A long time ago

Here I am again. Still alive. Sorry for not posting anything lately. Well, I can find different excuses for that ;o) Travelling turned into holiday, nature aiming at me with natural disasters or simply the underdevelopment of internet in Australia and New Zealand... Nevermind, I will give a short summary of what has happened.
Last time I wrote, almost 2 months ago, I just arrived on South Island in New Zealand. I stayed there for two weeks and got to see quite nice places. Unfortunately, it was not nearly as overwhelming as some people have said it would be. Ok, I am pretty biased by South America. New Zealand simply can't keep up with that. I made some nice hikes in Franz Josef (glacier hiking is great!) and Mt Cook though. A brewery was on the schedule too :o)

Queenstown in the south of South Island reminded me more of Playa del Ingles on Canary Islands ... same people ... same action ... but 24 flight hours away ;o) Had some fun nights out there. My trip to Milford Sound, they call it the number 1 attraction in NZ, was drowing in rainfalls. My last stop on South Island was Christchurch. We had a great night out there too, since many people of the Magic Bus had their last stop.

By the way, I took a lovely sunset picture of the cathedral.You can google and have a look what it looks like now. Anyways, in the end I spent 3 weeks on the Magic Bus experiencing NZ and got to meet quite a lot of nice people. This made all of the trip a great experience, although travelling in a tourist bus is not necessarily my most favorite way of travelling. Luckily I left Christchurch 3 days before the earthquake. I got the news when I was waiting for my flight from Auckland to Melbourne ... creepy feeling. Well, I managed to avoid yet another natural disaster. Thanks for your talisman, Silke!
In Melbourne I met up with Serap who just came straight from Zurich to start her slightly extendend holiday ;o) Though she was kind of unlucky in choosing her holiday destinations ;o) Having New Zealand and Japan on the list made her reconsider her plans ;o) We started the Australia trip with a couple of days in Melbourne. I really like that city. Great places, great people ... a good place to have tons of fun! Great Ocean Road was worth the trip, too. Although at that stage my enthusiasm about travelling had already been severly reduced ;o) After 5 months of travelling I really got tired of travelling. I think Serap had to suffer a lot from that. But at least she was enthusiastic about everything ;o)

Next stop was Tasmania. We booked yet another bus trip to get our lazy asses carried aound the island. Tasmania itself is interesting, but also not as unique as expected. We were a bit unlucky with the weather as it was rainy and quite chilly. Nevertheless, I got to see loads of animals. I loved that. Kangaroos, Wallabys,Tasmanian Devils and alikes. The people on the tour were also great. So the trip turned out to be great fun in the end. Highlight was the night out in Hobart in the end where we got to meet real Tasmanian natives ... they are scary ;o) Its probably the same effect which you have in small mountain villages ...

From Tasmania we flew to Sydney, another fanatastic city. A lot to see during the day, a lot to do during the night. I also managed to find the Austrian fugitve Alex W., who is nowadays hiding in Sydney ;o)

In Sydney Serap and I split our travels, since Serap decided to stay longer in Australia and not go to NZ and eventually Japan ;o) Probably a pretty good decision. I drove up north to Byron Bay, Surfers Paradise and Fraser Island. Was fun, but the weather wasnt that good either. After rainy days on Fraser Island I went back to Brisbane to have a good St. Paricks Day Party. Another good night out :o)

From Brisbane I had to fly back to Melbourne to continue travelling on my around the world ticket, which probably was the biggest waste of money during all of my trip. But unfortunately it's best to learn from mistakes ;o) Summarizing my time in Australia I have to say I really enjoyed it. I had great fun and met many nice people. My alcohol consumption drastically increased during my stay in Down Under, what I interpret as a good sign ;o) I will certainly come back to Australia!
Last Monday I left Australia and flew over to Phuket in Thailand. Here it is raining a lot and the meant to be week at the beach is somewhat drowning. Phuket without sun is not necessarily the nicest place on Earth. Also Phi Phi Island in rain is not as beautiful as it could be. But snorkeling was still good. Well, just another 2 days and I will finally have my return flight to good old Germany! I am really looking forward to that. All those chicks with dicks here are scaring me ... time to go home!

Adios America, Hello Middle Earth!

Time is flying by and my visit to South America already has come to an end. My last days I spent in Buenos Aires with a quick stop in Uruguay ... just to collect the visa stamp in my passport ;o) And yes, people were right: it's annoyingly hot and humid in BsAs in January. Avoid this month if you decide to travel there!
Summing up I can say I had a fantastic time in America! I got to see most of the places which I wanted to visit and met lots of great people. The good thing about not having been able to visit all the places which I planned to see is that I surely have to come back to South America :o) Next destination will be Columbia :o) My Spanish certainly improved but I haven't reached the level I wanted to reach. Have to continue studying back at home ... but Spanish Spanish!!! ;o)
Another thing which I really liked about South American countries is their visa policy. It's based on the "you fuck us, we fuck you" idea ;o) Since the US raised visa fees for South American countries, they did so as well ... but only for US citizens and Commonwealth countries. Being a European citizen I can enter any country for free ... being from the US you have to pay more than a 100USD for each country you enter ... hahaha. That makes budget travelling for some backpackers a surprisingly expensive experience :o)
A week ago I flew with Aerolineas Argentinas from Buenos Aires to Auckland. I was a bit worried since the reputation of this airline is similar to that of Alitalia (not the only similiarity to Italy)... but surprisingly there was no strike, we arrived on time and I still had my luggage.
Being back to the so called first world I have to get used to the price level. Goodbye cheap food, goodbye cheap accomodation, goodbye cheap adventure sports. 3 USD for a bottle of water is too much! Not even supermarkets in Zurich charge as much! Well, the times when I only went once a week for an ATM are definitely over. Internet is extremely expensive as well. Sending SMS with my Swiss mobile is cheaper than quickly getting into the internet! And internet is slow here ...
Suffering from these cultural shocks I tried to sort out my getting around in NZ and I got a suprisingly good deal. At least backpacker buses can be cheap at some time. I bought a ticket for Magicbus which is now carrying me allover North and South Island. The advantage of Magic compared to its competitors is that there are not only 18 year old kids from London and Manchester on the bus. So far it has been fun ... though I miss the travelling the way I did it in South America. Here everything is simply too easy. It is just like holiday ... I prefer travelling!
Cities in New Zealand are not too interesting. Auckland is nice ... but only nice. Wellington the same. But nature came up with some really beautiful spots here. Big parts of the North Island seriously look like the Shire in LOTR. Oh yes, I also visited the set for the new "The hobbit" movie. Looks pretty nice. But I had to sign a contract not to upload any pictures in the internet ... but they said they will start shooting the new movie shortly.
Some other day I spent in thermal baths called "Hell's Gate". Allover you find boiling hot pools of mud and you can take a nice bath. Pretty relaxing. Though one week later my clothes and towell still smell like sulphor! But at least my skin did not peal off ... that would have made me look as red as my fellow travellers from a big European island ;-)

On the last bus stop we spent some days in Tongariro National Park. This is where Mt.Doom aka as Mt Ngauruhoe can be found. And if two tiny hobbits can climb Mt.Doom I can do so as well. Was pretty steep but from the top we had a fantastic view. Unfortunately some tourists felt invited to take pictures of their naked butts on top of the vulcano ...

Now I am heading for the SOUTH Island. Yesterday I did the big mistake to call it SOUTHERN island in public. It took the next Kiwi only a few seconds to correct me: We call it SOUTH island, mate! ... Thanks a lot. Will not dare to say it again!
My expectations are high! SOUTH Island has to deliver some damn good scenery to excite me ... I have seen to many overwhelmingly beautiful places in South America! Don't you disappoint me, SOUTH Island! Tomorrow I will visit Abel Tasman National Park. I only heard good things so far...
Hasta luego and Cheers!

Gone with the wind

Buenos dias! Another week in Patagonia has passed. Probably this week was meant to show what weather in Patagonia is capable of ... sun, rain, snow, wind and storm. But first I still have to show some pictures left from last week's visit to Perito Moreno. Some breaking off ice chunks :o)

My last day in Calafate I spent on a daytrip to Glacier Upsala. Nice boat trip through icebergs close to the front side of the glacier, 4WD ride up a mountain with a great view on the glacier and finally a hike through the so called fossil canyon back to the refugio. Truly amazing landscapes!

Well, the pictures might look kind of "peaceful" but just imagine taking the pictures with a wind of 7-8 Beaufort. I knew Patagonia was windy ... but that it is that stormy I didn't know.
Monday I moved on to El Chaltén, a little hiking village close to Mount Fitz Roy. Beautiful scenery though I only got to see Fitz Roy the first day. The remaining days this shy mountain preferred to hide behind clouds. Oh yeah, before I forget to mention: it was windy as well ... very windy ... and it rained and snowed ... we got to experience pretty much all of the flavors of Patagonian weather. Nevertheless, every now and then the sun came out and revealed the beauty of this part of the world. Though I am kind of glad that I still am a nice-weather-hiker and do not sleep in little tents on a mountain when there is snow and storm.

Now I am back in El Calafate and I am waiting for my flight back to hot Buenos Aires tomorrow evening. Summarizing my time in Patagonia I have to admit I expected it to be slightly different. I wasn't aware of the fact that Patagonia is close to being a desert, except for the beautiful national parks. Well, they call it "estepa", but it's not far from being a desert. In combination with the wind most parts are quite hostile to living. The biggest impression which is left is it's huge emptiness.

Besides nature Patagonia has to offer more. I was warned already before that it might be difficult to obtain cash ... and so it was. After having had a lucky punch upon arrival in Calafate my wallet dried out very quickly. In combination with a nation wide cash problem (in Argentina people apparently prefer to have their cash at home and not in the bank, because the dont trust their banks for good reason) all the places down here dried out completely. No more money in banks or ATMs. Strange feeling. Never had that problem before. So back to plastic money, but unfortunately not all places and hostels accept that. I hadn't known how restrictive it could be to be bound to plastic money. Too many places just dont like credit cards here. Going for dinner can become a long walk and buying a bottle of water is a true challenge! Well, after 9 days without cash-rich-ATMs I finally got lucky again ... it feels so good to have cash again :o) Makes life so much easier.
While Argentina is facing cash shortage, Chilean Patagonia decided to go on strike. Something about gas prices. Borders are closed by protesters and tourists are trapped ineither Chile or Argentina. Luckily I crossed the border already last week. I probaly would not have been able to catch my flight tomorrow. First I was a bit disappointed that I didnt get to go to Ushaia, but now this proves to be sheer luck ... I would not have made it back from Ushaia either. Chaos in Patagonia ... I just hope my flight tomorrow will be ok!
If things go well I will be in Buenos Aires again from Monday on and will be sweating in the heat for another week before I will leave to New Zealand :o) Hasta luego, Stefan

The end of the world

Hola chicos! Feliz Año Nuevo! Ok, pressure is growing so I have to write some more lines. I got a bit lazy during my Xmas break. So what happened? After some more or less sunny days in Viña del Mar I visited friends in Santiago de Chile for Christmas and New Year. After the Christmas family celebration we once again left for some days to the beach. Back in Santiago I used my free time to do lots of sports ... that felt good :o) I am regaining the weight which I lost in the Andean countries :o) New Year's Eve we spent in Santiago ... but they didn't have fireworks :o( The other striking difference was that there weren't any completed wasted people around ... I kind of missed that ;o)
Well, I can't remember the last time I started the New Year on January 1st ... but it was great to do so since I had a flight to Punta Arenas that day. Flying across the Glacier National Park with amazing view on Patagonia's glaciers from the air I finally made it to Patagonia. The end of the world. I love it :o)

After a short visit to Punta Arenas I moved on to Puerto Natales, the gate to Torres del Paine, a fantastic national park in the Chilean part of Patagonia. Impressive mountains, blue lakes and wonderful valleys. Unfortunately, I didnt have enough time to do the full hike around the mountains (as I didnt have time for many other things during my trip), but still I did some great hiking in the park. I will certainly come back! It's fantastic!

After Torres I crossed the border and made it back to beloved Argentina. Finally I am able to understand people in the street again. I still don't know what language they are speaking in Chile ;o) I think trying to learn Spanish in Chile is like an attempt to learn German in Switzerland ... pretty fruitless ;o)
So yesterday I arrived in El Calafate in southern Argentina. What makes this place worthy? The glacier Perito Moreno. A huge glacier ending in Lago Argentino. I visited it today. Absolutley amazing! Being a good tourist I started my day with a boat tour to the front of the glacier to admire the breaking off ice chunks. Well, there wasn't much breaking off at that time. To compensate us for that a huge chunk of ice all of a sudden came up from the deepness of the lake pretty close to the boat. That was scary. We expected things to drop down and not to pop up out of nothing! Luckily things which are already in the water do not produce large waves ... otherwise we would have gotten pretty wet. It was like a submarine popping up right next to you.

The rest of the time at Perito Moreno you normally spend standing on some balcony and watching the glacier waiting for some big chunks to break off ... and I got to see a lot of those! Fantastic day! And it's damn secure as well ... ice chunks only destroy balconies at night ... like 2 days ago ... and then the balcony (or better what's left of it) is quickly closed ... because it is dangerous ;o)

Sunday the next glacier is waiting for me. Upsala glacier. It's even bigger than Perito Moreno :o) Monday I will move on to El Chalten, the hiking capital of Argentina at Mount Fitz Roy! Hiking days!
Hasta luego!