Michele

Everything comes to an end...

2009-04-07T22:32:00.020+02:00

... and now, after more than 7 months in South America I am back home. My last months were hectic and the internet in Patagonia was slow and expensive. But here is a quick summary of my last 1,5 after I left Valparaiso.

Pucon

Here I climbed Volcano Villarica, went rafting and met Josh from Canada who I ended up trekking with the next three weeks.

Bariloche

Back in Argentina. A two day trek around Pampa Linda.

El Bolson
At the little hippie town El Bolson we ate a lot and had a day out climbing.

El Chalten

32 hrs by bus from El Bolson you find El Chalten. Tiny town that is home to the amazing Fitz Roy, one of the most technical climbs in the world. Josh and I had a great day trekking before having about 1 kilo of dinner each.

El Calafate

THE tourist attraction in Calafate is the Perito Moreno Glacier. Pretty nice with a lot of ice :-)

Torres Del Pine

Back in Chile. Pretty much 120-something kms in 4 days, numerous blisters and a lot of glaciars, lakes, rivers, mountains etc.

Cordoba

Luckily we found some cheap flights to Buenos Aires from El Calafate so we didn't have to spend more than 40 hrs on bus to get out of Patagonia. Anyway in BA I said bye to Josh and went to Cordoba. Here I did a lot of relaxing, met some really cool people and finally, skydiving. Here I also laid of the steaks after somebody asked if I was pregnant, when I was just a bit bloated after to much all you can eat asado in BA....

Foz de Iguazu

On the brazilian side of the waterfalls I met Sandy, a friend from back home. We had a day on the brazilian side and one on the Argentinean side and saw a lot of water...

Then followed a week of shopping (a lot), eating (steaks, a lot of it) and a soccer game (Argentina vs Venezuela) in Buenos Aires, before going home. So here I am wondering what to do next......

Beach Babe

2009-02-17T23:29:00.010+01:00

I went to the beach (beach, peach, bitch is by the way a tongue curl for the spanish speaker) yesterday, my first time touching the ocean in 5 months (only touching it was frezzzzzin). I went with Anita from the hostel and we enjoyed 2 hrs on the beach at Vin(j)a del mar. We even got to see a attempt of robbery close up and I had a McDonald burger for the first time in forever, what an exciting day!

My plan was to try to smooth out my farmer's tan which I have been working on since I left the Galapagos, and end up looking a bit like....

... Gisele, but my plan failed miserably and today...

.... this is me!!!!

Mendoza, and now; Chile

2009-02-15T23:22:00.005+01:00

Mendoza homes the second highest peak outside of the Himmalayas; Aconcauga which is almost 7000 m. Would loved to have climbed that baby, but due to lack of money (going with a guided group would have cost about 3000 dollars plus plus plus) and climbing partners (aint quite ready to run up there by myself) I will have to do it a bit later. Anyone interested?

However, I got to squize in a 2 day trek in the park with Bruno from Argentina. Where the second day we went up to Plaza Francia at 4200 meters and walked in total 13 hr. Beautiful weather, beautiful mountain and great walk!

<--Sign found at base camp. Nice combination with the 200 dollar fine you will get if you don't use the public toilets in the park, which is pretty much one at the start and two next to each other one placein the park... extreme trekking.

My last day in Mendoza I spent on a bike (with a basket but without breaks) cycling through the wine district. At the first winery I met Suzanna from Holland and Mike and Jeremy from England who I got to be friends with for the day. Wine tour was apparently a good combination with night bus journey as the bus driver had to come and wake me up and get me out when everyone had left the bus and got their luggage in Valparaiso yesterday morning. So now I am in Chile. Was supposed to leave for Pucon tomorrow, but due to a great hostel with amazing beds (no bunk beds thank god! I have most likely acquired a permanent head injury after banging my head on the top bunk x number of times) I've decided to spend one more day here.

And the trip continues; Argentina

2009-02-06T18:15:00.016+01:00

After more then 3,5 months in Bolivia it was time to move on. Therefore, the 3rd of Feb I joined Dale on the bus to Villazon. This was a 18 + hr local bus (the type that is packed with cholitas sleeping on the floor and spiting coca leaves in my seat) ride where we were entertained by Take on me (A-HA) inbetween all bolivian pan flute music... Arriving in Villazon it was time to say bye to Dale (who was of to Buenos Aires) and get on the bus to Salta. The following 9 hr (including some kind of check of something by the police in the middle of nowhere) in an Argentinean bus on Argentinean roads was easy peasy after the previous bus ride. So now here I am... Havent had a steak or climbed any mountains yet but it is soon to come...

But first a tiny summary of my last month in Bolivia:

A day in Peru... when my 90 days ran out so a quick visit to Peru was made. According to the sign they hope to have you back soon, however not within 24 hr... except if you can bribe the police.. of course.

Party, party, party... and alot of it. Resulting in, among other things, me not having a iPod... It died due to excessive exposure to beer. Not good when the average bus ride the next months will be 20 hrs..

A visit to the hospital......and an insight in the Bolvian health system and its inefficiency when Cristian crashed into a little girl that suddenly came jumping into the road. Cristian broke his color bone and needed some stiches. While the girl got a fracture on her skull. Even though there was a chance of blood clot in her brain nothing was done before after 2 hrs!

Jungle Rail Trail... a great cross country ride through the Yungas with loads of waterfalls and landslides to cross. However not a very good idea for me (who had been sitting on my ass most of the time the last couple of months) to go with a bunch of guides and people that have been cycling through south america for a couple of months and who also enjoy practising adventure triathlon (!). I was shattered in the end.

Happy New Year!!

2009-01-03T17:45:00.017+01:00

A quick summary of 2008; Started out with a three week IB- trip to Vietnam, followed by a solo one week tour in Laos. Coming back I had five long months in Trondheim writing my final diploma (still taking time to go to Switzerland to see my friend Max from Singapore and having two weeks at home for Easter with loads of snow getting to go skiing every day). My masters (which was the source of a lot of tears and woken nights) was handed in the 17th of June and luckily managed to get me a pretty decent grade in the end. Summer was relaxing, no work only pleasure. End of July I went on a 10 day sail trip on Libra doing parts of Svalbard - amazing! And then, the 19th of Aug I left for South America and before I know it; its 2009!!!

The 31st of Dec I and 3, significantly more fit and experienced, bike guides left La Paz for an alternative New Years eve celebration on bikes. Got to see parts of Bolivia that, judging on the attention we received, not many gringos get to see. This means no Lonely Planet who could advise us on where to stay, eat and drink, nor are there any maps of the area, or at least maps that are correct... This resulted in not quite knowing how far it was (further than first thought) or if we would get a room for the night. In the end we did find a small village that would let us have a room in the end. When we arrived we had a New Years eve toast with the local soccer team before pretty much laying flat in our "beds" getting served rice, chips, egg and tomato. The only reason we were awake at 12 was that the locals were partying hard outside and when we finally fell asleep around 1 am our drunk friend came barging in with some unidentifiable meat (Dale whom ate the whole thing in the dark said it was chicken, in daylight it was easily identified as pork), banana and potatoes. The morning after we paid, which pretty much involved insisting our amigo to take the money (he wanted the equivalent of 50kr or 7$ for accommodation, three meals and snacks for 4 people, we wanted to pay him 4 times that). Not our everyday in La Paz when it is a daily battle not to be over charged for everything.

New Years Eve

One thing we did take for granted was that we could get water on the way. I can now advise you the following; going outside the usual tourist areas bring loads of gringo friendly water, or at least purifying tablets!! The second day was quite a dehydrating experience with 5 hours uphill, 20-something-celcius and no water (our main source of liquid was coca cola!!). However in the end, after getting a lift the last killer uphill we reached Irupana where we could gorge in water, have two dinners and take a hot shower (great even though having to wear clothes we had been wearing a couple of days).

The ride

The 3rd day it was a five hour bus ride through the Yungas almost back to La Paz, jumping of (rough estimated) 30 km from home and then riding back. The last part was done through crazy La Paz in dark... the scariest part of the trip. Alive, home and clean the crew and Gus went to Argentinean Steak House having 600 gr of beef each...

A perfect way to end 2008 and start 2009....

Christmas 2008

2008-12-29T23:49:00.009+01:00

Hope everyone had an amazing Christmas. For me Christmas pretty much began the 22nd when Dale got a tree for the guys’ apartment. The tree with alternative ornaments accompanied by the other Christmas decoration is found below (Aunt Karin I promise, the Christmas penis was not my idea!)

Anyway, the four of us watched Elf (a great Christmas movie with Will Farell), while two of us continued with a bad horror movie before going to bed about 3-4 am. Already at 12ish the next door neighbor started yelling and shouting (covering pretty much all the bad words I know in Spanish and some in English). However right after going to bed he started, what I thought was, slamming things making it impossible to sleep.... After a small nap in the morning we woke up to 20-something bullet holes in the wall, including some chattered glass and wood where we were watching tv....

The 24th I worked from 9 am to 5 pm, having Christmas eve dinner (hamburger and chips) at the only open place: the Irish pub after trying to order take-away from Mr.Pizza. And as a Christmas present the Bolivian police decided to let the crazy neighbor out. He has however luckily not chosen to show his hate for gringos the last few days.

The 25th I woke up to coffee in bed followed by champagne breakfast, followed by wine, fernet and whisky, and finally a Christmas dinner which was great but a bit neglected as a consequence of the previously mentioned liquids. One of the highlights of the dinner was Swedish Mike's meatballs that started out at meatballs and ended up as meatcakes to my enjoyment.

To the left the Swedish tradition of making meatballs while on the right you find the Scottish tradition of drinking a lot of whisky....

And next: New Years!

Pictures from home

2008-12-19T23:34:00.003+01:00

What does NOT help when you are getting a bit homesick and want to spend x-mas with your mom, dad and little brother and sister(s):

However, I did manage to change my ticket in the end so for the next holiday (Easter) I will be home!

Both me and time have been flying

2008-12-11T23:37:00.007+01:00

Not very frequent blogg updates,I know... but time is flying in La Paz. I am living with Kass (a nice english guy working at Oliver's travels), his girlfriend and a pregnant cat (which I am uber scared is going to give birth while I am at home alone - Tone Mette if you read this give me some tips from your year long exprience of midwifing for your cats). Try to do some spanish lessons but I am soon giving up, I work pretty much five days a week and go on an occassional bike ride. The result of Friday's trip is found below. Warning: These pictures do NOT do justies for my injuries, which where located pretty much all over my body.

I am just super glad that I didn't break anything or loose my teeth (or went down the 500 m cliff not far from me). A less fortunate girl can be seen if you go to You Tube and type in "frontbreak face plant"...

So what do you do two days after being beaten up, and with a knee that is the size of a small tennis ball? Go on a new bike ride! Here is one of the pictures from me and Osmar's trip on Sunday. Great weather, amazing Bolivia, three punctures and two tired souls at the end of the day . I should say that I look cool in the picture below, but don't be fooled! I did almost sacrifice my teeth - again - while going down, or at least trying to, some stairs....

And if anyone was wondering; no I am not coming home for Christmas and it is not to easy to change my flight as first being told. So when I will be back in Norway is a mystery...

Facebook

2008-11-21T21:40:00.008+01:00

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

2008-11-16T01:15:00.007+01:00

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"

2008-11-09T13:13:00.006+01:00

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

2008-11-02T20:44:00.010+01:00

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...

Lists

2008-10-21T21:23:00.003+02:00

What I lost in Arequipa:
- weight (lot of trekking)
- some dignity (too much vodka)
- skin on my right knee (victim of an attempt of robbery)
- a sports bra (laundry service)
- Ulvang trekking socks (laundry service)
- Lee jeans (laundry service, I think..)

Books I have read while I have been gone:
- Anybody out there (Maran Keys)
- Fem mennesker du moeter i himmelen (Mitch Albom)
- The motorcycle diaries (Aleida Guevara)
- Orkestergraven (Unni Lindell)
- Begravde hunder biter ikke (Gunnar Staalesen)
- A bed of red flowers, In search of my Afghanistan (Nelofer Pazira)
- Et godt menneske (Nick Hornby)
- The little lady agency (Hester Browne)
- Land of the blind (Jess Walter)
- Nakenbad (Carl Hiaasen)
- Do travel writers go to hell? (Thomas Kohnstamm)

Some Spanish words me gusta:
- por qué (why)
- porque (because)
- que lindo (what a beautiful/nice something)

- the ending -ito/-ita such as pocito, Michelita, Noruegita etc.

- bombero (fireman)

- vamos (let´s go)

- chevere (cool)

Arequipa

2008-10-12T22:31:00.011+02:00

Arequipa is Peru's second largest city and my home for the last week, or at least the home for my backpack. What I have done in Arequipa and around:

- Sightseeing

Monasterio Santa Catalina

- Colca Canyon

Three day trek in the Colca Canyon, which is according to Wikipedia more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon!

Scenic beauty

My room for a night

- El Misty

El Misty is one of the volcanos surrounding Arequipa and this weekends challeng. First day we walked up to our camp at about 4700 meters. Since I am travelling alone I got the honour of sharing the tent with the guide. It was below freezing and I was so cold and my main challenge that night was therefore getting close enough to Angel (the guide) to enjoy some heat from him and his sleepingbag without being unappropriate... Anyway up at 1 am and at about 7ish in the morning me and Gavin (the four others in our group got altitude sickness and had to turn around) could enjoy hanging out at 5822 meters above sea level.

Peru - Inca and Tarzan

2008-10-08T00:55:00.014+02:00

The 22nd of September I had to leave Ecuador with still loads to do and see. Since I wanted to do the Inca Trail I had to book the tour ahead of time and did it way before I went to South America (guess I just have to go back to Ecuador some day). Anyway in Lima I met up with the group and my room mate Michelle (how cool is that; Michele Hansen and Michelle Johnson!!). Lima did not impress me so I ended up having a burger for lunch, spent the afternoon in my room with HBO, before I finally got out of bed to have a Papa Jones pizza for dinner.

The 23rd we went to Cuzco, the day after we visited the Sacred Valley and spent the night in Ollantaytambo before starting the Inca Trail. The first evening we had the camp site for ourselves which meant that we (people from the group, the guides and a couple of porters) could play some soccer before dinner. A good one since I still, a week and a half later, have a decent bruise from a close encounter with Toby. This first night I let Michelle sleep by herself in the tent while I took my sleeping bag outside to enjoy an amazing view of the stars. Day two was a bit more challenging having to go through Dead Women’s pass (4200 meters), however since I had been some time in the altitude before the trek it was pretty easy and spent the time in front practising Spanish with the porters. Day three, one day before Machu Picchu, my camera decided to not work anymore! So therefore I made Michelle take a few pictures of me at MP ( the picture to the left is me and Hayley) while I borrowed her camera to take a snap shoot of the two alpacas putting on a show for the tourists where the result is the picture on the right.

After finishing the Inca Trail five of the fourteen on the trek went to the jungle. Even though we did not see the jaguar Michelle was hoping for we got to enjoy some wildlife (rats that can be up to 60 kg, spiders, birds, alligators, a sloth etc) and a climate that brought me right back to my year in Singapore. After two days in the jungle I said good bye to my friends and went back to Cuzco, again on my own. After some recommendations from a British girl I met in Rio I went to Loki Hostel where I got a demonstration of how small this world is, because there was Henrik - one of the guys from NHH who was in Singapore on exchange at the same time as me. Scary! I spent some relaxing days in Cuzco before leaving for Arequipa for more trekking.

Galapagos

2008-09-24T14:07:00.011+02:00

Monday 15th through Sunday 21st I visited the Galapagos. These Ecuadorian islands are known for its beauty and amazing wildlife , the latter being of interest for Charles Darwin when he visited the islands 1830-something. However visiting has its cost - literally; the islands are expensive! Putting your feet on land and you have to pay 100 US, in addition to everything being twice the cost compared to Quito.

After a relaxing first day on the island the second day I joined a diving trip. Cold water and a long and windy boat trip back was what I needed to catch a cold which faithfully accompanied me the rest of the week. Thursday I joined a 4 day cruise as people had been saying that going on a boat trip is a must when in the Galapagos. Did some great snorkling with sealions and turtles, went on some good tours, met some interesting people and except that there were a few too many latin lover wannabes among the crew it was a perfecto!

Some pictures of the creatures of Galapagos where at the top left a sealion is nursing her baby, then me and a giant tortoise at Charles Darwin's research station in Santa Cruz, the top left you have a pelikan getting a snack, before the two below show an marine iguana and a blue footed booby.

Illiniza Norte, 5100-and-something above sea level

2008-09-15T02:15:00.013+02:00

This weekend me and Rachel hiked/climbed Illiniza Norte, a mountain about 2 hours north from Quito. The first day we had a nice little warm up to prepare our final hike. Beautiful day where Ecuador displayed some scenic beauty. Some animals from that trip; a horse to the right (!) and an alpaca in the middle (why have a sheep when you can have an alpaca?) and some cows to the left

Sunday we got up at about 4.30 and started our hike. Illiniza Norte is not very difficult to hike/climb but the altitude has its effects and above 4000 meters I felt like an 80 year old with KOLS. However we made it in the end and had the pleasure to have a snack 5100 meters above sea level. The weather was not as it was the day before and we pretty much did not see anything, but it was beautiful anyway and the snow in the air made it hard to believe that we were not that many kilometers from the equator line. (By the way, did you know that Ecuadorian mountains are further from the earth center than mountains in the Himalayas due to the ecuator buldge?). This last picture is Rachel, Marco and me on the top

My week

2008-09-10T03:20:00.010+02:00

This has happened since my last blog entry:

--- I had dinner at "my parents" son and daughter-in-law and managed to marinate the table cloth with wine and in general was the strange foreigner that did not know the difference between ano and año.
--- Luckily I learned the difference between ano and año before I could brag about my number of anuses to too many. I also turned 26 años last week and since I did not have my party planer Maria to organize it I ended up having a beer with two chickas before going to bed early.
--- My "mom" and "dad" here in Quito have become grandparents, a nice excuse to go shopping. Hopefully my friends in Norway can make some babies soon so I can do more shopping at stores similar to Bebe Mundo!!
--- I went to Otavalo this weekend with Amy and Rachel. We went early in the morning on Saturday did some shopping at the gigantic market, before our "extreme" hike to the waterfall. We did not exactly go the quickest and easiest way, a situation most likely to happen when I am the one with the most sense of direction. In the evening after "freshening up" these party animals had an ice cream and went to bed at 10 pm. Sunday we had an awesome hike around a laguna, beautiful view and nice weather and I am of course sunburned since I frequently forget that my skin color is some shade of blue. The picture to the left shows the crossing of the grande river. I stripped down to my underwear and did the crossing in approximately 10 seconds and afterwards I could enjoy Amy's and Rachel's entertaining journey. The two next ones are from our hike around the laguna.

I wanted to upload some more pics but the internet is not working with me... so for now; enjoy

Learning Spanish in Quito

2008-08-31T01:19:00.005+02:00

Ilha Grande turned out to be good, I´ve seen similar in Asia so I was not totally amazed but I had a couple of nice days there before me and four others left for Paratay a small town with a nice little old quarter. There we spent one night. Friday me, Simon and Sean took the buss to Sao Paulo, I spent a few hours hanging out with them before I left for the airport to hang out there waiting for my 6 o clock flight to Quito. One afternoon in Sao Paulo was for me more than enough even though a Brazilian girl diagnosed me as insane leaving Sao Paulo on a Friday without experiencing the nightlife. So than I left Brazil, despite all warnings, without being mugged, killed or assaulted in anyway and I didn’t see any dead people either.

After a long night, long flight and awful delay in Lima and no pickup at the airport and some phone calls I ended up at my new home for the next two weeks. I will stay with Marcia and Jorge while I do my language course. Very nice couple that do not speak English, therefore the dictionary has been my best friend the last few days. I had my first class today and I now know more than ordering beer and hopefully I don’t encounter more serious problems ordering at restaurants. More because in Paratay when it was dinner time I eyed some bacalhau on the menu, for me this is a tomato based dish with potatoes, olives and fish (often Norwegian) - it is delicious. However I did want to assure that it was bone free and since bone was not in my portouguese/spanish vocabulary I really made a scene by doing some drawings and involving half of the restaurant to sort this out and finally the waiter could confirm that there were no bones present in the dish. Anyway, it ended in me having four small fried fish balls for dinner (boneless). How could I know that bacalhau actually means just cod in Spanish…

Since I never got a picture of me at Ipanema here is one taken in Kirkenes visiting Gunhild this summer. The only appropriate way to wear a bikini in Norway, with wool underneath

Ilha Grande

2008-08-26T20:05:00.004+02:00

After almost a week in Rio I have now arrived Ilha Grande, where I will stay a few days before I head towards Sao Paulo. My first week ha been awesome! The hostel was great, the tours were great, dancing samba to 4 o clock in the morning was even better! Night food being beef on a stick for 6 NOK is also something I can live with. People are nice and smiling, and gorgeous!! We are talking Gisele Bundchen at every other corner and not to mention hot grandmas with six packs.. and if you ignore the, too common, small Speedos there are loads of hot guys as well. Conclusion: go to Rio!! (but maybe not for your honey moon)

Ciao!

Svalbard

2008-08-06T21:54:00.007+02:00

It is now less than two weeks before I leave for South America. For a small warm-up I have spent the last ten days in the opposite direction; Svalbard. Coincidences resulted in a trip by sail boat from Longyear town to Signehamna, slightly north from New Ålesund, and back again (for those who are not familiar with artic geography go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard). At almost 80 degrees north pretty much everything is the northernmost something. It is beautiful, it’s cold and the home to my new favourite animal; the walrus. Although it felt pretty good taking a shower after almost two weeks with limited washing possibilities and beginning dreads, I wish I could have been there longer. Everything comes to an end, but fortunately there are new beginnings ahead, Rio De Janeiro 13 days….

2008-05-14T13:30:00.000+02:00

3 Months and 5 days left...