Carnival marathon in Brazil

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Carnival in Salvador.

I arrived to Brazil completely not prepared. I bought the flight ticket three days before the flight, but I spent this time sightseeing Spanish cities. I knew that I would be in Brazil just one day before the carnival. My flight landed in Salvador. I have heard about great carnival places: Rio, Recife (and neighboring Olinda) and Salvador. I decided to try to check them out somehow, but I did not had any accommodation organized in any of those places and the carnival time is the most busiest time...

Busing across Spain.

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Sagrada Familia.

I needed to get from Gibraltar to Barcelona and I had two and a half days for it. I decided to see two biggest cities on the way Madrid and Barcelona and spending nights in the night buses. I think I developed ability already to rest during the night buses rides.

Gibraltar

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Barbary Macaques

Gibraltar is an British overseas territory located at the south tip of Europe. The city is located around the huge, very characteristic rock. On the top of the rock there is fantastic nature reserve where many Barbary Macaques (monkeys lives).

Hitchhiking the boat

I had an idea of sailing through the Atlantic ocean, from Gibraltar to South America. I knew that the biggest challenge could be that I would be late, since I came to Gibraltar very close to the beginning of storm season on Atlantic. And unfortunately it was a case, Gibraltar marina was quite empty and the last boats left two-three weeks before I arrived

Hitchhiking across Europe

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Paris-Malaga hitchhiking 3,5 days.

I decided to hitchhike from Paris to Gibraltar. Thanks to very good description on hitchwiki website I figured out how to get out from Paris. But there were two challenges. The first one was not encouraging weather. It was raining and was really cold. I seriously lost my adaptation to low temperatures in Asia. Second challenge was a fact that I started my hitchhike on Saturday afternoon and as I got known later tracks can not drive in France on Sundays.

Innovative Paris and almost PCR machine...

My stop over in Europe started in Paris. I stayed here with Irena, who is truly incredible host. Some months ago, I have been in Paris with my lab mates: Madina, Drago and Dennis. And thanks to the great guide, Dennis, we managed to cover many touristic attractions in Paris. Now I try to travel on the shoestring budget and I decided to skip the touristic attractions accept visiting amazing Norte Dame and of course the most important lab in Paris,.... Irena one.

Unkempt Thoughts, what did I learn so far...

In India as well as in South East Asia I learnt many different things. I guess there was no single day that I did not learn anything. Local people that I met had dramatically different perspective of life than mine. The travelers are searching for many different things on the way and they are trying to organise the life in such a different ways. Everyone of us can be a director of his own life and some directors are so creative. Amazing.

Poland in Asia

Not many people in North India, Cambodia and Laos know where Poland is. In Laos they asked me where are you from?
-"Poland"
-"France"
-"No, I am from Poland"
-"Yes, France"
-"Oki, I can be from France" (Laos was French colony).

In other countries they thought that I am from Holland (they are much better in Soccer than Polish team). Situation was a bit different in Thailand and Indonesia, where they knew Poland.

Best never taken photos in Asia.

During this travel I usually carry my photo camera with me but sometimes I did not manage or I was not able or I thought it is inappropriate or I was not allowed to take photos. So here is a list of the most photogenic moments that are saved only in my mind:

Being tall in Asia.

In the bus in Bangkok.

Usually there are great advantages from being tall. One has a broad perspective, one can notice more things around, others would notice you much easier. Asian people on average are shorter than Europeans, so some of the challenges and disadvantages of being tall are much more pronounced here than elsewhere.
It is very often that I had to bend my back and be very carefully while waking on the street or entering any kind of doors not to hit with my forehead. The most scary was one local restaurant in India were the big vets were on the height of my eyes!!!

Fooooooood in Asia.

This will be a special entry where I will sum up experiencing heaven in my mouth in Asia....

Teleportation

Do you recall those scientific movies were one is entering in a module and get disintegrated while all the particles are integrated in the physically remote place? This is telportation. Will it be ever available for humanity? We or our children will see, but I think that to certain extend teleportation is available for us!

Carnival in Brazil!!!

Time to start carnival in Brazil!!!
It is long story how I got to Brazil. I will describe it once on the blog, but today time for Samba.