boat tagged posts

In America, Brazil, Nordeste 2003 On  15/11/2003  No comments

I arrived in Canoa Quebrada really tired because I had spent the night in a bus coming from Jericoacoara and early morning I got another bus to Canoa. I had some food and went to the hotel to change clothes, put on a bikini. Getting there I looked at the bed and couldn’t resist, I slept a few hours.

In the afternoon I went to the beach. I walked a little and sat down under the shade in a bar. I had fish, fruit juices and some sea baths. There everybody looked relaxed, some talking, others reading, sleeping or sun bathing. To me it was wonderful, I was tired, given that the last days I had walked a lot and my knee was hurting. It was great to relax a bit and be surrounded by relaxed people…

At night I walked around town looking for a place to have dinner. They all looked good, what made my choice hard. I end up having Italian food as here there is a lot of Italians (tourists and residents), that means, a great possibility of having good Italian food. Seafood pasta, it was delicious...

In America, Brazil, Nordeste 2003 On  06/11/2003  No comments

I got in Natal late evening and booked a buggy tour for next day. The tour, to the north coast, was arranged with a young couple from Pernambuco (another state in the northeast of Brazil). They, Juliana and Leonardo, had been in honeymoon in Natal for a week.

The guide, Jean, took us to the white sand dunes of Genipabu. It was like a roller coaster; we drove up and down really fast on the walls of sand. It seems that any time we would overturn. Here they always ask if people want the tour with emotion or without. The difference is that, with emotion, they drive faster and higher, activating your adrenaline. The other one is a bit more behaved, but also a little scary.

We stopped on the top of some dunes in Genipabu to enjoy the view of the lagoon and the beach. Leonardo decided to hide a dromedary for some minutes. From there we went north, always driving on the sand. We stopped for a sea bath and continued to Pitangui Lake...

In Spain, Traveled places, Cycling & Diving in Catalonia 2003 On  13/07/2003  2 comments

Liked the experience of a weekend by the beach that I decided to repeat, this time I went to Palamós . I left Barcelona early in the morning and as soon as I got in Palamos I went straight to the dive center. We arranged the equipment and went by boat to “Cuevas del Eden Rock”, a dive site with caves. We went into 3 different caves. For me it was good that in the caves we could see the way out. Since I am claustrophobic that it is very important. It gives me the ideas I am not tied up. As I know myself I didn’t stay too long inside the caves, I went into and out to the other site pretty fast, small places really bother me.

After the dive I had lunch, went to the hotel to leave my stuff and went to
the beach to take a nap. Great! I slept with the sounds of the sea. By the end of the afternoon I walked by the beach. I stopped to see a huge group of men and women dancing “Sardana”, the typical dance from Catalonia.

It impressed me a lot here is the huge number of seniors...

In Europe, Traveled places, Turquia 2002 On  22/09/2002  One comment

One of the reasons to come to Turkey was to relax on the beach on sunny days. I chose Bodrum to do that. When I got there I was homesick. I missed the white sand beaches from Brazil. There wasn’t a sand beach but a pebble one, not comfortable to lay down.

I spend a day diving. I haven’t been diving for more than a year and I really need to. The dives were great, not for what I saw but for the fact of being underwater again. This make me happy. I decided I have to dive more often. I liked to see that in the boat there were many Turkish couples diving. It wasn’t like in some Asian countries that I had been diving and in the boat there was only foreigners. When I see local people also diving I have the feeling that they are also enjoying their country, not leaving only to the foreigners.

Next day I visited the castle in Bodrum. It houses the museum of marine archeology. I imagined the archeologist’s work diving and finding objects lost 2000 year ago. It must be incredible...

In Asia, Europe, Turquia 2002 On  20/09/2002  One comment

Once again I arrived in a new country with sore throat. Since I was really tired I decided to sleep the whole morning. In the afternoon I left the hostel to see the city. My lunch costed 7 millions, I realized it would be difficult to get used with the amount of zeros on the Turkish lira bills. The waiter told me to be careful in order to not be cheated. He said it is common to trick tourists that aren’t used with the money. I asked if I should be careful with him. He answered: “NO, not me. I’m talking about the others. I’m honest”.

I visited the Aya Sofia, a church constructed in 532 and during years it was the biggest in the world. There were times that its mosaics were covered because the Islamism prohibited the images. Today it works as a museum. The place is impressive…

After I went to see the Blue Mosque, a mosque constructed in the beginning of the seventeenth century. Its towers and domes made it the most famous one in Istanbul. The tourists enter through the side door...

In Asia, Europe, Turquia 2002 On  19/09/2002  One comment

I was invited by a travel agency to do a tour in Gallipoli (Gelibolu in Turkish), I would go with two more Australian girls. We left early in the morning since the place is far away. After two hours driving we stopped to have breakfast and continued to Gallipoli. We did a quick stop in the small city, we saw the port and continued to the war museum.

This area is known to be a good defense place in Turkey. It is a peninsula easy to regulate the ships going in and out. The most important historical event was during the World War I when many Australians and New Zealanders (Anzac – Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) died. They landed on the wrong place and were vanished by the Turkish army who was waiting on the top of the hill. For me what it is interesting here it is the amount of monuments, cemeteries and museum commemorative to the world war I. Every few kilometers there is a monument explaining the war. They even have trenches on exhibition...

In Europe, Eastern Europe 2002 On  16/07/2002  No comments

One of the most incredible places here is the subway “metro”. There is the largest and deepest escalator I’ve ever seen. I looks like we are going down into a big hole. The decoration is all from the 50s. There are some stations that are totally closed, dark. You don’t see when the train is coming, there are iron doors that open only when you can board in. It gives a claustrophobia feeling, the walls are thick and the iron doors always closed. It reminded me the film “The Cube”. Some people told me that the doors and thick walls are due to the pressure from the river and canals above.

I decided to visit Peterhof, a palace with nice gardens and lots of water fountains. If before I compared St. Petersburg to Paris, Peterhof is their version of Versalles. After an hour squeezed in a bus I got to the palace. The line to get in the museum was huge, it reminded me what it is to travel in Europe during the summer. I spend a few hours waking around the gardens...

In America, Bolivia 2001 On  25/07/2001  One comment

After some weeks blocking the roads to Copacabana, farmers decided to open the roads for 10 days, as a negotiation period. I arrived in the city late afternoon; I left my backpack in the hotel and went to see the sunset in the Titicaca lake. Beutiful, relaxing…

Next day, I made a boat tour to the islands. First we visit the north part of Isla del Sol, it was two and a half hours by boat. We had only two hours to visit the place, it was not much time. One option would be  to walk quickly to the ruins or second, to enjoy the landscape photographing but not seeing everything. I opted for the second.

From there we went by boat to the central part of the island, where there is an etymologic museum. A complete waste of time. The museum had almost nothing and it took 45min to get there by boat. Then took us one more hour by boat to go to Isla la Luna. There we walked quickly to the ruins, we took photos and it was already time to go back...

In America, Bolivia 2001 On  23/07/2001  No comments

The trip to Rurrenabaque was long. First I caught a transport (to go on foot, pressed, in the trunk of a pick-up truck) to Yolosa. From there, I got a bus to Rurre (it is how they call Rurrenabaque here). We arrive there really early, at 5am, and we stayed sleeping in the bus waiting to day light up. When we woke up, we were to get our backpacks from roof of the bus and the backpack of a Scottish guy had been stolen. There are lots of robberies stories around here… I went to the hotel, I took a shower and an excellent breakfast in a restaurant close by. I confirmed my tour to the following day and spend the rest of the day doing nothing. It was happy in being in a hot place. Sometimes the cold tires me off.

The tour was a disaster. We left 2 hours late, then travel 4 hours to a small town called Santa Rosa. After waiting a long time for the food, that they did not have enough, we left for 3 more hours by boat in the river Yacuma to the campsite...

In America, Peru 2001 On  01/06/2001  One comment

I arrived in Trujillo at 4am. As I was the only person to get off the bus that was going to Lima, once again, I suffered the fight of taxi drivers for my backpack. This time I got a little scared because I was not in a bus terminal, I was alone in a dark street. I decided not to argue and let them fight to decide who was going to take me. Well, the louder one earned.

To visit the ruins I didn’t want to get a tour, I decided to go by myself. In the morning I visited the Huacas del Sol y de la Luna. It is not known if they really were temples of the sun and moon. The name was given by the Spaniard when they arrived in the place and they thought these were Inca constructions. They did not know these were constructions from the Moche period, from hundreds of years before Incas.

Only one of the temples is opened to visits. I could see the different rooms, the sacrifice place and where they had found ceramic, skeletons and objects in gold, silver and copper...