As a Mexican, I was raised in a society where the word Tarahumara was an insult. Now, I think it should be the other way around.

This blog post was inspired by a trip to Las Barrancas del Cobre and the book Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. Las Barrancas del Cobre is a series of massive canyons located in the Sierra Madre Occidental Mountains. The canyon system is four times larger (60,000 square kilometers) and nearly twice as deep in-depth as the infamous Grand Canyon of Colorado, USA. Yes, it’s huge, and you should go!

There is a train called Chepe that crosses the whole canyon and stops in different villages. The traditional way to plan the trip is to decide your stops and how long you want to stay there. The length of the trip is usually from 4 to 9 days, depending on how long you want to stay in the villages. The main motivation for me to visit Barrancas is the promise of the incredible one-of-a-kind views and unique nature. It’s well known that the Tarahumara communities live there, but to be honest, when planning this trip, I was not particularly interested in them. …

Ireland has always been one of my all-time dream destinations, not for any specific reason though. I didn’t know many Irish people nor did I know a lot about the history of the country. It could have been how it is represented in films, or from the Irish bars I have been to, but I just knew, intuitively, that I would like it. I could not have been more right!

After some research on things to do, my girlfriend and I decided to take a road trip through Ireland and Northern Ireland. …

Religious disclaimer: I am not trying to offend anyone’s religious beliefs and hope that you see that the focus is on the culture. If you are upset by anything written here, well, feel free to vent your insecurities in the comment section below. For the sake of this blog post, Turkey is a Muslim country.

The trip was to Istanbul for one week. Half the time it was business (fancy hotel), and the other half leisure (Airbnb in the Favelas of Istanbul).

Scammed by a Taxi

As a naive millennial, I arrived at the airport thinking that I could just order an Uber and go to my hotel. There were two pretty big problems with this: I had no internet service in Turkey and Uber is kind of illegal (taxi drivers beat and sometimes shoot uber drivers). So, I was a sitting duck for the airport taxi companies. A “friendly” guy came over to me asking if I wanted a taxi — and after my disappointment of not being able to get my Uber– I said “yes”. After asking me all the information he told me that it will be 500 Turkish liras (80 euros). Initially, I thought that it was a bit pricey, but it was already late, and I had no idea how far away it was from the airport. After he got the money, his mood flipped and he made me follow him down the street to meet the driver. The “friendly guy” left without a word, I thought a “goodbye” would be included in those 80 euros. …

Long disclaimer: Unlike other travel blogs, I don’t want to write about the places, I want to write about the people. Don’t expect any recommendations of where to go, where to take the best selfie, or where to eat so you don’t then spend the rest of your holiday squatting over a hole in the ground hoping for the sweet release of death. Rather what you will read about is the experience of a tourist talking with locals and trying to understand their culture and what the hell they are thinking.
This is far from objective, so if you have a different opinion feel free to comment and we can have a discussion. …