Ten choice pics

This goes back to a Facebook nomination chain post, which I shall simply replicate here. Now, since I’m somewhat unruly, I did provide commentaries (contrary to the request), but refrained from nominating anyone – I’m actually not a big fan of these requests and I usually opt out from them.

So, if you like, see ten of my favourite travel pics. It’s not a top ten or anything, just a start in roughly chronological order. In this recap, I made it up to 1994. Now that’s a few months ago, so to say, and I reckon I’ll do this “10 choice pics” thing more often.

Number 1/10

1988, Kaluga – then Soviet Union, now Russia. As the East German schoolkid that I still was, I had sucked up the slogans about our “big brother”, the Soviet Union. “To learn from the Soviet Union is to win” (Von der Sowjetunion lernen heißt Siegen lernen). When I went there at the end of the eighties for a one-week school exchange trip, I saw actual poverty for the first time, and even the family I visited, who was not poor, lived way below the standards I was used to. I saw beggars for the first time of my life, in Moscow. And yet, there was the Perestroika going on, Michael Gorbachev’s reform movement. For us East German teenagers it was almost shocking to see, and as the relationships between the East German government under Honecker and Gorbachev started to sour, they were refreshing. The slogan in the picture calls upon on Kalugans to put all their strengths into the Perestroika, more Democracy and economical reforms.

Morocco 2013

Morocco was the first country on the African continent that I visited, first, I believe in 1992 or 93, just for a day trip from Cordoba in Spain to Marrakech – two night trains, so that day trip took three days all in all. The next time was early in 1994,again by train via Paris and Madrid, and I spent almost three weeks there, from Marrakech to M’hamid al-Ghizlane, the Gate to the Sahara, at the end of the road, then into the Atlas mountains and to Essaouira and Casablanca. And I also spent all my money, and was kinda stuck in Spain over Easter (semana santa!!!) …

However beautiful a country Morocco was, travelling was so stressful, the touts so exhausting, I promised myself never ever to go back again. Well, come 2013, in a time of crisis, I chose to do exactly that: return to Morocco, to Marrakech and all the way to the end of the road.