04/04/10
Studying botany was really a parenthesis in my life. I had always liked plants, but this is not really what I wanted to do. Circumstances irrelevant here made it that it was botany that I studied, specializing in taxonomy and in ecology. I must confess that, although I am not a militarist, military life was much more pleasant than academic life, ejther as a student, or, years later, as a researchers. The military encourage companionship, as, in case the soldier next to you gets wounded, you have to go assist him under flying bullets, whereas in the academic world competition is ever present, competition for grants, for prestige, for being the first to publish something. Anyway studying botany gave me the opportunity of a trip in Africa, first in Ivory Coast and its rainforests(years later I photographed the Ivory Coast rainforests again) then in Burkina Faso (then called Haute-Volta) where I prepared a thesis on savannas (no African savannas online yet). The trip ended in Niger, reached by camel from northern Burkina Faso, where I had a brief glipse at Fulani nomads and at the Sahara desert. Once finished studying, I didn´t wait for the graduation ceremony and I went traveling.
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Travel
Posted by:
site admin @ 7:38 pm
I will go again to my favorite region, the Brazilian Highlands, toward the end of April and in May. I plan to visit places that I don´t know yet, but always starting from my headquarters, the adobe farm house reached by 28 km of mountain dirt road.