A one-weekend trip to Hampi: monkeys, excellent food, a four-star hotel and lots of temples.

English:

A one-weekend trip to Hampi: 

monkeys, excellent food, a four-star hotel and lots of temples.

Last weekend, i.e. from July 17th to July 19th 2015, three of my fellow volunteers and I decided to go to Hampi, in the state of Karnataka, the former capital of the Vijayanagara Empire which was declared a World Heritage Site in 1986. The current city centre houses around 350 temples, fortifications, sculptures, stables... along with a vast amount of guesthouses, whose food is excellent.

Instead of staying in a guesthouse, we opted for a four-star hotel in the city of Hospet, just a few kilometres away from Hampi. There, we enjoyed a fantastic hot shower and a comfortable bed which could have delighted anyone. However, we did not walk a lot around Hospet and, instead of that, we decided to spend all day visiting and enjoying Hampi.

Focusing on...: traffic in Anantapur.

English:

Focusing on...: traffic in Anantapur.

As I mentioned here, and as I am sure many of you may have read in articles or seen in movies, the streets of India are a compendium of people, cows, pigs, roosters, dogs, noise, cars, rickshaws, motorcycles, rubbish, etcetera. I had also read about it and had seen it in movies, but it's not until you set foot in these cities that you actually see what it is like to live here and walk around these streets. It is surprising how much control these people have, whatever their means of transport is, and how little angry they get when they see that a car is approaching them from the front because it is overtaking a bus and two bikes at a time, not to mention how closely they pass pedestrians. Their tranquility is unchanged whatever the traffic intensity is or how much trouble there is around. Here you can see some examples of such chaos, but, as I have previously said, the photos and videos do not do justice to what one actually lives here. Personally, I am still surprised when I walk through these streets or when I am driven somewhere, but I'm getting used to the Indian way of doing things and I dare say I am not afraid anymore.

My first days in India: visiting humanitarian projects in Anantapur.

English:

My first days in India: visiting humanitarian projects in Anantapur.

As many of you know, on Sunday last week I began an adventure to India that will be extended, in principle, until July 2016. This adventure consists on volunteering in the country, specifically in the city of Anantapur, as an English teacher with Fundación Vicente Ferrer, known here as Rural Development Trust.

Seville, one of the most charming and beautiful Spanish cities I have visited.

English:

Seville, one of the most charming and beautiful cities I have visited.

As Mary Ritter Beard once said, "Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living." And just to deepen on our ideas of life, two of my best friends and I spent a weekend in Seville in May 2014. When we decided to go to Seville, we already knew we would like the city, but perhaps not as much as we really did. From the very first moment we saw the Giralda, with golden light at sunset, and we got into a tapas bar where the potatoes with aioli were delicious, we decided what we really felt for that city - rather than simply liking it, we thought it was fascinating.