It’s been quite a few years since my stay in Mexico, but I never had time to write about the rest of the trip. Some time ago, however, I decided to finish the account of my trip, if only for myself. My last post was about the ruins of Mayapan and the city of Campeche, you can read about it here. From Campeche I returned to Mérida, which is by far my favourite city in Mexico. Of course, I stayed with Cristina, whom I met through Couchsurfing, and who became my friend, my “Mexican sister” (she even came from Mexico for our wedding in Sweden).
RTW trip
Mérida – city of culture.
Mardi Gras in New Orleans
Mardi Gras is just around the corner, so let me write about New Orleans, which I had a pleasure of visiting a few years ago. The city itself is very interesting, but the visit during the carnival added flavour, some Creole flavour 😉
Neither in desert nor in wilderness
I have no idea what stopped me from translating this post straight away but I’m catching up now.
I went to Morocco in July 2013 with the intention of visiting a friend from high school, who lives with her husband Nabil and son Kamil in Casablanca. Life, however, wrote a different scenario (of which Ania reminds me until today 😛) and I spent only three days in Casa. I visited Morocco during Ramadan Continue reading
Visiting Kaunas and Trakai
When I was recently looking for something on English version of my blog I’ve realized that I haven’t translated my entry from Kaunas, which ends my Lithuanian saga. Well, the time has come then. Continue reading
Marcin’s winter adventure
Despite the unexpected attack of winter in Europe it’s impossible to hide the fact that the spring is approaching with big steps. I will end the winter period with blog entry. During the first weekend of March Sweden hosted an annual 90-kilometre Vasa Race (Swedish: Vasaloppet) in Sweden. This race takes place in the Dalarna county which symbol is the so-called Dalarna Horse (Swedish: Dalahäst) and is part of the so-called Winter Week, when different length races take place. Two years ago in February I spent a few days there, let me then describe my experiences.
Nairobi
So we got to Nairobi. The city has more than three million inhabitants and its name comes from a water hole called in Maasai Enkare Nairobi – a place of cool water. The city was founded relatively recently in 1899 and it was a rail station between Mombasa and Kampala. As early as 1905 it became the capital of the British protectorate and a tourist destination as people used it as a starting point for safari and hunting. After gaining independence Nairobi began to grow rapidly and is now a city of contrasts, besides the enclosed neighbourhoods like Karen we also find the second largest city slum in Africa – Kibera. But we didn’t have time to get to know the city well. We were picked up from the airport by a driver named Kwach who took us to my friend Gosia who worked in Nairobi for InterHealth, an international charity. We were taken to the charity event that was ending soon but they still served food and I never say no to free food 😉
Marcin in Mombasa
So we landed at the hotel on Diani Beach. The hotel was actually a few large cottages where the ground floor and the first floor were separate rooms with kitchenettes, the lower one being like a small apartment. The whole estate is surrounded by a wall and between the houses there’s a lot of greenery – bushes with flowers and palm trees. We were warned to close all windows because monkeys like to go into the cottages. We also had a baboon that ate our chocolate and shamelessly used our floor as a toilet.
Marcin conquers the East African coast
Not every conquest is successful – read about my attempt! Continue reading
Time to say goodbye to Maasai
The final point of the program before returning to Arusha was the closing ceremony of the project. Unfortunately on the same day a funeral happened with a large number of people attending but a lot of people came to our “party” anyway, including the Elders and the local politician. The ceremony was held near a tree thought by the Maasai as sacred. This is a fig variety (ficus natalensis), called locally mutuba (interesting fact for those who read Tomek’s books – from this tree bark is obtained, from which fabric (bark cloth) is made, traditionally worn by members of the Baganda tribe and often featuring King of Buganda – kabaka. Tomek Wilmowski with friends visited kabaka Dausi Chwa II. I couldn’t help myself 😉)