¿Que pasa aqui...?

Caracas, Venezuela.......the end???

2009-05-19T13:21:00.007+02:00

Border crossing from Colombia to Venezuela is far from efficient. the stamps for visa was pretty straight up.. only the waiting time on the border was killing :). until the driver came to us and said " 20.000 pesos colombianos... es voluntario". well i guessed i caught the clue. after that there were 2 more stops; the national garde and the local police... sighing was the proper response i guess. crossed the lake of Maracaibo in the night was something amazing. and the city of maracaibo itself was full of life, from what is have seen from behind the windows (took a direct bus from Santa Marta to Caracas). the next morning the bus arrived in caracas. big metropole with slumps built on the slope of the hills, equal to Rio.. but miss lot of Rio's flair.

just straight up metropole i guessed (and supoosed to be the worst city in SA), but in the 3 days that i have been there nothing life threatning happend (thank god) and just bored waited for my flight back to home. Expensive .. that's how venezuela right now. if you pull cash out of the ATm it will damage your wallet pretty bad . 1 US dollar = 2 Bolivares. and hot dog is about 5 bolivares.

it was totally not wat i was expected from the city of my idol, Simon bolivar. hmm i guess Chavez ruins everything. Sorry, i really do not have anything fun to tell abouth this part of my trip.. it really was that bad. only some funny facts: all officials wore surgical masks precaution against swine flu, and extensive research in the airport which delayed my flight for about 2 hours. but when i was waiting i had some conversation with a Venezuelan woman but now she lives in Pijnacker. she traveled with her son and i heard her son talked both Spanish and Dutch and it was so funny to hear.

Back on Dutch soil.. I need to looked for my mom and my lil brother because they were hiding behind the crowds.. :P. anxious because she tought that i caught swineflu .. hahaha.

well folks a nice ending of Adventure in South America, it have been really great experience for me. I'm in love with that continent and definetly worth to see it again and discovered some parts i haven't been to. I hope you enjoyed my journal. sorry for the crappy ending but hey ....it's not the end.. i'm going to Indonesia in about a week. Back to the country where i was borned and raised. i'm really looking forward to be there :) . hope you will follow my story in Indonesia and enjoy it. Thanks and have a nice sunday.

Ch'

Drogas son malditas

2009-04-30T21:39:00.016+02:00

after the bordercrossing i went from ipiales to Cali. and stayed in Cali for about 2 days. actually in Cali is absolutely nothing to do. the city centre is nice, but easily doable in about 5 hours. the most fun stuff in Cali is happening in the outskirt of the city. but hey i`m kinda short in time. the only thing that i regret that i didnt took a salsa lessons in the salsa capital of Colombia. I only want to learn the step, other people already said to me that i had the swing :D.

after Cali i went to Bogota (so right now i have been in all capitals, yess). the zone of candelaria is reallyt interesting with the beautiful palaces and the colonial houses. well because of miscomunication i didn`t see my friends from bogota. but instead i met another one on my bus to Cartagena (like quito, bogota is cold :P). Colombia is now one of my favourite countries. they are really working hard to polish up their bad image and right now definetly much better for travellers.

The big walls of Cartagena is really amazing. despite all of the afford to made such huge walls the pirates still able to breaked through. but the pirates of carribean feeling is still present. also the small streets with the colourful houses and the balconies are really beautiful. i really want to live / build equal houses, really love it. and maybe if the heat is not to opressing i could definetly live in cartagena. because not so far from cvartagena there is a chain of island with turqoise water, white sand and palm trees. spent amazing days in islas del rosario and snorkelling in Playa Blanca was absolutely the bomb.

Not far from Cartagena there is Santa Marta/ Taganga, the sea is really tranquille and it`s where i spent the last days of my trip. basically it was lying down on the beach, swimming and drink fruit juices. just trying to enjoy of the beautiful carribean as long as it last. the beautiful sunset was also an unforgetable memory of the place.

the following story is not suited for persons under 18 / parents advise is obligatory.

the magical last night in Colombia was a blur.... luckily i didn`t hurt myself. typing this page is still a bit hard for me. well i`ll uncover a bit of it in the end of the page. but the details i will tell you when i come back home ;).

here come the story:

well i`m not talking about the ¨Polvo Colombiano¨ or ¨yerba Jamaicana¨ or ¨pastilles de amsterdam¨ because you could get it everywhere in the world. But it`s something that`s closer to the magic mushroom in holland. It`s a halucinogenic flower that was also used by the shamans, and native to colombia (and it`s legal i heard) . well the guys in the hostel who went to the Lost city picked some of the flowers and made a brew of it. the final product is a tea that has similar taste with the chinese jasmin tea. 2 cups were supposed to be sufficient to feel any effect (the 3rd cup was suicidal). well after a while i started to get a really dry mouth and starting to feel really drunk and very very sleepy, when i decfided to go to bed. and after that well... sequence of things that might be happened or maybe only happened in my head. the effect last for really long time tho because it was about 2 days ago and im still feeling really weary (or maybe it was also the bus trip, Santa Marta - Caracas). I think the shamans were really strong men to handle the effect. luckily i didnt see anything scary, because other guy seen things like tentacles and stuffs. well that was once in lifetime experience because i don`t really like the side effects.

abrazo

Ch´

In rapid stream as rio Napo..

2009-04-15T19:50:00.010+02:00

almost one month that i havent wrotten anything about my trip. well 2 things: times and the internet accomodation. went from town to town and from city to city until i stoked down in a little town named perucho where i stayed for one week to work in the ecological farm. in perucho there wasnt any internet cafes or anything only green hillside, lettuces, mandarines, avocados, coffees and sugar canes. anyway it was a pleasant week on the farm, because after that we went to the oriente to dos some work for the Bolsa amazonica. AHORITA, i'm in Cali; Colombia. so i'm going to sum up my trip to ecuador in one breath.

first, i was riding wave in montanita. a beautiful place were the wave was nice but also fill with sandflies (i still has some kind of skin rash not sure from what, bust suspected it was sandflies). after montanita i went north to Puerto Lopez where i took a tour to Isla de la Plata and seen alot of boobies. blue footed, red footed and nasca. the same ones as in Galapagos. besides birds i also saw some coloured fish. after Puerto Lopez i went to the capital of ecuador, Quito. probably the cheapest and the most beautiful capital in SA. went to the (slighly off) monument of the ecuator but also to the biggest artisan market of SA in the town of Otavalo. after that i went to the farm in Perucho. one week i learned about weeding, cultivating, irrigation and did some trekking to maybe one of the most beautiful farm in the surrounding area. learned alot but i regret that i wasnt helped the community significantly. but the people in the farm and the friends of michael did enjoy my cooking, so on the other hand it was a pleasure to stayed in the farm.

after one week in the farm, Michael was needed to do some work in Amazonia and thus we went to the oriente with Coca as starting point. it was here where Francisco orellana started his trip to explore the gran amazon river. but we were in Coca to helped with the refining of amazonian fruits in to juices, pulps and mermelade. after Coca we went to Tena were we met a group of ladies that recycled old papers into arts (and everything was ecologicaly done). from Tena we went to el chaco where we visited a mushroom farm and ate a delicious ceviche de hongos.

all of these businesses were in line with my interests and i really learned alot from this trip. and also with my background of bio chemistry i could explained the people in the farm how everything worked in the microscopic level. so it was kinda interchanging of knowledge and culture (indonesian food ;) against Ecuatorian).

my stayed in Ecuador was pleasant and it is definetly a country where i want to visit again. definetly i want to go back to perucho and maybe to have some adventure in Amazonia (Coca to Belem; Brasil).

abrazo

Ch'

Wrap it up,,, Ecuador here i come

2009-03-21T16:06:00.006+01:00

long time ago when i updated my blog... so lot of things to write about, pero primero..
quiero dicer un felicitacion para dos personas quien tienen su compluaños este mes.

Feliz Compluaños para ustedes

A. van den Berg
y
tambien S.Becu

mucha salud, suerte y divertir en su vida
disculpe por este muy muy tarde.

i`m city hopping and when traveling for so long you started to lose your sense of time.
okay the pictures are from top to down: the nasca lines (the tree), Lima (plaza de armas- cathedral), Chavin temple (the head), Huaraz (cordillera blanca), Chan Chàn (city of Chimu),
huanchaco (nearby chan chan).

Nasca is a sleazy town there is practically nothing in town excepts restaurants and hotels. the picture of the line i took from the mirador, (not going to pay 100 bucks for the aerial tour)
so it`s slighly unclear but it is still amazing to see it from close range. but i did went to the planetarium and the museum and they were really interesting. especially because they provided a good knowledge about the origin of the Nasca culture (pre-inca).

Lima on the other hand is a huge metropole, really similar to Buenos aires. the upmarket district of miraflores and san isidro are good places to stay and much more beautiful compared to the center. The cathedral at the plaza de armas housed the remains of Pizarro as well a good collection of paintings (worth the visit).

From the dessert coast i went back to the andes to the cordillera blanca. the main city is Huaraz.
Huaraz is the base to trek the cordillera and / climb the highest peak of Peru, or go skiing when in season. but it also the site of what they said the precursor of the andean culture. the Chavin culture (pre-inca). nearby huaraz in the city of chavin there is a small remains of the temple fortress ¨chavin de huantar¨ the building is magnificent and the relief are really good. the chavin culture (peaked at about 800 b.c.) dominated about the half of peru at it`s golden time. the fortress is much more amazing than macchu pichu. right now, really think that machu pichu is overrated (and overcharged).

another interesting pre-inca culture is on the north coast of Peru, the Chimu. it was as Inca a conquering tribe and it was expanding about 1000 km in total (at it`s peak). the chimu was kind of the successor of the moche culture whose thrived from the agriculture and fishing aswell. the city of Chan chan is made from adobe (stamped dirt and water) but the amazing thing is they enclosed the palace with huge walls (from adobe). Another amazing building built from adobe: the first version of great wall of china. on the center of the palace there was a huge well dedicated to the god of fertility and it was also a ceremonial center. through the whole sites there are images of fishes and sea animals, it`s really shown the strong connection with the sea.

not far from Trujillo and chan chan there is a small fishing village of huanchaco. it was actually the place where i was headed for, for the sun, sea and .... surf. according the history it was also the place where the people started to surf. the fishermen still conserved the old tradition of the moche and chimu by using reed boats to fish on the sea. the boats are flat and it kinda surf on the wave.. so in theory here was the first time that people started to surf. surfing itself isn't really hard if you have the help of the teacher (considerated to be one of the best surfer in the north of peru) but when i tried on my own i wasn't able to stand up.. so in theory i need more practice :).But.. For some reason i kept bumping german speaking girls (maybe i should learned german), like the girls in my surfing class.

Abrazo

Ch´

the flight of the condors

2009-03-12T00:32:00.008+01:00

I thought that i would love arequipa. but i didnt, not for one bit. it`s even didnt make the name truth as ¨ciudad blanca¨, the true ciudad blanca is still Sucre, Bolivia. (and the best city ive ever been) Asi, asi, Bolivia por lo mejor mundo. i really hate to be treated like a bloody tourist. on my trip ive never felt molested like when i was in arequipa. i couldn´t even walked a arcaded hall without somebody yelled ¨amigo¨or ¨konichiwa¨. I do not have any interests in your overpriced restaurant, ¨uruse, baka¨.

so i did not spent one night in arequipa and just used it as transit to camana and Colca canyon. which are 2 amazing spots.

arrived in arequipa i went directly to camana. one of the ugliest beaches ive ever seen in SA. it`s the dessert background that make the place sligthly unpleasant. but when i was theere, the lady of my hostal told me about her place in Colca canyon. well the canyon was my goal to be in arequipa departement anyway so yeah of i go.

i had really bad luck the night ive arrived in Yanque. it was 23.00 and the town was desserted i walked around and try to find a place to sleep but there was no one that answered my called.
so i went to the hospedaje of the lady of camana and decided to slept on the porch. in my mind i knew that one day i would stranded without a place to stay, and so luckily i stranded there in yanque where is relatively tranquille.

i learned more about the town from doña Gloria. a cafe owner, a guide and director of a NGO. and also a coca leaves reader. the first time i saw someone read coca leaves. she also told me about the colca (it`s a circular pre -inca tombes build inside the canyon walls). also on my way there when i asked for the direction, the guy was gladly offered to walked together (he headed to the same direction) and asked me about Holland, and what kind of stuffs people cultivated and also offered me information about the canyon and surrounding area.. and without expecting any money. sometimes i lost the faith in humanity but things like this made me really happy.

the next day i went to cruz del condor. its the deepest part of the canyon and also a natural habitacions for the condors. one condor strucked on a rock really nearby and sat there for 45 min without even bothered about the just arrived group of french speaking tourists. after that 10 condors circled about and flew really closed. when they cruzed nearby you could heard the wind whizzled. the colca itself with 3400 m depth suuposed to be the deepest canyon in the world and with the chain of snowcapped peaks of the andes it provided a majestic thrones for the majestic birds. one of the best spot in peru ive visited.

next stop: Nazca

abrazo

Ch´

Macchu Picchu y Valle sagrado

2009-03-07T00:10:00.005+01:00

eu sou do brasil. Sao Paulo no Liberdade...

well that`s what i told to the taxi driver when i went to Moray (inca laboratory). I wasnt really sure to tell the truth because that taxi wasnt licensed. but it workd out really well. he believed in it. because everytime people think that i´m from Japan so i use that as my weapeon now (like aikido, hehe). Liberdade is the japanese district of sao paulo. you probably need to go back to 4 months ago when i was in Brasil.

but anyway i was going to tell you about the amazing machu Picchu. in Cusco, i met a muchacho from Chile and we decided to went to machu picchu together. we took probably the most economic option to go there. and that`s by taking the bus to Santa Maria and after that to hydro electrico. we arrived at hydro electrico at 17.00 -17.30 and we followed the rails to Agua Caliente. that was probably the most amazing walked ive ever had. with the light from the half moon we made our way to agua caliente and seen the mountain machu picchu lighten by the moon. AMAZING. really tired we arrived in agua caliente and after we bought our ticket we decided to go to sleep becaues the next day we need to walked up to the entrance of machu picchu. another amazing experience to see the sunrise on the lush vegetate valley. we ran to the entrance of wayna picchu (the hill back of machu picchu). because they only allowed 400 people/ day on that hill. so we climbed another hour an half to the top of that hill. but it was really worth it because the view over the whole sight is amazing. after that we (me, chileno y ecuatoriano)
walked our way back to the templo de la luna. made our way back through the jungle and after that took some picture of machu picchu and listen to the guide (for free :D, just sit around and listen to a guide when she / he explained things). So right now i know the difference in the inca architecture. Cusco the capital has alot of buildings with brilliantly cutted stones. that kind of stones were only used for the most sacred buildings or for the royals. machu picchu contained alot of building with stone and dirt mixed all together, which in theory it made machu picchu a place for the plebs. so it was actually a city for the commons. only the temple of the sun is beautifully made from cutted stone.

so after that when i visited a ruin of the incas i looked carefully for the stones and how they put it all together. which brought me to the sacred valley. My chilean companion decided to take the train (cheapest option $30 until up to $ 500) but i decided to walked back to hydro electrico. on my own it was less tiring and i made it much faster. but in santa teresa there was a road block of angry drivers (never had that problem in Bolivia) and in santa maria my bus was about 1 hour late... great. but i arrived in ollantaytambo and diced to spent a night there. the day after i walked around the ruins of ollantaytambo (the great walls of sun temple was great). and after that i went to urubamba, where my next destination was Moray. Moray is really interesting because it was actually an incan laboratory. its here where they experimentated with the maize to produce a better maize. inside the circulair terrace i could feel the different in atmosphere (how lower how colder), so it really had it`s own micro climate it was really amazing to see.

after Moray i went to Pisac (when someone cutted a pocket of my pants and took my alcohol, to wash hands, that i bought in La Paz for 1, 50 €). no respect for someone`s property... that`s the side that i hate here in Cusco. But anyway Moray is another great site in the sacred valley. i think it`s area is much bigger than machu picchu but it contains less building. But its amazing to walked around and discovered new ruins everytime... hey that part i haven`t seen, ooh another one i haven`t seen.

but now i`m back in Cusco. to stay another night and go to arequipa tomorrow, i still miss saqsaywaman, ruin with stones over 70 tons in weight !!!

Abrazo

Ch´

La diablada Oruro, La Paz en Lago Titicaca Y Cusco (Peru)

2009-03-01T22:00:00.010+01:00

there is no peace in La Paz instead you need to be very cautious.

After arrived in La Paz from Potosi, ive made a huge mistake. used to the tranquility of the others Bolivian city i decided to wandered around with all my belongings. the results i felt in a swendell to rip money of the gringos (cuenta del tio). after that, i spent about 6 hours in tourist police + FELCC to report what i`ve lost. already not feeling really well this add more and more the agony. But after all that i decided to go to Oruro anyway.

La Diablada

there is a famous carnival in the city of Oruro, it called La Diablada. it`s actually better to go to Potosi and did the mining tour and after that go and watch the carnival because right now i know what the true motives of the carnival really is.

La diablada is dance of the devil, or ¨el Tio¨ how the miners called it. But it`s also in honour of the Virgen de Socavon (Virgin Mary of Socavon a patron of the miners) or as the indigena called her ¨pachamama¨ (earth mother). the carnaval is a mix of catholic faith, indigenous believed and as well represented the struggle of the indigenous miners against the Spaniard oppression. UNESCO declared the carnival as a cultural humanitarian heritage. yeah right, The south american handbook said, ¨the tour from La Paz pick you up from your hotel at 4. 30 and go back to La Paz at 17.30, so you`ll be missing alot of fun¨. yeah right, which fun¿¿ paid 80 bolivianos for a seat and after 5 hours it`s started to get really boring. LA diablada itself it`s fun to see because their masks really are beautifully done. but the rest of folkloric parade it`s all the same (thousands of spaniards looking faces, thumbs down). so i went back to La Paz (i stayed in La Paz because it`s cheaper). after that i felt really ill and stayed almost the whole sunday in bed. the monday ¨la diablada y moreno¨ went back to Oruro becasue i want to see the play of ¨San miguel vs 7 deadly sins¨. that was really fun to see because it has more action than only dancing and parading around.

PADRE NUESTRO
Jesús nos enseñó a rezar: (Mateo 6, 5-15)

Padre nuestro que estás en el cielo,
santificado sea tu Nombre;
venga a nosotros tu reino;
hágase tu voluntad
en la tierra como en el cielo.
Danos hoy nuestro pan de cada día;
perdona nuestras ofensas,
como también nosotros perdonamos
a los que nos ofenden;
No nos dejes caer en tentación,
y líbranos del mal.
Amen.

La Paz

la Paz is actually nice city if you not get scammed or something. it`s cold in the night but the days are warm. because i stayed in altiplano i didnt have any problem with the altitude. but i catched cold because they have throwed bucket of water at me.. (this tradition started to get annoying). anyway when i was done with the police i decided to go to copacabana on the lake Titicaca.

Lake Titicaca

Here is where i find La Paz (the peace), the lake really is incredible. stayed for a month in the inland of Bolivia, it was really surprising to see that huge inland sea on the cordillera of Andes. copacabana itself is really touristic. but what really great was i stayed in a hotel next to the basilisc of Virgen de Copacabana. and it was only for 20 bolivianos per night, the cheapest and the cleanest of all residencials in Bolivia. the main attraction of the lake titicaca is Isla del Sol where Manco Kapac and Mama ocllo were borned (the creators of inca), at least that`s what they believe in. In the island i stayed in a house where i slept on the floor with thin matress (for 1o bolivianos you can`t ask for much luxury). the worse thing was, that night rained alot so it got really cold. In the north and the south of the islands are Inca ruins, but in the North east of the islands there is a stone where the manco kapac y mama ocllo were borned. I looked and looked but couldn´t found the stone. but i did found the sacrificial table. Although the isla is heavily touristic the atractions were really bad signed.

Cusco (peru)

2 days after the isla i crossed to Puno on the other side of the lake and now i`m in Peru. the bus terminals of Peru is crowded with Jalagringos (salesmen that tried to sell their hotel to just arrived travellers). Luckily i read that on my handbook. but now i act more harshly, and not going to talked with those stupid salesmen or anyone on the street trying to sell things. Peru is on one hand similar to Bolivia but on the other hand also really different. I think here in Cusco i cannot felt the different really well because same as copacabana, Cusco is heavily touristed. everywhere where alot of tourists are around the atmosphere is a bit more relaxed. Cusco is a wonderful city with a lot oc colonial city intermingled with old stone buildings of incas. so far i liked it here in Peru, but the damn cold started to get annoying. so after macchu picchu i`m going directly to Arequipa where it`s a lot warmer. and after that back to the pacific coast to the north

La ciudad blanca y cerro rico; los dos patromonios del mundo.

2009-02-19T17:40:00.008+01:00

it was definitly Cristo that made me stayed in cochabamba. otherwise i will never met my ¨guardian angels¨. The one from Colombia the other one Peru / Argentina.

small intermezzo: ¨my conversation with Cristo de la concordia¨

Cristo: Christian, mi hijo, venga.

me: Si señor, yo escucho

Cristo: que deseas mi hijo?

me: warmi munaypi :D (it´s quechua)

Cristo: oye, no solo me doy te una, me doy te dos

me: señor muchas gracias

¨another conversation with Cristo o Redentor (Rio de Janeiro)¨

Cristo: Christiano, bem vindo

me: obrigado senhor

Cristo: meu filho, que quiero.

me: senhor, eu quiere tem uma boa experenzia

Cristo: Muito boa, voce recibo.

me: muito obrigado.

In all places where they have put an image of Christ on top of the hill i have been there. started in Rio, then tupiza, then cochabamba and now i went for the one in sucre (with my yugoslavian friend Victor, again it`s Cristo that brought us together again). I really apreaciated my sacred name, and really thankful to have it (thanks mom). but enough about religion, lets move on to my what i have seen. that last sunday i went to the Cerro de San Pedro. i bought the ticket for the teleferia (cabin ski lift) that brought me up the hill to the image of Cristo. The one in Rio is bigger than this one but this one is more buff. well when i was taking picture of cochabamba (and see how big it really is), two senoritas came to me and asked if i could took some picture of them (because they lost their camera). and suddenly i became a photographer. well after that we wandered around, climbed up untill the arms of Christ and we started to descend the cerro. note: on this cerro happened alot of armed robbery. but with the protection of the 2 senoritas nothing was happened :D. and before i left to catched my bus, i got an exhibition of what is called earning money during travelling from the senoritas. before you think about something bad; it`s acrobatic tour at the crossroad. same as the kids in BA do, juggling balls for money or similar. Right now im thinking to buy a small inca guitar and play on the street for some extra money (i aready have the llama poncho and the llama inca hat).

Sucre

After my adventure in cochabamba i arrived in Sucre (la ciudad Blanca) and perhaps one of the most beautiful cities in Bolivia, maybe the most beautiful. all building in the center are painted in colonial white and here they have the most prestige university in the continent: San Fransisco xavier. which results that sucre right now packed with students from all over SA, to study right here (and it`s improved the amount of cuties as well -.O). climbed the cerro with Victor and we spent a day sightseeing sucre, with good weather, in the afternoon El Señor opened the tap above us (rained very hard). the next day i went to the Casa de la libertad. it`s here where the university student of this Jesuit university started to planned liberation movement. It also housed one of the best picture of Simon Bolivar. but what impressed me most was the main hall. the architecture of it is really similar with forum romanum. And i meant the building where the senates of rome came together to discussed (Roman history is like a crack to me). and the gold coated balcony was really splendid. In this room the forefathers of bolivia have signed the act of independence. everyday i´m learning more and more about bolivia and it made me love this country more and more.

Potosi

after Casa de la libertad i went to Potosi. the highest city on it`s size in the world. and in the 16th century the biggest metropole in the world. the reason herefore is Cerro Rico. In cerro rico the spaniards found the indigenous performing rituals and also mined silver. it`s then when the spaniards started to extract huge amount of silver and made them very rich. The richness of potosi could be seen in the center, in the buildings and one in particular is Casa de la moneda. La casa is one of the biggest colonial building in america. and it cost 10 million dollars,present currency, to built it (which is exessive for it`s time). it`s now a museum with collection of really beautiful religous arts and of course coins and the machineries to produced coins. really recomended to see. I don`t have picture of the coins because i do not want to pay extra 20 bolivianos :). instead i spent my money on a mining tour. for the one with good stamina and no heart problems really recomended. we strated our tour buy buying presents for the miners (dynamites, coca leaves, cigarretes and some drink). I also learned to respect ¨pachamama¨with drinking 96% alcohol and also ¨El tio¨ the god inside the mine. when the Spaniard arrived they have brought their 2 gods (the good and the evil). for the indigenous there are no good or evil, only things that happened in the nature. thus they belive that ¨el tio¨(the devil) is their protector because the mine is his territory. to respect the devil means also money because if u respect the ¨owner¨ of the mine he will give u more precious metals. This mix of Catholicism and indigenous believe is really intrigued me. anyway the ¨portal to hell¨ is at 4000 m high and our group descent for about 100 - 200 m to the bowels of the mine. And i have experencied to worked as miner for abit, by pushing carts full with ores (when the guide asked nobody wanted to do it). right now i`m thinking to worked in the mine for a week just to experenciated for a bit.

also when we done the tour, the boss of the tour company asked me to come to the gathering of the most experence miners. where we drunk some singani. the miners asked if in Holland the speak spanish. i said ¨no, i`m learning spanish¨. and they said then now u need to learned quechua. and i said ¨imaynalla¨. the miners bursted in laughter and they really appreciated it. it`s the first time that i felt one with the people here. i`m still amazed right now. so learning quechua is really worth it.

until next time

suerte

Ch´

YMAINALLA??

2009-02-15T17:17:00.010+01:00

repuesto es.. allillan. ymainalla is quechua for ¨como esta¨ and allillan is ¨bien¨. i was so impressed that all of the people on the bus spoke with quechua that i decided to learn it as well. my guide Emilio told me that its not that hard.. well it is. but i think i´m more a audio/visual learner rather than a reader. but anyway its long time ago that ive wrote a long article, so right now i want to write a really long article about the centre altiplano of Bolivia.

After a long bus ride started in Concepcion i finally arrived in Cochabamba, with the statue of Cristo de la concordia welcomed at me. the city of cochabamba is surrounded by hills and it´s so green and very different with santa cruz it`s much more fresco. although it is a city of 600.000 inhabitants it still preserve the colonial feel, and it´s kinda remind me of San Telmo a barrio in BA. around the city there are plenty things to do, but i came here to get some information about Parque nacional Toro Toro. And yes if you decide to visit bolivia this one is absolute MUST SEE.

To arrive at the parque it´s kinda complicated (the terrestial transport in Bolivia is a chaos, but organised one) . but i finally arrived in Toro2 at around 3 am. after like 6 hours of good sleep (sleeping in the bus is almost impossible), i went to the office of tourism to registrated and to hired a guide (not allowed to go by yourself). My guide is 20 years old but already worked as guide for 4 years and he is really brilliant, knows alot about the birdlife in surrounding area and the plants aswell. the first thing we saw was the cerro wayllas with the footprints of dinosaurs. and there were HUGE and small footprints. the big ones belong to the giant herbivor and the smaller ones to the carnivors. they were very distinctive because the herbivors have a rounded foot and the carnivors have a distinctive three toes print (with claws). after the cerro we walked to the nearby canyon. Dios mio, the canyon is huge... 200 m deep it was really incredible. I was really amazed about the size of the canyon because I really thought it was a small one (the canyon started nearby the village and it was really small). also great to see was the Frente Roja.

a Arara (big parrot) with colours of bolivian flag, and this species is endangered. after that we take a turned to see the cavern Ciflon- qaqa and the Vergel waterfall. because it was raining it is a bit dangerous to go down to Vergel and thus we stayed on the top of the hill. This canyon is reminder to Iguazu falls but it´s much bigger (and i must admit it`s much more fun walking around here, than walking around Iguazu). To enter the cavern of ciflon is also not possible because of the rain, its better to go to toro2 in dry season i guess. after the ciflon cavern we went back to the village but before that we went to see the walls painting. the painting is not yet researched very well, thus it is not really clear how old the painting exactly is. after that we walked to the turtles cementery where fossils of 60 -65 millions year turtle could be seen. the great thing about toro2 is, everything here is really cheap.

second day we went to umajallanta cavern. uma= water and jallanta= lost in aymara. it was the people of aymara who found the cavern for the first time. before the cavern we waded through the mud (toro toro is a abreviation of T´uru t´uru which means ¨mud¨in quechua), to carrera pampa where there are a distinctive carnivors dinosaurs footprints fossils. the prints are caught when they were on the run thats why it called ¨carrera pampa¨. arrived at the cavern again i was amazed by it`s size but sadly this cavern is kinda destructed. people came here and they cutted the stalagtites and the stalagmites and also the graffities around are kinda ruined the cavern. but it`s still fun to walked through it. we saw vampiers bat´s, stalagtite with strange form, crawled through very small channels.. it was one big adventure. probably the most fun Parque Nacional around. I really enjoyed Toro2 because it has so many things to do: palentologic, archeologic, spleoncologic, rockhopping and crossing some river..

which reminded me, when i went back to cochabamba we were stuck for about 2 hours because a car was stuck in the middle of the river. also the trip back was amazing. when the bus crossed the river water was splash around and the roads were really muddy. This is Bolivia, exactly what i was imagened about it.

back in cochabamba i went to the terminal to buy ticket to Sucre. but i was kinda confused because the lady said ¨veinte y treinta¨ so i though i have a ticket for a 20.30 but when i wanted to get inside the bus i founded out that it was for 20.00 so i ran for the bus but it was already gone. so i need to spent another night in CBBA. but maybe Cristo wanted me to visit him, now it`s sunny so it`s perfect to go to the hill but the hill is rather unsafe.... but tonight i`m going to the officially capital of Bolivia, Sucre. and after a day i want to go to Potosi. this time i need to do it right because carnaval is next week-end and i need to be in Oruro on time.

Entonces.. if you go to Bolivia dont miss Parque Nacional Toro Toro.

Salud

ch´

La perla del Oriente

2009-02-10T00:23:00.005+01:00

Yes still in Bolivia, right now in Cochabamba but ive been to the ORIENTE with the collection of the finest churces in Bolivia. and maybe the Most beautiful ive ever seen. started in Robore an old military outpost where ive made friend with the local chicha saleswoman. also with one of the colonel lived there. nearby robore is santiago de chiquito where one they have erected one of the ten jesuits temples. didnt know that there are no transportation back to the robore i have walked back 20 km to robore on my havaianas which richt now i have strained one of my foot. in robore it self there is a fine walk through the forest and to the waterfal (didnt went there). after robore i went to san Jose, with it`s magnificent cathedral and after that i went city hopping (san ignacio, San miguel y san rafael) and ended in concepcion with one of the most magnificent temple. the fine carved benches and the pillars and all the woods resemblence the life of Jesus as carpenter (but thats my own conclusion). But the gilded altar and the paintings on the wall were a big contrary of all that humbleness. i guess it´s one of the times that i would say a picture says more than 1000 words

Santa Cruz and the Searing heat.

2009-01-30T20:48:00.002+01:00

i´m going to misiones in a bout one hour andthe internet connection is so slow....
i just want to congratulate Pim v.d. Berg for his upcoming birthday. and because the place where i go has no internet, so i do it now. good health and luck i wish for you.

BTW santa Cruz is a terrible town dont go here.... just pass by for one day or something and thats too much i think. okay now i need too hurry... bye for now.

Suerte

Ch´

Doble T : Tupiza y Tarija

2009-01-26T23:52:00.005+01:00

It was probably one of the best busride ive ever done. the scenic is so amazing and it was the first time that i really could appreciated the richness of Bolivia.

yeah back down on earth and i actually love it. although it was one of the best, it was still one of the most dangerous. but the more time ive spent here in bolivia the more i love it. this country has potential and i hope with Obama as president of EE. UU. things are started to loosen up a bit.

i had a pleasant discussion with another traveller from Yugoslavia, about Obama and about the time he (obama) spent in Indonesia. he was definetely interested about Indonesia and really curious about it. but he also spoke about the political climate here in Bolivia and in Public. one thing that I avoided to speak about actually. but anyhow. in the small Pueblo of Tupiza i think it was a bit manageable. and we both are actually for Evo anyway (So almost all the people in Tupiza as well).

But on the valley where they growth grapes, almost everyone is again Evo. because they do not wanted to share their richdom. so it`s a bit dangerous to discuss about it here in Tarija. but lets move on to another subject.

oh yeah yesterday it was my first time i used my ORS. its mix of salt and sugar used when you have heavy D. yeah i ve eaten from the street, eat something not cooked in front of me and definetly not checked the hygiene and almost everything was picante. So now i know the result yes¡¡¡¡ but i´m not bringing my ORS for nothing and i went to bolivia to save m0ney so anyhow.... but now im definetly more cautious and eat only at the restaurants the guide recommended (i also brought my guide book for something). except for api a typical bolivian drink (with cinnamon, sugar , much other things).

Tarija is really quiet ( no much troubles about the results of referendum) but i could sense the different between week day and fin de semana . It´s so busy right now and i kinda wish i was in Tupiza again where everythiung is much more tranquille. but one more big city , Santa Cruz, and i head for the more tranquille chuiquitos. Concepcion, San Jose, San Javier the places where the jesuits builded their churches for Reduccion among one of the other things.

the last chance to see the jesuits ruines, because i didnt went to argentina and paraguay missiones. one more thing about tarija is the beautiful plazas and the colonial feeling about it that made me really like the city. but other wise i like tupiza alot more.

Tupiza. the small town locked by the colourful cerros and it´s really green. it was also the final place for butch cassidy and sundance kid. but I only went for the cañon del inca. it was really amazing, and on horse back it felt like a western movie. small impression about the cañon and i`m off.

in real life it´s much more beautiful

suerte y abrazo

Ch´

El corazon del Sur america

2009-01-21T15:52:00.019+01:00

hola amigos, que tal? todo tranquile aqui. muy bien, pero primero quiero dicer un atencion para una persona muy importante. Persona muy guapa, con corazon muy grande y tambien siempre mi protegé. una semana atras fue su compluanos y ahora yo quiero felicitar en mi blog. Muchos años mas, mucha suerte y salud.

bueno, mando los regalos pronto. creo es muy dificile para os, cuando yo escribo con espanol.

so back to ingles now. many days have passed by without me being able to wrote anything on my blog. it`s because i was travelling alot and not staying very long in one place. especially because chile is so expensive. but i also saw the most amazing things in the world and done things i´ve never done before. So it`s kinda balanced everythings i think. the last publication i´ve made i was in Viña now i want to give you my report about La Serena, San pedro de atacama and of course my crossing to Bolivia through the blinding salt flats of Uyuni. it was amazing weeks although it goes rather fast i think.

La Serena

the amazing Reserva nacional de humboldt penguins (isla Damas) i will never forget it. it was really amazing to be able to see the aminals so close and especially the bottlenose dolphins that pops out of nothing and the cute baby seals, baby penguins and baby dolphins. also sea otters and alot of birds. and the strange looking rock in isla damas but on contrary the most beautiful beach ive ever seen. i´ve learned alot about the nature just being here in SA and not to be in school, i really think that university back home really need a better exchange program and allow all of the students to go backpacking. maybe i should write a letter to the secretary of education ;)

San pedro de atacama

the 16 hours bus ride to san pedro was one of the most beautiful busride ive ever done. although after a while i kinda get bored of only seeing dessert and sand. arrived in san pedro it was hot and dusty. got accomodation really quick because every hostees were on tourist hunting (and believe me San pedro is really touristic).

but on the good side was ive met a group of chilean docents from chillan. they were really nice and invited me to joined their group to go to valle da luna (photo on top) and of course the geysers of El Tatio. i think they were the most pleasant chillean people iveever met. but again ive not met many chilleans. ja ja ja

after the geyser i went for sandboarding. it was alot of fun but to go up is exhausting. they really need to build a lift there.

Salar de Uyuni (Bolivia)

the vulcanos, the lagunas, the flamengos, the cold hail, funny looking rabbit, lot of cactus, sand and more sand, hotel build from salt. and in the end there it was the blinding salt flats of Uyuni, the highest and maybe the biggest salt flat in the world. or as i called it ¨gudang garam¨. it`s maybe one of the most beautiful places in Bolivia and must see if you are going to visit Bolivia.

the downside of all that beauty is the altitude. it´s so high that every day my head is spinning. and always breath really heavily. especially the first day was horrible. but the snow capped vulcanos and the tree of stone makes it worth. and of course the blinding white flats.

Now i´m in Tupiza, 200 km south of uyuni. the bus ride to here was amazing. especially when we met another bus coming from the other direction. and just right to us is a cliff of 50 m. Puta, if we fell... then what that´s what i had in my mind. it`s not only one the world most dangerous road here, but every road is the most dangerous. But here in Bolivia is the first time i fell that i´m in South america. the women here still wearing there traditional clothing and the most beautiful buildings are the church on the plaza. the houses are not painted and they look really horrible actually. but now i really feel that i`m in the heart of South america. the more freightning thing is next sunday is the election day. so... i´m heading to Tarija, Sucre and Santa Cruz. just to let you know.

Suerte y salud

Ch´

¡HOLA PACIFICO!

2009-01-10T19:07:00.014+01:00

okay, now i have officially seen the 3 oceans of the world. the Indian ocean, the atlantic and the pacific.
which in my opinion the pacific is the best of all three. but i have seen the crappier part of indian ocean so it didn´t really count i think. oh yeah before i forget

Soleila, Feliz compluañus para ti.
Muchas suerte y salud.

para traducion, preguntas tu padre ;)

okay after a dazzling ride through the andes (which was really spectacular) and also the dazzling waiting time on the border of chile i finally made it. arrived save and sound in Viña del mar. I must say Viña is probabaly my favourite place at this moment. it`s really great to have some cooling down after very very hot Mendoza. and to be able to swim in the sea with clear green and blue coloured water. the other fun part of the sea is the big wave which very surfable (I wish u was here, T ). i actually wish everybody in cold cold holland to be here and enjoy the warm and sunny pacific coast, which i really love.

not so far from viña is Valparaiso. when i saw the picture of the accensors i directly recognised this placea as one of the place Che guevara had visited on his journey. I really love it. its a mix of the good part of Rio (St. Teresa and lapa) and the worst part of RJ ( the favela) and also La Boca of BA. I love the cerros and the accensors in generally i love beaches with hill side i think. another place which was really great is con cón not far from Viña its a fiching village with very quite dark coloured beaches (volcanic sand i think). offer the best sea food restaurant and quiet time to work on my tan.

This one is for pepe ;)

beside beaches this region also offer hills where one could do some trekking. to be exact it`s the parque nacional la campana. it`s also the place where darwin climbed up the hill and which he claimed one of the best views in Chile. I arrived at the parque really late. it`s about 5 km up hill to climbed up till the site where darwin was and about 7 to the top. so i decided only to climbed till darwin site. It was really exhausting trip, approximate time to climbed up till placa darwin is about 3 hours and i have done it in 3,5 hour which is not really bad actually considered my bad stamina i needed to take alot of brake. and the trail was really steep so i kinda had back ache after a while. and so now and then i took an opportunity to go off the trail and climbed some rocks. FREESTYLE without any security and partner. it was not really big a deal. one rock i climbed was about 5 m but the next one was a wall of 12 m +. the rock is much higher than 12 m but without safety i do not want to take a lot of risks. but with my Bear Grylls shirts it felt like an episode of Ultimate Survival. jajaja :)

the view really is magnificent so it`s worth to climbed

So I`m off on a new adventures, but i do missed the time i spent with the 2 viajeros de Altea, Espana.
missed the time we cooked together and eat with our hands. also the fun time we had with Wilson from RJ.
and the Sangrias, fake caipirinhas and cuba libre. So this page of my digital journal is dedicated for you the ones that go to the south of the continent and also the one that goes back to Brasil. Muchacho y muchacha muchas suerte en patagonia y encontramos a Manaus. Vale, Venga, Vamos.

Suerte

Ch´

Feliz año nuevo

2009-01-04T23:04:00.004+01:00

comencar de nuevo año con un bailando

day 63 - day 72: 26 december 2008 - 4 januari 2009

Feliz año nuevo / happy new year / gelukkig nieuw jaar / selamat tahun baru

for all of you have a prosperous new year and i hope this year would be really great for all of you. especially for the one that have their birthday in january. so have a really nice day and wish you all healthy and lucky.

for Glenn Schijf and Will Beekman

bueno. muchas felicitates por todo, esperanzo este año es mucho mucho mejor.
para mi es un año excelente. Salud

greeting people from the place where they cultivate the grapes and produce the finest malbec of the whole argentina and maybe the whole world too. i don´t really care about the statistic but the wines from the bodegas around mendoza are really good. also the view over the andes is really breathtaking and magnificent. along with the highest peak of south america ´aconcagua´

2 days ago went for a ride on the bicycle through the wine area of mendoza and it was good. very unlucky is we had lost a lot of time searching for bank to sack some money and also lost a lot of time by taking the wrong bus. but it was a good day though. with alot of wine. buracho

and yesterday we had a relax day on the thermal. working on my sun tan.

i also had my first new year long way from home. it was good with alot of meat and fernet with coke and wine too.

well my new year started really good here. wish the same for you all too. running out of internet time here... :)

salud y suerte

Ch´

FELIZ NAVIDAD

2008-12-26T02:27:00.006+01:00

day 62: 25 december 2008 (navidad)

the flags goes down here in BA, because tomorrow i`m heading for Mendoza. where the finest wines of argentina are produced. also it is on the foot of the vulcan of aconagua, one of the higheest peak of South america. but first i want to share you some of my experience here in buenos aires.

mid- december is really not the best time to go to buenos aires. the humidity is very high and the heat is killing. and add some polution too and it`s a dreadful combination. although Buenos aires is really interesting to see, the different type of the barrios offer lot of attraction. and los porteños are nocturnal, so all activities started late in the evening.

pero heading for caminito in the evening isn´t really good idea. caminito is a placein the barrio of la boca. home of boca junior but also the poorest barrio in BA. so outside of caminito it`s a hell for las turistas. although the site it self is really nice to see. and it`s amazing how inventive people are and could make something out of nothing. it`s again some kind of reminder for me. to be inventive and find a solution for everything i will encountered.

and like now i`m choosing to smoke pipe tobacco above cigars because it`s mas economico.
but being so young and smoke pipe, it doesnt match really well. And the people i met on the street still thinks that i smoke marihuana or crack. no no no it`s pure tobacco. it`s something that give me strength instead of make me feel sleepy and dizzy. sometimes i wondered if i was borned at a wrong era. i still wondered if i can get my pipe through the border. on chilean border vegetables, fruits and diary products are not allowed to pass the border. and also coca leaves but i think that`s only for people coming from bolivia.

bueno, that`s much later for now i`m still in argentina. and now i`m thinking to go to the World`s End. the very south part of argentina, there is a city called Ushuaia and it`s the end of the continent. but i`m seeking Sponsors to be able to go to Ushuaia:D

Suerte

ch´

holy night..... and maybe a silent night too

2008-12-24T18:17:00.004+01:00

day 53-61: 16 - 24 december 2008

battery of camera is on the lowest end. so i have nothing, nada photos to upload. i do have a picture of my "graduation". so now i`m a spanish speaker on basic level. bueno, the spanish course is finish but on the tango lessons i`ve never had a time for it. because i need to made my homework everyday and after that i went to activities with the rest of the folks in the hostel. like go to a percussion performance. packed with people and the beat is incredible. or we had a asado in the patio of the hostel. or i cooked my own dinner and after that tired to do anything... just studying and going out.. so sadly no tango. And for now there are no tangos because of the holidays. AND i`m going to Mendoza at the 26th of december. so no more buenos aires and no tango i think.

but, now i`m still here in BA although with christmas on the way and with no idea how to celebrate it. but there are 2 friends stuck here in BA aswell ;).

bueno. i also want to say feliz compluaños para mi tia Ketut. tambien para mi abuelo en Indonesia. i might be busy but i always remember.

and also:

suerte

Ch´

What day is it?.... it`s a school day

2008-12-15T21:00:00.002+01:00

¡ir a la escuela!

day 47 - 52 = 10- 15 december 2009

the time seems to fly... and by this i also want to thanks again to mr. R. Van Den Berg, for the effort you have done to send my credit card to buenos aires. i`ve received it in one piece and promise to not lose it again (except if its got eaten by the machine).

yeah what day is it today?? for me it`s monday the 15 de diciembre and the start of a school day. After travelling so long i don´t use to be at school and so waking up so early in the morning is a little bit hard. the class start at 9.00 am. yep, i´m attending a spanish classes here in Buenos Aires, it´s 2 blocks walking and only 2 hours a day so from 9.00 till 11.00, which then i have the rest of the day free to fill in.

but i do got some home work, so that need to be done first, and because BA is so big i have lot of options where i want to sit and have it done. today i choose for San Telmo. it`s an old neighbourhood with one some places the street are still from cobbled stones. and also the old rails from the tram. on the plaza it`s a lot of restaurants where you could sit down unders the shadow of the trees and have a drink and/or eat something. also there were tango dancers permorming in the middle of the plaza so it´s indeed very nice place to see and be seen. although it´s a bit touristic in some way.

yesterday at 0.00 we had a party in hour hostel, it was great and i didn`t know that the party here goes till 8.00 in the morning. hehe i`m not used to it. it was also a nice moment to sharpen my espanol. although on some kind of way i still used some portuguese words (he he discovered it today). but i do hope that it`s fade after a week of spanish school. Bueno,last thursday i went to the bar along with other guys. it´s call milonga here in BA. it`s place where people are practising the dance of milonga (a variation of tango) and also there were local artists performing
folklore and musics that is a part of the tango scene.

I also want to try a tango class.... so Yvonne if you read this, I know a great place to learn some tango :) cheers. oh yeah, and if you want some great ice cream, got Dylan in Perú 1400+ i don`t know the exact adress but the ice cream is amazing. I also went to watch the movie of Che (el argentino) by benicio del toro. amazing movie.

bastante en este momento

abrazo

Ch´

Nubes ...o nubes

2008-12-09T17:37:00.005+01:00

The LightTower of Cabo Polonio

day 40 - 46 = 3 - 9 december 2008

I`m struck with a lot of bad karma at this moment. I really hope that the wave of bad karma is ended now, other wise i might not be able to bare it anymore...
well on the other end of the scale there are a lot of very nice things happened last week. so it`s actually balanced everything in some way or another. every particle in this universe strived to it outmost streched position where it has the best configuration to be in balance. so yeah that`s about where i`m at this moment.

Well let`s move to the better moments shall we, from 3 till 6 december i`ve spent a really fun and good time in Cabo Polonio. it really is something else. I`ve never seen such strech kilometers of beaches, dunes similar to the deserts and of course the sea lions whoms dominated the rocky end of the beach. I will miss the lights from the Al Faro illuminated the village with only 80 inhabitants (besides tourists and sea lions). spent my days walking around the playas, observing the sea lions and of course searching for fossils. But the most fun part was the nights, I`ve brought grappamiel to cheers things up, where we (the people in the cabo polonio hostel) preparing our food together. The first night was tortillas, that`s tasted really good and the second night was rice mixed with vegetables, and some fresh fish from Pablo. All tasted very good. but the ultimate night was the one that breaked my heart. (I`m trying to hold my tears now). I kinda orchestrated everything but the one who made such beautiful meals are you guys = Ana, Pepe, Yvonne and Monica. you have prepared the ingredients very well I just gave you the directions. yeah the ultimate night we had INDONESIAN food. we have made the corn cookies / bakwan and gado - gado. hehe you will thought how did i got the peanut sauce. we improvised it. here, in Cabo polonio there is a little supply of everything but we made the sauce from peanuts and cream (for whip cream). which actually turned out to have some similar taste.

It was really fun guys ...

but of course it`s not similar as one that mamita always made. Being here facing such of hard time made me realised how much I`ve missed home. Bueno.. let`s move on. the night ended up with lot of grappamiel (the nights are cold here in Cabo). had really really good time.

the next day went back to montevideo to catch the ferry on the next day.

7 december - present

Ferry... ehh lets`s skipped that saved it for another time. the next day is 8th of december. it`s the holy day of virgin mary all around the world. I`ve told you about this couple of time now. so I think you already now it. so I went to Lujan to see the image of the Virgin and to take a part in the ceremony, but before that i called mamita.. vos sabes todo no, mamichita. but in Lujan it`s the place that I realised that it was similar when Jesus met his mother on his way to golgota... well I do not want to used the name of god idly, but the situation is similar. On the road, faced a lot of hard time but the result would be something nice. som Mamicita be strong okay.. I am strong enough to bare this burden. the image of The Virgin of Lujan is very small, Something so small but though so strong. Although faced lot of hard time my faith is actually grew stronger and stronger since i`m here in SA. same to bear Grylls, his faith is what he only have when he is outhe there surviving in wilderness. that and his knife. also something that I`ve been using lot of time my swiss army knife, the small one though.

Image of Virgin of Lujan

Passion of christ. jesus encountered his mother

so yeah .. now I`m in Buenos Aires, Argentina and going to spend here A LOT of days maybe till next year. Buenos Aires is really nice spot to stay for a while. you know..
¡ yo queiro descansarrrr!

bueno.. till next digital pages

muchas suertes y abrazo grande

Ch´

Another great day

2008-12-03T01:08:00.003+01:00

day 39: 2 december 2009

I could add another great day in my trip. although I have been encountered lot of hardship, there is nothing that could beat some warm abrazo from some really nice people i`ve met here. although we knew each other only for a short time but Melisa and Felipe had gave me something that no money in te world could buy. So thank you very much for the really great culinair tour round montevideo, especially today i have felt to be a local gente. and also thank you for the present, it was muy rico.

ahora, esta muy difficile para mi por escribir mi emocionnes. primera ves a de viaje, yo encontro del ¨writers block¨. No se porque, tambles los emocionnes son mas fuerte. Pero, esta una experensia muy muy linda. ta, mucas muchas gracias por todo, Melisa y Felipe. y ahora yo puedo dicer. ´yo tengo amigos en Uruguay. el pais nada personas connosar. ´bueno, uno mas mi apreciada, muchas muchas gracias.

So i think not many of you could understand what i have wrotten (i have wrotten it by heart, so it`s not that correct). but yeah,today is one of the day that i will always remember.

tomorrow, i `m going to cabo polonio. there suppose to be no electricity or streamig water. So i do not know if there are any internet. so I ´m leaving for anoter adventure, wish me luck.

PS: i added some footer with the Birthday of the people I know, but I don`t know itbyheart so plese send me your birthday if it`s in the period from now till 3 may 2009. also had another gadget on the side., the best food of each country.

muchas amores y grande abrazo

Ch´

Wonders of montevideo

2008-12-01T21:07:00.005+01:00

¿ Burj Al Arab clone ?

day 38: 1 december 2008

its still the same day but now i`ve walked through the city of montevideo and did some sightseeing. Montevideo has a very relax atmosphere. it`s kinda similar with Rio because of the waterfronts. but I must say it has more similarity to Helsinki, Finland. the city is a combination of new and old and it doesn`t breath a capital city at all. It has something of a provincial town feel. today I have bought my ferry ticket to Buenos Aires. I just want to secure a place so I will be in time in Lujan next week.

I have been in a mass yesterday, at the local church of Nuestra Senora de sacrada corazon. I must said it was very energizing experience to be a part of the pueblo. the mass is really different with the one i have been before. it was really intense. the words that i do understand were really touching and I like especially the sentence caminho de la vida (life path) , or `how we walk through the life´ it really reminds me of my travel so far.

the city of montevideo is really touching. to be here was a wise decision, it doesnt feel touristy at all and it really is charming. From the cathedral metropolitana till the mercado del puerto. the cathedral is maybe the most artsy and the most warm cathedral i`ve ever seen. and the mercado with the eat establishments ( all are top class and really cheap) is really kitschy. i have eaten a verry good fish drank medio y medio and have a dessert and cappucino and that`s for lesser than 30 €

maybe because Uruguay felt really European, that`s why not many european are visiting but it is really worth to take a look for a day or two.

abrazo

Ch´

Thank you for all your attention!!

2008-12-01T12:59:00.003+01:00

Yay today it`s my birthday. so i have a reason to smoke my romeo y julieta.
although i do not feel that today is a special day. it feel like any other day.
maybe the downside of travelling.. anyway i`m going to check the city of montevideo
and rush to Cabo Polonio. because I want to be in Lujan, buenos Aires at 8 of december
because it`s the holy day of Mary and Lujan like Lourdes is a pilgrimage spot of South America

But first some special attention for Liselot Van den Berg. happy Birthday too and I wish you all the best and all the good things in the world. May this day be a special one for you too.

Good, for all of you that sent me a e-mail or comments. thank you very much for the attention.
for one who didn`t, no thank :D.. hehe brigadeiro just joking. I know you all wish me the best and followed my journey, and I know you don`t forgot it. So I also want to thank you for all of your attention., as well.

Bueno, I´m going now and will give some update about the wonders of Uruguay mas tarde

abrazo

Ch´

Ciudad de montevideo, Uruguay

2008-11-30T14:00:00.002+01:00

day 37 : 30 november 2008

ahora soy en uruguay!!!

In uruguay now en now i`m trying to track my budget everyday. it's not a vacation anymore :(
i could see it already in the sky. there are no silverlinings only a big grey cloud.
going to make this a short one because i just arrived here and had nothing to do, but i´m also kinda of tired so. Uruguay is almost the same as brasil. but here in montevideo there are lot more colonial buildings, it's almost similar to Porto Alegre (i have seen it a bit better). going to stay here for a couple of days because i just met a uruguyan girl in my bus, that have been in exchange program to brasil. always good to have a local guide, will definetly give a different perspective.

abrazo

Ch´

Porto Alegre (transfer to uruguay)

2008-11-29T14:18:00.003+01:00

Really sloppy..........!!!

day 34 -36: 27 -29 november 2008

Really stupid of me to lost my creditcard.. escpecially because mastercard is the best way to pay in Argentina. now i need to look for ATM that accept maestro. here in brasil both mastercard and maestro is widely accepted, so not much to worry about. I lost it because of my own stupidity.. put the card somewhere in my bag and couldnt found it anymore.. i guessed it fell off and hid somewhere. turned the bag inside out and upside down but nothing. and i just realized at the day i go to Porto alegre. nothing to whined about it anymore, cancelled the card and wait for new one. but i still have alot of american dollars as back - up so i´m good right now.

Another experience to add in the list of reminders. just need to be more careful now.
besides all of the missery I also have some good experience to share. I was waiting in the bus terminal for my bus to porto alegre. and when next to me was a girl carrying a rucksack. always curious for the story of other travellers. just asked her where she was going. turned out that she lived here in brasil for 2 years. she was from origin Spaniard from valencia but lives in france (really complicated). although she speaks english, we have talked with mix of spanish and portuguese.. talked about my experience of travelling here in Brasil mostly (i turned out to be a chatter hehe), so self - centered of me. really nice to be able to talked with some strangers. although i´m always careful with the one i want to talk to. After when i was boarding in to the bus got caught up in a conversation with a girl from new-Zealand. She also wanted to go to uruguay and travelling for in total 3 months and have seen Peru, bolivia, chile and argentina.

when we arrived in porto alegre. i went directly to buy ticket to uruguay. she also but she departed directly in the same day at 20.00 (28 november). In the terminal of Porto Alegre there were alot of people carrying rucksacks. and so we met another travellers. one Englishman and the other one was Irish (but lived in States for 13 years now). four of us decided to take a quick look of the city of Porto Alegre. but we ended up in a small cafe and had some beers till 15.00. a local postman was really kind to bought us the beer, if the postman didn´t paid for the beers it was a alcohol free day. after that we went to look for a internet cafe. but we got splitted up and we lost the new zealand girl. because the internet was expensive we decided to visit the cathedrale metropolitana. Really beautiful structure. Asked for some redemption and we went back to the praça to get more beers, bad wine and good caipirinha (it´s my last day here in Brasil). I think you all know how the british people appreciate alcohol ;). we need to run back to the bus terminal because the Englishman needed to get his bus on time. and again i lost something.. it was luckily my copy of passport. i plastificated it so, kinda worried but not that much actually. better lost a copy than the real one. Another amazing day here in brasil..

the city of porto alegre

Porto alegre is a mix of old colonial buildings and modern skycrappers. thats all actually. sorry i didn´t saw too much of the city, i saw alot of shopping malls and markets at the streets. otherwise i spent actually one day wasted (if you know what i mean) here in porto alegre. but gain alot of knowledge of NGO and UN woks so every day is another day fill with new people and another perspectives of the life in general. taking baby steps and sometimes leap forward to become a better person. hey i´m almost a year older didn´t i.

obrigado Brasil, Hola Uruguay

abrazo

Ch

Muitas Agua + maravilhoso forza da natureza

2008-11-26T21:46:00.011+01:00

Boa noite é muita boa saúde

day 30-33: 23 - 26 november 2008

how are you all.. i heard that the weather not so very good (especially Holland). really shame because here is like 30 degree celcius the whole time. except in the state of santa catarina (city florianopolis) where they have continous rainfall and lot of erossion... i didnt know the exact word for the falling down dirt, but i think you all have heard about it. the heat right here is very strong and i´m wishing for rain now... but tomorrow i´m going to Porto Alegre, so rain down here doesn´t help that much.

THE FALLS

I still keep water as main subject but now moving to something else.: The Iguazu falls. que lindo, really stunning piece of art creating by the mother earth. you need to be here to see the wonder at it self, because pictures don´t speak that much, but i try to make a good story of it. directly after my 30 hours bus ride i went to the national park of iguazu. it´s about 30 km from Foz. in the park it self there are alot of trails and adventures to do. but i take the more touristic way, by walking the 1200 m trails to the main attraction: GARGANTA DO DIABLO. along the trail there are some mirantes (i dont know the word.. view something) where you could see the gigantic falls part by part. and after mas o menos 30 minutes walk you will arrive in the Devil´s Throat. and will definetly got wet.. if you walk to the sighting platform. After that there is a tower overlooking almost the whole fall where you could go up either by using the stairs or the elevator. but the sound of water really is overwhelming.

stupid finger ..it´s the garganta by the way

Near the falls there is a bird / ornithology museum.. but the bird are alive. so it´s actually a bird park. it contains almost every bird from around here (iguazu and surrounding), another part of brasil and also from pantanal (chance to see them at close range). especially the tucans, because in the wild they are hard to capture at a picture. note: this whole area is really touristic, i mean Foz and everythng around it. i was amazed to see the great amount of tourist (after weeks of not seeing one, except the ones in my group) and now is the low season, how about at the high season...

ITAIPU DAM & TRES FRONTEIRAS

another gigantic attraction here in Foz is the Itaipu hydroelectric plant. I believe it´s the biggest one in the world. but currently china is also building a hydroelectric plant near the yang tze river. it could be bigger than this but Ive read the article about it in portuguese from a magazine i bought here.. so maybe i could be wrong. anyway the biological refuge was closed that day (really bummer) because i could see a jaguar from close range. So i take the panoramic tour.. the special touristic route is expensive and i think it will be really interesting for Willem -Alexander but not for me. before we went to the dam we have to watched the mogie about the making of the dam. the movie makes it really clear that the dam is behemoth. really something to look forward.

took a view picture of the dam and listened to the same story i´ve heard and seen (from the movie) that´s all actually.. the dam is really huge but again it´s something you need to see with your own eyes. in the afternoon i´ve decided to see the three land marks. ive seen one in Holland so i want to campare it with the one here. haha, its not the same.. the point that the the three countries cross is in the middle of the rio parana and rio iguasu so if i swam to that place athan im in the center of the borders. bu there wasn´t any tourists... amazing.

PARAGUAY (CIUDAD DEL ESTE)

last day here in Foz do Iguaçu. Bought the ticket to Porto Alegre , RS. tomorrow at 19.00 so i have some times to see Puerto Iguazu (Argentina). after today i knew how to cross the border. and i add 4 stamps in my passport. Paraguay x Brazil = 2 -2. entrada and salida. in and out.. but i actually didn´t need to have an exit stamp from brasilian side. but now ive prolonged my visa by 40 days in brasil :D.

okay, ive land my feet on the paraguay soil.. so if everything according my plan i will see all of the south American countries except the one that have been colonized by English, Dutch and French.

but how was paraguay? IT WAS AWFUL. at least here in ciudad del este, the biggest shopping city in the South America. everyone tried to sell you something.the shop attenders are following you all around and watching you all the time, and sometimes haggle a bit (it was a shop for cryin out loud). most of the time i talked portuguese with them X-D, although they could understand it as well. most the things they sell here are electronica, perfumes and clothings (lot of counterfeits). i was almost seduced by the acer mini laptop for hard currency of 350 US dollar. not fell for that, but i did fell for the 35 dollar of cohibas, with mark of seals, imported from Cuba.... ahumm really going to save this ones for something specials. i did bought some souvenir (a leather pouch for my camera with paraguay on it and a bracelet) and a shirt to spend my last Guaranis (really awful money and i thought reais was awful). When i was in Ciudad del este i thought ´wow such poverty i´m going back to brasil´. really it was a terrible poor city. and It made me remind tho the words of that dude in SP about how poor paraguay was (and still is) . At least I saw another country other than brasil now.

Boa saúde e grande abrazzo

Christiano

Back from pantanal now chilling in Iguaçu

2008-11-25T19:04:00.007+01:00

1 month on the trip and one month in Brasil.

day 23- 29: 16 nov - 22 nov 2008

on the bottom of the page you could see some pictures from chapada.

olaaaa, boa tarde. tudo bem?? sou bem, opoco dor a cabeca pelo muito longo viagem (30 horas).

yep, back from the other heaven here in brasil (i think everything in Brasil are heaven). Anyway, pantanal was amazing. in the beginning I was a bit worried, actually geoff and I, but everything turned out very well. hereby my thanks to Joel Souza and family for your hospitalities and great tour. and Alex and Marco & Fatima who gave us a really pleasant time in Pantanal North. yes I went to the northern site of pantanal, from Cuiaba in the state of Mato Grosso. it was about an hour to pocone and after that there was another 3 hours to reached the first pousada. the pousada had a really bad ambience didn´t liked it there. but it was the place where we need to spent 1 day and half for our boat trip and horse ride. boat trip was good we saw alot of birds and a capybara (that was really closed to the pousada). although that was also the first time we met another animal very famous here in Pantanal. I believe the name was : nosquito mosquito. billions of them, luckily they didnt have any malaria parasites.
we also had a night walk to spot some snake and tarantula, we didnt have to walked very long because the italian couples found a snakes and tarantula at their room.

hehe, but we did walked abit to the tarantula territory, and found a big one (with huge fangs). We also spotted the stars, it was a really clear sky and the stars was sonderful. Also when we aimed ourspots to the waters we saw many red eyes poppin out the waters (caymans). boa, the next day we woke aup at 5 o clock for a lil early morning walk. We went to the watch tower to see the sunrise and also to hear the birds and the caymans burping. till Alex woke yup us yelling ´look an anteater´. wow it was an anteater next to us. amazing!! it was also the day that I heard good news from Alex (yayy moving top another pousada) but first horse back riding. really awesome to be gaucho in pantanal.

haha..... lost gaucho

okay after the swiss- german couple (ahumm, third time i met people from Swiss)are arrived, we moved to other pousada deeper in the pantanal to almost the end of the transpantaneira.. on our way we saw lot of caymans and capybara (duhh..). but one cayman lost one leg it was an awesome sight. the next Pousada I really like it. it was run by Marco and Fatima. there is no electricity lines to this part of Pantanal but marco have a generator which supplied a warm water and some Aircon in the evening. next day was another boat trip to the cuiaba river. we spotted some giant otters and some C&C (cayman and capybara). although this place was famous for the jaguar we didn´t saw any of them. well the next day, was also our last we went for a walk in the nearby forest / jungle. saw a horned owl, howler monkeys and brown capuchin. later in the day we ride back in the back of the pick -up back to civilisation. although BIG SURPISE... anaconda (young one) was on the road.. and later JAGUAR. and that was a big jaguar too.. that was a really wonderful closure of our adventure here in Pantanal.

jaguar... the time that i regret, i didn´t bought a better camera

After that i had really long bus trip; de: Cuiaba, MT para: Foz do iguaçu, PR. 30 hours in the bus!!! although from cuiaba to campo grande, I saw alot of emas and also some owls and eagle i hadn´t seen in Pantanal. Tomorrow the wonder of Iguaçu..

Muito Obrigado,

Christiano

WARNING. Anaconda photo on the very bottom ..

the famous woman breasts and hat mountains in the parque nacional chapada dos veadeiros

YELLOW ANACONDA

The paradise on earth

2008-11-18T19:14:00.001+01:00

day 18 - day 22: (12-11-2008 to 16 - 11-2008)

ola, bom dia, todo boa? retorno de ma boquinha aventura a chapada dos veadeiros. esta uma lugar bonita. agora eu est en Cuiaba. e a manha vaje en Pantanal.

okay how are you doing all. i´m back from the 4 days trip to the Alto Paraiso it was a heaven on earth. really amazing place to stay for a couple of days. the tour was amazing and the people ive met are great. All are brasilians so i couldnt spoke any english now, hehe. the people ive met there praised how well i could speak portuguese and only be here in Brasil for about 2 weeks. i think i could speak brasilian better than french (which i had learned for about 5 years). maybe i´m more talented in portuguese and spanish. anyway ive stayed in a amazing pousada, had a pleasant conversation with the boss of the pousada (he was shocked that holland is about 20 m under the sea level) and the first day in pusada i saw 4 tucanos.. amazing birds. in the chapada it self i did alot of swimming. really good and pure water. ive learned alot about cerrado plants (alot are medicinal) and one in particular was a cure for diabetes. Cerrado landscape is about similar to the savannah of Africa except it has less animals. if you have seen the movie of george of the jungle and you saw the big grassy landscapes with the hills.. yeah it´s kinda like that. anyway my adventure is going in fast pace now.... and please send me more money :))))). i´m staying in Pousada Ecoverde that´s run by Joel Souza and his family. a really pleasant place to stay and Joel is a amazing man. he has alot of interesses and could speak alot of language. Dutch aswell because he had listened alot to the Wereldomroep. Joel also run the tour to the pantanal. about
R$ 200 a day, which make my pantanal trip alot cheaper than my chapada. another bummer is that there is no danger of malaria here in pantanal. so i´m dragging my malaria medicines for nothing. Photos will follow folks.. and because i´m off for pantanal this will be my last updated.

PS:i do som tirolevene... (gliding with 2 cables for about 800 m) amazing view but it was too short

yes i´m still in goiania!!!

2008-11-11T15:40:00.005+01:00

day 17 : 11 -11 -2008

Chico Buarque

notice that they pronounce the ´t´like ´ch´ it have been really difficult to me because i have spoken it like ´t´all the time

yup, still in goiania where now the tropical tempest is started. it´s raining liked 3 days in the row... but i really like the rain here. rain in here is cooling rain in Holland is freezing...hahaha. no, i´m not laughing at you (ahum). and it´s only short and heavy. Anyway, my bus leave to Alto Paraiso at 20.30 this evening. so now i kinda have the time to look for a rain poncho. and maybe this also would be my last update for now.. i´m going to stay in a pousada for 4 days, till Sunday and i don´t know if they have internet acces.

hmm good thing to let you know that backpaking is harder than it sound. here follow some tips for some of you if your planning to go backpacking (tips only for brasil)

1. follow the advise of the backpacking website.. bring a medium size bag (55 L max) and just few clothes. preferbly the fast drying ones. with my Lowe alpine travel trekker of 7o L, travelling with the onibus here in brasil is really unforgiving. they have a revolving door system to get through the seating area.. and the big bag tends to get easily stuck. and for clothes you could buy alot of clothes here cheaply.
2. don´t bring sun tan oil, lotions, soaps, any stuffs like that.. they sell those here for slighly cheapier prices. maybe good is insectrepellent.. i brought lot from home and didnt use it at all.which really add only more weights =/.

if I knew this, it´s gonna take alot of weights of my shoulders. Anyway, you could also say this is the downside of travelling. because if you have housed the big bag in a Guarda volumes or a hotel things are alot easier. but during the big movement, all the local will give you the `look´whick kinda irritating.

despited all of this i feel more homier now here in brasil.. i understand the language better and i tend to do things like the local. so I´ve survived the naturalization proces.

yesterday was also the first day i saw how people are actually poor here. if your going to a big shopping mall. you will see that prices of electronics and other stuffs are R$ 1000+. but the minimum salary of normal worker is like R$ 400 , - / month (amount that i´ve spent in like 5 days). thats why they give alot of credits and buy now, pay later. So actually behind that grandeur beautiful outside is a rotten inside like in Estados Unios. i really hope that brasil don´t collapse. because with the recently discovered oil source of around 80 billion gallon, (which make brasil one of the biggest oil producent) Brasil can lead the race of becoming the new economical power. That´s why i really support their idea of not joining the Opec (Saudi Arabia was proposing it), and rafine the oil by own power and sell the product.

Brasil overall is really good development country. Alot of University.. ooh i want to study here, climate is perfect, alot of facilities, lot of beautiful students.. but i maybe say that again if i visited the university of Buenos Aires =). and they spend alot of money in the scientific faculties ( physic, Chemistry, Biology). that´s result in the biggest producent of bio-ethanol in the world. and price of ethanol here is like E 0, 50 / L. benzine is E 0,80 / L. I hope they keep the staggering line and would defeat china in the race of world economy.

okay alot of big words.. hehe. but the 2 weeks i´ve spend here provided me with alot of information. and because i saw the daily life of the people here i gain more respect and my image of Brasil being poor country is totally vanished. I´ve never been more serene and could think so clear before, maybe because i have no stress.. anyhow step by step i´m heading closer to my goal.

one last final thing: different between Brasilian and Cuban.. erm not girls, but cigars.
yeah i know smoking is bad, but i want to try cigar at least once in my life. The story started when i was in SP. i found a cigarshop accidently, which sold brasilian cigars for R$1 -2. and cubanas R$ 10+. later that night i have smoked the first cigar in my live (brasilian). Caipirinha in one hand, cigar on the other.. that´s how we do. really fun because the dudes in the hostels smoke cigarettes and they didn´t believe that it was my first time. i could understand why people like to smoke. the feel of somethings on your hand and the ambience create by it is amazing. for the difference between Brasil and Cuba is: brasil is wild and heavy and bad after taste, cuban is sensual and high class and no/slight after taste. i have 2 more cigars in the back pack. Guantanamera and Romeo Y julia. save one for after Machu picchu and the other at the end of my trip. Althoughhh, i hope i could grab cheap cubans in Venezuela... (By the way I haven´t smoke any cigars last few days, it´s easier to handle because u dont inhale it and the nicotine doesn´t stay that long in your body; i´m not sure though)

Final thing they have already started the Christmas preparation here.. a picture from the rodoviaria / shopping mall

thank you very much for reading my stories and following my journey. it have been a great outlet for me and a good wqay to record my experience. although i know that sometimes (or maybe all the time..) the words not that great, but any suggestions are welcome. for receipes it´s kinda hard for me because so far i´ve only eaten in the restaurant.. maybe later on i will try to put some if i´m more settled. THANK YOU

Stiiill in Goiania (memorial do Cerrado)

2008-11-10T22:51:00.005+01:00

still day 16

well.. still the same day but lot of informations richer now. i went to memorial of Cerrado.. (dumb of me didnt brought ISIC card, the one time it gonna work). anyway, memorial do cerrado is a really nice museum. the main museum exhibit the earths and the evolution of it (have seen it) and also lot of fossils that they have excavatted here in Goias. really nice to see and very educatting all. they also have like a open-air museum. with the replica of houses of the colonists and the indigenous people and the slaves.

and i went to Kiko at casa do walker aventura turismo. and i booked a trip to chapada dos veadeiros
http://www.chapada.com/english/chapadaeng.htm. well it supposed to be energizing and a amazing place too see. the SA handbook of 2009 said that it´s also house alot of wildlife.. but so far i have heard no big mammal only alot of birds. the second time that the handbook failed in information, i was planned to throw the book away and go my own way. But maybe i need it someday.
so i need to go to pantanal anyway. want to go to brazilian side of pantanal because the ecoturismo here in Brasil are better regulated than the rest of the continent (I believe). but it will exceed my time here in Brasil. which is good than i spend less days in the more expensive uruguay and chile. but the downside necessito falo Portugeuse.

chapada dos veadeiros

http://baixaki.ig.com.br/imagens/wpapers/BXK3155_chapada-dos-veadeiros-cachoeira-almecegas-i800.jpg

Still in goiania

2008-11-10T14:10:00.002+01:00

day 15& 16: (9 & 10 -11 -2008)

I like it here in Goiania. its calm and cheap compare to SP and RJ and people are really nice. yesterday (sunday) i went to look for the Memorial de cerrado Museum and Casa do Indio.
and I ended up in a ghetto (again). Funny was when i walked at the Av. Bela Vista, i could saw the huge cultural gap here in Brasil. on one side there were the beautiful condominiums and on the other side the more crappy houses. I found Casa do indio (although its actually Casa de saudé do Indio). but it was more a reservate than a centre for gathering of the indigenous people. I don´t really like it to visit reservate.... maybe the Indian themself tried to isolate themself from the rest (but why was the lock on the outside of the door, not inside). it was totally what i was expected (open space some houses, and not prison like compund) so i decided not to go in.. F* hypocrite, i know. but i want to meet Indian people in the amazon on the place where they belong. Memorial do Cerrado museum is the one i didn´t find. but i know where it is now. so i go to visit it today. i also have appointment with Kiko from Casa do walker (tourism agency). want to fix a trip to chapada dos vedeiros NP. a bit north east of here. the good thing now i´m here in Goiania is that i have some breathing space and i finally could finish my Art of War by Sun Tzu .
the actual book it self is not to long to read but the commentary from the PLA general is more detailed and during the liberation campaign by Mao Zedong he actually used alot of tactic from this 2000 year old book. for meself it´s good to know that i sit here ideally on the focal ground (junction with easy acces) and it´s cheap. economy is a major point in war.

You must see the book as a metaphore. My campaign is my Journey here in SA. the battles are the places i visited and want to visit and economy is of course my budget. It´s gave me huge insight into management and that´s another goal i want to achieved. `know your enemy and know yourself´. boa... here is the map of Goias with Chapada mark as A. i hope to see some jaguar. because it´s what i want to see here in Brasil... it´s same as going safari in Afrika to see elephants and lions.

Exibir mapa ampliado

Brasilia

2008-11-08T14:48:00.003+01:00

Day 13+ 14: (7 - 11 -2008 & 8-11 -2008)

first thing: José, Si usted lee esto, la felicitación en sus cumpleaños. he tratado a le contactó por email. pero su email no trabaja. de todos modos, bom dia amigo.

here in the central plain of brasil is not much of the entertaintment. in Goiania shops are closed around 21.00 and it´s dead, which kinda creepy. yeah it´s been 2 weeks already. time goes fast isn´t it. and i´m actually started to exceed my limit here in brasil (the one i was planned, not my visa) so i kinda need to make a cut in deals, go to cuiaba to see Pantanal or Emas national park to see the bio- illumination of the termites. I really want to see Emas because it´s really amazing (from reading on my handbook and on internet) and pantanal is also in Bolivia so i could visit it later anyway (but the weather at this time is really good, dry not alot of rain). so yeah i´m having dillema right now. anyway, here is short summary of my 2 hours visit in the capital of Brasil: Brasilia.

maybe you know maybe uyou don´t know, but Brasilia is the succesor of Rio as the capital of Brasil (yes, Rio de Janeiro used the be the capital). Anyhow because they need a more central place to reside the federal government, they have established brasilia. The city of Brasilia is really nice, it´s really clean and well maintained. the touristic attraction of the city is also on a walking distance which is really good because the onibus cost like R$ 3 (way to expensive). the most beautiful place i´ve seen is the Cathedrale metropolitane. it´s a church designed by brasil top architect, i don´t remember his name, but it´s a really beautiful building. shape like the thorn crown, full of lights and really modern and artsy. there is one monument that´s kind of bumped up, that was the monument national. it was nothing inside it only some cultural activity about mozambique, a good intention of the government to be aware of the origins of the peple in Brasil (the only nice thing were the chicks at the entrance ;). anyway walk down the arrow (Brasilia is build like bow and arrow) were the senatorial centre and the palace of justice. modern and artsy buildings. a couple hunderd meters more there was the palace of Lula ( the presidential palace) too bad i didn´t saw Lula himself. Brasilia is similar to Jakarta for the ones who have been in Jakarta. Searing heat and alot of cars. but Brasilia is much more clean. the most spectacular view is the trip to Brasilia. the rodoviario goes through the heart of cerrado. really amazing landscape. I love Brasil because of the landscape.

Continuing the cultural interchanging of idea, i went to the museum de goiania. the museum houses several fossils and some arts of the indegenous people who live here in goias. when i saw those pictures and arts and handycrafts of the india people i really want to visit one of the villages. but not here in brasil, i want to go to ecuadorian amazon. speak of which if you remember the girl from ecuador, who ive met in SP, she resides here in Goiania for a while. and it´s kinda hard to meet here because we only have e-mail as contact. Anyhow, kinda want to see her because i need someone to speak with and practice my espanol, no.

Japan in Amazon and Goiania

2008-11-06T18:49:00.005+01:00

Day 11 + 12: (5-11-2008 & 6-11-2008)

Bom.. finally i left SP. although in the end I like SP but only for Butantan and Liberdade. butantan you already know, but i went to Liberdade yesterday. It was the little Tokyo of Sao Paulo and the place i was looking for. at least it was used to be the little Tokyo, because it was mainly resided by the Japanese immigrants. but now it´s kind of mix between Japanese, Chinese and Korean. anyway it was still really nice place to see and walk around. muito boa, and the food was good too. it was a self service, por quilo (typical brasil) but the a la carte was the one I was looking for. Lamen Especial. big bowl of ramen and tasted really good. and in Liberdade i finally found my second battery for my camera. i walked through the city center and no one had it. and here in Liberdade, they have it (of course they have it, because they have half of japan right here. after that i went to the cathedral of Sé the biggest of South America. and it was reallly big. never saw cathedrale at this propotion. magnificent and grand.

depois, it was time to leave SP. and had to goiania. a overnight bus ride. Took the executive but leito was almost the smae but cheaper. boa,.. for the next time. okay. Goiania is a big city.. similar to amsterdam (population wise) but at least it´s much smaller than SP. so far it´s really good here in Go, prices are cheaper compare to the biggest metrople in brasil and it´s more calm than RJ or SP... but it´s hot down here... i hope you guys don´t envy me becaues right now i could use some rain. anyway , today i found out that per quilo restaurant. especially brasilian food it´s really cheap. i should go eat there more. although as always it´s dominated by meat. good meat though, and they prepared them very well.

Butantan revisited

2008-11-05T03:38:00.002+01:00

day 10: 04-11-2008

because yesterday the butantan institute was closed i need to go back again. I really want to see the research they were doing. and it was really important for me. it was also the first time that my ISIC card works. and it wasnt that surprising really because the institute is connected to the university and would of course give some discount to students. so instead of $ 3 i was paying like $ 1. 2/3 of the price. the institute has 3 prominent museums. the biologic museum, the microbiology museum and the historic museum. the museums were educative, informative and amusing at the same time. I really liked to walked around in those museums. and after I saw what the institute really does I gained respect for the achievement they make here in Brasil. I always thought that Brasil was 3rd world country, but even in the 19th century, the Institute was actually a State of the art. And it was equal to the europeans counterparts. really awesome was the snake collection they have there. different kind of snake, originated from the amazons and also from the rest of the world was exhibited in the biologic museum. In the historic museum, they have put the old instruments they used back in the 19th century. they even had their own elctron microscoop how cool is that. The microbiology museum is really clear and understandable even for the little ones (alot of Sao Paulo schools have their fieldtrip right here). it was really cool museum. because I know that some of You doesnt love Snake that much, I havent put any photos of my visit here. in fact I only put dome photos from my visit to Nossa senhora de conselacão cathedral. it was really beautiful and grand cathedral although itś not the biggest one here in SP. there is another one in the centrum, and itś also supposed to be the biggest one in South America. photo down below.

Instituto Butantan

2008-11-04T00:19:00.005+01:00

day 9: (3-11-2008)

took a bit educational turn today, by going to Instituto Butantan. Took the bus number 701 to Butantan USP. but not knowing where i had to go out end up in a wrong place again. not far from the instituto though. The campus of USP is big, and different type (or maybe all) of the faculties are on the same ground. the Butantan Institute is close on monday so i couldnt catch a glimpse of the resarches they are doing around here. i especially would like to see the snake milking. 6 times a day the snakes are milked for their venoms. the institute was founded with the intention to research and to make anti-venoms for the snake bites here in the amazon. well i guess that was what they were doing. anyway, outside of the institute there was a big snake terrarium. and it was divided in 3 different area and each area hold different type of snakes in it but they were snakes that originated from the amazon like: Boa constrictor, cascavel and the jararacussu. Jararacussu and cascavel are poisonous. and the Boa not. The institute also has a nice garden, but it was close. anyway i'm going back to butantan again tomorrow. i really want to see the researches they are doing here. By the way, the hostel i'm sleeping right now is full with gringos. so no more spanish.. but i need to speak alot of portuguese anyway. and today i met a girl from the Swiss-german. she going to do a 5 months trip and just like me she started in Rio, in Itaguai near by Rio de Janeiro.

Interlagos, Sao paulo

2008-11-03T00:01:00.005+01:00

day 8: (2-10-2008)

it's Sunday now.. and Sao Paulo in the week-end is kinda tense. Lot of social out casted inhibitors of this big city are wondering around at the city center. i didnt see them because today we needed to checked out of our hotel and thus i need to move my stuff in the next hostel. there was one thing though that we managed to see, because it was really close, it was the sunday market in the praça republica. its a market of arts. fill up with paintings, indian handycrafts, hammock (i want one but it's really bulky). anyway it was nice to wandered about. well after moving too the new hostel, I went to see the formule 1. and that was also the moment that Jose Luis and I went separate ways. Jose is going to back to Campinha, to his research, it was really great travelling around with him. And learned alot too.`Jose mucho gusto a calle con ti, hasta lluego a Foz de Iguazu.' oh yeah, yesterday we met a chica from ecuador, and she is rally symphatique. she is here in Brasil for her study, ecological (environtment)thing.
I consider meself really lucky that i have met a lot of people from the hispanic part of the south america. it really help my spanish.. Jose and me mentioned lately, like it's been 6 days we hanged around.. and my spanish is from nada to mas y mas. FOOD in Brasil for the one who requested it: heavy on meat.. carne, carne, carne.. meat meat meat. we went yesterday in a restaurant chaurisso ( i dont know how to spell it) anyway, you seat, the waiters runned about with bunch of different type of meat and you just choose the one you like .. and you can do it the whole night (unlimited buffet)... :D. anyway here in Brasil meat is use in every dishes.. kinda tired of it so i went to eat japanese food today. Sao Paulo houses of the largest Japanese community outside japan. Most of them are descendant from the people working in the coffee field. so japanese food isn't that rare here in Sao Paulo. And you see lot of japanese people too.

back to Interlagos, the 30 reais for a ticket is not true. it's about 230 reais a piece. so similar as in Holland. but the ticket are sold out anyway, so i just go to look the race as any brasilians who live in the neighbourhood of interlagos, through the gaps in the fences. i actually stood at a good place. and could catched a glimpse of the cars. but itś not that good because i couldnt follow the race. but at the main entrance of the circuit there was a big screen where you could follow the race .. and with alot of people too. mostly Brasilians they really idolise Massa, and cheers and yell anytime they see him. Marvelous experience. especially when you here the 20 cars, 20 engines, hauling of their starting place. the sound of them is magnificent. before the race and after the race, it was raining. and not for a bit, itś now the raining season here in brasil so the rain was more like a heavy shower. but itś good because the rain is cooling down the temperature otherwise itś really humid and warm down here.

after the race i went back to the hostel. at least that was my intention. Portuguese is really hard to comprehend so i went out on a wrong place. it was a mall, a good mall too. but not knowing how to continue my trip is really frustating. and it was still raining and raining. and i was running out of day light... Sao paulo at night and especially in the week-end is really dangerous, so it was the first time in my trip that i felt a bit insecure. anyway i arrived back and safely in the hostel writing thing blog, SO EVERYBODY I'M OKAY. anyway i want to leave this city as soon as possible, next destination would be Goias near by Brasilia. but tomorrow still here in SP.

Miss you all back at home, especially after i talked through the telephone.

Hug and kisses

Christian

Sao paulo here i come

2008-11-02T00:48:00.003+01:00

Day 7: (1-11-2008)

muy bien.. its the day we went to Sao Paulo. it´s a 1 hour ride so its not that punishing as the one to Santos. WOW.. Sao paulo is huge. you can feel that it´s really is a metropolitan. It´s the city that run the Brasil´s economy and you can really feel it. bueno.. bad news was, because the F1 was arrived here in Sao Paulo, the hostel we were planning to get into was totally booked. so with not much choices left we went to the next hotel.... a bit expensive but with 2 of us it´s a bit affordable. anyway it´s a nice hotel so nothing to complain about.... and i heard that the ticket for f1 here in brasil its about 30 reais (15 Euro) so maybe it´s worth a try to go and see it. anyway sao paulo is really intimidating in the beginning but one should really get use to it

Coffee museum and the tram

2008-11-02T00:26:00.005+01:00

day 6: (31-08-2008)

okay the first thing on the list today is the : COFFEE MUSEUM. if you are in Santos you deffinetly need to see this, otherwise your missing a good history lesson. Coffee is what make santos the city it is now. A port to export coffee to Europe. The museum itself was the old restored coffee auction house, inside there were 3 paintings symbolises the estebalishing of Santos. really beautiful. they also have some echibition about the japanese immigrants working for the coffee plantation. by the way, you can feel the impact of the japanese immigrants. because there are alot of japanese restaurants and corporations around Santos. actually, we were going to the museum for the coffee, because the coffee of the museum is one of the best in Brasil. after the museum we went for a ride in the restored tram that runs through the center of Santos. short ride buit it was worth it. and then there was still time to see the Santos football stadium, yep the one where Pele started his carreer. esta bien.... that was all in Santos. tommorow we want to go to Sao Paulo.

Underway to Santos

2008-11-02T00:02:00.003+01:00

day 5 (30 - 10 - 2008): Santos

With a bit pain in my heart i went to the rodoviaria (bus terminal). Rio was a really wonderful place a trully marvelous city. but on the other hand i was ready to see something else. Santos was the next destination. it´s house the biggest port in all of south America, but i think i already mentioned it... and the coffee museum. the way from Rio to Santos is trully amazing. it´s a mix of high hills and jungles. everything around the way was green. After 8 hours we finally arrived in Santos. the sky was grey, really bad weather last couple of day. anyway, after checked-in (in a really questionable poussada) we decided to see the town a bit better. Santos is so tranquille, its so quiet around the beach but on the other side it´s really busy with alot of ships coming in and out of the town....

Maracana stadium

2008-10-30T02:47:00.004+01:00

day 4: maracaña stadium

Its the 5th day already, time goes fast if you have fun. this day is the last day in Rio so today is the time to do some preparation to go to Santos, the biggest port in Brasil and maybe the biggest in South America too. well i went to get a ticket too Santos, a bus ticket that is. its a 7,5 hours trip from here too Santos. and Santos is about 1 hour from Sao Paulo. Jose Luis will tags along with me till Sao Paulo. it´s good to have a companion for this long trip. anyway after we bought the ticket, we decided to go to Maracaña stadium. the biggest football stadium in the world, and it can holds about 200.000 people (officially it´s 100.000). You can see the entire stadium, from the dressing room till the pitch it self. and the hall of fame with the footprints of all football legends of Brasil (Pele, Romario, Zico, Ronaldinho etc). they are improving the stadium right now because Brasil wants to organizes the 2014 world cup. then we went to go to the beach of Copacabana. beacuse it´s a week day its really quiet there. and the water is much better than that from Ipanema. well it´s my last night here in Rio hostel Ipanema. it´s a really good hostel. it´s 0.11 here in Rio and the weather is good. it was a really goed day and i really had the feel that i´m on vacation.. hehehe. anyway Special attention for the followers ( except my mom), the one from batu pheringi: Terima kasih semua.

Corcovado, Santa teresa e pão de açucar

2008-10-29T01:05:00.006+01:00

Day 3: Corcovado

It was again a cloudy day but it was clear. the night before i´ve spoken with a senora de colombia con sa hijo, i already have problemas with English now . okay, a woman from colombia and her son. can´t put names here because i don't have permission hehe. but they were really nice persons and the first time i´ve encountered with the indigenous people from america del sur. really nice persons. and a girl from German, her name is Mathilde, that has been traveling for 5 months now. okay back to today, at breakfast i met another nice person. this time a Mexicano from mexico city, name Jose Luis. he speaks a little English but we decided to speak Spanish with each other for me to practice the spanish. anyway it seems to be a clear day so Jose and I decided to go to Corcovado, the highest hill in Rio and the one with the statue of Christo o redento (Christ the redeemer) on it. get a bargain with the taxi driver and we went to corcovado.... the panorama from above the hill is so amazing. you can see the whole city of Rio de Janeiro from the top of the hill, and under the statue of Christ. after that we decided to go to the Ipanema beach. were we discussed much about the politic of South America (because Jose studying politic science). it was really a blessful day.

day 4: Santa Teresa e Pão de açucar

A cloudy day yet again, Rio is a bit shy for the sun but the climate is always warm. this day is the day that me and carlos went to the escadaria Selaron, Santa Teresa and Pão de açucar. escadaria Selaron is a really great artwork. its a stairs in the district of Lapa (where the artist and the maker of the stair ,Selaron, lives). the artwork contains countless amount of tiles from around the world. including a lot of Delft blauw. If u saw the picture of the stairs in origin state, the improvement that Selaron gave to it is almost unmeasurable. it is truly amazing. the district of Santa Teresa is next on the list. with the typical eye candy the old tram that ride through the district. it´s Similar to the trams of San Fransisco in the states but on a smaller scale and it is really amazing. the district it self is a sleepy district not much too see, but the view overlooking a great part of Rio. it´s all about the tram ride. after that Jose and I went to the pao de acucar. another place in rio thats really incredible. the combination of hill, and jungle and the sea esta perfecto. yo hablo siempre de espanol!! lo siento, i´m sorry. its amazing how quick my ability to speak spanish rose in just 2 days of extensive spanish speakin. and i think i´m going to boost it with spanish + tango lessons in Argentina.

good arrival

2008-10-26T23:21:00.004+01:00

day 1: 12 hours of flying is really excruciating. especially when there is a lot of of turbulences around the equator. funny thing was the passenger next to me comes from swiss and he can´t not speak anny English. although my French wasn't that good we can still communicated with each other. by this thank you very much mr. Bovin. touched down on Antonio carlos jobim another problem was arise, my taxi driver cant speak English as well. and because I was still at French mode, our conversation was like mix of Portuguese, French and Spanish all together. Fun fun, after checked in the hostel i decided to check the ipanema beach. the first sight of it disguised me, garbages everywhere, and most of all it was cloudy. because i still hungry i decide to get some food from one of many juice bar / fast food shack.
there is where i met that Brazilian girl, that could speak a little bit English. we had a pleasant conversation. and because the shack is going to close i went back to the hostel;

Day 2: wake up really early in the morning, maybe jet lag, not realizing that the carriocas start the day late on sunday. and it was another cloudy day (not knowing....). so i went to checked the fort of Rio, at least what left of it. that was on the corner between copacabana and ipanema. after that i strolled the beach ( the water is damn cold), because i didnt bring any swimming suit with me, that was the first time i felt like a bloody tourist. the relax easy going carriocas wear swimsuit everywhere i see. after a while the sun breached through the clouds and that was then when Christo started to show his face. thats when i decided to take a walk to the jardim botanico, not a really good decision with my flip-flops to go for walk of 4 km. Jardim botanico is a really amazing place every plants from the amazonia was represented along with another plants from the other parts of the worlds as well. but my favourite is parque lage, a big villa not far from the jardim but also with beautiful landscaping. the villa was on the foot of corcovado so the christ was like a guardian to it.
to fix my swimsuit problem i decided to go to the mall, the leblon shopping mall that is. although you maybe think that there are lot of poverty in Rio, you cant see it represented in this mall. every big brands have a store. luckily i found a really nice swimsuit.

Must SEE!!

2008-10-24T16:35:00.006+02:00

This movie really blown me away. the adventure of Che Guevara and Alberto is really inspiring. my favourite scene is the one with the Indian man and wife and Ernesto and Alberto sitting around the campfire. "traveling just for traveling" such a simple phrase but what a huge meaning.

my route is about the same as Che Guevara and Alberto that makes my journey even specialer now. I really feel some kind of bonds with the revolutionists. you definetly must see this film

But... i start in Rio, so some cheering up tunes

1 more week

2008-10-19T11:58:00.003+02:00

hmmm.. i can feel the pressure now.

1 more week till d-day.

so for all of you a short summary of the countries I'm going to visit:

1. Brazil
2.Uruguay/ Paraguay
3. Argentina
4. Chile
5. Bolivia
6. Peru
7. Ecuador
8. Colombia
9. Venezuela

uno - siete dias....

2008-10-09T00:12:00.004+02:00

remind me to book a place to sleep in Ipanema ....