Please Donate

During the last four months the reserves of István and Ferenc have been going slowly downslope. There are still no sponsors to help them out this time. We ask you again: please, if you can, help them go on by donating some money through PayPal.

Of course, any other help is appreciated as well, but right now they live on a tortilla and powder milk diet, to hang on.

To follow their financial ups and downs just check out past posts in the Funding the Project category. We hope they can overcome these hard times again, with your help. Thanks in advance.

Sponsors and Support. WorldWalk-Peacetour managed to survive the last two years without major "activity" sponsorship. Without the help of companies dealing with trekking-equipments, energy or sport drinks, blister patches, sun protection creams, international bank accounts and debit cards, etc.

The boys don't want to give up, they will fight for it, working hard to raise funds to follow their Peacetour. But they're exhausted of the often inhuman conditions, they need something to raise their spirits. If you can help, please, contact us. If you can give them publicity, do it, link to their site, to this blog, post about them in forums or on your blog.

If you work in any of the areas mentioned before (or in an airline with transatlantic, transpacific flights) and can help them, please do so. If you can think of a way to help István and Ferenc, don't hesitate.

Funding: More Alternatives. 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.

The Kindness of Strangers. The Burger Plan is a PayPal subscription. 10 dollars a month for six months (cancelable). There are seven days in a week, so we need seven burger sponsors. Seven sponsors a month. Not much. Doesn’t seem like much. But will there be seven sponsors among us? You can find the current status of the Burger Plan at the top-right corner of the blog, just below the miles counter. Seven burgers. The saturated ones are covered, the dimmed are to go. Click on a dimmed icon and you can invite the guys six burgers in six months.

Of course, we're open for sponsorship deals as well. For example we can place a link like cheap flights to Los Angeles in relevant context and thus, help you optimize your web pages' search ranking for a small fee.

Sugar Cane for a Sweet World

Sugar Cane Fields
October 17th, 12:00 AM
North: 18.202549
West: 95.218570

by FERENC IVANICS
Leaving Eyipantla there were more and more sugar cane fields around us. We tried this plant in Africa as well, it’s sweet and fibrous. It’s a good pastime chewing it, though it’s a bit hard on the teeth.


Due to the modern cultivation technologies sugar is cheap, and it’s a common nutriment here in the Latin world. You see lollipops in the mouth of children and adults as well. But sugar is half-nutriment, half-drug, when one is eating sugar, life turns a bit sweeter too, problems seem to vanish for a moment. Maybe that’s the reason why it’s so popular here.


There was a Russian philosopher, Vladimir Solovyov, who thought that when World Peace comes everyone will stuff their cheeks with sugar. 90% of humanity will become obese and hysteric, the rest will go insane and commit suicide. Sugar creates illusion, who knows, Solovyov might be right.

Eyipantla Falls

Waterfall
October 16th, 1:00 PM
North: 18.384960
West: 95.207756

by FERENC IVANICS
We have one goal only: to get home! In the meantime we try to complement each other, to hold ourselves together. This is what serenity means to us. Our economic possibilities are limited. Serenity and moderation. Spectacles are irrelevant in this mission. We pass by them when they are on, or near the way. Sometimes I just feel it wasn’t worth it... we lost a day or we ended up dog tired, it had been too much of a hassle.


To see the Eyipantla waterfall we had to take a five mile detour, that was O.K. This is the first major waterfall we’ve been able to set our eyes on. A pretty strong one, it wasn’t easy to take pictures due to the drifting and flying water drops. It was a real camera killer.


Seen in the movie called Apocalypto, it is a real spectacle. The entry is half a buck a piece. We enjoyed the perspective, but not the sight of the nearby cornfield and the garbage that builds up at the bottom of the falls. Anyways, as you can see, it was nice.

Record Setting Cigars

Puros Santa Clara
October 15th, 5:45 PM
North: 18.453252
West: 95.217583

by FERENC IVANICS
Smoking with moderation is a habit of ours, not a frequent one, though. But this tropical climate is perfect for tobacco cultivation. That means, there are some internationally known cigars made here in Mexico as well. In San Andrés de Tuxtla we found an open cigar factory. We were allowed to wonder around and take pictures.


They are mentioned in the Book of Guinness World Records, they make the longest commercially available cigar. We thought about smoking one that was smaller, but they don’t sell smaller cigars by piece, and the larger ones cost some 6-7 bucks. Out of our reach, 6-7 bucks cover a lunch for both of us. No cigars today.

Poorness

Casa de Manuel
October 13th, 8:20 PM
North: 18.625796
West: 95.510191

by FERENC IVANICS
Manuel was a simple, poor and kind host for us. He’s unemployed and lives in really humble conditions. He shared his humble food and let us camp in his yard and use his simple bathroom; and had a chat with us...

“Hey, Manuel. How’s this thing with the poorness in Mexico. We’ve heard people complaining about how poor they were so many times here. But three-third of the population looks pretty overweight.”

“Well, the problem is that most of us cannot really appreciate what we have. Nothing is enough, though we have almost everything here.”

I’ve been expecting that answer for a while now. And a Mexican fellow answered me: he’s poor, but he always has food on the table. (And he cultivates some extremely hot chillies in his garden, dammit.)


We came to realize how rich we were at home in the Sahara Desert. In black Africa people are really poor. Here, in Mexico poor means another stuff: “Don’t have means to buy the latest smartphone, LED-TV, game console or fashion.” It’s really grotesque to hear obese locals complain about how poor they are. (Just on a side note: Manuel’s neighbor breeds fighting roosters. Who knows, a proud death might be better than living in an industrialized farm...)

Walk-a-ton

by FERENC IVANICS
István “eats” the heel of his shoes in a relatively short time. The black rubber cover has been almost worn off of his pair. We don’t have enough money to buy new shoes, and it’s been too little time for a new pair. We bought them a month or two ago. We had to fix them. We found a thrown-away slippers-tread on the path; and bought some screws. You see the result on these photos. It’s been working, so far.

Tooth Fairy, Away!

by FERENC IVANICS
My tooth broke off. The false tooth, the one I managed to get replaced in Spain (and had lost in the Sahara).


What can you do... the life-span of these acrylic teeth is short. It’s pretty uncomfortable, not only because I look scary, but it’s hard to eat without it. So, I had no other option, in the small town of Cardel I bought a new replacement. Since we’re on a low budget mission here, there was no money to buy a ceramic tooth, I’m wearing an acrylic one again, valued 40 bucks here. As we’re almost broke again, I wasn’t really happy about it. I guess it’s hard to deny, our smile on the picture is not wholehearted.

Jaws

Sharky Beach
October 9th, 2:30 PM
North: 19.062594
West: 95.993171

by FERENC IVANICS
We decided to wash away the dirt of the road in Antón Lizardo. We dipped ourselves into the sea. The water was calm, warm and pretty shallow. The kind of beach where you just lay down in the water and do nothing. Not the kind of recreation we are used to. We were leaving the water and walking to the shore when a fishing boat made land. The fishermen pulled out two sharks from the boat.



We are from the lakeside town of Palić, we’re familiar with carps and breams, the biggest predator we saw was a jackfish. Sharks are more serious stuff. They immediately processed both fish. The hammerhead was spectacular to watch but the other one looked more dangerous.


I asked the men if they caught the specimens there, about some hundred feet from the coast. :) But they got the joke, and the answer was no, they had caught them on high seas...

As Healthy as it Gets

Mango Trees
October 6th, 8:00 AM
North: 19.605505
West: 96.399397

by FERENC IVANICS
We found a camp spot thanks to the owner of a small diner. We slept below some mango trees, we liked the birds singing during dusk and dawn. Another interesting experience was checking out the noni plantation right next to our spot.


I don’t know much about noni, I know that it’s healthy to consume it, just like in the case of aloe vera, but don’t really know what’s it good for. We tasted it raw and I should say that it’s not that good. Bananas are way better. It’s a pretty strange sight that the forming fruit is still blooming.