Cada año, millones de toneladas de basura se producen como resultado de las fiestas de fin de año. Esta Navidad es un buen momento, como cualquier otro, para empezar a reducir nuestra huella ecológica. Pero si usted piensa que haciendo una donación anual a una organización ambientalista está libre de toda culpa y ha comprado su derecho a contaminar y destruir a su antojo, permítame decirle que se encuentra viviendo una ilusión que nos afecta a todos.

Algo así como dar limosna en la iglesia para luego salir a la calle con una escopeta matando gente para luego volver a dar limosna buscando el “perdón”, en un ciclo inacabable.

Todas y cada una de nuestras acciones tienen repercusiones en el resto de los seres vivientes con los que compartimos esta nave espacial, de forma que la existencia de todos está ligada directa o indirectamente, convirtiéndonos al final en el equivalente a células de un organismo mayor.

Sencillamente no podemos seguir pensando que podemos hacer lo que queramos defendiéndonos con baratas excusas, echándole la culpa a los demás de la situación actual cuando es la sumatoria de nuestras actividades las que están provocando la mayoría de los problemas ambientales y de salud que estamos afrontando.

En estas fiestas podemos dar un primer paso hacia la reducción de nuestra huella ecológica personal no comprando productos excesivamente empacados, prefiriendo productos orgánicos y productos forestales certificados, reduciendo el consumo de carne y seleccionando artículos electrónicos de bajo consumo, entre otros.

En este sentido, los que están considerando adquirir o regalar un nuevo celular para estas fiestas deben de preguntarse: ¿es buena idea un celular nuevo solamente por que ese otro modelo tiene una cosita que el que tengo ahora no tiene? Los celulares contienen una variedad de sustancias tóxicas que pueden ser liberadas contaminando el ambiente cuando los aparatos llegan a los vertederos, en lugar de ser recibidos para reciclaje por empresas dedicadas a esta labor o por compañías telefónicas ambientalmente responsables.

Una de estas sustancias que contienen los celulares y una gran cantidad de artículos electrónicos son los retardantes brominados contra el fuego (BFR, por sus siglas en inglés) para reducir la inflamabilidad del plástico.

Diversos estudios han relacionado los BFR con una variedad de daños a la salud, incluyendo daños al hígado, problemas en el sistema inmunológico y neurológico, disfunción tiroidal y alteraciones en el sistema endocrino. Estos retardantes son sustancias persistentes en el ambiente y han sido encontrados en niveles elevados en lagos y en leche materna.

Es claro que los efectos de la problemática ambiental están vinculados directamente a nuestra salud. Por ejemplo, ¿cuáles son los efectos del smog en nuestra calidad de vida?

Ya es hora también que exijamos la importación de carros híbridos, que los nuevos buses utilicen energías alternativas en lugar de derivados del petróleo y que nuestras ciudades cuenten con ciclovías para ciclistas y aceras decentes con rampas para personas en sillas de ruedas.

Si en este diciembre empezamos a informarnos más sobre los productos que compramos y tomamos decisiones que minimicen nuestra huella ecológica, de seguro que estaremos moviéndonos hacia ese cambio que queremos que los demás hagan. Como dijo Mahatma Gandhi: “tú debes de ser el cambio que quieres ver en el mundo”.

La Prensa. Panamá, Panamá. 2008.12.13
© www.RicardoBrownSalazar.com

La primera vez que me dijeron que los berlineses se molestaban si el bus, metro o tranvía llegaba dos minutos tarde, sencillamente me pareció algo exagerado y no lo pude creer, pero después de dos visitas a Alemania y de haber usado sus sistemas de transporte público ahora los entiendo perfectamente.

Me pregunto si algún día en Panamá me molestaré porque el letrero electrónico en la parada a la salida de Chepo dice que el bus/tranvía/metro llegará a las 8:58 a.m. y no a las 8:54 a.m., dejándome ahora menos tiempo para tomar mi conexión a Capira, que como dice el itinerario que imprimí del internet o de una caseta informativa del sistema integral de transporte, me permitirá llegar a mi reunión justo a tiempo y sin retrasos.

Los sistemas electrónicos para sincronizar los diferentes medios de transporte y facilitar el viaje a los usuarios son cada vez más importantes, en especial en un país como Panamá, donde nos quieren hacer creer, por causa del espejismo de una vagamente planificada selva de concreto y vidrio, que ya estamos a un paso del primer mundo… pero ¿con un sistema de transporte obsoleto?

Hace poco se inauguró en la ciudad de Gainesville, Florida, un programa que utiliza sistemas de posicionamiento global (GPS) en todos los buses de transporte público para que puedan ser localizados en tiempo real por internet o a través de teléfonos celulares con capacidad de navegación en línea, o sea que puedo estar ocupado en otra cosa y cuando veo en la pantalla de la computadora o celular que el bus se está acercando entonces voy a la parada. Sin embargo, en Gainesville aún no es posible elaborar un itinerario en forma automática como lo hacen en Berlín, Alemania, o en Gotenburgo, Suecia.

Recuerdo que al final de mi viaje a Suecia necesitaba estar en el aeropuerto de Gotenburgo a las 5:00 a.m. y, como era un viaje de presupuesto limitado, decidí irme en tranvía y bus en lugar de gastar un par de cientos de dólares en un carísimo taxi. Para conocer mi ruta y el costo, simplemente entré a la página web sueca donde está la información, seleccioné el nombre de la parada donde mi viaje comenzaba y seleccioné el destino deseado que en este caso era el aeropuerto internacional.

En pocos segundos tuve en la pantalla diferentes itinerarios que combinaban tranvías y buses en diferentes horarios permitiéndome seleccionar el mejor de acuerdo a mi propia conveniencia. Para algunas ciudades de Estados Unidos un sistema similar se encuentra disponible en el sitio de internet “Google Maps” incluyendo la opción de seleccionar si uno desea caminar, manejar o ir en transporte público del punto A al punto B.

En Panamá, necesitamos un sistema integral nacional que utilice la más avanzada tecnología, permitiendo a un pasajero en cualquier punto del país conocer con exactitud el itinerario de su viaje, el tiempo que le tomará llegar del punto A al punto B, incluyendo dónde y cuándo se deben hacer los transbordos, todo esto acompañado de letreros electrónicos con información, en tiempo real, sobre cuántos minutos faltan para la llegada de las diferentes rutas.

Pero no solo es tecnología en los horarios, también requerimos tecnología en el medio a usar. Necesitamos vehículos “verdes” que utilicen energías alternativas y ¿por qué no?, trenes de levitación magnética o maglev, para rutas largas que requieren mayor velocidad.

Ya es tiempo que tengamos vehículos de transporte público con 100% acceso a personas en sillas de ruedas y no 10% como se ha venido hablando, cómodos, espaciosos, que inviten de dejar el carro propio en casa y con capacidad para llevar también la bicicleta de forma que al bajarme en la parada pueda llegar a mi destino pedaleando por una amplia y segura ciclovía.

La Prensa. Panamá, Panamá. 2008.11.22
© www.RicardoBrownSalazar.com

On Friday July 4th, my second day in Krakow, I decided to go to visit the Concentration Camp of Auschwitz. To go there from Krakow it is necessary to take a bus or a train to the city of to Oswiecim. From Mlynek’s place I walked to take the tram #19 at Borek Falecki not having time to buy the ticket at the kiosk because the tram arrived just when I got there. Normally the ticket price is 2.50 zloties but buying it from the tram driver they cost 0.50 zloties more.

The idea was to take the 10:30 am bus to Oswiecim. The nice tram driver gave me indications in English about how to go to the bus station but on my way to find it I went to the train station instead realizing it until I asked at the information window where to buy the bus ticket to Oswiecim. I guess the problem was I did not know that to go to the bus station it is necessary to go through the mall that was in front of the tram stop.

Not pretending to challenge the destiny I went to one of the ticket windows to buy a train ticket to Oswiecim for 11.00 zloties. Everything happens with a reason and being there going to Auschwitz around 60 years after the last train made its last journey with human cargo for the concentration camp.

When I was in Riga I sent a message to a French Couchsurfer who was registered to participate at a Couchsurfing meeting in Krakow. Like me, she was looking for a place to stay in Krakow and I suggested going together on Friday to visit Auschwitz. On Thursday night finally I had a chance to check my email again having a message from her saying she was interested in going to Auschwitz with somebody else because she did not know what she was going to find there. That night I sent another message asking her to meet at some specific point of the bus station. I never got a message back and I saw on Friday morning at that point she did not opened my message yet (you can see in CS if people opened your message or not). I guess my destiny was to go to Auschwitz alone and by train.

I waited all my life to visit Auschwitz. I read and saw before so many documentaries about World War II I feeling every minute those scenes coming back to my mind when I was seating in the train making the 1.5 hours ride from Krakow to Oswiecim a non easy experience.

Being in Oswiecim I decided to walk from the train station to Auschwitz. I estimate it is around 2 Km and there are signs in the way telling the visitors where to go. The admission to the grounds of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial is free of charge but it is highly recommended to pay to watch the movie as the first thing you do when you arrive.

The old barracks are now the exhibitions of the museum and the visitor can see how the prisoners’ life was including a visit to the gas chamber and the crematoria. The work of The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum is very important to help the world to keep in mind that this never should happen again. The atmosphere in Auschwitz is heavy and made me wonder why in Panama we did not preserved some of the places used on Noriega times as a memorial for all of those who died under the 21 years dictatorial regime.

At 3:30 pm I took the bus (free of charge) to Birkenau. This huge concentration camp is located 3 Km from Auschwitz and all surrounded by electrified barbwire, towers and it is still possible to see the gun machine nests in the ground around the camp. Inside the barracks it is possible to see the beds and latrines, giving you a glimpse about how was the tough life inside those walls. All around the camp is possible to see pictures located in strategic points where you can see how was that specific place under the Nazi regime, illustrating the terrible conditions people brought against their will suffered.

After almost a complete day walking under the sun around Auschwitz and Birkenau, visiting the old barracks, the crematoria, gas chamber and monuments, a feeling of sadness inside me made me to want to leave at least a flower for the memory of all those who die victims of injustices in concentration camps and dictatorship regimes all around the world, but not having anything else all I could leave was a tear on that soil once covered with blood.

© www.RicardoBrownSalazar.com

I am really upset with the Facebook administrators. They suspended my account there with no valid reasons and now I can not access phone numbers and addresses of friends I am going to stay with in Germany and Sweden. I sent an email complaining about this abuse and they are taking several days to answer making me to waste valuable time.

Mlynek’s family received me in Krakow and they are wonderful people who really enjoy traveling. First of all, after picking me at the bus station, They gave me a room in their house to stay two nights and on Friday, my third day, they were going to Venezuela for two weeks. We did not have too much time to talk but the conversation was always interesting and Mlynek’s homemade raspberry wine was excelent.

I arrived to their place and one hour later, around 3:00pm I was with Agnieszka, another member of the family, taking a tram to the center of Krakow (tram cost 2.50 zloties). Agnieszka was a great guide. We walked around Market Square, visiting different points of interest around including also Wawel Castle. The atmosphere of Krakow has a special “Je ne sais quoi” making me to change my mind to stay visiting this city for more days, changing my travel to Berlin to Monday moving from Mlyneks’s place to a hostal for the weekend.

© www.RicardoBrownSalazar.com

On Tuesday I spent part of the morning in Couchsurfing.com trying to confirm a place to stay in Krakow getting a confirmation from Mlynek to stay at his place for two nights. Later on I walked around Old Riga taking pictures, buying some snacks in the Supermarket and looking for a traditional linen Latvian shirt. I found the shirt in a small souvenir store I saw several times but I did not pay too much attention to it because it was so small and at the end of a small alley. Finally I decided to walk to the bus station to find the best route to go in the afternoon to take the bus to Poland.

In the afternoon it took few minutes to walk from Jeivgenija’s place to the bus station. I got there at 5:30 going directly to the ramp number 1 where the bus was supposed to arrive. I met a girl from Australia and a guy from Beijing, both of them traveling Europe alone and going on that day to Vilnius, Lithuania. Several people mentioned before how beautiful is Vilnius but I decided not to stop there on this occasion and I was tempted to do it but I wanted to spend more time in Poland.

The bus was a two floors vehicle and with very comfortable seats. The travel from Riga to Krakow was in time something similar to the travel from Panama City to San Jose, Costa Rica, so I was not worried about the time being use to this kind of long travels.

The bus made several short stops in the way not stopping in the border between Latvia and Lithuania. Actually I never noticed when we crossed that border. In the other hand the bus made a stop in the border with Poland.

Normally policemen at borders are not the best very well informed people, considering this I printed the list of countries that does not need visa for each of the visited countries on this travel. In the border between Lithuania and Poland policemen checked the passengers id’s and passports, when I saw the officer looking my passport flipping the pages I just presented to him the page I printed from the Poland’s Foreign Affairs Ministry with the list of countries who does not need a visa, including Panama. He did not say anything and returned back my passport without any inconvenience.

The bus arrived almost two hours late to Krakow. The bus was supposed to arrive at 12:25 pm and it arrived at 2:00 pm. Mlynek’s wife was waiting for me and she left but I borrowed somebody’s cell phone at the bus station to call her and she said she was going to come back to pick me up.

© www.RicardoBrownSalazar.com

The temperature in Riga was 20C at my arrival. Just perfect! Reinis, who I met in Couchsurfing.com offered to pick me up at the airport. We took the bus 22 to Old Riga where Jeivgenija, also from Couchsurfing accepted me to stay at her place for two nights. Her roommate, Beta, received me showing me the flat. I left my backpack there and I went walking with Reinis to the Bus Station to buy my ticket to Poland.

Ecolines is a company who offers very long routes in Europe having their travels from Riga to Kraków, Poland on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I decided to go directly to Kraków leaving Warsaw and Gdansk for a future travel in order to have more time with my friends in different cities of Germany and a possible visit to Prague.

That evening I went also with Reinis to meet other local Couchsurfers, having a beer in a very nice tiny bar. I returned early to Jaivenija’s apartment meeting her boyfriend and her roommate’s boyfriend, both of them living there too. That night I was really tired as a result of the Jet-lang but I spent some time online trying to find place to stay in Kraków.

Next morning, the window was left open and I woke up at 5:30 in the morning (local time) with the squawks of dozens of sea-gulls in the roofs of the buildings around. Later on, the nice sound of a flautist playing “Yesterday” from The Beatles was the musical background for the invasion of Russian and German tourist crowding the near by plaza.

Old Riga is a charming place with hundreds of cafes, bars, souvenir stores and narrow streets with balconies covered with blooming flowering plants and a very active night life. On my last night in Riga we went to a bar to try one of the local handcrafted beers returning back around midnight.

My friends decided to go back to sleep but finding many people in the streets late night in Old Riga I decided to walk around alone for a while in this one my last night in this wonderful city. I went to the area around the Freedom Monument finding a very old hunchbacked woman walking incredible slow with a cane. After a while when I returned back I found the same woman making her best effort to keep walking in the middle of a street crowded with people walking fast going to parties and bars. Instead of having another beer I decided to give her the money, just 5 Lats, but instead of putting it in the paper cup she was holding with the cane I held it next to the cup for her to take it because I did not want it to get lost. At this point something unexpected happened that got me by surprise. She made a noise I can not describe and she grabbed my hand so hard that I could not took it back, after a second I stopped pulling my hand back and what she did was something I never will forget in my life: she kissed my hand. I was so touch by this gesture of gratitude that I decided to just go back to the apartment being really hard to stop thinking in what happened that night.

Note: this is travel blog written fast in the road. Many details are not included and it may have several English misspellings.

In the hotel’s breakfast I met a new friend from Honduras. She had a situation with her return back to Honduras being stuck in Atlanta for two days. We decided to go to the Acuarium and surrounding areas.

To move to the city we did exactly what I did the day before. We took the complimentary hotel’s shuttle to the airport to take there the train/subway to downtown. The subway company’s name is MARTA and we bought the tickets in machines next to the subway entrance. The price was 1.75 per ride plus the ticket (50 cents).

In few minutes the train arrived to Five Points station where I had a not nice experience the day before. We stepped out on the next station: N1. From there we walked randomly finding the acuarium, the Olimpic Park and the CNN headquarters. We did not go to the acuarium because it was crowded and the time was short.

From the Olimpic Park we walked to the Georgia Dome. It reminded me the Dome in New Orleans where thousands of people were tragically locked after Hurricane Katrina. The stories of the dome survivers are more than scary and should make us to evaluate the efficiency to respond to disasters from our goverments, as well as their hidden agendas. Why the U.S. government did not respond fast to that emergency?

From the Dome we took the eastbound subway one stop to Five Points where we took the southbound train to the airport.

Waiting for the hotel’s shuttle somebody came to us, very well dressed and with a fun/merry attitude saying the airline lost his luggage and his carry-on. In my mind the big question was how can the airline loose your carry-on?

He was talking to us and he had one hand in one of his pocket’s pants, making me aware, specially when he was becoming closer to us, thinking that at some point he was going to say “give me your cash, I have a gun/knife/whatever in my pocket”.

Actually the hotel’s shuttles parking area was a really dumb place for something like this but just in case I stood up walking around him taking some distance and position ready to respond agaist a possible robbery.

The guy changed his style when I moved and asked me directly “do you have any U.S. money” and my answer was the same for this cases. With a smile I told him “with just credit cards these days who have cash?”

The guy left going to talk with other people. I guess he was a more syled begger different than the ones I saw in Atlanta’s downtown the day before.

All can I say is it is pretty sad the poverty situation in Atlanta and this guy reminded me when somebody was trying to steal my bag inside the Tica Bus office in San Jose, Costa Rica.

I arrived on time to Vienna. The airport in Vienna was totally packed but the migration process was so incredible fast that I can say that I passed the xrays and the passport checking in less time than crossing just the metal detector in any US airport.

The airport had free WiFi and using Couchsurfing.com I sent some requests looking for a place to stay in Krakow for 3 days arriving on Tuesday or Wednesday.

I always wanted to start my own blog and this three weeks backpacking trip couchsurfing style I feel is the best opportunity to do it.

I wanted to make a tour in Europe visiting places related with World War II since many years ago. A special situation pushed me to buy a ticket to Latvia and around ten days before my travel the plans changed for reasons totally out of my control making me to be stuck with a trip I was not interested to do anymore.

On those days I was changing my mind almost every day about going or not. Finally I decided to make an event in Facebook to collect opinions from my friends about what to do and where to go in Europe.

I got dozens of messages with wonderful ideas and I started posting pins in a Google Map to make a possible route for my travel.

Originally I was planning to visit some friends in Finland after my visit to Latvia and coming back from Göteburg, Sweden where I have another friend but having a complete make-over of my plan I decided to go South instead of going North, visiting now Lithuania, Poland, Germany and Sweden. All by land starting in Riga and finishing in Göteburg.

On June 27, 2008, I took my flight in Jacksonville, Florida, driving from Gainesville. It is just 1.5 hours but I was felling I was coming late and I do no recommend driving like that when you were not able to sleep at all the night before.

The night before I could not sleep because I was trying to find a place to stay in Riga using Couchsurfing.com on the last minute, because I did not have an answer to the request I sent few days before.

In my flight to Atlanta finally I could find a moment to read the Eastern Europe Lonely Planet Guide finding finally the bus companies to go to Warsaw directly from Riga. Just few days before I spent long time just looking for that information in internet. This flight was a great opportunity to sleep at least one hour.

Waiting in Atlanta’s Airport for my connection to Vienna the airline offered $400 + hotel + meals, for those who wanted to stay overnight departing on the next day. I took advantage of this opportunity to get part of my December’s ticket to Panama.

Having time to visit the city I went to downtown in the evening. My first impression of Atlanta was not nice. All I saw is huge skyscrapers with the surrounding streets crowded with people selling things in the sidewalks and also a lot of people asking for money.

After five minutes outside the MARTA station at Five Points a man with around 60 years old came to me to tell me that was dangerous to walk there after 7 (actually when he told me that was around 7:45pm). He asked me to buy him something to it and after doing it I decided to return ASAP to the hotel before was going to get dark.