It was the year 1994 and I was 16, when a remote African country virtually unknown to South Americans suddenly echoed in the news. I must say that almost nothing is published about Africa in my country, so I barely remember that moment, but what I do remember is that it was a new tragic story coming from the black continent
Read MoreIt always surprises me how fast the road can change. After the three days, it took me to cross Park Queen Elizabeth through the savannah, followed by the forest along its beautiful loneliness surrounded by animals, we arrived finally to a remote village where the simplicity of the plain road turned suddenly into a hell of slippery slopes.
Read MoreI was born, raised and lived until I was 28 years old in a country called “developing country”, a political and hypocrite concept recently created by economists of rich countries when referring basically to the third world.
Read MoreEvery Friday, in a far-flung suburb of Bahri district, a big crowd of men looking for some action congregates at a local stadium to witness one of the most ancient forms of wrestling, the
Read MoreSeveral posts ago, as I wrote about our journey across Sudan, I have dedicated a great part of my tales to express the immeasurable hospitality of the Sudanese people
Read MoreOnce we arrived in Lodwar we finally left the "sandpit" we had gone through to enter Kenya along the west coast of the lake Turkana. In this little city we thought the
Read MoreGetting to Omo valley had already been a transfer in time and space to a completely different dimension, different to everything that I have ever experienced. However, that
Read MoreI have thought of more than a dozen titles for this closing passage about Ethiopia. From all possible aberrations that came through my mind, the lightest and the one that I consider the original is: “Fuck you Ethiopia”.
Read MoreThe departure from Addis was the starting point of our long scape from Ethiopia. We had already spent a month and a half in the middle of the country, and our
Read MoreI have said it more than once already and I like to say it again: the entrance to (and exits of) the great cities of the world by bicycle is not easy and it is rarely a simple experience. It is a
Read MoreAfter four days of resting in Wukro and recovering a bit of the lost faith in the Ethiopians thanks to father Ángel and his mission, we resumed the long journey to Addis Ababa.
Read MoreFrom all I have written about Ethiopia so far, it should be already clear that the main problem we find again and again in this country is its people, particularly children, and teenagers.
Read MoreThe Tigray region was the main reason, if not the only one, why our route across Ethiopia was almost double the distance that takes to cross the country along the shortest route. The one
Read MoreIn Gondar, little less than 200 km after having entered Ethiopia, is where the route that I had planned would split from the one that virtually all cyclists going through the country use.
Read MoreThe task of reading, researching and asking about a country that we are planning to visit always precedes the arrival to it and it is a task that takes an undetermined amount of time. We dream, we
Read MoreIf you got here after having read all the stories about Sudan, it will not come as a surprise to read how I feel about this country and specifically about its people.
Read MoreFrom an aesthetics point of view, sincerely speaking, Khartoum is not the most attractive city in the world. In terms of architecture, it is a city built half-way, in fact, there is no single building that
Read MoreMuch more than the idyllic images of silhouettes of camel caravans walking at a slow pace along the undulating golden dunes at sunset, the Sahara is for many, the place to come to earn a living. In this vast ocean of sand, the abrasive heat, the harshness of the wind and the cruelty of the sun make it unthinkable that a place to work can be possibly found here.
Read MoreI perceived it from the very beginning in Wadi Halfa, while walking along its streets of sand in that very hot Saharan night. I looked around me and the hundreds of merchants that filled the
Read MoreWe are in the queue to buy the tickets for the boat to Wadi Halfa, it's 46 C in the shade. While we wait, two nice Egyptian tour agents get in the queue behind us and exclaim effusively the usual: “Welcome to Alaska!” to
Read More
