cold tagged posts

In Scandinavia - Baltic 2004, Europe On  23/08/2004  No comments

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...

In Scandinavia - Baltic 2004, Europe On  19/08/2004  One comment

When we arrived in Tallinn it was raining and cold. We went for a coffee and walk a little in the old town. I was impressed by the amount of tourists despite of the rain. We walked on the narrow streets with groups of English, German and Spanish people. They were all with their rain jackets and photo camera. Places with many tourists, specially groups, make me claustrophobic. It was as if we were in Disneyland visiting organized old towns, there was even a trolley to take visitors for a drive around downtown.

I spent a great part of my days on lectures. My mother was walking around town and going to souvenir shops. We found out that the city was not so touristy as we thought, there were only times that groups would invade downtown. In my understanding, it could be the time when cruise ships stopped there for a few hours. The old town could be very beautiful and pleasant, specially on the evenings and hours with little tourism.

In one of the days in town we went to a party on a square ...

In America, Bolivia 2001 On  28/07/2001  One comment

We left early to visit the famous peak, Chacaltaya. It is the highest ski resort in the world (more than 5000m above sea level). In the way there, we could see diverse snow peaks and volcanoes. Each one of them has a legend to the indigenous people. At the ski resort, it was very cold and there were strong winds. One of the friends of tour stayed in the car, she not even tried to go up the top.

We start to go up, slowly, at 5270m. When I was half way, I did not feel very well, I was cold, had headache and my legs were trembling. I was afraid of sliding down, I stopped a little to photograph and I decided to go down.

I had a coca leaf tea in the resort cafe and stayed enjoying the landscape. There was nobody skiing because the weather was not appropriate. After some minutes, the rest of the group started to show up. Many had given up to go to the top. From we went back to the city and we head to the Valle de la Luna, a place few kilometers south of La Paz, that looks like the moon...