So, we finishd visiting Freddy in Temuco and are now heading east to climb some volcanoes. There is a new basic travel map, still just showing the track but will be updated soon with more details. Rockantenne online radio rocks!!!
Wahoo! Once we arrived in Antofagasta we directly found a couch to sleep on. The funny thing was that nearly all couch hosters of the Couchsurfing project were new because there was a TV reportage a few days before we arrived. So we found something fresh and it was the best! Michael picked us up from the terminal and presented us to his family. It followed the loveliest time of my trip living in this family. Michael´s mom cooked every day some Chilean specials for us, in the evenings we had great Chilean red wine all together. But the second day Michael had to leave because he works in a copper mine in week-turns. His sisters Karol and Claudia treated us like brothers and we spent a nice time with their cousin Erick who came from Santiago to visit all of them in his holiday. Cool! They have a gorgeous definition of barbecue here in Chile: Just put one big fat block of beef filet on the coals, around 1 to 2 kg a piece. Later this stuff is cut into parts for everyone and you get a perfect medium or still raw filet with the consistence of chocolate. I definitely will miss that in Germany because there you pay around 25-30 Euro for a kilo of such a filet, here it is around 5 Euro. Hmmm. Damn! One night we went out with Andrea who was our alternative Couchsurfing possibility.
Time went by very fast and we had to go south faster. The busses in Chile are so expensive so we decided to hitchhike which works quite well, never waiting more than half an hour. A truck driver took us south around 400 km to Caldera where we arrived late at night and camped at the beach in Bahía Inglesa. They talk about the nicest beaches being in this region but for us it was not that impressing. Next hiking project was started to reach Vallenar but we only did it to Copiapó ‘cause when we arrived in the evening no one wanted to take us further so we had to take the bus till Vallenar. The valley of Vallenar together with valley Elqui are so awesome, they show the nature’s big contrast of green oasis within a dead desert. Everything lives just from the river and you have a strong break line where the water systems don’t reach. We were waiting for a hitchhiking possibility when a man came by und just ordered to follow him to his car, “Vamonos, vamonos, vamonos!” he shouted. This was quite easy hehe. We arranged to go from Vallenar to Punta de Choros north of La Serena in one day without paying anything. There a boat was waiting to go hunting some Humboldt penguins, dolphins, seals and cormorants but we did not see any dolphins for dinner. Instead we found Freddy on Isla Dama. Impossible!!!! Freddy is a good friend of us also studying landscape ecology like Daniel in Muenster. We only knew that she is living currently in Temuco to write her diploma thesis. So it was a real miracle to meet her at this tiny island in the Pacific Ocean where you can stay only for one hour and then have to leave. Bssssssssssss! Daniel and I wanted to camp on this island but it is only possible from March the 15th on, so we had to search something on the continental part to spend the night of the bad earthquake. When we woke up a few people were speaking about an earthquake but we did not know anything, we slept the whole night without being interrupted.
Next goal was to reach La Serena and go from there to Vicuña in Valle Elqui. Everything worked nice just using your thumb and dying in the desert’s vertical sun. Vicuña is nice, La Serena also!! We visited the common Pisco distillery Capel and a smaller unknown named Aba where they produce Pisco in a more traditional way, not that industrially. They say that Aba Pisco is one of the best of all, which we heard after visiting Aba because it just was near to our campsite. On the night of full moon we visited the observatory Mamalluca where we met a German girl taking cocaine. Haha. There are many observatories in particularly this region, the biggest and best ones worldwide! To visit them you have to make a reservation months before, so we chose a smaller one which also was very impressive! They showed us some nebulae, clusters, Mars, the moon, and explained many different things. So for example nearly all stars you can see are double stars, two suns next to each other. From La Serena we took a night bus to Santiago because we have to skip some places on the way to Patagonia … this country is soooooooooo long!
Here many people say that I am looking like a tennis player from Bolivia … mhm … and that I look older than Daniel … mhm … and that I am more serious than Daniel … that’s true! Hihi. Currently I am reading A Short History of Nearly Everything from Bill Bryson, great book. I did not know that contour lines which you use to visualise terrain characteristics were invented while measuring the Schihallion in Scotland. Funny that two years ago I walked up the Schihallion with Julia, Sven and Kono. Our couch hoster in Santiago, Caro, also reads nice books. I just started to read her God Created the Integers from Steven Hawking, I must buy this book! Here in Santiago we spent 6 days, chilling around in a deluxe apartment. We met Freddy and nearly the whole Family from Antofagasta with Michael, his sisters and Erick. Yesterday I had my first Sushi with Alonso who surfed my couch in Muenster last summer. Mhm, great Sushi, great time here! Caro was new to Couchsurfing so we are her first surfers … I just hope she will not commit suicide after we leave, we probably are the worst what could had happened to her 
and especially Daniel with his never-resting mating attempts 
There are nice free Garmin GPS maps for some parts of South America like Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina. You find them on ViajerosMapas.
I have to admit that I have been manipulated. I have been robbed! They stole my hair! It was still in La Paz where Mira and Daniel did something what I do not remember and the next time I looked into the mirror there were missing some centimetres of my straw. Oh sweet hair of mine.
Oh dear, how to compress all what happened the last weeks? I think the Bolivians exaggerate when they euphorically talk about the best Carnival in the world, meaning their Carnival in Oruro. It is so small and a bit chaotic. On the second day all people are drunk, the streets smell, but the water war is a great fun! How do you recognise a Bolivian? He is peeing in the open street, may be 10 cm next to your leg. How do you recognise a Peruvian? Is drinking 1-litre bottles of yoghurt. How do you recognise an Argentinean? Always walks around with a thermos bottle, needs 24 h hot water for his mate. How do you recognise a Chilean? Either she is the hottest girl in the street or he is accompanied by one.
It was difficult but we found a train from Oruro to Uyuni. Daniel hates me for this trip because we had really bad seats and could not sleep but I don’t care. Ha! The town of Uyuni is not worth a visit, it is a geometric spot in the desert, 100% touristic and we only stayed one day to get a rest of the train experience. Our plan to find a tour of three days around the salt lake turned out to be not realisable easily. The Bolivians take their Carnival quite serious and it followed a day of private parties in all households, resulting that there was a lack of gasoline announced for the following day (because _nobody_ works) and therefore all tours cancelled for one day. :-/ We did not want to stay one day longer in this dead town and after searching the whole day found one of one thousand agencies which had fuel for the next day. We booked. We left. 70 Euro for 3 days including deluxe food and transit to Chile was expensive for Bolivia but OK for narrow-minded Germans. This trip was unbeatable! Though full of other tourists but still enjoyable. We ploughed the road with a great Toyota Land Cruiser. I do not know how you imagine the road situation in Bolivia but you can count all paved roads with two fingers but a great Land Cruiser turns every straight desert off road ride to some kind of sitting in a whirlpool. The first day it took us across the salt lake to an Island named Isla de Pescado where we could walk around a bit and take photos of great cactus trees. Hmm. This is funny. All lava stones here were covered by corals because 10 million years before the lake situation was different with a higher level. We had luck that the rain stopped a week before we came, so the lake was nearly completely dry. It is like a frozen Aasee in Muenster but of salt with desert-like drying cracks. The first night we slept in an ice hotel south of the lake. All walls made of blocks cut out of the lake and the floor consisting of salt granulates. Our team consisted of one girl from New Zealand, an Australian guy and three girls from Netherlands, oh my god … But it was great fun! Mareleen with her mother Marike turned out to be enthusiastic board game rockers so the competition on Jungle Speed was hard.
The next morning Daniel had a further reason to hate me. We woke up half an hour too early to see the sun rise because my GPS device had still a wrong time zone set up and thus predicted the sunrise for Venezuelan time. All in all the whole event was boring because the sun was blocked by a big cloud. Damn. It followed a hardcore day flying through the desert, real desert! The region south of the lake robs you all your speech. Moving between 3500 and 4500 m of altitude the whole time, this is the altiplano! Nothing. Sand in hundreds of different colours, big mountains up to 6000 m, usually volcanoes, you see their outflows as different colours of sand. When you get out of the car you are walking on ash. Then follow regions with big rocks like distributed by hand in the dead desert. They are some pyroclastic basaltic volcano waste. Down south at Laguna Verde I found black dense rocks covered by a 10 cm grey hard layer. You can read the different volcano eruptions from the past off the stones, this is coooool!
The last day of our tour we crossed a mountain pass at around 4900 m and visited a geyser field with bubbling mud. For breakfast we stopped at a thermal pool. Stepping into 40°C water in the morning cold of 0°C is nice. After that the morning sun dries you in 5 minutes in the cold air. We had to change from our Land Cruiser to a bus at the Chilean border which took us down 2500 m in a straight descent from the altiplano to San Pedro de Atacama. Still the three girls from the Netherlands were travelling with us and all five together we found a very nice shelter to sleep for the following nights. The prices here in Chile rock your socks off, like in Germany. Such a strong contrast to Bolivia where you can live a whole week with 10 Dollars. In Chile one night on a campsite costs 10 Dollars for 2 guys. This San Pedro does also only exist for tourists :-/ But the view to the altiplano is thrilling! You see a dozen of volcanoes of which the Licancabur with nearly 6000 m is the highest one. They say it holds the world’s highest lake. Daniel and I went to a geyser field at 4300 m called El Tatío which usually is only acessible by organised tours or a private transport. The bad thing is that the tours stay only three hours and go back already at 11 am. We wanted to camp there and we did! So until 11 am you have to share this ultra wide spot with 300 other tourists and after that you have all for yourself!!! Without any dudes around we walked the whole day approximately 10 km and saw so many cooler places then the tour guides show you. It could have been dangerous because we entered regions which we read later were only permitted to enter with a guide. But greeeaaaat! You see the geyser’s „work“ only if the temperature difference between inside and outside is high, so in the morning at around -5°C it was best to watch. During the last day‘s trips we saw so many Lamas, and Alpacas but at the geysers there live big herds of Vicuñas which are very prying and interested in big German guys.
When we came back to San Pedro we rent some bikes and went to Valle de la Luna for the sunset which was worse than announced by all people but OK. Finally, after a few great nights with the Dutch women we left for Antofagasta and they for Salta in Argentina. A good time it was! The funny thing is that until now nearly all people we met stated Daniel being younger than me … but he is five years older … funny.
Just fixed the problems with the image viewer. Now it is possible to watch an album in the nicer viewer with caption again.
Yeah. We survived the earthquake. Slept that night 5 m to the pacific in a tent but near La Serena where nearly no tsunami stuff reached the coast. The strange thing was that I dreamed of an earthquake exaclty this particular morning because some days before we had one in San Pedro de Atacama. But we did not know anything until some people talked to us about it in the afternoon. Near Serena we made a tour the day before to see some Humboldt pinguins and all the tours were canceled the days after because of warnings. Tonight we’ll go to Santiago and there I’ll write some more words about what was going on the last days.
Hello everybody! Welcome to world domination, version Scholz. After having spent a few days in the world’s highest capital city La Paz with Wurstdaniel, we went for a three daytrip to the highest navigable lake in the world, lake Titicaca. The first night of our arrival in Copacabana we slept in a simple hostel where a bad rain-hail-storm attacked us during our outdoor cooking session (in fact just in front of our hostel door). We could only finish preparing the coca tea, our intent to cook some rice resulted in a flooded and frozen stove. We had to wait some long time for the clouds to dissolve and probably the world’s strongest rain entered through our door, turning the homely indoor atmosphere into a swimming pool feeling.
And there it happened: I saw the most awesome combination of clouds in my life, supposedly the world’s most awesome. We climbed up the local hill and had a clear view to the world’s end. To the northwest the horizon of Titicaca does not show any landforms, it looks like an ocean. Clouds in ten different colours distributed from south over west to north. In the south deep grey and black with clearly separated local rainfalls, showing vertical and horizontal lightning. In the west some spots of blue sky with thick white clouds. In north direction a bigger thunderstorm, violet, grey, black, white, flashes in all possible forms. Now imagine all this together with a sunset … whahooo! Later on a guy some metres behind of us started to play Andean sounds on a flute. Another guy joined him with his ukulele. What an atmosphere!
The next day we took a boat to the north end of Isla del Sol where we met Mira, a great girl from Slovakia enjoying unpaid vacation and travelling through South America. She did the Roraima-tour in Venezuela for which I had no time, damn! All three of us hiked around 12 kilometres to the island’s south end where we decided to stay in a kind of lodge up on the hill with a great view. We had a great night playing Daniel’s card games, drinking coca tea, Bolivian red whine, good tequila and better Scotch whisky. On the island we did not see as many ruins as were promised but the island itself is worth a visit! You can clearly see the mountain’s forming process. The island nearly diagonally rises out of the water with characteristic diagonal rocks.
All three of us went back to La Paz where we stayed a few days longer and later on moved to the same hostel. Mira with her 31 years turned to be one of the world’s coolest companions: so open, friendly, nice, and even resisting Daniel’s mating attempts. She takes it really cool and spending time with her is great fun, she could be my big sister 
I risked riding down the world’s most dangerous road: Carretera de la Muerte. Yeeehaaww! It connects La Paz with Coroico, is not used any more but you can still ride down by bike starting at 4700m and reaching 1100m of altitude. Unfortunately the view through the canyons was distorted by thick clouds. We started with near frost and stopped at 30 degree Celsius, humidity and mosquitoes, crossed all possible vegetation levels and had an outage of 50%: A Korean girl fell from the bike after the first metres, hurting her belly. A North American guy had a bad overturn in front of me while we were jumping a little bit downhill. He left some flesh of his forearm on the ground and was fixed with seven stitches in the hospital later on.
Back in La Paz we met Mira’s friend Kasia from Czech Republic and spend our last night in the hostel playing Daniel’s card games and emptying his 1.75 litre bottle of tequila. Next day we bought a big bag and spend all our money on good Bolivian handicrafts: Hats, hammocks, gloves and other great stuff made from Alpaca or Lama Wool. This full bag was sent to Germany for 45 Euro. Bam! At night we took a bus to the world’s highest city Potosí which is famous for its mines. In 17th century it also was the biggest and wealthiest city in the world. The local Potosina Cerveza is not that good as other beers from Bolivia and Peru in my opinion, but there is still some Dalwhinnie left so I don’t care. Arriving in the morning we directly checked into a hostel recommended by some Argentinean girls and met a nice French guy called Ezekiel there. He in reality was from Colombia and his name was rather Sebastian than Ezekiel, the owner of the hostel had some beers or joints too much as he introduced us to Sebastian. Indeed we were very astonished about his great German without any slimy French accent but the problem was that he definitely looked more like a French than like a Columbian guy. Her finished his mathematics studies and is now travelling through some South American countries. He told us that his mathematics studies were a bit too boring, so he learned German along the way for fife years. His German is nearly perfect without having been to a German speaking county ever.
The same day all three of us went to a 4-hour trip into a mine. So crazy! It is really difficult to describe the conditions under which the miners have to work if you have not visited an intact mine yourself. Not comparable to European standards what is going on there, every German Bergbaumuseum is a joke in comparison to Bolivian and Peruvian mines. We were fully equipped with all necessary cloth and tools to go in there. First of all we detonated some dynamite in front of the mine. You can buy a stick of Dynamite in every corner, every child can buy it there. It only costs around 2 Euro including the match cord and detonation intensifier. Cool! The explosion was awesome! It really knocked us off. Inside the mine we entered some hundred metres, went down some levels on tiny ladders, went up and saw different miners working. Nowadays they accept tourists disturbing their work: we brought some coca leaves and drinks for them. The average life expectancy rate is between 10 and 15 years working in a mine, later on nearly all of them die of lung problems due to the dust. They work hard, pulling wagons of two tons with their bare hands outside. Using air-pressure tools they create long holes for the dynamite, without any masks or whatever, totally exposed to the toxic dust containing two hands full of different toxic gases. Besides of that every year around 40 of them die because of other accidents. The air got thinner, warmer, we heard 15 quick dynamite explosions nearby, only 70 m below our position. The tunnel quaked, the air chattered, our ears got weird of the changing air pressure every time. In our mine they convey silver, tin, pyrites and lead. When they get out of the mine they have a grey face with bright eyes cleaned by their tears. But: They are so great, so humorous and adoring “el Tio”, the uncle which is no other boy then the devil himself. God reins the world from above, all which is covered by light but Tio is the underground king. They have a gallery with a figure of the devil, sacrificing him tobacco, coca and alcohol with 96 % which is made from sugarcane. The heaviest alcohol I tasted so far, burning everything but warming great. You can use it for camping stoves as well, making my kerosene burner redundant again. Yes. I can recommend reading Daniel’s Blog as well, it is linked as “La Gamba 2009” and contains some photos of his camera.
Yesterday we visited another great place near Potosí. We went to a perfectly round lagoon with a diameter of around 100 m which throughout the whole year has a temperature of 30 degree Celsius. So hot bathing in there at around 4000 m of altitude, strong and cold wind above the water, you never want to get out again, never! It is very deep and frequently fed with new hot water from above, some natural genius! Yeeehaaaaw!
OK, word domination tour is racing on. Today in the morning we took a 6-hours bus to Oruro just arriving in time for world’s greatest Carnival! Having spoken to many different people from South America the Carnival in Rio is nothing compared to Oruro’s. Perhaps not that colourful but more traditional with a crazier program. In Oruro all hostels and hotels are fully booked some weeks in advance so arriving here without any plan where to sleep is a rather stupid idea. But traveller’s luck never gets to sleep, so at the bus terminal a funny looking man approached. Angel from Argentina talked about having some habitation for a really good price … we were a bit doubtful just hooking up to a man we did not know. No risk no fun! There we went to his home in a taxi. The situation got more and mote attractive as he told us about other Argentinean and Chilean people already sleeping there. His place is just five blocks from the main party zone and indeed there were many Argentineans and Chileans, cool people. The best guy of all was his son Alex, 11 years old. He already is a full business man, introducing us to the big house, showing us a map where to go and warning us about things we should avoid during the carnival season. So with his 11 years he seriously told us not drinking too much, but bringing some women being not a problem. All this followed by a professional handclasp. He disappeared with two of our cookies and was glad about this snack because all the day he could not get anything to eat. Before meeting us he was on the road with his father the whole day. His father organising people to accommodate and sending him with the strangers home in a taxi alone. Funny business but effective! We will see what happens next.
In two days we are going south to Uyuni and are going to take a look at the world’s larges salt lake. All in all “the world” can be substituted by Bolivia or in general by South America when you dare to take a look at Chile as well …
Finally I found the devil. Some kind of stupid to meet each other at a museum far off our hostels when both hostels are in the same street … google street search did not work for La Paz and I was too lazy to search the analog map … OK! Yesterday was funny, I walked around with Mr. Sausage searching for a pub but in the wrong part of the town. Frustrated I bought handmade Cheese from an Bolivian woman and finally we slipped into a Karaoke Bar which was very bad and we were not drunken enough. After an expensive beer we steered down the main street without any orientation, cheese in my left pocket, and at 9.40 pm we spontaneously decided to turn left where we found a cinema. This cinema told us “Hey guys, Avatar at 9.45 pm” and we entered. Sound good, film good, evening good. Hahaaa … and again: Imagine walking back to your hostel in Caracas at 1 am with cheese in your pocket … at least not possible because you will probably never find Bolivian handmade cheese in Caracas … hahaaa!
Today I checked out whole La Paz city to find pure, clean gasoline and gave up in the end. The point is that I changed my cooking stove in Venezuela from a gas stove to a petroleum based one because I could not find according gas cartridges there and thought that it also would not be possible in southern South America. The new petroleum based stove burns all kinds of gasoline, diesel, lamp oil and even rape oil. This is interesting because you are not dependent of spatial gas cartridges any more. BUT: Burning gasoline which is used for cars or diesel smells really awful and comes along with toxic goodies in your meal, depending of the gasoline. The only nice way is clean gasoline (Reinigungsbenzin, Lighterfluid, White Gas) and here comes the point: This kind of nice pure liquid is strictly prohibited in Bolivia because it is usually used to produce Cocaine. On the other hand chewing coca leaves makes your mouth go numb but helps against headache at these altitudes. I have to test this for a few more days to confirm or reject Evo Morales’ slogan: “The coca leave is not a drug!” Hahahaaa! What a pity that it is restricted to import coca to nearly all other countries in the world, also Chile where we are heading next. The best thing was that I found some old dirty bottles of Dalwhinnie 15 year old Single Malt Whisky for 136.50 Bolivianos which means 13.65 Euro per bottle. Think that the price has to be wrong, should cost much more, in Germany something around 30 Euro. There are still 8 Bottles left and ONLY I KNOW where this shop is
We are planning to go to Lake Titikaka tomorrow or the day after. Then Salar de Uyuni which will be an adventure because the rain is killing all roads, train tracks and also the lake itself, it is not possible to take a Jeep tour on the lake any more.
2
February
It’s warm in here! No freezy air-condition! I like Peru! Weird … On 28th in the early morning Wiliam drove me to Maiquetía International Air Port (the one which everyone calls Caracas). Had to be there 3 hours before my flight at 7.01 am. After the breakfast I tried to spend my last 70 Bolívares for Rum in the duty free corner, but the guy I gave my money to told me (after looking at my ticket) that I will not succeed in bringing this bottle to Peru when I have to change a plane in Panama City. Indeed I had to change in Panama City, but once I changed I Panama City I was more than only a bit furious about this guy because there would have never been a problem with my bottle. I never left the duty free zone and so I could have smuggled the bottle. Now I still have Venezuelan money which does not have any value, out of Venezuela it only serves as toilet paper or toxic cigarette paper, no one will ever change it back to valuable Dollar or Euro, even not a Venezuelan bank.
Lima air port is new, clean, nice and fast. 10 minutes after stepping out of the Boeing 737-700 I already was speaking outside with a taxi-driver-tourist-guide-money-exchange-all-in-one-dude. It was 1.30 pm and I did not know where to sleep this night. How great it is to travel without any plan!! I was dropped in the historic centre in front of an internet-telephone-box. My emails unveiled a positive Couchsurfing request. I phoned Helena and we met at 5 pm in front of the McDonalds in Miraflores. Yeah. She lives together with her mom, her fried Lili and a small dog-girl, all four were like sisters to me. First thing we had to do was to pick up the hairy beast from the pet doc where it had been washed, polished and perfumed, resulting in a dog smelling like an old grandma which finally ate my tooth brush. Helena went to work in the evening and left me with the three other girls. Lili caught me and did not stop talking to me. We walked around and I bought all different beers I could find. The Peruvian beer is soooo great! Cusqueña dark, from wheat, bla, blub, and some other 5.
Next morning I walked around in Miraflores, a new part of the town like you find it in every big city, characterised by McDonalds, Burgerking and Kentucky Schreit Ficken. But Larco Mar was some kind of nice, directly at the pacific coast with a great view south and north! Later on we were in a far nicer part called Barranco with many colonial buildings and pubs and a gorgeous atmosphere. You will never see the sky above Lima because it is covered by a grey cloud whole the time. They curse about their heat but it is nothing compared to the place I lived in Venezuela. In an old hacienda I had to try Pisco Sour, the common cocktail with the national liqueur Pisco. In the evening Helena and I went to a Couchsurfing Meeting with some people from Lima, 3 ladies from Argentina and a girl from Poland. That was really funny!! This Couchsufing thing is unbeatable. You meet nice people who show you around in parts of the city which you would have never seen as a standard tourist. The people you meet during hang-arounds are mostly from neighbor countries and you can plan your next trip according to their histories, you do not need to carry around tons of Lonely Planet tourist guides or whatever. Yes. Than we walked around some long time in Lima at 4 in the morning … imagine doing this in Caracas after 6 pm … ouch!
The next day I slept very long and went out a few times with the oldest lady to buy some things. In the afternoon we met the polish girl again and went together to St. Francisco Monastery where we could walk around in the catacombs and see many skeletons … huiii! Than we had to hurry because I had to catch my bus to Arequipa at 9 pm, it was already 7 and we had to get home in the traffic jam. Shower, put things together and there I went. Cruz del Sur bus company is very expensive but they have a great service. The do not burn with air condition, you get a pillow and a blanket, you get food (diner and breakfast in my case) and hot and cold drinks and the bus even has a booth with a PC to surf the internet.
Crazy trip of 15 hours … to the sunrise I woke up and we were in the middle of a desert going down the Panamericana. To the right pacific, to the left sand dunes in different colours, with rocks and much more of desert-like stuff. Suddenly something like an oasis, a green belt: Canamá. A river feeding agricultural activities in the desert, artificial freakiness of the nature. I had to choose the trip to Bolivia passing Arequipa because my initial idea going over Cusco resulted in impossibility due to catastrophic rain falls in the region of Machu Pichu and Cusco. It rained in one day what will come down usually in one month. Approx. 2000 tourists had to be evacuated from Cusco by Helicopters, 20 bridges fell down … passing by bus not possible. Next time in Peru I have to visit the Nasca Lines and walk around a bit. In Arequipa (lovely town!) I also had only one day to stay. The view around is awesome, Arequipa encircled by volcanoes with volcano Misti as the most characterizing one. As I wanted to go to bed in my hostel, I was stopped by 4 people from Chile sitting outside and drinking rum and Whisky. Flor de Caña 7 year old rum from Nicaragua is very tasty and the bottle went to hell quite fast. Now I have some new friends from Santiago to visit.
Yesterday (1st of Feb) the hell came back to me. Having not slept enough I took a taxi to the bus station and boarded my bus to Puno at 8.30 am. The plan was to arrive in Puno at Lake Titikaka at around 2 pm and to spend the day walking around, taking a night bus to La Paz in Bolivia. Not possible. I arrived at 2 pm and the only busses to La Paz left at 2.30 pm because the border at Copacabana closes at 6 pm. So I directly had to take this 2.30 pm bus which was full with tourists not older than 30 years. Funny … After Copacabana we had to leave the bus … they put the bus on a boat and shipped it for 10 minutes, we followed in another boat!! The night came; we arrived in La Paz at 10 pm. The search for a hostel was horrible, here in Bolivia carnival begun and all folks pilgrimage to La Paz and Oruro. They say carnival of Oruro should be the world’s best, not comparable to Brasil. We will see … I forgot to tell you the reason for all my hurry: Sausage-Daniel! I will meet Wurstdaniel in one hour at Museo de Instrumentos Musicales. Then everything will begin, we will travel for around 3 months through Bolivia, Chile and Argentina! ROCK!
Epa! Pain in the ass! Have to leave Venezuela tomorrow in the early morning. Going to Lima, still don’t know where to sleep tomorrow in Lima, but already have a Couchsurfing-party invitation for Friday
Last week I was on a trip with Marc down the River Caura in estate Bolívar south in Venezuela. It was so great! Went down the blackwater with a boat for some days around 250 kilometres, the river having not much water. Hope not to get problems with Malaria. Oh dear … We slept 5 nights in hammock within the total definition of a rainforest. Left and right of the river directly a green high wall, monkeys, sweet water dolphins, snakes, indios, piranhas. The river had little water, it is dry season, many rocks, we had to go in arcs by boat and had many problems with big rocks. We reached El Playón and waterfall Pará. Full of gold diggers. You can pick up some caiman’s chit, and it is gold. You can buy 1 gramm of gold for around 12 Euro there. Indios working as slaves and bringing 70 litre canisters of gasoline up 10 kilometres for the machines to separate gold from other stuff. Blblblblblbl. The miners need Alcohol. You buy a bottle of poor rum for 3 Euro in Ciudad Bolívar, they give you 3 gramms of gold for that, they pay everything in raw gold. Crazy, time runs backwards here, it is like you find it in history books.
From now on I will only update this blog sparely with short messages whenever I find a Internetcafé, don’t know if I will add photos. Saludos!
( °)< ¡Maaaariiicoooo! ¿Coño, que vaina weon? >(^ )
Have to write some books. Can’t stand my overflown brain buffer. In some few days my time is over. On 28th I’ll be off the bench on the road down south, south, far south until where this continent ends up in a mixture of bluish-blue Pacific-Atlantic-something.
Yesterday at night we heard two salvoes from a machine pistol like you know it from movies or fancy computer games. Looks like the brain-smashed fraction moves more and more east from Caracas. A neighbour told us later that he saw this young guy shooting in the air, just presenting his big balls. Five minutes later he probably drove away on his motorbike with a hot younger girl. It seams to be quite easy. Johan calls this behaviour “machismo” and I think that’s the right name for it.
End of December there occured a nice nature phenomenon around here. The waves were unusually big and the water reached up here to the street, around 20 to 30 metres more than other days. It’s due to some current which changes once a year its flow and produces these big waves. All beaches were closed and the surfers had some good days I think. You find a new gallery of these days here:
A funny woman who lived for four years in Switzerland gave me a great present: a DVD with six Scooby Doo films. Now I can investigate why they call me Shaggy. There lives one hot girl around here, when she calls me Shaggy I stop moving. She does not say “Shaggy”, it’s rather “Tschaaggi”, don’t know how to write it down. No one pronounces it like she does, and she was the one who started all this Shaggy thing. The only bad thing is that she is 10 years younger than Shaggy. All six and eight year old children do really believe that I am Shaggy. They grin and I buy ice cream for them.
Last week on Wednesday and Thursday Marc and I had a project in Colegio Humboldt in Caracas. It is a German-Venezuelan school and we went up to Los Venados in the national park. They had to complete three tasks including data survey with GPS and a great climbing path high in the trees. The pupils were devided into three groups and every group had to collect GPS data according to different topics like waste, artificial constructs and foreign plants within the area of Los Venados. In some days they are going to analyse their data in school with some computers and make maps. Here the gallery of these days:
Last Saturday, January the 16th, Marc, Christin, Grit, Edgardo and I went to Colonia Tovar, four hours bus drive to the west from Camurí. Edgardo is 23, seems to be around 30 and is a greeeaaaaat guy! He lived, studied half a year in Germany and worked another half year for Fraunhofer. He speaks some German and good English and our trip was really funny! At 6 in the morning Marc and I went to Naiguatá to pick up the unfresh girls, we took the bus to Caracas and met Edgardo at metro station Gato Negro. From there we had to go to El Junquito and search some bus to Colonia Tovar. They say Tovar is an ancient German colony but the only German thing what is left is Schweinshaxe. Some really old house are good old Fachwerkhäuser but all new stuff is faked, they just paint the wooden parts and exaggerate them. Everything you can buy in the street is the same in every place and definitely not German. We also did not meet any German people, the workers and inhabitants are everything but not German any more. But the nature around is great on 1800 m above sea level. The air is fresh and it really looks a little bit like Schwarzwald. Some old parts of the town Indeed are German. In a restaurant we had some knuspriges Brot with Kerrygold butter. Mmmmhm … and then followed Schweinshaxe with some more parts of different animals prepared for us … The Tovar Pils beer is nice, I count it as the second drinkable beer in Venezuela besides of Polar Pils. One funny thing to say is that Kolumbian people seam to like hard work. The bus driver at 6 am was the same as at 8 pm when we returned. I told Policía (great guy from the street who owns half of Camurí): “Hey Policía, I am astonished that the Venezuelans work so hard, this guy in the bus was the same this morning, why does he work neary 15 hours?”, “Ah, no, he is not from Venezuela, he is a Kolumbian guy. A Venezuelan would just work one instant, see that he has enough money for the day, for some beer, and get back to hang around.”, “Ah, ok.”
I can count all the rainy days of my last five months on one hand! (without using any binary system or whatever the common geek uses to count until infinity with one hand) The climate right here at the coast is great, hot, but you nearly always have some fresh wind from the sea. From time to time it rains a little bit at night and you only catch it looking at the usually dusty street in the morning, which obviously is not dusty after the rain anymore. There are days where you can grill your belly to deep red within half an hour withour sweating, due to the nice wind. And even Caracas has some parts you can try to call “beautiful”. Besides one of the biggest shopping malls in south america you find a Plaza Bolívar and a museum about Simón Bolívar as well as his ancient birth place in great condition which you can visit. All around Capitolio is quite nice to visit. Universidad Simón Bolívar (USB) and Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV) are also worth to visit. But that’s it. The last evenings in Camurí have been very cool. It is already like a custom. Marc and I return from uni at around 7 pm, then we meer Johan and Carlos and walk around in Camurí, have some beer, food and ice cream. Nearly every night we do it exaclty like that, so funny.
Some crazy person who’s name you should not speak out decided to double the import exchange rate for Euro and Dollar. This means that everything what comes from “there” costs at least the double price and the problem is that in Venezuela nothing is from “here”. Further more the official inflation rate is at about 30 % but inofficially it is at around 50 %. On January the 28th I will fly from Caracas to Lima, the flight was at about 1500 BsF in December and costs 3200 BsF now, the same tariff. The official exchange rate (BsF <-> €) was 1:3 in December and now is 1:6, the inofficial street rate is at around 1:8 to 1:9. Now I bought my flight in Münster via phone at Aster Reiseservice travel agency located at the Hindenburgplatz. What do I say? They are really great! They always have the best prices, they work fast, you can do everythng via email. After one hour I had my booking: Caracas -> Panama -> Lima for only 190 Euro including all fees and taxes. You will never find a better price anywhere in southamerica, nor in Germany I think. Once I told you that 70 litres of petrol cost 7 Bsf. Now I have to tell that 300 litres of diesel cost 15 BsF. And still 5 litres of water 10 BsF. Juhu!
For those of you who are interested I have uploaded some results from my work here. One very simple map of the USB location and a small article about interpolation methods for digital elevation models.
German
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