Year: 2011

ERCOLANO RUINS: Beyond Pompeii

Anyways, after this colorful ride, we were in Herculaneum. The differences with Pompeii are directly apparent on arrival. This is like looking at a whole city from above, only the roofs have been removed. Buildings here are much better preserved than in Pompeii, as Ercolano inhabitants were killed by the tremendous heat, and not by the ashes.

Herculaneum used to be a beach resort for rich Romans, so the ruins, located below ground level, are looking at an imaginary sea, as the water has long ago retired. Pompeii is huge, while Ercolano is rather manageable and, provided you have a good guide, you can get a pretty clear picture of it in one day.

Love story at the Llamadas: Candombe drumming and amour in Montevideo

We followed the drummers dancing like crazy. The llamadas consist of each group playing and dancing candombe and walking for some 10 blocks over a street called Isla de Flores. They start around the corner from my apartment, actually, but our seats were near the end of the line, so, when we followed the drummers as they exited the gates, police closed them behind us and said we couldn´t go back inside.

Ana couldn´t care less: she was going to be reunited with him, and nothing else mattered.

An Egyptian mirage: Mayhem in the land of the pharaohs

In a country where a blogger goes to prison for four years after criticizing the president, it is no secret that freedom of expression has been a standing concern.
After 30 years living in an ipso-facto dictatorship under Hosni Mubarak, it seems that Egypt has had enough.

However, when I saw images of an Egyptian museum after it had been ramsacked during protests, I felt a sense of terrible loss.

Mount Vesubius adventure video

Making wine and building mansions hardly seem to be activities to carry out next to a time bomb like Vesubius, but, since this type of volcanoes can stay calm for a couple of thousand years, people tend to feel safe there, and so did I, as you can see in my video.
(Top photo by Kris de Curtis)