Tag: culture

2 days soaking in Yogyakarta culture

On By Carmen BIn Asia, Indonesia2 Comments

For our 2 week trip to Indonesia, Elena and I decided to focus on 5 areas: Yogyakarta for temples, Flores for landscapes, Komodo for diving and dragons, Bali for spirituality and Gili for beach. Indonesia is one of the largest and most populated countries in the world, and being comprised of 17,000 islands, you can imagine that there are a lot of spots worth visiting, but it’s hard to get to all of them at once.

We met at Yogyakarta airport, since I had decided to do a 1 day layover in Spain to visit my friends and family 🙂 It was pretty late, so we quickly hoped on a taxi and got to the hostel we had booked online. It was rather crappy but well located near the main street Jalan Malioboro.

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Trinidad, the Cuban jewel

On By Carmen BIn America, Cuba1 Comment

Travelling around Cuba wasn’t as easy as I expected. Most tourists are on some sort of organized tour, managed by a joint venture between the government and a foreign company, while local buses are all sold out (it’s Christmas holidays after all!). After a couple of days in Havana and a lot of asking around, I got a seat in a bus to Trinidad, ~4 hours west. On the road, we passed Bahia de Cochinos, infamous for the CIA-sponsored attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro in 1961.

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Living simple life in La Habana

On By Carmen BIn America, Cuba2 Comments

When the taxi from the airport dropped me off, I was a bit in shock. La Habana Centro, the heart of the Cuban capital, was much more ramshackle than I expected, and so was the “casa particular” (authorized private homestay) were I was planning on staying. It was also my first full solo trip, and apart from booking these few nights, I had done zero preparation. But for the next 10 days, I would discover and fall in love with Cuba and its people.

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Machu Picchu, better when you’ve earned it

On By Carmen BIn America, Peru5 Comments

The lost Inca city of Machi Picchu is one the world’s wonders. The fact that it wasn’t discovered until 1911 speaks to its spectacular setting. To explore it, hordes of tourist take a train plus bus from Cuzco every day… But it’s still possible to reach Machu Pichhu emulating the experience of the ancient Incas, who walked kms and kms through the Urubamba Valley to their sacred city.

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Lake Titicaca and other weird Peruvian stuff

On By Carmen BIn America, Peru3 Comments

I love how this long trip has not exhausted my ability to be surprised. Buses in Peru have nothing to do with the luxurious ones in Argentina; there are no flat-bed seats, no blankets, no food trays… but they’re quite amusing with all their extravagances. They stop in the middle of nowhere to pick up vendors of food (anything from sugar cane to chicharrones), ointments or books; they show one pirated movie after another, and passengers chat lively. Peruvians might be poor, but 2 minutes after meeting you, they offer you to stay at their homes!

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Arequipa, hidden gem

On By Carmen BIn America, Peru2 Comments

I arrived in Arequipa on a bus from Chile. My main reason to stop in this city was the famous Colca Canyon. And while I did do some cool hiking and rafting there, what really surprised me was the city itself. Nicknamed “the white city”, Arequipa is a gorgeous colonial town, with a large Plaza de Armas in the center, built of volcanic white-stones (thus the name). The well-preserved, colorful Convento de Santa Catalina is a beautiful place to get lost, and the frozen mummy Juanita at the Museo Santuarios Andinos is a mandatory visit for those who like “weird stuff”. The city is surrounded by snow-capped volcanoes, completing an idyllic picture.

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“History is ours, and people make history”

On By Carmen BIn America, Chile2 Comments

Salvador Allende’s last words before being killed in the Palacio de la Moneda still manage to give me chills. Santiago de Chile’s downtown exudes history, but it is also terribly polluted and overly americanized. As I walked around the Plaza de Armas, Catedral, Cerro Santa Lucia and Mercado Central,and saw all these stressed people, I couldn’t but feel nostalgia of Buenos Aires.

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