It’s nice to come back to places one has been to before and liked a lot. Or not? On the one hand, good memories might the revived and relived, favourite spots visited again, old friends caught up with, new friends made. On the other, everything might go wrong that second time round, nice places might not be this nice after all, old friends might turn out to be nothing but acquaintances, and good old days most certainly cannot be relived. What about the places one did not like too much or even at all? That was Guadalajara for me. And yet I came back – and I don’t regret.
Author: Marta
The Travel Daily #1
Posted onI need to write more – and I’m hitting the road again. Hence, every few days or so, I will write a short travelogue and publish it right here, leaving it to your kind attention. Feel free to keep me accountable, as deadlines seem to be the only source of motivation within the scope of my comprehension.
Instagram digest #3 – the beach
Posted onPuerto Vallarta is quite an interesting place. It also so happens that it is one of the main holiday destinations in Mexico. Therefore, there exists an awful lot of beach holiday photographs with the town in the background. Puerto Vallarta deserves more than that though. Its own charm deserves to be fully displayed. Also, beach holiday photographs don’t need to be dull and repetitive. Here is a little collection of non-obvious jewels I have found in the tropical dens of Puerto Vallarta’s Instagram.
Monday blues.
Posted onIt turned out that because of a conglomerate of unfortunate circumstances I won’t go to Poland this summer. It hurts me dearly, as I will miss two weddings that I really wanted to attend. I am also if only a little bit annoyed with my multiple fails on the logistics side of things. Hazards of the job, one could say – or lack of thereof.
The Desperate Guitar Player. Sound Postcard.
Posted onWhat I find astounding in Mexico is that there are very few beggars here. Most of them are found in the tourist areas of the country, like Cancun or Puerto Vallarta. Most of the time people who would otherwise beg find one service or another to offer. Some of them make breakfast tacos, some others sell snacks from their living room window, some walk around trying to sell chewing gum – and there are those who sing.
Kashirskaya – Last Metro Stations
Posted onThere was a station I used to pass every day on my way home in my first months in Moscow. It was completely unremarkable, grey and concrete. I would sometimes need to get off there if the train I was on was being diverted to a very short, three-stations-long light blue line. Kashirskaya is the last – or the first – stop on that line. Hence, one day, I got off there completely on purpose, and photographed life that was unfolding in front of me:
A tale of two Cancúns.
Posted on– I don’t like Americans – Anwar said the day after I arrived. – I only like their money
Anwar lives in Cancún, the tourist Mecca of Mexico. It was built from scratch in the 70s. A group of bankers, having noticed the tourist potential Mexico had, decided to create competition for Acapulco, then the most popular destination in the country, and build another holiday paradise. They considered a few different locations but eventually chose the tiny fisher’s village in a long forgotten area of the Caribbean.
The way to Sankt Petersburg. Sound Postcard.
Posted onLast week I picked up my renewed passport. As the lady was cutting all the visa-free pages and stamping a huge, red “CANCELLED” across my 16-year-old face, excitement started tingling in the tips of my fingers. This old passport accompanied me throughout all my adult and semi-adult vagabonding. I had it in Kiev, Lviv and Zhovkva all the way back in high school. It saved me a lot of trouble in Hong Kong and granted entry to Taiwan on my very first inter-continental journey. I had it on the Transsiberian railway trip. It is the passport which, on my very first journey to Edinburgh, I put in a pocket in my carry-on (I was still serious about Ryanair’s strict one-bag policy then) which was then taken away from me and which a helpful police officer later retrieved from the baggage belt to let me enter the country. It is the passport which, even though it bears no signs of it, accompanied me on many trips in the EU and for good two years was my only widely recognisable ID.
Instagram digest #2 – faces
Posted onWhile I’m preparing the trip to Mexico and sorting out the Moscow archives, my Instagram discoveries continue. Today, I gathered some of the most interesting faces I’ve seen there lately.
Street tunes. Sound Postcard.
Posted onDespite all the peculiarities which differ them, big cities ultimately have a lot in common: the overwhelming rush, the squeaks of car horns, the men and women in suits, the women with children, the hippies in parks, the intelligentsia in bookshops. Street musicians are yet another essential in that urban landscape. If you’ve followed the blog for a while you might have noticed that I have quite a soft spot for them. Today I’m presenting you with yet another wonder I’ve encountered.
