walk tagged posts

Toubkal, second day

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For our second day at the Atlas Mountains we had a big walk scheduled: about 14 km/4 hour uphill trek to the passage to the next valley.  After breakfast, we packed our cameras and headed out of the Riad.

We started the walk following the main road. The outskirts of Imlil were busy with locals going on their day-to-day tasks as well as fellow trekkers.  The grey of the houses made the multicolored carpets on sale appear even more attractive. For a brief time, we found ourselves following the tracks of a group of British teenagers that were clearly going in the same direction that us but we let them go ahead so they didn’t spoil the peacefulness of our walk.

After a short time we got to a shortcut, a dry riverbed that would lead us to the middle of a small village. The walk became harder, more uphill, but it also gave us a new look into the life of the Berber people. It was as if we were backstage, watching their lives unfolding before us...

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Toubkal, first day

kb_ma15_0046Invited by Mustapha of Atlas and Sahara Tours, Karla and I started our Morocco trip getting to know the Atlas mountains. So after a night’s sleep in a budget hotel in Marrakech’s Medina, we got to our pick up point twenty minutes earlier than scheduled and were pleasantly surprised to find our driver Brahim already waiting for us. After a short introduction, we got into his brand new SUV and headed to Imlil, at the heart of the Toubkal National Park.

Shortly after leaving the city, the road crossed olive plantations, the main product in the region surrounding Marrakech, and started climbing as we drove through Tahnaout and Ansi. Two hours later we arrived at the village of Imlil and the gorgeous Riad Jnane Imlil.

Berber hospitality, a centuries old tradition, was honored by our hosts: mint tea was waiting for us on a terrace with a breathtaking view of the snow covered mountains...

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Antigua and Pacaya

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I wanted to visit Antigua because of Pacaya volcano. It was in my imaginary this Guatemalan small town surrounded by active volcanoes. I had in my mind the image of colorful houses and the triangular mountain in the background. Unfortunately, it was not easy to see this image because there was a lot of fog. Antigua reminded me the images of Licancabur volcano, one can see it from almost everywhere in San Pedro Atacama.

Even though without Pacaya in the background, I loved Antigua. A small town, organized, grounded with cafes, cultural activities and good restaurants. I spent my days walking around, stopping in one café or another, reading, photographing. I enjoy reading in cafes.

On my last day I decided to do a trekking tour to climb Pacaya. We left the hotel around 5 am. When we where picking up everybody, far away I saw the volcano, timidly appearing on the fog. I asked the driver to stop the van so we could enjoy the landscape and take a photo...

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Cape Tribulation


Another great day trip out of Cairn is Cape Tribulation. Actually, I don’t recommend it as a day tour, the best way is to stay a night over there to enjoy the forest, all agencies give you that option of staying over and getting back with the next day tour.

Our guide, Peter, was very funny; with him I learnt “no worries, let’s keep going”. During the trip he explained us about the sugar industry, as this part of Queensland is a big producer of sugar cane. He mentioned me all the time during the tour since (for him) I was one of the “competitors” in the sugar market.

We stopped a few times for lookout and had some walks on the forest. Here again, it is very neat. The path is very well constructed, wooden made, beautiful and they scare you to not wander around, you are not allowed to walk outside the path, otherwise dangerous things will get you. One is a plant that will make you itch for 6 months.

It is a beautiful rain forest, some of the trees are similar with the ones in...

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Daintree Rainforest

Everything is so organized here that there are special delimited paths to walk on the rainforest

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Phuket

Patong, in Phuket, was our choice to relax on the last days of the trip. Nothing better than a touristy place with good infrastructure for leisure. Here we would have all we need: sun, sun beds, parasol, cocktails, coconut water, fresh fish, restaurants on the sand, coconut trees…

The beach looked like those summer time beaches in Brazil. It was big, wide; we could walk on the wet sand. There were many options of activities: banana boat, water sky, jet sky, diving, boat tour, floating mattress… We could hear all the time people offering food and drinks to sell. Some people don’t like this “agitated” sort of beach. I grew up in beaches like that, so I like it. For me this is the idea of take the most advantage of what the beach can offer you. It is exploiting all its facets. Maxim, who comes from Siberia, was amazed by the possibilities of the tropical paradise.

Phuket is also known for the sexual tourism, what, we unfortunately saw a lot...

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Krabi – Ao Nang – Phang Nga


We arrive in the city of Krabi and went straight to Ao Nang beach. A pleasant beach, full of hotels, bars and restaurants. The beach is crowded with boats that, frequently, offer to take you to an island or interesting beach. We strongly recommend the 4-island tour. It is one day in a long-tail boat island hopping (Poda Island, Chicken Island, Tup island and Phranang cave). The boat trip is slow, what makes it an enjoyable trip so one can calmly observe the nature, rocks, sea, and other boats… Everything, without having the idea of being in a hush to arrive somewhere.

The Krabi region of is well known by rock climbers and divers. It is surrounded by rocks for climbing and waters for diving. Here it is the famous Koh Phi Phi, the island where it was filmed the movie “The Beach” with Leonardo DiCaprio. We benefit from that going to the Phi Phi area for diving. We had been diving for 2 day (4 immersions) in a place called Maya Bay and Koh Bida Nok...

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Koh Samui – Bo Phut

We decided to continue the car journey to see some places on the island we haven’t have time to see. The first stop was the Bo Phut pier. Interesting because the small wooden quay gave us an enormous peaceful feeling. We drove to the Big Buddha, a huge statue of a golden Buddha. The statue of almost 20 meters height was built in 1972. There was also Buddhas with monkeys, I had read about them but until then I haven’t seen. I liked the place because it looked like Thailand a lot. It was not anymore a tourist island with resorts; here it was a place full of faith and beliefs. The rest of the day we spend relaxing on the sun beds of the hotel: sun, sea and coconut tree shade. Walking on the beach I saw a glass bottle with many seashells stuck to it. That reminded me the sandal from the other beach. Once more the nature was showing its strength.

Our last day on the island we had reserved for a dive trip. We went to Koh Tao for diving...

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Tours on the north of Thailand

We did two tours to the north of Thailand. The first one was a day trekking. We went on a minibus for one or two hours. Then, we walked for about an hour to a hill village. There lives the Hmong tribe, originally form the region of Tibet and Mongolia. Later they went on refuge in China and during the 50s and 60s many came to Thailand, while others went to Laos and Vietnam. It was a quick visit, and it caught my attention a sign saying “2 photos 5 baht” and also to see they were selling Coca-cola.

From there we went to ride elephants. It was 45 minutes riding the animal around the forest. It stopped to eat all the time. And in the end of the tour, the guides sold bananas so we could feed them. The elephants were like a vacuum cleaner strongly sucking the banana. We also visited a hill tribe called Karen. A great part of the Karen people lives in Myanmar (Burma). In this tripe the majority of the women were dedicated to sewing and the men to produce musical instrument...

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Stockholm

We arrived in Stockholm on a Sunday, a calm day. Sundays are the same everywhere… In our way to the hotel we waked downtown where there were many cafes with outside table. Everybody were by the sun.

Later we went to visit the old town “Gamla Stan.” We passed by the port where it leaves many tour boats. It was a beautiful sunny day. We walked a lot around the island. It is crowed with bars, restaurants and tourists on the streets. We would sometimes seat down to see the people passing by. It caught our attention the number of mothers with baby stroller. We even joked that it must be fashionable to have babies nowadays. Next day we walked around downtown and later got the ISEA cruise to Tallinn.

We came back to Stockholm a week later, it was already cold. It was the end of August but on evenings the temperatures went down. The rainy day added some “coldness” to the atmosphere. We went for dinner in a restaurant in Gamla Stan: good food and wine...

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