Far away in a land down under....

I have been to so many places, seen so many continents, but Australia and NZ have been given a miss until now, and I ll be damned if I wont come back. I took one of the longest flights in exsistence, Santiago de Chile to Auckland... 17 odd hours and with the timechange thing where you fly over the time zone I actually missed an entire day and flew on the 20th, and arrived on the 22nd... groovy.. or not, since I lost a day.

I got picked up by a friend who I stayed with in Auckland, and she showed me the city and I stayed there for a few days, but it was not really why I came down under for... the amazing outdoor activities is what lured me, and soon made me leave the city. I was happy to find that Katia was just a few hundred miles north, she had meanwhile traveled to Fiji to meet her boyfriend for a 2 week vacation (sort of a vacation from travelling :), and was back. So we met up at 90 mile beach and took a day trip to the "end of new zealand" where the two mjor streams of the pacific and atlantic collide... amazing to see the large swirls....

Roger on 90mile beach (actuality its much shorter but kiwi's like to exxagerate :)

A little fun must be included... woohoo!

The end of 90 mile beach and new zealand...

I speed-travelled the north island in a figure 8 path, only had 8 days and then three weeks in Australia, I had spent too much time in South America and was running out of time to get back to CH, work for 2 weeks, get my visa's straightened out for the US (work) and Africa (travel), so oh well speed traveling it was!

Went down to Rotorua and Taupo, where I mountain biked, visited active crators, hiked the tongariro crossing, did some caving and my very first skydive!!

That was a whole lot of fun and action all packed into about 7 days. In Rotorura I met Karen and Mike from England and we became a good travel pack for those days, they were on their honeymoon, sold their house to travel for one year, and were adventure junkies like me. We had a grand time, and mixed our daytime adventures with pub crawls at night so there was no time to rest until I flew out to Australia. All in all a very good time, but way too short, need to come back some day, especially since I have not seen the south island yet.

Caving trip, amazing views but the darkness and water is not conducive to cameras!

Some mountain they used for Lord of the Rings

Tangariro crossing, bitter cold

Karen, Mike and I

Dont I look like one of the Armageddon guys?!? :)

Australia was not much different, you cannot see a continent in three weeks, so I did not attempt to do so and focused on staying with my friend Alexandra and her husband (she is originally swiss) in Sydney, and her mom Maggie in the blue mountains. I had a phantastic time staying with them, after months of no private room it was nice to have a home for a few days, and swiss friends to talk to!

The usual classic picture...

In the blue mountains with Alex, her husband, and Maggie

Three sisters...

Additionally I booked a trip from the northwest down to Sydney, taking a one-way flight up to Cairns. Up there I started off easy with some snorkeling trip, and getting ready to take the bus down to Airlie Beach where I would take a two night three day sailing trip to the whitsunday islands. Arriving in Cairns I realized that the laid back traveling of south america had given way to adventurous excursions in NZ and now wild parties in australia. Not that I am a prude but I saw more live $ex shows from travelers getting it on right there in the bunk bed next to me, and saw more live throwup parties (fortunately except for once they always made it out of the room) than I ever needed to see. See here is the deal, the trip you book is dirt cheap, and the quality you get is dirt cheap... not complaining, you get what you pay for. So 30+ bunk beds it was....

After that somewhat shocking first few days in Cairns I realized if you cant beat them (e.g really I felt like beating some of them... was I getting old and cranky?) you have to join them. After all I had two weeks left and then I was going to travel off the beaten path in Afria again....

So once I arrived in Airlie Beach after a 20h bus ride I was plastered, and checked into my gigantic bunk bed room and chose the bed the farthest away from the bathroom (that s where most of the action occurred at night, either or if you know what i mean). I met a german, english and canadian girl who were all about to head out to the bar, and they convinced me to go with them as sleeping now would not be smart, the only way to get a full nights sleep is to go out and be home last, most drunk.. hey, whaddayaknow? The english gal had gigantic knockers and ended up being harassed every 15 minutes by random guys who begged her to take part in the miss wet tshirt contest.. and finally caved, not because of the guys, but because of the rather impressive 1000 australian dollars first price.. heck I d consider showing mine if I had any :)

So Miriah (the canadian girl) and I, after having drinken several pitchers, proceeded to go to the contest to support the gal by telling every guy in there who to vote for.. once the thing started the commentator came to the front and started getting everybody fired up... people stared jumping around and the girls got on stage and it was too lound to hear what was going on but somehow he started pointing to me, maybe because I jumped the highest... but all of a sudden I realized I was the one that was supposed to pour the ice water (two pitchers each, in both hands) over the girls shirts.... yep, sure not something my mom would have been proud to see but probably one of the "top hunderd things to do before I die" off the list! :)

Believe it or not it was hard work, sure I got front row but had to slowly pour fifteen times two gallons of ice water over these girls, and my arms were hammered by the end. For my hard work I got even more free beer which tipped the scale to favor the idiot in me, there was random beach exploration with Miriah involved, and fence climbing which damn near killed her as she got stuck hanging upside down (only to find out the next morning that literally five meters next to there the fence was open)... needless to say I did have a good nights sleep, latest and drunkest.

The sailing trip to the whitsunday islands was fun, though it ended up not really being a sailing trip since there was no wind.

Jungle, Mountain, Sea

About 11 months into my travels, I am far from being done mentally with traveling, in fact I like it so much I will extend it to 18 months. South America has really gotten to me, despite the fact that i have had some really scary moments on this trip, and as you will now find out, the past month as well!

Last I communicated I was spending about 2 weeks relaxing in BA, staying with my friends ... I had a grand time there, people here are super hospitable and I also barely spoke English during my stay, getting to know the locals much better than the gringos, a nice change of pace for this part of the trip.

La Boca... part of Buenos Aires

The last night in BA I actually met up with Jennifer, a girl I hiked with in Patagonia, and it involved way too much alcohol and too little sleep, a tradeof when spending time with travelers that dont have to get up at a specific time the next morning. I left for Foz de Iguazu (largest waterfalls in the world, as big as the niagra falls, with gorgeous tropical backdrop!)....

Part of the falls...

The big momma!!

Everything s big here.. even the ants!!

The park...

I spent again more time there than anticipated...probably simply since the longer you travel, the slower you go, seeing new places becomes less important than just being out there and experiencing different cultures. Argentina is first rate and dirt-cheap, and the travellers and hostel staff just made me stay a few extra days... since it was low season there, there were about 5-7 staff members and not many more guests, Yamila, was so kind to show me the area around town and exercise the large knowledge she had aquired during tourism school... an offer too good to say no to.

I did have a pain to catch for Australia in three weeks time, so I traversed Paraguay pretty quickly and ended up flying to La Paz instead of taking the 50h, horrifying sleeper bus that travelers had warned me about... I m sure it would have been a good experience :)

Arriving in La Paz, there had been this big plan looming in my head ever since Dani and I travelled through Peru and Bolivia, climbing a mountain higher than 6000 meters (20000 feet). I dont mull things over for too long usually, I sign up and suffer the consequences later, so I did.
After a few hours of checking out the possibilities it was all set, get acclimatized very fast (I really only had 48 h at 3500 meters, then was to ascend to 5200 meters for one night, and get the peak at 6088 meters the next day at dawn.....) Acclimatization isnt that hard for me, so I spent the good part of the day drinking tons of water and mate de coca, and getting my stuff ready for the trip. There was a great bit of anticipation in me, I had been above 5000 meters, but only over passes, and as we were climbing Huayana Potosi, and there was a 70 degree glacier right at the end, ice climbing at 6000 meters could not to be taken lightly. I got my gear, and since Marc, the second person coming along, felt stomach sick, I agreed to additionally carry our tent, which gave me a hefty 25-30 kg backpack that I needed to carry from the base at 4600 meters to the basecamp at 5200 meters.

Finally up there, after stunning views of the peak-to-climb, we put up the tent, ate dinner at 4 pm, and went to sleep at 5pm. Well we laid in the sleeping bag until midnight, sleep never came at that altitude and additionally there was a mean wind blowing, sounding like our tent was about to fly away with us in it! At midnight we got up, under a perfectly lit star sky, almost full moon, so we did not need our lights for breakfast and preparations, as the reflecting glacier even enhanced the light. Anyhow, a tough six hours of hiking on the glacier and a last great effort ice-climbing the last 200 meters at a 70 degree inclination, we got up there just as the sun came up. Very happy but also very very tired, it is really true that at these elevations you can only do a few dozen steps before needing a break, unimaginable how it must be over 8000 meters!

Uppedy up....

Roger over 6000m on top of Huaina Potosi...

After another 5 hours of descent we arrived in la paz later this afternoon, i pretty much went to bed right away (again at 5, only this time no 2 minutes needed to fall asleep!) and slept until my alarm clock woke me at 6 am.

I had another mission! Montainbiking down the worlds most dangerous road (150 deaths each year on a 65 km strech from La Paz cumbre (4700m) to Coroico (1500m). Nope, i dont have a death wish, but this is the road to the jungle in bolivia, and as i didnt want to fly both ways i decided biking down is safer than taking a bus with some sleep-deprived, drunken driver.
The day started as well as it ended... I had a great breakfast, got my material (a brand new trek bike with disc brakes), and found out i was the only one doing the trip, along came a bike guide and a driver (to bring my bags and food, etc...). Crazy, all that, 2 guys for a full day, a car, 2 first class mountainbikes and hearty breakfast and lunch (at a hotel-buffet!), cost me 40 US dollars, I do not know how these guys can still make money off of that, really!!

Being an avid mountainbiker i told my guide to give it what he got and not worry about me, i would be able to follow. I was happy to find that I was still in good enough shape and though we were careful at dangerous places (there are dozens of indications of fellow travellers with bikes or buses crased and died along the way) We made the trip in about 2.5 h instead of 6-7 as advertised, good for me, more fun, good for the guide/driver, much shorter work day.

A day later i took the overnight bus to rurrenabaque, down to the jungle in bolivia, this ride was absolutely NOTING for the faint of heart, they call that the easier part of the bus ride down into the jungle, but the Bus was on such a small, rutted road and was going at full speed into curves where I, at the end of the bus, sometimes saw nothing but the Jungle 1000 meters below,.... i arrived at 8.15 in the morning after a pretty unconfortable ride but decided as i was sweaty and dirty i may as well go into the junlge (actually called a pampa tour) for the three days, and as a group was leaving right at 8.30, i was able to save some time that i may need later to get back toSantiago....

For the next three days I was in a group with our guide, Einar the pampas man (great guide that grew up in the pampas and obviously knew every anymal that ever lived there), and an irish and american couple. After a four hour drive to the river, we proceeded to the middle of the pampa by a boat for another four hours, and started seeing the most amazing animals... many birds, some of the most colorful ones I have ever seen, a capibara (the worlds largest rodent, size of a grown pig but looks just like a rat :), crocodiles, aligators, river dolphins, and turtles. We swam with the dolpins, in the river that could not have been more brown, visibility 1 inch, not kidding you. Feels a bit weird swimming in a river with dolphins when alligators are all around, however the guide absolutely swore to us that no alligator comes close to the dolphins.. they swim in large groups and would bite a predator such as the alligator to death. God I believed so much on these travels!

Whats for dinner??

Minus two alligators...

Group foto with the anaconda...


Slimy...


Scary...

And here it goes again, Roger is just a bit too accident prone this trip, but i cant help it!! Roger's close encounter with death #3, last but not least. We discovered a very large turtle nest while cruising down river, and right then the fled out of fear. We knew we had disturbed it and needed to cover its nest so that the vultures would not devour the eggs. Einar asked who wanted to come on shore with him and sure enough I said yes, as always, just a little to eager to try everything. As we were doing this I must have stepped on a beehive. Within seconds there were several dozen bees hoovering all around me and kept attacking and stinging me.... what a nightmare!! Noone else nearby got stung, even though hundreds of bees surrounded us, I had disturbed the peace and I had to pay for it. With my shirt off I kept slapping around as much as I could, but got stung a lot my head, on my face, pretty much wherever i could not reach. Our guide fortunately was quick enough and screamed at everyone to get into the boat, and drove that thing as fast as he could down the river, they threw blankets over me until finally all the bees were gone. According to the guide, who was VERY freaked out, these killer bees can smell you at large distances, he had seen a friend of his get stung literally 150 times, spending 3 weeks in the hospital). I started to take out the stingers, I got stung "only" about 20 times, and as I am not allergic i just took an antihistamine and smeared toothpaste all over the areas, apperently it helps! I was totally dead that night, could barely move, joints were aching, heart war racing, may have been the histamine, the bees or just the adrenaline rush.....

The rest of the trip though I survived quite well, barely got stung by the millions of mosquitos, and had a blast looking for crocs, alligators, and found TWO anacondas!! The second anaconda we tracked down was almost 3 meters in length and it was just great seeing one of those in nature....

After that exciting outing in the jungle I flew to la paz in a military airplane, then made my way to Arica (northern chile), took another 30 h busride, man i am sick of those, and now i am awaiting my flight to new zealand in a few hours. South America has been phantastic, sure will not be the last time I have come here... but now I am looking forward to English speaking, English food (outch!) and 1st world tourism.. bring on New Zealand and Australia!!

South American Heartlands

Since Dani only had 3 weeks to travel (poor worker bee), we moved much faster than my lazy @$$ is moving at this time, the constant travelling has actually made me mellow, not a concept known to me, for all of those who know me well. We came back from our trek and the next morning went to puno at Lake Titicaca, the highest lake in the world (3800 m, 11000 ft above sea level) and one of the largest ones as well, very impressive sight in the Peruvian/Bolivian mountains.

There, we went on a 2 day tour by boat that brought us by the Uros first, the islands that were built originally hundreds of years ago when the powerful Incas threatened to annihilate the preexisting cultures that lived around the lake titicaca. These very smart people built movable islands of sea-fern and grass (which grows in the lake), and started building up layers and layers until it would support their weight. This way they lived on the islands, mainly from fishing, and attacked the incas by boats at night, returning to their islands when the strong incas would retaliate. The incas could not swim nor did they figure out to build boats.... Pretty cool, huh!!??

Uros islands, day to day activities of locals..... making crafts for tousists (top), grinding wheat (bottom)


"Original" Uros boat, now just used to shuttle touris around...

There on the lake, we also visited the two largest islands of the lake titicaca and soon went on to the bolivian side of the lake, to the "real", original Copacabana. Very nice, but at 3800 meters above sea level not really crowded with women in string bikinis like the Brazilian counterpart... oh well, you cant have it all!

After a short trip to la paz, we took a hard-core overnight bus to Uyuni (e.g. cheap, slow, old), which managed to break down 4 times in only 14 hours (one exploded tire, another one just flat, two mechanical problems...), and all that on a road that felt like a whashed out riverbed, we could tell we were in bolivia, YEEEHAAW!! The rollercoaster of temperatures (the bus heat only worked when it was moving, obviously) was another story, as well as the crazy bolivian behind me, all in all just another day travelling :)

Anyhow, after arriving we met a really nice german couple and a crazy irish guy and decided to do the 3 day/2night trip togehther, travelling by overland fourwheel drive though the salt lakes, geysires, huge cactuses, and tons of flamingos...

Roger and a Llama in the atacama desert... my guess is as good as yours who's who? I am a mean spitter I can tell you!

A hotel completely made out of salt (bricks), you better hope it does not rain very often there...

We had a very good time, went with a great guide and our car actually did not break down for once, though the altiplano (the highlands that connect bolivia with chile) , and ended up in san pedro de attacama.... where we stayed a few days.

Gotta looove the hot springs.... it was sub zero outside though

The group, with some huge volcano behind....

We did some out of this world mountainbiking (out of this world due to the moon-like landscape that we travelled in, the driest desert in the world, grey earth crust topped off with the salt that was left when the sea evaporated millions of years ago).

Ridin Roger...

Never bored...little climbing project....

Chruch in San Pedro...

We really enjoyed the excellent but not too cheap food San Pedro de Attacama had to offer... San Pedro hosts the driest desert in the world, drier than the Sahara, with only approximately one day of rain every TEN YEARS!, so we really stocked up on water when we went biking ...
Eventually we met up with katja, a swiss girl travelling by herself around the world, and not only did we have good female company but another jass-partner (a typical swiss cardgame we can play for hours!), which was great fun! The three of us ened up travelling to La Serena and Vicuna, where we did tastings of the local pisco factory (pisco is the national drink of chile, peru and bolivia, a hard alcohol made out of wine), and went horseback riding in the beautiful valleys vicuna had to offer....

Wine and pisco tasting!

The last weekend with dani was spent in company with good friends from chile
(guillermo and macarena, their daughter and other friends), at the wonderful
beach house they own in zappallar, not much to tell, lots of sleeping, relaxing and a ton of pisco cola and pisco sour :)

Yup, its true, other than fish, chile has nothing to offer in terms of culinary, though I LOVE the completo and the italiano... see that mayo right there!!

Finally dani had to leave for home, not like ABB woulnt be able to run down the company without him :), but oh well... and i continued to patagonia, to finish what i started in february, to finally see perito moreno, the amazing over 1 km wide glacier that ends up in a mountain lake (you HAVE to check out the pictures once they are up), and the beautiful Torres del Paine National Park... once i arrived there actually i met a girl from colorado and we hiked the 4 days together, again assuring me that travelling alone not really exists, because you always find very nice, interesting or crazy people, people that though with very different backgrounds or interst, travel very well together...

After that, I decided to head down to Patagonia once more and finish up what I started but got interrupted so badly by the riverrafting accident. I flew down to Puerto Natales, and stayed with the same family that took me in and took care of me when my leg was a mess.... Paola, the mother, spent hours with me at the hospital, buying food, even driving me to the internet when i could not walk, so i had my mom send them 2 kg of the best swiss chocolate. That did the trick and I was received like a king at their house. The time in Patagonia was very nice, I was lucky even though it was very borderline off-season that we caught one last nice week down there, and hiked the Torres del Paine in four beautifully sunny days. I spent the time trekking with Jen from Colorado, a girl used to trekking and a lot more suitable than the slow english couple that we encountered every evening, hours later. The four of us had a great time, usually being the only ones left in the hostels, a few days after they closed for the winter (or summer really).

Hiking the Torres del Paine Park...

After that I decided to go see the most impressive glacier there is really, the perito moreno in Argentina, it was a good day-trip from Puerto Natales, and heck it gave me four more entry/exit stamps going back and forth... but seriously, the sight was just so impressive I am so happy I went, sometimes its funny how we spend money at home, but when traveling everything is so cheap that when a trip costs 60$ one thinks of it as too expensive... well it was worth every cent. To add to that experience I met Javier, Veronica and their kids. Javier is a VP of human resources for Bimbo Bread (employ tens of thousands of people) and more importantly a very interesting person, and we connected right away through my travels in Nepal (he had trekked the same Annapurna Circuit). I promised to visit him in Mexico City since that will be the last stop, about 10 months from now... which should be fun.


Small part of the end of the glacier... seen by boat.

Impressive gigantic pieces fall off at the end of the glacier....