Sucre – aprendía español

My memories of Sucre are colored by the fact that I was feeling ill for most of the time (I will probably never find out why they always give you infusions when you go to foreign hospitals.), so I didn’t even manage to see much more than the market, our Homestay and the way to my spanish school.

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Feeling very untouristy eating at the market, but leave your fingers of the salad. They wash it in the river an not even the locals eat it without getting stomach issues.

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The chief. One of dozens and though not the healthiest it was delicious food.

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Shopping leek. We emptied the the place of it, because nobody in our homestay ever tried it before.

Our favourite place in the central market, the fruit juice stands. You get everything freshly made with our without milk and/or sugar, if you ask for it.

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Yummi and it always comes with a second helping.

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Zebras explaining how to use zebra crossing and jumping in front of moving cars, if their driver are to ignorant (of course the crossing are also equipped with traffic lights just lines on the ground would never work).

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My spanish teacher. Did a good job on me, now I only need to practise.

But as far as I can judge Sucre is quite a clean, quite and safe place. And even tough the name „Sucre“ doesn’t have anything to do with sugar the white buildings in the center somehow reminded you of icing on a cake.

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Sucre lies, like most andean cities in a valley, where the centre is the lowest point and the poorer districts crawl up the hill sides.

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The white houses of Sucre. I assume the have a decree against colored wall paint.

What really made a difference was our stay with Bertha and her little family. We spend in total two weeks in her Homestay, playing with Coco the lovable dog that hates locals but loves foreigners, cooking food with Bertha and other guest, saw Bolivian movies and playing Volleysquash also called Squallyball a mix between squash and volleyball. In the end we really had a hard time leaving.

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Coco would immediately lay down spread his legs and ask for cuddle units from you.

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One of the many dinner gatherings in Bertha’s kitchen.

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Because Bertha is a big fan of this german dish, I made my first lentils soup. A little piece from home.

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Playing squallyball is really fun, quite physical demanding and played by Tom leaves you some bruises.

 

Mendoza – Bacchus summer residence

The first thing that you recognize when arriving in Mendoza are green trees, bushes and parks. And this after driving for hours through the sand and dry landscape of a desert. Already the Incas used water courses to redirect the river coming from the mountains which were improved and are still used today and thereby creating this oasis.
Something of the green generated by the clever water systems and we were even allowed to try it.

Something of the green generated by the clever water systems and we were even allowed to try it.

These clever water systems in combination with the christianisation by the Spanish also cause Mendozas main attraction. Wine! Numerous wine yards around Mendoza produce some excellent grapes in this region of 300 sunny days a year. A speciality being a wine called Malbec. Originally from France it disappeared in Europe (I never tried it before.) during a wine pest but just flourish in the dry conditions here. It’s of almost black color, with a good amount spicy tannins (Never drink red wine without tannins. It will just result in a headache the next day.) and a flavor a black berries.
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„Never drink wine without tannins“ was the good advice from the lady, that gave us a tasting of the to me unknown Malbec at two different occasions.

After our first night including a free wine tasting in the hostel and half a cow in a restaurant we found our selfs with a bunch of people from the hostel in bus 10/171 on the way to Maipu and it’s many wine yards. Due to some indirectness of the route it took much longer than expected and at a certain point the driver just ordered us out of the bus recommending to walk the rest (Bus 10/172 would have been the direct one but surely less scenic).
Not the best bikes, but decent cheap and including a small bottle of water (Where is the wine?).

Not the best bikes, but decent cheap and including a small bottle of water (Where is the wine?).

We grabbed some bikes from one of the renting shops and headed of to the first wine yard. Here we met the girl from our tasting the night before, now not only explaining the difference between red and white wine but also how to distinguish different wine plants, how the wine is produced and what is so special about Malbec (very sensitive to bad wheather) and she let us taste their premium wine that is only sold in Argentina and of course Germany.
You can already smell the difference on the barrel or just smell the difference of one to another barrel.

You can already smell the difference on the barrel or just smell the difference of one to another barrel.

These premium wines really were the best of the day and somebody is selling them somewhere in Germany!

These premium wines really were the best of the day and somebody is selling them somewhere in Germany!

After this we went to two more wine yards and one bodega ending up with more than a bottle each in our bloodstream.
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Spirtis (or alcohol blood level) were getting high im bodegas and vineyards.

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People working hard to bottle the wine.

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People working not that hard to unbottle them again.

Accidents can not be excluded under such circumstance but luckily not more than a big scratch resulted from the fall in the ditch. Since spirits were already high and the day still young nobody put a veto to dinner and more wine bottles, so the next day was completely devoted to recovery.
How smart. Tasting different wines from the same yard over for each other. Bt don't mess with the glasses, because the drue is indicated in the paper below.

How smart. Tasting different wines from the same yard over for each other. But don’t mess with the glasses, because the grape is indicated in the paper below.

Bariloche or the tiny Switzerland of Nazi Germans

We can’t deny it. After the Second World War many Germans flew to South America especially Argentina and in Bariloche you find many of their traces mingled into the argentine culture. Cute little „Spitzdachhäuser“, German schools teaching in Spanish, German bakeries that sell at least one kind of integral bread, breweries offering deals including the argentine version of pizza with loads of cheese, chocolate manufactures producing pralines filled with dulce de leche and even the landscape resembles some Swiss features tough the network of lakes and hills is much more impressive than anything I have seen in Europe.
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First thing is Bariloche: having a bear and pizza. Second thing in Bariloche: not feeling you are in Argentina if it weren’t for the loud argentine band in the background.

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I was so happy, when we entered this chocolate store and even got a sample for free until I bit it and my mouth filled with this caramelised milk stuff „dulce de leche“.

Here we finally got what we came for to Argentina: not the beautiful landscape or the argentine culture, no we came for steak and wine. The recommended restaurant is really popular we Israelis meaning you get huge amounts for a reasonable price but you have to show up early. We came 20 min before the place opened and squeezed in just before a group if 22 Israelis. And than came the difficult part of what to chose. Bife de lomo turned out to be 4 cm thick and tender steaks and the normal argentine portion of 500g sufficient to make our stomachs just about to burst.
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Just cut it very thick and add a bit of salt and then over on the BBQ.

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We estimated at least one cow went over this BBQ per night.

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Tom in great expectations!

To make up for the unreasonable protein intake we went for a bike tour in the National Park the next day. We rented bikes at km 18.6 (kind of an unusual address) which turned out to be good mountain bikes that came in handy on the hilly road (flat was not existent). The views on the lakes are worth every km and you can visit a lot of side tracks, so we actually 5.5 h to cover the 25 km of the circuit.

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I guess, thats why they call it the lake district.

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The most famous and probably also the most expensive Hotel of Argentina lays in this Nationalpark. And don’t tell me, that you are bot thinking of Switzerland in this moment.

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Here you also find the famous red trees also called „llao-llao“?

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The best view of the day came 3 km before the finishing line.

El Chalten – the little sister of Torres del Paine

When we finished Torres del Paine both of is were relatively done with hiking and carrying around heavy backpacks. Unfortunately everybody told us to stop by El Chalten in Argentina for some more hiking. „It’s really beautyfull.“ So we did.

Since we were also a little tired of booking ahead we arrived there not knowing were to stay. The tourist information here is very helpful and pointed out the hostels that had some free space (it weren’t many). We ended up in a cheap but a little creepy place surrounded by french (whatever it is about them and adventure holidays), the owner only spoke Spanish but was really nice tough. We spent two days hiking up the steep hills around El Chalten Cerro Torres and the dominating Frits Roy always in the corner of our eyes. The landscape here is really beautiful but not that different from Torres del Paine.
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The biggest lake in the area spans over 17 km and is a little eye catcher on top of the mountain.

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The mountain range around El Chalten and it’s wooden explanation, including „El Torre“, „Fritz Roy“ and „El Tomasz“ also known as „Cerro Knubbel“.

The famous Fritz Roy, sunning on this beautiful day in February.

The famous Fritz Roy, sunning on this beautiful day in February.

El Chalten on an early sunny morning (just reminded us that we forgot to bring the sun creme).

El Chalten itself was only founded by Argentina a few decades ago to claim the area from Chile. Only the attractive landscape around drawing the tourists here provide a livelihood, so you can guess what’s dominating the place: Hostels, restaurants, tour agencies, kiosks and panaderias selling empenadas (dough moons filled with meat, vegetables or ham and cheese).

El Chalten on an early sunny morning (just reminded us that we forgot to bring the sun creme).

El Chalten on an early sunny morning (just reminded us that we forgot to bring the sun creme).

Somehow we expected Argentina to be cheaper than Chile (at least that’s what everybody keeps claiming). It isn’t. Especially when you don’t bring Euro or USD. Argentina has an extremely high inflation and since 2011 a law prohibits the investment of money in foreign currency. Therefore everybody here wants to keep there savings in USD. You are able to change USD for a 30% higher rate than the official rate which really saves a lot of money. Luckily somebody already told us in Santiago ;).

Valpo on 45 hills

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Valparaiso or short (Valpo) is just a short 2h bus drive from Santiago and Busses go every 15 min. So we left our hiking stuff behind and traveled lightweight to this colored city by the sea side. The city is quite exceptional distributed over 45 hills that are connected by ancient elevators and rainbow colored stairs.

Going up the stairs never gets boring here.

Going up the stairs never gets boring here.

We were adviced that there are some hills that we certainly don’t want to go to, but actual we didn’t felt threatened at any point. It’s nearly impossible to walk around between the painted houses and not just be amazed by the beautiful pictures that decorate most of the walls. Street art is actual illegal in whole chile, but if the owner of the wall (and even the city itself) gives the permission it is okay to paint in them. So many street artist come here to life and paint. Unfortunately also many other people own spray cans and leave their tags (signs) on our next to the paintings. You can probably walk around in ages and discover new paintings every time (since many artist are still very young they will hopefully continue painting for many years).

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You find surely thounds of simple graffities decorating the walls (legal or illegal).

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The couple „color distinto“ and their elaborated paintings changed the view on graffities and the face of Valparaiso substantially.

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But also many other artist leave their traces over the city, working together they create pieces like this one.

Aside from that Valpo is absolutely a place to enjoy life. On our first night we attended a wine tasting organized by a guy from our hostel were we came to try many different Chilean wines and cheese and chatted with other guest from our hostel, so even the tasting was over we kept on drinking beers on the plaza in front if our hostel listening to the street music until 3 am. This also led to a very late breakfast the next day so all we managed to do was to attend the free walking tour before we ended up on the plaza again eating the Chilean version of a hotdog and drinking beer again.

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Trying chliean „Riesling“ …

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… chilean simply but very tasty cow cheese …

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… and enjoying very nice company.

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When we arrived at the Plaza Descanso in front of our hostel it just started to get to life with artisits and musicians, so we got more beer and settled for a few more hours.

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Drinking beer in chilean. You get a glass filled with some lemon juice and its rim covered in salt. Then you add the beer and spices as you like. The first sip is weird but it get continously better.

The chilean version of Hotdog comes with huge amounts of fresh tomatos and avocado topped with ketchup and mayonese.

The chilean version of Hotdog comes with huge amounts of fresh tomatos and avocado topped with ketchup and mayonese.

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The sandboards are hardly more than a painted wooden board with straps. To wax it (which you have to do every 30 m) you get an old piece of candle.

So we had two choices stop drinking beer or extend our stay. We extended the stay to five nights so we had the time to go sand boarding, taking a boat tour, learn even more about graffiti, and dance to the drum music on our favorite plaza (we stopped dancing at 2 am, unfortunately they kept playing until 8:30 am so there wasn’t much sleeping that night).

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We didn’t got a word of what the guide was telling us, but he made sure we were all well prepared for the 30 min ride.

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We also met some of the marine locals of Valpo. They didm’t even bothered to turn there heads to us.

Overall Valpo is a really fun but very exhausting place. Absolutly recommendable.

Santiago – Warzaw in Chilean

Landing in Santiago promised quite a change from NewZealand. The view from the plan revealed a yellow-brown dry landscape. And yes temperatures finally allowed to retrieve the short thoursers from the bottom of the backpacks again.

Anyway, in a very nice way many things reminded us of Warzaw. The heat, the parks, people on city bikes, the straight forward working underground train, and the funny and informative free walking tours around the city.

Carlos alias Wally guided us around the corners of Santiago, that you probably will miss on your own.

Carlos alias Wally guided us around the corners of Santiago, that you probably will miss on your own.

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Tio Willy (located in the fish market) made Tom trying his first real Mate, not this sweet Club Mate stuff he is drinking back in Germany.

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The tour led through Santiagos cemetry, which is as big as 117 soocer fields so you can easily get lost here.

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Finishing the tour with a drink is quite a nice style and after all the talk about earthquakes in Santiago a „Terremoto“ is the obvious choice. Made of Vino pipeño with pineapple ice cream the second glass makes the earth shake in deed.

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And then we headed back to Tio Willy to try some of the famous fish. I head soup made from conger eel.

 

A substantial difference in Santiago from Warzaw however were the huge number of stray dogs. They are just everywhere and some even adopt a lordling, as the one following our guide around the city. Though we never met one being aggressive towards us.

Red following the tour until we reached the Undergound train. He knows he is not allowed there.

Red following the tour until we reached the Undergound train. He knows he is not allowed there.

Christoball (the mountain with the virgin on top) was quite close to our hostel so we made it up there almost twice. On our second time the top was closed due to the fact that it was close to sunset and people get robbed there when it’s dark. But aside from all the stories you hear we felt pretty save in Santiago. When I lost a 5000 CLP note in the underground train a girl even came after me handing it back.

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The virgin on christobal can looking over Santiago.

 

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The view from christobal during sunset unfortunately reminds a little of china. The smog hanging over the city is reaching as high as the surronding mountains.

 

Auckland – city of crates

I catched the first view of Auckland in the sunny morning light from the plane window and immediately understood what was meant by the city being build on volcanic crates. They were numerous, everywhere in different states of faunic recapture. It was so green and beautiful after weeks of constant dust in Nepal.

The first leg of my visit was exclusively comprised of re-organization. I needed to find out where and how to travel, I needed a camera (desperately, no pictures here :(), and I needed to settle into the fact that I was traveling alone from now. By the end of my second day I knew every outdoor shop and it’s selection of tents in Auckland.
Auckland turned out to be a good place for all these things. The hostel was packed with people, all having good advices (even though most were traveling by car). The shops were on their big Christmas sale, so I got some really good deals for a tent and a camera. It turned out that one girl in the hostel was a hairdresser, so I got my hair comfortably one evening and quite cheap.

Actually the second time in Auckland were only a 24 h stay. So there was not much more sight seeing here either, but a nice dinner and some re-packing of Backpacks.

Christchurch – a quake, empty chairs and a lot of color for life

Most beautiful piece of street art to be found in Christchurch.

Most beautiful piece of street art to be found in Christchurch.

Nobody wants to go to Christchurch but everybody comes here.

Christchurch is the biggest city on the southern island but during a destructive earthquake in 2010 most of its structure was destroyed. Nowadays the city is characterized by ruins, construction sites and unconnected rebuilds, which gives the city an ugly face. But there is also the colorful attempt of its inhabitants to make live worthy again. You find a Lego like shopping area in the city center made of containers (You get an amazing Greek kebab here.), art projects are installed also to remind of this long lasting event and street art can be found all over the city.

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Christchurch’s cathedral. Once a tourist side, now an attraction of a different kind.

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The great attempt to add some color to the ugly faces of the many construction sides.

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The Lego inspired shopping center of Christchurch. They just can’t put up a new building. Pipes and electricity has to be repaired first.

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When you come across this car park, check out what the horse is doing.

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One empty chair for every soul lost during the earthquake.

So yes the city is not beautiful but we anyway enjoyed exploring it and see how people cope here and  the botanical garden is a great place to retreat from the many construction sites. We also tried to find some nightlife and found a great brewery, but real nightlife has so far not found its way back to Christchurch.

Kaikorua – dropping out and swimming with seals

Once upon a time there was somebody, that insisted that I should visit Kaikoura and because the bus to the Fox glacier was booked out we simply booked one here. The bus drive wasn’t just a scenic one but due to our very informative bus driver also extremely entertaining. One of the things we learned: in Maori kai means food and koura means crayfish, a delicacy in Kaikoura.
Kaikoura itself is a chain of small wooden houses along the coast north of Kaikoura peninsula. Nice and quite a good place to dropout from traveling a couple if hours or days.

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Walking around the peninsula in low tide reveals some funny shore features.

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But the real reason why tourist come to Kaikoura is to meet the marine locals. Fur seals, dolphins and whales. We opted for the close to the shore (the sea and I are still not best friends) swimming with seals, which is actual snorkeling. We only met a few seals, but it was a fun trip only for the snorkeling itself and 45 min in the water was more than enough to cool our body temperature to the point of deep blue lips

Welly Christmas

 

Wellington at Mt. Victoria.

Wellington at Mt. Victoria.

Everybody says Wellington (called Welly by their inhabitants) is the nicest city in New Zealand. Therefore I decided to spend Christmas here in one if the wooden houses sprinkled all over the city and it’s surrounding hills.

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Christmas shopping in Wellington somehow reminds me of home. I guess nearly everybody gets a book as a present.

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Guess what, I found the female counterpart to the Berlin Ampelmännchen here. Really a nice place to live, if it wouldn’t be so far from home.

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And the weird part, summer conditions make the botanical garden blossom during Christmas.

I have to say everybody is right about Welly regarding the atmosphere that is a mixture of an international vibe, cafe and beer bar scene freshed up with a sea breeze. I especially enjoyed strolling along the quay, eating ice creme and listening to Christmas carols played by a rock band at the city beach. For everybody who is a little more into culture, all the museums in the city are free (I spent one hour in the city gallery, only because I already got quite a sunburn).

First homemade ice creme in what? 6 months?

First homemade ice creme in what? 6 months?

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Christmas feeling at the city beach, must be warm under this hat.

 

Christmas on the other side of the world turned out to be quite different (the sad Christmas tree in the corner of the lounge should proof to be a first sign). The first thing I fell for was the actual day kiwis celebrate Christmas. Contrary to us Europeans the important day is the 25th of December. Meaning the 24th just turned out to be like every other day. On the 25th the inhabitants of my hostel hold a big Christmas party meaning everybody prepared a dish from their home country and the hostel owner provided a nice barbecue, just like a summer garden party at home spiced with some British people singing Christmas carols.

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Everybody was asked to prepare something. I ended up with ‚Berliner Bouletten‘ (meat balls).

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Decoration was a nice try, but the Christmas tree really made me feel a little sad.

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Therefore the BBQ was great.

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And the atmosphere really cheerful.

 

On the 27th I finally entered the ferry to the South Island of New Zealand in a beautiful sunny morning rewarding with gorgeous views of the sounds Wellington and Picton.

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The sounds of Picton on a picture perfect day.