Ceremonial Masks

Is where Sahara ends and begins a more humid area, in Western Africa, where inhabits one of the most fascinating tribes of the black continent. In the boundary between wildness and civilization. Going to the South, there is the most populated place in Africa, the countries from the Guinean gulf.

Well, lets focus in this place, lets pay attention to this tribe. They are the dogons. A tribe that tries to keep away from the piercing globalization that threatens with destroy the astonishing variety shown by this and other tribes.

Not in vain they live in a place so far from cities, a rocky place full of cliffs, with an extremely hot climatology, where temperature often rise up above 113º F.

Dogon villages are built upon the hillsides of this terrain, with small huts instead of real houses.

Most of dogons practice animism, this is, the cult of one or more deities that have their avatar in this world (sky, stars, animals, plants, the weather phenomenons, etc)

An example of animism, would be the Egyptian Civilization.

For dogons, their particular god is Sirius, the most brightning star of the sky. Their beliefs are based on cosmology. However, some of them were converted into islam or cristianism. Due to dat, there are some villages that have their population divided.

In terms of cosmology, there are people who believe that they established contact with aliens from Sirius. That theory is based in a conversation between a shaman guru of a village, called Ogotemmeli in 1939. (I suppose that the chat was in french, a language extended in that area by the fact of being a colony).

Ogotemmeli gave really specific data of astronomy. He even said that 'Po Tolo' (the twin star of Sirius, Sirius B) was ''so heavy that even the entire humankind wouldn't be able to hold it''.

Casually, it is known that Sirius B, is a high-density star, (as big as the Earth but as heavy as the Sun).

However, all this stuff can be destroyed by the fact that this data were known since 1862 by Western world. So, it is supposed that a jesuitic missionary or anyone that had contact with dogons before, would try to teach them about modern knowledges, and that chaman guru only spoke what he learnt before.

Apart from that, it is also interesting the masks ritual. Specifically, Sigi's ritual, of the Mali's dogons. It is very difficult to be seen because they celebrate one every sixty five years. With no doubt, be able to see them dancing in an atmosphere filled of sparks coming from the bonfires and with giant masks them loose the balance, should be something unforgetable.

Sigi represents the worlds renovation, something like the start of a new cycle.

I hope that a tribe with so many folklore like the dogon, will have success stopping the irrepressible advance of Western culture, that has became something like a virus that once lost the notion of restriction of it expansion. If not, events like the Ogotemmeli's speech would be the daily bread, and dogons would loose their identity.

Desert citadel

Rajasthan is maybe the most charmed and well portrayed place in India. A hybrid between arab world, and far east, and is that situation that offers us such a diverse and awesome place.
Biggest cities in the state, has their own accent, each of them has known how to build its own atmosphere.

Jaipur, pink city, is the first of them. Strategically placed between camel routes to the Thar desert, and the indian heart, close to famous cities as Agra or even Delhi, with which makes the 'Golden Triangle', a true refference for travelers. There we can find Hawa Mahal, also known as wind shrine; a huge facade full of perfectly ellaborated windows and niches.

We can also see the maharaja Jai Singh II's astronomical observatory. And everything with the touch of the ubiquitous pressence of those pink houses, that rise up even more the warm style of this dry landscape.


Jodhpur, blue city, keep a similar style to its big sister, but this time is the blue in the walls the one that refresh the ambient and offers a magical touch to the scene.



And how to forget Udaipur, indian Venice. A romantic city that came from a tale, with a palace in its first lake.

However, there is still one place, much more hidden to traveler's eye, than all of this. A place close to Pakistan frontier, filled with a constant desert smog.

It appears like a mirage, a citadel of red walls that rules the surounding space. A fastuous place where see a sunset has no prize. From which camel caravans start their travel through desert, where craftsman and fire-eaters provide us a medieval scene.

Just imagine for a moment to walk through the narrow streets ruled by 'havelis', big houses built by nobles and merchants that some day in the past amassed a huge fortune, while you get surprised by the most ancient purity. You look up to the sky and see the most star-filled firmament that you can conceive. It seems like Chronos forgot this place.




Jaisalmer, avatar of nostaliga.


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The lost world

Tepuys are tiny plateaus, that are split into venezuelan grassland. It's number is around a hundred and fifty. There are some remarkable things about this geological structures.

First of all, that they are very ancient. In fact, rocks that tepuys are made has three point eight billion years. We would be talking about the most primitive rock formation on Earth.

Another sensation about this plateaus is the mysticism that induce seeing them, covered by a dense fog most of the time. If we compare them with the huge Himalaya, they would seem small to us, but due to they are in a prairie, they are awesome.

Natives from the place, tell all sort of stories about what can be found at the top of those plateaus, far away from human influence in the way that they are so unreachable. In fact, many people think nowadays that tepuys can be ruled by legendary beasts or even dinosaurs.

However, there is some reality in this statements, and is the fact that biodiversity of this place has no limits, and it can only be obscured by a few places in the world, like its neighboring Amazonia.
Recently, some species of carnivore plants have been discovered at the top of some tepuys, until now they were hidden from the human's eye.

And is that the extremely verticality of tepuy's makes very difficult the biodiversity exchange between bottom and top of those structures. Due to that, endemisms appears, species that are unique of those inhospit highlands.
Another of the achievements of that verticality, is that due to it, some incredible waterfalls appears. As impressive as the one that falls from the Auyantepuy, the famous Angel falls.


Most of this plateaus are placed in the basin of another important river of South America, the Orinoco.
In this same place, we can find the National Park of Canaima, famous for its cute capibaras, the biggest rodent on Earth.

It is also remarkable, that this misterious and tropical landscape, was used as a context in the Arthur Conan Doyle novel ''The Lost World''.
Once you have seen those pictures, and get some knowledge, it is not strange. Tepuys worth it.

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City of yurts

Today I'm going to talk to you about a city that impressed me since I knew some interesting data.
It's Ulaanbaatar, capitol city of Mongolia. Not a populous city, nor big and with huge skyscrapers. The fact is that what makes it special, is that has none of those things.
It's a very particular city.

Placed in middle-north of the country, it suffers from being one of the most distant places to sea. In fact, the closest coast is about one thousand and five hundred kilometers in straight line. And what does it means? Basically, the weather is hellish.

Ulaanbaatar is considered the coldest capital city on Earth. In winter, the hard continental weather wins the match against influences of the sea. Many often, temperatures go under minus forty degrees. This situation, in a modern city without any social distinction would not be absolutely catastrophic.

But what if some part of the population has no place to runaway from cold? Hundreds of people, including a lot of homeless kids, have to survive during the long winter. Those kids are called ''rat kids'' because they only found salvation on being close to warm gasoducts under the city. It's not funny that you find holes in the street through which you can see those poor kids.

One of the most stunning things of this city, is the anarchy that rules on urbanism, the mixture of styles. You can see a huge and sordid communist building, and see to the other side and find a delicated and fragile temple that restores the oriental spirit of the scene.


Even with this, there is one thing that dominates the sight. An infinite sea of yurts, the typical tents of mongolic people. This kind of construction that were been given by their powerful and dangerous ancesters, the Hunes. are easily built up and picked up.

This show us the pilgrim nature of mongolian inhabitants. Is like in every moment of their lifes could be a war starting and they should runaway from that place.


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Welcome, travelers.

I want to give you a warm welcoming to this blog, which treats about everything that this world can surprise us with.

The reasons that make me start this project are, on one hand, my interst in develope a topic that I love since I have memory, and on the other hand, to spread the values of respect and cultural exchange.

Because western values are not the only ones nor are the best. This world is a mosaic of cultures, languages and folklores; what can be a delicious dish in some part of the world, may be uneatable for others. A well-behaved man can be considered dangerous in another culture. By grace of luck or disgrace, globalization is finishing with those differences that once were big boundarys and now they have expired.

Here you will find some flashes of traditional folklore of places exposed, for everyone to be aware that variety, even though it is a decadent value, is still in our planet.




From left to right, a member of Dogon tribe wearing a ceremonial mask in West Africa, then a japanese geisha, and finally a native from a brazilian tribe.

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