Buenos Aires & Mendoza, Argentina (19 January - 4 February 2009) After another weekend in Buenos Aires (yes, you're guessing right: I love this city!), meeting Nadine & Roger (SUI) again, I took the Sunday night bus over to Mendoza in the west of Argentina, just at the edge of the Andes. Mendoza is a lovely little city full of trees, parks, bars and restaurants. I checked in on early Monday morning at the Campo Base hostel and spent the rest of the day to explore the city and hang out at their other hostel which has a pool. On Tuesday [View Full Entry]

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Uruguay (18-22 January 2009) On Sunday evening, after yet another weekend in Buenos Aires, I got my light baggage ready for my departure the next day to Colonia, Uruguay. Having spent some time of the weekend with 3 Australians (John and his two adult daugthers Joanne and Caroline), we decided to take the ferry from Buenos Aires over to Uruguay to visit this lovely little medival village at the Rio de la Plata. The trip took barely 3 hours, and it's most amazing to float on the huge brown coloured river without seeing the other side. Since we had booked a [View Full Entry]

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Puerto Iguazu & Buenos Aires (4 - 17 January 2009) Iguazu (4 - 13 January 2009) On Sunday I decided to go for a trip over to the Brazilian side and visit the nearby Itaipu damm, the world's biggest water damm between Brazil and Paraguay producing as much energy as 14 nuclear power stations. It would be a rather long journey to get there, taking three different public buses and getting the passport stamped several times at the border. So waiting for the bus I met an Italian couple (Tina & Marco) who wanted to do the same trip, but were [View Full Entry]

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Puerto Iguazu, Argentina (28 December 2008 - 4 January 2009) Arriving in Foz do Iguacu (BRA) we immediately took a taxi over to the Argentinian side where we had booked a hostel upfront. There were to Israelian girls on our bus, so we shared the cab, got off at the Brazilien border to get the emigration stamp, stopped again on the Argentinian border control for passport controls and finally arrived at the Hostel-Inn, a fantastic resort-like place on the way out the the Verena & Helmut (Germany), two friends of London Eva's that I had met earlier in the year at [View Full Entry]

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Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (24 - 27 December 2008) Christmas in Rio! For the first time in my life I have spent Christmas in the sun! Great feeling! After a great BBQ in the hostel with lots of meat & lots of fruit punch, Sigi and I went down to Copacabana beach to hang out the rest of the afternoon with Camilla. In the evening we stayed in and unwrapped the Christmas gifts (I received a pack of Ferrero Rocher from Anja & Felicia - thx a lot!!!) before partying heavily in the hotel.... With a bit of a hangover we [View Full Entry]

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Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (11 - 23 December 2008) After a rather long flight from Heathrow I arrived in Rio with an hour delay at 22:15 local time. Since I had booked a pick-up service through my guesthouse I was arriving there shortly before midnight, just as it began to rain. There were some guests on the covered roof terrace, and so I chilled out having my first Brazilian beers... The Rio Backpackers is located only 300m from the world famous Copacabana beach and thus an ideal spot for exploring the various parts of the city: Ipenema Beach, Centro, Sugar Loaf, [View Full Entry]

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Dubai, United Arab Emirates (7 - 17 November 2008) After Sri Lanka, the contrast to the life in Dubai could not have been bigger! What a city: one big construction site, with sky scrapers up to 900m (Burj Dubai), traffic jams all over, posh people, gold and glitter, mega shopping malls, amusement parks (indoor skiing, water parks) , and so on - an artificial (Disney) world for adults! Meeting Roli at the airport, we went for a nice brunch with Maryam and her boyfriend Kiavesh, before checking in at our excellent guesthouse. Hidden behind walls, our stay started with a cool [View Full Entry]

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Moscow, Russia (17 - 19 September 2008) Coming from a 4 weeks holiday in Sri Lanka and Dubai, I was definitely not prepared for a cold arrival in Russia’s capital! How freezing cold it was, and windy too - BRRRRR! Monday night I went out with Volodya, a former P&G working colleague from Kiev, and after some beers at one of the watering holes at Arbat we decided to celebrate our friendship by going to the nearby Real McCoy, continuing with beer, vodka, beer, vodka, beer, vodka, …. On Tuesday I went to the Gorbushka shopping mall to buy some cheap [View Full Entry]

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London, United Kingdom (2 - 11 December 2008) After some fantastic days including the (in)famous Boat Party on 22nd November (The Roaring Twenties - what a blast!) and a serious billiards competition with Marco (thx again a lot or your hospitality btw!), I took once more off to London to spend the first couple of days on the countryside in Hampshire. Together with local Nathalie, Eva and Aman and Mylene (flying in from San Francisco) and Johnny (flying in from Hawaii) we spend two lovely days in the gorgeous Four Seasons of Hampshire, located in a beautiful but very cold countryside. [View Full Entry]

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Dear friends, Please find attached some pictures illustrating my visit to Sri Lanka from October 21 to November 7, 2008. Basically, I visited Steffi in Colombo (she's woring for GTZ there) and travelled around with her and her boyfriend Daniel who flew in from Geneva. Was great fun!!! The route: Colombo - Kandy - Rangala - Nuwara Eliya (--> Horton Plains) - Tissamaharama (--> Yala National Park) - Hambantota - Polhena (Matara) - Unawatuna - Colombo. Unfortunately, the gouvernement intensed their war activities against the LTTE (aka Tamil Tigers) during our stay, resulting in [View Full Entry]

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