Equipment

Staying in Bolivia was fun, but accomodation especially during the salt plains trip was more than basic. It was close to camping outside with temperatures around 5 degr. c and on max altitude of 4900 meters. Since day one of the salt plains tour my camera did not work.

I needed a real city to eat real food.... Burger King and to go shopping for a new camera. Thats why I took a 24 hour speed bus from San Pedro de Atacama to Santiago de Chile (abt. 1600 km for)

Equipment
I left Hamburg without a towel and had to buy one, on my second day in Frankfurt. The Frankfurt towel I left in Cusco and had to buy a new towel in Puno.
My alarm clock was destroyed on the way to Lima and the new alarm clock bought in Lima is only 30 minutes late a day. Have to buy another one tomorow.

Best of all my camera is only taking black fotos and today I bought a new Canon Powershot 8Megapixel with the option for the underwater diving case.

La Paz - Leaving Bolivia

Bolivia is the real wild South America. I¨m staying in La Paz in the moment to catch a train to the Salt Plains. There is the option to take night busses daily, but in the moment I try to avoid night busses at all. The downside is that the train goes only twice a week !!! I¨m waiting for the train leaving friday and a 3 night tour ( 90 dollars ) across the salt plains will take me to the north of Chile - Pedro de Atacama. All going well I will arrive in Chile on monday and will take a few busses south to Santiago to catch the flight to Rio on Saturday 22.12.2007.

The shoe cleaning boys all over La Paz are wearing masks, because they do not want to be known doing this job !

Reached Bolivia

I thought a long time about going to Bolivia. Bolivia is the poorest country in South America and travelling is not as easy as in the rest of the continent. Within Bolivia there are only a few thousand kilometer of roads. Normally busses have to travel on sand/dirt roads and the speed of travelling is really slow.

After entering Peru I took a 17 hrs nightbus to Lima. I stayed there a few days and took a flight to Cusco. I stayed in Cusco a full week and visited Machu Picchu. From there I took buses via Puno Lake Titicaca to Copacabana at the Bolivian Shore of Lake Titicaca. In Bolivia I meet some travellers I already met on my travels. On the right side of the photo, you will find Barry from South Africa, whom I already met a month ago in Quito and the 2 girls in the middle are from my famous peeing room in Cusco.

Travelling in Peru was straight forward and normal, but just the first two days in Bolivia are really strange. On the Island on Lake Titicaca, some locals were blocking a little gate and were asking for a fee of abt. 1 USD to use the way. Welcome to Bolivia.

South America is really big and I had to take much more flights then planned:

21.10.2007 Caracas - Ciudad Bolivar abt 65 euros
22.10.2007 Ciudad Bolivar - Canaima Tour
24.10.2007 Canaima - Ciudad Bolivar Tour
03.10.2007 Porlamar - Caracas abt. 50 USD
03.10.2007 Caracas - Lima Round the World Ticket
04.10.2007 Lima - Quito Round the World Ticket
11.11.2007 Quito - Galapagos abt. 190 USD
22.11.2007 Galapagos - Guayaquil abt. 190 USD
29.11.2007 Lima - Cusco abt. 85 USD
22.12.2007 Santiago de Chile - Rio abt. 400 USD

speaking of fucking...

As mentioned my hostel in the moment is 6 usd a night and thats in a 12 bed dormatory. With 12 strangers sharing one room. Last night something unbelievable happend and all the hostel is talking about it.

Within the room there were 2 girls from Sydney and at three o"clock in the morning they brought two more visitors to the room. One of the drunk girls together with her new friend was sleeping in the bunk bed on top of me. For quite some time you could hear the strangest noises coming from the two beds. After already people from the room suggest to them to use a different location, I decided to switch on the light and see what is going. With the room in full light I told them in their faces to continue somewhere else, but the answer was "we are doing nothing". I went to the reception, but the security was not powerful enough to take the visitiors out of the room. The action was interupted and it got a bit quieter in the room and you might think that this is the end of the story.

At five o"clock I heard noises again and I was expecting that the guy in the bed on top of me will leave, but that was not the case. The Aussie girl was climbing down the stairs and in the middle of the room, right before my face she pulled her panties down, was kneeing down and was peeing on the floor. Another roommate picked the best point of time and switched on the light. There she was ! naked in the middle of the room with here panties down and every single person in the room was staring at here, because nobody did sleep.

A dutch girl told her "what the fuck do you pee on the floor" and the answer was "I did not do that" The 2 male visitors sneeked out of the room halfnaked without saying a word. The security made sure that the two girls packed their backpacks and left the hostel a few minutes past five o"clock in the morning.

I stayed in dorms many nights, but thats the weirdest story ever ! Maybe that story will be the best story besides the normal tourist stuff.

Travelling is about meeting people !

Fucking Altitude

After a fantastic time in Lima, I flew to Cusco and it I had the first terrible days of my trip. The high altitude is / was just shit. A few weeks ago I was in Quito abt. 2500 meters and it was just OK with slight headaches. In Cusco abt. 3200 meters, I arrived 29.11.2007 and I was in the Hostel for two days doing nothing and lying in bed most of the time. Today is the first day I left the hostel and was able to buy a train ticket for Machu Picchu for ¨only¨ 73,- USD, thats without the entrance fee of 24,- USD ! Normally Peru is cheap but Machu Picchu is NOT ! The Cusco hostel I stay in is 6,- USD a night.