Our visit to Skopje had a mission: we wanted to be positively impressed. The previous time we were in the city— ten years ago — we only changed buses at the main bus station and had a somewhat a miserable time. We were waiting for our connecting bus to Serbia in the late hours of a Friday evening. All seats in the waiting area were taken by local hooligans, and we didn't have a single Macedonian dinar to pay a visit to the toilet. Nobody wanted Euro at that time and the only currency exchange booth was closed. When our connecting bus finally arrived, we were happy to leave.

Our second visit didn't start auspiciously either. We arrived in the middle of a Muslim holiday, Eid al-Adha, when goats are slaughtered. The city was empty and everything was closed. We had made a booking to a hotel in the Old Bazaar area, which turned out to be a maze. We were walking back and forth the tiny area looking around but couldn't find the hotel. Finally, a friendly Bosniac happened to know the place and took us there. The receptionist, however — who didn't speak a word of English — had double booked our room so we were soon back in the crispy cold weather.

Fortunately we found another hotel and our luck changed. The next day we had loads of sunshine and the city turned out to be very walkable. Everything of interest — mainly statues, an old fortress and a stone bridge — can easily be seen within a single day but we wanted to take our time and try local breakfast buffets. We hopped from one hotel to another, walked along the river, and enjoyed eating out affordably. All in all, we had a great time and would gladly visit the city again if it happens to fall on our route.

We travelled to Kalna, Serbia to interview 28-year-old Vicente who left Portugal eight years ago to travel the world. In this Global Nomad interview, Vicente is talking about his life on the road, the hippie community where he has been staying, his projects and future plans.

The Global Nomad Interviews: Vicente, 28

In our first Global Nomad interview ten years ago, we filmed female nomad Rita Golden Gelman in Istanbul, Turkey.

Transcript

My name is Vicente. I travel with nothing.

I left Portugal with less than 500 Euro and my backpack. I go, and the world will take care of me.

I don't see myself as a wanderer. There is the wonderer with an o and the wanderer with an a which are two different words. One wonders mentally and wanders physically. But there is a certain quality in wandering. You are just like a cloud, moving. I¨m not that kind of person. Far from that.

It is now 2022. I was 20 in 2014 when I left. I have been travelling 8 years next month.

Where have I been travelling after I left? 8 years is not a long time. It is just a short breath.

I had a girlfriend in 2015-2016. I spent a long time in Austria with her. She was Austrian, from Vienna. We broke up in July, 2016. I was going to Asia for the first time. I got my visas in Vienna and I broke up with her. I went to Hungary. I hitchhiked from Hungary to Ukraine. I crossed Ukraine and entered Russia. I crossed the European part of Russia, the Ural mountains and entered Siberia. I hitched 5 000 kilometres non-stop. I was tired. I found a farm from a work exchange website. It was in the middle of Siberia, South of Novosibirsk. I contacted them and they accepted me. I thought I will spend a couple of weeks to ground myself and experience the place rather than rush forward. I was very crazy at the time. I would never do things like that nowadays.

There was I in the farm in the middle of August. They trusted me. After the first week, they left the farm for me to take care of. They went to a city for shopping and taking care of their things. There I was taking care of the farm when someone knocked at the door. I opened the door and there was my ex girlfriend whom I left in Vienna. I swear she was not looking for me, she was travelling on her own. This was crazy insane and we fell madly in love again. It just extended our problems a bit longer. But it was beautiful to say goodbye first in Vienna and then again in Siberia. Out of nowhere, unexpected. It was super beautiful.

Many people I met wanted me to stay and were very hospitable. They appreciated my life experience and philosophy. I have juggled a lot, literally. Recently I have been building and designing buildings. That's one my favorite things so far.

I lived in Langkawi in Malaysia for a while. The last 2 months I lived in a boat. The first time I went there I asked a sailor to take me there in a dinghy. The boat was anchored in the bay. I spent the whole day in the boat. When I returned, I noticed that I had lost my flip-flops. I don't really mind losing shoes. I've walked barefoot for many years. I can walk without shoes, no problems. The next 2 months I was in the boat without shoes. It was all good, I was happy and satisfied with life. Eventually I left the boat and Malaysia in the beginning of 2019. I was preparing to return to Europe.

I had a flight from Bangkok. So I needed to go from Langkawi to Bangkok. On the way I decided to stop in Ko Pha Ngan. 2-3 months after I lost my flip-flops in Langkawi I was walking on the beach in Ko Pha Ngan. And I swear to God, on the beach, covered in sand, there were my flip-flops.

I spent my first winter here in Serbia in 2014-2015. The people living here in this place are my best friends. Why am I in Serbia now? I have two reasons. The people living in this community are my friends. During my first winter here, I became very good friends with the founder. I returned in 2019.

This is one of the places I've missed the most, and these people. There are chickens, dogs, cats, too many in my opinion. There is a main house and a tool shed. It's in chaos but the tools are there. There is also another house where Bogdan's (the owner and founder) mother lives. She moved in a few years later. She is perhaps the most important person here. There are some stables that accommodate only human animals.

I built the place where I am living into one stable. There is a lot of land up in the mountain, and really beautiful places around. We are at the foot of Stara Planina. Stara Planina stretches through Bulgaria all way to the Black Sea. It is a very big, fairly wild and harsh mountain range, especially in Bulgaria. We're at the foot so we already have mountain climate with long winters. Temperatures can drop to -20 degrees Celsius.

Living in a community is one of the most difficult things. It requires skills. We are humans. Imagine a married couple moving in together, it's already a big challenge. Now imagine 5-6-7-10-15 people living together and sharing their things. It can be a chaos.

For 6 years I was not stopping anywhere for more than 3 months. The travelling mindset was natural for me. When things turn unpleasant and I don't see a way out, I start thinking why not simply leave. Then my heart tells me not to run away but sort out my shit before I go.

It is said that God is everywhere. The only other non-physical thing that is present in everything is mathematics. We can narrow down everything to mathematical principles. Vibration has frequency, cycle and rhythm. Shapes, harmonics, whatever, everything can be narrowed down to some sort of mathematical principle. Geometry is a graphical representation of these mathematical principles, and Sacred Geometry has its own very specific geometric language. It's a mix of super intellectual and super intuitive, a branch of mathematics. I call it qualitative mathematics. It's when we stop observing mathematics as quantities like 1 + 1 = 2 and start observing mathematics as qualities just like in music. It is a qualitative observation of numerological alphabet.

Mushroom temple is my first big experiment. I'm exploring geometric perfection. If our creations are extensions of our thinking, what does it tell about us if all we do is square and made of dead matter. It tells a lot about what's inside of our heads.

I wanted to experiment with other geometric shapes. This was my first big experiment. I used hexagonal. Square isolates the interior from the exterior, hexagonal bends and blends. I began to understand that physical shapes influence our minds.

All the walls are made of mushrooms. I collected the mushroom material from mushroom farmers. These mushrooms didn't produce enough, although there was still Mycelium left. I picked up Mycelium bags, stuffed, compacted and shaped them for the walls. The roof I made out of straw and inoculated it with Mycelium. I wanted the mushrooms to grow there. When it rains, the whole roof will be full of mushrooms. It will be beautiful.

It is now the end of July. The first half of August I was invited to Romania to help renovate a building and to participate in some ceremonies there. In the second half of August me and my girlfriend Sonja want to scout land for building another base elsewhere in Serbia.

For the next 1-2 years I might also be somewhere around Serbia. In September we'll be travelling to France to help to arrange a psychology festival. And visit Portugal for a few things. Portugal is on the way to the Canary Islands and Capo Verde. We'll try to find a boat to cross the Atlantic.

Why we want to cross the Atlantic? In South America there are some specific tribes that hold interesting knowledge. The tribe is called Shipibo and they are living somewhere around the Amazon. They have a language that they weave into fabric. It's knowledge of sound and its interpretation. They have songs weaven into patterns that look much like semantics.

Semantics happen when something vibrates, for example water or a plank with sand. If you vibrate the plank or water in a certain frequency, the sand or water forms a pattern depending on the frequency.

I want to be able to interpret these patterns, reproduce them, and use them to create a language that I can use, interpret and share. It is a natural language that nature understands. It resonates not only between us humans, but between all living organisms, nature.

The Shipibo tribe has it. Their patterns are beautifully precise, similar to scientific semantic patterns. They sing them. Rhythms, melodies and invocations are important, not words. This is the knowledge I want to possess: to read those patterns, make and interpret them.

Pakistani Sufi music.

Put a bird into a cage for 10 generations. Observe after 10 generations how the bird behaves in the cage. You can't call that normal behaviour. The bird forgot its original behaviour.

I think we humans are pretty much the same. We have been encaged for so many years that we have no memory.

We fail to conceive who we are and what is our full potential.

It takes bravery, faith and trust to leave the cage.

The door of the cage is always open. The cage is in our head. It doesn't matter where are we. If we keep doing the same things, we are in the cage. But the cage is always open and we can choose differently and change. We can explore new things. We can leave the cage anytime we want.

But we don't leave because we lack bravery and heartfulness. We need to stop doing things we know and dive into the unknown. Many of us stay in their little bubbles because it's easier.

In my lifetime, if I can show an example of an alternative way, something that is much more beautiful and better for everybody, that would make me very happy.

You can watch this video with subtitles and the rest of our videos at videos.nomadtravelbooks.com.

We wanted to escape the high season in the coastal Mediterranean Balkan states and so were asking around for suggestions where to go. Upon this mission, we got into contact with Portuguese Vicente on BeWelcome hospitality exchange, and got interested in the place where he had been staying on and off for some years. The place is Kalna in Stara Planina Mountains that run from Serbia to Bulgaria.

The Balkan Mountains are among those peripheral areas that have become deserted as people move to big cities in search of work. This city-bound migration has offered new opportunities for people who are looking for alternative solutions. The community where we stayed was established eight years ago by a circle of Belgradian friends interested in spirituality. They decided to occupy one of the deserted villages buying and renovating several houses within three kilometres of Kalna village centre. The community now welcomes people from around the world to enjoy the simple life. This summer was particularly busy as there was an international Rainbow gathering nearby. After the camp was over, many Rainbow people stopped by in the village.

We ended up staying in Kalna for one month. We rented a little cabin within the community area, and during that time, we made a Global Nomad interview of Vicente about his travels, ideals, and his life philosophy. We hope that you enjoy this 20-minute video which also offers a glimpse into the life in Kalna hippie village.

After we left Kalna, we toured around in Serbia a bit. We stopped by in Belgrade, Novi Pazar and Novi Sad, and visited a good old friend of ours, Lazar, who is also a world traveller. He is the author of Bantustan, an exhilarating African travelogue, and one of the founders of the Serbian Travel Club that offered a unique opportunity for young Serbians to travel affordably. Now many of the Club members have become middle-aged and don't travel so much anymore. The story is the same as everywhere else in the world: you enter the working life, start a family, and get serious. Fortunately hippies in Kalna show that there are alternatives to this rut. If you don't like travelling, you can make other exciting choices of life!

What can one say about Sarajevo? It is charming yet brutalist; there are ruins of an old Ottoman caravanserais but also dilapidated Soviet style housing blocks; the streets feel safe, yet the memorials and remnants of war abound, everywhere.

Sarajevo is full of contradictions and perhaps that's precisely why it's so fascinating. It seems to include everything — all human emotions, desires and memories, both remembered and forgotten. It is the perfect place for contemplating where the world is going and whether we have alternatives. Are we heading for an ever-more divided world or are we brave enough to explore more harmonious ways of living and being?

Churches, mosques, temples

The old part of Sarajevo is the most convenient place to begin the meditative journey around the city. It is easily walkable within an hour or two, and includes all the major sights. There are the narrow lanes of the Old Bazaar with plentiful shops and restaurants. There is also the 15th century Ottoman mosque of Gazi Husrev-beg with the adjoining museum and library, and the famous Latin Bridge where Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated in 1914 — the notorious event that seemed to offer an excuse for starting World War I.

When wandering the streets of the old town, one comes across so many churches, cathedrals and mosques that it would be easy to draw the conclusion that Sarajevans are particularly religious. However, while there have been spiritual revivals after the breakdown of the Communist regime, the imposing temples are mostly visited by tourists. Sarajevo is just like any other capital in the Western world — secularised.

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Still, religion is strongly present in politics and culture. About half of Sarajevans identify with Muslim communities. In addition, there are Serbian Orthodox Christians (30 percent), Roman Catholics (15 percent), and others, including Jews and Protestants (less than 5 percent). Religion was one of the tools that was efficiently deployed in the Balkan war between Islamic Bosnia and Orthodox Serbia. Both countries, however, are still is multiethnic and multireligious sharing common culture, language, heritage, and history. The war didn't change anything; it merely sowed hatred between ethnic and religious groups.

Yet another divided city

Sarajevo remains divided like Cyprus. The Dayton Peace Agreement, that ended the war in 1995, split the country into two entities. The same division applies also to Sarajevo. If you arrive in Sarajevo by bus from Serbia or from Montenegro, you will end up in the Serbian part of the city. That is were the city's only long-haul bus station, Istočno, is located.

Unfortunately there is not much of interest in the Serbian part of the capital from the tourist point of view. It is best to walk out from the bus station towards the centre. In five minutes, you will arrive in the local bus station where there are frequent connections to the "Sarajevo proper". The ride takes about half an hour and costs one euro (or two Bosnian Marks). On the way you will see blocks of houses with bullet holes that were never repaired. While Sarajevans look eagerly to the future, they also hold firmly onto the past.

Santeri's alternative to war is peace. All travel videos.

This is the sad part of the history, but there is always a silver lining. The war also showed the resilience of the city and its people. Sarajevo has revived its heritage and now draws tourists from around the world. One cannot but wonder if this will be the future of Ukraine as well. Will tourists flock to see the divided country and feel compassion with its residents? Do we need divisions in order to feel united with (at least some parts of) the world?

We had been hoping to go to Guadeloupe for years but the island was closed during the recent flu hysteria. When France finally reopened it, we rushed immediately in.

Guadeloupe is interesting due to its rare location in the tropics and within the European Union. EU citizens can stay there indefinitely without visa-runs. In principle, the unlimited stay should only apply to French citizens but our passports were not even checked at the border since the island is inside of the EU area. The entry was hassle-free and the climate also proved to be nice. Even though it was September and the rainy season, the wheather was mostly sunny and dry. Everything else, however, was not quite as we had hoped for.

Like Jamaica...

Guadeloupe reminded us of Jamaica where we had been staying for a couple of months ten years earlier. Like Jamaicans, most Guadeloupeans live in the inner parts of the island in one-storey houses or shacks that are accessed by tiny bad roads. Thanks to excessive traffic and no walkways for pedestrians, the island is not walkable. The other travellers we met solved the issue by renting a car.

Guadeloupe is small, so the sea is never really far away even when living inland. There are several places where to reach the beach, but unfortunately trash and algae make swimming unattractive. While Guadeloupe also boasts well-maintained private beaches, they are out of reach for ordinary Guadeloupeans.

The division between locals and tourists is striking. While tourists enjoy first-class service and an abundance of food and fancy drinks in all-inclusive resorts, locals queue for basic necessities in budget supermarkets. We stopped by in one LeaderPrice near the airport and stood in the queue for an hour. When we asked locals if this was unusual, they shook their head. "No, it's actually better than usually", they said. Many shelves were empty, and the prices were at European levels. Many people survive just because they grow their own food. Also the cost of rent, utilities and medicines is sky-high coupled with low quality. Frankly, the value could not be much lower. According to locals, the main cause of the cost of living crisis is excessive corruption that has deep roots in local government.

...but not like the other Caribbean islands

The high cost of living brings about many problems. At the outskirts of the capital, Pointe-à-Pitre, drugs and prostitution flourished, and in the center theft. Pointe-à-Pitre was, in fact, the first place where we didn't feel comfortable taking our camera out for filming and photoshooting. There were simply too many people seeking extra income.

Although Pointe-à-Pitre is small, it isn't inviting. There are scarcely any beautiful places to see, and the city is missing the laid-back feeling of other Caribbean islands. Shops and restaurants do not play salsa and merengue, houses are grey, and people look downright depressed. After a week, we felt like leaving. Ironically, we also had to pay dearly for getting out. The only cheap flights were to Paris, from where we had just arrived. The flights to the nearby islands cost almost twice as much. Still, we felt it was a win-win. We had had our chance to explore the island a bit, and we were happy to continue our explorations elsewhere in the Caribbean.

Photos of our 18th wedding anniversary in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic on our never-ending honeymoon trip.

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We love to go to buffet restaurants once in a while to enjoy variety. In the Dominican Republic finding one was not easy. Most restaurants offer a buffet-like selection of dishes during the lunch time, but you choose what you want to eat and pay accordingly, while fixed price all-you-can-eat alternatives are missing. Fortunately, international hotels serve buffet breakfasts in all big cities in the world, and Santo Domingo was not an exception.

Buffets and vegan food are not part of the local culture

At first we limited our search to vegan options. We tried a Chinese-Caribbean restaurant offering a broccoli dish, but we soon discovered it also included chicken. After visiting a few more places it became clear that plant-based food is not part of the local culture. The Happy Cow directory of vegan restaurants directed us to Raices restaurant which is run by a church. It was vegan and affordable but not a buffet: a small plate cost DOP $165 (US $3).

We did not give up our search but decided to proceed with non-vegan hotel buffets trusting that if we find one with large enough selection, there will be some vegan food as well. Lunch and dinner buffets were not available so we ended up checking breakfast buffets. They are served starting from 6-7am until 10-11am, and walk-in prices vary from US $10 to $27 per person including taxes.

Holiday Inn breakfast buffet

While there are plenty of international hotels around, Holiday Inn in downtown Santo domingo offered us the best choice regarding variety and price quality ratio. The Dominicans usually eat plantain or yuca with sausages and various kind of brown sauces for breakfast, but here the selection was more varied. Men chose omelettes, sausages, bacon and toast on their plates while women ate fruits, muffins and croissants.

We found the selection of cold and warm vegetables a welcome change. There were raw mushrooms, bell peppers, tomatoes and kale (which were meant for making a customised omelette, but we were allowed to take them raw) as well as cooked broccoli and carrot. The buffet also featured a small healthy corner that had salad-filled tortillas with green sauce. For vegans, there were various nuts and dried fruits.

The bread table was sumptious. There were different kinds of white, integral and brown bread available including bread rolls and baguette. The toaster was a bit tricky. It was a roll-in roll-out model where timing was of essence. When rolled in once, the bread got very lightly toasted but if rolled in twice, it nearly burned.

Fruit section was as great as can be expected in the Caribbean. The most common fruits here are pineapple, papaya, watermelon, cantaloupe, and bananas. Päivi loved Claudio's detox juice that was a blend of pineapple and mint, and of course coffee. The local pride, Santo Domingo blend, was served. It is the most loved and consumed coffee in the Dominican Republic that is usually made in an Italian style Moka, a stovetop espresso pot.

• Walk-in rate: DOP $955 + 28% taxes (US $24)
• Time: 6:00am - 10:00am
• Address: Av. Abraham Lincoln 856, Santo Domingo 10148, Dominican Republic

We were happy to end the breakfast with a digestive walk. The air was cooler than usually and it drizzled a bit when we strolled leisurely back home. Not a bad way to start the day!

Eating in local restaurants in the Balkans can be a bore as there are only a couple of vegan options available: mixed salad, french fries and Italian pasta with aglio and olio. Even rice is often cooked in broth. However, there is fresh produce available almost throughout the year, from early spring to late fall. Strawberries, cherries, apricots, nectarines, peaches, apples, pears, and plums abound, and vegetables are tasty. Beans and lentils are also part of local diet as well as walnuts and hazelnuts.

Ajvar

One popular vegan-friendly ready-made food that can be found in any shop in any Balkan country is ajvar. It is a popular vegetable spread that is very much like Russian ikra. The two are simply based on different vegetables. Ajvar is made of roasted red peppers while ikra is made of roasted eggplants. Both are delicious and good companions with rice, pasta, bulgur, or bread.

Tahini and peanut butter

North Macedonians make excellent tahini and Serbians make wonderful natural peanut butter. Both are sold in neighbouring countries as well but may be more expensive. Look for the peanut butter in shops selling bio and natural products. The ones in supermarkets contain added sugar.

Breakfast buffets in hotels can offer varity, but they are rarely all-you-can-eat. Here is how Hotel Old Konak buffet looked like 45 minutes before closing time in Skopje, North Macedonia.

Plant-based milk

All well-equipped supermarkets sell plant-based milk products: soy, almond, rice and oat milk. They are imported so the prices are approximately the same as in Europe.

Wine

The Balkan countries didn't invent wine but there are some pretty decent red wines available at affordable price. North Macedonia is the absolute number one. The local grape variety, vranec, produces a dry red wine with deep colour and intense bouquet that is simply a pleasure to sip.

Tea and coffee

Tea is considered a medicine throughout the Balkans and it means herbal tea. Even regular black tea can be hard to find not to speak about green tea. If you are a tea enthousiast, bring your own brews.

The Dominican Republic is a laid-back destination for those looking for a long-stay. When overstaying, you don't need to deal with the immigration office and apply for an extension. You simply pay according to the time you have spent in the country when leaving.

We discovered the charms of the Dominican Republic by accident. We had been visiting Guadeloupe and searched for an affordable exit flight. That happened to be to Santo Domingo which had never been on our list of favourite destinations. However, we decided to take advantage of the cheap airfare and stay a couple of days in the city before continuing onwards, but we soon decided otherwise. The climate was great, people were friendly, there were not too many tourists around, and the prices were affordable compared to other Caribbean islands. When we found a place to rent in the beautiful Colonial Zone without much effort, we decided to give it a try and ended up loving it.

Long-stay payments for staying over 30 days in the Dominican Republic

Here is what we learned about long-stay in the Dominican Republic. Although The International Air Transport Association IATA is misleading travellers to think they will get a free 90-day stay, this is not the case with the Dominican Republic. In reality, you will get 30 days, and you will be charged for any extra time you spend in the country. The fee can be paid in local currency and it is collected at the airport when leaving, just before the passport control. Here is the current fee table as of today. On the Internet, there is a lot of contradicting information about the cost and limit of overstay. The immigration website is selling extensions online and claims that the maximum stay in the country is 120 days while the Punta Cana airport has a pricelist up to ten years of overstay for 70,000 DOP/US $1,703. Santo Domingo Airport had a similar price list up to 10 years.

When entering, we did the required Electronic Ticket registration to get the QR code that was supposed to be required for entering and exiting the Dominican Republic, but nobody wanted to see any QR codes when arriving, not even the airline. On departure some border guards wanted to see QR codes. That caused huge queues and delays when people were sent back to fill the electronic forms, and some probably missed their flights in the process. One wonders if they are just collecting private information from unsuspecting tourists in order to sell it to third parties. Their online extension selling system also felt like a data harvesting scheme.

Santo Domingo Airport (SDQ) transportation by public bus for US $2

Another practical tip about arriving and leaving the country. There is an annoying airport taxi mafia in Santo Domingo Airport (Las Américas International Airport Dr. José Francisco Peña Gómez) just like in many other third world tourist destinations in the world. If you take a taxi, you will pay around US $24-60 while a bus ride costs only US $2. Note however that buses do not go all the way to the airport or leave straight from the airport. You need to walk out and then continue to the north to the Santo Domingo highway called Autopista Las Americas. The distance to the bus stop is about two kilometres (1.3 ml). There is a pathway, and the only tricky part is to cross the highway where everyone is driving to kill. The local bus station is on the other side of the highway about 150 metres (500 ft) towards Santo Domingo.

In Santo Domingo, buses to the airport leave from Enriquillo Park. You can take any bus going to Boca Chica, La Romana or Punta Cana. No matter how fancy or crappy the bus looks, they all charge you the same. In a minibus you might have to buy an extra seat for your luggage if you can't fit it on the floor or in front of you. We felt that buses are more trustworthy than taxis and wanted to avoid haggling, last minute price changes and the risk of getting robbed by a taxi driver.

Lovely, noisy and trashy Malecon

Why stay in Santo Domingo? The best thing about the city, for us, was Malecón. This long beach boulevard is great for exercising in the early morning hours. At that time, it is not crowded and the traffic in the nearby four-lane street is tolerable. During the daytime the noise is horrible and crossing the street mortally dangerous. During our three-month stay, we saw many accidents, mostly involving cars and motorcycles. It would be a great improvement if the government decided to make the city center and Malecón car-free. Now even huge American trucks drive along it polluting the air. We enjoyed tremendously those few Sundays when Malecón was completely closed for traffic. This happened during the Santo Domingo marathon and another running event.

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While you can admire incredibly beautiful sunrises from Malecón, the beaches are not good for swimming or sunbathing as they are filled with plastic waste. Once in a while groups of volunteers do a cleaning effort (themselves drinking water from single-use plastic bottles), but the shore soon looks the same. People just don't care, and restaurants keep selling throw-away packaged lunches and drinks in plastic bottles that end up on the beach and in the ocean killing fish and eventually people who eat fish. Päivi boiled tap water and Santeri drank it unboiled without any problems.

Electric nightmare

Among other downsides in Santo Domingo are constant interruptions in electric power. Local wiring is a mess and when something goes wrong, blackouts can last from hours to days. The longest inconvenience we experienced was eighteen hours. Usually there are a few blackouts every week and they last from two to four hours. The local electricity company has no interest in doing their job well. When they came to change our electric meter, they forgot to reconnect the electricity. It was Saturday afternoon and the guys hurried back home. That night we enjoyed a surreal setting: we sat in the dark watching our neighbours hanging blinking Christmas lights on their balconies.

Peace and price control

Foodwise, Santo Domingo is affordable. You can eat out with US $3 if you choose a popular lunch joint instead of an à la carte restaurant. Being vegans we didn't find much choice in restaurants so we cooked by ourselves. Food in supermarkets is very affordable and local fresh produce wonderful. We especially enjoyed the Dominican avocados, pumpkins and papayas. While there are many supermarket chains in the city, competition is lacking and selection is almost identical. Food prices seem to be controlled and the same applies to gasoline and currency exchange rates which feel artificially expensive. Obviously the government do not want people to riot and march in the streets as in many other countries in the world, including the neighbouring Haiti. The only protest we saw was against domestic violence. A small group of women was standing in the street holding protest signs.

For Americans and Europeans, flights to the Dominican Republic are cheap. There are many airlines flying either to Santo Domingo or to Punta Cana, and they often have promotions. The high season is from December to March. We stayed during the hurricane season which runs from September to November, and found it surprisingly pleasant. One hurricane came close but it missed us by some 50 kilometers (30 ml). In the aftermath, there was a strong wind and some rain causing a short blackout for a couple of hours. During the whole fall, rain was moderate. It usually rained in the afternoon and the rest of the day was nice and sunny. Temperatures were occasionally high coupled with high humidity. If you don't like tropical weather, fall is probably not the time to travel to the Dominican Republic. The high season is cooler and drier.

Let's cancel cars, OK?

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Let's cancel plastic trash, OK?

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Photos from the Caribbean island of Grenada.

Photos from the Caribbean island of Bonaire.

Barbados is a beautiful and friendly island. It attracts the wealthy, particularly the British, who want to enjoy beach holidays amidst dark and cold winter months. The island is full of high class resorts, most of which are empty though. The high season has not started yet after the global common cold hysteria. The same applies to all Caribbean islands we visited this year. The tourism business in this once busy island area has suffered enormously.

While low demand could lead to lower prices, this does not hold true in the Caribbean. Like its neighbours, Barbados is experiencing the painful effects of worldwide inflation. Everything is expensive from food to housing costs. For tourists, the cheapest accommodation starts from around 70 USD. It is bad value compared to, for example, the Dominican Republic which offers the same experience of sand and beaches for much less. Of course Barbados holds a higher status among the Caribbean islands. It is clean and safe, and boasts some of the best beaches in the area.

We stayed in a very nice privately owned traditional wooden house and slept one night in the airport. If you want to save money, airport offers definitely the best value in town. The benches are comfortable enough for sleeping, the air is fresh as the airport is only covered for rain, and there are drinking fountains and plenty of clean restrooms. The guards will make sure that your stay is safe.

Another good thing about Barbados is extensive public transport that works even during bank holidays. You can travel on big municipal buses or in small vans, including to and from the airport. The price is fixed: 3.5 Bajan dollars. The drivers are very helpful. When one driver didn't know the place where we were going to and passed it, he gave us our money back and took us to another bus. We arrived comfortably to our destination, a bit late but who cares. Barbados is living in Bajan time, which is pretty close to manana culture.

Walking, on the other hand, is difficult just like in all other Caribbean British and French colonies. Roads are filled with road kills and pedestrian sidewalks are mostly missing. Unfortunately, car drivers have no respect for pedestrians and many drive smoking marijuana.

Photos from the Caribbean island of Curacao (Curaçao).

Photos from the Caribbean island of Aruba.

Photos from the Caribbean island of Tobago in Trinidad Tobago.

Photos from the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

Photos from the Caribbean island of St. Maarten.

Photos from the Caribbean island of Dominica.

Photos from the Caribbean island of St. Lucia.

Photos from Canada.