Lost in Vacation: 2009

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Dear Diary

In a galaxy far far away...
...I have the feeling I am losing more and more memories of the big trip, so out of fear of that, I recently resumed work and started to sort, arrange and label the last missing myriad of pictures, the ones I took in Cuba.
I even thought about continuing the blog, which had soon lost its initial, informational purpose completely and became mainly personally meaningful for me/us: for pinning down the flutile memories and experiences.
But out of time constraints this won't happen. So I decided to put on the photos on flickr for those of you who are interested (some Cuba-trips of friends and family are pending) without captions, but I hope to finish peu a peu soon.

But: Bear in mind that a not inessential part of Cuba happens at night, on the streets, in bars, clubs or restaurants. Where I almost never took my big camera. So if you feel there is missing an aspect in my reports, I'm sure it would be that... :)

This is the last post of our blog, because of which I was often able to lead deeper conversations about the countries we've been to and the experiences we had there, than just recounting stories again and again. And, because of which I have now something to skim through if I get remeniscent or itchy feet again ;)

So long, tada.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Cuba - Proof of Life

I know that this blog has long since lost its claim to actuality, but in the light of
recent complaints about the neglection of new updates I suppose that an explanation is
due, even after being already 6 weeks in Cuba with less than one weeks left until the
fin(anci)al deadline.

Internet is always bothersome in vacation, but in Cuba you need both a lot of time and money to use it - and neither of them I have in abundance (anymore). Internet in Cuba seems to be as strictly rationalized as food, soap or human rights...

I am honestly sorry for all the emails or messages I have to leave unacknowledged. But that's just for now, and I look forward to meeting every single one of you again personally, after the 1st of May, when I will touch capitalist ground again.

For now only this much: I'm fine! Very fine. Of course I don't feel the nervous excitement of a short holiday trip anymore after such a long period of time, but still I'm enjoying every day of it, as much as I look forward to being at home (for some time) again.

Hasta pronto, viva el 1ro de Mayo!

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Peru

The show must go on - and so did we. So we headed off to our next destination: Puno. This bus ride went by uneventfully, compared to the last one. Yes, the bus broke down, too, but without crashing into the ditch, and a substitute bringing us to Cuzco was quickly found.
Our schedule alloted not more than half a day in Puno, just enough for the tourism-worn floating villages and villagers on Lake Titicaca.

Infernal clouds hovering over Puno

Most Peruvian women maintain the same body proportions for all their live...

You don't have to be Jesus to walk over water on Lake Titicaca...

The only pity we felt, quite surprisingly, was that we couldn't stay longer in the city of Puno itself than for a quick stroll through the center and a dinner in one of the restaurants. Because our choice of the latter was extraordinarily lucky: The live music was stunning and the guinea-pig exceptionally tasty ;) ! So even though we initially had plans to skip Puno in favour of another Peruvian city like Arequipa, our goodbye was a rather hurried and reluctant one when we had to leave for the bus to Cuzco while the band was still playing and the dancers on fire.

The dancers were struggling hard for just a handful of tourists

No more squieking for you, little fella

The bus ride to Cuzco was keeping the series of strange incidents on our South American bus rides alive, when an infuriated woman whose luggage was obviously somehow displaced by the agency, was banging at the bus with a big wooden bench. But they didn't pay too much attention at her and kept rushing on to Cuzco...

Despite the majority of tourists come to Cuzco in order to see Machu Picchu, this city is not like Aguas Calientes (the last train stop before MP) a mere transit zone, but rather an excellent supporting act, which in some aspects manages to outperform the main act. Our hostal was a bit far from scratch, but top quality and top views from up on the hillside. The city itself with its almost cuddly streets, cheap but classy restaurants is radiating atmosphere.

A pageant on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the University of Cuzco

San Francuzco

Culture, History and Basketball

From Cusco we took a shared taxi with some guys to a village with the tacky name of Ollantaytambo, a fortress which lies a bit closer to Machu Picchu in the Inka Valley, in order to save some money by reducing the immensely expensive train ride to Aguas Calientes to a minimum. (Unfortunately we didn't have the time to do one of the hikes to MP, which take several days). At the end we saved about 5 disappointing dollars by that, but we gained another interesting experience by sharing the taxi and the train ride with two funny Brazilians, who were still heavily drunk from the night before.

The train to Aguas Calientes: More $/h than km/h

Over Aguas Calientes I will put the cloak of silence. There is nothing more to say than that the best time filler, while we were waiting for the next days' visit to Machu Picchu, was playing cards and drinking with the Austro-German-Swiss-Connection...
Nevertheless, the next morning we got up at 3:45 to climb the ancient Inka stairway up to Machu Picchu, to be at the gate before it opens and the tourist masses are being carted there in busloads. But somehow we got lost on the pitch-black early morning hours and didn't manage to be the first at the gate. But after some adept positioning tactics at the ticket booth we were the first in MP this day!

The eerie way up over the Inca stairway

What can I say about Machu Picchu? There are two kind of people on this world: the ones who have seen Machu Picchu, and the others... ;) I don't know if I was more impressed by the almost palpable air of history, or by surrounding mountains whose steep slopes enclose MP like a prison wall.
As we were the first up there we got one of the only 200 tickets for Huaynapicchu, the peak neighboring and rising high above MP. We had luck with the weather: The early-morning fog quickly dispersed and the sun painted the grassy ruins and the surrounding jungle in lively green nuances. But as it is still a lot smaller than Angkor Wat (though equally impressive), it can be easily seen in one day, and so we headed back to Cusco the same afternoon.

Macho and his Bitchu

Lost in Space

The Inca bridge - Paso prohibido. Not that I would have liked to walk it...

Nowadays' inhabitants of MP

On top of Huaynapicchu. No idea who the guy posing with us is.

On top of the world

Due to a lack of time (and Mojo, to be honest) we couldn't do the detour to the canyons of Arequipa, but rather went on directly to Lima. Lima is not a beautiful city (not at all!) but it is tachycardia pure. I actually liked it: Its smelly, noisy and dirty - like some of my best friends...
We lived in an apartment of an elderly pair of sisters, which, together with the Nippes figures, old clocks and Maria statues, made it fell like a retirement mansion on the countryside - wouldn't it have been in the 14th floor of a huge apartment building overlooking Lima.

Views from our window

So it may seem strange that our only activity in Lima apart from shopping, dining and a bit of sightseeing was Paragliding, which didn't even get us as high up as the flat we were living in. But the setting over the cliffs beneath the line of posh hotels at the promenade was unique.

Painful equipment check

And off we go. Up there is just complete silence and relaxation. (Or would have been, if my pilot wasn´t chatting away on his cellphone...)

Preparing for the landing...

Finally, it was time to say goodbye. Goodbye to South America, to our long-time travelmates from AUT/GER/SUI - and to Stevie. At least a rehearsal of the real goodbye one day later in Havana, Cuba, because we were booked on different flights to the stopover in Panama. Altough the check-in-procedure at the airport was quite a hassle and involved several calls to the STA Travel helpdesk, we could finally board our planes and meet again in Panama.

Placid Puno at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephan_mittas/sets/72157616234249276/
Cosy Cuzco at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephan_mittas/sets/72157617212731699/
Lively Lima at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephan_mittas/sets/72157617213179089/
And too Muchu of Picchu at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephan_mittas/sets/72157616272054854/

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Bolivia - Viva la Coca

In Uyuni we took in some of the Carnaval spirit (just metaphorically speaking) before taking the same day´s bus to La Paz, but soon our good mood got clouded as much as the busdrivers drunken or sleepy vision, when, after 2 hours of drive, the bus for no apparent reason crashed into the ditch, almost tipping over. This left us waiting in the cold rain for 2 hours, stretching the already 16-hour bus drive into an 18 hours (18 Bolivian bus hours are, roughly converted, 36 felt Argentinian bus hours.) I am still wondering how the entire bus managed to go the whole way with only one piss stop after the accident..

Carnaval in Uyuni

Tilt

In La Paz we put up at a hostal called "The Wild Rover", which came with pool table, pub quiz, funny green hats and everything the Irish can dream of. Although the culture shock hit us hard when we saw the first group of redheads taking in their breakfast (beer and aspirine) in the early afternoon, we soon learned that is it not too bad in La Paz to have a good bar at your hands, without having to leave your home at night.

That´s hardly healthy, but obviously fun

Bowler hats and Ponchos

Coca a la carte

La Paz and Illimani

The labyrinthine streets of La Paz

Bankrobbers? Bolivien task forces? No, shoeshiners!

But nevertheless we got our quantum of adrenaline when we did a downhill mountainbike tour on the notorious Yungas road, advertised as "the most dangerous road in the world", where in the last year alone 43 people died, according to a roadsign, 30 of them bikers, according to our guide. The good thing is, during this 3 hour trip you knock off 3000m of altitude, the bad (or exciting) thing is that the street is not broader than 3 or 4 meters and you have a constant drop between 100 and 700 meters to your left! (Yeah, I´m letting numbers speak for me today.) This is by the way the only road with left-hand-driving in Bolivia, plausible if you imagine two trucks trying to pass each other on this road.

The Yungas road...

...carved into the mountains

After the ride we visited the Wildlife Rescue Park at the end of the track where abandoned animals are being taken care of and slowly introduced into their natural habitat again.

Stevie got really indifferent to beggars after 1 month of South America...

The turtle whisperer

But what would have killed me in Bolivia finally, wouldn´t have been a bike or bus accident, but Stevies intentions of climbing a nearby, relatively (!) easy accessible 6000m-peak, of which there are many in La Paz´ vicinity. (Un)fortunately the weather was upsetting our plans and we finally left South America without doing our masterpiece.

Microsleep and its effects at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephan_mittas/sets/72157616232728906/
I went down the most dangerous road in the world and all I got was a lousy sunburn on the nose: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephan_mittas/sets/72157616143733865/

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Chile

Once again in the bus, we saw the flat of Yuyui disappearing in the rear window and soon we were passing the first cactus, Llamas and Vicuñas in the altiplanos of the Precordillera de los Andes. At the 4300m Paso de Sica we shortly had to gasp for air while handling the Argentinian border formalities, but soon we where "down" again at San Pedro in the Atacama desert of Chile.

At the Argentinian border post. Hypoxia makes Stevie grumpy ;)

Travelling also means searching for your true Self...

Slurping Mate in the Bus

San Pedro is as Mexican as it can get considering that we where in Northern Chile: Painted and scalding wooden doors in red clay walls, dusty sand roads and a merciless sun above. The heat didn´t really fuel our motivation to do things like sandboarding or riding bikes through the desert, so we just visited the nearby Valle de la Luna.

Valle de la Luna

The man on the moon

Unreal

Tall blondes are always very popular photo backgrounds

What we missed by skipping the Ho-Chi-Minh tunnels, we got in the Moon Valley

Daredevil

Rocks at the Valle de la Muerte. Originally called Valle de Marte - Valley of Mars - by some Danish pastor, who seemed to have similar pronunciation problems like me.

But the principal magnet of the Atacama region is the 3-day Jeep tour to Bolivia. It is not only the most scenic, but also the cheapest and fastest way to get from San Pedro to Southern Bolivia, the region of the Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat in the world. It is not one of these Jeep Tours where you might as well go with a low-slung Opel, it is one where a Jeep is really necessary. And better not one of the new American models, as we´ve been told by our driver, but an old Toyota which he can just fix with his tool box and a bit of wire, should something go wrong in the middle of the desert. There are no roads, just rough tracks of sand, rocks, riverbeds and gravel. ´Cause what is called desert is actually a variety of landscapes, as different as they can get without almost any flora and fauna.

Pit stop at a hot pool. Now I know, Borax (whatever this is) makes skin itch...

Enduring scalding heat and freezing cold

A maverick. The volcanic pool, not Stevie

I guess the view from the floor was not good enough ;)

Flamenco!

On the bow of the Titanic

But the biggest risk on this trip are overtired (and sometimes drunk) drivers, who literally have to spend all their lives in the Jeeps. They can call themselves lucky if their wife is a cook in one of the two lodgings on the track.
But due to a misunderstanding in the price negotiations we went with a more expensive but also more reliable company, which maybe was a lucky twist for us, as some really bad accidents occur on this tour now and then. On our second day, a Jeep of another company overturned, down a steep riverbed. (Luckily nobody was hurt too gravely.)
But our driver was always perfectly sober and, apart from the occasional coca-leaves he was chewing, perfectly clean. He also answered sporadic questions of his passengers patiently like: "Will there be more sun tomorrow?" "Depends on the weather." Or: "How does the Salar look like when it hasn´t rained?" "Dryer."
We also had luck with our travel companions, who were an interesting mixture from Germany, Switzerland and Vorarlberg. At least the German spoke a language we could understand ;) Even tough some of us had problems with the altitude, especially during the first night at about 4500m, we had a great time together and with some of them we kept travelling until Lima...