Around the world in 716 days Not nearly as determined and swift as Phileas Fogg but still 366 days faster than Fernando Magellan's expedition we have completed our journey around the world. And as it happens to be if you follow a circle you end up at the point where you once started. So we are back in a world of busy people, easy meals and useless tv-series. We have the feeling that - apart from private things (including some real tragedies) - not much has changed. People's routines and everyday life are still very much the same which makes it [View Full Entry]

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Back in the old world Soon after landing in Madrid we could smell it. The smell of the old used land. The smell of leafless trees and a winter breeze. The smell of ancient kingdoms and venerable churches. And as we moved on we could smell the smoke and the coffee in the allyways of the old town. The smell of heated shops and busy people moving between them. The smell of Europe. Modern ancient Europe. We were back. Has anything changed? Nothing has changed. Not in two years anyway. Public transport works mostly well but people like to traffic jam. [View Full Entry]

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The infectiousness of abuse On the back of a motorbike we are curving up the mainroad of one of Rio's infamous favela neighbourhoods. In my ears still sounds the mocking voice of this big black fellow with rasta look singing "Do not be a gringo, be a local, do not be a gringo..." (The motto of our tour operator) while I observe with amazement one of our tour members taking one-handedly a dozen pictures per second without looking through the viewfinder of his Nikon D2 at all. As I need both hands to hold myself on the bike and still have [View Full Entry]

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"W(h)ine for me, Argentina!" Coming to Argentina from Bolivia it took us three days to get used again to proper supermarkets, decent roads and fast internet. Those were three enjoyable days. By the time we left Salta, January had started and with it the summer vacation time. From now on we would spend most of our time either riding a bus (and staring at a never ending shrubby plain) or waiting for a bus (staring at whatever moved by). And when we finally arrived at a place, tired from the bus ride, shocked by the crowds and annoyed by the prices [View Full Entry]

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Suffocating in the Gore Tex® My first impression of Patagonia was that of an endless and boring steppe. A landscape with no hills, no trees and no fun. When I was waking up in the morning on our bus journey from Puerto Madryn to Rio Gallegos it came to me as a bit of a shock to see that nothing had changed. 1000 kilometres of the ugliest landscape imaginable. Could this be the famous Patagonia? The dream of adventurers? The nightmare of early explorers? Well, it really is part of Patagonia (quite a big one, actually) but of course this is [View Full Entry]

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The two Bolivias "I know two Bolivias, one is populated by people with black hair and black eyes. Those people are short in height, they don't work too hard and like to keep to themselves. But there is a second Bolivia where the people have blue and green eyes, are tall and open minded and this is the Bolivia, where I come from." When the freshly elected Miss Bolivia travelled to the United States to "represent her country" a stunned Andean nation had to listen to those words which did not only promote the (in the Altiplano) very unpopular idea of [View Full Entry]

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On the Death Road with Sissi and the space cadets Every morning a couple of cyclists gear up at La Cumbre, the 4700 meter pass outside of La Paz to whiz down what has officially been declared the most dangerous road of the world. A relatively narrow gravel road, with huge drops on one side and waterfalls spilling onto it from the other side, which plunges down 3300 meters (over only 80 kilometers) to the misty valleys of the Yungas. According to our guidebook an average of 26 vehicles disappear each year into the great abyss which earned it the inglorious [View Full Entry]

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Above the clouds It was certainly the earliest breakfast in my whole life: 11pm. Maybe you could argue that it wasn't a proper breakfast: A bit of bread and a cup of coca tea had to do. But early it was. Six hours later - it is still dark - we are standing at 5900 meters above sea level ready to tackle the final ascent to the peak of Huayna Potosi (6088m). I am sure now that I would make it to the top. The air is thin up here and for many climbers this is the hardest part - a [View Full Entry]

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The back door to the Lost City Sitting on the upper terraces of the guards house - the spot where "the picture" was taken to bring fame to the rediscovered lost city of the Inca empire - I watch some clouds rolling in over that sacred place hiding it in a cloak of mist. Seconds later the evening sun breaks through and its light is reflected by the humid air in a ray of colors. With the crowd gone and the shifting clouds the only movement (except for a couple of ill-placed llamas and three or four guards, unmissable in their [View Full Entry]

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Don't worry, be tour-ist If you have to choose from 30 bad apples, which one do you take? This question preoccupied us for at least a day after we had arrived in the boom-town of San Pedro, an oasis in the Atacama desert which is populated by a handful of llama herdsmen, quite a few souvenir sellers, plenty of guesthouse managers and definitely too many tour operators. In the meantime we picked out the raisins: We rented some bikes and did what excursions there were to do within a 15 kilometre perimeter of the pueblo, the most spectacular of them all [View Full Entry]

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