NETworking or NOTworking? - and other Silicon Valley Stories

Taken from gapingvoid.com

ALSO TAKEN FROM MY ENTREPRENEURSHIP BLOG

http://entrepreneurial-discovery.blogspot.com/

I want to start this post highlighting this amazing quote I found recently on gapingvoid.com: "BLOGS AREN´T DEAD, PEOPLE ARE". It´s amazingly simple and logic, but at the same time it was amazingly harsh for me to read it ... "Man it means I´m dead ... my creativity is dead, my capacity to share experiences is dead since I do not blog since a good couple of weeks"

Anyways, after couple of minutes I recivered from my paranoia and well, FYI, I´m not dead!

I was busy doing NETworking, ehemmm, and NOTworking as well!

I was for a week abroad, half of it on a very short vacation and half of it participating in an amazing Immersion Tour of Endeavor in Silicon Valley (SV).

At Facebook, San Jose (CA)

The experience was just amazing, it felt like being in the "mecca" of entrepreneurship and capitalism, well in some aspects, it still is.

We had the opportunity to witness interesting and content-rich panels with all sorts of Venture Capitalists (VCs) of the Bay area that were willing to tell Entrepreneurs lessons on how the industry works and how to raise money effectively.

Another big block of the tour were of course the company visits ... we visited companies that today are icons for all of us, such as Google, Facebook, eBAY, PayPal and Eletronic Arts. Of course we saw what we all expected to see ... "thousands of crazy, diverse-looking employees living in wide campuses within a very unique, free, wild organizational cultures". However even if that was cool, won´t deny, I must say that was not what amazed me the most. What was unique of the experience was reflecting on how small these organizations started (just as any other entrepreneur) and how someone believed in them, invested in them, how the chose the right people to manage and envision the business and ... eureka! how they turned to be what they are now. It was a powerful lesson on THINKING BIG, on TAKING RISKS. Failure is not one of the options, but if it happens, it´s well embraced and powerful reason to stand up again.

At Electronic Arts

Well, since I´m a quotes person, I leave you with some of the most interesting quotes or expressions or terms I heard in the tour from VCs, Entrepreneurs and employees from some SV-based Companies:

• "In Silicon Valley one new company is born every hour"


• "We work on technology because we want to change the world" - COO Facebook


• "Silicon Valley - Wild West approach to risk"


• "DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION"


• "Queen Isabel of Spain - one of the first Venture Capitalists of history" - Bill Draper making the analogy since as we all know the Queen financed Columbus, one of the greatest Entrepreneurs ever


• "Demographics Vs Psicographics"


• "It´s not the strongest of species that survive, not the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change"


• "You´re the heart of our existence" - Venture Capitalist Bill Draper refering to Entrepreneurs


• "Being a VC is all about making money without working. The job is about identifiying great business ideas and put in the right management"


• "Self-actualization", "Identity refreshment"


• "VCs serve Entrepreneurs, it´s a service"


• "I do not do HR, I advice the leaders of the organization to do HR, I empower the business leaders to do their job" - VP HR PayPal


• "People want to work for winners, people want to for something that is going somewhere" - VP HR PayPal


• "The culture of you organization tomorrow is who you are recruiting today" - VP HR PayPal


• "If you are scared with the crisis right now, maybe you should not be an entrepreneur"


• "There are 3 kinds of people: people that start companies, that grow companies and tha run companies - not all entrepreneurs are ready to make this transition"


• "5 words an Entrepreneurs does not want to hear from an employee: - IT IS NOT MY JOB - be ready to look for people that are willing to go beyong its resumee"


• "You do not need to be in high-tech to make a lot of money"


• "Finding one´s calling by looking at one´s purpose and it´s impact - not at the tasks we do"


• "The ultimate time to differentiate ourselves (as companies) in the the times of recesion/crisis"


• "VC money is not a commodity, it comes with a partner that makes it special"


• "Fun is a very important element when building a culture"


• "Sucess is failing repeatedly with ENTHUSIASM"


• "It´s all about IQ that generates IP" - IQ= Intelligent people who generated Intellectual Property!


• "The (Silicon) Valley isn´t anymore the only thought leader ... we need to re-create the valley in other places"


• "A great business leader deeply understands the motivations of his/her employees, investors and of course, customers"

New York, New York ...

To see the complete picture set, click here.

I feel almost bad for not having shared before some highlights of my first visits to New York! I visited New York last December 2007 for 5 days, short time but what can I do!? It was primarely a work trip. However thanks to my amazing hosts (my cousin Reuben and his wife Perla) these few days were more than enough to discover the main aspects of the city!

New York Skyline seen from New Jersey

The city that never sleeps

It´s true, New York never sleeps ... I arrived from Colombia to NY on a saturday evening, that must have been 7.00 p.m. and I was a bit suprised when my hosts told me this same day we would start doing sightseeing, "bit late to be around", I thought. But no ... for NY standards seemed to be a perfect timing, specially during X-mas, that is one of the coolest seasons to experience NY. As a matter of fact, all the next photos were taken between 10.00 p.m and 1.a.m. (if a look kind of tired in some of them, now you know the reason!) and the city was as alive, as if it would be 10 a.m. in the morning ...

Walking around Rockefeller Center!

Discovering good street/junk food: Grays Papaya´s

Gray's Papaya is famous for its very inexpensive, high-quality hot dogs. The "papaya" in the name refers to the fruit drinks sold at the establishment, which include orange, grape, piña colada, coconut champagne (non-alcoholic), and banana daiquiri (non-alcoholic) in addition to papaya. Come on! even my beloved Carry Bradshow likes the place (I´m sorry, but I can´t hide that I love Sex and the City)!

Welcome to Times Square and Broadway!

Times Square is a major intersection in Manhattan, New York City at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets. Times Square has achieved the status of an iconic world landmark and has become a symbol of its home city. Times Square is principally defined by its animated, digital advertisements.Times Square was named after the Times Building (now One Times Square) the former offices of The New York Times.



Central Park

Central Park is a large public, urban park (843 acres, 3.41 km², 1.32 mi²; a rectangle 2.5 statute miles by 0.5 statute mile, or 4 km × 800 m) in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. With about twenty-five million visitors annually, Central Park is the most visited city park in the United States, and its appearance in many movies and television shows has made it among the most famous city parks in the world.

Don´t confuse me with The Apprentice!

The Apprentice is a television franchise that originated in 2004 in the United States. As originally conceived, the show depicted 16 contestants from around the country with various backgrounds competing in an elimination-style competition to become an apprentice to Donald Trump. The following two pics were taken right on front of two of the many (Donald) Trump Towers in NYC.

FAO Schwarz

FAO Schwarz is the name of a specialty toy retailer based in New York City. The New York City store, located in the General Motors Building at Fifth Avenue and 58th Street in Manhattan, is still very popular and a famous destination in the city. I seriously loved to go there, I have to admit I did not feel random taking picture is Bob Sponge or sitting down to design my own Barbie by computer ... !

And to prove that it was a work trip ...

The working reason of travellin got NYC was to make part of an Steering Committee of the organization I currently work for. We were around 10 people from all Latin America, Turkey and US mainly redesigning for one week the global IS tool we currently use. It was a great experience, since it was all about mapping the core processes we do and trying to figure out how a system could support us to deliver those processes in a more efficient and collaborative way. Below you can see the team (yes, we were on 2 girls, and precisely from Colombia) during one of our meeting in Manhattan.

A big Thank You

Even if 50 % of my travel I stayed in a hotel in Manhattan, the other 50 % I was hosted at my cousin´s home in New Jersey. I want to end this post thanking him, his wife and son for being excellent hosts and showing me the best they could New York and surroundings. I had a very good time and I really hope to come back some day to keep discovering NYC!

BARICHARA!

After lost of tries, finally we managed to go to Barichara! - a town that by many people is called "the most beautiful one" of Colombia! Javier, myself and two other friends were the group with the mandate to find out if all the comments heard were true.

Barichara is an authentic old world colonial town in the north east of Colombia, in a department called Santander. It is a very pleasant place to walk around and we stayed probably in the best place ever: COGOLLO CANEY. Seriously, if you ever plan to go to this zone of Colombia, make sure you stay there.

Even if officially recognized as a B&B, Cogollo Caney also responds to the concept of a family hostel, which means nothing else than staying in a house (that looks and works as a house, a residence) where also the family members live. Now, in the case of Cogollo Caney we are talking of a big, spacious house with so many different environments, that at moments one might think that it´s certainly a hotel. However the fact that there are only 4 rooms in the whole house and the close interaction with the family members, few employees that work there and even the pets (a dog and a parrot), brings you back to the feeling of just being visiting friends over the weekend. The other fantastic fact of having stayed there, is that the house is built in the traditidional architecture and with the traditional construction materials of Barichara: sand and wood. The house itself has won several architecture prices, and beyond that, the house is administered and decorated probably the best people in Colombia to do it: the owners (and family parents) are an architect and a interior designer. Here you can even take a look at the foundation that the owner has to educate around this type of ancient construction techniques. Finally another small detail that captured our heart was having ceiling-less bathrooms! I know it sounds weird, but taking a shower in a space without a roof, all decorated with plants and still having delicious hot water and a classy decoration, is probably one of the coolest things I´ve done.

Seems that the experience at the family hostel was more impressive than the visit to the town itself, right? Well, I can´t deny without COGOLLO CANEY the Barichara experience wouldn´t have been the same, but of course the trip went beyond that. Barichara and some of the other towns around in the department of Santander and known for being great places for adventure sports/also known as extreme sports (paragliding, jumps into dark caves, boggie driving, well and thousand other crazy things …!). Sad news is that we played it safe and did not do anything extreme … instead we went for walks around the town, for buying handcrafts, for a admiring wonderful landscapes as the one we found at the Parque Nacional del Chicamocha and for eating! eating! and eating! typical dishes of the region as Cabrito con Pepitoria (motton) and all kinds of random fast food…!

Again this is one of this posts (and trips!) where no matter how many pictures you show and stuff you write, it won´t describe the magic of the place. In those cases all you can do is endorsing to friends Barichara as a very nice destination to experience adventure, romance, relax and a special hospitality as only few places can offer.

Fallin´ in love with Cartagena again ...

Because of work reasons, I had the pleasure to spend at the beginning of this month 4 amazing days in one of the most beautiful cities in Colombia and in the word: CARTAGENA. Being originally from Barranquilla(another coastal city just 1,5 hours away from Cartagena) Cartagena and its treasures weru not unknown to me; however one of the amazing things of Cartagena is that every visit makes you feel as if it would be your first time ...

This time I stayed in one of the hotels that reinforces the best -because of its gorgeous colonial architecture- what the Cartagena charm is, Hotel Charleston Cartagena, also known as Hotel Santa Teresa. I recommed it to everyone, if possible, it´s an investment worth making!

Hotel Santa Teresa, outside and inside

Although, as said before, we were staying in a great venue, all dinners every evening were hosted outside the hotel at private residences of some of the event sponsors. One does not know what was better ... if the amazing hospitality and environment that you could breathe in those old, traditional and extreely well mantained Cartagena houses or the relaxed and magic walks through the old Cartagena city to reach those houses.

Walking in the old Cartagena city

As in any other work event where you meet people from your company from all different places in the world (well, never so many and so diverse people as in AIESEC!) Cartagena and its landscapes were also the perfect background for many group pictures!

With collegues from all Latin America and USA

And last but not least, I just want to finish this post with two recommendations for eating places in Cartagena - the first one called JUAN DEL MAR and the second one PORTON DE SANTO DOMINGO. Not that I chose the two place nor that I´m an expert in culinary, but i definitively enjoy good food (specially sea food!) and these two places were really good. You can tell out of my happy face in the both following pictures!

At Juan del Mar and Portón de Santo Domingo restaurants

Miami - and introducing my new "family"

I was in Miami for a couple of days last month, attending to an Endeavor Entrepreneur Summit!

Some highlights:

- Miami ... I really do not know if I was amazed or confused to see such a hispanic environment in the US ... it was so funny to talk to people in english (at shops, a taxi driver, etc... ) and see how automatically you rather get an answer in spanish ...!

- I visited Elias! (former President of AIESEC in Brazil and a great friend), great to know the trainees he lives with and of course his wife Fernanda. Also was amazed to see how different the life of an AIESEC trainee in the US is ... their house has a swimming pool, almost every trainee has a car! I mean, the city demans from you to have a car and other certain conditions, there is no other way, but it still looks funny!

- Shopping ... I know it's a latin thing to go to the US and shop, shop and shop, even if some things are exactly the same than the ones you find back home but ... I could not help tp do it at Sawgrass Mills! Florida's largest retail & entertainment center and relatively close to Elias' house where I stayed for 1 night. I can't deny it was cool to spend some time there, however expectations around Sawgrass are way bigger that what I found.

- Attended working sessions (speeches, interviews, panels) with amazing entrepreneurs, business leaders and academics (not all was play, I had also plenty of work with agendas starting at 8.30 a.m.!)

And last but not least, well the Miami trip was another moment to keep bounding with the people that since I work at Endeavor that have become my "2nd family" ... definitively the people that besides Javier I see the most every single day!



Esperanza Morales - one of our entrepreneurs - and myself


Mauricio Angel, one of our entrepreneurs, Gaia (my boss), Esperanza and myself


The entrepreneurs and myself


Nice boat trip!


This time there was no Mickey Mouse visit in Florida :( but hopefully we'll manage to come back to Miami for holidays soon!

Tomorrow ... Punta del Este, Uruguay!

"Projecting towards the South Atlantic, one narrow strip of land emerges proud, dividing the waters of the Río de La Plata and the Atlantic Ocean... Punta del Este"

I´ll be off to Uruguay tomorrow 13.03 and until 18.03 - my first work trip with Endeavor.

Uruguay was one of the countries that I did not manage to visit when I was Director of AIESEC International, so I feel more than lucky to have the chance to do it now with Endeavor as part of my induction process. I´ll be participating the Endeavor Latin American Selection Panel - the event where Endeavor officially selects entrepreneurs to become part of our network. Entrepreneurs passing through interviews by wonderful international panelists and Endeavor staff all together ... can´t wait to get inspired. Particularly Endeavor Colombia is bringing 3 pre-selected entrepreneurs, which we hope in the best scenario all 3 will be selected.

I can´t help to remember back AIESEC ... back to the travelling mood!

Nice Barranquilla Carnival Photo Slide Show

To complement the few comments and phots showed in my recent post, feel free to take a look at this in my opinion very cool set of pictures of this last carnival:

It´s from Sarah´s blog, trainee from the US in Barranquilla - she was one of the organizers of the Carnival (AIESEC) Trainee Weekend and on her blog has a set of interesting posts on the carnival, Barranquilla and in general, Colombia.

Finshing my relates about our October holidays: Dharamsala/Mc Leod Ganj

Ok, this is my thrid and last related about our October Holidays, to catch up with the two other places visited, visit my Manali and Delhi posts written in the past days.

Now, let's focus on Dharamsala/Mc Leaod Ganj.

Before coming to Dharamsala/Mc Leaod Ganj I must admit I hardly new 1 % of what this place was all about. What a shame - but yes ... I knew that the Dalai Lama and its tibetean community lived there but I was really far away of understanding what the real conditions of their exile were and what the Dalai Lama's real mission was. While being there and having a better glimpse of that, we remembered the "furor" that had the last visit of the Dalai Lama to Colombia and how in our country the majority of the people certainly see in the Dalai Lama only a "peace and love messenger" sometimes "guru", which again is really far way of what he really stands for.

Before you askyourself about it, no, unfortunately we did not see the Dalai Lama, same day that we arrived he left to Japan for some days. Nebertheless, we never really checkd prior coming if he would be there or not.

Street of Mc Lead Ganj

Mc Leod Ganj is exactly the town where the Dalai Lama House and main Temple is. The town is basically upper Dharamsala and is the tourist hub. It is full of backpackers and hippy style tourists. I make the disclaimer that there is nothing wrong with that, but what concerned me a bit is that some people gave the impression be playing to dress or act like that, just because they were there and they felt like being part of the Dharamsala tourist culture. But again it's my personal, most probably wrong, impression.

We stayed 3 days in Mc Leod Ganj. One day of course we focused in visiting the Dalai Lama House and Temple. Awesome in essence, the temple however was very simple, at least much less luxurious or ostentous that what I had imagine.


Halls inside the Dalai Lama Temple


Buddha - Dalai Lama Temple

From the temple itself you have nice views of Mc Lead Ganj itself. You see some local people praying on the floor, as well you see many monks in sort of class rooms around the temple.

Dalai Lama Temple


Next day we explored the town, bought some buddist realted books, visited the Tibetean Museum and even saw a great documental about a group of Tibeteans that reached Mc Leod Ganj after a painful experience crossing the HImalayas. I advice all people to please visit this museum inside the Temple, is amazingly simple, even small but very contundet in its messages.


View from Dalai Lama Temple

One of the most amazing experiences however we had the next day, when we joined the morning payers of local buddist.

These people with rosaries in hand walk a small hill every morning, going up and down, praying while they do it until they reach the temple up there. It all happens at 6.00 - 6.30 a.m., perfect time to also see the sunrise from the hills. This same day we also went to the so called Holy Lake, a very small lake near the town.

Temple whete the locals go every early morning


Prayer Wheels


Explanation of the mani prayer wheel: A prayer wheel is a wheel on a spindle, and on the wheel are written or encapsulated prayers or mantras. According to the Tibetan Buddhist belief, spinning such a wheel will have much the same effect as orally reciting the prayers

In difference to Manali, of course Dharamsala/Mc Leaod Ganj is rather an cultural (spiritual for those who really do it seriously) than a natural experience, it's a town of beautiful sunsets and sunrises and loaded by traditions and costumers from a nation (Tibet) that even if are not in India by its own desire, do the best every day to deal with their reality and have an amazing optimism that one day, there will be a free Tibet.

Sunrise in Mc Leaod Ganj

Continuing my relates about our October holidays: Manali

[Before it's to late to be still fun to tell about it, I want to continue in this post telling about our Diwali holidays (Oct 21 - Oct 31.06). In a recent post I talked about Delhi, the indian capital, where we stayed 2 days. Now, let's go real north, and let's take a look at our next stop, Manali, in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh.]

MANALI: a small bite of the Himalayas


Himachal Pradesh State, in red - India

Manali is one of the most popular hill stations in the indian state of Himachal Pradesh. In itself Manali, the town, has nothing in particular, besides being a town full of hotels, hostals, restaurants, shops and travel/sports agencies. Well, of course it has an awesome view with snowed mountains, so that's why it's worth! The town in this sense is the place where all tourists gather and stay, but the real fun happen around Manali when people go to into the mountains to trek, raft, do paragliding, river crossing, fishing, skiing, camping and all other kind of sports and nature related activities. Manali also is a destination for honeymoons, at least that is why we have been told, however even if it was not a honeymoon trip, we really wanted to go there to experience the Himalayas, at least in their Indian part.

Main activities we did were a one-day car excursion to a place called Rohtang Pass, which is the highest point near Manali (of course there are higher points in the region, but for that you need to go even more North on teh way to Leh) and also we did a one day trekking, with a guide. The rest of the days we discovered the town itself, its food and it's few historical places - but it was so good to go to a place where the touristic places are not just temples or acrhitecture, but where nature itself (in this case the Himalayas) is the spectacle.

One of the stops on the way to Rohtang Pass


Trying to go higher ...!

A small yak ride ... you find several of them as part of the "snow attractions"

Diverse photos in mainly indian tourist enjoying snow ...

About this higher parts of the mountains, we must say that it was a bit disapointing to see that there is a lot of litter/garbage, for being a place with such a real natural power and relatively less restaurants and businesses around. But still ignorign this dirty spots, the landscape up there is for sure one of the most amazing ones that one can see.

Trekking - a walk into small villages in near Manali

As said before one of the activities we did was an almost one day trekk towards the Solang Valley, near Manali. You can get a guide to show you the way and a lunch pack for 500 Rupees (10 USD) per person and have a perfect plan.


Me and the guide at the start of the trekk

The coolest of the trekk, was that even if we did not go so high, the guy kind of took us around his village and we basically passed by houses of many people he knew, even had chai (tea) in his sister's house until we reached his own house, where we ate our lunch packs. Was cool to see how this people live, how their houses look like, how they speak (the local language sound rather similar to chineses than hindi!)

Village House near Manali


Mint Tea and nuts - the snacks during the trekk


You see these brave women all over the place carrying these heavy reserves to feed their animals ...

Do not doubt to go to this place of the world if you have the opportunity and specialli if you are one day in India. It's a different India! It's experiencing a cold India, with high landscapes, with heaps of nature around, with indians with a lot of chinese aspect, villages and lifes that are run and lived in a slower motion than in the big indian cities, wonderfully fresh air - I personally feel very lucky to have the chance to come to this place of the world and realize how few we dare to imagine how people here understand their world... and see what we can learn from that.

DELHI, the indian capital

The first stop of our Diwali holidays (21.10 - 31.10) was Delhi, the capital of India. It was actually the first and last stop, because in total we stayed two days, one at the beginning (before headingt o Himalayas) and on in teh end, right fater coming back from there and fliying to Mumbai.

It was not the first time that I was in Delhi (I was there last year as well for also one day or so prior IC 2005, an AIESEC conference) but I must really say that that time I was certainly too stressed to really enjoy sightseeing as much as I did this time. That time I remember we took a cab with Candice (the AIESEC Alumni chair of the conference), Gabi, and couple of people more. This time the process was the same, we also took a cab that for 500 Indian Rupees drives you all over the place for 8 hours or it's equivalent to 80 KMs. It's a good deal (for those who will visit India and might doubt about doing it).

It was a lot what I heard about Delhi, specially after living in Mumbai. It seems that there is kind of a "Mumbai - Delhi" rivality where inhabitants of each city tend to always joke about which city is best to live. I must really say that Delhi impressed me totally and from my point of view these are the top highlights of the whole "Mumbai - Delhi" issue:

Impression 1: Delhi is cleaner than Mumbai, nothing to do, it is. Dehli is a greener city.Dehli is less smelly.
Impression 2: Delhi is less crowded than Mumbai, heaps less. For someone that comes first time to India Delhi can seem overpopulated, but please go first to Mumbai and then compare. For moments we asked ourselves ... where is the people? And believe me, we were at a variety of zones and in different dates.Less ottos (instead cycle rikcshaws), less traffic, less polution.
Impression 3: Delhi's weather IN OCTOBER rocks. Ok, I know as well that Dehli in summer is hell, extremely hot, but this month it had the perfect weather, and in general I guess even in summer, the city is less humid than Mumbai.
Impression 4: The Metro in Delhi is impressive, way better, clener, more modern that many metros I have seen in Europe. It is not culturally sensitive to do the following comment (sorry, but I mean it in a positive way!), but while being in metro stations in Dehli, you basically do not feel in India. The Mumbai train is way too unorganized, packed, and unattended in comaprison to this ... but well, Mumbai it's clear that the Mumbai train is way older and Mumbai as such is much more populated.
Impression 5: People in Delhi give the impression to be less "aggresive" than the Mumbaikers, bit more attent. I've been told that Delhi has started since some times an urban organization process, people do respect more! It was so cool to see how a police man was stopping people that tried to cross the street while the traffic lights were in red. Traffic lights are more abundant than in Mumbai, as well. We remembered a lot the process that Bogota (colombian capital) is living sine almost 10 years ... Bogota was an extremely chaotic city and given unconventional citicen education strategies, is now a more livable place to live.
Impression 6: Finally, even if it is a city Delhi has much concrete and awesome sightseeing points than Mumbai. Below are some pictures of it.

Finally, thanks for Krishna for hosting us for a night in her house, for those who know her, people you must really experience the hospitality of this family, so stay tuned when she is back in Dehli, so that you make sure you visity her ;-)

DISCLAIMER: Ok ... for all Mumbaikers and other Mumbai fans: MUMBAI is MUMBAI, yes. I know that and I missed Mumbai believe it or not! It sounds like a "standard" comment, but yes, Mumbai has personality.

Now some pictures:

1. Q u t a b M i n a r

The Qutb complex is an array of monuments and buildings at Mehrauli in Delhi, India, the most famous of which is the Qutub Minar. This complex was first constructed by Qutb-ud-din Aybak, the first ruler of the Slave Dynasty, and his successor Iltutmish (aka Altmash) in his new city called the Qila-Rai-Pithora near Prithivraj Chauhan's older city. The complex was added to by many subsequent rulers, including Iltutmish and Ala ud din Khilji as well as the British.

The word 'Qutab Minar' means 'axis minaret'.

2. R e d F o r t

The Red Fort was the palace for Muslim Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan's new capital, Shahjahanabad, the seventh Muslim city in the Delhi site. He moved his capital from Agra in a move designed to bring prestige to his reign, and to provide ample opportunity to apply his ambitious building schemes and interests. The Red Fort gets its name from the massive wall of red sandstone that defines its eight sides. The fort lies along the Yamuna River, which fed the moats that surround most of the wall.

3. I n d i a g a t e a n d P r e s i d e n t ' s H o u s e



India Gate

India Gate, a majestic structure, 42 metres high, is set at the end of Rajpath, perhaps the most beautiful area of New Delhi with plush green lawns in the backdrop. it was originally called All India War Memorial in memory of the 90,000 Indian soldiers who died in the campaigns of World War I, the North-West Frontier operations of the same time and the 1919 Afghan Fiasco.On the walls of the structure are inscribed the names of all the soldiers.


Presidents House

4. Lotus Temple



Lotus Temple is the place of worship for the followers of Bhai Faith in India. This is an beautifull piece of architecture constructed in Delhi.

5. I s k o n T e m p l e



It is one of the 40 temples in India that belongs to the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, dedicated to Lord Krishna. From a restaurant to a museum in the making, a library and a special animatronics show, sound and light presentations accompanied by huge relief and life-like figures are bound to make an impact on an audience, far more than just an exhibition.

6. C y c l e R i c k s h a w s i n D e h l i




A cycle rickshaw, also known as a pedicab, velotaxi, or trishaw, is a human-powered vehicle for hire, usually with one or two seats for carrying passengers in addition to the driver. Cycle rickshaws are widely used for transportation in many parts of Asia where they have largely replaced less-efficient rickshaws that are pulled by a person on foot. In Mumbai there are not many, but in Dehli there are on the opposite a lot!

GOA!!!

Javi and myself in Goa Style

As Javi also described in his blog (no worries won't repeat the same post and pics!), as part of our plan to visit some of the main indian destinations, we started with GOA. Goa, as you is a very small state in India, it is the southern state of the one where I live (that is called Maharastra, where Bombay is). Even if tiny in comparison with the other indian states, Goa is one of these places that I had heard from many formal and informal sources as a MUST-VISIT in India. Personally, I expected a truly paradise, after so much talk and well, pictures of the place. I must say that even if it was a nice place to see, it was not as wonderful as I expected, however I also know that there were a couple of factors that did not allow Goa to show all its beauty to us this time, as you will read further. However - wherever there is nature, it is a good place to be.


Javier and myself, Sunset at Arambol Beach (North Goa)

First we were supossed to stay for 5 days in the South of Goa, which we did not. Our destiny was a beach called Palolem, that indeed is awesome and is known to be less crowded and more nature-oriented (versus party oriented) than other beaches. When we arrived there they informed us (as we also saw) that the indian government destroyed all coco-huts, restaurants and other places that did not count with a 'licence for operations'. Fair enough, they should have it, but it was really bad luck to arrive at the place right 3 days after the whole thing happened: the place really looked like after a Tsunami. There was no point to stay, then they were hardly 2 restaurants open and not that nice places to spend the nights, so we decided to head for North Goa. That was never the plan, then North Goa Beaches were not suposed to be as nice as the southern ones.

Here you can see anyways some pictures of Palolem Beach, it was cool to catch these cow friends having a tan on the beach :-)


Palolem Beach (South Goa)

North Goa was a completely different experience, the place for sure is the destiny for party lovers, hippie-life style people (or hippie wannabe people). We stayed in BAGA Beach/town. Again it was not was we were looking for, was more crowded, beaches were far away from hotels, it was basically a town, still was great to get out of Bombay, have good food, and enjoy different landscapes. Some highlights of Goa in the next pictures.


Some Reasons why Goa rocked

1. Palolem beach: even if we were there just couple of hours that we spent in South Goa, it was cool enough to make us want to come back once all its infrastructure is again in place

2. Bike rides: In Goa you can rent a bike for 150 / 200 INR a day (like 3 /4 USD) and move around from beach to beach or just inside the towns, it is good fun.



Us Biking in Anjuna Beach (North Goa)

3. Tandoori Fish: if you think you have eaten the best fish already, for sure you have not tasted Tanddori Fish. Tandoor is an indian kind of oven where after being beautifully spiced, the fish is cooked. You might have heard of Tandoori Chicken, well it is the same concept but with fish but believe me, much better and not as spicy as you might be thinking it is. It is delicious, definitively sets a new standard for eating fish.



Tandoori Fish, at "Over the Flames", in Baga Beach (North Goa)

4. Querim Beach and Fort Tiracole: This was a beach that even if we knew about it, we arrived there by chance. And thanks god, since it was an awesome place to be, the best beach by far in north Goa. The main attraction there is that you have to cross by Ferri to reach a fort, FORT TIRACOLE. It is a small fort, yet offers an awesome view of the Querim Beach, a virgen kind of beach.



View from Fort Tiracole


1. Ferri, 2. Us in Fort Tiracole, 3. View from Tiracole

5. The funky clothes: in the end you feel also like buying the "wanna be hippie" clothes, they have colourful, wide pants, skirts, shorts that is a worth inversion to make!


Few reasons why (North) Goa sucked

1. It was raining 70 % of the time. Lesson: be patient and wait for the monsoon (India's rainy season) to be completely over to go to Goa!

2. Majority of beaches are dirty, they have the potential to be nicely arranged

3. Even if cheaper as Bombay, it was still more expensive as compared with South Goa