa, the most modern Peruvian city. There we visited Majda, Polona’s Slovene friend. Simon went to the Colca canyon to watch Andean condors in their natural habitat. Colca canyon is more than twice as deep as the Grand canyon in the USA, which means it was difficult to get at an angle to actually see the river at the bottom, and the Colca river gives the landscape colorful features. It is home of condors, the biggest flying land birds with a wingspan measuring up to 3 m and weighting up to 15kg. In the Colca canyon the vultures have got used to live close to people, therefore it is easy to spot them flying from a close distance. Simon got lucky to see one a few meters away, when a vulture decided to swoosh past the lowermost watching platform. While no sub-second reaction wide-angle photos could be taken right then, some photos from earlier in the day taken with 12 to 15 times zoom show the beauty of these big birds.

From Arequipa we returned to Lima to do geocaching, eat more cebiche, and finally the good-byes, and then too soon back to Brazil. Even the airport personnel thought we were returning too early, and at first didn’t want to let us fly back to Brasil. With Polonas luck, the bureaucracy lost track of itself and let us through. It was such a nice trip that we wished to have chosen Peru for a longer stay.

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Beloved nature

We have been missing nature in Salvador. We hadnt’n known how much we lacked it until we came to a vast green region of Pantanal. It is the biggest wetland in the world. Half of the year the area of 230.000 km2 (half the size of France) is flooded and the rest of the year the area turns to a large savanna. The scarcely populated region is nothing else but nature and wildlife. It’s one of the most important ecosystems on the planet, full of alligators, anacondas, savanna mammals, jaguars, immense variety of birds, and fresh water fish.
We went there at the end of the dry season, which means dry land, few ponds and low rivers, where all the animals gather to get the food. It also means less rain, less mosquitos and easier trips. In comparison to a jungle adventure, in Pantanal it is much easier to spot animals due to its vast open areas, whereas in the jungle the view is hindered by generous vegetation.
The timing was perfect and weather was excellent. Luck was, as always, with us. We got help from a nice university professor and got arranged a half priced tour to the wilderness.
A previous day’s rain had made the road to pass into a safari adventure, full of muddy holes. We couldn’t imagine how it becomes in the peak of rainy season. But in the middle of nowhere a luxurious guesthouse with all the facilities welcomed us. It was hard to believe that such high standards exist deep inside the swamp area. It was in the 70’s when the government decided to connect all the remote cities with roads and power. After they have built 145 km of dusty road in Pantanal, they made a wise decision of stopping for lack of funds and ecological concerns. What is left today is a dirt road “Transpantaneira” with scenic view, sectioned by 118 small wooden bridges and hundreds of dust holes.
Living in such a remote place meant eating local food, sharing the room with frogs and waking up with thousands of loud birds. We indeed had the chance to see so many different animals, that we got amazed by every new species we encountered. Local people co live in harmony with all those animals. It was nothing unusual to see a farmer cultivating his piece of land and only meters away hundreds of alligators resting peacefully in a nearby pond. The alligators are not at all aggressive, they attack only if threatened. By the law it has been prohibited to hunt them, so in present days they live freely in the whole region. However, unfortunately some illegal hunting exists and is difficult to pursue. The regional diet consists mainly of fish, rice, fruits and root fruits. Raising cattle is the only farming activity as the drained land is poor of nutrition.
On our trips by boat, on horse, on foot or safari truck we admired plentiful of animals from close by: tarantulas, snakes, alligators, deer, monkeys, colorful birds, otters, owls, hawks, fish, piranhas, storks, capybaras, … We haven’t seen any anaconda though. They tend to be seen in the rainy season when it is easier to spot them in the water. Jaguars as well as pumas are quite common inhabitants of the region, but very difficult to see.
Early mornings were the best opportunity to observe the wildlife in its pure behavior. We walked silently down the river and spotted many mammals waking up or birds taking their breakfast. In overall, we were left amazed by the natural beauty of Pantanal.

In the state of Mato Grosso we also visited another type of landscape. It is a high plateau with the Canyon of Guimaraes, with lots of small waterfalls and varying terrain. It is home to the king vulture, a huge and attractive bird. We spent the whole day wandering around alone, taking baths in small fresh ponds and exploring our so beloved nature.

Monday, November 19, 2007

New trips

We have been travelling quite a lot last month. Since we got to decide to come back to Europe in January, we are taking the opportunities of cheap air offers and visit more places. The most recent trip was to Pantanal. It was an excellent tour to the biggest swamp landscape in the world, full of wildlife. We were amazed to see so many animals, birds, caymans, lizards, snakes and so on. More details will be soon described and the pictures will be added in 2 weeks. We won`t be able to update our blog earlier because we are travelling to Peru!!!!! Polona is particularly excited to be able to travel there and visit her old friends again. It will last only 17 days, but hopefully we will have enough of time to meet all the friends from Peru.
See you soon!

Monday, October 22, 2007

In love with the beach

In two months of living here lots of things have happened. In this time we had to decide when to go home. The protocol for obtaining a residence permit has changed in last two years. Brazilian authorities don't allow tourists to stay longer than 6 months anymore. The rules have become more strict even for job seekers. The only option for us to stay here longer would be giving birth to a child with a Brazilian nationality. We can't really imagine how to get a child in less than 6 months, but this is how the officials explained it. It means that we have to leave the country in January. And then we will have lots of time to decide whether we want to come back to Brazil pregnant or not at all :). January is still far away and we're not yet thinking of the departure. We rather enjoy the vibes of Bahia, discovering endless palm beaches just outside Salvador. We both fell in love with the ocean, enchanted by the never-ending music of the waves and stillness of the sand. The sea and waves have so far been the only contact with the nature that we have been missing so much. (Lately we've been longing for the mountains and the forests painted in wonderful yellow, orange and red.) The north of Salvador is all beaches, much cleaner and less populated than those in the city. On a working day we were practically alone on a few kilometers long beach, full of scenic views.
One such place is a charming small village Praia do Forte with excellent tourist infrastructure, full of top-end restaurants, souvenir shops, and colorful bars. The place is popular among Brazilians and many rich Soteropolitanos (inhabitants of Salvador) have their summer houses there. Some of the chique decorated houses really look like those from the movies; with luxury furniture and excellent location by the sea.
There we visited an ecological reserve, the Tamar project (www.projetotamar.org.br), whose objective is to save marine turtles along the beaches of Brazil. They have established several camps along the whole Brazilian coastline to recover the populations of different species of turtles. In the reserve close to Salvador we got to know about the work of the project and about these huge animals. In fact one of the species of the sea turtles can reach a length of 2 meters and can weigh more than 700 kg. It is amazing to observe such a big animal floating and moving slowly in the water. We particularly liked the babies, which are normally born from September to December. It must be emotional to see them getting out of the eggs, laid in the sand, and quickly running to reach the sea. Five of seven species of marine turtles live in Brazil, that is why the Tamar project has had an important impact on preservation of the turtles. Its social role and dedication has rescued thousands of turtles and the main objective is to educate people in the local communities to protect the animals instead of eating them. One community of 400 people has been converted from turtle-eaters into turtle-guards. It is sad to know that such harmless animals had been threatened to extinction. Illegal fishing, pollution, coast urbanization and industrial fishing are still sad reasons for those and many other animals' death.

In the same village we also visited another ecologically oriented project, dedicated to research the whales. It is the Whale Institute of Brazil, whose purpose is to protect, rescue and save the Humpback whales. The institute educates visitors about the behaviour, nature and life cycle of these big mammals. During the 10 years of work they managed to lobby for laws prohibiting whale hunting. By monitoring, protecting and researching Humpback whales that come to Brazil to breed during the winter, researchers have learnt about their behaviour. All the accumulated knowledge has allowed researchers to organize ecological whale-watching tours for visitors. Even though we went to watch them only 2 days before the whales would supposedly leave Brazil and head to Antarctica, we had luck and spotted a mother with a calf. It was impressive to see them swimming in a synchronized pace, showing a bit of their shiny upper fins every now and then. Unfortunately none of them was in a jumpy mood, so we didn't have a chance to see the spectacular jumps and splashes of water, when an animal of 40 tons suddenly jumps out from the water. As the rules don't allow boats to stay more than 30 minutes with the same group of whales, we had to leave the mother and the calf alone. In the argument to cancel whale hunting globally, it is claimed that there is more money to be made from whale watching tourism than from industrial whale hunting. At the institute we got to see the original skeleton of the female whale, which was beached and died couple of years ago in a nearby village. The size was incredible! Even though they are harmless, it must be quite scary to accidentally come across an animal of that size.

The coastline in Bahia is scarcely urbanized, which gives space for the flora to grow in its natural environment. Apart of famous palm trees, there are thousands of other plants and interesting trees that triggered our attention. In general it is quite difficult and dangerous to walk off the beaten paths. But we hired a guide, a boy of 10 years, to walk us in Floresta Sapiranga to watch the forest and observe the plants. Local people know many secrets from the forest and the guide explained some about medical plants, herbs, edible roots, useful leaves, as well as legends and stories of the "mata" (forest). Mango trees have become our favourite ones, because they grow fast and become really tall and wide, giving a generous shadow and tasty fruits. In Praia do Forte we were lodged in a modest room in a small house with a big garden and many mango trees. The property was located outside of the village, in a forest, close to the nature. Every morning we got woken up by a cock, together with the horses from the ranch. It was nice and calm as a contrast of the touristified and loud village centre. Other villages along the Coco road and Linha Verde road (north of Salvador) are less popular and less modernized. We found the village of Imbassai even more charming and nicer than Praia do Forte. Imbassai is a modest village, where asphalt has not yet polluted the nice reddish soil. We also experienced what this means when it rains -- it wasn't as bad as one could think. The village has only a few restaurants, all closed during the day, one supermarket with limited assortment, and a couple of hostels. The beach of Imbassai is an idyll - where a river mixes with the ocean, its sediments have built a natural lagoon of fresh water. At the time when we were there, we were almost alone. It seemed deserted and peaceful and only for us.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

The summer has come

It is pretty hot but still bearable. We spend the most time in the shadow in the garden. We also like to take a bath on one of Salvador's beaches or in a swimming pool. The sea – The Atlantic Ocean – is quite clean, with big waves. Unfortunately the beaches are less clean, and the city littered with all kinds of things. People are not used to throw trash in trash bins. Since there are already street dogs and litter, a little more makes no difference and there is anyways needed to clean the street all the time. But most probably people don't think about what happens after they drop leftovers. Sometimes it can be difficult to navigate on the streets early in the mornings, before the cleaning brigade comes. We like to observe people working here; normally there is a group of people executing a task, where only one person is working and the rest are watching or resting. Somebody said they sometimes don't get paid, so maybe they are working in relation to their salaries. It seems that improvements are taken slowly. It is an overall atmosphere here. Relaxed and easy. And intresting on a great scale.

The Bahianos are regarded as party animals, food lovers and Casanovas. They take each small opportunity to make a party. And opportunities are many; there are many holidays and days off. The music is on for the whole day even on a normal day. If it is not music from the neighbours, it is from the small nearby bar, passing cars, improvised instruments or just singing pedestrians. It is loud all day long. Not only on the streets, also at home. People here don’t have a conversational tone, they shout all the time - either of cheerfulness or out of frustration. Conversations often sound like quarrels and yelling. It is quite common to encounter a verbal fight on the street. It seems to us that many people are bored and nervous, and maybe that is why they spend so much time quarreling, small talking or gossiping. One example is the mother from the house, who is only one year older than Polona but is already nervous, shouting on the kids all the time. We try to show them that it is nice to have a conversational tone and respect for eachother. We think it is a clear cultural difference. People here don't seem to suffer from quarreling and harsh words are easily forgotten and probably forgiven. Hopefully the next generation that is now being yelled at, at least won’t suffer of frustrations and feel a need to yell. Although it seems it has been like this for ages; keeping people happy in their own way. Soap operas take up the prime time both on TV and in reality with plenty of secret lovers and frauds. This gives room for juicy gossips and imagination. Often nobody knows the true parents of a child, but everybody's talking.

In general people are quite religiuos or at least supersticious. There are hundreds of different Churches, all more or less originating from Catolics. All kind of saints play important role in the religion. In September we often saw a small bowl filled with food left on a corner of a street for a saint called São Cosme da Miau. It is not so unusual for locals to practice black magic, conduct spells, use incenses or other superstitious beliefs to indicate the way for luck. Many people still possess beliefs that the slaves brought from Africa. The slaves brought not only the beliefs; but also religion, cuisine, martial art, music and the entire culture that is today still reflected in Salvador. People don’t talk about big plans for the future, and it seems people aren't very economical. Some people here prefer to buy branded but not well constructed furniture made of masonite or plywood, alike cheap IKEA shelves, rather than buying real wood furniture from a carpenter across the street. Second hand is scary to the middle class, although there are stores selling used clothes for a few reais or around 1 EUR. Otherwise new clothes cost like in Europe. It is difficult to find cotton - maybe because there are moths or other animals eating non-plastic clothes. Staying in the fashion and looking good is important for females of any age. Even an prematurely born child who appeared on the evening news had earrings.

Fashion seems more important than investing in durable things and people would like to earn money quickly. Tourism offers money for low efforts. Sometimes people follow the trends, which causes similar stores to be grouped together. When one new convenience store opened on our street, another one opened soon after. Maybe they want to have a better store than their neighbour. It also goes quickly to switch profession. One day a flower store, two days later a hairdresser. (We haven't looked closer to see if they renovated or rebuilt anything inside.)

It is said that no business can have all the papers and documentation correct, partly because of difficult bureaucracy and partly because of ignorance or laziness. Also many people try their luck in illegal activities. Every time we watch news there are either police raids on drug trafficers or corrupted officials getting caught. It is said that Brazil is the country with the biggest social difference between the richest and the poorest ones. We can only guess what made the rich ones so rich. On the other hand, the life of the poor majority is going in a circle. It seems normal for girls have kids early in their lives. Most of them loose the opportunity to study, which in many cases leads to a modest way of life.


Saturday, September 1, 2007

Settling down in Salvador

Now we are finally in Salvador, the capital of Bahia region, which was the aim of the trip. The travels in Brazil are not over yet, however we will stay here in Salvador for a couple of months. Salvador is a city with 3 million inhabitants, located on a peninsula which faces the biggest bay in Brazil – Baía de Todos os Santos. The areas by the sea are more organized, but they are far away from the noblesse of Rio’s. The beaches here are more modest and with a more homely feeling, crowded with regular people. The city is divided into the lower and the upper city. It was in the upper city, 70 m above the sea level, where the city was founded. It is possible to walk down steep narrow streets, to go by a small funicular (or cliff railway / bergbana) or to take one of the many elevators in the elevator tower to reach the lower city, where there are the port, some markets, some commercial centres as well as access to the beaches.

Pelourinho is the colonial part of the town and the most popular place for tourists. It is an old, well preserved and also recently restored part of the city. There are many churches with one tower missing, one or a few with both towers, museums, reconstructed houses, hostels, bars, festivals, event houses, parties and thieves. We stayed there for a week in a nice and cosy family hostel. Every morning we got waken up by drum bands practicing in the vicinity or spontaneous parties by a group of street vendors. And in the evenings we couldn’t just go to sleep, since there were so many parties and events going on. The Bahian culture is country-wide known as the most relaxed and partying. It is in this region where the most African slaves were brought to. And it is here where the Portuguese culture well mixed with the African one and left the richest folkloric tradition. Besides original and unique cultural traditions, Bahia posses a famous coastline with coral reefs, beaches and year round warmth. It sounds like a paradise –which we haven’t yet experimented much. Lately we have been busy arranging things to settle down – finding a place to live, learning the language, inquiring about residence permits, bank accounts, acquiring a computer and fixing the Internet access. Since then, the computer was fully occupied by us and local kids, spending time playing online games.

We were lucky to find a small room in a big house with a nice family. The house is located on a street in the upper city, with one side having a nice view over the ocean. Unluckily our house is on the opposite side, so we can’t see the sea. We like our street where we live though. It is a part of the old historical town, with streets paved with cobble stones and local people playing or watching the street. The houses of the street still preserve the same outlook, with colourful façades, as they had it some centuries ago. A nice touch to the area is that some houses have façades with peeling paint and some windows or other ornaments missing, while others have been renovated in the last years, making them look overly colourful but maybe similar to what they once looked like. The houses here are now occupied by middle class families and majority are black, like Bahians in general. The working day of the people in this street is short and it reminds of Pirovac and such towns in Dalmatia on the Croatian seaside. As people here don’t work much, but mainly spend their time chatting and raising kids. And they have many kids, who seem to belong to everybody. Children enter any house, play with anybody or go anywhere. People know each other’s stories and lifestyles. It seems to be a really authentic street, lost in time. It feels really relaxed. The blocks near the historical centre are becoming very dependent on tourism, so the majority of inhabitants of the street in one way or another live off of tourists. This way we also got to find the family we stay at. We feel quite safe here, particularly due to the fact that people from the street know everything, and therefore they know us as well. We still hear lots of warnings of thefts, robberies and other crimes in the city. But our neighbourhood keeps pleasantly silent in the evening; while in the night there is only one animal in the neighbourhood who starts to crow “Kikiriki” (kuckeliku) at 3 am in the morning. The dawn starts at 5 am, so he is a bit too early.

The city looks really much more different when you take a bus ride to the commercial and business areas, where streets are crowded by fancy cars, well-dressed people and modern skyscrapers. Further we’ve visited two other types of residential areas. One crowded with people on the street and churches all over, and one mixed area with huge residences and narrow poorer blocks all within 1 km, as well as small offices – and one small computer repair shop where we bought a computer. We are lacking green areas and parks. It seems we will have to satisfy the need of nature by spending time on the beach. For the last week we’ve been trying to learn the local way of life. That means lazy days, lots of cooking, gossiping about and spending time playing with the neighbours and their kids. We’re waiting for the summer to burn away the quick rain showers so we can leave the umbrellas at home and explore more of the city, really enjoy staying on the beach, or do some trips around the district – which probably means bus trips of 450km or so in each direction. Until then we will try to feel at home.

Monday, August 6, 2007

Minas Gerais - the mining region

It s been some time from the last update. Meanwhile, we got to settle down in the capital of Bahia – Salvador. But first we’ll tell about the mining region – Minas Gerais.

From Rio de Janeiro we first stopped in Belo Horizonte for couple of days. The city itself was nothing particularly interesting, but people there seem to enjoy life a lot. We witnessed many spontaneous street parties, people playing samba on improvised instruments and women dancing bare feet. On Saturday night we visited a forró club, popular music and dance, originating in north-eastern Brazil. We found the dance quite passionate, on times even vulgar. It seemed, however, that teenagers at the club mastered it well, spinning and singing a lot. Belo Horizonte is the capital of the region Minas Gerais and was built on behalf of gold hunting demands in 18th and 19th century. Today the city is recognized as a commercial and student metropolis. We had big troubles finding our way in the city, since it was reconstructed in 1890 and throughout the centre it has, apart from horizontal and vertical, also diagonal streets.

Ouro Preto is a small colonial town, close to Belo Horizonte. It used to be the capital of the region, before Belo Horizonte became that. There are still many streets conserved in the way they were built three hundreds years ago. Picturesque façades, tall buildings, narrow streets and colourful doors are all meant for tourists today, while long ago they used to be houses of lucky gold hunters from Europe. We tried to look around for an apartment there since we liked the town in the mountains a lot. It turned to be rather difficult to get hosted there. The town was rather small and therefore had few offers of apartments to rent.

Our one day visit ended with the decision to continue up north to see how we like Salvador before settling anywhere.

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Cidade marvilhosa - Rio de Janeiro

Rio, the famous city, didn't impress us as much as the reputation would suggest. Anyway, we spent a great time there. We visited most touristic locations; our favourites were Corcovado mountain with the huge Christ statue, the "sugarloaf" mountain and the Leme beach.

Rio is nice because of its topography with steep hills just by the sea. The city has grown around the hills, and sometimes it even grew by flattening out some of the smaller ones with the help of bulldozers. We stayed in the city for a week, waiting for better weather. As the rumours say, it is quite unusual with rain in Rio, but obviously we brought the bad weather from Argentina with us. When the sun finally came we spent a whole day walking on the famous beaches of Ipanema, Copacabana and Leblon. There were no crowds, some "cariocas" playing futvolley, soccer and volleyball. Sure, there were also some girls in bikinis and big beefy boys showing their well-tanned bodies. We enjoyed just walking in the sand and playing with big waves.


It was in Rio where we met Maja and Andrei, a friendly couple with whom we spent a couple of days. They wanted to show the beauty and the crime of Rio. It is true that there are robberies on a daily basis, however we felt quite safe. The reason was the Pan-American Games that brough a huge increase in police presence on the streets. And as soon as the games were over we heard news about shooting in some favela.


They say Rio offers excellent night life. We experienced a bit of Bossa Nova bands, Samba clubs and outdoors performance of "jogo", a dance similar to Capoeira but without acrobatics. It looks an African dance of a couple with a lot of spinning in half circles, tambores as instruments and women wearing long coulorful flying skirts.


The streets of Rio offered a pleasant atmosphere, with lots of street vendors, open markets, street bars and relaxed people. The view of the fancy streets differs a lot from the poorer ones, and on the extreme end the favelas with plumbing, water, and electricity arranged by hijacking. One thing that seems to be in common for all the people is the ocean and the beaches.

On one cloudy day we tried to find a geocache hidden on Pao de Acucar (Sugarloaf hill). It is difficult in Brazil to hike wihtout a guide, but following instructions we got to a wild part of the park, with no paths, but with beautiful views on hidden bays and islands around the city. The landscape allows the oceanic climate to meet with hilly one, wich enables a specific flora to grow, so called Mata Atlantica (atlantic forest). Walking in organized parks (this is the only way a tourist can safely experience nature), we saw amazing, big trees, incredible fruits of all shapes and colorful flowers. There are so many fruits in this country that people don't even know the names when we ask. We have tried some (caju, carambola, papaya, coco, chirimoya, small bananas, açai), but mostly we have been enjoying incredible amount of cheap freshly made juices. Simon particularly likes coco water - a fresh and cool water from a green coconut, which they cut open in front of you. We look forward to go up north and try even more exotic fruits.

Monday, July 23, 2007

Back to Brazil

Enough of cold weather – back to Brazil! The road to Curitiba became complicated. Instead of waiting for next day and take a 40h direct ride, we took a chance to go half-way to Posadas and look for another ride there, maybe even the same day. Bad choice. Posadas is right on the way, but few buses stop there and it’s not tourist friendly or organized. Looking for a table in any restaurant during a football game between Argentina and Brazil took place was also really difficult. But we got good food, and Brazil won the American cup with boring 3-0. From Posadas we actually had to go via Iguacu on both sides of the border. We stopped ca 10 times for each town, and also in many villages, picking or dropping people all the way. At last in Foz on the Brazilian side we got lucky and got a last minute ticket on a direct bus to Curitiba within the hour of arriving.


Curitiba
Its true that is has no atmosphere and no long history, with empty streets in the night. However, we really like the city. Particularly because of its generous and very non-crowded parks. Everythings clean and tidy, taxis are nice, streets as good as European. The bad side of this is that some prices are European as well. The city spends a lot of money on maintaining parks and museums, with outdoor museums and smaller museums having free entrance. One park has a zoo with colourful birds and small bouncing monkeys. Another park has sheep with their shepherd, unnamed birds and big fluffy brown somethings – looking a bit similar to inflated guinea pigs. Chinese immigrants serve food, buffet and fast-food almost non-stop. Fruit-juices are good and really cheap. Our fruit-squeezer from Salta is on vacation, but once we figure out the fruit market maybe we’ll take it back to work. One Mercado municipal, an indoors marketplace, offers both known and unknown fruits, all kinds of muesli per kilo, cheese and smaller boutiques with delicacies from the whole world. The dialect in Curitiba is funny – maybe because of the mix of German, Polish, Ukrainian and Italian immigrants as the most representative groups. We also went to Morretes, as the guide book said it was a must. It wasn't too impressive, but we had bad weather so with clear view it could be worth a visit.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Leaving Argentina

Don't cry for us Argentina, and we won't cry for leaving. The country didn't leave any special impression; distances are huge and the landscape varies very little. From all the places we liked Salta and its surroundings the best. We found it easy to travel due to its well-organized bus system and easy-going people. The "latino" stereotype of kids beggin for candies, men whistling for women or trying to talk to every tourist doesn't show in Argentina at all. In general people are polite, strict, and fair. They don't try to give a spiced up price for tourists only, and they also don't want to bargain for a better deal.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

San Juan, Mendoza, Salta

It’s been some time. Meanwhile we got to see San Juan, a small town on the east of Argentina. It is a good base town for a trip to Ischigualasto, known as The Moon Valley. Ischigualasto means dry land. It only gets 100mm rain per year, so its a high mountain desert. On the one day trip, where we made 700km, we met some animals: a posing fox, a shy guinea pig, and the interesting and elegant guanacos - who are among the most adaptable animals, comparable to camels. They get enough water from eating thick leaves and especially juicy is a plant called “cat foot” in the native language. The guanacos live only in the southern parts of the Andean mountain range, which means Chile and Argentina. They are almost extinct because they give nice wool, but at the same time they are not domesticated like lamas or alpacas.
Luckily the day was clear and warm as a result of the Zonda - warm wind from the mountains. It was surprisingly warm for the season, as both the week before and after the area had snow. The valley is a place of paleontological as well as geological interest. It has sediments and fossils from the Triassic period (around 200 million years ago) and the oldest known dinosaur skeletons were found there. However, for us the landscape was the most impressive. The colourful mountains and hills which eroded in interesting ways, sometimes looking like submarines or a sfinx, added spice to the tour. On this trip a policeman hitchhiked with us. He sat in the trunk half the way and kept our speedy driver cool.

In San Juan and the next stop Mendoza we were more laid back. Not because of all the wine production in the region, but mainly because of cold weather. Particularly in Mendoza we felt the need to supply ourselves with warmer clothes. The cold and boring weather prevented us from hiking in the surrounding mountains, which was really our purpose with visiting Mendoza. It is the nearest (tourist-friendly) city to the highest peak Anaconcuagua reaching around 6000m just at the border between Argentina and Chile. The warm Zonda wind was taking a break and snowfall was blocking the mountain roads over to Chile for 3 days. Bored of hanging around in Mendoza, we hurried up north in hope for warmth. Salta, indeed, welcomed us a bit warmer, however far from tropic heat. For this we will need to head to another country.
Salta – is the nicest city we have visited so far. Full of colonial buildings, cute parks but unfortunately also very touristified. As we came to Salta the day before the independence day of Argentina, it was full of local tourists. The city is crowded with tour agencies and there are also several good tourist offices. Tourist come mainly for mountain activities and skiing.

On the national holiday, the 9th of July, we had a great opportunity to see traditional local dresses in a parade just outside of Salta, in a village called Campo Quijano. The bus at 9 in the morning was crowded, and during the day we were the only foreigners there. Even the local radio tracked us down for a chat. We saw hundreds of kids dressed as grown-ups, as well as Gauchos – the herds on horses with red and black ponchos. It didn’t seem that people would proudly celebrate the independence day, but they mainly enjoyed the party and having a day off. In general Argentineans don’t get too passionate about things – neither history nor stuff. But it is true that everybody likes to talk about it, particulary about economical situation, corruption, and about being conservative and resistant to changes. They tend to criticise alot.
We spent two consecutive days in the mountains. The first day we went north of Salta, to the Humahuaca walley and visited Purmamarca. People in the village since recently live out of tourism, but earlier they used to be farmers with a small patch of land and maybe some goats. Their houses are built from adobe bricks (mud dried on sand) and the village streets are not paved. The village has an excellent view over the mountain of seven colours. Different minerals in contact with air leave majestic colours of sand, which from a distance looks like a shining painters palette.
In the same day we ascended to the highest point of our journey at 4220m on the way to the salt desert Salinas Grandes. We felt a bit dizzy because of the hight, but didn’t see any of soroche, the name for altitude sickness.

Salinas grandes reminded us of the value of tasty fresh water. We walked around the big white nothing, stomping salt crystals. Around Salta there were many other attractive places to visit. All of them are in one way or another connected to high mountain desert – puna.

A trip to Cachi – a tiny village on the Altiplano area offered us a nice day with Simona and Dusan, two Slovenes we met the previous day. On the way they were many sighs of wonder heard in the car, when three Slovenes were amazed by the mountains of many colours. In the high peaks we managed to spot a few condors, circling high up looking for possible prey. That day gave us the chance to walk among thousands of cactuses in the national park Cordones. A cactus with sun shining form behind made it look soft because the needles gave a blurry effect. The needles suck water from the air, and that’s good because the ground hasn’t got any water and it “never rains”.

Cafayate
One day we rented a car together with two young Argentineans from our hostel and made a trip to Cafayate, a 70 km long valley of colourful and curious stone formations. Our only driver handled the roads nicely. All over the countryside of Argentina we saw low traffic and straight roads, making it easy to drive. Another nice thing with Argentina is that natural parks are easily accessible.

Saturday, June 30, 2007

Buenos Aires

To clear out the issue with incorrectly entering Brazil, we decided to travel to Argentina next day. Another reason was that we wanted to do some mountain hiking in Argentina before the coldest winter days come. So we got ourselves on the next bus to Buenos Aires (Bs As). Luckily we didn’t have any trouble at all at the border, probably because of the young friendly officer who solved the issue by pretending we hadn’t even entered the country the day before. “With no entry stamp, I can’t give you an exit stamp” he said. We were happy.

The bus ride to Bs As took 15 hours, with many sleep disturbances. The police made the bus stop 5 times during the night to search for drugs, we believe. Once they even brought dogs to sniff around. The bus ticket included a meal, but they didn’t explain anything, but thanks to Polonas good nose we were the first in the restaurant. Two British passengers with limited Spanish knowledge almost missed the dinner.

The bus terminal in Buenos Aires happened to be the biggest anybody would imagine, with 99 gates that were more than half-full all the time. We arrived at 8 am wearing sandals and shorts, and noticed the outside temperature was 7° cold. Well inside the station building we added jackets and wind-pants, and went looking for tourist info. Soon we got “picked up” by a messenger for the local youth hostels, who convinced us with an offer with good location, price and dinners included.

After checking in we went downtown to find the Sunday arts & crafts market in San Telmo. Polona started feeling more “at home” from understanding the language, and memories from her Peru stay came back to mind. But compared to Peru, here are much fewer poor people visible – and it didn’t seem like police would have just “hid” them away. The 3 million habitants of Bs As, called Porteños, are in general very respectful – which is taken to its extreme when they queue for a popular bus line or in front of a bank. Several queues stretched a whole block. People are very happy and cheerful and always wait or walk around to not block the view when photographing. We felt like they treated us really well, sometimes even believing we were locals. Along the streets we saw people selling just anything, performing or even giving away free hugs – which is actually a quite famous international campaign. We also found some freezing tango dancers who danced for tips.

The second day was spent walking the recommended “to be seen” streets. Near the Congress we found a group of retired militaries protesting to free some prisoners from a war of Malvinas/Falklands islands. We saw them again while resting on Avenida 9 de Julio which is the biggest city street in the world. It has 22 lanes plus pedestrian space, in total 140 metres wide! It’s easy to orientate the well marked streets and once we passed a small street “Republica de Eslovenia” (Slovenian republic).

We liked the city because of colourful streets of La Boca, street art, its people and the small nice town Tigre. It lies just an hour north of the city centre in the middle of the river delta of Rio de la Plata. That is where we spent the last few hours before heading to the Andes!

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Prvi dnevi v Braziliji

Simon in Polona
Koncno sva letela v Brazilijo! Let je bil enostaven. V sao Paolu sva pridno izpolnila vse uradne formularje na carini. Na koncu pa jih uradniki niti pogledali niso. Ruzaka sta naju k sreci ze cakala; prispela sta en dan prej. Iz S.P. sva hitro pobegnila s prvim busom do Foz do Iguacu - do znamenitih slapov. Voznja do tja je trajala 15 ur, a je bila kratkocasna. Starejsa invalidna gospa nas je celo pot zabavala s svojimi zgodbicami. Ful veliko potuje in je navajena vozenj z busom, saj invalidom voznje ni treba placati. Naju je se posebej zabavala, ker naju je celo pot razvajala s hrano in sladkarijami. Na koncu se je celo povabila k nama v Evropo na obisk :). K sreci bus ni bil poln, da je imela dovolj prostora zase in nestete vrece, polne hrane.

Zgodnje jutro, po prihodu v Foz do Iguacu, sva izkoristila za urejanje prvih zadev - poceni prenocisce, prevoz in organiziran ogled lokalnih zanimivosti. Po treh dneh potovanja se je mala sobica z udobnimi posteljami zdela kot raj. Kasneje tistega popoldneva sva si ogledala najvecjo hidroelektrarno na svetu Itaipu. To je skupen projekt Paragvajcev in Brazilcev, ustanovljen leta 1975. Elektrarna proizvede 14GW energije, kar pokrije 90% potreb Paragvaja in 25% Brazilije. Ime Itaipu v Guarani indijanscini pomeni pojoca skala, izhajajoc iz hrupa padajoce vode. Naju je bolj kot sama elektrarna prevzel trud, ki ga podjetje usmerja v zmanjsanje negativnih posledic na okolje zaradi prisotnosti elektrarne.

Prvi dan sva zakljucila z vecerjo; se vedno imava tezave z narocanjem hrane, ker ne poznava lokalnih specialitet, ne brazilskih imen za tipicno hrano. Morala bi preziveti vec casa z lokalci, ampak sva zaenkrat se prevec zasedena s privajanjem na novo okolje in zivljenjem kot turista.

Naslednja dva dneva sva prezivela v naravnem parku Iguacu, pri slapovih. Oba sva bila ocarana nad igro narave , kjer na treh km vec kot 200 slapov buta 80m globoko. Fantasticno. Poleg tega je park poln pticev, barvitih metuljev, neznanih sesalcev in tropskih roz. Park lezi na meji med Argentino in Brazilijo, zato sva ga obiskala z obeh strani. Brazilska stran ponuja lepsi pogled na cel sistem slapov, bolj osebno dozivetje in vec zivali. Iz argentinske strani pa sva prisla blizje vodi, mogocnemu hrupu in fantasticnemu obcutku padajoce vode. Iguacu slapovi so po besedah vodica lepsi od bolj znanih Victoria in Niagara falls. Zares fenomenalno dozivetje!

Za dodatno razburljivo dozivetje je poskrbelo dejstvo, da sva morala preckati Ag.- Br. mejo. Pri tem sva imela smolo, ker nisva dobro poznala sistema. Pri izstopu iz Brazilije sva tako preplacala voznjo z busom, nazaj grede pa zaradi neresnega voznika busa pozabila urediti formalnosti na meji. Primerno sva zapustila Argentino, a neuradno preckala mejo z Brazilijo. Tako sva trenutno "Nikjer".

First days in Brazil

On the flight we made friends with a japanese who was happy to photograph us. When we landed in Sao Paolo we noticed that our huge airplane was not the biggest Beside ours was parked a two-floor plane. We dutifully filled in all the paperework, which was then dutifully ignored by customs staff. The luggage was waiting for us for one day already. We didn´t tour around SP; we quickly ran for the next destination. We took the first bus to Iguacu water falls which meant another night without proper beds. The ride took 15 hours and it was extremely joyful due to an amusing old invaild lady from SP. She traveled a lot, as disabled people pay nothing for buses. The whole bus, including the drivers, was dying out of laughter when she was telling stories. She adopted us, gave us food for the whole trip and invited herself to visit us in Europe :). Luckily the bus was half-empty, so she had enought of space to fit herself as well as her numerous bags (of food?). Simon already likes traveling by buses because of good seats and nice air temperature - now in the winter season at least. Arriving early in Iguacu, we used the morning to gather information. Meanwhile we got a hostel booked, transportation arranged and a promise for a guided tour. After three days of travel, a tidy room with comfortable beds was true relaxation for us. Later that afternoon we visited the Itaipu power plant - 14GW continuously, by the means of 20 turbines which are jointly owned by Brasil and Paraguay - "Itaipu Binacional". Those 14GW covers 90% of the needs of Paraguay (and they have even more water power upstream) and 25% of the needes of enormous Brasil. The name Itaipu comes from the Guarani indian language and means singing rock, because of noises from the waterfalls. Noises that were heard in old times -- before the dam was built. The massive concrete construction built in 7 years, finished 1975, didn´t impress us as much as the effort put into counter the negative side effects of the dam. It was difficult to see what was propaganda and what was true, as they chose their statistical measures and frames to give the best result. Upstream of the dam used to be another set of beautiful water falls that almost got the countries into war in the past. The dam construction flodded those waterfalls and ended the land dispute there.
The first day we finished with dinner. We still have problems ordering the right type and amount of food, as we are not familiar with local specialties nor the common words of typical dishes. We would like to spend more time with local people, but so far we've been too busy getting used to the country and doing tourist things. Next two days we spent in the nearby Iguacu natural park watching waterfalls, birds and butterflies. The park lies just on the "border river" between Brazil and Argentina. That why we visited from both sides. The Br. side gives gives a majestic overview of the system of more than 200 waterfalls. We enjoyed the view and lack of tourists at a viewtower. The river Igacu is 2km wide and offers a varying play of nature. From Argentinian side we got a close feeling of the falls, coming up close on both the upper and lower side of the falls. The Ar. side also allowed us to come just above where water falls 80m down into a chaos that completely hides how deep it is. We liked both sides. Brasilian for its mature organization -although a bit overdue with regard to repairs. Ar. side was more confused and artistic, with much more butterflies, bees (in our food), guinea pigs (?, morski prasicki) and less "coaties" that would try to steal food and dive in trash cans.
The majestic water falls are made up by volcanic matter that slowly covered the soil and formed a hard "mattress". Later a second "mattress" came on top. Erosion then removed the non-volcanic matter, forming the falls in two layers, plus an island in the middle.

Adventure
Passing the border to the Ar. side brought an interesteing adventure. Only five of us on the bus needed paperwork for border crossing, and the bus couldn't wait. We werer supposed to get some paper from the driver, to be able to enter a later bus without paying again. Our companions had such a paper. But for us the new driver couldn't take our word, so we paid again. In Brasilian Reals - but we know now that Ar. Pesos are 30-40% lower valued and prices are always set "equally" at 3 R$ / 3 Pesos. Including the 4 Reais paid in vain at the "local main bus station", the morning bus trip cost 16 R$. The way home cost only 6 R$, partly maybe because the bus went directly and even forgot to let us do paperwork for re-entering Brasil. So we are already "nowhere".

Monday, June 18, 2007

Zürich

The flight to Brazil passed through Zurich, where we needed to wait for 26 hours. Somehow we didn't think especially how to spend a day in Zürich, but since our hand luggage was prepared for 3 days of "survival", the only things we really missed were sunblock and some local currency (CHF) to buy some food and 2-way tickets into town. We exchanged 30EUR and went downstairs looking for the subway "S-bahn".

7am. Rainy. We circled the building and found stairs around the corner from were we had started searching. The ticket seller sold Tageskarte (valid 24h for two zones) for 12CHF per Karte. Quite a lot - and probably it couldn't really get cheaper. Already doubling the planned daily "allowance", we paid by card. At the main station, we bought excellent breakfast: yoghurt and bread, which we ate in the lobby of a consulate of some island kingdom with a Welsh-sounding name. Zürich is nice! As Petter from Sandviken said, you're the most impressed in the beginning of a trip. Zürich felt spacey and not at all crowded. Maybe just low tourist season? We slept 2h by the lake, moving twice because of polite requests, and got to see the whole (?) street-cleaning force. Every hour a new cleaning truck, trash-picking team or similar passed by. Maybe it was the after-weekend cleanup.

2pm. Looking for chinese food, a nice retired man suggested us to try the self-service buffet of nearby Migros Restaurant. Looking like a German highway restaurant; and 2,60 seemed cheap but not strange, but it turned out they bill per 100g. That explains why it was filled with gray people with small plates. Another 40CHF (ca 25EUR) spent, also paid by card.Our cash money also lasted for one ice-cream, and at the airport a couple of Toblerone (Swiss, they say). While waiting for the flight we had a chat with our neighbour from the previous night - a wrinkled French woman who probably lived in the airport. She enjoyed telling us how to make the sofas more comfortable. We also saw her boil eggs and quick-soup.

Zürich

Na poti do Brazilije sva prezivela 26 ur v Zurichu. Se k sreci, da sva imela nekaj nujnih stvari spakiranih pri sebi, ker je sla prtlaga direkt v Sao Paulo. Ceprav nama je bilo sprva receno, da jo v Zurichu dobiva ven. In zato sva v Zurichu pogresala samo nekaj frankov in soncno kremo.Po preziveti noci na letaliscu sva zjutraj odsla v mesto. zmenjala sva "samo" 30 CHF, v upanjo da bo zadostovalo za dnevno potepanje. Vendar sva samo za karti za S-bahn do centra zapravila 24 CHF. Dnevni budget se je s tem ze podvojil!!!Zurich nama je bil vsec. Zdi se prostorn, odprt. Brez prevec ljudi in gnece. Pomanjkanje spanca sva nadoknadila v parkih ob jezeru. Dvakrat sva bila prijazno pregnana. A parkov v tem mestu res ne primanjkuje. Za kosilo sva si zazelela poceni kitajske hrane, a po priporocilu starejsega gospoda pristala v samopostreznem buffetu. nevede sva si nalozila zvrhane kroznike, saj nisva pricakovala, da se placa po tezi hrane :(. To naju je stalo naslednjih 40 CHF. Sicer prijazno in lepo mesto. Skoda le da je tako drago.Simona so predvsem osupnila red in redno ciscenje ulic. Veckrat so naju cistilci zmotili pri najinem zaspanem pohajkovanju po mestu. Na letaliscu pred odhodom v Brazil, sva se sprijateljila s starejso Francozinjo, ki je zivela na letaliscu. Precej cudna in odstekana. Tam je na gorilniku kuhala jajca in instant juho. Bila je ze precej udomacena in prejsno noc nama je svetovala, kako si pripravit lezalnika karseda udobno.

Friday, June 15, 2007

First try not successful

We should have departed yesterday. Should have – and we didn't. We started our trip to the Venice airport well in time, but 30 km before the destination we got into a 6-hours traffic jam because of a truck accident. The rumors told about a chemical leakage. Ineffective Italian highway personnel didn’t arrange a detour, neither a proper communication. We simply just drove into a traffic jam and were soon surrounded by kilometers of local natives. Even though we tried to walk, hitchhike and patiently wait, we couldn’t make it at the end. We arrived to the airport just to see the plane in the air. What a disappointment!!! We were completely down and angry about the inefficiency and ignorance at the highway and in the airport. At 8pm almost all offices were closed and nowhere to get information. Our hope to reach Brazil was almost drowned in tears and despair.
We were disappointed and exhausted on the way back to Ljubljana and cursed the supposedly Italian way of managing things.
Next day we woke up with blank heads. It was unbelievable to think that our adventure had finished before it eventually started. In hope for a promising solution, we went to the travel agency, where we had bought the flight tickets. And here we announce that the helpful agent at the Kompas agency managed to arrange new flight tickets!!! They were very helpful and professional and created a solution with Swiss Air, who had had more customers lost in the same traffic jam. We’re sending some thoughts for those others. Kompas found us a new flight 2 days later without complicating and with very small additional cost. And now we are happy and full of adrenalin again. We only hope that the Slovene proverb “the third time it the successful one” doesn’t hold for our situation and we will be in Brazil already next time we try, the 17th of June.

Prvi poskus neuspesen

Včeraj bi morala odleteti. Bi morala in nisva. Do letalisca v Benetkah smo se pravocasno odpravili, vendar 30 km pred ciljem naleteli na 6-urni zastoj. Zaradi nesrece na avtocesti. Mende se je razlila cisterna z nevarnimi kemikalijami. In nesposobni Italijani niso uredili obvoza, ne obvescanja. Enostavno samo v guzvo smo se pripeljali. Ceprav sva tri ure zavzeto poskusala pesaciti, štopati in potrpezljivo cakati, nama na koncu ni uspelo priti pravocaso. Na letalisce sva prispela, ko je bilo letalo ze na pisti. :((. Kaksno razocaranje!!!! Italijanska neucinkovitost in ingnoranca sta naju dokoncno potrla. Nobenega nadomestnega leta, novih vozovnic; pisarne zaprte, informacije nepopolne. Upanje na odhod v Brazilijo je skoraj utonilo v solzah in obupu.
Razocarano, razburjeno in izcrpano smo se pocasi vrnili nazaj v Lj. Preklinjali smo Italijane, njihovo ignoranco, neprijaznost in predvsem nesposobnost.
Danes sva se zbudila s praznima glavama. Neverjetno je bilo pomisliti, da se je podvig koncal se pred zacetkom. V upanju na dobrodoslo resitev sva se oglasila na Kompasu, kjer sva bila kupila propadle let. karte. In tukaj naglas sporočava, da nama je prijazni in zavzet Kompasov agent uspel urediti nove karte!!! Prijazno in profesionalno. Brez kompliciranja, z majnšim doplačilom. In sva spet srečna in polna zagona! Upava le, da slovenski pregovor " v tretje gre rado" ne drzi, in nama bo že v nedeljo, 17.6., uspelo.

Monday, June 11, 2007

Rakitna

Rakitna in all seasons.
Here are some pictures from Rakitna. We kind of miss it.

Close up

Just before the final departure we made a quick jump to Sweden. To pack and say goodbye. And to arrange some other things. Of course, to enjoy the late spring as well.

It's getting a bit tighter now. Some things are getting piled up, while backpacks have been emptied from the previous trip. Soon they will be the only property we have.
The opportunity of travelling light makes me feel so relaxed. It's kind of funny thing with travelling; more you do, less you need to bring. And one more thing that I recently discovered - I am not fond of travelling anymore; it's bizzare. Polluting only for the sake of pleasure? It doesnt give me an authentic satisfaction any longer. I rather integrate in a society and live a life of locals. We gonna do that.

Blizu

close up
close up
spring flowers up north
Pred glavnim odhodom sva hitro skočila še na Švedsko. Da spakirava in se posloviva. In urediva še par stvari, hkrati pa še uživava pozno pomlad.
Bliža se. Nekatere stvari se že kopičijo in ruzaka sta že izpraznjena od prejšnjega izleta. Kmalu bosta to edina najina lastnina. Dejstvo o potovanju brez odvečne prtljage me vedno na nek način sprosti. V bistvu je s potovanji nekaj smešnega - več kot potuješ, manj stvari potrebuješ s seboj.
Ugotovila sem, da nisem več navdušena nad klasičnim potovanjiem. Ne maram onesnaževati zgolj zaradi zadostitve užitku. Raje se vpletem v novo družbo in tam živim. Na tak način bova midva potovala.

Monday, May 7, 2007

Zadnji dnevi

Samo še nekaj dni in greva. V bistvu je bila odločitev že nekaj let v zraku, samo datuma nisva točno vedela. Niti destinacije.
Ok, no, zato zadnje dni Polona šiba in ureja vse potrebno. Simon, kot vedno, pa umirjeno in odsotno spremlja. Na koncu bo na poti ugotovil, da je pozabil stornirati račun, podaljšati dokumente ali bilo kaj. Ampak, ni panike, še vedno sva uspela.
Mimogrede, s Tino sem se pogovarjala o tem podvigu. Blazno me zanima, kako bo šlo. To je kao nek predporočni test, v smislu " no da vidimo ali nama gre". In tam bo on na vse pretege planiral, jaz pa bom na izi. Vidiš, scena se bo potem obrnila. :) Pa še malo šibajmo!

Last days


Few more days, and we will be off. It has been on the wall for the last few years, so it was only the question of when.
So, Polona is hurrying to arrange all the errands, while Simon is, as usual, relaxed and in his thoughts. On the trip itself he will remember to prolong his health insurance, withdraw money or just arrange The things... Yah, no worries, we always manage. Btw, I have been discussing with Tina about The trip. And I am curios how will it all go. In a way it is kind a prewedding "lets see if this goes" trip. And on the spot he will try to organize well in advance, I will be relaxed. Now, you can see the situation will be switched. :) Lets hurry!