Romania Photo Tours

Time for one more update. This June I started a new tour operator company called Romania Photo Tours. It will focus on organizing photo tours only for people who are passionate about photography and want to discover Romania in a beautiful, picturesque way.
Even got an EU grant to kick start this project. Here is the website https://romania-photo-tours.com/

True Romania Tours

Hello,

Since February 2017 we launched a new website for my travel agency under the name True Romania Tours. It works much better on mobile phones and focuses more broadly on Romania and in the future even on neighboring countries.
Here is the new website http://true-romania.tours/.

Via Transylvania Tours - my project since 2010

Starting with 2010 when I returned to Romania I've setup a rural travel agency offering rural, heritage and nature tours in Transylvania and other regions of Romania. We do everything tailor-made and focus on what is truly authentic and Romanian.

So if you want to visit Romania anytime soon, please let me know.

london

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Provincial Egypt, Tunisia, turtle, rain, Arabic

In the last 3 months I traveled to non-touristic provincial Egypt for business trips. After over 2000 km on the road, 7 cities and dozens of people met, I can draw some conclusions and share some experiences.

People – I met fantastic people and I confirmed my sympathy for Egyptians. The people I met were all working for NGOs but most of them had many things happening in their lives: business, teaching, government jobs, political involvement. In Suez I met a 70+ year former member of parliament, in Tanta I met the owner of the only telescope factory in Egypt, in Arish a PhD in Bedouin society, in Bir El Abd a former camel racing and football referee – just to give some examples.

I had very interesting conversation about the projects they are working on but also about different aspects of life. I learned that Bedouins call most other people “farmers” … they have a nomad life and mainly rear goats so for them the ones settled are farmers, they stay in one place and work the land. Also, in Bedouin society a woman to get married needs to have approval from her cousins, from the “stomach”, branch and tribe she belongs to.

I also learned about a woman owning an olive tree farm. After she attended an IT training she went on the internet and learned how she can improve her farming and in one year she doubled her income from selling olive oil.

I found very kind and hospitable people and was actually overwhelmed, representing Microsoft in their community meant a lot for them and treated me as a VIP. In this sense the best thing they can offer is food, good one and in huge quantities. In Suez and Delta it seemed that mix grill was the best thing on offer. They didn’t even ask what I want, they ordered for me, 7-8 pieces of meat and some salad. Since the first time it was very heavy, the second time I asked for chicken when I heard them ordering mix grill so they brought me chicken and … mix grill! Double trouble! In Alexandria we had fish mix grill, and a lot of it, 4 different types, 2-3 pieces each. In Arish we had goat cooked Bedouin or Gulf style – they dug a hole in the ground, make fire, put a pot with rice and water, cover it and on top the goat, cover the whole thing and leave it for 1-2 hours. This way the rice boils and the meat cooks very tenderly … we had a whole goat for 10-12 people! The next day for 4 people we had a fish weighing 4 g + 1 kg shrimps, 1 kg hamsi, salads and rice!
Food is pleasure, a lot of food means a lot of pleasure, as simple as that.

By now I realized the role of the Nile for Egypt. It is by far the most populated country (80+ million) in the deserted areas of North Africa and Middle East though Algeria and Libya have bigger surfaces. The reason for this is the Nile, it gives them food and water. As long as you are close to the Nile, the scenery is green and there is a lot of agriculture; you see green fields, donkey carts, buffalos, tractors, horses and crowded places, it is surprisingly beautiful and alive. As you move away from the Nile you see desert and very little life.
Some pictures here.

Besides these visits I also went to Tunisia for a 2 days internal training and I took another 2 days to explore. The best place I saw was Sidi Bou Said, a village up on a hill with white and blue houses, very beautiful. Another amazing thing about Tunisia was the food, very delicious and with a lot of tuna, I think there is no coincidence that the country is called Tunisia, they eat a lot of tuna. The last night I spent it at the site of IPM, going back to an AIESEC conference after some time, it was great, I still knew people from AIESEC and also met alumni attending the alumni conference. The party was great also :)
Some pictures here.

In late December as I was snorkeling in the Red Sea by a reef, I saw something big moving, it was a huge 1.5m turtle, she saw me and swam away, I followed her and she stopped on a reef looking at me, I waved :) but she was still staring, after a few minutes she swam again and this time I didn’t follow her. It was so beautiful; I was extremely excited to see it! This is more or less how she looked like, I couldn’t take myself a picture of her in the water.

After 5 months here i finally got a decent rain for a few hours. Egyptians not being used to it got into a lot of troubles, traffic became a nightmare and many accidents happened. In Arish they had huge floods and a lot of damage. Is interesting how something I am very used to, here creates chaos.

Also in this 3 months I started Arabic lessons, shuya-shuaya I am learning to read and speak :)
أنا من رومانيا

Religion. Algerians. Election.

These days I am feeling great, for various reasons.

I have a plan for the next 3-4 years and that is very exciting. I think having a positive and well defined vision brings the best out of people and hopefully of me as well in the years to come. I will not share it yet here as it is still under construction, I can only tell that it is really empowering!

I had a great trip a week ago going through Sinai, one day I was on top of a 2285m peak at 0 degrees Celsius, the next I was relaxing by the beach and snorkeling for colored fish in the coral reefs. Life is so simple and beautiful! I was on Mount Sinai, a holy place for 3 religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.



This trip and a few other findings while in Egypt changed my perspective on religion; I am more at peace with it now. I even went to see a movie about Islam and then a Q&A, it was quite revealing. At one point the speaker gave the example of a person in a hotel:

Q: Why is he there?
A: Let’s say his company asked him to go on a business trip and booked him a room in that hotel. Or he is working there. Or he came there to meet someone who is staying at the hotel … or other explanations.

then

Q: Why is a person on this Planet?
A: the answer is much more complicated than the one with the hotel. Many people don’t know the answer to this question; usually each person finds its own answer. But some people don’t find answers and they are just floating through life, receiving what life offers. They guy almost said it: “for those who don’t have an answer there is God to guide them” …

I would also add “Do you know what you should and shouldn’t do in a hotel?”… “How about on this Planet?” …


Some other very interesting things happened.

One of them is the Egypt-Algeria football dispute which deteriorated the relations between the two countries. Now many Egyptians feel that Algerians have something against Egyptians so they also hold anger against Algerians … Inside Egypt this led to an interesting rise of patriotism, now many of the billboards on my way to work are with Egyptian flags and nationalistic slogans like “Proud to be Egyptian!” … For me this is a confirmation of the “common enemy” theory which says that if people have something against the same individual/group they become much more united themselves.

Another one is the presidential election in Romania. It proved to me how powerful this democratic tool really is, how much it can mobilize people and politicians. The good news for me is that this is a really good sign for Romania, that democracy is working, people express their opinions, are heard and I feel politicians start respecting people’s vote much more than until now. When you win or lose by 70,000 votes then you really come to appreciate each vote, each person, each decision you take and each thing you do, as a politician. I am very optimistic for Romania, I think we are getting better and better, we are maturing though we are still norming and storming as a nation. But we will get to the performing phase as well. I am very motivated to return to Romania after some years.

Pictures from Sinai trip you can find here.

Garbage, Al Gore and the Russians

I had an amazing last week, gifted with great and unique events! It is for sure the most interesting so far in Egypt and one of the most enriching I ever had.

To start with, going to the event “Towards a Culture of Sustainable Communities, Economies and Environment” brought me face to face with a totally alien group of people – waste pickers aka garbage collectors. More on this topic in the previous post.
Part of this event I also got to see Annie Leonard – the producer of the “Story of Stuff” video, she was a great speaker.

I also saw Al Gore talk on climate change. It was the best live speech I’ve ever seen. Amazing ice-breaking jokes, dramatic tone, change of mood, high energy …
I will remember the one with “I used to be the next president of the US”; cannot stop thinking how the US and the world would be if he actually won against George W. Bush.
He mentioned a very shocking fact: US had used in 10 years cans worth the Aluminum quantity enough to build 25 times the world’s aviation fleet.
In his opinion, Egypt’s chance to grow economically and to become green at the same time is to engage and be the main hub for the Desertec project initiated by the Germans.
He ended with “political will is a renewable resource” which is very relevant for Egypt’s reality.
The guy sitting next to me was the manager of a private equity company. Before the speech he told me that he invests in dairy and other consumer goods business. After the speech I told him “you should invest in green energy”, he answered “I will” … that sounds promising …

I ended the week in Hurghada, one the most popular tourist destinations in Egypt on the Red Sea coast. Not really my type of place but I enjoyed it anyways once I found a very good beach, swam a bit, saw some fish, had great sea food and pharaoh massage: D
I have to mention that this place is dominated by Russians, I bet there a few oligarchs around, there was a lot of writing in Russian on the streets and many waiters and staff were talking Russian. One of them told me he learned after taking a 2 months course in town and by practicing a lot with the tourists, he even changed his name, Max!

The Hurghada experience came just 24h hours after walking around in the slum so I felt like being on a different planet … after all, this is what Egypt is for me …

The poorest poor

Going to the event “Towards a Culture of Sustainable Communities, Economies and Environment” brought me face to face with a totally alien group of people – waste pickers aka garbage collectors. It was an international meeting of activists dealing with issues of waste picking, people in poverty trying to make a living from collecting and recycling/sorting garbage.

I got to learn about it as it happens in South Africa, India and Egypt. In India banning them to go with their carriages on the streets dramatically worsened their situation. By privatizing garbage collection, it became property of the company collecting it so waster pickers lost their “raw material”. In Egypt, Christians used to eat pork meat. Because they ate it, they grew pigs and to feed them they were collecting garbage and feeding them with what was edible. So this is how they became garbage collectors and then they went on separating the garbage and become part of the recycling process. So in Egypt this is a job Christians do – from 60 to 90 %% depending on the slum. In the slum I was in, about 100 000 people were doing this. Then the swine flu came and the Egyptian government decided to kill all pigs in the country thinking those pigs can play a role in the further expansion of the flu. So they did! That had a devastating effect on the people from Mokattam as their main source of income and meat was gone. That deepened the poverty of the poorest people in Cairo. Now they are left with garbage collection/recycling, trying to make a living from that. If you’ve seen an industrial park with factories next to each other, then you can imagine how this neighborhood looks like. But instead of factory buildings you find buildings filled with trash, paper, glass, plastic, cardboard, cans, PVC etc. And at the upper floors of those same buildings or just next to them people are living. I was shocked by this image of this 2-3 years old child sitting in a trash bin and eating something from his hand … A lot of child labor in this “garbage” industry, other kids like them go to school and watch TV or play computer games after school. These were helping their family earn a living. In the slum I saw 3 recycling schools, one for boys on shampoo recipients and 2 for girls, one on e-waste and one on textile and recycled paper production. The concept of the schools was “learn and earn” …

Something I will remember for a long time is the people separating broken glass with bare hands and the recycling lines for plastic, the black, the blue, the green …
Our guide thinks that 2 things played a huge role in the development of this community. First was religion and the fact that they build a complex of 7 churches in the neighborhood which are very impressive, carved in the mountain and to which even rich people come in pilgrimage. The second was technology which allowed them to become more productive so earn more.

As an individual there is something very simple I can do to help this people – separate the trash when I put it into bags. One simple rule is to put the dry with dry and wet with wet, this way it will be much easier for them to separate it. Or even better, separate plastic, paper, metal, organic …

please watch this video to get a better view of what i am talking about.