Facebook

Facebook is good to have when you are out travelling meeting loads of people, but it is also a great tool to have some control over what happens back home. Like how my clothes are doing and what fun stuff they are attending. Featuring my little sister Kine who has been in my closet and putting pics on facebook (storesoester ser deg!):

World's Most Dangerous Road

An article about the WMDR and the company Gravity which I am working for (in Norwegian): http://www.dagbladet.no/dinside/2008/09/19/547430.html

Me doin the road for the second time

Back in La Paz, "for good"

In the end I decided to stay another few months in Bolivia so Tuesday I said good bye to Jitka and headed north again. That ended up being a looong journey. First of all, Bolivia has about 10 meters of asphalt which is pretty much distributed around La Paz. This makes all bus rides in the southern region quite bumpy and subject to a high probability of failure. Secondly the roads are narrow with hundreds of hundreds of meters drop on either one or both sides of the road (which kinda makes it more comfortable taking the night bus - what you don't know doesn't hurt you). Anyway, I was all set for a hell of a ride that night when we left the bus station about an hour late (normal), but after about 30 min we stopped. A truck was stuck in one of the curves and there we had to wait for 8 hours (!) before we could continue the 8 hour bumpy road to Potosi. I missed my bus to La Paz and had to take another night bus. This was more comfortable with room for European legs, asphalt almost all the way and we had only one stop (for about an hour) due to mechanical default...

The last few days I have tried to sort out my life a bit. I have talked to a mountain bike agency here in La Paz and it seems like I'll be working there for a couple of months (meting the bosses tomorrow to get everything settled). While yesterday Bolivia finally got to me after three months with a cooperative digestive system. I spent most of the day alternating between the toilet, the bed and the couch in the common area at my hostel. My one trip out of the hostel was quite unsuccessful.. What happened? I decided to get out of bed to get a sandwich and some juice at a cafe about 5 min from here. Long story short; I ended up having a black-out and came to my senses having some guy taking my pulse. I got my sandwich in a bag and a nice couple from England followed me back to my hostel... The really depressive part of this story is that I had to have gotten these nasty bacteria from the awesome food at the Arabic Restaurant or the amazing empanada-ish things stuffed with potato and chicken from the old lady on the corner. Neither which I am ready to give up... Anyway today is a much better day and I could treat myself to an “expensive” lunch since my food expenses yesterday was kept at a minimum…

The diversity of Bolivia

Lake Titicaka has two sides; the Peruvian and the Bolivian. After a few days in Puno I got on the bus to the Bolivian side. Since I got the last ticket of the day I also got the opportunity to sit in the co-pilot seat observing crazy driving and counting dead dogs. However it was worth it; Copacabana was a really nice chilled town with amazing colors and scenery. However after almost a week all together hanging out at the worlds-highest-something-lake it was time to move on. This was not necessarily straight forward since Bolivians do enjoy the occasional road blockage and demonstration, but after a few extra hours with mini van, taxi and walking in- between 1000ish police men in the city centre I finally got to my hostel.

This was by coincidence Sean’s hostel as well (Sean was one of the Australian guys I met and travelled a bit with in Brazil) and he could therefore have the honour of going mountain biking with me on the World’s Most Dangerous Road. The latter being terrible expensive and touristy but a lot of fun. The day after sitting on the bike for 4 hours it was time for another mountain. Some pictures from the three day trek to Huyana Potosi (6088 m):
After La Paz it was of to Potosi and a tour of the mines with Jitka. Next to the close encounter with one of the local idiots in Arequipa this was the scariest thing on my trip so far. Picture of me and the asbestos:
Eight hours on a bus (including one break down and one change of bus) me and Jitka arrived in Uyuni, with a following three day tour of the Saltar de Uyuni with more. The tour can be described as AMAZING! We are talking salt desert, flamingos, lagoons, geysers, volcanoes etc

And now I am in Tupiza trying to decide what to do next...