Rio de janeiro Sunsets

I love that city

I fell in love with the beach, ipanema, with the ocean. The ocean is bigger then the sea and u can feel this... Iwatched the sunset everyday... I dont remember the last time i watched so many sunsets, that i adjust  my schedule to it... Maybe this is the spiritual peace i reached, maybe it is just so simple. I am in the end of my travel and i am only lying on the beach and reading. And i am happy and relaxed. 

 

I didnt get to any big conclusions about my life but i feel like i dont need anything else. I am grateful to life (and the people who helped me to realise this travel) to have been able to live this experience. I am happy i dared to travel alone because it was the most beautiful time. And i am happy i could meet my old friends in the first month.

 

I learned to stay alone and enjoy my company, i learnt to arrive to a city late at night and not be afraid, i learnt to fall in coma in the 30 hour bus rides. I learnt to engage in conversations with any kind of people. I didnt learn too much portuguese but i learnt to make myself understood with a few words of portunol (portunol is when u speak spanish and u try to speak portoguese by randomly converting the words). I met wonderful people.

I learnt to be a guest in couchsurfing in different homes. To accept the food they give me, and the food they dont. In rio i stayed at Miguels house and rather then couchsurfing we did sicksurfing. I arrived ill (the diarrea stroke back) and was bad for two days. On the second night i had to go to a hostal coz there was no water. The third night MIguel fell terribly ill. So i couldnt share so much time with him unfortunatly.

 

 

Then i went to Paulas house. Paula is a woman with a son, and she has had boyfriends form all around the world. She was amazin. We did the 3 Bs: beach bars and bed. I needed badly a girly night and we had it: talking about boys and the difficulties of distant relationships. Actually many people i have met in my travel have had a love from europe - how on earth they do it? I mean that is reaaaaaly distance...

I also met vinicius. Look, this is couchsurfing: i needed badly to change my peruvian currency, 100 soles. The banks and exchange offices were just looking at me with pity: pooor girl, what does she pretend? I mean, it is a neighbouring country, i wasnt thinking it would be impossible to change the money. Actually MIguel told me Brazil feels lie not having neighbours, they dont speak spanish, everything is on the coast and then there is the amazonas and they dont what war is. The only country here which gained indipendence without bloodshed.

 

Vinicius took me to his hometown, Niteroi, on the opposite side of the bay of rio. There is the best view of rio, with the sugarloaf

and the christ. We also went to a fishmarket where u can get cooked what u freshly buy!

 There is also in Niteroi the museum by oscar niemeyer, the greatest brasilian arquitect

 

If id hadnt been for him, io would have been only the beach of ipanema during my rio stay. With him i went to the center and 3 art galleries. I wanted to meet the Christ but to go up cost 25 dollars so i said Ciao and hurried to the beach.

 

there are great graffities

coconut water, there are two kinds of coco. The brown famous one, with the yummy stuff to eat. This is the reen one with a lot of liquid inside.

 

I am in Salvador now, but i miss rios beaches, they were too beautiful.

Campo Grande a little more

I told you there is not much to do there. Here in Rio they ask me all the time why the hell i stopped there. On my last day there we went to the parque de los indigenos, which they say that is one of the largest urban parks in the world. There was also an indigenous museum, telling the story and traditions of various indigenous groups in Brazil.

 

  

  

 

i have seen capybaras finally!!! they are huge!!! they are the biggest rodents, and they are sweet and big.

 

 

Campo Grande is supposed to be almoast without favelas (slums) and the local gobernement has many urban projects in the favelas. Sounds great, i dont know how much is true.

the traditional food in campo grande is soba. yes u guessed right, soba is japanese but since they have a big japanese community, they reinveted this food...

 

good bue hugo and edson squeezing me

i am in brasil :)

I am in campo grande brasil, in a house of some very nice brothers. And i met my friend Alvaro again, so i am really happy.

we talked with some artesano family in a plaza. there are some guys who travel like this, selling their handicraft, doing autostop.

I had 72 days without diarrhea!! This is a record if u have heard stories of travelers, everyone gets somethings. I was very proud of me, but finally succumbed to the law of traveling. At first i was laughing crazy from the fever but soon it was not so funny, i was with high fever all nigh long. The only luck in my unluckiness was Alvaro, he took care of me all night long. I thank him so much.

 

Campo Grande is really city, there is nothing to see more or less

there are big trees

we played billiard

It is very hot, i cant wait to lye on the beach of rio...

The train trip from Santa Cruz was nice. 18hours. I hadnt told u before about the endless food and drink sellers in Bolivia on the  buses and trains. IN a few hours you can eat a complete lunch, drink coffee, some Asadito (fried meat), drink lemonade or tea and many things more. I loved it. They get on at the stations, sometimes whole families (the mother cooks, and the children sell) and like some mantra they are shouting "asadito asadito", "limonada limonada"; And they walk fas back and forth to attend everyone.

asadito yummy

it was jungle, with many insects flying around
and white cows

 

actually in the evening so many insects entered that they switched off the light... so we slept...

The border was terrible, the worst organized ever. First of all, i had to go to corumba, the city to the immigration office, it is not at the border. So actually u can enter in Brazil without anyone taking notice of it, only that later you might pay a fine if you dont have the entry stamp (here you always get these entry stamps, and to make things worse, you have to keep a little paper with you, if you lose it, you pay at the exit). I finally found the office and then i got really angry coz i had to make the queue 2 times. one time so they give me that little paper to fill out in one minute and again to hand over that paper, it is crazy!! Actually, there were many bolivians who werent let in.;.. just like that, they decided after one minute that they cannot... I was quite shocked..

Oh, In santa cruz the soil is so fertile that  if you just throw a seed in the garden, it will grow. Carolly planted this palta (avocado) in their garden 10 years ago;

see you in rio

beijos

Little loop to Machu Picchu and now back in Bolivia

I have made more miles in this last 10 days than all my trip before. Okay, this is exaggerated, but i have started my long exodus from Peru to Brasil. I have bought my new ticket, i fly from Salvador de Bahia on the 7th of February. My parents were worried that it was way too far from Peru. They dont know that by now, a 20 hours bus trip seems quite normal to me. Here, the distances are measured different. If you want to get to the next biggest city, you have to sit patient in a bus for  at least 6 hours. In Europe, you cross half of a country by this time. To get to Brasil from Cuzco I had two choices, or float around the amazonas for a time between 1 week and 1 month (nobody could tell me how much it could be...) or to go down through bolivia, cross via Santa Cruz. From Cuzco there are some routes, but nobody could tell me for sure that i would once reach teh shore that way. My father did not believe me i am going to through the jungle. He told me there are highways there, everyhting is okay! Hmmm, here a highway is in the best of all cases a road with concrete, but still, bridges can fall down, rivers can flow around the road blocking the way, or  a bus can break down in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere...

It is funny, how my travel is getting less and less planned. I have no idea of Brasil, my portoguese might not be even enough to get rid of flirtatious brasileros :) 

I am in Santa Cruz, which is still Bolivia but has nothing to do with the Altiplano (highlands). There is jungle, heat, humidity, fancy restaurants, Subway (the sandwich brand), trendy fashion bars. In my guidebook i read that Santa Cruz has more in common with Miami than with Bolivia. It has some truth in it, but i am sure here it is nicer than in Miami. This is the rich region, with all the companies and with more white people. Few weeks before, when Evo was reelected president, there was almoast a civil war breaking out... Evo has this policy (i think his modified constitution wa partly about this), that these rich regions should pay more taxes to develop the mayority of the poor regions... Finally the pacifism won, and they negotiated.

In Cochabamba they have been shooting a film with Gael Garcia about the water war. The water war occured when the IMf (which because of the credits determined more or less all the economy policies of these countries) forced the municipality to sell the water to foreign investments, so the prices would have risen incredibly. The people took to the streets, various times, and forced the foreign company out.

I do couchsurfing, and it is the first time i stay in the house of  a family. IT IS WONDERFUL!!! They told me the cruzenos (the people from here) have a competition with hospitality. They treat me like a member of a family with the only exception that they do not let me wash the dishes or take a micro to the station, Guillermo takes me by car.

The family is in its rare moments of being complete, because the daugthers study and work in different cities. But since now there are the summer holidays, they are all here.

We went to eat at a place where they played music. Mexican music is quite popular here. On the buses the situation gets worse, i am so desperate for the trash songs that i started writing down the terrible lyrics.

They have a funny dog, who wants to bite the water :)

We went to a bar, where Guillermos friends were playing. They played me a song, ah :)

We ate pizza al cono - weird!

The most wonderfuls are the sundays in my trip. When i have hosts, they have more time, families are together and the cities are calm and happy. We went to the aunts house, with a swimming pool, a parrot (it cant speak coz nobody taugth it), some dogs and no horses anymore (somebody stole them and the watcher was a halfmude woman, so she couldnt shout for help). We had a lot of fun, i feel truly great here.

I arrived here after a travel of more or less 3 days (from Cuzco). I slept in the station of Puno a little.

the landscape around Lago Titicaca is amazingly beautiful

I crossed the border again. They never know what on earth is Hungary, so they always hope to charge me some visa :) But then they have to see in thei rlong list of EU countries that it figures there and have to let me go. Maybe they sing me a Susana, Susana :)

There was a beauty competition for Andean women.

Here the lon distance buses usually stop for a short lunch. So this is how i returned to Copacabana. The bus stopped for 2 hours to not have one seat empty... We had to wait till they sold all the tickets. One guy had to get off and go with another bus to make room for a couple. Scale economy rules here.

My lunch in Copacabana was trucha! I left the head, thank you.

I arrived in la Paz late, so i decided to stay in a hostal one night. I went to the same place where i stayed a few weeks before, it was like arriving home. In the evening i strolled around the ever busy markets, i bought some earring, some fruits and a new book of Isabella Allende.

The next morning i had to arrive early to the station to buy my ticket. Instead of buying direclty to Santa Cruz i bought till Cochabamba. It is way much cheaper like this! Besides, if you arrive one hour before the start, they give you a reduced price. There are countless young girls and boys in jogging outfit shouting around in the station the city names, guessing your destinations from the way you look around. Cocha cocha cocha Bamba!!!!!!! The girl made me a discount of 10 bolivianos, but she charged me 2 for her services. She was buena onda, so i gave the 2 bolivianos to her. Not like the little children around bolivia, who want to charge you all the time for taking photos of them. If you look at me, you have to pay as well - i tell them ususally.

Next to me arrived a woman, chollpa (traditional woman), with 2 children. Obviously she only bought one ticket for the 3 of them, so it wa skind of interesting. And since the children were drinking coca cola all the time, all the hope that they would sleep on the way vanished in the air. Inspite of all, i like the tolerance... Nobody complained to her when she put her baby wrapped in her aguayo (these scarfs where they carry all their belongings) on th floor. everybody took care and told others, take care, dont step on the baby :)

The landscape started to change from high mountains, to greener lowlands. I was starting to be warm, after many many weeks...

I arrived in Cochabamba at 6, i bought a ticket for santa cruz for 8:30 pm. I went for a dinner and i found a coffe house! Just like in Europe! I was so happy, there were men talking about business and friends having fun. I had a reeeeally nice cappuccino! I was still happy coz i did not know that in a few hours my bus breaks down in the middle of nothing and i would wait 8 hours... It was a nightmare! The driver went to search for help and he did not return only after 5 hours...When we started off again, some camions crashed, so there was a line again! I wanted to die.

In Peru i didnt spend so much time. So I cannot tell you much about the country in general. I was in Arequipa, with the best sunsets in the world.

The bar Mono Blanco (White Monkey) is where we went out. Its name derives from one of the Nazca lines. They are these misterious huge landscape art lines made by some precolumbian nation.

Cuzco, I stayed in the house of Gerardo.

Cuzco is a fancy touristy town. It used to be the inca capital. So there are some big stones, this is the famous one with 12 angles.

One million kinds of potatoes.

I love to eat in comedores!

Cuzco is supposed to have been designed to have the form of a puma... hmm, with a little fantasy,

There is a Christo.

San Blas is the bohemian quarter... More or less like in Granada, many artists decide to stay here.

Crazy masks and tons of silver earrings.

An eartquake secure place...hmm, really?

Have i showed you my llama? My new travell companion...

Inca cola
 

Cuzco is the most beautiful city i have seen here. Almoast like some italian old town.

I was here around the 6th of January, la bajada de los reyes. Just like in Spain, they celebrate the arrival of the three kings. There were dances on the streets

I find it cute how the newspapers were full with happy wishes for Chirstmas and New Year, companies, priests, politicians, all dedicating half a page to greet the people.

MACHU PICCHU

Okay, now trip in South America is compete without Machu Picchu. First the complaints: too touristy!!! The worst is getting there. It is impossible to get there by bus, you have to walk or go by train. The train is seperated for peruvians and foreigners!!! I was so angry for this discrimination that i imagined campaigns like "Muerte a Peru rail!" and things like that. Look, i went by bus till Ollantaytambo and from there i took the train. They charged me 30 dollars for 90 minutes. The locals pay a little piece of this.


On the way back, i took the option of walking 3 hours along the rails... And then from Santa Teresa it was 8 hours by bus.

An interesting way to cross the river

The entrance village to machu pichu is Aguas Calientes. There are only hostels and restaurants. There was a christmas tree of plastic bottles

I could have tried cuy (guinne pig)...

I know what a rainy season means now...It was raining allllll the time

Machu Pichu was discovered only in the beggining of the 20th century. It was probably built by the emperor Pachacutec. He was the emperor who converted the inca empire to its known extensions. The Incas were probably just a tribe like many many others around here, and they extended their empire from ecuador down to argentina in just one generation. His career with battles started when he saved Cuzco from another tribe and the stones of cuzco themselves helped him.

It is said that Pachacutec transformed history and told in a way that it seemed more or less that before the incas, there were only primitive tribes around here...

3 generations afterwards, the Inca empire faced serious inner conflicts. The illnesses taken in by the europeans started killing the locals before their guns. in 1527 an epidemic killed half of the 25 million empire population, among them the emperor Huayna Capac. The empire got divided between his two sons, Atahualpa with his base in Ecuador (the incas liked the pretty ecuatorian girls) and Huascar based in Cuzco. Atahualpa finally defeated Huascar, killing one of the last God Son descendant... Pizarro had it easy to occupy these lands, they were in the middle of a civil war. Atahualpa was kidnapped and later killed.

The Spanish decided to install a puppet emperor, a half brother, Manco. He later lead one of the biggest and last revolutions against the conquerers...

I am full with mosquito bites

Here in Santa Cruz i went to 3 hospitals to ask for antimalaria pills for Brasil... They did not give me coz they insisted that there is no prevention... Okay, it is not 100 percent but it helps, come on! So i will bathe myself in repellent and hope for the best...

See you in Brasil!