Verena & Jan auf Weltreise

Lima war nur ein kurzer Stop. Gerade genug Zeit, um ein paar Couchsurfer kennenzulernen und um in den Touri-Sightseeing-Bus zu hüpfen – open air versteht sich. Mehr Bilder in der Galerie!
Just a short stay in Lima. We had only the time to meet some couchsurfers and jumped on a short sightseeing trip with the tourist bus – cabriolet of course. More in our picture gallery!

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From La Paz along the Titicaca Lake we drove to Cusco, the entrance to Machu Picchu, the most popular ruins of the Inca. After the heavy rainfall most of the track and also the train was damaged and closed from February to the end of March. The 1^st of April they re-opened Machu Picchu for public, but only 600 instead of usually 2.000 tourists per day were allowed. We talked to the tourist information – hopeless! We talked to the local guides – hopeless. We called Sandro, the Hobby-Inca via skype and after he double checked with his relatives in Peru he recommended us just to drive to the border gate of the national park to find somebody to drive us to the ruins. “A golden key can open any Peruvian door!” and it was true. We could have driven on Friday, our last day, illegally to the Machu Picchu, but the next train back would have been on Sunday and our flight to Lima was on Saturday. That meant “Bye, bye Machu Picchu”, but we took it easy and now we have one more reason to visit South America again
Pictures of Cusco under „See Us!“
PS: But thanks anyway to Sandro and his family for the support!

Cusco – auf den Spuren der Inkas …

Von La Paz entlang des Titicaca Sees machten wir uns auf den Weg nach Cusco, dem Tor zu Machu Picchu, den berühmten Ruinen der Inkas. Nach den heftigen Regenfällen war der Inka-Trail und auch die Bahn stark beschädigt und im Februar und März geschlossen. Am 1. April wurde Machu Picchu wieder geöffnet, jedoch nur 600 statt normalerweise 2.000 Touristen pro Tag durften hoch. Wir sprachen mit der Touri-Info – hoffungslos, wir sprachen mit den Guides vor Ort – hoffnungslos, wir riefen Sandro, unseren Hobby-Inka an, der uns nach Rücksprache mit seinen Verwandten aus Peru empfiehl, einfach zum Parkeingang zu fahren, um dort jemanden aufzutreiben, der uns hoch bringt. „Mit Geld ist in Peru viel möglich!“ und das stimmte. Wir wären an unserem letzten Tag, Freitag, illegaler weise hoch gekommen, allerdings ging der Zug zurück erst am Sonntag und unser Flug nach Lima war am Samstag gebucht. Das hieß „Bye, bye Machu Picchu“ aber wir nahmen‘s leicht und haben nun einen Grund mehr, nochmal Südamerika zu besuchen
Bilder von Cusco unter „See Us!“
PS: An Sandro trotzdem vielen Dank für die tatkräftige Unterstützung!

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From Santiago (350m) to San Pedro de Atacama (2.300m) from there through the desert, salt lakes and geysers, to 4.850m above sea level, chewing coca leaves and meeting amazing Bruno – a doctor of desert in his jogging-dress –click here to read the whole story…

Von Santiago auf 350m nach San Pedro de Atacama auf 2.300m, von da durch die Wüste an Salzseen und Geysiren vorbei auf 4.850m über n.N., Coca-Blätter-kauend trafen wir Bruno den erstaunlichen Wüstenarzt im Jogginganzug. Klick hier, um die ganze Geschichte zu lesen –> Den ganzen Beitrag lesen »

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In vino veritas – ”in wine [there is the] truth” …

The province around Mendoza is the most important wine region in Argentina. More than 50% of the 1.500 wine producers are located here. Mendoza is not far away from the Andes and the highest mountain: Mt. Acongaua, with 6.962m the highest in America and outside Asia.
Jan wanted to climb up but after Verena heard that it takes between 13 to 15 days, you really need good weather conditions, a lot of people get anoxia [altitude sickness] and about 100 people died during their hike since the last 50 years … well, Jan had to stay in Mendoza .
So we took the bus to the wineries and on the sunniest day since we left Patagonia we had some guided tours incl. tasting through all the vineyards located adjacent to Maipu, a little wine-village. In the famous vineyard of Trapiche, one of the oldest – existing since 125 years, we were told that they produce 25.000.000 liters of wine each year. 45% is drunken by the Argentineans, the rest goes to foreign countries, for example Germany. These south american alcoholics used to drink 92 liters wine each year pP! Now the average consume of wine is about 32 liters (and eat 75kg of meat) – well we got already that the Argentineans are a little bit crazy, but also they are really friendly. After the tasting in the 2nd winery we felt a little bit shaky but kept drinking. We met some guys from Australia/England/USA and stopped at a nice beer garden. We remembered the german saying: “beer after wine – that isn’t fine!” – but who cares?

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Together with Janet & Michael we drove the National Route 40, normally called Ruta 40, which is a route in western Argentina, stretching from the south in Santa Cruz Province to Jujuy Province in the north, running parallel to the Andes and shows breathtaking views along the high mountains and lakes in the valleys. Long parts of the route, are unsealed and lead through sparcely populated territory, but in fact the long tour has become a well-known adventure tourism journey.
There is no longer road than Route 40 in Argentina and it is one of the largest in the world (along with the U.S. Route 66 and the Stuart Highway in Australia). The Panamericana is longer but officially not counting because of its break in Dariém Gap between Panama and Columbia. However, it was another 24 hours in a bus and slowly bus riding  r e a l l y  sucks!

The program in Bariloche, the Argentinean Switzerland, was “bike’n hike”. Verena was tough and struggled all the way up only sometimes pushed by Jans new invention – a bike-puller After a long day on the mountain bikes we didn’t feel like hiking on the 2^nd day. So we rented a car and drove from S.C. de Bariloche to San Martin de los Andes, a beautiful village in front of a cute lake and the beginning of huge mountain ranges. We invested 40 [damned] €uro to exchange our tickets to stay one more day in a wonderful appartment with a fire place and lake view.

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