After the return from my African trip I spent a month in Prague. I hosted two couchsurfers during that time and I met many others but otherwise nothing interesting happened. I had to travel to Slovakia for the funeral of my great aunt who died on May 19th at the age of 88 and I got stuck there for 6 weeks because my grandmother broke her left arm during her trip to Poland. I hosted three couchsurfers in my father's flat and we had a good time. One of them was a Finnish girl travelling to Hungary with her dog Chart Polski for a competition which he won and he became an European champion. The second one was an Indian guy living in Australia and the third one was a Japanese guy cycling Europe by bike. We discovered a restaurant in Presov called La Cucaracha with tortillas for 4 Eur and I went there several times to order a vegetarian tortilla (but the chicken one was not bad either). Although it was cold at the end of May and the beginning of June the weather then became extremely hot for Slovakia, the temperature 35-37°C lasted several weeks. I met a couchsurfer from Presov and we used to go together to swim in the dam called Sigord.
I returned in Prague in July and I hosted six couchsurfers here since that time. I am planning to go to Turkey and Bulgaria next month. I haven't decided yet what I am going to do after, there are many possibilities under consideration.

I took a flight from Casablanca to Paris with Easyjet on April 4th. It costed only 80 Eur and the flight took around 3 hours. I arrived at the Charles de Gaulle airport in the evening and I had to take RER to the city center. I met my host at Porte d'Orléans. He had a nice flat furnished in a colorful African style. I spent 6 days in Paris and the weather wasn't good, most of the time it was cold and rainy. The day after my arrival we visited the Victor Hugo's house at Place des Vosges and on Friday we travelled to Etretat in Haute Normandie (Upper Normandy in English) where we took many photos of the wonderful white cliffs. 

The weather was better than in Paris, the sun was shining. Then we went to a restaurant where we ordered mussels, each of us got a full pot. I couldn't finish eating it although I put a lot of effort. 

On Saturday we went to Haute Normandie again, this time we visited Claude Monet's house and the Japanese garden in Giverny. I met my old IRC friends on Sunday near Bastille and we went to a bar and a restaurant. It was raining a lot during my last day in Paris I went to a tea room with my host and we were walking around Notre Dame and the Eiffel tower. 

I left Paris on Tuesday April 10th when I took a train to Luxembourg. When my host was taking me to a train station we got stuck in a traffic jam so I had to take the metro and I almost missed my train.The journey took 2 hours. I arrived in Luxembourg in the afternoon and I walked around the city and took photos. The city center is small so I saw all the important things within a few hours. 

My host was a Chinese PhD. student but he was not available to meet me until the late evening. It was around 11pm when we met at the train station and we took a train to Esch-sur-Alzette where he lived. I was tired after my trip so I didn't do much during the following 2 days, I just went for a walk in the afternoon. I met a Senegalese guy on Wednesday and we had a drink and shared my experiences about my African trip. On Thursday evening I watched an old Italian horror movie with my host and on Friday I left Esch in the afternoon and I took a train to Luxembourg. I left my luggage at the train station and I went to the Chocolate house where I bought a chocolate on a stick and hot milk. The chocolate melted in the milk and I drank it, it costed 4 Eur 10 cents. Luxembourg is a very expensive country. In the evening I took a Student Agency bus to Prague, the bus didn't arrive on time but it was quite empty so I had two seats for myself and I could sleep a bit during the night. I returned to Prague on April 14th around 6am after having spent 10 weeks on the road. 

I left Saint Louis on March 29th when I took a shared car to Rosso. This time the border crossing wasn't so peaceful as on the way to Senegal. Immediately after I got off the car in Rosso I was surrounded by the crowd of people who made me get in the taxi which took me to the border. There was a Senegalese guy travelling to Nouakchott who joined me and took care of my luggage because the people were very obtrusive. When we got in the room to get a stamp out of Senegal they held us in the room and released us only when I screamed at them and hit someone. Then we took a boat on the other side of the river where we found a shared car to Nouakchott.

We agreed with the driver that we would give him 4000 Ouguiya per person and he would take us home in Nouakchott, but when we arrived there he insisted that we should get out just when we entered Nouakchott or give him 300 Ouguiya more. While I was willing to pay him my friend refused and the driver took us to the police station where we spent around 20 minutes arguing which was quite ridiculous because 300 Ouguiya is equal to 75 Eurocents. Then we came to a settlement and paid him. I didn't have time to eat all day and I was weak but we went to my friend's house and we ate scrambled eggs there. In the evening I found a taxi which took me to Maison des artistes where I met Ridiaw and Papis and spent the last night in Nouakchott. 

The next day I found a truck driver who was going to Dakhla and we left Nouakchott in the evening. The journey took an entire day and we arrived in Dakhla on Saturday evening. I spent one night there and then I took a bus to Agadir on Sunday evening and I arrived there on Monday afternoon. I had a new host there because I didn't manage to reach the previous one. I was very exhausted after the journey but my host Nourry took me to the beach. It was so windy that day that it was impossible to swim. In the evening we went to a night club but we stayed there only an hour. On Tuesday I travelled to Casablanca where I stayed with Younes and on Wednesday April 4th I took a flight to Paris. 

I left Nouakchott on March 22nd early in the morning. A driver of the shared car came to pick me up at Maison des artistes at 5am and we travelled to Rosso. It took around 3 hours to get there. When we were arriving in the south of Mauritania the landscape started to change and it was no more a scorched desert but savannah with a lot of vegetation. I didn't see any baobab tree in Mauritania but in Senegal there were many of them.
When we arrived in Rosso it was surprisingly cold in the morning. I wore my jacket but I was shivering. We found a boat which took us on the other side of the river. The border was calm, I didn't experience any problem while crossing from Mauritania to Senegal (but when I was going back to Mauritania it was completely different, I will mention it later). I had my yellow fever vaccination but nobody wanted to see it, it was required only after I returned from Senegal to Mauritania. I found a shared car to Saint Louis and we had to wait until it was full. The journey took 3 or 4 hours although it was not far away. I called my host and his cousin came to pick me up. My host had a motorbike accident before I came and he spent most of the time lying in a bed but his cousin showed me around.

We took a taxi (which was literally a wreck) in the evening to the beach, but the taxi punctured a tyre immediately and we had to wait for another one. We watched a sunset on the beach and then we returned home. In the morning we took a bus together to Dakar where I met my other hosts. Daly was my CS host and Zinor was his a cousin of his wife. I spent the first day with Zinor, we took a boat to the Ngor island which is a paradise. 

There was a strong wind blowing in Dakar but the beach in Ngor was shielded. I swam in the sea which looked much better than in Mauritania, there were many fishes and urchins. Then we went to the Renaissance Monument. On Saturday I moved to Daly's family house and he showed me around and then we took a boat to Ile de Goree where we visited the House of slaves and I bought some souvenirs. 

Daly bought me a dried baobab fruit but it didn't taste well and it got stuck to the teeth very much. The other day it was the presidential election and we decided it wasn't safe to stay in Dakar so we went to visit the Pink Lake. I enjoyed bathing there a lot, it was like floating in the Dead sea. On Monday we went to a beach and on Tuesday I moved to Zinor and we visited the Pink Lake again. We didn't go to Gambia because we decided it wasn't worth for one day. On Wednesday I returned to Saint Louis where I stayed with my former host for one night. 

Now I am going to talk about the worst experience which I had in Mauritania. It happened only 2 days before my departure to Senegal. When I was staying in Maison des artistes our neighbor who lived opposite to the Maison had 2 dogs, one of them light brown and another one dark. Most of the time they just slept in front of the house in the sand and didn't pay much attention to the people. When I went to the dinner with Papis the dogs slept in front of the Maison des artistes and when we walked by the light brown dog lazily lifted his head and then put it down again and continued to rest.

The following day we woke up late in the morning and we around 10:30 am we went to a shop to buy something to eat. Papis was making tea on a gas bomb when we heard a very loud gunshot. I didn't know what happened and I thought at first that gas exploded, but then we looked out the window and saw the light brown dog lying on the road and his leg was twitching. Then we heard another shot and we though that the other dog was killed too, but as we learnt later he escaped and survived the slaughter. A soldier shot a dog of our neighbor. Then the dog was taken into the van and only a pool of blood remained on the road. We spoke to the owner of the dogs but she said she couldn't do anything about it. The van was parked nearby and I went there, shaking with anger, but when I arrived the van left. Then I went to the Maison des artistes where we cried in the kitchen. When Ridiaw came he asked me if I slept well and I said yes and I tried to avoid looking at him, but he turned my face to the light and saw the traces of tears. Although I initially enjoyed my stay in Maison des artistes after what I have seen I just wanted to get out of this terrbile country as soon as possible. 

The journey from Dakhla to Nouadhibou took around 8 hours even though those cities are not very far. My Mauritanian trip didn't start in the best way because I didn't have time to eat and drink all day and I was overheated in the car. By the time we arrived in Nouadhibou I was sick, but I managed to control myself and didn't throw up. My host was a French guy working there. He took me to a restaurant in the evening and we ordered a lot of seafood which was tasty although I couldn't eat much. On Tuesday and Wednesday my host took me to the sea at Cap Blanc and I had a big beach just for myself because the local people don't usually  swim there. I saw many shipwrecks there and also the train which was allegedly the longest one in the world. It was around 30°C in Nouadhibou during these days. We used to go to the restaurant every day for the lunch and dinner and we always ordered fish, shrimps, octopus and calmars. 

On Thursday morning I took a bus to Nouakchott where we arrived in the afternoon. It was 35°C there and I had to take a taxi to my host's house. He lived with his family and many friends used to visit him often. There was a restaurant in his house. The first 2 days I felt sick and I spent most of the time lying on the mattress in the living room but on Sunday I went to the embassy of Senegal and asked for the visa there. They refused to give me it at first, telling me they used to give it only to residents of Nouakchott. I finally had to bribe someone at the police station to give me the residence visa for 6 months in Nouakchott to be able to get visa to Senegal.

I stayed 8 days with my host and I spent a good time there although I didn't like this city at all. It was very hot at first and the sky was white due to the dust. The city was dirty and nothing to visit there. I went to the museum but it was small and not very interesting. The only good place in Nouakchott was a beach. 

The weather got colder after some days and it was only 25°C there and windy. The sky finally became blue. I couldn't stay with my host longer and I moved to Maison des artistes where I slept 6 days in an atelier. My companions were two guys, one of them was Ridiaw from Nouakchott and another one was Papis from Senegal. We used to go to the beach together and to a restaurant for a dinner. There were many mosquitoes in Nouakchott and I was bitten many times during the night, but there wasn't risk of malaria in Mauritania in contrary to Senegal. I studied French 5 years but I never spoke this language, only in Nouakchott I didn't have a choice because most people didn't know English.

I had to wait in Mauritania 2 weeks and half until I got my visa to Senegal which was much longer than I intended. 

At the end of February I continued my journey to Laayoune in Western Sahara which is an occupied territory by Morocco. There are two bus companies going there from Agadir, they are called CTM and Supratours. The journey from Agadir to Laayoune took around 12 hours and it was very cold in the bus. Someone lent me his jacket otherwise I would have been freezing all night. When I arrived in Laayoune I found this city not interesting at all, but in the evening it looked much better when the markets were open. My host gave me traditional clothes and I wore it during 3 days when I stayed there, but I found it difficult to wrap myself in it. The first day I tasted camel milk and then we ate also grilled camel meat in the restaurant.

The second day we went to a beach which was around 30 minutes by car from Laayoune but it was very windy there. My clothes were waving in the wind and we took a lot of pictures. 

Then my host found someone who had a jeep and took us to a place which looked like a desert and we had fun taking many photos. One wheel of the jeep got stuck in the sand and we had to dig it out.

After my trip to Laayoune I travelled to Dakhla which is much better city comparing to Laayoune, more interesting and lively. There are many people from Mauritania and Senegal and it resembles more real Africa. I met a couchsurfer there and he showed me the city. I drank a very good avocado juice there, it costed around 1 Euro. I had two hosts in Dakhla who shared a flat, but on Saturday they took me to their family house and we stayed in the cave at night by the beach where they killed a chicken and cooked it for dinner. There was a wonderful view on the sky with all the stars shining brightly. The following day I swam in the sea. 

When we returned to Dakhla we found a shared car which took me to Nouadhibou in Mauritania on March 5th.

 

I left Madrid on February 10th when I took a flight to Tangier. When I arrived there I found out that north of Morocco was cold in winter, only 12°C during the day and freezing during the night. Most of my hosts didn't have a heating so I was feeling very cold at night. I stayed in Tangier 3 days and I had a good time, my host took me to the cave and I wore some traditional clothes there and we went to the Cape Spartel where we had a nice view on the Spanish coast. 

We went also to a fish market and I ate a plate full of shrimps. I left Tangier on Monday and I went to Rabat by train. I met Younes in the train who lived in Spain but was originally from Casablanca and later he hosted me there. After arriving in Rabat I met two surfers who stayed with my host in Kasbah des Oudayas. Our host was an Italian guy and he was busy working, but I met other people from CS and we had fun. 

One of them took me to a trip to Sale which is very close to Rabat, just on the other bank of the river and we visited the old Medinah there. Another couchsurfer took me to Temara where he played a guitar with his friends and we were singing on the beach in the evening, but it was very cold there after sunset. I had to stay in Rabat 4 days because I had to wait for my visa to Mauritania. Then I took a train to Casablanca where I had two different hosts, the first one was from CS and another one Younes who I met in the train. Casablanca is not an interesting place for tourists, it is an economic capital but there weren't many places to visit, just the big mosque and the beach. 

When we went to a square with pigeons we were immediately surrounded by a tour guide and a woman doing a henna tattoo. The tour guide took many photos of us pigeons and the woman grabbed my hand and started doing tattoo because I wasn't fast enough to prevent her. It was overpriced and low quality, it was washed away within 3 days. Younes took me to a restaurant where I ate a very good lamb tajine. Then I travelled to Marrakech where I got a cold because it was only 18°C outside (although it was much warmer in the sun) and I was wearing a T-shirt and a skirt all day. The following day my host took me to the Ourika valley which was a beautiful place with its waterfalls, but I didn't feel good. 

We had tajine and I bought some necklaces there as souvenirs. After Marrakech I took a bus to Essaouira which is a small city but worth visiting. My host took me to the Jimmy Hendrix cafe in Diabat. 

Then I travelled to Agadir where the weather was warm enough to swim even though the water had only around 18°C. My host was studying English which was great because my other hosts didn't speak English well, they could speak mostly French. I wore a short skirt in Agadir and I got a lot of unwanted attention there, one guy accused me of not respecting their traditions. I found it surprising because he was a young guy and I thought they were more liberal in Morocco. 

After visiting Morocco I took a bus to Western Sahara where I spent approximately one week. 

After my trip to Indonesia the rest of the year 2011 wasn't really exciting. I worked a few months as a translator of software localization but then I was dismissed. I spent some time in Slovakia trying to figure out what to do with my father's flat, I rented it to some students who stayed there 8 months, but now it is for sale again.

In September 2011 I travelled to Uzhgorod in Ukraine where I visited a couchsurfer and his family but I stayed there only one night and then I returned to Slovakia. There are several things to visit in Uzhgorod including the castle and the museum. The weather there was good, sunny and around 25°C.

In December 2011 I travelled to Berlin where I spent 4 days and I had two different hosts. I went to a CS meeting with the first one where I met other couchsurfers from Berlin. I visited many places in Berlin but the weather was rainy and cold, just around 6°C. I visited also Pergamon museum.

I spent Christmas 2011 in Slovakia with my mother and grandmother, but as all my efforts to find another job failed, I decided to travel again at the end of January to Rome. I wasn't sure where I would go after visiting Rome, East Africa and South America were under the consideration too, but finally West Africa won. I bought a flight ticket from Rome to Lisbon and then to Madrid and finally to Tangier which is in the north of Morocco.

I arrived in Rome on January 27th and I immediately had to face a problem because there was a strike and I couldn't take a train from the airport to the city. I waited two hours until the train arrived. Then I met my host and we had a dinner in a pizzeria. He showed me the city center in Rome and we visited Colosseum and the Vatican city in the following days.

I stayed one week in Rome, I had a second host who hosted me unexpectedly for one night because we had a meeting late at night and I couldn't return to my first host due to the bad weather. My third host lived in Fiumicino. When I had to leave to Lisbon he took me to the airport in the morning. The weather in Italy was getting colder so I was lucky to go to to Portugal where it was sunny and warm. 

My host in Lisbon was a rich guy and had a very nice flat in the city center and a car Aston Martin. We went to some restaurants and a bar where they sang Fado music. I went to Sintra alone for one day and then I took a bus to Cabo da Roca, but it was twilight when I got there so I couldn't see much of it.

After my trip in Portugal I took a flight to Madrid and I stayed there only two days which was sufficient to visit the main tourist places there.My host was sick so he couldn't accompany me but I went to to visit the city by myself, I had a map so it was easy to go around. I always found people who were willing to take pictures of me. When I walked alone in the park I met an Estonian guy and we decided to go together to the museum Reina Sofia and in the evening we went to Prado because it was for free after 6pm. I didn't enjoy Reina Sofia much because I never liked modern art and I found the Picasso's Guernica quite depressive, but I saw a lot of interesting paintings in Prado, just the time was limited so I couldn't visit it as much as I would like to. I had a good time in Madrid but it was colder there than in Portugal.