Plans

Dear readers,

As some of you know, this week is the last of my internship and soon (on Friday) I'm starting a journey to Peru. As I've often written, I have been dreaming of visiting South America for years, so I wanted to see most of it while I'm there. But now I'm a bit tired and actually I feel like I'd rather go home already, than go on another crazy adventure. Still, there is no doubt that magical Peru will turn out to be a beautiful experience and that in the end, I'll be glad that I went there.

I haven't booked much, actually I've booked nothing apart from the hostel in Lima, but my itinerary for now looks as follows (of course, all might change on the way):
I'm starting on Friday with a flight to Lima, were I will stay for a couple of days. From there, I will take a bus down the coast and with one stop on the road (I'm not exactly keen on crazily long bus trips, so, whenever it's possible, I'll take shorter trips and stop somewhere on the way if the road is supposed to take more than 12 hours) I will get to Arequipa. After few days there, I will go to see the lake Titicaca, La Paz, probably some places in between and in the end- visit Cusco, Macchu Picchu and, if I have enough time, the Nacional Parque del Manu, which is a jungle with very rich flora and fauna. I will probably fly back to Lima from Cusco, as the bus takes forever and the road is not exactly the safest one. I am flying back to Santiago on the 25.08 and then, back to Europe on the 27.08. For some reason I'm putting more effort into planning my arrival than into planning the travel... But I've been away long enough.

After probably a few weeks at home, I'll go back to Munich to continue my Master studies. I am still kinda homeless for now, or rather looking for a new flat, but I will probably only take care of it properly when I'm back. After Peru, I'm sure I'll be able to sleep anywhere, including a tent in the English Garden (though I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to camp there!).

Someone asked me today at breakfast "Please, don't forget this country!". Of course I won't forget. It's a different question how much I'll miss it here, but I don't think anyone could forget 5 months spent in the beautiful place. Some pictures for the last goodbyes

Atacama

Photos today. Description- when I have time!

Buenos Aires

When I was a teenager, every time I came back home from a school trip, I would inform my parents that I needed to learn the language and move to __________(wherever it was that I went, be it Paris/Brussels/Barcelona etc.) immediately. Of course, none of this ever happened (I moved to Munich without visiting it ever before) and after some time and visiting more cities, I stopped being fascinated at all and didn't want to move anywhere ever again (not only because it wasn't fascinating, but moving countries is very very exhausting, as I'm sure some of you know). But here, just few days ago, I was fascinated again. I still am, actually. And the reason for it is called Buenos Aires.

This trip was very special for me. First of all, I made the decision that I was going on Thursday, and the flight was already on Saturday morning (is it just South America or is it generally possible to get relatively cheap tickets just two days before your flight? I mean, I paid about the same price as my friends who booked their flights 2 months in advance!). Second, I was going alone and it was the first time that I did it. I traveled alone before, of course, but always to destinations where there was someone or something waiting for me. This time was different. Even though I knew there would be people in the city whom I wanted to meet again (the reason for the last minute decision to go) I had to plan all by myself (so, of course, I've made a plan called "no plan" and figured most of the things out when I was there). There are people who love traveling alone, and some who would never do it. I guess they both have their pluses and minuses. For me, as I am probably going to Peru and Bolivia on my own too, it was a very good preparation and pretty much an eyes-opening experience. Usually, when traveling in a group, everyone organizes a small part and tries to make this one part a best possible experience for all the participants. Traveling solo, you choose what you want to do and make it the best possible experience just for yourself. Also, you meet really many people. Over the course of these 4 days in Buenos Aires, I didn't have dinner twice with the same person, as there was always someone new to join me for meal or a glass of wine. You eat what you want, you go wherever you want, you go to bed whenever you want. You generally do whatever you want, whatever you feel like doing and there's no one to tell you you're wrong or say "you COULD thoretically do this, but [...]". I really loved it.

A bit about the city

Buenos Aires is huge. While Wikipedia shows the data from 2010, according to which there is a population of 3.000.000 inside of the city and 13.000.000 in the whole metropolitan area, on spot I heard a version with 8 and 18 millions. Hard to say which one is right, but well, 5 millions here and there, the city is huge anyway. This doesn't complicate the sightseeing much though, as you mostly stay in a kind of a central area (or at least I did). You could get from one end of this area (Palermo) to the other end (La Boca) by taxi for probably about 10 euros (taxis are super cheap! I think they're even a bit cheaper than in Santiago). The Argentinians are really helpful when they see you might be lost (seriously, whenever I was standing at a corner trying to figure out which street I was just crossing (usually holding a map), there was always someone to ask where I was going and how they could help me.

Transport
I was lucky. I was flying to the small airport, which used to be used for national flights only, called Aeroparque. An amazing place it is, as it is situated just by the river (which is so big, I was sure it was the ocean already). So you just walk out of the airport, cross the street, and there you are at the river site! You can take 2 city buses to the center from there, and a bus from Aerolineas Argentinas called ArBus. The normal buses cost 6 pesos (you need coins or a city transport card- SUBE) and the ArBus- 30 pesos. At the airport, there is a small Tourist Information point (it's quite well hidden, took me 20 mins to find it...). The woman at the counter, hearing my Spanish, just answered in German (apparently, my accent- why on earth would I have a German accent in Spanish I don't know- is very strong. On my first day in Argentina, I spoke Spanish to three people and they all asked if I was German after the first sentence), gave me a lot of helpful information and exchanged my money for coins so I could take a public bus. Also there, for the first time, I understood what everyone ment when saying that Chileans and Argentinians are not exactly fond of each other. The lady at the TI just said "You'll love it here, you'll see. We're not like Chileans. We are nice. We will help you".
The metro, the oldest one in South America and in the southern hemisphere, is apparently very interesting and very crowded, but I can't tell cause I didn't take it. A taxi costs 16,7 Pesos for the start and that 1,67 for every 200 m (more to the value of money below). There is a bus, 29, going through all of the interesting areas, starting in La Boca and going to Plaza Italia and I think even farther, but I'm not sure. I took this bus once, from La Boca to San Telmo, which are very close areas. The problem was, after a small walk in San Telmo, I wanted to take the bus to go to my hostel but... It wasn't there anymore. At the bus stop where I got out, people said the bus was not stopping there (indeed, it wasn't on the list). Everyone was showing me a different directions to where it might be coming from. At some point, it got dark and I decided I was not going to spend the night alone in San Telmo trying to find the bloody bus stop, so I just grabbed a taxi and left that place. At least, I still have a bus ticket for my memory box!
The first stop of the bus 29 in La Boca:

BTW, the other airport, called Ezeiza is pretty far from the city (again, I got different information, but from 40 to 60 km, depending where in the city you are. I know nothing more about it, besides from the fact that it apparently has a great duty free zone :)

Money
The first piece of advice that I got was to take euros or dollars and change them on the black market. There are two rates for exchanging money. The official one and a "blue" rate. As I couldn't imagine asking anyone "excuse me, where do I find the black market here?" I did a bit of a research and found out that most of the exchange points were to find on Florida, the street where my hostel was. And indeed, it is very easy. TONS of people stand there screaming "cambio, cambio, euros, dollares, real!". You just ask one of them for the value for your currency, and when you agree on the price, they take you to some other place (flower shop, newspaper stand etc.) and exchange your money. Apparently, the blue rate can sometimes even reach the value of twice the official one, though when I was there, the difference was about 40%, which means the official rate for Euro was 9,85 Pesos, and the "blue" one- from 13,20 to 13,80 Pesos. Many sellers take dollars and euros too, usually with a good exchange rate. If you pay by card, you get the official rate.

Streets
It is really interesting, how the city is built. Standing in a middle of a street and looking down at it, you can't see its end. They are all very "straight" and all parallel/perpendicular to one another. The other thing is, many streets are just huge! Like the Avenida 9 de Julio, which is (or was? German Wikipedia says it was till 1960, while the English version says it still is) the widest street in the world. It has 14 lanes, at certain points even more. I tried to take a proper photo of it, but I guess it is just too big for my poor photography skills...

Anyway, the Obelisco, known symbol of Buenos Aires is on this street too. There are many of them, these huge streets, but none of them as big as 9 de Julio... Another thing is the street people. I've seen homeless before, of course, everywhere. But here, for the first time I saw homeless children. It was really heart breaking to see an about 1 y.o. girl sitting on the pavement, waiting for someone laying next to her to wake up and take care of her. And all of this right next to exclusive office buildings and five stars hotels. Santiago is full of huge social differences too. But I've never seen it as striking as in BA before...

Food
If you love meat, you'll be in heaven. If you don't, you have a problem. On my first day, I spend about half an hour at a market trying to find a meatless snack. When finally a woman said she had vegetarian empanadas, I bought two. Of course, there was meat inside. I spent the rest of time eating Italian food. Another day, I was in a restaurant and ordered fish with puree. The people whom I was with got steaks. They looked really well, the steaks, you know. But my fish... I'm sure it was from the day before and just put to the oven to heat it up a bit. It was terribly dry and simply just bad. It was also the most expencive dish I had in BA. So the next thing: the food is generally very cheap. I had some delicious meals, where the whole menu was 120 pesos (less than 10 euros). Take a look at the card before you sit somewhere, you might end up paying way too much for a way too old dish...

Wine
Malbec. Tried once in Cracow and it has been my favourite ever since. Buenos Aires is heaven if you love Malbec as much as I do.

I guess it's enough to read for now :) I won't give tips for the places you must visit, cause you will find those all over the internet and in all possible travel guides. These are some of the places I visited:

The streets really seem endless.

Northern or southern hemisphere, the problems of women stay the same...

They have this really "fat" tress but I haven't figured out what they're called. Does anyone know?

Palermo

Caminito/La Boca

A little introduction to food. Vegetarian hell. Peruvian heaven. After-internship plans.

Y para mi, agua sin carne por favor! - that sentence caused some of my friends to create a second nickname for me- along with "Michael Schuhmacher", I could be called "agua sin carne" now (non of them is ever used though. I've never had a real nickname). You might be wondering why I would order a bottle of water without meat, but it really is easy- I need to say "without meat" all the time, so that it once happened when I was ordering water, shouldn't surprise anyone.

Being a vegetarian in Chile isn't easy. I can't really call myself a vegetarian anymore- here, I got a third nickname: "fakie"- since I came here, I eat fish and seafood, which I earlier tried to avoid, on a daily basis. I also tried different meat- I was told if I try Chilean barbecue, I would not be able to be a vegetarian any more- so I did try and no, it didn't convince me to eat meat again. But I could never understand that, even when I was eating meat, how people were going on and on about steaks. They never really interested me much.

When I was in Europe, I was quite strict about my diet. I even had episodes of being vegan or almost vegan (not because of the ideology, but I would just cook so much from vegan blogs, that at some point I suddenly realized I hadn't had any animal products for a while). I never ate meat-based soup or anything which contained meat which I could put aside I did eat fish from time to time though, but this was only as a huge treat and less than once a month. None of these is possible here.

When I first started working here and still lived in the Cajon, I would get lunches and dinners at work/on the way home (now that I live in Santiago, I only have lunch at work). There are mostly two dishes to choose from and of course, both containing meat. So there would I start. "Is it possible to get something without meat?" "Eeeeeee but why?" "I don't eat meat" "How, you don't eat meat?". There was the same conversation with the same people every day. Sometimes, when I didn't look what I was getting, I would open the lunch box at home to find a chicken breast in it (apparently, "carne" only means red meat and poultry is not meat anymore!). At some point they did learn that "no meat" means no chicken and no steaks. I began to eat eggs. I still eat eggs every day during a week. People become so hopeless when I say I don't eat meat, the only vegetarian dish most of them can think of is a fried egg. The lunch canteen that we go to though brought it to the next level, serving me a spinach-baked-with-egg kind of thing every day. I could complain a lot about this, but the others get a "pollo con arroz" every other day too, so at least we suffer together. There are, surprisingly, dishes that are ment to be vegetarian- bean soup poroto and lentil soup lenteja. However, I work for a construction company and the workers don't believe they get enough strength from the plants so... There are meat pieces in these dishes too. But I stopped to care. I just put the pieces aside and eat the vegetarian part. Yes, I'm a fakie.

What I suffer with food over the week, I can take back on the weekends. Chile, with its unbelievably long coast, has a great access to seafood and fish. There are lots and lots of sushi places (which is surprising, considering the fact that I have seen very few Asians here). We have sushi at least once a week! But even though it's really good, it's not the best thing you can get. My dear readers, if you haven't tried Peruvian cuisine yet- it's like you've never lived. I thought I'd had some good seafood before, but since I came here, I know I was wrong. The best seafood I've ever eaten is the seafood made by Peruvians. I don't know what they do with it. But believe me, you can take anything from the menu, not knowing what it is (I usually just ask whether it contains meat or only seafood and fish, if it's the latter, I take it and let them surprise me) and await a perfect feast every single time. I did my research and it seems like there are no Peruvian restaurants, neither in Cracow nor in Munich... I think someone should take the opportunity and start some places. If you can recreate what they do here in Europe, I'm sure it would be the most successful place in town!

But for now, I decided to have the real Peruvian experience in Peru... On Friday I changed my flight date which means that instead of right after the internship, I'm going home a month later. Taking 4 weeks to travel through Peru and Bolivia! As I get different views on which is more worth visiting from almost everyone I talk to, I will have to go and see for myself... If anyone of you ever visited these countries, please feel free to drop me a line! I would appreciate any piece of information or advice. For now, I have no plans at all! Haven't even decided whether I should start in Lima or La Paz. I'm like Jon Snow. I know nothing.

May- after the halfway point! Patagonia story

Dear readers, or rather dear people who might be bothered,

I haven't written here for a while. The reason is that my laptop broke (I can't even turn it on anymore), so it got all a bit more complicated. Apart from that, we (I usually use we for me and other interns) do a lot on the weekends, so there is hardly any free time to sit down and write. And during the week- I'm away from home from 6 am to 8 pm, so when I get back, all I can think of is going back to bed. But here I am, on bank holiday, writing again and trying to remember all that happened since the last post.

There have been different things going on on the weekends since then- we went hiking again and again, horseback riding too, we went to a beach house of our colleague for a weekend, we had a bbq & jacuzzi night at a rooftop here in Santiago... It was all very nice, sometimes so nice I would just sit silent (yes! it IS possible!) thinking just how amazing it is. But there are more "private" experiences. We only managed to go out once- on the Good Friday- and the experience will certainly be unforgettable, but a latino party like a one that I always dreamed of is still before me.

What I can describe here is our week in Patagonia. Some of you might have heard about the W-Route in the Parque Nacional Torres del Paine- this is what we did.

First of all, I need to say how extremely lucky we were. The volcano in Puerto Montt erupted on Tuesday and then again on Wednesday night. The sky was full of ashes and the airlines canceled all their flights on Wednesday and most of them on Thursday- and we were observing it with increasing fear, for our flight was to take place on Friday night. But on Friday morning, it turned out that all of the flights are back to normal and so south we went.

I do not believe I will ever be this south again (I put the location of the city of Punta Arenas- the one you fly to to get to Torres del Paine so you can see where it it). Everyone told us to take all of the warm clothes that we had. I had a crazy ride on Thursday night, trying to get a Buff- apparently, without it, you can't survive in Patagonia... But there, our luck continued.

We arrived at the airport at 5 am, but we were told that the first transport we can get to Punta Arenas (from where there was a bus to Puerto Natales, our next stop) goes at 9. What we didn't know was, that we could also take a direct bus to Natales at 7, which we did (after a short discussion with a taxi driver, who, apparently, got out of bed only because an airport worker called him that there were three people wanting to go to Punta Arenas NOW). Leaving the airport, we noticed how terribly windy, cold, and rainy it was and I wanted to go back home immediately!

But there we went, on a 4 hours bus ride. The weather started to improve and the rising sun provided unbelievable views. Instead of sleeping, we just sat with our noses pressed against the windows, looking at what Patagonia had to offer. When we arrived to Natales, it was 11 and we had just on hour to visit the offices of travel agencies where we booked our stays to find some information. What we found out was not exactly what we were hoping for... It turned out that a great part of the park was flooded and we can't enter it as we were planning too. The fact that we paid for all the accommodations in advance (one thing about this park- the "refugios" (shelters) are RIDICULOUSLY expensive. We paid from 40 to 75 eu for simple, basic beds in a shared room of 6 to 8 beds, using our own sleeping bags!) and yet couldn't reach them, made the things even worse. In the afternoon, there was a meeting where we were told the same thing again- better, they said, if we can, stay in Natales one day more and see how the situation changes. But we didn't have time for waiting. So next day, at 7:30, we took a bus up to the National Park. This wasn't possible without adventures either... For some crazy reason, EVERYONES' mobile phones changed time for a hour earlier. So there we were in a hostel, my watch showing 6:30- wake up time, but my phone- 5:30. So did everyone else's. Fortunately, there was another guy in our room who started to get ready and whom I asked what time it was (it was 7 already), so we were still able to jump out of beds and run to the bus station.

And here, on the bus, our luck continues. We had this large discussion the night before and decided we were going to enter the park, even if we could only walk the one part that was opened (about a 5th of the whole W-Route), and then come back to Natales and try to get our money back for the accommodations we couldn't use- but there on the bus, suddenly it turned out that the park was opened again! All of it! Our whole plan was again accurate. And it still wasn't the end: instead of the changing weather, heavy rain few times a day and terrible wind (it was the end of the season- they were closing up the shelters the day we left) that we were promised, we got a really nice weather, so much that we could basically hike in T-shirts most of the time. Not bad for an autumn so far away from the equator.

A bit to my travel companions now: There were 5 of us hiking together, but we only came south in a group of 3.

Jakob and Torben, the two guys on the left, are who I usually travel with- they are interns at the same company and arrived to Chile at about the same time. Traci, standing next to me (I reckon noone who doesn't know me reads this, but just in case- I'm the one in the red t-shirt), is from LA and a nurse and we met her on the bus to the Park. And Jack, on the right, is a civil-engineering-student-to-be who at the moment volunteers as an English teacher in Chiloe. We met him in our first hostel. With small breaks, we were hiking with the two of them about all the way.

The Park: well, one thing for sure. I don't want to write about every day separately- this post has become way too long already- but in general, Patagonia really is beautiful. After hiking here, with no trees and on rather dusty roads, it was a really nice change to get to a place with very rich flora and fauna. You get to see a bit of everything- from a lake hidden in rocks of Torres del Paine (I will upload a picture of those when I can access my laptops' hard-drive...) on the day one, through waterfalls and avalanches to the great Glacier Grey in the end. I guess I will just let the pictures speak... (Though, as I said, a great part is still missing- I only managed to put about a half on the cloud before my computer died).

The journey ended with a 2 days stay in Punta Arenas. On day 1 of this stay we realized there was absolutely nothing to do in the town (it was bank holiday which made it even worse), so on the last day, we went to Porvenir. For some reason it is called the Land of Fire, but I still haven't figured out why that is. The only reason to go there was crossing the Magellan Canal in a ferry, which was good (the sunrise views were a blast!), but the town of Porvenir itself- well, there is absolutely NOTHING in there. If it, for some reason, is on your "to do" list for Chile, I would suggest to take a really thick pen and cross it out forever. We were there for 3 hours only (and it takes 3 hours on a ferry to get there) and we were out of the things to do as soon as we left the taxi which brought us from the harbour to the "center". But again, we only did it for the journey.

Punta Arenas from one of its view points

Sunrise on the ferry