Ellen in Latin-America

Prologue

2010-01-04T12:28:00.000-08:00

Today, today being writing date not publishing date, is December 30^th… These days, it is practically impossible to escape a few cliché announcements per day so being a good citizen, I'll contribute some!

Hear this: As the year 2009 comes to an end, a new phase in my life begins. I seem to make a tradition out of it. Early 2008 I set out for Madrid and early 2009 I started my travels throughout South-America. Can’t really recall what I was doing beginning of 2007, so I guess it wasn’t as exciting.

Adding my share to the end-of-year-list-making, I’ve been thinking today about both years and which one I had liked best. Hard to say as they had so much in common and yet they were so different at the same time.

2008

My mom drove me to the airport
I spoke a lot of Spanish
I worked my ass off in the Carribean Project
I met tons of fun and interesting people, mostly either local people or colleagues. Argentineans, Dominicans, Salvadorian, Panamanian, Polish, Mexican, Puerto Ricans, Spanish and I’m probably leaving out a few.
I traveled a lot. Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Cuba are new names on my list. Dominicana being a winner on this list.

2009

My mom drove me to the airport
I spoke a lot of Spanish
I spoke a lot of English
I didn’t work a single day on my travel, between February and September. (not including volunteer work, since not getting paid kinda kicks the work part out of volunteer work for me)
I met tons of interesting people, mostly locals or fellow travelers. English, Irish, French, Dutch, Belgian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Panamanian, Argentinean, Chilean, Peruvian, Bolivian, Brazilian, Colombian, Ecuadorian, half of the Israeli population, Chinese, Japanese, Australian, New Zealander, Mexican and I know I am leaving out a bunch. No better ambassador for a country as a backpacker.
I traveled a lot. Argentina, Chile, Peru, Bolivia and Brasil are new names on my list. Couldn’t really announce a winner country here.

I could say that both years were very amazing and that it is too hard to decide, but that would be a lousy end-of-year-list. Especially since it already is kinda lousy with only 2 items on the list.

Best year of my life so far: 2009. Some Catholic guilt comes along as I was very, very, very little productive but then again… I had so, so,so much fun. Every day I woke up without knowing what the day had in store and usually it was beautiful and hilarious adventures.

Although largest part of it remains still undiscovered, my world turned 20 times as small as it was when I left home 2 years ago.

In one year, I lost 4 years of age i.o. aging one like normal people, making me now, ehm…. a 22 year old again, which is awesome!! Bring on the good times! I'm blogging again!

2009-08-19T07:41:00.000-07:00

After my last post I got seriously busy, meaning too much fun and no blogging for a while.Then, end of July I flew back to Europe, meaning way too much people to see, festivals to go to and no blogging for a while.

But I still want to finish my travel blog, so here goes!

The day after we climbed Huayna Potosi (remember, the 6k mountain we managed to get ourselves on top of) me and Khanh, my travel bud, woke up at about 7AM which is not exactly one of our many good habits and this being an understatement…

Loud noise in the streets of La Paz. Once again we found ourselves in the middle of a Bolivian party, el Gran Poder. Tons of people, street parades all day long, starting at 6 AM and going on ‘till 3AM. Even though we could barely move our legs anymore, we spent all day walking, eating street food, and looking at the parades. I actually got pulled into the parade at one point in time to go dancing. One thing about the street food. Most people will horrify by the thought of eating meat on the street in Bolivia, especially given the cleanness of your average Bolivian toilet. But please, people, do not miss out on all these goodies! Street food is Bolivian culture. Between the two of us, Khanh and I probably tried out most of it and never felt better!

El Gran Poder, officially being a religious holiday, it’s celebrated with lots of impressive dancing, live music, amazing outfits and even more amazing amounts of beer in a well orchestrated mix-up of Bolivian craziness.

In La Paz, I took another interesting local bus (in Bolivia all local buses are interesting, yet very probably crappy) to get to Coroico. I spent one week in La Senda Verde (the green trail) volunteering in an animal refugee, main tasks being feeding, cleaning and playing with the animals. Lots and lots of fun. An amazing opportunity to work with wild animals, in an amazing setting, with very nice people, the volunteers being gringos, the staff being locals (funny locals, that is) not to least to mention the thrill of not having to pack my stuff for an entire week. Vicky and Marcelo, a Bolivian couple, did an incredible job. They started in Coroico building their dream house and some guest houses in a valley. One day a monkey that had been saved from a market kinda ended up at the lodge and that’s when it started. Now they have about

15 capuchin monkeys,

6 spider monkeys, a howl monkey,

a squirrel monkey,

loooots of parrots

and other birdlike species. Meet the Spice Girls. Five of them, always together and extremely dumb.

a macaw,

two koati’s (similar to a racoon),

an Andean beer (called Aroma, mi favorite). While one of us would clean his cage, we'd keep him busy feeding him peanuts. My kind of task, amazing how Aroma would gently take a peanut from your hand and break it open with his paws. Way too cute! I had to forge myself to take a good look at his claws every now and then to keep me from petting.

a few owls,

two boa constrictors,

some tortoises

and a bunch of rabbits and guinea pigs.

The capuchin monkeys are probably the funniest habitants of la Senda Verde.

Amazing how humanlike they can be sometimes.

Martin for example would help you cleaning his eating platform. If you wouldn’t give him a brush he’d simply steal yours. Which basically applies for most of them. They’d steal literally everything they could get their little hands on.

One of them was very keen on undoing shoe laces; another would button down your shirt but would be nice enough to button it up again as well. Most of the babies would crawl down your shirt, looking for some “human” warmth. We ‘d recognize Kimbo because he’d always force your lips open with his fingers after which he’d just jam his hand in your mouth. Believe me, better no to think about where those little fingers could have been during the day. He actually managed once to kinda suck my lips for some time. Hesitating to pull him off (those cuties do have very sharp teeth), I couldn’t help but wonder if I was getting French kissed by a monkey now??

The tree house I slept in for a week!

Look at one little bastard slipping down my shirt!

I would have loved to have been able to stay longer in the lodge. I was getting rid of my flees for free and I had a great relationship with the staff, once again very happy with my Spanish, and the other volunteers and as the week passed by I got to know the animals a lot better. But still a way to go to Buenos Aires and little time to get there…

In Sucre, I met Khanh again. Lots of contradicting opinions on what Bolivia’s capital is. Some say Sucre, some say La Paz. Let's see what my friend google has to say... The official capital of Bolivia is Sucre; La Paz is the administrative capital and seat of government. Well, seems they kinda have two capitals...

Exactly 200 years ago, the "First scream for freedom" , a first wave of protest against the Spanish in Latin-America occurred in Sucre. Kicking some Spanish butt, independence was declared in 1825.

Sucre is a beautiful colonial city, very different from hectic La Paz. The market was simply amazing and our favorite feeding place (restaurant wouldn’t do it justice). City with a very nice and vivid atmosphere, less crazy yet more livable as La Paz.

Our daily breakfast!

We did a few days hike, the tourist office recommended us to go with a guide but we kinda figured we’d be able to go solo, asking people we’d meet on the way where to go to. The lack of people on the way and the lack of knowledge of Spanish of those few we did meet, made it an interesting few days but we managed to go and see what we planned to go and see. A nice way to see life in some very remote villages, only reachable by foot.

The 3 hour bus ride back to Sucre was not exactly a bus and got nominated for most dusty ride ever! The truck left almost empty, but on the way we picked up people traveling with the strangest things, going from 3 month old babies to huge amounts of wood and a few big empty oil barrels. And two gringos of course, this still being the funniest item on board according to the locals.

Bring in the wood!

After Sucre we visited Potosi, famous for one of the biggest silver mines in Latin-America. A fine example of wise and human colonization… (please spot my irony). Visiting the mines while the miners are at work is not a nice experience, you’ll feel ashamed for being Western and an extremely spoilt tourist, but it is very interesting and handing the miners some coca leaves and soda as gifts might buy of your guilt slightly. During Spanish colonization, the Indians were forced to stay months down in the mines, working in extreme hard and dangerous conditions. The Catholic Spanish initially didn’t feel very much for the Bolivian tradition of coca leaves and prohibited the use. Noticing chewing coca leaves actually helped the miners work harder and more insane hours, God suddenly realized coca leaves weren’t as bad as initially thought and coca was introduced again.

Nowadays, most of the mine is in foreign instead of Bolivian hands and work conditions are still amazing… No control exists on age of miners or work hours. Miners work on commission so every kilo of mineral counts, whether this is extracted by dad or his 12 year old son. Inside the mines it’s extremely hot. Potosi being at 4090 meters above sea level, there’s not a lot of oxygen in the air, let alone down the mines. I felt like fainting several times, once again ashamed as miners passed us by, wearing no helmets or protective clothing, pushing a 2000 kilo cart with their only source of strength in 8 hours being coca leaves and 96% alcohol (not a joke). Potosi itself looks like quite a rich town and it probably is. But regular people are probably among the poorest and less educated in the country.

The miners worship this guy. They leave coca leaves, alcohol and cigarettes.

96% alcohol...And I've seen them drinking it. (and tried some, mixed with water)

From Potosi we bussed to Uyuni for one of the highlights of my trip. Salar de Uyuni, one of the world’s largest salt flats and probably the most impressing one, the size being half of Belgium. The views are amongst the most amazing I have ever seen. Mountains can be impressive and overwhelming but in the end you’ll always have an idea of what a mountain should look like and most probably you've seen them before. Well, kilometers of white salt flats are not amongst your daily holiday views and we were thrown away by it.

Finding a tour company is not exactly a hard task, there are 52 different ones. Finding a decent and reliable one is a different story. Lonely Planet simply refuses to recommend one as none of them would be 100% reliable and a good one today might turn extremely shitty in a month. Not a big fan of the LP anyways, so I did my research online. Reading some horrifying stories (jeeps constantly breaking down, grumpy guides with 0 level of English, lousy food if present at all) we simply picked one that we couldn’t find anything too negative about and it all turned out fine.

Cold though. We passed the second night at -15 degrees in a hut with no heating. Thank god I brought whiskey...

To Bolivia

2009-06-26T14:18:00.000-07:00

Finally leaving cusco (with the second biggest party of my trip so far), we bussed to Puno, by Lago Titicaca. Supposedly the highest navegable lake in the world, but I guess that could be just a big fat lie as well! Anyway, with 3800 meters it´s high enough to make this kid lose her breath. Strikes and roadblocks have been messing Peru´s normally amazingly reliable transport system, so we had to leave Cusco early to get to Puno at 3 AM. Dodgy hostels all over so no real problems. The day after we left for las islas flotantes, the floating islands. The floating islands are made out of reef and are truly amazing. It´s a bit of a tourist attraction but it didn´t really bother us as the people on these islands are just so funny.

Besides, we decided to spend a night on one of these islands which for some reason nobody seems to do. Well, the cold temperatures might be a reason but nothing that 10 heavy blankets won´t solve! It´s an experience sleeping on nothing but reed, including cabaña and beds. In the morning one of the islanders gave us a rowing boat to go and explore. Traditional boat, including the very heavy paddles which meant crappy rowing, getting nowhere and having all the islanders make fun of us.

From Puno we crossed the border to Bolivia. Funny story! I got my passport stamped, saying 90 dias, very nice as it should be! My fellow traveler, a Canadian, got a stamp saying 30 dias... I asked for some explanation, but the only decent thing we got from them was something about no authorisation to give 90 days (bullshit offcourse, if ayone will have authorisation it´s border police and I just got 90 days) and the fact that they were thirsty and wanted a coke. Well, there´s a shop next door, I said and so it became clear they wanted us to bribe them. Not even a decent bribe like 100 dollars, no, with a COKE! We couldn´t help laughing and a clear ¨look, we know he is entitled to get 90 days¨ actually solved the case without us buying any soda´s. Without any further issues we got to the city of Copacabana, leading to a weeklong Barry Manilow tribute from our side (remember? copa-copacabaaana, the hottest club north of havana). Things started well in Bolivia as on the day we arrived it was mother´s day in Copacabana and the way they celebrate has nothing to do with children singing songs and bringing breakfast to bed. No, it was a big street party involving lots of very cheap beers and the women were the most drunk as this was their holiday.

The next day we took the boat to Isla del Sol. Unlike most people (once again, no idea what makes all travelers do exactly the same things) we walked from the south part to the northern part of the island. When we got there, we found a beatiful beach, filled with people in traditional outfits and dressed up with masks and other ¨stuff¨ (don´t really know how to describe). Some questioning learned us it was ascension day (hemelvaartsdag). Well, I´d go Catholic again if we would celebrate as they do! A live band, literally all villagers drunk and dancing and talking to us without making any sense.
Very interesting evening except for the fact we couldn´t get any dinner as all restaurant owners were, correct, drinking. In the morning we found the band on the beach again, washing up their instruments in the lake after which the whole thing started over again.

We took the boat back to Copacabana and from there to La Paz. There are no words to describe La Paz. It´s insane and I loved it from the very start. You can probably buy everything on the street in La Paz, there are simply no supermarkets. There is a witches market that sells baby lamas to offer to Pacha Mama (mother earth). Street food is amazing. We forgot about all you-re-not-supposed-to-eat-meat-on-the-street warnings since everything looked so good. Most travelers complain about Bolivian food but between the salteñas, choripanes, good soups, trout by the lake and tons of vegetarian and gringo restaurants, I think I could easily survive a very long time. Even though the locals do stick to fried chicken with rice and french fries on a daily basis.

We hung out for a few days and the took a bus to Rurrenabaque. Well, this is an adventure-bus. It´s supposed to take 18 hours. Our bus left La Paz 2.5 hours late since there was so much cargo to put on the roof, including a kid´s bike, 5 old wooden chairs and tons and tons of clothes. After a few hours, the bus broke down a first time and this would happen a few more times along the way. We sat in the back, on the last row, jsut behind us a very cute kid that couldn´t stop pulling my hair or crumbling cupcakes all over us. It took us 24 hours to get to Rurrenabaque in which I probably slept 30 minutes. Pavement doesn´t exist and the road is more then bumpy. The road is one of the world´s most dangerous, leaving almost but not quite enough room for 2 cars to pass by. Since we were delayed we were doing everything in the dark, the driver manoeuvring us on the side of a cliff to let others pass by. Let´s say we were very glad we survived. What´s in Rurrenabaque? Well, a hell lot of alligators, that is. And piranhas, looots of big big birds, pink dolphins, the cutest monkeys qnd most awful spiders... Bolivia is the Botswana of South-America!

We were hoping to fly back to La Paz but rain interfered. Airport was closed for 5 days so we took our chances, some valium (an over-the-counter-drug in Bolivia) and another bus.

Back in La Paz I decided that 4000 meters of altitude was not realy an achievement so I climbed a 6088 meter high mountain. Quite an achievement for someone who runs out of breath on the hostel´s stairs in La Paz. Three days: first day: How do i climb an ice wall in 1 lesson. First night: waking up with the most terrible headache ever and having to pie outside when it´s freezing. Second day: few hour slowest hike ever up to 5200 meters. Second night: pretend to be sleepy at 6 AM while someone is trying to brak our of your head with a hammer. third day: wake up at 1 AM and start walking up in ice and snow at -15 degrees. Every little step is 10 times as hard at this heighth and climbing ice walls in the dark is as hard as it sounds. When sun came up we could al of a sudden see the top and I realized we might be able to make it! And so we did, even though the last part was about the scariest thing I ever did. Not even enough room to put both feet besides one another which makes the "don´t look down" of my guide kinda ridiculous.
ice climbing and yes, that´s me!

don´t be fooled! it looks just like an edge but itùs actually a path
me at 6088!

Peru

2009-06-15T06:17:00.000-07:00

In Iquique, Ruben and I said our goodbyes. He wanted to go to Bolivia while my head was turning towards Peru. Time to move on on my own again. It´s nice to have a travel buddy, but I noticed more funny unexpected stuff happens when you are alone. Saving quite some money, I minibussed myself over the border from where I took a night bus. Even though I was only 5 kms out of Chile, the differences were already huge. In chile and argentina, you go look for a bus, in Peru, the busses come to you! One foot inside the terminal and 5 company bus proppers surround you, all shouting their destinations and prices in your ear and promising they will leave within 5 minutes. Prices were a relief after Chile and Argentina and you can actually still bargain them. I randomly picked one of the girls that seemed nicest to me.

Now, this was a local bus, me being the only gringa on it. When I got on, I noticed the huge amount of bags (turkenzakken, that is) all the locals had piled up in the bus aisle, by their feet and literally everywhere. The woman next to me was actually wearing more clothes than what I´m traveling with! A quick, kinda anxious, ´Is it safe to put my luggage in the bus trunk?´ caused some laughter and a reassuring ´claro que si´! Somewhere in the middle of the night we were pulled over and my neighbour told me to get out of the bus to go look for my pack which I could no longer find in the trunk. Apparently customs pulled us over and they were checking all luggage. Seeing my innocent face, they handed me my stuff over immediately. Back to the bus, I saw huge amounts of clothes being thrown out of all windows. My loud and clear ¨Que???´ caused some more laughter and learnt me that secondhand clothes smuggling from Chile to Peru is common business. Back on the bus, i couldn´t really see the difference in amount of bags in the aisle, but we did leave a huge mess of clothes on the side of the road as we took off. Nobody is as smart as me, smiled the 100 clothes layered woman to me, blickering all her golden teeth, a fashion feature I´d see a lot in the coming weeks.

Anyways, we all got safe to Arequipa, my first stop in Peru. Lovely city, very beautiful, nice hostel. Good enough to make me spend a week there in which I visited the Colca Canyon. This is under discussion but this canyon is supposed to be the deepest in the world. It´s beatiful but honestly not what I imagined from a canyon (grand canyon images). It has a cool lookout point for condors, though. I suspect the locals from feeding the birdies since there were so many but that didn´t spoil the pleasure. We got there at sunset and I was still sleepy so no cool pictures, sorry. We hiked a few days down the canyon (valley, whatever) and spent the night in a tiny village with a local family.

In Arequipa, I also spent the worst 2 days of my travel, trying to change my United Airlines flight and spending literally hours on the phone, shouting to them. I even had the UA call operator hanging up on me with a sweet ¨thank you for calling United Airlines¨. Problem was some crap of me not having an Argentinean visa and them not believing that I wasn´t even in Argentina. Anyways, after 2 stressfull days, a nice lady from connections managed to convince them I´d have no visa-issues and they changed my flight to 20th of July.

From Arequipa, I once again took a local nightbus (gee, Peru WAS going to be cheap compared to Chile and Argentina) to Ica where I took a taxi to Huacachina. Huacachina is an oasis, no other way to describe it. Surrounded by sand dunes, a small tourist village around a lagoon. Main attraction of the village being sandboarding and lying by the pool. (Yes, hostels with pool!) . To go sandboarding, we requested ´the craziest driver´and got him. They drive you with a sand buggy over the sand dunes and give you a candle to wax up your sandboard. The sandboarding was great, great, great fun even though I just went down on my belly (but reallllly fast!!).

backpacking in style!

Huacachina being a dangerous place to lose lots of time, I forced myself to not do this and made it up to Paracas, by the ocean. From Paracas I visited las Islas Ballestas, also known as the ´poor men´s galapagos´. Well, I guess the lack of turtles and tropical coloured fish actually do make it the POOR men´s galapagos but tons of dolphins, pinguins and sea lions and above all disgustingly amounts of birds still make it a cool place. It is one of the world´s largest producers of fertilizer, meaning that every few months people go on the islands to scrape off the bird poo.

Although I didn t initially plan on going I did take a flight over the Nazca lines. A fellow traveler mentioned a theory that it is better to regret having done something then to regret not having done something. The flight was bumpy yet fun, even though the puking girl behind me wouldn´t agree. And the lines remain to be one of the world´s largest archeological mysteries.

In Paracas I met some travelers who told me a spooky story on their local night bus crashing as it only had 1 driver and the dude fell asleep. They were fine but people did die in the accident with kinda gave me a wake-up call on those cheap buses so I took a better one to Cusco. From now on checking amount of drivers and if contents of thermos is coffee whether pisco.

Cusco is place hard to describe. On one hand it is annoyingly touristy. It´s impossibe to walk over the main square without getting at least 5 offers for hand massages, inca trails or cocaine. But once you wander a bit off, you´ll notice this city has a soul. Cusco has lots of street food, an amazing central market next to which locals come dancing on the street at night, lots of alpaca clothing markets and lots of dodgy clothes markets. Lots of travelers stay around for weeks, just to party hard with fellow travelers, being it sunday, wednesday or friday. But you can party and meet locals as well. Personally, I had a great time, I think I was able to find a balance between all these things.

Ofcourse, people come to Cusco for one main reason. I visited ´the thing´ as well, but I refused to pay 450 dollars to book a hiking tour 3 months in advance, so I just kinda bussed through the sacred valley towards Aguas Calientes. Last part of this trip is a 2 hour train ride for the ´reasonable´ price of 31 US dollars (love that they even bother giving this prices in dollars i.o. local currencies). Adding the high entrance fee and tons of oher tourists.............. it is still absolutely amazing. We hiked up very early in the morning to be able to climb Wayna Picchu (the mountain you see in the background of all MP pictures) Only 400 people a day can climb this mountain and they go up in 2 shifts, giving us still a kinda priviliged view over the site. The tourist flocks only enter the site after 9, 10 AM anyway. I heard from a Peruvian guy there was a way to avoid the expensive train ride, resulting in us walking over a train track for some hours and bussing/taxi´ing over, ehm, ´interesting´ roads, including a stone avalanche and us running through it (and the driver shouting from the other side that we had to run faster)

This is still really early and there were almost no people on site yet

But they found their way...

Walking back over the railway

Besides MP, I got invited to a free canopy tour by some people from an agency who passed by the hostel. They were just starting this tour and wanted to make a promotional video. Backpackers hearing the F-word, we all massively joined in. A day of free mountain bike, some canopy and a thrilling rappel. The tour agency is called Omega and the video is supposed to be on youtube.

To conclude I went on an absolutely amazing 3 day rafting trip. Class 4-5 rapids, camping on the side of the river, hot temperatures compared to Cusco, campfires at night. It was one of the most fun things I´ve done so far, I enjoyed every minute of it! I have amazing pictures the agency took but I have them on a CD that is currently in my hostel. Will see to put some online next time!

2009-05-14T13:57:00.000-07:00

The longer I travel, the more difficult it gets to keep on blogging. In between skype, mail and facebook, my blog is in terrible conditions. Adding that I realized I had already spent 2.5 months in Patagonia and that I needed to move my ass up north to keep it from freezing.I´ll telex you guys through my last months...

In Bariloche I met Ruben, one of my and together we went to mendoza for some decent wine-tasting We rented bikes from Mr Hugo and biked from bodega to bodega which was euhmm... interesting.

From Mendoza we traveled through the Andes, to Chile again. On the way we found a small village where apparently ¨7 years in Tibet¨ was shot! Looking for some decent Brad Pitt gossip we made a stop but the villagers just refer to him as ¨one of them¨. Our taxi driver figured as an extra in the movie.

We passed the Aconcagua, one of the world´s highest mountains. Two ways to Chile before us. The traditional one, through a tunnel, or a cooler one over a mountain pass. This sign (high mountain road, extreme precautions) makes most people go for the tunnel but we met some cool Argentineans who were willing to take us over the pass. They sure know how to complicate things in border crossings cause in the end this passing to Chile was my worst one so far, involving a forgotten package of coca leaves in my bag (ellenadaaaaa, Chile is stricter than the US) , no exit stamp from Argentina and an unfriendly Chilean customs officer. Barely escaped a 200 dollar fine but we made it to Valparaiso, hereby declared my favourite latin city so far. Amazing vibe, lots of coloured wall paintings, tons of beautiful bars and restaurants. Pablo Neruda loved it and so did we. At the same time, the city got the award for most kitchy public toilet.

From Valparaiso, we made a short stop in Vicuña. Chile has the world´s best skies for astronomy, so we went to visit one of the observatories.

From there we went on to San Pedro de Atacama, famous for its huuuge salt flat. The town wasn´t really my thing, way to touristy. It´s difficult to go visit the surroundings on your own, so we were kinda forced to go tour-wise! On the list of places to visit: The Tatio Geysers.
We weren´t blown away by them and the worst was that we needed to get up at 3 AM to sit in a bus for 3 hours to get to a place at over 4000 metres at -10 degrees. Adding the fact that I had left my only fleece sweater on a bus (otra ellenada) my lips just turned blue.
Next to check of our list were some lagunes in the salt flat. One of them has a salt level higher then the dead sea which ment some serious floating fun!
The last spot we visited was a lagoon covered in a salt crust where we could shoot some of the best pictures so far on

From San pEdro we bussed to Iquique, very North of Chile. I went surfing for a day only to discover that I still don´t have a lot of balance. No, I wasn´t as bas as I thought I´d be. But 1 day is not enough to learn. Besides, Iquique is one of the best places in the world to go parapenting. As you have a pilot who does everything for you, this was more my style, haha.

tunes and reading

2009-04-26T18:38:00.000-07:00

Music I´ve been listening to:

1/Animal Collective with a special mentioning of singing My Girls out loud when hiking (or when in a supermarket for that matter). Doing all the voices by myself, bien sur! funny stuff!

2/Berlin Calling - Paul Kalkbrenner.- Aaah what can I say! MJ, you know what I mean.

3/I Tank U - T.Raumschmiere. Especially good when I´m on the verge of getting into a foul mood. Angry music makes me happy again, apparantly...

4/Hitsville U.S.A The Motown Singles. dank u Marco!

5/The Lost in Translation Soundtrack... The strange atmosphere both movie and soundtrack contain is so recognazible when you are traveling and wonder what the hell you´re actually doing in a bus terminal in the middle of the night.

6/Mota - Cultura Profetica. It´s Puerto Rican and it´s not reggaeton!

7/Musique Concrete -Calibre. When I´m hiking and need to speed up. (or whenever I need to speed up basically) Goldie has the same effect

8/Different Places - Plastic Operator for sunny, somehow melancholic moods

9/Hercules and Love Affair. Always, just in love with this album

10/Yo Majesty -Futuristically speaking Never be Afraid. Exactly for that reason in the title.Sometimes a girl on her own needs a kick in the ass.

And lots more, ofcourse,but it´ll get boring soon.

Books I´ve red and swapped:
1/On Chessil Beach -Ian Mc Ewan. Blew me away. Incredibly funny and sad at the same time.

2/The count of Monte Cristo. Trust me. a 1200 pager from 1840 is not a book you want to be traveling with but it was the only decent book I could get my hands on on that moment. Plus a classic that had been on my list for some time. People would dazzle and aks me with I in christ´s name i´d be reading. A profound ¨the bible¨was my standard answer.

3/Me talk pretty one day - David Sedaris. Great discovery! Just too funny!

4/Jesus weed. Don´t even bother, it´s even worse then the title predicts. It was a loan from a travel friend and kindly given back after 50 pages.

5/ Veronica decides to die - Paulo Coelho. I´m on it... Started very promising with the main character killing herself on page 1. An hour in the same bus terminal as where I am typing these lines and I´m already on page 64.

2009-04-22T09:19:00.000-07:00

I ve never been so far behind on blogging, I´m afraid. Last post is on glaciers in the south and i´m now in the desert in the north of chile. Following post will be with lots of info, with lots of holes and with lots of spelling mistakes but try to enjoy it anyway!!

From El Chalten I went to Los Antiguos. Nothing too special to mention except for the fact the prefectura (the argentinean baywatch) offered me a ride on Lago Buenos Aires in a zodiac boat. A loud and clear ´claro que si´ from my side got me in a boat with some argentineans and 2 local david hasselhoffs. A bit showoffs as we went faaaaast but it was good fun. Lago Buenos Aires is the biggest lake in south-america after titicaca and at its deepest is 590 metres which ment lots and lots of waves, wiehieee!
I crossed the lake on the Chilean side on a very rough ferry ride. It took the ferry people several hours to decide if we´d cross or not due to the strong winds. I was glad we did cross but kinda changed my mind when I set foot on the other side, dripping wet.

This was my starting point for the carretera austral, an epic road going north. Epic as in very amazingly bad shape and with very few public transport but also very beatiful and hitchhiking is the national sport here.

First stop was Coyahique. I ran into 4 American girls who I had met a few times before already. The travel-world is even smaller then the real world. We went together to a rodeo which was amazingly funny. Drinkig beers, having some asado meat chatting to your friends and at the same time watch people getting kicked of a horse, I mean, what else do you need in life!

From Coyahique I made my way up north, with some stops in a few vilages. The last one being Chaiten. Now, this village has been struck by a few volcano eruptions over the last year while everyone thought the volcano was as dead as they get. Nobody got hurt and no lava reached the village bit it´s covered in ashes and a river now runs straght through it. The village is supposed to be closed but 70 people still live there and refuse to leave it... I just passed to take a ferry but I was impressed with this village that seemed to be covered in cement and with volcano right next to it, blowing white, red and black smoke...

This ferry took me to Chiloe, which is Chile´s largest island. I planned on staying a few days but ended up staying 9 days. One of those places I fell in love with. People are too friendly to be true, the biggest difference on high and low tides on the planet and they have the biggest and most amazing shell food on this planet, I think. An amazing time, we camped on a beautiful beach in a National Park.

Weather is ¨changeable´though. Meaning pitching your tent in the sand might sound like a good idea on a sunny warm windless evening but kinda looses its charm on a more then windy morning. Almost all the poles of my tent split. While I was preparing its funeral already, one of my fellw travelers miraculously fixed it up with ducktape and I´m still carrying the thing around as we speak. Plan was to dump it about a month ago, but I think i kinda got attached to it...
We has some fun days in the island´s capital which had, surprisingly anough, an amazing nightlife and we visited a few of the small islands. Think 100 inhabitants, 1 small grocery store, electricity from 7 till 10 PM.

From Chiloe I moved on to Bariloche, Argentina again. What did I come here for? Wel, apparantly they have one of the top 10 best panoramic views according to National Geographic. Another item I can tick of my list!
After a day or so, the weather turned very bad, making the hiking in the mountains plan a little less exciting then it was supposed to be. I was determined to do this one specific hike so I just waited in town for the weather to turn again. Luckily, Bariloche is also famous for its chocolate.
I did get to do my hike.
On my one though, no fanatic hikers in my hostels. Woosies I thought while I just went for it. And it was amazing. I got so high the condors were actually flying below me, giving me a dance just a few metres from me. The refugio I got to had the most amazing setting, in between 2 huge glaciers, each one at about 100 metres. Last part of the hike, I did in snow which was a funny sight as I was wearing shorts and went down till my knees.

Parque Nacional Los Glaciares

2009-03-28T15:18:00.000-07:00

After the 7 day hike in Torres del Paine, we first had a huuuuge asado (the local answer to BBQ) and I took the day off, resting my feet. After that I got myself to el calafate. Yep, Argentina again, I just love collecting stamps in my passport and slow border crossings. The town itself is not that amazing (understatement, it s an ugly town), so I just stayed 1 night. The day after I went camping in lago Roca, one of Patagonias beautiful lakes. We did a hike up to Cerro de los Cristales, an bit of a climb which my feet once again didn´t agree with. Once on the top we were at least rewarded with an amazing view. Torres del Paine on 1 side, Fitz Roy (another mountain in argentina) and Perito Moreno, the famous glacier on the other side. Camping here was amazing (yet cold, tip of the day, fill up a bottle with hot water and put it in your sleeping bag, works like a microwave!).

The following day we visited Perito Moreno. This glacier is a huge tourist attraction, looks a bit like disneyglacierland but it is absolutely worth it as well. The cool thing about it (hehe, many cool things about a glacier bien sur) is that it almost touches a peninsula from where it is therefore possible to see the glacier from the front. Adding the fact that is one the few glaciers that is actually still growing instead of shrinking and that very regular huuuuuge pieces of ice fall of, causing an enormous sound ressembling thunder. Pretty impressive stuff, you find yourself standing in front of a huge wall of ice. It´s very difficult to judge how big the thing actually is, but the walls are about 60 metres high.

From El Calafate I moved on to El Chalten, capital nacional del trekking.

1991: 41 habitants

2001:371 habitants

2009: 600 habitants

The town was created in 1985 as a result of a border conflict with Chile. Argentina´s solution was basically populating the area with Argetineans. In 1994 the conflict was definitively solved when an international jury judged in favour of Argentina. As a result, el chalten is Argentina´s youngest town and it is placed in the middle of a National Park, making it a great starting point for trekking. The mountains surrounding it (Fitz Roy and Cerro Torres) are considered amongst the most difficult amongst rock climbers worldwide. The tops are not that high but the extreme weather and the perpendicular shape make it apparantly not your daily walk in the park.

El Chalten is a bit of a strange place, since only 600 people live there officially but many more come to work during summer and hostels are packed with hikers and climbers. I enjoyed it a lot. The hikes are amazing and I liked the mountain even better than the Torres of Torres del Paine Park. On the downside, one of the muscles on my left leg of which I didn´t even know the existance, got inflamed . A nagging pain that started in Torres del Paine and which I wisely (not!) ignored. The last few hours of a dayhike had been killing me, forcing me to decide to stay in town the day after. Luckily for me, the day after was a very rainy one, so lots of people held a ¨hostelday¨ and we chatted all day long with Marcelo, the hostel owner. The worst news about this all is that I could not cross to Chile the way I originally planned. My idea was crossing a lake by ferry, followed by a 22 km hike, across the border to another lake. I was afraid that I wasn´t really in shape to do such a hike in 1 day with my pack. Besides, it was practically impossible obtaining info on accomodation on the way, it was cold at night, rainy days followed sunny days, my fellow travelers were not up for it and I didn´t feel like camping in the middle of nowhere by myself. So I bailed out and bought a boring bus ticket. Yeah well. Anyway, amazing stuff happened again to me the days after, but next on that in a new post since this pc is not cooperating a lot...
Fitz Roy

El Chalten, 600 people town and they dare to put up a sign saying Chalten North and Chalten Centre! (i stayed in downtown)

El Chalten

Ushuaia and Torres del Paine

2009-03-21T07:58:00.001-07:00

Long silence it has been, i'm aware of it. I just have been spending a lot of time in places where internet wasn´t really available and I find it difficult to bound myself long enough behind a PC to write.

I left off in Ushuiaia the last time. The city is overmarketing its name as end of the world which it actually is not. But at least they do it in such an exagerated way that makes the whole fin-del-mundo-stuff funny again. And the city is impressive. The mountains around it just drop into the sea. Sea is the beagle channel, and I even went on a sailing trip on it.

I stayed in a great hostel, where i met lots of crazy travelers but where i didn´t sleep a lot. I ended up staying a few days longer then I planned cause i was just having too much fun to leave. Every morning i d go to the reception, asking for another night, to the hilarity of the hostel-people. Those who travel alone to Ushuaia, try to get to the ´free style` hostel.

We visited the National Park, which is beautiful yet overpriced since it is the national park at the end of the world. Funny detail, there is a post office where they sell fin-del-mundo-passport stamps for 6 pesos. Unfortunately, i didnt have mine with me, but my fellow hikers did obtain world´s cheesiest, largest, pinguins-containing passport stamp. I missed out, I guess.

More funny stuff. Getting to Ushuaia, I had to hitchhike, no buses between the chilean part and the argentinean part of tierra del fuego. One of my rides was a passionate fly-fisher and had just caught an 8-kilo salmon. A few days later he called me to ask if I wanted to go fishing with him and his friends which i had never done so he picked me up at 3 am (yes, indeed, 3 am!) to go flyfishing. Honestly, i still think fishing is not the most exciting of all sports, but the setting was amazingly beautiful, we drove some 4 wheeldrive vehicles for an hour untill we got to the atlantic ocean.

In ushuaia I met a Dutch guy and an English guy who had the same plan as me, hiking in Torres del Paine. Torres del Paine is a national park, back on the continent, Chilean side again. Most people do a 4-5 day hike, called the W, because of its shape on the map. This was our initial plan, but in the hostel, close to the park, we saw lots of enthusiastic people, we ourselves were in a great mood and made the stupid decision to do `the circuit´ an 8day hike, basically closing the upper parts of the W-hike. The hardest part about the hike is the fact that you have to carry around food for 8 days.

What did we buy:

* 6 packages of pasta

*1 day of powdered mashed potatoes

*7 powdered pasta sauces

*1 package of powdered soup per day

* some canned meat

*a bar of chocolat per day

*package of chocolate cookies per day

*24 hard-boiled eggs, extremely heavy but we were o so happy with them!

*bottle of whiskey

*bottle of rhum (for the hard moments)

Even though we really didnt overbuy and paid attention to the weight factor, my pack was actually heavier then my normal travel pack. Almost all of it due to food, sleeping bag and tent (ok, and the whiskey and rhum). Every meal was a happy event though! Eating to loose weight, every girl´s dream!

Torres del Paine is known for its extreme, fast changing weather conditions which kinda scared me. Heavy winds and snow are not uncommon. We got rather lucky, we only had 1 day of really heavy rainfall. The trekking was hard but amazingly beautiful and the solidarity amongst people was almost turning me into a hippy! Some anecdotes:

*In one of the first campings I saw a camping-cook making bread. Since we didnt have bread for 8 days, i went to check on the price and if bread would be available in all campings throughout the trek. He told me the bread was 4000 pesos and that in some other campings they would sell it as well. Bufff, 4000 pesos is 7 euro, pricey bread so I just carried on. When we left the camping after lunch, he called me (Oye, Belgica) and just gave me the bread hushing that we should move on fast now.

*The evening after the rainy day, we were quite worried about the tent. I didnt quite resist the heavy winds. On the camping ground, I met a guy who I had met before in our hostel. he worked as a cook in the hotel and asked how our tent was doing. In the end, I got a bed in the hotel (worth 50 euros), breakfast, brownie, lots of cookies, rainpants and chocolate!

*Once off the W trek, the campsites were less crowded and we d usually all sat together in the kitchen. In one of these camps, I met a chilean guy who works as a guide to rich people who dont want to carry 15 kilo up and down mountains (while we just loved doing that). He prepared us a salad (vegetables are heaven after 6 days of pasta and outmeal). We threw ourselves on the lettuce, tomatoes and avocado. We ended up having the funniest evening on the trek. Everybody started sharing what they had left. We still had some rhum, others had cigarettes, chocolate, and even some wine. In the morning the same guide made us pancakes!

Aaah, well i d have so many other stories, but I lack the time to write them all down...

This is what the Torres del Paine look like...

It is not easy climbing these ladders with 15 kilo packs and 5 blisters

we had to cross a mountain pass (meaning 3 hours of only very steep uphill mountain followed by a few hours of steep downhill) As prepared as usual, check out my fancy plastic bags. I could literally hear the other hikers thinking, mmm, where does this girl think she s going to.
But we made it anyway :)And these are the views we got... Seas of blue ice

The next day was 25 degrees again. Very strange all of this

What do you think when you all of a sudden see blue icebergs in the lake you re hiking around...

the first time a saw a glacier this impressive... I stood there for a veeery long time, just looking at it.

We ended up doing the 8 day hike in 7 days. My feet didnt quite agree and decided to blow up to hilarious proportions to the hilarity of the hostel people, once back in town.

Torres del Paine was an amazing experience. Between the amazing views, the physical challenge, the fun of meeting so many people, the solidarity between everyone, sleeping in a tent when it s almost freezing but being able to hear huge blocks of ice falling down a glacier, I would already do it again next year!

I m already weeeeeeks behind on my blogging... i ll try to do better but I have so many things to share and so little time to write...

Buenos Aires to the bottom of the world!

2009-02-23T05:24:00.000-08:00

Hiiiii

ok, lots and lots of stuff to tell and so little time as i´m in ushuaia and cybercafes are quite expensive.. So be prepared for some bad built sentences instead of the James Joyce descriptions you are used to!

I left BA by bus. Golden tip for those who travel Argentina. Take Andesmar bus company. Great couches and they organize a bingo game on the bus! In Puerto Madryn, I met Renata, an Italian girl who I teamed up with.

We went on a queste for the holy tent and went camping in Peninsula Valdes. Here we made friends with 2 Argentinan guys from Buenos Aires who were traveling by car and they took us across the peninsula the day after to do some wildlife spotting. On the peninsula you can see pinguins, sea lions and elefantes marinos. (elephant seals in english i guess)

From there Renata and I made our way to Gaiman, an originally Welsh village famous for its tea and traditional Welsh sweets. Never say no to sweets! The other attraction in the town was a park made from garbage... Que? Yes exactly, ma thoughts as well, but it was actually amazing to see.

A cute little town but we didn´t spend the night.
Instead we went for a cray plan. We wanted to visit Punta Tombo because it has the largest pinguin colony on the continent but we knew it would be a busy spot. The smallest town to Punta tombo is an ugly one at 120 km so we decided we d just try to camp right outside the park entrance. We got stuck at 60 km from it and decided to camp there instead since absolutely nothing was passing by anymore so late to pick us up. Of course the minute we took out the tent, a guy passed by and took us to 20 km! He lived out there on a sheep farm. His biggest concern was that his kid had to go to school so he had to drive her every day and the fact that his cell didn´t have reception :) Really interesting to have met him.

The strangest thing abouth whole this area is just the great amount of nothingness... You can drive hunderds of kilometers and not see anything except maybe a gas station.
Meet Gauchito Gill, thair version of San Christpher (i think, me and the saints dont get along very well). Anyway, he s supposed to protect travelers and every few 100 meters you can find one of these little shrines.

This part of Patagonia it is sooo flat and really windy! So our night camping in the wild was mostly filled with fear of our supermarket-tent blowing away but it did hold! And in the morning the first car passing by took us so we got some private time with one million pinguins. They are so extremely funny!
Me blending in with the locals....

From Punta Tombo we continued to Sarmiento. A small village but it has a petrified forest with 65 billion old trees. Apparantly, there was a gaucho festival in the town so it was actually very busy. I didn´t result easy to get to the petrified forest but one of the gauchos kindly offered to take us. He called it a gauchada. Very sweet guy. Had a farm with 7000 sheeps so i guess that s why he didnt bother to treat us the taxi trip. Once again, very interesting to meet him.

From there we took the night bus (bingo again!!!) to Rio Gallegos and from there we made our way to Punta Arenas-Chile. This is the very bottom of the continent. Not a very exciting town but I needed a few days of rest and I met a lot of travelers there. Here Renata and I split up as she had an antartica trip booked from Ushuaia...

I relaxed a few days, the main event being a visit to the most southern beer brewery which I did with some guys from the hostel.

Most people take a 13 hour bus from Punta Arenas(chile) to Ushuaia (Argentina) on Tierra del Fuego (the name of the island as a whole). I wanted to go to Ushuaia but I also wanted to see a bit of Tierra del Fuego so instead I took the ferry from Punta Arenas to Porvenir, crossing the strait of Magellanes which is an event on its own! I saw pinguins and dolphins! Very little people go to Porvenir, it s not a Lonely Planet destination, but it is such a cute town! And it s actually a faster and cheaper way to get to Ushuaia anyway. I met a girl from Alaska on the ferry and we decided to spend a few days together.
We rented a bike and went exploring tierra del fuego. I was so excited to actually be there. It s a place that I have wanting to visit for so long and I just couldn´t believe I finally made it! The bikes were good but had very hard saddles. That combined with the bad roads and the fact we got a little lost and had to climb some fences, made friends with sheep and guanacos made us go the next day on foot.

After a few days which we spent with a incredibly nice family guesthouse, steph went back to Santiago while I continued the travel to Ushuaia. I was kinda afraid that I wouldnt get there. No buses but a nice Argentinan old couple took me to the Argentinan side of the island.

The landscape started to change dramatically. I was really happy to see some trees and mountains again after the huge amount of pampa I had been seeing for the last weeks.
I as now on the same road that I took leaving Buenos Aires but now I was exactly 3000 kms furher away.

I m now in Ushuaia which pretends to be the southern most city in the world. This is simply a lie as Puerto Williams is actually more to the south. Unfortunate for the Argentinans, Puerto Williams belongs to Chile, so they marketed Ushuaia to be ´the end of the world´. Anyway, it looks like a very beautiful town, locate next to the Beagle Channel.

Buenos Aires

2009-02-09T06:05:00.000-08:00

And heeeere we are! Che, Buenos Aires, city of tango, Evita, asados and yet anothe spanish accent for me to discover!

I got here after a very long trip, passing Washington and waiting there about 7 hours. Thank god for Obama gift shops to entertain me.

I´m staying in the house of a co-alcateller. Argentine who lives and works in belgium and who happened to be here for some work/holidays. Most of the days I ve been spending them with him, his family and his friends. Swell! No dodgy hostels yet!

I´m dividing my time between the basic tourist stuff and just living the porteño life as it´s supposed to be. Drinking licuados, parties, drinks, etcetera. I´m also meeting a coworker that was with me in Puerto Rico.

One of Diego´s friends was nice enough to organize us an asado. The Argentinan answer to BBQ. Cooking meat over here is an art, I just watched and enjoyed... I think I ate enough meat to get me through the week.

Diego´s parents own a boat which I screwed up to take a decent picture of but you´ll get the idea. An old passenger boat that they remodelled it to be able to take along 18 people. (don t know what the record is but we were 18). We visited the delta of the Parana river, which is the huge river between buenos aires and uruguay. Lots of sun, nice people, some drinks... glad I wasn´t in the office that day, haha.

Besides, we visited Tigre, a town just outside BA. Known for its little port and water activities. One cute sailing boat next to the other. No need to say, this is a very upper class town.

Since I´m staying at a friend´s house, no real ellenadas have happened so far. Today i´ll be doing a city tour by bike with a fellow couchsurfer that lives in BA.

Tomorrow I´ll be heading south, so the real adventure can start.

Evita Peron´s cemetery

San Telmo, very nice neighbourhood. One of the more authentic ones.

On my way again

2009-01-31T08:07:00.000-08:00

Well, I guess most of you already know I'm leaving Europe again and those that didn't know should have guessed so from my previous posts. I don't write this stuff meaningless, you know!

Tomorrow I'll leave for Buenos Aires. This trip will include no working whatsoever. I'll travel Argentina, Chile, Peru, Bolivia and maybe a part of Brasil during 5-?? months. Well, that's the plan as it is, but knowing myself, I guess I might change the master plan on the road.

What do I take along on such a trip, bearing in mind I have to carry everything and that I hate carrying stuff!

Underwear for a week! Nothing absolutely bad can happen if you're wearing clean underwear, a wise man once said.
A full-proof, self-tested water resistant and wind stopping rain coat
A map of South-America and the rough guide to Argentina. I'll try to swith the book going from country to country.
I found this eeny-meeny light in Decathlon!
Lightweight sleeping bag that's supposed to keep me warm 'till 0-5 degrees. I'm a bit sceptical about their coception of warm and mine being the same , but I guess I'll survive
My foot wear for the following months.. probably the most depressing about the packing part. Damn, I love wearing leather boots!!
The greenies are my new walking shoes (I don't believe in 2kilo hiking boots). Water proof which also means hot and sweaty when it's warm hence the next item:
The black sneakers are loyal travel companions though. They've been with me in Guatemala, Honduras, Morocco, Italy, Spain, Estonia, Latvia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and I'm probably forgetting some. Let's see if they survive.
My Dominican flipflops. I did Cuba with them

I won't only be travelling exotic places... Patagonia, Andes, temperatures can be cold... Thermic underwear... also very fashion... And - thanks to my lovely friends- foot and hand warmers! Something I didn't know about but some female friends bought for me.
Same great friends.... These are very light and very warm!
Aaah! even more important than the underwear! My music! and a USB charger as I'll be traveling laptop-less.
2 pair of trousers, only 1 jeans.
2 skirts, 2 shorts
6 t-shirts of which i forgot to make a picture.
A tip for travelers! Take along a pareo. Very light, good to ly on the beach, you make skirt/t-shirts/scarfs out of it.
Next depressing thing... Girly stuff tends to weigh a lot si keep it to a minimum! Check out the doble set of lip balm which I got from 2 female friends. I guess something should become clear to me by now.
Ah, shampoo, body lotion and soap are missing on the picture and are pissing me off for being so heavy..

All resulting in a little more weight than I was hoping for, but I guess it's still quite ok... This excludes the clothes I'm wearing which is winter stuff. Well I'll see what I toss away first. My guess is the body lotion but all bets are open. Feel free to comment!

My friends on the subject...

2009-01-20T01:22:00.000-08:00

Some contributions from friends:

she put a name to my thingie: The lovely Marie-Julie whose blog should be in all of your bookmarked ones by now anyway! (Especially you music lovers out there!)
http://marie-julie-einfach-leben.blogspot.com/ (the post that starts with tallinn-wien-barcelona-helsinki-paris

Dominican Francis sent me a FB note which touched the subject but that gives a positive twist to my previous post and at the same time to my day! Thank you Francis! tq! :) A copy below

Along the way you bump into people who make a dent on your life. Some people get struck by lightning. Some are born to sit by a river. Some have an ear for music. Some are artists. Some swim the English Channel. Some know buttons. Some know Shakespeare. Some are mothers. And some people can dance.

For what it's worth, it's never too late, or in my case too early - to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit; stop whenever you want. You can change, or stay the same - there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.

Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss.

You can be as mad as a mad dog at the way things went. You could wear, curse the fates, but when it comes to the end, you have to let go.

(life is good... with all the highs and lows... otherwise it would be too boring)

My Peter Pan syndrome

2009-01-07T02:50:00.000-08:00

Ever since I've gotten back from the Carribean to Belgium, I've been feeling...restless...is the closest named feeling in the Enlgish language that can describe it.

According to popular songwriters, this must be something lots of twenty-somethings can relate to but sometimes I feel so many people around me seem to have all their things in place and are -more important and even more amazing- quite content about it and without hesitating are planning the next step. At the age of 26, are we all supposed to have a steady relationship, an appartment where we live with our fabulous partner and preferably a cat, as so it seems to be the trend? Should I as well be concerned about intrest rates and locations on where to buy or even build my even more fabulous house with a big cellar and room for a pony? In contrast to my fellow engineer-buddies, I don't have anything even closely resembling a career path defined and looking at all different possibilities on where to go/live/work I just wanna roll up in my bed and sleep for the rest of the week. Should I be able to answer the "where do you see yourself in 5 years?"

These are clearly all luxury problems, I do realize this. My country of birth, my great parents, my education, my university degree and my good health make I can go anywhere. But doesn't everyone in my situation feel like a little kid in a candy store, or even an ant in a world made out of candy? What to pick when your stomach is so small? Don't you all want to get the maximum out of life but doubt on what you'd actually like the most? Sure, your house is amazing and your job is fine, but maybe you could be happier in a house in Melbourne and maybe the perfect job for you isn't located in Brussels but in Barcelona? How can we fully choose something if we don't even have a remote idea of what we are missing out on when choosing option A?

Before you all start the spoilt-kid-name-calling; 2008 has been a great year for me, probably one of the most exciting ones so far. I liked living in Madrid and I loved living in the Dominican Republic even more. Why wouldn't I, the amount of great people I've met, places I've seen, friends I've made and life experience I gained, make me realize I can be happy in so many different places and situations. But I also remember I missed la petite belgique while living my dreams. I remember the exact same feeling of restlessness of my mind.

Probably, all my living abroad caused the situation I'm in. Kid in a candy world... also Alice in Wonderland- or Peter Pan-feelings pop up every now and then. But does this mean I'm sorry for anything I've done? I'm tempted to shout out a loud no, but honestly, I can not know what would have happened. If I had never left Belgium (starting in 2003 to Barcelona), I would have limited the amount of thunderstorms in my head and my life could have been flawless, spectacular house, hubbie, defined career path and -why the hell not- maybe even a cat included. Not only is it so difficult to make life choices, it is even impossible afterwards to fully evaluate your choices. Even if we were given a rewind-button on life, we wouldn't know if to use it or not.

I hope I'm not stepping on anyone's toes with this post. I honestly sometimes envy those who seem so much at ease in Belgium while my head keeps on turning over and over again instead of just enjoying my life. I merely want to point out that I believe it's wrong to ignore all the options we have.
Our generation is the first one that has all of these options. The world has become our (though lightly oversized) backyard, the only limit we really have are time and guts (and some cash every now and then). For myself, I can only try to enjoy the ride and hope the wind will calm down at some point in time.

Cuba

2008-12-27T05:25:00.000-08:00

After a very long silence, I've decided to start blogging again. Easy explanation for the long silence, after my return to the old continent, I just didn't take the time anymore, plain lazyness in other words. But now I'm starting to miss my blog.
Since I'm no longer living in the Carribean I got rid of the fancy schmancy coloured layout but besides that, not much will change. I'm still not planning to write a typical travel-blog with a full recommendation and must-see list, as I find these travelblogs myself deadly boring. I hope by telling you my adventures, I'll pass on my impression of the countries I see and the people I meet instead of copying some Lonely Planet columns.

I owe you all a report on my travels through Cuba, even though it's already been over 2 months that I went there. The lazy part, remember. I flew from the Dominican Republic, with Cubana Aviacion. Most dominican and Cuban people warned me for the airline, but they're not used to Ryanair, I guess, cause Cubana Aviacion was simply great.
A lot of nervous Cubans in the plane, all very talkative however. When we hit ground, a guy told me the struggle to get out of the airport was about to begin. He estimated it to 2 hours which resulted in my face forming a big question mark.. 2 horas? Que? Y eso? Which in return resulted in all cubanos looking at me with "aaah, poor unknowing, innocent Western girl"
In the airport of La Habana, we were all separated in 2 lines, cubans and non-cubans. As a foreigner, it didn't take me 2 hours to get out, but I did get a quite thorough questioning. Who are you, How long do you plan to stay in Cuba, What did you study, Where do you work? How long do you plan to stay in Cuba, What profession do you exercise (I said engineer), What kind of engineering, How long do you plan to stay in Cuba, What did you do in Dominican Republic (I said engineering) What type of engineering? etc etc. Quite a contrast with all my entries in the Dominican Republic where they were always very happy to see me arrive and didn't bother too much with the length of my stay.

Fortunately, non-official Cuban people are actually very pleased to see foreigners arrive. Some of them because of the dollars we carry, others (and I do believe most of them) because they are just open people and some might feel isolated on their beautiful yet small island which they are not allowed to leave and they 're eager to learn about other cultures.
Walking around as a girl alone, does strike attention even more. I forced myself to be cautious and to let somewhat go of my "trust everyone" attitude.
But still, one of the main reasons I was traveling alone, is that I really wanted to meet Cubans, tryin to understand a bit more of the way they live.
Thank god for couchsurfing... My first night I met up with one of my contacts, David. We had been emailing for some weeks and we spoke a few times on the phone. He lives in a tiny, tiny appartment with his girlfriend and some other friend gathered at his place.

Couchsurfing in Cuba is great, for exactly the reason I mentioned above. People love foreigners but because of the poverty a lot of people are also kinda desperate and some of them don't see a person but a walking dollar sign on the street. CS makes it safer to get to know Cuban people and vice-versa. Young CS'ers in Cuba see hosting foreigners as a way to travel since it's almost impossile for them to actually leave the island. Even hosting is illegal for them, so most of them prefer to meet up for a coffee or a drink.

Anyway, David took me to a birthday party and I met so many funny cuban and international people and "by accident" we only went home at 6 in the morning. All my nights in la Habana I spent with these guys and I thank them for that.

Additionally, on the street when I was wandering around looking for an internet connection, I met this one Cuban guy on crutches who showed me around town the entire day and we met up for a coffee the day after. He is an engineer and really interested in all technologies. I showed him my iPod and I couldn't have made him happier.

Another day I also ran into a girl who helped me find a decent pharmacy (new flipflops cause blisters!) and an exchange office. She ended up spending her entire free afternoon with me as bandages are not easy to find. Only the "tourist" pharmacy had them and at a "tourist" price. I kinda felt extremely spoilt here.

On the currency. Cuba has probably the weirdest system in the world. In 2004, Cuba banned the American dollar from circulation and restricted the amount that Cubans living abroad could bring into the country. A family member living abroad gave too much advantage to the family at home, hereby violating the all-are-equal thought of communism. They now have two currencies, a first one (peso convertible= CUC) is more or less equal to the dollar (but they tax the exchange by 10%) and the second currency is the "local" one, el peso cubano (CUP). One CUC is about 24 CUP. The beauty of it all is, that everyone needs both CUC as CUP. Some items are only priced in CUC even though it is supposed to be the "foreigners' currency" and prices are completely unpredictable. Shampoo for example will cost 2 CUC while a decent meal will vary from 20CUP (less than 1 CUC) on the street up untill 20 CUC in a restaurant. An average wage will vary from 25 CUC en La Habana to 18 CUC in smaller towns. Most people I met had never been to a restaurant. If you're lucky enough to be able to work in tourism, you'll see a lot more CUC's (including tips) which results in a complete misfit system in my humble opinion.

An example to illustrate. To get back to the airport, I arranged for an illegal taxi as tourist taxis are just very expensive and local taxis are not allowed to pick up foreigners. My driver told me he had been working as an engineer for about 8 years. After these 8 years, he had been given the right to buy a car which he did. And shortly after, he tranformed himself into a taxista clandestino, fot the simple fact that an illegal taxi driver earns more money (especially more CUC) than a legal engineer.

I found the governmnent tries to separate Cubans and foreign tourists as much as possible. I wasn't allowed to take public "Cuban" transport and my "tourist" busses were just too expensive for Cubans. Honestly, they're quite expensive for all travelers as is lodging and food. If you speak some spanish, it is however possible to convince the locals at the bus station to take you with them. For example, I bought these guys some smokes and spent some time with them and they took excellent care of me, getting me a ride on this truck, very uncomfortable but very cheap and they run more often as the tourist busses.
To some extent people can lodge foreigners but the monthly taxes in order to do so are quite high, so it's a risk they take. Ofcourse there are illegal lodgings as well, but actually not as much as I expected. Since no private initiative is supported, Cubans are not allowed to show foreigners around as guides. Ofcourse I always preferred a Cuban youngster above a tourist office. More fun as walking behind a guy holding up an umbrella, and I felt my money would be better spent... We did get caught once though in Baracoa... Some officers patrolling in the National Park where we were walking around, stopped us. He had to show face in the local police station, they let him off with a warning but he was quite disturbed anyway since he just lost his income as a guide for the coming months. The officers were very impolite, basically saying that we had no business talking to each other unless we were planning a wedding. This happened more often to me. Walking around with a Cuban guy is not cheered upon, unless you are coupling up.
Fortunately, even though the government doesn't encourage it, it is very easy to meet funny and open minded people if you are a bit open to it.

I had a lot of fun with the Baracoa-guide and his friends though. Two of them were cooks but their restaurant had been destroyed by the hurricane. I bought some fish and they made us a very nice meal.
In fact most of the villagers participated in reconstruction, although honestly there was always a bottle of rhum involved. Poverty all over but one way or another there was always money for a bottle of rhum. The picture shows what a huge water flood can do to a building.
Thanks to my guide, I was given the chance to drive this baby around. A 1952 jeep named Willy. Ofcourse I had to hide from the officials untill we reached some dirt track outside the village, leading to an amazing beach.

My conclusions about Cuba. It's probably one of the weirdest countries I've been to, full of contradictions. Some people might say I look at Cuba with my Western eyes, but I'm not pretentious enough to think I can look with different eyes then the only ones I've got. My intention is not to judge yet to understand and I think most Cubans were amused with the amount of questions I had for them (and the other way around, actually)
As a traveler, I feel for the Cubans as is it so difficult for them to leave their island. Most of them would ask me after my Spanish and then I had to explain to Barcelona-Madrid-Dominican Republic-Puerto Rico travels which made me feel very uncomfortable actually. I wonder why a government that feels so confident about its regime, makes it so hard for its people to start traveling and learn about other cultures, including the discouraging of contact between foreigners and Cubans. I heard just a little too many stories about people that had escaped by boat and whose whereabouts are unknown by their family.
On the other hand, I was honestly surprised by the knowledge most people have. I don't know where they get their information from since most newspapers I saw were kinda propaganda and international TV channels were banned but they certainly know about the world. Cuban education is said to be extremely good. Additionally, Cubans are amongst the most open, funny, helpfull and interesting people I've met so far. And certainly the best dancers! But I also remember walking around in Trinidad and getting annoyed because literally everyone would talk to me trying to get something from me or sell me something.
The people I met were proud to be Cuban, although the Castro-regime is questioned upon. People feel something should change, but nobody mentions capitalism or giving up communism. I guess this would be a very hard topic to cover and I won't go deeper into it. I don't think you can really value a regime unless you've lived in it and this applies to both Cubans as to myself. It's just something that struck my attention. People want and need a change but nobody seems to have concrete ideas.

I had a great time in Cuba, first time I traveled alone for so many days but I never felt lonely nor bored.

Back to Santo Domingo

2008-10-12T15:49:00.000-07:00

With a little bit of delay, I finally came back to Santo Domingo. I’ve been here now for 2 weeks and it has been great. This is actually my first night at home and only because I’m having friends coming over in a little while.

Honestly, I didn't like Puerto Rico all that much. San Juan as a city is cleaner and easier to live in. The city is beautiful and so is the island but I didn't quite find my way in it. Santo Domingo is a jungle, there is more poverty, it has no beach but I love it anyway. Not in the least because of the people.

Highlight of my week, as it tends to be in Europe as well, was my weekend. Ale-tours, the very exclusive travel agency run by my friend Ale organized a trip to the mountains, more specific to Valle Nuevo. One of our friends’ family owns a sort of ecolodge that is situated in literally the middle of nowhere. From the last village we saw, it took us 1 hour by SUV to get there. But it was worth the trip. Besides these cute guesthouses, there was nothing up there, including electricity.

This is Pico Duarte, for those who don't remember, the highest mountain in the Carribean. Valle Nuevo itself is located at 2500 metres. This means a completely different climate then the one we see displayed in the Jetair brochures which was a huge relief for me. Believe me, it gets incredibly annoying always having to run around in 35 degrees with a humidity of about 70%. In Valle Nuevo, I finally got the chance to put on a jacket and a scarf! I guess during the day it was about 15-20 degrees. In winter it gets to -5 degrees up here.

Instead of mango's, bananas and coconut, I finally could try my first Dominican strawberry.At night it was just plain cold... My friends didn't expect me to suffer from any cold since apparently I "should have been used to it by now" but I just shamelessly put on a fleece sweater and sat in front of the fireplace.

With Francis and the man from Ale-tours himself.

Valle Nuevo is very close to a tourist hotspot, namely the exact center of Hispaniola (the island consisting of the Dominican Republic and Haiti). For some reason that I don't quite get, they constructed a sort of Piramid there. I say a hotspot ironically as the road to get there was actually even worse then the one to Valle Nuevo. One of our cars ran out of cooling water so we comfortably squeezed into 1.

And this is all of us!

Me: for those who fail to recognize me

Ale: doesn't need an introduction any more. love couchsurfing!

Francis: crazy Dominican #1

Will: my ex-roomie as I'm currently living in one of the company's appartments

Rosita: Ale and I talked her into couchsurfing.

Rafa: crazy Dominican #2

Maria del Mar: a true fan of Belgium, she lived close to Brussels for 1 year

Andre: a German couchsurfer who came along with us

Conclusion: I think this was one of my best weekends in the Carribean even though there were no palmtrees or white sandy beaches involved.

last days in Puerto Rico...

2008-09-28T17:20:00.000-07:00

Yes my dear readers.... My days in Puerto Rico have already come to an end...

On one of my last lunches, my colleagues took my out to get some typical Puerto Rican food: That is, we went to a hamburger place where you could choose the amount of meat you want: 1/3 pound, 1/2 pound, 2/3 pound or a pound. I went for 1/3 (hey believe me, it's already big...) most went for 1/2 pound and 1 brave chilene guy went for 2/3 pound of meat.

I made a little before/after video shoot. Gregorio was very brave, took it step by step, piece by piece, first went fully for the meat and only finished his fries afterwards. RESPECT!

After that, we went for ice cream! At this place they actally 'prepared" you your ice cream in a whole process, adding I don't know which kind of flavours and goodies. Anyway, a popular venue, I made a video but it's a bit long(!!) to put on here. I once again ordered the smallest possible but had to throw half of it away!!! And believe me, this hurt since it was really good and we all know I'm quite the ice cream girl...

Before I get some hate mail sent over, this is not really the typical Puerto Rican food which is actually really good. It just kinda illustrates the amount of fast food you can find here and it was just a very funny lunch we had.

During the last weeks I hadn't been feeling very well and unfortunately, last weekend the illness completely kicked in! I got a very high fever, my roomie got scared when he saw how terrible I looked (yes, thank you) and took me to the hospital. After a - "you don't have a social security number? Ok, that's $300 in advance"- i got to see my first doctor and after her many followed as I had an explainable fever. Anyway, I spent the night, it wasn't extremely funny so I'll spare you the details but it kept me from making any interesting trips lately so I'll just give you some pictures that I have been made over the last weeks. For me all of them are very funny. Maybe some of them are of the "you should have been there" type but in that case I put them here just for the people who "have been there" with me!

Ok, maybe not the funniest to start with.... Me in the hospital, No worries, it's not that people were mocking me, I just had a lucid moment and we were making fun of the situation.

In every parking lot there's a guy or a woman, sitting like a bird in a cage to watch our dear vehicles...

Every day we would pass this sign: Zona de Prueba (Test Zone). To me it only seemed as a forest we would drive by, but then again, you never know...

Remember me complaining about stupid signs.? This ons actually tells me no to pie in our swimming pool as it's unhealthy. And not only for me but also for others!
Next to our home... Even though I'm a bingo-fan, I never got there...
The soda machine at work. Has been broken since I got here and never got fixed: Messages are:

*09/03/08 12:40 $1,00 Luis D Rama - Supervisor 383-4967
*09/03/08 9:40 $0,75 Mista Claudio - Guardia
* Me debes un dolar (you owe me a dollar)
...
Little ice cream umbrella I planted in our car. The security guards at work recognized us by it so we wouldn't have to stop to do the obligatory dumb entrance paper work.

The 100 different tastes of orange juice. Going from "no pulp", to "some pulp" to a "little pulp" to a "lot of pulp" to Vitamine D added, Vitamine E added, Vitamine K added, Light, and , yes, Natural!

Yes! We had an FM - 200 extinguishing system at work!! Talk about feeling safe..

And this is what it looks like...
And we also has a chewing gum machine!

And a huge fan in the hallway...

The door that was supposed to be always closed but that then again was on our shortest path to the coffee machine...

Police parking on a no-parking sign

Today was my last day in Isla Verde, so I decided to make the most out of my beautifully situated appartment and we organised a BBQ for some of the colleagues. Lovely day, good food, first day actually I was feeling better after a week of lying in bed. My colleagues in Puerto Rico were actually really good fun. As In Santo Domingo it's quite a mixed group. Spain, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, Argentina, Chili and well Belgium :)

Next post will be from Santo Domingo as tomorrow I'm flying back to La Jungla! And I'm actually very excited to go back!

2008-09-17T16:26:00.000-07:00

Time for an update by now. I guess you guys haven't seen a lot of pictures of Puerto Rico so there we go for another joyful ride.

San Juan is actually a really beautiful colonial city. San Juan is the second city that has been founded by the Spanish colonists after, right, Santo Domingo. It's really nice walking around in the colonial zone as it's very well preserved and the houses are all lively coloured. The colonial zone in Santo Domingo is nice as well but you can definitely see the difference in the countries' welfares. (ok, might get mugged now when I head back to Santo Domingo)

The fountain is not colonial but it's just the best idea a city with an average temperature of about 30 degrees can have. I almost joined the children.

Two of the main attractions are the city's former defensive fortalezas (squeeking in some spanish lessons here). I visited both fortaleza San Cristobal and fortaleza San Felipe del Morro with a couchsurfing friend and my colleague/roommate. I forgot that ervery now and then a camera's batteries, no matter how good they are, actually need to be recharged so all pictures are taken with manuel's cell... You'll have to take my word for it that they're woth the visit. This beautiful shot I found online but don't tell them.

The Spanish conquistadores (Spanish lesson #2) started building el Morro in 1539 to defend San Juan. In 1595 Francis Drake attacked El Morro but, as simple as effective, the Spanish shot a cannon ball through the ship's main cabin.

A few years later, the English attacked again and they succeeded. This time they were smart enough to go over land but then again not smart enough to not let all of their troops be weakened by dysenterie so they had to leave Puerto Rico again after 6 weeks. Quite an embarassing event for the English, I guess.

30 years laters our lovely friends, the Dutch, gave it a go. El Morro didn't fall but the Dutch did burn down the city. The Spanish remained master of the island untill in 1898 the Americans kicked them out, making Puerto Rico US Commonwealth. The US used the fort as a military base untill 1961 and that's when it became a Historic site.

I'm also getting remarks that I'm never in my own pictures so there we go. The proof that I actually do visit these places.

We parked our car in the first fort we visited and walked (once again,this is seen as an unnatural act in the carribean) to the other one where they threw us out at closing time. Walking back to our parking we found this.... Yep, that's our car way back there... Luckily there was still someone there and a "we're sorry, we're stupid tourists but we love your city so much" made everything ok.

2008-09-02T19:21:00.000-07:00

Good news, I'm no longer a holiday inn-resident! Instead they finally gave us an appartment. I'm still living in Isla Verde, a neigbourhood close to the sea and quite close to the city center.

And I've accomplished one of my 10 ultimate goals in life: to live on the beach. Yep, I hit the jackpot! For the first and probably last time in my life I'm living on a beach! The appartment is not amazingly beautiful nor big but we have a great ocean view and we don't even have to cross a street to go there. In case we can't stand the salt water anymore, we have a swimming pool and if we want to sweat without just walking outside, we have a gymnasium as well.

What we also have is lots of old, retired americans and an "activity room" I'm hoping for a weekly Bingo, but no luck so far... Maybe it's only biweekly? Fingers crossed!

In the end, human resources did decide that there could be no harm seen in me living with my male colleague. They couldn't be more wrong, since we already started fighting over who would get the main bedroom...

But I tend to have my little ways of winning...

Puerto Rico then, I'll give an update on where I've been hanging out lately.

We visited Ponce, the second largest city on the island. To get there, we needed to cross the island entirely which took us less than 1,5 hour. Puerto Rico is chiquito... Ponce was not very impressing, it has 1 very nice main square with a ver cool old firemen park

and a Burger King in colonial style (who gets them...)

We drove to Cabo Rojo, the utter south-east point of the island. (and I almost fell off!). They hav e a great beach and called it Playa Sucia (dirty beach). I guess to scare people off?

Unable to hide our telecom calling, we went to check out the world's largest reflex telescope!

Since holidaywise, Puerto Rico is smart enough to benefit from it's special relationship with the States, I had Labour Day off and we went to Vieques, a small island to the east of Isla Grande (the, ehm, mainland of Puerto Rico). For over 60 years Vieques has been occupied by the US marine. They used it for trainings, bombed half of the island down and it was also strategically seen as interesting given its location not so far from Fidel. There has always been a lot of protest from the locals and after an incident where a local got killed by a test bombing, George W Bush removed the basis from the island in 2003. At the moment a large part of the island is being cleaned upfrom the bombings but what I've been able to see is beautiful, even though you find a bunker every now and then. A lot of horses run freely and peacefully around, the marine's beaches are amazing and in the center of the island there is tropical rainforest.

The main city, Esperanza, is still full of Americans who opened restaurants, bars and guesthouses. I was a bit annoyed by the fact everybody spoke english instead of spanish by default, even though most of them surely speak spanish.

No cars are allowed on the ferry (only on the 4am ferry which we ofcourse didn't take, I didn't change that much yet) so we were without transport. Local transport got us to one of the marine's beaches, red beach, but it seemed to be a party-beach.

It's always amazing to see how well prepared people go to the beach, They bring small refrigerators, BBQ's, loooots of drinks and food, large soundsystems, cooking utilities. We went walking to discover another beach which was actually nicer even though we almost got eaten alive by mosquitos on our way. As walking is seen as an unnatural act in the tropicals, some nice puerto riquenos gave us a ride back.

At night we went to a bioluminescent bay, called bahia de los mosquitos (yep, they really make it sound appealing,no?). A bioluminiscent bay, is a bay where you have large concentrations of dinoflagella. These are microorganisms, remember, the ones that just exist out of 1 cell. They're not considered plants nor animals. They float freely around in all tropical waters but in some places, you can find the in very large concentrations, the bioluminiscent bays. If you disturb them, they send out a small ray of light, like a little star. These bays are not profound, only have a small opening to the sea, have mangrove around them and it's best if there's little light pollution. I already went to 1 in Puerto Rico, but the one in Vieques was far more amazing. We went with kayaks to the middle of the bay. Around the paddles and under the boats you could see rays of light. And swimming in the water was even more amazing. It's very hard to describe, it's like swimming in the stars and I was really amazed by the amount of light we could produce just shaking our arms and legs. I don't have pictures but you can see some long exposure shots at http://www.biobay.com/. Anyway, who ever gets the chance, go see this!!!! It's in the top 5 of amazing things I've seen or done.

The next day, we managed to rent some scooters (not easy on this island) to go explore some more. Since it was hot, we decided to go for a little swim, but these babies immediately came out to greet us... Since both of us already got stung once, we decided not to repeat just for the adventure of swimming between jellyfish and we continued.

We drove to the complete west of the island over a dirt track between red mangroves. Not so easy with the scooters and especially not since we signed a - I will stay on the tracks - paper. But definitely worth wile as we found what I think has been the clearest water I've seen so far.

Another funny thing about Puerto Rico, are the signs. While they are very ungenerous with placing them on the roads to make sure I wouldn't get lost which I do now, you can find all kind of funny signs. A little collection:

These tsunami signs are new even though the last hurricane passed over 10 years ago. You find them all over, sometimes just saying: if a tsunami comes, get out of here. I don't think the guy on the sign will survive though...

When puertoricans fall on a wet floor they do it with more enthousiasm as we do in Europe, no?

Really makes you wanna continue,no?

Counter

2008-08-26T07:56:00.001-07:00

Ok, just for the record. I just installed this visitor's counter, have been willing to do so since the beginning but lazyness always won. It looks a little sad now, having a blog with so many posts and only 2 hits, but the reason is not my boringness but my lazyness!

La isla del encanto

2008-08-24T17:30:00.000-07:00

Once again, I've changed my natural habitat and once again I'm writing from my hotel room. This time it's a Holiday Inn and it's located in San Juan-Puerto Rico. More precisely, I'm at Isla Verde, which is a neighbourhood next to the old city center with a lot of hotels, appartments, bars and restaurants and -best of all- it has a beach!

So, where am I... La isla del encanto being it's unofficial name, Puerto Rico is officially called the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, making it United States' territory but they have their own government. I still don't completely get the situation but I've been told that "the territory belongs to the States but it isn't part of the States" And we thought Belgium was complicated,huh... For example, Puerto Riqueños can't participate in the American elections but they do get to vote in the pre-elections. Puerto Ricans are US citizens but Puerto Rico is not a state but -lucky them- they can join the US Army and they have been participating in all major US wars, including the middle eastern ones right now. I haven't talked to a lot of local people to know how they feel about the relationship with the States but I hope to do so in the next month.

In the Dominican Republic, most people told me San Juan would be similar to Santo Domingo. I have only been here a few days but they've been lying to me. Most striking is the difference in the traffic. Where are the old , nearly broken down cars, the guaguas, the constant honking, the fighting for lanes, the motorcycles without lights, the holes in the asphalt? Traffic here is soooo quiet and raods are very good... Cars are new, no buses seem to exist al all, people respect the traffic lights. People are being pulled over all the time for speeding even though to me nobody seems to speed.

Next are the fast food chains. I always thought there were a lot in Santo Domingo but here it's crazy.. Every street has a Mc Donalds, Burger King, Taco Bell, Wendy's, Domino's, Pizza Hut and those are only the ones whose existence I knew about because the fastfood chain spectrum appears to be about 10 times wider as I thought it was.

Next, the beer served in the Dominican Republic is usually Presidente while over here it is...yes... Heineken. I'll try to re-educate the island but I'm afraid that I won't be able to erase years of Dutch beerbrainwashing (aka marketing).

What I've seen this weekend outside of San Juan is also different. Puerto Rico is very densily populated and there are good roads everywhere. Even in the villages the houses are nice and everything looks very clean.

Don't get me wrong, it doesn't look like the States, but you can definitely see the difference with the Republic. I'll try to upload some pictures this week.

If all goes well, I should move one of these days to one of the company's appartments where I will live with one of my colleagues. I say, if all goes well, since there has been some discussion on the fact if I should live with a male colleague... Something has been said on "mis morales" Yes, I can almost hear all your -what the fucks- all the way over here but after being a while in these projects, nothing surprises me anymore even though this is the first non-money related issue. Anyway, Puerto Rico shows to be US Commonwealth since human resources in the end proposed that both myself and my colleague would sign a paper stating that nobody forced us to live together. Will let you know what happens.

Saturday was my birthday. I was a bit sad that I couldn't celebrate it in Santo Domingo where I already had a social life but in the end I did have a great party though!! My fabulous and amazing friends threw me a party in Hasselt, and even constructed a surrogate ellen to join them! I got the pictures on the morning of my carribean birthday. I think I could be heard laughing throughout the hotel and they really cheered up my entire day! That also includes all the phone calls, emails and messages I got form everyone! It's nice to know I haven't been forgotten after 7 months of absence.

I don't have pictures of the actual party as there was no actual party but there was a beach, a restaurant, some rhum and some wine so it wasn't that bad either.

Last days in Santo Domingo....

2008-08-17T12:19:00.000-07:00

Yep, next wednesday I'll fly from Santo Domingo To San Juan - Puerto Rico. I'm a bit sad since I've met so many nice people in such a short time. But then again, I'm curious to see what Puerto Rico is like. Most Dominicans are not so positive about it, but I guess I'd never recommend anyone Rotterdam neither so...

I'm now in my last weekend. Last friday I witnessed my first tropical storm. It took us 2 hours to get home after work, traffic was a complete mess because of the heavy rainfall. Once home I turned on the tele and the storm wass being announced on most channels. One of my friends tried to come over to my place but there were absolutely no taxis available so I stayed home alone, praying for the lights not to fall out. My friend told me he didn't have electricity since 8 o'clock and that this was normal when it rains like this... Ok, nobody warned me so I was candle-less and unprepared as usual but luckily at my place the electricity only broke down when I just got to my bed.

I'm cheating with the picture cause this is one I took a month ago, but I guess you get the point.

Saturday was still rainy but I made it to the MovieMax and back. Today, sunday, is sunny and hotter then ever. The only thing I can think about is ice cream, actually so I guess that's my plan for the day. That, and getting started on those suitcases again...

Jarabacoa and learning to drive again

2008-08-05T16:11:00.001-07:00

In my must-enjoy-every-weekend-to-the fullest plan, I had another great weekend in the Dominican Republic... I'm a little behind on writing so all these events took place two weeks ago.

Last weekend, I wanted a change so me and my roomie Will went to Jarabacoa which is in the mountains. Don't know if you guys knew, but I didn't before coming: Pico Duarte is the highest peak in all the Carribean islands, and for that matter, the tallest mountain in all of the Americas outside of the great western cordileras ( Rockies, Andes and their associated systems). (ok, i did a little wikipedia copy-paste here....sue me!)

One of the nice things about this area is the not-so-tropical climate. Instead of the extreme wet heath that always surrounds me in the city, it is a cooler mountain climate. It even gets a little chilly at night.

We visited three different waterfalls; salto de Baiguate, salto de Jimenoa 1& salto de Jimenoa 2. In my humble opinion, Jimenoa 2 is the nicest one! Jimenoa 1 is a tourist attraction, tour buses drop people and it's a really easy walk. We got there early, before the buses arrived, and met a lovely dominican at the entrance who offered to guide us to Jimenoa 2 and thus succeeded. It was a little difficult getting there but as usual that means no Punta Cana people and in this case it ment no people at all besides the three of us. The waterfall is 60 metres high and amazingly beautiful! The sound of the water is so loud and there's a strong wind. But still, swimming really hard, you could get quite close to the waterfall. Apparently, the crew from Jurassic Parc felt the same way as I did about Jimenoa as some footage was shot here.

After, we went horse back riding. The last time I did it was a few years ago in Honduras and I didn't fall of back then so I felt quite secure I wouldn't now either. Normally, a little kid goes with you, sitting behind you, but I told them I knew very well how to drive this baby, named Caramelo around.

Back to the city then. At last, I got over my fear to drive in Santo Domingo and the company finally gave me a car. I already had to give it back, but ok. During my one week drive, I think I've become more Dominican then ever! My dominican friends are even proud of me. Honking is simply a way of communication, I'm constantly insulting the crazy taxi drivers and I even ignore the red lights every now and then. The general belief that we drive on the right and pass the others on the left hasn't gotten to this side of the world yet either. Motorcycles usually don't have lights. The most difficult however, are the big crosspoints, even if you just want to drive straight forward. Imagine a road with 3 driving lanes. 100 meters before the crosspoints, the white lines will dissapear and the road might become a bit wider, resulting in a complete chaos. Everyone is out of lane and honking at each other. At least 5 or 6 cars fit closely together now. Now the battle starts not to have a guy cleaning your front window. They are really sneaky and will just throw the spunge on your window, sometimes from behind. The best, but less appreciated solution, is to turn on your window cleaners. Most traffic lights have a counter, so 5 seconds before the light turns green again, the circus begins. After the crosspoint, logically, everyone needs to fit again into 3 traffic lanes. A clean example of Darwin's theory on survival of the fittest. The survivors, definitely are the guaguas, these are mini vans which always surprise me by the mere fact they are still driving. Next are the taxi's. Same thing just smaller then the guaguas which puts them in second place. Next are the SUV's, me in this case, followed by the carro's, the smaller cars. Ofcourse, this ranking depends of the driver and his nerves as well. Over the week I've gotten quite good at it. But it does sometimes feel like a huge video game, avoiding obstacles (and children are double points, I always say).

Laguna Oviedo

2008-08-01T17:30:00.000-07:00

Ik denk dat ik er nog eens eentje in het Nederlands doe, want veel oefenen kan ik hier niet. Ik probeer het af en toe met mijn collega's maar ze zeggen altijd dat ik boos klink in het Nederlands. Jullie merken misschien dat mijn posts in tegenstelling tot Madrid meer foto's en minder tekst bevatten. Twee redenen: Uno: het is hier gewoonweg mooier en ik maak meer foto's. Dos: Ik heb echt amper tijd om te schrijven. Ik werk belachelijke uren door de week en in het weekend ben ik meestal weg. Alleszins, ik hoop dat het nog wat entertainend blijft voor iedereen.

Een van mijn laatste tripjes was naar de Laguna Oviedo. De laguna ligt in het westen, dicht bij de grens met Haiti en dat kan je echt wel merken. Veel buitenlandse toeristen heb je er niet en we werden dan ook weer gretig aangestaard.

Dit deel van de Dominicaanse staat ervoor bekend dat het er nog warmer is dan in de rest van het land. De vegetatie is er ook anders, droger. Veel grote cactussen, een beetje het cliche-beeld dat ik van Mexico had toen ik 10 was.

Het water van de Laguna is 3 keer zo zout als dat van de zee en de kleur is ook heel speciaal, beetje groenig. Het ligt in een nationaal park, parque Jaragua en de mensen die er wonen zijn momenteel bezig een bezoekerscentrum te bouwen. Maar goed, veel bezoeker hebben hun weg nog niet gevonden dus. Nu, beter voor ons, natuurlijk. Al hadden we weer meteen een stoet kinderen die ons kwamen aankijken.

En ja, hoor: KAJAAA! In de lagune was er weer mangrove en ditmaal konden we er zelfs tussendoor wandelen op flamingo-zoektocht.

Je kan zien op de foto dat de muskieten me weer aant opvreten waren...

Je kan op het meer een paar uur rondvaren want het is best wel groot en heeft enorm veel eilandjes waar je vogels kan spotten....

en cactussen....

en vogels op cactussen

En het beste, toen we een van de eilandjes gingen verkennen, kwamen er een paar enorme leguanen toeristje-kijken! Maffe beesten, echt wel.

Het was zo warm dat we nog even naar het strand wilden voor weer naar de hoofdstad moesten. Onze gids van op de laguna had daar ook wel zin in, en die hebben we dan maar meegenomen. Hij kende iemand in de buurt die zich over de zeeschildpaddeneieren ontfermde. Nadat mama schildpad haar eieren liefdevol in het zand heeft begraven, haalt hij ze eruit omdat ze anders worden gestolen. Tsja, ik had al gezegd dat we dicht bij de grens zaten... Alleszins, hij houdt ze bij in een soort frigoboxen en als ze uitkomen laat hij ze vrij. Immens schattig! Hij vertelde ons dat er die nacht mama schildpadden gingen komen. Die beesten zijn blijkbaar immens goed getimed want hij weet de exacte dag dat ze komen. Nu, ik had enorm veel zin om ernaar te gaan kijken, maar het dwingende oog van mijn project manager...

Het zien van de schildpadden had mijn duikzin alweer enorm aangewakkerd en dus ben ik vorige zondag eindelijk geweest.

Duik 1 was een wreck dive. St Georges, diepste punt op 33m (best wel wat, voor de non-divers, betekent dat je niet ziet waar je heen gaat bij het omlaag gaan). Vooral een heel groot wrak, niet enorm mooi ma wel indrukwekkend. Niet zo lange duik owv de diepte.

Duik 2: Coca wreck. De vissen zwommen wat scheef dus je kan wel raden wat er in die boot werd vervoerd. De orkaan George heeft de boot echter bijna volledig verwoest maar het is een mooi koraal. Enorme kreeft gezien, een soort blue-dotted stingray (een soort rog, kende het exacte woor dniet int nederlands) die ik nog niet had gezien en een enorme baracuda! Soit, niet zo indrukwekkend als in Egypte maar wel zeker de moeite. Ik ben al blij als ik visjes zie.

extended stay?

2008-07-29T08:45:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

Since everyone thinks I'm lying on the beach all day long, I'll give you guys some background on my job.
The project I'm working is an IPTV (digital TV over the internet) project for 2 telecom operators. One in the Dominican Republic (Codetel), the other in Puerto Rico (PRTC). Both belong to the Telmex group, which is the group of Carlos Slim, the richest (or at least one of the richest) guy on the planet. Haven't seen Carlos around yet, unfortunately but if I do, I'll make sure to make friends.

The project is led by the Spanish team, not by the Belgian which explains why I had to work with the team in Madrid for a few monts. Changin my boss from "de joeri' to "el ramon'

My assignment here concerns a monitoring solution for Codetel's broadcast TV channels. I'll try to explain a bit on how we get MTV and CNN from the air to everyone's TV at home.
Codetel has some huge satellites installed in the backgarden from where I work. These satelitte TV signals are processed by decrypters, decoders, encoders and encryptors before we blow them into the world wide web. Anyway, it's a bit a complicated process and lots of things can go wrong.
What we do is following; we take video samples after each main processing point and we display them on some huge screens. When something goes wrong with a signal the operators can perform some actions to locate the failing equipment as fast as possible so everyone can relax and return to watching HBO again without making nasty phone calls to Codetel to ask why Carry all of sudden isn't kissing Mr Big anymore. We also have probes installed so we get numerical measurements on the video quality. My job is to make sure everything works in the end and that everything is configured correctly. That includes making sure no porn is displayed on the big screen, but instead on a small screen in a different room. Untill now, I failed once and unfortunately the room was full of people, it wasn't my fault though, codetel kinda forgot to mention an adult channel to me. Thank god, the audio wasn't turned on at the moment!

My Spanish project manager has asked me if I wanted to stay a month longer on the project which would mean I'd be only coming to Belgium in October. They need someone to give trainng to Codetel and -congratulations to myself- hereby I've become a trainer. Will be funny though explaining all this stuff to a class of Dominicans. After the training I would stay like a week or so longer to give some support and then I'd finally go to Puerto Rico. That will probably be around 15th of August. By then I fear that PRTC is grumpy because I got there later then expected and the race to make everything work as fast as possible will start again.

I guess I even could stay longer on the project but that might mean that I'd need to transfer from alcatel-belgium to alcatel-spain since spain now has to pay belgium for my work.
Complicated stuff... But anyway, I'm glad I can stay a bit longer. I just hope my Belgian management agrees on the one month extension.

By the way, my Belgian number is still working (0477 961429) but keep in mind I'm 6 hours behind you guys.

2008-07-23T08:54:00.000-07:00

My beloved readers!
An update on my life in Santo Domingo:
During the week, I’ve been working way too many hours which immediately explains why I haven’t been posting a lot lately.
But in the work-hard- play-hard philosophy, I’ve been having great weekends and some great week evenings as well.

Alcatel-Lucent was still looking an apartment for me, but, as usual, my moves are faster then the company’s, so I found myself a place. I’m living now with Will, a guy from NY in a very nice apartment in a good neighborhood. (You can see Will on the picture on the top, he's the one on the left) Where the Delta-hotel, even though also supposed to be a “safe” area, still had some extremely young hookers on the street, I have now the feeling I can walk around freely on my street and I feel really happy at my place, even though I don't spend too much time there.

Alejandro is one of the people who contacted me through couchsurf. He took me out once in Santo Domingo to a nice non-latin club which I really appreciated cause the meringue, salsa, bachata, regueton is coming out of my ears as we would say in Dutch.
Besides the fact we love the same music, another great thing about Alex, are his trip-organisation skills. His friends call it Ale-tours.
Two weekends ago I went with Ale-tours to Samana. Samana is a peninsula in the east of the island and also the name of one of the village we went to. We spent Saturday on an island. Ale-tours managed to get us a decent discount on the boat there as – and I quote- we were 7 Dominicans and only 2 foreigners. Well… just the way it works here. I’m already used to the fact that my white skin means paying more then Dominican people.
As usual, hiding myself for the picture :)
The village of Samana has 1 all-in hotel that even has an elevator to the beach!
Three bridges connect the mainland with 3 small islands. Adventurous as we are we took a look to find out where they lead to....
and well… doesn’t seem to very much actually.
The next day we went to Playa Rincon. Supposed to be number 7 in the top 10 beaches of the world, but I think many lists exist. Anyway, it’s number 1 in my personal ranking which in the end should the most important one, right? Ale-tours offered cool drinks, music and good company.

It was quite late when we got back to Santo Domingo because it was just too damn difficult leaving paradise to go back to the hectic city and my daily 9-to-9 job....

My life in Santo Domingo

2008-07-05T10:25:00.000-07:00

Mis queridos!

I'm already in my third week in Santo Domingo so about time I give you an update! I can feel the competitive breath from my more frequently blogging friends! (How fast do you guys write anyway?)

I got some worried comments after my previous posts but I can assure everybody that I'm really having a good time! Besides the not-being-able to move around as used to in Europe I enjoy all of it. I made some great friends already. The dominicans are really funny and open. I'll try to dedicate a post to introduce them.

I'm still living in the hotel Delta which in the end is not the worst either even though I would love-love-love them to change their breakfast buffet. The street is not the nicest either, there is actually quite some prostitution going on on my pavement. But anyway, I'm not so much at "home". Still, the queste for an appartment continues...

Mondays to fridays I'm working in Alameda, Codetel's data and sattelite center which is in the outskirts of Santo Domingo so it always takes us quite some time to struggle our way through traffic. I'm still not used to things I see on the road, but getting there... slowly...

In the office it's mainly...well... cold. In general, Domincans have this thing with airco. Outside it's mostly +30 degrees while inside in general it's just simply freezing. And Codetel's datacenter is probably the worst. We haven't been able to locate the airco yet so my most worn clothing is sadly a fleece sweater.

Work is different from what I used to do in Belgium and Madrid. It's more hands-on. I'm technical project manager which means I'm looking after the end-to-end solution and making sure the thing works in the end.

The best thing about work here, is that we regularly have dinners, parties, and last tuesday they threw us an Argentinean parrillada. (Our meat doesn't stand the comparison with the Argentinean one). My colleagues are all latino's or spanish, except for me and a french guy and they're all good fun. As usual, I'm the baby and same old, same old, not so many girls in the office, so they treat me very well and I'm never without a dance partner!

See me thinking....

But work is not the most interesting part of my life so...

Weekends then: last weekend I went to Isla Saona, an island in the southwest. We drove up to Bayahibe, which is the village from where boats to the island depart. Bayahibe is a scuba diving village and is concentrated around one main bar, here known as colmado. Very small, not the nicest village you can find in la Republica but ok. After this village starts a national park, the park including also the island Saona.

Bayahibe... Where even the cyber cafe's grow on palm trees!

By accident we got ourselves some free cocktails from the all-inlcuded hotel. Hey, if they're stupid enough not to use bracelets and not to close their beach, then it's not my fault, no?

Saona is a popular destination. Everyday, some catamarans dump all the tourists on the beach to fill them up with ron and food. What we did, was rent a private small boat, which is called una lancha, and we went there early in the morning so we had the beach to ourselves. The ron we bought ourselves ofcourse which our captain Jose, appreciated a lot.

With the boat we followed the coastline which is amazingly beauty since it belongs to the national park. According to Jose, the original inhabitants used to live in these caves.

We stopped at piscinas naturales, the water stays very low for about 100 metres from the main land. Wildlife spotted:
Sea stars

CHECK!

Pelicans:

CHECK!

the funny thing about them was that there was always a sea gull following them. To catch some fish, pelicans just kinda drop themselves in the water. It looks very unprofessional if you ask me but hey, they'll know best how to do it and personally haven't been close to catching a fish yet. The sea gull would just comfortably install himself on the head of the pelican to rob him his fish! Hilarious actually! Go sea gull!!! Although on the picture the pelican just threw him off his head.

On our way to the island we passed mangrove! Mangrove are trees that grow in coastal areas in the water. And I'm a true mangrove fan.

This is Saona. You'd expect a Bounty falling of the tree any moment now. When we got there, there was nobody yet on the island except for the bartenders which according to me is a perfect balance between isolation and civilization.
The island as a whole is a national park so no hotels or lodgings are allowed. There are only a few bars on the beaches. The internals are rainsforest. The Dominicans from the bar told me that if I would go in I'd be eaten alive by the mosquitos, so I wisely followed their advice. Especially since by that time my legs were twice as big as usual. Don't know what it is, but the mosquitos just see me as a huge birthday cake.

After a few good hours of sunshine, we were once again surprised by a tropical rainfall which has nothing to do with rain in Belgium. By then I was almost dying of the itch on my legs and Jose told me to go in the sea which I did and which I can recommend everyone whenever in the tropics. It's a weird sensation because the water is really warm and salty while the rain is cold and sweet. And since it rains really strong, it's funny to see how the drops make the sea water splash up.

Well, that's all for today. To all my friends, look out after each other while I'm not there and don't do anthing I wouldn' do!

2008-06-29T14:27:00.000-07:00

After my quick visit in Belgium,l got on a plane to Santo Domingo – Dominican Republic. Having Lady Fortuna on my side,I was sitting in the middle of 80 retired Dominicanos who were heading back from a religious voyage to Tel Aviv and Rome. Impossible to get any sleep at all, but it was good fun and I made friends with them. Dominicans are probably the most talkative people on the planet. The last 2 flight hours were a bit too much as 2 drunk women started arguing and everyone was trying to get as much involved as possible. My solution, headset at max volume...

At the moment I’m staying in a hotel. Hopefully Alcatel will find me an apartment soon, although the people in my hotel are extremely friendly and always joking around with me (especially in the morning when I'm still in sleep-mode) The people I work with are bit a mix of everything; Dominicans, Mexicans, Argentineans, Spanish, etc. Yesterday I tried to learn them the Dutch phrase: De postkoetspoetser poetst de postkoets met postkoetspoets" . Without any luck though. When I tried to translate they even got more confused...

Santo Domingo is quite a big city and full of contrasts. I must say that I am suffering a little cultural shock at the moment. Even though I have the impression that the middle class is quite big there are also a lot of very poor people. It is difficult not to feel constant very guilty when going to my fancy (at least according to Dominican standards) hotel or when getting a taxi or when our driver locks the doors at traffic lights where people try to make a living cleaning windows or selling candy, telephone cards, lunar calendars (who buys this?) or steering wheels (jep).

On the street there are loot of disabled people and childrens asking money. Local people just turn them away, also because of safety reasons and I try to do the same but they immediately spot the hesitation in my eyes and will follow me.. "Senorita, senorita" ... Difficult.

Well, what else, fire weapons are all over. From security, to taxi drivers to just simply the guy who tells you where to park your car. Not as bad as I’ve seen in Honduras but still. Well, I guess it’s the same feeling everyone has when traveling to poor countries and sadly (well, also a bit luckily for me) enough, you get used to this kind of things very quickly.

The most difficult and frustrating part for me, is not being able to move around as I’m used to in Europe. Public transport is almost non-existing so I have to go by foot (too hot! too dangerous after 9 PM), by car (if someone picks me up, I’m not driving here) or by taxi (have to call one, caching one on the street is too dangerous). But anyways, I’m getting used to it and mostly one of my friends or colleagues comes to pick me up.

Traffic then:Fortunately, Alcatel has rented us some cars but as said, at the moment I’m not driving them. Traffic is simply insane. Sometimes I wonder if they don’t value their lives as highly as I do mine. Traffic lights and signs are merely a “suggestion”, not so much a “must-follow”. Besides, they simply lack patience. If they have to wait for 5 seconds they’ll honk you ‘till you move.

Before you all think I am very unhappy here: I am not!! The positives are greater then the negatives. People are simply too nice to be true. Always smiling, very helpful, and with the funniest accent that I’ve heard in Spanish so far. I get a lot of comments on the fact that my Spanish accent is very, ehm, Spanish and without too many Latin influences.

Santo Domingo has a colonial zone which is nice, although not the best preserved. In this zone we find: the first cathedral in the Americas, the first hospital in the Americas, the first paved road in the Americas, the house of Cristobal Colon’s brother and besides that tons of bars and clubs.Unfortunately, about one year ago the president imposed a law closing all bars and clubs at 3 AM in weekends, midnight in during weekdays. There are some that stay open longer but in general I have the impression that the law is obeyed. Haven’t found any underground bars yet but will let you know if I do. (from what I’ve heard so far, they don’t exist)

Music then, as expected I have the choice between; salsa, merengue, regueton, bachata, and more regueton. But I also made some friends that actually took me to a place that had very decent no-nonsense minimal. By the way I met Miss Uruguay there but no special attention to her as most women here are as gorgeous as her. Guys, get over here!!!

I also made my first trip to the beach! Sand is white, palm trees on the beach, little to no people and warm weather. Knokke, eat your heart out![

Meet Marcello, the local project manager. Italian-Argentinean and (understatement coming up)quite a figure. We call him "el Padrino" to give you an idea. But, hey, all of us got to the beach in the afternoon while Marcello got there in the morning. We arrived carrying nothing but a towel while he was fully equiped to make us all cuba libres.

La Belgique, c’est magnifique

2008-06-24T16:40:00.000-07:00

Afscheid nemen is niet mijn ding en bovendien heb ik leuke maanden gehad in Madrid dus spectaculair leuk was het vertrek in Madrid niet echt…

Maar die paar dagen in België hebben me wel enorm goed gedaan. Het was een supertof weekend! Bedankt aan iedereen die een beetje tijd voor mij heeft kunnen maken en zeker aan diegenen die daar dan nog eens half of gans het land zijn voor doorkruist. Het was echt leuk iedereen terug te zien!

En dan moest Sam nog blootvoets naar huis.....

Hoewel ik dacht dat mijn lezersaantal intussen tot 4 was terugvallen, heb ik van veel mensen gehoord dat ze deze blog wel degelijk volgen! Heel leuk om te horen, dat motiveert mij om regelmatig te schrijven!

Belgie - nog eens proberen

2008-06-05T02:26:00.000-07:00

En ja,
uiteindelijk laten ze me hier toch gaan! Er komt een einde aan mijn Madrileens avontuur en ik begin aan mijn Caribisch verhaal...
Ertussen neem ik een paar dagen vakantie in Belgie. Ik kom donderdag 12 juni aan en blijf tot dinsdag of woensdag.

Iedereen die me wil tonen hoe een Belgisch cafe er alweer uitziet, laat me dat maar weten zodat we zaterdagavond afspreken (in the capital of Limburg, weliswaar). Mijn Belgisch gsm-nr werkt nog steeds (0486 10 56 16).

Barcelona

2008-06-01T06:36:00.000-07:00

Zoals gezegd in de San Sebastian post, ben ik naar Barcelona geweest. Voor zij die het niet weten, 4 jaar geleden heb ik 1 jaar in Barcelona gewoond en gestudeerd. Ik heb nog steeds veel vrienden ginder en probeer 1 of 2 keer per jaar terug te gaan.

Ja, Africa dus. Mijn partner in crime en steeds zeer goede host. Ik denk dat ze over de jaren met een 30-tal verschillende nationaliteiten heeft samengewoond. (beetje noodgedwongen, de huurprijzen in Barcelona zijn superhoog)

Haar overkomen steeds de grappigste dingen uit verstrooidheid, we noemen het "Africadas". Ze heeft ooit een vlucht naar Belgie gemist wegens vervallen paspoort, zij en ik zijn eens 12 uur onderweg geweest naar haar dorp (normaal 3 u op de bus), ik, en zij zelf ook niet, kan het aantal GSM's en jassen dat ze verloren heeft op cafe niet meer tellen.

Yacine. Hem moet je eigenlijk kennen om te weten hoe geschift hij eigenlijk wel niet is. Is van Frankrijk maar is terug in Barcelona gaan wonen.Als je met Yacine in een stad rondloopt, raak je hem steeds kwijt omdat hij het niet kan laten overal op te klimmen. Uitgaan is ook altijd een beetje speciaal, hij had altijd wel een of andere accesoire waardoor iedereen ons bekeek. Iemand met wie je je nooit verveelt (maar toegegeven, hij is ook een beetje vermoeiend)

Nacho. Woonde vroeger bij Africa. Hij is ook van Monzon. Leuke jongen, goed uitgaansgezelschap, goede kok. Hij was een beetje mijn prive-leraar Spaans 4 jaar terug.

Laura en Oscar. Ook van Monzon. Laura woont nu bij Africa. Heb heb ik leren kennen tijdens 1 van mijn bezoekje. Zijn super-super-grappig.

Geloof niks van de hardnekkige berichtgeving dat Catalunia zonder water zit voor de zomer, want het weekend dat ik er was, heeft het bijna non-stop geregend. Vrijdag hebben we ons er nog door gewaagd om te gaan eten en nog wat mensen op te zoeken, maar zaterdag was het echt ongelooflijk regenweer.

Nacho, aka el rey de la paella heeft dan maar voor ons allemaal (10 man) gekookt (3 keer raden wat). Supergezellige namiddag/avond. We zijn de ganse dag allemaal samen geweest, zitten babbelen en met de Wii gespeeld (ik ben verdorie goed in mariokart btw).

Ik zat er een beetje mee dat ik niet buiten kon rondlopen, maar het was gewoon echt superleuk om zoveel tijd met mijn vrienden door te brengen.

Ook 's avonds bleef het ma regenen maar uitgaan moesten we toch! We hadden geen paraplu's maar in letterlijk elke vuilbak vonden we wel een gedumpt exemplaar zodat we zelfs bijpassende kleurtjes en motiefjes konden kiezen.

Of hoe je ook lol in de regen kan hebben....

En jaaaa, zondag regende het niet meer!!! Ganse dag rondgecrosst om toch nog mijn favoriete plekjes te kunnen zien.

Ik heb nu even geluk dat ik in het Nederlands schrijf en dat de kennis van het Nederlands van de Madrilenen beneden alle peil is, maar Barcelona blijft voor mij toch een veel mooiere stad.

In het algemeen verlopen mijn kennismakingen in Madrid als volgt:

Vraag 1: Hoe lang ben je al in Madrid

Antwoord 1: 1/2/3/4 maanden (naargelang de datum waarop de vraag werd gesteld)

Vraag 2: Waar heb je dan Spaans geleerd?
Antwoord 2: Ik heb een tijdje in Barcelona gewoond

Vraag 3: En welke stad vind je het leukste???Barcelona of Madrid

Antwoord 3: ehm... Moeilijk te vergelijken....

Madrid heeft misschien een iets beter nachtleven en de Catalanen zijn ongetwijfeld veel moeilijkere mensen dan Madrilenen en in Barcelona kan je soms gek worden van alle toeristen. Maar Barcelona is zooo mooi en heeft een heel leuke vibe

Madrid daarentegen heeft een echte cafe-cultuur. Alle bars zitten altijd vol en het is altijd supergezellig, ook in de lelijke, overbelichte typische Spaanse cafe's waar ze niet eens muziek hebben opstaan. De sfeer op zondagnamiddag in La Latina bvb is echt ongelooflijk. Iedereen spreekt af met vrienden tegen 5 uur en dan begint het feest weer opnieuw, maar gewoon vroeger dan op zaterdag.

Dit is iets heel grappigs. Op het plein voor de kathedraal komen er regelmatig oudjes samen en dan dansen ze een soort volkdans in een kringetje. Alle jassen en sjakosjen worden in het midden gelegd wat een grappig zicht is. Ik heb de bedoeling nooit helemaal begrepen, maar het is echt immens schattig om te zien, ook al komt er niet veel choreografie bij kijken.

Lunch op het strand...

Wat echt super is tegenwoordig in Barcelona, zijn deze fietsen. Het is hetzelfde systeem als in Parijs en ook in San Sebastian hebben ze het ingevoerd. (Madrid laat nog even op zich wachten).
Over de hele stad vind je fietsenparkings en daar kan je dan een fiets nemen en die in eender welke parking opnieuw stallen. En het heeft echt enorm veel succes. Toen ik in Barcelona woonde, had ik ook een fiets. Maar het was eigenlijk levensgevaarlijk af en toe. Maar nu hebben ze dus wel zwaar geinvesteerd in fietspaden en echt iedereen rijdt op de bici's rond.

Yacine met zijn gebroken voet doet het dan zo... Veel rusten, zei de dokter.. tsja..

2008-05-23T10:08:00.000-07:00

Ja, deze kan ik jullie echt niet onthouden. Typisch voorbeeld Madrileense stijl: Deze auto staat dubbel geparkeerd, maar op het papier staat geschreven: Ik ben in bar "El Derviche" en dan het adres.

Belgie 2

2008-05-20T08:46:00.000-07:00

Ok, wat zei ik... Ik ken Spanje intussen een beetje, huh.

Een kleine rondvraag leert me dat nog niet alle servers en alle apparaatjes die ik ginder mag gaan configureren en testen, door de douane in Miami zijn geraakt... Probleem is dat een deel vanuit Spanje, een deel vanuit Canada, een deel vanuit Frankrijk reist waardoor de USA er natuurlijk een gigantisch complot in ziet, hehe.

Eens alle machientjes in Santo Domingo zijn, moeten die ook nog geinstalleerd worden door een lokaal team, dus dat zal ook wel eventjes duren...

Soit, ik denk dat mijn verblijf in Madrid er een of twee weekjes door wordt verlengd...

En eerlijk is eerlijk, dit ligt niet aan Spanje!

Belgie...

2008-05-19T01:52:00.001-07:00

Ik heb eindelijk iets meer duidelijkheid over wanneer ik weer even in Belgie ga passeren alvorens naar de Dominicaanse Republiek te verkassen. Ik kom (waarschijnlijk, ik ken Spanje intussen een "beetje") 29 mei naar Belgie, blijf dan een weekendje en vertrek dan rond de 4e juni voor een paar maanden naar de Dominicaanse Republiek/Puerto Rico.
Bericht aan al mijn vrienden dus, 31 mei vrijhouden en me komen opzoeken in Hasselt!

Donostia

2008-05-13T10:57:00.000-07:00

Since my most loyal reader (si, afri, me refiero a ti) doesn't quite control dutch very well, I'll give the English language another try!

What's happening some 1500 kms below Belgium? Well, one thing I simply love about Spain are the holidays. What's special about them.. well, ehm, they just have more of them! Anyway, I had 1st and 2nd of May off and went with a friend to Donostia aka San Sebastian. What's there to know about San Sebastian. It's a city in the Basque country. San Sebastian is the Spanish name, Donostia is the Basque name and Basque in Basque is actually Euskara (everyone still with me?)

I took the night bus from Madrid to Donostia. I think I'm actually españolizando because where I used to not be able to sleep anywhere else then a bed, I was already sleeping before we left Madrid.

And who did I find in Donostia, yep, my favourite Spanish friend, Africa and another friend, Puertolis.

It was a bit hard finding a hostal beforehand, but with a little help from Luis, I found the cutest lady, called Barbi (for real) who rented 2 rooms in her appartment, which looked exactly as we were expecting from Barbi. If anyone ever needs a hostel in San Sebastian, please, ask me her number! She's too cute to be true!

San Sebastian was really fun, it was very sunny, so a lot of people were on the street and on the beaches. San Sebastian is a popular beach and surf spot. We spent most of our time walking around the city, eating ice creams, taking pictures, lying on the beach, going to the typical pintxos bars and all those exhausting things that you're obliged to do on holiday.

The thing about Euskara is that it doesn't ressemble any language at all. In the beginning I thought the city was swarming with russians but taking a closer look they did have a more coloured skin then most russians do so...

The city is on both sides bounded by mountains. On the right side there is one with a castle, a huge Jesus statue, a steep climb and, luckily for us, a bar halfway.

On the other side, the mountain is even steeper, but it has a funicular to go up, amazing views, a tower (promising "La vista mas bonita del mundo") and a funfair on the top! Wihi!

The mystery river isn't as mysterious as they pretend it to be though!

Having fun at the blowing holes! (and having troubles growing up some might say as we spent lots of time here)

With my friends! Seeing Africa in Donostia made realize I didn't even visit Barcelona yet during the last months, so when I got back to Madrid I immediately booked a ticket to Barcelona to see all of my friends there... (see next post!)

2008-04-28T11:42:00.000-07:00

Okok, weer een kleine maand radiostilte. Maar ik heb besloten me niet meer te verontschuldigen voor mijn niet-regelmatig bloggedrag. Ik verkies nu eenmaal kwaliteit over kwantiteit. Uhm...

Ja, wat heb ik de laatste maand uitgestoken. Ik ben een weekje naar de Caraiben geweest en NEE dat was bijlange niet zo leuk als het klinkt. Wegens een scherp staaltje van Spaans project management had ik mijn vlucht maar een paar dagen op voorhand geboekt wat betekende dat ik ipv een directe vlucht van 8 uur, over Atlanta moest vliegen. Tel daar de vertragingen van Delta Airlines, de gemiste connectie en de geweldige Amerikaanse douane bij op en dan ben je bijna een etmaal onderweg. Maandagnacht aankomen, dindsdag ganse dag bij klant gezeten, 's avonds San Juan wat verkend samen met project manager (jep, die vd vluchten) en een lokale ALU kracht. Ongelukkig genoeg waren er die dag net 3 enorme cruiseboten geland met als gevolg dat er veel Nicole en Hugo adepten rondliepen. Wel eens grappig, maar ik weet niet of ik er maanden aan een stuk mee gaan kunnen lachen.

Woensdag weer bij de klant en 's avonds een vlucht naar Santo Domingo. Donderdag bij onze tweede klant.

's Avonds uit gaan eten met de hele lokale IPTV ploeg. Nuja, lokaal... Reken op Mexicanen, Argentijen, Venezuelanen, een paar Dominicanen, een paar Spanjaarden en tenslotte ook nog your's truly die enorm haar best moest doen om tussen alle verschillende accenten en taalgebruiken een samenhangend verhaal te ontwaren. Nuja, hard gelachen hebben we alleszins.

Vrijdag tenslotte laatste vergadering in recordtempo afgehandeld want s namiddags vertrok ik alweer, jep, richting luchthaven, ditmaal voor een vlucht over NY. Ik had nu eenmaal geen zin om een weekend in Madrid te missen en ik ga nog lang genoeg in Santo Domingo zitten, vandaar.

Eerste indrukken: Wel beide klanten (Codetel als PRTC) waar ik mee werk, zijn echt niet te vergelijken met de klanten waarmee ik in Europa heb gewerkt. Echt supervriendelijk en open (en opgelucht eens ze doorhadden dat ik Spaans kon). Ze vroegen me wel dood, maar op een fijne manier. Niet zoals de Russen die gewoon willen tonen wat ze weten. Ze wilden me zelfs mee uit nemen in het weekend. Zie het werken on-site bijgevolg wel zitten. Het was wel een beetje raar ganse workshops in het Spaans te moeten geven, maar het viel veel beter mee dan ik had gedacht.

Het lokale team klaagde een beetje over zware werkuren en veel weekendwerk en dergelijke waar dees natuurlijk niet meteen boodschap aan heeft. Langs de andere kant, denk ik eigenlijk ook wel dat ze niet meteen heel efficient werken aangezien iedereen een beetje van overal komt en het team nog niet helemaal op dreef is. Afwachten...

Verkeer in Santo Domingo is een hel. Ik weet niet of ik het aandurf er zelf te rijden. Alcatel gaat ons wel wat auto's voorzien, maar ik denk dat ik een mee-liftster ga worden. Ik vond Madrid al lastig.

In Puerto Rico spreken ze geen "r" uit, maar ze vervangen die vlotjes door een "l". Klinkt keibelachelijk, maar ik vind het super, want in tegenstelling tot de rollende "r", heb ik de "l" volledig onder de knie!

Back in Madrid dan. Ik ga even een kleine bloemlezing brengen aan het bezoek dat ik over de laatste maanden heb mogen ontvangen:

Numero Uno: Sam Claeys, aka Superman Claeys aka Uncle Sam aka Schmam (ok, enkel omdat hij het niet nalaat mij Schmellen te noemen.) Sam en ik kennen elkaar sinds het eind van 1e kan. We hebben 5 jaar samen gestudeerd en ik denk ongeveer 4 hoorcolleges samen doorgebracht. Sinds we het communicatieprobleem (Hasselt vs Kortrijk) hebben opgelost, zijn we goede vriendjes.

Sam en Ellen gaan op cafe....

Ma How Maar....

Spontane Sam maakt prompt vrienden

Sam toont me het resultaat van zijn duiklessen van de afgelopen maanden...

...en zijn vislessen

Sam voert de beestjes in het park

Maar blijft - als een echte professional wel goed oefenen intussen

Sam verstaat ook de edele kunst van het jumpen wat onderstaande video bewijst.

En als een echte junp-missionaris, laat hij het ook niet na 1 van mijn vrienden in te wijden (die er echter compleet niks van snapt.

Ik heb ook nog een filmpje Sam jumpt in de metro, Sam jumpt op straat en Sam maakt ruzie. Maar die zijn te zwaar voor de upload

Bezoek numero dos: Leen en Babs! Twee van mijn oudste, beste en Hasseltste vriendinnen!

En ja, het sujet/spelbreker op de achtergrond, is ook 1 van mijn vrienden.

Kleine illustratie van het soort avond dat het was...

Ik zie Babs echt doodgraag en ik toon het haar graag (en vaak)!!!

En ook Leen vangt mijn aandacht!!! Hopla!

Op de achtergrond trouwens het Palacio de Cristales, een van mijn favoriete gebouwen in Madrid. Het staat in El Retiro

Numero tres (en cuatro eigenlijk meteen) . Mijn zus Caroline! Tegelijk met haar had ik 2 Engelse couchsurfers over de vloer. Joe en Alex zijn van Manchester en bijgevolg echte muziek/clubfreaks. Wat mij dan weer overtuigde om hen te hosten.

Ik heb hen mee uit genomen naar Low Club, Rex the Dog gaf acte de presence. 't Was een hele leuke avond, heb me echt te pletter gedanst. Rex was wel op-en-top de showdog aan't uithangen. Draaien met laptop en zonnebril in een donkere club is geen goeie combinatie, Rex! Maar het moet gezegd, het publiek hield er nog van ook! Er werden hem continu berichtjes op het GSM schermpje getoond enzo. Ook al was de set niet altijd even proper en hou ik niet meteen van laptop DJ's, er was zoveel sfeer dat ik me er niet eens aan stoorde

Mijn Manchesteriaanse (eigenlijk Boltoniaanse) gasten.

Toledo and Semana Santa

2008-03-25T12:33:00.000-07:00

Upon several requests, I'll do a post in english. But I must warn the non-dutch speaking people that i'm funnier in dutch as in English! (and spanish for that matter, although the accent helps)

About my last week: As most of you know (except my heathen friends) it was Eastern! In Spain la Semana Santa is even more important as Christmas! As a result I had the entire week of. Besides my very busy schedule of going out, shopping, drinking coffee with my friends, lying around in the park, and sleeeeeping late, I also took the opportunity to visit Toledo.

Toledo is a small town, some 70 kilometres from Madrid. It's a UNESCO world heritage site and famous for its production of steel and especially swords. Being the genuine knights-lover as you all know (well...at least i love Monthy Python's Holy Grail), medieval towns and swords are a real treat for me! I might have to add that Toledo is also famous for its pastelerias and marzipan which ofcourse had no association whatsoever with my visit!

This is (if I remember correctly) one of the monasteries. On the side are hanging handcuffs and chains. I overheard someone saying they used to hang the slaves up there... But frankly, I think that was some Spanish sense of dramatization. On the other hand, I don't have a clue what cuffs are doing hanging on the side a monastery, but hey. Wikipedia is not telling me anything immediately but I guess all can be found somewhere on the world wide web for those interested in chains and monks! Feel free to post a comment.

The proof that I actually went, and didn't just google some pics!

This last video has no cultural or educational value whatsoever, but I just think it's hilarious. Traffic lights in Toledo, rotate your PC clockwise and turn on the sound.

Since I had the entire week of, I also decided to do some truth-verification on the supposably very religious south in Spain and on how they struggle their way through Semana Santa. For this educational quest I gathered up with a Mexican, Daniel, and an American, Nic, and we got ourselves some adequate transport.

Unfortunately (!), I was the only one with a european license and therefore it was my job driving this cooper, which we baptized Tobias, from Madrid to Andalucia. A real pleasure, but also quite different from driving in Belgium. Let's say the Spanish have a specific understanding of driving assertively, espcially the taxi drivers.

Anyway, nobody got hurt in the trip, including Tobias.

Also unfortunately, the Spanish also have a different interpretation of laboral efficiency (hope not too many of them are reading this) and therefore it took us 2 (two!!) hours to get the car from the rental office, which made us decide to spend the night around Cordoba instead of driving all the way south to Cadiz as planned.

Not such a bad decision, actually. Cordoba is an Andalucian town with Roman roots. Nice, sunny, lots of bars, my kind of place, quoi.

The first thing that struck us, was the accent. My Spanish is not so bad and Daniel's for sure must be ok, but it's really a challenge understanding every word from the Andaluces.

Coming back to our quest for the Holy Truth, we were really amazed by the way the people in the south celebrate the semana santa. It's huge all over in Spain anyway, but in Andalucia they just add an extra dimension to it. Starting on wednesday, lasting till Sunday, the Spanish have processions in the street, carrying around huge devotional sculptures ("Pasos") , symbolizing Jesus, Maria, ...

These processions are really a big event, people make reservations to get a seat close to the cathedral and tons of people show up. During the day people hand out program books to make sure not to miss anything. These program books show place ant time of every procession, the coulour of the tunics (see below) and even give a rating what "not to miss". Made me think of our music festivals, but then without the mud, drunk belgians, and euhmm, the music. National and local television is filming everything and are constantly broadcasting the highlights of the day before.

Well, the strangest thing is, the people who carry around these devotional sculptures, wear tunics ("capirotes") . The exact meaning of this is still not clear to me, but in medieval times penitents would wear them to mask their identity. The Ku Klux Clan (good catholics as they are) used these robes a the basis for their traditional uniform. Bit of an ironical act, I guess.

Anyway, these robes, because of that exact resemblance, have the same effect on all foreign people... WHAT THE F... Since I already saw them in Barcelona, I was prepared. Nic however, was totally freaking out!

We didn't stay the night in Cordoba but in a nearby village. And also overthere the processions were very lively and very present. It's kinda funny because everybody is on the street or in a bar, drinking and eating and talking loudly and enjoying the show. Beats sitting in church,no? Little children are just dragged along, they'll sleep anywhere, no?

At about 3 AM the last procession passed our bar. The colors of the tunics in each procession differ, depending on the city, the day and the type of procession. In this last one, everybody went completely in black. Given the hour and the fact everybody awaits the processions in a bar, you can imagine the atmosphere. But still, when the procession passed, all lights in the bars were turned off and everybody kept silent for about 10 minutes!

After a relaxing night in Tobias (yep all hotels booked during semana santa) we drove south to Cadiz. Cadiz is a peninsula, only connected to the mainland by a narrow channel. Cadiz was the principal port for the Spanish Navy. It's the city where Columbus started some of his travels. The old centre consists mainly of narrow alleys and in one of them we found a hostel that despite our expectations, still had 3 beds available, jippie! We were actually counting on converting Tobias into a hostel for the entire trip.

I must say that I really had a great time in Cadiz. The old centre is very pretty, Cadiz has some nice beaches, a lot of palmtrees and parks, it was sunny, we had good fun... Guess the pictures give a good idea.

Me and the mayor!

Cider is hot in Andalucia!

And they know Kuifje/Tintin!

Our last day we took our places in Tobias and headed north, visiting some smaller villages in the province of Cadiz.

Well same old, same old, nice beaches, palmtrees, lots of terraces and bars.

Our last stop was Jerez de La Frontera, an absolutlely must-see for everybody visiting Cadiz. A shame we only discovered it on our last night! The city is famous for it's wines and bodegas. We should have been better informed before visiting the province.... Well, coulda, woulda, shoulda...

The Subs - Yelmo

2008-03-13T14:04:00.000-07:00

Aangezien ik weer te druk bezig was met dingen te beleven waarvan ik dacht, ah ja, goed voor de blog, is het weer een paar weken geleden sinds mijn laatste post. Tsja, ik denk gewoon dat zolang ik er niet voor betaald word, dat ik niet zo n betrouwbare blogger ben... Misschien iets om in mijn job description op te nemen? (moest mijn baas dit lezen..)

Qua nachtleven is Madrid echt wel vershillend van Belgie. Beide hebben hun charmes, maar ik moet zeggen dat ik de Belgische muziekscene wel mis. Hier zijn immens veel nachtclubs, maar de muziek is vaak spaans of (gruwel) reggueton... Maar intussen heb ik er wel eentje gevonden waar ze tegen de gangbare gedachte in, toch beseffen dat "elektronische muziek" niet gelijk staat met "trance" . Over de laatste weken: Cassius, Tomas Anderson, Uffie ... En (trotse petit belge) The Subs!

Enkele sfeer-foto's!

The Subs hebben echt n leuke set gegeven! t was maar semi-live, maar goed. Hun enthousiasme en de-ongetwijfelde-gemeende-doch-door-de-spanjaarden-niet-ten-volle-gewaardeerde "dankuwel" maakten het echt af! Tuurlijk wist iedereen rondom mij wel snel dat die "dankuwel" gewoon gracias was.

Belangrijkste observaties: Spanjaarden worden makkelijk wild, das een feit. Zodra een van the subs zijn arm in de lucht stak, deed iedereen mee. Er wordt sowieso altijd fel gedanst. Tweede feit is dat ze ook gewoon niet zo kieskeurig zijn als centraal- en noord-europa als het op muziek aankomt. Het eerste waar ik achter zoek is een line-up en hier snappen ze het nut ervan niet eens. Volgens mij weet de helft van de mensen niet wie er voor hen aan't draaien is. Maar sfeer was er alleszins!

Wegens een slechte planning en mijn typische ik-wil-alles-tegelijk-karakter, ben ik de dag erop om 8.30 opgestaan (ik laat in het midden hoeveel uur ik geslapen heb) en ik ben voor het eerst naar de sierra van madrid geweest, met name naar yelmo. Iets wat al even op mijn to-do-lijstje stond.

Dit was het idee van 1 van mijn vrienden die ik via couchsurf heb leren kennen. We waren met groep van 11, vooral buitenlanders. k Moet zeggen dat ik mezelf als belg een beetje saai vond tussen een paar iranezen, amerikanen en een japanse. Nuja, een anarchistisch land spreekt ook wel een beetje tot de verbeelding...

Ik vind het wel leuk dat er in Madrid zo een grote en actieve internationale gemeenschap is. Ok, het begin van elk gesprek begint me wel wat te vervelen aangezien je steeds weer even "je verhaal" moet vertellen. Maar daarna komen de interessante en grappige verhalen en het is ook wel lachen, al die verschillende accenten door elkaar.

Alleszins, het was een superleuke dag. Het is er enorm mooi. De hike was iets zwaarder dan ik had verwacht, doodlopende paden, veel klauteren, en het was ook immens warm! Men was onder de indruk dat ik het volhield na mijn feestje en ik was zelf ook wel trots. (de dag erachter was wel iets minder actief en tot mijn schaamte had ik tot dinsdag (!) spierpijn)

Maak het mee, Entry twee!

2008-02-17T23:52:00.000-08:00

Hallo iedereen! Net toen iedereen dacht dat mijn blog een eendagsvlieg zou zijn, bij deze mijn 2e post! Tsja, de mannen van Telefonica en Jazztel deden er nogal lang over om me online te krijgen...
First things first,Zoals beloofd in vorige post, en op algemeen verzoek, een paar foto’tjes van mijn appartement

Dit is de living. Indien er iemand nu een vaag deja-vu-gevoel bekruipt, ja, hoor, Ikea bestaat ook in Madrid!
De TV met slechte Spaanse TV heb ik er zomaar bijgekregen!! Groot was echter mijn droefheid toen bleek dat Un Paso Adelante (een soort Spaanse Fame, maar dan met de zus van Penelope Cruz) is afgevoerd. Damn, ik was waarschijnlijk de enige fan! Gelukkig zijn er nog altijd Los Simpsons! Tip voor mensen die Spaans leren, gedubde series zijn veel makkelijker. Homer (hier wel Ghómer uitgesproken)heeft mij destijds serieus heeft geholpen! Groundskeeper Willy spreekt hier Spaans met een Schots accent! Goddelijk!

De Mysterieuze Trap is niet zoals die van het VRT nieuws, maar leidt naar een soort logeerkamer. Groot, weinig licht, 4 bedden, met andere woorden, ben aan’t overwegen een hostel te beginnen.

The main bedroom...

En last but not least, mijn nieuwe buren, Juan Carlos I en Felipe, principe de Asturias, in het gebouw links en erlangs in de Catedral de la Almudena een of andere bisschop met vriendjes bij de Spaanse Electrabel rechts. Mijn nieuwe adres is Calle de Segovia 51, 4a derecho, 28005, Madrid (jep, VIER verdiepen en geen lift) dus laat die brieven, kaartjes, dankbetuigingen, Humo’s, New Yorkers, Cote d’Or en Duveltjes maar komen!

Tsja, can’t blame a girl for trying..

Buiten in mijn appartement zitten en het obligate dagelijkse uitstapje naar kantoor ben ik ook nog op bezoek geweest bij mijn vrienden in Monzón. Ik heb tijdens mijn Erasmusjaar in Barcelona een paar mensen uit dit dorp leren kennen en via-via, denk ik dat ik intussen meer mensen ken uit Monzón dan uit Barcelona! Voor degenen die haar al ontmoet hebben, mijn beste Spaanse vriendin (en ik ben haar guiri favorita), Africa is van ginder. En ja, dat is haar echte naam..
Monzón dus, voor hen die het niet kennen (!!) is een dorp in Huesca, Aragón. Een uurtje ten Noorden van Zaragoza, de poort van de Pyreneeen volgens de locals.

Hoewel ik er al enkele keren ben geweest, ben ik er nooit in geslaagd om de talrijke toeristisch attracties te bezichtigen. Zonde, en daarom hebben Africa en ik ditmaal besloten iemand te kidnappen carjacken op hetzelfde moment! Het lijkt een piraat en dat is het ook! Meer daarover seffes!

Toeristische attractie numero uno, El Castillo Templario, was al gesloten. Oeps, ja, dat komt ervan als je eerst iets gaat drinken om bij te babbelen…
Attractie numero dos is het La Ermita de la Virgen de la Alegría waar ik eigenlijk niet meteen spectaculaire foto's van heb, maar goed.

En tenslotte, een of ander kruis, waarvan ik de betekenis al ben vergeten... Maar het heeft iets te maken met Jaime I (google die kerel! belangrijke vent en hij heeft in Monzon gewoond)

Maar dus, de vraag die op ieders lippen ligt: Off all people, waarom zou ik godsnaam een piraat kidnappen? Niet meteen een van mijn gewoontes,he?

De uitleg is jammer genoeg niet echt spannend, het was dat weekend carnaval en dat wordt in Spanje niet licht opgevat. Afri en haar vrienden wilden zich een piratenkostuum aanmeten. Vooral een idee van de mannelijke vrienden, ze zagen de Jack Sparrow maquillage wel zitten volgens mij. Alleszins, ook voor mij was er geen ontkomen aan! Let er vooral op dat elke jongen meer schmink opheeft dan Afri en ik samen en wij hebben ook ons best gedaan! De jongens hadden dan ook afgesproken om zich samen om te kleden en te maquilleren! Flashback. Deed ik ook op mijn 16e en het resultaat was volgens mij gelijkaardig in overkill.

Alleszins, het was een leuke avond, heb alle goeie cafe’s van Monzon gezien en moest toegeven dat het er meer waren dan ik dacht (en het werd dus ook later/vroeger dan bedoeld en het is dan ook geeindigd met een almuerzo)

Volgende dag hebben Afri en ik onszelf (lees, Afri’s zusje ons) uit bed gesleurd om toch naar het kasteel te gaan voordat ik weer naar Madrid ging. Maar what do you know, het kasteel van Monzon sluit tijdens de siesta! Het meisje aan de inkom heeft ons even laten piepen, maar echt binnen ben ik dus nog steeds niet geraakt! Ach ja, elke keer een beetje dichter, en dichter en dichter, zeker?

Intussen is mijn weekendje Monzon alweer een paar weken geleden... Ik doe mijn best om de volgende entry sneller te maken!

ellen

Bueno, Madrid, vamonos!

2008-01-27T11:07:00.000-08:00

Hola a todos!

Na een redelijk (understatement) hectische laatste week in Belgie, ben ik dan toch in Madrid terecht gekomen (en nog wel in business class, dankuwel madam van de checkin om scheef te lezen).

Voor hen die een beetje uit de lucht vallen, plan is dat ik hier een drie- tot viertal maanden woon (en ja, ook een beetje werk) en dan richting Puerto Rico/Dominicaanse Republiek vertrek voor nog eens een paar maand. Tsja, er zijn ergere dingen in het leven... En bij deze ook mijn excuses aan hen die net uit de lucht zijn gevallen, ik had zelfs geen tijd voor een deftig afscheidsfeestje.

Maar goed, nu dus Madrid!

Sinds dinsdagochtend werk ik in het gebouw van Alcatel-Lucent Madrid. In tegenstelling tot de kantoren in Antwerpen, waar echt allerlei nationaliteiten samenhokken in love peace en harmony, heb ik hier echt alleen nog maar Spanjolen gezien. De Pablo's, Pepe's, Ramons en Manuels vliegen me rond de oren dus. Vreemd, Madrid is volgens mij wel een populaire expatbestemming. Soit, bijgevolg is de voertaal Spaans, de werkdag begint tegen half10 en 1e activiteit van de dag is een koffie met de collega's. Maar eerlijk-is-eerlijk, er wordt 's avonds ook wat langer wordt gewerkt.

Dit weekend eindelijk een keer de kans gehad om de stad wat te verkennen. Ook hier bijt global warming keihard van zich af en het was gewoon schitterend weer en het Madrileense wildlife liet zich bewonderen (zie foto)

Zaterdagavond heb ik doorgebracht met wat mensen van CouchSurf. Voor de mensen die het niet kennen: het idee is dat je je zetel beschikbaar maakt voor mensen die aan het rondtrekken zijn. Maar je kan bvb ook zeggen dat ja geen zetel hebt, maar wel een koffie wilt gaan drinken of met hen uitgaan ofzo. Het leuke ervan is dat het allemaal mensen zijn die veel hebben gereisd en open staan voor alles. Een aanrader voor iedereen die al eens een avond alleen is in een vreemde stad en eigenlijk de lappen op wil!

Goed, ben dus met een paar Spanjaarden, een Mexicaan en een Panamees iets gaan drinken. Beetje fout cafe, maar er was Stella van het vat!! Wel aan 3 euro/pintje, maar goed. Uiteindelijk nog in de iets typischere Spaanse bar geraakt (lees; fel TL licht, geen muziek, veel lawaai, vloer vol servetjes en rommel) waar het eigenlijk wel enorm leuk was. Iemand zei dat ik mee moest gaan naar beneden en vanuit de verte hoorde ik de "Olee's" al! In de kelder dus ook nog een flamenco-concertje meegepikt! En het was nog goed, ook. Ouwe peekes die gitaar spelen en zingen, can't beat the real thing!

Zondag ben ik, radicaal tegen mijn gewoonte in als ik ben uitgeweest, vroeg opgestaan en zijn we naar El Rastro geweest. Dat is een keigrote vlooienmarkt in La Latina. Immens veel rommel (en volk), maar ook superleuke dingen. k Heb mij serieus ingehouden, maar garantie dat er een dag komt dat ik niet zoveel karakter heb :)

Aangezien het nog steeds mooi weer was, eigenlijk de ganse dag rondgetaffeld. Beetje toeristje gespeeld. Door het ongewoon mooie weer was er echt overal veel volk. Na mijn eerste bocadillo con chorizo sinds lang, siesta gehouden in het stadspark El Retiro. Tsja, acclimatiseren,he.

Nu is het maandag en ik zit - beetje zielig - in een hotellobby omdat ik hier geen kamer meer heb. Maar seffes verhuis ik naar mijn appartement, juij! t Was nog niet zo simpel iets te vinden maar ik heb - as usual - een beetje geluk gehad. Volgende keer (als ik ontdekt heb dat de kraan lekt en het dak op instorten staat) meer daarover!!!

Besos