Beautiful Bolivia
Hola chicos y chicas!!
Around ten days ago we left Cusco and took a long bus ride to Puno, which is one of the largest city on the shores of lake Titicaca (gotta love the name!). The next day we took a long boat ride towards a far away peninsula where we were going to spend the night with local indigenous families. The weather on Lake Titicaca is deceiving. The sun was shining and the temperature was very nice, somewhere around 20 degrees so most of our group went suntanning on the deck. However, it is easy to forget that the lake is located at an altitute of 4000 meters above sea level which means either use lots of high factor suntan lotion or get heavily burned...which is exactly what happened to many (mainly British, talk about confirming stereotypes...;-) group members who ended up with some nasty 1st and 2nd degree burns...ouch!
When we arrived at the local village, we were assigned to families. Given Thomas´ recently broken collar bone, we hooked up with a family that lived pretty closed by the center of the village. And we were lucky as some of the people in our group had to walk for half an hour to reach their family homes. The people on the island live off agriculture and in very poor and simple circumstances. Our family did have electricity but no running water and the toilet was a big hole in the ground located outside next to the pig barn (because of the smell...??). Furthermore you had to pass two big cows (scary!!) on the way to the toilet which at night was pretty creepy. The family was really nice!
The two youngest children stayed with us all the time, too curious to leave us alone for a second. Our Spanish lessons definitely came in usefull since we were able to speak to them, have fun and play cardgames (always reassuring to know we have got the speaking abilities of a 6 year old!). Finally at night there was a big FIESTA! Our whole group got dressed up in traditional clothes and the whole village gathered at the local school where everybody performed traditional dances and drank beer. Lots of fun!!
The day after, we got up early and visited the famous floating islands of lake Titicaca. Although we were impressed by the islands themselves and the traditions that are kept by its inhabitants, the whole thing has basically transformed in one big tourist trap which was quite disappointing. Later that morning we left the lake, hopped on a bus and drove towards the Bolivian border and on to La Paz. Bolivia is much poorer than Ecuador or Peru and like it or not that probably attributes to the upholding of many traditions. For example La Paz, the largest city of Bolivia, is the only city that we have visited so far in South America where almost all women still wear traditional clothing, really amazing. The day after we arrived we stumbled upon a Dutch run bar called Sol y Luna. To our delight they had real Dutch specialties on the menu. You cannot imagine how great the taste of Bitterballen, Kipsate or real Dutch made Shoarma is after more than 5 month of abstination...yummie!!!
The following morning we set off to one of the main highlights of Bolivia: the saltflats of Uyuni. After a 5 hour busride and an 8 hour trainride we arrived at the town of Uyuni, located at around 4000 meters in the middle of nowhere. After one last night in relative comfort we got on the jeeps and rode off into the desert. The next three days and nights were just spectacular and undescribable. The landscape is mindboggling, unlike anything we have ever seen. Beautiful colorful mountains and lakes...
...lots of flamingos (we thought they only lived in the tropics, but appartly also survive at -25 degrees in the middle of the desert)...
...vast uninhabited desert plains...
...small villages in a Mars landscape where you wonder 'what the heck do these people do for a living??', warm at day (+30 degress) and very cold at night (-5 to -10 degrees), clear blue skies.
We took about 1000 pictures during a 3 day time period and we really had diffulties later on chosing which to dump and which not, because almost all of them were just great. The Saltflats of Uyuni are 1/3 of the size of The Netherlands and provide for an unbelievable sea of white, as far as you can look which was simply unreal. All in all an unforgettable experience!
After 4 days we took a 6 hours busride to Potosi, a town with the largest silvermine in the world. Eager to get back to civilisation (warm showers, clean toilets and good food ranked high on the list after some of the dirtiest toilets - no showers - we have seen to date) it was quite a nerveracking ride. In fact the road to Potosi from Uyuni is unpaved which meant that we got shaken to the bone for 6 hours in a row, while zig zagging through mountain passes...barf. In the dark, we hit a sanddune at full spead, sending people flying into the seats in front of them. It was a miracle nobody got hurt. In Potosi we visited the silvermine and to please the miners we bought presents like drinks and coca leaves, but also real dynamite (!!) - every boy´s dream. In fact, as part of the visit to the mine we build our own bomb, which we subsequently blew up in one of the hills close to the mine. The sound was just defeaning and made all the guys feel like little boys again (you should have seen the grins on their faces)! Thomas tought about buying some dynamite to take with him for New Year´s eve party, but luckily was talked out of this by Mischa.
After Potosi, we headed for Sucre. Bolivia´s capital has a great climat and is a bit unlike the rest of the country: much richer, beautiful and completely finalised buildings, clean streets and a white church on nearly every corner. Here, we spend a very relaxing afternoon on top of one of the hills surrounding the city, drinking wine and having a very nice meal. Our GAP tour also ended in Sucre and we enjoyed a great farewell party on the last night, eating 600gr steaks in some kind of cantine and drinking beer in the popular (Dutch owned) Joyride bar.
The next day we were off to La Paz, once again on our own...snif! A part of the buzzing city that La Paz is, there is really only one big highlight to the city and that is the city prison (San Pedro Prison), probably one of the only prisons of the world that you can visit as a tourist. Unfortunately they quit the organised tour after a prison riot broke out while some tourist were inside. Travel agencies did not want to end up being responsible for tourists trapped in a prison...So we looked up on the Internet how to get into the prison and did not get any comfort from what we read. In fact it was all very dodgy. Apparently you had to go to the plaza in front of the prison and look for a big black guy with a joker hat... he would help you bribe the guards, who would then let you inside the prison (mind you there are convicted killers inside and the police is nowhere to been seen). However, both Phil (one of the girls of the GAP tour that also returned to La Paz) and Mischa reeeeeaaaalllly wanted to go. Afraid of being called a sissy boy, Thomas stepped over his doubt and we decided to take our chances the next day. We walked to the main plaza and of course...no sign of the black jokerguy. So Thomas decided there was only one thing to do and that was to walk to the prison entrance and ask the two policemen standing there in his best Spanish if there are organised touristic tours to the prison (we all had a big laugh about this later .... pretty amazing to go the entrance of a prison and ask the police for a tour!!). To our surpise they answered 'yes' and shortly after a guy came running out and took us to a little room just outside the entrance of the prison where we all had to pay 200 bolivianos (= E12.50) - this is effectively the bribe to the policemen so they let you in. Once inside we were assigned to a prisoner that spoke English and 5 nasty looking bodyguards which were also prisoners...
The tour was revealing to say the least!!. About 1500 prisoners live in an area of about 50 meters by 50 meters, most of them are in there for drug related crimes (80%) and most of them (75%) are still awaiting trial instead of serving a sentence. There are no policemen or official guards inside the prison, guards are prisoners appointed by other prisoners. Inside money is the main divider. Rich people can buy cells for about USD1000 with TV, telephone, internet access and private showers. Poorer people have to buy their own cell for about USD100 that is around 4 meters square. Unbelievable but true is that prisoners lock their own cell from outside (instead of being locked in) and can wonder around freely through the complex. Wife and kids can live in with the prisoners for a fee of 10 bolivianos per day (!!). Actually, we met a prisoner that had bought a three story cell in which he lived with his wife and kid. While the kid went to school outside the prison every morning, his wife earned a decent living by backing very nice banana cakes and selling them to other prisoners. The conditions did not seem that bad. There were bars and restaurants everywhere you looked and some areas even had a sauna (!!!).
One thing that the prison is best known for is the quality of its cocaine. In fact, at the end of the tour we were guided into a little cell where we had to pay our tips and could buy and use cocaine. Of course Mischa, Phil and Thomas, good samaritans, thanked for the offer but two English blokes that were in our group took up the challenge and both snorted away 1 gram of 90% pure cocaine right in front of us, which was once again a weird experience. Maybe not the cokesnorting, but the fact that it happened in a little cell in a prison in La Paz Bolivia while 6 inmates where observing us..... weird!!
That night we walked by an Indian restaurant where we ordered Vindaloo and Chicken Madras. The guy serving us explained that they took pride in the fact that they (alledgedly) served the hottest Vindaloo in the world and that if you would finish your plate, you would be entitled to a T-shirt!! Of course we accepted the challenge and one of us came to regret it...Mischa did not even break a sweat but the Vindaloo was soooooo hot that Thomas still has to regain feeling in his tongue and his stomach protested until 3 days after...in fact, the next day he had to remain sick in bed.
The day before yesterday we said goodbye to La Paz and flew to Santiago de Chili. The contrast between La Paz and Santiago could not be larger. Chili is a really developed and rich country. In fact, Santiago is probably more developed than most cities in Spain, including Madrid and Barcelona. The wheather here is great with clear blue skies, 30 degrees Celsius and a nice cool brise. The people are also different, they are young and hip and you dont see any indigenous people around. Santiago is known to be a gourmet city, especially the district that we are staying in called Bellavista and we have taken full advantage of that!! Lots of good food and lots of great cheap whine (Chili´s and Argentina´s main vineyards are just around the corner)...what else do you need?? Well... maybe more money...because our burning rate is quite high at this moment...;-))
Tomorrow we take the bus to Mendoza in Argentina and from there we continue to Buenos Aires. We will be back soon!!
Love,
Mischa and Thomas
Pain in Peru
Hola amigos y amigas!!
So we started on our one month tour through Peru and Bolivia. Unfortunately after all, Danielle, our very good friend from Holland could not join us on our trip, because it was overbooked (Danielle: we vinden het heel erg jammer dat je er niet bij bent en missen je heel erg!).
The first day we met the group in Lima. It is a nice mix of English, Danish, Canadian, South African and Australian people (and us of course). Most of the people in the group are in their early twenties, which makes Thomas for the first time the oldest guy around! He is pretty frustrated about that and Mischa has to tell him every morning that she still thinks that he is a young God.....
The next day we set off to Pisco, taking a public bus. Pisco has been totally destroyed by a recent earthquake, so there are no beautiful buildings left to admire. In fact, it is a damn ugly little town with nothing to see. However it is the town that gave its name to the famous drink that has given us such a huge headache in Huaraz - Pisco Sour - and is was also conveniently on our way to the wildlife-abundant Ballestas Islands. So it was worth a visit. The Ballestas Islands are inhabited by millions of birds, thousands of lovely lazy sea lions, and hundreds of penguins and made for a pretty spectacular albeit smelly boat ride (Thomas got pooped on by a bird!!).
We then drove off to Ica and while doing so the scenery totally changed from dry and flat to dry with massive sand dunes, making you think that you had taken a flight to Egypt or the Sahara. This provided the perfect circumstances for our next two activities: buggy riding and sand boarding!!! We must admit that both of them were among the coolest things we have ever done!!! After lunch, we sat down in the buggy (which could hold 8 persons), strapped ourselves tight and off we went. The buggy drove with speeds of up to 100km per hour up and down the sand dunes, making impossible turns and twists and losing contact with the ground on many occasions (eg we actually made jumps!!!). Yichaaaahhhh!!
At a certain point, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, the buggy stopped and the driver took out the sand boards so we could check out our sand boarding skills.
The first hills were pretty small and not too steep, to get the hang of it. Then as we got better, we moved on to more demanding dunes. By then, Mischa had decided to go down on her belly to minimize the risk of hurting herself falling down. Thomas, on the other hand, thought that he was doing pretty well for an old geezer and the photo below seems to confirm this.
And then...
...the old geezer fell down really hard...and broke his collar bone.....
When it happened all hell broke loose of course. Thomas was in soooo much pain and agony that he soon lost consciousness. Mischa, who was sitting next to him and was supposed to help and comfort him, shortly thereafter sympathy-fainted as well. So there we were, in the middle of the Sahara, both unconscious and being attended to by Amy and Jen, our favorite two nurses who happen to be traveling in our group (Amy and Jen, thanks again for the great care you took of us, we will not forget it and miss you when our trip ends in La Paz).
When Thomas regained consciousness (and Mischa too) he was hauled into the buggy and driven to the nearest (and hopefully trustworthy) clinic. Waiting for the traumatologist, the attending nurse though it would be a good idea to pump Thomas full with some heavy duty painkillers and she pulled out the biggest syringe that we have ever seen. Thomas, who has never been a big hero with syringes, first started complaining about the size of the sucker and then decided that the one way to keep it out of his arm was to create chaos by fainting once again. Of course, Mischa followed suit a few seconds later.... So there we were again, in the middle of a dodgy clinic in a godforsaken town both unconscious and being attended too by the local nurses. Thomas soon regained consciousness when people started shouting: 'antropine, antropine!!' and he had a visual of a doctor jamming an even bigger syringe with antropine straight into his heart. When the traumatologist finally arrived, he decided that an X-ray would be necessary. A guy wearing hotpants and a T-shirt with a naked woman and smoking a cigarette appeared, who claimed to be the X-ray man (really, we kid you not!). Together with our guide, Edgar, and the doctor, Thomas entered the room where the X-ray was taken. The doctor apparently did not feel it was necessary for him or Edgar to take any precautions against the radiation and they both stood next to Thomas while the X-ray was taken. The X-ray revealed that indeed Thomas´ collar bone was broken.
Thomas received a brace that wraps around the shoulders to keep them back (like a soldier standing at attention, ten hut!), a mitella to keep his arm from moving and loads of great pain killers.... and we were left to our own devices. The next couple of days, Thomas spend in bed trying to control his pain. Mischa took care of him and took advantage of Thomas´ weakness by going out shopping and spending loads of money. Furthermore, she could still take part in the organized activities of the tour and had the chance to see the famous Nazca lines from a plane. The pilot was also the guide in the air and on many occasions used both hands to point out the lines on a map. As he did this, the plane made uncontrolled (in Mischa´s view) side swings making all the passengers physically ill - some actually threw up in the plane.... barf!
The day after the accident, we were thinking about canceling the tour and either heading back to Lima or even to Holland for Thomas to recuperate. However, the traumatologist had told us that traveling should not be a problem. In addition to this, we are fortunately on an organized group travel and there are many people to help us out wherever and whenever necessary, for example by carrying bag etc. So the next day we set off on a night bus to Arequipa.
Arequipa is the second largest city in Peru and we decided to go for a second opinion in a larger hospital in town. The attending orthopedist ordered a new X-ray and when seeing the result produced a grim face. He informed us that the bones had shifted and Thomas needed plaster immediately to get things back into place again. As the group went off to Colca Canyon, we stayed in Arequipa watching cable TV for three whole days, 16 hours per day (apart from the time that Mischa went shopping in between) and are now totally hooked to all the series on Universal and Warner channel, HBO, Fox, AXN, you name it. Meanwhile we had also contacted the Dutch emergency number and spoken to a Dutch doctor, who comforted us and confirmed that a broken collar bone normally heals without any complications, especially when fully plastered, and we should just continue with our travels. After a few days, Thomas started to feel much better and we were off to Cuzco.
Cuzco was the main capital of the Inca Empire, which stretched throughout all of South America and is incredibly well preserved. Not only will you find very well conserved Inca ruins, scattered all over the region, but the historic colonial buildings are also in a great shape and seem not to have been affected so much by earthquakes as other cities we have visited. Like any other city that takes itself serious, Cuzco also has a McDonalds!!!! Time to regain some strength....
Cuzco is also the main departing point for travels to Machu Picchu and of course the Inca Trail. Obviously, Thomas was in no condition to embark on a 4 day hike through the Andian highlands towards Machu Picchu. Just imagine our frustration: the first trip we booked when planning our trip around the world was Machu Picchu, now almost a year ago.....
Fortunately, there are several good alternatives to the Inca Trail. We ended up taking a cab from Cuzco to Ollantaytambo and the train from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes. There, we spend to night to take a 6.00am bus to Machu Picchu the next morning to meet with the rest of the group at around 07.30am. So there we were, totally excited that we were about to see one of the main historic highlights of the world, one of the new World Wonders, and guess what we saw.....
...clouds, cloud and more clouds!!! We actually had to ask our guide where Machu Picchu is. The first three hours at the site, we spend praying that the sun would come out through the clouds so we could get a good view of the ruins and still make some nice pics.
In the end, we had a circa 15 minutes window to see the entire Machu Picchu site, although it never totally cleared up. Nevertheless, it was an amazing experience, the ruins and the surrounding nature are really beautiful, mind boggling even and we are happy - despite all - to have been able to see this with our own eyes.
We spend the next few days in Cuzco, visiting cathedrals, churches, Inca sites, doctors (who confirmed that everything was okay) and do some heavy duty souvenir shopping. In addition, we ran into Floor & Jorn who we had met in Huaraz (remember: lots of Pisco Sours...) and spend another great night at a local pub, called Los Perros, drinking beer and sharing our amazing travel stories (Floor & Jorn: het was weer ouderwets gezellie. We hopen jullie snel weer tegen het lijf te lopen.... La Paz misschien?? Veel succes op de Inca Trail!).
Tomorrow we are off to enjoy the Altiplano region as we travel from Cuzco to Puno and thereafter: Lake Titicaca!!!
We miss you all, lots of love,
Thomas & Mischa
PS Some of you have made some remarks about the long hair of Thomas. Indeed, he has not been to a hairdresser in 5 months and does not plan to go shortly. Lets see where that goes...
Peru
Hi all!!
Lima is an odd city, mainly because of its weather. The sea is so cold here that not enough moist is picked up by the air so it is basically a dry desert most of the year with clear blue skies and extremely high temperatures (35C at least). However, given our luck with weather conditions so far, we of course chose the wrong season to visit Lima and are now in the period characterized by ¨Scottish Mist¨. This means that the air picks up a bit more moist but not enough to let it rain, which results in continuously grey skies with no sunshine at all. Chilly and very depressing. So we chose to minimize our time in Lima and only visit the beautiful colonial city center for a couple of hours to leave for Huaraz the next morning. We took a bus from the Cruz del Sur company, which specializes in long distance luxury bus tours. And it was really luxurious and comfortable with lots of legroom and almost fully reclining seats. Perfect!! And pretty cheap at a cost of just over EUR25 for the both of us for an 8 hours drive.
As we mentioned before, Huaraz is located at a height of 3000 meters, close to the Cordillera Blanca, which is a very high mountain range well know for its white snow peaks. In fact, in Huaraz you can see more than 20 peaks of over 5000 meters, all covered with snow, making the view from the city pretty scenic. The town is THE center for outdoor sports such as rock climbing, mountain climbing, mountain biking, rafting, you name it. The first trip we booked was a rock climbing adventure in a place called Hatun Machay. We slept in a beautiful lodge at about a two hours drive from Huaraz, really located in the middle of nowhere. Hatun Machay is a so called ¨rock forest¨, consisting of a relatively small patch of land covered with spiky rock pillars which are ideal for rock climbing. Furthermore there are a lot of rock caves, which in the past (500 to 1000 years BC) where used by indigenous tribes for religious rituals. These are as of today un-excavated by archeologists and our guide told us that he regularly encounters human bones, fletch points and other ancient handicrafts which he sells in Huaraz. It is pretty amazing to realize that such an unspoilt place still exists in the world. Around the rock forest live a number of sheep herding tribes. These people live in very basic circumstances and almost void of any contact with the outside world. They make their money selling sheep wool, skin and dried meat (see below).
The outdoor climbing techniques are the same as for indoor climbing, a sport that we have been doing for the last couple of years. However, it had been some time ago that we last did some climbing and the rocks were very sharp. So it hurt us a lot and we really had to get used to the circumstances. But it was definitely worth it. One of the walls we mastered was more than 30 meters high, the highest we ever climbed and we both had some scary moments up there on the rocks. Fortunately we were very well secured and had a very experienced guide (although the picture below suggests otherwise, why isn't he holding the rope...), so we really enjoyed the adventure.
And guess what we decided to do after the rock climbing trip? What would smart people do after they miserably failed to climb high altitude mountains and realized that they would probably have to shape up a bit and get used to climbing with crampons etc before climbing a mountain again? They would indeed just do that. Not us of course... stubbornly and against better judgment we happily signed up for the climb of a mountain called Villanaraju, located at about two hours from Huaraz and about 5700 meters high. Luckily there was a tiny learning curve and we tried to maximize our odds of reaching the top by opting for one of the easier climbs, by hiring porters for all our climbing gear and by spending an extra day at 4200 meters in order to acclimatize better. When we arrived at base camp on day one, we immediately set off for an ice climbing trip. That gave us a chance to get used to the climbing gear (crampons, plastic boots, ice axes etc) and above that was just a lot of fun (see below)!!
The next day, in the early morning we started our climb to the Moreno base camp at 5200 meters. That is when we realized that we made a very good decision opting for porters to carry our gear up. We actually felt that the agency had misguided us by saying that it was an easy 2 hour walk to the base camp. In fact it was one of the steepest climbs we ever did, partly over slippery rock and there was no way we would have ever made it without our hired help (a guy of 60 that walked 3 times faster than we did with a 30kg backpack vs our 3-4kg daypacks.... go figure!!). We arrived in the Moreno camp after an 2.5 hour walk at around 1200am so we had the whole day to relax until our departure for the top at 0100am.
Unfortunately it started snowing pretty hard in the afternoon, so we were not sure if we were going to start the climb at all (one of us had to tap the snow from our tent every half hour to prevent our tent from collapsing). However, just around 0100am the weather cleared up and we got ready to go. We had reloaded our battery pretty much, so the start of the climb was going pretty well. In fact we left a couple of hardcore Alaskan trekkers far behind us, they had to give up in the end. As we got higher the energy level started dropping, the air got thinner and thinner and our speed of climbing was dropping dramatically. There were some scary moments as well where we had to walk over very small ridges or jump over glacier crevasses. Just when we started thinking about giving up, dawn came and the light came out filling us with new energy.
At the very end, we were really doing one step, resting for a few seconds, another step, resting for a few seconds. At a certain point, our guide, Edwin, told us that we came to a dangerous point so he would go ahead to secure us. The guy actually started running at 5600 meters and ran 100 meters in about 14 seconds. Our jaws dropped to the snow...he told us later that he could climb the mountain running in about 2 hours up and down. It took us about 7 hours until 8.00am but finally there we were...AT THE TOP!!!
Villanaraju is known for it beautiful view over the Cordillera Blanca when its clear, providing for some pretty scenic view. Of course when we got to the top, the skies were covered with clouds and there was no view at all. However, just reaching the top was more than worth it and we both felt exhilarated.
As we started going down, the weather cleared and the sun came out, providing for some nice pictures but also warming up the snow quite considerably and making it mushy.
It became incredibly hard to walk in the snow and especially Thomas would sometimes drop to his crotch in the snow, needing other people to dig him out with their ice picks (our guide was laughing his head off!). Very tiring. Mischa at a certain point lost her balance on a small ridge and started sliding towards a 500 meters drop off. Yikes!! Although secured by both Edwin and Thomas, it still scared the hell out of us. Getting more and more tired it took us until 1200am to make it back to the Moreno camp and we almost immediately had to get ready to walk down to base camp at 4200 meters (why??). However, we both hardly could walk anymore, our legs totally burned up, but we still had to go down another 1000 meters for our trip back to the hotel.... we both almost cried.
In the end we got down (don´t ask us how...), ruining our knees and were both totally exhausted but satisfied to have topped another peak. This is it!!! Never ever will we climb a mountain again!!! (... wait until you speak to us again in 6 months....).
We had no plans for the next two days and could not have done anything anyway give the muscle aches we both had. On the last day before heading back to Lima we went out with a great Dutch couple, Jorn and Floor, that we met the first day in Huaraz and that we bumped into again the day we got back from Huaraz. Lots of fun!! We played a game where you have to build a big tower with bricks until it falls down and the loser has to drink a very strong local drink called Pisco Coca. This combined with the local no1 drink Pisco Sour, a couple of beers and dancing in Tambo made for an unforgettable evening...and morning...oh my god (Jorn en Floor: het was echt helemaal top, tot ziens in Ushaia...zijn die Piscootjes bij jullie ook zo hard aangekomen....
The next day we took the famous Cruz del Sur bus back to Lima where we will depart on an organized 1 month trip through Peru and Bolivia. We hope to be back soon with another update.
Until then Hasta La Pasta!!!
Ecuador (cont.)
Hola todos!!!
Wow, it's been a while again and lots of things have happened.
To start of with, we did atwo and a halfweek hiking and trekking trip to some of Ecuador's highest mountains. The first days we went on some long hikes to get accostumed to the altitute and get back into shape. The initial trek was from 3.800 meters to 4.500 meters on the Chimborazo mountain, close to our hub city Riobamba. At the end of the trek we arrived at a famous little high altitude forest, called Polylepis, with beautiful small oddly shaped trees that created a very mystical scene, see picture below.
The second trek was from 3.800 meters to 4.800 meters to encounter a so-called 'hielero'. In the past there were up to 50 hieleros that went up the Chimborazo mountain every day with their donkeys to cut off large chunks of ice of the glacier which they sold at the local markets for all types of uses. Nowadays there are only two hieleros left, the guy on the picture below and his brother, both far into their sixties. Yup, people have refrigerators nowadays, so who needs expensive glacier ice...another century old tradition bound to disappear... Despite this, the two brothers still go up Chimborazo 2 - 3 times a week to cut out 6 pieces of around 10 kilos each which they sell to local ice cream vendors for a total of around 20 dollars, eg 60 dollars a week, eg 240 dollars a month, which is not bad at all by Ecuadorian standards. The ice cream produced with glacier ice is much better and does not melt as fast as our regular Häagen-Dazs because glacier ice is way more dense than refrigerator ice. Really, we tried it.
We then moved on to the Altar mountain, which is on the other side of Riobamba. Here we embarked on a 4 day trekking tour during which we tried to climb one of its summits of 5.060 meters. Whereas Chimborazo has a dry climat, Altar has a moist climate...very moist...incredibly moist. The first day trek up the mountain to 3.800 meters was tough as we struggled through knee deep mud at times. Believe us, that is very very very uncomfortable (a bit like quick sand). The first night, we slept in a tent on a small ridge under a rock (the only dry spot in a 10kms radius), overlooking a beautiful valley. Unfortunately we do not have any clear photosof the place under the ridge but it was great and the view over the valley was spectacular.
The second day it started snowing and storming. The idea was that we would try out our mountain climbing gear eg. helmet, crampons, ice-axe, some kind of ski-boots and ropes on the glacier and set up camp at 4.800 meters for the climb to the summit the next day. This was just sheer impossible due to the weather conditions (snow, snow, snow and high wind speeds...). We walked to the camp, called Italian Camp, and found out that it was totally covered in snow. No way to set up a tent here. So we succesfully did a try climb to a summit at 5.040 meters under really bad circumstances and returned to our original camp. That night it started raining like crazy and our whole camp was wet and muddy. It rained until the next morning. That's when we decided together with our guide, Eloy, to call the trek short and return to Riobamba. However, this meant that we had to return the way we originally came. Now if there was already knee deep mud on the way there just imagine how the road was after 24 hours of rain... The trip back that would normally have taken us about 2 hours took us 4-5 hours and we returned with mud up until our armpits, totally wet and exhausted, but happy to be back in civilization.
The next day, we drove up Chimborazo again, all the way to base camp at 5.000 meters. There we got on two moutainbikes and raced down the mountain like idiots to end up in a small village at about 3.000 meters. That was an awfull lot of fun!! The weather was a hell of a lot better and the speed was even better. We actually went so fast that we were surpassing cars and trucks on the way down. Very exciting!
The day after, we did the famous Devils Nose train ride that takes you from Riobamba to Alausi and back. Everybody can sit on the roof of the cargowagons and admire the beautiful Ecuatorian landscape passing by. The people at our travel agency in Riobamba told us that the ride takes quite long because the train derails so often. We thougth, yeah right, trains derailing, sure.... Well it did, at least10 times!! Fortunately, the train moves soooooo incredibly sloooowly that nothing serious can happen and every time we derailed it took the train people about 10 to 30 minutes to get it back on the tracks. Don't ask us how they did it, but they did it. All in all, it was a excruciating looooong ride from 06.00am to 17.30pm. Despite its length, the ride was surpringly comfortable, mainly because we both rented two cushions for 1 USD, while most people settle for 1 cushion per person only. You should have seen their poor misery uncomfortable faces, ha ha ha...The weather was great and the views were truly spectacular so we would recommend this to everyone.
The next day was D-day: the climb of Cotopaxi, Ecuador's most famous vulcano at a higth of 5.900 meters. We started the climb at 00.00am from basecamp at 4.800 meters. The weather was great, a clear sky, no wind, so you would think that circumstances could not be better to reach the summit. Think again....Unfortunately, we had not had the chance to really try out our climbing gear on a glacier, because the wheather sucked so much at Altar and climbing a glacier is pretty hard! With your crampons on, they make you go straight up the mountain, in stead of in zigzag mode. Its basically like climbing stairs for 6 hours in a row. Just try that... you can imagine it was very very heavy. Especially for Mischa, who had a very nasty cold and also found out that years of wearing fancy high heel shoes had shortened her calve muscles and achilles tendon so much that her feet where unable to make the right angle with the mountain. So she had to walk on her toes all the time, which totally exhausted her. That made us have to stop many times to catch breath, which is not a good idea on a glacier as it started to make cracking noices which even drove Eloy, our guide, into panick mode...not good.... Eventually, we had to give up at approximately 5.400 meters. Even though we were disappointed, we had some beautiful moments on the mountain that will stay with us forever. The sky was totally clear and you could see all the big vulcanos around us, including Chimborazo which was about 300kms away. More striking was that we could also see Quito's city lights shining from afar at a distance of 150kms, absolutely stunning and unforgettable.
The Cotopaxi fiasco made Mischa decide to skip Chimborazo so Thomas could improve his odds to reach the top. Unfortunately, the weather was much worse than on Cotopaxi, with lots of snow and very strong winds. Furthermore Thomas and Eloy were the only guys trying to reachthe top that night, which made Mischa very uncomfortable about the whole adventure. Starting at 5.000 meters at 00.00am, Thomas was able to climb to 5.800 meters but had to give up because his legs hurt too much. In fact it is being told that he felt like crying like a little baby because of the excruciating pain. The photo below seems to substantiate this rumour...hi hi hi.
A bit disappointing but the whole adventure was more than worth it. The excitement and the nature surrounding us was absolutely great. And we will for sure return to Ecuador one day to try and climb both mountains again...only we would come a bit better prepared, eg. after gaining some more experience with crampons and probably after shaping up a bit more...
That same day we said goodbye to Riobamba and returned to Quito. The next day we travelled to the jungle at the Cuyabeno nature reserve, pretty close to the Colombian border. To get there we first took a two hour flight to Lago Agrio, followed by a 3 hour car ride and another 3 hour by boat to finally reach our destination. Pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Our lodge was called Nicky Lodge and was really nice, with wooden houses and thatched roofs (see picture).
There was no electricity and we showered with water directly from the river. We spend the days doing boat tours and jungle walks in search of scary and less scary animals such as caymans, tarantulas, monkeys, piranhas, dolfins and anacondas. Fortunately or unfortunately, we did not encounter that many. We found it a bit boring and the circumstances did not make us feel a lot happier either. Everything was very moist and damp, the water from the shower was cold and mosquitos were eating us raw. No, the jungle is not really our thing andwe believe that we will not do jungle tours for a while. However, the group was really nice, we got to fish piranhas (pretty exciting) and feed caymans (very exciting!!!) so we have some nice memories as well.
Upon our return to Quito the idea was to take another two weeks of Spanish lessons to further improve our Spanish skills. However, Thomas got very sick with a nasty throat infection that kept him in bed for almost six days. In fact he was so sick that we almost decided to go to the dodgy local hospital. At a certain point he could not drink or eat anymore because he would cry out in pain. That's when Mischa decided to go to a local pharmacy to get some heavy duty medication. Since Thomas refused to take antibiotics ('I have to build up some resistance!!' - dumb), she got some painkillers. One of them is generally used after heavy surgery and provided Thomas with a great numbing buzz (the withdrawal effects are still notable). The other one we got, turned out to be on a black list in Ireland and could produce irreparable liver damage... oeps... so Thomas skipped that one. After six days with hardly any food, guess what was the first thing on Thomas' mind...yup, fastfood (see picture) & bigggg steaks!!!!!!!!!!
The day before yesterday, we flew to Lima, Peru. First impressions are good. We are located in Miraflores in a lovely hostal (www.hostalelpatio.net), which is the main area in Lima for tourist lodging. Miraflores is located at the sea and it has wide avenidas and people so far are very friendly. They build a beautifull mall right at the beach (Larcomar - www.larcomar.com) with great restaurants and bars and stunning views over the ocean... guess we will be spending some time there. The day after next, we will be leaving for Huaraz, which is located in Peru's Cordillero Blanco, or white mountain range. Yep, given that its a bit too cold here to go to the beach (15-20 degrees) we have decided to do more trekking and climbing in the mountains (one would think we would know better by now...) and then we are off for a 1 month trip through Peru and Bolivia, visiting most of the hightlights of both countries (see www.gapadventures.com/tour/sxml for a full itinerary). Danielle, a good friend from Holland, surprised us with the announcement that she has booked the same trip and we are very, very excited to meet someone from back home again!!!!
Well, that's it again for now.
Hasta la Pasta!!!!!!!!!!
Ecuador
Hello everyone!!
Back again. It took us some time to find a café with fast internet but here we are. We are currently staying in a beautiful little hostel called Travellers Inn (formerly known as Amazon Inn http://www.amazoninn.com/Eng/index.html) located in the so called New City of Quito. The New City is the modern area in Quito with all the office buildings, hotels and hostels, bars, clubs and restaurants. We just love the atmosphere here, probably because we really have turned into 'city people' over the last couple of years. On Friday night, Quito is very comparable to Amsterdam, with thousands of people roaming through the streets and having a good time. We felt immediately at home.
And it was time for a positive break for us. After the issues we have had with the BCD (which is on its way to being resolved as the owner of the diveshop has proposed to send it back to Europe, (see last blog story for more background), we had a very hard time finding a replacement camera for our little Canon Ixus which broke down in Costa Rica. In fact we first brought our Ixus to the local Canon representative who told us that repairing the camera would be so expensive that it would not be worth the effort and we would be better off buying a new camera. Fine, we thought, we will do that. Soon we found out that digital cameras are extremely rare here in Ecuador and they only sell very old or hugely expensive models. It is really unbelievable but cameras that cost about $400 in the US will cost over $1000 in Ecuador...something to do with import taxes. So it took us a stressful day and a half of running from one camera store to the next and meanwhile doing lots of internet research to find an appropriate camera for a 'normal' price (still paying a premium of more than EUR150 over the price we would have paid in Europe, not to mention the US). It is a compromise and we probably would have never bought this camera back in Europe, but hey, we have to row with the belts we have...
Last week, we did our trip to Galapagos Islands. It takes about 2x 1.5 hours flight to get there from Quito and the moment you set foot on soil you realise that this is a very special place. It was truly wonderful. Our boat departed from the port in San Cristobal, where we were immediately greeted by dozens of Sea Lions who live in the port and are not afraid at all of the many tourists that are stalking them for pictures. They are so cute, you could touch them if you wanted to, unbelievable (see pictures)!!
They spend the day hunting for fish and lying lazily in the sun. Thomas could immediately relate to their lazy lifestyle...
The landscape is also mind boggling, very dry and volcanic, providing for some spectacular sceneries (see pictures).
We spend the last week in Quito, which we find a very attractive city. Situated at 2.800m above see level and surrounded by volcanic mountains of over 4.100m, it is a very scenic place. Some of the activities we did include taking a big telecabine to over 4.000m, providing us with some beautiful views over the city and of course we also visited the famous historic centre, which as a whole is a Unesco preserved site.
Yesterday we did a daytrip to Otovalo, a town situated at a 2.5h drive from Quito. Otovalo is the capital city for the Otovalo Indians, who are famous for their handicrafts and up to today wear traditional clothing. Their Saturday market, which we visited, is world renowned and Mischa could no longer contain her latent shopping addiction and went berserk on the different handicrafts...we may have to cut our trip around the world short because we are likely to run out of money much sooner than expected...
Last week, we actually went to the gym a few times to get in shape for our hiking and trekking trip, which will take us to the top of some of Quito´s highest mountains in the next three weeks. Probably a bit too late... 30 minutes of spinning at 2.800m - and you die. So we are quite anxious about the coming three weeks...
Anyway, it will probably be hard for us to update our blog in the days to come. So we will be back in a few weeks.
Hasta la Pasta!
Love,
Thomas and Mischa
Monteverde (cont.) and Playa Brasilito
Hallo allemaal!
Finally found some time to work on our blog again. We flew into Quito in Ecuador last night and are staying in Rio Amazonas (http://www.hotelrioamazonas.com/), a luxurious hotel which we are not accustomed to anymore so we are both very happy troupers at this very moment. Plus we have a very fast internet connection here in the hotel so we have fulfilled the popular request for more pictures and have uploaded a new photo series.
Costa Rica was great! It is really the perfect holiday destination. Linda and Marius, you will love it when you come over in November!
We spend three weeks studying Spanish in Monteverde and have learned a lot. For all your language geeks out there: we now know all the verb tenses in the infinitive and have started studying the subjunctive. This brought back some bad memories for Thomas who studied this verb tense back in school during French classes...and sucked at it. We are now also able to have real conversations in Spanish. In fact, half of the time our classes comprised conversation practice, whereby teachers try to involve you in discussions on all kinds of topics, from emancipation, gay rights, men beating women to the Islamic invasion in Europe...yes really. (Nathan, thanks a lot for the interesting discussions, quite unique to encounter a Republican American that has seen Fitna and has a nuanced opinion about it, hope we stay in touch!).
Other than Spanish classes, there was a lot to do in Monteverde. The nature surrounding Monteverde is absolutely stunning, unlike anything we have ever seen before. It is part of a cloud forest, which means dense jungle and lots of rain. At the same time it's also a farmland with lots of Quakers (farmers that emigrated from the US in the 1940's and 1950's to evade military draft), grass plains were many cows are chewing the day away. The combination is just very typical. Monteverde caters to the active nature loving tourist community and it is more or less a big theme park. You can book all kind of activities such as jungle treks, horse back rides, canopying (more about that later) in any hostel. Furthermore Monteverde has a number of wildlife museums where you can creep yourself out watching snakes, frogs and insects. Given that we had three weeks to spare there we did all the activities and visited almost all the museums.
Probably the most fun activity we did was canopying.
See http://www.monteverdeextremo.com/welcome.html. They attach you with a wheel to a big metal cable and then let you roll down the cable at an amazing speed from one end of a valley to the next. Not for the faint of hearted since the longest canopy was almost 800 meters long and 80 meters high. Part of the canopy tour involved the so called 'tarzan swing'. Here, they attach you to a rope, push you down a ledge, then you fall down about 10 meters before starting a huge swing of at least 30 meters diameter and you go back and forth like tarzan for a couple of minutes. You all should have seen the look of sheer panic on Mischa's face and have heard her squeal like a little pig... Unfortunately do not have a lot of footage of this historic moment as half way through it started raining like crazy...as always...
Our hostel was absolutely fantastic. The first two weeks we had a small room without windows, which made it very damp and fungussy and made our clothes smell like wet dog constantly. Our own mistake, given that our reservation had been for a room without private bathroom but we finally decided that a private bathroom would be the minimum comfort that we required...and this was the only room left with private bathroom. But we liked the owner Ronnie and his family so much that we just didn't bother looking for an alternative. They had a nice kitchen area where we made our homework and met a lot of travelers from all over the world (Nanette & Jeroen: heel erg dank je wel voor de biertjes. We hebben ervan genoten en er uiteraard een aantal op jullie gedronken!!). After two weeks, Mischa grew all kinds of allergies on her skin and around her eyes that made her eyes swell up like if she'd been beaten up and made everyone look at Thomas with disgusts. So we finally asked Ronnie if we could change room and he gave us a 3 person room with a beautiful view over Monteverde.
One weekend we did a hiking tour with Ronnie and his brother to a befriended farmer's property located in the middle of nowhere. On this land, Ronnie and the farmer build a beautiful and simple lodge that overlooked an active Vulcan called Arenal. It is hard to describe but this was probably the most beautiful place we have ever been to and an experience we will never ever forget. The water we used (to cook and wash) came from a little river, which ran just past the lodge, light was provided by candles and the view of the volcano was simply amazing, especially at night when you could see the lava running down the volcano. Everything was just so quite, with only the sounds of the animals in the forest ...nature in its purest form...perfect!! Unfortunately, we have no pictures to remember it. Our little Canon Ixus has died on us and we forgot to reload the batteries of our big camera before we went on the hiking trip. Big grumble!
After 3 weeks of studying it was time for a holiday ;-)). Following an emotional goodbye from Ronnie, his wife Yoselin and their beautiful kids Yazmin, Daniel and Jeremy, we traveled to a place called Playa Brasilito located on the Pacific side of Costa Rica. There we stayed at a beautiful little hotel conveniently called Hotel Brasilito (http://www.brasilito.com/) - Linda & Marius: zeker een aanrader, de zonsondergangen waren fantastisch! It was a big change from Monteverde: warm and sunny, something that we had not seen in over a month, a great way to reload the internal battery. Playa Brasilito and even more Playa Conchal next to it are known to be Costa Rica's most beautiful beaches. And we must say they were quite stunning. Kilometers of empty beaches, fringed by palms and forests, blue sea, what more do you need? Well...probably some action, which is why we booked a 2 hour squad tour over the beaches and through the jungle, rives and mud, awesome (see pictures)!!
We finally decided to take a giant leap and took a public bus back to San Jose from Playa Brasilito...and it sucked...bigtime. Almost eight hours rolled up with no legroom and temperatures of over 30 degrees, hardly any air to breathe and the strangest odors floating around the bus all the way trough. Yup, we have a long way to go to becoming hardcore backpackers...;-))
In San Jose we encountered our first real set back. A month ago we left Mischa's BCD (the dive vest that controls your floatation/buoyancy underwater) with a diving shop in San Jose and agreed with the owner that we would pick it up on the day before we would fly to Ecuador. Guess what: the store was closed on the agreed date and the owner of the diveshop never picked up his cellphone...ouch! We still have not heard anything from the SOB.... when we do get a hold of him, he is in deep trouble!!
Yesterday we celebrated Mischa's birthday. She is 33 now!! It was not the greatest day for a birthday: we got up at 03.30am to catch a plane to Miami at 08.00am and we arrived in Ecuador at 08.00pm. Totally exhausted we managed to grab a bite in the hotel before entering into coma at around 10.00pm.
Tomorrow, we will leave for a diving cruise to the Galapagos on the MY Deep Blue (http://www.deepbluegalapagosdiving.com/) and we will be looking forward to more Hammerheads and hopefully whalesharks, manta's and see lions. We will be back with more stories in a couple of weeks.
Hasta la Pasta!!
Thomas and Mischa
Cocos Islands and Monteverde
Hello everybody!
We just returned from an awesome trip to the Cocos Islands. It took 36 nauseating hours to get there but it was surely worth it: sharks, sharks, sharks and more sharks. Exactly what we were looking for when we booked this trip. We did one dive where 200 to 300 hammerheads were circling all around us. We also did a night dive seeing hundreds and hundreds of Whitetip reef sharks feeding in the beams of our flashlights. They moved around like a river of carnivorous flesh, nothing was spared and we counted our fingers when we got back onto the dingy, our big rubber boat.
The cruise ship itself, the Okeanos Agressor (www.aggressor.com/subpage10.php) was 40 meters long and had 22 divers and 8 local crewmembers on board. So it was pretty cramped and in fact probably the most crowded live aboard we have done to date. The group was a nice mix of mainly elderly Americans and a few Europeans. The weather sucked big time. We did not know this before but the Cocos Islands receive the largest amount of rain of all of Costa Rica, in fact even almost 50% more than the wet rainforest. We almost felt like being home...
After the diving trip we had a brief stay in San Jose. Costa Rica's capital must be one of the most ugly capitals in the world. All the historical buildings have been destroyed over the last centuries by earthquakes and replaced by reinforced concrete bunkers. Really awful. Our hostel, conveniently called Mi Casa (www.micasahostel.com) was great, but we must admit that it is quite a step down from the luxury spa's and infinity pools that we have come to appreciate over the last few years.
Next we were off to Monteverde, a beautiful, secluded nature reserve, smack in the middle of Costa Rica's rainforest. Since our travel guide mentioned that taking the public bus from San Jose was quite dangerous and thefts of luggage were common, we opted for a private bus. Later on, most travelers we met laughed at us for being so overly cautious. The drive was something we will remember for quite some time. The rain was poring down and about 30 kilometers from the village the road became unpaved, transformed into a river and was littered with huge rocks. It was a rocky ride and our spines must have shrunk a few centimeters. Thomas is still hoping to get his feeling back in his left hand...The climate here is weird. In the morning the sky is blue and the sun is shining. By 1200 it starts raining and by 1500 it is poring. With poring we mean that the sky is coming down and you get as wet from the rain coming from above as the splatter of the rain on the earth coming from below. Really amazing!!! It's the raining season here, something that we smartly failed to observe when we decided to travel down here ...The great thing is that the humidity is like 100% so nothing will ever dry here and it smells like fungus everywhere...yuk.
The hostel, called Sleepers Sleep Cheaper is a wonderfully cozy family run business, chosen to be the best hostel of all of Costa Rica. The owner, Ronnie, is living amongst the guests with his young wife and 3 young children. Their living room is the common living room where the guest can hang out and watch TV. In fact, while we are writing this, the owners son Daniel, is sitting on Mischa's lap eating milk powder....
Beginning of last week, we resumed our Spanish classes at a school called Centro Panamericano de Idiomas (www.cpi-edu.com/monteverde.htm). It is about 30 minutes walking from our hostel, going up and down some pretty steep mountains, so we will get some exercise, which will be very useful since we just booked a 16-day hiking and trekking tour to the highest mountains of Ecuador (www.julioverne-travel.com/content/view/98/95/lang,EN/), the highest being almost 6300m. Even though our Spanish classes are quite tough again, we have four hours in the morning and spend at least 2-3 hours doing homework in the afternoon, we are by now really benefiting from the fact that we know a few sentences given that the local population does not speak English at all.
Unfortuntately, Internet is really slow up here so no pictures from us this time.
Bueno, that's it for now. We hope to be back soon!!
Hasta La Pasta!!
Playa del Carmen
Hi everyone!! We´re back!!
Finally we found some time to update our blog. We have been quite busy since our arrival at Playa del Carmen (PDC). As we mentioned before, we started our Spanish classes. After an optimistic start, our moods quickly changed...this is actually hard work, we even have homework...and we are on a holiday!! Knowing French helps a bit, an infinitely small tiny little bit. We quickly learned that our weeks of homeschooling saved us about two days in school. Yep, they have a pretty high pace. When they release us at 17.00 (a school-bell actually rings
Of course that´s not really an option in brizzling PDC and we ended up two nights in the most famous club/bar around here called 'The Blue Parrot'. That´s where we encountered our first big culture clash of our trip. Nothing to do with the Mexicans but everything with the Americans and the way they behave in clubs. Mind you, we don´t intend to bash Americans and we will probably soon report on other culture clashes. So all you Americans out there reading this, please do not take this next section personal.
So just imagine this: when (mostly) white Americans of all ages (from around 12 years to up to 50) dance, they stick super close to one another in separate groups, the woman stands with her back towards the man, bends over and rubs her behind against his...well we will leave that to your imagination...while he is making very obscene movements involving amongst other...slapping on the behind... yes slapping on the behind in a group ritual(!!), on hip hop music, the only music they actually play here in clubs. It was quite disturbing to us and our Spanish teacher told us that if we really wanted to be shocked, we should come here during spring break. Maybe we just might ...
Our good friend Carla arrived on Sunday the 15th of June. Although we were only 3 weeks down a 52 weeks road, it was actually great to see a familiar face. Obviously we took her to 'The Blue Parrot' on her second day so she could witness the curious dancing/mating rituals we discovered. We ended up in the club next door called 'The Coco Maya' where they also had a European lounge section where they played non-hip hop music and we were introduced to one of the many local tequila based drinks down here called a 'Kamikaze'. Here´sa pic of the drinking ritual.
It was only the day after that we found out that these little suckers (apart from being ridiculously expensive at $20 each), where serious liquid hangovers... Aouch!
In Carla´s first week in PDC we had Spanish classes as well so we were pretty happy that she was suffering a bit from a jet leg. That meant that we often could go to bed early and recuperate from a hard days work.
Last week we had a much needed week of holiday and were able to spend more time with Carla and explore some of the highlights of Yucatan. During the weekend we relaxed at beachclub ' Mamitas' which is only 5 minutes walk from our little Melrose Place and cried crocodile tears when Holland was ousted from the European Championship. Feeling terribly depressed, we decided to do something active and rent a car for the beginning of the week to drive through Yucatan. We ended up in quite a dodgy car rental place. Initially we intended to rent a Ford Ka (for obvious sentimental reasons), but when we arrived the next day the car rental guy, called Lionel (always reminds us of the movie Braindead), he joyfully mentioned that he upgraded us at the same price to a higher class car eg a Ford Focus Station Wagon. Obviously we felt very special and delighted, although we got a bit suspicious when we noticed that this was probably not the usual rental car (since it had a license plate and rental cars down here usually don't) and the car required two keys, one to start the engine and one to open the doors...odd. However, the first day went just fine. We played tourists for a day and visited the historical Maya sites of Coba and Tulum (see pictures). We agreed that the next day we would wake up very early so as to drive up to the world famous Maya site Chichen Itza (about 3 hours drive) and get there before the tourist busses arrive. So, we got up at 5.00AM and drove to Carla´s hotel at around 6.00AM. We parked in front of the hotel, Carla got in and...the key to start the engine did not turn anymore. Within only a few minutes a mob of helpful people arrived to try and help, to no avail. Within a few more minutes the police arrived (they drive Harley Davidson Fat Boys and look frightenly similar to the guys we all know so well from Chips, a modern classic) but they could not help us out either and drove away. Lionel told us that he would only be there at 8.00AM so we just had to sit out our time. Police here, we soon discovered, drive the same round every 15 minutes. So every 15 minutes a policeman (mostly the same guy) got of his supercool bike and tried to turn the key, which we knew would be fruitless, but apparently his learning curve was pretty flat. At around 8.00 PM a very mean looking and big police guy, which we took to be the big boss, drove by on his uebercool chopper and pretty much told us that the car had to go because it held up traffic (we were standing on the right lane). Unlike Dutch police men, this was not the type of guy you argue with, so we of course panicked. Mischa ran to the car rental and Carla tried to reach Lionel on the phone while Thomas tried to explain to the mean looking police guy that Lionel would be coming any moment. More policemen arrived and we kind of stressed even more. Just at the moment we thought that they decided to tow it away, Mischa arrived with Lionel. He said that they usually never had any problems with the keys and we though 'hey why are there two keys then?'. Anyway, he offered us a new car for the day and we told him that this had ruined our day and we would take the car for the next two days. Unfortunately we do not have any pictures of the police actions. We figured that we did not want to end up eating cockroaches for the necessary proteins in a Mexican prison...
So the next day (Tuesday) we relaxed at another place on the beach called ' Kool', fetched our new car (a decent looking Volkswagen Pointer, see pic)
and got to bed early for our long trip the next day. Driving here is actually ok. The roads are in decent shape, there are road-signs everywhere so there is no way you can get lost and people actually drive pretty slow and with restraint. The only danger is that once every few kilometers they have big roadbumps to slow down traffic. If you miss the warning signs and drive over one at high speed you are more or less toasted. Chichen Itza was impressive. We arrived around 10.30 AM, which is way before the big tourist busses arrive. So we were able to take pictures of the main pyramid (one of the new world wonders) with only a handful of tourists in the background (see pic)
At the time we did not realize that that was quite unique. We finally did when we exited around 12.00 PM and got overrun by huge groups of tourist, who arrived by the thousands from all over the world, busses everywhere, like one big ant farm, amazing (Cees and Sicco, thanks for the tip to drive up there early!!!). We then continued to Merida, which is a beautiful historic city and also the capital of Yucatan. It is totally different from PDC. Buildings are build very close together in small blocks, with only a few open spaces (the main plazas), which we thought to be quite claustrophobic. In the end we never got to see a lot of Merida since shortly after our arrival we ended up in a bar where we started slamming tequila shots. Here things became blurry. Some memory flashes: big sombrero´s...loud singing...many pictures with the barmen... running through Merida streets... trying to evade security guards that were trying to recuperate big sombrero´s...us explaining that we thought we could keep them...them answering why then we were running away...us answering that that was a very good question...hot dogs (mjummie)...sleep.
On Friday, Carla left (sniff sniff) and we will miss her terribly. We had such a good time. Furthermore, this goodbye was basically our last goodbye from our friends in Holland. Now we are on our own...
But we are looking forward to our new adventures. This weekend we went Cenote diving at Dos Ojos and it was spectacular!! Cenotes are old limestone caverns with fresh (eg not salty) water and visibility of over 70 meters. The scenery under water is amazing with huge stalactites and stalagmites and beautiful light fall. Two dives to remember forever!
So, now one more week of Spanish and next Saturday, 5th of July, we will be leaving for Costa Rica. We might not be able to update our blog until returning from our live-aboard to the Cocos Islands which ends on the 20th of July. Until then:
Hasta la pasta!!!!