feliz natal

leaving parati we planned to go through rio and catch a bus to porto seguro, up the north east coast of brazil. things were not to turn out that way, since the bus leaving from rio was full that night, and so we were stuck in rio. luckily we still had the phone number of the sweet carlos, who had put us up for a night the last time we were there. we called, and he was actually glad to hear from us :). when we arrived his wife giuliana let us in, we went shopping together, and ended up being invited to an amazing vegan curry dish... mmmm. we proceded to spend the evening on their huge couch talking and watching strange malaysian watermelon musical-porn.

the next day was pretty lazy, hanging out in leblon and on their couch, and early evening we headed to the bus station. the following bus ride will be remembered for a long time... it was supposed to take about 19 hours, but we ended up in porto seguro 24 hours after the planned departure, having experienced the following: an almost crash on our part (the side mirror was taken by a passing truck), an accident on the road ahead of us delaying us by an hour, about seven hundred stops at the bus company´s bus terminals (meaning all the food money went to them, and we spent a LOT of time there), an interview session of all the bus inhabitants, started by an argentinian couple and a slightly crazy italian man. finally in porto seguro the argentinian couple (lautaro and paula) took a liking to us and we have spent the last while living in the same pousadas and hanging out together.

we stayed in porto seguro for one night and then headed to arrail d´ajuda, a cute little touristy beach town. we stayed there for a night, enjoying the beach (yes, we´ve been doing a lot of that... and lucas> i have so beat you in terms of stomach-tan!!), walking around the expensive center, and admiring hippy jewellery.

the next day we set off to trancoso. the start wasn´t great, as we were stalked by a `tour guide´ who would not let us in peace, but once we had found our colourful and beautiful family run pousada we felt a lot better about trancoso.



the first night we spent at a forro-reggae concert, watching all the young brasilians dancing (they ALL know how to dance!!) and being groupies of the band. christmas day we spent online, calling family and then heading to the beach for the afternoon. our christmas dinner: sushi :) mmmm... the planned beach rave party turned out not to be as great as advertised, and so we sat on the beach in the light of the full moon and talked to some more people we keep meeting from the epic bus ride.

that was trancoso. up next is salvador. yay for bahia! and check out photos... the internet has finally been fast enough for me to upload some... starting from perito moreno. enjoy :)

parrot-tea

parati treated us well. we met louis at the bus terminal and with him managed to bargain a good price for a cute little apartment a little outside of town, right by a beach. we spent our time in parati making delicious food and going swimming in the ocean in front of the pousada (guesthouse). we stayed a few nights, exploring the cute little town full of picturesque white houses with colourful door and window frames, and taking buses a little ways out of town to visit beautiful beaches and swim in a `natural pool´ (sounds cool, but it just means that there were some rocks in the sea, that happened to be in a cirlce... it was really pretty though!).

the bad part of parati was that we had to say goodbye to alex... he left us to go to fly to the states and spend christmas with the family. ridiculous concept, isn´t it. now that we´re just three girls things can get annoying in brazil, but travelling you always meet people and until now we´ve usually managed to be in a group of at least five... but we definitely miss our charles and our alex.

photos

new photos!

check the glacier post (it´s only five, i know, but the internet is sooo slow here), and i´m working on adding more albums of the other locations, too.

they´re albums, so click on the photo for more.

rain, mud, slippery, swimming and joy

yay for ilha grande! the bus arrived in angra dos reis, where there is a ferry to ilha grande. after another hour and a half on the boat (passing lots of little palm tree covered islands on the way) we arrived on ilha grande. it was raining in buckets, but even the rain couldn´t take away the beauty of the little houses, beaches and cute little muddy streets. there are no cars on the island, except for the garbage-tractor and the police golf carts, which add to the charm.

we got settled in the HI hostel after bargaining down the price, having the advantage of being six people (we had picked up two swiss people in angra dos reis, who we hung out with a lot during our stay on the island).

we had hoped for wonderful weather, but no such luck. our first day on the island was as rainy as on arrival, but it being summer and tropical, the rain was warm, so it was only a minor inconvenience to our fun-having-ness. we walked a little trail that takes you past a pretty little beach with lots of cool black sand, a deserted old prison, an ex-aqueduct and a cool river with a little pool formed by rocks, which we frolicked in. we headed back to meet our swiss people, and then walked down the same path again with them, to get to a waterfall beyond the aqueduct. the path was crazy fun, muddy and slippery (we walked barefoot again, making our feet a little sore), with beautiful flowers and cool trees everywhere (including a not so cool tree that smelled of armpit).

the next day we finally had sun! joy! we used the opportunity to walk the two hours to the most amazing beach of brasil, lopes mendes (we took four hours getting there because we stopped at every beach on the way). the beach is quite amazing, a broad band of white sand that made a cool squeaky sound when you walk, shallow water with huge waves, perfect for surfing, and beautiful palm trees everywhere. we aren´t sure if it´s the most beautiful beach, since the ones we passed were pretty amazing as well, but it was definitely worth the hike. the path there was muddy like the others, and made our feet even more sore than the hike the day before (i stubbed my toe on the way back, which is now a pretty purple colour), and was adventurous and fun. we even saw cute little monkeys on the way there... crazyness.

having explored the best (or most advertised?) of the 120 beaches on the island, we left the next day, taking the boat back to angra dos reis and catching a bus to parati.

living under the aqueduct

our arrival in rio de janeiro could be considered slightly chaotic... (chaos seems to show its face a lot on this trip)

we had arranged to couchsurf with humberto, who ended up not being at home, and not actually officially living in the apartment of which he´d given us the adress. carlos lived there, and luckily showed up while we were waiting in front deciding what to do. humberto had mentioned us in passing, saying there were two of us, and that sao-mai was vegan. he seems a little confused. carlos was taken a little by surprise by the huge amount of people he was expected to put up, but told us one night would be no problem. humberto showed up the next day, mentioning nothing about the chaos, and escorted us through rio. people are very easy-going here :)

from the second day we stayed in samba villa, a party-hostel in lapa, in the center of town under the old aqueduct. we had a great time in our hostel, sitting on the terrace sipping caipis and watching all the party people on the street below. our rio stay was filled with partying, and drinking caipirinhas, and eating delicious meat sticks, and going to the sugar loaf (great view of rio) and the christ the redeemer statue (which really is not that impressive) and lots of beautiful beaches (and very butt-naked-bikini-ed girls). one of the best experiences was meeting the same circus people that we had met in buenos aires (are they stalking us??), who immediately invited us to a party that night in santa theresa, a pretty, twisty-streeted part of town. we arrived in a beautiful little colourful house full of street performers, trapezists, travellers and other random people living in rio. there was a wonderful atmosphere, with people playing music, and about 10 different languages being spoken at one time (portuguese, spanish, english, italian, french ...)

the day before we left rio we had to say goodbye to charles, which wasn´t fun. we´re trying to convince ourselves that he has simply left to get some beer, or is spending a looong time on the toilet. denial is a wonderful tool of brain trickery.

left with a group of only four, we took the bus the next day and headed to the island with the most wonderful beaches of brasil - ilha grande.

wet wet wet

our next destination: iguazuuuu

being spoilt from buenos aires and sofia, we chose a hostel with a swimming pool, and made immediate use of it. we cooked some yummy pasta, had some wine, and went to sleep. yaaay.

the next day, however, was exciting. we went to the national park containing the most amazing waterfalls ever. HUUUGEE massive amounts of water cascading down mountains. we got completely soaked over the day, because of the mist and the continuous rain, but that didn´t diminish the experience in the least. we even got to stand right under a waterfall... amaaazing views. sadly the little island that you can take a boat to was blocked off, since the water had risen too much due to the rain. that didn´t matter tho, since the park has been designed soo well, and we had a great time walking down all the walkways (barefoot at times, since it was so slippery), and trying to keep our cameras safe from all the surrounding water.

back at the hostel in the evening we had a delicious dinner, and went to a hostel bar for caipirinhas and some billiard. exhausted, we fell into bed.

that was iguazu... i know i´m racing through this, but i´m trying to get up to NOW, and there are still a few cities to get through :)

the next morning we boarded the bus for rio de janeiro... we left argentinian soil and have entered the humid, vietnam-like-vegetated, expensive, beach-filled, exciting brasil. yay!

VIPs

cordoba

we were lucky enough to have sofia as a couchsurfing host in cordoba. after 21 hours of bus we arrived at her place: an amazing house with a beautiful garden and a pool. and that wasn´t all... shortly after her father started barbequeing, and we had the most delicious chicken, salad and mashed potatoes in their garden.

cordoba is a pretty city, with lots of churches and a cobblestoned city center. we spent our days in cordoba in her garden, doing massage exchanges, tanning, admiring her cute little baby puppies, and exploring the city with sofia as a tour guide. sofia took us a to a world aids day exhibition (with free wine and condoms), and took us partying as VIPs at a big club in cordoba. on the last day sofia served as our mate-expert, showing us which mate cup to buy, and explaining to us how to make delicious mate.

fat life

our time in buenos aires (and much of that to follow) has adopted the description of FAT LIFE, because our life is just too good to be true.

i havent updated since the 26.11, and im going to do this part a little quickly because its been sooo long again...

26th - met `the girls´ (since im surfing with the guys, i´m not considered female??) in la boca, a poor part of town which has become popular due to its colourful houses and touristy tango in the streets. in the park there we met roberto (if youve been reading sao-mai´s blog you know about him... a homeless guy that lives in the park, writes poetry, and is very sweetly romantic), who told us about love and then gave us a tour of la boca. we then took a bus to plaza de mayo, and hung out on non-existant grass, while `the girls´ reminisced about the pride parade that had taken place there the week before.

the evening was fantastic> we went to a drum concert and then danced in the street to more drums, meeting cool people and drinking wine, till the police sent us away because of the noise. we finished the evening with monica and sm´s couch-host in a bar, and went home dead tired.

27th - we lived the fat life to the extreme, spending the day on patricio´s terrace roof with a pool, going out to dinner and then going to bed... not a very eventful day, but such a nice one anyways.

28th - parca las heras for breakfast/lunch, a great happy street concert by pollerapantalon (skirtpants), and then a modern tango concert called mucha mierda (much shit), decorated with bathroom tiles and toilet paper, and with amazing energetic and dramatic music.

29th - more of the fat life :) `the girls´ brought us delicious deli-food onto patricio´s terrace, and so we tanned and ate watermelon and enjoyed life. in the evening we had a goodbye dinner for their couch-host and his friend karolina and finished the evening in a bar frequented by transvestites, with some good red wine and a little bit of dancing.

30th - we met at the bus terminal in the morning to buy tickets to cordoba, and then met karolina on the white bridge of the 3rd of february park. buenos aires is wonderful like that: dotted with so many lush green parks, and beautiful squares and buildings. we took a little bicycle boat tour around the lake and then headed to the culture centre to look at art made by street kids in b.aires. as always, we were late and had to rush to make it to the bus terminal on time for our bus. we´ve become so used to buses that we actually look forward to spending the night on them, and spending the day staring out of windows, listening to music, thinking, chatting and doing nothing...

we were all sad to leave buenos aires, but thats the point of travelling: to discover fantastic new places (this one we plan to return to in 7 to 10 years...)

there we go, that´s something. coming up blog-wise are cordoba, iguazu and rio de janeiro where we are now. we´ve had to say a sad sad goodbye to dear charles, who is now back in france, and tomorrow we´re on our way to isla grande to make our way to sao paulo where alex is leaving on the 18th. our group is shrinking!! help!

joy!

"viña del mar, mendoza, 0,35kg of apples" and "south does not equal warm" have new photos!! (the more recent photos are still on my camera)
enjoy!

EDIT: they´re photos albums, so click on them for looots of pretty photos

reunited

Baaaah

we arrived in buenos aires to a grand welcoming with signs and all by monica and sm. yay for being reunited!!

the evening was spent getting settled at our couchsurfing hosts house, patricio, in a big loft (with pinball machines!!!) in palermo, a beautiful tree-lined café-packed part of town. we walked around, admiring the europeaness of the streets mixed with the argentinian culture (witnessing a seemingly spontaneous drum-session out on the streets) and then thoroughly enjoyed some grilled ribs. mmmm.

we spent the evening in palermo, looking in shops (i´ve found a poke-a-dot shirt! not quite right, but very pretty nonetheless), surprisingly meeting street performers that the others had befriended in lima, and having some beer. we then went home to get changed and alex, charles and i went back over to meet sm and monica around 1a.m. to go dancing... which we did, in a lesbian bar in buenos aires! so much fun! finally dancing again. by the time we made it out it was 7a.m. and surprisingly light outside. we fell into bed and slept till noon... then hung out till 6p.m. when we finally made it to monica and sm´s place, who were also already awake :).

we wandered some more, and hung out at a fun weekend market with performances and lots of stalls. yay for lots of people! and then we had pizza. mmm. and now its time to sleep... good night :)

utterly amazing cuteness

punta tombo

in rio gallegos the day turned good. we booked a bus ticket for cama (comfy comfy seats) for only 2 dollars more than semi-cama (less comfy seats) and had the most utterly luxurious bus ride of our lives. mmmmm... we were even sad when our 16hrs of bus-time were over. awww
the sadness didn´t last long tho, since we had arrived in puerto madryn, the place of my dreams... where we were about to see... dun dun dun... PENGUINS! YAY! we arrived in the middle of the car agencys´ lunchbreak (from 12 till 5p.m.... not hard to arrive in the middle of that) and had to wait till the afternoon to get our car. as there was no longer enough time to see penguins that day we made a stop in gaiman. our guide describes it as a welsh colonial town, with low non-descript buildings, and the chance to have welsh tea and biscuits. and that´s what it was: non-descript. so we had the tea (other things to do: go through a tunnel. we also surfed a tree branch. but really, there was NOTHING else to do). then we slept at the campsite of the volunteer firemen, and admired the fire truck from the 1940´s or 50´s.
the next morning we got up at 6.00 to get to the penguins by 8.00, to see them till 10.00 to be able to drive the 2.5h back to p.madryn, to return the car at 1.00 and take our booked bus at 2.00... things were not to happen this way, since we got stuck in trelew for an hour on the way. so we ended up being somewhat late, but no less excited, when we finally got to the penguins.
there´s SO many of them! and they are SO cute!! we arrived when they were only just waking up, the colony of about 600,000 penguins. they live in burrows, which i didnt know. and its the egg-hatching season, so we even saw amazing baby penguins. they sneeze, they cuddle, they clean their feathers, they´re cute, they waddle, they cock their heads in the most adorable manner, they swim, they make nests, they trumpet (!!) and they´re just great. by the time their charm had slightly lifted it was 11.00 and we were late. so we had to have a rally race back to puerto madryn. the limit in this race was sadly our car and not the speed limit, since the car started shaking uncontrollably at about 110km/h. but magically we made it. and got on another bus, less comfortable, but with the promising destination of buenos aires.

the end of the world

ushuaia

exciting exciting... we managed to reach the end of the world by hitchhiking, instead of paying a (backpacker´s) fortune on bus rides. ushuaia itself, however, was not that entertaining. the city has potential, no doubt (with a huge peninsula, the famous-ness of it being at the end of the world). the tourists, however, come due to the publicity, and the city seems to put no effort whatsoever into making itself prettier or entertaining. basically the place was ugly, and we were not impressed, but we were at the end of the world (and it´s the journey that counts).

we found a nice hostel/apartment to stay in, had steak and milanesa for dinner, showered (!!) and slept. (yes, showering is a big thing for us, a thing that happens rarely and is much appreciated by us and the people around us.)

we spent the day wandering ushuaia, writing postcards, drinking coffee, and visiting the museum of the end of the world. the exhibit is very well done, telling of the first settlers of tierra del fuego (all european, because the argentinians and chileans didn´t really care about the south at first...) and how the place was populated using penal colonies (lots of italians, for example).

after another delicious, this time home-cooked, meal, we went to bed late and got up just a few hours later to catch our bus back north at five in the morning. alex and i, lagging a little behind, arrived to find charles and the bus driver screaming at each other. grrrreat start to a grrrreat day. it turned out that bus tickets had been oversold, so instead of getting in the comfortable bus to finally sleep alex and i were carted into a minivan. as it turned out it was a minivan with a suicidal driver. our dear driver was either drunk or hung over, and his eyes drooped off every few minutes, while the car with us and five israelis swerved off the lane. AHHHHH! it was a three hour drive until we got to change to a bigger bus in rio grande, and we were scared. we complained to the bus driver when we stopped on the way, but, exactly like the bus company, he couldn´t have cared less. we got back into the minivan for the last hour of driving, and 40km before our arrival we couldn´t take it anymore. alex was high on adrenalin, keeping a close eye on the road, the driver´s eyes and the steering wheel. finally he told the driver to pull over and alex drove us safely to rio grande. we complained there to the bus company, but as i said, it didn´t seem to bother them that we bought a bus ticket and then drove the vehicle ourselves. but really, i don´t see a problem with it at all.

the second part of the journey could have passed smoothly, had it not been for the chilean border controls. i didn´t get arrested, but the border controls decided to strike when we were in that part of land which argentinians have to cross to get from the south to the north of their country. so we were stuck there for two hours, fearing for our connection in rio gallegos... luckily for us, we made it on time. the people the next day would not be so lucky, as a strike was planned from 8a.m. to 10p.m....

hitchhiking to the end of the world!!

heading south

so, as i have hinted at a few times, we saved some money to get the 900km to the south by hitching. we wrote the names of the planned destinations on our blue sleeping mats and hoped for the best.

1 - bus to punta arena
2 - marine officer and girlfriend in car took us to the airport
3 - truck driver in super cool american style truck picked us up and took us on what should´ve been a not-too-long trip, but we got stuck in front of a ferry for three hours (it couldnt cross because of the super strong patagonian winds). this driver was extremely atypical - he´d been an optician for 8 years before the routine life got too much for him and he started truck driving, which he´s been doing for the past 11 years. we were invited to cake and mate (argentinian herb tea that gets passed around in one cup - a sign of friendship and welcome apparently), finally made it across where we bought him some dinner and then got to sleep in one of the bunk beds in his truck cabin. we slept in a truck! i´m loving it :)
4 - petrol-company worker in a pickup
5 - big truck with typical truck driver (mullet, belly, argentinian folk music)
6 - big truck with another typical (though not quite as typical) argentinian trucker... to rio grande
7 - teacher driving a little car took us to tolhuin, two hours from ushuaia... we´re almost there!! we stopped for delicious pastries and then waited in vain for a truck or car to ushuaia
8 - bus (yeah, we sort of cheated... but hey, we bargained and there was no other way)

ushuaia!!

towers of pain

Torres del Paine

puerto natales is the starting point for the crazy disorganised four day hike we were about to embark on. we found a hostel, showered (!!), slept a lot, went shopping sporadically and randomly, luckily were rented a cooker by our hostel-lady (not sure what we wouldve done for food otherwise...) and then took the bus in the afternoon.

about the park (see wiki): "The park is dominated by the Paine massif, which is an eastern spur of the Andes located on the east side of the Grey Glacier, rising dramatically above the Patagonian steppe. Small valleys separate the spectacular granite spires and mountains of the massif." see? amazing.

that first day was easy, two or three hours to the free campsite and then another hour to the amazing torres del paine (towers of pain... or needles of paine - assuming that´s a name). the view was beautiful (have patience, photos will come), and the walk to the top tiring.

the second day came closer to the name of PAIN(E), and our legs and blisters were hurting everywhere. we walked to the french valley and collapsed into our sleeping bags.

day three: oatmeal gruel for breakfast, another loong loong hike, soup for lunch, and then glacier grey. after seeing this huge and magnificent glacier (but not as active and lovable as the one in the last entry) we camped illegaly again (love doing that) so as to make day four less gruesome and long.

day four: we got up horribly early so as to make it on time to our 6.30 bus that evening. we hiked and hiked and hiked and the surrouding landscape changed dramatically over the course of the day. used to the continuous ups and downs of the last few days we were awed by the plains that we walked through that day. we did about half of the kilometers of the whole hike on that day - it was flat and we had the wind in our backs (we used a garbage bag as a sail and nearly flew awaaay).

we made it to the bus with time to spare, and got back to the hostel late late at night, discovering that we had one more thing to add to our list of stupidities for that trip. the list goes as follows:

- we had not planned the food amount (and were lucky lucky that it was enough)
- we had taken a total of 3,5 liters of water with us (a 500ml bottle each and then one more big one) and again we were lucky because there were drinkable streams and rivers of fresh and sparkling delicious glacier water every few hours
- our guide wasn´t up to date on the entry price, so after having paid that we had about 12 dollars between the three of us (and so, had the food not lasted, we would´ve been in just a little bit of trouble)
- the final bit of stupidity was that we had not called the hostel to tell them we were arriving... so it was full... but luckily we got a place in Casa Theresa, where the hostel lady was a little less friendly than you would expect with a name like that, but at least we finally got to shower and had some beds to sleep in.

the next day it was time to leave to the south, the end of the world...

glacier perito moreno

glacier perito moreno

okay, i have a few minutes, so i´ll start "small" (except the glacier thing is huuuuge).

first you deserve a bit more detail on bariloche... otherwise alex will totally be beating me on this blog-writing thing.

we found a cool hostel in bariloche, where the owners invited us to a delicious home made pizza dinner and red wine evening. we visited the kingdom of chocolate. we drove 1.5h to a place with an amazing national park and instead wandered around the aforementioned pond - using the forest as a playground and being followed by a dog which we nicknamed platano (banana). we also visited a look-out point giving us the most astounding view over the lakes and mountains of bariloche.

bariloche is a pretty, rich, expensive, touristy and very enjoyable-to-walk-around city.

okay, enough on that.

leaving bariloche we entered a steak and empanada selling store, and asked for 36 empanadas to let the three of us (leaving sm and monica behind to go to buenos aires) survive our impending 27 hours of bus ride. the woman looked at us like we were stupid, but we ended up scraping together 24 empanadas in total.

we got to the bus just on time, arrived in rio gallegos the evening of the next day and got straight on another 3h bus to el calafate. we arrived late but actually managed to find our campsite in the dark, and set up the tent. we awoke to a disheartening rain, rented a car and drove the 80km to the glacier. and were flabbergasted. its HUGE and beautiful and white and icey blue and amazing and it MOVES! 2m in the center per day, and 40cm on the edge. the result of that is that we sat there for 5 hours and saw about four million chunks falling off dramatically and loudly into the lake surrounding the glacier. craaaazy.

we camped illegally in the park so that we wouldnt waste our free kilometers, and nearly got freizures from the cold that night (freizure: freezing seizure). the next morning we breakfasted overlooking the amaaaazing fantastic glacier again. yay!

back in el calafate we booked a book to puerto natales and there our hiking adventure began. blog entry is over. and lets see if i can get another one in before charles takes over the computer.

(very) short version

what we´ve done the last while:
- glacier moreno
- a four day, leg-tiring, beautiful-landscape hike in torres del paine
- hitchhiked 900km (7 different vehicles!!) to the END OF THE WORLD - ushuaia

and now i´m here... and tomorrow we go to puerto madryn to admire half a million penguins and then we join sm and monica again in buenos aires.

and in buenos aires i´ll go online and tell you all about the trip to the end of the world!! :)

south does not equal warm

i´m in bariloche, argentina!

how i got here:

puerto montt, pucon, chiloé

(28.10) as planned we rented a car in puerto montt, a tiny little white low-lying stone-scraping toyota, with a trunk amazingly huge enough to fit all our bags.

with our amazing toyota we went to valdivia - a studenty town with sea lions begging for fish at the fish market. the landscape on the way is crazily european: rolling hills, cows, wooden cottages, sheep, and baby sheep cuz its spring... awww

we passed through villarica, and camped on the side of the road, attempting to hide our shiny white toyota under leaves so as not to attract too much attention. we spent the evening sitting by the lake 10m from our campsite.

(29.10) after an in-car-breakfast we headed to the cute though touristy pucon. the view on the way is amazing, with the snowy-white villarica volcano towering in the background. but the volcano would have to wait, because this day was spent hiking through the national park admiring waterfalls and having snow fights in the higher parts (and simultaneously trying to subdue the urge to go the toilet every twenty minutes... but the runnies havent plagued us too too much so far). the night was spent again in the tent, freeeeeezing.

(30.10) charles, alex and i woke up horribly early to make it to the tourist office thing at seven... in order to... dundundun... climb the volcano! its the 3rd most active in chile, snow covered, smoky on top, veeery high - i forgot the number... something with 2000m?? sm and monica decided to bike, which was the cheaper and less strenuous option.

the hike up (with snow picks, gloves, snow boots and all the rest) offered amazing views, but was horridly tiring. i gave up halfway to the top, and one of the guides and i made our way down on butt-slidey cool things. its a strange exciting feeling to be sliding down a snow covered slope when the air around you is completely white. there´s no way to tell sky from ground, and you feel alone in the world.

to give a perfect end to the day we drove to the hotsprings. we tried to get in cheaper by hiding monica and me in the trunk of the car, but when charles asked for three tickets all we got was a disdainful look and the question: "what about the two in the trunk?"... oops :)

(31.10) the next morning we tried to dry alex and monica´s flooded tent, and then drove to frutilla. this town is more german than any town in germany... german restaurants, german kuchen, german everything, and even a "casa richter". we spent the night camping in the garden of the very sweet francisco, who even (1.11) offered us a delicious breakfast the next morning.

back in puerto montt we exchanged our little white car for a cool red pickup and drove to ancud, on the island of chiloé. us unsuspecting travellers were planning to stay only two days here and got stuck for six, because the ferry we planned to take turned out to unaffordable. so if anyone has questions about chiloé: we are the experts to ask.

that night we found a cheap little cabaña to stay in, and finally got to shower. the next day (2.11) was spent admiring penguins! i loooove penguins. theyre adorable and waddly. for lunch we had delicious and cheap sea food, just the beginning of a splurge on salmon and mussel (mussle?) empanadas. after our penguin happyness we drove to castro, the capital of the island. due to the stuckness of our situation we saw more of castro the next day (3.11) and then camped in the wild again. driving on the back of the pickup i turned around to talk to alex and my glasses flew off! we found them after they´d become the victim of about a million evil evil cars. so i´ve been enjoying a slightly blurrier version of the landscapes.

this is taking tooo too long to write! and i wouldn´t be surprised if no one is reading this entry anymore. so i´m going to shorten things a little.

(4.11) national park of chiloé, castro, ancud, our cute cabaña that started to feel like home
(5.11) another national park, night of camping directly by a beautiful river
(6.11) driving, bright blue glacier river, national park (surprise surprise), camped by a huge beautiful lake in petrohué
(7.11) finally we got to return our pickup! and left to bariloche (where i am now. and this time i did NOT get arrested the border! wooohooo for nadja!)

in bariloche we have: found a nice hostel, eaten delicious steak, wandered around a pond for a day, and seen amazing mountains.

bariloche

stupidly my time has now run out, and i have to get going to my 27 hour bus ride to the south. since alex was smart and used the internet time to upload photos, you´re going to have to look at his blog to see the pictures to all my words. and the next time i have a day to spend internetting you shall all be graced with beautiful pictures of my own :)

viña del mar, mendoza, 0,35kg of apples

valaparaiso is not far from viña del mar, which is where monica's family lives, so we spent a day in their pool and wandering the streets. the next day we found a beautiful part of valparaiso where there was a huge amount of amazingly cool graffiti (photos are coming, and how do you spell graffiti?).

valparaiso

theeen we took a bus back to santiago and from there across the border to the argentinian mendoza. the bus we took drove over night, through the andes, and the view was magical: dark looming mountains with gleaming snow caps... aaahh...

we arrived at about four in the morning and were absolutely dead tired. due to our lack of sleep we figured it would be a good idea to take taxis 6km outside of town to a camping place which was already filled with kids. which we did. and surprise surprise: it was far away and full of kids. and all the others were closed.

so we decided never to make decisions if we've had less than six hours of sleep (which could make you ask if this was a viable decision to make, since by this time we still hadn't gotten any sleep - but that would just get complicated). we figured we'd take the bus back into town get off at a random stop and crash at the first hostel we see. which we did, and it worked magnificently. we happened to land in a hostel right in the middle of beautiful, tree-lined-streeted, hanoi-like, park-filled and sunny-hot mendoza. so we spent the day enjoying the parks and eating a lot.

the next day we did a bike-wine-tour which was delicious and fun. yay! and a chocolate factory and an olive oil factory was part of our tour as well. mmmm...
when we went to return the bikes, the owners took a great liking to charles (carlito) and so they invited us for a bottle of wine and some mate (argentinian tea). we also got to admire their parrot - which has a hilarious and horrifying fake evil belly laugh.

the next day we took the bus back over the border, and i was arrested. well, not really, but taken in for questioning and made to pay a fine. for two apples. as i hadn't declared them (but WHO declares stuff at a border!?! and i'd wanted to eat them for lunch... damn...). i hope this is the last time i pay 25euros for 0,35kg of apples. the apples, btw, are being sent to a chemical lab for investigation. i seem to be a wanted criminal in chile.

mendoza

after the seven hour exciting bus trip, we had some dinner and immediately got on another bus, this time for 14hr. which brought us to puerto montt. a cementy, gray, sea-side, fish-smelling city. we're going to rent a car and go look at national parks and penguins over the next week. yay for penguins! :)

pictures will come eventually... they take sooo long to upload.

collection of photos - santiago and valparaiso

valparaiso



yay! piercing! rockon!

my piercing! and alex's sticker!

look lucas!

sara, a.k.a. crazy cat woman: write your name like this, with that "a"...

flag-selling people at the soccer game

a wall in valparaiso

monica contemplating getting a piercing, too

crazy pirate charles

Ahh! Three holes in my nose!

yesterday: my first ever soccer game! peru vs. chile... and chile won, so everyone was happy.



we spent another day wandering santiago. we searched everywhere for light, cheap, good, small but not too small tents. we spent the morning in a huge mall where alex finally got his starbucks-fix, and we finally found the perfect combination of tents.





sm has wanted a tattoo forever, and we found out a good place to get tattoos done safely but cheaply, so we set off looking for it. it had moved, so it took us aaages to find it, but we finally did. sm decided to get her tattoo done right away, and ive wanted to get my nose pierced for about 7 years now, and since they proclaimed to be experts at this as well, i now have three holes in my nose!! and almost fainted in the process... the set up was slightly questionable, since he stuck a needle and tube in my nose and THEN started looking for the scissors with which to cut off the needle part... and left me sitting there, white as a ghost and sweating and with my eyes closed... but i survived it! and its sooo pretty.
and sm has a beautiful self-designed lotus tattoo... yaaaay :)





exciting exciting day!

this morning we left to valparaiso:



a beautiful city by the ocean, with amazing colourful houses, lots of stray dogs, beautiful hills, an amazing mix of strange architecture, and good food. were staying in a beatiful little hostel: with our own house, own bathroom, beautiful colourful walls, own kitchen, and artwork hanging everywhere that nelly (the owner) has painted herself. were some happy happy wellfed backpackers :)





im hoping to upload pictures in the next couple of days, so you can see the beautiful houses, and the ocean, and the mountains, and eeeeevvveeeerything. (and i DID it :)...)

Santiago sans backepacke

arrived!! after a looong gruelling flight (and the generous offer of "duty free, pickled duck, duty free, pickled duck!"), i arrived in santiago.

view from the airplane...


i was greeted with the announcement : "Mr.Ring! calling Mr. Ring!"... only to find out that my backpack had been left behind in toronto without me... :( wawww. just like hannes predicted. the good news: i get money. and who needs a backpack anyways.... right?

you can see im alive :) and now im off to explore the beautiful city stuck between two sets of mountains (one with, one without snow. it looks utterly amazing).

you guys enjoying uni in marburg?

astonishment

things are nearing a marburgian end. and a few things have happened the last few days.

the best of all:
suprise party!! for meeeeee :). danke danke danke! habe mich soo gefreut euch alle noch mal zu sehen.

naive as i am, i suspected absolutely nothing, causing great astonishment on my part when i walked into daniela's crowded kitchen. and i got a cake!! with piggies and doggies and kitties and duckies on it! yay for kitch cake.



second thing thats happened:
my room is now more or less empty. still have my laptop, and my desk, but everything else is gone. lots of dust, still. couldnt find the vaccuum yesterday (as it turns out, it's hidden in plain sight in the hallway).

so now there's a few more fun but sad goodbyeish days left here, before my flight leaves on monday. ich werd euch sehr vermissen!

current location:

Größere Kartenansicht

where i'll be in four days:

Ver mapa más grande

a little bit of panic

time for another little update? even though nothing has happened?

with vordiplom finally out of the way, packing time has started. and with that a rising feeling of a little bit of panic. how is it possible to own so much STUFF?? i've packed a bag with stuff that i will live off of for six months in canada. one little suitcase. so why can't i just throw everything else away? why do i store thousands of boxes in random cellars all over germany, allowing me to keep accumulating MORE stuff? i don't get it.

a little list of where i have STUFF:
hamburg - 2 places
frankfurt - 2 places
marburg - 5 places, soon to be 6
holland - 1 place (not quite there yet. the neurological knowledge is on its way.)

anyone need some stuff?

excitement

tsk tsk, sooo many complaints. so here goes: NOT bored, excited! => yaay for adventure!

yeah, i really am excited. have my towel, my sleeping bag, and a cool yellow shirt. i'm all set to go. just have thousands of officiallish things to do... grr... and one more exam, but thats nebensächlich.

so are you satisfied now?

i guess i could add some proper content:

day that i leave cold wintery germany for warm summery chile:
15. Oct

yaay :)

boredom

It's nice to plan a trip, because there's something to look forward to in all the studying. Yay for adventure!