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Live #47, Tilarán & Lago de Arenal, Costa Rica
26/01/2015 I’m back from six awesome days in Torres del Paine, having sun all way through and just rain on the last day! A lot of great pictures got out of that trip, so I better hurry up with my older live updates to quickly get up to speed again after weeks of internet absence. The second update from Costa Rica covers Tilarán & Lago de Arenal and not much happened there expect for an awesome rainbow
Tilarán was a bit of a strange city. It just had a strange vibe for me and I don’t really know why. As far as I was concered, there is not much to do in the town anyway so Alex and I were heading down to the much promising lake, Lago de Arenal. It was a windy, cold and grey day, making the experience a bit less nice than it could have been I guess. We managed to hitch hike up the hill in the back of a pick up truck and took some pictures from the lake. The view was just very dull though; so soon after we were heading back, hitch hiking with a nice Canadian couple. They first passed us but eventually drove backwards to pick us up again, sometimes rain can be helpful for hitch hiking
The “highlight” presented itself upon our return to town when the sun finally came up and produced a nice double rainbow. After taking plenty of pictures, we took the 12:30 PM bus to Santa Elena & Monteverde for some Canopy/zip-lining action in the Cloud forests there! I promise the next update will be a bit bigger as well
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Live #48, Monteverde Canopy Tour, Costa Rica
26/01/2015 A spectacular eruption of Volcan Calbuco happened yesterday just a few hours after I left Puerto Montt, coming back from the four day Navimag cruise along the Western Fjords of Patagonia. Now I am in Casto (Chilóe) and have to change my plans a bit, climbing in the Cochamó valley is off the table since it’s very close to the still active volcano… Well, at least I can get the next update out from the Canopy/Zip Lining trip in the Monteverde Cloudforest in Costa Rica. Hope you like it and I hope I will be able to leave the area again towards Buenos Aires as planned!
A 20-minute drive took us to the Xtremo arenal including 14 Zip Lines, 1 rappel (30m), 1 Tarzan Swing and 2 Superman Lines. The first superman, stretching over a really nice valley for more than 1000m was certainly the highlight, closely followed by the Tarzan Swing. The rest was okay but nothing nerve wrecking.
Weather wise we were confronted with the typical weather in Costa Rica: Rain! It rained so much that day, we were completely soaked wet after the 4-5 hours Canopy tour and happy to come back to town with some sunshine to dry off everything. Even though it’s always a bit wet in the cloud forest, the amount of rain we received was not normal according to the guides. Well that’s it! We saw a lot of rainbows again that day and sadly we were not able to get to the Skybridges since they are located in a different part and we had to catch the 4 1/2 hours bus to San José.
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Volcan Calbuco eruption in Chile
25/04/2015 I think recent event’s here in Chile justify a small special live update from the front. Just two hours after I left Puerto Montt towards Chiloé last Wednesday, Volcan Calbuco erupted and caused airport’s to be shut down and the evacuation of 4.000 people in a 21km radius. You can see a YouTube Video from the spectacular event here. After spending a few days away, I arrived in Puerto Varas yesterday and am currently stuck here because the border to Argentina is closed. The volcano is constantly producing a lot of smoke, but a third major eruption did not happen yet. I will keep you updated on Instagram and hope that my flight from Bariloche to Buenos Aires on the 30th of April will not be cancelled!
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Live #49, Chirripó National Park, Costa Rica
29/01/2015 Volcan Calbuco erupted again but luckily the wind did not blow the ash to Bariloche, so my flight last night to Buenos Aires was not cancelled! I am here now and will try to get a nice Argentinean BBQ organized This update reports from my failed attempt to climb Cerro Chirripó in Costa Rica!
I had planned for a 40km overnight hike to Cerro Chirripó in a single day due to limited time, so wearing in the hiking boots first by doing a short 6km hike in the Cloudbridge reserve just next to the Chirripó National Park seemed like a good idea. The weather was pleasant while we hiked through the jungle, crossed a few waterfalls and had a little dip in the freezing cold water of the river. I also found two solid wooden sticks that I would use for the hike to Cerro Chirripó for midnight.
We stayed in a very nice hostel called Casa Mariposa, I can only recommend checking it out! It is also conveniently located just next to the entrance of the National Park. Staying at the same hosteI was an American guy called Nathan, who had the same plan for the Cerro Chirripó. So obviously we joined forces and met up at midnight while everyone was sleeping, trying to sneak up the mountain. We both had no permits, hoping that no one would check up on us now! To our big disappointment, just 50m after leaving the hostel, a group of six people waited for us at the entry point and while I first thought it was just another group to go up with a guide, they were actually there to check for the permits in a pretty unfriendly way
Since the hike did not work out, I decided to get down into town to buy a pizza instead in the evening! Someone in the hostel told a story about huge pizzas for just 3500, giving me enough motivation to start the long hike through the jungle, into town and then onwards to the other end of the town. I actually found the place but they would only sell pizzas for 7000! I told them I only have 5000 and they gave me a special deal, making me leave with an actual big (not huge for my appetite though) pizza It took me about 40 minutes to walk uphill all the way to the hostel again while eating half of the pizza already and watching fireflies around me in the dark jungle
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Live #50, Corcovado National Park, Costa Rica
01/02/2015 I made it to country No. 54 (Uruguay) and will travel from Colonia to Montevideo today. This update is the last one from Costa Rica and the Corcovado National Park was actually my highlight of the overall a little bit disappointing Costa Rica.
We took the 5:15 AM bus from San Gerardo de Rivas to San Isidro and just barely made it there for the 6:30 AM bus to Puerto Jimenez; a five hour journey that would take us to one of the entry point of the Corcovado National Park. There were a few options to enter the park and we choose to stay with Bolita, which is basically a little wooden house in the middle of the jungle without any road connections. Their office is at Dos Bratos and from there it took another 45 minutes walking through a nice scenery to arrive at the hut. There was no electricity and the sound setting in the middle of the jungle was just amazing!
After a first quick walk around the area to a nice valley including Macaws and lots of other animals, we returned to Bolita in the afternoon to have enough time preparing the dinner while it was still light outside. The only source of light for later would be a candle because of the missing electricity. Six other people occupied the pleasant hut with us and instead of mosquitos (which are suddenly leaving the area in the darkness), we had lot’s of fireflies to look at. Finally we found ourselves in an actual real jungle without too many other tourists around, making the last days of Costa Rica the most enjoyable ones as well.
The next day was actually a really exciting one. Together with our guide Thomas, we would be the first tourists to enter a brand new hiking path called El Tigre, scheduled to officially open four days later. The new path offers a cheaper alternative to enter the park from another side opposed to the more remote corners, involving hours of transportation to get to the starting point. In our tour, we saw a great deal of wild life as well as plants. Thomas did a great job finding and explaining everything, the highlight being a very poisonous Coral Snake just 3 meters away that would leave you six hours to reach a hospital for treatment in case you get bitten. Besides that, we saw lots of frogs, scarlet macaws, tucans, howler monkeys, all kind of other monkeys, lizards and animals I won’t even know how to describe them. There was also a pretty cool tree that you could climb up from the inside. So overall the seven (!) hour tour was totally worth the 50$ we paid each, usually it would be 65$ but since the park was not officially opened, we could avoid the 15$ entrance free.
After the guided tour, we hiked back up to the Bolita hut to spend another night there, meeting some really interesting people during dinner. I was now getting used to the pretty loud jungle sound around me and could sleep very well in the second night to be ready for a very early wake up call at 4:30 AM in the next morning, hiking down the path in pitch black darkness with our head lamps. I was headed to Panama next after crossing the beautiful Golf of Golfito and heard about the pretty tough border crossings from Costa Rica. So thanks to tip of the owner of Bolita, I came very well prepared and presented an American Airline Ticket from Panama City to Frankfurt (which was just on hold and I did not have to pay anything for it, letting it expire automatically after 24 hours) as well as plenty of cash, leaving me with no problems whatsoever to enter Panama.
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Video from Nicaragua
Time for the next video! The Stone Man Alberto Gutierrez already received a special video a few months back; now I can present the rest of Nicaragua – one of my favorite countries in central america actually! Check it out for the awesome Volcano Telica & Isla de Ometepe, and of course it also features some GoPro footage of the infamous volcano boarding at Cerro Negro Hope you like it!
>> Direct Vimeo Link
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Live #51, Boquete, Panama
05/02/2015 I made it safe & sound to Brazil and already visited two great spots in the south’s nature: Itaimbezinho Canyon and Caracol Falls! More on that in about three months or so when I will probably reach Brazil in my Live Updates Now it’s finally time to cover the last country of my Central America trip! Panama exceeded my expectations and it all started in Boquete, hosting a Jazz & Blues Festival at the time and some really nice hikes in general.
As mentioned before, I came very well prepared to the border of Panama after crossing the Golf of Golfito in Costa Rica; presenting an American Airline Ticket from Panama City to Frankfurt (which was just on hold) as well as plenty of cash, leaving me with no problems whatsoever to enter Panama. Once in the country, I had to get to David first and then change into another chicken bus towards Boquete in the north. Everything worked out smoothly and in Pension Topas, I even found a last second accommodation during the busy Jazz & Blues festival weekend. I actually ended up sleeping in a tent because all rooms were booked out, but thanks to the very nice German owner, the tent has been very comfortable with a lot of sheets and pillows.
It was already getting a bit cold in Boquete, mainly due to it’s higher elevation, and going for a swim in Topas’ pool was certainly a good way to wake up in the morning. I had big plans that day, trying to hike as much as I could from the Quetzales Trail. Doing it from East to West and starting in Boquete takes a long time, as the trail gains over 1000m in elevation. I originally planned to take a collectivo to the starting point but then opt in to walk because of the fact that nobody else wanted to share the collectivo, leaving me with a pretty high price on my own.
Walking up there was actually really nice, passing Mi Jardín es Su Jardín on the way and enjoying it’s free garden. I eventually made it out of town and soon after got a ride actually for about ten minutes, getting me to the starting point of another little excursion: The lost waterfalls hike. I hiked up the muddy path and eventually reached a little booth. There was a charge to enter and getting to the last waterfall was supposed to take a long time, making me turn back while enjoying the splendid views across a nice valley. Getting up here was actually worth just for that view!
I continued the hike uphill along a street with some cool climbing areas nearby, sadly I had neither shoes nor ropes or a climbing partner with me. The path finally turned into the jungle and all of the sudden it started to rain pretty heavy. I was crossing the river several times and trying to stay in good spirits while the rain constantly battled down on me. No other people could be seen anywhere until about one hour later, when a french couple told me that they had turn back because of the rain, mud and probably very bad visibility on the lookout.
Eager to check out the situation myself, I walked into the actual really muddy jungle path for another hour, motivated by the stopping rain and periodically peaking out sun. After a while the sun disappeared again and I had to keep the time in mind, stopping me just before a bigger river crossing. I was out there without a tent and had to get back the roughly 24km to Boquete on the same day. After leaving the jungle and entering the road again, I saw a collectivo waiting and ended up taking it this time since it was already half full. My feet were certainly happy about that decision and I made it back to Boquete early enough to enjoy the town’s Jazz & Blues Festival for a little bit. One older gentleman looked like Gandalf’s secret brother and certainly had the best mood of all people in town, I am sure you are able to spot this guy in the video
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Live #52, Cangilones de Gualaca, Panama
08/02/2015 Arriving in Paraguay during their Independence Day celebration was certainly a good timing! I had a great time checking out the live action downtown while stuffing myself with delicious street food. Now I am heading out to do the Golden Circuit around the Capital Asuncion and luckily this update is a short one, featuring the Cangilones de Gualaca in Panama, a great spot for deep water bouldering!
I am really short on time, but basically I went out to the Cangilones de Gualaca with two people I met in the hostel before and had a great time bouldering. When we arrived it was super packed with locals going out for a swim and also climbing the cliffs, they were actually really good at that! Us, on the other side, could only do a couple of climbs because we were badly out of shape Still great fun! Maybe I will update this post later with some more info, see you for now
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Live #53, Panama City, Panama
09/02/2015 Waiting for the border to re-open after the weekend and about 23 hours in the bus coming from Paraguay left me with only two days here in Bonito, Brazil. It’s safe to say I made the most out of the first day by visiting the amazing Rio da Prata. If you ever wondered how it feels to swim in an aquarium, check this place out! Panama City has been a big surprise on my trip through Central America. I had no idea how nice it is there, especially the skyline really impressed me. Check it out in this post for some pictures, along with the famous Panama Canal
There is something really special about Panama City – at least in my eyes Parts of it feel like the usual Central American towns I have seen and visited so often in the past months; but other parts, such as the great skyline at the waterfront, reminded me a lot to more modern cities. It was the last big city before heading to Colombia via the San Blas Islands and also the time of Carnival, adding just a little bit of spice to my visit as well.
I was only able to spend a few days in Panama City because of a spontaneous trip down south towards Las Tablas for what was supposed to be the craziest carnival party in Central America (more on that in the next post..). While in Panama City, I checked out the Cementerio del Rosario, a cemetery with a great ambiance close to some of the poorer areas in town – make sure you don’t wander around in the wrong streets here as some locals warned about possible dangers there. I liked it there, having a huge run-down building just behind it. There was also some nice street art in the city and of course the old town, which contains pretty buildings along with some nice views on the skyline.
Checking out the Panama Canal was obviously a must-do as well. The Miraflores lock provide the easiest access if you are short on time (like me) and I got there at 09:30 AM to see the last ship of the morning passing through the locks. It is quiet impressive to see how it works, but really in the end it was not much more than a huge version of the canals close to my old neighbor hood in London Paying 15$ for it was just within the boundaries to not make me feel bad about spending it.
My personal highlight, however, was a walk up the hill of the last island at the end of the Amador Causeway. It was actually forbidden to go up there, but sometimes it is good to ignore little signs like that if you are rewarded with an amazing panoramic view across the City, along with some cool remains of World War 2 bunkers and some wildlife. One huge Iguana crossed the plateau just when I got there and I barely could catch him on video, sadly I don’t have a good photo. There were also hundreds of birds gliding above and enjoying the amazing sunset as well as a huge spider with really nice colors – I got that one on a photo at least!
The carnival in town was pretty big, but not really impressive if you would look for a big party. Probably it was too early and unfortunately, I had to get up really early to start my trip to the San Blas Islands in the next morning. But at least I could see the skyline at night one more time; add a firework and I get myself a great ending to the chapter Panama City.
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Live #54, Pedasí, Panama
13/02/2015 After the Chapada dos Guimarães yesterday, it is now finally time to head into the Pantanal for two days! We will drive down the Transpantaneira road in a small Opel Corsa and sleep somewhere in a tent, apparently there are a lot of Jaguars out there so chances are there to see them Back in Panama, I was headed down to Pedasí near Las Tablas to celebrate the carnival. Turns out it was not the party I expected it to be!
Yea well this is quick to tell: While in Panama City, word was that the carnival there is not really that good. Everyone was talking about Las Tablas. So i checked couchsurfing last second and found some hosts, also in another city called Pedasí. Apparently the carnival seemed to be even better there, so the decision was made to stop by in Las Tablas and sleep in Pedasi. While we were in Las Tablas, there was nothing going all at all (should have come in the evening!) and the celebration in Pedasi was rather quiet. It felt more like a family fest than a big party. But in the end, it didn’t really matter. I’m not a carnival type and was just curious about it anyway and had great company and therefor a lot of fun nevertheless! Ah there was a nice beach though which was fun to visit, too bad I can’t kitesurf since it was really windy
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Live #55, San Blas Islands, Panama
16/02/2015 I’m back from the Brazilian Pantanal, feeding Caimans and Eagles on a Boattrip and spotting countless animals along the road. The area around the capital of Brasilia is next for me, but first it is time to release the last update from Panama and thereby wrapping up all of Central America! Cruising the San Blas Islands towards Capurganá in Colombia is probably the best way of crossing countries, just after going on foot through the Gap of Darien of course; this true adventure seemed to be a bit too risky at the time though and I promised my mom to stay safe. If you are in the mood for some photos of picture perfect isolated beaches, check out this update!
Getting to the port village north of Panama City took a little while. First, the 4×4 Jeep came half an hour late at 05:30 in the morning and then struggled to find the last missing person, which turned out to be someone I actually met months ago in Nicaragua climbing Volcan Telica! Everyone else in the vehicle booked the 5 days sail cruise and I was the only one with the 4 days speed boat cruise, which focuses more on staying on the islands. Luckily it was all sorted out and I later changed into another jeep, getting me to the right departure spot of the speed boats
The ride in the boats was very bumpy, resulting in a lot of splash water in my eyes and a painful butt after a while. Our first ride luckily didn’t take too long, after around 45 minutes we reached a tiny island to relax, play volleyball and go snorkeling. Lot’s of clouds were hiding the sun sadly but everyone still had a great time getting to know each other – we were actually a group of about 28 people or so, split down in two speed boats. We continued the ride to a bigger island, on which we would spend the night as well. It featured a few huts on the sand with a bunch of hammocks for us gringos, as well as some more the people living there.
Did you know that every coconut on the San Blas Islands belongs to a person and you can only get one if you pay a dollar? Well, now you do. I was not really interested in coconuts anyway. The actual food provided for us from our tour company was created in a joint effort of our guides and the local family and I have to say: It was pretty damn impressive! We would get a huge all-you-can-eat buffet for breakfast, lunch and dinner and not only was it much more than we could possibly consume, it was also amazingly fresh and delicious! We also got rum punch every night, followed by more drinking of stuff that everyone bought on the mainland. Add a guitar, really nice people and you don’t want to leave that place anytime soon again!
The second day welcomed us with a lot of sunshine – the last thing that was missing to make this trip perfect! Everyone was in a great mood, sunbathing, chilling, playing games and socializing. It felt a little bit like being on the island from LOST – just without all the drama and mystery We were not alone on the island either, more and more sail boats anchored around us and paid us a visit. One group was actually a Kite Surfing tour, doing some kind of documentary. Although the weather was really nice, the forecast regarding the wind actually made us stay for another day on the island.
The evening was perfectly commencing with the rum punch after dinner and I got to know three new drinking games (I liked “21” a lot), which resulted in hilarious situations once everyone was pretty much drunk. I will spare you with the details and am sure the people involved will agree We had a lot of fun, some actually a bit more than others and causing a little bit of a problem. I didn’t think it was a big deal, but the tour operator felt differently and actually removed one Australian dude (joined by his girlfriend) from the island for bad behavior while he had a bit too much to drink. It was a shame because I was actually getting along with them very well and would meet them afterwards in Colombia again.
On the next day we had to catch up on some ground after being stuck on the first island for 2 nights. The resulting two hour boat ride was not really comfortable but despite all the splash water in our faces, everyone was still in a great mood because we spent two amazing day on a beautiful isolated island. We had a nice lunch break on the island that was supposed to be our home for the second night and spent about three hours there. Enough time to take the snorkel and swim over to one of the nearby islands. There are actually about 365 islands in the San blas and only 49 are inhabited. It was great to be able to swim to another tiny island and go exploring.
One problem we were all facing I suppose was the fact that there were no fresh water showers around. Even my short hair started to be sticky after constantly being in the salt water without having a way to get the salt off afterwards. Well, certainly a problem everyone would like to have I guess – at least if it’s not for weeks or even months Eventually, it was time to move on to our last destination: A Kula village with roughly 800 inhabitants. Houses are built on stilts along the waterfront and married women wear traditional clothes and jewelry, which actually looked really nice I have to admit! Especially the kids were really excited to see us, being very happy and playful.
Experiencing how the local indigenous people on the islands live was a great way to end the trip! The last dinner at a local restaurant, though, was not nearly as good as they stuff our guides prepared and also the portion was pretty small. At least for my appetite After partying a lot in the last nights, everyone was a bit tired now and took it easy in the last night. We were sleeping in the village and had rooms full of (uncomfortable) hammocks as well as a really cool outdoor bathroom, in which you can see how fish take care of your business as you just poop into the water. Sounded strange at first but I have to admit I was never entertained more sitting on a toilet!
We ended the (amazing) trip by arriving in Colombia’s northern border town Sapzurro, which can only be reached by boat. We got our passports stamped, luggage checked and eventually arrived in Capurganá. I did not know much about this place first but luckily found out that it was supposed to be one of Colombia’s most remote and best diving location, making me decide to actually spend two nights there before heading onwards to Cartagena. The next live update will show you if it was really that good as I took down my first fun dives after the PADI Open Water Certification in Utila, Honduras
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Video from Costa Rica
After finishing up my live updates from Panama, I can now present the video from Costa Rica. Although it was my least favorite country in Central America, it does not mean that the trip wasn’t good! In fact it actually was quiet nice, especially watching sea turtles lay eggs and doing some canopy as well as the obvious hikes through tropic rain forests.
>> Direct Vimeo Link
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Level up (31)
Well, it is that special day of the year again – my birthday! Due to the fact that I was celebrating into it last night in Brasilia and a combined sleeping time of 3 hours in the last two nights, I decided to take it easy in Rio and will instead celebrate my birthday here on Friday – a much better day than today’s grey and rainy Tuesday The weather forecast looks good and I will head to Petrópolis and Teresópolis tomorrow for some hiking in the Serra dos Orgãos. Turns out to be really expensive, but I will go anyway. So, onwards to 32 now, just another meaningless number…
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Live #56, Capurganá, Colombia
19/02/2015 After a few days of amazing hiking in the Serra dos Orgãos around Petrópolis and Teresópolis, I am now back in Rio de Janeiro and ready to watch the Champions League finale at the beach followed by hopefully an awesome sunset at Praia do Aproador. This update will commence a new country and continent, arriving in Colombia’s border town of Capurganá, which can not be reached by car and is famed to be one of the best diving spots in Colombia; giving me a very good reason to do my first fun dives after my PADI Certification in Utila
The small boat ride from Supzurro at the border to Capurganá was charged with $5, a lot for the 10 minute ride! You can also do a two-hour hike over the hill to reach the little village, a much cooler way to arrive certainly; just a little bit problematic if you want to make it to Capurganá quickly in order to reserve a spot in one of the nicer hostels. After splitting up in groups and checking our options, we decided to settle down at Dive & Green for $20.000 Pesos per night – they give you an discount if you dive with them, which we obviously did because of the great spots around here. In the evening we met up with everyone from the San Blas Island Cruise again to have an all-you-can-eat dinner. Having been used to great food from those guys, I happily paid the 10$ and was looking forward to eat at least three pizzas! Unfortunately, the food was VERY limited in the end and everyone was only able to get just three small slices and a bit of pasta. I felt a bit cheated after that
We woke up early the next morning to get ready for our two early morning fun dives! Paying 80$ for two tanks is an okay price I guess, especially in an remote place like Capurganá, which only has two diving facilities as well. The other one offered as a better price, however Dive & Green looked much nicer and more professional and we were not disappointed at all! The first dive was a bit boring, at least for me, since the beginning did not offer a lot and I ran out of air about 15 minutes before the other, more experienced, divers! I really have to work on my breathing technique, something that is totally normal to beginners according to our dive master.
For the second dive we ventured into an early called “La Cueva” and it was absolutely amazing! Even though only the advanced divers in our group were allowed to dive all the way through the tiny cave, eventually popping out of a small hole again, it was still a great experience for me to at least enter the cave and look around a bit before heading back to the entrance again. Really cool stuff! I was again running out of air a bit faster than the rest, but lasted longer than in the first dive. Maybe at some point I can get the opportunity to finish the advanced course and work on that issue.
After a long night’s sleep, I explored the town a little bit on the last day before heading out to Necoclí with a small motor boat, which was labelled as a ferry. It was a bit weird to pay a guy on the street and then wait for a long time until it finally arrived with a big delay, I was a bit afraid of being the victim of a scam but apparently it was the normal way it works over there The two hour ride was very uncomfortable but also a lot of funny since we were constantly jumping into the air due to very high waves. Sometimes it really looked like we would flip over but it never happened. My camera bag (secured in another garbage bag) was very wet afterwards, including all my money and passport.
Necoclí looked like a real cool places to hang out for a while, however I decided to join a group to start a series of bus journeys, eventually arriving to Cartagena in the evening. I used the window seat and air in the first bus to dry my passport bit while trying not to hit my head too many times since the bus was really speeding. We arrived at the bus station in Monteriá at 19:30 after squeezing all four of us including backpacks into a tiny taxi, just missing the last bus. Luckily, the argentinean guys in the group managed to get a good private van deal for 40.000 instead of 55.000 pesos and we could leave at 20:30, finally arriving in Cartagena at 1AM! Nearly all hostels were booked out the three of them got the last spots in one of the hostels while I ended up in Casa Vienaa for 28.000 pesos, which seemed to be the cheapest option and they had one more spot free! I went out for some drinks with a few germans I ran into before getting some sleep somewhen around 3 or 4 AM
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Live #57, Cartagena, Colombia
22/02/2015 I made it to Vitória in the east of Brazil now after some amazing days in Trindade and Paraty! Heading to Pedra Azul and the Caparaó National Park will be the most off-the-beaten-path experience in this trip so far, even 85% of the Brazilians I asked didn’t know about the two places! This update covers Cartagena in Colombia, probably the most known and beautiful town in the north of the country.
After years of traveling and visiting countless cities, I developed a kind of boredom against most of them. Sadly Cartagena is just another one of those cities – certainly a very very beautiful one and you could spend easily spent a couple of days there. For my part, however, I could not wait to get out again after a day and head towards Santa Marta, which offers more activities in the nature. I still have to say that I really liked Cartagena, it is really nice there and I had good company, joining up with the Australian couples again whom I met during the cruise through the San Blas Islands.
Cartagena, as Spain’s first colony in America, offers a lot of gorgeous buildings sourrounded by the over 500 years old city wall. I had a good time strolling around but eventually found myself bored, which was not because of the city but because of the fact I mentioned in the beginning of the post. So by no means this should tell you not to go there! I am sure there is much more to do in the town as well, I just didn’t do it Luckily I can keep this post short as I have to go now, as usual… haha.
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Live #58, Santa Marta & Minca, Colombia
23/02/2015 My time in Brazil is slowly coming to an end after almost two months and exploring Santuário do Caraça as well as colonial towns such as Ouro Preto was another great experience. I barely had internet in the last days, but now I can finally get a quick update out. Santa Marta has been an amazing base for a lot of different things in the northern coast of Colombia; one short side trip in a Jeep took us up the mountains to a small village called Minca.
I had to bear through another long bus ride with Colombian music videos featuring local music and ridiculous half naked girls to arrive in Santa Marta at 7pm. The drop bear hostel was just 3km away from the Bus station, so I decided to walk over there in a creepy atmosphere, a thin layer of mist covering the ground in the dark. The hostel turned out to be pretty amazing, featuring a huge swing, really nice game room and very comfortable, clean and big dorms. Since it was pretty hot in Santa Marta, I jumped into the swimming pool to cool off before heading off with my new four buddies from Australia to explore the mountain village of Minca in the next morning.
We made a deal with a Jeep driver to get us up there and picked up another guy on the way: Tristan from England. Seemed like a cool guy and just jumped off another bus when we were about to leave town to head into the mountains. Once there, we started the 45 minute walk to the local waterfall. I paid 3000 to get in and 2000 for a beer (instead of 3000, pero no tengo mas!! – haha) and we enjoyed the nice water for a while before heading back down.
The town itself is not so spectacular, what makes it really enjoyable though is the surrounding landscape. And because of that reason, I decided to quickly run to a viewpoint while the rest waited for the Jeep to bring us back again. After running into the wrong direction first, I finally found it but was not too impressed by the view. Still a nice workout running around in that altitude hehe When I made it back to the center of the village, everyone was already waiting in the Jeep for me to squeeze in on the last tiny spot in the back.
We made it back to Santa Marta at nightfall and dropped off at the supermarket to store up for the trip that everyone was looking forward to already: Tayrona National Park. This next update will certainly be a much bigger one – I could even do some really nice Bouldering there!
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Round-the-World Trip Statistics #02
It’s been 270 days or 9 months since I started my trip in Canada and so far I have spent nearly 13.000 €. I will actually take a break from traveling now for a couple of reasons, but have a lot of material left to keep you guys busy for a while – no worries
A lot of people have asked me how much money I would spend on this trip. It was always hard to answer before I actually started, but now that I was on the road for nine months and thanks to my neat little Excel sheet, I can now provide you with some information!
My total spendings so far add up to 12.758,22 €
This figure includes everything: food, accommodations, booked trips and all the rest like buying new shower gel or paying to get into a climbing gym. Whenever I spend money, I convert the local currency to Euros and add it to my Excel sheet. The biggest part of the above sum was the cruise to Antarctica in March.
More interesting for yourself might be how much I actually spend on the food (including all sorts of drinks too) and accommodations in each country. The following stats will give you an insight on that. Luckily, I was able to Couchsurf every single day in Canada, making the average spendings in North America look a bit low because it just reflects Mexico. It is also interesting that South America matches Central America in terms of average food spendings!
Hope you liked that information, I will continue to gather the data in my lovely Excel sheet, haha. (I’m soooo German, I know…)
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Live #59, Tayrona National Park, Colombia
25/02/2015 Tayrona National Park should ring a bell for a lot of people, forming one of the most spectacular coastlines in Colombia. About four months ago, I spent a few nights there and can finally present you my story wandering through the beaches, doing some great bouldering and exploring the “mini” lost city Pueblito
I arrived at the entrance of Tayrona National Park around 11:00 after being stuck in traffic with the public bus. First off, you need to watch a video and actually receive a ticket as proof that you saw the video – without it you won’t be able to buy your entrance ticket. I met a few people in line that had to go back to get the ticket as it is not very obvious. The line was not really huge, but thanks to the fact that only two people sold tickets, I ended up waiting over an hour to get my ticket, leaving me enough time to make new friends which would explore the park with me together We finally were able to pay the 40.000 Pesos entry fee and started to walk along the paved road and hiking path for an good hour before arriving at Arrecifes beach. You can also take a shuttle for more than half of that trip if you are short on time.
The landscape at the first beach was nothing short of impressive, combining an awesome beach with huge boulders and a thick jungle in one spot! It was also very hot in February and walking in the sand did not make it any easier. None of us had any spot to sleep yet and the little group split up a little bit, me ending up with a German couple at a place called Finca don Pedro, offering Hammocks for 12.000 per night after some negotiating – a pretty decent price! We relaxed for the rest of the day before heading down to the beach for sunset. It actually took about 15 minutes of walking to get there, but we preferred to be up in the jungle a little bit and would then stay right at the beach for the second night.
Having all those boulders around, I decided to grab my climbing shoes and make my way to the beach for sunrise in the next morning. I arrived at 6AM, just a few minutes before the sun came out of the cloudy sky. Barely any people could be seen along the huge beach line and I came back to one huge boulder I spotted the day before. Some nice cracks and the sand offered me two great easy routes (V1 and V2 I’d say) which I could do without using a crash pad. It was so much fun to finally climb again and I ended up staying for 2 1/2 hours in that one spot before heading on to find some more boulders further down the beach.
I was able to find some, but actually ran out of time, because I really wanted to see Cabo San Juan as well, being the most famous beach in the Tayrona National Park. Arriving at the check-in, my plan was to get myself a nice spot in one of the hammocks for the night already. However, rumors turned out to be true and they did not sell any spots until 2PM, which was 5 hours away by the time I got there! I had no intentions to wait that long and decided to find another spot while checking out the really amazing coast line over here. Walking up to a little hill towards the more expensive hammocks offered a great view, perfect beaches dotted with palm trees everywhere. Oh and guess what- I met my friends from Australia once again over here, they were actually sleeping at the beach last night
Since there was no other good place to stay the night at the beach, I grabbed all of my stuff and decided to walk towards the “mini” lost city “Pueblito” La Ciudad Perdida to then sleep in Santa Marta afterwards. It was really hot by the time I started the hike through the jungle and boulder fields and the journey turned into a sweat-fest. After doing some more bouldering within the forest area, the path constantly went uphill through more and more huge boulders. I had to squeeze under some of those as well and actually used some climbing techniques to get on top of some others with my backpack. All of that made the hike very physical challenging in the speed I progressed, but man how much fun it was hoping and crawling on top and under the boulders!
Once I arrived at Pueblito, I finally had time to rest and enjoy the pineapple I was bringing along. Drinking the rest of my 5L water canister, I realized that I was completely alone at the site and spent a few minutes exploring. It was really enough time as it was pretty small. Nonetheless, it was nice to see the terraces and it made me look forward to my hike to the actual lost city in the next days. My water ran out and I hurried up towards the main road and alternative access point of the Park. I quickly bought 3 bags of water there for just 200 each and entered the public bus, which was presently inspected by some police. That same procedure actually happened again two more times within just ten minutes of driving! It took a very long time to return to Santa Marta and to round this nice trip up, they would just drop me at the roundabout outside the city, forcing me to take another shuttle towards the hostel, where I could finally relax a bit and reflect on the amazing trip I just had!
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Live #60, Palomino & Santa Marta, Colombia
27/02/2015 Sometimes you come along a place you had no idea it even existed and then find yourself at that very place the next day. This happened to me in the case of Palomino, a small cozy settlement not too far from Santa Marta in Colombia on the way to Riohacha. It is famous for tubing down the river Palomino and a great place to just relax and enjoy the calming effects of the ocean.
Once again I hopped into a bus from Santa Marta towards Tayrona National Park, but this time I would stay in the bus for a bit longer and get off at Palomino instead. I spotted a familiar face and strangely enough, it was Tristan – the guy we picked up with the Jeep on the way to Minca! He’s really nice, so I was glad to see him again and of course we joined forces. The ride took two hours in total and we started to walk through the sandy streets to find a place to sleep. One of the first places along the road was really rude, pushing us to sign in while I was still checking if they even had a working WiFi. Ending up in another, much nicer, place for 20.000 the night, I could finally start enjoying the relaxed atmosphere of the town.
I had no plans of doing the tubing myself, it just seemed to be much more enjoyable in a bigger group and Tristan was not so keen on it either. So instead I was walking to the point about 20 minutes away along the beach to see the groups coming in with the tubes. The beach there was really nice and because of it’s length, it actually feels like you are alone there. It is not a major tourist spot yet, so actually there are not too many people around and having a beach of that size certainly allows you to find a spot just for yourself.
I could see people walking towards me way in the distance, having their tubes on their back. It made up for a nice photo motive while the sun was slowly setting in the background. Arriving at the river Palomino, I could still see groups coming in with beers in their hand while the sun eventually went down, turning the place into a beautiful display of sunset reflections on the river. Walking to that spot just to see the sunset was already amazing, although I would have done the tubing as well in a bigger group.
Once again, I could negotiate the price for the bus ride and paid only 6000 to return to Santa Marta. Arriving there at 6PM, I made it to the water front just in time for another nice sunset. I had no CouchSurfer to host me so far and looked out for a place with WiFi. Sadly no one new came up to host me, so I decided to look for a cheap hotel instead. Meeting up with some CS for some dancing and drinks, I was told that the area of my hotel was a really bad one and the guys tried to convince me to go somewhere else. I already put my stuff in the room though and was too lazy to get it now.
After a great night out with some interesting Break dancing artists in one bar and then another awesome roof top party in a hostel, I made it back to my hotel at 3AM, wondering if something would happen. The only thing that happened were some homeless people asking for drugs and some prostitutes offering their service – nothing serious and nothing I could just thankfully decline The only thing that was a bit worrying was the fact that I had no key for the hotel and I was forced to ring the bell in the middle of the night. After 15 minutes of waiting, the not-so-amused owner finally opened the door and I could retreat into my smelly, hot (but very cheap) single room without any drinking water left and totally thirsty, looking forward to get out of this mess as soon as I can in the morning
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Live #61, Ciduad Perdida & Taganga, Colombia
01/03/2015 Relaxing at the gorgeous beach of Palomino was great, but if you followed my blog for a while, you will know that I actually prefer to put on my hiking boots and be a bit more active. The 5-day trek to the “The Lost City” of Ciduad Perdida deep in the jungle of northern Colombia seemed to be a must-do for me. We certainly had a lot of action thanks to the poisonous snakes in the area. One of them bit a soldier, putting him in a desperate need to be rescued by a helicopter, and one other was found and killed by our guides on the way back!
The first time I heard about Ciduad Perdida was during my trek to Machu Picchu in July 2013 and a bit less than two years later, I made it there myself! There are several options to do the hike: 4, 5 or 6 days. All of them use the same route and even the price is the same for all of them. Fast people tend to use the 4 day option while slower ones, obviously, take 6 days. I picked the middle option, mostly because I wanted to relax a bit and did not mind to get free food and accommodation for one extra day A lot of stuff happened and I will try to get it all into this live update, which will propably end up more like being a complete travel report. For this reason I actually included the live updates for each country into my travel report overview now!
Day 1
I picked Turcol as a company to guide me to Ciduad Perdida, but all companies charge the same and they actually shuffle around guides as well, so I think it doesn’t really matter which one you pick! We left their office at 09:00 to pick up some more people and more importantly, buy tons of food. There were about 70 people to start the hike on that day and each jeep picked up something for the group. My group consisted of our guide, two people from Italy and a British girl. All jeeps met up at the last village before the starting point of the hike, which would also serve us for some sandwiches for lunch around 12:30.
About two hours of easy hiking later, we arrived at a natural swimming pool which enabled me to do some deep water bouldering again. Sadly I didn’t bring my climbing shoes, so I was pretty limited being bare feet. A huge spider was sitting at the rock as well, having no problem with me being super close to her for some pictures. You should zoom in the picture to see her hairy legs, haha! We had a quick break for Water Melons at 15:00 and continued the hike in a pretty slow speed. Our Italian friend seemed to be a little bit uncomfortable walking around in the jungle and took his time. I was relieved to spot our camp site in the distance, asking for permission if I could go ahead and wait for them there, which my guide accepted as long as I would be careful. Of course I would! I made it to the camp in my own speed soon after at 16:45 and could pick a nice hammock for the night. There were about 30 hammocks overall and some of them were already used from a group coming back again on their last day. We also shared dinner with them, each group being served by their own guide and cook. They prepared Rice, Chicken and Potatoes for us and even though it tasted okay, I was missing the awesome food we received at the San Blas Islands in Panama; they set the standards pretty high!
Day 2
The second day started early at 06:45 in the morning and we were joined by a second group full of dutch guys and their own guide. After some time downhill through the jungle, we eventually made it to a village of the indigenous people. Some curious girls in their white ropes came over while the guide explained about their culture. We were served a huge fish lunch at the next camp and could go out for a swim in the nearby river. The water there was crystal clear and cold, which was very welcome after walking in the heat for quiet some time. It was pretty interesting to see our Italian’s friend tanning pose, hard to describe in words but he really looked funny and certainly enjoyed the hiking break! No one could finish the lunch this time and we continued the hike at 12:00, back into the jungle.
Several hours later, I realized why the guides won’t let me go alone this time: We had to cross two rivers and while the first was no problem for everyone except the Italian guy, the second one was actually a bit trickier and I slipped at the end, landing in the knee deep water with one foot. Just then it also started to rain for the firs time – a very welcome change, because it got pretty hot in the jungle. Not long after we would find ourselves in our camp for the second night, arriving at 15:45, about two hours before nightfall. It was dark, still raining and I was just about to head to dinner when I suddenly slipped into a dark corner and suffering two open small wounds that bled a bit. We disinfected them with alcohol, lime and salt, allowing me to finally eat up before heading to bed and watch some Mad Men since it was still pretty early. This time we had actual beds and no hammocks and even though they were not super clean, it was still better and thanks to the relaxing sound of the rain pouring down, I could fall asleep pretty fast.
Day 3
You could consider the third day as the highlight of the trek as we would reach the famous terraces of the Lost City today. Starting early at 06:00, we walked about 45 minutes through the rain and crossed one more river before suddenly standing at the beginning of a 1000 steps stair case, built by the tayrona indians somewhen between the 8th and 12th century. Those guys used to be very short (1,50m – 1,60m) and once you walked on their stairs, you will see why. Some of the super steep steps required some attention, but overall the hike was not too hard. The sun finally came out as well while we were walking up to the first terrace, where our guide started to explain about the lost city and their former inhabitants. For instance, they built everything with the use of fire, water, wood and stones. Not much of a breaking news. More interesting was the moment we reached the most famous of all terraces, fully occupied by a complete squad of about 50 soldiers! I’m not really sure why they need so many there, but it might also have been because of the fact that one of them was just bitten by a highly venomous snake…
The military split up in groups, some of them taking care of the bitten comrade, others occupied keeping the signal fire up to produce enough smoke for the upcoming helicopter, and some just documenting everything on their smart phones. It was a pretty intense situation, the soldier only had about 30 minutes to get treatment before the bite would kill him. I asked our guide and they told us that snake bites here are not too uncommon and it was also not the first time for him to see a helicopter coming in for rescue. About 20 minutes later, the helicopter finally got in and the whole scene with all the soldiers felt a little bit like being in a movie! Hoping that the soldier received his medication in time, we eventually started our hike back with just one more stop for some more explanations about the area. Turns out that Ciduad Perdida is 200 years younger than El Publito, the “mini lost city” I visited in Tayrona National Park!
The guides spotted something in the bush on the way back to catch up with the rest and it was actually the same kind of snake that bit the soldier earlier! I could really tell that the guides have been in those situation before, quickly cutting a branch of a tree and shaping it to a Y shape to capture and then kill the snake with their machete. I spent the last 1% of my camera battery to take some cool close up pictures with the snake and her blood on the eye and was really happy to be here to witness this while the others of our group already went down – hopefully they would not find another snake! The terraces have been really enjoyable despite all the action we had. We were the only tourists at the time and despite the warnings, barely had to fight with any mosquitoes! The weather was great as well and the jungle surroundings made for a really cool Indiana Jones kind of atmosphere – it was totally worth coming here. I received permission to walk back in my own pace since the wound on my foot from last night was hurting a bit and I wanted to get out of the hiking boots to rest as soon as possible, arriving at the camp again at 15:30, taking just 90 minutes for the hike that took us four hours this morning.
Day 4
The Italians and myself woke up at 07:30 while the others in our two groups already left the camp at 05:00. They are on the 4 day trek and have to get back all the way to the end while we will have another night in the first camp. I waited a bit to dry my wet clothes, which were a bit wet every morning due to the humidity in the jungle, and soon after would catch up with the Italians who left an hour before me. Arriving at the camp at 11:00, we would have a full day to relax now. The Italian girl, our guide and myself decided to take a little excursion to a nearby waterfall at 15:00 and only a 20 minute walk away. We arrived at the top of the pretty big falls and had to climb down to the bottom. The girl decided to stay on top because the climb was an actual climb and I was happy to be able to use some Bouldering moves to get down Enjoying the view from the bottom and the waterfall it self, we returned to camp at 16:30 for a nice dinner. I was glad to take the 5 day hike, as I would not have been able to see the pretty nice waterfall otherwise.
Day 5
The last day started at 07:00 and we walked back to the starting point after breakfast. Our Italian friend turned out to be a great entertainer as he started to scream as loud as he can from a tiny slip. He was so careful all of the time and I think his scream was rather out of disappointment that he fell down rather than actual pain resulting from it. It was pretty amusing to see though and both the guide and myself were looking at each other in disbelief while he was crying out loud for about two minutes straight. Eventually, we made it back to the extraction point and I had enough time to take a shower before the car would drive us back to Santa Marta at 09:00. The Italians stayed in a hostel in Taganga and we dropped them off there with a quick stop at the viewpoint overlooking the bay. I returned to Turcol’s office to get my stuff, had some food and then headed back to Taganga myself, since I planned to stay there for my last night in the area. I made it just in time for the sunset at 17:30 and met up with a CS for some nice dinner at the bar Babaganoush, highly recommended if you are in the area. A dutch chef is serving really nice food over there for a decent price of 30.000 Colombian pesos. That’s it! I had no time to do any diving in Taganga but was very satisfied with my visit of the north coast. Up next for me was a flight to the capital Bogotá and a short visit to Villa de Leyva before flying down all the way to the southern point of Argentina, getting ready for my long awaited cruise to Antarctica…
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