Strange Fruits, Part 2: Palmyra Palm Seeds, Bissap, Persimmon

Here you go. The second delivery of the boys’ thoughts about fruits they tried along their walk. Some of them tastier, some of them with less flavor.

by FERENC IVANICS

Palmyra Palm Fruit (Seed)

When we still had some 60 miles to go to arrive to Dakar (Senegal) huge fan palms started to appear more and more frequently. Nice specimens of the African palmyra palms, a great sight on the dusk horizon, bringing pleasant and less pleasant thoughts into our minds: like Vietnam.


The fruits of these palms are like enormous berries, and they hang on the trees in large clusters. The palm tree and its fruits look definitely different than coconut palms but the fruit is edible. So we tried it.


They sell them along the road, on the spot. On the face of it, it looks like there’s loads of them, but it’s relative. If you imagine the fruits shrunk to the size of a currant then they would hardly fill a basket.


Anyways, we bought some and tried some. The fruit is usually eaten roasted, but the seeds are edible, too, when they are young and fresh. So we cut the fruit open and found three somethings inside. The texture of these somethings is somewhat like silicone. I would compare the touch of it to lychees, but only the touch, not the taste.



Not by a long shot. These jelly-like seeds contain a small amount of sweet fluid, which is quite tasty. The seed itself doesn’t really taste anything, but it’s not bad either. It won’t be our favorite fruit but we will remember trying it, for a while. So, it’s a half-this, half-that.

Bissap or Roselle

The next surprise awaited us in Senegal, too. Bissap, a national soft drink of the country.


You would think it’s a fruit juice, a mixture of raspberry-blackberry-blueberry-cranberry flavors, but it’s a tea. Or I should say an infusion. The plant is a cousin of hibiscus, it looks like a thin bush and it has many bright red, fleshy fruits that looked like flowers to us.



Eating them raw is not recommended, they are like lemon on steroids, extremely sour. They dry these red fruits, make an infusion, add some sugar and voilà, your bissap “juice” is ready. It had been completely unknown to us before, and yet, we found out that it can be grown in European continental climate as well. It’s really delicious; anyone can give it a try. So, note to self: do try this at home. :)

Persimmon

Our last guest today is persimmon, which has some variants around the world. This one we ran into in France is probably the Japanese persimmon or kaki, widely cultivated in Southern Europe. It’s best when it softens a bit after harvest. Did not become our favorite, either. Its texture is quite unique.

Did We Camp on a Volcano?!

The WorldWalkers put up their tents in many interesting places. They camped on a minefield in Mauritania, spent shivering nights in the hills of France, they were visited by a hog herd in a forest in Germany.

But it seems that our planet provides countless adventurous campsites. The hill they camped on in Málaga was a volcano! Or was it?

by FERENC IVANICS
I wrote about our Malaga job earlier, we painted the attic of a five-story building. When we took a break we usually spent a few minutes on the balcony with our employers, sipping coffee with milk. One day—while we were having a nice conversation and contemplating the great views—our boss asked us where exactly was our camp-spot. From that height we were able to take a view on the hills surrounding the city, so instead of trying to describe the place, we showed him the exact location. When looking at our camping spot we noticed a really eye-catching mountain, which had a strange rock-crown on its top. And indeed it was called Monte Coronado, the Crowned Mountain. Then our employer told us that it was a very old, extinct volcano. We were quite surprised but it seemed a nice thing to sleep with a volcano nearby.


When we finished the paint-job, on our way home we popped in to our favorite cyber café. Before we could open our mouth, Inma, the owner of the place approached us and said that she had checked on our blog where we were sleeping, and then asked us if we knew that it was a volcano. So, from that moment we couldn’t help wondering about this volcano issue, we needed a proof. Though the water of a fountain at that hillside is warmer than usual—that was why we used it for “bathing”—, and though Inma affirmed that when she was a little girl she felt the soil warmer inside the crater, we were still suspicious. We decided to climb the hill to see the top for ourselves.


We didn’t want to leave the tents and the backpacks down in the valley, so we headed off with our complete inventory on our back. The experience reminded us to our Sahara adventures. Although it was cooler, thanks to the burning sun and the steep trail all our underwear was getting soaked with sweat. The timing was perfect, we saw blooming flowers everywhere around, and so there was really nothing to complain about. And, of course, we need to have some practice before moving on to the USA, it looks like we will have a tight schedule there in a warm, humid climate.


We have to confess: we don’t think it’s a volcano, but probably a Limestone mountain, that’s what our friends tell us as well. But the crown on its top, made of huge stones, is a spectacular sight. Unfortunately due to the architectural limestone exploitation more than half of that crown is gone now. The center of the crater, crown or exploited stone ring is quite arid, but we think it’s not the global warming that’s responsible for that phenomenon but the local dirt bikers. And you can see remains of beautiful stalactites. They are seriously damaged, you can easily get a view of their cross-sections, which look like tree rings. We climbed to the top plateau and to our surprise we found there a nice wild flower meadow. The view is just beautiful, the air is clean and fresh, the sounds of civilization don’t make it to the top, a great place to trek, to relax, to meditate about peace.



And to make it easier for you to find the spot we provide the GPS-coordinates of Monte Coronado. Courtesy of our friend, Péter Molnár we received a new cell phone and a GPS set a few weeks ago. The package (with other goodies) was delivered by Team Dacia to Bamako—from the Budapest-Bamako rally—during their charity trip to Mali. Thank you very much.

A Tooth Left in the Sahara

Walking around the Earth is an extreme physical challenge: the back, the shoulders, the feet are working hard, but there’s strain on the insides as well. To move around you need energy, to burn calories you need oxygene; everything is involved, lungs, heart, digestive system. You can prepare yourself for these difficulties.

But there are others that can catch you unawared: physical problems, illnesses that cannot always be avoided. Diarrhea, cold, tooth-ache. Ferenc tells us his story.

by FERENC IVANICS
Teeth: I think they are the most prominent examples for the Buddhist teaching: life is suffering. Modern medical science would probably explain my situation through genetics: the teeth of my mother and father were ruined by their thirties. I’m 32 now, so my tooth-trouble is not unexpected. The strange thing is, my brother—who’s only 27, though—does not have similar problems. I rather concur with Jung and say that the decaying teeth are signs of spiritual problems. My great problem is cowardice: I don’t dare to bite. Although my sense of justice or conscience many times demand me to make a stand, to engage in a fight, I rather retreat, run away, keep my opinion to myself. And someone who does not bite does not need teeth, does he?


But he does... Why? First: you need to eat. If you cross the Sahara desert on feet you need to eat a lot, and a lot of nutritious food. Camel stew is OK. A strong, heavy meal... But the weak are likely to loose their teeth struggling with it. That was my case in El Aaiun, my right-central incisor just broke out. Then I realized we need our teeth for something else, too: to be able to smile. In the western cultures an incomplete denture is often considered to be a sign of sanitary problems. And since you have a straight heart, straight intentions, you have to be (and seem) clean as well. I haven’t had the courage to smile for months, and always thought twice before saying anything, due to the distorted V’s, S’s and F’s. I was sounding like Sylvester, the cat.


In El Aaiun I could have had my tooth fixed for some 50 euros. Anyways, we didn’t have that money. Not for my tooth, not for other things. We had spent all of it on food and equipment; we needed to survive the desert, that was our most important goal. On the other hand, I just mentioned that I am a coward. I didn’t trust the dentist’s offices there, so much different from what we are used to in Europe. My distrust increased seeing goats taking a peek inside the small, filthy kitchens (called dentist’s offices). But here, in Spain I couldn’t delay the inevitable: I went to see a dentist. We need to be prepared for the USA stage, be prepared in all the aspects, in the financial, spiritual and physical sense as well. We will meet many people, we have to chat with them, I needed that whole denture.


And if you don’t have an insurance, you have to pay the price. And since our budget was still not at its highest, I started to bargain. I know it’s not a common practice here, but I was lucky, the dentist grasped our situation and made me an offer: he fixed two of my teeth for a price of one, and put on a dental crown for 130 euros. That was too good to pass up, our friends and family pooled the money (for the lst time, we know :). And the result is just perfect, but I know, until I cannot solve my inner problems, I cannot trust my teeth.

Funding: More Alternatives

Funding the project has always been a major challenge for the WorldWalk-Peacetour team. Though there have been plenty of ideas, at the end it came to begging—directly or indirectly—or doing odd jobs. That’s about it. The Ivanics brothers cannot really do anything else during the tour.

Now it was time for us, the background team to come up with some ideas how to get a solid financial background for the project.

By having opened a new bank account in Spain new horizons of action are opened up for the project as well. The boys are now able to accept help from anywhere around the world. They can try to have an impact on the conscience and empathy of uninterested pedestrians who don’t know anything about the project. They can try to introduce themselves and their mission in a few seconds. But it’s easier and more convenient to get the message to whoever might be interested through the Internet. It’s easier to present a picture about the members of the project, their goals, their adventures and the troubles they have to face. And if someone takes the time to read this travelogue, she or he can decide more easily if the boys are worthy of support or not.

Only one thing was missing to make this happen: A donation button on the blog. Once clicked, it provides a way for you, dear reader in front of the computer to send a small amount of money, a donation to the boys. You’ll find the button on the left sidebar, anyone can donate using a PayPal account, a credit or debit card or a bank transfer. Even the smallest help is very much appreciated. So, WorldWalk is now PayPal verified:

Our next idea started as a joke. But a joke, taken very seriously. Why should we expect anyone to donate without getting anything in return? Who knows, maybe the noble cause or the entertainment—by providing hopefully interesting reads—are enough, maybe not. What else could we give the donors? And the answer was: let’s launch WorldWalk-themed merchandise.

Said and done, the WorldWalk-Peacetour Supporters Shop has opened its doors.

Currently it sells only one item, a supporter’s T-Shirt with a humble design and a direct message.

But, jokes aside, these souvenirs—of course with better design and a consistent message about the project’s mission—might have an important role in WorldWalk’s funding in the future. We just need to give a proper shape to the experiences, thoughts, photos of the boys. And of course it’s not just income we’re talking about here. The donors using these objects would promote not only the WorldWalk-Peacetour mission, but its message about peace, friendship and brotherhood as well. So we won’t yet stop, will try to design items that match the sublime goals. We hope we’ll get some responses on these plans.

The third idea came from the lack of sponsors. If we analyze the sponsors’ business viewpoint, they’re interested in how the boys can advertise their products, their values. Virtually the WorldWalkers should become ad-carriers themselves. But since it’s not easy to walk around the world and discuss sponsorship issues with marketing professionals at the same time, the sponsorship plans came to a standstill quite fast. But again, on the web it’s a lot easier, just a few clicks and ads related to the posts appear on the blog pages and feed. The advertiser pays for the impressions his or her ad gets, and the ad host—i.e. us—gets his share after the clicks the ads trigger on his pages. Simple as that. That’s why we placed Google AdSense ads on the blog, we hope they will increase the budget of the project.

An Alien in Spain: NIE Number and the Catch-22

The WorldWalk-Peacetour project started on July 15, 2007. The only sponsorship they had then was the promise of the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians: one pair of shoes for both of them every month, or—for usability reasons—the price of those shoes. To receive the transfers they had a Serbian bank account and an international debit card. Everything was set, the walking tour began.

In a few months it became apparent that the Serbian account wasn’t an ideal solution. Support from Hungary, for example, had to arrive through international bank-to-bank wire transfers, which have a high cost and are incredibly slow. Some monetary help traveled even for a week (who knows how many miles on those wires...).

Months passed, countries had been left behind, the boys were walking somewhere in Africa when another problem came: the bank card expired. Even though there was some money on the account, the ATM’s were unconcerned about the WorldWalkers’ trouble. However, the boys noticed the Western Union offices in the cities, thus discovered the way for the support to arrive on the African stage of the tour. A quick transfer to the current city, a text with the necessary info, and they had access to the donation they needed to survive. But it was a clumsy and expensive way to send money.


So, when Ferenc and István finally decided to come back to Europe and to use it as a springboard towards America, one of the points they considered was that they needed a new bank account, a new debit card. The task seemed simple enough, walk into a bank office, open an account, claim a card, let’s say, a MasterCard, and done. So, right after they “settled down” in Málaga, Ferenc went into a bank. But with some obscure excuse they declined his request. And the same thing happened in the second and the third bank as well. The explanations always contained a strange expression, the NIE number.

After a full day of tilting at windmills Ferenc knew that there was no chance to open a bank account without this NIE number. With the help of the Embassies we found out that a week before, in 2008, it was enough to have a passport to open an account, but not in 2009. Shoot.


So then, Foreign Affairs Office, Local Police, queues, nerves, application forms; with a result: they needed a permanent address to apply for a NIE number, the Police mails the documents to the given address once the approval process ends. They were quite sure that the “we have two tents in the hills, now a bit farther up, since some kids threw stones at us” kind of explanation wouldn’t satisfy the authorities. But, how to get an address? “Excuse me, my name is Ferenc Ivanics. Would you be so kind as to let me use you address in my application for a NIE number? I’d like to use it to open a bank account and to be gone in a month or two.” Anyone? I don’t think so... :)


They tried to find someone, talked about the issue to many strangers and less strangers, but when they changed the conversation topic to the NIE number and the bank account, everyone remembered that they had something very important to attend to. So, the boys entered a cyber-café day-by-day to tell the bad news to the background team. And finally they met the lovely “Amaranta” there, who had no bad thoughts about the story and helped them with the address.


All’s well that ends well, nothing could stop Ferenc from having a NIE number now. Except that he had to pay an administration fee for the application. And he had to deposit that fee on a bank account of whichever office it’s due to. But guess what’s needed to make a deposit: a NIE number. Catch 22 :D On the third try a bank accepted his passport number instead of the NIE, so the green light was on. Ferenc had a wash, a shave, put on his brightest smile and entered the vaults of a bank to open that bank account. Then after the rejection he entered another one, then another one. Finally, he managed to open an account at Sabadell Atlántico.

Strange Fruits, Part 1: Custard-apple, Argan and Cactus Fig

Ferenc and István have always tried to eat local and seasonal food along their walk. Usually they eat what the locals eat. If it’s octopus than octopus, if camel meat than camel meat. Of course that’s the cheapest way to live as well, eat what nature gives at a given time.

The seasonality affects mostly fruits and vegetables, and man, they have tasted many strange things during the last year. And things tend to get stranger as they get farther from home. We start a series of posts about the weird fruits they tried.

by FERENC IVANICS

Custard-apple or Chirimoya

Custard-apple is a fruit of a semi-evergreen tree that prefers a warm and humid climate. But we first saw the fruit without the tree in a grocery store. We tried it, and immediately threw it away; it was crap, a ball with huge stones and without any flavor at all.


But later we discovered (when we were spending the night camping in a chirimoya plantation), that it’s bad only while it’s firm and hard. Probably the piece we had bought was unripe. When it gets soft, even the transformation of the ugliest caterpillar to the most beautiful butterfly is incomparable to its metamorphosis. The bitter vegetable that tastes like flour turns into a luscious fruit full of heavenly tropical aromas. When it falls off the tree it’s not fully ripe yet, you have to wait a day or two patiently ’til it grows perfect. Thank you almighty or evolution (delete whichever does not apply :) for giving us this wonder.

Argan

We saw the argan trees first on our maps. They were dense green patches near Agadir, Morocco. We thought that we would have a nice walk in some cool, shadowy groves; well, not exactly. Those argan patches look 100% authentic “African style” when you see them. You feel the desert is close just by looking at them. This is the odd-fruit-out of the post, since the flesh of the actual fruit is extremely bitter and sticky. When I tried it I couldn’t help spitting it out and hoping that it wasn’t poisonous. :)


But its stone contains an oil highly valued (and priced) by the cosmetics industry. It’s also edible and is quite delicious (we tried it by courtesy of a bartender). Its uses are more or less like olive oil’s. The roasted and ground seed by-product is used in households as a flour substitute.


Other things grow on argan trees as well: goats! :) We were told by locals that someone had hybridized the argan tree and goats. The seeds take ten years to germinate and the trees begin fruiting in another seven years. Then you can harvest tons of bleating goats every year. The story was more than suspicious but then one day we saw a hybrid argan tree full of “fruits”.

Cactus Fig or Tuna

This strange phenomenon is the fruit of the Opuntia cacti, which are widely spread in the world; they are the most cold tolerant cacti around. Its season was in July in Morocco, they sold a pound for a buck or so. On the outside it’s yellowish-green and is fully covered with thin, hair-like spines that easily penetrate skin, detach from the plant and cause irritation. So you can peel it with care or leave the task to the fruit seller, they do it happily for a small tip.


On the inside it’s full of small seeds surrounded by refreshing, juicy flesh. Somewhat reminded us to melons. They are also used to make candies and refreshing drinks.


Ferenc peeling a cactus fig on YouTube (Hungarian commentary)

16 Tons With a View

Job hunting or job seeking is the act of looking for employment, due to unemployment or discontent with a current position. The immediate goal of job seeking is usually to obtain a job interview with an employer which may lead to getting hired. (Wikipedia)

No, the boys are not “Getting a Life” in Spain, but they are happy to earn the money they need to follow their walk.

by FERENC IVANICS
It was an aternoon, business as usual, we were sitting on the street, waiting for the tingling sound of the coins. Two thirtyish man approached us, they were wearing workman’s clothes, we didn’t expect anything of them. They were checking our cardboard resume. István says that they mentioned that we would sit here for a month or two. And they were right: end of month, beginning of week, this is the worst combination for beggars, these last days there wasn’t much going on in our coin-box.


So, we were sitting there, somewhat sourly. Then one of them asked us if we wanted to work. To be precise he didn’t really ask a question, it was more of an imperative statement, something along the lines: “You have written on your propaganda that you would happily work, so, here it is, let’s go!” :) First we couldn’t believe what was happening, but in a moment, almost as if we were waking up from our sleep, we said, yes, of course.


In fifteen minutes we were in an attic of a five stories building... Painting. Both of us have experiences in painting walls, so the result is better than acceptable. We can really help them meet their deadline. Last time, in Motril our “employers” scammed us, so this time we negotiated before starting to work. The offer was fine, and there was a motivating bonus included in the deal as well. It looks we’re doing a fine job, so we won’t be sitting on the boring sidewalk in the next few days.


And as a complement, the view from the attic-apartment is great. We can see the cathedral, small streets, roofs, whenever we want to have a break. So, we are happy with this chance.