World Travel

I have had the opportunity to explore cultural aspects of the people in countries where I lived, worked, studied or visited in all continents. I have been to several of the most hostile territories in the world in the last 28 years, visiting amazing places and getting involved in dramatic and sometimes hilarious situations. Hiring a guide or joining organized tour groups always sounded to me as an insult

I've stayed in all sort of places, from the most luxurious chain hotels to the most simple and rudimentary Buddhist Temples at the foot of the Himalayas. I've visited remote tribes in many countries and witnessed religious rituals in extremely remote islands. Having three meals per day, or spending a week without eating any solid food, sometimes didn't make much difference. Crossing the Sahara Desert, leading scientific expeditions searching for oil in remote locations where almost nobody had ever been before, and getting used to extreme temperatures of -30ºC to +52ºC was part of my daily routine. At different times, I have shared my apartment with colleagues from 31 nationalities and have directly supervised engineers and scientists from 58 different countries. I discovered a new species of crab in East Timor, and took DNA samples from whale sharks in Mozambique. I've visited most of the gigantic professional telescopes and astronomical observatories all over the world, often being invited to stay overnight to observe. I've also traveled solo overland across the whole African continent for almost a year, hitchhiking, taking local slow public buses and collective taxis, cargo trucks and canoes, having crossed eleven war zones unarmed and without a body guard, carrying only 8 kg of luggage, often documenting what I saw with tens of thousands of photos; all this was inexpensive and extremely rewarding at the end. I was in Beirut during the civil war, and visited most of the obscure Eastern European countries during the Iron Curtain period. I also became an eyewitness to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's assassination. I was in Kenya during an earthquake, saw volcanic eruptions in Indonesia, Guatemala and Italy (a few kilometers away from Mt. Etna's mouth during its memorable 2002 eruption), devastating hurricanes in Barbados and in the Northern Marianas, a huge tornado in Georgia and even ran a Marathon climbing the Swiss Alps. However, my exploratory marathon throughout the world is far from over. Lately I've been revisiting places already familiar to me. At each visit I rediscover new facets of cultures that if seen by untrained eyes, would go unnoticed.

The following list follows the Travelers' Century Club official List of Countries. The TCC was founded in 1954 in Los Angeles by the world's most widely traveled individuals. Membership in the TCC is limited to those travelers who have visited 100 or more countries of the world. I've been a member since 1994 and have visited over 250 countries and territories. The number after each country or state name means 'how many times I've visited', if I've been there more than once:

Hours traveled by train in the US:      75
Hours traveled by train in Europe:      499
Hours traveled by helicopter:             2,000+

The following are two very interesting web sites about famous world travelers:
- Viajeros Notables, by Jorge Juan Sánchez of Spain.
- Most Traveled People, by Charles Veley of the USA.

We have been featured in several newspapers and most Brazilian travel magazines.
I will try to add photos for each individual country in my spare time, hopefully in late 2008, if I'm not traveling :-)
Please note that my pictures were never supposed to prove my capabilities as an amateur photographer, but to conserve memorable moments and share them with others... I am a lot more a traveler than a photographer or a writer...

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