Carlos Olmo

About @vagamundos

62 years old • Male • Traveler

I discovered "the other way of traveling" when I was 16. Together with a friend, we toured Spain in the summer of 1976, with $30 on our pockets, a backpack, a sleeping bag, and a enormous interest in the "New Spain" emerging after the death of the spanish dictator, Franco. Wasted time on the roads hitchiking, sleeping nigths on the beaches, some problems with spanish police and 3 months eating cold food, prepared me very well for future trips.

Since then, I have been in more than 100 countries (but I'm not counting them), I have learned to love and to respect other cultures and beliefs. My travel spirit is now stronger than ever, and my list of places to visit is bigger every day. For 20 years, I've been trying to balance a profesional life as marketing director on the IT market with my travels, but finally I decided in year 2000 to start "travel for a living" instead of "live for travelling".

Reading "The Little Prince" By Antoine de Saint Exupery I learned that the best travel is to your soul, but until I find the way, I will keep travelling the outside world.

• Hobbies:

  trekking, diving, sailing, flying, marathoning and creating websites like vagamundos.ne about traveling around the world, patrimonio-humanidad.com for spanish world heritage, farosdelmundo.com for lighthouses, and caminoasantiago.com, 1400 km walking on the 8 pylgrim ways to Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

• Favourite places:

  Check my blue list at http://www.lonelyplanet.com/bluelist/index.cfm?fa=main.viewList&list_id=5684 and vote it if you like it

  Visiting Anctarctica, now words to describe it
  Picnic with mountain gorillas in Virunga (Zaire).
  Sunrise from the summit of Kilimanjaro (Tanzania).
  Sailing in Patagonia channels from Puerto Montt to Puerto Natales (Chile).
  Wake up in the jungle with the hawling monkies in the mayan temples of Tikal (Guatemala).
  Rafting the Zambezee river in Victoria Falls (Zimbawe).
  Sunrise in Machu Pichu from the Sun Gate after the 4 days Inca trail(Perú).
  Trekking in Patagonia, Torres del Paine and Cerro Torre (Chile and Argentina).
  Wandering around the small strees in Zanzibar Town (Tanzania) when there were not tourists, and sleeping on the beaches.
  Trek 100 km. on the wild coast of Southwest Tasmania (Australia), World Heritage, having the starts as ceiling and the beach sand as floor.
  Walk around the amazing National Parks in Australia, specially Purnuluru (Bungle Bungle) and Kakadu.
  Navigate though the Fiorland in New Zealand, Where I "listened the silence", and I felt myself as Frodo in "the lord of the rings" seaching for Rivendale.
  Scuba diving with dolphins in Phee-Phee islands(Thailand).
  Crossing the jungle in Bali (Indonesia) to make rafting from the very start of the river.
  Descent of the Colorado Canyon (USA), and sleeping on the bottom.
  New Year`s eve party on the Sahara desert on a Jaima (arab tent).
  Sunset and sunrise on the Soulavesi sand dunes (Namibia).
  Sailing Amazon river and staying on a hut in the middle of the tropical jungle.
  Sleeping in cofee plantations with rastafaris in Blue Mountains (Jamaica).
  Trek the Golden Triangle (border between Thailand-Laos-Birmania) between poppy fields, and sleeping with the hilltribes.
  Live pure nature in islas Cíes (Galicia-Spain) when they were called the "small sheychelles".

• Elsewhere: http://www.vagamundos.com