Speedhiking to Machu Picchu along the Salkantay-trail!

On a sunny day in Cusco I was having a drink in my hostel with Dermot (this crazy Irish guy) and talked about my future plans of hiking towards Machu Picchu on my own. As he also hates organized hikes because they go slow and cost a lot, he wanted to join my so far non-existing team! A little later John and Brendan (USA and Canadian guys) joined the table. Brendan already visited MP, but only by train and John was still unsure of how he would get there. After a couple of beers, team G or G-Unit was formed! I organized the whole thing: bought the maps, found transport to the starting point and made the menu, while they rented the necessary gear.

The hike would be quite intense, because we planned on doing it in three days, while most groups do it in four to five days. The total distance to hike was 75km, which would be perfectly divided in 25km a day! If you walk flat, this would not be too hard, but the Salkantay trek involves a pass to cross that has an elevation of 4,600m and another pass with an altitude difference of 1,000m. So basically I warned everyone that walking was not an option and that we would be speed-hiking if we wanted to make it in three days. In the summertime this can be attempted, because the days are long, but in this time of the year the sun comes up around 6am and goes down at 5:30pm. If you remove the necessary time to dismantle and build up the tent, make food and have lunch, there is already a lot less time for hiking.

On the first day we woke up around 4am to take our ride towards Molepata, starting point of the hike. There we had a last nice breakfast before starting our full day of uphill hiking towards Soraypampa. Groups take the road that gradually goes up over a long distance, but we went for the pretty little mountain path that was a bit shorter, but much steeper. It was definitely not the easiest way, because the path constantly gets crossed by other paths created by cows. We had to take the compass out a couple of times to find the right path to follow when there were no locals around to help us out. If locals were around they were always very friendly and willing to wait at a cross-point to show us the right way!

The weather was not amazing during the first two days. After dinner, which was an amazing spaghetti, it started raining, so we all retired to our tents around 7pm after this first insane day. In the morning we thaught that waking up around 6am was early enough to start hiking around 7, but that Salkantay pass was more intense than expected! After the pass we were lucky and the weather in the other valley was way better! The path went down for the rest of the day until Collpabamba where it started pouring down rain at 5:15pm for the next five hours! In a little shed, next to our tents we made our hot dogs and waited for the rain to stop, so we could finally go to sleep! That day we hiked faster than Sherpa's and than some US Marines that were trying to do the same as us, so a night of sleep was definitely deserved! Because we woke up that late, we were not able to cover the required 25km, so on the last day we had to wake up before sunrise and start hiking straight away with our head torches. At 5am we woke up and 15 minutes later we were already packed and ready to hike.

The last day we decided to split up, because Brendan wanted to make it to Cusco the same day, so he needed to catch the first train we thaught left from Santa Teresa and John, who was suffering from his bad knees could not walk that fast anymore, so I sent him also to Santa Teresa, which was only downhill for 27km. Dermot and I wanted to go to Hydroelectrica to catch a train at 4:30pm which was separated from us by a 1,000m high pass that we had to climb in 8km. We first had to cross a river to get to the right side of the valley, but apparently the bridge had been washed away during the last rainy season, so our topographical map that was more looking like a Disneyland map, became suddenly totally useless. Luckily we found some locals that were working on their steep corn-fields on the mountain hills and they told us that there was another bridge a couple of kilometers downstream we could use.

Once across the river we started our final climb, which were the toughest 8km of the whole hike! I still felt good in the beginning, but near the end, my legs were just dying with every step I took. Around 12:30pm we finally made it over the pass. Going down was as painful as going up, and not any easier because of the muddy, slippery and steep path. After a while we got our first sneak peek of Machu Picchu in the distance, this was definitely an awesome moment! We finally saw what we came for! A bit lower we encountered an Inca site called Llactapata which also had an amazing view over MP, so we decided to settle down and have the first solid food of the day!

After lunch, we kept on hiking downwards to Hydroelectrica where we arrived at 4pm! We hoped to be there an hour earlier so we could hike to Aguas Calientes, (town where all tourists stay before going up to MP) but now it was too late to hike the last three hours, so we decided to take the train. In the station we found Brendan and John again who both were waiting for the same and apparently only train of the day. Together we set down and compared the different routes we took that day and had a good laugh before realizing we bloody did it in three crazy days!

Once in Aguas Calientes we went straight to a restaurant for a cold beer and a massive pizza! We could not celebrate too much yet, because John, Dermot and I had to wake up the next day at 3am to hike up to MP! We arrived in time at the entrance to get a stamp that gives you access to Huayna Picchu. (The mountain in the back of every MP picture) At 6am the doors opened and we ran to the highest point on the site to get a good spot to see the sun rise over the mountains. This was definitely a magic moment, and those who have seen the pictures already probably can confirm the beauty of what we saw. For a second the world got silent and we had no words for each other to describe our happiness! After three intense days, we finally saw what we came for and it was a 1000 times more spectacular than expected!

We eventually spent a whole day on the site walking around, we ran up Huayna Picchu in 21 minutes (the record is held by a Sherpa in 17!) and worked a bit on our tanning next to some lama's. Back in Aguas Calientes that night we could not leave for Cusco, because there were no spots left on the train. (This is the only way out of AC..) So we were forced to stay another night in AC. We spent the night chatting about our adventure and the beauty of the hike we just finished! We walked through jungle, pampas, rivers, rain, sun, snow, hail, over rocks and Inca steps. It was the most varied hike I've ever done with the best team I could ever imagine! Especially the fact that we did it on our own, gave us so much more satisfaction afterwards!

We saved quite a lot of money by doing so, because if you book it online (http://www.salkantay.org/salcantay/salkantay-5days.html) you would end up paying between 485 and 1025USD. Our food + transport + entrance did not cost more than 75USD!!!! For those who want to attempt it without a guide or an organization, feel free to mail with any kind of questions! Back-country hiking experience is required though.

Up to the next adventure!!

G. on the road!

The pictures from this adventure can be found here:http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=175946&id=634868429&l=9c957a4904

Crossing Bolivia and Peru towards my Volunteering project.

Once upon a time I arrived in San Pedro de Atacama. I spent a couple of days there visiting the highest and second biggest (after Yellowstone) geyser field, did a daytrip to the Valle de la Muerte (Death Valley) where I went sandboarding and Valle de la Luna (Moon valley #2) where I enjoyed an amazing sunset and went mountain-biking with William (an English lad) in the Gargantua del Diablo (Devil's throat)!

After a couple of days in this oases in the middle of the driest place on earth, I booked a three-day jeep-tour to Uyuni in Bolivia. This tour would pass over the Bolivian highlands where we saw the most beautiful and varied scenery's: Laguna's of all kind of colours, weird rock formations, amazing snow-capped +6000m peaks, deserts AND last but not least the stunning Uyuni Salt Flats and the train graveyard with piles of garbage next to it. This trip can for sure join the list of most beautiful things I've seen out here in South America!

After Uyuni I made my way up to La Paz, where I spent a couple of days buying some hiking gear, visiting all tour agencies for the things I want to do around La Paz when I get back there (somewhere in August) and after a lot of walks around town I went visiting the last Valle de la Luna of South America (#3 after the one in San Juan in Argentina and San Pedro de Atacama in Chile). After having seen the three of them I am supposed to know what the moon would look like, so my child dreams of wanting to become an astronaut can be put aside.

When all that was arranged I moved on towards the Peruvian border. Before crossing it, I decided to hike for two days around Isla del Sol on the famous lake Titicaca. The lake has an elevation of 3,812m, so all the hills I climbed on the island with these friendly French guys were around 4,000m. Now some history to make you all a bit smarter: Isla del Sol was named like this by the Inca's, because they believed the sun and the moon arose from the lake Titicaca. That's why the small island next to Isla del Sol is called Isla de la Luna!

I had to leave the island early in the morning after two days, because the island had no bars with television and I could not miss the final of the Champions League! The victory of Inter over Bayern made my day and after a celebration beer or two I jumped on the bus towards Cusco. This city is home to thousands of passing tourists that come all the way down to Peru to visit the Peruvian wonder of the world: Machu Picchu! (more about my visit there later) Although it is a hyper-touristy city, I still loved walking through it. Streets still have something from back in the days when the Spanish came down here to slaughter the Inca's by millions. The weird thing is that no-one in the world really thinks about this. The Nazi's killed 'only' six million non-Nazi's (mostly Jews), but the Spanish killed way more Inca's, but no-one hates them for it! It is not because they won their broomstick-war, that we should not hate them as much as Nazi's for killing Jews or Belgians for chopping off hands in Congo..

This on the side, I still enjoyed being there and loved the few still standing sites that the Spanish did not destroy and took home to build churches. I made some amazing friends, but eventually my volunteering project in Trujillo was calling me, so I had to leave Cusco for a 30-hour bus ride. After spending one night in Lima to break the long trip in two, I arrived early in the morning at the apartment that I would call 'home' for the next month! After a short briefing, I got guided around town. The volunteering team consisted originally of Chase, Nicole, Linda and Iain. (USA, Netherlands, Germany and Scotland) Later that day two other American girls joined the team. (Brittany and Kylien) Brittany and I were appointed to a school in one of the suburbs of Trujillo called 'Nuevo Jerusalem'. This is one of the poorest and unsafe neighbourhoods of Trujillo. It is ruled by two mafia gangs of which one gathers next door to our school. I did not know that until a couple of days ago. To me these guys were just a bunch of friendly tough-guys to whom I asked every day the results of the 9am soccer-game.

More about our neighbourhood: It is separated from Trujillo by a 50m no man's land strip like the one that cut Berlin in two during the World War. It is located high up on a mountain surrounding Trujillo on some kind of sand dune. Therefor the streets consist of sand and the houses are made of clay bricks for the 'richer' people and of plastic bags covering a wooden structure for the people living in more extreme poverty. Our school is like all the other houses. Before we could move in I had to build a roof for it consisting of a plastic tarp over a wooden structure, because the previous building we rented didn't want our kids to use the toilet. Our building now has a sandy little yard with in the back some kind of roofless shed with a hole in the middle that serves as a toilet which can be used by our pupils. The school is basically one room with three tables where our 16 kids of various ages ranging from 6 to 15 attend class.

You might wonder what I am supposed to do as you all may know I am not a real teacher!? Well to these 16 kids I am. I teach them basic maths (additions, subtractions, multiplications, divisions, ...) and teach them how to read and write. This requires a huge amount a patience I did not know I had! Some kids get beaten up at home of have a history with sexual aggression of all kinds, which causes them to have concentration problems or are just totally closed up to the external world. Basically we give them a lot of love and must be careful about getting angry at them or giving them exercises that are too difficult.

The hardest part in the teaching is that all kids have a different level, so basically we have to give them all an individual approach. Once the class is over the kids have to wash their hands with a plastic bottle and a bucket before they get breakfast consisting of a cup of hot chocolate, milk or porridge and a cookie or fruit they brought from home. Afterwards they have to brush their teeth and pray before we let them go home for the afternoon. Some of them work for some money and others just play around in the streets between the garbage, street dogs and mafia gangs.

During the afternoons basically we are free to do whatever we want, but on Mondays and Wednesdays I attend a Spanish course to improve my grammar, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays or Sundays I go surfing in the nearby village Huanchaco and on Fridays I recover from Thursday night (Ladies Night!). This and the group-phase of the FIFA World Cup are the reasons why it took me so long to find some time to update you about what has been happening to me lately!

The waves are calling me again.. I'll write any-day soon about my adventures on the Salkantay-hike to Machu Picchu!

I hope all goes well back home and sorry if I don't answer your mails straight away!

Un abrazo,

G. volunteering.

Some of my latest pictures:

Mission San Pedro de Atacama:http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=173275&id=634868429&l=395cb22b8f

Cruising the Salar de Uyuni:http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=173668&id=634868429&l=86a5514a1f

Last stops before Trujillo:http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=175522&id=634868429&l=b418fea51a

Dos semañas en la vida de intercambio en Santiago!

(Transl: Two weeks in the life of an exchange student in Santiago)

Que tal Guapo's?!

So this time my adventures continue in Chile, more specifically in Pucón! This town is famous for its Villarica Volcano (which is active for the moment) and for all kind of extreme sports. As the weather was bad the day we arrived, Vincent booked an afternoon of hydro-speeding for us, which I was not to keen on doing. The sky was grey, water temperature not above 10, and my energy level very low! (because I barely slept before and after hiking up the Lanín volcano) One hour later I found myself in a 7mm wetsuit and some kind of floating device swimming down a white-water river and almost drowning in every rapid we encountered. I just did not manage to enjoy the experience, but Vincent was over exited afterwards! Sadly we could not ascent the volcano and the forecast was not any better, so we decided to leave the same day for Santiago to look for the two Belgian girls we travelled earlier with! They were squatting at a friend of theirs who is doing an exchange program there, so we just joined in.

The first week we did some city-trips around Santiago to Valparaiso(Valpo), which is an amazingly colorful city with total anarchy in its architecture and urban planning at the sea and was considered home to the famous poet Pablo Nerduda. Earlier on my trip I met this American girl who is studying in Valpo and we could crash at her place for the night. There was this intimate party going on where a guy was playing some guitar. It was so good, but eventually it came out that the guy is actually really famous in Chile and he was just hanging out with friends. (His myspace: www.myspace.com/chinoysite)

After Valpo we were told that the weather finally had improved in Pucón, so we took an overnight bus to arrive there early in the morning and immediately hike up the volcano and the same day come back to Santiago, but yet again the weather would only be perfect the next day, which made us wait one more day in town. With hydro-speeding already done, the only thing that could move me was the thermal baths. I think I have never been soaking for such a long time (about 3-4 hours) in warm water! Afterwards my skin looked like I was close to hit 100 years of age! The organization with whom we were about to hike up the volcano was friendly enough to pay our night in the hostal, because we had kind of 'lost' a day in Pucón.

In the early morning we got to the base of the volcano and geared up with some flashy fluo outfits, ice-axe, crampons and a helmet, ready for a mass-hike up! We were in a group of about 10 people or more. Luckily for us, they were all young and fit so our ascent went quite good! Closer to the top we started to smell the toxic gasses filling our lungs! (Only in SA you can probably hike up active volcanoes! In Europe it would probably be forbidden due to health reasons!) After a couple of hours we found ourselves standing around a crater and taking millions of pictures of an empty crater spitting out smoke signals. Suddenly the crater started to make thunder noises and there it was: a massive lava explosion right in front of us! You could feel the sudden heat-wave and the horrible smell afterwards. With a picture from this on our flash drives, we had to start walking back down, because of the melting snow.

The fun part was still to come: bobsleighing down on our asses with these plastic shelves! We hit incredible speeds and the breaking system, which was our ice-axe, did not work, so we regularly crashed brutally into each other. One girl sadly ripped her knee-tendons in a group-crash.

Back in Santiago the next day we organized our next city-trip to Mendoza and San Juan (Argentina) to visit the closed-on-Sunday-wineries and the amazing Valle de la Luna! Mendoza was not that exciting, but luckily the moon-valley was! The weird thing was that about every 200m there was an Argentinean flag in the park, so this is the short conversation between Vincent and the guide:
Vincent: Why are there so many Argentinean flags along the road?
Guide: (proud) The President is coming next week to visit!
V: But why is there one every 200m? Does she get sad and homesick when she doesn't see a flag every 30 seconds?
... Silence ...
G: Because we want to show that this park and natural beauty belongs to Argentina!
V: But she would notice that she crossed the border if she did, and we are far off Chile, so it it obvious that we are in Argentina?! If you tell her that she is in Argentina once, she will remember for the whole tour, doesn't she? Unless she meets a border post, which she will not!
... And then the guide shut up and started talking about the nice colors in the rocks.

Again, back in Santiago Vincent had to catch a plane and the Belgian girls left us in Mendoza, so I ended up in the student house with no idea what to do next, so the girls in the house invited me to some party's and eventually I stayed for a week and a half more! Because I was severely underdressed at an after-office party, (I don't have fancy clothes as a traveler) I could not get in, but one of the girls went to the guy who was responsible for the entrance and told him I was the son of the Dutch ambassador and she had to take me out, so the guy immediately went to the bouncers and told them to let me in! (That's how easy it goes in South America) This story continues when the organizer of the party came 15 minutes later to me and apologies for what happened at the doors and hands me and my friends VIP bracelets! Apparently afterwards I got to know that that guy is THE guy to know in nightlife Santiago, because he organizes about all the good party's! (We even got VIP entrance at the MOBY concert in Santiago!)

Two days later he saw me again in a club, and yet again I got VIP and he paid me some drinks. Then because he was worried I would feel lonely because I did not know too many people, he introduced me to all the prettiest girls in the club. So how do you want me to hate Santiago and get my things together and leave this city?! During the days I profiled myself and went eating out with some managers that I met during the nights, in case I would one day considering a job in Santiago.

Because I was sleeping in a student house, I also made some good student friends and went to some finance classes at the Universidad de Chile, which was good to make me realize I still know a lot from my own courses!The good times kept coming, but eventually I had to make the decision: do I stay in Santiago and find myself something to study at the famous winery university, or do I pack my stuff and continue my travels.. The decision was hard, but I had a slight feeling that option one would not be appreciated back home, so two days ago I jumped on a bus and headed further north to La Serena where I spent the last two days.

Yesterday I went visiting a Pisco (this is a famous Chilean/Peruvian alcohol) distillery up in the mountains during the day and at night I went staring at the stars in one of the many observatories the region has. Because the air is dry and we are in a desert, the sky is the best in the world to look at the stars. With your naked eye you can see up to 4000 stars!

Tonight I am taking a bus to San Pedro de Atacama, a kind of touristy oases in the middle of the Atacama Desert and a jump-off point to the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia. This is the driest place on earth with no rainfall registered since 1570!

I'll be off-radar again for a while, normally I should be in Cusco in about two weeks! I heard from a girl in Santiago that there is a new Inca site recently discovered by a french expedition near Cusco and is supposed to be bigger than Machu Pichu! It is not yet open to tourism, so it is now my duty to be a pioneer Indiana Jones and go look for that hidden site! I hope I can bring you back some exclusive pictures! Who knows..

Take care and see you soon for another episode in the-so-exiting-life-of

G. on the road!

PS: I am going to volunteer for a month at a project in Trujillo (Peru) in June/July! More news about this to come!

Picture updates:

Hitchhiking Carretera Austral and Ruta 40: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=162410&id=634868429&l=5bf021132f

Summiting Volcán Lanín: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=163368&id=634868429&l=50e91f5ee1

Borderhopping between Chile and Argentina: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=167541&id=634868429&l=afe0f5273a

La vida de intercambio: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=167629&id=634868429&l=fc13fae2ad

200 days on the road!!

Que tal amigo's?

A couple of days ago I celebrated my 200th day on the road in South America! For a moment I looked back at my first day in Panama City when I arrived as a rookie, not knowing what this adventure will bring me and all the amazing people I would meet and everything that happened since.

My latest adventures started on a pretty island in Northern Patagonia in Chile called Chiloe. Economy is basically all about salmon and wood. Sadly the region was struck by a salmon disease and one factory out of two was shut down and unemployment augmented big time. It is a really poor looking region, but they have a lot of nice things to offer nature wise. I hitchhiked around the island and went spotting some Magellan penguins and other wildlife. Sadly we were off-season so instead of 4000 we only saw 6...

Apart from enjoying nature I also got the opportunity to get a two hour free city tour in a police bus. Sadly the windows are covered with bars, so the view was not amazing. I was unaware off the Chilean law about zero tolerance about alcohol consumption in public. I just went to the night shop buying a beer and got my ass jailed in no-time. They did not even give me a second to play the dumb and unaware gringo-card. In the end they were kind enough to drop me in front of my hostel, so eventually it was a fun experience!

The next day I went to the southernmost point of Chiloe (km 0 of the Pan-Americana) to look for a boat that was willing to take me south through the Chilean fjords to Puerto Chacabuco. I went looking for a bar in the port to talk to some sailors who could help me out. I followed a path formed by drunken men lying in the most awkward positions on the sidewalk. (it was Semana Santa, so everyone had a week of holiday and enjoyed ‘the blood of Jesus' aka liters of wine!) After a while I found myself in front of a dark pub and swung open the door to be instantly overwhelmed by a cloud of smoke and a horrible smell of fish, sweat and alcohol. This seemed the perfect place to find a man that could help me out to get off this island! I walked to the bar with my backpack and immediately became the attraction in the pub! Drunken men started hanging over my shoulders, trying to make up sentences that made no sense. So I asked the bartender who of all these drunken men could help me out. The back of the pub was filled with lifeless bodies laying on tables, the floor or blocking the toilet door. It was clear that I arrived late at the party of the century! At midnight eventually a boat could take me to my wished destination in two days.

The Chilean fjords are really pretty, but the region is one of the wettest there is, so there was not a lot of sun to enjoy the scenery and see the many salmon farms.

The reason why I migrated south again was to go find my Belgian friend, Vincent, again in Coyhaique where we planned to start to hitchhike the famous Carretera Austral together. This is one of the many famous roads in the world like Route 66 (USA), Ruta 40 (Argentina), Pan-Americana (trans-American), the E40 kust-Brussel (Belgium), ...

After finding each other eventually, we put up our thumbs and started dancing, juggling, begging, ... for rides! It was still Semana Santa, so a lot of people go visit their family, but they always go with full cars, which didn't make it any easier. The first day we got stuck in a rainy port for the night, but the second day we had the best luck and could visit a national park and go to our planned destination! There we decided to go kayaking through the fjords and enjoy the natural heat of some hot-springs. It was impossible to get out of town that afternoon, because there was a group of eight Israelis also hitchhiking. Eventually we found a bus late at night that could bring us 25km north. There we slept in a shed/barn with the Israelis and in the morning it was a race to be the first along the road to start hitchhiking! Three Australians joined in and a Brazilian which made us 14 people that wanted to get out of that little, lost town along the Carretera. No luck for any of us that day; only three fully loaded cars left town that day! After another night in a barn we all got lucky and made it to Futaleufú, a little town on the border with Argentina which is world-famous for its river: Rio Futaleufú that has level 5+ rapids! We could not be there without going down this madness, so the next day we found ourselves in a raft, paddling down the white-water river! It was just one big crazy river! It swung us from left to right and in the air again! At the last class 5 rapid we just could not keep the boat straight anymore and we where just thrown off the boat into the whirling streams that sucked me down for a little too long. I came back to surface exhausted from trying to swim against the down-streams and from then on, again I had to struggle for about a minute or two to keep my head above the massive waves and dodge oncoming rocks. Eventually we all survived the flip which does not speak for itself, because it happens that guides or rafters die in such events. It is especially hard to keep breathing and not getting knocked out on a rock in a class 5 rapid.

After having slept in an awesome mansion/under-construction-lodge of the town's banker which was a friend of a friend of two Belgian girls we met earlier on the Carretera, we waxed our thumbs again and stood along the road to hitchhike to Argentina! After a couple of rides, among one was in a (party?) truck, we made it to El Bolson where we spent a day hiking up to a beautiful Cajón Azul (Blue canyon).

Being so close to San Carlos de Bariloche, a place I've been before, and not going there to eat the famous bife de lomo they serve, was impossible! After the four of us downed two kilograms of the world's finest meat we went celebrating my 200th-day-on-the-road birthday and the birthday of the hostel receptionist. (She turned 25 the same day)

In Bariloche the two Belgian girls left us for Santiago and we went to San Martin de los Andes where I wanted to summit the Volcán Lanín (3,776m) to celebrate my 100 last days in South America! Because I had a weather-deadline and I could only get to the base of the mountain by hitchhiking, there was a lot of uncertainty that I would make it to the top. I also needed to get permission from the park ranger for my solo-ascent up the volcano. Normally the mountain is done in two days. On day one you hike up to base-camp or second camp if you're fit. And around 4am the second day you hike up to the summit. I, on the other hand only arrived at the base of the mountain after a long day of hitchhiking at 6pm. You can't start hiking anymore after 2pm, so basically I already knew I had to do it in one day, if I wanted to summit. At 8.30pm I got a green light from the park ranger after a long interrogation and material check. I tried to sleep for a couple of hours, but the road-workers that stayed there, had a party that night, so I ended up sleeping two hours before I had to leave. At midnight I dressed up, took my 8kg backpack filled with food, 5 liters of liquid, a sleeping bag and my gear and started walking towards the summit. I knew I had to walk at a high pace, because the hike normally takes 12 hours from bottom to top and you have to summit before 12pm! After an hour I already lost the path in the dark, the moon was not helping out that night, so I could not see any further than my torch would shine.

Based on my orientation at 5am I was in the middle of an ice field surrounded by deep crevasses. To not take any risks, I decided to rest in my sleeping bag on the glacier and wait for the sun to rise. Two hours later I could see where I had to be and how I could get there the easiest way. Once back on the right path, I realized I was actually 400m higher than expected, which gave me hope again to make it in time for the summit! I started walking at a higher pace and a couple of 100 meters before the summit I walked by three Argentineans with their guide, so I would have the summit for myself for a while and I can assure you, it was breathtaking! The silence, the view of Patagonia emerging in front of you (I ascended through the north-face) and the idea that no-one south of you is standing higher! (There is no mountain higher south of Lanín on the American continent) It made me emotional for a second and I was proud that I summited my first mountain alone!

Afterwards the park ranger was amazed that I summited in nine hours from bottom to top. I also got epic respect from the workers that kept me awake the night before. I finally made my name in mountaineering world!

That night I met Vincent again in San Martin de los Andes where we decided to leave at 6am the next day to Chile! He had been hiking the last days in the beautiful national park Lanín between the famous seven lakes.

I recently read in the news that Machu Pichu is open again, so I am slowly making my way up north now to start a legendary duo-hike to this sacred city! The only problem is that I am looking for the second part of this duo! If anyone is bored back home, feel free to take a plane (I assume the cloud will be gone from the European airspace any day soon) and come hike with me!! Adventure and unforgettable moments are free and totally included!

Hasta pronto gringo's,
G. on the road!

Hiking towards the end of the world..

Que tal amigos?

I'm back from my 20 days 'into the wild' adventure throughout the Patagonian landscapes. The 8th my American travelmate (aka West-Side homie Rachel), our two CS hosts and I took off with our backpacks filled with food and hiking gear from San Carlos de Bariloche towards the Chilean border. The weather started rainy, but once on the road the Gods changed it in our favour for the next five days! We hiked about 70km in total through the most beautiful variation of landscapes and flora. We decided to take it easy and whenever we encountered a mind-blowing view, we settled down and enjoyed the sounds of nature until the sand- and horseflies started attacking us!

Because the sky stayed clear day and night, we didn't even bother anymore of putting up the tent and just slept under the twinkling stars of the Milky-way.. I just did not want to remove my glasses and sleep.

We barely encountered other hikers, maybe this is due to Pablo's pathfinders skills who made us climb steep rocks fully loaded with our backpacks! But all the risks and efforts were totally worth the views and silence we got in exchange.

After five days of living on crackers, tuna, dulce de leche, mate and camping food we were so happy to have made it to Pampa Linda, a little town consisting of five houses and a little more horses, at the bottom of the Mt. Tronador. Exhausted we fell asleep on our way back to Bariloche dreaming of the half a kilo of Bife de Lomo that Don Alberto would prepare for us that night! I assure you, this is by far the best meat men can find on this planet! This with some fine Belgian fries, and we felt immediately reconciled with civilization.

The next day we wandered around town from chocolate shop to chocolate shop (Rachel's mission was to try them all out.. and there are A LOT!) With a slight indigestion we left Bariloche the next day to find Vincent, another friend of mine from Belgium, in El Calafate. The three united we made up our tight planning for the coming weeks (Rachel and I both had to catch a plane out of Patagonia on the 27th) and with no time to lose we went straight to the second most stunning natural phenomenon I've seen out here in South America: the Perito Moreno glacier! This massive wall of ice constantly moves and crumbles down into a lake and making these enormous thunder sounds!

That night we were quite in a rush to get to El Chaltén to start our second hike around the massive Mt. Fitz Roy. Unlike what our guidebooks told us, free camping in town is not allowed, so we got nicely shown the way to a legal camping by some park rangers. Again, fully geared up we took off in the morning and went looking for our first campsite at the base of the mountain. We immediately went to the mirador (viewpoint) to sit there for an hour waiting for the sun to set in absolute silence and only the sounds of the wind and Rachel's hungry stomach to disturb it.

Sadly we woke up to some rainy weather, but we had to continue hiking in this cold and wet Patagonian weather towards another stunning glacier where we could set up camp again! Due to the cold we never stayed out long during the nights and tucked ourselves in our sleeping bags as fast as we could. The last day we did some speed-hiking to be able to catch an earlier bus to El Calafate.

Once back there we took a well deserved and needed hot shower and dressed up to celebrate our successful hike! Pizza, a hamburger, beer and wine had to do the trick, because don't forget that we are still travelling on a shoestring! Unfortunately we enjoyed that night a little too much and missed our early bus the next day and had to take the only other one in the afternoon.

We arrived quite late in Puerto Natales and got the news that we could only leave at 7am to the national park, so we had to go buy all our food, rent some gear en book everything in no-time to be able to leave in the morning which was mandatory according to our schedule! Luckily we made it and slept only five hours before heading out into the wild one more time for five days! On the bus we met a Swiss guy and a Norwegian girl and invited them to join our adventures! And again during the next five days we've been hiking through amazing scenery's and all kinds of weather. We also got violently introduced to the famous Patagonian winds! When they come, they just blow you off the trail and give you no time to duck and avoid getting sand blown at 90km/h in your face!

The downside for me was that just before the hike I bruised my right heel, soI had to do the hike limping on my left foot. It is as if I was hiking 80km on high heels. Now I understand and fully respect why women complain at the end of the night in clubs!

Sadly on day four my amazing hike-buddy Rachel had to leave to catch a bus to Ushuaia, so we had to continue only the four of us. The weather Gods were as sad as we were, which made us continue in the pouring rain. Finally the next day we made it back to Puerto Natales and again we deserved a good fiesta to celebrate another successful hike! All together Rachel and I will have hiked around 150 to 200km in Patagonia!

The 27^th I had to catch a plane in Punta Arenas at 4am for Puerto Montt to continue my travels in Chile. I am currently recovering in a cute little house in Castro (Chiloe Island) with an old woman taking care of me. It is quite cold down here, so I might go sit next to the stove and drink a nice hot cup of chocolate, prepared with some motherly love.

Hasta luego gringo's! I'm off to part two of my trip! I have by the way decided to extend my stay until around the 23^rd of July. Life is to good down here and I still have a lot to do before I can come home!

G. on the road!

PS: I finally had the time to upload some pictures

- Brazil

Pantanal and Bonito: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=157983&id=634868429&l=d66e6b6d7d

- Argentina

Foz de Iguazú: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=158252&id=634868429&l=06d69e9c42

Bariloche (hike #1): http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=158283&id=634868429&l=28a40c1fb8

Patagonia (hike #2&3): http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=158449&id=634868429&l=b9d3d239c6

Saudade do Brazil!

We started our adventures in Rio on a rainy Thursday morning, and if it was not enough, all hostels were fully booked! The golden era of our kind of hard-core backpacking is over! The backpackers world is now filled with spoiled nancy-boys who book weeks in advance and don't live life the adventurous way! So against our will we were forced to book the two last beds in Rio over the internet. The first night was in a hostel full of Israelis. This means you are in the cheapest place in town, but also means that there are women selling their services and cocaine around, so the next day we left Copacabana for Botafogo. (another neighbourhood in Rio) Our first day in Rio we went shopping with moderate success and ended the day on the famous Friday-night party in the streets of Lapa. The setting was just amazing, the music truck stopped in front of a kind of aqueduct that has some tram rails on top.

The next day we spent the afternoon on Ipanema beach at Posto 9, the place to be to be checked out and check others out. After an amazing sunset, we strode back home to prepare ourselves for the carnival parade of the six best carnival schools of Rio. The whole event goes from 7pm until 7am and doesn't take place in the streets like you might think, but in Rio they have a stadium that is only used once a year for this occasion! It looks like a kilometer long road with huge tribunes on both sides. The whole parade was just breathtaking!

On Sunday, while Carlos did his laundry, I went rock climbing around the famous Pão de Azucar with an Israeli friend and some Brazilians we had met. It was the physically hardest climb of my life, but the location was just too incredible that I had to do it! To celebrate, we went that night to a favela, which are famous for their Sunday-night funk raves.

My last days in Rio we spend visiting the surprisingly pretty center, the Cristo Redentor (one of the seven new wonders of the world) with its stunning view over 'la Cidade Maravilhosa' build between beaches and huge rock formations. And to end in style we went to a soccer game in the Maracanã stadium! The Mecca for every soccer fan!

As the team I support in Belgium is performing quite poorly during my absence, I temporarily switched to cheer for Flamengo (last years champion of Brazil) and we chanted, jumped and cheered them to a 2-0 victory over Universidad Catholica de Chile in the South American Champions League: Copa Libertadores.

The next day I separated from one of my two loyal travel companions. Sadly enough the wrong one. Carlos decided to stay a little longer in Rio, so I left him in the pouring rain in Rio to take my chances on better weather in the Pantanal. I bought a bus ticket for a 23 hour ride to Campo Grande and got 25 hours instead. I slept most of it, because I forgot my earplugs with Carlos and without these, the only piece of technology I own out here is totally useless.

In Campo Grande I arrived in the most shining and glamorous bus terminal ever! The airport of Bogota looks like a rusty old shed next to it. I was amazed to find such a construction out there that pretty, but sad at the same time, because my guidebooks said that my hostel would be across the street of the terminal, but I had a strong feeling that this one was a new one. And so confirmed the utterly friendly lady at the info desk for travelers. Luckily for me there was a local bus-line connecting the new terminal with the old one.

With a smile on my face and happy of my choice to come to Campo Grande I walked out of the terminal to go search for my bus, but soon my mood changed when I saw a little boy fall off the motorbike of his grandfather, who drove too fast over a speed bump, and got run over by a truck. (The next day I read in the newspaper that he was only 11 years old. These things happen out here more frequently than you might expect)

On this sad note I stepped on my bus and went looking for my hostel in a dodgy neighborhood of the old terminal. The next day I found myself on the road, again, with too many Aussies and Israelis deep into the jungle of the Pantanal for a three-day adventure. Our campsite was one kilometer from the Transpantanal, which is not much more than a dirt-road with a lot of wooden bridges. One kilometer is not that bad with your backpack, unless it is through muddy shallow water (waist deep) in the middle of the night!

The following days it was all about spotting wildlife, swimming in the Rio Negro, waiting hours for our jeep/truck to get fixed (we broke down four out of the six tires!) and feeding piranhas (they weren't too keen on biting my hook, so I ended up feeding them more than catching them, at the content of the vegetarians in our group!) That night I started my adventure down south with a first one-day stop in Bonito. This place is famous for it crystal-clear rivers packed with the most colourful fishes. I woke up early, went swimming with them and in the afternoon I continued my trip and went looking for my two Belgian friends in Iguaçu: Carlos and Vincent. After a night with a reasonable amount of caipirinhas, a reunification with Argentinian wine and our world famous spaghetti bolognese with a lot of good stories, we went the next day together to the Argentinian side of the falls. They immediately took a solid place in my top five of most beautiful things I have ever seen! I've now seen three out of four of the world's most famous waterfalls. I hope one day I can make it to the Victoria falls, because I've been told that they are even more breathtaking!

With two months of the best life-time memories, I said goodbye to my dear friend and travel-mate with a tear in my eye. It was better than what we ever would have expected and I hope we'll be on the road together one day for more good times! Que te vaya bien, ché!

So now it's again me.. alone, on the road! I got in Bariloche after a 45hour bus-ride via Buenos Aires and now I got everything ready to go hiking in Patagonia with a previous travel-mate of mine. Today we registered ourselves at the mountaineering office that we will be out there for the next four days in the mountains! Far away from civilization with our cans of tuna, crackers, fruit and biscuits!

Hasta pronto for more adventures!
G. on the road

Carlos and Gaetano are proud to announce you that they survived Carnival 2010!

Hey Belgium and other loyal readers!

Carnival 2010 in Ouro Preto was EPIC and beated all our expectations! We think this is the best discription of the last five days. If you have any precise questions, feel free to mail us for a personal discription.

Before the Carnival we wanted to try something different than the usual pre-carnival fiesta's and decided to sniff up some culture. Sadly oprah's and theatres are closed, so we went to the local cinema. The choise was quite limited, so we took the only movie they were playing. We were already happy that it wasn't dubbed as our Southern neighbours in Belgium tend to do.
'Sempre ao su lado' it was! (At home it might be called: 'Hachiko: A dog's story')
Richard Gere is not immediately my favourite actor, so upfront we decided to say that the movie was 'good' when we would walk out of the cinema.
To help you saving some money, we strongly recommend to stay at home if you feel any urge to go watch that movie! It was so horribly bad, that all the girls in the room were crying the whole time! And now follows a short spoiler:
The whole movie is about a dog waiting for our dear friend Richard. Even when Richard is dead, the dog keeps waiting at the trainstation to see that his master is not coming. Don't expect a climax or whatsoever, it's just about a dog... waiting.

Tonight we're off to Rio de Janeiro to recover from our Brazilian Carnival experience. We know this doesn't really sound possible, but we will try. Hopefully it will be as good as the week we had in São João del Rei. We really loved that little village and they loved us! We had our daily routines of drinking every so many hours a fresh orange juice, visit a girl from the Carnival agency to know what was going on that night, walked the same streets with the same people sitting on the same place every day, so by the end of the week everyone knew us and our orane juices were being prepared for us even without asking for them etc. It was like being home for a week!

But before I get back to my real home, there's still a lot of things to cover here! I just saw that I reached the 50% mark! I am just over half-way through my trip and it already seems like I've been travelling for ages! I've seen so many things and done even more!

We hope all goes well in Belgium! Apart from trains crashing, houses collapsing and other drama's..

Vaya con Dios,
C. & G. on the road!

The long road to our Carnival destination continues..

Dear readers,

Praise yourselves happy torecieve news from us, because in this retarded village were we are currently residing,the era of computershasn't begun yet.

A while ago Carlos, me and my wart checked out our São Paulohostel and thanks to my IT skills we got a discount for our stay! They had a computer running on Ubuntu that was 'broken' according to some IT geeks, but in one way or another I managed to fix it and the hostel embraced my skills with this kind reward.

Then left this Gigapole for the nice colonial town Paraty. Unfortunately the buscompany lied to us about the length of the ride, so we arrived at 3am at the therminal without a map of the village. We decided to set up camp there for the next few hours until the sun and noisy travelers would wake us up. This time don't imagine a therminal like those on previous pictures. In Paraty it looked more like a shed then a21th century airport.

In the morning we discovered how pretty Paraty was and even better was our hostal! The barely awake nightguard showed us our room, this was strangely enough located in another building further in te street and even more dissapointing was that we had to sleep in a garage converted room! All happiness suddenly vanished.

The first day we wandered a little bit around town, but because we are about right underneath the sun, the heat was almost not bareable and shadow was non-existent in these cobblestone streets. The rest of the afternoon we spent under water waiting for the sun to set. The hostal was full of friendly travellers.(I met my first travellers from Alaska! I think I only miss Hawai and maybe one or two other states!) With a bunch of them we decided to go visit an orangery, gorope swinging, cliff diving, rock sliding and visit a cachaça distillery the next day. Put theseactivities in reverse order and you can imagine how fun the sliding, swinging and diving was!

That night we went (again) to a pre-carnival party, and all the following nights until today too. Carnival is more thanfive days of Carnival alone. It starts weeks before and ends weeks after theactual five days. (which will start now friday at midnight!)

The next day we went visiting a little town nearby called Trinidade where we could go to the beach or go to the beach, so we went to the beach.. Luckily we had two very cool Israeli girls in our company and we had an amazing day! We had our first lessons of Hebrew. We can fluently count until ten and that's it for me. But it is about the same as learning Mandarine Chinese, the words just make no sense. The busride home was the best ever, it waslike a never ending roller coaster with crazy zero-gravity moments. From time to time the G-force swung us on our neighbours, which was not that unpleasant because it was a group of Argentinian girls. The next 36-hours were filled with walking, harbour swimming, and more pre-carnival.

Sadly we left our Jewish friends at 5am and moved on to Rio de Janeiro. We were just here fortwo hours to wait for our bus to São João del Rei, so wedid not leave the therminal. While leaving Rio we had a quick glimpse of'El Christo Redentor' on top of his hill from the bus.

To help future travellers among you with the language barrier that we are encountering, Brazilians have sometimes very funny or strange pronounciations of words. For example Rio is pronounced 'Hio'. And if you want to be cool and say: 'I am dancing hip hop on my flip flops', here they make this sound like: 'I am dancing hippy hoppy on my flippy floppy's'. Now imagine 50cent saying that and you see how cool he would look. You can also try to guess the following band names pronounces in Brazilian Portuguees: Hedgy Hodgy Chili Peppers or Ledgy Zeplin.

Another thing about the language barrier that irritate us is the fact that sometimes we are told that our Portuguees is very good and sometimes we have the hardest times to get people to understand us. An example of my latest and worst attempt to a conversation with a mature woman. I was asking her where the a certain square was because there was a Bloco there that night. (A Bloco is a neighbourhood pre-carnival party. Here there's one every night.)

So I started to ask her where 'Sqare,Skweir,Squre,Suare,... X' was in town.I did not know theword for square, soIguessed at it. If you would ask this in English, they would immediately know what you mean, as long as you pronounce the name of the square right!?! Here they don't, so our attempt to a converstion went on. I asked it in every different way saying that it's not a street(this word I know), but something rectangular that is not a street. Alas, it did not work out so I gave up. Five minutes later I tried again and then suddenly there was a light in her eyes and she said: 'Oh, you want to go to square X where there is a Bloco tonight??' For a moment you try to stay calm and not kill the illiterate woman. She just pronounced it the same as I did the last15 minutes! This is a village, not a city, so there aren't 20 squares in town! And this is not the first time thatwe are lost in translation.

Apart from that, São João is a lovely town with too many churches. Our lodging is ahouse that beats all Brasilian prices! In exchange for that low price we get to sleep in a kind of retirement home (that calls itself a Poussada)for mentally disfuntional people who stare at you like the Google-Eyes add-on. There is a woman that lies in her bed all day long, one that wonders through the corridors with her wide-open eyes and also a man that watches 24/7 television in the living room without moving.

Yesterday we went visiting the beautiful town Tiradentes with its picture-perfect houses and churches. The whole region (Minas Gerais)is full of these rich towns, because many years ago this was one of the most important gold digging regions on our planet. The names of the towns are quite funny and referring to that too: Ouro Preto(Black Gold), Diamantina, Divinópolis, Teresópolis, ... The region is also known for its waterfalls, and the wrongly scaled map from the tourist info in Tiradentes showed one just out of town. As I said, it was wrongly scaled and it was a serious hike out of town to get there. Carlos was hungry and constantly naggingabout his low blood suar level that I gave in and at 100m from the falls we went eating in a bar. For $5 the woman served us an imperial dinner that we downed in no-time listening to the sound of the sky falling on the roof. As you can guess, we never made it to the falls. There was a kind man in the bar that proposed to take us back to São João. (Yes, there are very friendly people here!)

In São João the tourist information was the worst ever. They had no folders or mapsto hand out and could only speak a kind of Portuguees that we don't understand. Luckily when we asked for info about the surrounding towns in the main church in town, immediately three people strated running around and looking for papers and addresses that could help us! The sons of the Lord are and will always be the most helpfull people.

On this religious note, we are going to end and start thinking about the five next days of most intense Carnival of our lives. We hope all goes well at the other side of the Atlantic!

Shalom v Haava! (Peace and love)

C. & G. on the road!

PS: For those who aren't my virtual friends on Facebook and did not yet see our pictures, check out the following links and tell me if it works! If the IT God is favorable to us, there might be new pictures online today!

Uruguay: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=140752&id=634868429&l=5b9398d46b Brasil (part1): http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=142687&id=634868429&l=17ae13d2ea