CULTURAL SHOCK PART II - PERU AND BOLIVIA

The Death Road downhill biking. I will tell you more about this crazy experience soon :)

Oh Bolivia. We have been in Bolivia for a while now and if in the very beggining I felt like packing all my stuff and get the first flight back to Portugal, now that we are leaving soon, I don't want to. I wanna stay longer, exploring the corners of this incredible country.

In this whole South America trip, I was super excited about Peru and Bolivia, I don't really have a reason for this, I guess all the pretty places and indigenous people I used to read and watch in National Geographic caught my heart.

SHANTI FAVORITES #10

You want to change your hair to a vivid color but don't want to spend a bunch of money? Kaylah has great hair tips, she is bleaching her hair for many years so you can trust her advices. I followed some tips about how to maintain the color and they are working very well. 

ENTERING MACHU PICCHU: STEP BY STEP

Hello buddies directly from Cuzco, Peru!

I have been in Cuzco for 2 weeks now volunteering in an hostel, exploring the place and the Sacred Valley. You can't imagine how much I needed to settle down just for a while, backpacking and moving every 4 days is so tiring sometimes. Arriving a village at 6 am when you just been in a bus for 12 hours, barely sleeping. Sometimes it takes hours to find an hostel that fits in our budget. This is a backpacker's life and like anything in the World with the positive and negative sides.

Cuzco is the town that usually travelers stay to get to Machu Picchu. What a wonderful town! You should consider to take at least one week in this area, it's surreal. But in this post I want to tell you how you can get in Machu Picchu, since is not that easy.

WISH LIST: BOOKS ABOUT TRAVELS

This is not a list with cliché travel books like "Into the Wild" or "Eat Love Pray" or "The Alchimist", this is my ultimate book wishlist I've been collecting the past months from other travelers, friends or bloggers and I'm such a nice person sharing with you :) Hope you enjoy!

COUCHSURFING IS CHANGING FOR WORSE

Couchsurfing in Rabat, Morocco, with Oualid, a chilled guy with a warm heart. 

Remember when I posted beautiful things about this travelers community called Couchsurfing? (read full post here) Well, my opinion about this website changed dramatically and I'm really sad about it. CS made me a better person, I met wonderful people I call good friends around the World, I saved much bucks that kept me longer on the road while learning about a culture and connecting with locals.

During the year 2014 I had awful experiences with Couchsurfing. Three years using it full on, for the first time I wrote negative and neutral references, I had bad experiences and felt like shit sometimes. 

CARTAGENA AND THE COLONIAL BUILDINGS

Did you ever arrive a new place that you couldn't stop taking pictures? The last time I felt this way was 6 years ago when I've been in New york City for the first time (I lived in Maine and was only a 7 hours drive to NYC so been there several times). I just couldn't stop myself, those high buildings with historical architecture, the movement in the streets, I was completly fascinated!

Cartagena was the same. Although is a less busy city, the colonial style houses got me quickly, the pastel and vivid colors mixed with whites and wood, I was in photography heaven.