Lisbeth in South America

Weekend in Valle Elqui (April 24th - 26th)

2009-05-04T19:39:00.001-07:00

On the last weekend of April, Elias - one of my friends here - invited Lasse and me to his place in Vicuña in the Elqui Valley (a village of about 6000 people where the sun always shines).
Elias' street

("Welcome to Vicuña")

So on Friday night, Lasse and I got on the (very small and "with no room for our long legs"-) bus and after an hour we arrived to Vicuña around 10pm. Elias picked us up from the bus station, and we went to some of his friends' house for beer and a chat. Later on, we went to a disco to go dancing, but unfortunately it ended in a weird situation: I was sitting talking to someone, and then I felt something brushing against my back where I had my purse, so I turned around and saw this guy stuffing my cell phone into his pocket!! Luckily I saw it, and reacted quickly enough to snatch it out of his hands, but it kind of ruined my mood for the evening...

On Saturday, we had planned to go further into the Elqui Valley to the even smaller village, Pisco Elqui. So we got up and got on the bus at 10am, and an hour later we arrived. The weather there was even better than in Vicuña, and Pisco Elqui is a very idyllic little village! It is located in a small valley (of course) between dry hills, vineyards and a stream running through it, so it's still very green and lush!

We wandered about for a while, and then we found this place where we could go horseback riding! Neither of us were very good at it, but it sounded like fun and was only 4000 pesos (about 40 DKR) for 1 hour! Our "guide" was a very funny, cool guy, who first gave us a mini-course on how horses work, so we'd be able to actually control it, and then we went off, up through Pisco Elqui "centre" and up on the hills surrounding Pisco Elqui!

Me and the horse Trying to get on the horse

Ta dah - got on the horse Me, Lasse and Elias giving the horses water..

At one point, we galloped!!! I've ridden horses before, but I don't think I've ever galloped, and it's crazy, haha! I really admire people who know how to gallop without hurting their rear end AND being able to stay on the horse AND making it look really easy! When we got to the top of a hill, we had the best view of the Elqui Valley in both directions - WOW!

When we got back down to Pisco Elqui, we caught a bus back to Elias' mom's house in Vicuña for a late, home cooked lunch.

A view to the Elqui Valley

Pastel de choclo - corn pie, a very delicious pie with (of course) corn, minced meat, egg and 1 black olive.

Guayaba - a local fruit, very fresh and delicious!

In the evening we were all very tired, and ended up watching movies all night.

The next day, Sunday, Lasse and I went off to see the Capel distellery that makes pisco - the national drink of Chile (tastes like tequila).

On our way to Capel

When we finally got there, there was some kind of reunion, and we weren't allowed to enter for the tour:-( So in stead we had lunch at the restaurant where Elias works

Having very delicious kid (goat)!

and walked around Vicuña.

The Plaza de Armas

A statue in the park

After that we went up to the top of a hill next to Vicuña - Cerro de la Virgen (The Virgin's Hill) - for a beautiful view of the valley around Vicuña.

In the afternoon, Lasse and I went to this diked lake in the valley, where there is always a lot of wind and therefore lots of wind- and kite surfers! The village near the lake is called Gualliguaica, which caused us a lot of problems in pronouncing it and therefore finding transport to get there, haha.. But when we did find it, it was beautiful (and very windy!).

After that, we just hung out at Elias' house and went back to La Serena around 8pm.

What's up in La Serena

2009-05-04T19:36:00.000-07:00

Just a small update on how things are going in general here in La Serena. I've now been here for almost 3 months, and time has passed by so fast! There is always things to do and places and people to see!

On a normal week, I have 2 classes every day - one before lunch break, and one after.. The lunch break is 1 1/2 hours, so a lot longer than I'm used to. But then you have time to study a bit, if you have a test or just didn't study for the next class:-) I've done the first round of tests, and am now beginning the second round. To pass a test (and the course) you have to get a 4 on a scale from 1-7. I passed 3 courses out of 4 in the first round of tests, so that's OK.. I only need to pass 3 courses to get enough points for uni back in Denmark.

I only have around 5 weeks left at uni now - and then a final presentation of a bigger project 2 weeks later, so it's gonna be really busy! I'm gonna have to study more from now on, I think - but well, that IS the reason I'm here for, haha..

I and some of the other exchange student girls go to "Baile Entretenido", dance classes, every Tuesday and Thursday, where we dance salsa, merengue and from Tuesday we begin Tango:-)! It's a lot of fun, and we've met some nice people there! It's a great way to get some exercise, haha..

When I'm in La Serena on the weekends, I also go surfing! Saturday at 11am, the university of La Serena do free surfing classes, but basically, you just rent the wet suit from the surfing school where we meet up, borrow the board from uni, and then it's just: get into the water and learn by doing! It's great fun! The water is getting cold, though, so my feet and my head are very cold just when I get in - I had some sort of "brain freeze" last time!:-S Really hurt... - but when you start surfing you get warm.. Surfing can be difficult, though! The last time, I had a rather small board, and it didn't go very well, but this Saturday, I had a bigger one (a sort of beginners board, hehe.. 7ft, 9 inches I think......), and it went really well!! COOL!:-D

The weather here in La Serena is really cold, and only getting colder!:-S It's around 15-20 degrees, I would say, and every morning there's a thick fog covering the whole town and the neighbour town, too! It normally decreases around 8 am, then comes back, and then descreases out to sea before noon.. On a bad day, the sun never really comes out, and the sky is grey.. Well, most days are like that.. When we get lucky, we get a bit of sun, but it's still really cold:-S So hanging your clothes out to dry is always a long process: it never dries during the day, 'cus of the humidity, and during the night, it get's really foggy and misty, so the clothes get even more wet! Then it takes most of the day for the clothes to dry up just a bit, and then the fogs rolls in again....!! Argh! Anyways, I can handle cold and humid weather, but the problem is that in Chile they don't use heating systems of any kind, so the temperature outside is bacisally the temperature inside!:-S At university, at home - anywhere! So it's not unsusual to see people wearing their jackets and coats at home, inside...! I don't understand why they don't install heating systems when it get's that cold here! Some days it just goes through to your bones, and you can never get warm:-S
The streets of La Serena (and many other cities, towns and villages in Chile) are filled with stray dogs. I think it's because people buy the dog when they're cute little puppies, and when they get too big to fit into their small houses/apartments, they leave them in the streets.. I feel so sorry, 'cus there are some really poor things out there:-( But some of them are just a pain in the ass! You see gangs of dogs just ruling the streets, and they get pretty timidating some times! One of the exchange students here got bitten TWICE by stray dogs! The funny thing though, is that the dogs are so used to the streets and the cars that they stop to see if any cars are coming before they cross the street!:-D But yeah, the dogs are everywhere - also at uni, and they even tend to enter our class rooms! It's not unusual to have an extra "guest" at some of our lectures, haha..

Here, the big and important meal of the day is lunch - we have lunch around 1-3 pm. Then around 5-6 pm, people have what is called "once". It means "eleven" in Spanish, and is mainly toasted bread with mashed avocado or pate, and a cup of coffee or tea. We're really hooked on avocado, 'cus it's relatively cheap here, and very tasty! Anyway, we've wondered what "eleven" has to do with bread and avocado and the afternoon... It turns out that there's a funny story behind it. I must admit, I can't remember it completely, but I think it was the Spanish conquerors who had the tradition of having an "aguardiente" in the afternoon - it's some sort of "brandy", i.e. alcohol. And since they were supposedly religious, that was a "no go", so they gave it a nick name: "once", because aguardiente has 11 letters - really clever, haha!

Still talking about food, I'd like to tell you about the Chilean "hot dog": completos! It's like a regular hot dog with bread, a sausage, ketchup etc., but then is has chopped tomatoes and avocado!!:-) And once we went to a place that has the biggest completos - or hot dogs - I've ever seen! At least 50 cm. long!

In Chile, the 21st of May is a national day. They commemorate the battle of the Pacific War in 1879 against Peru on the coast if Iquique (the north of Chile), where they lost "Esmeralda" and Arturo Prat - a very important... person:-) - died. Anyway, we were told that there would be a parade in every town and city, so we went to the harbour in Coquimbo (the neighbour city) and saw military, schools, horsemen and a lot more in the parade. There were a lot of people on the harbour and for once the sun was out - so we had a good day:-)

Patagonia vol. 3 (Parque Nacional Torres del Paine, Going from Puerto Natales to Santiago) April 4th - 11th

2009-05-04T19:34:00.000-07:00

Around 10 am on Saturday the 4th, we arrived to the national park Parque Nacional Torres del Paine and had to pay an entrance fee of 15.000 pesos (around 25 US$/ 150 DKR), but because we have the Chilean identity card and therefore legally are "Chileans", we only had to pay 4000 pesos (7 US$/40 DKR) - long live patriotism, haha:-)! Anyway, we got to the Lake Pehoe which we had to cross in a catamaran - a beautiful 30 min. tour with a view to beautiful mountains and green fields!

When we arrived to the other side, we started our trek. We had a map with the paths that we chose to follow and began the trek. We walked for around 2 hours through amazing landscaping: hills in all the different brown, red, orange and green autumn colours, mountains with snow on the tops and lakes in different green and blue colours.

After the 2 hours we got to a camping spot where we left our backpacks to go up a valley - Valle del Francés - where we could see a glacier, (Glaciar del Francés) that had some blue spots (like the glacier we saw in Ushuaia), a small waterfall, the forest with rugged trees and at the end of the valley: a lake. B-E-A-UTIFUL! There were supposed to be condors (one of Chile's national animals), but unfortunately we didn't see one.. We walked back to our backpacks and walked on for another 2 hours. We passed by the lake - Lago Nordenskjold - we had seen from the Valle del Francés, and it was beautiful! The "beach" was all small, round and white stones, and the water was completely calm and turquoise blue and VERY cold!

We reached the Refugio Los Cuernos at 18:30 when it was getting dark. We rented tents (that were already set up for us - NICE!) and went inside the refugio to make dinner in the sittingroom (pasta, ketchup and tuna - a cheap and VERY delicious trekking-meal:-D ). We were all tired and had sore feet and legs, but it was so nice and warm, and even though people at the next table were having a fancy meal and would be sleeping in a warm and cosy bed, there was a nice atmosphere, and the waiters were really nice. We actually got dessert AND a homemade brownie from them - the best brownie ever!!:-) They also gave us a thick blanket so we wouldn't be cold during the night in our tents - so thoughtful!

Anyway, the facts of the day was:

Distance: 15 km.

Time: 6 hours

On Sunday the 5th we left the Refugio Los Cuernos by sunrise; at 7 am. We actually got up around 5:15 to have time to go inside the refugio to make porridge, and we also thought that the sun would rise aroung 6:30. But the door to the refugio was locked; it was dark, cold, we were tired and was it raining.. So we ended up half-way scaring the first person we saw inside the refugio: a (very bearded!) man who was just passing by the glass-door to go to the toilet - I guess we knocked on the door so hard that the guy working at the refugio also heard us, and in the end we got inside. Again, the very nice waiter gave us freshly baked bread and hot coffee - free of charge! Now, THAT'S customer service:-)

We left the refugio and trekked along the lake Lago Nordenskjold and through a more flat landscaping than the day before. Still stunning, though!

Some parts reminded me of what some of the landscaping in Scotland must be like. We didn't see a lot of animals, but we did see an eagle floating over the lake and valley - you don't see a lot of eagles in Denmark, so it was fascinating to see how calmly it navigated with it's backtail. We arrived to the Refugio Las Torres around 11 am - that is after 4 hours of trekking:-S

We were tired, and made lunch on the mini-gas burner that we brought, left our backpacks in our tents at the camping spot and around 12:30 we went off to go up another valley to see the Torres del Paine - the 3 pillars that give name to the park (Torres del Paine means The Paine Towers). Our legs were shaking and I guess we would all have preferred to wait another day before we did this trek, but we had to go back to Puerto Natales the next day, so off we went. We started up a rather steep hill, and when we got to the top, we turned around a "corner" on the mountainside of the valley, and the wind was almost paralyzing! It was SO strong, and I was only happy that we didn't carry our backpacks; it would have been difficult to stay in balance and not fall off the mountainside...!:-S

We kept on going down into the valley, through the woods and up another mountainside, but we could see that we might have overestimated our own strenght, and around 15:15 there was still no sight of the Torres del Paine. People we met on our way going down said that it would be at least another 1 1/2 hours to reach the view point to the Torres, and at this time we weren't able to speed up at all. I wanted to be back before sunset, so the two other girls, Melanie and Rebecca, and I decided to go back. We were back around 18 pm, and still had some daylight to take a shower and go to the refugio to get some heat. In the restaurant at the refugio, we actually met the bearded guy who had tried to let us in at the other refugio:-D What a coincidence!

Facts of the day:

Distance: 24 km.

Time: 8-9 hours

On Monday the 6th we slept in - or, that is, the ground was very hard and it was freezing cold, so I was up around 8 am. The funny thing was that we actually had the best view to the Torres del Paine from the camping spot - so bacially we hadn't had to go up the valley the day before.... But it was a nice trek anyway:-)

We only had to trek the last 7,5 km. back to the entrance of the park, where a bus would pick us up to go back to Puerto Natales, but it was some tough km.'s!

All together, these are the cold, hard facts from the tour:

Distance: 46,5 km.

Time: 16 hours.

Me, Rebecca, Melanie and Lasse
I'm proud of us:-)!

When we got back to Puerto Natales Monday afternoon, we had planned to go on a 4-day boattrip up through the fiordos and rivers of southern Chile to reach Puerto Montt, leaving Tuesday from Puerto Natales. The engine had broken going south from Puerto Montt, though, so the trip was cancelled:-( We - and a lot of other people who were going on the same tour - stayed another night in Puerto Natales, and on that evening desperately tried to find a flight or a bus going north to Santiago. It was a battle against time, and since a lot of other people were looking for the same, and Easter was coming up, it was almost impossible to find anything! Puerto Natales is already a very small town, which only lives off of the tourists going to Parque Torres del Paine and the boattrip to Puerto Montt, so the buses only left some days of the week, and there would be practically nothing to do if we had to stay more days in Puerto Natales.. Finally, we found 4 bustickets to Santiago leaving early the next morning, but we had to use all of our persuasive skills to buy the tickets, 'cus the office that we went to had to book the tickets by phone at another office in another town - and that office had closed..! So we bought the tickets having to get on the bus at 7:30 in the morning in Puerto Natales, not knowing if we would have the tickets for the next bus that we had to change into some hours later somewhere in no-man's-land! But apparently, the very nice man at the office in Puerto Natales had made some phone calls that same morning, so when we changed buses, we got the tickets, and could continue our trip calmly:-)

This is where we changed buses - wouldn't wanna stay there for long...!

The bus trip from Puerto Natales to Santiago took us all together 24 hours + 8 hours of waiting in Osorno somewhere in Chile + another 12 hours to reach Santiago..!:-S When we finally arrived to Santiago on the morning of Thursday the 9th, my feet had swollen to what felt like twice the size, and they really hurt:-S

We spent Thursday and Friday in Santiago the four of us, and 3 other exchange students from La Serena who came down that same weekend. We enjoyed the nice, hot weather as a change to the cold weather in the South. We just relaxed and went up to see the Parque Metropolitano on a hill/mountain where we could see almost all of the city.

In the evenings, we went out for cerveza and ron y coca cola and a lot of salsa:-) On Saturday the 11th, we went back to La Serena, tired but very happy after a trip full of events!

Patagonia, vol. 2 (El Calafate (Glacier Perito Moreno), Puerto Natales) April 2nd - 3rd

2009-05-04T19:33:00.000-07:00

After half a day just stroling around Ushuaia, we flew north (I don't think you can even fly south from Ushiaia, haha) to El Calafate (also in Argentina) on the 1st of April. We landed around 16 in the afternoon and got to our hostel, Hostel America del Sur (definitely recommendable!!). The landscaping is very beautiful: when we drove from the airport, on one side you could see dry, moon-like landscaping and on the other side we saw very lush and green areas surrounding a lake and snowcovered mountains in the background. From our hostel we could see the lake and the mountains.

The people at the hostel helped us finding a tour to the glacier Perito Moreno, so the next day (Thursday the 2nd) we left the hostel at 8:30 and arrived at the national park Parque Nacional Los Glaciares around 10:30.

Here are some facts about Perito Moreno:

* The glacier Perito Moreno is part of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field (Campo de Hielo Sur),

which has an area of around 16.000 km2.

* The glacier Perito Moreno itself has an area of around 250 km2, and is one of the few glaciers that doesn't lose volume - it has kept the same volume since 1917!

* It is one of the most dynamic glaciers of this area - It moves around 2,5 meters A DAY!!

* Each summer it loses about 14 meters in height, but since 70 % of the glacier is increasing and only 30 % decreasing, it quickly regains it's "losses".

* Perito Moreno is located around 180 above sealevel and at the same latitude as London, so you wouldn't think that it would be the best conditions for a glacier. The reason why it is there is the Andean Mountains and the winds from the Pacific Ocean: The strong and damp winds blowing from the west from the Pacific hit the Andean Mountains, are pushed upwards and turn into snow. The snow falls and the weight of all that snow (that is, it's own weight) is so heavy that the snow turns into ice.

* The icewall that we saw was about 70 meters high! The glacier is about 700 meters high at the deepest/highest spot!

Here, you can see some cool pictures and an even more cool video where a BIG piece falls off the glacier (fast forward to min. 2:20 if you don't want to see the whole movie): www.tierraunica.com/tierra_unica/2008/07/incredible-live-images-of-little-black-dogs-fall.html

Unfortunately we didn't see any pieces fall off. We heard a lot of pieces fall off, though, but inside the glacier - so we only heard cracking sounds and saw some small waves coming out from underneath the glacier into the lake.

We sailed close to the glacier and walked through a beautiful woodland before we went to get our "spike-shoes" on so we could walk on the glacier! We went off in a big group - around 20 people (not everyone were as young as we are, let's say it that way...), so we always had to wait for people.. But we got a quick introduction to how to walk on ice with the spike-shoes (going down a hill you for example look like Michael Jackson in the song Thriller doing the zombie-dance-move, haha), and went off. We walked on the glacier for around 2 hours, and it was beautiful. Nothing like I imagined it to be, though. I had imagined "white" ice with a plane surface. What we walked on, however, was "dirty" ice (the winds blow dirt from the woods onto the glacier) with many holes and "hills"; a very rough surface. But it was a very unique experience! Around half way we got a Whiskey On The Rocks - literally speaking! The "rocks" was of course the ice from the glacier, so even though I'm not fond of Whiskey, I had to try it - I mean, when would I ever get the chance again..?!:-)

After walking on the glacier, we had lunch with a view to the glacier - spectacular! And then we sailed back across the lake to get to a viewpoint where we could get a better view of the glacier from up a hill. It was spectacular! It sounds like a cliché, but when you are that close to one of nature's wonders, you really feel small!

On Friday the 3rd we left El Calafate to go a bit south to Puerto Natales in Chile. Again, the view was.. well, not spectacular - the landscaping was very flat, and we drove through "no man's land" for some hours before we got to Puerto Natales around 1pm. We had been recommended to go to a hostel called "Erratic Rock" because they have information meeting every day at 3pm about the national park Parque Nacional Torres del Paine where we wanted to go. Our plan was to go to the meeting and then catch a bus to the park later on in the afternoon. But since it was low season we had to wait 'till the next day to take the one bus that left a day to the park. But that didn't matter - we stayed at the Erratic Rock hostel - a very cosy hostel with very nice people! And they had the biggest VHS-collection (YES, VHS, not DVD - so old school, haha:-D ).

We had thought that we could go to the park and stay at a residence and then do 1-day-tours from there, so we could sleep in a bed and wouldn't have to carry our backpacks around. But at the info-meeting we realized that we had to do an actual trek to be able to see different parts of the park!:-S That is, we had to pack our backpacks with food, cooking equipment and only the necessary clothes etc., and we had to carry it around - no lamas or the like to carry our stuff like we had in Peru...! Also, we would have to sleep in tents and not in real beds - it would have been 3 times the price if we wanted to stay in the residencies and not just rent tents:-S Luckily the hostel had all the equipment we needed to rent, so we bought all the food we needed, packed our gear and got ready to get up at 6:30 the next day to go to the park Torres del Paine.

Patagonia, vol. 1 (Punta Arenas, Ushuaia) March 27th - April 1st

2009-05-04T16:46:00.000-07:00

Oh my, where to start.. I'm really sorry it's been so long since I wrote anything on my blog, I've just been so busy, and when you don't have any computers available at your house, it's not that easy.. BUT, just today I finally got my laptop!!!:-D Well it's only been... what.. 2 months (I hate DHL!!! Or at least the customs agency they hired to get the computers out of customs, who turned out to have done NOTHING for 3 weeks..!).

Anyway, I would like to tell you about our trip to the south of Chile and Argentina.

Lasse, my Danish friend, Melanie from Germany, Rebecca from Australia and I decided to go to the south before it was too late and everything would be closed for the winter. So on the 27th of March late in the evening we got on the bus in La Serena heading towards Santiago. It was a 6-7 hours ride, but we all fell aspeel the moment we sat in the seats, and didn't wake up until the steward rudely (I thought, but then again, I was halfway asleep..) took our pillows and blankets. Then we were off to the airport to catch a plane from Santiago to Punta Arenas and arrived in the afternoon. We stayed at a very cosy hostel, and the owner was a very nice elderly lady. In the afternoon we went for a walk around the town to find a daytrip for the next day (we didn’t have much luck, though.. They were either not leaving that day or too expensive..). It was freezing cold – mainly because of the strong wind, so we found this VERY nice “chocolateria” where we had: (surprise, surprise) hot chocolate:-)!

It’s like a café – where they serve coffee – only here the main thing is chocolate! Could it get any better?!:-D We became very fond of that place the couple of days we were there. Anyway, we decided to go on a tour to see penguins on the next day, and in the evening we had dinner at this very nice and cosy restaurant we found in the Lonely Planet guidebook, “La Marmita”. The waiters were very nice and the whole atmosphere was very laid back.

The food was amazing (I had steamed eel with some kind of Chilean bulgur and the price even more amazing compared to the experience we had! On our way back to the hostel I saw the Milky Way (no, not the chocolate) for the first time! Bec, the Australian girl, was used to it, but us 3 from the northern hemisphere were rather impressed!
On the 29th we could sleep in, in a real bed – nice:-) We woke up to the sound of strong wind, but the sun was shining and the weather was great! We strolled along the beach of the Strait of Magellan towards the town centre, and actually, the way Punta Arenas looked is kind of the way I imagine a town in Greenland could look like before winter comes: Not really any snow, but kind of “wind bitten”, deserted streets, people stay indoors to keep warm, the houses come in many different colours and there are stray dogs in the streets.

We walked around the town, and in the afternoon we went to our new favourite place: the chocolateria for a cup of chocolate, a German “kuchen” and a game of UNO:-) At 16 we left with 4 other tourists to go see penguins at Pingüinera Otway by the Seno Otway. It was about an hour away on a mini-bus, and the view was… well, there wasn’t a lot to see, really.. Sometimes it reminded me very much of the landscaping of the part of Denmark where I’m from, Jutland (den Jyske hede), only it was on the other side of the world…! Amazing.. Anyway, we arrived to a sort of station by a street from where there was a path that we followed to get to the penguins. If it had been windy in Punta Arenas, it was stormy here! Normally, they said, there are around 10.000 couples (!) of penguins in this area, but now there were only few left. Most of them had gone north for the winter; up to Brazil, for example (they aren’t stupid, them penguins:-)). So I think there must have been around 40 left, from what we saw….. The walk was about an hour, and we did see some penguins; it IS a funny animal. And I don’t know why, but whenever you see them waddle, you can’t help but try to walk in the same way – am I right?!:-D

Anyway, even though we had hoped to see more penguins, we saw what we came to see, and went back to Punta Arenas. In the evening we decided to save a bit of money and cook at the hostel – steaks, of course, so because of all of the smoke in the small kitchen, we also managed to set off the fire alarm, haha:-D

On the 30th, we spent the whole day on a bus from Punta Arenas to Ushuaia in Argentina; known as “The end of the World” (even though there IS a town in Chile which is more to the south..). The landscaping was as flat as we had seen around Punta Arenas:

but when we passed the Magellan strait at Punta Delgada on a ferry, we saw some sort of black and white dolphin playing in the water. When we got closer to Ushuaia, there were more mountains with snow-covered tips, and we also saw cows, sheep, lamas and flamingos! We arrived around 21 o’clock and had very little time to find out what we wanted to do on our whole day in Ushuaia. So on the next day, the 1st of April, we ended up just staying around Ushuaia. The view in Ushuaia is amazing. Everywhere you look there are mountains and snow (at least on the top of the mountains), and a beautiful “fjord”.

We went up some of the mountains behind Ushuaia in a taxi, and got the chairlift even further up towards the glacier Glaciar Martial. It’s around 1000 meters above sea level, so not much compared to what we have seen and experienced (unfortunately, this time I couldn’t blame my shortness of breath on the lack of oxygen in the air…), but I couldn’t help thinking back on the days on the Lares Trek in Peru when we trekked/hiked up to the glacier:-) Following some guys in front of us, I think we might have gone off-track, but the “paths” weren’t that easy to spot anyway, so we just went straight up to the glacier. The guide at the tourist information and the map said that it was a 40 min. trek, I think, but after 2 hours we still hadn’t got all the way to the glacier, so yeah, we definitely got “off the beaten track”. When we got up there, it started snowing a bit, and the view was amazing! The ice of the glacier was blue at some spots (later on we learned that it has got to do with the absorbtion of the light… I think:-)). Bec and I going up in the chair lift

When we got down to where we hopped on the chair-lift, we went to this cottage, that was a restaurant. It reminded me a bit of after-skiing; we were all tired, in our warm clothes, with red noses and had a glass of hot red , “Glühwein” – uhmJ! At the restaurant they offered something called canopying – you’re tied to a cable, and then you just slide from one tree to the next! Of course we had to try it!:-D We had 2 instructors with us for about an hour in the forest. They taught us some basic techniques, and then we just hit it off like Tarzan in the jungle!:-D It was soo much fun! In the evening we were just tourists around Ushuaia, and then we had dinner at this fish and seafood restaurant, “Volver”, that we also found via the Lonely Planet guidebook. It was really delicious; that is, Lasse and I had starfish as a starter (I thought, why go for the regular starter now that there’s something a bit different on the menu), and it also looked good… But the texture was like chewing on very blurry snot, basically…:-S But hey, I gave it a shot!

In the evening we just hung around the hostel (Hostel Antarctica – very precise now that we were only a few 1000 km. from THE Antarctica:-)) and played Trivial Pursuit.

The first 3 weeks in La Serena

2009-03-25T13:50:00.000-07:00

Well, to begin where I left off, the first week (mon9-fri13), I attended as many classes as possible of the ones that I had chosen in advance. Especially one of them was just a waste of time, though. It was bacisally 1 ½ hour of soliloquy by the professor, who, by the way, speaks really fast with a lot of “slang”/chilean spanish words that I don’t understand...:-S So by the end of the week, I hadn’t gotten a lot closer to a final descicion about the courses. On Monday the 9th, most of the other people who live at my “hospedaje” moved in. But no one ever really cooks in the kitchen (they often eat at the canteen at uni), and since we all have separate rooms with tv, there’s not much going on there, to be honest.. Also the owners have told us that we can’t have parties..:( A bit disappointing. But I’ve met some nice people at uni and the days pass by so fast!
The first week ended with a get-together with the exchange-students. We went to the 2 australian girls’ house, and afterwards we went off to Coquimbo (the neighbour-city, apparently THE place to go out) to go to a reggae/hip hop-concert. But that turned out to be a disappointment – the crowd wasn’t even dancing.. But I had good company, so it turned out to be a fun evening anywayJ
On Sunday, the 15th, I went on a day-trip with Lasse, Melanie and Beck (two exchange students) to Isla Damas (Dame Island, or something like that). We tool off from La Serena at 8:15 on a tourbus with 8 other “tourists”. After driving north along the coast for 2 ½ hours through landscaping that is predominated by desert, we arrived to the small village Punta de Choros. There, they have a small museum about the Reserva Nacional Pinguino de Humboldt. The cold Humboldt current passes by Chile from the south and cools down the warm winds from the Pacific, and that is actually the reason why there are no tornadoes on this side of South America (I apologize for my lacking knowledge about weather conditions, but I think that is how it works). We went on a small boat for 12 people and sailed out towards the Isla Choros (where you find the Reserva). At first we didn’t really see any animals (apart from the birds, that is), but then suddenly we saw what we came for; the dolfins!! They showed up in groups, and at some point there were probably around 15 dolfins in different groups! It was great fun to see how playful and curious they are; they got up really close to the boat, and (from a distance) we also saw some dolfins jumping up from the water! At the Isla Choros we also saw sea lions and small Humboldt penguins – they are soo cuteJ! After that, we sailed to the Isla Damas and got off the boat for 1 hour. The reason why it’s called Isla Damas is that when you see it from a distance, the rocks on the hill look like an old woman’s face in profile. It’s not a big island – around 0.6km2 (60,3 Ha), but it still has camping spots (without running water, though). We only saw 2 tents, though, and really – there’s not a lot to do. We went for a walk around the island and went up to the lighthouse. It had a beautiful view, so we shot some pics, and at 14 o’clock we went back to the mainland for a big lunch – fresh fish, uhm! When we got back around 18 o’clock, we were all tired – probably from the fresh air:-)

On Monday the 16th, the professor from uni had arranged a lunch for us in the big canteen, and all of us (the exchange students) go together with him, his two assistants (one of them had helped Lasse and me by showing us the different campus’on our first week here) some other students and another proffesor. I think it was meant to be a “welcome to La Serena/let’s get to know each other”-lunch, but since we had all met each other it was just an ordinary, nice lunch.
On Tuesday, nothing exciting happened, but it was St. Paddy's day (not a big thing in Chile), so Lasse and I went out for a beer with Tahlia and Lyndall, the two auzzies. On our way there, Lasse was stalked (he has a stalker/fan!) by a homeless guy who was tamping the pavement and then he laughed at Lasse. It's so strange - we've seen him a couple of times now, and he always laughs - I don't know if he finds tall, blond guys funny, but dude, YOU're the freaky one..!
On Wednesday, I finally bought a bike! I had spent the whole time since we got here looking for a second hand bike, and finally got one! I paied 40.000 chilean pesos for it (400 DKR), and the guy who sold it to me said that he will buy it back from me when I go home to DK, so that’s good! It’s a mountainbike, and I have never had a mountainbike, so I have to get used to it, haha. I have already had one crash, but it was Lasse’s fault (;-)!) and nothing really happened to me.
In the evening we went to see "Cuentos que no son cuento" - in Spanish! So Lasse, Beck (also from australia) and I got to practice even more Spanish. Behind us sat the cutest little 6-year-old boy, so you couldn't help but laugh when ever he laughed:-)
Thursday.. well.. the weather was great for once, so I enjoyed a bit of sun in my garden:-)
Friday we went to a big party to celebrate that uni has started. The first week of April is called SemanaPapayo (Papayo Week), so this friday (the 20th) was pre-papayo-party at one of the campus. There was an 2000 pesos entrance fee, and when you got in, everybody was dancing there was a DJ and well - everybody was happy:-) We all (the exchange students) had gotten together at my place before going to the big party (that's how I found out that the owners are NOT fond of parties where I live..), and we all danced the night away untill it closed already at 4 in the morning!! :-)
Well, I wanted to go surfing on saturday anyway, so after getting about 3-4 hours sleep, I was up again getting ready to head the beach at 11 o'clock! I thought that the uni-surfing classes were starting that saturday, but it turned out they didn't... But I asked around near the surfing school, and some guys from the school who were going surfing anyway gave me a 10-15 min. lesson, and then I was off surfing on my own with the other guys! It was so cool!!!:-D The weather wasn't too good for surfing, they said, but what do I know?! I have never surfed before, and I don't think it would have made a big difference for me what the waves were like.. Either way I swallowed around 37 litres of (very) salty water, and probaby only stayed with my feet on the board for 20 seconds out of the 1 hour and 45 mins. I surfed - but it was amazing!!!:-D Love it! Now, I´m sooo surfing the coast of La Serena!

Tomorrow, I have to finally decide the courses that I'm gonna do. Our professor from DK told us that we only have to pass 3 exams and not 4, so that's great!! So I'm gonna to 4 courses, and I think I have finally settled on 4 - maybe... I don't know... Still deciding..

Anyway, this Friday (the 27th), Lasse, Beck, Melanie and I are going on a semi-spontaneous trip to the south of Chile; to Patagonia, and also "The end of the World" in Argentina; Ushuaia:-) We will be gone for about 2 weeks (we're back on the 12th of april), and I will tell you all about it when I get back (HOPEFULLY by then my portable computer has gone through customs in Santiago, grrr:-(!!).

Cachay? Small (fun) facts about La Serena

2009-03-25T13:43:00.000-07:00

If there’s an “abre fácil”, is there also an “abre difícil”...?

Transportation: In La Serena (and probably the rest of Chile, too) there’s a funny concept that I have never seen before: Colectivos. Basically it’s taxi-cars that drive a certain route (like a bus), and then you share it like a taxi, only it’s cheaper than the “real” taxis. They have colectivo-stops, but you can get on and off basically where ever on their route. There’s just the thing that you have to know the route, ‘cus the signs on top of the colectivos only tell you the final destination. And there are no maps of the colectivo-routes.. There are SO many colectivos in the streets, and even though La Serena is actually not that big a town, everybody goes by colectivo – not bike. (Except for me;-) )
They also have “normal” small buses – they just work like in any other place, I guess.

When you stop at a traffick light/a junction, you’ll almost always see young boys or young guys doing tricks in front of the waiting cars (expecting money for it, of course): juggling with cones, doing a mime-show – whatever. It’s fun to look at and they are actually quite good, some of them. But I still haven’t gotten used to that way of “begging”, and in a way it’s getting a bit annoying. If you don’t give them anything, you feel bad, but then again: you didn’t ask for the show...

The past few Wednesdays we have been to the cinema – Wednesday is the cheap day (2200 chilean pesos, which is around 22DKR/2,8 EUR/3,8 USD), and it is in deed cheap, compared to the Danish prices (you’d pay around 9000 chilean pesos to go see a movie in Denmark !) We’ve seen “El niño con el pijama de rayas” (The boy in the striped pyjamas) and “Cuentos que no son cuento” (Bedtime Stories) – both very good and also very different types of movies!

Eating habits. The main meal here is lunch, and lunch break at uni is between 13-14:30. Almost everybody have lunch at uni (you can get a wide variety of food at the canteen), and we often get the big lunch: veggie-salad, bread, a main course, dessert and juice for only 1650 chilean pesos (16,50 DKR!). To many people (/students), that’s the hot meal of the day. In the afternoon (around 17-18 o’clock) you get “once”, which is tea or coffee and some toasted bread with whatever you like – often something sweet. Dinner is not such a big thing, and they have it around 21 o’clock, I would say.

These first couple of weeks, you shouln’t be surprised if you see a young guy/girl or a group of them walking down the street with no shoes, ripped clothes, funny looking haircuts, covered in paint, with a stench of rotten eggs and fish begging for money. It’s the “mechones” – the freshmen, “sutterne”, whatever you call them: the poor young guys and girls who have just started their first year at uni. They have a ritual where each campus/educacion cut their clothes, pour paint all over thm and somehow make them smell worse than a landfill – it’s disgusting!! Then they have to do different – I assume – humiliating things, like e.g. walking the streets begging for money, and they also have to kiss a pig’s head!! YES, a dead one!!:-S Luckily we didn’t have to go through that!

First week in La Serena

2009-03-09T17:25:00.000-07:00

We arrived to La Serena on the 3rd of March around 19 o'clock. Very excited to see our new home for the next 5 months, our first experience at our German hostel was that they had no electricity due to a car accident - that we actually passed by on our way from the bus station to the hostel. A bus had hit a car that had hit a street light. Then that had fallen to the ground and hit the electric cords going down - they were torn, and the whole neighbourhood was cut off... So our first dinner in La Serena was with only candle light (kind of like in the jungle....).
The next day, we got up early to go and see the professor (Castillo) who is in charge of everything regarding the exchange students. We had a good, long talk with him, and then his assistant, Rodrigo, took us for a trip around the town. He showed us the different faculties where we are going to study and also took us to different houses, looking for a place to stay. Right now, all of the students are arriving to La Serena, and everybody wants the best place for no money, so I felt a bit stressed out. You never know when to say when, but after a long day with Rodrigo, he dropped us off near the library. From there on, we could keep looking for acommodation our selves. It was a bit difficul, though, since we had no car and no working phone.. By coincidence, we passed a place that said "acommodation" and went to ask, but they were full. They told us to go some blocks down the street, and there I found what is now my home for the next 5 months.
It's a great place. A family of 5 (mom, dad and 3 small kids) have a small "hostal" with 9 rooms and a shared (big) kitchen in the back yard. The room is actually rather big, around 20m2, and I have my own bathroom, cable TV and internet. They seem to be very nice people, and I am sure that I will be very happy to stay there.
Later that same afternoon, we found a place for Lasse as well, so already on our first day, we had the acommodation problem solved.
Thursday, we went to see Castillo again to get some more things straight, and also went to see the decans of the different faculties (we are going to be at 3 different, doing different courses). After that, we moved our stuff into our new homes. It was, to be honest, a bit strange to leave Lasse now that we had been travelling together for almost 1 1/2, but we live only a 10 min. walk away from each other, so it is bearable:-)
Friday, well... We spent it standing in line, waiting and waiting and waiting... We had to go to the International Police in La Serena to get registered, and after that to the Civil Register to apply for a RUN-number (identity-number). But as usual, there is always something wrong with the paperwork that you got from the other office, so you have to go back to get new ones.. And then do a copy of that, and then stand in line again.. Just to be told that you're in the wrong line, so you have to stand in line AGAIN... You really need to be patient and just accept the fact that it is going to take a loong time.
We got the paperwork done and just had a day of getting to know the city and buying stuff for our places.
Saturday evening we had arranged to meet with the other exchange students. There are around 3 German girls, 3 Australian girls, 1 Japanese girl and 1 Mexican guy. But the japanese girl and the mexican guy aren't studying at the uni - it's a bit weird. Anyway, we met up with the German and Australian girls for dinner, and after that we went out near the beach in La Serena. It was great fun, and they seem like very nice girls!

Monday, today, was our first day of school! Lasse and I had the same class to begin with, at 8am!!! It was Communication's Theory (Teoría de la Comunicación), and even though it was a bit tough to get up that early and realize that the vacation is over, I was glad to get started. This week is a sort of "shopping-week" for us; we can attend the classes that we want to, and then by next week we have to finally decide which classes we want to attend. We need to pass at least 4 exams to get enough points for uni back in DK, so I might do 4 or 5 courses.
This week is also a bit confusing, because they are not doing all of the courses that are on the time schedules - but you don't realize until 1/2 after the class was supposed to begin; then somebody tells you that "oh, it doesn't begin until Thursday"... Well, again, I guess you just have to accept that that's the way things are here, and be patient:-)

That's all folks! Now, my blog should finally be updated, and I'll try to keep it that way from now on:-)

Iguazù Falls, 26th February -1st of March

2009-03-09T09:31:00.000-07:00

After a very tiring 23-hour busride from Rio to Foz do Iguazú in Brazil, we were more than ready to get to our hotel and relax for a bit. But when we went to a taxi driver and showed him the little information we had gotten from our travel agency, he looked at us and said "That's in Argentina"..! So we were not even in the wrong town, but also the wrong country!! BUT, luckily it was only a 40 min. drive, and the taxi driver helped us cross the border.

We arrived to Puerto de Iguazù - in Argentina, that is! So for dinner we had - of course - a steak and red wine - yummy!!

Well, here are some facts about Iguazú: It is higher than Niagara Falls and wider than Victoria Falls - beat that! You can see the Iguazù Falls from Argentina and Brazil, and the Argentinean side is definitely the most exciting side! You get a lot closer to the falls - you can even sail almost into one of them!:-D Iguazú is old native language and means "Big Water".

Anyway, on Friday, the 27th, we left our hotel at 10am to go see the Brazilean side. The guide left us to do the 2 hour walk along the river. It was.. well.. beautiful but not very exciting.. On the path, we saw a racoon - apparently there are a lot of racoons in the area who have gotten used to the tourists feeding them (even though it is forbidden! Bad tourists!), so they prefer burgers for their "natural food", and are actually getting too fat, the guide told us..

After seeing the water falls, we went to a Bird Park where we saw all kinds of different birds, parrots, butterflies and humming birds - even anacondas, too!:-S You could get quite close to the birds, and it was a bit weird to be walking along with birds that you normally only see on TV.

In the evening, we went out and had an "asada" - basically that´s a barbecue, so we had a looot of meat. Again... After that, we went to a small café called Tango Bar, where they played "live play back music", but it was really good. And an older seemingly Argentinean/caucasian couple were dancing tango; the man was teaching the woman how to dance the tango. It was very sweet and very cosy:-)

On Saturday, the 28th, we went to see the Argentinean side of Iguazú. First, we went to the big waterfall that is called Devil's Throat. The mists that came up from the depths felt like rain, and we were soaked!

After that, we went back the "catwalk" to get to some small boats that would take us on a calm boat ride on the river - on a safe distance (250 m.) from the falls. We didn`t see a lot of animals, but it was nice anyway:-) We did see a spider, though, that has golden spider webs - I have never seen that before!

Then we saw some other waterfalls - there are seriously a lot of waterfalls, in all shapes and sizes! We had lunch, and after that, Lasse and I were going on a speed boat that would take us VERY close to 2 of the waterfalls!! After a 25 min.s long guided truckride through the jungle - where we saw more, actually a LOT of, "golden web spiders", a small deer, a yellow and black woodpecker and one of the biggest butterflies of that area (about the size of a regular size hand) - we arrived to the "harbour". We stripped down to our swin suits (our guide had warned us that we would be absolutely soaked, so we came prepared), got our life jackets on, and got great seats on the boat (up front)! We went up the river to some smaller waterfalls (heading towards the Devils Throat, but it is too big to reach) where we got a taste of the powers of the water - it is amazing to be that close to the falls. You realize that even the small waterfalls are very dangerous if you are not there under controlled circumstances. After the smaller waterfalls, we went to a bigger one, and got up really close, twice!!:-D It was soo much fun, just like being at a wild Water World:-D

You see the water fall in the back ground? It doesn't look like much, but it was CRAZY!:-D That's where we went!

After that, we went to see even more waterfalls (!) up close, but from landside. At one of them, you could see a rainbow from the mists - it was stunning!

The next day, Sunday, Lasse and I had planned to be very international and have breakfast in Argentina, lunch in Paraguay and dinner in Brazil (we were leaving to catch our plane in Sao Paulo). So after breakfast, we went to catch a bus to Paraguay (only about an hour away). Since it was Sunday, almost everything was closed and there weren't too many buses either.. BUT, we got on a bus and met a Dutch guy and some American girls who were doing the same thing as us - we were stamp hunting:-). We didn`t know where to get off in the city in Paraguay, so we went on to the bus station. But we soon realized that NOTHING was going on that day - it was almost like a ghost city - so we just wanted to catch a bus straight back to the border to get our entrance and leaving-stamps. BUT, Lasse and I also had a mission to have lunch in Paraguay, so first we went food-hunting, and finally found some empanadas. So we had lunch in Paraguay! Then we went back to the border to catch a bus back to Argentina, but because it was Sunday, nobody knew how long we had to wait..... After 15 min., a nice cab driver told us that if we crossed the bridge and went to Brazil, there would be more buses. To we did that (a 20 min. walk), but when we got to the Brazilean side, it started to rain. Heavy rain! And we couldn't find the bus station with the directions that the cabdriver had given us. And since it was Sunday and NOBODY was in the streets, we got kind of lost... In the end, we realized that the bus station was too far away, and ended up catching a cab back to Puerto de Iguazú in Argentina.. So much for our Hollywood-imagination about a fab lunch in Paraguay...:-S

The Iguazú-trip was our last stop on our trip before going to La Serena. It had been great to be able to travel so much, and even though we wanted to travel more and not have to go to uni, it also felt good knowing that we would soon get our own homes and not have to live in a backpack.

Rio de Janeiro and Carnival!! The 18th-25th of February

2009-03-08T18:39:00.000-07:00

To start with, I can tell you that Rio de Janeiro means January River, because the Portugese that arrived to Brasil mistakenly thought that it was a river (look at a map, it is not a river), and because they arrived in January.

I also noticed that when you flush, the water turns left - against the clock - is that the same back in Denmark, or does it turn right..?

Sadly, we immediately discovered that Brasil, and especially Rio during carnival, is much more expensive than Peru.. We payed a crazy over-prize to stay at the hostal, but I guess you just have do accept that if you want to experience the carnival. We stayed in a 9-bed storing room - there were no air condition and no windoes, just a fan... Which was on all the time!

We spent our first day relaxing around the hostal and went to check out the Copacabana beach - it is beautiful! A big city-beach, yes, but it still has white sand and OK clean water:)

The Copacabana beach when it is very crowded!

Thursday, Lasse and I went on a guided trip around Rio and we saw the Christ, the Maracana Stadium and the pyramid-shaped cathedral (it has that shape to copy the Mayan pyramids). The Christ figure is probably the most well-known symbol of Rio (well, that or the carnival), and it is definitely a must-see! It is around 30-40 meters high, and the view from the hill is beautiful! To get to the Christ, we went through one of the most famous favelas of Rio, Santa Teresa. A favela is a very poor neighbourhood, and there are many of these in Rio. Generally, they say that if you are not from the favela, you should stay away from them. There is a lot of crime and drug dealing, and the "favela citizens" protect themselves and each other from the police, and basically any stranger could be the police..

Christ the Redeemer

Friday, Lasse and I were very efficient. We left the hostal early to go and buy a new camera for Lasse (he forgot the other one on the back seat of a taxi in Lima.....), to get bus tickets for Iguazú for the 25th and to get our tickets for the big carnival parade at the Sambodromo on monday the 23rd. It was indeed an experience to go for a ride with the public transport - the busdrivers are insane! We were back at the hostal in time to catch the metro at 14:30 with the others from the hostal to the Boat Party that we were going to. The weather was great, and we had paied for open bar and food for 5 hours:-)! We set off with everybody in their swinsuit, sunshine, great music and caipirinhas - could it be any better?! We sailed across the bay and stopped near a small island for a coulpe of hours, where we could swim and jump into the water from the top of the boat:-)! The water was warm, the beer was cold and we met some nice people - it was great!:-) Going back, we saw the sunset over Rio and could also see the Christ. When we got back to the hostal, we continued the party in the hostal bar and talked till the break of dawn.

Saturday, well.. We were tired from the night before, but in the afternoon we went to the beach with some of the other people that we had met at the hostal. We went back to get ready for a bloco (a bloco is a sort of party in the street. You have a small parade where everybody follows a car with music, and then the parade usually ends up at a plaza somewhere where people party on, or it just dissolves. There had been blocos all through the month of February, and there were SO many every day, so you could just choose one and go. It was like the carnival in Aalborg - just several days and with better weather:-)!) in Ipanema, another prt of the city, but ended up partying at the hostal instead. We talked to more new people (we were around 100 people staying at a hostal that normally has around 40 guests, so you were ALWAYS sourrounded by people, and was bound to meet some nice people), and a group of around 8 of us walked to Ipanema for a bloco that was supposed to be there. We missed it, and just hung around the beach talking for a while before going back to bed.

Sunday, Lasse and went to a bloco with 4 other people, whom we had met at the hostal the day before. It started around 11am, so we got up early and went to party. It was so much fun! We missed the parade, but went to the plaza and a band was getting ready for a concert. It was just one big party, everybody was happy, and you couldn't help but dancing to the music. When we got back to the hostal in the afternoon, we just relaxed and went to bed early.

Monday we got up for another bloco with Anna and David, who were also with us the day before.

The music that was playing reminded me of a bad karaokee; the men who sang sounded fairly drunk, and were not good singers... But it was great fun!:-) In the afternoon, we went to the beach (along with 10.000 other people who had the same idea!), and in the evening, Lasse and I went for the BIG carnival parade at the Sambodromo, for which we had payed around 200 USD each!

The parade had 6 different samba schools on Sunday. Like in e.g. soccer, they have a competition to be the best school, and there are different leagues. On Sunday and Monday, you could see the schools from the best league. Each school has around 8 platforms, and they all have to have some kind of theme that - if they are good - is connected to the other 7 platforms. Each school has their own percussion-band with around 200 people, and Lasse and I estimated that there must be around 2000 people participating in each school's parade! The rules are that each school has 82-84 minutes for the parade to get through the Sambodromo, which is - I would say - around 2-300 meters long.

It was very impressing to see the different platforms, with moving devices - and what must be modern slaves.. You would see around 8-10 men pushing these big platforms with whatever devices they had AND a group of dancing people on them. Samba is a very fascinating dance, and it is fun to see that everybody dance; men, women, children and old people.

The parade began on time at 21 o'clock, and didn't stop until 6:30 in the morning! I had to sit and almost sleep at a point in the middle of the night, but we were there to see the last school! The 5th school, Mangueira, was the most popular, and had the 2nd place last year. It was fun to see how people put on t-shirts with their logo - just like a soccer-team - and we had flags and everything. Some people are really into this!

We were back at the hostal around 7 in the morning, and went straight to bed.

Tuesday, the 24th, we went to visit my old friend Tobias from school, who was working at a hostal in Rio. I hadn't seen him in a looong time, and it was nice to catch up and talk about old days:-) To get there, Lasse and I got a bit lost, though, and ended up walking through the favela Santa Teresa...But we survived, so it's not THAT dangerous:-) For dinner, Lasse and I decided to go out, because it was our last night. When we got back to the hostal, we just hung out with some of the other guys and talked all night.

On Friday, we got up early to get things packed and go to the Rodoviária (bus station) to catch our bus to the waterfalls of Iguazú.

It was a lot of fun to see the carnival of Rio, and if I get the chance, I will definitely go again! It was a bit confusing at the beginning, but once you get to know the deal with the blocos, and get to know the different parts of the city, it's just great!

Late updates - The Jungle

2009-03-08T17:31:00.000-07:00

It´s been a while, but now I´m ready with more udpates!

The last thing I told you about, was our trip to Machu Picchu. A funny and very surprising thing happened that afternoon on the train (or was it a bus, Gav..?) on our way from Aguas Calientes back to Ollantaytambo. After we had our very delicious sandwiches, traditional music began playing on the speakers, and suddenly a man was dancing down the aisle. He was wearing a white mask (like the ones I told you about; those who are a joke of the Spanish conquistadors) and traditional clothing and had a lama-doll that he was dancing with.. It was VERY strange..!

<--LOOK!!

After that, the steward and stewardess transformed into super models, and did a fashion show with different alpaca-woll clothing that we could buy... Also VERY strange!

When we got to Ollantaytambo, we went on our GAP-minibus, and on our way back to Cusco, we stopped at a local brewery to taste the local cornbeer and play a peruvian beer-game. The beer tastes like... well.. corn.. The corn/strawberry-beer was good, a bit strawberry daiquiri-like, but not so sweet.

Lasse shows us how to play the beer-game. You have to get your gold-coins into the frog's mouth - it is VERY difficult!

That night, we all went out for our last dinner together. It felt a bit strange that not everybody were going to the jungle.
On the 10th, we had a "day off" in Cusco, but Lasse and I couldn´t get enough of wild experiences, so we went river rafting on a river 1 1/2 hours away from Cusco. I have never tried river rafting before, but fortunately, it had rained just a couple of days before, so the river was high (otherwise, it would have been lower and more calm)! After some safety-instructions, we got into the 6-pers. boat, and apparently went rafting for 2 hours - it felt like 20 min.s! It was SO much fun! We passed some level 3 and 3,5, but also 4 and 4+, the instructor said! (I have no clue what that means, but maybe some of you guys do? I only know that I liked the 4+ the most:-D)

We were on a boat with 4 israeli guys, who had tried a bit of river rafting before, but we were all almost beginners. So the syncronic rowing didn´t go too well, but it was still fun! And you couldn´t see anything anyway when the waves were high:-)

THE JUNGLE

On the 11th, we went to the jungle!! After 1 1/2 hours on the plane, we (Dan, Lisa, Gav, Lasse and I) landed in Puerto Maldonado in the region of Madre de Dios (in case you want to look it up on a map). After that and a short busride, we went on a small boat and sailed up the river for 3 hours. They gave us lunch, which was some sort of rice dish and the plate was a leaf, so we could throw it in the river when we had finished.

Around 3:30 pm, we arrived to the lodge and had a short breafing about the facilities. Basically, the rooms were very "eau naturale", that is, there were no windows, ceiling or doors. Just nearly see-through walls and 1/2 a wall to one side, so we had the trees almost INSIDE the room. We had curtains for doors and bats in the very high ceiling.

Around 4 pm, we went on our first guided tour in the jungle. It was VERY hot and VERY humid (around 80-100%!!), so we were all sweating a lot all the time (seriously, ALL the time! Even when we didn´t move at all..). We saw bullet ants (gigantic ants that are very dangerous. They are black, 2-3 cm.s long and if they bite you, you will get very sick with a fever) and the most exciting thing was seeing (and hearing!) red howling monkeys (paa dansk: broeleaber)! There was apparently 2 groups, and they started "fighting" = howling! It basically sounds like a very loud and very long burp! And we were just underneath them! That was impressing! They kept going for a long time (I would say around 15-20 minutes), so we went on. But we could hear them far away!

We also saw wild turkeys on our way to a 38 meters high watch tower. We went up there and had a great view of the jungle from higher than the trees! In the horisont we saw the sun setting and big clouds. You could see an area with rain, then sun, and then again heavy rain. It was beatiful!

When we got back to the lodge, Gav, Lasse and I relaxed in the hammocks with a cold beer before dinner - great! When I went to have a shower at around 21:30 pm all of the oil lamps were out, so our only light was 2 candles and the flash lights that Gav had lend to us. When I went to the bathroom, I first heard a flickering noise and was a bit scared - you never know if it´s just a bug or a bigger animal.. It was nothing, but when I came out of the (COLD - we only had cold water, but that was actually nice in the hot jungle) shower and was getting ready for bed, I turned around and on the curtain "door" I saw a BIG, black spider..!:-S I am, to be honest, not fond of spiders, and especially not the big ones that have hair between their front teeth!!! I panicked and jumped to the toilet as I screamed for Lasse to come and help me. He calmly said "yeah yeah, relax, what's going on?", but when he saw it, he said that HE was not grabbing that! So I prepared to spend the night at the bathroom, ´cus I was NOT touching that spider either, and it was just not moving! Which, come to think of it, would have been worse... Because the you wouldn't know where it went, and you couldn't see anything in the dark... Well, Gav, who was staying in the room next door heard us and came over to the rescue (luckily, he loves spiders). He took it, so I could finally leave the toilet and go to bed - only to find a cricket INSIDE the mosquitonet...! I didn´t sleep well that night - I don't mind watching animals and bugs, but I DON'T like sharing room and bed with them...!

(It was bigger in real life than it looks in the picture - I promise you!!)

The next day (thursday the 12th) we were up at 4 am for breakfast, and around 5:15am we ent on a short boat ride to get to a lake (Cocha Tres Chimbadas, which means "3 jumps", apparently because the locals say that you can cross the lake with 3 jumps when the waters are low). There, we saw many different birds, a family of 5 otters and we fished for piranhas (paa dansk: piratfisk)! We had beef as baid, and they are some cheeky little bastards - they are very fast, and they got a LOT of meat from us. I only caught 1, but it got away before I got it on the boat..:-(

(I had to borrow that one for the picture....)
The otter family

After that, we went on a trip to see birds. ON our way to the bird-watching spot, we saw different little monkeys - we saw cappuchino monkeys and (I think) squirrel monkeys. They were curious, and it was funny to see how we watched them, but they indeed also watched us. When we reached the bird-watching spot, we saw 2 red/yellow and green (or blue, I don't remember) macaws (en slags papegoeje). But we had to be completely quiet, or they would be scared and leave. After a while, somebody must have made a sound, because we saw around 10 macaws flying away across the river - that was beautiful!
We also had to lift a tree off of Gav's foot......... ;-)
After that, we went back for lunch (which was delicious! All of the meals at the lodge were very delicious!) and after that we relaxed for a coulpe of hours with a game of cards. We also played domino with a nice peruvian around 8-year old boy who was on vacation, and was bored.

At 3:30 pm we went to see a medicinal garden. The shaman wasn't there, so we got a guided tour by his assistant and our 3 guides. There were so many different plants, with different purposes. One of them was good against cancer and kidney problems, and actually, a German company took the patent for the genetic composure and is now selling nature medicin. The garden was also a sort of "hospital" for the locals who don't have money to go to a "real" doctor. We tried different things: we squeezed a moist leaf and got a red/purple colour out of it. We chewed a small stick that made your mouth and tounge numb (good if you are going to the dentist!) and smelled some leaves that could be used to seduce someone. After the tour around the garden, we tasted some of the "elixirs" that they make: a sort of natural "Red Bull" for energy, the one against cancer and a natural "Viagra".

After dinner that night we went for a guided "night trip" around the jungle, to see it with no light. We didn't see a lot of animals, to be honest, but when we turned off the flash lights and stood still to listen, the sounds were overwhemling, and you realize that the majority of the animals are active during the night.

It was very exciting to see the jungle! It is definitely an experience to have seen animals in their natural habitat, and to see how the symbiosis of the jungle works. You also realize that it is very fragile, and it's a good thing that some people look after the nature.

Machu Picchu, February 9th

2009-02-17T14:41:00.000-08:00

Going to Machu Picchu was an experience! Unfortunately, it was very cloudy, so we could only enjoy the view completely, when the clouds parted from time to time. We left our hotel in Aguas Calientes at 5:30am to catch the bus up to Machu Picchu. There were already a lot of people going up there, and as soon as we arrived, Jess, Gav, Lasse and I went to get tickets to go to Waynapicchu. It is a mountaintip right next to Machu Picchu, and from the top you have a great view of Machu Picchu (when it´s not cloudy, that is..) and the valleys surrounding. They only let 400 people up there a day, and we luckily got tickets!

We had a guided tour around Machu Picchu with our guide from the Lares Trek. Machu Picchu was actually not called Machu Picchu in the Incan times. But the German guy who "discovered" it in 1911 misunderstood the locals - they called the mountain Machu Picchu, and they told him that the old Incan city was on that mountain. He thought it was the name of the city, and when he found it, he named it Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu was not the capital of the Incan Empire, but it is important and famous because it is the one Incan city that the Spanish conquistadors did not find. Therefore it is in very good condition, and the closest one can get to an idea of how the Incan cities looked back in the days.

At 8:45am, Gav, Lasse and I started our 2,5 hours trip climbing up Waynapicchu - and when we got to the top, I discovered that I am afraid of heights!! The sides were so steep and there were NO security - just stairs that seemed to end in pure air and/or a fall of 40 meters into the forest. And they do not allow helicopters around Machu Picchu. So if you fall down in an inconvenient place - well, then the condors will find you within a couple of days....

We reached "The Could Forest" - maybe that´ll give you an idea of the view we had at Waynapicchu..

The Andes, February 4th-8th

2009-02-15T17:42:00.000-08:00

4th
We left our hotel in Lima at 3:30 am. (!) to catch the plane to Cusco, where we arrived at the hotel at around 7:30 am. We had coca-tea with coca leaves (yes, THE coca-plant.. the stuff that used to be in Coca Cola...) because it is good against altitude sickness, and Cusco is at app. 3400 m. over sea! I unfortunately spent the first day being sick because of the altitude.. Our guide told us that normally 60 % feel sick within few hours after arriving at these heights, and this first day was meant for us to get used to the altitude. It was amazing how you could tell the difference - apart from feeling sick - I got short of breath just by going up the stairs to the 3rd floor! There´s not a lot of oxygen in the air up there...

5th

On Thursday, we began our trip going to Sacret Valley to see the Incan site Pisac and the village Ollantaytambo (pronounciation: "OOOOjantajtambo" with the face and high pitch voice of an old Kung Fu fighter....;-D ). We drove a minibus through beautiful landscapings and passed by a small village that GAP Adventures (the agency that arranged the trip) helps by giving them lamas and alpacas (a sort of lama, but it only gives you 1,5 kg. wool every 2 years, so it´s VERY expensive, and also very soft!) so the women can get wool to make products + letting the men work as porters for GAP in the different trips they do.

Later on, we saw 2 different Incan sites: the first one was Pisac with the Sun and Moon Temple, where we had the first try-out "hiking" for about an hour (already then, I was thinking to myself that I had gotten myself into a mess by going on this hiking-trip - I was SO short of breath... I actually think my loungs are too small......;-) ). It was very impressing to see how the Incas had built their important buildings (temples etc.) with techniques that could save them from getting destroyed in earth quakes. Look at this wall from the Sun Temple at Pisac:

It is not straight but leaning inwards so the walls could support each other in case of an earth quake. Also, the floor was made with poles and filled with pebbles - in that way, the shocks from the earth quake would fade out - VERY hich tech! Actually, some Japanese ingeneers have studied these buildings to use the same techniques in Japan...
We also visited Ollantaytambo, which was originally called Tambo, which means something like "protection", since this village was situated between 3 important places in the Inkan Empire, and protected the main entrance. The important and religious buildings are made from very smooth stones that they had cut out to fit into each other perfectly (like Lego). That is, there is nothing keeping the rocks together - they simply fit perfectly!

Some of the rocks they used weigh around 90 ton(!), and to me it is still a mystery how they could have dragged these rocks to far and to these altitudes! We stayed at a hotel in Ollantaytambo, and for dinner, we had the most cheesy pizza I´ve ever had - I LOVE cheese, but that was cheese with pizza, not pizza with cheese....!:-D Ollantaytambo is in 3800 meters altitude, and we knew we had to hike even higher..!

6th

We got up early to drive for 3 hours from Ollantaytambo to the entrance of the Lares Trek. We passed by 4500 meters altitude and knew, that we would hike up to that same altitude the next day... At the camp, our porters (we had porters to carry 6 kg. per person in a duffle bag) and chef made us a very tasty lunch that we had in a tent, and then it was time to begin our hike! We started around 1pm and had 3 hours going up and 2 hours going down ahead of us.. Not long after we had set off, we felt the Andean weather; sudden rain! So we got our rain ponchos on (luckily, I had also put on my waterproof pants, which turned out to come in handy) and kept going. I could have cried and wanted to turn back several times already going up this first hike, but when we reached our pass of the day at 4100 meters, I forgot about the pain instantly - it was so beautiful to see the two valleys between the tip that we were on.

It is funny to be at the same altitude as the clouds, and somtimes even above them. Hiking these mountains, you see both rain and sunshine (mainly rain, since it´s the rainy season), small rivers and water falls, rocky and hard soil and swompy and lush valleys, a lot of lamas, alpacas and goats, small local children dressed in traditional peruvian clothes (and often the small children didn´t have any shoes! I´ll tell you, it was VERY cold, so I could imagine that they must have had no sensation left in their poor, small feet..) who we would give some bread that we had bought for them. They live in small houses that are built the same way the Incas did it 500 years ago!!

7th

We got up around 6am after not getting a lot of sleep..:-S We went to bed early the night before(around 8pm), but still, sleeping on a thin air mattress in a claustofobic sleeping bag, constantly sliding downwards because we were on a hill, are not great conditions for a night of rest. Anyway, we hiked for around 5 hours (including breaks!) - of course, my brand new hiking boots gave me blisters, but they were not too bad... When we got to our lunch camp, the crew had already passed us by and had put up a tent and made delicious food! They had also put up what some people would call a hole in the ground with a small tent around it, but which was actually the bathroom....... hmm.. I kept thinking I had tried worse at the Roskilde Festival, but in the end, this was worse..:-S

Anyway, after a wonderful 2-hours lunchbreak, we continued our hike going upwards for 3 hours towards our higest pass of the trip; nearly 4600 meters! It was great to know that we had finally reached the highest point! From thereon it was only going downwards! It was great to finally reach our camp at 4100 meters around 5pm, and even tough not everybody was feeling too good, I think we all had a great afternoon/night, before we hit the pillow around 8:30pm.

8th

We slept in late - until 7am! Still without a lot of sleep, but we only had a 3 hours hike left down the mountain, so I tried to enjoy it as much as possible. But even though I would have sworn that I prefer to go down rather than going up, 3 hours of going down is actually kind of tough on your tired legs... Well, we arrived to a small village where our minibus was waiting for us, and we drove back to Ollantaytambo for a lunch break. It was great..! After that, we caught the train to Aguas Calientes near Machu Picchu. It was an old looking train with panoramic windows in the ceiling so we could enjoy the beautiful view of the mountains on the 1/2 hour trip. We went into the high jungle, as it is called, and it was funny to see, how the landscaping became more and more lush and green as opposed to the rocky mountains we had been used to, without many trees or bushes. We arrived to our hotel in the town Aguas Calientes around 6pm, and Jess, Gav, Lasse and I went straight to the hot springs (from that the name Aguas Calientes) before dinner. It was.... well, hot, but it also felt like bathing in a gigant bowl of chicken soup because of the smell and the muddy water.. Jess, Gav, Lasse and I went for dinner with our guide, and Jess and I had alpaca-meat (the lama-like animal). It tasted great! Like a mix between lamb and beef...

Well, we went early to bed, ´cus we had to get up at 4:30am the next day to get to Machu Picchu. But that´s another story:-)

Lima 1. Time - february 2nd and 3rd

2009-02-15T16:49:00.001-08:00

This time, I`ll try to make my posts a bit shorter and easier to read:-)

Well, we arrived at Lima on February 2nd just over midnight and got to our prebooked hostel. It was OK, but nothing compared to the very nice hotel-room at Los Girasoles Hotel where we stayed as part of the Amazon To The Andes-trip that started on the 3rd. On the 2nd, we went to look for Internet and ended up spending 4 hours there, because the connection was very slow... After that, we just spent the day stroling around in Miraflores - the part of Lima where we stayed, which is the most expensive, touristic and safe area of Lima. We had coffee at Starbucks (:-)!), and for dinner, we had an American Night (missing Jorge and Katrine) at Burger King and a movie afterwards (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - good movie!). On the 3rd, we did a 3-hours guided tour round Lima and saw Miraflores, Lima Centre with eg. Plaza Mayor in front of the Cathedral. There, we saw a dancing show with traditional peruvian dances - in one of them, the men wore wooden masks with white faces and painted beard. Originally, they were supposed to make fun of the Spanish conquistadors who conquered Peru - the Spanish had white skin and long/sharp noses as opposed to the peruvian dark skin and flat noses... We also saw the San Fernando convent and had a good tour around Lima.

In the afternoon, we moved to the Girasoles Hotel, and then we went to the cliff by the beach, where you can do Paragliding!! We tried it and enjoyed it VERY much! It was so cool to hang up there in a few strings and see the city from above! Have a look:

Hanging in there...!
Me and the instructor in the air..

In the evening we had an info meeting with the other 6 people (Jess, Gav, Lisa, Dan, Gene, Helen) with whom we were to do the Andes-tour. After that, we went out for dinner, and so it all began...

I´m alive:-) News from Cuba!

2009-02-02T09:17:00.000-08:00

Finally I got to a computer with internet! We are now in Lima, Peru, sitting and sweating in an Internet place with hot temperatures outside.

After travelling for 32 hours, I arrived to Havana airport on Monday the 26. at 21 o clock, where my travellingbuddy Lasse picked me up. The first thing I noticed was that I was definitely outside european smoking-rules! As soon as we got off the plane, people started smoking their cigarettes and cigars still inside the airport... on top of the hot weather, and the fact that the luggagesystem was not quite easy to understand for firsttime visitors -which left me worrying that I might have lost my bags - I was very happy when I saw Lasse. With all my bags, we got into a Lada-taxi and after a 25 min. ride, we arrived at the Casa where we were staying. We went for a quick strole to the Malecon to see the waves clashing against the wall separating the sea from the road and city. I don´t quite know what I expected from Havana, but I was definitely surprised that the streets and buildings are so miskept. The streets are a labyrinth of holes, and the buildings in the neighbourhood where we stayed (as well as in almost the rest of Havana) haven´t been restored since the 50´s you´d think! Basically, stroling down the streets of Havana, looking in the shops, watching the old (often well kept) american cars, you´d think you have been sent back50 years in time! There are a lot of small cornershops, and I realized that you really need to know where to go to buy e.g. groceries. You don´t see any shops or supermarkets that you might know from elsewhere - basically everything is Producto de Cuba. Even the Pringles look the same, but have another name! One thing you also find out is that there are two currencies in Cuba - Pesos Nacionales and Pesos Convertibles (from Danish Kroner to Convertibles, the rate is almost like DKK into US Dollars, that is 1 convertible is 6 DKK). When I exchanged my Euro to Pesos in the airport, I got Convertibles. For every Convertible, you have 24 Nacionales. So, often there are two prices - one in nacionales and one in convertibles, the one in convertibles obviously being the most expensive. People like us - tourists - almost always pay in convertibles, and if you don´t pay attention, you might pay a price that´s in nacionales but they say convertibles to you(say e.g. 2 nacionales for an entrance, and they ask 2 convertibles from you) - then you´ll pay 24 times the price!! But most of the time it´s just a fixed price - the cubans pay in nacionales and the foreigners pay in convertibles.

Well, on my first day i Havana, we basically just walked around the streets of Old Havana (the most wellkept part of the center of Havana, I´d say) and went for a tourist-busride around the city. The night before, when we went to the Malecon, I had been rather scared of the almost ghost-like streets, the stray dogs wandering the streets, the kid coming up asking me for money and people staring at us (well, we do kind of stand out in the crowd being both very tall, very blonde, very lightskinned and blue-eyed...). But we got to think, and actually, you don´t have to be afraid of getting robbed or being a victim of violence in Havana - you just need to know that you´ll be asked to buy something or give someone money every 2 minutes, and of course look out so thery won´t grab your purse.

We also went to the Jose Marti Memorial, a 40 stories high tower and museum. In front of it you have the big Plaza de la Revolucion, and they say that Fidel gives (or gave..) his speeches there. We went to a small market, and everywhere in Havana, you see different kinds of paintings, small wooden-animals and -people, leather shoes and bags, and little cars or cameras made from beercans (of course Cristal or Bucanero - kind of like Tuborg and Carlsberg in Denmark, I suppose).

The next day - the 28th - we went to a smaller city (the size of Aalboreg) called Cienfuegos app. 250 km. from Havana on the southern coast of Cuba. Of course, there are also different buscompanies - one for cubans and one for all the others, it seems. We went on the 4 hour busride with Viazul, and when we arrived, a very nice man, Rolando, picked us up and we went to his Casa. The owners of the Casa we stayed in in Havana of course knew some people in Cienfuegos, and they had called them to find us a place to stay i Cinefuegos. In that way, we could go straight pass all the people asking us if we needed a taxi or a place to stay. Lasse and I have actually made up some new words - taxi-pusher, restautant-pusher, cigar-pusher, you name it! They will come up to you in the streets at any time or when you´re just passing by and ask you if you need a taxi - EXCUSE ME, do I not have any legs, or why do you think that I ALWAYS need a taxi!??! Anyway, on our first night in Cienfuegos (one of the richest cities in Cuba, by the way), we went out to eat, and in the end found a restautant that seemed to be OK. There were not a lot of people eating out, so we had some trouble finding out where to go.. But we found it and got some, well, small pizzas, but it was okay. We got very bad service (customer service seems to be, well, a word that is non-existing in the cuban vocabulary.. At least it is not to be expected, unless you are cuban or get lucky that the waiter is nice), and felt like two mokeys in a cage as we were the only non-cubans in the restaurant, BUT the best part was that we payed in nacionales - it was 13 nacionales, that is around 3 DKK, and the water bottles in convertibles, but all in all we didn´t pay more than 15 DKK for a whole meal for 2 persons! Afterwards we went to a bar on top of a hotel and enjoyed a couple of mojitos with a great view over the city.

The next day, thursday, we went to the beach near Cienfuegos, a 20 min. taxi drive away at Rancho Luna. We wanted to snorkle, so we asked a waiter at the hotel, and he knew a guy who could take us snorkling. It was, however, kind of schh, since it was actually illegal for him to take us on a non-authorized trip - you know, everything is run by the state, so he couldn´t be seen when we payed him (only 10 convertibles!). We swam out, and saw the beautyful corals in purple shades, and we were out for about 1 1/2 hours. Afterwards we enjoyed the afternoon sun on the beach - and I realized that this was my first time on the beach for a long time. Which also resulted in a very bad sunburn on my back...!! I´m telling you, I was RED down my back and legs!! Obviously I didn´t put on enough sun lotion..! I can still see it on my back, actually, 4 days later.. Anyway, then at 5 pm we had booked a boatrip around the Bahia of Cienfuegos, and we went out in a small boat - with an open all-you-can-drink bar!! So we had a couple of mojitos- and saw the beautyful sunset. We tried to take pictures, but of course, it can´t be captured in a foto. We had dinner at our Casa, where Rolando had made us a 3 course meal (soup with rice, chicken with potatoes, fresh fruit and the spanish flan for dessert + coffee) and afterwards we went out to find a salsa-bar. We didn´t find quite what we were looking for, but found a disco - El Bennys - which had a kind of jazz-ballet-latin-shake-your-bootie-show and afterwards all of the teenagers (AND the +50s!!) were dancing reggaeton, reggaeton, reggaeton!!!

The next morning we had booked a hiking-trip to El Nicho in the Escambray Mountains. We left Cienfuegis around 8.30 am in a big taxi (it was Lasse, I and 3 people from Barcelona), and when we got to the village of Cumanayagua (don´t quite know how to pronouce that....), we changed into another form of transport that is very common in Cuba - a truck! So we got on to the back of the truck (kind of like the socalled studenter-koersel when we graduate from high school in Denmark!!) and went up the mountain on a very bumpy ride,passing by small villages and houses, loose goats and piglets and horses standing on the side of the road, and cuban cowboys, bicycle-taxis that I thought only existed in Asia, other trucks transporting people - you name it. There was also the beautyful view that just got better as we got up the mountains - there are lot of palms in Cuba, and one type is actually the national plant, that can be used to building houses, food for pigs - anything. We arrived at the El Nicho and a guide took ud for a walk up the mountain and told ud about the plants as we went on. We also saw a very weird animal - I was like a small dog-size rat (!), he explained to us! At first we couldn´t see it, as it hid on the rock-wall and blended in with the colours, but when it moved, you could see it. It has very good vision, so I think it stopped moving when it saw us:) We passed by several small waterfalls, and around 11:30 am we had some free time to go swimming in the natural pools by the waterfalls. It was fantastic! So clear and freash, and there was also a small cave to swin into. Afterwards we had lunch with the others, and then we passed the road to go to a waterfall on the other side nearer to the small village El Nicho. We got back to Cienfuegos around 5 pm to enjoy a beer on our terrace at the Casa as the sun set.

The next day, saturday, we took the 9am-bus back to Havana, and when we arrived, we had to move to another casa for the last night in Havana. At 2pm we ran down to the Real Fabrica de Tabaco, since I thought that it was open for visits and I would like to see a cigar-factory. It was unfortunately closed, so we just went into the cigar-shop next door. And they had so many cigars!!! Cohiba seemed to be the most expensive one, but I bought some more payable cigars. In the doorway sat a very nice elderly gentleman - he seemed like a host to bid you welcome. He asked us where we were from, and when we answered Denmark, he sang ¨Yo no voy a Dinamarca que me cambio de marca¨ (I´m not going to Denmark because then I´m going to change brand). As he saw that we didn´t know what the h*** he was talking about, he explained to us that back in the end of the 50s, in Denmark, we had the first sex-change operation ever. And then a singer in Cuba made that song, which was, if you think of it, actually very funny:)! For dinner we went looking for a restaurant with liveband, and unfortunately the band at the reatsurant we ended up in, turned out to be very boring. They didn´t look like they wanted to be there at all.. But the food was delicious! Afterwards, we went to a local, popular ¨dulceria¨to buy some VERY good cakes/pastry! And then we went to a bar called Bar Monserrate (if you ever go to Havana, go to that bar!) which had a live band playing very lively, sing-along-latin-songs, and the mood was very high! We sat basically next to the band, and had our mojitos, while people sang along and danced spontaneously! They were called Santiago Habana, and we ended up buying their CD (every small gruop of musicians in Cuba have a recorded CD). Suddenly, a VERY old man sat down next to me, and wanted to have our picture taken. He was dressed in a hat and an old suit, and smiled a lot. Then, I looked up on the wall where I saw a picture of a guy singing at the Bar - and the old guy looked exactly like him! I asked him if it was him in the picture, and from what I understood from his very mumbling spanish, it WAS him, and some other Danes sitting at a table next to us said that he could look like one of the legends of the Buena Vista Social Club. In the break, the old guy (called Denny, I think) sat down and played the small congas and jammed with the base-player - cool!:) Also, we saw the biggest black man ever at the bar!!!! I mean, really the biggest man ever!! I think he was the ¨door-man¨ of the bar. He must have been around 2,10m. at least! And his shoes - size 55 I think!! His hands could carry a basketball like it was a tennis ball! One of the Danes told us that his friend thought that he had met that guy once in the 80s, and back then he was a very famous boxing-champion (junior) - I´d think so! Getting in the ring with THAT guy would be terrifying!! But as big as he looked, he seemed ecually nice and down-to-earth. We got to talking to a Swedish guy that came up, and a nice German couple. When the bar closed at midnight, we went across the street for the last Bucanero, but then we ran out of money and had to go home..

Yesterday, sunday, was our last day in Cuba, and we went for a ride in one of the old convertible cars (a 1956 Buick) - it was great!! I gotta get me one of those!!:-)

At 3pm we arrived at the airport, and waited in line for the check-in for more than 1 hour! Just for the check-in!! Luckily it went rather fast from then on, so we left Havana at 5pm. We had a quick stopover in Panama, and arrived at Lima airport at midnight, where a driver from our prebooked hostel picked us up.

Cuba is a very funny place.. To quote the author of the Lonely Planet-book, it is a place where you need to enter with an open mind, and you´ll leave with a lot of unanswered questions. You´ll need a lifetime to understand the country, the culture and the Cubans. I kept comparing it to Spain because I lived there, but the Cubans are nothing like the Spanish - they might both speak Spanish, but the mentalities and culture is completely different.

It seems like there have been 3 eras in Cuba: 1) before the revolution, 2) during the Sovjet, and 3) after Sovjet.. Before the revolution, Cuba seems to have been a place like any other near the States; a country with historical influences from the Spanish and European, and import from the States (especially the cars). Then came the revolution, and Cuba was excluded from any Western influences, but got a lot of Ladas from the Sovjet (you wouldn´t imagine how many old Lada´s there are in Cuba!) and money to develop the society. Then, suddenly when the Wall came down and the Sovjet fell, there were no more money... just like that.. You´ll see bridges that haven´t been completed, the only highway (and what a highway! There are no white lines, and people stand on the side of the road trying to get picked up or selling onions etc.) that was supposed to go from Havana to the eastern side of Cuba suddenly stops somewhere outside of Havana. Buildings from many years ago that need a loving hand are just left to ¨decay¨.. You see VERY few new buildings from after the beginning of the 90s. They do have some new Asian cars, though, e.g. Kia - maybe from their Asian friends... ?

What you also see is propaganda. On many walls you´ll see pictures of especially Jose Marti (their national hero) and of course Fidel Castro. And then quotes from Jose Marti or things like ¨Patria o Muerte¨. This year (or last year..) it´s the 50th anniversary for the revolution, so therefore there are even more statements painted on the walls.

A lot of thigns obviously don´t work the way they do in the rest of the world, basically. You don´t buy a new house, e.g. You swich with the former owner (bytte-bytte-koebmand) or inherate it from your parents. The houses are the state´s property, as well as some of the cars, especially the old ones. But you can buy a car, I just don´t know how - one thing is for sure; you can´t bring it outside of Cuba.

The last funny thing I can think of now is the queueing... The cubans spend SO much time standing in line, it seems.. Even before the shops open, people will be standing in line, and you don´t just stand in line like you´d normally do.. When you get up to the line, you say ¨Quien es ultimo?¨ (Who is last in line?)¨, and then you remember the person who´s last.. People might be standing a bit out of line, but this system of always remembering the one in front of you makes sure that people go by turns.

Unfortunately, in Cuba you can make more money renting out rooms like the ones we stayed in, than you can working as e.g. a doctor. Our host-lady in Cienfuegos was some kind of ear-neck-doctor, and well, she rented out rooms. How are you supposed to develop a society with that kind of payments, Fidel...?

So now, we´re in Lima. Compared to Cuba, Lima is like returning to the 21st century and to civilization! You suddenly see brands that you know (in Cuba, you don´t get Coca Cola, you get Tu Kola), commercials (in Cuba you don´t really see commercials, since the state basically set the prices for almost anything) and there are new cars, nice buildings, supermarkets where the shelves are full of lovely things and food, technology (cell phones, computers, INTERNET...) which has only just gotten to Cuba recently...

Tomorrow, tuesday, we´ll be beginning our 12-days trip, starting with an info-meeting at a hotel, and then leaving by plane the day after tomorrow. I have brought SOOO much luggage - I´m prepared for basically any situation and any kind of weather , so I hope that I will need some of those things as we travel through different types of weather:) I´m looking very much forward to it, and the next time I´ll write something here, will probably be when we have come back to Lima on the 15th of february.

I´m sorry for the VERY long story, but when you only get an acceptable internet acces once a week, it gets long:)

I just tried uploading pictures from my camera to the computer, so I could put some in this blog as well, but it couldn´t handle it, and the computer froze. So I´m doing that another time.

If you want to read almost the same, but with slight differences, check out Lasse´s blog at www.findlasse.blogspot.com :-)

I´m looking forward to being able to call you guys in Denmark, but so far, I don't think that will be possible until I get to La Serena.. We´ll see.

Miss you all! Even though it´s great fun to be travelling with Lasse, and I´m enjoying it very much, I sometimes miss the people from back home (especially my skattebase who is on the other side of the World.....).

Do write me, I would very much like to get emails or comments on my blog! The second I get an adress in La Serena, I´ll let you know!

Knus og kram, hugs and kisses, besitos

Lisbeth

Counting the minutes..

2009-01-24T10:03:00.000-08:00

Getting the last things ready and packed for tomorrow, I'm looking very much forward to beginning my trip to Cuba and South America! I'm meeting with my travel-buddy Lasse in La Habana monday at 9 pm. Cuba-hours, and from thereon I'm hoping for one exciting experience to succeed the other...

So with butterflies in my stomach, tomorrow at 11 pm. I'm leaving from Arhus (Tirstrup) Airport to Stansted (London). Then at noon on monday, I'm leaving from Heathrow (London) via Madrid and then to Havana. I haven't even counted the hours I'm gonna be traveling/flying -don't wanna know;-D

To get off to a flying start, take a look at some of the pictures from my fabulous "not-surprise-going-away-party" last night with the girls!:-) Had a great time! Thank you, girls!

Første indlæg

2009-01-09T11:48:00.000-08:00

Sidder stadig hjemme i Danmark, men jeg tager afsted fra Tirstrup (Århus) søndag d. 25. januar om aftenen, og så er rejseplanen Cuba, Peru, Brasilien og derefter ankomst i La Serena, Chile d. 3. marts. Studiestart er d. 8. marts, og så går det vist bare derud af:-)
Forventet hjemkomst til Danmark er ultimo juli.