After spending 6 months in Norway since coming home from South America, I finally had the chance for a quick trip abroad again as I was changing jobs this summer. Looking through the last minute deals online I found a cheap flight to Egypt and the resort city of Hurgadha.

I also managed to convince my friend Christian to come along for a week, while I would spend another week travelling by myself. Two weeks in Hurgadha does not fit my perfect image of a vacation however, so I tried making some plans for once, and had a rough idea for a rather ambitious two week itinerary that in the end would end up looking like this.

I spent the night before leaving, awake watching Indiana Jones in preparation for Petra, one of the highlights of the trip. I then met up with Christian at Olaf Ryes Plass at 4.30, from where we walked down to Oslo S for the train to the airport. We followed one of Christian’s travelling traditions by having a wonderful breakfast at the airport hotel before we took off for the African Red Sea coast of Egypt.

We had our first encounter with the world class salesmanship of the Egyptians at the airport, represented by taxi drivers that told us the wildest stories to solicit our business, and who had no shame in asking the most ridiculous price to take us in to town. We got what turned out to be an illiterate driver, who had no use for my guidebook with an address and map, and kept asking for other reference points like hospitals and beaches, which we of course knew nothing about. Eventually we were in the neighbourhood, found the hotel we wanted and set out for some sightseeing, and first taste of Egyptian beer.

We then went through the old city and got to know some more Egyptian touts, tried some “free” Egyptian tea, and ended up in something which is now only referred to as “the papyrus incident”, which will not be mentioned again. Suffice it to say that there will be made a ceremonial fire of some papyrus rolls at some point in time, where voodoo-like spells

will be put on all Egyptian touts, and the generations that will follow them. We then went back to our hotel to rest and fell asleep at 7 and slept until the next morning. We then took a ferry across the Red Sea to the Sinai peninsula. We boarded an old Norwegian vessel called Sjøprinsessen 2, buckled up our seat belts and braced ourselves for a very bumpy ride at full throttle, while several passengers around us were busy discarding their breakfast, and the crew put on a small dance show.

Sharm El Sheik is similar place to Hurgadha, and we only went for a nice falafel meal

before getting a bus to the small backpacker haven of Dahab a little further up the coast.

On the bus we met a nice retired English couple that lived in Dahab 6 months a year, who gave us a lot of helpful information.

Although we’d wanted to spend more time there, and possibly do some snorkelling, we decided to head on the following morning, after spending a nice evening at the beach side restaurants and cafes.

After a bus to Nuweiba it was rip off-time again as we had to pay the inflated tourist price for the boat, and in dollars which we didn’t have. This turned out to be a nice little side business for the ticket clerk who was more than happy to accommodate us for a ridiculous exchange rate.

Getting on this boat would prove to be a lot harder then we thought, and after a few attempts at entering the port area we were firmly and aggressively told to sit down, no discussion, no information as to what and where to go from here. We were sitting around for a few hours in the sun expecting to be let in any minute, but soon realized something was not right as no one seemed to be allowed to enter.

There were around 300 people gathered outside the port and they were getting more and more anxious. Out of the 300, two were westerners – us. We could get no information, and the locals seemed as bewildered as us. So we made camp in the shade at a nearby parking garage.

We had been sitting around for 4-5 hours when suddenly the crowd erupted and stampeded towards a different gate. We had no idea what was happening but followed the crowd. Some very aggressive pushing ensued and amazingly we were singled out by an elderly police man and ushered through and into a large hall.

We then had to sit around waiting for immigration, where a new stampede occurred, before the Kafkaesque process of getting on the boat continued. The police were getting aggressive, pushing people around and shouting at the people at the lower end of the pecking order. There was a weird dynamic to this situation, and we were unable to figure things out. It seemed that some backsheesh was the way to make the system work for you, as rich looking people seemed to be let through to the next part of the process. As we didn’t want to be seen taking advantage of our western status, we stayed in the background, but after around 9 hours of waiting we tried to get some attention and finally made it out the door, and into a bus with no seats, where we were huddled together like sardines into a seat-less bus, and another wait of around 40 minutes followed in this oven like situation.

At this point, the message must have been given that no more people would be allowed onto the boat, as the crowd went crazy trying to get out of the hall, and police proceeded to beat the crap out of a bunch of people for a few minutes. With sticks and all, the whole spectacle was surreal, and we felt a long way from the other charter tourists in Hurgadha. Things took a serious turn for the better when we finally got on the boat, as an opportunistic employee

looking for backsheesh bumped us up to the first class lounge, with great seats and air-con. 2 hours later we arrived in Aqqaba and the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan, at 2 in the morning, 11 hours late. As we were short on time we opted for a taxi to Petra, and 2,5 hours in one of the worst cars I’ve ever been in followed. As usual the driver was a lunatic, and the car had some serious damage to it as it was actually vibrating noticeably the entire time.

We slept for a few hours before we were to spend a long day at one of the most spectacular sites in the world, Petra. This remarkable “rose red” city was carved into the mountainside more than 2000 years ago, and has one very well known image, the treasury, situated at the end of a narrow canyon.

Because it lies in Jordan, a country that has a very undeserving reputation for being dangerous, it receives much less attention and tourists than it deserves. Unfortunately we saw some bad mistreatment of animals, and actually freed a donkey! It seemed someone had forgotten it in the sun in a remote part of a mountain side

and it looked as if it was moments away from dying. It was lying on the ground, barely able to move and panting heavily, and just managed to crawl into the shade after we freed it. Still, we had a fantastic day that ended with a nice sun burn after about 7 hours in the sun with no sun screen.

Next up we decided to check out the capital of Jordan, Amman, without knowing anything about it.

The contrast from Egypt and it’s touts was extreme. I have never felt more welcome in a country; we actually started to wonder whether there was a campaign from the ministry of tourism, as we experienced everywhere people asking us where we were from followed by them warmly welcoming us to Jordan.

We found a liquor store, easier said than done in Jordan, and went up on a hill in the centre of the city as night was falling

and were treated to a symphony of prayer calls from about 10 different mosques from all over the city. This gave us our first sense of really being in a Muslim country, yet with a taste of home as we sipped our cans of Jordanian beer.

Amman is not your typical tourist destination but we found it interesting to see a big Arab city away from the tourist trails. We covered the sights the city has to offer quite quickly – the roman theatre

the citadel with remnants of a temple in the honour of Hercules

and went to the local markets. Amman seemed more traditional than what we had seen so far and a large part of the female population were wearing burka-like dresses. Amman also had an amazing falafel restaurant where you could get a plate of falafel, a bowl of hummus and a soda for 2 USD – fantastic.

Christian then had to fly out to Cairo while I stayed another night at our very nice colonial style hotel and watched the European Championships. My plan had been to leave the same day, but to my surprise it helps to make some plans when you intend to cross the border into the West Bank and Israel, and I was told the border was closed as I was heading out.

The following morning I left early for the border together with a very nervous American student. He had been to Syria before and was terrified of what would happen at the border crossing. I had to watch his bags a couple of times while he went away to puke, before I crossed the border myself with no incident, except for a laughing 5 minute questioning with 3 female Israeli army officers.

I then almost opted for a bus to Jerico as I hadn’t brought any cash and to my surprise there were no cash machines on the Israeli side of the border. Luckily I managed to scrape together enough Egyptian money to pay the fare for the minibus to Jerusalem. We past through the West bank with no incident and saw hardly any sights except dessert.

As I arrived in the Muslim part of the city I struck up a conversation with an elderly man who offered me a glass of juice from a street stall. He told me he was one of 14 000 stateless Palestinians living in the city and made for an interesting conversation for a while. I then trudged on into the walled city to have a look around. I was meeting my friend Yaron in Tel Aviv later in the day to celebrate his birthday but wanted to get some sightseeing done first. Getting rid of my backpack proved a difficult (or expensive) task however and I ended up walking for about 3,5 hours in the baking sun with my two backpacks. After a lot of asking around and retracing my steps I found a minibus to Tel Aviv. Again I realized that the value of a guidebook can not be overrated (I didn’t have one for Israel and Jordan). In Tel Aviv I headed straight for the beach, again with my two backpacks and waited for Yaron to get off work.

I then headed over to his place where I got a comfortable couch for the night and went out for a nice meal in a bohemian part of town together with Yaron and his wife. This is one of my favourite thing about travelling, the connections you make with people. Yaron and I had first met 3 years ago on a tiny Caribbean island in Mexico where we spent about a week together in one of the nicest places on earth – La Isla Mujeres. A year and a half later, much to my surprise he went on his honeymoon to Asia while I was travelling around, and we met up in Hanoi and went on an overnight boat trip to Halong Bay together. And now, a further year and a half on, I was enjoying his and his wife’s company in their home town and had the opportunity to get a real feel for the Israeli way of life.

I wish I’d had a lot more time to enjoy it, but I’m certain Israel is a country I will definitely come back to in the future, there is so much more to see. We had a wonderful meal where I sampled a lot of small Israeli dishes and learned that Israeli food is very similar to Arabic food – and very good. Yaron and I then went to a local bar for a quick look at the local night life before the night was over.

The next morning I went back to Jerusalem

and started on 24 hours of hard core sightseeing. The walled city really is like a history book where every corner has a story to tell. Being in this place gives you the feeling of being in perhaps the most important place on earth – a holy place for the 3 major monotheistic religions and the reason for 2 millennia of war and conflict. If anything has come out of this trip for me besides the normal thrill of travelling, it is a desire to try to understand more of this ancient conflict that continues every day, over this small space of dessert lands.

Jerusalem was packed with tourists and I felt a slight sense of disappointment at the amount of tourist stalls. The next day however I was out in the streets at around 8 and had the streets almost entirely to myself.

I tried to see as much as I could but you need a lot more than 2 days to see this place. I did get to see the wailing wall

the temple mount

the Via Dolorosa – where Jesus carried the cross

and a lot of smaller sights before I had to leave far earlier than I would have liked to, for Eilat on the Red Sea coast.

On the bus to Eilat I got to know a Swedish guy called Pelle and we ended up sharing a room together. On the way we followed the length of the Dead Sea and I looked longingly on as I so wanted to try swimming while reading a newspaper – at least another reason to go back. The following morning I fixed my Visa and we crossed the border back into Egypt.

We walked across and luckily met a minibus heading for Cairo that was just missing two passengers. We got a fair deal for once after some haggling and huddled into the crowded bus that did not have the air-con that was promised. We then crossed the entire length of the Sinai dessert

and through Suez before we arrived at Mubarak in Cairo at around 9 in the evening. Cairo really hits you like a slap in the face and instantly challenges all your senses, the sights, the sounds, the smells, the crazy traffic – pedestrian and motorized – really needs to be seen to be believed. This was my birthday, and Sweden was playing so Pelle and I were intent on seeing the game and grabbing some beers. We managed one out of two and I spent my first birthday without a beer in more than a decade.

The next morning we headed for the pyramids via the subway and ended up at a tourist trap a few kilometres from the entrance, thanks to a taxi driver who picked us up when we got off at the wrong stop.

After a long negotiation we decided to get two camels to take us to the pyramids. This was a great way to see them for the first time. As you approach them from a distance they look completely deserted

and your body aches from the bumpy ride. As you get there, the scene changes completely, and you’re in tourist central – with hundreds of tourists and almost as many touts. We walked around the site for a few hours just taking in the enormousness of the thing, and how surprisingly small the Sphinx is.

I also went into the centre of the Kheops pyramid, a very hot and humid experience.

After this we wanted to try something less touristy so we hopped in a taxi and headed for the centre of town. We then decided to try to make our way to our hotel and started walking. Some of the neighbourhoods we passed through seemed kind of hostile and we received some unpleasant looks that actually made us a little nervous. We were actually kind of lost when a tiny old man came up to us and offered to show us the way. He then proceeded to give us a 40 minute guided tour of Islamic Cairo which was really memorable. The tours took us through tiny back streets

and the old man gave us a local history lesson that seemed to focus a lot on the harems of the city.

Now it doesn’t take you long to learn that nothing is free in Egypt, and of course the old man wanted us to come to his little museum-cum-tourist trap at the end of the trip. He insisted on giving us an amazing gift, where we would get to buy "real", "handmade" trinkets for a "very special price". We wanted to pay him for his time so we bought some shit after some very persistent “gift offering” which left us with a sour taste of what would otherwise have been a very special experience.

The following day I went on a city tour with two Israeli guys and an American girl from my hotel. We saw some interesting sites

and ended up with a very nice meal at Chilli’s, in a boat on the Nile

my fist western meal in a while and a mouth watering experience. The tour included a stop at the Egyptian museum, which I found to be quite disappointing. I don’t know what I expected really, but I feel so much more could have been done with all that potential.

Two chaotic days in Cairo were over and I boarded a night train for Luxor the same night.

I shared a six person cabin with non-reclining seats and was lucky enough to get fellow passengers that brought a total of 5 kids with them. Didn’t get to much sleep that night. At 7 in the morning I was there, and I set off for a hectic day. My plan was to see the valley of kings and some temples and then get to Hurgadha for the night. I dumped my bag in a cheap room and bought a bus ticket for Hurgadha before I set off on my own, refusing to buy a tour. I paid a guy a dollar fifty to take me across the Nile

and the paid a taxi driver around 10 euros to drive me around all day. The Valley of the Kings is a unique place. Tombs of more than 20 pharaohs are scattered around this small valley, and the Indiana Jones Theme easily starts playing in your head (and if it doesn’t, it helps to have an mp3-player like I did to create the right athmosphere). As I was by myself I had the tombs entirely to myself and also had the opportunity to fire off some quick photographs after some backsheesh was handed over.

I then went to two great temples, which are in an amazingly good shape considering their age.

I then grabbed a few beers with my taxi driver and got to know two French Egyptologoists who didn’t know Indiana Jones!!! What culture snobs, I thought, and refused to talk to them (ok, that’s what I should have done).

So my trip was pretty much over and it was time to head back to Hurgadha. But first there would be another opportunity to rip me off. It turned out I was taken to the wrong bus station, and the guys at the office could "fix" things, get me a taxi and get me on the bus at another station, at a price of course. So I paid the price, as I had to get on the bus, and off course it turned out only half went to the driver. I made sure to fire him up so hopefully he’ll go back there and make some trouble.

I hate Hurgadha! It’s everything I don’t like in a place and I spent the next day and a half not doing much. I caught some sun, read my very interesting Sir Richard Francis Burton biography and ate fast food, and finally had time to get some sleep. A hectic but very interesting two weeks were over.

I had seen some of the most spectacular sights in the world, and had seen the remnants of one of the greatest cultures in history and unfortunately the sorry state of what that culture has turned in to, as it’s become destroyed by mass tourism. Although there are certainly positive things to say about Egypt, I now go home from a trip for the first time thinking that this is a place I will not be coming back to.

wa-aleikum-as-salam

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I didnt have a detailed plan for the southern coast of Brazil before Florianapolis, and that was still a couple of days of buses away, so I decided to try to make it to the town of Pelotas for saturday night. It looked like a decent sized town, but I had no info about it except the name. As I arrived, it turned out to be impossible to get money at the bus terminal – the ATM didnt accept international cards. So I had two options, either venture into town spending my first night in Brazil in a totally unknown town asking people for the way to the bank, or spend my last money on a bus ticket to Porto Allegre, a town I felt pretty certain would have an international ATM.

For what I think are obvious reasions I chose the latter and arrived in PA at 2.30 at night, got money at the terminal and got a taxi to a hotel. The next morning I went for an hours walk in this, to me, bland industrial city and then hopped on another bus to Florianapolis.

The city in it self isnt that interesting, but the beatifull island of Ihla Santa Catarina is conected to it with a bridge. I came in at night and spent the first night in a hostel in town, where I met Max from Germany while eating an expensive Brazilian pizza.

The following morning we left for the island and got a dorm in a great hostel right on the beach. There was a great crowd at the hostel and free surf boards, but still way to cold for me to get in the water, and I only managed to put a toe in before leaving north towards warmer waters two days later.

Max and I made a day trip to Joinville, a German city in the middle of Brazil with lots of blond perople and German style houses.

We regrettfully also learned the we were two days late for the second biggest Octoberfest in the world, in a nearby, even more German, city.

Later in the day we left for Curitiba, a nice university city that Max knew from an earlier stay. We spent a few days hanging around, getting to know a couple of students before I decided to move on, while Max stayed behind.

My plan was to now head for the tropical pradise island of Ihla Grande. I first had to get a bus to Sao Paolo, and on the way as I was reading about how to get to the island, i realised it would take me another two days before being able to get there. My patience at the time was somewhat low after spending quite a bit of time in buses recently, I decided I would go to Rio in stead, and do the island later. So I changed buses in Sao Paolo, spent abut 3 hours in rush hours trafick in this city which seemed the size of a small European country and arrived in Rio at 3 in the morning, at one of the seediest bus terminals Ive seen (and thats saying a lot).

Getting a room for the night in this area proved impossible, and I had the choice of getting a 20 $ cab ride to my guidebooks cheapest hotel, or sleeping in the terminal. After a half hour of procrastination, I decided to go with the taxi, and 15 minutes later I arrived at my hotel who since 2004 had decided to hike their prices from 13 $ a night to 50! This was the drop for me when it came to the price level in Brazil and after a poor nights sleep I decided to not go up the coast of Brazil after all, Id now completed my plan of going in a circle by land from Caracas to Rio and I was now "alowed" to fly. Back to Colombia!

A brazilian night bus would cost me almost a hundred bucks, and I reasoned I could pay for a flight and still come out spending less in a cheaper country. So I left for a travel agent and inquired about flights to Bogota. They turned out to be much more expensive than Id thought, and I went to the internet to think about it. As I was thinking, the little piece of information the travel agent gave me – I need to stop in Panama to get to Bogota – gave me the idea of flying up there in stead, and catch a sail boat down to Colombia.

I went back to ask about tickets, but to my surprise, all travel agents in Rio close around 2 o’clock on Saturdays! In one of the biggest tourist cities in the world!

I had my mind made up now however, I was going to Panama. The last time I was there Id met a lot of people who were waiting to cross to Colombia. The Darien Gap, which separates Central and South America is one of the most dangerous places in the world, rife with guerilla activity and malaria, so unless youre Rambo you have the option of flying or sailing. The last time around I had an onward flight, but this now seemed like the perfect option. So I picked up my backpacks and went to the airport. The only flight to Panama was at 4 in the morning, and as this was my first real night in Rio, and a saturday, I didnt want to risk sitting all night in the airport in vain.

So, I decided to head back into town and took in to a hostel described as a party place right next to copacabana beach. This was a good description, and I ended up having a great nigh out with some other backpackers and a few Brazilians working at the hostel. We first went out in Ipanema and then moved on to the trendy area of Lapa.

The next afternon I again left for the airport where I spent the night sleeping in some very comfortable metal chairs. At around 3 in the morning I got the great news that the flight was fully booked. I decided to sleep on the floor of the empty termminal and woke up in the morning with tons of people looking at me rather weirdly. As this was finally a monday, and travel agents and airlines were working again, I was able to call the airline and get a flight for Panama the following night. I spent the day having to go the Copa Airlines office to pay for my ticket, heading across town to the Air France office to change my ticket back home and slept on Copacabana beach. I then headed off for another fun night at Rios ariport.

When I arrive in Panama I have fond memories of my last taxi ride from that airport and decide to walk onto a highway and catch a 0.25 $ bus into town. Its around 40 degrees and the bus is so packed I can barely drag my backpacks along the floor of the bus. A weird 30 minutes follow however, that will make me wonder why I didnt spend more time in this friendly country the last time I was here.

First someone offers me their seat, which I eventually accept after they insist. Then a guy gives me the bus fare because I dont have any less change than 10 $. Next, the woman sitting next to me gives me a picture of her daughter living in the States. Im not sure what to do with it but I accept it along with a picture of the Virgen of Guadalupe. A little later a man sitting next to me takes off his neclace of rosary beeds which he insistes on giving to me, the most religious man on the bus. Finally, a young guy Ive been talking to gets off the bus with me and insists on helping me get a taxi to my hostel – which I have forgotten to get the adress to, I only have the name and remember its next to two huge hotels – for the non-gringo price. This is a land of contrasts however, as while im in my taxi, we drive by a car accident where the driver of the car, which has apparently crashed into a motor bike, sending the driver crashing into the windshileld, is now chasing the other man around the car with a huge knife.

I finally get to my hostel, which is a great source of information about these boat trips, which are highly irregular and not your typical tourist cruise. They are simply captains with their own boats making infrequent trips back and forth between Colombia and Panama.

You never really know what you get. The boat could hold anything from 4-20 people, and the horror stories you hear are almost to amazing to be believed. As we would find out, a lot of these captains are quite the characters, even the "safe" ones who are supposed to be quality checked by the hostel.

I have to wait for 4 days, not doing much except having a night out for Haloween. Before leaving I also have to get a new yellow fever shot as Ive lost my innoculation card, and this is absolutely neccesary when entering Brazil from a yellow fever country like Colombia. This beeing Central America Im hoping to be able to bribe my way past actually getting the shot. No such luck however, after trying at 3 different desks I end up having to have my second shot in 6 months, then get caught up in a rainstorm before having luch with a Panamanian girl who is sitting at my table at Burger King, stretching my Spanish skills past its limits.

I then sign up as crew on the 30 foot sail boat Tarona,

with a Swiss-Chileno guy named Ben,

a Japanese couple and a 60-year old Swedish captain Per,

who turns out to have a strong liking for cheap rum and young girls.

Our group left Panama City on the day of Panamas independence from Colombia and spent 5 hours in a crowded and very hot bus to the former pirate town of Portobello. We met our captain and got a free history lesson about the famous pirates who used to roam these waters, and who on numerous occasions sacked the town, stealing all the Spaniards’ newly stolen gold. From the surroundings, you could really picture pirates pounding the town with cannons from the bay.

After a 2 minute introduction, our group was having a beer, and the captain offered to delay our departure for a night so we could catch the festivities. It was a fun day, with lots of music and rum. As we were heading back to Tarona, in a dingy, we got our first view of our captains’ seamans skills. After a minute where he couldnt start the engine because he forgot to put the key in, he put the engine in wrong gear and ran straight in to another dingy. Half way out to the boat the engine actually fell off and was submerged in sea water. It was hooked to a cable so we didnt loose it, but it now stopped running. And, as there were no ores in the boat we had to use our hands to paddle back to shore and spend the night in a hostel.

In the morning we set sail for the San Blas Islands,

with me at the helm,

as we headed out of Portobellos natural harbour. Tarona had 3 beds, and to accompany this we all had to do alternating 2 hour watches at night. Having no sailing experience this was quite interesting, and we were at one point doing 360 degree circles, watching our autopilote go crazy. The following morning I woke up in paradise.

The most beautifull islands I think Ive ever seen, and inhabited by the Kuna Indians.

A tribe quite autonomous from Panana, who still live the way they always have and, where the majority of people still only speak the Kuna language.

We got to experience this culture in a truly unique way, visiting 4 islands, sailing in their amazing holed out canoes,

eating cold smoked fish, lobster and crab, and for me and Benny, spending a night in a hamock outside a Kuna hut on a tiny island with only 4 families.

We spent the night having some beers with an 18-year-old Kuna who spoke a bit of Spanish.

In total we spent 3 days on the islands before setting sail for Cartagena and Colombia, and 70 hours without seeing land.

We got to know a little bit about sailing, had our autopilote brake, our stabilizing sail (one out of two) rip in half in a rainstorm,

and had fun getting to know the crew which included a Japanaese chef who’d brought wasabi (couldnt catch a single tuna on the whole trip though!).

Our captain had one night getting just stupidly drunk, and another night getting dangerously drunk. After trying to pick up an 18-year-old Panamanian girl on one of the islands, he brought her and her mom back to our boat. Benny and I had to catch a ride with a cano back to the boat where we found our captain getting drunk on rum and coming on to both mother and daughter.

They really wanted to go back, and someone had to go along with the captain. As I could understand Swedish I was the lucky one. Going back we spent what seemed like an eternity with the engine slamming into the reef underneath us. The captain then tried to insist that we were on the wrong island and didnt want to let the woman off. We convinced him eventually and I then had to get into the water and walk the boat off the reef in the dark.

Going back we again hit the reef and trying to avoid this the captain actually started heading straight out to sea. I had to try and correct him and we ended up stranded on another reef off a nearby island. It was pitch black, and thats when the captain made the shocking admission, he didnt know where the sail boat was. I thought I had some sense of direction, and again had to walk us off the reef before we finally made it back to the boat.

At sea, alcohol wasnt as easily accesible and no more serious drunken episodes occured. We arrived in Cartagena harbour to a spectacular showing of expensive boats manned by people you dont ask what business are in.

Id always dreamt of sailing in the caribbean, and this, beat all my expectations for the sailing experience, the amazing San Blas Islands and last but not least, the crazy stories of our crazy Captain Per.

Tips oss hvis dette innlegget er upassende

Back in beautifull, but expensive and touristy Cartagena,

we spent two days getting used to being on land again, and had a big first night out, getting back – as sailors do.

We then caught the Miss Colombia pageant, before Ben and I headed up to Santa Marta.

Santa Marta is one of my favorite places, and it was fun returning after 5 months and beeing greeted by name at the local restaurant. We finally got some sun, and spent a night sleeping in hamocks

in Parque Tayrona. Beautifull deserted beaches

shrouded in dense jungle and accesible only via a two hour walk through mud and donkey shit, that reached half way up our calves.

We didn’t bring nearly enough money and survived on bread and mustard which we’d aquired a taste for during the boat trip from Panama. I left a day early and got caught up in a tropical rain storm on my two hour donkey shit-walk back.

My bus was then stopped by military police and I had to get up against the wall and spread´m.

After some days of beaches we left for Medellin, to have Saturday night there. We watched Colombia beat Venezuela on a huge screen in a park in the centre of the Zona Rosa before having a great night out. The next day we got on a night bus to Bogota,

where I was meeting up with Aidan and Doggie, who I’d met earlier on this trip and who were now living in the city with a good international group of friends.

I had a lot of fun in Bogota, hanging around with my friends, doing little touristy stuff,

and feeling almost like home.

We had some great nights out,

and one that didn’t end as great. Late on a Friday night three Colombian guys jumped me from out of the blue while I was standing alone outside of a club. It happened for noe apparent reason, I dont think they tried to rob me, and the scruffle left me with a cleft lip from my lower teeth and some bruised ribs before they ran off as quickly as they came. I still enjoyed the rest of the weekend partying before I had a flight on the Monday for Leticia, in the Colombian Amazon.

I was getting short on time and jumped on a hostel/boat trip package at the airport. My plan was to go on a river boat down the Amazon river for 4 days to Manaus in Brazil, and I knew the departures were quite infrequent. By overpaying for this package I fixed imigration formalities right away and had a ticket and a hamock two days later.

Leticia is an unremakble city that merges completetly with the Brazilian city of Tabatinga. There are no visible borders and you are free to come and go as you want. It turned out my hostel was on the Brazilian side, on a rather shady back street, still Ok for a day and a half.

On the wednesday I bordered the M/N Dom Manoe, a rusty Brazilian river boat (not as nice as this one which was more expensive and left a half hour before my boat left)

with three decks. The lower one for cargo – chickens, fruit and anything else anyone could think of bringing. The second one for hamocks, strung up to the point where you had to do a Mission Impossible crawl to find your way through it. And the third, a sun deck and bar where I would end up spending most of my time.

Before we embarked,

my hostel owner was nice enough to informe me that there was currently an outbreak of malaria on the river I was going down, and, dengue fever was always a risk, so; suerte – have a nice trip.

The boat holds about 200 passengers and it quickly turns out that except for 3 Italians, part of a hippie musical group, I am the only Gringo, and also the only English speaker on board. Having traveled with people for the past month, Im a bit fed up with the meeting new people thing as I’m nearing the end of my trip, and beeing the only Gringo means you get absolutely no attention what so ever on the boat.

So, my plan of sitting by myself with a book becomes quite a challenge. Everyone wants to speak to me, and I end up getting to know what seems like half the people on the boat. The conversations are ok with a few people who speak Spanish, but a lot of the Brazilians, who are from small Amazon villages speak a Portuguese that makes even the most basic conversation a struggle. This aside though, this is the real Brazil and real Brazilians (or Amazonians). With no roads, the rivers are the highways that people travel on, and I’ve chosen the cheapest and most crowded boat available.

You are warned well in advance that Amazonian travel is not for everyone. It’s extremely slow, the food is bland and cooked in river water, you have to fight for the best hamock space and the boats are insanely crowded. Never the less, that sounded like a fun experience to me… and it certainly was an experience

.

It’s amazing seeing the amazon snake its way through deep jungle, with small isolated settlements along the way. One of the most fascinating things to me is the color of the water. While I’d heard of the merging of the waters further down beetween rivers, it’s a mystery to me how you can have a stretch of say 500 meters of ¨black¨ water totally isolated and just laying there with ¨latte¨ colored water surrounding it. This happens all the way down the river and is a strange sight.

What also surprised me was the amount of drift wood. There are enormous trees floating around everywhere, and our Captain had to keep a constant lookout and manouver around the biggest ones. An intersting, and depressing thing, which I’ve witnessed all over the continent is unfortunately also prevelant here on the boat. People will litteraly stand next to a garbage can, and still, throw beer cans, plastic cups and bottles straight into the river – a sad sight. River dolphins follow us all along the way, unfortuantely they are anoyingly camera shy.

As I hang up my hamock for the first time I make sure its securely fastened to the roof before testing it. I dont, however, check that the ropes that came with it are securely fastended to the hamock, and they turn out not to be. A second later I’m on the floor with a very painfull tail bone. Im starting to wonder if I’ll need a wheelchair by the time I get home.

The first night I sleep rather uncomfortabely in what is effectively a triple bed, with a Brazilian girl on my left and an annoying Brazilian guy on my right who insists on spreading his legs and sleeping sideways, partly on me

As I’m going to bed the second night, more people have come on and I now have to sleep with my head under the end of the girls’ hamock, another person’s feet about 20 cm from my face also under the hamock, and another pair of feet gently scratching my neck and the back of my head. I give up, jump up angrily and take down my hamock and go looking for a better spot. I guess better is relative, but I end up finding a spot way at the back of the boat, where I string up right on the boats’ railing, and get to sleep alone while I view the starlit sky and the Amazon pass by.

The third night someone has decided to turn off all lights and there’s no way I can find my backpack, which is where my hamock used to be, and which contains my blanket. It’s quite windy here at the back of the boat, but I manage to roll myself in my hamock and catch some sleep. As I wake up the next morning I find out the great news that we’re not arriving in Manaus today as I think, the trip is actually 4 nights and 5 days! Great!

There are 3 basic meals a day. I never get up for breakfast, even though my new hamock spot is nicely situated about one meter from the urine stenched woman’s toilet and fausets, and takes up half the aisle, meaning I get bumped into about every 15 seconds, from about 6 every morning. At night I’m occasionally awakened by giant beetles that fly in to my hamock looking for the light above the toilet.

The other meals are typical Brazilian, rice and beans (which I really enjoy) and some type of fish or meat. Being somewhat of a celebrity on board, someone always comes and get me when it’s feeding time. The whole boat then lines up, and we take turns eating 10 and 10 at a time, while the rest wait and watch, in line.

After 5 days I’m a very happy man as we reach Manaus – a huge insdustrial town in the middle of the Amazon.

Did I enjoy it? – no, would I do it again? – no, and definately not alone, am I glad I did it? – hell yeah, what an experience to think back on when I’m at the senior citicens center 60 years from now.

I make another desperate attemt at heading for the airport without a ticket but have to go back and spend a night before I can get down to Rio the next morning. Manaus is completely dead on a Sunday, all shops are closed and there are no people in the streets. I spend the night trying out a local speciality – cacaa. A soup the same colour as the Amazon river, and I’m sure tasting like a sweetened version of it. It also contains some leaves, dried unpeeled shrimps and an absolutely disgusting lump of see-through gelly I have noe idea what is. This comes high up on my list of disgusting meals, and I decide this is a 5 Reais experience, not a meal, and go looking for a hamburger.

The next day I arrive in Rio and get the cheapest hotel I can find, which is not cheap. I’ve decided I’ve had enough of staying in dorm rooms and hostels on this trip so I go looking for an apartement, and two days later move into a nice little apartement for roughly the same price, right on Copacabana beach.

I’ve been having recurring stomach problems for some weeks now, and my last week in Rio it’s back (eating food cooked in Amazon water for 5 days might not have helped the situation), which means I’m not able to "do" Rio like I would have wanted to. Still, a good reason to go back in the future.

I see the major attractions of the Sugar Loaf

and Christ the redeemer

which is situated on a jungle-covered mountain with monkeys

and other animals, in the middle of the city, and spend a few hours trying to finally get a tan on Copacabana and nearby Ipanema Beach,

before my impatience (and wish for close proximity to a toilet) sees me returning to my apartement and my 70 TV channels.

So, seven and a half amazing months are over. I’ve visited 12 Latin American countries, spent countless hours in South American buses and met tons of great people from all over the world. It feels good to be going home right now, but I also know that I won’t need many weeks at home before the travel bug comes back to haunt me. And, hopefully, this won’t be my last trip.

Here is the route I’ve covered

Hasta Luego, South America… I’ll be back.

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Coming from Bolivia – the poorest country in South America, to Chile – the richest, and the town of San Pedro de Atacama (the biggest tourist trap in the country) sure was a big contrast. As we crossed the border we went from driving on no roads in crappy busses and cars, to driving on the most perfectly paved roads, litterally 50 meters from the border crossing.

San Pedro is a tiny dessert town of about 2000 people and about 3 times as may tourists. The town itself doesnt have many attractions but the surrounding area has many of the same natural wonders Id just witnessed in Bolivia.

The day we arrived happened to be Chiles Independence day and there was a big party going on for several days. I joined the Chileans from our group and had a fun night partying in an open air disco/restaurant with a camp fire in the middle.

I cant say I have been a huge fan of the Boivian cuisine, its not bad, just decent and cheap. In San pedro that all changed, with the juiciest stakes and even juicier prices.

Getting out of San Perdro and in to Argentina as was my plan, proved not to be as easy as Id thought – the next bus was leaving in three days. So I had to hang around trying not to spend to much money, which meant not doing much. I did try one fun activity though, when an Irish guy and a girl and I rented mountainbikes and went sandborading.

We had to pass through the valley of the moon and Death valley before arriving at an enormous sand dune in the Atacamas dessert.

Sandboarding turned out to be easier than it looked and a lot of fun.

Eventualy it was time for my departure to Salta Argentina. A really nice city the size of Oslo in northern Argentina. Driving there, the surroundings were scattered with Gaucho farms and the scenery reminded me of old western movies. I met an American girl on the bus and went to the hostel she had booked. We there ended up sharing a room with another american girl for a few days. The first night in Salta we went to a Peña that had live local music, and I had the best and juiciest steak of my entire life for USD 7. The rumours are true, the steakes in this country are absolutely fantastic and I instantly decided to up my food budget for Argentina.

In Salta I finally had the chance to experience white water rafting on a nearby river. The rapids werent crazy, with maksimum rapids of 3 on the scale but it was a fun introduction, considering I was almost killed doing tubing in too tough waters in Venezuela. The landscape surrounding the river was also spectacular. The continental plates can actualy be seen standing vertically, having been pushed up over the millenia and the walls surrounding the river are covered in giant fosils of algae painted in surreal colors from differet mineral deposits.

Crossing the continent from the pacific side to the atlantic, I had decided to pass quickly through Paraguay – an unlikely tourist destination. I made my way to the border via some tiny Argentinian towns, and was let off on a stretch of road in a town I wouldnt even call a town. I tried asking for buses to the border (my guide book had no info on this place) but the usual border town conspiracy of everyone knowing everyone, and everyone knowing youre a gringo without information, meant the local taxi driver quoted me a ridiculous price, and, when I tried to protest he just shrugged his shoulders (latin style, Ive aquired this skill myself now by the way) – which meant: are you going to the border, or staying here in no mans land. The answer was obvious, and a little later a happy taxi driver let an annoyed backpacker off at the border crossing.

I then shared a taxi with a local guy in to the capital of Paraguay, Asuncion.

Although a city of one million people, it still has a distinct small town feel in the city centre. I got a hotell right on one of the main park squares, which had been turned into a shanty town, and probably housed hundreds of people, living in homemade tents made of garbage bags. I went on a recomended walking tour of the centre, which was over in about 20 minutes, and left the following morning without seeing a single tourist.

My next stop would be one of the highlights of South American tourist destinations – Iguazu falls. Before heading there however, I had decided to make a quick stop in the Paraguayan border town of Ciudad del Este. This small town is not on most travelers itinererary. But a city known as the most corrupt town in South america, and which a book I read a few years ago described as the place where international terrorism and international organized crime meets, is an irresistable attraction to any huge fan of mafia books and movies.

So, getting in to the terminal, I hopped on a local bus – one of the worst Ive seen in this continent – into town. It turned out I had already seen the city centre, but, it beeing so small, I assumed there would be more. I therefore remained on the bus for about 45 minutes as we ventured further and further into more and more dodgier areas of the citys outskirts. Then the amazing thing happens, out of the blue, a bullet comes flying through the front windshield, missing the bus driver and passing straight through the bus down the centre aisle. I wanted to see this place for a reason, and it turned out I here got more than Id bargained for. I now wanted to just remain on the bus, assuming it would return to the terminal, but I was not to be so lucky. About 5 minutes after the shooting, the bus came to a stop and the bus driver told me this was the end, and, there were no other buses or taxis in sight, as I was way out in a rather deserted neighbourhood with no street lights, and it had just gotten dark. A big guy with a limp and a big shot gun came over and talked to me for a while and I eventually understood what the bus driver had been trying to tell me. If I waited for about a half an hour, he would give me a lift in his pick-up truck, into town. I was very happy with this solution, waited, then stopped by his friends house where we delivered a used refrigerator before he let me off in town. I then jumped straight in a taxi for the border, and soon after was let off at a hotel that was fully booked, in the Brazilian resort city of Foz de Iguazu.

I walked around for about 30 minutes with my backpacks, but every hotel was either fully booked, or really expensive. Eventually i settled for a 30 $ a night hotel, turned my TV on and had a shower. Then three 18-year old girls whod seen me in reception checking in called me, came to my room and we went for a walk, and I was given my first lessons in Portuguese, via my now semi-functional Spanish.

The following day I went to the Brazilian side of the falls which were amazingly beatifull.

It made me think what people who discover a place like this must think. Im thinking religious thoughts (ok, not really), because the sight is just to beatifull to be made by nature. Later in the day I crossed into Argentina and the much nicer little town of Puerto Iguazu, and the following day went to the Argentinian side of the falls – which were, if you can believe it, even more spectacular. I went on a boat trip into one of the falls getting soaking wet, and went to the best viewing point, litterally in the Devils throat, the biggest fall of them all.

I then hopped on a bus to the nice little imigrant town of Posadas. I stayed for two days and went for a day trip across the border to Paraguay to see the ruins of one of the biggest Jesuit mission stations, at Trinidad, one of the least visited Unesco sites in the world.

Getting to the mission station was hard enough, via local buses that let me off on a deserted highway. The only real clue to where the misson was, was a sign to a hotel Missiones. This was right, and I strolled around with the site to myself listening to the theme music from the movie the Misson which I incidentally had on my mp3-player. Getting back would proove even harder, as I had to sit by the highway for 2 hours before a bus finally came by, heading for the border town of Encarnación. Moving a distance of around 60 kilometers, and seing the sight for about an hour actually took me around 10 hours, makes you wonder why not more people visit.

It was then time for Buenos Aires, a city I was looking forward to seeing. I checked in to a great hostel, had no idea how long i was staying, but in the end ended up staying about two weeks, and changing rooms 6 times because of my inability to decide and make a reservation.

I met a great group of people and checked out the legendary night life of the city

which was great although it mainly had electronic music, which Im not a big fan of. My first Sunday in BA the superclasico was being played, Boca vs River, one of the biggest derby matches in world football. We went to River stadium and were seated in the section next to the Boca fans.

Underneath the Boca fans were a big faction of River fans, and when river were up 2-0 well in to the second half, the Boca fans went crazy, ripping off about 500 seats and throwing them down on the fleeing river fans. An absolutely amazing football experience.

I also went on a city tour, saw the veranda where Evita famously stood,

and lived right next to the famous Obelisk landmark.

I decided to stay for another match the following sunday, when Argentina was playing Chile. There is a great rivalry between these two countries, and again we were in a great position to see it. We were seated at the back of the Argentina section, with the Chile fans seated 3 meters above and behind us, a great place to witess some of the most creative personal abuse Ive ever heard in a football stadium.

In additon, seing Lionel Messi play live in Bueons Aires is something Ill never forget, it really wouldnt surprise me if 15 years from now he’ll be near the legendary status bestowed upon Diego Maradona, and I saw him help beat Chile 2-0 in a fantastic match with goals from two Riquelme free kicks.

On my first walking trip I decided to head over to the Boca area of the city, this is the working class area and its strongly recomended to stick strictly to the main tourist street – the camineta – which is nothing like the rest of the area.

I knew walking there that there was supposed to be a tourist street, but I was curious about how to find it. Well, it turned out I had walked through almost the entire La Boca neighbourhood, and had sat down for some pizza, before I realised it was on a map I had and on the opposite side of the area. I walked over, looked at the tango shows going on in the streets, and trying to get back without passing back through it, ended up walking straight back into La Boca because of some confusingly winding streets.

By the Boca football stadium,

I bumped into a spanish "tourist" who I ended up walking with for about an hour or two into safer areas of the city. This is a common occurence when youre traveling by yourself, and I thought it was fun to practice my Spanish. We decided to get a taxi to Parlermo, another part of town famous for its cafees and night life. We then went and got a beer and played some pool, probably around 5 in the afternoon by now. After one beer, I remember standing up and thinking, wow, I am really drunk from that one beer. Then everything went black, for what turns out to be about 6 hours, and my next image of recolection is beeing in a taxi, without my day pack, camera and money. Turns out my new Spanish friend was Argentinian after all, and quite a skillfull mugger. No injuries though, except for an amazing hangover, I actually still felt drugged until early afternoon the next day. I guess some times it pays off to listen to the tourist advice.

I really felt like getting out of Buenos Aires after the second game.

Even though I enjoy myself, I dont like getting stuck for too long in a place and I now wanted to catch a ferry to Uruguay. Because of a holiday weekend however, I couldnt get out of the city for 2 more days, but finally on the Tuesday I was on my way to Colonia de Sacramento in the afternoon, after first oversleping after my newly purchased alarm clock failed on its first attempt at doing a job.

After a 2 hour boat ride, I arrived in Uruguay, utterly confused because I couldnt find an imigration office. I finally understood that both the Argentinan and Uruguayan offices had been two counters about a meter apart on the Argentininan side and wentured on into one of the nicest colonial cities Ive ever seen. My 3 year old guide book said how amazing it was that such a gem hadnt been discovered by tourists yet, and I trust the new update has removed that bit, because it was now extremely touristy – hardly any locals around – and pricy.

I watched a beatifull sunset,

and moved on to Uruguays capital, Montevideo the next morning.

Although an interesting mix of old and new – horse drawn carts are still widely seen in the street – I didnt feel like sticking around for too long in another big city after spending over two weeks in BA, and after a day of sightseeing (not a lot of sights really) and a night in a bar I left again the next morning for South Americas version of St. Tropez – Punta del Este.

A peninsula of high rises and fancy designer shops, this was not a place I had planned on hanging around for too long. And after spending a day on the beach, I fell asleep at around 7 in the evening and never went out to see the jet set night life.

The next morning I left for the small beach town of Paloma.

A good way off the beaten track, and with no map in my guide book, I started asking around for a hotel. A friendly English speaking local gave me 3 options, but warned me they might be closed, as the season hadnt started yet. He was very right, they were in fact all closed and the place was dead, so I decided to get an onward ticket and make Paloma a day trip.

In the evening I arrived in the small fishing village of Punta del Diablo as dusk was setting in. This for once was a village that was rightly described as a fishing village (it has not been turned into a tourist village, yet),

the main street made of sand, and the entire city quiet on a friday night.

The Atlantic ocean blows fierce winds onto this devils’ point, and I decided there was no way I would attempt to surf in these freezing waters. There was one restaurant open, and I had a nice sea food dinner here while three locals played traditional folk songs, with the singer, an Ernest Hemigway lookalike, approached each table in a friendly gesture with an axe!, asking for permission to keep singing, which was naturally granted by all the 4 other tables.

The next moming I left for brazil. On the way, it struck me as funny how few peoples live up to their stereotypical cultural image as the Uruguayans. Mate is a popluar drink in the Gaucho region, spanning several countries, but, in Uruguay it seemed like 9 out of 10 people were carrying a thermos of hot water, and even carrying it in a very characteristic way, probably instilled from childhood, to keep refilling their cup of bitter, herbal mate.

I arrived in the border town of Chuy, which grows naturally into Brazil with no apparent border. After spending a couple of hours chatting to a local guy over lunch, I was told you could just walk across the border. As it would turn out this was right, you could in fact walk across the BORDER, but after a 4km walk with my two backpacks I arived at the imigration office knowing I hadnt comunicated my wish to actually leave the country well enough. As it turnd out, the next town on the brazilian side of the border was 24 km away, definately not walking distance. I spent a couple of hours at the border, befriending the local police and customs officers before they hailed down a bus for me and actually got me a free ride into the nearest Brazilian town.

Tips oss hvis dette innlegget er upassende

After spending time in touristy and pricy Peru, I now arrived in Copacabana (far from the hottest spot north of Havana) on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca. Bolivia is the poorest country

in the region and hence also the cheapest. I had therefore planned to do a few activities here that can also be done in several of the neighbouring countries.

Copacabana is a tiny town without major attractions, but it is the jumping off point for seeing the islands on the Bolivian side of the lake. As we arrived the entire city was cut off from electricity, a fitting welcome to Bolivia.

I met 3 travelers on the bus from Puno that I would end up traveling with for a while. We all signed up for a day on the lake to visit La Isla del Sol, a major site in Inca history and according to Inca lore, the place where the sun and moon were born, at the Rock of the Puma (Titicaca).

The island itself is a rocky, barren island covered in Inca terrasing. It has some unremarcable ruins, and the famous rock of the Puma, which, if you really want it to, looks like a puma.

From Copa we headed on to the de facto (but not constitutional) capital of the country, La Paz – the highest capital in the world at 3897 meters.

We got a pretty decent hotel in the centre for $ 2.50 a night and I started a legendary shopping spree that I had planned, the highligt of which was approximately 150 DVD movies making their way towards Norway by boat at the moment, disguised as CDs with photos, to hopefully make their way past Norwegian customs.

From La Paz we went on day trips to the Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley), a weird formation of what looked like hardenend mud officially called badlands with a view of the Devils tooth,

and to the major ruin site in Bolivia, the pre-Incan capital of Tiahuanacu, still beeing excavated when we visited the site.

We also went to a nearby museum, where it for some reason was forbidden to take photographs. After some conspiratorical waiwing and a quick round of bargaining I was however allowed to take this picture

after bribing the guard with about 60 cents. We also visited a very interesting coca museum in the city.

One of the things Id been looking forward to the most was also a day trip away from La Paz, mountainbiking down the worlds most dangerous road – The Deat Road.

This 69 kilometer stretch of road

starts at a freezing 4700 meters and descends along a narrow dirt road flanked by 400 meter high cliffs

to a tropical 330 meters. Famed for having around 300 deaths a year, the road is now only used for biking, and has seen 11 bikers die in the 10 years the mountainbiking tours have been available.

We got into our fancy gear and went down the first part of paved road in heavy snow – freezing. We then continued on to the actual Death Road, made of gravel. It was a very foggy day and we couldnt see the bottom of the canyon below us. I for some reason felt quite confident after a while on the bike and decided to try to stay close on the guide´s tail. He told me we were doing maksimum speeds of around 55-60 km/h and after having just passed another tour group the amazing thing happended – my back brake went out!

For a few moments as I tried braking in vain I really dont know what went through my head except amazement. Luckily, I was on a straight stretch of road and was able to slowly stop using my front brake. I dont even want to think about what could have happened if that brake had gone out in an outside curve. The guide replaced the brake, I got my confidence back and finished the road, at one point not making an inside curve and doing about 20 meters down in a narrow ditch. Truly one of the most excilarating experiences of my life.

We then went to a nearby hotel to recuperate, and amazingly, an American guy named Randy got electrocuted in the shower and knocked to the ground, the entire shower exploding and falling off the wall. Jessica from Guernsey and I then left our group to spend a night in Coroico, from where we would head on to the Amazon the next day. The time for accidents was not over on this day however, as Jessicas backpack fell off the roof of the car going to Coroica, never to be found again.

The next morning we embarked on what is apparently known as on of the top 5 worst bus rides in the world, and rightly so.

18 hours, in a crappy Bolivian bus going on dirt roads – a part of it the actual Death Road – is not a pleasant experience. I didnt sleep a second, and our bus also broke down for a couple of hours.

We arrived in Rurrenabaqe in the Amazon,

a tiny frontier town that lives exclusively from arranging jungle and pampas tours, at 4 in the morning and I signed up for a 2 day jungle tour the next day.

We went up the river

for a few hours before arriving at a smal camp site, with some basic accomodation.

We then went on a walk in the jungle where our guide explained all the medicinal qualities of the various plants – really nature´s own farmacy. We saw some amazing parrots, fire and leaf cutter ants, poisonous spiders, termites, a walking tree!, colorfull butterflies

and Tarzan vines.

We then went for a swim in the river,

before going on a two hour walk at night. As we were following a shallow river we detected the tracks of a tapir and followed these. A little further up the river we amazingly encountered one of the most elusive animals of the jungle – the jaguar! We first saw it about 30 meters up river, its eyes glowing from the light from our torches. It then disappeared, and reappeared about 15 meters from us, where it watched us for about one minute, occasionally growling, before suddenly disappearing again. We all felt truly lucky, beeing among the very few people to see a jaguar in the wild.

As I got back to Rurre, I signed up for a rafting trip. To be fair to the agency, it never said white water rafting, and had nothing in common with what is normally considered rafting. I went alone with a guide, and spent the day padling down the slow river

before visiting the guide´s family and getting a tour of their small farm.

I then decided that I would fly back to La Paz. One time on that bus was enough and I arrived at the smallest air port I have ever seen, pretty much a grassy field with a small house.

I then boarded the 14-seater plane for a bumpy 45 minute flight back to La Paz.

Having done my usual amount of planning, I didnt bring shoes, socks, pants or long sleeves on the jungle tour (because the jungle is hot). What I didnt think of is the fact that the jungle also has a few bugs, actually an enormous amount of bugs that all found the one person not wearing shoes or long sleeves. This, combined with swimming in an amazonian river resulted in some seriously swollen and infected feet, that I was told could potentially lead to blood poisoning. I therefore went to the doctor and got a shot that nummed my right butt cheek for about 12 hours and had to spend a few days resting in La Paz, before I was ready to do a mountain climb.

I went on a double bender during the weekend and was seriously hung over on the Sunday when I signed up to climb Huayana Potosi the next day.

I would meet up with 3 Israeli guys at the high camp (at 5200 meters), who had spent an extra day getting used to the altitude and trying out ice climbing for the first time.

The climb from base camp to high camp

was easy enough and tok about 2,5 hours. We would then spend about 12 hours there to aclimatise before heading for the summit

at around one o´clock in the morning. Sleeping was not easy, and strong winds meant our departure was delaied for an hour. The weather really cleared up though and we got ready to go for the summit under a beatifull star lit sky. As we got into our climbing gear

I again had some problems with my equipment, my head light didnt work, and there was no spare. Not to worry, this is Bolivia and no one´s really concerned with safety measures so it was decided that I would go without a light, but I would be in the middle of a rope line of three people, with the person in front and behind me supposedly lighting up my path.

This worked satisfactoraly, and we started on our very steady and slow walk – each step taking maybe 3-4 seconds – to the summit, that would last about 6 hours. One of the Israeli guys had problems with the altitude and had to return to high camp after about 20 minutes. The rest of us continued towards the summit, in freezing cold in what is one of the hardest things I have ever done. As we were approaching the top the sun was rising and we had a beatifull view of the surrounding mountains.

The top of Huayana Potosi is covered by a glazier

and we crossed several crevaces on our way.

The final 200 meter elevation to the summit is a 70 degree wall of ice and snow – my first taste of ice climbing.

At this altitude the oxygen level is about half of what it is at sea level, and the effect this has on your body when doing physical exercise is amazing. While climbing up this final wall, which I seriously thought I would never see the end of, we needed to rest with every 2-3 steps.

We finally reached the summit

at 6088 meters (24 feet short of the magical 20.000 feet barrier) and could enjoy the view and our wonderfull feeling of accomplishment for about 10 minutes, before going for the descent – which actually looked terrifying from the top.

Exhausted, we stumbled down the mountain, falling over several times and reached the high camp about 11 hours after leaving it. I was thinking at the time that Ill never climb another high mountain again, but a real nice room, a bathtub and a bottle of Jack Daniels later, I was feeling pretty good about myself and was thinking about climbing more mountains.

I was now gonna leave La Paz for Potosi. With 20 minutes till my 12 hour night bus was to leave, as I went to get my backpack, I felt a rumbling that is not uncommon in Bolivia. I then sat down and started singing a song to myself.

Should I stay or should I go now?

Should I stay or should I go now?

Diarrhea let me know now!

Should I stay or should I go now?

Diarrhea let me know…

$20 bus ticket says you go!

So I left La Paz for Potosi, the highest city in the world at 4090 meters. Potosi was at one time the richest city in the world and in the 17th century bigger than New York and Paris. Its wealth stemmed from the nearby Cerro Rico

(Rich Mountain) which contains enormous amounts of minerals and is still actively mined today.

During 4 centuries of mining around 8 million people have died from working in the mines which contain large visible quanteties of asbestos and cyanide. The average life expectancy for a miner today is around 15 years from they start working, and there are currently around 15.000 miners, 2000 of whom are kids from 10-12 years of age.

Unlike most mine tours which take you on a museum-like tour, the Potosi tour brings you into the actual working enviroment of the mines, and this is no doubt one of the harshest working environments in the world, having been manned by slaves for centuries.

We changed into our mining gear and went shopping for gifts for the miners – coca leaves, 96% alcohol, soft drinks and dynamite! In Potosi, everyone can by as much dynamite as they want from small street vendors. This can have dramatic effects as our guide told us, as some 18 year-old English guys blew up a hostel in Uyuni a few months ago.

We went for a look at the midevil looking refinery plant

which spews enormous amounts of toxic waste into a nearby river and then went into the mine. Terribly hot and humid, dusty and cramped, we had to crawl on our hands and knees as we descended for several kilometers and 40 meters down into the earth. It was seriously unpleasant and I was really happy to get out after around two hours down there, I cant even imagine what it must be like to work down there. When we got out we decided to blow up some dynamite for fun, and holding a homemade bomb with a lit fuse sure is a lot of fun.

Sticking with Bolivian security measures our guide thought he would have some fun with us. The girls in our group would go with the guide through an easy tunnel, while the guys would go alone through another more difficult tunnel. We got the directions; straight, over the barrier, down the 7 meter shaft, left etc. We managed the part that required no thinking, but at the first choice of right/left we took a wrong turn and were met 50 meter down the tunnel by a running and screaming miner which meant a 1000 kilo trolley of rocks was heading our way fast.

We quickly turned around and made a run for it and managed to find a hiding space to let the trolley pass, and also caught up with our guide who was frantically looking for us.

I then hopped on another crappy bus, this time getting a seat next to the driver and arrived in Uyuni 10 hours later at 4 in the morning. The door bell at the hotel wasnt working so I started pounding on the door and ended up waking up half the hotel. I then slept for a few hours before signing up for a 3 day tour of the Uyuni salt flats.

The Uyuni area really has some of the most spectacular scenery Ive ever seen. The colors created by the rich mineral deposits really makes it look like a scene from another planet.

We went to the worlds biggest salt flats,

some amazing lagoons filled with flamingos,

hot springs and geysirs,

and I had my first taste of llama.

There was really no way to do these scenes justice with my camera.

The last night our group of 15 were enjoying some Bolivian wine, when alot of portuguese/Spanish songs were sung. Someone then had the idea that everyone should contribute with something from their country, and me beeing the only solo person from a country I was expected to give a recital of some classic Norwegian music.

I proceeded to explain the lyrics, in my best Spanish, and then stood up and did the first verse alone. Amazingly the entire table picked up on the lyrics after one recital and joined in for the second verse (identical). The song I chose goes as follows:

Oel, oel og mere oel (sung very slowly)

Oel, oel, oel, oel, oel, oel, oel, oel, oel, (sung very fast)

This translates roughly as

Beer, beer and more beer…

Beer etc…

The norwegian pronounciaton of this song is apparently quite funny to non-Norwegian speakers, and Norwegian music is now held in high regard by people from Portugal, Brazil, Spain, Holland and England.

The salt flats tour then ended in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile – in every sense a whole different country.

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So after 38 hours in busses and bus stations I arrived in the Mariscal area of Lima at around 9 o´clock in the evening. I really wanted to get a private room to get a decent night´s sleep and ended up overpaying for a private room at the first hostal I checked out, but only after an unsuccesfull 20 minute walk looking for something cheaper.

I felt I had gotten stuck a little bit to much in some places and I now wanted to speed up my traveling for a while. So after a good night´s sleep I headed out for a super quick look at Lima. I went to the National Museum which had some very nice excibits from Inca and pre-incan civilisations.

I then headed downtown looking for the museum of the Peruvian inquisition. This would prove not to be easy, as the entire area was blocked by police. I manged to talk my way past the first line of defence and encountered the Bolivian President Evo Morales arriving to the Peruvian Parliament building about 15 meters away from me. Then I actually managed to get past defence line number two (guess my Spanish must be improving) and into the museum. The museum was for natural reasons completely empty, and I ended up getting an ex-lawyer as a personal guide and a fascinating tour of the museum.

The next stop on my Blitz tour of Lima was the catacombes of the monastery of San Fransisco, containing the remains of some 70.000 people, whose bones are somewhat morbidly arranged in cases after bodyparts. I then went for a quick wakling tour of the city centre which contains a lot of nice colonial arcitechture and two very nice plazas.

My Lima tours was over and I continued on my quick tour of northern/central Peru by heading down to Pisco.

I spent the night and in the morning went on a day trip to the Paracas National reserve

and the Balistas islands

with and American and Canadian couple. Known mockingly as the poor mans Galapagos the area contains millions of seabirds,

tons of guano, sea lions,

flamingos, penguins

and Pelicans.

As I have a big fear of freezing I sported thermo underwear from head to toe. Quite suitable for the boat ride, not quite as suitable for when we later in the day went to the dessert.

In the night I also kept myself warm drinking the local drink of the area – the Pisco Sour.

Next stop on my itinererary was Nazca, and the famous Nazca lines. I again spent the night, this time finding time to check out the local night life, before deciding that 50 USD was to much for a 20 mintue flight over the lines. I opted for a 1 USD roundtrip ticket to a local mirador

– where you could see three of the figures – in stead,

and then went to a local museum that told the history of the Nazca culture.

I then hopped on a night bus to Cusco, tourist capital of the continent and starting point for the Inca trail and other treks leading to what is for many the highlight of a trip to South America – Machu Pichu – the Lost City of the Incas.

Cusco

is a fascinating place, at the moment an extremely touristy place with vibrant night life every night of the week, yet at the same time, as the former capital of the Inca Empire it contains a lot of original inca buildings and ruins, and the surrounding area is scattered with ruins that would any other place be the major attraction a country has to offer.

Here however, everything bleakens in comparison to Machu Pichu.

Getting on the Inca Trail is virtually impossible unless you book months in advance, and as planning isn´t my strongest trait that obviously wasn´t an option. I really wanted to do a trek though, and opted for the 5 day, 4 night Salcantay trek that takes you to a maksimum altitude of 4600 meters and covers 69 kilometers. I ended up with a very nice group of 8 people, all of us coming from different countries.

It would prove to be a wonderfull trek taking us through high mountain passes underneath glaciers,

through valleys covered in cloud forests and sub-tropical jungle and camping in temperatures ranging from freezing to nice and temperate

The last part of the trek followed an old Inca trail that today is covered by railroad tracks, still trafficked by trains going to Machu Pichu.

The third day we stopped by some hot springs, a welcoming experience after 3 days of sweating.

The fourth night we spent in the small town of Aguas Calientes, where we could enjoy the luxury of a bed and a bathroom with hot showers.

Our original plan was to get up at round 4 in the morning and walk up the 400 meter or so climb to Machu Pichu to see the sun rise. Beeing back in civilacaton after 4 days we´d all gone out for a bit of a party the night before however, and we were awakened with rain pouring down. My Israeli room/tent mate Omer and I decided to sleep a bit longer and get the bus up, thinking wed all agreed to do the same. A bit of miscomunication however, meant that everyone was suddenly going, and we were still in bed. We decided we couldnt be any worse than them and jumped out of bed, packed and started to run, about 20 minutes late, trying to catch up. Still a bit drunk, having slept about 2-3 hours, that jog straight up the mountain in pouring rain in the middle of the night is not among my most pleasant experiences on this trip. Near the top we did catch up however,

and we made it to the top for the sun rise that was never to be. Seeing the city shrouded in clouds might be a just as memorable experience however, giving a real mystical air to the place.

Our guide then gave us a tour of the site before we were left free to roam by ourselfes. Melora from England, Melanie from Germany and I went up to the most picturesque end of the site and laid down for a two hour nap. One of the best places ive ever taken a nap, with the sun by this time warming the place up to a comfortable temperature.

We then took the train back to Cusco for a good nights sleep. The following morning Omer and I went for a lovely and painfull massage before we indulged in a few days of Cuscos nightlife – to recover from 4 days out of civilisation.

4 of us from the trek then went out for dinner,

and I had my first taste of Guinea pig, a local specialty.

I have to say the taste of the meat wasnt bad at all but nowhere near as good as alpaca steak which is delicious. There wasnt much meat on the tiny rodent however, and I have to admit the sick? thrill of eating what is a common pet back in norway was the highlight of the meal for me.

While in Cusco I also experienced my first real earthquake. Measuring 8.0 on the Richter scale this was a serious quake that left hundreds og dead, and thousands of people homeless. I felt a very clear tremor for about thirty seconds, but there was no drama in the city. It was however weird to find out a day later how serious the quake had been further north in the country, with the city of Pisco which Id visited a little over a week earlier having about 80% of its buildings flattended, and several hundred deaths.

Peru has an interesting cuisine, and aslo some interesting drinks. In addition to the Pisco Sour, they have the Chicha – a corn bear where the fermentation process is started with the chewing of corn, the Inca Cola – a fluorescent yellow bubblegum flavoured soft drink

which has surprisingly become quite a favorite of mine and not to mention Coca te – simply hot water and the leaves of the Coca plant – the main ingredient in cocaine.

The drinking of Coca te, and the chewing of Coca leaves is done by everyone in Peru and Bolivia, the only to countries where the growing of the plant is legal, for it´s postitive qualities in preventing altitude sickness, a not uncommon problem at altitudes above 2500 meters, with Cucso situated at around 3400.

After a few days of partying, and a day trip to the nearby Sacret Valley of the Incas- which contained some amazing ruins

that would, if not seen with Machu Pichu fresh in mind, have been even more amazing – I got a night bus to Arequipa. This 10 hour night bus trip would turn out to be a bus trip from hell, with the temperature inside the bus dropping to a riducolous 7 degrees celsius (and yes, there was a thermometer where you could enjoy seeing the place get colder and colder by the minute).

I arrived in Arequipa feeling quite sick with flu symptoms, the start of around two weeks of coughing and the like. On the day I arrived I went to a museum to see Juanita, a frozen Inca child mummy that was sacrificed to the Gods, and found on the top of a nearby volcano a few years ago. She is remarcably well preserved by the ice, and was anly discovered when the eruption of a neighboring volcano melted the glacier on the mountaion top she had been sacrificed on. I then signed up for a 2 day trip to the nearby Colca Canyon – until recently regarded as the deepest canyon in the world

when it was discovered that a nearby canyon is slightly deeper. The canyon is a fascinating place, 3269 meters deep, having been inhabited for centuries by Cetchua and Aymara speaking peoples. We spent the night in the main city, visting som hot springs before heading for a short trek to see a local family of condors that nest in the canyon. The condor is extinct in many parts of the Andes, and it was a special sight to see these enormous birds with a wingspan of up to three meters flote on hot air currents no more than 15-20 meteres above us.

I then left Arequipa, sick, for Puno, a small town on the shores of Lake Titicaca – the highest navigable lake in the world, whatever that means.

Lake Titicaca is enormous, when youre on it it actually feels like an ocean, and you can see the sun set into the horizon at night.

I went on a boat trip to see the unique floating islands of the Uro people. Having lived the same way for centuries, they use the reeds that grow in the lake for everything, from building the actual islands they live on, to building boats,

huts and food.

We then went on to Isla Taquile

in what must certainly be the slowest boat on the lake. Had I known Id be spending about 7 hours in a boat in stead of on islands I would have skipped this last island. It had some great views however, and a Spanish guy and I actually managed to invite ourselves in to a local wedding taking place.

Here we were invited to sample some very strong local brew by the amazingly drunk father of the groom, who suggested we should help contribute to the marrying couples dream of going to Paris by pinning som money bills on their clothing.

Peru had been a highlight of my trip so far, and I now headed on to the other side of lake Titicaca, to Bolivia.

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Johan and I started on our 15 hour journey to Santa Marta and had a stopover at 4 in the morning in Venezuelas oil capital – Maracaibo. We were lucky enough to get the ridiculous gringo price for the next leg which meant my cash funds were severly stretched (my ATM cards werent working here for some reason) and I ended up not being able to pay the exit tax at the border! Luckily, I had a 15 Euro reserve and managed to find another tourist who was kind enough to exchange it with me so I could leave the country. 17 security checks and 3 baggage checks later we were in the seaside town of Santa Marta.

Santa Marta supposedly has the cheapest PADI diver sertification in the world, and Ive been wanting to do this for years but have always put it off because of my "take off mask under water"-phopia. Well, after a few beers we went into a dive shop and Johan was very keen on just signing up for the next day. I wanted to put it off as usual, but I said sure and signed up.

The next morning, after about 3 hours of sleep we sat down for our first lecture, a video. I could feel my pulse excelerating but told myself everything would be better as soon as I just got in the water… not true, it turns out watching people do exercises on TV is a lot better than actually doing them yourself. I concentrated on my own thing (breathing) while the others did the exercises. It was then time for our first dive, only 5 meters said the intructor…. yeah right. We ended up at 12 meters,

and it was absolutely amazing. Never experienced anything like it, like flying, on a different planet with huge brain corall,

morae eels and colorfull fish.

We had a break and did a second dive to 40 feet. I had some thoughts about what would happen if I would need any of the excercises but quickly had to put that out of my head or my urge to ascend would have gotten the better of me.

Really an amazing day, but I was dreading the next few days of exercises.

When we got back to out hotel I quickly saw that something was wrong – our room had been burglared! And, my ATM cards, cell phone, memory stick and all other documents except my passport was gone. Luckily, I had been traveling with Johan for a while and he functioned as my bank for a few days until I could arrange a money transfer. I did however take the opportunity to use the burglary as an excuse to chicken out of the PADI course. It calmed my nerves a lot for the moment, but hopefully I will be doing more diving some time in the future.

From Santa Marta I visited a nice little former fishing village, now a 100 % tourist village, set in a horse shoe shaped bay, called Taganga. I also went to one of the most beatifull beaches Ive ever seen, with lush tropical jungel covering the mountain sides around it, in the Tayrona national park.

I also celebrated my birthday here. Johan and I were drinking rum and decided to continue our pre-party at the roof terrace of our hotel. There we encountered another birthday party, 3 colombian guys and a girl celebrating one of the guys. Us two birthday boys then got the customary Colombian birthday treatment of beeing showered in Maizena flour – a birthday to remember.

We then went out to find that every bar was closed on Mondays, and ended up in what can only be described as a very shady establishment that filled our most important requirement of selling beer…

Santa Marta is the starting point for the 6 day trek to Ciudad Perdida – the lost city - set in dense jungel. I had signed up for the trip, but a day before we were set to take off, I got violent food poisoning. It had me thinking back to my amoeba experience in the Philipines 10 years earlier which sent me to the hospital for 2 days. I certainly understand now that the human body consists of a large amount of liquid, and that mine now had a very different ratio of liquid to solid material. I had 12 terrible hours, and after that actually managed to sleep for two days straight only interupted by sitting up to drink. At this time Johan left for Equador, and I spent the rest of my time in Santa Marta with Colombians - a fun experience. I didnt have the guts to set off for 6 days in the jungle with my recent stomach experience and a few days later I was off for the tourist captial of Colombia - Cartagena.

Cartagena is among the most beautifull Spanish colonial cities I have seen. Its old city is set behind a fortified wall

to protect the Spanish gold from the pirates of the Caribbean some centuries ago. Here I bumped into a couple of Australians Id met in Santa Marta and also met two American girls in the street I would end up rooming with. I spent a few days walking the streets and enjoying the views of this beautifull city.

We then met a group of two Israelis and an American guy. The six of us the went to a volcano

(not really sure how natural that vulcano was) where you could bathe in a natural mud bath – in the volcano!

A really unique experience. From the look of it you would think you would drown like in quick sand, but instead you float perfectly in the mud, and even receive a massage.

The next day we left for a night at the beautifull beach of Playa Blanca.

Totally deserted, we had almost the entire beach to ourselves. There was no electricity, and at night we lit a bonfire and slept in rows of hammocks. Truly a beach heaven!

I then left for Medellin, possibly the most developed city in South America.

It used to be famed for being the cocaine capital of the world, and probably still is, but its even bigger claim to fame these days is as the silicon capital of the world – a very true claim. The city doesnt have much to offer travelers except supposedly the best night life in Colombia. Unfortunately I received the bad news that I had failed my final excam on my first day in the city, which took away some of my party mood for a few days. I went for a look downtown and encountered a huge demonstration against the FARC guerilla, who had days earlier excecuted 11 politicians theyd captured two years ago. A small reminder that Colombia is still Colombia. I then checked out the nightlife but decided I wasnt in the mood for a prolonged party in this place and decided to move on. Surprisingly I bumped into Johan on my first night out. His first stop to Equador had been Medellin, and unlike me, he was in a very good party mood and had ended up staying for over two weeks. We now decided enough was enough and left for a 30 hours bus ride to Equador.

The scale for crazy driving keeps on getting expanded and as usual, we had a nutcase driving us. The scenery on the way to the border is some of the most spectacular Ive ever seen, with winding roads traversing high mountain cliffs and valleys. The southern part of the country is also official guerilla country. Somewhat of a frightening thought, but we trusted the info in the guide book that said that they operated like police and would only check our documents if we encountered them.

Right on the border lies one of the most picturesque places Ive ever seen - a gothic cathedral set in a deep gorge above a river – like taken out of a fairytale.

We went for a quick look before crossing the border.

We had no problems at the border and came in late at night to the small mountain town of Otavalo situated at 3000 meters in the Equadoran Andes.

The contrast from Medellin could not have been greater. From a European style city filled with blond people we now found ourselves in a small Andean moutain village where all the locals had a distinct Indian look.

The main attraction of the city is its large handicrafts market, and Johan and I did some shopping including some nice alpakka sweathers that were sorely needed at this altitud.

The surrounding area also has superb hiking opportunities and we went to a nearby volcano crater

where we managed to never find the trail, which made for some interesting climbs through thick brush as we made our way around it. We also encountered a herd of alpakkas that were more than willing to pose for some pictures

The next day we went for another hike to a nearby waterfall

and went to visit a local village. As we came in to the village it turned out there was a religious festival going on. Ive come to learn that the Christian practices in this part of the world are heavily influenced by local religions, and the first thing we saw was a group of people dancing in a ring around a headless chicken,

followed by food being thrown into the crowd. We then sampled some local street food, and watched an excibition of local dances

which was constantly interupted by a tiny, extremely drunk local guy who wanted to either take part, fight someone or both. This token drunk seems to occur whenever there is any kind of a show going on and Im beginning to wonder whether they might be employed by the groups, as they add significant entertainment value.

Our bext stop was Quito, the capital of Equador,

where we tok in to one of the best hostels Ive ever been to – Centro del Mundo. With lots of nice people, cabel TV, a big TV room with matresses on the floor and food being served, this was almost better than being in your own home. Quito also boasts excelent nightlife all week, nice colonial buildings and is without comparison my favorite big city in Latin America so far.

While in Quito we went on a day trip to the equator line – the centre of the world. Funnily enough, the official monument

was placed some 200 meters off the actual line, but a much more interesting museum lies on the actual site. We were here given a very interesting tour about the weird phenomenons that occur at this site, like there being no shadow at a certain time of year, how water drains in opposite directions 3 meters to each side of the line and straight down on it, AND I now have a certificate that proves I can balance an egg on a nail!

Johan and I again parted, he left for Bogota and I went to Baños (meaning toilet or bathroom in Spanish, a cause for confusion when your Spanish isnt perfect) with 4 american guys. We got a big appartement at 5 $ each a night with a beautifull view of the surrounding mountains and waterfall.

From Baños, three of us went on an amazing day trip to the basecamp of volcan Cotopaxi

the highest active volcano in the world. The volcano is perfectly cone shaped with a glazier at the top.

While hiking up we encountered snow and eventually a hale storm.

In Banños I met a guy who would let you weigh yourself for 10 cents. I was very curious, and my fears were confirmed, Id lost 7 kiloes – scary!

After this chilly experience I wanted to see some sun and beaches before heading to the cold altitudes of Peru and Bolivia and headed for Montañita on the coast.

I never saw sun in 4 days but got to do 3 days of surfing which was a lot of fun,

and I surfed my biggest waves to date at around 2,5 meters.

I was hoping to catch a 24 hour bus from a nearby city, but arrived just in time to see it leaving and was unable to cath it. I was so psycked up for a long bus ride that I couldnt bring myself to stay a night in Guyaquil and decided to try to make my way to Lima with local buses, and do the border crossing Id been warned against on my own. It went OK, I got to Lima 38 hours after leaving Montañita having taken 7 buses, 3 taxis and getting ripped of by the taxi driver at the border.

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Merida is a strangely enchanting city, with beatifull Andean mountains surrounding it 

and a student population of 45.000 out a total of 300.000. Johan and I ended up being stuck in this place for about two weeks, a record for me while traveling, but nothing compared our German guide Stefan who has been stuck here for 17 years.

We are now offical graduates of la Universidad de los Andes here in Merida, after completing 10 hours of classes with a brilliant teacher called Blanca.

Unfortunately, it turned out that Spanish was not magically gonna just pop in to my head after a few weeks of traveling as I thought, its got insanely complicated grammar, with verbs coming in 24 different versions depending on tense and the person you are talking to. Ive therefore abandoned my dream of becoming fluent in Spanish while Im here, and will settle for my now very broken but quite functional travel Spanish which is getting better by the day.

Venezuela is a country in turmoil at the moment, the people now daily exercising the popular South American pastime of rioting and demonstrating. The road to our University has been blocked by police every day, while the students have been burning tires in the street and rioting.

It also turns out that all the undeserving negative press normally attributed to Colombia, regarding safety, is probably more accurate for describing Venezuela. The cities are really quite unsafe, and the local muggers here in Merida – arguabely the safest city in the country – succeded on their second attempt and got a hold of my Dutch travel companions credit cards one night.

While in the city, we organized a 4 day trip to Los Llanos through our "home" Posada Alemania – a friendly establishment with a great host family, a wonderfull court yard and lots of interesting people who are stuck here in the city for various amounts of time.

Los Llanos is a vast savanna and wetlands area compromising about a third of Venezuela and containing some of the most diverse wildlife in the world.

Our first activity on the trip would be either rafting or tubing depending on the state of the river. Our guide had to make a choice between a boring rafting trip or a near fatal tubing trip, and chose the latter. I had done tubing once before, in Laos. A pleasant experience where you drifted slowly down the river getting more and more drunk. Well, the only similarity with what experience was the tube, and half the time I would end up not even beeing able to hold on to that. It started out well, but after about 5 minutes our guide Stefan – a rum-loving german with more than a few Steve Irwin similarities – told us that a rapid was coming up.

It would turn out to be damn near a waterfall with a 3,5 out of 5 rating on the rapids scale and lasting for about 30 painfull seconds. I lost my tube instantly and ended up slamming my "pelvic region" into some big rocks. After the rapids were traversed I counted that everything was still in place and said a little prair of thanks that the pain I was feeling was not 3 centimeters lower and that there was still a chance that more branches might some day be added to the Moekkelgjerd family tree. 3 out of 6 of our group couldnt finish the 10 km, and about half way our guide – who slammed his face on a rock and was bleeding from his chin – led us through a huge grassy field I was later told contained one of the wolrds most poisonous snakes!

The next day we arrived in Los Llanos at a tiny finca in the middle of nowhere. The garden contained a strange mixture of animal species including two 4 month old caipiberas (the worlds biggest rodent at 60 kiloes),

wild turkey, cows, horses, dogs, cats, parots, geese, ducks, chickens and the biggest cockroach ive ever seen at around 15 cm!

We went on a safari, a night safari and an amazing river trip

and saw countless species of birds, the worlds biggest otter, turtles, hundreds of kaimans,

iguanas,

lots of caipaberas, anaconda,

piranha, dear and pink-bellied dolphins.

Our guide was jumping into the river and chasing kaimans but never succeded in catching one. He did however catch a 3 meter long anaconda!

And in the same area we had the pleasure of standing in knee deep leech infested waters fishing for piranhas, who were swimming in these same waters. I caught one  

and can now add piranha to my odd assortment of fish caught traveling that already counted an 8 cm long blow fish and a 2 meter + sailfish.

The trip also included horse back riding, something Ive never been really enthusiastic about. Wow, was that a mistake. I got the Zorro Blanca – the white fox – and to my surpirse horse riding was not difficult at all and at the end of 4 hours we were gallopping across fields chasing cows feeling like cowboys.

On our last night in the Llanos there was a huge party at our finca. A girl was turning 15 which in Venezuela is a huge social event where she is introduced to society. A cow was slaughetered before our eyes

and the whole animal stuck in a grill. More than a hundred people turned up dancing to joropo music – a local latin style of music played with a harp. A ten year old girl was the star of the dance floor and in turn invited several of us to join her, and amaizingly she led us so it looked like we had some idea about what we were doing.

On our way back to Merida

we visited a stone curch built entirely by a man in his eighties

and a condor station where we saw these enormous birds that are now extinct in the Venezuelan Andes.

Merida also boasts the Heladeria with the most flavours of ice cream in the world – a Guiness entry. I enjoyed a cheese flavoured one,

but passed on the meat and spaghetti flavours.

My last day in Merida I went on a mountainbiking trip in the surrounding mountains. Quite possibly the most exhausting day in my life.

Our goal was a hot springs located on a mountain top at the end of a road with an elevation of more than 50 degrees!

Lying in 37 degree waters with an ice cold beer was amazing.

Little did I know that we still had another mountain to climb and this time we even had to carry our bikes! We also encountered some local thugs on our way driving on scooters, and at the "suggestion" of our guide we had to escape off road to escape a mugging or worse.

So my time in Venezuela was over. It was an interesting time to see it, and it will be even more interesting to see how the country will develop in the future under the largely unpopular president. I am not a big fan myself really, as he has chosen to fix the exchange rate at nearly half the real value of what you can get on the black market IF you have cash dollars, which I didnt and subsequently this made Venezuela nearly twice as expensive as it should have been. On to Colombia…

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In the hostel in San Jose I met two guys from the Check Republic, Daniel and Michael, who were going on the same flight as me to Havana. We ended up taking a taxi to the airport and would end up spending a great week traveling Cuba together.

 After arriving early in Havana, we got ourselves a room in a casa particular. I had to get a separate room, as there are a number of interesting regulations in this communist country – one of them being a maksimum two people in a room – that people are very reluctant to break for fear of severe punishment. Cuba also has a separate currency aimed mainly at tourists that helps keep prices artificially inflated and this contributed to one costly week in Cuba.

 We started the day with a walking tour of old Havana – without doubt the most beatifull city I’ve seen in Latin America.

 It really does feel like going back in time,

with old faded architecture, beautifull American cars from the 50’s

and not so beautifull Russian Moscowitches and Ladas from the 70’s.

There was so much vibrant life in the streets,

this beeing mothers day in Cuba, with people throwing spontaneous street parties on their door steps

where the whole family, from kids to grandmothers, took part and danced to salsa music.

At night we went to the Casa de la musica, a big disco/concert hall. We were sipping our first Cuban Mojitos when suddenly an anouncer called out for people in the audience to call out their nationality and then join him on stage. I did my best to look Cuban, but my new friend Daniel was quickly on stage and was nice enough to voulenteer that there was also a Norwegian in the house. Moments later I was taking part in an international reggaetone dance off, in front of a few hundred people. Surprisingly I was eliminated before the final which was won by a Shakira-ass-shaking girl from Sweden. I went and had a few more mojitos to calm my nerves after that. Good night!

The next day we went for another walk

around beautifull Havana before we attempted to find a way to get down to Trinidad, some 6 hours away on the south coast of Cuba. There were no reasonable rental cars available, and according to our Casa families, no buses either. We suspected they just wanted to keep us there for another day and eventually hopped in a taxi to the bus station. On the way we came across a taxi driver who was going to Trinidad and who would take us there for less than the bus fare. So we were on our way.

Luckily for me, Daniel spoke fluent Spanish, and the taxi ride turned out to be just the start of some very interesting conversations. Coming from the Check republic, Daniel and Michael grew up in a communist regime, and this gave an even more interesting perspective with which to view and enquire about the Cuban way of life.

In Trinidad we took in to a new casa particular – really just a normal Cuban household that has been given permission to rent out a few rooms under strict regulation. Here we enjoyed wonderfull home cooked meals

- a huge contrast to the cardboard pizzas and the often singular available item from the menu (no meat, no meat) – and were taught the art of sigar smoking.

The entire city of Trinidad is on Unesco’s list of world heritage sites, and is a beautifull colonial city, with brightly colored houses and cobble stoned streets.

It also has one of the nicest beaches in Cuba

which we used daily to work on our tans.

At night we went to the Casa de la musica, which had live salsa music and some of the best salsa dancers I’ve ever seen. Later in the evening the party moved in to an old ruin where you could hit the dance floor under a star lit sky.

In Trinidad we managed to get a hold of some black market sigars at a ridiculously low price. There are a lot of sigar scams going on though, so we regrettfully only bought one case, but the rest of the week we would do our best to look cool smoking our Havanas,

and surprisingly I really started to aquire a taste for them after a couple of nights.

After three days in Trinidad I decided to follow the guys to Cubas tourist capital of Varadero, where they had booked a room in an all inclusive hotel – surely my only experience of such luxury on this trip.

Not bound by the strict regulations that apply to most Cubans, we were here allowed to stay 3 people in a room, and the all inclusive actually came out not costing much more than staying in a casa and buying meals and drinks.

On the way we made a quick stop in Santa Clara to see the mausoleum of Che Guevara

and to get some money. As planning is not one of my strong sides I was now out of money and as debit cards don’t work in Cuba, I only had my emergency credit card, with no pin number. Well, that didn’t work, so I was at the mercy of my two travel companions and had a few nervous hours ahead of me before things could thankfully be sorted out at a big hotel for a small comission of 12 %!

3 weeks in Cuba would obviously ruin me so I changed my flight date so that I would only spend one week there. Varadero might as well have been in Malorca, but it had a beautifull beach and free drinks.

At night there was live entertainment on stage and the 3 of us all did a cameo appearance in the Miss Villa Cuba (the hotel’s name) contest. The following night the Mr. Villa Cuba show was on and the announcer tried to get a hold of Daniel and me in the bar across the swimming pool. I tried to hide behind a column, but my entertainer friend dragged my terrified ass on stage yet again. Luckily the drinks were free and I quickly organized a constant flow of mojitos on stage courtesy of Michael.

 We were then ordered to take off out shirts and find a girl in the audience. I singled out Miss Villa Cuba from the night before and proceded to take part in some rather embarrasing excercises, including me doing an apparently very bad impression of a gay guy flirting with a waiter. Weirdly enough I actually started to enjoy myself on stage, in no small part, I’m sure, thanks to Michaels bartender service. The night then continued at various discos, where Daniel enjoyed his new celebrity status as Mr. Villa Cuba.

 After three nights in Varadero it was time to go to Panama. At the airport, as everywhere else in Cuba, things take time, and there was of course no trace of my name on the flight I had cheduled. An hour and a half later things were sorted however, and I was on my way to Panama.

 After getting ripped off as usual by the semi-blind airport taxi driver, I took in to a nice hostel and went to bed early. The next morning I went to the Panama canal with an English guy called Adam.

The Canal is really an enormous feat of engineering and the locks (slusene) we went to also had an informative museum. We were lucky enough to see the passing of the biggst ship that can pass through the canal and also a ship from the Norwegian firm of Wilhelmsen.

I then headed in to town and went for a walk around the old city of Panama City. A very pretty colonial town, but in no way comparable to Havana.

Panama City actually reminded me a little about the US with bilboards and American chain stores everywhere. No doubt a remnant from when the canal zone was official US territory and home to a large contingent of US troups, as late as 1999.

At night we went to check out the reputedly excellent nightlife in the city. Well, it turns out Mondays arent really that great as the only open bar we found in the bar district was a de facto brothel.

The next morning I was off for Venezuela. At the airport in Panama I was approcahed by a guy I assumed was working for an airline. After a while of miscomunication I was told to follow him to his office… the police officice that is – I was now a suspected drug smugler. As the officer put on his gloves I feared the worst, and a meticolous search of all my belongings began. Then another officer came in and a classic good cop bad cop routine began, with the bad cop staring me down and a third cop sneaking up on me from behind and slamming his hand on the wall to unnerve me further. As my drug of choice – cerveza – is perfectly legal I knew I had nothing to fear however, so I remained quite calm throught the experinece – which was conducted exclusively in Spanish – and thank God, escaped without getting aquainted with THE GLOVE.

Arriving in Caracas at 12.30 at night I found out my ATM card wasn’t working, oh joy! Caracas is one of the most dangerous cities in Latin America and here I am obviously setting myself up for another rip off. My hate for airport taxi drivers right now is intense. Having no money, and not really interested in wandering around the streets of Caracas alone at night looking for a place to stay, my only option was to go with the taxi driver and hope that his plan of paying for the taxi with my credit card in the hotel would work. Thankfully it did, and I fell asleep to the sound of gun shots in the street outside.

The next morning my ATM card was working again, so I got a hold of some money. I then bumped into Johan from Amsterdam – one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met – who was also heading to Merida to learn Spanish. We then headed straight for the bus station, and I left Caracas happy to not have seen anything of it.

13 hours later we arrived in Merida, a nice little town situated at 1600 meters at the foot of the Andean mountains, with views of two of the highest peaks in Venezuela at around 5000 meters.

Thanks to Hugo Chavez, the price section of my guidebook was hopelessly outdated, and actually had to be multiplied by 3! The political situatation in the country at the moment is very unstable and there are huge demonstrations daily. We actually had to walk a long detour to avoid getting caught up in a student demonstration confronting the police when registering for Spanish classes. We’ve gotten to know quite a few locals here, and it turns out this country is probably much more dangeruos than Colombia, which has an undeservingly bad reputation. Johan found this out one night walking home when he narrowly escaped a mugging.

I am now back in school, having registered at the University here in Merida. Tomorrow, Johan and I start our Spanish lessons with a proffesor of English. Hopefully we’ll improve alot before we head on to Colombia.

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So my days as a student are finally over (save one oral exam and a passing grade on the last written one… details, details) and I’m off on an other adventure. This time, to Latin America. The itinerary is as follows: Costa Rica – Cuba – Panama – Venezuela – then make my way through South America by bus and home from Rio, for at least 4 months.

Getting away never seems easy for me, and this time too, there was trouble as I found out two days prior to departure that I couldn’t find my passport! Thankfull the Norwegian Government gave good service for once, and 12 hours before i leave I have a new passport in hand

On the night before I fly out quite a few of my friends are out and I decide to join them, and, eventually also decide to pull an all-nighter. So around 4 o’clock I board my pirated taxi, stop by my mom’s place to get my backpacks and head on to the airport.

I fall asleep before we even leave the ground and wake up as we touch ground in Paris. Still a little bit drunk and very sleepy I consider spending seven hours at the airport, but eventually wake up and come to my senses and decide to head in to the city, which I’ve neven been to.

I have about 3 hours for my Parisian experience and get off on Champs Ellyses, near the Arch de Triumph.

An enormous structure, much bigger than I had expected and a great impovement on the concrete replica I’d seen in Vientinenne, Laos.

I stroll down Av. Marceu towards the river Seine, taking in the atmosphere and decide to sit down at a sidewalk cafe for a bagette and my fist taste of French red wine. Expectations are high! Now I don’t know much about wine, except it gets you drunk, but the glass I’m served tastes like it just came out of a fridge! So much for fine French restaurants. The cafe visit fulfills my steretypical ecpectation of what French waiters are like though, non-English speaking, with a stiff upper lip and a towel ready to woop my ass if I complain about anything.

While the Arch de Triumph was bigger than expected, the Eiffel tower was a lot
smaller.

I’d seen the top from a distance and never imagined that was it. It was still fun to see one of the most famous landmarks in the world though.

My all-nighter seemed to be working wonders as I again fell asleep before we left the ground and didn’t wake up until we were over Texas. I now had 11 hours – a night – to spend in Mexico City. No time to head in to the city, so I decide to sleep on the airport floor. Not an entirely unpleasant experience, I got about 5 hours sleep before getting up for my flight to San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica.

In San Jose I get a bed in an 8 person dorm, and have a walk around the city. Most people pass through this city, which has very little to offer as a tourist destination, but as I lost my passport I need to get to the Cuban embassy to get a Visa.

Finding the embassy isn’t easy in this city without street names! But I get there ok and finally get my Visa after having first guessed wrongly on every item except my name on the Visa application.

On to the beach, I head down to the Carribean and the small town of Puerto Viejo.

 As you get off the bus you can feel the ganja smoke filling the air and the reggae music massaging your eares, while local business men lounge in the trees.

On the bus i met two Canadian guys who’ve been here before and decide to go with them to their hostel – Rocking J’s,

the most unique hippie compound I’ve ever seen, with hippies from their late teens to their late sixties partying and preparng for the upcoming bluegrass festival that starts the day after. I get a 6 $ tent, and in my jetlag-induced coma, am not disturbed by the "rocking" that lasted till 4 in the morning.

The next morning I move out due to a huge price increase and find myself a shed down the road.

A nice relaxing place, with a wonderfull hamock, great reggae music and the town´s local reggae star as my neighbour. The only downside was the viscious bed bug attack I was the victim of my first night there. I probably have around two hundred bites, but luckily, only one of the little critters found it´s way to my face.

The Caribbean coast has an interesting Creole culture, the quisine consisting mainly of rice and beans, and some delicious coffe. I rent a bike one day and go for a 13 kilometer ride down to smal village that has several kilometers of beatifull – totally deserted – beaches!

On the way the road is flanked by dense jungel

filled with monkeys and other animals.

The other days I´ve spent on the beach,

reading my Sinatra biography, working on my Spanish and surfing. I´ve met lots of nice people, including a group of 4 Norwegian girls who I spent a couple of days with.

Now Cuba awaits me…

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