Love Life

Final Destination

The 3rd time is a charme, so we eventually made it over the pass into Argentina on Sunday. Many trucks were still stuck along these roads with numerous switchbacks crossing a ski resort. To see and touch plenty of virgin snow was just beautyful. It made me wanna go snowboarding but with prices of 200 Argentinian Pesos (ca. 70US$) for a day trip I was able to resist. Arriving at night we spent one night in Mendoza before we took a night bus to the final destination of my journey.Â

So since Tuesday Liz and me are having a pretty lovely time in this very european metropole called Buenos Aires. For her it’s the 3rd time here. She loves it and so do I, I guess. It’s pretty charming. We’re just wandering thru the city and enjoying ourselves. Everything is pretty bittersweet because it are our last days together and for me as well the last days of an awesome and pretty incredible journey. I don’t wanna talk to much about my weird mindset now, that’s to early.

I rather leave the computer, enjoy the time we’ve left and think about a steak. Yep, after 6 almost straight vegeterian months I ate half a steak yesterday. This was long planned though, would be to silly to miss this. Now I can confirm: the argentinian steak is as great as everybody says!

¡Nos vemos!

Stuck in Santiago

Â

Today Liz and me tried to cross the Andes to eventually get into Argetinia. Unfortunatly it happened what I hoped not to happen. It started snowing heavily after like two and a half hours of bus drive, close to the boarder. We saw trucks queueing on the side of the street so it didn’t really suprise us when the our busdriver told us we’d have to return to Santiago. Shit happens. At least we got our money back.

Seeing snow coming down was nice to see though. It’s been a while…and it was plenty! We couldn’t really see further than 100m. Back in Santiago the beatiful snow was not more than dull, foggy and rainy wheather. Really depressing. Hard to imaging my friends in germany are sweating their asses of right now. At least that fact makes it easier to leave Santiago, Chile, South America…tomorrow another time saying good bye to Casa Po. Bittrsweet! But I’m really looking forward to go home now…2 weeks

Valpo

Monday to Wednesday I eventually went to the nearby Portcity Valparaiso. It was a must because my good friend Maria lived here 2005/06 to work in a Cultural Centre. And, how I know now, it is a must just because it is so charming. The City with a population of just under 300.000 has always been attractive to artist of all kind. And still there is a lot going on which u can’t miss with all those extensive wall paintings, stencils etc. . In 2003 the old colonial City Centre was declared world heritage by UNESCO.

The houses of it’s numerous Cerros, the upper parts of the City, are partially just improvisational built, out of corrugated metal or anything else. They’re crooked, plenti- and colourful. U either go up in those famous old “ascensores” (Cable Cars) or u take a Microbus. The drive with those in the narrow, winding and steep streets is like a rollercoaster ride. Enjoyable!

Unfortunatly it rained cats and dogs on day 2 & 3 so I returned to Santiago. Kind of a pity I didn ‘t go to Valpo earlier and longer.

On my first day I took about 130 pictures, that shows how much character “Valpo” has. Here u see one of them…

Casa Po Madness

Back at Casa Po in Bellavista, Santiago, we had another pretty crazy party last night. I love the french parties for always having so much weird but good food.

Today everybody is hanging over and waiting for the next party to come. Mañana, Chandra’s Birthday. Whoooya!!

Since it is Raining allday the whole city just appears very dull, so there’s no point in leaving the house really. Just read of 6000 trucks being stuck at the Andes because the pass conecting Santiago and Mendoza (Argentina) is not passable. Well, all the rain is snow up there. Plenty! Even the Airport of Buenos Aires is closed because of bad wheather, so I can’t really get out of chile right now. Till my departure in Buenos Aires are still a few weeks left, so no worries.

Additional Pics Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca & Salar de Uyuni

What A Trip

Last Night my Trip as part of mi viaje grande ended where it started, in Santiago. The City hasn’t changed much, except those mountains surrounding the city are snow caped by now.

The Journey from Lima to San Pedro de Atacama was the bomb! It’s still seems to be kind of a different world in Peru and Bolivia. Well, Globalization took place here like everywhere else. U find Internet, MTV, New Era Caps and all the Crap u don’t need (I gotta admit I’m pretty adiccted to Internet though) but the main difference is that people, 4-84 years old, do the simplest work the whole day, basically just to survive. I denied donations to begging old women as well as to young kids surrounding me, just because I think that’s not the way to help. I saw an 8 year old boy carrying luggage for tourists and an 4 year old girl selling beers instead of going to school. For a couple of days it’s just kinda romantic and interesting to see how simple people can live, but with the time it starts to depress u. I made that experience earlier in countries like Marocco or Laos. But it’s good to be reminded of that every now and then, especially in this time where I think a lot about what to do for a living later. It was always a main goal to do smth. helpful for society and it still is. How far I will be able to do that is a different topic, but that is and should be the basic intention. The most impressive encounter was probably with an aged man in La Paz, who when everybody was happily dancing in the streets, came to me, quite drunk, and started talking to me. Eventually he grabed me and pleased for help. Not for a donation but for sustained efforts from rich countries like the one I luckily was born in. Bolivians weren’t always as happy as on this special celebration, they seriously needed help, he told me with his eyes getting wet. I felt touched but helpless, it was just an weird situation which I somehow and quickly wanted to get out of. But it definetly left a permanent impression…

To talk about nature impressions I’m just overwhelmed. I moved between sealevel and 5000m so the climate and plants of course were very diverse. In night time I freezed my ass off at minus 20* sometimes and at daytime I got tanned. After one afternoon in La Paz I left for the biggest Salt Flat of the world, Salar de Uyuni. Arriving after a horrible 14h busride in a shabby bus, scratching ice of the inside of the windows, new Buddy Dave from California and me straight got on a 3 day tour with 4 other got folks, all of different nationality. Listening to 80’s rock (rod stewart rules!) all day we cruised thru the amazind and endless Salar on the first day, saw weird rock formations, a beautyful Volcano and plenty of Lagoons including Flamingos on the second and finally had the chance to wash ourselfes in thermal springs on the morning of the 3rd day. At lunchtime we chewed some coca leaves for the last time before crossing the chilenean border to go to San Pedro de Atacama. Aehm yep, geysiers, vecuñas, plenty of Lamas and cacti we marveled at as well.

Back in Chile I met my Casa Po friends, Liz, Alex, Geisa, Dani and Leo. I was looking forward to that pretty much since I left Santiago. So I had some nice, more relaxed, days with them riding the bike while gazing at the desert and Valle dela Luna. The Atacama is supposed to be the driest place on earth, and u can feel that. The special conditions at famous Valle de la Luna makes it look like u were on the moon. Not only looks like, even the geologic composition apparently is very similar. One stopover with Liz in La Serena later we are back in jolly Casa Po again. Considering that I have only 3 weeks left on my travel, I won’t be here very long anymore though. Before I go to my final destination Buanos Aires I just wanna see Valparaiso and may be Mendoza, which is on the way. I hope the Ande Pass will still be open by then… To go to world biggest Iguazu Falls at the argentinian border with Paraguay and Brazil I think I have no energy left. I’ve had so many Superlatives recently I think I can bare seeing them on my next visit in South America. Gotta come back to see Amazonas and Patagonia anyways. And may be to work charitably in Bolivia, who knows.

La Paz, Bolivia

¡Hola!

I just arrived in La Paz and a huge Party welcomed me. Well, not really me, it’s some catholic thing, but it’s great to be part of it. The past 2 days in copacabana where pretty nice as well. Travelling thru peru and bolivia is really intense. I like…

Tonight 12h bus ride to the world’s largest dried salt lake of Uyuni. ¡Ariba!

What the fukc is going on in Rostock? And last Sunday in Hamburg? Germany is fucking burning. Pityfull I can’t be part of the G8 demonstrations back home, even though I doubt that that much violence is the right way… I wonder what will happen next week when the actual summit takes place in Heiligendamm

Love Life!Â

Trekking to Machu Picchu

Wow. This 5 Day Trek to Machu Picchu was definetly one of the highlights of my journey. If not the Highlight, but that’s hard to say…

After a sleepless night and an almost missed plane to cuzco the adventure started last friday at 4 am. Struggeling the first day in the 3500m above sealevel city and “cultur capital of peru” I hoped to be fine for the trip, but I wasn’t. The first night after a 7 hours walk I couldn’t fall asleep really because of minus 7 Degrees Celcius and altidude sickness which caused a racing heartbeat and weird thoughts. The next day we had to cross the 4600m high Salkantay Pass. This snow covered mountain is about 6200m high and pretty gorgeous. But walking by was still kind of a torture for some of us, including me. Yeah the air is quite thin in those hights. Step by step we eventually all made it.

The following days, each one we walked 7-10 hours, were downhill most of the time and offered beautiful and various sceneries. From glaciers, waterfalls, thermal springs to Coffee-, Avocado- and Cocatrees we saw pretty much everything. Very enjoyable!

Can’t really tell, but believe me that it was an intense and unique experience. Arriving at at the main goal, the Inka ruins of Machu Pichu did not let us down either and made a good plot for the trip. After this I granted my legs a day of more or less relaxing before taking the night bus to Copacabana, Bolivia