No Road In No Road Out - slowboating the amazon

So, I'd like to share that my book came out!  No Road In No Road Out- slowboating the Amazon describes my illustrated journey up the Amazon from Colombia into Peru.

On 40 pages (single sided) I show you places no road gets to and answer some pressing questions along the way. E.g. What do Gustave Eiffel and Che Guevara have in common? Where is the Venice of Peru?

Most of the drawings were done on location - Urban Sketcher style!
Find out more on www.visualflaneur.com 

Oliver, as visual flaneur

Popayan

The itinerary for my set of posts is all scrambled, but it doesn't matter. Suffice it to say that I arrived in Popayan, a town in the South of Colombia, in the middle of the night after a bus ride up from Ecuador. Colonial architecture, churches and a laid back atmosphere. Geographically closer, yet very different from the places covered in my upcoming travelogue.

Oliver, as visual flaneur

Minca

Minca, just an hour and a half by bus from Santa Marta, yet a world away. I drove through the pouring rain up the Colombian Sierra Nevada mountains. Getting out in the middle of the rainforest with a view all the way to the coast, I draw random dudes on a motorbike with cases of beer in the background. I am a hopeless case.

Oliver, as visual flaneur

Santa Marta

Heat. Sweltering heat on Colombia's caribbean coast.

As I was traveling through Santa Marta I read 'The General in His Labyrinth'. In it, Gabriel Garcia Marquez describes the last days of Simon Bolivar, the great leader in the struggle of Latin America's independence. He died in Santa Marta. Not in battle and not of the heat either, but of tuberculosis.

Oliver, as visual flaneur

Cartagena's people

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Colombia's inventor of magic realism, set several of his works in Cartagena. Not least for its people. He will also feature in my illustrated travelogue to come...

Oliver, as visual flaneur

Cartagena’s protection against pirates

This is a small part of Cartagena’s city wall.

In the 17th century Cartagena was in Spanish hands. Royalty decided to build a fortress with a wall around the city to protect it from pirates. It should take more than 208 (!) years to finish the 11km wall.  In 1756, while in Madrid, Charles III of Spain took his spyglass and allegedly said: ” This is outrageous! For this prize those castles should be seen from here!”

They are nice walls, though.

Oliver, your visual flaneur