The transit from Peru to India was really long... Nelly and Khai, two friends I met on the conference in Iquitos who are living in Miami, came to visit me at the airport during my stopover there... It was fantastic to see them again! With many hours delay I finally landed in Delhi after nearly 48 hours transit (incl. waiting times at the airports). Arriving early in the morning with horrible jetlag I directly went to Paharganj in the centre of Delhi, looked for cheap accomodation and slept nearly 24 hours in a row! Unfortunately my luggage didn't arrive with me [View Full Entry]

---

---

I had to get 2 visas - one for India and a transitvisa for the US because of a stopover in Miami on the way to Delhi. The idea of passing 2 weeks in the unappealing capital of Peru only to get my paperwork done was not so nice... But things turned out differently and I actually passed an amazing time in Lima with very nice people... Syloh came with me and we stayed in Miraflores, a save but quite expensive district. My paperwork took time but everything worked out without any problems... During the time in Lima our sleeping-cycles got [View Full Entry]

---

---

On the way to Lima, Shyloh and I decided to stop for a few days at Huacachina - a real oasis near Ica and famous Nasca... Surrounded by huge sand-dunes you don't think you are in Peru anymore - a real desert right at the coast of Peru. Actually there is not much to do there, but I really enjoyed the warm sun and walking in the desert after so many weeks of high altitude and cold temperatures in the Andes... We did a dune-buggy tour cruising through the desert, a little bit of sandboarding and the rest of the time [View Full Entry]

---

---

Arriving in Cusco was the beginning of a longer stay... Through e-mail contact I met my friend Shyloh from the Iquitos-conference the very first day in Cusco again. He had been in Ecuador after the conference also living in the jungle with a shaman and his family and just returned from there... Moreover he had organised an ayahuasca-ceremony with Kevin Furnas, a western shaman who also had been at the Iquitos-conference and who lives in Cusco. So the same evening we held a small but amazing ceremony in the upper part of the inca-city... Days went by quickly in Cusco - [View Full Entry]

---

---

Leaving the amazing salar I took a bus back to La Paz and from La Paz back into Peru. This time I stopped in Puno at the peruvian part of the Titicaca-lake. Actually a rather uninteresting and filthy city, it is famous because of its "floating islands". A tribe called the Uros has been living for a long time under rough conditions directly on the lake. They built their islands as well as their boats from a reef-plant that grows at the shore of the lake... Constantly renewing their islands and working on them they have built their own little world [View Full Entry]

---

---

After Sucre all 3 of us went into different directions again. My next stop was Potosi - the highest city of the world at 4000m and famous for its mining history. I wanted to visit the mines but in the night I got incredibly sick - bad stomach and full altitude-sickness. I had a nightmare of night - freezingly cold in a bad accomodation, having to go to the toilet every 10 minutes and of course the toilet was far far away and bitter cold... So I instantly left Potosi without having seen anything and drove to Uyuni, where I rented [View Full Entry]

---

---

Back from the Yungas I got a cold and felt quite sick being back high up in the Andes again. From La Paz I took a bus south to Sucre - the capital of Bolivia. Situated far less high than La Paz this city is easier to handle, also because Sucre is much smaller and less hectic. The first 2 days I spent mostly in bed trying to get rid of my cold. On the 3rd day Katha and Miri arrived in Sucre as we had planned it before leaving La Paz. We went out the same evening and got quite [View Full Entry]

---

---

From Copacapana it was an 4 hours busride to La Paz - the biggest city in Bolivia situated around 3600m high in the Andes on a marvelous plateau sourrounded by snow-covered mountains... Arriving there I had to start to chewing coca-leafs and drinking coca-tea to adapt to the extreme altitude and cold temperature. Walking around in La Paz can be a hard task in the beginning because you get tired and exhausted so quickly. The first 3 days I went to bed at around 8 pm because it was so intense... La Paz itself is hectic and huge, but very interesting [View Full Entry]

---

---

Due to the fact that my peruvian visa had already expired for more than 2 weeks (I got only 2 month) I continued directly from Arequipa to Bolivia. Reaching the amazing lake Titicaca on 3000m I crossed the bolivian border to reach a little town called Copacapana, situated at the bolivian part of lake Titicaca. Copacapana is the gate to the Isla del Sol - the Sun Island. The Sun Island is the mythological origin of the incas. Here the original incas came down directly from the sun to start their march into today's Peru and founding Cusco as the capital [View Full Entry]

---

---

Leaving with a bus from Pucallpa over the mountains to Lima, it was one of the most horrible busrides I have had. The first 10 hours of the 18 hours busride climbed the mountains on a terrible road and I got breathing problems due to the quick increase of altitude... Moreover a black-uniformed guy with a pump-gun came on bord in the night to protect us on a dangerous part of the journey where no police is around. I felt slightly uncomfortable... ;-) Arriving exhausted in Lima I was glad to escape instantly with another connection south to Arequipa - about [View Full Entry]

---

---