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We drive on a dirt road surrounded by mountains, between the Omo river and its tributary, the Mago River. We’re in one of the most remote areas of the country, the lower Omo Valley close to Sudan.

This is the home of the Mursi. Here they are.

Along the road we see a group of naked kids, their bodies painted with “brush strokes” of white color. They’re here to wait for potential reckless tourists. Yes, they’re used to see civilized men, and this is why we decide to get to a village that is situated in an even more remote location.

We take a hidden track that our guide points out for us. A track of ups and downs and mud. It’s quite a job to drive on it, even with the off-road vehicle. Nature is too thick here. We have to stop.

We proceed on foot for another 15 minutes and then, all of a sudden, we see an open space with a few trees and four thatched huts. It’s the Bami village.

The men of the village come towards us, all carrying a Kalashnikov in hand . We introduce ourselves, they approve of our presence. What we see is incredible, it’s like travelling back in time, like going back to our origins. They watch us with curiosity too, looking at themselves in the lenses of the camera.

Seeing women wearing lip plates is a tiny bit creepy. It seems impossible to be able to wear them, but they do.

Everyone is busy doing something: cooking lunch, shaving off their hair, taking care of their children… Hours on end with them to find out about their life. Giulia takes the smallest child in her arms and he pees on her. Who knows why, maybe he was excited or he just didn’t like her.

The car doesn’t start. Now what? Pushing a loaded off-road vehicle seems absurd, but we’re in Africa and here everything becomes possible. In a second, more than 10 people are ready to help us. It’s amazing.

A big breakfast and we’re on the road again.

All of a sudden, after the Konso village, we see people running in the middle of the road carrying a huge tree trunk on their shoulders. We stop to let them through. It’s a ceremony for the construction of a new common hut, the trunk they’re carrying will be the central pile. They’re all euphoric.

Hot, so hot, the landscape becomes more and more barren. We arrive in Weyto, a village in the middle of nowhere with two restaurant kiosks and about ten rooms for tourists. Let’s have lunch.

After seven hours on the road here is Jinka, a crossroads to explore the Omo Valley. Here all the motor lodges, businesses, markets, restaurants, bars, and everything else is run by the locals.

Having found a room for the night, we drive to Menekereshe, the village of the Ari tribe. The children walk us to their homes where we discover what is the their main activity: the production of ceramic plates. Some of them are cooking on the fire. Giulia falls in love with a small child, women are cooking dinner, and in the meantime we drink the ever-present Ethiopian coffee.

Two spare tires, four additional fuel tanks, field tents and kitchen, mats, suitcases, backpacks , and bags. Everything’s on board, let’s go.

The road is a continuous weaving in and out of people and animals, not a single kilometer of clear road. There are kids bridge diving and washing in the river, mango sellers, a gazillion cows…

Shortly before Arba Minch, we drive up the Guge Mountains for 25 kilometers. Here live the Dorze, Ethiopia’s best weavers.

Our experience at the Mekonen’s Dorze Lodge is unique: you can live like the Dorze, or live with them. We meet the village inhabitants, and many are the things they tell us: from how they brew beer to how they build huts, or the “thousands” uses of enset, the fake banana tree.

Dinner together and then their traditional dance. Everyone is around the fire for a memorable moment.

What a disaster! Yesterday the airport customs confiscated our video camera. An Ethiopian law prohibits professional filming equipment from entering the country. We need a government permit.

We leave our room and meet with Abel. People call him Bob because of his creed, the Rastafari. He’ll be our guide for the next nine days.

We go to the Government Communication Affairs office to ask for a permit for our video camera. No good, they need a letter from the Italian Ethiopian Embassy in Rome . Unbelievable! We’d tried calling the embassy several times before our departure, at every hour of the day, but no one ever answered.

We try going to the Italian embassy in Addis-Abeba, but they can’t do anything about it.

When we leave the building we meet Emanuele, a wonderful person who tries to help us in every possible way. He sends us to Antonio, a photographer and friend of his. A “thousand” phone calls again, but nothing, our video camera stays at the airport.

We’re unsure about going back to Italy, and we still have about ten interviews to make. It’s settled then: we’re staying. We’ll focus on the photo report, but one thing is for sure: we’ll be back soon to give you exclusive videos as always.

We check our schedule for the next 9 days. One last angry face and it’s all behind us.

In Key West boredom can take the upper hand at any given moment. Apart from a small town center and a tiny little beach there’s not much to visit or do without spending money. So this is why it became the home of water sports: nobody gets bored anymore, but dollars fly away easily...

We rent the Seafox Boat , 7 meters long and a 150 horsepower engine. Awesome! We lead the way among canals and low water to put out to sea. And then we go, as fast as the wind, speeding up to 45 knots.

The color of the water changes incredibly from green to deep blue; two cloudbursts are on their way, the colors change once again.

Then we dive into the ocean, the anchor gets stuck in blue water, Sunset Celebration in Mallory Square and the cigars Padron Family Reserve No.45 Maduro bought in Duval Street, elected by Cigar Aficionado as “2009 Cigar of the Year”.

Here we are again in Miami. We’re at Public Storage, wrapping up the boxes containing all the handicrafts we bought in the last 40 days in North and South America.

We load them on the Mustang and drive to Miami Beach to the restaurant-pizzeria “Fratelli la Bufala” where we meet Larry, the manager. With him we discover all the secrets of a fantastic overseas pizza.

Then we travel south, only 90 miles from Cuba. The Florida Keys archipelago makes our afternoon utterly fascinating with its islands connected by girder bridges on the Gulf of Mexico.

We arrive in Key West at sunset. We stop by the roadside and in silence we watch the sun disappearing on the horizon.

Relaxing in Rio De Janeiro. Our “home” for the next three days is Copacabana: having lunch by the ocean, admiring the many sand arts that people have built, enjoying front row seats at several sports matches like beach volley, and then, diving into the ocean and having some crazy fun in the waves.

After lying down and sunbathing boredom takes over, so while Giulia keeps on “roasting” herself, I build a huge sand flower all around her.

But enough with staying still, we go to the Hippie Fair in Ipanema: the hippie arts and handcraft show is great. Thousands of items, expensive ones. You just need to haggle over the price to make it spiral down. We buy some straw bracelets and small paintings made by two small boys that are still covered in paint.

Next to Praia Vermelha we meet groups of kids walking around with their bodies painted in colorful writings: they’re all students asking for small contributions to pay for their studies.

The evening is always amazing thanks to the breathtaking view from the penthouse where we’re lodging in Copacabana. And one of the most famous postcard views is right in front of our eyes.

We’ve been travelling for 17 hours; in Ocona we make a stop, sleeping in the car. We set off again two hours later. The dawn, sleep still prevails.

Another stop, this time for an hour, next to a tollgate of the Pan-American Highway. We set off again and the fog comes down; every 40 minutes we stop to take a breath of fresh air, and keep each other awake.

We’re starving, we haven’t been eating for a day. And still more roads, bends, climbs, descents, traffic …

3:10 p.m., Lima. We look for a Pizza Hut in a shopping mall, found it! We eat two huge pizzas in the car and then rush to the airport … We catch our flight. Wow!

About 1500 kilometers of mountain roads and dirt roads ahead of us, ready to be driven in less than 35 hours, otherwise we’ll lose our flight to Rio de Janeiro.

8.40 a.m., overloaded car, we set off. Many stops: going to the ATM, filling up with gas, and seeing an endless line of people waiting to go to the bank …

We drive through villages … We’re captured by the amazing blue color of Lake Lagunillas (4174 m.). Detour. We take a small road that leads to a fishermen house. We meet them. We set off again.

The dirt road begins 337 kilometers later, running along “The last Inca Valley” or “The valley of fire”. This is how people used to call it, but now its name is Colca Valley: extraordinary.

The road is in terrible conditions and we find it hard to drive more than 40 kilometers per hour. Everywhere you turn there is something to see, to discover, like a bridge, down there in the valley.

We drive uphill again, the wind rises, it’s a whirlwind of dust, sun, and colors. In front of us the first tunnel, but it actually looks more like a cave. The entrance is disturbing, and it is even more so inside.

The valley gets deeper and deeper until it turns into a canyon, the Colca Canyon. It is the world’s deepest canyon, 1200 meters deep, twice as much as the Grand Canyon in the USA.

The sun is setting, the darkness is absolute, the road gets narrower and narrower, and dangerous. There are lots of boulders rolling down the face of the mountain, it’s an endless slalom. Hours go by, we are completely alone, and everything looks infernal …

We just drove 212 kilometers of dirt road in seven and a half hours, and just like people see oasis in the desert… we see asphalt. We made it! It’s 10:25 p.m., still 918 kilometers to go …

They live floating on the water, sleeping in thatched huts, moving their “land” as if it was a barge. They descend from the ancient people of Uros: we are standing on “Las islas flotantes Los Uros”, floating islands built with bundles of Totora reeds.

20 minutes away from Puno by boat on Lake Titicaca, almost 2000 people live on 50 islands at an altitude of 3808 meters. They carry you away in another era, or better still, in another world. We hop on one of the islands and the entire family is there to welcome us. It feels like being in a fairy tale.

Walking on the island is really weird, everything moves, everything floats, everything is made of straw. We talk to the head of the household, the women, the children. A story full of emotions, history, and dreams.

We walk inside their huts, see how they cook, how they build their islands and the objects that they sell. Weaving straw and sewing are their main activities.

Despite living as ancient people did, they are not against technology or the modern era. Some of them have television, radio and light bulbs, all powered by solar panels. Some of them also go to university, on dry land, while the other schools are on another island.