15. USA

Why visiting the States again? Well, we had a stopover in Los Angeles anyway, so we decided to extend this stopover a little bit and to explore LA for a couple of days! What a nice coincidence that I just had two very nice couchsurfers at my place in Trier last year, so we were able to stay with them, and they really spoiled us! Thank you so much Corry and Stella!

LA

Los Angeles sure has to offer more than most people think. Of course, there is a lot of traffic, and the city center is not really worth going there, but there are also great beaches and the mountains around the corner. As our time was limited, we went to the main spots - Hollywood, Venice Beach and Santa Monica Pier. Nice places even though Hollywood is a lot less spectacular than one would imagine...

Hands fit, same name... more than a coincidence?

Only celebrity we got to see in Hollywood...

Besides that, we had a great time at the Universal Studios and some nights out that we will definitely not forget too soon - thanks Jose and Jen!

Sponge George

Jen and Jose with us

Oh, and what a wonderful timing. We left on the night of the Super Bowl sunday, so we watched it in a typical sports bar on one of the 178 screens! "Go Cheeseheads!" ;)

Super Bowl - Touchdooown!

14. Chile

After my time in Chile in 2006 I was of course excited to come back to this amazing country! Our first stop was Pucon, a little village in the shadow of a volcano and located at a beautiful lake, that has to offer an incredible amount of activities. This is why so many Chileans come here for their summer vacation, and it sure is a little paradise!

Volcano Villarica in Pucon

We decided to go for the rafting which was an interesting experience. It sure was fun at some points, but the question "why?!" came up as well during our hell ride down the rapids. I think I am just getting old...

Down the rapids...

After Pucon we visited my friend Florian and his family in Concepcion at the Atlantic Coast. In 2010, Concepcion experienced an earthquake of 8.8. For someone who has never experienced an earthquake like me cannot understand the power of such a strong earthquake. Chile is luckily fairly well prepaired (at least in terms of architecture), but the 5th biggest earthquake in the human history sure left its traces in the whole region.

Florian and Diego (both big supporters of Hannover 96!)

Last but not least, we had some days in Santiago with a short trip to the old harbor city Valparaiso. As the must-see-places in the capital Santiago are fairly limited, we had enough time to meet up with my old friends and to enjoy Santiago's night life a little bit!

My former landlady and housemate Gini and I in my good old "casa loca"!

Enjoying a "Terremoto" in La Piojera with my friend Sol

Carreteando con "El Loco" (Cristian)

13. Argentina & Brazil

First stop: Buenos Aires, a city you really need some time for - visiting the different areas of the city (colorful La Boca, atmospheric San Telmo), night out in Palermo, attending a tango show or just enjoying the great Argentinean BBQ ("parillada"). We did it all and had a wonderful time in a great city!

Beautiful but dangerous "La Boca"...

When exploring the city by bike with my girlfriend, who was just visiting, we took a wrong turn and found out why La Boca does not only have the reputation of being a nice tourist area, but also of being one of the most dangerous places - we were threatened and mugged by two guys who were suddenly standing behind us. They took one of our bikes and all our belongings. Luckily they did neither harm us nor take anything important. Shit happens!


Next stop was Salta up in the north, a colonial town with a friendly atmosphere and surrounded by the Andes. At the time of our stay, the Rallye Dakar was just passing Salta, and we also got to see some of the impressive rallye trucks.

Colorful mountains in Salta region

Shortly leaving Argentina, we went to Iguazu and stayed at the Brazilian site of the waterfalls, where we had more meat than I ever had in my life. Brazilian all-you-can-eat BBQs are not exactly, what I would call healthy, but so good! The falls (on both sites of the border) were one of the highlights during our time in South America and absolutely breathtaking!

Iguazu waterfalls

On our way back to Buenos Aires, we stopped in Cordoba, a nice student city with the flair of Che Guevara having lived close-by in the mountains (in Alta Gracia for his asthma) during his childhood.

Little Che

From Buenos Aires, we had a flight to the "End of the World", the Southern most city of the world - Ushuaia. At our arrival, the temperature was 6ºC, and all mountains surrounding Ushuaia were covered with snow. This explains why Ushuaia had in the past more prisoners in the local prison than people living there. Day trips to penguin and sea lion colonies, hiking in a beautiful national park and a lot of other activities attract nowadays more and more travelers, so the city is booming and the prison a museum now.

Penguins at the end of the world

In many parts of Patagonia, the local forests are endangered by an increasing number of beavers. The interesting point is that the beaver was not a local animal in the past, but was brought there by people who had planned to sell the beaver furs. The plans failed, but the beaver stayed without a natural predator down there in the deep south.

Dangerous creature...

On the way back up north, we stopped in El Calafate from where we made a day trip to the giant 60m-high Perito Moreno glacier. You can see chunks of ice bigger than houses breaking off and dropping into the water causing tremendous noise. Very impressive!

Gigantic glacier near El Calafate

Before crossing the border to Chile, our last stop in Argentina was Bariloche. Visitors from all over South America come here to ski in the winter and to enjoy the beautiful landscape in the summer. It is sure a beautiful region and very different from the busy streets of Buenos Aires.

Beautiful landscape in Bariloche

Updated Google-Map

More Pictures

12. Bolivia

Bolivia - unfortunately another country we did not have a lot of time for. Money was not an issue as Bolivia is definitely one of the cheapest countries in South America.

Bolivian popcorn

At lake Titikaka, we spent one night in a beautiful scenery on Isla de Sol (3900m) and enjoyed a great sunset.

Bolivian beer @ Isla del Sol

Afterwards we went "down" to La Paz, the highest capital in the world (3200m), a mandatory stopover on our way to Argentina. There are some nice spots in the city, but overall Bolivia has to offer a lot of beautiful nature, and La Paz is just another huge South American city you don't want to spend too much time in.

Streets of La Paz

From La Paz to Buenos Aires we went for the South American solution to save some money - more than 2000 km and 48 hours by bus! We ended up being the only Non-Bolivians in the bus and spent 10 hours at the border before being able to enter Argentina, but we eventually made it to Buenos Aires after 60 hours (I promise not to complain anymore about delayed trains in Germany!). One of the bolivians in the bus won a return ticket to La Paz. Good thing the lucky one was neither me nor Franziska!

11. Peru

When entering Peru, we were a little scared as we had once again entered a country that is not famous for being the safest place, but what we experienced in Peru in the next two weeks left us with such a good impression about this country, Peru has to offer so much - desert, djungle, beaches, mountains, historical sights and of course good food (Gracias, José!)!

We started in the north enjoying the beach and at the same time experience Pre-Inca culture near Trujillo. This is also the place where the famous fur-less Peruvian dogs can be found. They might not win beauty competitions, but are sure the first ones to be drafted for zombie movies!

 Lima, our second stop, is a typical Southamerican city. The old town is colonial style and somewhat touristy, the modern part at the ocean front ("Miraflores") offers fancy restaurants and Western style shoppings malls and is a lot nicer and safer. Thus, wealthier Limeños as well as tourists are usually to be found here.

My zombie dogs in Trujillo



Pacific-View from Miraflores

After a comfortable 20h-bus-ride (food was served, and they showed 7 movies!) we arrived in Cusco, the starting point for the Inca-Trail - a well organized four-day-hike passing several Inca sights in an altitude of 2500-4200m and finally reaching the one and only Machu Picchu. We hiked in a group of 11 backpackers including us, 2 guides and a team of 16 porters and a cook, which means that we had to do the hiking, but everything else was taken care of - our luggage was carried, tents were set up when we arrived at the camps in the afternoon and a 3-course-lunch and dinner was served in the middle of nowhere every single day!

"Inca Trail Survivors" would be written on the typical Gringo shirt now ;)

In Puno, at the lake Titikaka, we spent another 2 nights and experienced how people used to (and still do) live on the lake, building their houses on floating islands on one of the highest freshwater lakes of the world - 3800m!



Franzi munching the local fast food

10. Ecuador

Talking about a country, one should probably have seen more than only two cities...

Well, at least one of the two cities we have visited was the capital Quito. The capital (altitude 2850m!) has for the tourist at least two different faces – on the one side there is the old town with old colonial buildings. It is a must-do for tourists and definitely worth going there. On the other side, there is Mariscal (Quito’s “Gringolandia”), this is the part of town where 80% of the backpackers sleep in one of the countless hostels and hang out in one of the countless western style bars and restaurants. In Mariscal, we also had our first guinea pig (in German: “Meerschweinchen”) – it looks like a chicken when it’s on your plate and tastes like a mix of chicken and pork. Not too bad, but a little greasy.

Guinea Pig a la Quito

One of the newest attractions of Quito is a cable car that takes you up to 4000m, from where you have a fabulous view – if there are no clouds…

Up to the view over Quito...

...into the clouds!

Cuenca in the South of Ecuador is a true beauty. It is built along a river and has well maintained colonial buildings. Besides that, it’s a lot safer than Quito, and the traffic is bad, but not as bad as in the capital. The traffic is by the view a problem of all bigger cities in South America. An increasing economy means that people have money to buy cars, which does not mean that the cities are prepared for so much traffic. Public transportation is in almost all cases limited to busses.


Typical Cuenca people

A short note about the political situation in Ecuador as it has just been on the news lately (fyi: President Correa had been hold prisoner in a hospital by the police). It sounded very scary, but according to what we have heard, it was not that bad. The police was on strike due to salary cuts, so some idiots took advantage of the situation looting. The president also used the situation to his advantage, playing the poor victim and regaining popularity among his voters. Whether he was really hold prisoner or not is not clear, there is no freedom of press in Ecuador…

And as we did not have the money and time this time, a visit of the Galapagos Islands is on the list of my next visit to Ecuador!

09. Colombia

Colombia – what to expect from a country with such a miserable reputation (violence, drugs, rebels)? Well, not too much!

What we experienced then was the opposite of our expectations. Colombia has to offer a lot and is far safer than we thought! We were lucky that we did not have any problems with criminals, which are despite our good experiences of course around, trying in most cases only to steal the tourists’ belongings, so we can fortunately not report any exciting stories about this, but only tell boring stories about nice places and people! ;)

We landed in the beautiful colonial city of Cartagena and headed to Santa Marta further up north. In the wonderful national park Tayrona you can stay overnight in a hammock at the beach, quite close to paradise I would say.

Cartagena

Hammock tower in Tayrona National Park

The big cities Medellin and Bogota have well developed areas with shopping malls and expensive shops and everything one could ask for, but also the “normal” life in the centers with good food (typical southamerican with meat, rice and beans) and a lot of life going on the streets! I felt very safe, probably also due to the presence of so much police and security all over the busy streets.

Snails for sale - good for your skin!

The flipside of the economically strong areas and the increasing tourism are around too, though not visible to tourists of course. In Popayan, a nice colonial city in the south of Colombia, a friend of mine is working for an organization supporting deprived parts of the society, especially in the country side. These people profit little by increasing tourism and economy in general. They are in many cases literally in the line of fire of the different “interest groups” – FARC rebels, Colombian army, paramilitary groups… It was good to get to know about this as well.

Overall, there are a lot more reasons to visit Colombia than not to visit it, the beauty of the country and the hospitality of the Colombians are definitely outstanding! Oh, one more thing - avoid the rainy season, when you visit Colombia! It was not as bad as it sounds, but it sure rains a lot once it rains... ;)

And it did not rain as much as on other days...