Santiago...

...finally in Chile! This lovely city greeted us with its charming european flair and an astonishing background of the mighty Cordilleras.





The notorious cafe con piernas [meaning cafe with legs], a highly recommendable place to drink coffee, served by scarcely dressed women.



Feeling spontaneously european again, we decided to visit the Opera, and we honestly enjoyed Donizetti's 'La Favorita', even though hopelessly underdressed.

Potosi and the mine

After an icy, inhuman Altiplano busride we eventually arrived in Potosi. We rewarded ourselves with a football game [reigning champions Real Potosi lost against La Paz CF]. In the back you can already see Cerro Rico - the famous mining hill, were already the Spanish have exploited the mines for centuries.

Up to present times, an estimated number of 8 million miners had to die to fuel the spanish royal empire with gold and silver. On the topright you can see the shape of Cerro Rico at night.

In our breathtaking tour we experienced that working conditions have not improved much. Due to asbest and other toxic substances average life expectancy of a miner in Cerro Rico is less than 45 years.

Here are two miners dragging no less than 2.000 kilos of stone rubble.

Mr. T during our crawl\climb\drift tour through the mines.

A miner, chewing the traditional coca leaves, which are meant to give him strenght at work.

Having had a good time at the Salar, we took our new indian travelbuddies directly with us and dragged them into a shabby Whiskeria, not knowing by any means what a rough day in the mines expected us.

Uyuni and the Salt Desert

Probably the most striking place in Bolivia is Salar de Uyuni, which is a gigantic salt desert. The bright withe, flat plain makes you think you are travelling on clouds. In this truley surreal setting the horizon seems to be the only point of orientation.

This is a view from Incahuasi island, a lonely cactus island in the middle of the salar

Below is our travel group, consisting of two charming indian girls [cheers Sanju and Bijal!], french twins and your favourite gringos from Austria.

Sunrise in the desert is simply stunning!

One of the highlights of our salttour was climbing volcano Tunupa, until 4.700m height - by far the highest place we ever reached - [although it doesn't even look so, see photo below]

La Paz

After a wonderful busride we arrive in Bolivia's capital - the stunning city of La Paz! The highest capital in the world lies embedded between snow-covered mountains. Nevertheless the first impression is a little treacherous, because frantic traffic and lots of crowded places dominate the city. Here some impressions of La Paz.

Here the most typical bolivian snack - saltenas, delicious pastryshells filled with meat, vegetables and really anything one can think of.

Poltics and Evo Morales are literally everywhere in Bolivia - as for example on this wall in El Alto

Copacabana

Bolivia! Or first stop here is the small town of Copacabana, a peaceful place to watch the sun sink into Lago Titicaca.

Here a view of its brightly white Cathedral..

.. in front of which we witnessed the strange Sunday ritual of "Bededicio de Movilidades", which means blessing of the cars. This is in fact a peculiar kind of baptism for cars. Ha, we're liking Bolivia already!

Leaving Peru

After 3 wonderful and exciting weeks in Peru, we are now moving on to Bolivia, where we will spend the following 10 days.

One of the things we will surely miss is the strange, yellow, supersweet favourite national "gazeosa" INCA KOLA, which reminds us a bit of liquid Gummibaeren.

Salud!

Here some last impressions of Peru..

Cusco and Machu Picchu

Cusco is, according to the Inca, the navel of the world.

It is in fact an astonishing city with a bright history, a fabulous cathedral, and however, loads of gringos!

We stayed at a homely nice and cosy Hostal just two squares from Plaza de Armas, hosted by a charming old Cuzqueño, who whispered in perfect English and mysteriously smelled of chocolate.

The real attractions around Cusco are the historical sites of the "Sacred Valley of the Incas", such as the massive mountain fortress of Ollantaytambo and of course the most famous of all: MACHU PICCHU.

Today we spent no less than 8 hours wandering around, glancing, marvelling at this spectacular monument ontop of a green mountain. Until today it remains an unsolved mystery.
To put it straight, Machu Picchu undoubtly deserves being a World Wonder.

Unfortunately internet connections in this country are mostly excruciatingly slow, which is why sometimes we cannot upload photos. Lo siento! Rest assured, that we will always upload nice pictures as soon as possible.

Puno and Lago Titicaca

Titicaca lake, at 4000m height higher than any mountaintop in Austria!

The most famous sight are the so called "Islas Flotantes", where the Uro tribe lives on artificial small islands that are solely made of straw! We had the chance to walk on them and listen to the meaningful words of wisdom of "El Presidente" Jose, who taught us how to build and live on such mysterious grounds.

We continued by going to the Isla Taquile, a very isolated place with less than 2000 inhabitants, who wear their own peculiar clothing that tells about their social status. No cars, no horses, no electricity.. simply a very antique culture inmidst of a beutifully deep blue lake.

Arequipa and Canon del Colca

After enjoying the beautiful city of Arequipa underneath the volcano El Misti with its labyrinthious monastery and an old frozen Inca mummy from the Andes, we continued to a true outdoor adventure:

Canon del Colca was long believed to be the deepest Canyon on earth (now it´s on 2nd place).
Due to the height (3800m) hiking becomes quite exhausting, but believe you me when I say, you have never seen a mountain panorama like that!
Plus on the famous Cruz de Condor we were able to see the famous and majestic Peruvian Andean Condor drifting through the deep canyons.

Simply spectacular!

Atleee!

Atle, don`t you think we forgot about you!

It cannot be left unsaid, that this glorious Norwegian held a Anaconda, despite his life-long trauma with snakes! Way to go there, Atle!
Seriously, it was a pleasure meeting you, take care in the jungle.. and hey we´ll let you if we get news from the Japanese adventurer on the amazon!!
(note: we met a Japanese who wanted to go down the amazon on a 2x2m2 raft, expected duration 2 months.. craaaazyyy!!)

All the best, your Tarzans

Iquitos and the Amazon Jungle

Iquitos, the world`s largest city, that can only be accessed by ship or plane. This is the starting point for our 4 day amazon jungle trip.

"La selva" has many surprises and challenges for us. We are moving in a completely unknown environment, with billions of moskitoes, tropical heat and a air humidity of more than 85%.

Our camp was situated in the Pacaya-Samiria National Park, 300 km upstream the amazon from Iquitos.

Why don´t we let the pictures do the talking..

The so called tropical handshake.. including about 400 termites, who are an excellent moskito repellent, when mashed up and smeared on the skin.

These are Pepito, Pancho (our guide), Maxí y Marcos in a indigenous amazon village on the last day of our tour.

Among the many animals we saw and touched the most impressive one was the SLOTH, also known as the ghost animal (dt. faultier) considering its frightening claws and screams.

The "anaconda-accident"; while proudly holding an 2m long anaconda, this shameless animal was not friendly enought to spare marcos snake-poo (yellow).