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...

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.