Luang Prabang's Everlasting Shine
Luang Prabang is one of those places whose peace comes to disturb you. You don't know where to start framing the roofs that end in a point, the bare monks or the golden buddhas.
Chronicles
Texts on travel and international politics around the globe
1336 articles
San Juan de Chamula: the strange Mayan rite of Coca Cola
We see people lying on the ground and the sacrifice of a rooster, to which a shaman twists the neck and passes it by the back to a teenager with a frightened gesture. "This is an important ceremony because of the number of candles that are burned. The flames are a barrier of soldiers against evil ”, Pancho explains.
Men who eat dogs and frogs fear
There are as few animals in the jungles of Vietnam as there are in Laos. The people, as Juan told us, they eat it all. With the feeling of heading to a somewhat looted place, we enter the roads of northern Laos.
De nagarkot a Changu Narayan: Nepal at ground
I did not want to leave Nepal without kicking the hills surrounding Kathmandu, not look out of their villages, the daily lives of the people of tillage, Legion here. It is an undemanding walk, of those now called trekking, from Nagarkot and Changu Narayan Temple. A real treat.
Beyond the terraces of Sapa
We were greeted with the abruptness of a craft sale, without greeting or smile. The streets seemed like an indigenous showcase and tourists photographed the colorful dresses and the forced joy on the sidewalks..
Trujillo: memory of bold men
He unfolded the map on the counter with the same reluctance that a electricity bill deserves. Then he mechanically indicated with circles the places that I should not miss.. There was not an iota of passion in his words.
El Salvador (In): the church of heaven and hell
I had read that outside symbolizes hell and inside symbolizes heaven. Its facade is concrete and has an abandoned appearance. Within, as if man could afford to interpret the sacred, you access a temple without columns, open, in which stained glass is projected everywhere. It is beautiful.
Hanoi, the hornet's nest
There is no way to abstract from the crash of motorcycles. The streets are a hornet's nest so frantic that one is unable to explain how the motorcycles may not collide. The junctions and the traffic lights are, as much, a mere way to guide the driver.
Come Knocking Tibet II
Whitewashed houses were spacious. The doors were decorated with colorful drawings. An old woman was spinning a huge cylinder, wrought for prayer in Tibetan Buddhist culture.
Madagascar, Coast to coast
Sounds Remote, a cartoon film and impossible animals. Is that, and also a little touristy island country African sap that oozes sweetened with Asian touches
What you are behind the terrorist attacks of Al Shabab in Kenya?
The terrible attacks by Somali terrorists are favored by the Kenyan police corruption and by an ongoing conflict of commercial interests between the two countries. Kenya, while, threatens to deport 450.000 refugees among whom half are women and children. Aims to close the Dadaab refugee camp.
Equal to: life wins in the town of slaughter
Death is bastard and hard, but the reality is that life is much more powerful and always wins. Although they are missing 43, even though thousands are missing, always compose and win.
Come Knocking Tibet I
China began to dilute as the mountains became steeper. We fled in a jeep, with the anxiety of a fugitive in the open. Gone were the excessive cities or the tourism of towns whose magic is sold in souvenir shops.
Route through Baja California Sur: the nude Mexico
Modernity gave the business of that lost place the rogue air of places where you never know which half of the things are lies and the other half are uncertain.. It does, Malarrimo is the bar where I want to get drunk with mezcal every night with patrons who tell me that they sleep with the ghost of Moby Dyck.
Garissa: what has not been told of the attack
Garissa is also what we have not counted. It's that selling military information for a small fee, without any shame. Or unscrupulous practitioners who photographed the bodies of the dead and sold the photos.
Garissa: That was the killing (last minute)
Karimi, one of the survivors who remained in hiding for hours, has recounted how the terrorists offered to be released and those students who believed them and left the room were killed.
Chronicle from Garissa, the terrrorista bombing which no one speaks
I'm in a hotel in Garissa and I am one of the few foreign field. 147 dead in Kenya and what. 147 dead in Kenya and our dignity in tatters, friends. 147 dead and fear remains. And the inhabitants of Garissa running down the road to get home before curfew. And terror. And the constant threat. And we sleep quiet today because today, this time, us we have not done pupa
Easter indigenous in Mexico
Of the numerous indigenous celebrations, perhaps that of the Tarahumara Indians, in Chihuahua, be the most unique. Unlike other celebrations around the Mexican Republic, For the Tarahumara people, Holy Week does not represent the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, but the eternal struggle between good and evil, They call it "nolirúache" (hanging around) and marks a kind of new year according to its agricultural calendar
Torres del Paine: alone with the Patagonia
Se lo dijo Jorge Luis Borges a Paul Theroux, from writer to writer, before he put an Southbound South American continent, who had crossed from end to end: "In Patagonia there is nothing. Not the Sahara, but it is the closest you can find in Argentina. Not, in Patagonia there is nothing ".
Concord: reading Thoreau with his feet
In this quiet Massachusetts town I began to understand that the author who has scratched me the most; that has changed me the most, nurtured, unclothed, separated from the ground ("My house in the clouds is quiet", wrote) and dressed again he talked about things that I, now, he had before his eyes.
alaska in spanish
A good number of place names in Spanish still survive in Alaska today., the northernmost in the world in our language. It is the trace of the Spanish naval expeditions to the northwestern coasts of America at the end of the 18th century..
Dante: the book which lasted thirteen years
Dante was not a birth, were one hundred. My first novel thirteen years hard in and out in a drawer or opening and closing of a computer that many times was nothing more than an old forgotten file. Dante times are explained in the illustrative example that the first draft is crafted, with pen and cuartillas, then I still had confidence in understanding what was able to draw with fingers.
Charlie Hebdo and bougainvillea
Internet said they were well and safe, Some residents of the city were able to alert them, in time to take refuge with other Christians in the military barracks in the city, that the worst was over in a few days and could take a plane bound for Togo, A Burkina that a Benin. During the following days the people of the city was dedicated to bring food and save some belongings of the Mission.
Baltic waters
I liked to go up on deck to watch the bow break the cold waters of the Baltic as if the gigantic ferry took little effort.. that simple. It was cold and the wind shook you in unexpected jolts as if putting you to the test.
