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Standing at the edge of the waterfall…
Standing at the edge of the waterfall and I give a step forward! All my body muscles tense up as if to hold me up in the air. The cold water is the least of my concerns right now as down the 33 meters waterfall there are only rocks. Adrenaline warms up my arteries like water boiling in a kettle. The rope tightens up around my waist and stops me from falling any further. With my legs straight, I stand at a 90º angle facing up. I was told how to control the rope with my right hand, but I am scared I might loosen it too quick and fall.…
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From Recife to Olinda…
From Recife to Olinda it is only a short drive away. The people from Recife say “what Olinda has best is the view over Recife“. In matter of fact the view is awesome but the colonial town has much of it’s own personality and a strong portuguese influence in the architecture of the houses and churches. Alto da Sé is Olinda’s main square, located on the crest of the town’s highest hill and here is where we set base to explore the surroundings… Olinda also hosts one of the most famous Carnival celebrations of Brazil, dancing away colorfully dressed in the rhythm of frevo and maracatu. Well, before leaving Olinda, if you…
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Buda-Pest – one city, two personalities
How could Buda exist without Pest?! Walking around the two sides of the Danube river it is like being in two different cities. Buda has as many hills as wealth, glamour and historical elegance. Pest is as flat as crowded, buzzing and modernly elegant. So different and yet, I feel that the two personalities complement each other in a subtle way that made me fall in love the moment I landed in Budapest. I visited Budapest back in the end of the summer’12. My friend Pedro was living there and so he shown me around. Sadly, the city still has deep marks from the second world war and from the…
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LISBON – GATE 101 – GATE CLOSED!
I am going to miss my flight!!!! This thought hits me like the final verdict. It is the 14th of January 2012. It’s my father’s birthday and the first time I’m going home after working over Christmas at the hospital! This though resounds in my head and I visualize the events of today, what went wrong?! …. 9h45 – I arrive home from my last and hectic 3rd night shift in a row. In a normal day I would have gone to sleep and woken up at 8pm with an upside down sleep pattern. But today I have a flight at 5h10pm and I still have to pack the big luggage with all the…
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Takeoff…
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Times Square for advert LOVERS like me – video
Times Square is bubbling with life day and night, but what captivated me the most were the adverts…
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It’s inspiring, It’s New York
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It’s inspiring, It’s New York
“This streets will make you feel brand new” and will make you feel like you are walking in a movie scene. In a city where there are as many city lights as people, the magic happens. From lower Manhattan to Upper East Side, we walked the streets with curious eyes, moving from China Town to Chelsea, from shopping to parks, admiring the royalty of the skyscrapers and absorbing the atmosphere of what’s going on at ground level. It is hectic, an organized kinda hectic. It’s inspiring. It is New York. Every morning we were woken by the first rays of sun coming through the bedroom window in our Brooklyn flat. We rented this…
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Times Square for advert LOVERS like me – video
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A walk in Monaco…
When visiting my friends in Nice, south of France in May 2013, we went to Monaco for a walk 🙂 FACT: Monaco is the second smallest country in the world with 2km² (only beaten by the Vatican City)!
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A Portuguese living in GLASGOW and a list of lessons
Hey hey! It has been ONE YEAR living in GLASGOW. Where does the time go?! Here is a list of what it has taught me: 1 – There is no such thing as “couple of drinks” 2 – And “I only had a few drinks”, means you had 8! 3 – My heart is terrified of a deep fried Mars bar. 4 – Everybody loves beer, but no one really likes Tennent’s lager. 5 – Blootered, hammered, steamin’, plastered and just plain pished… all these words mean “drunk”. 6 – The winter lasts 355 days of the year. 7 – Off those 355, 15 days you don’t drive: you slide…
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Meet my camel… Kammy!
For those of you who are thinking that I got a deal and swapped my boyfriend for a camel, the answer is no. Hahah But Kammy is very charming! Every time he gets up I fear I’m going to land on my face, so I have to lean back firmly because when he stands up with the back legs first, he throws me forward before I am thrown up in the air. And he is pretty tall! 20km from the Algerian border, in the Erg Chebbi Dunes in Sahara desert, our berber guide ties the camels to each other in a line and guides the first camel with the others following him. We are…
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Camels on the road!!!!
As morning broke my sleepy eyes were greeted with a surprise as I looked out of our window, our Riad was located next to the massive wall of a mountain. When we arrived last night it was pitch black and we couldn’t see much beyond the Riad, so I was shocked to see such an impressive sight in the daylight. Oh it is time! Ibrahim welcome us with a big smile! Quickly we get back on the road, today is the second day of our road trip to the desert! After a brief stop at the monkey finger’s mountain and looking over the big city of Tinghir, we approach the Todra Gorge. It is…
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On the way to the desert I found a Disney city…
On the way to the desert there are mountains to be crossed, middle-of-no-where-roadside-persistent vendors to face, movie-sets to explore, nomadic berber families to meet, their camels to adore, a few quite big cities built in the middle of a deserted land to pass, a night in a countryside riad, more tangine to eat and moroccan tea to drink… among others. It is a 600km journey divided in 2 days, driven by our guide Ibrahim, whose favorite phrase is: “No problem!” (in his moroccan accent!) Love it! “Do you want to stop here? No problem!” Ibrahim says. We left Marrakech 3 hours ago and we are now passing through a little village that…
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Streets of Marrakech
In the dusty streets of Marrakech checking twice to cross the road isn’t enough. You even have to watch yourself on the side walks as motorbikes and donkey chariots move on to it to skip the traffic jam.
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Once upon a time, a Sultan…
Once upon a time, a Moroccan Sultan was murdered as he was planning an alliance against the Ottomans (the Turkish Empire). His son, Abdallah al-Ghalib, took over and was planning to eliminate his own brothers too, so they had to run away under protection of the Ottoman Empire, their names were Al-Malik and Al-Mansur. After 17 years al Ghalib died and his son Abdallah Mohammed took over the power. His sultanate only lasted for 2 years as his uncle al-Malik returned with the help of Ottoman forces and conquered the Moroccan throne. Mohammed was feeling lost but he wasn’t going to give up on the throne so easily! So he went…
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Marrakech – Jemaa El Fna
What a vibrant square, Jemaa El Fna! At day light there are a considerable amount of orange stalls to choose from, acrobatics, fortune tellers, henna painters, little monkeys, snake charmers, people walking trying to sell you glasses, mobile phones, paints, …; people who just wonder and people who just stare and if you are lucky you will also find a man who uses a scale to make his business (bless him!). One of the best ways to observe the square is to find a seat in one of the many panoramic restaurants around the square… and well, we are hungry! We entered a busy one, called Snack N’Zaha and climbed to…
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Souks, the Art of Bargaining
Michael grabs my arm to push me to the side. I turn around and the motorbike speeds so close to us, I could actually smell the sweat of the driver. The streets in the Souks couldn’t be any smaller and despite some signs forbidding the traffic of motorbikes and cyclists, the rule doesn’t seem to apply to Moroccans. I think if cars could fit, they would drive short cuts through the souks too. You even find donkeys walking these alleyways, with or without carriages, stocked up as high as it is possible to balance. Lorena, our host in the first Riad, said she has been knocked down a few times on these streets. Gotta…
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