Author: Tom Peeters

Christmas in Estonia: “Welcome to Chechnya”

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It’s 17 December and, for a brief moment, I feel like a Real Estonian Man. You know, a Kalevipoeg strong enough to carry a huge stack of planks, but too stupid to spell his own name.

There’s plenty of chances to feel like a Real Estonian Man during Christmas time in Estonia. You could eat enormous piles of meat or put real candles in a tree. Not those fake led lights that everyone in western Europe seems to opt for. Chickens! To hell with fire safety, whoever burns down his house in Estonia at least does so in a festive mood.

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Trujillo, Honduras: the Caribbean town where Christopher Columbus first set foot on Central American mainland

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From San Pedro Sula, former murder capital of the world, two bus companies make the trip to Trujillo. The first available one departs straight away. We have no time to lose because the next bus will only leave in an hour. Expected travel time: seven hours. And we’ve already left Lago de Yojoa a few hours ago. This conflicts with our philosophy of slow travel. Trujillo is a godforsaken outpost of Honduras, quite literally the end of the line. Whoever wants to travel more eastward, towards La Mosquitia, needs to organise a boat. There are no roads.

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The ultimate guide to Workaway: house and board in exchange for a few hours of work

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Ten years ago, at 23, I wanted to travel fast, cover lots of ground and tick boxes. Go and never stop until I got there. The older I become, the slower I want to travel. As a travelling couple, we like to linger in one place for a bit longer, soak up the local atmosphere, get to know the environment, the people. Embark on some hikes, get some writing done. But travelling is expensive, at least that’s the common idea. That’s where Workaway comes into the picture. Workaway is the perfect way for cheapskates to travel long-term.

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Sillamäe: the most Russian place in Estonia

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Things get out off hand around half past ten. The manager of Baar Randevuu, whose frizzy hair looks a bit like that of an alpaca, throws out a female customer. The woman brushes the mud off her dress, a scanty garment so kitsch that only a Russian would wear it outside of the carnival season, and shouts back loudly. Suka! Blyat! Now, our knowledge of the Russian language is rather limited, but it doesn’t seem that she’s thanking the manager for the fine evening out. During her tirade, vodka fumes escape that could make an elephant end up in a drinking coma. Welcome to Sillamäe, the most Russian place in Estonia.

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Tangier, Morocco: European ambiance, African chaos

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“Upon arrival in Tangier, most travel guides advise you to make immediate plans to leave, if you haven’t already. They are right: Tangier is a first-degree shithole.”

A book called 101 places not to visit catches my eye in the library of Pärnu, according to its cover “your essential guide to the world’s most miserable, ugly, boring and inbred destinations.” The book promises to teach you how to spot biological hazards and radioactivity and how to avoid marriage to locals desperate to escape.

Because we haven’t returned from Morocco very long ago, I quickly browse to the pages about Africa. In addition to the above sentence, this anti-travel guide knows that Tangier is “culturally as interesting as a service station, minus the handy plastic and the kitchen roll dispensers.”

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