Not much news. I managed to go straight through to El Chaltén on Thursday, avoiding having to stay a night in El Calafate. Since then, the weather has been spectacular almost all the time - few clouds and lots of sun. And most amazing - very little wind! Besides a little day trip on Friday I have been perfectly lazy, though, reading my book and chatting to the climbers which mostly populate the hostel I am staying at. They all get excited about the next 'window' of good and (hopefully) stable weather just opening up after what now is a day of mixed weather. According to the climbers, some of which are here since months, the last time the weather has been that good was at some stage in November. Even Cerro Torre has been without a cloud for several days now, which is a very rare event.
I might head out into the mountains myself tomorrow or the day after, so don't be surprised if you don't hear much from me for some days.
"Es difícil, dijo, no ser feliz en Buenos Aires, que es la mezcla perfecta de París y Berlín." When I came across this sentence I knew I had to buy the book... (It's by Roberto Bolaño and contains some really good short stories). That was when I spent the afternoon hanging out in that book shop con cafe in Palermo, chatting with Nestor, the owner, and John, the young American working there. We talked about a lot - literature, life, cities... as you would on a lazy afternoon. I guess Nestor had adopted John, who was working for him for a few months, to give him the opportunity to read a lot, to think about what he wants in life and what to do next. And that was, what John was doing. I only got to know them through Mattheo, the guy who now lives in "my" room at Veronicas, who had taken me to the book shop to meet his friends there.
Hard to believe I had only 24 hours in Buenos Aires. And hard to believe how much I felt at home immediately again! I even bumped into acquaintances in Palermo - Trixi, Paula and Christian, the latter university colleagues from Berlin who had been living near Tokyo for the last years - until a few weeks ago that is, the former I had met two years ago at a gig of Veronica in Buenos Aires. Small world.
Hey, after writing so much about all my travel adventures, I thought it would be high time to at least give all those of you I am not in touch with frequently a little update. Maybe hard to believe for some of you - but I got "serious" again! Within half a year I have finally mutated from "work-less bum" into full-fleged "business consultant". You might know I had decided to work freelance beginning of the year, despite some other interesting job offers.
In fact, I am extremely happy with this decision, since I have been very lucky to find some truly interesting projects quickly. Keep in mind I am a physicist - what sort of freelance jobs do you imagine for a physicist?! But since a couple of weeks, I have several great projects that will keep me busy and fed probably well into the next year! Imagine a very broad smile on my face!!! I even thought about posting a "consultant Kapteyn" picture - dark suit, tie etc., but I leave that to your imagination.
For some of the projects I even have to travel to Dresden regularly, which I find very enjoyable, since this lets me meet my friends there on a regular basis. And then - since for some of the projects I have to work with my former employer - imagine the unbelieving eyes of some of my former colleagues when realizing: "Kapteyn's back - as a consultant!" Very funny indeed!
 We had a huge party before I left (see here, if you like), and now we have an even bigger party as I am back home! Matthias and Holger invited me to join their party with you guys - and that's what we do! I decided to give the party its own virtual home - 270grad.multiply.com. This is where you can find the pictures etc. once available. See you there, I hope?!
 15 months of travelling are over now. I am sitting in the plane home, trying to look back on all that time. These months have passed so very quickly, I can still not believe a more ‘normal’ life is just around the corner. What is it, I have found on my journey? A lot. Hard to describe what – but I will try. I have met so many people I would have never got to know otherwise, made many new friends. I think they are the most valuable bit of the journey. I have also learned a new language, Spanish, and thereby found a new facet of my personality which I am very grateful for. I have also had the time to pursue a hobby, photography, semi-seriously, which has left me now with several ten thousand images to go through (ouch!)…. Buenos Aires is a gem I have encountered. I would have never believed a city could so much capture me. But again, this has probably all to do with the people I have met there, be it in the language school or outside – Argentineans and others.
Then, I have seen breath-taking natural beauty in so many places. Among the most impressive are certainly the mountains and glaciers all along the Andes. Surely a literally and figuratively eminent place occupy the glaciated five- and six-thousand-meter summits I have scaled and walked about in Bolivia and Peru. Places of outlandish beauty – when the weather is fine. A fierce and seriously life-threatening environment – when not. I was a lot closer to death by hypothermia than ever before in my life on one of the climbs. And I have witnessed a tragic accident in the distance once, climbing one of the mountains in Peru, which has made me much aware of the fragility and the temporary nature of life.
As for unique landscapes I have seen, Bolivia had certainly the biggest share of all countries I have been to! The Altiplano with its lagunas, salt lakes, geysers, and volcanoes has to be mentioned here. Also the jungle was absolutely amazing, swimming with the pink river dolphins was very special and the abundant wildlife everywhere is truly impressive. And then Lake Titikaka, yet an other unique landscape of stunning beauty!
Argentina – being one of the biggest countries on earth – is incredibly varied, too. From the desert landscapes in the north covered with towering giant cactuses along the rugged Andean peaks, at times in their somewhat more modest but nevertheless special beauty, e.g. near Bariloche, and the vast glaciers farther south, towards the endless Patagonian plains and the heavily weather-beaten landscapes of the southern end in Tierra del Fuego. And then the falls of Iguacu, clearly one of the wonders of the world.
In Chile I have seen a similarly varied natural beauty, as it is covering the same climatic zones as Argentina. Climbing the active volcano Villarica was only one of the special experiences and trekking around the Torres del Paine together with Volker was very memorable, although the weather was mainly rather ‘patagonian’. In the far north, the Atacama desert with its almost surreal desert landscapes was impressive.
Of Ecuador I have only seen the Galapagos Islands. But what I have encountered there in terms of wildlife on the islands and in the sea surrounding them, easily tops all I have ever seen anywhere else! The incredible joy of playing around with flocks of sea-lions while snorkeling is hard to describe. And just the memory of their incredulous looks under water with their big black eyes focused straight into mine, from less than arms length away, still sends shivers along my spine.
The Red Center of Australia with Uluru (Ayers Rock) and Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) also deserves to be mentioned, it is a very special landscape. In Sydney I have found one more special city – hard to imagine there is any other city in the world with a more beautiful setting and a comparable quality of life. The gorgeous beaches and the immense Harbour Bay in the middle of the city – where else would you find that paired with an almost perfect climate and very open and social people? It was great meeting so many friends there, among them several I had met before in South America. It was a great little break from travelling staying wit my friends there for quite a few weeks.
Finally, during the last weeks travelling through Thailand and Cambodia, I realized I should have really reserved much more time for South-East Asia! There is just so much to see, to learn about, to taste, to understand… I have only had a very quick glimpse of that. Angkor Wat was certainly an overwhelming highlight and I truly wish I had had more time than just three days to explore the incredible temple ruins! I will sure come back on a later trip. And then, life on a white coral beach under the palm trees, the crystal clear sea caressing your toes while sipping a fresh coconut comes very close to paradise. But you already knew that, I guess.
So, am I any wiser after my journey? I do not think so. Any questions of life answered? Surely not. Has it changed my perspective on the world? Yes, to a degree. I am maybe asking similar questions as before, but in a slightly different way, it seems to me. Very hard to explain. So many experiences that have left me impressed, puzzled, wondering…
I feel I have received an enormous gift – the great luxury to take the time to do what I really enjoyed, to explore what I liked to see, to change my plans whenever I wanted, and to encounter what I had never expected or been looking for. This is it, maybe, what made this journey the beautiful treasure I feel I have found. I feel deeply grateful for that.
It was also a very humbling experience to get to know many wonderful people, mainly in South America, to whom such a journey would be economically beyond even their wildest dreams. That made me very aware of the incredibly privileged situation we are in – us in the ‘developed world’ to whom such a journey is certainly affordable. (If you disagree – just skip buying the next car. And there are many long-term travellers out there on even a much lower budget…) The privilege, of course, goes much further than just the economical situation we live in. Nevertheless, among the poorest people I have met on my journey have also been some of the most generous and happiest people I have ever spoken to.
The list of things I feel grateful for would have to be much longer to be complete, but I shall stop here. I have never regretted my decision to take time off for this journey, not even for a single second. This is not to say there were not also moments when I was not so well, tired of it all, lonely, ill or frustrated. Travelling is not holidays – I have written this quite early in my blog. And those of you who have been travelling yourselves will certainly know what I mean by that. But the occasional hard times are more than fair a price to pay, in my opinion.
What is next? I will see. I am certainly looking forward to the future adventures life has to offer! And I do have a motivation to ‘do’ something ‘sensible’ again for a change! I actually miss work. I would have never believed I would ever say that.
Many thanks to everyone who has been part of my journey! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2007 to all of you!
 Travelling to Thailand without seeing at least one of the famous beaches? Impossible! So I had to squeeze in two days on an island... I chose Koh Samed, mainly because you can reach the island in about half a day from Bangkok. Beautiful white sand, nice bungalows just on the beach, relaxed bars for the odd drink and chilled restaurants to serve delicious food, fresh coconuts and fruit. All that while you let the gentle surf play with your toes...
A shame I had only two days to hang out! Next time. Also a good holiday destination for a few relaxing weeks - for when real life strikes again.
 I am so glad I went over to Cambodia to see this! After having spent three full days from before sunrise to after sunset (i.e. about 15 hours every day) in the many incredible temples, I feel I could easily use an other week to just wander around, discover, and spend more time in these wonderful places. There is so much to see! Literally many dozens of huge temple complexes in ruins, many of them already impressive due to their incredible size. The grandest of them, the temple of Angkor Wat itself, is of dimensions that are simply mind-blowing! And then everything is covered in most delicate stone-carvings... After their re-discovery, the ruins have been cut out of the jungle, in some parts trees remain where their roots went through the stone walls. It is very hard to capture the magic of these places in pictures; I feel I have entirely failed to do so, at least.
My favourite temple is probably Bayon where the huge faces of Jayavarman VII are smirkingly looking at you from every imaginable angle. Sunrise and sunset here are incredible. In Bayon at this time it is possible to avoid the masses which tend to be on the grounds of Angkor Wat at any time, and the sounds of the jungle around make for a more than suitable atmosphere. Bats swish around your head and give rise to a carpet of funny twittering noises in the dark niches of the towers, cats hush through the impenetrably dark corridors... I would love to spend a night up here in the ruins! Next time, maybe.
In Siem Reap, I had met Cathriona who introduced me to the pleasures of riding around in the huge park in a tuk-tuk. Discovering the ruins together was a real pleasure. I had actually planned to go around by bicycle, but the heat and the distances would have made this into very serious exercise, I suppose. It is very convenient to have 'your' tuk-tuk driver waiting for you near the ruins - you can spend as much time as you want in a place and when you are ready to move on, you just hop on the vehicle, find a comfy position, and enjoy the refreshing breeze when driving along. During the day we would mainly live on fresh coconuts (a perfect drink and the soft flesh, when young enough, is a truly delicious snack) and pineapples, which are conveniently sold amongst all sorts of souvenirs next to most temples.
 So I wanted some adventure... And I got it! I had decided not to take the tourist bus from Bangkok to Siem Reap, the town next to Angkor Wat, but to go it on my own on local buses. But first I had to get up quite early, at 5.20 am in Ayuthaya. I was on the bus to Bangkok at 6 am. Then arrived in Bangkok at 7.30 am, but the bus to Aranya Prathet would not leave before 9.30 am. Bummer, I could have slept two more hours! At 9.45 still no bus but an announcement that the bus had broken down and a replacement bus was on the way - so we finally left from Bangkok at 10 am. While waiting I had a chat with a nice lady who asked me if I was not scared of going to Cambodia. I said I wasn't. Maybe I should have been... The bus finally arrived at the Thai border town of Aranya Prathet at about 3pm and I was already quite tired. I had just decided to call it a day and postpone the border crossing adventure and the infamous five-hour bus journey to Siam Reap to the next day, when a friendly elderly lady asked me how I would get to the border. She was living in Laos and was travelling together with her daughter and her grand-son from Adelaide, Australia, who had just a few days before arrived in Bangkok, where she had picked them up. When I said I did not really know she basically "adopted" me and said I should come with her. She arranged for two tuk-tuks and bartered the price down to a realistic level. At the border the first of many Cambodian kids turned up begging and desperately trying to make some money by holding up umbrellas against the sun and walking with you etc. Being under the protection of this impressive old lady was a true bliss. She not only spoke Laotian Chinese (her mother tongue), Thai, and Cambodian, but also quite good English (she had been living a long time in Australia after fleeing Laos during the Vietnam war). And she had done the journey from Bangkok through Cambodia to Laos for more than 30 years... She knew exactly how to deal with the situation and the people - something I would have had certainly trouble with. The border crossing was by far the most chaotic I have ever seen! You first have to hire some guy to "help" you with the formalities, but you are always surrounded by dozens of people, some of them more or less official looking who looking at your passport, giving you forms to fill in, telling you to pay some additional fantasy fee etc. First I had to get a Cambodian visa. For that you need a passport photo. I did not have one. (I always used to have some on me in South America, but after never needing them there I had decided not to bother anymore...) No problem, you just pay a standard 100 Baht (2 €) additional fee (read bribe) and none cares about the photograph anymore. The whole procedure took ages and I had no clue what was going on, while the wonderful old lady battled our way through. You could tell she had a very good sense of business here. Once through the border formalities we had to get to the bus terminal, for that hop we somehow ended up on a bus that actually the "special" tourist bus... At the bus terminal the Laotian lady decided that travelling on the normal bus to Siem Reap was not worth it - the road is notoriously bad and the ramshackle old bus takes five hours for the 150 kilometers... The bus is aptly dubbed "back-breaker" in some guide books. So we decided to charter a taxi. We had more than seven people around us, trying to fit the enormously big and bulky suitcases of the Australian relatives into the boot of the car - a total impossibility as any half-witted idiot would have been able to tell! So it had to be two taxis then. When we finally sat in the cars, the journey turned out a lot more comfortable than it must be on the bus - thanks to the surprisingly good suspension of the vehicles. The road is a true nightmare. Only in Bolivia have I seen anything similar before. But the driver would just recklessly race along with up to 80 km/h not even trying the slightest to avoid the incredible bumps and potholes in the mainly entirely unsealed track (called a "national highway" in Cambodia). Keeping a distance to any other vehicle is clearly not an option in Cambodia. And human life - neither that of other people on bicycles or motorbikes, nor that of the driver - seems to be of minor importance... I consider it a miracle we finally survived healthy! Especially since after sunset the journey was truly hazardous - huge clouds of dust would obstruct what little of a view was left without daylight. There is no light on the road and many vehicles do not even have lights anymore. In addition to that, practically all vehicles are covered over and over with goods and people. What do you think of a small Toyota pick-up truck with about 25 passengers on top of an enormous amount of all sorts of vegetables? A very common sight indeed on Cambodian roads. And in general, a shocking sight of poverty and rubbish everywhere. But coming into Siem Reap I was in for an other shock again. Where just a few seconds ago kids in rags had been playing next to the road in the mud, now luxury hotels - one after the other - were lining the street leading into the town. I could not believe my eyes, glitter and glamour everywhere! Almost Las Vegas style. Incredible. The bliss of packaged mass tourism... After driving along what must have been about 20 huge hotel complexes we finally reached the actual town, which is not entirely over the top, but certainly still very different from anything I had seen since the border. All in all a very strange first impression I got from Cambodia.
 After
a sightseeing day and one day just enjoying the city treats in Chiang
Mai, I decided to head back south to see the ruins of Sukothai, the
first capital of Siam. This time I took a common local bus, not one of
the special charter variety for tourists which had brought me up to
Chiang Mai. It was similarly battered as the first bus I had been
traveling on, and I was not surprised when the bus broke down after a
few hours. That seems to be a fixed part of any bus journey in
Thailand. This time, however, the bus driver managed to repair the bus
within about half an hour and we continued our journey to Sukothai.
When I arrived there in the afternoon, I booked
myself a tiny bungalow in a pleasant guest house and rented the asian
equivalent of a vespa. Having never driven any type of motorbike with
gears before, I struggled a little in the beginning but soon everything
went smoothly and I was happily cruising along in the admittedly
chaotic but not at all aggressive traffic. I went straight to the old
town, a half-hour ride away from the new part, to have a first look at
the ruins in the soft evening light. Very pretty and scenic! The ruins
of many temples lay scattered around with mirror-like moats and the
occasional water-lilies. Due to my later arrival, almost none else was
around and I could enjoy the ruins very quietly.
Even less people were around when I arrived at the
ruins again this morning before sunrise. This time it even was
relatively cool, not much above 30 degrees. After a few hours cruising
around between the ruins and Buddha sculptures, I had a breakfast and
then headed back to the new part of Sukothai, had a shower, and packed
my stuff up to head further south to Ayutthaia, the second capital, for
more ruins! I am writing this on the bus and so far we had no trouble
yet...
 Enough suffering in the heat of Bangkok! So I decided to head up to the 'cool' north... I had booked a 12h 'VIP' bus for the overnight journey. I would be picked up from the hostel, how convenient! This turned out to be true, but slightly different from what I had expected. A little while after the scheduled departure time, a young girl on a vespa turned up and signaled me to hop on with my two backpacks. OK, I thought, whatever, as long as I would not have to spend all of the twelve hours on that vespa.
And off we went through the narrow sois near the hostel (small alleyways packed with all imaginable sorts of food stalls and other shops, not to speak of the crowds). A few surprised foreigners jumped out of our way while we continued to race through the maze of tiny side-streets until we reached a big avenue. There we went straight onto the sidewalk in order to avoid the traffic. More scared and unbelieving foreigners rushing to get out of our way... When we reached the bus, simply parked on one of the two lanes in the middle of the heavy traffic, what had been promised to be a deluxe bus with air-con and all comfort, turned out to rather ramshackle. At least the aircondictioning worked. Smashed windscreens and window had simply been 'fixed' by covering them entirely with adhesive plastic foil etc. Anyway, I have certainly had much worse in Bolivia.
I actually managed to sleep quite well until at about five o'clock in the morning the bus broke down and the drivers woke us up so we could get out and push the bus along the highway. This and several following futile attempts to start the engine again took a little while until we all got onto the bus again. I simply went back to sleep, what else can you do? At about seven two sawngthaew (converted pick-ups with two rows of seats in the back) turned up to transport us the remaining 35 kilometers to Chiang Mai.
Chiang Mai turned out to be really pretty and very pleasant. The climate is just perfect, the early morning welcomed us with temperatures well below 30 degrees, what a relief! I spent that day walking around the old town to see the most important temples. This is a little difficult, since there seem to be temples and shrines at about every second corner - so which is the one you are supposed to see according to the guide book? But they are all very beautiful! The food was a very positive surprise, too. Although dirt cheap (dinner for three with yummy dishes and washed down with several milkshakes: 4€), absolutely delicious. First we thought we had found a particularly good restaurant, but after a while it became clear that all of them were very good! And then the street vendors - even cheaper but not less tasty. I felt truly sad I had not put this place at the end of my little Thailand journey, since it would make for a perfect place to relax and hang out. The only thing that was a little disappointing, a major tourist attraction according to the guidebook, namely the night market - is just that, a tourist attraction. Any imaginable kind of souvenir, tacky stuff to decorate your home, cheap t-shirts, industry-produced 'handicrafts' and so on. I have certainly seen worse, but this marked failed to impress me.
Worth to mention is also the ceremony and the little firework on the 5th, His Majesty The Kings birthday. Very pretty also the long chain of little fire-driven hot-air-balloons in the sky! And the majority of the people dressed in yellow shirts to express their love for the king whose counterfeit looks at you benevolently from every street corner from photographs, huge and tiny. Makeshift shrines for His Majesty The King can be found in every street and every major square has certainly a massive place of devotion set up in a prominent spot.
 So this is Bangkok! I find it quite a lot as so many other travellers had described it to me - very noisy, lots of smog, very humid and hot (still 35 degrees at night!). And this is the "cool" dry season... Ouch. My body has still to adjust to this ordeal and I keep sweating away, but I already know that this only takes about two days. So I grant myself a little bit to arrive here.
Last night the plane to Bangkok was about an hour late, so I only came in at about 9pm. Initially I wondered if I was pushing my luck possibly a bit too far, since I do not speak a word of Thai to begin with, had no idea how to get into town (the airport is about 25 km away from the city center), and had no accommodation booked... But all worked out beautifully - as always. I even managed to arrange a taxi significantly cheaper than the official airport taxis and immediately found space in the place I had wanted to. Although the ride into town took more than an hour due to infinite traffic jams, I had still some time before midnight to explore the buzzing nightly activity around Khao San (some call it a freak show!) and enjoy my first meal of Pad Thai noodles from one of the ubiquitous street vendors. Finally, crashing into my bed under the silent roof fan after that long, long day mainly on planes was a true delight!
The picture, by the way, shows the largest (40m long!) reclining Buddha at Wat Pho temple from his nose all the way down his toes. Will upload more pictures when time permits... P.S.: A few more remarks on Bangkok: What a bustling city! Yes, the traffic is crazy. Funny to see how the sidewalks also double as speed-lanes for motorbikes pushing through the people; policemen on motorbikes no exception. And then the zebra pads - merely a marker for non-motorized beings where they might want to gamble with their lives. Nothing to do with traffic stopping for you when you want to cross. Saying that, the traffic is actually not too dangerous (that is, not as dangerous as it looks). You only need to get used to the following procedure: close your eyes and just walk straight into the incredible mass of buses, cars, motorbikes, and tuk-tuks... Due to the intense diesel fumes you can occasionally barely see across the road, anyway. Trust the force and you will arrive at the other side miraculously unharmed. May the force be with you, traveler! Bangkok picutures here.
 Time is flying... My last 24 hours in Australia have already begun! I really enjoyed my time in Australia, but I am also truly looking forward to getting to do some 'real' traveling again! And from all I hear and read, Thailand will be great. The last weeks (not actually doing overly much) were very enjoyable. I have been working on my photographs and website (have a look if you want: www.ck-images.com), but still the majority of my South America pictures are not yet online... (This will be some serious work for after Christmas!) And then there are always many nice things on hereabouts; photo and art exhibitions, cinema, gorgeous coastal walks, sculptures by the sea, beaches, boat trips, the odd bar... Besides all that, indulging in bohemian city life was great, especially here in Manly where the beach is around the corner. My time in Australia, despite some travelling, feels much more like a break from my journey which was very welcome. I had a great time. This has been mainly due to dear friends, especially those who let me stay at their places. Thanks to you all!
Have to catch up a little. Where to start? Oh yes. I had the pleasure of a few swanky boat rides through the bays in and around Sydney the last weeks. First, friends of my step-mother Barbara and my dads here in Sydney invited me to join them all on a three-day ride through Pittwater. Then, the next day, Jamie invited me out on his boat for a cruise through the huge Sydney Harbour Bay together with a bunch of his Argentinean friends here in Sydney. Fabulous! It looks like we are going to repeat this the coming weekend...
Last Sunday - Australian Dance Awards in the Opera House. My friend Clare from Sydney was shortlisted in two categories and had hence to come down to the ceremony, and thus we could catch up for a drink in the Opera Bar just before the event. It was great seeing her again and getting to know her mum and brother. And lots of very arty dance people... Just before the show started, someone showed up (in fact, the woman who runs Australian Dance Victoria, really lovely - and she will have to organize next years awards...) with a spare ticket - so I got to see the event, too. What I had imagined as a rather boring ceremony turned out to be a very entertaining evening with lots of very different Australian dance performances - ranging from traditional Torres Straits Islander dance over classical ballet to ultra modern video/dance installations. And Clare won the award for her last piece! Fabulous.
The after-show party was in a hip bar near Circular Quay, lots of free champaign and more gorgeous dance people. It was really great watching things and talking to people. The social equivalent of the dinner of a physics conference - and as different from that as possibly imaginable!
On Monday, I went to Canberra to catch up with a dear friend down there. The train was effectively empty, but I had a nice man sitting next to me. His wife was sitting in the next car which initially struck me as slightly odd, but later on I got to understand why, at least I think I do now. Unfortunately he really suffered very badly from logorrhoea... (that is the verbal equivalent of diarrhoea) After an hour of what had been a quite interesting conversation (somewhat uni-directional, though), I spent about an other hour only responding with the absolute minimum of politeness by occasionally making grunting noises and a rare "really?".
Even me finally turning towards the window and going almost entirely quiet did not really make him stop his monologue. I then had to resort to feign sleep (in fact, I was quite sleepy from the night out before), but he still intercepted with his "conversation" many times. Only when I had seized a somewhat longer break in his indefinitely streaming accounts of his life to plug in the headphones of my music player, I was finally safe. I happily dozed off to some South American tunes. When I woke up after what must have been more than an hour, we were just about to arrive in Canberra, where Liz picked me up from the station. What a strange city Canberra is! So many trees, so few people... But truly interesting - a fully planned city. It was very nice to get to see the government buildings.
On the way back to Sydney on Wednesday, the bus had to make a major detour to avoid a bushfire near te highway. Other than that, nothing much to report. I did enjoy the quiet ride thoroughly, though.
Other than this, not much to report. I have moved on now to posh Manly, to Annas place. I had met Anna ages ago in Argentina and she now lives and works here in Sydney... Small world!
I am still amazed. Or yet again. Everybody is so incredibly sociable hereabouts! You meet someone you have never met before through a friend in a bar and get invited to their dinner party the next night. People are delighted if you turn up surprisingly at their barbecue or birthday party without knowing anybody just because someone else decided to take you along. People I barely got to know offer me their spare bedroom for a week or two, should I need a place to stay... Just like that. All very natural. Has all happened several times to me.
I just came home from a party of a friend of a friend where repeatedly some drunk strangers from the party in the apartment above (an underwear-party) would walk in (in full clothes, though). The immediate reaction of the hosts: "Hello, how are you? What's your name. Good to meet you. Would you like a beer?" And then they would of course introduce Mike or Tim or Whatshisname to everybody at the party.
Also someone at the party strongly suggested I should consider a career change - nannies would be in high demand and she reckoned I could easily get sponsorship (that's someone being willing to sign up for you and take all responsibility for all your deeds towards the Australian government) and residency and a job in Sydney. As long as I was not a pedophile all should be easy. She reckoned also my qualifications and previous work experience as a physicist and engineer would be totally sufficient. Now you've got me thinking... (As it turned out she runs a nanny agency.)
Due to this "Sydney effect" I am having a very busy weekend right now. I will unfortunately even have to skip a brunch invitation tomorrow, that's just too much - since I am also invited to a dinner party of a girl who works as a designer and photographer, which I just got to know last night. So I will not even really know anyone there, but that's just the fun of it! And that way I also get to see a few different neighbourhoods of Sydney where I certainly would never go as a tourist.
Thanks to a few people here, my initial contacts - my friends Kat and Justin with whom I am staying, Anna whom I had met somewhere in Patagonia, and Jamie whom I met in Buenos Aires in the language school - I got to know so incredibly many nice, funny, and interesting people. So within a mere four weeks in total in this city I feel I already have a big social network of fabulous folks. And all that being just the transient traveller I am...
 Darwin is a strange place. I can tell. I have been here for a week. It is fully tropical, it is hot, it is humid. Palm trees and flowers everywhere, mango trees line the streets and parks, flocks of screaming cockatoos, noisy parrots... Nice beaches, but nobody would consider a dip in the crystal clear sea, aggressive salt-water crocodiles and deadly box-jellyfish are far too common. So if you do have to leave the air-conditioned interior of buildings during the day, you try to spend as much time as possible in the pool.
Life starts around sunset. Not only is this the time when the locals leave work, but it is also the moment when the travelling crowd has sufficiently sobered up from last-nights excessive drinking and partying and has digested the 3pm breakfast. Time for a drink. Or two. If you do not move too quickly then the humid 30+ degrees can be almost pleasant (at night, that is, during the day it is alwyas above 35!). The average traveller hereabouts is 19 years old. Only very few above 23, only the exceptional weirdo above 30 (that's me, hence). Priorities in life seem to include not much more than binge-drinking and partying. And everybody is oh-so-poor. That means buying the cheapest possible food from the supermarket in order to save a dollar or two, and then, not much later, to go out and spend insane amounts of money on booze and drugs... A 50$-night out is considered a very cheap one, indeed. Due to the relatively big time-lag between Australia and Europe or America you can often hear a traveller whinging on the phone in the middle of the night "Mum, can you send more money? Everything is soooo expensive hereabouts!"
Darwin is a transient place. I can tell. Most people only spend a night or two in one of the huge hostels on the main strip. Who is here for longer has a reason. A lift to somewhere else that is not going to happen before Tuesday next week, waiting for some days before the tour to Kakadu or Lichfield national park will start, stranded because the passport had expired and the new one has to arrive by mail in everything in between a week and a month, or general lack of organization. What there is to see in Darwin, you have seen pretty quickly - the museum which actually has an excellent exhibition on Aboriginal art, the parliament building (since Darwin is the capital of the Northern Territory), the shopping mall. Not much more to mention. Well, except for the nightlife which is quite tremendous! No surprise with so little to do during the day and the oppressive heat.
Time to leave. Everybody is very glad to leave this little boom-town with so many concrete apartment flats - very recently finished ones and the ones still in construction. And I am leaving, too. Hurray! One last day and shortly after midnight I am off again to Sydney.
One last remark - go and see Brasileirinho. If you enjoyed Buena Vista Social Club you will totally love Brasileirinho (by Mika Kaurismaeki)! Saw it last night in the open-air deckchair cinema with a thin-slice moon and fruit-bats overhead. Fantastic! I must go back to South America... The film is about choro, a traditional Brazilian form of music, sometimes dubbed Brazilian Jazz. Besides the music which is fabulous, the photography is just wonderful. I can only say it again - go and see it!
 Finally we got here. I had hooked up with Fred(eric), the owner of a red Mazda mini-van with lots of character, and (Fride)Rike for the 1500 km road trip up to Darwin. The first night we stopped just some 300 odd kilometers north from Alice Springs at the Devils Marbles, a great spot for sunset and a nice public camp site (see more pictures here). Given the age of the vehicle, our cruising speed amounted to a mere 85 km/h, so there was plenty of time to get to know my travel companions.
On the next day we hit the road through continuous empty landscape. I think there is no better way to understand the vastness of the land than driving through it! At some stage the gear box started to make some funny noises, so we decided to drive on just using the fourth gear, which still sounded the healthiest. That meant our speed dropped down to about 65 km/h, but we were in no rush anyway. When we reached Elliot, we were happy to see some signs indicating a mechanics workshop. We were very relieved to see it was open, but unfortunately there was no mechanic around anymore at it was Saturday. But the owner of the place offered to send a mechanic around to the campground early next morning. We hence spent the rest of the day lounging around in the pool and watching the peacocks running around.
Being woken up by the screeching sounds of the peacocks too early in the morning, we were then greeted by the mechanic who had turned up even earlier than expected. He said the gear box had to be replaced and he happened to have the spare part in his shop. 1000 A$, thank you. Fred decided to rather keep on driving with the damaged vehicle, so on we went, slowly. On the way we stopped in Mataranka, to have a dip in the rain forest pool there. Fruit bats and cockatoos flying over our heads. Huge termite mounds by the hundreds seaming the road. The heat started to become oppressive. We camped at a free campsite near the highway, only disturbed by the occasional roaring of a passing road train (huge trucks with up to four hangers).
In the morning after a short ride to Katherine we drove around to find a mechanic, and after a few stops we found a place that would do the thing for 800 A$. So half a day later we were on the road again at our old cruising speed. We decided to keep on driving until we reached Darwin at about 8pm. Same heat here, just much more humidity. Good thing the hostel has air-conditioning and a pool!
 When I got out of the plane last Saturday it was like a hair-dryer constantly blowing into my face... Day temperatures between 33 and 39 degrees, at night maybe just below 30. Every hostel has a pool and you do need it. It is the only place to hang out during the day.
Alice itself is a rather spread-out and boring outback town, practically deserted during most of the day when the heat is just too much. And it is supposedly much worse during summer when temperatures regularly hover above 40 degrees. I am very grateful I do not have to endure that! It is usually a dry heat though, makes it much more bearable. Wet cloths on a cloths line dry in about 45 minutes... The only real nuisance, though, are the ubiquitous flies.
I had decided to ignore my aversion of guided tours and go on a three-day camping trip to see Uluru and the other things around here in the outback. And I was very glad I did so! I really enjoyed myself. Our guide, Chris, turned out to be a real aussie bloke who told us first thing that we had to live up to his reputation to always have the noisiest, smelliest, dirtiest and most obnoxious groups. In order to make sure we would not underestimate the amount of beer we would need during the three days, he gave us a little example of aussie maths on the windscreen (which he never wiped after this and other drawing exercises), see here. So according to his experience on average everyone of us would consume 31 beers (he actually reckoned 61, since we did have a few German and Irish people on the bus)... And he was not too far off, since the beers did go down very well with the heat.
Chris was actually not just very good at beer-maths, but as it turned out soon also very knowledgeable about everything regarding the land, flora, fauna and Aboriginal culture. No question he did not answer without a wealth of information and personal stories. Besides that, he is also just a terrific personality. I am very glad I got to meet him through this trip. But this actually holds also for the rest of the group (the "family"), which was a funny mix of people between 19 and sixty-something. We got along very well and camping out in swags (the aussie equivalent of a bivy-bag, made of heavy cotton and with a comfy mattress) under the stars and sitting around the camp fire together late at night was truly great. Thanks to everyone for making this trip such a pleasure!
On the first day we visited Kings Canyon, an impressive gorge cut into the reddish rocks with some beautiful pockets of vegetation. We came into our camp after dark. Next day we drove on and enjoyed an impressive walk through Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) in the morning, a visit to the cultural center and some walking near Uluru (Ayers Rock). I decided to climb the thing, as the decision is left to every individual - despite some of the indigenous people prefer you not to climb the rock, it is not completely out of bounds as several other areas where you simply are not allowed to go at all. And I am very glad I did go up. The views were truly amazing. The climb used to be an important step for the male initiation process. Boys around the age of 12 were lead up the rock. And I believe being able to see the whole landscape around in a birds-eye view must have been totally exhilarating to these people who knew all the features of the landscape below so well through their nomadic way of living.
After that we had to rush off to the sunset spot where already hundreds of tourists were occupying every possible centimeter to take the obvious picture... But the view still was impressive. Camping again, very early start next morning at 4.45 am to be up for the sunrise. Quite beautiful. More walking at the base of the rock and then an other long day driving back to Alice through the desert. Arrival at about 5 pm.
If all goes well, I will be heading up north to Darwin in the next days. I got a lift with a French guy wit a camper-van. More soon.
  I had set off for three relaxing days on gorgeous North Stradbroke Island - tropical white-sand beaches, crystal clear sea, very few people... about five on a three-kilometer beach. I spent most of my time reading books. The supposedly spectacular marine wildlife (turtles, mantas, sharks etc.) will have to remain for an other trip as relatively strong winds resulted in very choppy water - no snorkeling hence. But I made an other important discovery, ginger ice-cream. Yum! Today, Clare and Gordon took me into the very beautiful hills near Brisbane, to Tamborine Mountain. Tropical rain-forest and a very persistent and mean Kukaburra which almost snatched the sandwiches from our plates. To top my time here off we went to a very nice seafood restaurant tonight overlooking the river. To get there we had to take a ferry ride along the river which is actually a very scenic journey itself. Brisbane is indeed a very pleasant place to live! And there is significantly less vanity than in Sydney, the general attitude is certainly much more down-to-earth. Tomorrow, I am off to the red centre, a quite different Australia experience as I expect. What is to come after that, I do not know yet, probably a longish overland journey by bus since I do want to get an idea of the vastness of the Australian continent. So far, however, I do not yet know whether to go north or south from Alice. We will see! I will keep you posted.
 What to say about Brissie? An awful lot of concrete and skyscrapers from the booming 80ties and 90ties (hence the -vegas), tropical flowers, sunshine... Early spring is superb, not yet too hot and right-out pleasant. And in contrast to Sydney everything is much slower, far less vanity, too. And although the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast stretch south and north from here, respectively, Brisbane itself has no beach to speak of. There is, however, a tiny artificial beach in one of the parks with thousands of people squeezing in the sand and water. The popular Ibiza beaches are nothing compared to this. Yesterday Clare and Gordon took me to an exhibition opening of the National Museum on the Miss Australia contest that had been run nationwide since 1955 until 2000. I thought that this was totally hilarious, but in the course of the speeches and from the exhibit I understood, that this was not just a common beauty contest. It included an educational quiz and was much about a female role model for society. Apparently this annual event had been a major part in Australia's quest for its identity during the last century. The catering was perfect; curry eggs, prawn salad, cucumber sandwiches and very good Lamingtons - just the food you would have expected from an Australian housewife in the 60ies and 70ies for an afternoon tea party. Clare and Gordon live in a very airy "old" house, a lot of wood, spacious terrace, palm trees and tropical flowers all around. Very near is a big arts center, the Powerhouse, around which the funny signs are set up which you can see here.
 So you had thought I had disappeared?! In fact, I am thoroughly enjoying bohemian lifestyle in Sydney - hanging out in cafes, lazing around in the park etc. Yesterday Anna, who I had met quite a while ago in Patagonia and who happens to be living in Sydney at the moment, took me to a barbecue of some friends at Bondi beach. They are living right next to the beach-front in a beautiful apartment. So I happened to be the "stranger" at this happening which was actually scheduled so everyone could watch the AFL final on the TV. Really nice people I might add. What the f__k is AFL, I can hear you say... The simple answer: Australian Football League - or short "Aussie rules" which has actually not much to do with football, nor with rugby, nor American Football. But it is actually quite interesting to watch. The field is a huge cricket oval (oval - yes that's right!), there are 36 players running around frantically on the green at any time chasing the ball (again oval in shape) - plus three referees and several other people each team which are actually not actively participating (called "runners" and "trainers")... If you think that this is all slightly odd you are perfectly right! No surprise it is actually only played in Australia. But here it is the most popular and most highly attended spectator sport! There were nearly 100.000 people watching the match life in Melbourne. Very good match. Only that Sydney (the "Swannies") lost to Perth (the dreaded "Eagles") by 84 to 85, much to the dismay of everyone around at the barbecue... Today, Katharina, Anna, Justin and I went into the Blue Mountains, only two hours by car from downtown Sydney - a very different landscape. We walked a few hours through the very steep gorges and valleys, several hundred meters below the dry bushland at the top of the plateaus. Very beautiful eucalyptus trees, fern trees, waterfalls, birds etc. A perfect Sunday out in the nature. In the evening, an old travel acquaintance from Buenos Aires rang me, so I had to go out for a few drinks. First real night out in Sydney for me, believe it or not. (And I had just dumped my only pair of jeans into the washing-machine a few minutes before Jamie rang, so I had to go in my ultra-nerdy hiking pants, the ones of the zip-off-legs-variety.) I was quite impressed. People DO DRESS UP SERIOUSLY hereabouts, especially the girls. It is all about designer stuff and so on - not much cloth, though. Deeply plunging necklines (in one case it went all the way down to the navel!), very high heels. It was actually some girls birthday-party at a rather posh bar, but the friend of mine, Jamie, did not know anyone either... I talked to loads of funny people, among them a bunch of pleasantly crazy girls from Perth - very entertaining. The perfect way to top off a day hiking in the bush!
| |
