Breaking [News]

WorldWalk-Peacetour's last confirmed stop was Pasto, Columbia, on January 19, 2011. They stopped walking for various reasons explained in the previous post.

From Pasto the brothers took a jump to Caracas, Venezuela (spending their last reserves), where they got some help from locals, including the Hungarian community. After painting some window frames and doing other odd, and less odd jobs for three months, they managed to build enough background to take another leap, to return to the grounds of the European Union.

In this case, to the island of Martinique (under French authority). So they went "home", right now they don't have to worry about visas, deportation and (somewhat less about) work permissions. So, at this moment they are (we suppose) in Fort de France, looking for a job. They are pretty much able to do anything, except brain surgery and particle accelerator programming. In the meantime, they are on their way to better their French as well.

Watch the brothers explain why they stopped walking

Update

Sorry guys. We apologize for the current lack of updates. Thank you for your concerns. Due to budget and time issues the flow of information has been clogging.

Again, we break the time-flow of the blog posts and give you an instant update on the situation.

The brothers walked down to the town of Pasto, at the Colombian-Ecuadorian border. The Colombian stages of their walk were extremely hard on them, and they decided to put on hold their mission. After some 12.000 miles they thought that they cannot go on like that. Without proper meals, with their ruined equipment, without having a budget that covers at least a few months of their future, in one word: without a sponsor, they cannot go on.

So, for the third time they break the walk, and head to the French Overseas Departments and Territories, where, as citizens of the European Union, they expect to find some jobs. They hitchhike and they try to contact local Hungarians everywhere they go. In this moment they are in Caracas, Venezuela, and they do the temporary jobs the Hungarian community provide them.

They made a list about what they would need to follow their walk. This is just a list. They are really thankful to everyone who helped them, with food, with words, with money, but they cannot go on if these requirements aren't met with the help of some major sponsorship. Right now they try to regain some weight and their optimism, but optimism by itself is not enough. So:

• Clothes
• Backpacks
• Shoes
• Tents
• Sleeping bags
• Camp stove
• A dozen teeth fixed
• 40-45 pounds weight gain
• Visa and ticket to Australia

They made a video report in late January, please watch it, share it, comment it at Youtube.

Watch the brothers explain why they stopped walking

Oh Christmas Tree

by FERENC IVANICS
Instead of tropical jungles we've walked more than a hundred miles in pine forests. It wasn't something we had expected. It seems that the Pacific side of Honduras (and Guatemala and Nicaragua as well, for that matter) is dryer, and the Atlantic part is more humid with swampy jungles and sometimes impassable roads, loads of insects and a higher probability of infectious diseases. Tropical storms approach from the Atlantic coast as well. But here, it's fresh, breezy pine forests... Not bad.

Real World, Schocking Covers

by FERENC IVANICS
We arrived in Santa Rosa somewhat tired. I was in bad shape, though getting better from my intestine infection, István, my brother was starting to feel bad with similar symptoms. We assume it's inevitable, one have to deal with it.

We took a break just before Santa Rosa and I started to thumb a newspaper we had found somewhere. Three homicides that weekend. We weren't really surprised, it's like that here in Central America. But there's something that shock us: newspaper and magazine covers. There's a lot of violent deaths in Central America. Homicides and fatal accidents. Photos of the dead are exposed on full pages and covers in color, without any blurring or cloaking. Total horror. A father wants to by some cigarettes at a stand, and his 4 years old child, while licking an ice cream, observes the "real world": a farmer crippled with a machete, a businessman shot in the head, a prostitute cut open, a youngster crushed with his motorbike, etc. This is absolutely normal in Mexico, Guatemala or Honduras. We don't like it.



The center of Santa Rosa is basically in good shape. The suburbs are to avoid. Garbage, stench and extremely suspicious faces. When we arrived they were preparing for the Easter Holy Week with some tinted sawdust pictures on the main street. It requires a lot of patience but the result is spectacular. We spent the night at the Red Cross, my brother threw up during the afternoon hours and got better instantly, maybe it was just an indigestion. Lucky for him.

Cloud Forests

by FERENC IVANICS
By looking at the roadside milestones we knew that we had walked some 13 miles uphill. But we didn't know how high we had managed to climb. We asked some locals. It was strange, none of them knew. A young lad said that he had a gadget in his car that showed our exact altitude. He checked, returned and said proudly: 33 miles. Ah, sure, 33 miles... We thanked him and moved on. Later we learned that we were shivering about a mile above sea level (some 1600-2000 meters). Downhill it was easier, but since the movement worked on different groups of muscles, after a while it hurt the same.

They call the forests we saw near the pass, and every forests alike: humid rich, full of springs and tree-ferns, cloud forests. These cloud forests are under national protection.


From a gardener's perspective it was an interesting experience to see what local farmers grow. Apples, peaches, strawberries, even first-class vegetables! After another seven miles we were down in the semi-desertic valley again; full of hopes that we wouldn't have to climb another behemoth like this. How much we miss the plains. :)