Brasil: praias, samba, mulheres, caipirinha's and ... skincancer!
Yet again, the adventures continue.. This time we start in Cassino, a totally unknown place to Google Earth and even to our legendary Lonely Planet! BUT, through couchsurfing we found 3 girls that wanted to host us there. During our three day stay they showed us around town, the longest beach on earth (200-250km) and their university where they all studied Oceanology. We spent an afternoon chilling in their social room, before heading back to Rio Grande to catch a nightbus to Floripa!
Florianopolis (Brazilians call it Floripa) was an amazing place! We started with again 2 days of couchsurfing. The house of our CS-host was one big piece of art. Everything was custumized or covered with a painting or sculpture. We just didn't know where to look! They gave us our own fully equiped room and some time to rest from the all-night busride.
Afterwards we played a little bit with their dogs, but the old rheumatic dog was angry that the young dog always caught the ball and decided to bite me in the leg! Luckily my reaction was fast
enough and she only ripped my pants. So while we were getting a tour guided by the daughter, the mother (who is the artist in the house) sewed up my pants and made a piece of art out of it. Now I
have customised designer pants!
Our first night in Floripa we went downtown to see our first samba school rehearsal! We did not really know what to expect, but what we saw just beated every expectation! Gorgeous young ladies
dancing Samba (which is a crazy fast dance) on the loud drum beats of 50 men called 'La batteria'. Every girl was competing against her neighbour to become the 2010 Carnaval Queen.
The next day, again a sad rainy day, we decided to go to the beach for some fishing with a hook that I bought in Panama City and a nylon that I bought somewhere in a lost village along the Amazon river. Next to us was a local fishing to provide food for his family. He saw that we were desperately trying to catch whatever fish the sea would give us and getting pushed over by big waves, so he decided to give us some advice. The kind man saw that our hook was too big and nylon too short, so we decided to sit on the beach and watch him doing it properly. He really wanted to compete against us, but our weapons were not equal, so he told us he would make that night the same line as he had and we would compete the next day. Unfortunately the next day we did not make it to his house and the ultimate fisher of Floripa will forever stay unknown..
Instead we went to some other beaches at the other side of the Island called Santa Catharina. (Locals call the whole Island Floripa) Here we hung around and waited until the rain would stop, but in vain.. That night our host brought us to our second Samba school rehearsal and again: a perfect mix of the finest Brazilian women and (too) loud music!
The following day we decided to leave our CS hosts and move to the north part of the island to Canasvieira which is a little town packed with loud Argentinians. Beaches are packed with these guys, but they also make the best parties, so for a moment we had our Brazilian Springbreak on an awesome beach with nice surfwaves.
Sadly we had to leave this beautiful island one day, but luckily it was for another, even more beautiful island called Ilha do Mel. Again, after some expensive busrides and a boat trip we made it to this car-free paradise! The only traffic are beachboys with surfboards and local fishermen. We immediately saw this was the perfect spot to sit on the front porch of the hostel with some caipirinha's and watch the sun go down..
In the morning we decided to hike around the island from beach to beach, but the sun was shining from straight above us and burning through the skin of our shoulders, so the hike back was not as pleasant. The next day we heard that São Paulo (Sampa), our next destination, was plagued by rain and floodings! And so it was, the whole night the bus was searching for useable and non flooded roads to get to this giga-pole. With five hours delay we started again our search for the home of our CS hosts. This time it was a student house. The first days in Sampa were not as fun as expected. The rain and long distances between everything made it unpleasant. Little Italy was not as little and Italian as expected. That's why we decided to move to a hostal closer into the travellers center.
On a sunny morning we started our search for one, but sadly it was packed, so we moved to another one and another one before we found another one that had two beds available! All this was due to
the brainless Metallic fans that pay more than $150 to come see the show in Sampa and fill up all the hostels for REAL travellers!
All this on the side, we were happy to be in a fun neighbourhood and to cheer ourselves up we decided to go sale-shopping in the fashion capital of Brazil!
Yesterday we went with a group from the hostel to the São Paulo music festival in an old refurbished factory. (a little like Turn & Taxis) Today we went shopping again, but without any luck. So we decided to go visit a dermathologist in the hospital and let him check our diseases out. This was a unique experience.. We had to ask around more than 15 times before we finally found the right building in this huge complex. It was so packed that in case of a pandemic outbreak all 12mln Sampa inhabitants would be infected and die within a couple of hours! For Carlos it was a playground to check out all these people and guess which ugly diseases they have. For me it was more like an opportunity to collect as many diseases as a man can possibly cary. After trying to explain why we were there in our crappy Portuguees to all the nurses, we finally got our consultation and guess why there were so many people.. It is all for free!
The good news is that I don't have skin cancer! It was quite shocking when she told me that. I only had a little wart under my knee! (I already had it from home, but recently Carlos diagnosed this as a wart and not as 'dead skin') And I also have a brown stain on my arm, which was diagnosed as an alcoholic symptom! No it's not true, it's just lime juice that was on my skin when we were making caipirinhas in the sun probably and apparently that burns your skin.. Carlos on his hand wanted confirmation about his white little stains. This is just some fungus (no, don't imagine huge mushrooms on his arms) that will die thanks to some magic cream. Me on the other hand have to live with my wart until July when I come back home.. My loyal travel companion!
Be reassured, nothing will bring these two brave mochilleros down! We're going long and strong! Bit by bit we're getting ready for the carnaval. Our lodging is almost arranged, now we only have to
be there in time!
--> Ouro Preto 12/02-18/02.
Vaya con dios gringos! Nos vemos!
C. and G. on the road.
Carlos y Gaetano surfing couches and beaches in Uruguay!
Ola gringo's!
As you can see, the title of the blog has changed! Carlos (My good friend Karel from home) has joined his forces to my side and from now on we will conquer South America together! (Welcome new followers and fans of our travels!)
So my travels continued on the 6th of January when I left Bogotá for Buenos Aires(BA). I immediately loved Argentina when I tried to buy an orange juice in the McDo with 100 Pesos and they did not have any change, so they gave it for free! Thank you Ronald!
Afterwards I entered the MEGApolis of BA to find Carlos in a student residence where he was couchsurfing(CS). The first days in BA he showed me a little bit of the city, but as this will be my final destination, I will visit it properly next time. Our last night we left the residence and went CS in the appartment on the 21st floor of a socially isolated 57 year old creep. After a dinner with painful conversations where he accused all the British and Germans of being alcoholics and hating the rest of the world for any other possible reason, (I wonder why he was socially isolated..) we enjoyed his view over BA.
The next day we took a boat over the Mar del Plata which lays between BA and Montevideo. Sadly it was a sunday when we arrivd and there were as many people in Montevideo as in the Sahara.. To cheer ourselves up we started cooking our legendary pasta bolognese and immediately people approached us and were curious about the food! The city itself was nice, but Uruguay is twice as expensive as the previous countries I have been to, so we arranged a last minute CS for the next two days! This time is wasa 29 year old very friendly guy who cooked us a welcome-ravioli meal! The next day two other spanish CS'ers arrived at his place and with some friends of him we had a roof-top assado (BBQ) followed by a fierce poker game where Belgium prevailed!
After Montevideo we migrated to the east coast of Uruguay and started in the local Knokke-le-Zoute aka Monaco. We were happy to see Ferrari's and other overpriced cars again! The only better thing they have there are the thousands of Argentinian girls that are on holiday! The downside is that due to the presence of these rich fantsy-pantsy people, lodging prices are through the roof! We decided to do what the other Mochillero's (backpackers)do here: Drop your bag in the bustherminal, party all night long and take the first bus! This is not too hard because Argentinians only go to Boliche's (disco's) around 2-3am until sunrise.. It was a real challange to stay awake!
The next day the bus brought us to la Paloma where we climbed the lighthouse and caught up some sleep under the palmtrees before to take another bus to our next destination: Punte del Diablo! This sleeping surferstown lives on Bob Marley beats and never sleeps, and neither did we due to the ever presence of the Argentinians! I don't know how they manage it, but our daily life completely changed! Early breakfast followed by some beachtime, lunch, more beachtime (soccer,volley,surfing,..), first small dinner around 7pm, grocery shopping around 10pm and then cooking the big meal for the final dinner around midnight. Again the first night we made our pasta-bolognese famous in the hostel and everyone wanted to be our friend! Thesecond best thing Gaetanoprepared was, believe it or not: stuffed fish on the grill! Carlos can prove it (and he's a tough customer!) but he admitted itwas the best fish he ever ate and so did the four other people at our table! (As youwillsee inmy pictures, our cooking skills are well appreciated!)After that you have a social moment (yes, there is alcohol involved and no, we are not drunks). The night at the hostel ends around 4am, when everyone goes partying in a boliche until they have no energy left. For us that was around 6am, when we walked to the beach to see the sun come up. We repeated that for three days and then we had to leave the place, because we were about to collapse. Wedecided to migrate further up north to Brazil where our travels ar currently continuing..
Yesterday we walked about 12km from emigration officeto immigration office at the border, and took a bus that brought us to a city we did not had to be. So around midnight we took another bus to the city where we currently reside: Rio Grande. (For the newcomers here: there is a tab above on the page where you can follow our tracks and see my previous travel destinations)
Now we are waiting for our next CS hosts and in a day or two we will move to Florianopolis! This place is known for its 42 beaches and nothing more! So we might do some hiking from beach to beach to keep it interesting!
Beijos do Brasil,
C.& G. on the road!
PS: Carlos asked me to tell you he is not responsible for anything that has been written here.
Multimedia update from Colombia!!
A short update with some new pictures for those who haven't seen them yet:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=135940&id=634868429&l=02649d2edb
And also I had finally some time to convert and upload a couple of movies. I tried to embed them here, but it does not work, so I will upload them later on this blog. I will create a video page.
Next I will give you a list of the best songs that are being played on the Colombian radio stations! So you get an idea what music we dance on in clubs or in bars. I don't incourage anyone to download this illegally. You can also find them on YouTube. For the Latin music lovers, this is it! Vallenato is a special style that is mostly played in the Caribbean region of Colombia. Some of the other songs are famous all over South America. If you recall the Forro style, (from Brasil) I also added one of the best and most played. Enjoy the music!!
Dragon y Caballero - Fruta Prohibida
Diomedes Diaz - Listo para la Photo (Vallenato)
Peter Manjarres - Tragado de ti
Carlos Vives - Las Mujeres (Vallenato)
Blindaje 10 - amigos especiales
Calle 13 - fiesta de locos
Calle 13 - La Perla
Daddy Yankee - LLamada de emergencia
Daddy Yankee - Pose
Mauricio y palo de agua - Esa muchachita
Rakim y Ken - Te regalo amores
Tito el Bambino - El amor
Wisin y Yandel - Abusadora
Wisin y Yandel - Permitame
Wisin y Yandel - Noche de Sexo
Deja vú - Novo Amor (Forro)
Tonight at 10pm I'm leaving Bogotá and flying to Buenos Aires to continue my travels. This time together with my homeboy Carlos! (Karel, a friend from highschool)
Hasta pronto for more adventures! I miss it already and am happy to go again! (Also a little sad that I won't see my girlfriend for the next 3 months..)
Ciao amigo's!
G. on his last day of holiday!
¡Feliz Navidad y Prospero Año Nuevo!
At first Lina and me would like to wish you a Merry Christmas! I hope everyone had a good family time with lots of presents and too much food! I'm currently residing at the house of a plastic surgeon now, so for those who want a post-Christmas lipo.. Always welcome!
Second I'd like to wish everyone already a happy new year where everyone will quit his job and start travelling!!! The world is bigger then your little work cube, get out there and go see it for yourself instead of reading this and looking at my pictures and saying: 'I wish I was there..'
Here, Christmas was quite different than back home. It is also a family event, but we ate a starter at 6pm and then started dancing(salsa and other latino dances) until midnight. Then the little kids could open their presents and only after that we started eating(around 1am). And then we continued drinking and dancing! I was obliged to dance with all Lina's aunts, and there are quite a lot..
Tomorrow we leave for the Caribbean coast and will go camping for 3 days in the famous Tayrona park that is known for its most beautiful beaches in the world. NYE will be celebrated at a friends house in Santa Marta!
The last weeks of travelling have been quite calm. I left Cuenca(Ecuador) Early in the morning to cross the Peruvian border during the day.(bordercrossings can sometimes be quite messy) And this time that was really the case! Worst bordercrossing ever! My bus stopped at the emigration and I went stamping out, but when I wanted to return to the bus, it was gone.. with my luggage!! I did not remember the buscompany's name, but luckily I still had my ticket with the name on it. So I asked around and the bus went to the therminal and would be there with my luggage. I took a cab to the terminal and immediately a guy jumped in my cab and said he would guide me through the whole bordercrossing process.(ofcourse for a lot of money in exchange) I refused, but he insisted and kept following me. Once I had recovered my luggage I jumped into a new taxi and was rid of the first con. The cab dropped me at a supercrowded bridge not even 1km further, it was sunday, so market in the centre of the city. At that bridge con #2 was waiting for me and he showed me a taxi licence(which was fake I suppose) and he offered me a cabride to the immigration. I accepted, because it was 3km south of the city, but then we walked into a little alley where a old car was waiting with a guy in it, so my fake cabdriver was not even the driver. They took me nicely to the immigration, but then it all started going wrong. They wanted to give me a ride all the way to my desination in Peru(Mancora) for 80$! Or a ride to the closest therminal which they charged 30$! I wanted the bustherminal, but then they started driving super slow so I would miss my bus and needed to accept their 80$ offer. We talked for a bit and forgot the quarrel, but when we got closer to the therminal they started again asking for money through all kinds of reasons. When they drove into a little alley and asked for 30$ for gasoline it became too much for me. There was not even a gasstation, but they were going to buy it on the black market. They started harassing me and then I decided to pull out my swiss knife(which is quite big) and threatened the guy sitting in front of me and saying to the driver to bring me to the bustherminal without any more loops. Ofcourse I was afraid of my own act, but I had to do it, or I would have ended up paying hundreds of dollars!
They shut up and drove silently to a buscompany's HQ, because apparently there was no therminal! They dropped me off and I gave them 5$ for the effort and ran into the HQ. The busride costed me 2.5$, which is quite cheaper than the 80$ the cons tried to charge me.
Once in Mancora I arrived at my hostel, you can check it out on the net: http://www.lokihostel.com/mancora , I was happy again! It looked like a 5star resort on the beach with pool, bar, party's and only packed with young travellers and all this for only 8$! This immediately made me change my plans and I decided to stay there for 6 days! The plan was to surf, but the first day we could not go out there, because there was this huge swell coming in from Hawai. The waves where huge and someone almost drowned! I worked a bit on my tan and read a bit the first day, the second I started to surf. It is going ok. I master the broken waves, but the step to the unbroken waves is quite big, so that might take a while more. The rest of the week was about catching up with friends from previous cities, reading, tanning and surfing. (Quite a lazy week)
On fridaynight I took a bus to Lima. I sadly skipped Huaraz, but I might go back there later on. The busride to Lima was amazing! I had a cama seat, which means a seat that can go totally flat! It can be compared with business class flying, because there was a hostess bringing us food and drinks! I never had this luxury on a bus, and it costed only 3$ more than the regular seats..
'Lima is an ugly city with not much to do!' For a capital it is a sad city. Not much musea, not much safe neighbourhoods, ... The only pretty part is the beachside, which is the part where all the superrich live, so it is quite and police everywhere. I was happy to leave soon! The only good thing we've done was Chinatown! It is just too crazy to be true. It is packed with people, like being at a rockconcert in the streets. I have to admit everyone was Christmas shopping, but still. They have shopping centra looking like buildings with more than 2000 stores, but each store doesn't exceed 5 square meters and they all sell about the same. You can buy about anything in Chinatown and it all costs about nothing. Without exaggerating it all costs 10 times less then what we would pay back home!
They tried to sell us mini turtles for 2$ on the street! We were thinking about it for a moment to buy 10 of these and have a turtle race on the pool table in the hostel, but we had no idea what to do afterwards with the animals.. So we did not buy them, but you can buy about any animal you can imagine! I heard from another traveller that he saw an anaconda in a box and a baby gorilla! All of this ofcourse off the main market and in a back alley.
As you know I am now in Colombia in a city called Villavicencio. Haven't really seen much of it, except all the houses of Lina's family. I miss the Belgian Christmas weather! It doesn't really feel like Christmas when it is 25-30 degrees and sunny outside.
The sixth of January I fly out of Bogota to Buenos Aires to meet up with my friend Karel from Belgium and from then on we're going to conquer South America together for the following couple of months!!
I hope you all have a good time at home and let a lot of bottles pop for NYE!!
You can all save up my Christmasgifts for the 3rd of July when I come back home!
Big kisses to you all and may all your wishes come true!
G. on holiday
Si si Señor, yo soy de Quito!
Aloha!
About two weeks ago I entered Ecuador from Colombia and went straight to the capital: Quito. A huge city at an altitude of about 2,500m. I immediately made some friends and met Brad during breakfast. Then we decided to hike up Mt. Cotopaxi together.
As some of you might already know: WE MADE IT TO THE TOP!!!!! If you want to see the pictures I urge you to check out the following link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=127538&id=634868429&l=2b45fbf60d
It was an amazing hike. We left on Thursday morning and immediately hiked up Mt. Illiniza Norte. At first it looked an easy hike, but after arriving on the final slope which consisted of mainly sand and small stones, we started to feel how hard it was going to get! Three steps up, one slide down,... The weather was in our favour during the hike, but once on top it al changed and the clouds came in and stole our view away. During the hike down it started to hail and poor down rain, but eventually we made it to the refuge. The rest of the day was all about resting and reading near the stove. I drugged myself with 1 gram of Ibuprofen to get rid of the worst headache of my life! I tought my head was about to explode! This was a consequence of hiking down too fast, but we had no choice, the guide was running down so we had to keep up! The next day we took a jeep to Mt. Cotopaxi and in the afternoon hiked up to the refuge. (4,800m) Again just rested the whole time and went sleeping around 6:30pm. I slept only two hours before waking up at midnight, getting dressed fast, drinking some tea (you have to hydrate a lot at these altitudes) and then it was time. The weather was in our favour and even the moon was big and brightly enlightening our path. Under a beautiful starry sky we started hiking up around 12:30am. After an hour we reached the glacier and had to put up our crampons, rope up and take out the ice axe. We left half an hour after the first group and had already caught up with them. I immediately felt that the summit was within reach! Breathing went well and my legs were giving the best of themselves! Around 4am we reached the hardest part: a slope of about 50% or more that we had to walk up straight! There we understood why we hiked up ther sandy slope the day before. Here to we slided back down each step we took. It took us an hour to get 100m higher! We also had to stop moving regularly because on top of the slope was an ice wall which crumbled down in very little ice cubes that came down at a bullet speed! I got struck a couple of times on my legs, and I can assure you, it was not nice! After that there was another hard part were we had to go round an ice wall and we had nothing to put our feet on, so our crampons were straight into the ice and had to support us. By then the air was getting thinner and every step there was less oxygen to breathe. After every four steps we had to rest for 10 seconds to catch up with our breathe! Once we got closer to the top, Brad was getting cold but I encouraged him to continue the last steps and I wanted to be on top before sunrise! We eventually made it at 5:55am on top and the sun peaked over the horizon at 6am! I can assure you, the view was breathtaking! I forgot about my frozen toes for a while and enjoyed the astonishing view. Check out the pictures if yo want to get an idea what it looked like.
We stayed up for a while before hiking back down. The next group was one hour behind us, which can give you an idea how fast we hiked up. We were really well acclimatised! Some groups were just crawling to the top with no energy left. While walking down the emotions caught me for a moment. This was really one of my greatest achievements ever!
My toes are 'fine' now. They move perfectly and look normal, but they just give me a funny sleepy feeling back. If a doctor is reading this, please some advice if this is ok? It's getting better since I was in some natural hot springs yesterday.
So after the hike we were brought back to Quito where I met some friends back from Medellin. They were planning on attending the soccer final of the Ecuadorian cup. Quito - Cuenca. These are things you cannot miss, so exhausted I went cheering for Quito! During the game two of the twelve guys from the hostel got pickpocketted of their camera! (not me luckily) Quito eventually won the game with 3-2 in the final minute. Then hell just broke loose and we ended up in the middle of some overenthousiast supporters who were shouting and throwing garbage at the police. The first time in my life I got peppersprayed and I can tell you: it is not nice. Luckily I had my glasses on which was a good protection, so it was not that bad.
The next day I left for Baños, which is known for its extreme sports: rafting, canyonning, rope jumping, quad and buggy riding,... Most of it did not interest me, but when coming back from the supermarket with my groceries a guy in the street asked me if I wanted to jump of the bridge and it was now or never, so I went for it. It was the most horrible thing I've ever done! The first second you just feel like you're going to die before the rope catches you and swings you underneath the bridge! (It is not the same as bungee jumping, here you swing like a pendule under the bridge)
After doing that I left Baños, because the town in itself was not that interesting. Late at night I arrived in Cuenca, where I am residing now. Two days ago we went hiking in Girón to some waterfalls and yesterday we went to another town named Baños with some thermal hotsprings. We got ripped off and ended up in a hotel with thermal baths instead of the real deal which was somewhere else. I don't know how long I will stay here, but I'm leaving soon for Peru. There I'm going to spend some time in Mancora (surftown on the Pacific) and Huaraz (Village in the Cordillera Blanca where I heard you can do some very nice mountain biking between the +6,000m mountains with their white caps.)For the 23rd I have to be in Lima from where I will fly out to Bogota to have some holidays. (Travelling is intense, so once in a while you take a break and go on holiday.) I'm going to spend Christmas with Lina and then we're going with some other friends to the Caribean coast for New Year.
For those who are not yet informed, let's make it official: I have a girlfriend in Bogota, yesyes. Lina stole my heart while I was there previously, so it is nicer to celebrate Christmas with people you love instead of alone somewhere in Peru..
To finish I'm going to give you a little glossary, because the same questions keep on coming back.
The Lonely Planet: also called the Bible amongst travellers. This guidebook contains it all.
Hostel: This is not a hotel! It has the same purpose, but you sleep in big dorms (often 6 to 8 beds), eat together with other travellers and have a lot of social time in common rooms.
Traveller: People that are here with the same objective as me: seeing South America. You meet these guys in hostels, bus stations, on the streets, ... The first thing that happens when you enter a hostel is travellers asking you where you're from, where you've travelled, where you're going, how long you're travelling, if you want a beer, ... This is to show you how I meet all these people along the road.
Gringo: How travellers are called by locals. The Mexicans invented this word, it comes from Green Go! Which is what they shouted at the American military to get them out of their country. In Brasil everyone is a gringo, even people from other countries in South America.
Bus station: Has the same purpose and looks like an airport in Europe. This is the main transportation method throughout the continent.
Highway: Does not exist here. Only regular roads, that's why it takes several hours to get from one city to another.
Chicken, rice & beans: The most famous plate of food. I was told that in Peru they replace rice with potatoes. Luckily sometimes there are Mexican, Chinese, Indian,.. restaurants. Or sometimes hostels have a kitchen where you can cook all together. (My pasta with tuna is really appreciated by other travellers!)
Vaya con Dios amigos!
G. on the road
Cotopaxi - 5,897 m
Hey all!
This is a big moment now, I'm on the verge of one of the biggest achievements in my life. Tomorrow morning I leave Quito for a three day hike.
The first day we will climb up the Mt. Illiniza Sur (5,248 m) and on Friday night around 11pm I will attempt to climb the Mt. Cotopaxi which is 5,897 m high. I will be accompagnied by Bratt, a Canadian guy I met at breakfast in the hostel that also wanted to climb the Mt. Cotopaxi. We have a very professional guide that will show us the way up.
Two days ago I did some acclimatization and hiked up the Mt. Pichincha (4,784 m). Normally you can take a cable car up to 4,100 m, but due to unknown reasons they did not open it in the morning, so I had to start hiking from 2,700 m. Around 4,000 m you start to feel that breathing gets harder and your steps become half as large.
Because the cable car was closed, I was the only person on the mountain. The last 50m were pure vertical climbing and for that reason I did not make it to the top.. I stopped at about 15 m from the top, because it was getting way to difficult and what you climb up, you have to climb down. So I wisely decided toclimb back down, because I did not have the appropriate gear and because there was a huge abyss behind me..
Back at 4,100 m I hoped the cable car would work by 2pm as they promised in the morning, but unfortunatelyagain for unknown reasons it was not open. I had to hike down to Quito when it started to hail and poor down rain. Soaked I got back at the hostel for a 12 hour sleep!
I hope all goes well and that we make it to the top. You hear stories about people coughing up blood, altitude headaches, freezing feet, ... So a lot can happen to prevent us getting on top of the highest active volcano in the world! I think the top is further away from the centre of the earth than the top of the Mt. Everest is! (For those who don't get this: the earth is not a perfect ball!)
Saturday or you'll get the news if we made it or not. I have never tested my body as severely as this. May God guide us up there!
Vaya con dios!
G. on the road
LINKS TO PICTURES:
Bogota:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=123215&id=634868429&l=031ac4d6ce
Medellín to Equador:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=126382&id=634868429&l=f024bc4130
Colombia, el único riesgo es que te quieras quedar!!
Colombia, the only risk is that you will want to stay. This is the slogan of Colombia and I totally agree!! I am now in Quito and I left that beautiful country early this morning!
Now what happened the last days/weeks?! A lot of crazy and fun stuff! Lets start of where I left: Medellin! The city of the gorgeous women, Botero and Don Pablo Escobar! Gorgeous women were not that gorgeous, so I was quite disappointed. Botero on the other hand fulfilled my expectations! A whole museum with his paintings called: Hombre, Hombre y Caballo, Mujer, Frutero,... And they all represent what they are supposed to but only in a very fat way! Then I missed out on the Pablo Escobar tour, so that was also quite sad. But to compensate the sadness we spent a whole day in a huge waterpark just out of town with awesome slides! (pictures and movies later)
After Medellin I went down to the coffee region with an American Couple. We went to Salento which is known for its palmtree forest which is unique in the world and of course the coffee finca's. (farms) Sadly enough I didn't do any of these, because I was meeting up with Lina and a friend of hers in Cartago nearby for a long weekend. I'm not going to write too much about it, most of you already heard bits and pieces. It was all about a big family party out of town in a huge mansion owned by the man of the cousin of the friend of my friend. (Here everybody is your friend, you can't compare life here with at home) So the main attraction of the party was a man who was hired to slaughter a pig and we were supposed to eat it. Shortly said it was delicious! The man even made the best (and fresh) blood sausage EVER! The owner of the mansion is the brother of a 'bad boy' whose name I'm not putting up here, because I don't want the CIA to read my blog and track me down. If you want to know, the guy is in jail in the states for life. So you can imagine which kind of business he is into and why the family is loaded.
So after that amazing weekend I continued my road down the PanAmericana to Cali Caliente where the slogan goes: 'Plastic is fantastic!' . The city of Cali is seen as the world leader in plastic surgery and the results are quite stunning and can be openly seen on the streets! Fake asses, boobs and noses are the only pretty thing about this city and that's why I left after a day to Popayan more to the south. In this little town all the houses are colonial style and painted in white. Quite pretty, but after 2 hours you have seen it, so the day after I left for San Agustin.
A six hour busride over the worst road in Colombia! Full of rocks, holes and bumps that lead you through some FARC region to this pearl of a town in the middle of nothing. Military buildings along the road have metal nets over their roofs so granates won't hit them. This is how bad it can be in these regions! Once in San Agustin it was safe. The hostel was amazing and because the owner is a french guy he loved me immediately and I could celebrate his wife's birthday with them. But after a glass of good wine and some desert I went back to my friends who weren't invited..
The first day we went for a jeeptour around the region to visit the Archeological(UNESCO) sites, some amazing waterfalls and a roosterfight arena. (One of the two things I wanted to see. The next is some cage fighting in Brasil!) The second day we went rafting down the Rio Magdalena, which was a very cool experience!
This was my ultimate day in Colombia before the 24hour busride that brought me here in Quito!
If you want to see the road I travelled so far, check out the 'KAART' tab above.
Pictures will follow one of these days!
Ciao,
G. on the road
Bogotá es MUUUUUYYY CHEVERE !!!!
Again, Colombia proved itself as being an awesome country!
I originally intended to stay a couple of days in Bogota, but eventually stayed more than a week! First day was just some walking around the city and the architecture and getting to know the hostel and other travelers. Second day was museum day! The police museum had a nice collection of things related to Pablo Escobar and his death. Very friendly guide, but he was quite shocked when I told him I visited a cocaine factory around Santa Marta.. After that I went to the Museo del Oro, which is famous for its collection of golden statues and ornaments from pre-Hispanic cultures. It was really worth it! It took me 3hours to get through the whole museum! Afterwards I met a girl in the Juan Valdez café that was studying some financial course. We talked a bit about finance in Colombia and her job. You meet friendly people everywhere!
On Wednesday the night guard from the hostel was supposed to wake me up at 4am so I could catch a bus to Villa de Leyva, which is a very pretty little village about 4hours outside of Bogota. Like all other night guards he was asleep and luckily I woke up at 4.30am so I had to check out, call a cab and get to the bus terminal in 30 minutes! (the cab ride in itself normally takes 45minutes..) We crossed about every red light at full speed, but eventually I got there 2minutes in time! Travelling is very intense sometimes!
All the houses in Villa de Leyvaare white and the streets are roughly paved, which makes it almost car free and very safe and calm to walk around. The paleontological museum was a waste of time, they had about 100 little fossils, so I spent my time walking around town and eating 'postres' (desserts) in La Galleta, which were recommended by my friends in Bogota! The next day in Villa de Leyva I rented a bike to ride in the countryside around town. A lot of hills, but with very nice dry nature!
Back in Bogota I had my first private salsa class! One intense and sweaty hour of dancing! But I had to learn it to be ready for my birthday party.. To celebrate it on Friday the 13th, I treated myself a visit to the Botero Museum and the girls invited me for a delicious pizza lunch! (Supposed to be typical Colombian pizza! Everything is supposed to be typical in this country..) I also had to buy a shirt to be decent to party, because all my T-shirts start to have sweat stains that remain!
All dressed fancy-pantsy we went to a club Bar:Be where we had a ‘chevere' night on the VIP platform! Which was not so large and people fell off regularly.. Saturday the girls came to pick me up for a trip on Monserrate (Hill that dominates the city) and we stayed there to check out the sunset over Bogota. (Which was amazing!) At night we went eating with some ex colleagues of Lina (one of the four girls) and I could stay in her mansion, because we would leave early on Sunday to Ubate where the parents of Ana-Maria (another of the four) have a countryside mansion. We had a super weekend to recover from the intense week in Bogota. Relaxing and walking on the countryside. We played some Tejo, the Colombian version of petanque. So as you can expect it involves exploding things! It is way more exciting than petanque! Pictures will tell you more. In the evening we went to another little village where an Americo-Indian festival took place and where everyone participated in traditional dances, and so did we!
Against my will I had to leave Bogota last night for Medellin. Lots of good times, but the trip has to continue..
Greetings from Medellin!
G. on the road