Next stop - The World

The LANDMANNALAUGAR trek and the 2nd week with Sammy

2012-02-12T13:11:00.001Z

Many months later, patience to write and upload the pictures never arrived! I'm very happy with the new lens I bought for the camera.

The trek was amazing. 4 days, 4 distinct landscapes. Day one, golden mountains covered here and there in snow, ending with a 1-2 hours hike in the snow. Met a really nice Scottish couple who were my hiking companions for the rest of the trip.

Day two, the green valley and the lake where the shelter was located. Simply amazing.

Day three, the ashes desert (and sharing the treks with the adventure marathon!)

Day four, the glaciers and returning to Reykjavik.

The second week I met a colleague from work and we went on a road trip north, to the fjords, bird watching and whale watching.

In the end, a fantastic party weekend in Reykjavik!

Conclusion, I love Iceland :)

Reykjavik

2011-07-13T18:52:00.000+01:00

It feels so great to be back on the road! Leave the stress and worries of the daily work behind! :)

And travel alone again, always a challenge, but that is getting easier and easier.

I arrive in Reykjavik mid afternoon and walk up the hill from the BSI terminal. I easily find the hostel, the reviews in hostelworld and tripadvisor are amazing, so I am very curious! And I am not disappointed! Our House. Friendly, cosy and right at the centre. And very important for a guy who turns thirty today... away from big crowds and noisy groups like huge backpackers hostels.

Reykjavik is music, relaxation, bars, cafes. All I needed before the demanding 4 days hike from Landmannalaugur to Thorsmork.

I spent the first three days in Reykjavik and around. Next week I will be here again. One day I went to the blue lagoon with Robert, an Austrian I met at the hostel, who also lives in Stockholm and who goes to the same places I go in Stockholm. Damn coincidence! The 2nd day I did the golden circle, a short tour that goes through Geisir - the geiser after whom all geisers in the world are named -, Gulfoss - impressive waterfalls - , and þingvellir National Park - place of the first world parliament. It´s a nice circuit, that doesn´t take that much time and anyone who only has a few days in Iceland should do.

The evenings have been spent hanging out in bars with Robert and other guest from the Guesthouse. Laundromat cafe is my favourite. Cool place, right in the center, great service. Unfortunately during weekdays everything closes at 1 am, so I still haven´t experienced the famous Icelandic nightlife. That will come next week, when Samuel arrives.

Next stop, exhilarating landscapes in Southern Iceland :)

Preparing for a new adventure

2011-06-12T21:46:00.000+01:00

In less than a month, back on the road :)

Iceland for two weeks, hiking, sightseeing, adventure, partying and meeting new people.

Looking forward to discover this lost paradise :)

Soon more details.

2010-01-04T21:21:00.005Z

It´s been a while since my last post. I actually forgot to publish the previous post about La Isla del Sol. The return to Europe and the adaptation to the daily routine, was not easy and the inspiration to write was not so good. So instead of long posts about my last days traveling I'll shortly describe my route and the activities I had.

I stayed in La Paz only one night. Before going back to Portugal, I decided to meet Elodie in Antofagasta in Chile. The original plan was to spend a day in Antofagasta and then a few days in San Pedro, visiting what I had missed. Due to the change of plans, the new plan was two days in Antofagasta and then, flying from there to Santiago and from Santiago to Vigo, in Galicia, Spain, .

Antofagasta is very cosy city. It's the second biggest in Chile, bathed on one side by the Pacific and watched closely on the other side by the mountains. It was the peculiarity of the multicoloured houses growing up the mountains that made me want to come back. During our time there, we wandered around the city, met some locals in some bars, visited a natural monument north from the city and got a crazy bus ride with some construction workers. It was the perfect way to end the trip. Great company, good food, nice wine and some party.

I said goodbye to Élodie and went back to the hotel to pack my stuff and... say goodbye to a lot of things. Half my clothes stayed there in that hotel room... And my trip finished there, in that hotel of Antofagasta. From there it was a long trip back home and to normal life...

Isla del Sol

2009-09-27T17:17:00.003+01:00

An early bus, La Paz staying behing and a couple of hours later, the amazing scenary of this sea of sweet water located at 4000m of altitude that is Lake Titicaca. Destination: Copacabana and La Isla del Sol.

It is definitely a nice journey, with an interesting boat crossing 1h away from Copacabana, where we leave the bus, enter a boat and the bus crosses the lake on its own boat. I had never seen that before, but it works. It just makes the journey last about 30min more!

After reaching Copacabana we decide to buy the boat tickets to Isla del Sol and have to have a nice lunch before we get to the Island. It takes another hour to reach our destination. Then it comes one of hardest things I've done on this trip. Moving 200m uphill carrying my backpack. I move step by step, following the kid whom Emma negociated a room with. He looks like a mountain goat moving from step to step as if it was easy. We are at 4000m... He's a nice kid and the room is really ok with a view over the lake and the sunrise, which is supposed to be really nice.

After a deserved rest, we decide to explore the island. It is a small Island, this island where the Incas believed their supreme god was born - the sun. There are a few ruins around the island. The biggest ones are on the northern part of the island, so we decide to walk the Inca trail tomorrow and visit those. For the rest of the afternoon we wander around some ruins located south from the setlement and just spend our time wandering between tea houses and restaurants. There's really nothing to do, specially after the sun sets!

Getting up early, around 6, to see the sun rising prooved to be a fantastic experience. The sun erupts from behind the beautifull snow picks of the Andes bringing life and movement to the Island. We start our hike around 7. It took us almost 3 hours to do the 6-8 Km trail from south to north, until the ruins of the old Inca setlement. It's not the type of ruins I'm used to, so I am a bit disappointed, but the hike was really nice, although it was extenuating and hard due to the altitude.

After finishing our hike we go to the northern harbour and immediately take a boat to the southern part of the island. Once there I rush uphill to pick up our stuff while Emma stays and tries to convince the boat drivers to wait for us. It works, I didn't faint which means that my body is getting used to the altitude. Back in Copacabana we only have time to buy the bus ticket to La Paz and buy something to eat.

I am very quiet the whole trip. I know that tomorrow I will start moving back to my normal life. I will still stop for a couple of days in Antofagasta in Chile and meet Aurelie whom I had met in Valdivia. The plan was to go back to San Pedro and do some climbing, but I had to cancel that part due to my sudden change of plans. Well, that's life. A quiet evening watching some Confederations match and a very good meal in a fancy restaurant was my way to say goodbye to La Paz, this huge city, surrounded by enormous snowie peacks where I decided to go back to Europe and to the real world...

La Paz

2009-09-25T13:37:00.003+01:00

I'm not a fan of poluted, noisy, traffic-congested big cities, as many of you must have noticed by now. So what brings me to La Paz and makes me stay here 4 days?

Well, first the city itself is located at 3600m above sea level and I'm curious to see how is it possible to build such a big city at such a high altitude. There are a few monuments that are worth a visit, but I'm kind of tired of beautiful churches, by now... Another reason for the visit is doing the world famous Corrida de la Muerte, a downhill mountain bike circuit, via what used to be the main road between two important cities in the Andes. The name reflects the amount of people that have died over the years in this road. In our days it's mostly a touristic attraction for adrenaline adventurers that want to defye gravity and move almost 3000m in altitude in about 4 hours. There are also some 6000m mountains that can be climbed even by people with little experience and I was planning to climb Huyani Potosi, the smalest of them all. It's a 2-3 day adventure.

I asked Emma, whom i had met in Santa Cruz to book me a place at her hostel. We met in that evening for dinner. It's always nice to have someone to show us the city or at least to show us the nice places to eat! Emma is a studying to become a Medical Doctor in Oxford, but for the last few months she's been doing volunteer work both in Nicaragua and here in La Paz. She's really into it and I admire her for what she has been doing. And she is a great company.

On my first day in La Paz I woke up with some news that make me decide to end the trip earlier and go back to Portugal within a week time. On the time I have left I have time to do La corrida de la muerte, go to lake Titicaca and then go back to Chile, visit Antofagasta and finally fly to Santiago and from there back to Europe. So this first day is spent taking care of all the bureaucracies, changing ticket dates and so and so on. One thing, if you ever buy a round the world ticket from Oneworld, make sure your first flight is with British Airways. My first flight was with Finnair and that makes them responsible for any ticket changes you might need to do (at least everytime one calls British Airways that's what they tell us!) . Well, Finnair does not fly to south america so it was a crasy race against time, some telephone fights with Finland and in the end a visit to the nearest Lan office solved it all. Instead of flying to Portugal I had to fly to Vigo, which is quite close to the border, so that wasn't such a problem. And I'll arrive still in time for a friend's wedding! Which means meeting half of my friends while still jet lagged...Lets see how it goes!

La corrida de la muerte

I decided to do the death race with the agency from my hostel. I thought there wouldn't be many people doing it with them. Well, this was a mistake. A group of over 20 people with only 3 guides awaited me... At least the bike they gave me was good. The first part of the race was on a fantastic asfalt road, the perfect place to let ourselves go, but instead the stupid guides wanted to keep the group together and that made us stop every 3 or 4 minutes. I got tired of that and just passed the guide and enjoyed a nice downhill until the check point. Others that had been complayining about it followed me and in the end we were discussing with the guides that that was not what we paid for. Some people in the group actually wanted to move fast! They were three so they could split the group in 3 and everyone would still have fun. Specially on that asfalt road which was perfectly safe!
The dangerous part of the "race" comes when we reach the gravel road. This road goes around the mountains, there are no protective barriers, and stones and holes on the road make it a really adventure to combine speed with balance, always with one thing in our minds: one distraction and I end up at the end of the 1000m high cliff that's just at my left! Nevertheless it was really funny, adrenaline at its max and a terrible pain in the hands due to the strength I put in holding the bike to the road! 4h later we were done. The fastest guys all felt that we could have done it faster if they had allowed us, but, whatever, next time I'll follow the suggestions I was given by other people and pay a bit more to do it. I didn't fish around in different companies as I should have!

La Paz

The rest of my time in La Paz was spent walking around, climbing up and down (not easy at this altitude) taking some pictures of the amazing scenary in which this city was built. Remove all the cars and garbage from the city and I would love living here! I just love mountains!

Next stop in Lake Titicaca and La Isla del Sol. Emma decided to join me. This is great because I haven't been in the mood to talk to strangers lately. I guess I am getting the "almost over" mood...

The Missions Circuit

2009-09-25T12:22:00.004+01:00

I didn't have enough time to visit all the missions. That's a 5 day thing, or shorter if you go with a travel agency, but i prefered to take the local transports and do it on my own.

My first stop was in Concepcion. Since this was the first mission that I visited I was really impressed with the wood-works. I wandered around it for 1 hour taking pictured until I decided it was time to figer out how to get out of there. I soon realised that the next bus to San Ignacio, my next stop is, whether within an hour or tomorrow at 5 pm. I forgot to mention, that the settlements around the missions are small and there's not much to do or see here. So I just decided to pick up (after a small discussion with the hostel guy which wanted to keep all my money when I stayed there only for an hour and didn't even use the bed) my stuff and hop on the bus the was heading to San Ignacio that day. This could have been a really bad decision...

I started feeling sick about half way between Concepcion and San Ignacio. Flu sypmtoms appeared quite fast and I couldn't wait to get off that bus and find a hotel to relax... It was after midnight when I arrived in San Ignacio. I asked a British couple whether I could follow them in the look for a hostel and just moved on with one thing in my mind: the nearest hospital is 12h away so lets hope this is a normal flu! I stayed in the first hotel we found. I bargained the price and ended up staying there for a couple of nights. The room was a bit noisy, but clean, confortable and breakfast was included which given the circunstances was perfect. A bit pricy for Bolivia, but whatever. I needed a place like that.

A few paracetamols later I adventured out of the hotel and tried to find a place to eat. It was Sunday and most places were closed, opening only in the evening. I also inquired about the buses to San Rafael. By now I had decided to skip one of the missions and try to get back to Santa Cruz as fast as possible... There were only buses at midday, the next day. So I had a full day to rest and try to recover a bit more. The mission in San Ignacio didn't impress me that much. There's a lake quite close and the square has some really nice statues.

In San Rafael, another adventure. Finding a place for the night. There are two, but...none is highly recommended! I end up staying in a room with a really dirty toilet, a bed where it's impossible to find a confortable place to lay down and with a very strange lady as my host! This is the simplest of all the missions I have visited. It's nice but a bit neglected, and it's possible to see that not many tourists stop here... Only a stupid, sick guy like me ends up here, I moan...

Finally I arrive in San José de Chiquititos, the place where the train stops and from where I'll go back to Santa Cruz. Instead of waiting 4 more hours for the train I decide to take the bus which departs at 20.30. I still have 6 hours to see one mission!!! It is actually really nice the one in San José, the only built from stone and that is still being rebuilt. I wandered around the square reading and writing. If I had known the kind of road that the bus was going to go on, I would have probably rented a room for resting during the afternoon. But I had seen some asfalt when my bus reached San José and concluded that the road to Santa Cruz was all paved... Once again wrong conclusions that resulted in a dusty sandy road and a bus having to stop twice with a broken engine...

Santa Cruz

2009-09-25T11:36:00.006+01:00

Potosi stayed behind and the road to Sucre was taken once again. A connection to Santa Cruz, the wealthiest state in the country awaits me. After a small discussion with one of the tickets agencies I got a ticket in the last seat of the bus. I don't know if this was the worst bus ride of my life, but the asfalt ended like an hour after our departure. Then I lost count of the rivers we crossed (and by crossing I don't mean going over it using a bridge!). A tire exploded, fortunately when the bus was fighting to climb up a mountain. People around me kept coughing and sneezing and throwing garbage to the floor of the bus and through the windows. Well, this is the real Bolivia, that people kept talking about...

Why coming to Santa Cruz. The guide doesn't mention much about it, not many touristic atractions. Well, I'm going to meet Dario's brother (me and Dario used to live in the same corridor in Utrecht when we were exchange students) and hang out with his friends for a couple of days. Meeting locals and talking about their lives is one of the things I appreciate the most. I decided to stay in a cheap hotel very close to the city center. Not the cosiest place in the world, but I've stayed in worse places...

And Santa Cruz was only partying and meeting Diego's friends. It was really nice and funny, but after two days in the city I was ready to keep moving.

From Santa Cruz there are 3 or 4 options, tourist wise I mean. One is to go back to real Bolivia and head on to La Paz. Another is to take the "death train" to Brasil and visit the pantanal. Another is to move north and visit an National Park in the Amazonia. The last one and probably the one least people choose is to make the Missions circuit. The Jesuits once created a Theocratic state in this part of South America. They had the support of the local Indian (Guaranis) and since they were located in a very remote area, Portugal and Spain had no control over them for many years. Today the missions are no longer a missionary place. They were abandoned shortly after the Jesuits were expeled around the end of the 18th century, but the Indian settlements continued and today they are small cities that grew up around the missions. Left abandoned the missions almost disappeared, until UNESCU decided to make them a world heritage site. Today they have all been recovered. Appart from going to La Paz all the other options were quite expensive so, I decided to leave La Paz for when I returned to Santa Cruz after visiting the missions.

Potosi - Or, A return ticket to Hell....

2009-07-24T15:14:00.007+01:00

Potosi was once the richest city in the world. It was from these mines than Spain built its empire, exploring the silver from Cerro Rico. But it was not only the mountain that the spanish explored. The Quetchua people, who inhabit the region,and many others were used and abused to explore the mines. The mountain, Cerro Rico, is today an intruiquite mixture of tunnels which are in risk of collapsing after over 500 years of exploration. But Potosi is not only mines. The money that came from the mines, was used to build a number of Churches around the city, that still shows a lot of colonial architecture. It is located at around 4600 m above sea level, making it impossible to walk fast... The setting around the city is amazing. But the mines was the main reason for my visit to Potosi...

I arrived in Potosi, mid afternoon and after wandering around the city trying to find a place to stay I arrived to a hostel at the same time as a german guy. We ended up sharing a room just to try and save some money. After dropping our backpacks we went to town, got a cup of coffee, and introduced each other :) The funny thing about backpacking is that names are not important. As long as people share the same objective, experiences can be shared and you'll just remember the person for what you shared with him or her and probably remember the nationality and not much more. After the coffee we decided to book our trip to the mines for the next day. We decided to do it with the most expensive agency, mostly because they had an extra guide in each group that helps anyone who feels bad to go back and get out of the mine. Knowing what I was about to face, I felt that it was good to invest two extra euros and feel that I was somewhat "safer"

The mines (short summary of the four pages I wrote in my diary after the visit...)

Small, hot, cold, unbreathable, dusty, tiny galleries, safety measures... a mirage... After hearing so much about the mines from Nicoles and other people I met on this trip I felt obliged to visit the mines in Potosi. I could have done as some people that, whether because they are claustrofobic, or because they just didn't feel they could stand watching this in loco just decided to watch the movie "The Devil's Miner", which tells the story of a 14-year old miner... Hearing about it or watching a movie about it is not enough for me... So I decided that I had to go there. And it was a terryfing experience... Many start working in the mines when they are only 12 years old. They work 10 hours per day, from dawn till dusk, crawling through small holes, breathing their own death. The particles in the air are responsible for lung silicosis, which gives these miners a life expectancy of 35! Watching those dark, wrinckled faces, carrying an empty look, that are capable of smiling only when we offer them some coca leaves, cigarrettes, drinks or dinamite, or sometimes, when we tell a joke, was depressing. I feel hopeless, there's nothing I can do appart from offering them those small things that keep them alive, and at the same time working and dying... We went down to the fourth level of the mine, over 50 m. On the way back I have to stop several times. I feel breathless, I'm sweatting a lot, I can hardly breath... I feel like running the hell out of there but, that's not possible. The climb is steap, too steap... I have to crawl for 15 min to reach the first level. I'm lucky I'm the first in the line, otherwise I would have to "eat" the others dust. I admire these men and women and I feel sad for them. They don't see any other opportunities in their lives and that's why they keep working in the mines, hoping the Tio will show them where to find the silver.

I did the tour with the spanish speaking group. After 1 month in South America I can understand most of what people say and I am starting to speak Spanish. My group is formed by some "older" people, that are as impressed as me. In the end we are given the opportunity to blast some dinamite. We prefer offering our dinamite to the miners. Some kids from the other groups are holding the litten dinamite bars while taking pictures... (later in the trip while speaking to other kids I realized that their main purpose in visiting the mines was having the chance to blast some dinamite...)

These men and women that I saw working should be offered the title of national heroes. No one should be allowed to work in such conditions in the 21st century. These working conditions are probably the same they had in 15th century when the Spanish arrived and enslaved the natives to work in the mines. Once they were slaves of the Spanish. Slavery was abolished, but now they are still slaves of the mountain. In a poor country like Bolivia is (stupidly poor, given the amount of natural resources they have) they make the economy work, extracting silver and other minerals from the mountains so that we can wear it around our necks or hang it from ears, belly buttons or just decorate our homes. And what do they gain from this? In most cases, a premature awful death, broken dreams... They organize themselves in groups of 10, most of the times they are brought together by family laces. So, if an accident happens... you know what i mean! They choose the place to dig based on their knowledge and on luck. They worship the devil - Tio - offering him everything, from cigarretes, coca leaves, alcool, condoms, to lama sacrifices. Many swear they have met the Tio in the mine before...

I only watched manual work in this visit. They use some machines to dig the mountain, but most of the work is made by hand, with their own sweat.

These are big men and woman. I feel small next to them. Sadly, this is one of the marking moments of my trip. I'll now come back to my pink world, eating in nice restaurants while they continue chewing coca leaves for breakfast, lunch and tea... Spending my afternoons in a terrace by the ocean while they have the darkness surrounding them. These are Quetchuas, exploited for centuries by different empires. These are heroes. What will be of them when the minerals are finished? I asked the guide. Emmigration, is his answer. I ask nothing else and just rush out of there.

I feel like I took a 2 hours return trip to hell. Potosi, once the richest city in the world, financed the rise of an empire, is still there, in the Andes, a mountain filled with holes that offer hope and death at the same time, a prison where many decide to encarcerate their lives.

The rest of Potosi
I spent the rest of my time in Potosi, wandering around the town, watching the beautiful façades from churches and enjoying my time with the Swiss and French that went to the mines with me. The dinner was really funny and wine just kept us talking and laughing until they asked us to leave the restaurant. A funny evening after an impressing experience. Back to my pink world, I guess...

Sucre

2009-07-04T00:13:00.003+01:00

Clean, quiet, pretty and relaxing, that's Sucre and that's exactly what one is looking for after so many days in cold and rough places.

The trip from Uyuni to Sucre was my first contact with Bolivian roads and buses. It wasn't as bad as I thought, but the worse was still to come...

Well, there's not much to say about Sucre. I went there with Britt, the dutch girl from the Uyuni trip. We stayed there three days just wandering around the city, trying different cafes and restaurants and doing some sightseing - this can be hard since the main attraction, churches, appear to be closed most of the times...

Sucre is the constitutional capital of Bolivia, although the government sits in La Paz which is the official capital. Just like in Uyuni, there's a lot of native americans around. That was so far one of the biggest surprise about this country. The multi-ethnicity of Bolivia, with around 30 different languages spoken around the country. It's an organized and as clean as an southern american city can get (surprisingly close to european standards, believe me). I loved my visit here. It was hard to go back on the road...

2009-06-29T12:38:00.004+01:00

"(...) La Charla con los amigos me confirmó una vez más que uno es de onde mejor se siente.(...)"

Luís Sepulveda,in Patagonia Express, read during the energy recovery days spent in beautiful and relaxing Sucre

The Salar de Uyuni tour

2009-06-12T18:37:00.005+01:00

3 days through mountains, deserts, altiplanic lagoons and salars. Three days of cold, extreme heat, bumpy roads, dust, no confort at all. Three days of astonishing landscapes, beautiful lagoons, gorgeous flamincos, and of creepy and funny salars. Three days that end in the biggest salar in the world, above 3000 m. The salt flats of Uyuni are just so white and big that all sunlight is reflected which causes the loss of horizon and causes mirages, like mountains floating or the feeling of being surrounded by water.

Three fantastic days. Great company, the 12 people distributed by 2 jeeps had a great time. This also made this hard journey easier. You never know what to expect when you enter a tour like this. It's not a tour for the normal tourist. Sleeping at 4800m in a unheated shelter, is not easy. Breathing is not easy at such altitude. The cold at night is extreme. Running, or exercising just forget it (although we managed to play some football in the salt flats, but it took me at least 30 min to recover my breath!). But I can tell you that I don't regret at all of having taken this trip. And I'm happy I did it from Chile and not the other way around, because like this the last thing in the trip is the salt flats, and that's the main attraction of the 3 days tour (it's 4 days if you want to go back to the starting point).

So in summary, the tour starts with a bus trip from San Pedro to the Bolivian border, where one meets our travel mates. 2 Brazilians, 1 french, 1 dutch, 1 american, 2 british guys and 2 couples, one german and one british were the 12 adventurers. At the Bolivian border we have breakfast and stamp our passport. A picture of Evo Morales, the populist Bolivian leader welcomes us in Bolivia. And then hop we go in our 4 WDs up the mountains. The first stop is at the Laguna Blanca, so called because of the Borax minerals that give it a white colour. The lagoon turns green and becomes Laguna Verde a few km ahead due to the accumulation of sulfates. We continued to the hot springs. This was a fantastic moment. The water was really really warm (much better than in the geisers del Tatio) and it felt great to enter the water and just relax 20 min before continuing the bumpy road. The geisers sol de mañana followed. I couldn't see a single geiser, just fumaroles, so this was kind of a disappointment. The Dali desert, so called because of a Dali painting that looks exactly the same, awaits everyone who passes, quietly without producing a single sound. It's a beautiful place. The final stop of the first day was the redish laguna colorada, full of red algae and home to three different species of flamincos. A beautiful place at over 4000 meters. Our shelter was not far away and we spent the time talking and playing cards and dice. It was a funny night where everyone got to know each other a bit more.

The second day starts with the laguna colorada, followed by the stone tree, an eroded rock that somehow resembles a tree. Around it there are more stones that people keep on climbing. I end up finding one that resembles a bird, or maybe it's just my imagination seing things in the middle of the desert. We proceed, visiting a few altiplanic lagoons, that are not as spectacular as the ones from the first day. There were also the coloured mountain and the Ollegue volcano on the route, before we pass through the first salar (and the train line that ends in Antofagasta). Our place for the night was the salt hotel, a peculiar place where all the walls are made of salt! We visited some mumies right next to it, once we arrived and then it was just time to relax, have a warm shower and wait for bed time to come! The big day was awaiting.

And finally the Salar de Uyuni comes. Big, huge, empty, white, imense, quiet and beatiful. All these feelings come to me as we enter the salar. I want to stop and take the funny pictures that I've seen from other people. The lack of an horizon produces very funny optical ilusions, specially when you take photographs. We stoped for an hour and acted like children with a new toy during that hour. The guides are probably so used to that that don't even bother to come out of the car. We next moved on to the IncaHuasi Island, an island in the middle of the salar, that is covered in cactus, the only thing that grows in this place. Some are over a 1000 years old! Impressive! As we are finishing lunch me and Clement see some bolivians playing with a ball. We run to join them and spend the next 30 min trying to run at 3000 meters. It was really funny. Football breaking barriers, as it should be! We are informed that the road blocks that had closed the access to Uyuni for the last few days, are over and continue our trip towards the city. Before being dropped off in the city center we visit the train cemetery, a strange place where a bunch of old locomotives are rottening in the sun.

And so it ended the trip in the lost city of Uyuni, a place that, appart from being the gateway to one of the most exquisite tours in the world, has little to offer even to the normal backpacker, that doesn't demand much. We spent the rest of the day trying to get some money (there's one ATM in town that doesn't always work), eating some decent food and trying to keep warm. We said goodbye to the brave ones who decided to leave immediately and try to relax in the cold rooms of this remote place, that doesn't have a single paved road connecting it anywhere else in the country. Tomorrow it is going to be a long journey to Sucre, via Potosi, but I want to relax at a lower altitude before continuing to explore south america and Bolivia. The last days have been amazing and full of different feelings and experiences. Lets hope it stays like this. :)

I would also like to recomend the Cordillera travel agency tour. I had heard really bad experiences from the salar tour. I think mine was quite OK. I don't know if it was from the tour operator, the company or what, so just be aware that these three or four days are not easy and no tour company offers a confortable upper class journey. I didn't have any complaints from these guys, but others have had. There are no tour operators without complains, so I believe it is luck that determines a good experience :)

RC
.

San Pedro de Atacama

2009-06-12T17:55:00.004+01:00

There's probably no other place on earth like San Pedro de Atacama. At times it just feels like we are in another planet. The lunar landscapes at the Valle de la Luna, become even more mysterious and strange, as the sun sets. Valle de la Muerte, is just a beautiful place where I wouldn't like to get lost. Quebrada del Diablo an example of what water can do, having built a beautiful and enormous canyon. The Geysers del Tatio at sun rise look like hell, if it exists.

This is San Pedro de Atacama, a small city, in the Atacama desert, the driest desert in the world, in the northern part of Chile, right next to Bolivia. Everyone that had been there told me I had to go there. And so I did. My first image of the desert was on the bus. It is a long way from Santiago to San Pedro. So long that I decided to break the journey in two and stay at the lost city of Copiapó one night. I regret I did that, but it was probably wise to do it. But Copiapó has just nothing to offer the normal tourist. It's an old miners city, that seems to be waiting something to stop existing. But lets not talk about that... Lets talk about Antofagasta and its beautiful coloured houses standing just in front of the high dry mountains by the pacific ocean. I didn't stop there, my bus just went through it, but I wished I did... I might go back to northern Chile by the end of the month and visit it and do somethings I missed in San Pedro. But the best part of this long trip was the sunset on the road between Antofagasta and San Pedro. All the sky turned orange, it was beautiful and the perfect welcome card to the most peculiar place I've ever been to!

I'm a huge fan of deserts. Don't ask me why... It's just such an empty place that it makes me feel so empty that the brain just starts thinking and racionalizing so fast as if it is trying to compensate for the lack of everything. And so, as I approach San Pedro, the more aware I am of what surrounds me and probably that reflects all the visual images I had during the days I spent here!

I met Guy as we left the bus, when we arrived in San Pedro. Although we went to different hostels, it was very likely that we would meet in the small city center. And so we did. We spent the next 3 days doing things together around the city. We biked to Quebrada del Diablo and the Valle de la Luna (although in this part of the trip we had to push the bike more than biking due to the strong wind that kept blowing sand into us), hiked to Valle de la Muerte and sandboarded the dune, and took the perfect tour to Geisers del Tatio. We also planned the Uyuni Salar tour together. I lost count of the pictures I took in these 3 days. Everywhere I turned a postcard like picture seemed to lay in front of me.

I can't write much more about San Pedro. It was just too beautiful and my vocabulary too limited to describe it. I'll leave you with the pictures as soon as I find a place to upload them! Meanwhile, if you are really curious about it, just google it. San Pedro, the most alien place in the face of earth.

2009-05-31T13:50:00.001+01:00

“..., como buenos fueron aquellos días pendientes de un sueldo que no llegaba. Bajo las aspas de un ventilador que no producía ninguna brisa, pero compartidos com mujeres y hombres de gran nobleza que me ofrecieron lo mejor de símismos."

Luis Sepúlveda, in Patagonia Express

(While sitting on a endless bus trip through the Atacama desert.)

Valparaiso

2009-05-31T13:45:00.001+01:00

There's definitely a special vibe in Valparaiso. I don't know what it is, but it makes you feel like climbing the Cerros, sitting down in cafes writing and thinking, talking to people and appreciating good wine. I spent 3 nights in Valparaiso, 4 days in total. There's nothing left to see after so many days in such a small city, but you still feel like staying longer. You never know if at night at the hostel you are going to meet some amazing people or if a spontaneous guitar unplugged will end with the police knocking at the door at 2 a.m.

I went straight to Valparaiso from Valdivia, so that I could meet Stepan before he left South America. We were both in the same mood when we met and just spent the rest of the day walking around, talking, drinking wine. He left the day after, after a long walk through the Cerros in the company of Guillaume, a french guy that was staying at the same hostel. Later in the afternoon Nicole entered the dorm and we started talking. Well, many things in common resulted in endless conversations, enjoying the amazing Carmenère wine (to those who are wine fans I strongly recommend the red Candelaria) and the famous Cordillera del Diablo white (the red is more famous but I still have to try it). We also did the same walk I had done with Stepan and Guillaume, but this time there was no fog and we had a perfect view over the city. We also went to Isla Negra to visit Neruda's house and both felt that in such a place with that perfect setting anyone can feel inspired to write. La Sebastiana, his house in Valparaiso also had a fantastic location, but giveme a furious ocean releasing its anger against the dark and indifferent rocks and I can spend hours day dreaming!
My last night in Valparaiso was fantastic. First Nicole insisted in preparing dinner and the only thing she almost allowed me to do was appreciating the wine with her. After dinner, and after talking about movies for a long long time, we decided to go to a restaurant and get a desert. Back in the hostel, some people were out in the yard drinking and playing the guitar. We joined and started teasing the players to play things that everyone could sing, ending with Alejandro, the hostel owner improvising a song in the latin way, the neighbours complaining about the noise, moving inside and looking for the lyrics and tabs for the songs on the and the police showing up when we were almost done with it. It was a very unpredictable and spontaneous party that was fantastic. Well, if you ever go to Valparaiso I strongly recommend staying in Hostal Patiperro. It's super clean, great atmosphere and great people working there. And the morning coffee is great.

And so Valparaiso stayed behind. I bring a huge collection of graffiti pictures in my camera but many others were not captured by my objective. Maybe i'll come back some day... I'm sure it will be different, but I also feel that something new can always happen in the city, given the type of people who choose this place to settle down for a some time.

It's a rainning day..........

2009-05-22T19:57:00.007+01:00

Or it's a rainny week, that's more what I should say...

After a fantastic sunny day in Pucón where we mostly rested from the previous day effort, we took a bus to Puerto Varas in the lakes district.

Somewhere in the middle of the bus journey it began to rain and it was a foggy, wet and cold Puerto Varas that welcomed us. The first goal was finding a place to stay. There aren't many low budget options in town and the best one was closed for holidays... So we had to stay in an old, dark, sinister house - Residencial Hellwig - , hoping that the next day would bring better weather conditions.

Well, it didn't... so after walking around the city for a while, without seing any of the volcanos that should be visible from the lake, we decided to grab our stuff and head on to Purto Montt, from where we would take the boat down south to Puerto Natales in a few days. But since I'm feeling extremelly cold, I started thinking if it would be worth going south... I want to hike down there, and just going there without hiking is not an option for me. And since I don't have gear to hike in the cold, or camp in the snow and don't want to invest a lot of money on that at this stage, I start considering quiting from going south. I know I'll be extremely disapointed, because that was one of my objectives from the moment I started thinking about this trip, but on the other hand, spending money and just feeling bad all the time with the cold is not motivating as well. I had 4 days to make a decision. During that time period we hardly did anything. The weather got worse, heavy rain joined the party and we spent one and half day without almost leaving the hostel Vista Hermosa in Puerto Montt.

After two nights at the hostel we decided to visit Chiloé, a traditional island, where it is believed potatos were cultured for the first time. We headed on to Castro, the main city on the island, staying in Hostel Cordillera. The sun appeared every now and then, so we were able to wander around the town checking what it is famous for: the palafitos and the church (together with a few more on the island they are part of Unesco world heritage sites). In the evening we decided to try the local speciallity and were surprised by a huge dish of Curanto, composed of sea shells, mussels, bacon, chorizo, potatos. It was good, but I've had better.

The next day we went to Acao to see the oldest church in the island and try to see some more things. Unfortunately there was nothing else to see and we just went back to Castro and moved back to Puerto Montt. Chiloé is a nice place, but with the rain it is impossible to do some of the things it has to offer, like the Pacific hike that goes through some seal and penguin colonies.

We have both decided by now that we are not going to take the boat down south. The weather is too bad to enjoy the boat ride. I am still considering taking the boat to Laguna San Rafael, but after calling Navimag I am forced to change my plans, because the boat is fully booked.

I then decide to start heading North, and book a bus trip to Valdivia. Tiago decides he wants to continue south and books a bus to Punta Arenas. So we separate once again. We will probably meet again in Peru or Bolivia. My plans now are to visit northern Chile, Bolivia, Peru and Colombia. He wants to visit Argentina as well.

Valdivia

I arrive in Valdivia under heavy rain (yes, I will continue complaining about the rain until the end of the post...) and after unsuccessfully trying to figer out which colectivo would take me to the hostel, I start walking when the rain gives me a break!

I decided to stay in Albergue Latino in the 7000 pesos rooms, that include breakfast and bed linen. I am really glad I did that. I met great people there. Camilla, Martin, Barbara, Gesa, Ellody, just to name the ones whom I remember the names, made my days and nights much brighter than they would have been. Well the first night I went with Martin and Camilla to the Bar Ultima Frontera, a really nice alternative bar (I would erase those metal songs they played in the last hour) where we had some beers and spoke until 2 am.

The day after I spent it in front of the computer taking care of somethings that came up in the last days, but the weather was really bad, so I didn't feel it was a lost day. The evening, that was really funny! I went out with the two german girls, Barbara and Gesa, met Camilla and some more people from the hostel in a bar where they a live band playing some jazz mixed with latin rythms and after that the three of us moved to Club Luna, where some DJs were having a theme party. We stayed there until 5 am, and only left because they threw us out!

In the my last day in Valdivia, I finally decided to go around and check out the city. Me and Ellody, who arrived in the hostel at 9.30 am, forcing me out of bed :p, joined me in the wet sightseing... We first went to the fish market, by the river, where huge sea lions, are standing waiting for the leftovers from the fishes. It's impressing how these animals seem to be almost domesticated and know exactly what is going to happen each time one of the market employers begins preparing a fish. From there we decided to go to Niebla, a city 20 min away by bus on the coast. It is famous for its fort and for the food gastronomy fair. We visited the fort (since it is a national holiday there is no entrance fee), tried to take some pictures and admire the views. They must be amazing, but there is just too much fog and rain that reduce the visibility. From the fort we continued walking towards the gastronomy fair. We ordered a plate of Milcao, some speciality from Chiloé. It was an amazing dish, well worth the money and the journey to Niebla. After that, since we were kind of wet, we went back to the hostel and just relaxed the rest of the day near the fireplace (and managed to dry my clothes before leaving). At 8.30 pm I took the nightbus to Valparaiso, where I have planned to meet Stepan, the Czech guy from Easter island.

Pucón

2009-05-22T19:24:00.004+01:00

We changed our mind, right before leaving Santiago and decided to hop off the bus in Pucón for an extra 500 pesos.

Rafting brought us to Pucón, since it is extremely cheap and has some great rivers to do it. In the end, we didn't do any rafting, but climbed a vocano, an active one.

So after a night spent in the bus (the most confortable bus I've ever been in, but still sleeping on a bus is not for me...) we arrived in town, took a ride from Germano to his hostel, Hostel German and decided to check in there. It's a nice place not so far from the center and almost new. After checking in it was time to hunt for the best price for climbing the volcano and doing some rafting. From the first place where we asked prices (the hostel), to one of the last, we were able to lower the price 50% for the rafting and 1/3 for the volcano climbing. We decided to do only one activity and chose the volcano. Sierra Nevada was the agency we chose, mostly for the price (30000 pesos). We spent the rest of the day doing some shopping and relaxing at the hostel. There were quite a lot of nice people at the hostel, but Andrés, a Chilean Medicine student doing a 1 month internship in Pucón was the nicest one. We spent a lot of time speaking in the evenings after he came back from work.

I kind of missed the alarm clock, or I forgot to turn it on, I don't, but instead of waking up slowly, having a nice breakfast and then checking in at the agency at 6.30, we got up at 6.45 and ran to the agency... Fortunately, we were there right on time and after dressing up the gear we proceeded to the Villarrica Volcano. It's almost a 1h drive to get there. After we got there, the guides ask if we want to go back due to the weather conditions (it's cloudy and there's a high chance of snow or rain, which will force us to turn back without refund) but no one wants to go back! We begin the climbing. It's not easy. It's cold, slippery and climbing on the snow demands a lot more effort than what I'm used to. Nevertheless, I manage to keep the guide's pace and stay with the front group. This made me reach the top, because 150m from the top it started to snow, but my group was above the cloud and it was possible to see the top of the volcano, so we didn't turn back. All the other groups had to turn back, because they had no visibility. I had some gear problems with the gramps (that's what happens when you choose the cheapest company...), but one of the guides was able to fix them (they broke 4 times in the steepest part of the glacier...) and I was the last to reach the crater. Due to this, I only had time to take some pictures, have some water and then had to begin descending, without resting... But it felt great to be at the top. I know that the risks of eruption are minimal, there are only some active fumaroles right now, but standing there on the crater and seing the smoke coming out of it is impressive. The last eruption was in the 80s, the last big eruption was in the 70s. The worst part, as usual, was going downhill. My knees started hurting as usual. We met the other groups that had to turn back at the top of the ski lift, where we stoped to have something to eat and where I could finally rest! Then it was another 30 min to the parking lot, but due to the snow, our van couldn't make it all the way up, so we had to walk another 20 min downhill...

I was really happy to arrive in Pucón because it meant getting rid of those unconfortable boots and I could go to the hostel and take a warm shower! I was feeling extremelly cold. Then it was time to relax. I reached the top and was extremely happy for that :)

Just one last thing, never choose the cheapest company, or if you do so, ask to check the equipment before you decide going with them. Nothing went wrong in the end, but I still wonder how I would have gonne down if they hadn't been able fix my gramps.

Finally in Chile

2009-05-19T20:43:00.002+01:00

Santiago de Chile is known for the permanent smog that covers the city. The amount of traffic together with the spectacular mountains that surround the city are the reasons for this.

Well the day we arrived we didn't notice this. We immediately took a taxi from the airport to Vitacura, with a stop at the bus terminal to drop Stepan who is going to Mendonza. In Vitacura we were welcomed by Muriel and her son Martin. Muriel is a good friend of a friend of Tiago and was kind enough to host us for a few days. And what a host, despite working all the time, looking after her two year old child, she still found time to talk with us in the evenings (sorry for my lousy spanish) for hours, show us some Chilean gastronomy and take us to Valparaiso, 150 km away from Santiago, by the coast.

Santiago

What does Santiago has to offer a tourist? There's some museums, the cathedral, some other churches, Pablo Nerudas house and then shopping and food.

The Plaza de Armas is what I would call the city center, although the city has different centers. Around this square one finds the beautiful roman-catholic cathedral, the main post office building, the national museum, some galleries and a small park. Not far is the Palacio La Moneda, the president's official residence and the pre columbine museum.

In our first day around Santiago we walked and walked and walked... I spent some time at the beautiful post office building in plaza de armas sending some stuff home and after that we went around the city. We had lunch at the food market, visited Cerro Santa Lucia and then just wandered around trying to buy books (in the country of Neruda, Allende, Sepulveda, Donoso among many others this can be a hard and expensive quest) and clothes. We still found time to visit La Chascona the house Neruda built to spend time with his mistress, later second wife.

At night Muriel surprised us with a typical Chilean dish, which I still have to ask for the recipe. We had to wake up early the next day because we were going to Valparaiso, but we still managed to stay up late talking.

Valparaiso

I must confess I wasn't very eager to visit Valparaiso, but I'm glad I went there. Yes, it's a touristic place but it is charming, beautiful and inspiring. The beautiful facades in Cerro Alegre, overlooking the harbour are fantastic. And then the grafitis that cover many walls some with political purposes, others just works of urban art, give it a special feeling. It's one of those places where you would like to sit down in a cafe writing and thinking, watching the time pass by. Unfortunately time was something we didn't have, so after eating the traditional dish of Valparaiso - Chorrillana - a huge dish with french fries, small pieces of beef, onion and a slice of cheese on top in The Mastodonte, we went to Viña del Mar. This is Santiago's beach resort, it's covered with skyscrapers and concrete. It was just not my place... After Viña we went back home. Muriel went to a concert and we stayed home planning the coming days.

Santiago

It's a completely different city Santiago on a Sunday morning. There is hardly any traffic, no people on the streets (apart from peruvian emigrants trying to call home) and almost everything is closed. What brings us to town then? The entrance in the museums is for free on sundays and we want to visit La Moneda. La Moneda can only be visited after 3 because there is something official going on so we head on to the Pre Columbine museum. It's a good collection they have on display here and explanations in spanish are very good. It's possible to learn a lot here. La Moneda was a bit disappointing, since it is not possible to visit it inside, just the courtyard.

After seing everything we sat down in a cafe close to Cerro Santa Lucia until it was time to go back home, pack, say goodbye to Muriel and Martin and move on to the bus terminal where we will take the night bus to Villarrica.

My phone number for the coming month

2009-05-11T23:39:00.001+01:00

In case you miss me :p

+56995643078

Rapa Nui

2009-05-09T05:40:00.007+01:00

Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island on the Western World, is the most exotic destination of our trip. It's a small volcanic island in the middle of the Pacific, halfway between Chile and Tahiti. It is administered by Chile but it has a special administrative autonomy.

The trip to Rapa Nui was not as nice as it could have been... There was this jerk sitting behind me making noises and stupid comments permanently all night. And this time I was so tired that I actually fell asleep 20 min after I started watching a movie. We later found out that he is kind of the King of the Rapa Nui people... If I had a king like that I would be ashamed!

What did I know about Easter Island, before I arrived. Well, its people almost exterminated themselves, by over exploring the island resources. They built and moved huge statues accross the island. There were hardly any trees in the island. All this was true. Just a few more things missing, that were aprehended during our stay.

We arrived under heavy rain and heavy wind. We asked arround in airport some prices of places to stay, and decided to stay in the one that offered us the best deal. Residencial Miro, administered by good mooded Sandra. It was a great choice because of the company we found there. Jan, from Belgium, who had been living and working in New Zealand for the last 5 years and is now on his way back home, with a great sense of humour and fantastic unimaginable stories about his life as a travel guide (unfortunately I am not allowed to tell them here because he is writing a book about those stories; when it comes out I´ll announce it here). Stepan, from Czech Republic was the other inhabitant of the hostel, is also on around the world trip and just had to spend his time listening to us loughing and talking, but I think he enjoyed. :)

The first day in Easter Island was a real emotion. Heavy rain and wind (which made me get soaked from the waist down) and a quest to get some Pesos... Only the Maestro/Mastercard network work in Easter Island and I have 2 visas and one Mastercard that I don´t know the pin... In the end after visiting the two ATMs and the bank we asked for a cash advance at the money exchange office in the village and got charged 15% commission for that... After the money quest I just had to sleep for a couple of hours.

Rapa Nui

It's definitely a special place and I feel i'm really lucky for having been given the chance to come here. Not many people will come to visit and try to understand the misteries that surround this culture.

We were also fortunate for having found great company at our hostel. The stay in Easter Island without John and Stepan wouldn't have been the same. It's amazing how in such a small place, with so little to do, I never felt bored! John is an amazing story teller. I'm really looking forward for his book to be published. I doubt you've told us any of the stories you're gonna publish and if those were that unusual, astonishing and funny, the ones in the book will most likely be that and much more. Unfortunately I can't tell any of those stories here otherwise he might sue me :)

Well, what did we do in Easter Island? Of course we had to watch the statues. They're spread out all over the island. They were all thrown down and vandalised by the Rapa Nui people, in what is believed to be a consequence of the several conflicts between the different tribes. The ones that are found standing were recovered by archeological works done in the last century. It is really impressive to walk around the vulcano where the statues were carved out of the stone, wandering around the statues that were never moved to other parts of the island, trying to imagine how it would have been to transport these huge structures intact sometimes several km through irregular ground. In order to visit all the statues in one day we rented a 4WD jeep and I was designated as the driver, my first time behind a jeep's wheel. Besides visiting the statues, we also went down to the beach, where Stepan and Tiago decided to try the water. This is an amazing place. At the entrance there's a huge group of statues. There's also a cave some meters up on the cliffs which is possible to visit. The day ended with us trying to find a boat for John to go fishing (that's his hobby) but unfortunately it seems like Easter Island is no longer a fishing paradise. According to a local fisherman, the water is too warm for the big fish. Consequences of the global warming? Maybe, who knows. Later in the day me and Tiago moved to the other side of the village, to where Sandra lives (an overbooking problem apparently). The place was much better than the other one, but we were too far from our new friends and got a bit annoyed with that. We met later in the night to have dinner at the restaurant that overlooks the harbour and planned on meeting the next day for lunch at the same place.

On my last day in Rapa Nui I had planned to do a long hike up the biggest volcano on the island. First I stopped at the local artcrafts market to buy some souvenirs. Then I just followed the coast north. Since I left home until the end of the day I was never alone. There was a dog that adopted me as his owner for the day and followed me everywhere (they were two at times). A couple of km after I started I saw these amazing cliffs going into the ocean and just went down and sat there writing for a long time. My faithful friends kept an eye on me all the time and were extremely happy when I came back on the track. It was almost lunch time by then and so I decided to meet the others.
After lunch, a coastal walk followed, with a stop at an artificial lake that is in contact with the ocean for me to bathe in Easter Island, and after that we headed on to the museum. It's a really simple museum, but I end up learning a few things about the island's history. The most important of all was that the statues represent their ancesters. Since this was our last day at the island, we decided to meet later in the afternoon. We had a few beers overlooking the ocean and an astonishing sunset and then we continued at the hostel until midnight. We say goodbye to John. It was great meeting him. And Stepan is taking the same flight as we are, so we won't say goodbye before Santiago.

Going back to Easter Island...only if I have the opportunity, never on purpose. I only missed the southern tip of the island, that has a really beautiful volcano with a lake in a steep crater and some petroglyphs in the village where it is said that the bird-man used to live. And compared to continental Chile, Easter Island is extremely expensive.

Tahiti

2009-05-09T04:17:00.006+01:00

For a while I thought this text would start the following way: "if Tahiti rhymes with paradise for you, just grab another travel magazine because that's just bullshit!". But fortunately it changed.

Papeete

We arrived in French Polynesia late in the evening. I had pre booked the cheapest shithole in town. Sorry for the "S" words, but the reason for that is that the first day in Tahiti was more like hell. The only good thing was the great company of Adam, Anna and later Lis. But lets take it in parts.
First just a short description of what is Tahiti. Tahiti is a french vacation colony, which in a way is good because it's EU territory so we can just go through the border control without any questions. Tahiti is also a surfers paradise. What we didn't know was that this was only in the southern part of the island and that Papeete, the capital, had no beach. So we arrived in Papeete in the evening and took a taxi to the Hostel TeAmo, very close to the city center where we paid only 2550 XPF per night. I sat down in the reception reading when Adam arrived. He had also taken our flight but it took him a bit longer to get out of the airport, probably because he is from the USA. Unfortunately he makes the same mistake as we did and books two nights. We started talking and after a while Anna also from the US arrived and joined us. We talked about our trips and about Anna's experience in a boat. She is in Papeete to work in a teaching sailing boat that will sail to Hawaii in a week time. We only went to bed when the hostel owner asked us to make less noise.

The next day in Papeete was really depressing... First it was the first of May (our second in two days since we gained one day of life when crossing the international time line) so most things were closed. Then we found out there was no beach in Papeete and worse, there were no buses to the southern beaches. We then confirmed in situ that Tahiti is really expensive and that Papeete is a place to get out of as fast as possible! What to do then? Well me and Adam just grabbed some beers and sat down in the "lounge" of the hostel talking and laughing the rest of the afternoon in Tiago's and Anna's company.

In the evening the three guys went for dinner at the great open air food night market in the harbour where they serve all sorts of grilled stuff at reasonable prices. After that we grabbed Anna and Lis from their sailing boat and went for a beer at the 3 Broisseurs. Of course we were talking a lot about the life on the boat and we were curious about funny stories that happen onboard.

Moorea

There´s two options in Tahiti if one wants to get some sun and beach: one is to go to the south of the island, the other is to take a ferry to the neighbour island of Moorea, which is only 30 min away.

We took the second option. We took the bus from the ferry terminal to Haapit. After 30 min Tiago saw a sign indicating Mark´s place to the right. I pressed something and the bus stopped. After 10 min walking in a muddy road (oh yeah, I forgot to mention that is has been raining like hell during parts of the day!) we met Mark, who didn´t seem very happy to see us at first. He was probably thinking where he would put the three of us. Once he figered it out, his mood changed and he started talking about his place and the amazing Moorea (where the sea water is so pure that if we can filter through our teeth you can drink it, Marks words). We had to wait for over an hour for our "room" to be ready. During that time we were playing football in the garden and getting our head wet with cold water (the temperature and humidity are amazingly high).

After droping our stuff Mark, who was going to pick up some people from the harbour gave us a ride to the amazing paradise, Pineapple beach. And finally we said "thank god, Tahiti is like we imagined it would be"! Torquoise clear waters, white sand, coconut trees, sun. In other words, paradise. :) We entered the water and immediately something huge with about 1m diameter comes and meets us. It frightened us until we noticed what it was. A stinger ray. And after the first one two more came. Amazing, I had never experienced that! We spent the rest of the day relaxing at the beach, reading and some sleeping and snoring!

In the evening we had a few beers and after that decided to crash a party that was happening on the other side of Mark´s complex. We met with a really nice group of French and Polynesian who have moved to Tahiti and live and work there and spent the rest of the night talking and partying. In the end of the evening (1.30 am...) we still went to a bar in the village and closed it (at 2.00 am...).

In the last day in Moorea and Tahiti, we were planning to climb the mountain from where we should get a great 360 degrees over the island and the lagoon that surrounds it. Unfortunately, it started pouring down when we finished breakfast and it only stopped a couple of hours before we had to take the ferry back to Tahiti, which didn't give us enough time. At three in the afternoon me and Tiago put our bags down by the main road that goes arround the island. There should be a bus passing sometime after three... There are no timetables and the bus drivers only start their buses if they feel there will be enough passangers to pay for the trip! Well, we waited for 45 min and when we were almost preparing to take off our t-shirts and start hitch-hiking two of the girls we had met the night before, passed by and offered us a lift.

We then said goodbye to paradise (we were going back to Papeete and from there we had to make time before going to the airport) a paradise that is not for a backpacker's pocket, but it was still worth spending 4 days here.

Final notes about New Zealand

2009-05-08T04:39:00.000+01:00

I simply loved it. It's an amazing country, specially the Southern island.

I feel like postponing my departure and stay longer, but just can't afford it. It's almost impossible to be bored in this country, unless you don't have much money. And I went a bit over budget here... 57 euros/day, 7 euros above the budget. Well it's not a big deal, but I have to save some in Tahiti, even if that means doing nothing and just enjoy the beach.

I have to come back some day... 2 weeks is not enough. 1 month will give time not only to enjoy and do some sightseeing but also to wait and relax when the weather prevents you from following your plans. It remains as one of my dream destinations.

Auckland

2009-04-30T11:32:00.003+01:00

It feels good to be back in a big city. Specially when it's a city like Auckland, well organized, clean, not so much traffic or noise.

I called Sylvia, the Mexican girl I had met in Fox. I will join her and her friends later on to celebrate her birthday.

It was great to go out again, specially with latin people. You're just making jokes and laughing all the time. It was great. Have to do it more often.

Well, after a good party night, the day after is always very slow. I had planned to do the coast to coast track, a 12 km track that goes from the west to the east coast of Auckland. I made it till the museum. Then a few rain drops just made me change my mind, go back to the city center and just spend some time in a book shop checking some travel guides.

So I didn't see much of the tourist attractions Auckland has to offer, but I got a feeling of the city. It's easy to understand why it's listed on the top list of the best places to live in the world.

Road Triping in NZ

2009-04-30T11:20:00.002+01:00

Dunedin and the Otago Peninsula

Queenstown and the beautiful lake soon stay behind as I hit the road on my rented Toyota. It's my first time driving an automatic gear car. It's boring and frustrating at times.

The adrenaline levels lower down as soon as the landscape changes. I'm on my way to Dunedin on the east coast. It's amazing the effect Queenstown has on the most normal of the mortals. There's simply so much to do there! If I had the money I would have done a few more things (yes Magnus, sky diving would have been one of those). And if the ski season had started already I would be hitting the slopes.

Well, back to the normal tourism, what brings me to this students city? It's not the fun, but it might be funny anyway. I am going straight to the Otago Peninsula, where I hope i'll see the rare yellow eyed penguins, sea lions, blue penguins, seals and albatros. I first head towards the albatros refuge center. It's a controlled natural reserve, where we have to pay to see the place where the albatros gather and breed. I am happy just with a cup of coffee in their great cafe and with seeing them fly. I still go down to the beach nearby, where the blue penguins apparently spend the night, but a sign says they don't arrive before 6 if they happen to come. So I just decide to head on to Sandfly beach, where I know I will encounter sea lions and the chances of seeing the yellow eyed penguins is high.

Sandfly beach is a beautiful wild beach. It's a really steep downhill trail through loose sand from the car park to the beach. On the way some cheap that are feeding on the green wavy hills that surround the coast line, look at me surprised.

As soon as I reach the beach I head towards the closest ravine. I think I saw something moving. And I had! :) walking up the cliff there was a yellow eyed penguim. He hid on the bushes looking at me but I am still able to see it clearly and take some pictures. I then start walking to the other end of the beach. 50m from me I see a penguim rushing out of the water and going into the dunes. A stupid tourist runs after it probably just to get the perfect shot. What an idiot. I continue walking and suddenly I spot a huge brown thing moving around where the waves break. As I walk closer I spot a sea lion enjoying himself in the waves. He seemed like he was posing at us. First playing around in the water and then rolling in the sand. He was still doing it when I left the beach, almost an hour later. I spent at least 15 min looking at it. We don't have these kind of things back home, or to be more correct, we don't have them in the wild within easy access to everyone. I continue walking, pass by a couple of sea lions that sleeping. They look like they had a hard day. When I reach the other end of the beach i see two more penguins up in the hill. I try climbing a rock to see them better but loose my balance and make some noise. This scared a few sea lions that I hadn't noticed sleeping on the rocks. Fortunately they just complain and look at me, giving me time to take some pictures of them and the penguins and leave. On the way back to the car I see two more penguins rushing out from the sea and am surprised with an astonishing sunset.

I was planning on reaching Christchurch the same day, but I took some time leaving Dunedin so just stayed in a small town halfway.

Kaikoura
Remember this city. It's reallysmall but one of the most beautiful places i've ever been to. The huge mountains covered in snow crashing into the sea make this almost look unreal, like those pictures we sometimes sea in books and that make us think that such a place doesn't exist. Kaikoura is famous for whale watching (i skipped this although it wasn't that expensive) and the seal colony. As I park the car at the end of the small peninsula immediately spot a few seals, sleeping just next to the cars. I then go up the hill and follow the trail that leads gives access to the beach where the seals are. The smell isn't very appealing as I get close to them. But it's fantastic just being there watching dozens of seals swimming, resting in the sun, playing in the water. Some don't seem very pleased to see me and just dived and left. There's also a huge stone on the beach that with a little bit of imagination resembles a seal. Funny to find it there.

Back in town I start talking with an irish guy - John - and an Italian - Marco. John was on a fishing trip earlier in the day and brought lot of sea food that he says not to be able to finish. He offers me a huge cray fish. That was the best dinner since I arrived in NZ! Later that day we went for a few drinks in town. Just one final note about Kaikoura: never forget to turn off the lights of your car...

The North Island
I leave behind the beautiful southern island and take the ferry to Wellington. My plans for the North Island are, to visit the Te Papa museum in Wellington, do the Tongariru crossing (you may know this mountain as Mordor, from the Lord of The Rings) and check the volcanic activity around Rotorua, before arriving in Auckland where the road trip ends as well as the visit to NZ.

Unfortunately, the rain showed up and a huge storm made it impossible to do the Tongariru crossing and enjoy the other places as I could have.

Nevertheless, I wandered arround the great Te Papa museum in Auckland, where I learned a bit more about the story of this country and specially about the Maori people. Then I went North to the Tongariro National Park. I still managed to see the mountain but the day after when I woke up the storm had started. But it's a beautiful terrifying mountain, just like the image you have from the movie! After that I moved North, passing by the enormous lake Taupo and ending up in Rotorua, where the air smells to sulfur all the time. This is due to the intense volcanic activity present in the area. I visited some geisers, saw some mud pools and hot springs. It would have been great if the weather was good. Finally and continued my way to Auckland where the road trip ended.

Queenstown and the Routeburn track

2009-04-30T11:16:00.003+01:00

Queenstown

9 am check-in at AJ Hacket, the Bungy jump shop. After some routine questions they weight me and write a number on my hand. 20 min of waiting time follow. I look around and notice a guy with a terrified face. He happens to be doing the same jump as me and is having second thoughts about it... Georg, is a german guy who was working for a couple of months in a farm and is now enjoying the country for a couple of weeks before going back home.

The bus journey to the Nevis jumping place takes about 40 min. Then it's time to put on all the stuff we need. I end up talking with a brasilian girl most of the time. Well, the jump is terrifying and fantastic at the same time. Everything happens quite fast, but it's impossible not to remember those 8 sec of free fall. I end up buying the video instead of the printed photos as was my first intention. I can make photos from the video later. I've uploaded part of the video to the Queenstown album in case you're still trying to understand how high are 134m!

Preparing for the Routeburn track

Back in town, I have lunch with Georg and we plan to go together to Milford Sounds tomorrow and on the way back he leaves me in The Divide where I start my walk.

Then I have to rush from one place to another to prepare for the coming three days. First buying the hut permits, which allow me to stay at the Department of Conservation (DOC) huts along the way. I make a mistake doing the reservation so I have to go back there a second time. The weather forecast is fantastic, they expect clear weather for the rest of the week, which is quite unusual. This means i'm fine with the gear I have. Just need to buy the food for the next three days. There are cooking facilities in the huts, but no food. It's the main difference to Nepal. Last thing to do is booking the bus from the end of the track in Routeborn shelter back to Queenstown. After this, I just need to unpack my backpack, leaving only things to sleep and to keep me warm and the food I bought. I'm actually carrying mostly food. After Nepal I'm not doing the same mistake. I'll wear the same clothes for 3 days!

Later in the evening I meet Georg for dinner and for a beer. We agree on leaving Queenstown at 8 am tomorrow.

The Routeburn

Well, after a couple of hours on the road I understood I wouldn't have time to go to Milford Sounds, so we just stopped in Te Anau for a coffee (and for me to buy a pot... I completely forgot about it) and then continued in the direction of Milford.

At 12.30 I said goodbye to Georg. We agree on meeting again when i'm back in Queenstown. And then here I am tramping in New Zealand :)

The three days of tramping were fantastic. The scenaries are beautiful, the view from the top of Conical Hill is breathtaking. On one side you can see the river flowing down in the valley, ending in the sea that is visible because the weather is fantastic. On the other side of the mountain there's a white carpet of clouds covering a lake. It really feels like jumping on them and float. I ended up meeting some really nice people in the huts. The huts were the biggest problem actually. They're not heated in the sleeping bunkers so it gets pretty cold at night (below 0) and I was not prepared for such extreme temperatures! I managed but was a bit uncomfortable both nights. The second problem I had were the blisters on my calfs. Liliana, the cushioned bandages you gave me saved me :) and finally a minor wet feet problem in the last day due to the frost on the vegetation from a side track I went on (goretex my hass!), completes the list of difficulties I experienced. Nope, compared to the ABC climb, this was a piece of cake! It is actually possible to do it in 2 days easily, without rushing too much.

I come to the end exhausted but happy. It was perfect, just as I thought it would be. I actually now feel like doing more, but... I don't have time :( The Rees Daart track, the Milford and the Kepler are really appealing! Maybe in a future visit. I also realise that if I want to do some more trekking I should probably buy new shoes...

Quote

2009-04-28T05:56:00.002+01:00

Thanks to dreams, in the history of the galaxy the world has been reinvented more often than are stars. From the book, "Mister Pip" by the New Zealand writer Lloyd Jones.

The TranzAlpine and the glaciers

2009-04-24T12:01:00.002+01:00

The TranzAlpine and the glaciers

I love traveling by train. The steady pace and the slow changes in landscape allow me to travel anywhere. This time I enter the train worried. I don't want to be stuck in Greymouth, I just don't have time for that, and I don't wish that much going north. Then there's the weather problem. If the storm continues I won't enjoy things as I should and I will probably have to cancel the "great walk" i'm planning to do.

Well, I call the shuttle company and the lady tells me they have no information yet, but she can put my name on the drivers list and then he'll inform me when he gets to Greymouth if he can proceed or not.

It didn't leave me relieved but what can I do?! A british middle aged guy sits in front of me. We do the usual conversation and when the train departs I ask him if he wants me to get him a cup of coffee. He has a broken arm; he had planned to drive around NZ on a motorcycle but on the second day a car crashed into him. He seems to be a nice funny guy... Unfortunately, he speaks so fast that at certain point I only nod and stop trying to follow him! Meanwhile, the TranzAlpine leaves the east coast plains and enters the mountains. The scenaries immediately make me cheer up and relax. This is what brought me to NZ and I want to enjoy every minute of it! Steep mountains ending in valleys crossed by rivers that run in fury. The Autumn vegetation, mixed with the grey and moisty weather make things look mysterious and make my mind and imagination flow, just like the rivers down in the valleys.
I went to open wagon to take some pictures just for 10 min. There's too many japanese... I don't feel like fighting for the best spot. Anyway, the best camera is my own vision and appreciating things with my own eyes.

After Arthur's Pass, right before we begin our descent to Greymouth the rain makes its appearance. It's not that bad, but the ocean is still far. The trip is not that spectacular on this side of the mountains, so me and the english guy spend most of the time trying to communicate (Chelsea fan, he is).

Greymouth, getting my bag from the luggage wagon and rushing to the i-site to see if they have any information about the road. Still nothing... They tell me to wait for the bus and see what the bus driver has to say.

The bus driver tells us that the road is open for now, but there's no guarantees we can make it to Franz Josef. The trip then continues normally. When we are only 30 min away from our destination I see the reason for the road being cut. Simply in a 90 degrees curve to the right, when the road is following the course of a large river, there's just no road! The power of the water caused a landslide and the road ended up 50m down in the river... Fortunately these guys must be used to this because they made a gravel road just next to where the asfalt once was. I was really surprised with the bridges they have here. On a main highway most of the bridges are one lane only! Seems really primitive to me and uncomfortable.

Franz Josef

It took me a while to find the Glow Worm Hostel reception, but as soon as I find it, I leave my stuff and rush to the i-site to book accommodation for tomorrow in Fox and buy the bus ticket.

I then finally sit down in the kitchen relaxing and waiting for the free vegetable soup they serve at 6. At 6 sharp they tell us to help ourselves, and so we do.
I sat in front of an English guy, Andy, and started talking about NZ and our trips. He is also on a RTW trip. We agree on meeting later for a few beers. As we pass by the 3-4 bars the village has, we realise that it will be the same having a beer at the hostel, but cheaper and end up buying a 6-pack and sitting down in the kitchen. As we start talking, an American couple jumps into the conversation. We were talking about our plans for south america and they have just came from there. Well once again (i've heard and read it before) they strongly recommended Colombia. That was their favourite place and it's yet very unexplored in what concerns tourism, due to all the political issues. Me and Andy ended up finishing the six pack and the cider he had in his car as we started talking about music. He listens to good stuff.

The glacier
I had booked a shuttle yesterday to take me to the glacier, but since Andy is heading there as well I ask him for a ride and run to the reception to cancel the shuttle.

15 min after we parked and began the glacier walk, we reached a river. You can see the glacier from there, but it's just too far away to get the right feeling of it. So, we just took our shoes off, pulled our pants up and rushed through the ice cold water.

Before we got to the glacier we had to do it once again. Well, when we got to the barriers saying dangerous behond this point we weren't satisfied yet, so we just followed a guided tour by a side trail and half an hour later we were not only right next to Franz Josef glacier, but we could actually touch it and had we the right gear we would have been able to walk on it", for free! Nevertheless, it was a great experience and it was well worth the time.

Fox glacier
I took the bus to Fox later in the afternoon. It's just a 30 min ride. I stayed at the Ivory Towers hostel. It was an ok place, but with a strange open room door system, which means nothing valuable can stay in the room. I stay in a 4 people dorm with Max, a really nice russian guy that lives in Sydney. Later in the evening we meet Sylvia, a Mexican who is studying in Auckland and once she heard my travel plans she immediately offered to show me around in Mexico City, when I get there. Later a Dutch girl who stayed at the same place as me in Franz Josef came in and said she had just came back from a track where you can see lots of glow worms. Well I grabbed my torch and there we go, me and Max, into the dark rain forest, walking a 20 min trail without knowing exactly what to look for. But we found them! First we saw some isolated little blue lights but as we walk further we saw dozens of little lights, making the dark forest look like a Christmas tree. Amazingly beautiful.

The next morning I wake up early. My plan is to walk to the glacier back and forth in time to catch the bus to Queenstown at 11 am. It's just 8km, so two hours are more than enough for that. It was a bit disappointing this trip to the glacier. The main trail is blocked for security reasons and the other trail is being used by organized tours and one of the guides is not in a good mood and I don't feel like fighting, so I just stand there at the viewpoint enjoying the river of ice from a distance and then I go back.

Back in the hostel, I pack up my stuff and then spend an hour talking with Sylvia. We'll probably meet in Auckland and go out and party. It's always good to go out with people who know the city. I also called AJ Bungy to book the Nevis jump. I ask a few questions about my back problems. They say it is ok and so now it's settled. I'm going to jump from 134m. I must be out of my mind! At 11 the shuttle picks me up and there I am on the way to the world capital of adrenaline :)

First days in New Zealand

2009-04-24T11:57:00.001+01:00

Long before the Lord of The Rings brought up to everyone's TV the amazing scenaries of New Zealand, I was already fascinated by this small country of 4 million people and 45 million cheap (according to the bus driver from the Akaroa shuttle). Don't ask me why, I can't answer that question, but the excitement to being here at last is big.

In New Zealand me and Tiago went separate ways. Our objectives were different so it was better that each followed his own way and in the end both of us will probably be happy with the Kiwi experience.

First days in NZ
The day before leaving Sydney I booked a flight from Auckland to Christchurch, in the Southern island. This is where most of the things I want to do and see are located, so this way I save time and money.

Christchurch
Christchurch is a nice city, close to the coast. It appears to have grown around the cathedral square. The Cathedral itself is an old 200 years building, really beautiful, specially at night, when it becomes really mysterious. My flight arrived two hours late, had some problems with the first hostel I had contacted and the second I contacted didn't want to take a booking but told me to show up. After spending 5 min finding north, I managed to find Coachman Backpackers. I had to ring the bell 3-4 times before someone answered... It seems like the reception closes at night, so the guy from the hostel didn't feel like letting me in, but in the end he did! And I'm very happy for that, it is a really nice place, with a huge lounge where I spent my time planning my trip before going to sleep.

I stayed 2 nights in Christchurch, but didn't see much of it. Since I am going back I can leave that for later. My first objective was to get a train ticket in the TranzAlpine to Greymouth, on the west coast. I went to the i-site for that. The information centers in this country are fantastic. Really well organized, they provide all the information required and offer non commissioned bookings. Good and efficient as all tourist offices should be. I left the i-site directly to the Akaroa shuttle. I decided to spend the first day in NZ exploring the countryside in Banks peninsula, about 80 km from Christchurch.

The Banks Peninsula
The journey to Akaroa takes around 2h30m because the bus follows a touristic route that takes us to Birdlings Flat (where I first see how rivers can really look grey in this country due to the sediments they carry as they flow through the grey stones), Little River and then through the mountains, from where we get fantastic views over Pigeon bay and Akaroa bay.

There's not much to tell about Akaroa. It's a small city, proud of its French origin. You can see this in the names of some shops/hotels, the streets names and in some houses you even see the French flag waving in the wind. One thing I start to realise in this day trip is on how Kiwis make tourist attractions out of nothing. At least to me who comes from a country with almost 900 years of history.

As I have nothing planned and don't feel like going on a tour to watch the dolphins, I decide to make one of the many walks through the mountains that they have organized. The Akaroa Heritage walk takes me through steep hills, initially surrounded by trees, and later by grass fields where cheaps get scared by my presence and run as fast as they can from me. Once I reached the top I relaxed in the shelter and organized the rest of my day.

The return journey to Christchurch could be done in an hour if we hadn't stopped in a milk house where a tray with cheese was waiting... Great, if I liked cheese...

Back in Christchurch it was time to plan the next couple of days. I booked a bed at the Glow Worm hostel in Franz Josef and then tried to book a bus trip from Greymouth to Franz Josef. The answer from the shuttle company left me worried. Apparently the storms that caused floods in Southern Australia last week crossed the Tasman sea and... Caused floods on the West Coast which washed away part of the only road that goes through the West Coast! I decide to stick to my plans and call back in the morning when I catch the train to see how the situation is.

Final notes about Australia

2009-04-23T22:04:00.000+01:00

Australia, the island - continent! There was not enough time to see it and have a real feeling of the australian lifestyle.

We were treated as kings in Sydney. We were really spoiled by Manuel and Manuela. I just hope we didn't give too much work. I loved Sydney. It's beautiful, it has plenty of life and a great atmosphere. It is also a huge melting pot with people from different parts of the world living and working there.

The road trip was nice. We saw a lot of the natural wonders of eastern Australia. We saw most of what we wanted. I had thought about taking a few more surf lessons, but in the end I didn't have the surfing spirit. But the class I took was good and well worth the money. It also missed some night life in our trip, but when you're sleeping in camping sites it is hard to go anywhere. Besides, being on the road is exhausting, so there was not much energy left at the end of the day...

The great barrier reef was the top of the trip and I can definitely consider returning there for diving in the future.

In Australia I was once again bellow my budget. I had planned on spending 50 euros/day and ended up spending around 45 euros/day.

Australia is a bit too far and too big for a normal vacation. I would consider living there for a while. Vacation, only if it's long.

Call me crazy

2009-04-20T06:30:00.002+01:00

Nevis jump - 134m

No comments :D

Sydney - part II

2009-04-19T10:15:00.001+01:00

I went to Townsville on easter Saturday to catch the plane back to Sidney on Easter day. Townsville is a small nice city by the coast. It's one of the places where you can take boats to the Whitsunday islands, so there's a lot of tourists staying in the city. It's quite nice to walk in downtown and in the "Strand". As there was no one else in my room and hardly anyone in the hostel I took the day off and relaxed. Just did as little as possible.

Back to Sidney

A surprise awaited us on the return to Sydney. Family Camelo gathered and prepared a barbecue. Easter doesn't mean much to me, but in Stockholm I was used to join together with the portuguese community and prepare a long Sunday lunch. Well, that's exactly what happened in Sydney: great food, great wine, fantastic company and loads of good mood.

After this we had two days left to visit Sydney. My first stop was the Opera House. I took the guided tour which took us to the concert halls while they were explaining the historical details of the project, the construction challenges, the way the different spectacles are organized. It was a great 1h walk, well worth the $24. The end of the tour made me a bit sad. The brilliant Danish architect who designed this masterpiece of modern architecture never saw his work completed because he was fired for political reasons. In the end they show an interview with him in the room that was named after him, and which is used as a reception room. Lets hope his son inherited his genius since he now works in the renovation of the Opera House.

Since it was an awful grey day in Sidney I left the harbour bridge for next day and went to walk around The Rocks, where the city started and made a long visit to the museum of contemporary art, where there was a great retrospective exhibition of the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. Some of her works are fantastic. It was well worth the time I spent there.

Back home, a surprise awaited us: "caldo verde" one of my favourite portuguese dishes was the first course. And after it a great dish of roasted fish. It felt like being home :)

In the last day in Sydney, I went to the north shore of the harbour and walked along Levandar bay until I reached Blue Point from where you get amazing views of the harbour bay, Harbour bridge and the Opera House. The day was sunny and beautiful so it felt great just to wander around walking, crossing the Harbour bridge on foot, getting lost in the huge and peaceful botanical gardens. Before I met Tiago in the Australian museum, I went past the art gallery of New South Wales, and am still regretting having been to the Australian museum instead of the impressionism exhibition that was on the AGNSW that was mostly about the master Monet, with 30 paintings from him.

In the evening another portuguese dinner "arroz de cabidela" and a visit to the Italian quarter of the city, before going back home and pack. New Zealand is one day away :)

Still India

2009-04-18T07:41:00.000+01:00

Do you want To have just a small example of what a rickshaw trip is like in India, check the Varanasi photo album. I added a video to it.

RC, relaxing after a visit to Franz Josef glacier :)

Road triping in Australia

2009-04-16T10:40:00.005+01:00

Road Triping in Australia

Our plan was to drive along the Australian East Coast for around two weeks. We rented a campervan from Hippie Camper, which had these annoying flowers all around but inside it had everything we needed to survive on the road: sleeping bags, sheets, small cook, and most important, a fridge. For two weeks we slept whether in camping sites, by the beach, in natural parks or even in the city center of Brisbane. I prepared most of my meals in the van. Ate a lot of tunna and egg sandwiches, loads of fruit. It was quite handy to have the campervan, but spending 24h a day in the same place can become pretty exhausting!

The route

You can find it at the map on top of this page. Shortly it was as it follows:
Sydney - Blue Mountains - Hunter Valley - Pacific Palms - Port Macquarie Nambucca Heads - Coffs Harbour - Lennox Head - Byron Bay - Surfers Paradise - Brisbane - Glass House mountains - Noosa Heads - Hervey Bay - Fraser Island - Mon Repos National Park - Eungella National Park - Cape Hillsborough National Park - Airlie Beach - The Whitsunday Islands - Wallaman Falls - Mission Beach - Cairns

The highlights of the road trip

Jenolan Caves, in the Blue Mountains - this is a complex system of caves located several hundred meters above sea level. We only had time to go to one of the caves (only guided tours allowed and they're spread out during the day). Nonetheless, the Imperial Cave offered us some beautiful structures, that acquired beautiful colours with light. In the end we went down to the subterranean river. The water was so clear that it just felt like jumping in. It was well worth the $25.

Tyrrel's Winery - located in the more and more renowned Hunter Valley wine region this was a great stop. We arrived early in the day when there was hardly anyone around and just ended up staying longer than we expected. Our host was really nice, specially when he noticed that we were there really to taste the wines and not only to drink and go, like most people. We tasted about 5-6 red wines, 2-3 white wines, and a liquor wine (cheap imitation of Port Wine...). We had a great time with our host, he showed us around the production line (in the end we still took the guided tour) and discussed energetically the big issue in the wine industry right now: cork or screw cap. I can strongly recommend some of Tyrrel's red wines. I'm not a big fan of white wine and the ones I tried were not that good. And the best of all: wine tasting is free all around the Hunter Valley wineries.

Pacific Palms beach by sun rise - it was deserted. Just two people walking a dog far away and me. My first contact with the Pacific Ocean. A beautiful dunnar landscape that reminded me a lot of the great beaches back where I grew up in Portugal.

Nambucca Heads - beautiful place to spend the night with the ocean at our feet. It was great.

Byron Bay - I would have liked to have spent more time here but it was not possible. It's quite a poshy place, but there's a huge mixture of surfers, hippies and regular tourists. I don't know in which group we fit in... But i'm sure it's a great party place and great for surfing as well.

Noosa - beautiful, easy going place. I took a surf lesson here. It went ok... The natural park just outside the city has a few easy tracks that take you around different types of vegetation. We saw a kuala here, right in the parking lot. The only negative thing about Noosa was the lack of night activities.

Fraser Island - I decided to spend two days at the island. I walked between 80-90 kms in those two days. It was extenuating but it was worth the effort. I saw a dingo, almost stepped on a 1,5 m snake, saw beautiful birds, heard the sounds of the forest, dived in the amazing lake Mckenzie and... Got lost! In the first day, I took a wrong turn in the last lake of my circuit and ended up some kms north from where I should. This made me kind of freack out for a while because it was getting dark, I was low on water, I had just seen a dingo and my legs couldn't move much more! I finally reached the place where I stayed (Dillie Village) at 7.30 pm, and just collapsed in my bed.

Eungella National Park - get at the observation platform at 6 am and you'll get the perfect setting for seeing platipus (ornitorrinco). The guide also says the walks that start there are worth, but I was still half asleep and so just decided to move on.

Cape Hillsborough National Park - well I didn't find the NP that special but the close encounter with wallabies (small canguroos) that apparently happens every morning at sun rise, was well worth it. Plus the camping site has great conditions and it's not that expensive.

Whitsunday Islands - maybe the expectations were too high, or the one day cruise we took was not the best, but I didn't come back from there fully satisfied. It's a beautiful group of islands, Whiteheaven beach is one of the most beautiful I've been to, but maybe I need to go back in there with more time to go to different islands and avoid these one day cruises that take you everywhere and don't allow you to see anything!

Wallaman Falls - they're just waterfalls, but they are magical in the full moon light and in the morning when the fog starts to disappear. We have a funny story here, there were two swedes sleeping under the stars in the viewpoint. During the evening there was a tropical storm which lasted 3 days. When we woke up the next morning their clothes were covering the campervan and they were not in the viewpoint any more... Wrong day to sleep under the stars :)

The end of the road trip

The road trip ended in Cairns. We got here under heavy rain storms that prevented us from doing much on the way here from the Wallaman Falls.

The only thing that was still worth doing, given the weather conditions, was snorkel in The Great Barrier Reef. Cairns has a lot to offer, but the weather and the budget didn't allow it.
But, nonetheless it was the right option to spend the day out in The reef. I went with Reef Daytripper in a beautiful katamaran, with only 14 people onboard. $89 was the price and for an extra $50 one could have an intro diving lesson. The crew was really nice and the reef, well it's simply astonishing. The variety, of colors, shapes, animals is impressive. I spent around 3h on the water and would have stayed longer if I hadn't been exhausted. It's one of those places that I strongly recommend everyone to go and put on their "To do" list. And I saw a reef shark and have a picture proving it :)

Sydney - part I

2009-04-16T10:39:00.004+01:00

Sydney

We arrived in Sydney early in the morning. Waiting for us at the airport was Sr Manuel Camelo, an old friend of my father, who has been living here with his family for twenty years and that is going to be our host during our stay in Sydney. And what a host! Manuel and his wife, Manuela treated us like Kings during the time we spent in Sydney.

Besides showing us around downtown in the first morning, they took us to the portuguese quarter several times for breakfast or lunch, introduced us to the portuguese community by taking us to one of the weekly saturday gatherings (bailarico :) ) and helped us making our moves in Sydney. We also had a great brasilian barbecue lunch at her daughter's place after which we spent the afternoon wandering around the famous Bondi beach.

Culturally speaking I only had time to look at St Mary's cathedral and walk around the city center. The rest will have to be checked once we're back from the road trip.

Final notes about Thailand

2009-04-16T10:13:00.003+01:00

The trip in Thailand wasn't exactly the way I thought it would be.

First of all, appart from Chiang Mai, the rest of the trip I felt like I was in any normal touristic place. I might have chosen the wrong places to go or there's just so many "farangs" living in Thailand that is impossible to avoid them.

Then I didn't feel that people were as friendly as everyone else told me! They see you as a potential source of money. Most are extremely polite which is good.

Furthermore, traveling in Thailand is not easy if you're on a tight schedule and that forced us to spend some extra money on trips that was missing for partying.

I spent around 27 euros/day not counting the extra souvenirs I bought. 2 euros above my initial plan, it shouldn't be a problem.

I left Thailand with a feeling of there's still so much to be seen and to learn about. It's quite an ancient culture with a very rich story that can be seen in the several ruins spread around the country (and that we missed). And of course, the sea is fantastic, specially if you find places that are not touristic. It's a great destination for all of you beach and sun lovers. Just bear in mind that paradise comes with mosquitoes!

Going back, why not!?

Bangkok - part III

2009-04-16T10:12:00.004+01:00

Third and last time in Bangkok. There were a few more temples to see, a visit to the world famous Patpong imitations market and to Chinatown on the "things to do" list.

As we arrived and found a room at the Rainbow hotel, very (too) close to Khao San road we went out for dinner on the street vendors. Street food is extremely tasty and cheap. You can eat for 50-60 bt (and I'm talking about real food, not bugs!). After that as we were walking around we were approached by a rickshaw driver that offered to take us to Patpong for a ping pong show (if you don't what this is, google it :p). I skipped the show and asked him to drop me off at the nightmarket. I would meet Tiago later back in the hostel. My main objective was buying a watch and some other gifts. The watch imitations are world famous and some are of great quality. After checking a few places, and bargaining a little (i wasn't really in the mood for bargaining which made things more difficult) I bought a beautiful Tag Heur. I shipped it home, lets hope there aren't any problems with customs.

We met at the hostel around midnight. I joined Tiago and the crasy english guy, Mathew, he had met at the show. They had managed to gather quite a crowd around their table. 3 canadians, two other brits and anyone interesting that passed by. It was quite a funny evening, went to bed at 5 after a serious 1h conversation with Mathew and the other brit.

The next days in Bangkok were spent sightseeing, shopping and eating. The most impressive places I went to in those two days were Wat Pho, a beautiful complex of temples where the enormous reclining Buddha is found, and Wat Arun - temple of dawn- from where you get outstanding views over the city palace and city itself. I also visited the old portuguese neighbourhood and church they have there. It's a simple church that seems to have an important social role. I had a feeling (and that is actually written in the guide) that the portuguese have left but the genes are still around...

The last thing we did in Bangkok was buying some funny T-shirts they sell all around in Khao San Road. Soon it will be time to throw away one or two and this is the perfect place to renew the stock.

Koh Phi Phi

2009-04-16T10:11:00.004+01:00

Koh Phi Phi

Our next destination was the beautiful brochure model Phi Phi islands. They're not a backpackers destination, most backpackers stay in Krabi in the mainland, but we wanted to see these world famous islands.

As we arrived we took a long boat to Longbeach, where the bungalows we had booked were located. It's a nice area, 30 min away from the noisy party Phi Phi village. The Longbeach bungalows where we stayed were quite basic, but better than the ones in Koh Phagnan (800 bt/night).

There's not much to do in Longbeach. It's a place to relax and enjoy the sun and the water (in high tide, otherwise the sea is full with rocks). We met two swedish girls in the resort (we can't get rid of the Swedes...) and went out one night to the only bar where something seems to happen. They have fire shows up till midnight. It was really funny dancing on the beach under a thunderstorm. We also had a close encounter with the chef from the restaurant where we had dinner earlier. Strange creepy drunk guy. He was chewing his lit cigarette in front of us.

Maya beach
We took an afternoon off to go to the now extremely popular Maya beach, in Phi Phi Leh, where the movie The Beach was filmed. I can only say it's a fantastic place, well worth spending a day there (it's in a natural park so you have to pay to go in and there are no touristic infrastructures on the island).

Phi Phi Village
The new Phi Phi Village (the old one was washed away in the tsunami) is a labyrinth of narrow streets located between the sunrise and sunset beaches. It's not a nice place to stay, but it's the only place in the island where you can find supermarkets, bars and restaurants at affordable prices and a market. At night it's crowded with drunk tourists. The bars on sunrise beach were funnier and less crowded. There's fire shows every night on the beach bars and we just grabbed beers in the supermarkets and sat down on the beach enjoying the shows until the party started. It was fun to stay there for two nights, but I don't think I would have enjoyed staying there for a longer period.

The postcard picture
Walking up to the viewpoint to get that beautiful picture of Phi Phi Village in between both beaches with the bluish/greenish sea bathing the island is an exhausting activity given the heat, humidity and inclination. On the way up we took the forest trail. After reaching the viewpoint we relaxed there for a while enjoying the views. It's quite relaxing the place.
After that we decided to walk to another beach on the other side of the island. It's a hard walk downhill but it was well worth the effort. Hat Rantee beach it's the place I had been dreaming of all this time. Almost deserted, there are only two resorts there and they're kind of hidden by the vegetation, sandy beach, hardly any rocks. Simply perfect. It's a pitty we didn't stay longer. It started raining a couple of hours after we arrived so we left before the steep trail became muddy and before the actual storm that was heading for the island arrived.

Phuket
We just went to Phuket to catch a plane to Bangkok. As we saw that the airport wasn't that far from a beach we left the bags at the airport and walked 15 min there. it wasn't as easy as i expected to get there, because it is part of a national park, so foreigners have to pay... as i wasn't willing to pay when i was 50m away from the beach, we turned back, turned right and walked 10 min until i saw a trail following an electric wire that went through the forest. we followed it and... arrived in a beautiful, deserted beach, where we stayed until it was time to go back to the airport and catch our flight.

Koh Phagnan

2009-04-16T10:10:00.003+01:00

I guess this is the post everyone is looking for, but lets start from the begining :)

Full, bad A/C and narrow sits, that was the nightmare bus ride to Surat Thani, where we would take the boat to Koh Phagnan. Unfortunately we still had to wait over an hour to be carried to the bus that would take us to the harbour. Confusing? Well try doing it after two awful nights in a bus...

We took an overcrowded ferry, that left the harbour around 10. I took a "seat" on top of the backpacks. That was the most comfortable place available! The sun was shining, which when you're in the middle of the sea without any shadow in sight means sunburn on the way.

After a 3.30h trip, 30 min by taxi to haad rhin (the party beach and village) we still had to walk 15 min to Leelha beach, where we had a booking in the very basic Leelha beach bungalows, for 300 bt per night.

Beach finally
This was the beginning of our relaxation part of the trip. Our days in Koh Phagnan can almost resume to waking up, diving in the warm and translucent water, eating breakfast, staying at the beach the whole day and then having dinner in the afternoon and partying in the evening. Well, not in the first day... We stayed in Leela beach for a couple of hours and then went to the center to Haad Rhin beach. It's a beautiful bay, with lots of sand and almost any rocks in the water. It must have been a great place before the tourism industry arrived... And I have to say, that I kind of felt I was... Back in Sweden... Given the amount of Swedish food restaurants and the amount of Swedes on the streets!
After swimming for a while I had to sleep for a couple of hours. I woke up the next day!

The Full Moon Party
The main reason to go to Koh Phagnan was taking part in the full moon Party, a 24h rave party that takes place on the beach and attracts about 5000 people. Well we went first to the pre full Moon Party, where we warmed up for what was coming the day after (be careful with half a liter cuba livre buckets when you're tired and dehydrated...).

The party itself is just a giant rave spread out by different stages in a 500m sandy beach. What makes it so special? Maybe taking 24h, which allows you to watch the sun rising while you're still partying, being in Thailand makes it different as well.

It was great fun. I can definitely take part on it again. And I strongly recommend everyone to go there and just dance all night long. We didn't have time to explore the island and I heard from an american that used to live there that it is a really beautiful island. So, another reason to come back.

Well, after the Full Moon Party there's an after full Moon Party that takes all day until sunset. We preferred staying on the beach doing nothing the whole day, but we could hear the music all day long. And after the after full Moon Party ends, life gets back to normal... Meaning, the beach party starts again around 10-11 pm and goes almost until dawn.

Bangkok - part II

2009-04-16T10:09:00.002+01:00

Bangkok - part II

I hate traveling by bus... I hardly ever sleep. This time the bus had only 20 people inside so I had two seats for me but it's still too uncomfortable.

Well we arrived in Bangkok at 6.30 am and had the whole day ahead before catching the bus to Koh Phagnan at 6 p.m...

We decided to start the cultural visit of Bangkok during this stop over.
As we start walking, a rickshaw driver offers to drive us around for 5 bt each. Of course there was a scheme there. So he would take us to some travel agencies we would pretend to be interested in buying some trips and for that he would receive a pre paid fuel voucher from the agency. Before we said no more agencies he took us to the huge Standing Buddha, marble temple, the golden mount (from where one gets a great view over the city) until he dropped us at the royal palace, three agencies later!

The ticket to the palace includes a visit to the fantastic Wat Phra Kaeo, a complex of temples that is just next to the palace. As any westerners walking around in 35 degrees temperature i was wearing shorts, which are not according to the dressing etiquette, so I had to borrow some funny pants from the reception. Different cultures, we just have to respect (they have a well organized free service for people like me). The palace is not possible to visit and the museum's palace is not that interesting - the only thing I found interesting in the museum was learning that they change the golden dress of the emerald Buddha according to the time of the year, in case the statue gets cold with the weather changes...

When we left the palace the rickshaw of course, wasn't there. Why would he wait 2h for 10 bt if could just pick up more tourists and take them to more agencies...

It was then time to get back to the agency where we had left our bags, grab some food for the trip and wait for the bus that would take us to the party island. On the way to the agency we got our first experience of a thunderstorm in Thailand. When it rains, well it really pours down!

Chiang Mai

2009-04-16T10:06:00.006+01:00

Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai is kind of the capital of northern Thailand. It is a really nice city full with Buddhist temples and with a huge offer of activities to do.

As soon as we arrive we head on to eagle house 2 hostel. It's a really nice place, the room has A/C and hot water, all for only 290 bhat/night.
After checking in, the first thing we do is booking a thai food cooking course for the next day. 900 bt to learn how to cook 5 dishes from a list of about 20.
We spent the rest of the day visiting temples. It is quite impressing the amount of temples, history and monks that this city has. In the evening a couple of beers while listening to live music, close to the hotel made up for the rest of the evening.

We then spent most of the next day learning how to cook Thai food. I had some problems with our chef's good morning mood (i'm normally quite grumpy in the mornings) but once the real action started everything went fine). First we went to the market to buy fresh ingredients. The teacher showed us a lot of the different herbs and fruits they use. Some are familiar others not quite. It will probably be a pain in the hass to find these things back home, but I hope for the best.

Here is the list of dishes I chose: hot and sour prawns soup, pad thai noodles, pat paneng, chicken souffle and golden parcels.

We prepared and ate 3 dishes in the morning what left us full and sleepy. So we spent the 1h break resting. After the break we prepared the other two dishes but this time saved them for later.

After the cooking course we just rested.

1 day lifestyle tour
The tour consists of a visit to a butterfly and orchid farm, a visit to a village where 4 different tribes live (including the long neck woman), an elephant ride, a 2h trek to a waterfall, white water rafting in river Pai and bamboo rafting.

Lets just say I didn't see any butterflies, in the village I felt like I was in a human zoo, the elephant safari was boring and the beasts kept asking for food and the bamboo rafting was more like paddling a boat with water up till your waist... The trekking was great mostly because when we got to the waterfall we jumped in and relaxed there for a while. The white water rafting was great fun! I had been planning to do it for years.

It was a funny group that took part in the tour. We met some of the people in the evening and had a few beers.

By scooter around Chiang Mai

The next day we rented two scooters and explored some of the monuments around the city. We visited the ruins of Wiang Kum Kam and the temple of Water Phra That Doi Suthep, which is located way up in the mountains north from the city. This is a very relaxing place, with a great terrace overlooking the city and another one in the shadow that was the best option due to the extreme temperatures.

After returning the scooters we got ready for dinner and for partying. We decided to go and have dinner at the night bazaar. The night bazaar consists of a huge street market, that spreads for several streets and quarters. It took us sometime to find the food section. We first found the prostitution market, then the shops, the sea food market and finally some food...
Since it was still early and we had bought some stuff in the bazaar we decided to go to the hostel, grab a beer on the way, before going to a club. Well when we were relaxing in the room the lights suddenly went off. We immediately thought of Nepal and the permanent black outs. As I come outside I see some strange blue lights in the main street. I moved closer and saw a huge fire going several meters above the roofs! This was only 20 meters away from our hostel! We went out to the main street. The fireman were doing their job and everyone was surprisingly calm! After 30 min the lights came back, the fire turned to black smoke and there was one restaurant less in Chiang Mai.

We then finally went out. We went to Space Bubble. 100 bt to enter including one drink. Well going out in Thailand can be really funny! I sat most of the time observing what was going on. Westerners showing off with their escorts, groups of Thai girls looking for a western and hitting on everyone (yes including me). Drunk old hippie looking guys just enjoying themselves in their own world. I just laughed a lot until the place closed down. In the end since we couldn't find a taxi we took a ride with one of the girls that was dancing inside and that was drunk like hell...

We spent the last day in Chiang Mai visiting a few more temples and relaxing. The trip to Koh Phagnan takes two nights by bus and one day is to be spent in Bangkok.

Below you can find some pictures of Chiang Mai and surroundings and a video of our chef.

New photos Added

2009-04-06T10:37:00.000+01:00

Hi

i just Added photos to the picasa album. Check the posts from Delhi until HongKong.
Cheers mates

RC road triping in Australia

Bangkok - part 1

2009-03-11T10:08:00.004Z

Bangkok

We arrived in bangkok in the middle of the afternoon. After going through the passport control we went checking the flights to Angkar Wat in Cambodia. We were trying to organize the first week in Thailand and realised that it took forever to go from one place to another... Unfortunately the tickets were way out of our budget so we decided to move on to the city center and stay there for the evening and make the plans while there.

Koh Shan road
We went down to catch the bus to the city. We ask for directions to an airport worker who convinced us into taking a taxi instead because it would cost about the same and take only 30 min instead of 2h. We paid 600 bats for it. Later we found out this should have been cheaper (minibus from the airport should cost around 120 Bats)!

When we arrive in our destination we get kind of a shock... The street is closed to the traffic and there's people everywhere. The noise is coming from all directions, as there are bars and clubs everywhere each trying to be the loudest so that people choose their place to sit down and spend some money.

There are tourists everywhere. The only Thais we see are the ones who are trying to make up their living there. We are kind of confused with what we face but soon we refocus on our first objective - finding a place to stay. We enter the first guest house we see. As we go up the stairs we read signs like "no Thais allowed" which we will later understand. The place is clean, it has fan but sounds like there will be noise all night long. We decide to stay as it's quite cheap, it's only for an evening and it's conveniently located.

We leave our things there and start exploring the touristic ghetto of Bangkok. There's all types of things exposed, but what calls most of our attention are the funny t-shirts and the famous sports brands immitations. Suddenly we see people taking a lot of pictures to one of the street sailor's. We approach and understand what is the reason for so much interest. He's selling grasshoppers, worms and scorpions... Deep fried to be eaten as snacks. Tiago buys a bag of grasshoppers and tries them. I try one as well. It's crunchy. Almost like chips.

The temperature and humidity are extremely high. It's quite exhausting to walk around so we decide to stop and make some plans while having a beer. It's quite frustrating trying to organize our stay in Thailand... It takes forever to go from one place to another.In the end we are forced to abandon the original plan and have to skip Cambodia from our route and focus in the north, in Chiang Mai. We want to get there as fast as possible so we decide to check the flights prices with an agency. The prices for that evening are too much for us, but the guy gives a price of 2500 bats for the next morning. It's a bit expensive but we are kind of desperate so we take it. A few minutes after leaving the agency we see an add in another agency announcing the same trip 500 bats cheaper... We need to be more careful in the future.

We walk around a bit more. It's funny to see so many westerns with a thai "friend". Cheap and easy sex is really one of the reasons why many man come to Thailand... We still think about going to a club and party a bit but we're still tired from the previous night so we end up in the noisy hotel room. Back to wearing ear plugs if I want to get some sleep...

Final remarks about Nepal

2009-02-28T13:09:00.000Z

Nepal was all we needed to recover from the stressful Indian experience.

First of all, I was able to breath again and stopped coughing. There's still a lot of traffic and some garbage and pollution in the big cities but nothing comparable to India. The landscapes are fantastic and the treks compensate the difficulties with the beauty surrounding them and with the casual meetings on the path and in the shelters.

The thing that impressed me the most was the hope in people's eyes! In India it seemed like people didn't dream, they had no hope in a better future. In Nepal, which is a much poorer country, you see people smiling all the time. Children also do some work, but you also see them playing around. Talking to locals gave us the impression that Nepalese really love their country and like receiving foreigners. It is not uncommon to find Nepalese trekking as well.

The worst things about the country are the roads, communications and lack of electric supply most of the day. Adding to this the social and political instability are present in the Nepalese daily life. Nepal is now a constitutional democracy. The former terrorists, the maoists won last year elections and are now ruling the country. There's a lot of hope in the new leaders, and the youngest seem to be the more enthusiastic. Communism really is quite attractive for a teenager (been there done that), lets just hope their revolution works and the worst of the communist regimes around the world doesn't get to Nepal... So far, according to our nepali friends from Kathmandu they are trying to exert more control on the society and some repressive measures in the name of morally acceptable conduct have been adopted. One example is the closing time for bars and clubs which is now 11.30 pmnow and there are rumours it can be even more restricted.

It was great to have met and lived with a Nepali family. We learned a lot about Nepal from them. They are quite progressist for the society they live in, furthermore, Seema is quite involved in the women's rights issues. We enjoyed a great night at their place drinking beer and discussing everything. It felt as if I was back home with my friends just sitting down and discussing the meaning of life! And the food they prepared for us was delicious! We got the recipe for the Dhal Bat and the pakoda. Lets hope I can find all the ingredients when i'm back and get a taste of Nepal at home.

Once again I followed my budget and spent 20 EUR/day. We ate well and partied a little and we slept in better places than in India (appart from the trekking week, but the shelters were very cheap).

I particularly enjoyed the Pokhara valley, the Hymalayas, the trekking and the company. Thanks for joining us girls :) Hope we'll meet again. I hope everything worked out fine in the end for you Kara. And to Sophie and Aurora, good luck for the rest of your trip.

And, finally, coming back? YES!!! This is one of the most beautiful countries I've visited and it's worth visiting it before massive tourism takes over and destroys its authenticity!

Kathmandu

2009-02-28T13:04:00.000Z

Breakfast, saying goodbye to the girls, getting our laundry back, packing and finding a bus that would take us to Kathmandu, were our morning duties.

We took a small bus to Kathmandu. The seats seemed like they had made for dwarfs... Tiago had to keep his legs on the corridor and mine were on his place. I only cross my fingers for a nice road otherwise I'll get a lot of bruises on my knees.

Kathmandu
After a 6h journey we arrived in Kathmandu. Some years ago it was a mythic place for hippies. Now it's just as touristic as any other place.
We call Andre when when we arrive. His father works with Tiago's mother and he is living in Kathmandu with his girlfriend. We meet them an hour later in Old Banashwa, the part of town where they live. We all go for coffee together after we meet. They are both really nice and when me and Tiago say we have to go and look for a hotel, they invite us to stay with them.
Their place is 5 min away. Besides Andre and Seema, her sister Shandru and her boyfriend also live there, an indian guy who is working in Shandru's company, their brother and OD, the dog, who, to their surprise welcomes us as if we were part of the family.

We sat down talking a little and then went out to Club Insomnia where a friend of Seema is playing as a DJ which entitles us to a free entree. We don't stay long since everyone is tired but still laugh a little and dance at the sound of electro and techno music, which seem to be the music Nepalese appreciate the most.

After that we have three more days in Kathmandu. The only problem is, we don't feel like doing much... I guess we're still recovering from the trekking. And the traffic, noise, confusion and pollution almost make us feel like we're back in India. We visited the temple of the Three Goddesses, Durbar Square, wander around the narrow and crowded streets of Thamel, the tourist ghetto, went up to the Buddhist Stupa and I also went to Pachupatinah, a complex of Hindu temples and ruins of temples on the outskirts of the city close to the airport. It was before going to Pachupatinah that we accidentally meet up with, the girls! First Kara, and later that day with Sophie and Aurora. As they were going to Pachupatinah I decided to join them.
We visit the temple in a holy day for Hindus: Sheeva's day. There's thousands of Hindus that go there on pilgrimage. As we get there we start passing by several barriers and check points. Apparently tourists get a green card and can pass the crowds and move around almost freely. This makes me feel bad since that is not our party or celebration and we pass in front of devoted people that go there just for that occasion. As we move along the complex we see people dancing, singing, others are paying promises. It is also a free day for smoking pot. Specially Hindu priests smoke a lot. The worst part comes when we reach the crematorium. There's thousands pushing each other trying to pass through a narrow bridge. On the other side of the margin we are facing the cremation of people. The air smells like burned meet and I tell the others I don't want to stay there. Sophie leaves with me and since we lost the others we spend the rest of the day wandering around the complex, sitting with locals that are enjoying their drug free day and talking. It was quite a pleasant end of the day. To get back to town we had to make a detour because of the crowd and just followed a local who offered to help.

I go looking for Tiago who stayed at the hotel resting (we decided to spend one night in Thamel just see how it was like) and then we get ready for dinner with Andrew and Seema. We go to a really nice pizzeria in Thamel. We hang out together the rest of the evening, go out to club Maya and enjoy the happy hour which entitles to get 2 drinks for the price of one.

Our last day in Kathmandu was spent in Thamel in the morning, then we went to Seema's place where they prepared us lunch. We get really, really stuffed first with chicken pakoda and after that with the chili chicken rice. In the middle of the afternoon we say goodbye to the whole family. We felt really welcome there and really felt like we were part of the family.
We had dinner with the girls and said goodbye once again. Unfortunately Kara was robbed yesterday and besides being out of money is also out of passport. She has decided to go back home because the process of getting the temporary passport and visas takes around two weeks and the situation also made her loose all the motivation.

Problems at the airport
It was good we arrived at the airport 3h before the departure time. We paid the tourist tax and when we prepared to drop our bags they tell us they are not able to find our tickets. They find our names but not the ticket numbers which makes us confused and angry. After all we are used to showing only the passport when we check in... We go to the main office of the company, try to find the tickets in different ways, until Tiago remembers to check our old reservation, from when we were on the waiting list for this flight. The booking reference is not the same, and the old one happens to work and solves our problem... As we entered the duty free area we tried to spend the remaining rupees. This proved harder than one can think, as we didn't want food, and apart from that the options weren't many and the few available were quite expensive. In the end we spend them in sweets. The last thing was moving to the waiting room. While there we experienced a 30s blackout... Unthinkable! Finally right before we bordered the aircraft we were searched for the 4th time. Fantastic control they have here or just a way to entertain themselves......

Trekking in Nepal - up till the ABC

2009-02-28T13:02:00.000Z

It's hard to express all the sensations felt during the 1 week trek we did to the Annapurna base camp (ABC). The landscapes are astonishing, which makes the effort more than rewarding. The climbing demanded a lot of physical and mental strength. The tea houses where we stayed are meant only to provide shelter to trekkers, and nothing else. The comfort stayed down at the Pokhara valley. I didn't have any problems going uphill, but downhill my knees and my right foot Aquiles ligament swelled, which made the return to Naya Pul feel almost like a nightmare! And up at the ABC I experienced some altitude related problems: lack of breath and high heart beat rate.

But it was more than rewarding, and all the difficulties faced are part of the experience of trekking. I'll now briefly summarize our journey.

Day 1 - Pokhara - Naya Pul - Ghandruk
We took the 7 am bus to Naya Pul where the trek is supposed to start. After 1.30 h driving through breathtaking mountains and valleys the bus suddenly stopped! The impossible had happened... We ran out of gas in the middle of no where. Nothing to do except wait 30 min for the next bus and transfer some diesel from it to ours in the old fashioned way: rubber tube, bucket and sucking... After that we continued our journey, until suddenly the ticket collector starts looking at me and looking nervous... He soon tells me we should exit in the next stop. As we leave the bus we decide to eat something before starting trekking. 10 min later a guy asks where we want to go. We answer ABC and he tells us we're in the wrong place... The bus guy had forgotten to warn us when we passed Naya Pul... So we take a shared taxi and 15 min later we are finally starting our trek!
On the way to the check point where we have to stamp our permits we pass by two Norwegian girls, their porter and their yoga teacher. A couple of days later we were trekking all together. In this first day there weren't many difficulties. The climbing to Ghandruk was long but not so hard. We arrived there around 4.30 found shelter at the Mountain Lodge (300 Rupees), which has an amazing view from its rooftop. Dinner, relaxing, preparing the next day and sleeping were our activities for the rest of the day.

Day 2 - Ghandruk - Banawa
This was probably the most complicated day. First a steep climbing till the top of Ghandruk, followed by a very steep downhill by sand treks mostly used my mules until Khimrong. From there a long 600 m ascent to Chomrong where I completely lost track of the others and had to wait for them for almost an hour. Kara decided to leave some of her stuff here because she was having some difficulties, specially when going downhill. It was here as well that Aurora's and Sophie's (the norwegian girls) porter felt sick, said he couldn't make it further and left. We would meet them later in the tea house where we decided to spend the night. After climbing up the mountain to Chomrong we had to climb it down, which is a really steep way, by huge steps until we reached the river. The final part of the day was another stip climb uphill until Banawa (lower Sinuwa). We stayed at the Sherpa Guesthouse for 200 rupees. Here we met Peter, an Anthropology professor in Seattle, and his son. The two norwegians and their yoga teacher joined us later. And a Canadian who is just wandering around looking at birds from Nepal was also at the table with us. We had a really interesting conversation during and after dinner.

Day 3 - Banawa - Deurali
15 km overall was the distance covered today. I started feeling the first altitude problems, but they disappeared after a rest. We climbed 1200 m today and are now at over 3000 m. Some snow also fell on the mountains surrounding us. We hope that won't force us to change our plans of reaching the ABC the next day. The temperature is really low and since we are weak and dehydrated we feel it even more. We have to ask the shelter guys to turn on the heater and end up sleeping in the dining room with all the other personnel, just because it's warmer there.

Day 4 - Deurali - ABC
The big day finally came. We will reach our objective today. First we need to reach the MBC (Machhapuchhre base camp) 500m higher than Deurali at 3720 m and then another 400 m ascension. All this in 3,5 km. The first part went fine and everyone reached the MBC with a nice face. The worst was climbing to the ABC. My muscles were asking me to stop most of the way. The air is quite rare, my heart is going quite fast. But as I felt that if stopped I wouldn't make it I just kept on going.
We are all exhausted but extremely happy when we reach the top, at 4130 m. Up there the mountains are beautiful and peaceful. There's some fog than soon changes to a ice and snow storm that forces us to stay in the dining room of the shelter most of the time. We occupy the time up there playing cards, talking, resting and reading. I let myself go with the poetry of Caeiro.

Day 5 - ABC - Barawa
The morning brings up a clear sky which allows us to truly appreciate the views the base camp has to offer. We are surrounded by mountains, white is the colour that covers everything. The temperature is still very low which prevents us from staying too long outside. Before joining the others for breakfast I still see an avalanche far away in one of the mountains.
We went down at a great pace. We covered in the first day downhill the same distance it took us two days uphill. This was when my old injuries decided it was time to add some suffering to the experience. At the end of the day i'm exhausted, in pain, but at least my breathing got back to normal as well as my heart rate.

Day 6 - Barawa - Kyumi
My first objective of the day, given the circumstances was just to be able to move. I have a lot difficulties going downhill but when climbing to Chomrong i'm able to make my ankle work decently again and get back to my normal pace. I catch up with the others in Chomrong, where Kara had left part of her cargo and just move on to my second objective of the day: the hot springs in Jhinu. Diving in the hot springs and just relaxing there for a couple of hours felt like the price for all the effort and energy spent in the last days. After two hours it's time to go. There are two plans now in the group: try to make it to Siauli Bazaar and from there take a taxi to Naya Pul and transport back to Pokhara; or staying another night on the treks. When we get to kyumi and the Bright Guest House it's almost impossible to proceed... The place is so beautiful, there's a special aura in the place. There's blooming flowers around the rooms, a quiet waterfall on the side of the complex that goes all the way down to the end of the valley, joining the freezing river that is inviting me for a dive, which I eventually go for.

Day 7 - Kyumi - Naya Pul - Pokhara
This is the last day. The first part is the most difficult up till Siauli Bazaar and from there it's just following the road to Naya Pul... The problem is, there's a lot of downhill, although not so steep, which makes my knee swell making me limp for the last 4 km. I arrived in Naya Pul exhausted and mentally down. But after resting some minutes the energy came back again. And of course, I was already imagining the warm shower that awaited me, clean clothes, shaving and a decent meal!
After doing all the things I had been so eager to do, it was time to do some laundry, return the rented stuff and rest. We met the rest of the group in the Love Kush restaurant, had an amazing dinner (after eating so many garlic soups because of the altitude, the pepper steak tasted like the best I ever had) and then went out partying. We tryed Club Amsterdam but the live band was too noisy, so we ended up in Club Paradiso, and we danced until they sent us away - the doors closed at 11.30 but party continued for another hour inside. We were so energetic that it really didn't look like we were tired and had walked over 80 km in the last week. In the end we plan on having breakfast the next morning to say goodbye. We probably won't see the girls again in the next few months and their company on the treks made the experience much more enjoyable than if it had been only the two of us.

Pokhara

2009-02-28T13:01:00.000Z

The guy from the reception didn't wake us up, so we missed the taxi to Bhairawa, although Kara got to the reception on time... I suspect he arranged things with his uncle so that he would drive us to Pokhara by an alternative way. We have to take is offer and accept their deal: his uncle will try to drive us to Bhairawa, if we can't make it there or if buses are not going, he will drive us to Butwal for 2000 Rupees, Tansen for 5000 or Pokhara for 7000.

Halfway to Bhairawa he receives a phone call. There's a road block. He changes road and starts driving north to Butwal. The main road is also blocked so he goes through something I wouldn't call a road that ends up in a walking bridge. We put the side mirrors inwards and cross the bridge... I kind of freaked out a little!

In Butwal we try to withdraw some cash, but, since there's no power the ATMs are all down...

There's a road block about 500m from the place where we are. We ask him if we can cross it walking and since he said yes we ask him to drive us as close as possible to it. We pay, grab our stuff and walk normally through it. Everything went normal and after some meters we find a bus going to Tansen, which is on the way to Pokhara. We almost hop in, but another guy came saying that 5 min ahead there was a bus going to Pokhara. Finally things seem to start working out fine.

The Himalaya and Pokhara
As we take our seats on the bus we realize that a special passengers is going to make the trip in the best of the sits, the roof: a goat. Actually roof topping is a national hobby and there are always people sitting on the roof tops of buses, although it can be a dangerous "sport" due to the way bus drivers drive.
The beginning of our journey finally brings us the beautiful Himalayas. As we start ascending we start crossing beautiful valleys, amazing stepped fields that are as green as a cultured field can be, and rivers that run downhill on the opposite direction we are taking. The first hour is amazing, as Kara keeps saying. Then we kind of get tired or maybe just dizzy from all the curves, road bumps and the altitude. Or maybe we were saving ourselves for what was about to come. A bit before we started descending to Pokhara the ticket collector calls the roof toppers inside. We soon understand why... The driver then begins a crazy downhill race. We are jumping all over our seats, we get scared each time a curve comes and we see the abyss just there (sometimes with some crashed buses down on the valley some hundred meters bellow us). The goat, the only roof top survivor is screaming desperatly. This lasts for over an hour, and it's with great relieve that we reach Pokhara and leave the bus.

In Pokhara we take a public bus to the lakeside. I ask the driver to leave us in a place where it is easy to find cheap accommodation, and so he does.
We stay at the New Friendly Home, for 400 Rupees per night. On one side of the hotel we have the beautiful lake and on the other side the beautiful Himalayan mountains make us feel small.

We have dinner at the Love Kush, a bit more expensive than we're used to, but the personnel is so nice and the food so good that we don't really care and end up going there a few more times.

After a good night sleep we prepare for what brought us to Pokhara: trekking. I rent a down jacket and a pair of gloves. Next we bought the trekking permit - 2200 Rupees - and then it was mostly shopping and relaxing. Me and Kara spend the afternoon paddling in the lake. It's a beautiful place, quite relaxing. Pokhara is definitely the place to go and charge batteries before the trekking.

Lumbini

2009-02-28T13:00:00.000Z

It's with a bit of relieve that we arrive in Nepal. We don't know exactly if the things we didn't like in India will still exist here but we really hope not!

Border crossing
We crossed the border in Sunauli, a dusty road with a constant movement of trucks where all the locals are wearing face masks to protect themselves from the polluted air. We buy the visa at the border for 25 US$. We planned on taking public transports to Lumbini but since we arrived after 5 pm that wasn't possible anymore. We were then approached by the shared taxis guys and ended up sharing a taxi with another portuguese couple, Bernardo and Mariana, from Porto, for 150 rupees each. After waiting for almost an hour under a cloud of dust we finally started our journey.

Lumbini
After some detours we finally arrived at our destination. It was already night and the street was dark and quiet. We stay in the 2nd hotel we visit (the first was really bad...) - Lumbini village lodge, 700 rupees for a double room. Only after checking in and resting for a while we realize what we are going to face for the next couple of weeks:
- electricity, there are only 8 h of power per day and the light periods aren't always at the same time
- communications, there is no roaming service with our providers in Nepal. And since there's hardly electricity the internet is down most of the time
- no electricity means no TV or other forms of entertainment. Everything closes at 10 pm or earlier, even the hotel reception and the restaurants
- hot water in a bucket delivered in your room on demand and loads of mosquitoes are minor worries
- and probably the worse part, Nepal is going through a lot of political changes, which results in a lot of social instability and, as result, strikes, demonstrations and, the worst for us, road blocks!

Stuck in Lumbini
The original plan was to visit Lumbini during the day and then take a night bus to Pokhara. Unfortunately there are road blocks due to politics and the buses are not going from Bhaurawa.

Lumbini is the birth place of the man that later became Buddha. The ruins of the temple, where the stone marking the birth place was found, are now UNESCOs world heritage. Surrounding the ruins there's a huge complex still under development where Buddhist communities from all over the world have built their temples. On the opposite side of the complex lies a huge piece pagoda.

We spent the day walking from temple to temple. We've visited most of them and when we're back in the starting point we are tired of Buddhist temples...

The rest of the day is spent reading, talking and trying to organize the next day. We agree with the hotel owner that he will call us at 5.30 am and we'll share a cab to Bhaurawa with two japanese.

After dinner in the great Three foxes 20 m away from our hotel (we ended up having all our meals there) we went back in the room and realized that none of us was sleepy... We decide to get a beer frrom the reception and play some cards. It's 9.30 pm and the hotel is already closed. There's no one in the reception and Tiago has to wake one of the small kids that works there to get a beer... As soon as we start playing cards we hear noise ib the upper floor. It's the portuguese couple. We join them in the upper terrace and spend the rest of the evening playing cards, drinking beer, talking about our trips (they were in Thailand last year so we asked for some advice) and laughing, under the light of candles, flash lights and of course the many stars of the clear nepalese sky. This lasts until 1:30, a more suitable time for a portuguese to go to bed :) .

Final remarks about India

2009-02-27T23:47:00.000Z

India is a quite mysterious country, different from any place I've ever been to. It's an ancient civilization with loads and loads of history that 3 and half weeks just left me more curious about.

But India is not an easy place for a westerner. There's a lot of people everywhere. And a lot means really a lot! The streets are extremely dirty, the same streets that are shared by humans and animals during day and night - there are homeless people everywhere. Furthermore, the noise, garbage, pollution, traffic, mess, street sailors, taxis, rickshaws, beggars, etc, make it hard to be relaxed and enjoy the great things India has to offer. And, to finalize this paragraph, the notion of space - there's always room for one more - and the absence of rules, with the traffic rules being the first one notices, are things I cannot understand and get used to!

I particularly enjoyed Ellora and Ajanta, Goa, Udaipur and got quite curious about Delhi. If/when i'm back, I want to go back to Delhi, see what's missing in Rajasthan (and maybe go back to Udaipur), go back to Goa and most of all explore the South from which i've heard great things. I also enjoyed the sympathy of people (appart from Varanasi I felt welcome everywhere) and the food. We both left India without having experienced any stomach problems and had food in all kinds of places (we just avoided most street food).

On average, and subtracting some extra shopping I did in Agra, I spent on average 20 euros/day, which was the budget I had planned. If we had slept in the cheapest places and eaten on the streets this value could have been lowered to at least 15 euros/day.

Going back to India, yes or no? Definitely Yes, but with at least one week of vacation in the many great beaches (many still quite unexplored) that India has to offer.

Hong Kong

2009-02-27T17:56:00.008Z

Arriving in Hong Kong immediately made us feel like we were back in the western world. Organization, decent transportation systems, cleanness and of course all the international food and shop chains.

We arrived early in the day and kind of woke up Adler, a former member of the Stockholm portuguese community. It was great meeting him again, specially because I am also going to miss his wedding later this year. We had to leave most of conversation for dinner since he had to go to work and we had to get some sleep.
Later in the day we went out for dinner in fantastic roof top Thai restaurant. The food was fantastic, not only for the food itself, but also because of the trays in which it was served: carved pieces of food like pumpkin, coconut and pineapple. Beautiful and tasty! After that we went to the bar district. Apparently there is also something to do in this city, 24h a day 7 days per week. We decided to go to some quieter places this time and leave the crowded places for another opportunity. So the perfect conditions were set for talking a lot and the night ended a bit later than we had planned!

Our plan for this part the trip was quite simple: first day rest and relax, second day visit Macau, third day shopping and resting and fourth day, sightseing, relaxing and partying!

Hong Kong is made up of a continental part and the islands (the original Hong Kong is an island with the same name). We stayed in the continental part in Hung Hom. Very close by we had the train/subway, ferry and bus that could take us to any part of the city. The skyscrapers are everywhere. It is a beautiful image and mysterious image to watch the skyscrapers covered in fog with the mountains on their background and in front of the waterfront.

The shopping day was spent in the shopping district of Chong Hom. Literally a whole neighborhood, where some streets are specialised in electronics, others in clothing... and there's also the womens market, where one can buy all sorts of imitations imaginable, from the latest models of Pumas, to the most expensive watches.

In our last day in Hong Kong we finally decided to do some sightseeing. But a small crisis of laziness made us take the tram up to Pick Hill, get a glimpse of the city from the highest point in the city and come back home to prepare for dinner. It is really beautiful the view from the Hill Top. Walking around the area is also supposed to be a good activity and relaxing but we weren't able to do it...
At night we had dinner in a small traditional chinese restaurant in the city center with Adler and Antje (his future wife). It was really nice, the food was great and we tried something new: donkey meat. After that we went out for some drinks. Me and Tiago stayed a bit longer than them and ended up the evening partying with two really nice and funny portuguese girls from Macau and their group of friends. What a coincidence meeting portuguese people in the only bar we decided to enter after we left Adler and Antje!

We didn't see much of the traditional Hong Kong. After a month and a half of sightseeing and rushing from one place to another I guess it was time to stop and relax and prepare for the first week in Thailand. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed Hong Kong and will consider a future visit, maybe in a stop over to another country in the region.

Macao

2009-02-27T17:56:00.006Z

We got up quite early and took the ferry in order to get to Macao around 10.30 am, where Ze Carlos, an old friend from Coimbra, living in Macao, is waiting for us.

As we arrive he takes us to the huge Macao tower where are introduced to the local delicacies (similar to some we have back home) and have the chance to drink an almost decent espresso! As he drives us through the city before dropping us to go to work, we get really impressed with the buildings from the casinos. The Grand Lisboa is by far the most impressive!

This former portuguese colony was the last province of the old empire to split appart (in 1999). It has now a similar autonomy as Hong Kong, a status which will last until 2049. But Macao is now most well known for its casinos. It is the biggest gambling place in the world, bigger than Vegas! The casinos are everywhere and later in the day we pass by some of the international groups that have been investing strongly in Macao.

We leave Ze in Radio Macao and start walking around the city. We enter the Grand Lisboa just to look how it looks like. It's huge and a really beautiful building. We then decide to start the cultural part of the day and walk towards the old town. As we get closer and closer the feeling of familiarity gets bigger and bigger. All the names (streets, shops, banks, etc) are written both in Portuguese and Mandarin, the side walks are built in the portuguese traditional way, some buildings hold the traditional blue tiles on their walls. And when we reach the "Largo do Senado" we are back home! We start taking the lonely planets walking tour, which takes to the Cathedral and as we are about to leave the downtown we spot a portuguese library and decide to enter. We spent too much time there (I bought a poems book from Torga, one of my favorite writers) and Ze calls us saying he is ready to pick us up for lunch.

He drives us to the islands, a beautiful journey through what, according to him, will soon become a natural protection area. Great news I think. In a territory with so much construction and hardly any green areas it's good to have a place where you can relax and enjoy nature. Our destination is Fernando, a typical portuguese restaurant, settled by the sea. I don't think a dish of grilled sardines ever felt this good. We've been hardly eating any fish in this trip. Mostly vegetables, some meat and sea food and some chicken. We keep on talking about Macau, present and the future during the meal. It's great to get an inside view of the political situation and of the daily life conditions.

In the afternoon we visit the Farol da Guia (the first Lighthouse of southeastern Asia) and the fort around it, and also the ruins of St Pauls Church and the Museum of Macao. Our pace is a bit slower than usual maybe because we are not used to this humidity conditions. After the museum we get back to downtown and meet Ze, this time for a walking tour over some of the city characteristic squares and streets. The mixture between the new and the old is constant in this city. We eat a fantastic dinner in Restaurante Litoral, which serves traditional food from Macao. We say goodbye to Ze and thank him for using his free time for touring us around the city and get back to Hong Kong. The next two days will be spent exploring it.

I felt great in Macao. I found the mixture between the chinese and portuguese cultures quite interesting. It's almost 450 years of common history that are present in the streets of Macao, as Macao was only a small fishermen's village when the portuguese arrived. Now it holds 500000 people, of which only around 2000 portuguese are left. It's location, just an hour boat from Hong Kong, makes it an interesting place to visit.

Varanasi

2009-02-27T17:54:00.005Z

Again, we went on sleeper class which is like a jungle, where people just enter hoping that they get a seat without a ticket. A creepy old man with a filthy blanket and a filthy look and another guy were comfortably installed in our seats. As soon as the train left, we run them out of there so we finally could get our places. Next to us, 6 beds where 11 people tried to manage as they could...at 9h30, time supposed to arrive to Varanasi, we woke up to the sound of these annoying tea salesmen that get inside the train with their parrot voices waking up everyone screaming "CHAI, CHAI"... Anyway, we looked outside and we didn´t see anything that resembled a city... to our surprise, we stopped in a place that was still...5 hours away from Varanasi!!!...once again, the efficiency of the Indian train system...We arrived in Varanasi 6h late and we went to the customer office asking if there was any kind of compensation..."no, we don´t have that system here"...great!Varanasi is a sacred city for Hindus, bathed by the Ganges river and known for its ghats, basically staircases that go down to the river where people "wash" away their sins, and believe that filthy water is holy... There is a part of the city where no rickshaws or cars can go since the streets are really really narrow... our hotel was quite close to the river, and we took 10 minutes to reach it walking through these streets where we often found cows, goats, and of course, cow and goat shit...sometimes, human as well... we were quite concerned about leaving the hotel at night since there was no lights in those streets...We left the luggage in our hotel, Ganpati Guest House, went to the roof-top restaurant with a magnificent view over the Ganges to have lunch, and decided to take a walk while we still had natural light. One step out of the hotel and immediately a kid "offered" his services as a guide.. we decided to take it as the city seemed a bit confusing with all the confusing labyrintic streets.. he took us to a Kamasutra temple (Nepal Hindu temple), and then to a ghat where people are taken to be cremated and their ashes thrown to the "holy" river. There were a lot of people, cows, fires, an unpleaseant smell in the hair... we were approached by a man that immediately started explaining the procedure, and bla bla bla since we both disconnected due to his lousy english and his pushy approach... it is forbidden to take pictures in that site due to the respect for the dead...however, it captured our attention a white guy standing quite close to the fires with a huge camera without anyone telling him anything... apparently, that respect has a price in the form of a "donation"... so much for their credibility... we decided to leave and as we did it, the old guy started asking for a contribution for the old and poor people that cannot afford the wood where they will be burnt (yes, for each person 250Kg of wood is necessary for the cremation, where 1 Kg is worth 100 rupees). we said that if we would give anything we would decide and not him as he was asking a minimum of 750 rupees... we said no and we started walking away, while he began to insult us saying we were selfish and made him waste his time, and bla bla bla... when he saw we wouldn´t be back, he "threw" this"pearl" " If you come back, i will throw you to the fire"...Next day, 9th February, we started the day with a breakfast to the rays of light on the rooftop of our hotel. During that time, a girl who was seated next to us started talking to us about Nepal, as she was going there...since we were leaving the next day, and she planned to do the same, we proposed to go together. Her name was Kara, canadian 23years old, white skin painted with frackels, blonde-orange hair and blue eyes. We talked a bit and we decided to meet later on so we could go...We took a boat that would take us around the Ganges for one hour and see the several ghats. our boatsman was a little kid, a skinny 14 years old boy named Raol. He was very nice, we get along quite nicely with him, talking about his life, football, his friends, as he was also explaining several things we were seeing as we were asking him. at a certain point, we spotted Kara in one of the margins and we stopped a bit to chat, as she showed us a big hole filled of mud where 3 persons were collecting mud as if they were searching for something... apparently, there is a legend that says that a God let some golden amulet fall in there,and therefore the ritual...we left Raol with the promise of sending him a football ball, and we went to take care of other things, as ricardo wanted to send some package home...it was desperation in the post office, as we waited and waited, filled a form, then waited waited, weighed the packaged, waited waited for the guy to finish his lunch, weighed again the packaged, waited and waited... 2h and 30 minutes in total! we had 3 hours to visit Varanasi but the confusion that is that city didn´t really makes enthusiastic in doing so... we jumped on a rickshaw and went to take pictures of some temples that were not that impressive.

At 3h45 am we were up to meet Kara and go and take the bus that would drop us at the border with Nepal, a city called Sunauli. Again, the guide information was wrong and there were no buses before 7h30... we had heard about a train going to a city called Gorakphur, and that from there we could take a bus... that information was true and we jumped on the train... the trip was going to take 6 hours and it was one of these trains where... anyone could go (2nd class)... it was a struggle to get in and everyone wants to get a seat...we didnt take one! still, after 2h, we managed to be the 3 comfortably seated... during that trip, an indian guy starts talking to me, asking normal questions, nationality, where we were going bla bla bla...time passed as again he approched mer and asked to read my hand...HE claimed to have a PhD in Ancient civilizations, that palm reading was his hobby so he was not going to charge for the reading :P he started talking about the lines and mounts and then started reading it: that I had an artist hand, a very good hand, confident, logical intelligence, would have a wife and a lover, 2 kids, boys, and a lot of success after 30, was going to be a government official, live until 85, and that attracted women... of course we almost bursted into tears. To Kara, the reading was: she was a very emotional person, was going to be successful after 27, 4 kids, she was a person with high education, that she had 2 brothers (true) and was going to live until 90. Ricardo, emotional person, confident, with a lot of women, success in the business field, live until 80, artist hand, good hand..uhm... i wonder if all the hands tell the same thing...
We finally reached Gorakphur, had lunch and got into the bus to Sunauli... Nepal was getting closer!

Written by Tiago

Agra

2009-02-27T17:53:00.011Z

We arrived in Agra by train from Delhi, around 9 in the morning after a "race" from New Delhi station to Old Delhi Station, on one of those funny vehicles called rickshaws.. in Agra, as usual, harassed by dozens of "horny" indians who wanted to rip us off in taking us to the Taj Mahal for 200 rupees when a few meters ahead there was a pre-paid counter saying 100 rupees for that trip... Since we were told the best view of the Taj was in the early morning and especially since it was Friday and the Taj is closed on Fridays (restoration day), we used that day to see what else Agra had to offer. There was the "baby" Taj, a few mausoleums and we ended up the morning having the first view of the Taj from the back, since the river now has very little water and we can come very close through the sand banks and take nice pictures. After lunch, we headed to Agra Fort, which is a huge building where we found a mix of sandstone structures and marble, which were added by Shah Jahan, the guy that order the Taj. The building is like a labyrinth, many rooms and passages and a very nice view over the river and the Taj. Ironically, Shah Jahan was later imprisoned by his son in the Agra Fort, from where he could see the beautiful masterpiece he had ordered. Later, on "advice" of our rickshaw driver, went to a typical marble factory, where we spent most of the afternoon listening a weasel marble salesman with his very "eloquent" english on how the Taj Mahak was built..it is in fact a very meticulous work, where the marble (white) is first dyed in a special ink so that the contrast is bigger. Then, drawings are made using different stones like tiger-eye, lapis-lazuli, shells, and each stone of the drawing is carefully shaped. After that, the marble is carved, the stone is glued with a special glue, then the marble is washed so that the contrastant dye is washed away, and the final piece is polished... of course we didn´t leave the shop withoutsouvenirs, which took us a considerable time to choose, bargain and pay...

Next day, like crazy tourists, we woke up at 6 am to go to the Taj. It was still dark when we arrived to the ticket office but we found an already considerable queue. Tickets for foreigners cost 750 rupees and included a bottle of water and shoe protection, while indian citizens pay...10 rupees! Of course, it didn´t open in time, but at 7a.m. and we had to first get through the control check where Joao was sent back because he was carrying a... battery charger... The first view of the Taj is truly spectacular...but disappointing at the same time due to the now increasing air pollution which fills the air with smog... At the same time, it borrows a sense of mystery to the structure... maybe because we heard so much about it, saw it in thousands of pictures and postcards, we were not so surprised...took some pictures, walked around... besides, we are not allowed to take pictures from the inside of the Taj, although indian people do it... maybe to scam foreigners so then we pay some huge fine... Historically, it took 22 years, 20000 slaves so that the Taj would be completed..beside, says the legend, their hands were cut off so that no one could be involved in the building of similar masterpiece...Our afternoon destination was a city called Fatehpur Sikri, a ghost city just for the reason it was abandoned after 14 years due to water shortage...however, since its a touristic destination, it´s no longer "ghost"... The most impressive in that was a little boy, in his 13 years old who was selling wood miniatures of chess and gammon, that could engage in an almost correct conversation in either italian or spanish...in the end, he "took" a pen for his effort!

-"-
Fatehpur Sikri was the capital of the Mughal empire for just 14 years. As we arrive we face a huge street market, in the middle of the main road. There's loads and loads of people, so the concept of ghost city is a bit awkward... We walk uphill trying to ignore the guides who want to show us around. They are very pushy in this place according to the lonely planet guide. The mosque on the top of the hill - Jama Masjid - is an impressive structure. There's a huge staircase to access the main entrance. Inside, the same quietness feeling I always feel in mosques. They're quite harmonious structures. Me and Joao lost Tiago in the mosque. We still searched him for half an hour, but as we didn't see a sign of him we decided to move on and visit the old palace which is now part of the UNESCU world heritage sites. The palace is in fact a complex formed of many palaces. It's huge and each palace has it's own particular architectural details. We spent the rest of the free time we had wandering around the complex. Not many people were visiting it, so we finally got the feeling of being in a "ghost city". Around 3.30 pm we moved downhill and met Tiago waiting for the bus. The group was together again and it was now time to catch the bus back to Agra because Joao had to catch the 6 o'clock train to Delhi.

-"-

The trip back to Agra was supposed to be at 16h, since Joao had to take the train back to Delhi... however, we were soon told that contrary to what the guide said, there were no bus schedule from there to Agra... we waited and waited, Joao was getting desperate because time was passing by and we was almost sure to lose the train... we decided to take a rickshaw to the main road where a bus took us after 15 minutes...it was a race against time, with a horn-crazy driver, for 1h20m...as soon as we arrived (5m before the scheduled train departure time), Joao grabbed his suitcase, said goodbye, and went to the station... 10 minutes later, we got an sms saying that he was on the train and that he only had time to throw his bags and jump on it..fortunately, the train was delayed... Later that night we took the train that took us to Varanasi, our last stop in India before Nepal.

Text written by Tiago. Part written in Italic written by me.

Delhi and The Corbett National Park

2009-02-27T17:52:00.003Z

The trip to Delhi was the best so far. A nice train, we took CC class (sitting in air conditioned). Besides being a quieter atmosphere and only people with a ticket being allowed on each coach, they served us food, 3 times! Well worth the money I must say.

We arrived at the New Delhi train station and were dealing with some rickshaw drivers and taxis to take us to the hotel we had booked when Tiago spotted a pre-paid rickshaw counter. In the end we managed to get a rickshaw drive for 3 times less then we would have paid if we hadn't taken a pre-paid rickshaw. After a 30 min drive around the dark and ugly streets of Old Delhi we managed to arrive to the hotel we had booked in the morning. It was quite close to the Jama Majid which is quite convenient given the short time we have to visit Delhi.

Once we enter the hotel New City Palace, we are informed that they do not have any rooms left. We reply with the booking we had made in the morning. They wake up the guy the supposedly had taken our reservation and the impossible had happened, they had lost our reservation and they didn't have any rooms left. We are offered a place in the mess with the personal. A place in the last floor, without any type of door, where a bunch of people are sleeping all together. We reject of course, they argue with each other in front of us, almost ignoring our presence, we still manage to ask them to try to go and find us a place to stay. In the end, I have to make a few phone calls to some of the lonely planet numbers I have and manage to find a room at 1 am in the Paharganj. We take the first rickshaw we find. It was interesting riding a rickshaw through the streets of Delhi with a drunk driver... The guys at the New city Guest house offer us a room that was not clean, we complain a little (although we knew we would have to take if they didn't have anything else) and in the end they manage to find us a clean room in a close by hotel. Time to rest and prepare for the next day.

Delhi
We decided to take a more relaxing day. After the previous day events and after the rhythm we had in Rajasthan we kind of needed it. We checked out from the hotel and went to Conaught Place, where Joao wanted to book his flight to the place where he is going to work. We ended up spending the rest of the morning and the beginning of the afternoon there. Since we hadn't heard anything from the agency we had contacted regarding the safari package at the Corbett National Park, we decided to call. The guy is in Delhi and wants to meet us so that we can pay a part of the safari in advance. It was nice conversation and me and him almost set up a travel business. Let's see if I want to focus my career in tourism!

Finally at 3 pm we manage to do something in Delhi. We rent a taxi to drive us around for the rest of the day. The driver is quite nice although he hardly speaks English. He drives us to the Gate of India, where we just take a few photos and later to the mausoleum of Humayun. We couldn't have chosen a better place to visit in Delhi. We are amazed with the beauty of the place and the peacefulness and quietness we find there. We wander around the complex until the sun almost sets.

After that there is not much time left to see anything in Delhi. The driver still drives us to the Rajhgath where Ghandi and some other important people were cremated, but it is already closed. All public places close at 5.30 pm. It's a pity because it looks like another quite nice place to spend some time.

We ask him to drop us at the station then, so that we can book some of the train tickets we need for the rest of the Indian journey. On the way to the old Delhi station we get a glimpse of the Red Fort. An astonishing monument, that we have to leave for another time.

Corbett National Park
We spent the night in the train to Ramnagar and after showering and relaxing a bit at the hotel (quite luxurious for the standards we got used to in the last few weeks) we were ready for the day.

The package we chose included, a 1h walking tour through the park and surroundings, 1 jeep safari and 1 elephant safari, among some other things. We chose to do the walk in the first morning, the jeep safari in the afternoon and the elephant safari the next morning.

We walked through the outskirts of the park, spotted a couple of deers, some birds, termites nests, and the local vegetation. We saw some tiger footprints, according to the guide they were fresh and he was not far away. We next went pass a local village and relaxed a little by the river. After this, time for lunch and to prepare for the jeep safari.

As we entered the limited access area of the Corbett National Park, one of the guards joins us in the jeep. It is mandatory apparently. As the journey starts he points out all the animals we see. It's amazing how easily he can spot some animals, like the lizard you can see on the picture, which would have gone unnoticed otherwise. We kind of got tired of seeing deers (different species) and monkeys. We saw a snake eagle, some birds and not much more, until suddenly Joao asks the driver to stop and drive backwards. He had spotted something. He uses the binoculars and screams "it's a tiger. He's looking at us". With all the excitement he is not able to explain us exactly what he is observing, so only later me and Tiago understood that we had also seen its head between the trees. Joao took a picture of it, but it was too far away, so it is quite hard to distinguish it from the vegetation. But the event brought some excitement to the afternoon and we leave the park happy and hoping that the next day in the elephant safari we will be able to see some more rare animals.

In the evening as we prepared to sleep, the bad news came. A tiger attack had happened and all elephants had been called by the guards to go catch the tiger. We went out to the reception and were told that the elephant safari we had planed will not happen and that we can take a different jeep safari instead. We don't feel like doing another jeep safari and tell them that. The only solution discussed they come up with is returning the safari money (2000 rupees). I don't think that's enough and decide that I'll speak to the guy from the agency the next morning. As we get back to bed, we hear gun shots quite close by.The shots continue as we fall asleep.

The morning after we got some more details about what happened. The tiger attacked a villager that was grabbing some wood. The attack occurred less than 1 Km from the hotel and...it was the same tiger whose trails we had been following the previous morning! They caught the tiger and will now send it whether to a different national park or to a zoo. I speak with the guy from the agency and the best he can do is offer himself to pay for the extra meals we were not told about when we bought the package. As for the rest of the day, well we spent it in the hotel, doing literally nothing...

Jaipur

2009-02-27T10:51:00.006Z

The so called Pink city was our last stop in the Rajasthan. We had one day to visit the city and so decided to rent a rickshaw for the whole day to drive us to the biggest attractions.

Crazy Raja was our driver for the day. He told us all about his personal life and sex dreams during the day. The first stop of our trip was the monkey temple - Galta. The temple is located on the top of a hill, overlooking the city, a 10-15 min walk to the top. On the way up we are amused by the hyper active monkeys, that gave rise to the name monkey temple. On top of the hill we have a great view over the city. The temple itself is not that special (or maybe we've seen too many temples already!).

From there we moved to the water palace. We can only observe it from the distance. It's a beautiful palace located in the middle of a stinky lake. We don't know much about it, since it is not mentioned in the guide and Raja also doesn't know much about it. It was now time to visit a silk factory. That's what happens when they make cheap prices for guiding you during the day. They bring you to shops because they get a commission for taking you there and a percentage of the shopping you make. After the visit to the shop we tell him no more shops. I don't think he liked it, but we don't have time to loose and money to spend...

We finally came to the famous city palace. This palace and all the buildings that surround it are built with sandstone(or they're just painted in pink). It's a beautiful complex, the audioguide (included in the ticket) helps you get a global vision of the story of the maharajas. The collection of clothes and rifles presented during the tour and the sports stories could be a bit better and interesting, but it is enough to provide us with some insight of the Jaipur history. A climb to the Iswari Minar Swarga Sal gives us a closer vision of the pink city and surroundings. Our last stop for the day was in front of the impressive Hawa Mahal-Palace which we don't have much time to visit (and according to Raja it's not worth the visit).

It was then time to, once again, put "our home on our backs" and take the train to Delhi.

Jaipur is a nice city, but as any big Indian city it is too crowded and messy. One more day would have allowed us to see things more carefully but it wouldn't have added much to what we saw.

Ajmer & Pushkar

2009-02-26T16:18:00.005Z

Ajmer
We seem not to learn with mistakes and arrived to Ajmer early in the morning (3.30 am), sleepy and cold. We had nothing to do, and since it's a quite small train station we had to hang around the station with all the homeless and amusing ourselves with the people forcing their entrance into the trains.

When the darkness began to fade away, we headed on towards Ana Sagar, a lake north from the station. The 15 min walk in the cold and the 4 hours wait in the station to start actually doing some sightseeing were compensated by the fantastic scenery that we encountered once we reached the lake. Pink was the colour of the Snake Mountains as the sun rose in the horizon and the reflection of the mountains on the lake created a beautiful atmosphere. Around us there were a few dozens of people exercising, whether by running, doing yoga, meditation or even group laugh therapy.

As the city woke up, we went towards our next objective, which was the Old City and the Dargah,a Muslim pilgrimage site. I bought a hat to cover my head inside and went inside with Joao, while Tiago waited outside keeping an eye on our stuff. We had a guy that spontaneously offered himself to guide us through the temple. Of course in the end his objective was to ask us to make donation to the Trust they run at the temple. And of course our contribution was by far, lower than he wanted, but similar to the one most pilgrims offered. Inside the temple there is the Mausoleum where everyone is pushing each other in order to get as close as possible to it and pray and make the offerings they brought. The definition of sacred place is a bit different from mine, mostly due to the noise they make and the mess around it. I quickly step aside and look around the rest of the complex.

After giving Tiago some time to visit the place himself, we headed towards the ruins of the Adhai-Din-Ka-Jhonpra mosque, which according to the legend was built in two and a half days. Although it is a bit degraded it is still a beautiful monument and a very peaceful place (reminds me of the mosques I visited in Istambul, many years ago). It must have been an impressing place.

After wandering around the centre in the search for the palace of Akbar (without much success) we went to the Red temple (Nasiyano temple) which we had already passed by in the morning on the way to the lake. This time we entered and were simply astonished with what we saw. In front of us there is a huge room with the representation of the Jain Universe in gold. We slowly move around the golden room, trying to get a full image of it through the dirty windows. After that we try to visit the rest of the temple, but they don't allow us, although our objective was just to take a decent picture of the red temple, which is impossible from the street (it's quite a beautiful structure all built in sandstone).

Pushkar
Ajmer is not a big city, we could have stayed a bit longer and walk uphill to the fort and get a nice view over the city, but instead we decided to spend our time and money in a bus drive to Pushkar, a sacred site in the Hindu mythology. After a quiet 30 min trip across the snake mountains, we arrived in Pushkar. According to the legend, lord Brahma dropped a lotus flower in the lake Pushkar and Pushkar floated to the surface. We walked towards the lake, and then around it, through hordes of shops selling the same things. We visited some of the ghats, the places where people dive in the lake in order to clear away their sins. Besides this, Pushkar is famous for homing one of the only Brahma temples in the world. I walk up the stairs and go around the temple watching people praying and making offerings to the gods. I don't find it such a special place, but the views over the city are pretty nice (it's a pitty cameras are forbidden inside).

Taking the bus back to Ajmer was quite an adventure. The first one was already full when we arrived. When the next one arrived we saw people throwing their bags inside, entering through the windows, pushing each other to enter the bus in first place. Well I can just say that I was one of the first to enter the bus and couldn't find a place to sit. As I found my place on the back of the bus, I started talking to one of my travel companions. He was an astrophysics teacher (or something similar). The conversation goes from the differences between our cultures, to understanding the meaning of life. Given the circumstances it was actually a quite enjoyable ride, mostly due to his company.

Departure to Jaipur
First thing to do after we got back to Ajmer, was finding a way to get out of there and preferably to Jaipur, the next place on our "race" through Rajasthan. We managed to find a tourist bus for 90 rupees which departed within an hour. Enough time to grab our stuff from the station, buy some food and get on the bus. The bus trip was a nightmare to me... I hate travelling by bus, and I get extremely annoyed when around me there are people making a lot of noise, smoking pot and the driver seems to be more interested with speed than with safety and comfort. The journey took around three hours, plus 45 min that the rickshaw took searching for our hotel. But these 45 min were well worth it. 1000 rupees divided by three, and by far the best place we got in whole trip till now - Hotel Atithi Palace. Cleaner and more comfortable for such a price is impossible in India (and by clean I mean almost like western standards!).

We all felt that Ajmer and Pushkar were a small delusion. Maybe the comments from other people that had been there and recommeded us not to miss them (specially Pushkar) created some false expectations. Ajmer has a few nice places, I liked it better than Pushkar. Pushkar is mostly a place to learn and observe a bit more of the Hindu culture and traditions.

Udaipur

2009-02-25T08:26:00.006Z

The trip from Goa to Udaipur was another nightmare. All the trains were fully booked, so we had to try the buses again. We decided to try sleeper class from Goa to Mumbai. A huge mistake... Two people per tier, we were given a tier at the back of the bus, which on the one hand gave us more space, but on the other hand made us roll around and jump with every curve or road-bump the bus came across (and they're many, trust me...). After 12h where we experienced extreme heat, extreme cold, cigarette smoke, etc we arrived in Mumbai... First and only thing to do was buying a ticket to Udaipur. After 21h in a semi-sleeper bus, we finally arrived in Udaipur, completely exhausted and just walked towards the city centre searching for the hotel we had booked the day before.

Udaipur and a new member in the group

We stayed at The Lake View GuestHouse very close to the impressive Jagdish temple. The first thing to do was to climb all the way up to the roof top restaurant, which offered us an amazing view over the lake, the temple, the city palace and have something to eat.
In the afternoon and after a power nap a short journey exploring the city we met Joao. He had arrived the previous day in India and is going to work here for a couple of months, but before that, he decided to travel with us and have some company exploring this country.

The first group sightseeing experience was watching the sunset from the Monsoon Palace. A long journey in a rickshaw awaited us. The machine was too old, we were three plus the driver and... it felt like it was faster to climb on foot than on the rickshaw... Half-way the rickshaw had to stop in order to rest the engine. There was a lot of smoke coming out of it already. The driver tried to make it seem like all the rickshaws had to stop there but it really felt like his vehicle would explode if it didn't stop. When we finally arrived on top (some minutes after all the other vehicles that passed us on the way up) we could at last enjoy the beautiful view over the lake and the city. This vision just left me more eager to explore the city. As for the sun set, well, there was a cloud that almost ruined it, but in the end it cleared a little bit and we enjoyed another beautiful sunset...

Back to town, we booked the train tickets to Ajmer for the next day and had a surprise waiting for us from our rickshaw driver. To compensate for the lack of a radio he offered to sing. I'm not going to discuss his singing qualities, but it was a quite enjoyable journey we had before we paid him and left for dinner.

007 - Octopussy

The hotel roof top restaurant offered us a beautiful view over the city and the lake palaces. In addition, we had to watch the 007 - Octupussy, that was recorded in one of the lake Palace-hotels. We later realised that almost (if not all) all bars and restaurants show the movie between 7-9 pm 7 days per week!

City Palace and lake Pichola
The beautiful and huge complex of the city Palace was our first destination the next day. We spent the whole morning going around the palace and visiting the museum (which is not that special, but from where one gets great views over the lake and its palaces). After that we took the boat cruise around the lake until it dropped us at the Jagmandir island, where we wandered around the gardens and just relaxed before the boat took us back to the city.
There was not much left to see after that. We got lost in the narrow streets of the old city, shared the streets with cows, pigs, dogs and goats when we were trying to find some gardens that we never found until we finally decided to relax in a terrace before having dinner and getting our bags from the hotel and catch the night train to Ajmer.

The restaurant we had planned to have dinner on was closed so it was by chance that we ended up in Maxim rooftop restaurant. Besides the food, which was great (one of the best restaurants we went to in India for sure) we had a pretty good time with Elia, a basc girl who was travelling around India on her own.

Udaipur is quite an enjoyable city. I really enjoyed my stay there. It was a pity it was so short because there were some other things around the city that would have been worthwhile exploring.

Pictures

2009-02-09T16:36:00.003Z

I added some pics to the previous two posts. In Hong Kong I'll update the blog. Which means two weeks without any news. Sorry

Goa

2009-01-31T12:54:00.008Z

After an extenuating trip that took us from Aurangabad to Panjim in Goa with a one day stop in Pune, it was with joy that we walked away from the bus and adventured in the familiar streets of Panjim. Panjim is the capital of the former Portuguese colony, Goa. The streets are quite similar to the ones found in the city center of most Portuguese cities. The houses, the names of the shops and of course, the square in the center with a church overlooking it. The Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception is an impressive building where, once upon a time, the Portuguese sailors used to come and thank the virgin for a safe journey, before proceeding to the old capital - Old Goa.

We stayed three days in Panjim. We planned on using it as a starting point to explore the south of Goa and visit some spice farms and other old cities, but for different reasons we couldn't hit the south. Goa was crowded with tourists the weekend we arrived - 26th of January is a national holiday in India and being a Monday, many Indians took some vacation. We stayed right in the city center in a hotel that a Goese, friend of a friend, fixed for us - Hotel Arcadia. The first thing we did when we arrived was... taking a shower and washing some clothes. We were covered in dust and sweat from the "nice" streets of Aurangabad and Pune. And then sleep.

After waking up, we decided it was time to go to the beach. We decided to take a local bus (in fact two, one to Mapusa and from there, another one to Anjuna) to Anjuna, which is quite famous among the hippie movement. Many hippies went there in the 60s and due to the beauty of the place decided to stay. It's in fact a beautiful beach, although not the perfect place to swim - there's a lot of rocks. But the water is amazing. If it hadn't been for the girls permanently trying to sell us something it would have been a perfect afternoon. The bars/shacks around the beach all offer amazing views and most have a great atmosphere. The sea food is fantastic, and for between 100-150 Rs one can enjoy great dishes of all kinds of sea food. Alcohol is also easily accessible and it is extremely cheap. It felt great relaxing in a terrace in front of the Arabic sea drinking a beer and eating some local snacks.

Old Goa
The day after we took a bus to Old Goa, the old capital of the Portuguese Indian territories, which was abandoned in the mid 19th century due to permanent cholera epidemics. Today not much is left from what was once a bigger city than Lisbon or London. But the churches and cathedrals, that make this place a UNESCO world heritage site, show how opponent, big and rich this city once was. We spend the whole morning wandering around the churches imagining how they once were. There have been some conservation efforts, but many show evident signs of degradation.

Candolim
In the afternoon we went to one of those beaches that have been invaded by the western tourism. Despite being surrounded by people with lobster-like skin and ugly wreck of an old boat right in the beach, Candolim is a really nice place. The beach is big and here there are no rocks so it's perfect to swim. Another relaxing afternoon, just like we had planned, before moving on to northern India.

Panjim
I spent the next day exploring Panjim. It's a small, but cosy city. Here it is possible to see the mixture between the Portuguese and Indian cultures. I walked around Fontainhas, along the marginal by the river. Lunch in the restaurant "Viva Panjim" was sublime, as well spending a few hours reading and writing at "Ernestos" in "Clube Vasco da Gama", a place where the Goese Portuguese community gathers, but I was unlucky in the times I chose to get there, since it was always almost empty.

Anjuna and trouble with the police
We decided to rent scooters for the last two days in Goa (it's probably the only place in India where people drive in a almost normal way!). Well apparently the rules change depending on whom we rent the scooters from. After 10min riding them, and when we had finally found a place to fill up the tank, we were stoped by the police. Apparently our driving licence didn't allow us to drive those scooters. But if we had shown them the receipt from the rental agency instead of our driving licence, everything would have been alright. Well after an whole morning of discussion, we finally paid 450 Rs (at first they asked for 950) each, returned the scooters and moved on to Anjuna by bus, which scared us a little because we were carrying the backpacks, but since it was not rush hour, it went quite smooth.

In Anjuna we got (by chance) a room in the Sunshine resort by 750 Rs per day. This was 15m away from the beach, which means that, more relaxing was impossible :)

At night we tried the famous Goa Trance beach parties, which attract people from all over the world. It's an amazing, contagious atmosphere. Quite impressing and fun.

And after another sunny day spent at the beach or in a beach shack having a nice fruit juice it was time to hit the road and move North.

Next stop, Udaipur in Rajasthan.

Aurangabad

2009-01-29T05:46:00.005Z

Aurangabad is a "small" city with less than 1 million inhabitants located in the State of Maharashtra. We came here to use the city as a starting point to visit the amazing caves of Ellora and Ajanta.

First the train trip. We were only able to get second class sleeper tickets, which means that, any person can enter the wagon hoping that someone has missed the train and that there will be space for them. This means that for a while Tiago does not have a place to sleep, since there's more people claiming his bed. My situation is different...My tier is located in the corridor, and is too small for me...I need to keep my legs bended during the whole trip.

We arrive in Aurangabad at 4 am. The station floor is crowded with people sleeping. We look for our driver, get in the car and move on to our hotel. Georges, a French guy we met on the train is joining us to the caves of Ajanta. We tell our driver to come back at 6.30.

The trip to Ajanta takes a bit over 2 hours. We arrive there around 9, just before they open. The entrance fee is 250 Rp, plus some small charges for taxes, bus to the caves and other things we don't really understand. We meet Merrill during breakfast. He is a retired American who is travelling around, trying to find a nice place to enjoy his retirement. He used to work as a reporter and he will be with us for the next couple of days. When we get to Ajanta, we hire a guide (big mistake, our american friend knows more about the subject than the guide) and start wandering around listening to the guides explanations. The guide only proved helpful in pointing out some details that otherwise would have been unnoticed.

The caves are simply amazing. They were carved in the hills of a horseshoe shaped valley. They were all covered with paintings but unfortunately time and human nature have destroyed many of those paintings. When the guided tour is over, we sit down with Merrill and spend at least an hour listening to the story of Buddhism. It is just amazing being in such a place listening to him. Merrill has converted to Buddhism some years ago. After hearing his explanation we move on and explore what's left. Better then describing the caves is to show them (pictures will come soon).

We have lunch at the local restaurant and say goodbye to Georges. He will proceed North. Merrill decides to join us on the way back and tomorrow.

After a great night sleep we get ready to explore the caves of Ellora. On the way to Ellora we stop to take some pictures of the impressive Daulatabad fort. If we were amazed we Ajanta, the vision of the Kailasa Temple, just by the main entrance is just breathtaking! Imagining that it is possible to carve such a structure in a rock with so much detail and perfection in imaginable! We wander around trying to understand the stories depicted the the hundreds of statues for almost two hours. In Ellora there are caves built by three different religions: Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism. Since many we built at the same time, this demonstrates the spirit of religious tolerance that existed at the time and that in our days is being destroyed by some people. All the caves are special (don't believe the Lonely Planet Guide).

After lunch we moved on to the Bibi-Qa-Maqbara, also called "Poor Mans Taj". If it wasn't for the original Taj Mahal this would be a place of tourist pilgrimage. Instead it's kind of a forgotten place, which could be extremely charming if the gardens were gardened.

At the end of the day we say goodbye to Merrill. It was a pleasure to have him with us. We spoke a lot about literature and some about world politics. He is an extremely interesting person. Wish you luck in your quest for paradyse and maybe we'll meet again in the future.

We don't have transportation to Goa, so we decide to take a bus to Pune and then try to fix something from there to Goa. At 8.30pm we start our first bus trip experience in India.

Mumbai - second part

2009-01-23T08:58:00.006Z

We spent two more days in Mumbai. Walking was our favourite means of transportion. The auto rickshaws and taxis are not expensive, but skipping them gives us an extra meal every day. And although we were surrounded by beggers all the time, poor people and walking around in places I wouldn't dare to place a foot on back home, I never felt unsafe at any time!

We went to Bandra a really nice coastal area of the city, walked almost until the Arabic sea in Chowpatty beach, walked up Malabar Hill and visited a Jain temple and the relaxing Hanging Gardens. These are really worth a visit if one wishes to get a quiet moment away from all the traffic, pollution, dust and chaos of Mumbai. The next day we met my friend Prassad who was visiting his family. We went together to the Elephanta Caves , a UNESCU World Heritage site, located in an island about an hour away from Mumbai by boat. It was our first glimpse of caves carved in the rock by humans to build temples. Buddists started the construction of the caves, but later Indus continued it and built temples in the honnor of Shiva. It took us around 1h30 min to walk around. The monkeys are a permanent threat. If they run after you it means whether you did something that disturbed them or you have food that they want. In one of those situations, one monkey ran after Prassad and he just had time to drop the bottle of juice he was holding in his hand. One might think the monkey would start playing with the bottle, but as you can see in the pictures the bastard opened the bottle in front of us and happily poured it on the wall and drank it. Smart little bastards these guys.

We finished the Mumbai sightseing after this. It was then time to plan things to go to Aurangabad. Luckily we had Prassad with us. He not only took us through the complicated reservation center at Victoria terminal (a beautiful building where one of the terrorist attacks occured), but he also had a cousin in Aurangabad, that was able to fix us an hotel at quite a reasanoble price, and a car with driver to visit the caves, at a fantastic price!

The visit to Mumbai was over, we just had to get back to Nidhi's place to pick up the backpacks and get back to the train station. We located our berths in the train and met two Frech guys that were going to visit the Ajanta caves as well the next day. Unfortunatelly one of them forgot his passport in Mumbai and had to leave the train in a rush. We continued the trip with Georges.

Sleeping in the train was another adventure. The berth was too small for me, specially when I was sleeping with the company of my backpack... Tiago had to fight for his berth, because in 2nd class people can enter the train without a reservation and so there are more people than berths avilable. In the end they left and he got his berth and slept.

Overall I liked Mumbai. It was good to start the trip around India here. We got a little bit of everything in the right dose. Not too much, not too little. Our CS experience was great and I am whilling to repeat it again in the future. Now it's time to do some cultural things before moving on to Goa and do some western style tourism, before continuing the Indian pilgrimage.

India - First days

2009-01-21T20:49:00.000Z

We arrived in Mumbai at 4.30 am. The temperature was 25 degrees and it was still night... Our first thought was "How will it be when the sun rises?...) After doing all the normal stuff when you arrive in a international airport, we headed on to our taxi. A Sikh welcomed us in our first race - believe me when I write race; the streets of Mumbai are quite competitive! - through the streets of Mumbai. We found out later that this was actually a really relaxing drive...although I thought we were going to crash at least a dozen times!

We woke up our CouchSurfing host at 6 am. Said hello and laid down in the leaving room for a few hours. We had hardly slept the night before and needed a break before starting to explore the city.

After getting up and after getting all the info on how to get to the city from Nidhi (thank you once again for all your help), we headed on to Andheri station to take the sub-urban train to the city center. Travelling by train second class (and even first class during rush hour) is quite an experience in Mumbai. First we had to avoid the people jumping off the train, then we had to fight to get into the train and finally we were crushed between stressed Indians like fishes in a can... When we finally got a sitting place I just thought to myself "this was why Prassad told me never to take a train in Mumbai." But what can you ask for a 8 Rupees trip? 45 min later we arrived to Churchgate and began exploring the city!

First objective: have lunch! We checked the guide and decided to start with one of its recommendations. We chose the cheapest - cafe Olympia. But getting there was an adventure! First step, learning how to cross a street in Mumbai. We tried the careful way, but that just doesn't work. The best way is just to follow the locals. Second adventure, finding streets names. Third adventure, avoid the people, the trash, the shit, the dogs and anything that might cross your way! But we made it, we recharged our batteries and moved on.

Mumbai

Mumbai (former Bombay) is the financial capital of India. With over 16 million people it's where the richest people in India live, but its also home to the biggest slumb in Asia. You can find poverty everywhere, people are constantly begging on the streets, houses are generally old and appear to be falling apart. The traffic is chaotic. There's a permanent movement of taxis and auto rickshaws, honking their horns (no one seems to listen to them), the air is full with particles - dust and pollution - and it is quite warm during daytime. Anyway, people are very nice and are always whiling to help even when they can't understand what you ask them. Communication is actually harder than I thought. English is one of the official languages - together with Indi - but most don't speak it or read it!

In the first day in Mumbai we focused on the southern part - Colaba - and walked around the Gateway of India, we saw the beautiful Taj Mahal Palace and Hotel (the one where the terrorist attacks took place a couple of months ago). We then passed by the Prince of Wales museum and watched people playing cricket (the national sport) at the Oval Maidan. The walk along Marine Drive was quite pleasant and a nice way to end the first day.

After a crazy adventure to buy a Vodafone SIM card (I'll get back to that in another post) our first day in India was over. The first impression was quite good. Much better then I expected, although it may seem, from what I wrote that I was living a nightmare. It's just a cultural shock that fortunately I was prepared to, and so it was not so hard to get over it. I now understand why in the Rough Guide to "First Time Around The World" the author wrote "Never start a trip like this in India". I understand that most people would probably think about quitting the day after they arrive to Mumbai. I just felt like understanding better this culture. And then, if I'm able to survive India I will survive everything else along the trip.

More about Mumbai, Aurangabad and perhaps Pune will soon come.

Day zero

2009-01-15T18:52:00.003Z

London calling, that's how I felt for the past week. Time passing by, a lot of things to do and time shortening. In the end I think I managed to do everything I wanted.

I said goodbye to most of my friends (or see you soon to some) and family. Tried to spend some quality time with them and l wandered around Coimbra a lot. There's something special about my small city that I can't explain. Staring at the old part of the city from across the river in a full moon evening, is just one of the most beautiful scenaries I know.

The time came, time to say goodbye to my parents and take the flight that will take me to London where the big adventure starts. I'll now have a few days to get in a holiday mood and relax... I kind of need it...

And nothing better than staying with an old friend from the days when we followed the football team accross the country. Squash, swimming, sauna were the waking up activities. Portuguese dinner in the company of my travel mate who is arriving tonight is what follows. And after that, we shell see ;). There's always something to do in this city, you just need to feel like doing something!

It's now time to plan the India trip a bit more in detail, since we plan on doing couchsurfing in some places and need to know the dates we'll get there.

There are two more reasons for organizing the Indian circuit. First, the date of our flight to Hong-Kong was changed. We got the flight we wanted, which means that we now have two weeks in Nepal, or we can take a few more days in India. The second reason for doing some planning is a bit more important. Cabral, another former member of the Portuguese community in Stockholm, will be working in India for a couple of months and decided to join us from the moment of his arrival (28th of January).

The RTW will start in two days :)

The big day is coming

2009-01-08T23:40:00.005Z

Finally time to stop and think about the trip. It's been a busy Christmas vacation as it always is! Loads of events, meeting friends whom I can only meet at this time of the year, spending time in my favorite places, enjoying our amazing sun and the fantastic coffee. Reading newspapers. Drinking beer. Enjoying some Portuguese wine. Finishing up some work I left behind. Recovering from the flu... Exhausting!

Now it's time to place a towel on the floor, put all the things I've listed to bring with me on it and try to fit them into the backpack. I'm sure they won't fit all, so it's important to do that as soon as possible.

Due to some back problems I'll try to keep my load around 15 Kg (Ryanair doesn't allow more than 15 kg/item dispatched and we can bring 10 with us in the cabin).

I'm always afraid I'll forget something important. So it's really important to do this now. Sometimes during my sleep (I'm not a good sleeper) I remember important things, so with 5 more nights to go, I have more chances not to miss something important :)

Another issue I'm struggling with is bringing the cell phone...I'd rather not bring it with me, but...family will feel better if I bring it along and it will probably be quite helpful, specially as an alarm clock :p

Well, time to be active and also to say "see you soon" to everyone back home. I've done it already a month ago in Sweden and it wasn't easy...

Before departure

2009-01-08T12:06:00.008Z

Vaccines
- Hepatitis A
- Typhoid fever
- Yellow fever
- Cholera
- Maybe malaria prophylaxis. Refused in Sweden, have a travel medicine appointment in Portugal right before I leave

Medicines
- Paracetamol
- Ibuprofen
- Anti-histamine
- Rehydration mix
- Anti-diarrhea pills
- Anti-septic cream
- Melatonin
- Lidocain cream
- Laxatives

Documents and cards
- Passport
- Driving license
- International driving license (needed in Australia at least)
- ISIC card
- 2 debit cards
- 1 credit card
- Vaccination certificate
- VISA to India

Other
- Tickets
- Internet banking
- Antiseptic wet wipes
- Electronic thermometer
- Sunglasses
- Pen
- Permanent marker
- Pencil
- Flashlight

Books and Music

2009-01-05T20:40:00.005Z

Books:
- Poesias, Heterónimos - Fernando Pessoa
- Estrela Errante - JMG Le Glésio
- Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
- Into The Wild - Jon Krakauer
- Sean & David's Long Drive - Sean Condon
- India travel guide from Lonely Planet
- Mumbai and Goa travel guide from Time Out
- Nepal travel guide from Lonely Planet (Tiago will bring it)
- Travel journal
- Notebook

Music:
- Adriana Calcanhotto - Cantada
- Amy Winehouse - Rehab
- Animal Collective - Feels
- Animal Collective - Straberry Jam
- Arcade Fire - Funeral
- Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
- Asha Ali - Asha Ali
- Babyshambles - Shotter's Nation
- Beck - Odelay
- Beirut - Lon Gisland
- Belle & Sebastian - The Boy With The Arab Strap
- Ben Harper - Greatest Hits
- Blasted Mechanism - Mix 00
- Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
- Blur - The best of
- Bob Sinclar - Western Dream
- Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It In People
- Cake - Fashion Nugget
- Carla Bruni - Quelqu'un M'a Dit
- Carlos Paredes - Antologia - Uma Guitarra Com Gente Dentro
- Cat Power - Jukebox
- The Charlatans - Forever, the singles
- The Chemical Brothers - Surrender
- Clã - Cintura
- Clã - Lustro
- The Clash - The story of the Clash (vol 1)
- CSS - Cansei de ser sexy
- The Cure - Galore
- Damien Rice - O
- David Bowie - The Platinum Collection
- Death In Vegas - Scorpio Rising
- Depeche Mode - The Best of Depeche Mode
- dEUS - In a Bar, Under The Sea
- The Do - A Mouthful
- The Doors - The best of
- Dulce Pontes - Lágrimas
- Eddie Vedder - Into The Wild
- Editors - An End Has A Start
- Eels - Beautiful Freak
- Eels - Blinking Lights And Other Revelations
- Elliott Smith - Either/Or
- Emiliana Torrini - Fisherman's Friend
- Emiliana Torrini - Love In The Time Of Science
- Explosions In The Sky - All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone
- Faithless - Forever Faithless: The Greatest Hits
- Feist - Let It die
- Feist - The Reminder
- Franz Ferdinand - You Could Have It So Much Better
- Goldfrap - Felt Mountain
- Goldfrap - Seventh Tree
- Gomez - Bring It On
- Gomez - In Our Gun
- Gomez - Liquid Skin
- Hello Saferide - More Modern Short Stories From Hello Saferide
- Humanos - Humanos
- Interpol - Antics
- Interpol - Our Love To Admire
- Interpol - Turn On The Bright Lights
- Iron & Wine - The Shepard's Dog
- Jorge Palma - No Tempo Dos Assassinos
- Joy Division - Closer
- Kaiser Chiefs - Employment
- Kings Of Convenience - Quiet Is The New Loud
- Koop - Koop Island
- LCD Soundsystems - LCD Soundsystems
- LCD Soundsystems - Sounds Of Silver
- The Libertines - Time For Heroes: Best Of Libertines
- Madredeus - Os Dias Da Madredeus
- The Magnetic Fields - Distortion
- Mando Diao - Ode To Ochracy
- Manu Chao - Clandestino
- Massive Attack - Collected
- Mogwai - Come On Die Young
- Moloko - Things To Make and Do
- The Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride
- Muse - Black Holes & Revelations
- The National - Boxer
- New Order - Singles
- Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - The Abattoir Blues Tour
- Nirvana - From The Muddy Banks of The Wishkah
- Of Montreal - The Sunlandic Twins
- Oh Laura - A Song In My Head, A Demon In My Bed
- Okkervil River - Black Cheap Boy
- Okkervil River - The Stage Names
- Pedro Abrunhosa - Momento
- Pedro Abrunhosa - Tempo
- Pedro Abrunhosa - Viagens
- Pixies - Best of The Pixies - Wave Of Mutilation
- Placebo - Sleeping With Ghosts (Bonus CD)
- Portishead - Dummy
- Rádio Macau - O Elevador da Glória
- Radiohead - Amnesiac
- Radiohead - The Bends
- Radiohead - OK Computer
- Radiohead - Pablo Honey
- Rage Against The Machines - Rage Against The Machines
- Resistência - Ao vivo no armazem 22
- Sétima Legião - Mar D'Outubro
- Sétima Legião - A Um Deus Desconhecido
- Sigur Rós - Ágaetis Byrjun
- Sigur Rós - Meo Suo i eyrum vid spilum endalaust (2008)
- Sigur Rós - Takk...
- Sigur Rós - ()
- The Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness
- The Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
- Sol Seppy - The Bells of 1 2
- Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
- Suede - Coming Up
- Taken By Trees - Open Field
- The Teenagers - Reality Check
- U.N.P.O.C. - Fifth Column
- Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
- The White Stripes - Elephant
- Xutos & Pontapés - Vida Malvada
- Zero 7 - Simple Things

Miscellaneous:
- High Fidelity Soundtrack
- Trainspotting Soundtrack
- Dig For Fire - A tribute to Pixies

Planning

2009-01-03T20:44:00.008Z

Well, the first step in such a trip is of course to make a draft of a route.

My first draft included Tibet, New Guinea, East Timor and the Pacific Islands, in addition to the destinations mentioned in the itinerary. Reasons for having skipped those destinations were: the difficulty in getting the visa to Tibet, when traveling there from Nepal; with the route we planed it was hard to get to the other destinations. Of course time was also one of the reasons to skip some of these destinations.

I also read a little bit while preparing and planning the trip. The book by the Portuguese "professional" traveler Gonçalo Cadilhe (Planisfério Pessoal) was a big inspiration. Other books I used to prepare the trip:
- The Rough Guide To First-Time Around the World, from Rough Guides - I really enjoyed the book. It has a lot of nice comments and suggestions for both the rich and the budget travellers.
- Vagabonding by Rolf Pott, another "professional" traveler, was also a good source.
- Different guides about India and Nepal that I rented at the Public Library in Stockholm
- The internet, specially Wikitravel, travel-nation, lonely planet, blog Tempo de Viajar, among others.

But the best source of information was meeting friends that had been in the places I am going to visit. I have met friends who spoke about their experiences in India, Nepal, Thailand and New Zealand.

Budget:

We both have a similar budget. 10000 EUR.
We bought our Oneworld ticket from TravelNation . We paid around 3000 EUR (2305 british pounds) for the ticket and around 250 EUR(186 british pounds) for the insurance. The visa to India cost around 50 EUR (500 Swedish Crowns). The vaccines cost overall 150 euros (1500 SEK). Other basic things, including, clothes, books, travel guides, backpack, among other small things, were whether bought or offered by friends (thanks guys :)). Overall value is around 300 EUR.

My budget after all the expenses is around 40 EUR/day.

Luggage:
- 40l Backpack
- 20l bag
- Sleeping bag
- 4 T-shirts
- 2 Sweat-shirts
- 5 Socks and underwear
- Ski layers (they are light, warm and don't take much space)
- 1 polar coat
- 2 pairs of jeans
- 2 shirts
- 1 rain coat
- 1 pair of swimming shorts
- 1 pair of shorts
- 1 pair of trekking snickers
- 1 pair of sandals
- 1 pair of light shoes
- 1 bandana
- 1 towel
- 1 fast drying small towel
- First aid kit
- Toiletry
- Water purification drops
- Compact camera
- 16 Gb USB drive
- Ipod
- Books
- Travel guides
- Ear plugs

Toiletry
- Toothbrush
- Toothpaste
- Dental floss
- Perfume sample
- Lip cream
- Razor
- Razor cream
- Sunscrean
- Mosquito repellent
- Mirror
- Shampoo/Shower gel (2 in 1)
- Deodorant

Itinerary

2009-01-02T19:12:00.008Z

At first I was planning to travel on my own. My friend Tiago, who I met when I moved to Sweden, finished his PhD at about the same time as me, and also felt that it was time to stop and think before moving on. We met, discussed the places we would like to visit and in the end decided to travel together. This is the final plan we came up with.

Step 0: on the 14th I'll take a Ryanair flight from OPorto to London. I paid 30 EUR for it. This kind of the pre-trip. Since we bought the ticket from travel-nation, which is based in the UK, we had to start the trip from an English airport.

First flight: 17th of January, London-Mumbai (via Helsinki)
Second flight: 17th of February (waiting list for the 25th), Kathmandu-Hong-Kong
Third flight: 1st of March, Hong-Kong-Bangkok
Fourth flight: 20th of March, Bangkok-Sydney
Fifth flight: 15th of April, Sydney-Auckland
Sixth flight: 01st of May, Auckland-Papeete
Seventh flight: 04th of May, Papeete-Easter Island
Eighth flight: 7th of May, Easter Island-Santiago
Ninth flight: 15th of July, Mexico city-London

Countries we plan to visit:
- India
- Nepal
- Hong-Kong*
- Macao*
- Thailand
- Australia
- New Zealand
- Tahiti**
- Chile
- Argentina
- Uruguai
- Peru
- Colombia
- Mexico
* Autonomous Chinese Regions
** Part of the French Polynesia

Our plan is to travel 6 months, around 2 months in each continent: Asia, Oceania and South and Central America. Plane will be used in the longest distances, but we also plan to use bus transportation (mostly in South and Central America and in Southeastern Asia), train (India), renting minivans (Australia and New Zealand), renting scooters or small motor cycles whenever we feel that we can drive them safely and we want to hike in some of the places we will visit. Boat is also under consideration for some parts of the trip: South to Central America, the Pacific crossing and Hong-Kong to Macao. We bought a round the world ticket from OneWorld. This allows us to take 15 flights and travel 34000 miles. All the flights that we know we will take were booked in November. We can add new flights during our trip, change timetables. All the other tickets to buses, trains etc will be bought when we need them.

The begining

2009-01-02T18:54:00.003Z

Traveling has long been one of the things in life that pleases me the most. My oldest memory of a trip was a summer vacation to the Algarve. This was back in the days when there were hardly any highways in the country, the cars were slow and the whole family was packed in the same vehicle. A journey that took me 4.30 hours just a few days ago, took at least 10h back then.

After that I was lucky to having the chance to travel all over Europe. Two interrails, road trips, visits to friends living in different parts of Europe and living in The Netherlands and in Sweden allowed me not only to know places but to interact with different people and cultures, which is one of the things that pleases me the most when I'm traveling.

But in the last years work didn't allow many adventures. Instead, a plan for a long trip around the world began to take shape. The first time I met someone who had done a round the world trip was in The Netherlands. I became friends with a guy from work who had traveled for a year around the world. After that I've met many people who had done long and "crazy" trips, and so I began to plan my own trip.

And now that the PhD is over, it's the right time to take some time off. And this will be the place where I'll leave some of my experiences for those who are curious about it. I hope this blog will inspire others to travel. Enjoy and come on traveling with me ;)
RC

About Me

2009-01-01T21:55:00.002Z

Name: Ricardo Carvalho

Born in: 1981

Academic: Degree in Biochemistry
PhD in Medical Sciences

Nationality: Portuguese

Current address: Stockholm, Sweden

Previous addresses: Figueira da Foz, Coimbra and Braga in Portugal, and Utrecht in the Netherlands

Hobbies: Sports (football, tennis, squash, badminton, jogging), Reading, Music, Hanging Out With Friends, Traveling, Photography