Every afternoon, boats sail two hours from açaí-palm growing islands in the Amazon River to the açaí market in Santana, to sell the berries that became world-famous after they were claimed to be a superfood.
From a bridge we had a perfect view of the river dwellers’ arrival.
Amidst a crowd of typical, T-shirts-and-jeans-wearing Brazilians, a black woman stood out. She wore an intricate, white, lace bodice covered with necklaces above a dark-blue, billowing skirt and a white piece of cloth artistically wrapped around her head. She was deep-frying some sort of snack.
Meet Salvador da Bahia’s famous Baianas de Acarajé.
“Curiosity is lying in wait for every secret.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Why did I not think of this before? I’ll just buy tapioca and we’ll make beiju,” I concluded.
It was such a simple solution to such a simple problem: staying in a village where I couldn’t find bread but needing something for breakfast.
If only it were so simple…
The world around us is an ocean of green: undulating hills blanketed with dark green and soft green tea plants. India is the second-largest tea producer in the world (after China) and the Munnar Tea Plantations, in the southwestern state of Kerala, is one of India’s major tea producing centers.
This is a sea of tea plants.
In 1873 Colonel Simião Jurumenha bought a sugarcane farm and built the cachaça factory of Douradinho in Redenção. 10 years later slavery was abolished here – 5 years before the rest of Brazil.
130 years later, I visit the still functioning factory-cum-museum.
With over 50,000 people selling and buying, the Sunday Market in Kasghar is the biggest in China. Its origin goes back to the golden age of the Silk Route when delegations from all different empires came here to trade.
Our expectations were high.
For a moment I am caught off guard and almost fall overboard. Something is sharply tugging at the chunk of fat I had fastened on the hook. Pablo, my host, guide and friend helps me pull in my line until the feisty creature plops on the bottom of the boat in fluttering spasms.
I just caught a piranha!
Beautifully located amidst the green undulating hills of the Sierras Chicas in Córdoba Province, Candonga was one of our surprises when traveling in central Argentina. Our friend Agustín, at whose nearby estancia we were camped for some a couple of months, invited us on a day trip.
“I want to share something with you,” was all he gave away.
I can’t remember the name of the book but it was a fiction novel about Germany right after the war. In high school, World War II had been a major topic in our history classes so I thought I knew quite a bit about it.
However, when reading this novel a couple of years later, it was the first time I heard about the Airlift in Berlin.
Several travelers and locals had mentioned it to us: Heladería Holanda, an ice cream parlor in Cajamarca. Since the owner is Dutch, and so are Coen and I, it made sense to visit it when in Cajamarca.
What is it about wanting to connect with your countrymen when abroad?
If I wanted to blend in with Brazilian culture I better started liking the traditional Brazilian food of beans and rice – Brazil’s staple food. Brazilians live on white beans, black beans – or feijão and feijão negro.
Another typical bean dish is feijoada.
During Coen’s photography assignment for Bevrijde Wereld, a Belgium NGO that supports agricultural projects with a focus on food security, we visited various rural communities in Bolivia. One of the aspects I loved most during these meetings was lunch as it was a great way to taste Bolivia’s traditional dishes.
Sharing food was a big part of these meetings.
During Coen’s photography assignment for Bevrijde Wereld (meanwhile called Solidagro and locally called Mundo Nuevo), a Belgian NGO that supports agricultural projects with the emphasis on food safety, we visited a project focusing on women empowerment: A yogurt factory in …
