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...

Lists

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

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

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

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

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

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