060717 - LA PAZ, BOL

Wow, what a city. I can really feel the altitude. My head is aching as if the little man inside is excavating a gold mine and won't ever stop. And finally the food has gotten to me. Last night on the transfer from Cochabamba to La Paz my stomach started to make funny noises. And midway through the distance when I was almost about to beg the driver for a stop we made a halt somewhere in no-man's land. Running to the toilet, getting ready for relieve all i could produce where some strange tones. ;o) Guess, I still wasn't due. Maybe the ice-cold bus was responsible for delaying this. Anyway, we got to La Paz around 6am and checked into the Maya Hostal.
We spend the day wandering around town but never really getting to far away from the hostal for a quick sprint back to the toilet, in case this was necessary.
What we did accomplish was buying our passes to ride down the "world's most dangerous road" on a fully-suspension mountain bike.
I still don't feel to well, but hopefully tomorrow's excitement will drive the stomach pain away. ;o)

060716 - COCHABAMBA, BOL

to be updated later

060713 - PUERTO VILLAROEL, BOL: A close to death experience on the road

After four hours in the bus we take a short stop along the road to grab some lunch. As we wanted to ask the bus driver not to forget about our stop for Puerto Villaroell he comes to as and tells us: this is where it is! We're like: What?!? Man, this is in the middle of nowhere. But he assures us to take a moto-taxi which gives us a lift to the next town. From there it shouldn't be to far to our destination. So we get our backpacks and stop the first mototaxi. A little bike powerd by a 250ccm engine. And steered by a kid who doesn't seem to be old enough to be allowed to drive on public roads legally. Not long later the next one stop. We hop on, with our backpacks. And the bikes gives a squizzy sound. I am afraid to fall off since we clearly overexceed the weight limit. But the driver steers super save to the car-taxi-stop in town. The next edgy moment is getting off the bike again. My backpack suddenly posesses a magical power to draw me to the ground - but I manage not to fall over. ;o)
To Puerto Villaroell it is a quick 20min sprint. Usually the taxi is cramped with 15 people, but maybe because of our backpacks we start of with only 5 "guests" and the driver who immediatly starts chasing after the taxi that took of about one minute before us. We reach him. Get closer. Start to pass him. Drive next to him for about 5min - as we see a group of three motorbikes on the road ahead of us. In the middle of the road they start to turn around. Quickly we come closer. The cab driver honks the horn. But doesn't slow down. Two bikes manage to turn. The third one is just about to do so. As we are only a few meters away. I close my eyes as I can see the head of the motorbike driver shattering the cab's front window. But in the last instance he stops the turing around process. The car next to us slams on the breaks and we fly right passed him. puh... that was pretty close.
Puerto Villaroell is a very laid back village and said to be one of Bolivias main ports. We don't want to stay long on town and check with the captain of the only cargo boat available. He tell's us that he would give us a lift for 120BOL and that we have to be back around 8am the next morning. We check into the Amazon Eco Hotel which seems to be the only half-decent place in town. Shortly after, while relaxing on the top floor of the recently built Tourist Information Building, we get to know two danish girls of whom one tells us that she got food poisoning from eating at the restaurant located on the second floor of the same building. BE AWARE: Do not eat here. We orded there some lunch the next day and it turned out to be some cold left-overs from the day before.

Well, to be coming back to the food poisoning story: As we buy-out the complete town of moskito repellent at the local store Janni (one of the girls) comes up to us, lays directly down on the floor, totally soaked in sweat and tells us, that she doesn't feel good. She hadn't been eating anything for a day and barely drunk a few sips. We tell her to get some soda into her system since she kinda needs the sugar it contents. So she buys one bottle as we keep on chatting with the store lady. Next thing we know she has emptied the whole bottle - and oh wonder: feels even worse now. Ulla (the other girl) comes along. Now we pull out some elektrolytes to better Janni's stomach. But we need water. So we all walk over to the next store in order to buy the elektrolytes and some water. All of the sudden Janni kinda collapses and lays down on the floor. Hamster and I hurry over to the docter who's located at the other end of the village. He tells us to bring Janni there. So we run back, put the two girls in a taxi and hope that everything turns out good. Meanwhile we stroll around the village. Later we meet the two girls and head out for dinner. So we are sitting at the table as Janni starts feeling very, very funny --- and starts vomiting. Well, I hurry over to the phamarcia as Hamster and Ulla, funnily, continue on eating. Puh... I guess they have a better stomach than I do. ;o) At the pharmacia they do not have the medicine that Carmen (the lovely woman at whose place we were eating) recommended. Cause Janni doesn't feel better, Carmen offers us to bring a friend that can take us to the hospital in the next town. Since we do not see another way to help Janni we take that offer and hurry over to the hospital. There Janni get's some really good treatment, but it took a while to convince her that everything there was sterile (the opened the sealed needle for fluids injection right before our eyes and she was still scared to get contaminated). Thing is, Janni never has been feeling that sick in her life before and unfortunatly it happens the first time in Bolivia. But finally they hospitalized her and kept her there over night. Ulla, Hamster and I, completly relieved and happy now, returned to Puerto Villaroell and celebrated this lucky outcome the rest of the night.
"I think we are not going!" Those were the first words of Hamster when he woke up the next morning. I knew this was serious since he had spend already more then 2 years in Central America and knows pretty well when his stomach is going crazy. In addition to that it started raining like crazy... so I turned around and continued on sleeping.The next two days we pretty much lazed around and hoped for improvement as the Hamster spend most of the days and nights running forth between the toilet and laying death-alike on the bed.

060711 - SANTA CRUZ, BOL

Being back in Santa Cruz we only want to stay as short amount of time as possible cause we want to continue on to Puerto Villaroell. There we plan to take a cargo boat down river to Trinidad. But first we have to get our laundry done. But we won't get it back before the next day around noon. The we go to the bus terminal to buy the bustickets. We are being told again that the tickets for the buses that leave the next day are only being sold the next day.

We come back the next day - and for our surprise all bus tickets are already sold. Disappointed we stroll around the city, go to the local market and just hang out on the Plaza. We pack our stuff and leave early on Thursday. Luckily we get to the bus terminal around 6:30am. Only five people are in front of us. The first bus to leave is scheduled around 7:30am. The office opens close to 7am. And nearly 50 people have gotten behind us waiting to buy their ticket. It starts to get a little hectic as rumors are spread that only a few tickets are available. Shouts are halling through the terminal. "¡Fila" ("Get in line!") As it is Hamster's turn to buy our tickets there are only about three left. It is not the 7:30 bus, but at least we get tickets for the 9am bus. Somehow they must have sold 75% of the bustickets between opening hours. But well, we are in. Time to get some breakfast.

I am still not hungry but the Hamster surges for "Api"(corn-based drink) and "Salteñas" (baked empanadas). To his surprise he finds some bones in his salteñas. It happens rarely, but might be of interest to the story at a later point. ;o)

060709 - SAMAIPATA, BOL

Hamster arrived early on the 9th while I was still licking my wounds from the night before when I went out with two dutch backpackers to a local reggae night. we partied till the morning, ended up in a strip joint and headed home. There I ran into some crazy guys from Brazil who also stayed at the hostal. Togehter we continued on to some place i cannot recall, but where the local youth hangs out. One bar next to the other. I don't know how long I stayed but sometime I went home... and then I heard the Hamster's voice. Still very much hung-over I managed to pack my stuff and we headed to Samaipata, a refugee place for the cruceños about 2.5hours southwest of Santa Cruz.

Not much to do here, but to relax. A few Germans and Swiss people reside here either as guides for the surrounding National Parks or butcher or cheesemaker. ;o) After being lazy the last couple of days we decided to join an Australian couple for a hike the next day with the "Roadrunners", a german-austrian tourguide-agency located in Samaipata. The pictures speak for themselves...

Bolivian jungle

Impressions from the hike

Hitchhiking in the lush "green"

060706 - SANTA CRUZ, BOL

I an boarding the flight to Santa Cruz, Bolivia and the next thing that comes to my ears is the annoucement of the flight attendant saying "Please fasten your seatbelt as we are decending to Santa Cruz. Current temperature is 28 degrees Celsius." 28 DEGREES CELSIUS!!! Wouh, what happend? Did I accidently got on the wrong plane? Well, as I said earlier, I had no idea what would await me in Santa Cruz, but when I looked out the window I saw tons of palm trees. And it looked like as if I was back in Panama. Lush, green rain forests as far as the eye could see. Amazing. Getting of the plane and stepping outside I got hit by this wall of warm, humid air. Yeah... where is the Carribean Sea? ;o)

Downtown I checked in with the Hostal Bolivar, only 2 blocks away from the Central Plaza. A lovely place with a miniature jungle-patio, some hammocks, a friendly staff and even some house pets. (The colorful tucans)

Santa Cruz as a city doesn't offer that many interesting sights nor things to do even though it is the economic powerhouse of Bolivia. Currently the district Santa Cruz is among three other districts seeking from governmental independence from La Paz where mainly everything is steered from. So it is no surprise that the cruceños made up for 155 demonstrations in the last have year. Only in Santa Cruz itself. So there is basically at least one demonstration a day. It will be interesting to follow this process since Evo Morales (the Bolivian president) is totally against this autonomy movement.

From Hamster I heard that he was stuck in Sucre and couldn't get a bus ticket out of town. Holiday season plus tickets are only sold on the day the buses leave town. So you'd have to go to the bus terminal at 6 or 7 in the morning, get in line for the bus that leaves at 9:30 and hope that there's still a spot available once you get to the counter. It took him 2 days to accomplish this mission, meanwhile I was waiting in Santa Cruz getting to know a few backpackers.

060705 - ARRIVAL IN SOUTH AMERICA

On July 5th my flight left Munich in the morning. Since it was with Iberia we had to go through the all new Madrid Airport. I heard so many things about Iberia (people not getting their luggage, having to wait 10 days before it was handed over to them, bad service, moody flight attendants) that I didn´t have any expectations whatsoever. So it didn´t come to me as surprise that the snack imbiss turned into a self-catering where a delegate from every row of seats sprinted to the back of the plane and begged the flight attendant for a sandwich and a soda. And I looked funny, when I ask him if I could have a coffee and all he said was a snoody "I only have tea!" What surprised me, though, was when my luggage arrived togehter with me on time. ;o)

During the flight I got to meet a friendly, young Argentinian musician who offered me to stay at his place while waiting for my connecting flight in the morning. He even helped finding an agency where I could buy the ticket to Bolivia.
Hamster had left me three choices - and i picked the location to which the next possible flight would leave to in the morning. Santa Cruz, eastern Bolivia it was. I had no idea what would await me. But that didn't matter.
The issuing-the-ticket-part took longer than expected cause the agent had to answer all incoming messages on her MSN messenger. Since Diego and I had nothing else to be at a certain time we didn´t mind. And I felt right back in South America. ;o)

Travelling with locals always sharpens one´s awareness of dangers and annoyances. I had heard that Buenos Aires wasn´t exactly the role model city when it comes to safety concerns at night (just like any other big city around the globe), but when Diego locked the taxi doors from inside I knew I better keep my eyes open. Getting to Diego's place didn't take too long and we spend the night talking with his girlfriend, his brother and a friend while enjoying some Argentinian red wine, bred and cheese. ;o)

DEPARTURE

Wow, it´s been already almost a year since I came back from working in Panama and studying for half a year in Guadalajara, México at the local campus of the Tecnologico de Monterrey. It was about time to get my act togehter and finish the last project that still kept me tight in Germany: my diploma thesis. Finally, after some extra-night shifts I handed my final version to the copy shop. This was the kick-off to pack my bags, clean out the historical Bungalow in which I had lived in for the last year. Set in the beautiful Olympic park it was home to many long-hours discussions on the balcony and some crazy chill-outs with good-friends.

On June 30th I filled the big transporter not even 1/10 with the little stuff I had, handed mz thesis over to my professor and took off to the north to spend a few days with my family. While on the road the quarterfinal of the 2006 WorldCup between Germany and Argentina took place. Since I wanted to stay in Buenos Aires and celebrate the win of the WorldCup with the local people, my hopes where with the Argentinian team. It started out great. But all of them where shattered when Germany scored late in the second half and beat Argentina in the penalties.

After my mom spoiled me with all kinds of food to establish at least some sort of fat around the belly I could live off from whilst in South America it was about time to get on the plane.

On July 4th I went back to Munich where my plane to Buenos Aires, Argentina would fly out of the next morning. After Germany beat Argentina in the Quarterfinals I really didn´t have a reason to stay much longer there, but to continue on to Bolivia where I would meet up with my travel companion: HAMSTER (in English "hamster" as well; you know, the little fuzzy squirrel-like thingy), a.k.a. Flo.

Hamster spend the last half year studying and working in Tarija, Bolivia. He already knew some stints around the country and it´s always been fun hanging out with the fella. Since I was running kinda late, he gave me three locations where we could meet up. Neither one of them sounded familiar nor did I have a clue where he was at the time. But first it was off to Buenos Aires, Argentina.

INTRO

There are so many websites of travellers out there in the vast space of internet. It always goes something like "Do you know the guy with the website?" - "No, not that guy. The other one... No, not him... The other one!" Many of those are just unhelpful, plain useless, and nothing else but self-portraits of some self-in-love traveller you find so many these days. I hope this blog will be at least a bit different, describing experiences and trying to give some help for future travellers. ;o)
If you have any questions or recommendations please let me know and maybe I can help.
The blog-entry is in English because most of my family and friends understand at least a bit of it.
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Der Weblog ist auf Englisch verfasst, da die meisten in meiner Familie und meine Freunde des Englischen zumindest teilweise mächtig sind. Diejenigen unter Euch, die nichts verstehen, können mich gerne jederzeit anschreiben und es gibt einen Mini-Bericht auf Deutsch. Oder aber Ihr sucht Euch jemanden, der Euch bei der übersetzung hilft.
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Este blog es en inglés como mi familia y la mayoria de mis amigos habla por lo menos un poco de inglés. A cuales que no hablan ninguna frase de inglés, por favor, ponganse en contacto conmigo y les daré un Mini-Reporte en español. O que busquen alguien que les pueda ayudar traducir lo escrito.