That’s All Folks!!

My trip has reached its end :(. Last 24th December I returned to Madrid, just in time to spend Christmas with my family. Indeed, it looks like the Earth is actually spherical, coz you come back to the same point in the end :). This has been an awesome year for me, and I return with the impression of having enjoyed it to the fullest.

BIG THANK YOU, to all of you who’ve followed the blog or at least one post, written comments, sent messages, shared ideas, encouraged me to go on or anything else. I felt your company in the distance. Special thanks to all of the new friends I’ve made on the road this year from all over the world, you’ve made this a memorable year for me!! You can still contact me here.

FAQs:

–  Was it worth it? Leaving my job in times of a crisis and a more or less comfortable life to go on the road? DEFINITELY!!! 🙂 I wouldn’t barter this experience for anything. Not for money, not for taking the best MBA in the world or for anything. Travel is the best university, what you learn and you experience travelling is priceless.

– What would you change? If I started over again, I would probably do everything differently. This doesn’t mean I regret what I did. Just that you learn to travel from experience. No matter how much advice you get, you need to make your own mistakes, learn from them and discover your own travel style.

– What next? After my trip, I moved to London and resumed a ‘serious working lifestyle’ (not easy to settle down after vagabonding). London is a great city and I have continued to meet people from all over the world without even moving from the city. However, once you get the travel bug, it is not easy to stop. I don’t know when or how but I’m pretty sure I’ll hit the road again sooner or later.

– What country did you like most? I hate this question. I believe that any country on Earth can be fascinating if you really want to discover it in depth. And the contrasts and variety of cultures in the world is what makes it interesting, ain’t it? Of course, what makes a trip memorable isn’t how great a spot looks on a postcard, but the people.

Since I know that my response will  not necessarily convince all of you, I leave you with a ‘top ten’ of fancy places/experiences of this trip (randomly ordered):

1. Diving or snorkelling in The Great Barrier Reef
2. Amazing Islamic arquitechture of Bukhara and Samarkand
3. Dancing Samba at the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro
4. Gazing at the Amazon River from your hammock in an Amazon boat journey
5. Getting open-mouthed in front of the Iguazu Falls
6. Seeing the sun set over the moai at the remote Easter Island
7. Getting up the ruins of the ancient Inca city of Machu Picchu
8. Imbibe the Uyghur culture in the Markets of Kashgar
9. Travel on the footsteps of Marco Polo through ancient Silk Road cities like Dunhuang
10. Appreciate the majesty of the beautiful Taj Mahal

Naturally, the true highlights of any traveller are none of those, but rather experiences you couldn’t write about on a blog or share because you need to experience yourself. For instance, they might include: this day your got stranded and suddenly someone helped you out; the journey standing for hours in an Indian train where you met a group of students and spent the whole journey laughing; when you wander aimlessly and you happen to find the perfect empty spot and stay there for the rest of the day; this long convo about life and death with an international group in the garden of a hostel; the family that welcomed you in their home somewhere isolated; the new faces, new friends, new cultures, new religions, new food and so forth. All are things you need to experience.

I encourage all of you to travel. It isn’t something for the millionaires or the hippies. Each of us can do it at his/her own pace and style. The most difficult part is the first step, after that everything just gets sorted out. Fulfilling our dreams can be easier than we imagine.

“The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page” St Augustine

In this sense, travelling is not just being far from home. It is also an attitude. It is being curious, interested in the people you come across in the street, escape the monotony, open yourself to new experiences, keep learning. Thus, let’s travel. Today, here, now.

Again, big THANK YOU to all of you. I end with a photo gallery with random pictures of the trip:

Huchuy Qosqo, Peru

Machu Picchu, Peru

The Great Barrier Reef, Australia

Samarkand, Uzbekistan

Easter Island

Amazon Rainforest, Brazil

Taj Mahal, India

Milarepa Monastery, Xiahe, China

Iguacu Falls, Brazil

Uros Islands, Peru

Amazon boat trip, Brazil

Sydney, Australia

Atacama desert, Chile

Hong Kong

Amazon boat trip, Brazil

Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Dunhuang, China

Kashgar, China

Kyrgyzstan

Udaipur, India

Kashgar, China

London, England

Rajasthan, India

Golden Temple, Amritsar, India

Bogota, Colombia

Istambul, Turkey

Bukhara, Uzbekistan

Jiayuguan, China

Jaipur, India

Hezuo, China

Zhangye, China

Cappadocia, Turkey

Amazon River, Brazil

Xinjiang, China

Iguazu Falls, Argentina

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Atacama, Chile

Easter Island

La Habana, Cuba

Lake Titicaca, Peru

Bye!!

New Zealand – The South Island

Ir al post en espanol

New Zealand’s South Island has a stunning natural scenery. The feast begins right in the ferry journey between Wellington and Picton. The views from the ferry are awesome on a sunny day.

Despite not being far, the weather improves a lot when crossing from the North Island to the South Island. A few more degrees, sunny and not as windy as Wellington! 🙂

Ferry journey

Arriving at the South Island

The South Island is sparsely populated. It is the biggest of the two islands but only hosts 23% of the population. Of course, there are no big cities. In this semi-rural environment, people are super nice.

The largest city on the island is Christchurch. In 2010 and 2011 it suffered major earthquakes that left the city devastated. Some parts of the centre were still being reconstructed and closed to pedestrians.

Christchurch

Other city I visited was Queenstown. This resort town is really popular with adventure tourism, and almost all outdoors activities are offered. Sky diving is especially popular, but also skiing, snowboarding, jet boating, whitewater rafting, bungee jumping, mountain biking, skateboarding, tramping, etc.

Queenstown

But what was really striking to me in the South Island were not the cities but the amazing landscapes I could see in between. I will finish the post with a few more photos of the scenery:

New Zealand – The North Island

From Auckland I started a quick tour around New Zealand’s North Island and South Island, in the few days I had left for the trip.

New Zealand is a country with an amazing scenery, so just the journeys between cities makes up a lot of the fun.

One of the most popular stops in the North Island is Rotorua. As in other parts of the country, it is very quiet and laid-back. The British influence is felt everywhere, from the architecture to some of the habits of New Zealanders. Here, some old kiwis were enjoying a long croquet match opposite the main museum:

Croquet opposite the museum

The city of Rotorua is (in)famous for its bad smell – a persistent “rotten eggs” smell. However, this is caused by the sulphide emissions of its lively geothermal activity, which is in turn at the heart of much of Rotorua’s tourist appeal.

Mudpot

Near the city, you find a good number of mudpots, hot springs and geysers.

Whakarewarewa is an old Maori site where many of the geysers and pools are located. Traditionally, Maoris use the heat for cooking and heating. The vegetation around is also lush. The most famous geyser, Pohotu, erupts usually around every hour.

Whakarewarewa

Geyser

On the southern tip of the North Island lies Wellington, the capital of New Zealand.

Wellington cable car

A good view of the city can be seen taking the old cable car up to the Botanic Gardens. Other than enjoying the view, you can wander around the paths of the Botanic Gardens and appreciate the vegetation. Nevertheless, Wellington is famous for being very windy, and I have to say that on top of the hill it really was!

Wellington

Wellington

From Wellington, I took the ferry down to the South Island. The ferry trip is incredibly scenic. I will tell you more about that in the next post.

New Zealand – Multicultural Auckland

As the last stage of my round-the-world trip I visited New Zealand. That’s possibly the farthest I could travel in this planet, since the exact antipodes (point on the Earth’s surface which is diametrically opposite) of Madrid are in New Zealand’s North Island.

I arrived in Auckland early December and was lucky enough to strike great weather, which makes this a very nice city. While hosting 1/3 of the country’s population, it has more of the feel of a lovely smallish city but with endless, sprawling suburbs. Sailing is a big thing in Auckland and the views from the harbour are just fantastic.

Auckland

Auckland is known for having a very interesting ethnic mix. Indeed, foreign visitors walking in the street or clubbing often exclaimed: “how weird!“, just because we’re not used to seeing such different people mingling together anywhere else. White kiwis and aboriginal Māoris couldn’t be more different. They’re joined in huge numbers by Pacific Islanders coming from a variety of islands in the Polynesia and elsewhere, which makes Auckland the city with more Pacific Islander inhabitants in the world. In recent years, European immigration has diminished in favour of Asian countries like China, Korea and India. So you can probably imagine the mix; multiculturalism is as real as it gets in Auckland.

There is also some room for Spanish culture, or so it felt on my first day. My friends Pablo and Lili, expats in Auckland, picked me up from the airport and invited me to a very Spanish home-cooked meal in their house, to the delight of their Asian friends.

Later that evening, I went to much-awaited outdoors music festival called ‘Christmas in the Park’, sponsored by Coca Cola. The whole city seemed to be there for the occasion.

Christmas in the park!!

Another great view of the city can be struck from the crater of the volcano at Mount Eden, if you go on a clear day.

Mount Eden

View from Mount Eden

From Auckland I kicked off my quick trip around New Zealand. Some more tips and facts in my next posts.

Sydney or Melbourne?

Most Aussies (and foreigners alike) would take sides on the controversial “Sydney vs Melbourne” debate. Australia’s two biggest cities are constantly scrutinized and compared to feed the discussion between Sydneysiders and Melbournians.

Having visited both, I conclude that Sydney and Melbourne aren’t THAT different. They’ve both got a tick over four million residents. They’ve both got a dense CBD, trendy inner city ring and sprawling, endless suburbs. Both cities also share very expensive prices.

Surely, Sydney makes a better postcard. The views of the harbour are just impressive. And the opera house is probably the best-known landmark in the country. It is fashion and glamorous. The old bridge across the harbour is a privileged spot to photograph the opera house, harbour and CBD as I did:

Sydney harbour

Melbourne’s Yarra River doesn’t sparkle like Sydney Harbour, although it’s pretty nice too. Melbourne’s treasures are somewhat more hidden. Federation Square is home to live music  and fairs. The trendy inner city suburbs host sporting events, festivals and shows. The music, arts and food&drink scenes in Melbourne are world-class. It is a very cosmopolitan city with an interesting racial mix. The old-style trams add to the city’s charm. Finally, Melbourne has been named “the world’s most livable city” by prestigious publications such as The Economist.

Melbourne

Between these two big cities I also stopped in what seemed to be a different world. The city of Wagga Wagga is on the interior of NSW and serves as the main shopping and services hub for neighbouring villages and farms. There are no hostels and it didn’t look like it receives many international visitors. I’d never have gone there had I not found a couchsurfing host willing to invite me to his home (or his little farm) and share his insight of live in that region. And it was definitely worth it!!

We went to dinner at a local pub, sports, gym, zoo and other places. But perhaps the highlight of my visit there was the livestock market. On Thursdays, the animals on sale are sheep, and farmers and wholesalers gather to auction individual lots of sheep. This market is the same concept but completely different to the one I wrote about in Kashgar, China. They move quickly from lot to lot, having inspected the lots beforehand. Traders, farmers and agents in-the-know dress appropriately in their jeans and cowboy-style hats. A different glam to Syd/Melb’s. 🙂

My host, who was very educated and well-travelled yet proud of his Australian “bush” roots, told me that this is very traditional Australian lifestyle. Before the resources boom, farming and ranching always was the main source of income and jobs in this vast land.

Well, so leaving Wagga aside, you may wonder what side I take in Melbourne vs Sydney. Having been only about a week in both, I can only have an outsider view, but I won´t dodge the issue. My pick (to live): Melb. 🙂 And yours?

Snorkelling in The Great Barrier Reef

Seeing The Great Barrier Reef was undoubtedly one of the highlights of all my round-the-world trip. AWESOME!! 🙂

My trip to the Reef started in Port Douglas, which is way nicer than neighbouring Cairns. The North of Queensland feels like a tropical paradise, with sandy beaches, clear turquoise water and palms. Just have a look of the Four Mile Beach from this lookout:

Four mile beach, Port Douglas

From either Port Douglas or Cairns, there are heaps of tours that offer snorkelling or diving in The Great Barrier Reef. I took one of them and from the early morning we sailed towards three different spots in the Reef.

Once we got to the Reef, the crew handed out the snorkelling gear, and so I got prepared with this weird look :):

Prepared to snorkel

And so it’s time to get into the water and get wet!

That’s me getting wet

The first impression under the water was just AMAZING!! I could see everything crystal clear, with such strong and beautiful colours. There were many fish wandering about, also with spectacular colours. I had never snorkelled before and I thought I’d see the colours much less bright and everything vague under salt water, but the truth is that I could spot everything really clear. It really feels like being inside a National Geographic documentary!! 🙂

Clownfish

I encourage all of you to do the same. It is not cheap, but it’s worth it. If you have a higher budget, you can also dive, which is more interesting. Or if you have even more time and budget, there are also multi-day scuba diving courses, and I can’t imagine a better setting for taking one of those!

Exploring the ‘Outback’ in Broken Hill

It’s 6:00 am in Sydney. Half asleep yet, I struggle to make my way to Central Station with my heavy backpack.

Broken Hill Outback Explorer

The train I boarded there has an inspiring name: ‘Broken Hill Outback Explorer’. Once per week, it covers the route between Sydney and the mining town of Broken Hill, in the interior of New South Wales. See photo. Okay, it’s just a normal train!!!! :). Not one of these scenic retro trains, but anyway, it took me to Broken Hill after a 14 hour journey.

The train journey itself is half the reason to visit. You encounter an ever-changing landscape: from the tall buildings of the ‘Big Smoke’ (Sydney), through the forest and vegetation still near the coast, to the arid scenery of the ‘bush’ (countryside). After a month in Australia, I had only been to places along the coast, where most people live, but I didn’t want to leave the country without seeing at least a bit of the vast, largely unpopulated ‘outback’.

The origins of Broken Hill are traced to the discovery of silver mines in the late 19^th century. Here, the Broken Hill Propietary Company was founded, today known as BHP Billiton, a world giant mining corporation. In just a few years, there were 60 hotels two blocks from the main street. Some of the original buildings are preserved, so the town has a certain feeling of ‘Far West’, which is the main tourist draw today. Most inhabitants still work in mining. There are no buses or any public transport between Broken Hill and neighbouring attractions (as is often the case in Australia), so I rented a bicycle and started exploring.

Afghan Mosque

What is the last thing you’d expect to find in a town in the Australian outback?? An Afghan mosque!!!! 🙂 As incredible as it seems, this town has an Afghan mosque. The building itself is nothing special and is almost always closed, but I wanted to visit it if only for the surreal.  Apparently, Afghans came to Australia with their camels to help ‘open’ the ‘Outback’, and in 1891 they erected this mosque in the camel camp. Very curious.

Near Broken Hill lies Silverton, a small town that the Lonely Planet refers to as “an absolutely obligatory visit”. I started cycling that way, and after just a few minutes a vehicle coming in the opposite direction stopped and an old guy offered to put my ‘push-bike’ (bicycle) in his pickp-up and take me to Silverton. I told him I would cycle, but as he insisted I finally went with him. Later, I realized he had saved my life, because Silverton was farther than I imagined and the temperature quickly surged to unbearable heat. I spent the next 2 hours with this old man, who said I helped him “fill in the day” 🙂 Seriously, outside of the big cities people are really friendly and will get out of their way to help you. The only problem was that I didn’t understand ANYTHING of what he said. In one month in Australia I hadn’t had any major problem to communicate with my imperfect English, but the accent of old people from ‘the bush‘ is really hard!

So we arrived to Silverton. This village is no more than a handful of houses. It developed first, but after the mines in Broken Hill were discovered, people moved there and Silverton was left almost a ‘ghost town’ until today. It has been the setting for several movies, including Mad Max. The best known building (although it was pretty empty) is the Silverton Hotel, which displays some of the vehicles used in the filming of those movies. It’s quite scenic, but if I had to pedal all the way there it wouldn’t be worth it. 🙂

After that, the old man drove me to the a historic mine, and back to town.

Display of old mining equipment

It was a short visit to Broken Hill. However, if you go to Australia it is very advisable to go somewhere in the interior, to get a feeling of a completely different lifestyle, opposed to the ‘beach culture’ in the coast.

Wine and prisons in Western Australia

I first arrived in Australia at Perth, the capital of the huge state of Western Australia. The region is experiencing rapid economic growth driven by a surge in mining and resources. That makes its capital a modern boom town. The population has grown in the last few years from what used to be a quiet provincial capital. Money flows here…the streets are really clean, there’s lots of grass and free wifi in the parks. Still, most of the city are low-rise suburbs and I got the impression that the gleaning CBD was something that just didn’t belong in such a place.

Perth

Just South of Perth is Fremantle, a small and nice town popular for its beach, pubs and cafes.

In Fremantle I had the first opportunity to explore an important element of Australian history: a prison. Actually, English convicts were among the pioneering Australian settlers. Today, many Aussies can still trace their roots to convicts.

Fremantle prison

Cell in the prison

Fremantle prison shows what prison life was like in the 19th and 20th centuries. They maintain some of the cells from different periods intact. Well, they got somewhat better with time, but not much. Living conditions in the prison were hard. The guided tour covers all aspects of prison life, from the cells or kitchen to lashes or the gallows, where some of them ended their days.

Moving away from the capital, I spent a few days in a rather different environment, Margaret River. This region is famous throughout Australia and internationally for its wines. I bought a bottle and it was pretty good. Outside town you find vineyards time and again.

All the backpackers I met there were working or looking for work in the vineyards or restaurants in the area. Unlike anywhere else I’ve been to, in Australia 90-95% of the backpackers I meet are working with a one-year Working Holiday Visa. They work in one place for 1-2 months, then continue travelling, settle in another place for other 1-2 months and so on, managing to fund their travels by working. A lot of European youths do that, gaining an interesting life experience while improving their English. Unfortunately, this visa is not offered to Spanish passport holders :(.

Vineyards in Margaret River

But other than the vineyards, Margaret River is also a place with a beautiful natural environment, and I took my time to do some hiking around. I also visited some of the caves famous around the region, with huge stalactites and stalagmites!

Margaret River

India – The palaces of Rajasthan

The first stop for any traveller to Rajasthan is usually Jaipur, the capital of this much-visited state. This busy city has some wonderful palaces and architecture.

My first experience here, however, was quite chaotic. As soon as I  got off the bus, scores of people and rickshaw drivers were trying to conduct me to budget hotels, for their big commission. They were chasing after me everywhere to pretend they had taken me there. It took me like 2 hours to give all of them the slip and find a place. While this happened in all Indian cities, in Jaipur they were, by far, the most pushy.

The city centre is known as ‘The Pink City”. You might well imagine the reason: every building is painted in pink!! Apparently, this tradition goes back to 1876, when the whole city was painted pink to welcome Edward, Prince of Wales.

The flagship building of Jaipur is the -pink- Hawa Mahal, with its very unique and elegant facade. It was built with small windows to allow royal ladies to observe everyday life in the street below without being seen. The Hawa Mahal is close to the other important buildings of the city, particularly the Royal Palace.

Hawa Mahal

The streets of the pink city were full of life and buzzing commerce. After all, this is the capital of one of the most important and populated states in India. I only saw a few foreigners, far less than I expected for a city so much on the tourist map. Later on, when I entered the Royal Palace, I understood why: they come in buses or vans and only get off the bus on the palaces, hotels or the per-arranged tourist restaurant.

Move up there!!

Other inhabitants of the Pink City are this monkeys that I hated, called Langurs :). As you can see, this man was having a few words with one of them who was sitting on a motorbike and probably trying to steal the guy’s produce 🙂

The streets, busy as always in India, were populated by street vendors, cows, motorbikes, rickshaws, autos, cars, and pedestrians alike.

Busy streets

A few kilometres outside of Jaipur lies Amber, where the Majarahas’ capital used to be before the scarcity of water forced them to move to Jaipur. The palace here is very impressive, and no less its setting. wow! If you are too lazy to climb the few stairs to the palace, no worries, elephants take tourists up, although of course for a hefty fee.

Amber Fort

From Jaipur I took a train to Ajmer and the neighbouring sacred city of Pushkar. I already wrote a bit about those in the previous post, so I won’t bore you with that again.

And from there, I advanced towards Udaipur, the other high-profile destination in Rajasthan. Many travellers describe this city as their favourite in Rajasthan (or even in India), but to be honest I wasn’t all that much impressed. However, the Maharanas’ City Palace is stunning and the fact of being on the bank of the lake makes it very photogenic. And sunset is beautiful over the lake. The area around the lake is VERY touristy though. Unlike in Jaipur, tourist do wander around this small area, buying souvenirs from persistent vendors.

Udaipur

The lake also features another palace, which is on an island -the aptly named Lake Palace. It has been converted to a 5-star hotel and is closed to visitors. It is otherwise known for being the setting of James Bond film Octopussy, as you will be reminded by places in the village that project the film every single day.

For me, the highlight of Udaipur was the religious festival that took place while I was luckily in the city (see previous post)

My ‘animal pick’ for Udaipur is this huge elephant, who was being driven down the street by his owner (no idea where to). Where on earth do you find elephants in the street?? When it stopped near a banana stall, several people started to feed the camel with bananas, that the animal quickly bolted down.

Walking with his elephant

With this post I close the ‘India chapter’ of my trip. Will come back with new countries and experiences. 🙂

India – The amazing Taj Mahal

After a couple of weeks in India I arrived to the most visited site in the country, the world-famous Taj Mahal.

This impressive monument was built by Shah Jahan, the fifth Mughal emperor. Actually, the Mughal dynasty was founded by Babur, a descendant of Timur (Tamerlane) and Genghis Khan, so its history is very much related to that of the great cities of Central Asia that I visited before.

The building stands out even more if you consider the history behind it. In 1631, Shah Jahan was grief-stricken when his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal, died during the birth of their 14th child, and decided to build this beautiful mausoleum for her. Thus, the Taj Mahal is frequently associated with love.

And it is BEAUTIFUL!!!. Just see:

Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal is located in the city of Agra, and the other big draw to this city is the Agra Fort. It is frequently described as a walled city, as it contains many buildings inside.

Agra Fort

Walking around Agra, I found one cow dead in the street. Indians had put a white sheet to cover her dead body, and people were leaving money and flowers as offers. This shows how much respect Indians have for cows.

Dead cow