Completos & Arroz con leche - icecream

Over the whole robbery-confusion I totally forgot to write about our latest discovery! Completos! A sausage in a hotdog bun topped with fresh tomatos, avocado, tons of mayonaise and ketchup! It tastes awesome and costs only 500 Pesos (about $1) It's what I'll be missing on the hike in Torres del Paine NP. We'll be having rice, pasta and instant soup, all over again for about 10 days!

We've also been trying the weirdest icecream flavours at Bravissimo, the best icecram place in Santiago! My last one was "arroz con leche" (Milchreis!) Different but tasty!

Our 3-hour flight down to Punta Arenas (Patagonia) was pretty crazy, I think I've experienced the worst turbulences ever! Normally that stuff doesn't freak me out but this was quite scary. The plane kept shaking and bouncing for several minutes and a woman close to us kept shrieking "ah - aaahh - aahh!!!" They also played this really creepy music on the plane - stuff that they play in movies right before a plane crashes. Maybe not the best strategy to calm the passengers down!

After one night in Punta Arenas we took the bus to Puerta Natales, a little town that lives from tourism since it's the last town before entering the National Park. It's a lot colder down here and windy as hell! I'm really glad now I had my mum sending my warmer sleeping bag. I would have probably froze to death in my old one.

Valparaiso, Chile - not the safest place to be in ;)

We got robbed yesterday while we were exploring Valparaiso, a pretty but apparently more dangerous town on the Chilean coast.

We walked around the city for a bit on a special tourist-walking-track that's supposed to be nice and scenic. We turned into a little sidestreet and walked up a hill where I stopped to take a picture with my digital camera. I was just about to put it back into my backpack when a guy runs up to me from behind, rips the camera out of my hand and takes off. Nigel started chasing after him until we realized that he had an accomplice with him who picked up two bricks and threw them at Nigel.
I was pretty freaked out at that point and just yelled to let them have the camera before somthing more serious happens.
Nigel ended up with a pretty big bleeding bruise on his arm and some scraped off skin on the other wrist.
Everything happend so quickly, it was over within about half a minute and I don't think I've realized at that point what had just happened. If I rewind the situation in my head now I wish I would have yelled at them: Arschloecher,fucking bastards, puta madre... but I was too perplex to say anything!

Afterwards we went to the next police office and all they basically did was write a report for my insurance company. The description of the two thieves wasn't really important to them. Nothing they can do about it - that's it!
Kind of disappointing but also understandable if you take into account that things like that happen all the time(one of the police guys told us that approximately 10 robbed tourists come in every day). They were really helpful afterwards though! We got a ride in the police car to the next hospital where Nigel's injuries got taken care of and then the police guys drove us back to our hostel. At first it felt kind of weird, all this special treatment, but they seemed pretty happy to get out of the office for a while since it was Nigel and me and then 3 police officers.

I don't care about the stolen camera that much since I'll probably get the money back from my insurance. The thing that really bothers me though is the whole set up! The guy was dressed all nicely, clean clothes, a camera bag over his shoulder - almost like a normal tourist. He walked up the hill in front of us, then fell back a little and sat down on some stairs next to the road (probably to check us out and to wait for the right moment).
The rock-throwing-part also upset me a lot. I imagined what it would have been like if they would have hit Nigel's head and seriously injured him? I wonder if they would have cared.

I was pissed off the whole afternoon and evening (and I still am now when I think about it). I wanted to kick or punch someone really hard and I don't know what would have happened if I would have come across those guys on the street...

Oh well, it could have ended a lot worse and I wasn't expecting to get through my 4 months in South America without anything like that happening.
I'm in fight-mode now whenever something like that happens again ;)(kidding, we actually agreed not to interfere again and just let them take off with the stuff next time)

I'm glad that we're heading down to Patagonia on Friday to go hiking and camping in the wilderness... less chance of getting robbed down there :)

I will still be able to put up pictures online even though it might take a little longer now. I still have my manual FM10 with me and I can have them put the pictures on a CD when I get the roll of film developed.

From La Serena to Santiago

It´s been so long since I last updated - I don´t even know where to start...
We spent about 4 days in La Serena, a nice town right by the ocean that apparently gets really crowded with people from Santiago in the summer months but was still quiet when we were there.
One of the nights we went to ´Mamalluca´, an amateur observatory which was pretty spectacular. We´ve been told that Chile is one of the best places in the world to observe stars due to the almost perfect sky conditions (clear atmosphere, low humidity etc.)
Unfortunately my camera started acting all weird just when we got there, so no pictures! :( There´s something wrong with the CCD-sensor, a manufacturing defect on some Canon cameras. I found out after a couple of days that when I slam it really hard it starts working again - so that´s my new technique until I´ll get back to Germany and try getting it replaced ;)

Apart from that we went on a tour through Valle de Elqui, famous for its Pisco (typical Chilean liquor made out of grapes) and wine. We got to check out a Pisco factory and a really cute little vineyard (tasting all the different types included). The wine here is so cheap too! It´s great to be able to get a really nice bottle for only about 4€!

Eventually we decided to try and make our way down south to Santiago by hitchhiking and it wasn´t as hard as I expected it to be! After only 20 minutes of waiting we hitched a ride with a really nice guy in his truck: a bumpy 6-hour drive but really nice views of the Chilean coast! He even gave us his number and offered to give us a lift all the way down to Patagonia but we ended up buying a flight instead since it would have been another 30 hours.

We´re staying here in Santiago with the family of Nigel´s sister´s boyfriend and it´s sooooo nice to finally be in a place that has a clean bathroom after a long time of traveling and staying in crappy and disgusting hostels. It starts getting on your nerves after a while when every time you take a shower you struggle with trying not to touch the walls, shower curtain or other disgusting things in a dirty bathroom covered with other people´s hair.

Santiago is also fun cause we got in touch with some friends of friends (thanks Julie for the Eddie-hookup!) that know their way around the city and took us out on the weekend. And in general it´s just a really nice and laid back city despite it´s size.
We saw a group of people dancing in a park to drums, felt a bit like the South American Loveparade version, but was cool to watch.



We´re just planing our trip to Patagonia now and then hop on the plane to get down there in a couple of days. The 19 days of trekking are gonna be tough, especially after lazing around for such a long time... but I´m excited and really looking forward to it!

Into Chile

After crossing the border into Chile we took a bus down south to La Serena, a nice town about 8 hours north of Santiago. The busride down took 22 hours and was exhausting since we had to get off the bus several times for police controls (one of them at 1.00 in the morning). They make you take all your luggage off the bus and then go through your stuff searching for drugs - in our case all they found was dirty clothes and stinky socks. Must be a really unpleasant job!

Chile has been nice so far even though it is a lot more western than Ecuador and Peru and also A LOT more expensive! :(
Talking to locals can be really frustrating and makes me feel like the 4 weeks of Spanish classes were worth nothing! The people here talk sooooo fast and shorten a lot of the words. Most of the time when I listen to them I just go : "Whaaaaat???!!!???" afterwards... and they´ll repeat it again... in the same speed!!! Buhuuuu!

Peruvian Hospital-Hell!!!

Have been travelling through Peru for the past couple of days with a from Diarrhea suffering Nigel. When it got to the point where he couldn´t keep anything in anymore & lost his appetite completely we decided to go to the hospital in Tacna, a bordertown close to Chile.
I don´t think anyone of you has been to a hospital like that before, the word CHAOTIC describes it perfectly!!! When I walked into the emergency room I could watch a surgery going on through an open door, the patient unconscious on the table and the doctor stitching his head back together, blood everywhere... YUM!
After struggling with explaining what Nigel´s problem was (the fact that the nurses & doctors spoke REALLY fast didn´t make the whole situation easier) we got sent from one place to the next one, had to pay for the consultation in a different part of the building, head back and hand in a stoolsample, pay for the labratory expenses (again in a different part of the building), get all the medication in the hospital farmacy and additionally stop at a farmacy outside the hospital complex cause apparently they didn´t have syringes in the hospital...!!!
After 3 hours they eventually injected some undefinable liquid into Nigel´s vein and sent us home with some antibiotics.
I´m more than glad that I haven´t been seriously sick on this trip! I have to say I don´t really trust this whole system.

Earthquake in Peru

Something REALLY weird happened today!!! Nigel and I were just sitting in a restaurant having breakfast when the whole place starts shaking, the paint comes off the ceiling and the people around us start screaming hysterically! It only lasted for about 5 seconds and at the time we didn´t even realized what had just happened. We just sat there looking at each other not knowing what´s going on. Must have looked reeally odd!
I found out by a local that it was an earthquake, apparently 5.8 on the Richter scale. The epicentre was somewhere between Arequipa (where we are now) and Tacna (where we´ll be heading to next)
I didn´t even know they have earthquakes that strong in Peru. Pretty crazy experience!

Bolivia is off the list!

Unfortunately we have to cancel our plans to go to Bolivia :(
We headed towards the boarder to Bolivia (lake Titicaca) a couple of days ago and our old friend the high altitude sickness said ´hello´again! Nigel spent another night throwing up and feeling terrible. It was even more scary this time since we were trapped in Puno for a night and had to wait for the next morning to take the bus back to Arequipa (about 1000m lower in elevation).
The plan is to head to Chile from here (take the route along the coast) and spend some more time there and in Argentina.
I would have loved to go see Bolivia but everything is so high there (most places are above 3000m) and for me it´s not worth it to risk Nigel´s health just to go see it.
I already know that I will come back to South America at some point anyway! I´ll just go and see it some other time...

Machu Picchu, Blisters & Mosquito bites

After checking out prices for the original Inca Trail ($300) and alternative tracks to Machu Picchu we decided to do a combined 4 day mountainbiking/hiking trip through the jungle that ends up at Machu Picchu the last day.
The night before we left we found out that part of the road where we were supposed to start biking was closed due to road constructions. The only way to still do the trip was to start the 6 h busride at midnight to pass the closed part before the construction work starts in the morning. We didn´t really get a lot of sleep that night and I felt dizzy for the whole first day of the trip.
The biking sucked big time - riding shitty bikes on a shit road - do I need to say more?!?
The landscape was pretty amazing though, riding through jungle forests with tons of banana trees and seeing snowy mountains in the far distance.
The second & third day was mostly hiking through jungle. I didn´t get much sleep during the next nights either since I was scratching the tons of mosquito bites like crazy!!! I counted about 30 - just on my right leg!!! I also get the impression that the mossi bites here a way more itchy than anywhere else... they won´t stop itching for days and days... not pretty!

In the evening of the 3rd day we got to Aguas Calientes, a town especially constructed for the Machu Picchu tourists. It´s annoying how you can´t walk down the street without having several people try to convince you to eat at their restaurant, stay in their hostel etc.

From there we started our climb up to Machu Picchu at 4 a.m. the next morning to see the sunrise. It was a one-hour climb (only stairs) and it was soooo exhausting. I was glad when we finally got up there. So worth it though! It was an extremely cloudy morning and the views were fantastic.
The ruins were pretty amazing too! I have no idea how the Inca´s managed to construct something like that. The stonework is just incredible, huge blocks of granite, carved and fitted perfectly!
After a while we decided to climb up the next highest peak, Wayna Picchu, which was another hour of tough climbing, and got rewarded with awesome views on the ruins and the surrounding. If anyone of you ever makes it out here I´d totally recommend struggling up that extra hour to Wayna Picchu cause it´s almost more impressing than Machu Picchu itself.

Motorbiking in Cusco

Went motorbiking for the first time ever - the fact that you can just rent a motorbike here without having a licence or any experience at all is funny but scary at the same time! We went into one of the agencies when we checked out prices and told the lady that we´ve never been riding a motorbike before, her answer was: "oh! no problem! You´ll be alright!" Great! So you can basically just get out there and kill yourself...

We went to a dirtfield and practised for about an hour before we went out on the raod. It was so confusing at first... gas, clutch, 2 different brakes, the 6 different gears... you have to think about so many things at the same time! But my biggest problem was the fact that my legs were too short to reach the ground! :( I fell over twice when I tried to stop (motorbike on top of me)... not so much fun!

Anyway, after a while we felt pretty confident and drove around the Cusco area for 3 hours. It was really pretty! ... and FAST!!! 115 kms/h was my maximum... pretty fast for a bloddy beginner.
I´m thinking about getting my licence when I´ll get back to Germany cause I wanna be able to go out there and ride a bike without constantly being worried about killing myself or someone else!

No much news apart from that. Cusco is a nice city but REALLY touristy - it´s commonly called ´Gringotown´! It´s a good idea to get a shirt saying ´No Gracias! No necesito algo!´before coming here cause you´ll get offered all sorts of stuff EVERYWHERE you go! It gets quite annoying after a while.

Canyon de Colca

Have been trekking at Colca Canyon for the past 4 days and it was simply AMAZING! The busride from Arequipa to Cabanaconde (a small mountan village in the Canyon from where we started our hike) took about 6 hours. It was´t even that far away (about 250 km´s) from Arequipa it´s just the roads are so bad that a jouney that would normally take 2 hours in Germany or elsewhere in Europe gets streched to 6 hours.

The tiny villages in the canyon were really impressive. I´ve seen places that are just out of this world. The way people live their lifes there seems so hard, they live in tiny houses build out of rocks and dirt, most of them without electricity and running water. The work they do everday on the fields, in the scorching heat, is back-breaking! But after all they seem happy with their lifes and they´re really friendly people.

We stayed the first night in Tapay, in the frontyard of a family with two little kids, Raul & Jesus (who the hell names their kid ´Jesus´?!?). The two boys were so funny and really impressed by all our equipment (tent, backpacks, waterbottles etc.)They kept jumpimg up and down and were all over the place!

During the second day of hiking we met these two old men and started talking to them. They were probably in their 70´s and the one was blind on one eye. He kept talking to me for about 10 minutes, holding my hand the whole time and repeating " rubia bonita" (blonde Schoenheit) while the other one kept inspecting my teva-trekking-sandals going "ooohhh - ahhhh!". It seemed like he´s never seen something like that before.

Some of the hiking was extremely strenuous since we hiked down into the canyon back up on the other side, back down to a Oasis and on the third day all the way back up to Cabanaconde. Most of the evenings we ended up crawling into the tent at 6 in the evening and passing out cause we were so exhausted.
It was also really frustrating to see how the locals manage some of these treks. You can sort of get what I mean if you picture us, two tourists, with huge backpacks with all our hiking & camping-equipment, struggling down these really steep mountain trails trying not to slip or fall and then opposed to that the locals running down the mountain like crazy!!! They probably manage to do a trail that took us about 4 hours in like 40 minutes... how frustrating!!!

After we got back to Arequipa we had another day and am just about to catch the nightbus to Cusco to check out Macchu Picchu and then move on to Lake Titicaca and into Bolivia.

In Arequipa

After a total journey of 32 hours (17 hours to Lima and then another 15 to Arequipa) on the bus I finally arrived!
The buses here in Peru are surprisingly comfortable. The only annoying fact was that they were showing aweful movies for most of the ride (started with a really stupid American war movie - in Spanish - and then went on to a Chinese Kung-Fu-movie). They also turned up the volume all the way which made it almost impossible to fall asleep. Earplugs for the next busride are on my shoppinglist!

Once I got to Lima I only spent about 5 hours walking around and figured it´s not what I´m looking for right now - too busy, noisy and bustling.
Had some nice lunch though ("Ceviche", a specialty here which consists of different types of raw fish in lemon juice)with a local who showed us around the city.

To hop on the next bus and go straight to Arequipa (the far south of Peru) was the best decision ever! It´s such a nice and cute city. There are some really nice old colonial buildings and the flair is similar to the one in Cuenca except a lot nicer.

Yesterday I checked out the Santa Catalina Convent. It´s in the middle of the city and huge but so pretty! The architecture and wall paintings are just amazing! Most of it was opened to public in 1970 but there´s still a part where some nuns live today. It´s weird but it seems like a totally different world within the main city.







I´m just about to finish the last preparations for a 3 to 4-day hiking-trip to Colca Canyon starting tomorrow. Hope to get to see some Condors there and get a bit of exercise after sitting on a bus for such a long time.

Ripped off in Peru!

We finally made it to Mancora on the north coast of Peru! Crossing the boarder from Ecuador to Peru was quite scary! We had to get off on the Ecuadorian side and wait almost an hour to get our passports stamped (meanwhile our bus took off with our backpacks and the other passengers - luckily it returned after a while, but it was scary to think ¨damn! we just lost all our stuff"
Then on the Peruvian side there was a guy who almost ripped the passports out of our hands, filled out the immigration-form for us and then wanted us to pay 5$!!! Nigel refused to pay that much and the guy got really angry! Holy shit! I seriously thought he was gonna beat him up... pretty scary! We ended up paying 2$ and then found out that normally they get paid about 50 cents. :(
Getting ripped of like that went on for the rest of the trip to Mancora... Busdrivers, Taxidrivers etc., they all just want your money, and if you´re not careful they charge you three times as much as the normal price would be.

We stayed the first night in Mancora in a pretty lousy hostel, paying 15 Soles (about 3 or 4 Euros) each for the night. Then we found this really nice place right next to it, nice rooms, an awesome terrace to hang out on right by the beach... for the same price!!! This was too good to be true. We found out the next morning that it costs 15 DOLLARS per person - a huge difference! We tried to argue with the lady cause she totally didn´t make it clear that she meant dollars! I mean, common?!? Who would tell you the price in Dollars if you have to pay in Soles anyway??? We both got pretty annoyed...
I guess we just have to get used to being really careful with what people are trying to sell.

Same thing with the busticket to Lima: we asked yesterday at one office and the guy told us it´s 80 Soles, we return today and find out it´s only 70?!?
Anyway, we´re just about to hop on the bus and somehow survive the 17 hours to Lima! It´s gonna be pretty bad but we figured that a flight to Lima and further on to Cusco is out of the question cause it´s way too expensive.

Apart from the whole getting-ripped-off-thing we spent some really nice days at the beach. We rented surfboards for a day and it was a lot of fun but soooo hard. When you watch them it seems so easy but until you get in the water yourself you have no idea how much effort it is! We were able to catch some nice waves and just lying on your board and cruising back to the shore was tons of fun.... kind of scary as well cause you get so much speed. We ended up with some minor bruises and cuts... but I´d totally do it again.

I´ve also learnt my lesson about using insect repellent and a mosquito-net at night(thanks again Julie!!! I´m so glad I have one with me now!) as I got bitten all over and had to spend the whole last night being super itchy! Really annoying... guess I´ll be more cautious next time!

Heading south to Peru

After finishing the language course in Cuenca, packing our stuff and saying goodbye to friends and our hostfamily we´re heading down to Mancora on the north coast of Peru. It´s a little town with nice beaches and pretty good waves for surfing. Yay! We´re planning on staying there for 2 or 3 days and then start the loooong journey down to Arequipa to do some hiking and camping at Colca Canyon (the deepest canyon in the world) and then move on to Cusco to see Macchu Picchu. It´s going to be a hell of a journey... I estimate about 30 to 35 hours on the bus.

I wasn´t feeling that great during the last couple of days, had a throat infection, stuffed up nose and a bad headache but the thought of being able to chill at the beach (and some antibiotics) made me get better right away ;)

I probably won´t be able to update my blog anytime soon cause but I´ll try my best.

My favorite place in Ecuador so far...

Went to Cajas National Park with Nige, Bjoern, Maggie and Giddy (two Kiwi´s)last Saturday and it was absolutely STUNNING!!! It is such a weird but beautiful place! There is over 250 different lakes and all of them sort of look the same which makes it really easy to get lost there. Before we went we heard from several people that visitors die there all he time. GREAT! That´s so encouraging! ;)
The park is huge (about 29.000 ha) and there is nothing else apart from a little information centre at the entrance... no huts, no park rangers, no rescue system... nothing! Since it´s so high (the elevation ranges from 3000 to 4500m) it gets really cold and foggy at night (sometimes the fog rolls in at midday already) and chances you survive once you get lost are pretty small. People basically freeze to death there. On top of that they don´t really have realiable maps of Cajas so most of the time we were more guessing than knowing through which area we were hiking. It was loads of fun though. We hiked for about 6 hours and had the most beautiful weather you can imagine.
We all got back with a slight headache (from hiking in high altitude) in the evening which unfortunately turned into a pretty bad one in my case. Two aspirin made me feel better the next day. Oh well, I guess we´re just not made for exercising in the Andean region.

Apart from that we´ve been visiting a guy in Cuenca who has his own guitar-workshop. He makes the most beautiful guitars I´ve ever seen - they´re all handmade and just amazingly beautiful! He puts so much work into every little detail and it takes him up to 3 months sometimes to finish one single guitar. If you´re ever in Ecuador and thinking about buying a guitar,let me know and I´ll provide you with his contact info, this is definitely the place to go!!!

We also visited some local markets in Gualaceo and Chordeleg on Sunday which was really intersting, especially the animal market. It made me sort of sad though to see how they treat the animals there. Not that pretty!
There´s some pics from the markets on my picture-webpage if you want to see more.

Eating cuy and being back at the hospital!

This is what we had for lunch two days ago:




´Cuy´is the Quechua word for Guinea-pig (Meerschweinchen) and apparently a specialty in Ecuador. The Ecuadorians only have it on special occasions and it´s quite expensive. We saw people selling the guinea-pigs (alive) on a market close to the school. It´s pretty weird to look at them crawling around in those little baskets knowing that they´ll end up on someone´s dinnertable. Uuuaaah!!!
The way they prepare the guinea-pigs is pretty gross too. First they break their necks to kill them (some of them are still alive afterwards though), then they pop out both of their eyes and drain the blood out through the two holes (very few of them are still alive at that point but not for long anymore) then they dip them in boiling water to get the fur off and then bake them in the oven.

It didn´t taste all that great and I definitely wouldn´t want to have it every day but it was an experience.

Yesterday we went out to a restaurant to have dinner and a couple of drinks with some friends after the Salsa class. When we left Nigel had a bit of a stomachache, but it didn´t seem too bad and we headed off to ´La Mesa´ to go dancing. I went to the bar at some point to get a couple of drinks and when I came back I found Nigel unconscious on the floor and a whole bunch of people crowded around him. It was pretty creepy. Especially since this is the second time he passed out since we got to Ecuador (first time was on Cotopaxi). He only passed out for like 20 seconds but hit his head on the way down and looked really pale afterwards. The funny thing was that the people at the club thought he passed out cause he was really drunk (which wasn´t the case). We took him back home with a taxi and then went to the hospital this morning to have him checked. The doctor said it was probably just because the stomachache got really bad and said that he seemed ok.
I hope this doesn´t happen again soon. It´s already scary when there´s other people around to help but I´m freaked out by the thought of hiking together somewhere in the middle of nowhere and having Nigel pass out again.

We´re probably just gonna take it easy again this weekend, going to Cajas and doing a one-day hike. No more extreme-experiences for me for at least the next week!!! ;)

News from Cuenca...

Spent my second week here trying to memorize a whole bunch of new vocabulary and sentence structures (gosh - it´s so much to learn!!!), drinking Mojitos, taking more Salsa-lessons and dancing the night away at ´La Mesa´, a cool new Salsa-club we found. The people there, mostly locals, are craaaazy!!! The way they dance Salsa is just not from this world! Of course we can´t keep up with them, but it´s still fun to dance a little or just watch them doing their crazy spins and bouncing off the walls.

We went horseback-trekking this weekend which was awesome!!! We drove to this place a bit south of Cuenca, got the horses ready and then got to enjoy some awesome views of the surrounding area. We went up this mountain (on really steep, small and slippery trails) and then got to ride along the mountain ridge and came back down after lunch. The loop we did took about 4 hours and now my butt is hurting like hell after some wild and crazy galloping where the 4 horses tried chasing each other. It was loads of fun though!

From Ecuador

The guy who went with us, Fernando, has his own little farm in the countryside and told us a bit about the work he is doing. He´s trying to be as self-sufficient as possible, growing his own fruits and vegetables and selling his own products (dried fruit, jerky and other stuff). It sounded really interesting and we might go and stay with him for a while and help out at his farm when we´re done with our language course in two weeks. I think it´d be really interesting to see and experience what the life in the Ecuadorian countryside is like... how the people live, work etc. We´ll see what happens. Maybe our plans to go to Peru are gonna get postponed for now.

Ingapirca & first camping-experience in Ecuador

We went to Cañar by bus this weekend and from there to Ingapirca, some old Inca-ruins. It was really interesting to see how the people used to live and how modern and progressive some of the things they did were.

I was also trying to chase some Lama´s that afternoon which didn´t work out that well. Everytime I got close to them they took off... too bad.

Afterwards explored the surrounding area searching for a spot to camp. We found a really nice place but had to cross a river to get there. I slipped on a wet rock and me including my backpack with all my clothes, tent, sleepingbag went for a little swim... SPLASH!
No big drama, it wasn´t that cold at night and the important things like my sleepingbag didn´t get completely soaked. Lucky me. We were more worried about the fact that we didn´t know if we camped in the complete wilderness or on someone´s property. The next morning after we woke up and packed our stuff we realized it was the land of some ecuadorian farmer who tried to get us off his land by sending his dog who was barking like crazy after us!

Taking a cab home from the bus terminal in Cuenca was really irritating since we know now that the ride costs 2$ and not 5$ (it´s what they charged us when we first got here)... They rip you off so easily and even if you tell them that this is not your first time in Cuenca and that you know how far it is and how much it costs, they´ll come up with these ridiculous prices! Argh!!!

Riobamba-bamba-bamba, Nariz del Diablo & first week in Cuenca

After our exciting trip to Cotopaxi we found out some even more scary details from the two Swiss-girls that helped us up on the mountain. Apparently the guy who took Nigel down to the car said that he passed out on the way down... pretty scary! Especially cause the Swiss-girls (very experienced alpinists) told us that 60% of the people that get to the stage were they pass out don´t make it!!! I guess we both just realized afterwards how serious it was.

After another 3 days in Quito we took the bus down to Riobamba. The guys at the bus terminal that sell tickets are really irritating!!!! There´s a whole bunch of different bus companies operating on the same routes and of course everyone wants to sell their tickets to you. There was one guy who was especially keen on winning us over. It was incredible how many times he could say the word ´Riobamba´ in one breath. I don´t think I could say it half the speed he did. I got really annoyed after a while cause he wouldn´t even let us compare prices but would just yell ´Riobamba-bamba-bamba´into my ear!

The ride took about 4 hours. From there we hopped on the Devil´s Nose Train, the most difficult trainroute in South America. It takes 7 hours and you get to sit on top of the roof (gets kinda uncomfortable after a while) and enjoy the scenery. It was amazing cause you get to see so much more than if you´d just sit inside the train. The ride goes through massive canyons and there´s lots of indigenous people (especially kids) standing along the way waving and waiting for the tourists to throw down candies or lollipops.

Once we got to Alausi we took another bus (5 hours) down to our final destination for the next 4 weeks: Cuenca.
Cuenca is so much nicer than Quito! It´s an old colonial town with lots of nice buildings and churches. It also seems much more European than everything else I´ve seen in South America so far.

The hostfamily we´re staying with is really nice. The mom, Ruth, is such a character!!! She´s super cheerful and kept talking to us even though we didn´t understand a word at first. Then there´s Manuel, the dad, and Jose (17) and Juan (23) the two sons.
We have our own room with a private bathroom which is really nice.
The food we eat at the family is decent but it took a little while to get used to it. Cheese with honey isn´t a thing I´m used to having for desert, but oh well... different culture!

Another thing I´m still struggling with is the fact that you´re not supposed to put toiletpaper in the toilet but in a little basket next to it. The waterpressure of the drainage-system here is so low that it would get blocked up right away! Not a great thing to happen!

The spanish is coming along well. We just finished our first week of clases and it´s a lot of fun so far. The school also offers all kinds of activities outside the normal clases. Nigel and I are learning how to dance Salsa which is fun but hard if you´re not born with the South-American-hip-swinging-thing! :)

We´re planning on checking out Ingapirca (some old Inca ruins) on the weekend and do a bit of hiking and camping in the Canar area. Should be fun to get out of town for a bit...

Climbing Cotopaxi and experiencing the joys of high altitude sickness...

What a last couple of days!!!
We went around town to check out different travel agents and decided to skip our plans to go to the jungle for now and climb Cotopaxi instead, the second highest volcano in Ecuador (5897 m):

We started Wednesday in the morning, a driver took us from Quito to Cotopaxi National Park where we met our guide Jamie (pronounced 'Chaime'). We threw our stuff in his jeep and started an extremely bumpy but fun journey trough the park towards the volcano. The area is amazing and it was a nice change to being in Quito and breathing polluted air all the time.

We left the Jeep at a parking area and sorted out the equipment-situation. Each one of us got mountaineering-boots, snowpants, gators, crampons and ice-pick. It was extremly strenuous to put on the xtra clothes and store the rest in our packs since it was windy like hell and we constantly got sand and little rocks blown right into our face.

From there we started hiking uphill for about an hour until we got to the basecamp at 4800m. Then made it up to the area where the glacier starts (5100m) and did some training on how to use our equipment properly and how not to get into dangerous situations.

Then went back down to the basecamp, had some dinner and went to bed at about 6.30 p.m. since we were supposed to start climbing up to the summit at midnight (it takes 7 to 8 hours to get to the top so we would have been up there to see the sunrise)

Unfortunately we didn't get to go. A bit after we went to bed Nigel got a really bad headache. I gave him some aspirin and we thought it would just go by after a while. Guess what??? It didn't get better. it actually got a lot worse. He started throwing up after about 6 or 7 times we decided to take him down the mountain and drive him to the hospital since those are symptoms of really bad altitude sickness. It was pitch dark outside and the wind was a lot stronger than during the daytime. I partly walked down the slope to the car by myself since the guides had to take care of Nigel. It was one of the scariest things I've ever done. I didn't know where I was going and couldn't see where the path was and where the freefall would start.... CREEPY!!! We made it down somehow and reached the hospital by car after another 1 1/2 hours. There Nigel got provided with some oxygen and the doctors checked him for Pulmonary Edema which is a pretty serious symptom of high altitude sickness. Luckily it turned out fine and after a while he was starting to feel better.

Since it was around 11 at night when we got out of the hospital we had to take a taxi back to Quito. On the way back we had 2 (!!!) flat tires. By the time that happened we could just laugh it off. It was such a weird and adventurous day. And I guess we both stretched our limits quite a bit. In one way it was a valuable lesson about how much your body can take and in another way about how it feels to be in a pretty damn dangerous situation and being worried about someone else but not really being able to do anthing to help.

I'm still glad we did the trip and I would have loved to get up to the summit (especially since I was doing completly fine up there) but I guess this wasn't the last chance to do something like that. It was definitely an experience!!!

We're heading down south towards Cuenca on Saturday. I'll probably write more once we get there.

Bienvenidos en Quito!

Yeah! We finally arrived in Quito, Ecuador. There I had to realize that Iberia has lost parts of my luggage! Now they refuse to deliver it to our hostel and want me to come pick it up at the airport but that's not gonna happen - NO WAY! I'll just try and keep bugging them until they give up.

Great!!! After that I found out that Nigel's flight from Miami got cancelled. I took a taxi to get to our hostel which as one big adventure. Holy shit! It seems like you're pretty much screwed without a horn and lanes don't seem to exist. Crazyyyy!!!

Nigel arrived at the Secret Garden (name of the hostel) a couple hours later. The place is absolutely awesome (thanks to Helena for recommending it). The people are really nice and laid-back. There's a big terrace on the roof where you can chill out, talk to other cool people or just relax in a hammock. The view from up there over the old part of Quito is amazing (pictures will be coming soon).

We spent the last couple of days walking around Quito and realized pretty soon that it's tough to get around without at least a basic knowledge of Spanish. 'No entiendo' is one of our most used phrases! The people are really friendly and willing to help tough. We climbed up the towers of the Basilica (about 75 meters high) and it was a pretty scary experience. People here don't really seem to be worried about security... in Europe sth. like that just wouldn't be possible!

We went to Mitad del Mundo (the middle of the world - Equator) yesterday. It's a really touristy place about 20 kms north of Quito but still worth checking out. The busrides are ridiculously cheap here (25 cents for an hour drive), and usually really crowded and BUMPY!

Today we were signed up to climb the volcano Guagua Pichincha. Unfortunately we had to drop out and postpone it to next week since I got sick (damn, shouldn't have eaten those unwashed blackberries on the market yesterday). My stomach still feels kinda funny but after throwing up and being careful with what I put in my mouth I feel much better already. Guess this was a lesson!

We're planing on doing a 4 day trip to the Rainforest/Jungle next week before making our way down south to Cuenca. Julie recommended this awesome trainride where you get to sit on the roof of the train and enjoy the scenery :)

It's only been a couple of days here in SA but I already love it!!!

View from the terrace of the Secret Garden, our hostel in Quito, Ecuador