The first Duvel

I woke up around 7, but was able to sleep some more until 11 after which breakfast was served. I spent the last hour writing and reading. The bites of last saturday were still hurting and hitching like hell. 20 minutes before landing I could see a first glimpse of the European Continent: home at last (almost). Why in Iberian countries you are always put on a bus instead of docking at the airport terminal, even they got clearly plenty of gates. I got through customs and again they were undoublefully enjoying the pact that I got more hidden compartements on me than your average magic box. When you putting them all back it seemed my wallet was missing only to find it lying on the ground (strange).

I checked with TAP if my luggage went through automatically and the guy was so friendly to explain the boarding system (I love to know how things work): the number before the slash is your number of luggage pieces and the number behind the slash their combined weight.
The points the luggage has to pass on way to their destination follow next, together with the plane number to get to the next point. It is that simple.

I took out some money: first euros in months and they looked so strange and especially insignificant. But they hold great purchasing power. Our flight was due in 1,5 hour (too much waiting) so I kept myself busy. Finishing the short description of nearly everything: the main lesson to be learned from this book is that the human species is not at all the accumulation of all evolution. As matter of falt the human species does contain some faults which normally should be eradicated by evolution, but weren’t. Changes are great if you replay the tape of life we won’t be here to see its unwinding. We are a very young species, some species who were deemed as a failure by evolution have existed longer as we do. Together with the fact, on a galatic scale we amount to nothing : we only live only on a small planet in a small solar system in a small galaxie; we are just another spike in aeons of history and lightyears of space: quite a humility lesson.

Meanwhile some people were already waiting in line for the boarding that would only start in minutes and we all have assigned seats, so why bother. When boarding went terribly slow (we left on half an hour late), people started sighing, watching their watches and pushing forward in line. On the plane there were even 2 guys having a dispute about a seat (the flight is only 2,5 hours). I really do not hope this is the life I am returning too: stress, being impatient and putting oneselves first (egoism). If this is the case, I will strap my backpack on again faster than you sas Africa.

The flight was quite uneventrul, except a great sandwich. The surprising part was that we were quick quicly making our descent : We only passed paris which is still 300 km from Brussels, when starting the descent. Another hour and I would see my family again and the last 48 hours would come to and end. I am so dying from French fries. On the airport, I patiently waited for my backpack and then headed to the exit to see my parents and girlfriend (my mother hugged me so hard, she almost choked). Some friends had come along and were waiting for me with my first Duvel (I love it when a plan comes together). The bad news was that the insurance company had decided not to pay me out, because my stuff was not stolen with physical voilence (It really makes you wonder who the real thieves are : the people stealing it to get some money and having a better life or the insurance companies trying to dodge their responsabilities, but at the same time making billions of profit).

I said goodbye to my friends and we went home, where my girlfriend (and mother) had decorated the entire house with pictures of me and a huge Duvel glass was waiting for me (So sweet). But first thing first, I ate the Belgian fries that I had been missing for the last 5 months. After some socializing, telling a bit my adventures and discovering the cat still knew me (it seemed the little bugger had missed me so much, he hardly had eaten the first 2 months) and was so happy to see me again.

Around 11, we took off to Dendermonde where the others were waiting for me and it seems a lot had waited for me for hours and then left for home (so sorry). I stayed in the pub until 3 o clock and it was as if I never had left Belgium : I immediately fitted again in the group and we had a really good evening, having some good laughs (My friends are really the best). I returned home, really have trouble respecting the speed limits and went to sleep.

This post concludes 5 months of blogging and I really hope you enjoyed it as much as I did writing it and have a journal to look back at one of the best experiences in my life : The trip was a total blast. You will probably see some upcoming changes in this blog in the months to come : I am going to type up the blog posts for West-USA and Russia and do some extensive rewritting of some posts and uploading better pictures. Probably I will post a final post in a couple of weeks, summarizing the trip (in pictures, experiences and finances), but no real new content will be added. That is until I start planning for my next trip. If you want, you can follow my new blog a bit, which is a subset of my earlier blog (that most of you will still know), but have a more geeky undertone.

Rez Kiyn signing off.

The comeback

I got woken around 5h30 by some girls checking in, switching on the light and starting to unload their backpack (I probably do not have to tell you their nationality, by this stage of the blog you are an expert). Not too happy, I got up and headed to the lounge to get some extra sleep, but a couple was making out, so I decided to start my day early (and making it already longer than it was)

I watched Godzilla a bit on TNT and discovered this Godzilla version (with Mathew Broderick) shows him being killed by missiles on a bridge, where I lively remember him being killed in the bay by torpedoes (can someone explain this ?). I tried to check in again and again my ticket was refused, so the girl of the hostel was so friendly to call TAP to see what was wrong and on both occasions, the call was prematurely terminated. I paid my bills and asked if I could leave my bags in the room, which I couldn’t and I decided to first go to the airport to store them and get some more information about my ticket. I also asked for markets to buy souvenirs but it seems in weekends not much happens in Rio.

I walked to the local airport, where I took the bus to the international one, not being able to leave my bags with TAP or get more information. I had to leave my bags at terminal and the luggage guy tried to have me pay double: 13 real for the big backpack (thieves) and another 13 real for the daypack, which was supposed to be only 7, since it was a little one. I told the guy to be serious and took the daypack with me, only leaving the backpack behind and went to search for internet, planning to spend the afternoon completing my blog, and other things, but they charged 42 (forty-two) real an hour. (Jeezes, normally an hour is 2, in fancy places 5, in Brasilia 8, but can someone explain me the economics behind 42?). These are perfect examples of getting you when they know you are not coming back and take abuse. I decided to visit the center and after waiting half an hour the bus just passed me by without stopping. Seeing another bus, I tried to get down to ground floor, but our elevator guy was clearly too busy discussing with another lady (and there were no stairs) and by the time he had decided to press the right button and took me to the ground floor (after going to the 2 for no reason what so ever), the bus had left forcing me to wait another half an hour (this was going to be one of those days and in this case a very long one).

Finally I got a bus who took me directly to the centro cultural Banco de Brasil, where an exhibition on Japan was running, honoring the 100^th anniversary of Japanese immigration. When leaving the center, I bought me a chocolate filled churros (I had to spend my last Reals) and while eating it 2 locals (no bums) started making a scene (always drama) because the guy was charging 2 real and the other vendor only 1,5. So they got a free one (can’t they ever do something the calm way). Next was a walk around the neighborhood, where was an old-timer fair (old Cadillac’s guzzling shitloads of fuel) and a trinket market. Since most stuff at the market were mere junk and nothing really typical Brazilian, I decided not to buy anything, just for the sake of buying souvenirs. I continued my walk until I accidently hit the ferry boat to Niteroi and having hours to kill and wanting too shoot some pictures from Rio across the bays, I bought myself a return ticket.

The boat was vast, more than 1600 places and we crossed the bay in a mere 20 minutes. Arrived in Niteroi; I checked out the local shopping mall to buy some souvenirs, but everything was closed (damn), so I went for a quick lunch (my stomach was really hurting and I definitely should see a doctor when back in Belgium, especially because my body is letting me down in the end: being bitten, stomach, upset, my feet looking not too good again).

I decided to check out one of neumeyers last creation: the national museum (contemporary) and waited for the museum bus for 45 minutes (it was Sunday) and the driver did not even bother to stop at the museum, so I told him to stop and after 2 minutes on so me finally pin and I had to walk back for 10 minutes back up (definitely one of these days). I took some shots from the sugar loaf and Christ and decided to walk back to the ferry, to enjoy the view and not having to wait again.

The boat had just left, so I had a snack and drink and waited for the next one. The boat took off around 4h30 and I got some decent shots of the harbor and afterwards walked to the airport, again just missing the bus and having to wait again (which was the entire idea, splitting up my 16+ hours waiting time in several smaller ones). While taking the bus back to the airport and witnessing how the sun illuminated the bay and gave it a touch of heaven, it became so clear to me there are little other no places in South America, which can match up with Rio in Beauty and scenery, although I am not a big fan of Brazil (I would give Brazil a fifth place out of the 9 visited countries). You can’t ignore the paradise touch of the country and especially Rio: A thing that becomes even clearer when seeing the city from the sugar loaf or from across the bay. I definitely have to come back to Brazil one day and in cooperate Brazil and Venezuela in my central and North America tour: start for carnival in Rio, work my way up through all the coastal towns to Venezuela (see roirima, Angel falls) and cross the across Darien Gap into central America, afterwards using Mexico as springboard to USA, where route 66 takes me to New York, but Africa comes first.

While wanting to get on the bus a guy gave me his 2 backpacks and disappeared for 2 minutes (taking care of something on the bus) and then collected his luggage (quite trusting guy). At the airport I got my bag and had to wait till 8 to check in, so I killed my time and my remaining Reals by writing out my blog entries of the last days and having a sandwich with some tea. Around 7, I moved in line, continuer writing in the middle of the departure hall and checked in. There was no problem with my tickets and I got emergency seats, so I thanked the guy. I entered the secured scanner. The guys are costumes were enjoying the fact I kept on pulling out hidden wallets and one of them called me MacGyver (total coolness).

I checked out the duty free shop and found it so expensive (does anyone actually buy their stuff?? most of the time I can get the same things for half the price). I spent my last Reals on completely overpriced food (I even had to borrow 10 cents to pas everything).I ate it and then continued writing out my blog for the next 2 hours, only take a break around 9 for a quick shower in the men’s room (I felt sticky and changed to my nca cola shirt : I could hardly look more Brazilian : green pants, green jumper, yellow shirt and Ronaldinho flipflops). Around 11, we finally were allowed to board and although we were behind on schedule the plane only left 20 minutes later. It was quite evident that some passengers had spent their waiting time by consuming the liquor they had purchased on the duty free. One of the women had really trouble keeping her eyes open and they were completely blood run which she covered up with sunglasses (she is in for a blast on the plane, heights so funny things to alcohol-drowned brains).

I was glad I made it to the plane: First because the long wait was over, secondly I don’t think I could handle seeing another Brazilian woman. They are pretty nice too look at (I am sure Belgian women look as good) but it is the way how day dress. They leave little to the imagination. The kind of clothing making a man say wow as long it is not his girl walking the street in that outfit (imagine: Some nasty words, accusation and high tone of voice)

Dinner came on the plane and was quite good, but I started to have serious pain in my stomach and asked for some water, since I knew this was the only thing working and was limited to 1 glass I tried to explain the steward and she was so friendly to hand me over all the bottles when they were almost empty, thus giving me enough to drink on the place.

I forwarded my watch 4 hours, changing it to Lissabon time and tried to get some sleep around 5.

Another thing, I want to share on this blog is a rather strange but Omni-present phenomenon Brazilians and public making out. They all do it and no of them seem to care about being watched by others. It seems to be even mandatory that they are being observed by as many as possible people: sometimes they simply stop when crossing a street and start kissing passionately or start going over each other boys in front of some display that everybody else wants to admire. Is this some way of enforcing their macho behavior or their sexuality? Ok, I know we all hade this phase or have this phase sometime in our relationship, but there clearly is a difference between giving your love an endearing kiss or brush sweetly through their hair and openly of passionately French kissing each other for 10 minutes in a public place and meanwhile touching the other genital zones. That is where I draw the line and you see it everywhere: you can’t take a bus, sit in a theater or walk the street and see a least one couple making out big time. Remember the Brazilian couple on the plane to Rio, the couple in La Paz, even ceynair in the pantanal, a couple sitting 2 seats from me on this plane and countless others. Even while waiting for the ferry, there was a couple passionately kissing each other: a definitely KRM of 20 (that is the wet kissing sounds you hear in a minute)

Interestingly the male was wearing a wedding ring, the girl was not. 10 minutes later I saw another couple making out in the bushes of the park and all she was wearing was a bra. Coming to think of what someone in el misti told me that even male has a couple of girlfriends and since it is an unwritten law that girls do have to have a virgin like behaviour in their neighboorhouds , which is also the reason most girls will ignore you in their barrios, but will be way more direct in a discotheque, they had to resort to other parts of town (and its streets) to see their loves.

Silent night

I woke up just before the bus entered the Sao Paulo bus terminal and got out to stretch my legs a bit. The bus left 5 minutes later and Sao Paulo seemed quite a modern and architectural well designed city (Too bad I did had the time anymore to visit her or to visit Maria who is currently working for Renault Brazil now). I noticed how the numbers of the on and off ramps of the highway were way off scale (Probably a sideeffect of Sao Paulo being the third biggest city in the world). As we drove past exit 299 (off scale), I had counted already 3 prisons in the last 5 minutes (Sao Paulo also seems to have his share of crime).

Around 8, we made a stop in a the companies depot to change driver and refuel and were offered free sugar tea (which is so good and probably will be the reason why I will have to check with my dentist at home to get a status on the Mont Blanc excavation project). The next stop took a while, so I killed time a bit by sleeping, reading (not the most interesting activities, but hey) and around noon, we made a food stop and this time they weren't expensive anymore, they were practically stealing your money (A "We accept organs as legal tender" message is probably being printed right now). Since dishes were around 20 real a piece, I bought me the cheapest thing in the shop, which was a bar of pindas. By that time, it became clear to me that all our all fantastic bus was not so fantastic after all : I was covered in bite marks from some kind of lice (Brazilian buses are terribly expensive, but are in my opinion also one of the worst ones).

We continued our trip and I shot some pictures and finally around 4, our bus arrived (only 4 hours late) and I must say it was quite strange to see the novo rio bus terminal again, where I and the girls left 5 months before to start my odessey (even the girl at cruzero del north booth, who sold me my first bus ticket, was still working there). It took me a while to locate the Real bus terminal, but eventually found it and showed the driver my destination. It struck me on the bus, Rio was quite a nice city with big wide avenues and majestical buildings boarding them. I was probably due to all the horror stories, I heard during my first days of my trip, that I did not venture out to much and missed out on a great deal. The bus driver dropped me off at the wrong place, but lucikly I knew my way around (I had partied at the hostel 5 months earlier) and checked in, and losing my deposit since they had misplaced my reservation. The hostel was nearly deserted and I was put in a big dorm, with 3 others.

I asked the hostel owner, where I could print my e-tickets and it seemed everything was closed for the weekend, so I went for some food (my last McDonalds in SA) and at the table next to me some deaf people were having a conversation. I got some money out (eaxtly the same amount that got scammed off me in Manaus, so I was quite correct about my budget estimates) and explored this part of town for a whil. At the movie theather, a lot of upcoming movies were being announced and boy am I going to love the summer : Batman, clone wars, a new mummy movie, journey to the center of the earth, ... I returned to the hostel and waited for the internet for some while : some old guy was sending messages to some young girls on Facebook and sometimes sending 5 messages in a row to the same girl : very strange. After half an hour, I asked him if he still had a lot to do and he brisked me away quite unfriendly, so I waited for another 10 minutes, until the bartender (A brit) told Paulo (the old guy) to finish his session and he refused again. The bartender did not like this at all and gave him another 5 minutes, telling me Paulo was a couple of cards short of a full deck. 10 minutes later, Chris reminded him again and he yelled he needed 5 more minutes, so I started my stopwatch and 10 minutes later told him he had to go. He simply looked at me, threw me a kiss and told me he loved me (Indeed a bit mental). I put the watch on the desk next to him and this finally made him finish his session (Stopwatch was showing 15 minutes). The TAP website refused my etickets, so I decoded to to try it again the next day.

I walked around a bit, trying to find me a barder and then returned a bought me some beer on the street (costing only half the price : the corner at the Lapa arches is full of street vendors) and sat down in the park for a bit, watching the locals skate and dance. When leavinare g the park, a girl was taking pictures from a taxi and I told her it was perfectly safe to get out, but she preferred staying in the taxi. I find it a shame you are so afraid of certain locations, that you mio out on some of it (As I did 5 months earlier). Afterwards I walked the streets of Lapa a bit, finding most of them empty and felt a bit lonely : I was the only one left of the group who started her 5 months before and I was already long overdue, all the others had already left for home. Around 9, I bought myself another beer, showered (39 bite marks left leg, 36 right left, 6 left arm, 5 right arm and 11 around my hip : somebody had a good meal last night) and chilled a bit in the sofa in the lounge. It was definitely low season : this time I had the entire lounge to myself and I only had met 2 gringos during my walk, where 5 months before, the balcony and the street were packed with foreigners, where now only locals were roaming the streets. Around 11, I got myself another beer and some food and also downstairs, there was nobody present (yet) to attend the concert. When I returned to the balcony, 3 mute/deaf guys (different ones) were having a talk and it seemed they were my roomies : I was definitely going to be a silent night, nobody was going to wake me up this time (This is what I so love about travelling : before you know it, you end up in the most peculiar situations, which often are more exciting and diverse than your imagination. Every situation has the potential to taken a turn for the worst of the best, making it you never have dull moment. Anyway, back to the story, our friends were talking (read : gesturing) quite feriosously and the smallest one was gesturing so wildly he gave me a huge push, which is no problem at all, except this time I was sitting on the edge of the balcony and lucikily was fast enough (my reflexes are good) to grab myself before slipping off (Injured by fall on the last night, that would be a nice headliner). And the guy did not even notice, so one of the others told him to calm down a bit and be more careful, since someone was sitting behind me (sign language is quite intuitive (I wonder if you have a mute who talks too much, do you tell him a big mover and tell him to not to move so much ??). Anyway, besides all the languages, grammar and vocabularies that have evolved over the years and are spoken in the world, here is another one : sign language. There is so much diversity in the world.

Since clearly it was going to be a calm night, I went to bed around 1 (So far my last chance for picking up a Brazilain girl ;).

The last bus ride

I slept late, had breakfast (This must been the 150th time I typed this, boring ...), remade my backpack (everything I do seems to be the last time and everything is coming to an end) and went to find me some laundry, but they were charging me way too much so I walked back. One of the guys of the hostels was some friendly to accompany me to another laundry which was a bit cheaper but not really. So, it was time to be creative : since this was a hostel, I figured they had a cleaning service, which I found on the top floor and paid the girl some money to do my laundry as well (Mission accomplished).

While waiting for my last bus ride (If I finished this one I will have done an entire continent by bus and boat, who says you need an airpass); I exchanged my dictionary for a book about politics (which someone exchanged for my Cryptonomicon), read a bit and spent most of time on the internet. It seems 2 of our British girls were already staying on the hostels and there was some fuzz when they discovered they had ran out of money, so after some shouting and being hysterical, one came up with a magnificent idea : they were going to ask their parents for more money telling them their cards got stolen and they lost some considerable amount of money (Remember the dynamite ? Well, here is another perfect excuse. How come I so quickly spot such behaviour ? Do I have a talent for immediately assessing others or does have everyone a dark side which they manage to hide for most others ?).

I picked up my laundry and headed to the bus station and it seems I was quite lucky : the bus was one of the most luxiourous I had seen and was a perfect conclusion to my trip : leave and arrive Rio in style. THey were even showing movies, although one was an American remake of Taxi, but this time the taxi driver was a black female, the villains were russians in BMWs, but the end is the same : they are trapped on an unfinished part of the highway (I already tought I saw a lot of similarities : a noisy police chef, an police officer who could not drive, a blond bomshell to whom he is attracted, ....)

I read some more in my book and around 8, we stopped in a restaurant, being so expensive I decided to buy me some chocolate (it was 20 reals for a meal) and afterwards went to sleep in my totally reclining seat. I slept quite well only to be woken a couple of times by a sudden pain in my knees (Probably not completely healed yet).

Magnificent seven

I slept late and after breakfast walked to the stables to start our horseback riding and on the way it seemed one of the girls seemed to have spent the night with Freddy and he was so adorable (sigh). After a while, we all got our horses and we seemed like the Magnificent Seven (really). My horse was again quite feisty and really liked biting and kicking other ones (What is the deal here : horses look like their riders ?). During the walk, I talked a bit with Paul about houses and with Cyprien about economics and work. Since we were falling behind a bit, Cyprien suggest to go in galop and although it took me a while getting used to it, it was extremely nice to see the horse galopping through the buses with me on it (I definitely have to pick up horse back riding again).

Levy saw us coming and was not too happy with it, since his boss had forbidden to let tourist gallop to prevent any injuries and thus insurance claims. We returned to the camp and remade the daypack. Since Levy had been so good to us, I gave him my spare vodka bottle and he really liked it. Since Siska told me the cook had to buy her drinks also at the same prices, I gave her the half emptied second bottle and she was so grateful for it (I should have given her the full one). Finally the truck picked us up, which was about time since I only got bitten 3 times by mosquitos in the last days, but now they clearly had discovered me and were stinging like crazy.

The truck took us back to the bus stop, where there was a lot of commotion since no one knew what bus was leaving at which time from what location. To complicate things even more, the guys from the tour operator told us the van was on his way to deliver new people and we could ride back with them (and increasing their profits taking on paying customers to and from Camp Grande). But we decided to do it, since the van was faster and more comfortable than the public bus. When I was saying goodbye to Glenn and his girl an American woman told us she spoke the language (which was quite a silly thing to say to a group of backpackers of which 3/4 spoke Spanish and half Portuguese) and this friendly local (her exact words) was offering us to take the van back to Campo Grando for a mere 50 reals (What we already knew, but they keep on trying to make more money, otherwise the van had to return home empty). We told the lady we were well aware of the possibility so she turned to the local guy and started talking French to him and the guy answered her in English (We will blame it to the American school system, shall we). I said goodbye to Glenn and without a warning ; the guy grabbed me and justed hugged me (I didn't knew he was so fond of me).

I returned back to my side of the road and Mischa and Jasper were still not to comfortable with taking the van, so I double checked for them, but still they were quite stressy about going to miss their bus (It never happened to me in 5 month of travel). Finally the van arrived and I slept a bit in the back while Ivo wqs talking to Jasper and Mischa. Around 4, I started talking a bit to Ivo, who seemed to work for the National Grid in England about trading, electricity and business networking and explained him my number 1 travel rule : it is all about risk management, with every decision you have to decide on how much money you want to spend to be luckily (read : have nothing happen to you). The more you spent, the safer you ( or your luggage) is, but the more you lose. It is always about choosing.

I noticed that I was very enthousiaticly explaining him what I wanted to do in the months to come and was really looking forward to go home, but at the same time having the feeling that I did not wanted to leave South America behind. The driver was driving quite dangerously (his speed going from 0 to 100 and nothing in between) and we reached the hostel without problems.

After a fast lunch with Mischa and Jasper, we said goodbye to them and I talked some more to Ivo and had some good laughs. and afterwards uploaded my pictures to Picasa and went to bed.
After a quick shower (during which I heard the other continents calling out for me), I went to sleep, bothered bigtime by my stomach, which was really hurting.

Air strike

I got up again around 6 and again enjoyed the sunrise a bit and around 7, we were all ready to take the truck and walk around the swamps. Levy was completely having fun by now and teasing us all the time. The guy has a knack of pretending he can actually understand what you are saying, nodding at the rights time and occassionally throwing in a dutch, french or english word. Of course, he asked all of us to learn him some typical expressions and was really enjoying this. We continued our litlle discours and Paul told me that in his region you would call someone crzy or stupid, by using the expression : tu es chalet ou quoi; of which now one understands where it comes from.

After an hour drive, we started scouting out the swamps and although the nature was quite beautiful, we did not see much animals this time, except for the occassional parrot and the worlds largest rodent (from a distance). While walking, Levy suddenly started running and the other followed him immediately. I was wondering why everybody started running and suddenly itstruck me (actually it stung me) : we were under attack of a colony of wasps and I started running as hell. After 2 or so minutes, we finally broke clear of the area and made a damage accessement: we all had one bite and altough all very painfull (At first it felt as someone had hit my knee with a hammer), the reactions ranged from individual to individual. I was doing quite ok, but the Brazilian girl got stung in the hand and was starting to swell exponentially (Her hand was starting to become one big ball by now) and Siska´s arm too. Levy was bitten more than 10 times of which half of it in his face, but did not flinch. We walked back to the truck and drove back to the hostel. On the way back, we saw some cockatoos.

We chilled a bit and I listened to what the British girl had to say and indeed, definitely party girls and talking about talking diving classes (as I did) and being so proud of the fact, that they had diven quite drunk and they were not listening to instructions and dove to more than 30 meters (which is strictly forbidden when being a open water diver) and started to feel quite funny and losing control of their muscles (the start of nitrogen poisoning) and an instructor had to come to rescue them. To use their words : It was so cool (Some people really do not deserve to be protected or taken care of : just give them a whole bunch of dynamite, some matches and tell them they can blow up some things in the desert and hope we get lucky).

Around 12, dinner was served and this time, there was bit of variation. The cook had made some pumpkin mush and everyone was devouring it. We planned to head out again around 2 for piranha fishing but Levy did not show up until 3. We took off and he started cutting meat for the piranhas (the myths are true) and started fishing. Levy was quite jumpy and changed locations every 5 minutes and finally left the boys behind in a separate barge and asked us to return to te camp, where we could also fish. We declined so he took us through the vegetation, where after 5 minutes again left for another fishing spot. At the last spot, the Brazilian girl finally caught one and being so scared, yanked it out the water so it went flying through the air falling on my feet. I quickly shot some pictures and Levy showed us its teeth. We did not fish anything anymore except for one catfish.

We picked up the guys who had been fishing in a different spot (They had 4 baby piranhas) and returned to camp, where Levy forbade us to fish, since it would attract piranhas and make future swimming impossible (???). He cleaned one piranha and threw the others back, not wanting to clean them and showed us how the heart of a fish keeps on beating after the fish has since long deceased(piranhas are extremely difficult to kill). I lingered around a bit in the hammock and it seems some more British had arrived and started talking to the girls and being overall were rude to them and they just loved it (So, that is the way to pick up a British snot, offend her bigtime). The guy was a total jackass, wanting to impress everyone with his knowledge of astronomy (which coincindatelly I was reading about in my book) and calling you a fool (the girls) if you did not know something. The other guy kept himself to tell sexist jokes. Siska got enough of it and walked off and I helped the other guy to build a campfire and afterwards did some diving from a cliff until dinner time.

We had dinner around 7 again and this time, it was very delicious and there was a lot of variation. After talking some more, we lit the campfire and talked a bit. The Brazilian girl went to bed early and so did Mischa and Ivo and the 2 British guy joined us, followed by the girls. One of the guys tried to have a conversation, but after telling the same sexist joke for the second time, Siska told him so and a bit embarressed he took off. Meanwhile, Freddy (the other one) kept on pretending to be the worlds greatest astronomer and trying to instruct the girls on astronomy, at which they failed miserably much too his enjoyment calling them the stupid and ignorant (True, but if someone I just met called me stupid, he would not get away with it so easily and the girls were all over him, they were loving it. How low can you sink ? Do not you have self esteem). After 10 minutes, Freddy turned his attention to me (big mistake) and was quite happy I knew the answers to all of his questions, so I decided to play the game along, which he did not like too much. After asking him a couple of things to which he did not knew the answer, he left us, still being followed around by the girls (I asked him to identify the southern cross, for example)

Realizing that I knew a bit about astronomy and physics, Caynair, Paul and Siska started asking me questions about the universe, life, physics and all sorts of things. NormallyI know a bit about it, but still I was quite happy I was reading the Short Description ... book, which answered a lot of questions. They kept on asking me questions for over 2 hours (What is the difference between a star and a sun, a galaxie and a universe, how do calculate the distance between stars, what does E=mc2 mean, what are quarks, what is the purpose of a magnetic field and an atmosphere, why does Mars do not have an atmosphere, can we go to venus, ...) and around 11, I went to be quite tired explaining a lot of things in French, most of the times not knowing the correct French words.

Ceynair thanked me and suggested me I should pursue a degree in Physics (It does interest me, but 3 degrees is enough) and I went to bed. The girls were still partying with the guides and we could hear a guy throwing up near the stairs, clearly having way too much to drink.

Close the door

I got up as first one around 5h30 (I woke up a couple of times in the middle of the night, because it was so cold, so I put on all my pants and went back to sleep) and shot some pictures of the sunrise. When leaving the showers, I heard someone wishing me a good morning in Dutch. Excepting to see Jasper, I turned around and only saw Levy, our guide, looking at me with a very brigt smile (Clearly the guy picked up some Dutch words from tourists).

We had breakfast around 6h30 (which was quite good) and started our morning walk around 7. Levy showed us some trees and plants and after walking for a while, we saw the biggest bird around and were able to shoot some pictures (I am really missing a telelens here). Too bad, I am terrible at names, so I will probably had to derive their names later on from the pictures, because I already have forgotten them. We continued our walk and encountered some monkeys (The guys who had been screaming all night) and Levy taught us how we could extract water from some plants and trees and showed us how to identify them. Next was a visit to a farm where we encountered some parrots. We crossed the fields and entered the bushes again to spot some iguanas and learned about how cancer (really) can completely destroy entire forests. Levy told us the difference between the different ant species you could find and how fire ants (which are very strangle black) can be auite painful. It seems in the tribe where he was raised 2 year olds are put and held down in a ant nest to make them stronger and better resistant to pain (Quite Conan the Barbarian isn't it).

We concluded our walk around 10 and when walking back to the campement, I was talking a bit to Levy, when he suddenly started running and signaled me to follow him : he had seen a armadillo. We quickly found his lair and waited with the entire group to show himself. They are the most strange animals and clearly relics of a time long ago, but so nice to see them. When dectecting his lair was surround by humans, he fled back in and closed his door, collapsing the entrance of the lair completely.

We walked back to the campement where we had dinner, which was exactly the same thing as the night before and the meat looked quite awful (Paul told us Belgians were quite complex, since both Siska and myself were closely inspecting every piece of meat). Levy told us in the afternoon we would go down the river (They only reveal the activities a couple of hours before, so it is a surprise) to see some caymans after having a siesta, whichI spent reading my book (I so like the book and obviously a lot of people know it : 4 people asked me if they could buy it from me after I had finished reading it. It is so strange a lot of things we take now for granted have only been discovered in the last 20 or 30 years. I definitely had to ask my father what he was taught in school about magnetism and continental drift). It was a very nice trip and we saw a lot of birdlife and some amazing sceneries. We even found ourselves a cayman sitting at the edge of the river and allowing us to come close enough to touch it. Levy did a scouting exercise and we told us what (his little eye) would see and we had to find it. It started with finding 2 iguanas in a tree and most of the time, I was the first to spot (but got only the honour to prove it).

Around 4, we started to head back and Levy stopped at a shop to buy his medecine(his booze) for the night (The guy surely is funny and you can not believe a single word he is telling you : he is always joking around). By that time, I had been extremely quiet for the last 2 hours and Ceynair (a French guy travelling Brazil with his Brazilian girlfriend) asked me if everything was ok, but I was only enjoying the sceneries and having serious mixed feelings : one part of me wanted to go home so badly, but another wanted to keep on travelling forever. It was also quite strange, I was the only single on the trip, everybody was travelling with his/her boy/girlfriend. Back at the campement, it seemed more Dutch people had arrived and by now, half of the people staying spoke Dutch (It felt more like Holland than Brazil) and everybody was French, Dutch, Swiss or British, allowing me to communicate with everyone quite easily (Something Mischa really regretted she could not do).

I read some more in the book and we started talking to Ivo who was a real world citizen : his grandfather moved to Brazil, his father to Canada and he was born in Holland and raised in England and 5 years ago married a Japanese girl. We were most impressed by how good his Dutch was after not speaking if for over more than 2 decades. Around 7 (Food is always served perfectly on time) we had dinner and again it was exactly the same food and people really started to wonder if the cook was as skilled as we initially had tought. We started to plan only eat rice and carrots and next time pasta with potatoes, just to diversify a bit.

We were talking a bit, while Levy suddenly showed up with his medecine and kept on teasing us to have some shots (The guy really has a talent at making people drink) and by 9 o clock, the bottle was gone and we all had drank 4 shots or more. After explaining the activities for the next day, I went to bed and was really feeling drunk, especially when my hammock started rocking.

Scammed or not

I got up around 8 and had breakfast at the pool (It was a very decent hostel) and meanwhile the Dutch couple I met yesterday kept on asking me one question after the other one, as if I was some walking information desk (which I suppose I am by now) : how many nights are we going, how many kilometers is it, is food included, where is a restaurant, ...

I made my daypack for the trip (not wanting to take the big backpack with me) and left the backpack together with all my valuables in the storage room and we waited for the tour to leave. While waiting I quickly went on the internet to make a backup of my pictures and then returned to the hostel. Around 10h30, we finally left and together with 12 other, I was seated in a Mercedes van and driven to our destination. In the van, I talked a bit with Glenn, a Kiwi travelling South America for 6 months with his girlfriend and doing more or less the same itinerary as I. After a half an hour drive, the driver stopped and invited me to sit next to him for no reason whatsoever (He probably liked the company) and gave me some explanation about the landscape and everytime I took out my camera, he stopped the van so I could get a clear picture (A really friendly guy).

We stopped for a fast meal around 1 and the driver asked me to tell the others we were going to stop for 15 minutes and handed me the menu (The others did not got a menu). Since the place was way too expensive and not having too much money on me (Everything was included), I bought some nougat and talked a bit with the Dutch couple. The girl, Mischa, was practically idealizing every word I said or every move I made (I think she was a bit impressed with the fact, I was travelling for 5 months). We took off again and I spent the time talking with the driver, reading and sleeping a bit.

We arrived at drop off point, said goodbye to the driver and since there was some commotion on how to travel further, I just sat down, read a bit and waited (You develop some real patience when travelling, no need to get you all excited, things always sort themselves out in the end). Mischa told Jasper (her boyfriend), you could see I was actually a pro traveller, since I was so smart to only bring a daypack and was the only one no mingling myself in the discussion about the next transport (I was actually starting to blush).

Half an hour later, a truck drove us to the posada (and I was seated next to 4 British 20 year olds. I really do not like British 20 year olds, something seems to be terribly wrong with the education of Britains youngsters : most of them are noisy, obnoxious, shallow, rude, most of them boozing up and overall a total pain in the ass) and we saw our first cayman, sleeping in the sun, with their mouths open (to exhale excessive heat) and arrived there around 4 o clock. I was a bit worried, since the guy from the tour told me, I could stay in the lodge for 330 reals, but everybody was going to the campement for the same price, so I was pretty sure he lied to me. Everybody was shown his hammock, so I explained the guy I was bound to go to the lodge, so the driver took me there, only to discover (after a phone call with the boss himself) that he indeed had lied to me (and was also lying on the phone to me) about the lodge. Since I did not feel like paying another 50 reals for the lodge, I walked back to the campement. The damage was not that bad this time : I was paying the same thing as the others, but was not getting what was promised to me. So strange, I got scammed 2 times on my trip and both times were in Brazil, but somehow I still had the impression the guy was more or less honest and the staff were extremely friendly (which is not always a good sign as we had discovered in the past), but the organisation looked quite professional, so I started thinking I perhaps misunderstood him. Until Mischa told me they had paid more for the same deal and even were charged 30 percent more for the same bustrip and other people were paying substantially less. Scammed indeed.

We went for a swim in the river (amongst the caymans) and I spent the rest of the evening talking to Paul, a swiss guy who was travelling with Siska, a girl from Kortrijk. They also had been travelling for a while now and at first it was quite difficult to speak French again (Paul only spoke French, like the people in the french part, he told me), but we had a nice talk about travelling and how I did not like Ecuador.

Dinner came around around 7 and was quite tasty (beans, rice, pasta, meat, carrots) and I talked a bit with Glenn and his girlfriend and the others about travelling and the cost of living in Brazil, which was so expensive now : Siska and Paul were going to head back to Bolivia, because Brazil was too expensive, Glenn and his girlfriend (she has a Gaelic name and too difficult to remember) were completely over budget (as I) and Mischa and Jasper had already spent 1300 euros on 12 days (Compared to that amount, I was living quite cheap). I really enjoyed talking to Glenn, since they had experience very similar things as I did, like the daypack - backpacker war that was going on in Torres Del Paine (and no one believed). I pulled out the vodka and people kept on buying me beers and cocktails, just to compensate for drinking my vodka. Around 8, our guide, Levy, came to say hello and tell us the programme for tomorrow and afterwards, Glenn told me the nicest story. When travelling, you hear a lot of horror stories, because people seem to remember these, but this was actually a very positive story about a very bad place, being the favelas. It seems a guy from their hostel in Salvador went out one night during Carnaval and got so pissed he felt asleep on the bus back and ended up in the middle of a favela. He was taken of the bus by some big blacks guy who demanded him to hand over his belongings and when discovering he only had 2 reals on him, they started laughing for a minute or so and then took him to the border of the favela, where they put him in a bus with 2 reals and waved him out. I really love this story, it shows you how amazing travelling can be.

After 10 o clock, we all went to bed, quite tired.

To good to be true

The lady woke me again around 6 and not feeling sleeping anymore, I watched the landscape a bit and 10 minutes later the bus stopped for breakfast. I left the bus with daypack and when the bus was taking off for 5 minutes, I wanted to get my daypack and the bus driver refused to let me back on, so I explained him I wanted my daypack. He snapped at me : `We speak Portuguese here and not Spanish´ and let me on the bus (I can understand him, but at least he can be a little flexible, I also could have tried to explain it in English, but I tried in a language he probably would understand). 15 minutes later the bus left and I tried to sleep and the lady kept on poking me every time I moved to the middle of the seats (and wanting to lean against the bar). I was really going to be so glad to be off the bus.

The bus arrived in Campo Grande around 8h30 and I took my backpack out and the guy from the tour was there to pick me up, but I told him I needed a busticket to Rio first, but it seemed the hostel (I had a free night at the HI) was next to the bus terminal (Quite convenient). I even had a private room and I even could have breakfast. I started talking to some girls who went on the trekking and had just came back (actually they had to go to the lodge because there were not enough people for the trekking) and they told me they really enjoyed it and I was going to love it as a closing to my trip (they were only travelling for 3 weeks). It was not until they asked me from where I was, we discovered we were all Belgian. So funny. I ate my breakfast and we talked a bit about travelling and the different ways of travelling, ... and then said goodbye to them and went to buy my busticket.

Since the ATM refused both of my cards, one of the HI guys was so friendly to drive me to the nearest HSBC which saved me again (Always trouble with my cards in Brazil) and I bought me a bus ticket for Friday to Rio De Janeiro at their agency (There were already only 4 seats left, lucky me) and I went back to the hostel. I was really wondering how they could provide such a service for only 170 reals (free room in HI, driving me to an HSBC, giving me a discount on my bus ticket, ..) : it was to good to be true. I went out for a quick meal and it was delicious (You should have seen the size of the steak) and returned to the hostel seeing the girls again (I forget their names) and recommended them the same restaurant. Since there was a book exchange, I exchange my Cryptonomicon (I am going to miss you boy) for A Short History on Nearly Everything, a book explaining the how of science. Everybody knows the size of the earth or dinosours or the second law of thermodynamics (Geeks do actually), but nobody know how they actually came to those numbers or names or how did they weight the earth, ... and this book explains it in layman terms. A perfect replacement.

I decided to head to the pool to do some reading and Gomez asked me if I had time for my trek explanation and he explained the next four days (Horse back riding, wildlife sightings, anacondas capturing, piranha fishing, ...). When wanting to pay him, I had a nasty surprise waiting : it was 170 reals a night (It was indeed too good to be true) and I had to go to the lodge, because we were only 3 persons. Understanding my shock, Gomez gave me discount and I told him I needed to get out some more money (which is not true, but went to check his story with the girls who had also stayed at the lodge and they had done all the same things and even had paid more). I returned, paid him for the lodge and even got a free shirt. Next was internet and since the pc in the hostel did not recognize my camera at first, I tried to find me another internet place (There is a laundry next door, good) and checked out the prices of the buses in the terminal itself (I know I am being distrustful, but it was really expensive, but it seemed the bus terminal was even more expensive).

I returned to the pool and talked with the girls for the better part of the afternoon, about how travelling changes you, some travel stories, digital cameras and all other sorts of things. It was quite difficult at first to talk Dutch again, but we had a good time. Carmen (I think) was tremendously bitten by mosquitos in the lodge (She had 50 bite marks on every leg) and was cooling her legs in the pool.I got the impression the girls were a bit sad that they were only travelling for 3 weeks, while I had been away for 5 months, but then again it is a choice you make (One of them even had to break up with her boyfriend, because he did not wanted to go with her on holiday and did not like she was going alone). I was really enjoying the book and it was also quite funny, if you read what things they did in the past to prove some things right or wrong and often it took centuries to prove things we know take for granted. A strange thing happened when wanting to go for beer : when I walked past the receptionist, he told me to put on a shirt and I asked why and he told me if I was going to cross the street for beer I needed a shirt (How did he know). Around 4, the girls left (going to Igazua) and I went on the internet a bit to type up this blog entry.

Afterwards I went out for dinner, made my daypack for the trip (not forgetting the vodka) and then read some more and went to bed around 9.

I want to thank everyone for their nice mails on how they are missing me and are counting down the days until I am back home. You guys are not actually giving me an option, do you, now I have to come home (Just kidding, I am actually looking forward to it).

The muppet show

Again I got woken up by the family make a hellish noise (I so do not like this hostel) and decided to make my backpack and while doing so overheard a conversation between 2 girls we just arrived and the American who left me in last night. I heard the American saying he was paying 60 for a night, so I mingled myself in the conversation and indeed, the guy was paying way too much. The girls were also travelling SA and one was German and the other Brazilian, who had been living in the States for 2 years. I talked a bit with them and they seemed to love Ecuador so much (It is perfectly possible 2 persons have a completely different experience about the same place at the same time), so I started enquiring : She hated Cuenca, Latacanga, Rio Bamba, Quito and everything in between because the people were so unfriendly (same thing here), so I asked her why she liked Ecuador and she told me : it is a perfect place to party (Definitely party girls (one was travelling on her fathers money and the other was trying to get a boyfriend in every city).

I tried to ask the owner where I could find me some Skype so I could call home, and she refused to tell me unless I asked it in German. I had enough of it, told her I was only going to speak English as she perfectly spoke English and walked off. The girls invited me along to buy some breakfast and we showed the American where he could take the bus to the center and we headed off to the supermarket and they were telling me I travelled way too fast. I found it way to expensive and headed to a cheaper one, bought me food and had a nice breakfast in the park, went on the internet and when I returned they just came from the supermarket (I may be travelling fast, but overall I am much faster than others, it does not take me 2 hours to buy a breakfast). I talked a bit with them some more and meanwhile the owner kept on talking in German to me and when I answered her in English, she gave me a soft slap in the face (Lady, you can do that one more time and you will have a problem, what is the problem is this woman). The German girl told me she also tried to speak German to her, but her German (of the lady) was so bad that she switched back to English immediately (So she actually does not want to learn, she just was to impress people).

I gave the girls my Spanish phrasebook, took my backpack and went to the bus station (was quite fun on the bus with a backpack), where I talked a bit to a local guy who tought at first I was Brazilian, had lunch and took the bus to the long distance terminal. Arrived there, I got harrassed me tons of people begging me for money and finally around 2, the bus left (There was a couple who had 10 or more bags between the 2 of them). An older lady was seated next to me and not making my bus ride too comfortable : She was travelling with the entire family and they were all seated across the bus and didn´t knew any better way to communicate than yelling at each other for the first 2 hours (How can you be so noisy). I eventually was able to sleep a bit and around 5, we had to change bus and picked up some more, so the bus was completely full not allowing me to change places. The family kept on shouting at each other and changing places every half an hour : it was the fucking muppet show and the other people on the bus were not too friendly too (Ana told me this yesterday, this was the reason why she like couchsurfers so much, they were much friendlier than the people in the south).

I managed to get some sleep and around 9, we stopped for food, which was really tasteful (and I ate quite cheap, I always manage to live longer on my last 50 bill than I do on the 10 before) and we getting back on the bus, the older lady had taken two thirds to the seats and was not willing to give me more place, so I squeezed myself in the seat. The shouting continued, even worse this time, because a couple of the man had managed to get drunk during dinner (Definitely lower social class). Around 10h30, I finally fell asleep, but waken up again around midnight because we had to take a ferry boat (are you kidding me) and the current was so strong, it rotated the ferry around his axis in the middle of the crossing (real fun). I got back on the bus, got me some space on the seat and slept, only to be waken up by the lady every half an hour, when she thought I was taking up too much space (That is: using my seat completely). I was so happy I had a day to sleep before starting the trek and only 1 bus to take because this trip was really annoying me.

I realize my last blog posts are perhaps a bit descriptive, an not containing much humour anymore, but I tried to type up the events of the days as a draft and will complete them when I get back home and have more time (and I really miss typing up my entries on the HTC, they allow you to type something when you think about it)

Mercedes Benz

I was woken up by a television blasting quite loudly around 3 in the morning and after enduring it for half an hour, I went to ask if they could turn it down a bit and much to my surprise, it was someone of the family and no other guest. I went back to sleep and again got woken by some people loudly discussing and again it was the family making a lot of noise, they simply did not care for any guests or as I suspected I was the only guest.

I decided to head to the other hostel nearby to see if I could stay there, because the place I was staying was way too noisy, way too expensive (for the deal you were getting : imagine having a big living room at home and divide the room in wooden cubicles 2 by 1 and renting those out to people for 30 euros a night, with no access to kitchen, laundry and no privacy at all and having to sleep while 4 or more family members were running amok. That was the deal I was getting) and
the owner was a bit strange, forcing me to ask everything in German if I wanted something (probably to exercise her German). The other hostel no longer existed and I returned to the hostel, collecting my laundry and trying to find a laundry place, which I finally found 2 hours
later, but I would take them till Tuesday to get everything cleaned, so I declined and they forwarded me to another who immediately smelled an opportunity and charged me 50 Reals, so I took my laundry back home.

Meanwhile I had tried to call Ana to tell her where I was, but I got a busy tone and decided to try it again at the hostel. Back at the hostel, I asked the owner I could use the phone to call Ana and I could not, so I asked if I could call Ana from a phone cell and again I had to ask it in German before she would help me (Fucking bitch). I found me a telephone card in a local shop (and it was very hard to explain it in Portuguese but everybody was so helpful and friendly) and although everyone told me you could not call mobile numbers from the payphones, it worked
perfectly and Ana was going to pick me up in 20 minutes.

I returned to the hostel and again the lady started talking to me in German and asking (almost forcing me) to pay for my 2 nights before heading out (She was probably afraid she would lose a night income, when I decided to stay at my friend s place. She is a total scourge : it is all about money. Probably that is the reason why she is the only one in the street being to afford a Mercedes - Benz. An hour later, Ana was still not there, so I called her and she told me she was near, but another hour later, I was still waiting and decided to call her again and she was waiting for me at the phone booth : I had given her the wrong address and it also seemed you have the same superblock numbers in the north as in the south wing, but she figured that out quite quickly. The problem was the having hostels in residential zones is forbidden in Brasilia, so all hostels keep a low profile and do not have name signs, making it impossible to distinguish them from normal houses, which is why she had to wait for me at the phone booth. So our Mercedes - Benz lady was running a clandestine operation too and making a lot of money out of it, by providing people less than satisfactory lodging (Probably also the reason she does not invest in
decent accommodation, they can shut her down every day).

We headed out to the TV tower around 2h30 to have a panoramic view of the city and afterwards headed to the monument JK, where I shot some really nice pictures of the museum (You will see). At the museum, it became clear I could read Portuguese, but probably I do not understand it because I do not know their pronounciaton and do no know where a word starts and ends (and my vocabulary is also quite limited). It was quite strange to see JK started his career as a doctor and then became president (Remember Che ?). Ana told me a bit about the city, how she loved living there, but the public transportation was crap and you had to do everything by car : obviously the city was designed for people with cars. A picture in the museum quickly explained this, showing JK with a chart predicting a huge increase in cars in the years to come.

Afterwards she left me at the shopping mall, for some Internet (It is almost impossible to find some Internet in Brasilia, since everything is in blocks and you have to go to the correct block to find the correct shops, luckily later on decided this was foolish so they build little shopping areas every other superblock, which showed how many of the functionalities and believes the city was based on had become obsolete and had to be adapted, but there is still a long way to go :
there is no metro, no lanes for cyclists, ...). I was amazed how many tall the people are in Brazil : most people (even then women) are between 170 cm and 180 cm and some are even 190 and all are darn beautiful. I ate a quick meal and again my stomach was hurting big time : the last couple of days, I have been having troubles with my stomach, it must have been something
I ate on the boat, but now it was really hurting and went on the internet a bit (which was crap and way too expensive : 5 times the price of in Belem) and then rushed back to the entrance to be picked up by Ana. On the way down, I bumped my knee on a steel doorpost, but I was doing OK.

Ana picked me up around 6 and took me to the JK bridge to shoot some pictures and I got some nice ones, but clearly the camera was not up too the task : I had too much light or not enough light. She took me back to the hostel, where I quickly showered and again the owner started bugging me in German (and she speaks English fucking perfectly) how my day was and again forced me to ask in German if I could use the second bathroom (Is this some domination game or what). I headed out with the third bottle of vodka to give to Ana as a present and while waiting for Ana, the owner told me to get off the street with that bottle, since she did not wanted her neighbours to see it, so I put the bottle in my jumper. Not at all liking this, she quite harshly pulled me by my arm and dragged me to the other side of the street (She is clearly not used to get a no as answer, I really do not like this woman and this an understatement).

Ana picked me up and took me to the lake where a lot of diplomats where hanging out and it was really nice to sit there, but quite expensive to eat. She and Chris gave some tips with Sally and the more I listened, the more I started to be convinced, I needed more time to visit the whole of South America : I would need another 3 months, 6 weeks for Brazil, 2 weeks for Venezuela, 1 week for Ecuador and Paraguay each and another 2 weeks for Chili (Damn it). I shared a sushi dish with Chris and Sally (2 other couchsurfers, Ana was the vice president for Couchsurfing Brasil) and talked a bit about travelling and had an overall good time. The hot topic of the evening was Brazilian women, of whom a lot go to Europe or other parts of Brazil (Recife) to work as a maid and end up in the prostitution and give the average Brazilian woman a bad name as being always interestedin sex. Ana introduced me to some local dishes and I blew a lot of money that evening (It had a very good meal and a good time, but I feel a bit guilty now on spending some much money on food). Some other people called Ana to invite us to a party at the UK Embassy, but I did not felt like going. We walked back to the car and I stopped a couple of
times to take pictures and noticed I could not bend my knee anymore (which was a bad time, with the upcoming trek through the Pantanal). We said goodbye to the others and Ana drove me to a couple of places to take night shots (check the out at the pictures section, they are
surreal) and as everywhere in South America you see tons of Rotary logos. Then we got a call from some friends to invite us to their place (Ana is most of the the time on the phone).

She introduced to be Bernard and Marcos, 2 engineering students and had some good laughs. They kept on feeding me pizza and beer and we had some talks about Brazil and its history (and how the gap between poor and rich originated), the Church and so on. Around 1, we thanked them and Ana drove me back to the hostel and we said goodbye. Luckily for me another guest had arrived at the hostel and opened the door for me, because no one of the family was to be seen or heard.

TIP : While lying in bed, I started to pounder about about my costs and came up with the following thing : if you look at costs as an economist, you have something like opportunistic costs, which is the money you are losing when you make a certain choice. For example, if you go an holiday for let´s say 6 months, this holiday can cost you 6.000 euro (easy number to calculate), if you should stayed at home, you would have made (consider 2.000 euro a month as salary) 12.000 euro. Because you also have costs at home (rent, food, gasoline, ....), we can assume one saves a third of their income, being 4.000 euro. So apart from the money spending on travelling (for which you get an experience in return and in my case tons of pictures), the opportunistic cost of travelling is 4.000.

Since most people do not give a shit about opportunistic costs and you can not do anything to reduce them (except not travelling, which is not an option), we will only look at the travel costs, which were 6.000. A big part of these costs will be fixed costs, you will have to make if you are travelling for only a month or for 6 months(plane, gear, shots, ...), so to reduce your costs, it is better to do 1 big trip than 2 small ones. Furthermore, you can bring this number down by applying for an allowance of the state, we will take 6 months multiplied by 400 which reduces your costs from 6.000 to 3.600 euro. If at the same time, you can rent our you place and let say make a little profit (300 should be feasable), you bring down your costs with another 1.800 euro to 1.800 euro. And if you have some people who sponsor you (I wish) or work a bit abroad and make let say 1000 euro in the 6 months, you can travel for 6 months for the price of one 3 week beach holiday to some resort. Bottom line : Travelling is not expensive.

Another thing, which as a geek I need to mention : Today is Bill Gates last day at Microsoft, he will be leading the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation after a the summer. I never like Microsoft, but still this is a moment to remember : Microsoft going ahead without Bill. I wonder if Bill is going to go home in the evening and sit on his patio starring out for him and pondering what the future will bring. Probably not.

Future Past

The bus arrived in Brasilia around 7 and at first, I was mostconfused. The Lonely Planet spoke of a huge bus terminal and you wouldalso expect this from the capital of Brazil, but it was a ratherlittle one (I have seen too much on my travels). After making surethis was indeed Brasilia, I headed out to find me a hostel near theterminal but did not find one and nor did see a bus stop for theintercity bus (Things are very clear in the future), so I took a taxito a hostel described in the Lonely Planet.

The guy clearly did not had an idea where he had to go and I alreadyhad figured out the layout of the city (The city is organized as a bigplane, with a left and right wing and in the wings the areas areorganized in superblocks, such that each type of activity has its ownzone (hotels, banks, shops, houses, ...). Each zone starts with adifferent number and consists of superblocks and inside them arenormal blocks and in each block, the houses are numberedsequentially), so the next time he went out to ask for directions, Itold him I was going to walk and paid him and after a 5 minutes walkfound the hostel (Quadra 707, Bloca I, Casa 15).

The lady left me in and some guy asked me in Portuguese how I wasdoing. I told him I only spoke Spanish and he switched to English.Next he asked me where I came from and when hearing I came from Belemby bus, he told me I made a big mistake and I was stupid (Veryfriendly to their clientele). I told him planes were more expensiveand I like taking buses, and he started to argue with me about this,so I left him and followed the lady. It seemed her daughter was livingin Germany and she saw an opportunity in me to exercise her German andwhen I did not really cooperated (I was tired and wanted my room), Iheard her saying in French to someone else: He is going to stay 2days, but clearly does not have time to smalltalk). So, I switched toFrench and it seemed the room was very expensive, but this was thecheapest place in Brasilia and she told me she was full and I had towait till noon, so I could visit the city a bit.

Which I did, but after walking for 30 minutes, I decided to go backand ask for a room, because I was practically falling asleep. After 10minutes, I got my room and went to sleep for an hour or so and waswoken by some women fiercely discussing and asked her where I couldfind Internet. She forwarded me to the local library where Internetwas free (and uses KDE desktops) and I had a mail from Ana saying shewould love to meet me in Brasilia about did not have room for me tostay and a mail from home saying dvd 5 had actually arrived, so I ownsome apologies to the Colombian postal system. So sorry guys.Furthermore, I got a mail from the tour operator, with whom I wasgoing the trek through the Pantanal and they were giving me a bigdiscount because it was low season. So cool.

I returned and got some tirade of another lady in the hostel, that Ihad put a lock on my door (That is another thing about Brazilians :they can be quite cocky), but I ignored her and when leaving for thecity, I locked my door again.

I walk to the main avenues (which are huge) which divide the city innorth and south and after taking some pictures headed to the centralbus station for some food, which was cheap and filling and thencontinued my trip further down to the cockpit of the city to visit thecathedral, which was really impressive (I would really attend churchevery week in such a cathedral) and then walked to the senate, reallyenjoying the city. All looked a bit old and worn and was clearly anexample how the people in the sixties taught the future was going tolook like, but I was really enjoying this and having a ball. I really love architecture.

By 2 o clock, I had visited all the big buildings and returned to thebus terminal through another avenue enjoying these buildings and inthe bus terminal it took me a while to figure out which bus to take tothe long distance terminal, since there were 6 different platforms,but finally I found it. Since I had seen the most part of the cityalready, I was seriously consider taking the bus a day earlier, butthen again I was quite tired and could use a day of rest : thepartying, diving and short nights in Colombia, the 5 days withoutdecent food on the boat and a couple of 35+ hours bus rides hadcompletely drained me. So I bought my ticket to Campo Grande forSaturday, which was again astronomical : It is impossible for me tostay inside budget in Brazil, since the prices for the buses and thehostels are so high, in the last 8 days I have spent every day mybudget on transport and then I still have to pay for food and lodging,making me double my budget everyday. The Real is just to strong .

I took the bus back and there was some guy on the bus giving a speechmuch to the amusement of the others and I got off and my sul and thenwalked 8 block south to get the the supermarket, where I bought mesome food for the night. A bottle of water and six sandwich costs me 3euro, which must be about the same price as in Belgium and I returnedto the hostel to still find it empty, altough the lady claimed she wasfully booked.

Around 5h30, I left for the library again to see if Ana had respondedan indeed she had, she was going to take me on a sightseeing tour ofBrasilia tomorrow as of 11h30. And after some chatting, decided tocall it a day and went to buy me a beer and read up a bit on Brazils history.

The duality I discribed earlier was clearly explained in the book andit seems a lot of South Americans suffer the same fate : enjoying life to the fullest but had the same time having a dark side that manifests itselfs from time to time as a response to their cruel and violentpasts. Do no understand me wrong, I love South America and the peoplewho inhabit the continent , but I try to give an as complete pictureas possible of the things I encounter and some are good experiences and some are bad, but all are in a way part of the trip and of South America : people here will place the group before themselves incomparison to our parts where most people will place themselvesbefore the group.

After showering, I went to bed.

Hungry

I was woken up when the couple with the screaming babies left the bus,together with the other couples and finally I could get some decentrest. I woke up again around 7, discovering the bus had stopped forbreakfast and I got off. The bus made 4 more stops in the next hoursand around 11 dropped us off for dinner and stayed away for 45 minutes(I was really starting to think we would never reach Brasilia since the bus stopped every hour for 15 minutes or more.

While waiting for the bus, I devoured the Newsweek I had bought and it was most interesting : articles on Zarkosy, Bill Gates, China, cancer,... I definitely going to take a subscription again when back inBelgium. Suddenly one of the people was pointing at me and makingexcessive gestures. Not knowing what he meant, I got up and a largecockroach (at least 5 centimers) fell out of my jumper. The place wasinfested with them. Jeezes.

We got back on the bus and I killed time by continuing reading in theNewsweek, eating and sleeping and by 3 o clock, all the food I boughtwas gone. Meanwhile, some locals had get on the bus and were making alot of noise : Brasilians are friendly, but they can be so noisy, youcan not believe it. Everything they do needs to be accompagnied by themost drama : these guys did not found their seats, so they made everyone got up and having the most intense discussions to finally discoverthey were seated at seats 40 and 41 instead of 23 and 24 as theythought and what was the reason of all the commotion and gettingeverybody up to rearrange the seatings. They kept on bugging theothers passengers for the rest of the trip.

Around 5, I was so hungry I bought me an icecream and when we made astop around 7 in Platas to get some new passengers (our bus was first thouroughly cleaned at the companies depot), I bought me 2 coconutfilled cakes (the first was 1,5 real and the second only 1,25) andaround 8, when the bus stopped for the last time that day, I got offand took me an entire plate from the buffet (It was again by the kiloand I took about 800 grammes of food).

When getting back on the bus, I moved to the last seat (whose seatscould go back all the way and I was tired of the continious bickering of the couple behind me) and went to sleep, only to wake up a coupleof times during the night.

Lost the planet

I woke up around 4h30 by the engines reving back and forward all the time, most probably fighting the current from the Atlantic Ocean, which meant we were close to Belem. I tried to see Belem and most important the Atlantic Ocean (the Amazon must be huge at that point), but it was too dark and way too cold (coldest night until now) and went back to sleep.

Udo woke me up around 6 and the boat was already in the harbour and people were getting their hammocks and heading out. I got my stuff and went to the upper deck to wake Clint and Simone and while waiting for the them to shower, I made my backpack. Since nobody took the bottle of vodka (Too honest people), Udo gave it to the staff and they were quite happy with it. Having drunk one, given one to Udo and one to the staff, I had 3 bottles left. I was happy to be in the harbour, it was a nice trip and a good experience, but I would never do it again.

We left the ship and took a bus to the bus terminal, since the guys at the taxi were demanding crazy prices. At the terminal, we let Udo loose (He so enjoys exercising his Portuguese, I do no care anymore : I am leaving for home in 10 days). We bought her bus tickets, each all going our own ways (Clint and Simone had to stay a day in Belem) and the bus ticket to Brasilia was tremendously expensive (110 euro), but I had no choice. We left our bags in storage and went for a breakfast on the street. While talking a picture of the others, some guy just bumped into me and checked my pockets afterwards, when Udo told me he bumped in 2 more people before me.

Me and Udo went to search for an internet place (which took us a while, since the communication was not optimal : I already hated not speaking the language anymore) and I went on the internet for 5 hours, typing upp my blog posts and uploading my pictures (It was quite funny, asking the lady every hour to extend my internet time). Udo left around 11 and at 2 o clock, we met up again and went to visit the city. Every book shop I saw I stopped to find me a English book, because I was out of books and really needed a new book (which was probably also the reason I got bored on the boat). Anna wanted to switch me a Marquez book, but was not much interested in the Cryptonomicon.

After a quick lunch, we continued walking and discussed travelling a bit and how you could combine a family life with travelling : it has always been a dream to raise some intracultural children, moving them for country to country every couple of years, it must really open up their minds. We made it to the harbour, which was quite smelly and full of birds searching for food. We left immediately because Udo was no feeling to safe and found the fortress quite fast. On the way there, we saw tons of VW buses, you could clearly see they were still being produced in Mexico until a couple of years ago. At the fortress, we had a coconut and then visited the place for an hour orso (They had floating umbrellas everywhere) and then took the bus
back to the terminal and tried to find a supermarket but the only thing we found was a sweets supermarket. Eventually we found one and went to buy some food in the local supermarket, since I had a 36 hourbus ride ahead of me.

Next was dinner and I decided to leave the bus terminal to find me some food, which was probably cheaper and while sitting at a street vendor, a couple of guys started harassing me for money. I told the last one to leave me alone quite unfriendly and he immediately started yelling out to some friends, so I quickly ate the burger and returned to the terminal (You do not have 5 seconds of peace in Brazil andnever know they are going to get you or not, that is also one of the
reasons I want to go back home, after 5 months of watching my back, I want to be able to walk the street carelessly). I finally found me a English magazine in the terminal (I had checked out the shopping mall beforebut nothing to find), which was totally overpriced but I bought it anyhow to kill some time on the bus tomorrow.

When talking out the backpack and rearraging my stuff, Clint suddenly taped on my shoulder and he and Simone were coming to wave us out and ask if I had seen their Lonely Planet. Not having it and since they still had to travel for a couple of months, I cut out the pages I needed from mine and gave them my copy and they were so grateful for it. I think it is only normal I helped them after living in their cabin for the last 5 days, stealing of their food and all the things they had done for me : they were the 2 nicest people.

We said goodbye and headed to the platform, where I wished Udo some good travels and the foursome had come to an end and we were all going our own ways. I put my bag in the bus and got on. The bus left half an hour late and was completely, except for my seat which I di not had to share with anyone. I tried to sleep a bit, but there was some people with little children on the bus and they kept on screaming all the evening, which made it a quite uncomfortable night, waking up every 10 minutes or so. After midnight, the bus stopped and a new couple got on, having 2 babies with them and taking a seat next to me. The babies and the little children kept on crying and screaming all night, each time one of them was silent, another one would start, waking the others and made them joining in. I did no slept at all.

Little thieves

We were waken up by the crew at 6h30 for breakfast and again were giving a single sandwich, so we stole again some food from Clint and Simones tray. After sitting a bit on the upper deck watching the amazon and sleeping in the sun, I returned downstairs to my hammock and started writing out some more blog entries, which I finished by around 10. But that time, we headed reached another port and I decided to get off the buy me some bread and the crew member told me to get back when the horn blowed. Venturing too far into town, I finally found bread when the horn blew and rushed back to the boat, stepping it up to a gentle run. When I passed the last corner and started running towards the boat, the crew saw me coming and all started laughing. I made it on the boat and the boat left 2 minutes later.

Next was shaving, but this also only took half an hour and around 12, I was again mighty bored. Udo was going to go to Lencois too and I considered joining him, but then decided to go directly to Brasilia : I did not feel like rushing anymore in the last 10 days of my trip and I was clearly ready to go home again. I went upstairs a bit and watched the scenery for a couple of hours. We sailed through a really narrow part of the amazon and everywhere you could see people peddling towards to the boat ans some even trying to grappel it to have themselves towed along. One boat actually made it to the ship and they just tied to the side and entered the boat, dragging their along. I then decided to head down again to get some sleep, but I was woken by some people really having a loud discussion after an hour (and drinking way too much) and went back up and proposed to the others to play some cards. We installed ourselves on one of the tables, sitting between a couple of really drunk people and Clint started to explain the rules (which were really hard) and we just started playing when the boat pulled into the harbour and we sent Udo down to check his stuff. A little boy boarded the boat, went through the garbage bin and commanded (really) me to buy him a biscuit. When I did not react, he yelled at me and I firmly said no and he started harrassing other people. I went to tell Simone to keep the door of the cabin closed, since there seemed to be more children running the boat and searching everything. Simone did not like this at all and Clint told her again the same thing a couple of minutes later.

The kids were really harrassing everybody on the boat and Simone felt really unsafe and asked me if it was as bad in Rio. I told her honestly Rio was much worse, which was the reason I was probably not going to the center and directly head to the airport when I will leave for home, and this was only annoying but no real threat. Which really scared her (I could have lied, but you better be prepared when you hit Rio).

Clint got off the boat to buy some ice creams and one of the girls tried to get my water bottle from me, but I was faster. We ate the ice creams and waited for the boat to depart only finding the kids still on the boat while we were already in the middle of the river. All of them got off by jumping of the upper deck and the girl who tried to take my water bottle found herself at the steer and jumped us, who was completely crazy and unsafe, since she could have been pulled under by the screw, but they made it to shore. We opened the cabin again and I went to talk with some French people (actually from French Guyana) and it seemed the kids stole some of their stuff and I was so happy we told Simone to keep that door shut.

I talked with Udo a bit about motorcycles (He has 4) and we headed down for dinner, which I really enjoyed (Todays meat was splendid) and I even got Simones meat. Every one was telling how they so regretted the trip was almost over and they could stay on board for another day or 2, but I was so happy we would reach Belem the next morning. The trip had been really fun and really nice (if you hear all the horror stories), even it did not start to well, but it had been a really nice experience and the locals were extremely funny, but 4 days on a boat was enough for me : the moment I figure out a concept, I get bored and this time the concept was : amazon, rain forest, harbours.

We went back upstairs and Clint went to sleep quite early, because he probably contracted a sunstroke and Simone joined him soon after, asking me to make my backpack and then I talked with Udo some more for an hour or so and explained him the Myers-Briggers test. Since nobody wanted my spare bottle of vodka, I took it down with me and put it next to my hammock in the hope someone would ´steal´ it. It took me a while to get to sleep because there was a lot of noise on the upper deck : it seems as half the boat was drunk and was quite noisy.

Killing time

Anna woke me up around midnight telling me we had arrived in Santarem and I could have her spot on the upper deck. She even gave me her spare food for Simone, who was a vegetarian and had not eaten a single meal until now (So considering). We said goodbye and I headed up to put my hammock on her spot but it was already taken by someone else. One of the crew pointed out another place and I hung up my hammock.

I watched the people getting on and off and a lady came to the upper deck and the moment I laid my eyes on her, I knew she was up to no good (I was probably the eyes) and she just started kicking peoples belonging around to make some place for her stuff and then started to untie my hammock to put hers. I coughed discretely, she looked at me, stopped and went terrorizing another part of the boat. Since she essentially cleared an entire area, I went to find Udo and we moved his hammock and backpack next to mine.

Not wanting to wait until the boat left, I went to sleep again to be waken by a member of the staff, congratulating me on finding a stuff on the upper deck (By then every body on the boat knew me, it was the guy with no hammock by a lot of booze on me). When getting up at 5h30, I still found the boat sitting in the harbour and we had some breakfast, only received one cup of coffee and a sandwich. Luckely the people staying cabins got an entire tray of bread so me and Udo got some spare bread from Clint.

We headed up to the upper deck, where Clint was sunbathing and I started to write out my blog posts, which I never do, but I wanted to kill some time. Around 9, I decided to go into the harbour and buy me some bread, but there was nothing to find and I returned. This time the entire lower deck was empty and they were unloading cargo from the hull for the remainder of the morning. Udo asked me a bit about Belgium and I explained him its histroy and the entire political situation we have between the Flemish and the French part (it took a while) and told him why I decided to start travelling. For the first time in more than 3 months, I was actually talking about my last job, studies and things that happened and noticed I did not care anymore : I knew now what I wanted and what my plans were for the years to come.

Around 1, after being in the port for over 12 hours (The skipper probably wanted to reduce his loses by taking on board as much as cargo as possible), we finally left. I continued writing out my blog (I am so going to hate to copy these on the computer) until 3 and then joined Clint for some sunbathing and eating some eaw peppers to calm my hunger. Around 4, I joined the discussion Simone was having with Udo about dating on the internet and found her views a bit superficial and completely untrue and quite heavely influenced by things she saw on talkshows. Of course, I could not help making jokes about it, which she did not like at all, but she quickly dropped the subject when Clint joined us (I think he has very little patience with her point of views, which are quite demeaning). We continued about food and how she carefully watched her weight, because she really hated fat people (And here were here superficial opinions again, she practically considered fat people as a lower form of life). Not agreeing with her, she became a bit jumpy and told me I should shower because I was smelly, which I did. Afterwards I started to clip my nails with my army knife for the sake of killing time (and trying no to kill myself in the process).

Afterwards, we made it to another harbour and me and Udo had lunch, which was the same thing as the day before but this time with meat. The meat looked so ugly, I would not even touch it back at home, but now I devoured it all, because I was so hungry (Every day was a countdown to dinner). We headed back up and me and Udo finished the first bottle of vodka (Udo was drinking it to sterilise his intestines from the food we were getting). We taled a bit and laughed a lot and again had a really good evening. Again it became quite quite clear, most things Simone knew she learned on talk shows, which really is shame because she is a warm, caring and sometimes funny person, but her views are so diluted by television. While walking around the boat, a local called me and he started imitating me walking around the boat with my head tilted not to bump into the ceiling. He gestured me walking around the boat, with my head in my arms. It was quity funny.

Clint, Udo and myself started a discussion about the use of the lifeboats and since no one wanted to give in (Clint went for the inflation theory, where I consider them as floating devices people hang on to), we dropped the subject. After leaving the last harbour of the day, I put my valuables again in the cabin and went to sleep and discovered I was getting quite comfortable in the hammock, lying diagonally and thus keeping my back straight. It did put my neck in a most difficult position waking me up every hour.

The hammock

We woke up at 7 and I had slept quite well, but when I asked Simone how she had slept, she simply snapped at me (Probably because she had to share a bunk with Clint). We waited for her to shower and then headed down for breakfast and although we were late, we got a full tray of sandwiches. Cecile joined us and I asked her if Ilias could talk to the skipper for me and help me get a hammock and Cecile told me it was no problem at all. I talked a bit with her about professional life and quickly noticed how she was full of shit (reminded me so much of my time in Paris : a lot of talk, but no actions at all), but I decided to wait for Ilias to talk to the captain.

We returned updeck and after Simone asked me to take my sleeping bag of the bed, she simply locked the door and went to sleep, locking me outside and depriving me of my food and my stuff. So I stayed around the door for the next 3 hours. Meanwhile Camilla had joined us again and explained udo the basics of Portuguese (they have a lot of ch sounds) and wanted me to do some simultanious translation for her in English, so she could learn the pronouncation correctly. I was quite tired and from time to time, I was phasing out regulary and Camilla not being to happy about it at all pulled me back in the conversation at all.

Around 11, I had enough, I wanted to sleep and more specifically find me my own spot and went to see Cecilia (much to discontent of Camillia, who insited I kept on translating for her and Udo) and Ilias did not had time yet and was now sleeping. Wanting to resolve the situation asap (Because I even got some pointers of Simone how I should be more pushy and she even gave me tips on how to procure a hammock : She clearly did not wanted me in the cabin anymore). I woke up Clint and Simone when we approached the next harbour to get my money, so I could buy me a hammock. Again I got an entire speech on what I had to do to find me a hammock (She clearly was not happy). I asked Camillia if I could buy her hammock, since she was leaving the ship, but I could not and I saw Ilias waking up and went to him and he accompanied me to the captain, who really could not care less and Ilias did not really try (I can not blame the captain, he always has to solve all the problems imposed on him by tour operators). So I headed out and tried to find me a person leaving the boat who wanted to sell his hammock. After 5 minutes, I found me a person wanting to sell me a hammock and rope for 20 real and having found an empty spot on the lower deck, I put it up. Which was a good thing, because the spot was completely filled with hammock even before the first people were boarding (So the boat was still overloaded and probably a lot of people had spent the night on the floor and were now claiming a spot for their hammocks). It became evident we were not going to dock and the people were coming in crossing over from other ships, thus also eliminating any changes to buy me a hammock in the harbour. I was so happy to have found me a hammock on the boat and although the boat was extremely crowded (probably having a higher density than Tokyo, I now had my own spot.

Simone was a lot friendly now (probably with the situation resolved and she being fully rested now) and she made an attempt at apologizing by telling me it was no ones fault, not mine, not theirs, but she felt so frustrated that she could not do anything about it. I went to sit a bit at the bow when Udo joined me (Luckily because I was so bored) and we talked a bit about physics, math and his work (They do not seem to have an internal quality control at Audi, every engineer is solely responsable for his designed component). While talking an older American woman joined us and she started an hour long monologue about her travels (which is understandable since she had been travelling for 3 weeks without seeing another English speaking person) and which effectively killed some time. A local came sitting with us and wanted some vodka, which I gladly provided. The guy was friendly but definitely had an hidden agenda, which showed when he asked me if I had a camera on me and where it was. I went to the toilets and they were already terribly filthy after only one day of travelling. Someone even used the bin as a toilet.

We reached a port and me and Udo headed down to watch his stuff and I found the guy waiting for me at my hammock (which I did not like at all). A lady chased him away, telling his hammock was somewhere else (The social control on the boat is perfect, evertbody watches everybodys back). I headed back up and he kept on following me, telling me how rich I must be to do a travel the whole of South America. At the pier, there was a pregnant girl (must have been 12 or so), waiting for someone on the boat and she and her parents became quite upset when the person was clearly not on the boat. The boat left again and we headed back up goofing around a bit and really had a pleasant time and killing time by enjoying the sunset (which was really impressive).

Around 6, we went for dinner and much too our grieve, we discovered we had to pay for it from now on and was not included as promised (Screwed royally indeed). I paid for Clint and devoured everything, being very hungry and afterwards at one of the cumcummers as dessert. We talked a bit and Simone explained to Anna how we had been ripped off and how she felt so sorry for me (not having a hammock and such). Anna went to sleep early, because the boat was going to arrive in Santarem in the night and I talked to Simone about her work and overall business ethics (She is an accountant).

It is so weird that in the south of SA you meet a lot of party backpackers who only travel for a couple of months and most of them are unemployed or without degrees and most of the time, I was the person who was travelling for the longest time. But in the north of the continent, you meet a lot of older, better educated people (with money) who are travelling for over a year and are more interested in the culture and sceneries. I can only start to grasp what they have seen in a year of travelling, I have already experienced so much in only 5 months, but I learned one thing : next time, I am going to travel a lot slower.

Simone went to bed and I left my stuff in the cabin (while being in the cabin, Simone got quite jumpy and Clint had to reassure her a couple of times it was only me being in the cabin) and talked with Udo a bit and enjoyed the stars (Since we were practically travelling along the equator, we could see both the stars of the northern and southern hemisphere, which was most impressive). Afterwards I went to sleep and discovered I could not get to my hammock anymore, since 5 more people had put their hammock above mine (The boat was extremely crowded). Not finding a new spot, I decided to put my hammock in the walking zone of the boat and put in my earplugs, because I was sleeping next to the engine. I slept quite well, except being waken from time to time by people trying to pass by. I could feel my hammock being swinged by the movement of the boat and was actually wondering what forces are being exerted on your hammock if you put it in the same direction as the boats movement : I should ask Udo.

The scam

We got up at 6 and had breakfast and I ate 6 of more sandwiches, because they were so good. Afterwards we went to the market to buy some fruits and vegetables to spice up our food, since the boat was only serving rice and chicken and returned the hostel to wait for Armstrong to give me back my money and folded my mosquito net and breaking it in the process. So I removed the ring and stored it like that (A lot of things get broken lately, definitely time to start heading home).

Armstrong did not show up, so around 9h30 I decided to call him and he was not available and was going to call me back and we really started wondering if we could still trust him or not (It smell liked another diversion and it seemed he was only going to show himself around 1, not giving us the possibility anymore to bail out). He eventually called me back and told me the captain would not lower the price my more, but as a token of good will he would refund me 30 reals when he was going to pick us up, since he had already bought everything. While waiting to be picked up, we went to buy some water and tang to add some flavour to the water and went on the internet for an hour, letting people know where I was going to be in the next days.

Lunch was next and went to the eat by the kilo place again and I even took seconds to fill up for the voyage (They are very fair not including the weight of the plate) and then tried to find some liquor for on the boat. After searching for half an hour, we found some, but I had to buy six bottles at once, buy it by the lot. Thinking it would be cool to have 6 bottle of vodka (I could use them on the boat to barter too), I bought the entire lot and we had some really good laughs about me walking the street with a crate of vodka on me. An in the hostel, I put the bottles wrapped in socks in my drybag.

20 minutes later, a guy came to pick us up (Armstrong was not showing himself) and it seemed they did not bring a car and we had to walk to the harbour (Lie number 1). The guy taking us there was extremely stressed and kept on telling us to speed up. At the harbour we were taken to a dock, where we had to board a speedboat (which was quite dangerous, jumping 2 or more boats to get to it) and they took off (Where was our ship ?). The guy told me I had to pay the skipper of the speedboat, which really infuriated Clint and we refused, since it was included in the price (Lie number 2). We finally reached the boat and it was the most rundown ship you had ever seen, nothing at all like the picture he showed us (Lie number 3) and it was already pulling out the harbour. While floating next to the boat, the guy tried to get us on board and we were not allowed since the boat was already full and no places had been reserved for us. So there we were sitting in the middle of the Amazon in a speedboat with all our bags on us, waiting to be allowed on board. Finally we were left aboard and had to throw our bags aboard and climb aboard. They did not had anymore cabins for Clint and Simone (Lie number 4), so luckily for them there was one suite available and they could take this one and I had to sleep on the lower deck (altough I had paid for the upper deck) and no hammock was waiting for me (And no room at all to install one, if I had one). We took our bags to the cabin and on the way up, I hit my head a couple of times big time, completely scraping of some skin and bleeding quite hard (Fucking boat). I was taken to the captain to get our tickets and mine was only 180 reals and Clint and Simons 600, each paying at least 100 real too much for the passage and I did not even had a place to sleep on the boat.

From the first moment, he had opened his mouth, he had been lying to us, he just collected our money and that was it. We were really wondering who he had called to when he said he was calling the captain to get a discount for the cabin : we had been screwed over bigtime. Probably the worst since coming to SA.

I tried to find me a spare hammock and one of the ships crew pointed me to a hammock that I could use if no one was claiming it and if someone did, I should see her again and she would upgrade me to a cabin. I went to sit with the others and while all being extremely unhappy about the whole deal, we had some good laughs about it, on how I could use the vodka to barter my way up from not having a place to sleep to have a full suite to my disposal (I had enough liquor on me to render the entire boat drunk).

An hour later, we arrived at the police control (A new body they had installed a month ago to check outbound ships for the number of passengers since a couple of weeks before 2 ships collided and sunk). We all had to leave the boat and stand in different lines while the boat was being inspected and while standing in the line, I met Udo. Afterwards we could get back on and were being counted and it seemed we were too much (I was passenger 238) and Cecile, a French girl, dating a Brazilian (Ilias) told us that 70% of the ships were sent back and the skipper had to pay a 10.000 real fine and possibly another 10.000 real for transporting a minor on board without parental supervision. (Ilias knew half the boat) and we were sent back to Manaus to make a selection on who was going to be left behind and who could go the Belem (This boat was overloaded since in Parantis the biggest folk festival in the Amazon was going and the day before 10 boats were refused to depart and everybody was trying to get on this boat to reach the festival). Cecilia told us there was going to be no problem for us to stay on the boat, since we were going to Belem and had pay a lot for our tickets and the skipper was now going to select the people who gave him the biggest profit (Which was a load of bull because everybody paid the same on the boat, our excess money went to Armstrong), but in case it was needed Ilias would talk with the skipper.

While on the way back to Manaus you could feel the tension building up on the boat, not knowing what was going to happen to us. Arrived in Manaus, Ilias did not talk to the skipper and they only reason we did not got selected was because we stayed on the boat and pretended all to be cabin guests. It seemed indeed the selection was being do on cabin guests first, then people going to Belem (thus restoring his margin after losing a substantial amount in fines). The situation was quite tense and they even had to bring in the police to extract some people from the boat. While waiting for the selection to finish, Camilla (the minor girl and going to the festival) joined us and had made the selection, but her friends were not.

The boat left for the police control, again we had to leave and were divided in 3 groups and everyone was awaiting the verdict with my anticipation and around 7, some cheering was heard when we were cleared for departure, so I pulled out the vodka and started celebrating, immediately drawing a lot of attention to myself. After we had left the control behind, some people tried to board the boat by jumping abroad from a speedboat, but were refused (Can you imagine travelling the Amazon in the middle of the night in a little boat trying to get on a big ship).

Around 8, we got some soup and while having the soup, we had a really good time and talked with the locals a bit, who were extremely frienly (since being an a local boat, we were the only 4 gringos). We returned upstairs to enjoy the view a bit, it was ligtning and it looked really awesome from the boat and talked a bit (Udo was an engineer at Audi) and had a really good time. Around 9, Simone went to bed and I left all my valuables in the room and headed down with Udo to find me a hammock (We had seen after lunch a lot of hammock were empty since 48 people got kicked off) and I found one, but got chased away 5 minutes later when a group of 10 locals arrived and there were no free hammocks to be found anymore (How is this possible), so I returned to the cabin and asked Clint if I could sleep on the floor. They offered me a free bunk (they shared one), which I refused first, but then accepted and quickly fell asleep feeling the boat rocking.

The hustler

We made a short stop for breakfast around 7 and then continued to Manaus for another 60 kilometers. When looking outside you could see how men had really destroyed the rainforest and see entire blank spots in the forest, where trees had been derooted. When we came to Manaus, there was not a single tree to be seen in miles, the only thing left behind was a cement jungle left and it seemed no different than any other city, you would almost forget you were in the middle of the rainforest.


The bus pulled in at the bus station and I just tore off the zipper of my jumper and had to replace it with a safety pin (My gear is wearing down) and then some local guy started hustling us to stay at his place and take a boat tour with him, so we decided to take a cab to get rid of him and he kept on giving the taxi driver instructions where to take us and he asked the taxi driver his number. The moment we got off, we told him another address and while driving us there, the taxi driver got a phone call from the hustler and at our hostel, another guy of the company was already waiting for us, not being to friendly at the taxi driver for taking us to a different hostel.

We checked in and immediately the guy started pushing us around to buy the boat ticket from him. He even came 2 times in our room while showering and boy, did I deserve that shower, after in total 56 hours on a bus (No I know why cameras do not have smell function, I must have been stinking). Around 9, we got downstairs and he took us to a bank (to exchange travellers cheques, Clint only has travellers cheques on him) and than Clint and I agreed on first going to go to the port to check out the prices, before committing to the tour operator. The guy kept on pushing us around and Clint went inside, so I followed him. He was way more expensive than the normal price, but he gave Clint and Simone a huge discount on their cabin (after calling with the captain), so they agreed and I didn´t had any choice to follow them (and paying way too much for my hammock), since I wanted to be on the same boat so I could store my luggage in their cabin. I tried to get a discount, but he said he was going to buy me a hammock and put it on the boat for me and learn how to fold it (Some secret folding technique passed from father to son through the ages ?) But somehow it was a mistake to make, I should have said something : It is time to go home, I am getting sloppy (and the 50+ hour bus ride did not help either). And the worst thing is not paying too much money, but actually proofing the hustler right that if you push people enough they will eventually give in.


Afterwards we went to eat by the kilo and I took loads of food, it was my first decent meal in more than 4 days. I needed it, but I made it to Manaus even a day earlier than planned. We went to the harbour and discovered indeed Clint and Simone had paid 100 real less than the official price and I did pay 80 real more than the offical price, which I knew, but I still stung at me that Clint and Simone agreed so easily, but than again for paying some more I do not have to worry for my luggage for 5 days. Afterwards, I went on the internet to take care of the insurance thing (It is quite a hazzle) and typed up my blog entries. I returned to the hostel and told Clint and Simone I was not feeling too comfy about paying 80 reals more (which is a lot of money) and they decided to go to the harbour and find a better deal and then go back to the tour operator to get a discount or bail out of the deal. Which we did, but the guy wasn´t there, so his assistant called me and I did the story and he was going to come to the hostel first thing in the morning to discuss it with me in private. Clint told me I could ask he him my money back and if he didn´t we were going to bail out of the deal (All of us, which was some great leverage. The guys are so caring).


We headed to the harbour to locate our boat, but did not find it, but had a really nice time, seeing all the people boarding the boats, the atmosphere was totally wicked, loud music blasting from everywhere : it is going to be an adventure. Really. I was so surprised I just could keep on speaking Spanish and people understood me (Go Rez) and went back to the internet shop to try to find me a scanner to mail my insurance form to the insurance company. I had to return to the hostel to get my camera and take pictures of the papers and sent them, because there was no scanner to be found in Manaus, but by the time I got back to the internet cafe, the owner had already found himself a camera and had already taken some pictures of the forms (Really, really sweet). I mailed them out and copied my pictures in the process and then headed back to the hostel, where Clint and Simone were already in bed.

I headed out again to find me some food and the streets were already deserted (not a good sign) and I had a quick snack at some street vendor, who was about to close and return to the hostel. Just for the fun on it, I put on my mosquito net and after showering (to get rid of some excessive body heat), I read some in the LP and went to sleep around 8.

No entiendo

I got up around 7 and got off to wash myself a bit and then kept on snoozing until 9, when I discovered the bus was only 187 kilometers from Santa Elena and at 10 o´clock, it seemed we were only 82 kilometers from Santa Elena, which meant we were going to arrive early and thus increasing my chances on taking the bus to Manaus today.

We pulled in at the bus station around 11h30 and wanting to take the bus to Manaus, it seemed the company didn´t operate anymore and I had to take a taxi to the border and take a bus from there, which was quite expensive but I didn´t had any choice. I flagged a taxi driver and told me to take me to the border by 1 o´clock and he headed off. He left me at the Venezualian side of the border to have my bag examined and it took ages. The police man made me unpack my entire backpack and daypack and then went through all stuff one by one (It seemed my shaving creme canister had exploded in my toiletbag, draining everything in shaving foam. Nice). 20 minutes later, he decided that my backpack was ok and went through the daypack item by item. Next was he was questionning me from where I came, where I was going, what I did in life and he asked me some proof (The guy was really taking it quite slow and although I had the urge to tell him to go faster, I shut up, because he was clearly enjoying this and would probably stall me even longer then). Luckily having my student card on me, I showed this to him and he even wrote down the name and the phone number of the school (So, Vlekho if you get a phone call from Venezuela in the next couple days, you know what happened). It was only when the taxi driver came in, he let me go. Next was getting my exit stamp and this went quite fast (just in, get stamped and get out).

I only have been 2 days in Venezuela but I must say the people are quite friendly and helpful, not being unfriendly as everyone tells them to be, but the country is indeed chaotic, worn, dirty. I have never seen streets as dirty as those in Caracas.

The taxi driver took me to the Brazilian side, where I got my entry paper and my entry stamp, which also took 10 minutes because the lady was clearly unable to determine my nationality. I hopped in the cab and he took me to the bus station down the road where I bought my ticket. And here it became quite obvious I had left the Spanish speaking part of SA behind me and from no one, I was back to No entiendo. But luckily the lady at the booth spoke some Spanish, I could pay my bus ticket to Manaus with a mixture of Bolivar and dollars, thus getting rid of my Venezuelian money and being able to use my last dollars (Sweet). While waiting for the bus, I talked with Clint and Simone for a a while (who were also going to go to Manaus and take the boat to Belem) and then (still having 20 minutes) decided to get some money out and buy some food. I took some money out (no problem in Brazil) and started walking back when everyone started asking me if I was on the bus to Boa Vista, which I was), so I headed back and Clint was waiting for me, telling me the bus was about to leave and we didn´t take in account the half an hour hour change at border (So stupid). He already had loaded my bag in the bus and gave me some of his water for the bus ride.

We talked a bit on the bus and it seemed they just flew in from Caracas and were going to visit SA in the next 3 months, so I gave him some tips and the rest of the bus ride I slept. We arrived in Boa Vista around 4 and got to the waiting room and I decided to clean out my toilet bag a bit in the mens room and have a quick shower, because after 41 hours of bus, I was feeling sticky and smelly (Especially my feet from doing Caracas in the rain). I wenht out to buy me some food for on the bus and could hardly believe I was back in Brazil after more than 4 months (And living expensive again). We did some more talking and determining our main action plan for Manaus and around 6, we took the bus to Manaus. We lost the english girls somehow to whom I talked a bit and got on.

Around 7, we stopped for food and it seemed Clint was working as an network engineer in London now and after 15 minutes the bus took off again. Around 9, a girl came sitting next to me (the bus must have stopped while I was sleeping), but after an hour realized I wasn´t too comfortable with her sitting next to me and she moved to another seat and telling me I could take both seats (So friendly). But around midnight, another woman and this time with a boy came sitting next to me, but I fell asleep quite fast again.

At the money

I woke up around 6h and had a real hard time staying awake when coming closer to Caracas and kept falling asleep all the time. The bus finally pulled in around 6h45 and I headed to the main terminal to buy my ticket out to Cuidad Bolivar or preferably Santa Elena De Uiaren. No bus comapny was selling tickets to either one, so I decided I must be in the wrong terminal (Caracas has 2) and wanted to verify this, why was extremely difficult because they spoke the most weird Spanish accent. Finally I found me a sign saying Terminal Jose de Sucre, which meant there was a third terminal or what. Damn.

I tried to takeout some money from the cash machine, but every time (on both of my credit cards), it asked me for the first 2 numbers of my passport, but he clearly didn´t recognize an international passport). Some of the bus guys tried to help me, but I explained them none of the terminals were working, so there I was in a new country with a single dime on me (every day is an adventure, sometimes I just want to type a blog post saying : Nothing interesting happened today) and tried to get me a bus to the center and paying with dollars (as always I came prepared) to try my luck there (since there was no exchange in the terminal), but the bus driver refused dollars. Damn. One of the taxi drivers wanted to "help" me and drive me to an ATM machine, but I declined. By that time, I had already discovered the bus took me to the wrong terminal and this wrong terminal was actually the correct one to take my bus south (At least I was having one lucky break) and I decided to buy my bus ticket to the south with dollar. After searching for a while, I found me an agency who wanted to take me to Santa Elena, but didn´t accept dollars, but were so friendly to tell me the shop upstairs changed some dollars underneath the counter.

The guy proposed me a rate of 1 to 3, which I didn´t understood because it was way higher than the official one (which was 1 to 2,14), but I accepted it and got myself 300 bolivar for only 100 dollars (I heard you could get decent rates on the street but this was simply too good to be true). While handing me the money, he told the other guys sitting at the counter to watch the surroundings and told me it was not safe in the terminal and I had to be careful. I bought my bus ticket to Santa Elena and then wanted to put my backpack in storage so I could visit Caracas. No one was at the desk, so a lady was so friendly to use the intercom to localize the guy and then even went searching for him. 5 minutes later they came back, I checked in my backpack and took the micro to the subway station, where I took the metro to the center (which took 30 minutes and the LP got the entire metro system wrong).

Surfacing at the center, everything seemed to be closed, so I walked around a bit in the pouring rain and finally found me a bakery and bought me some food for on the bus and decided to visit the tomb of Simon Bolivar (They practical workship the guy, you see his image everywhere, more than Chavez´image). Walking the street, I found it quite amusing to see a sorts of American muscle cars of eigthies and most of them serving as taxi (Imagine taking a taxi ride in a Pointiac Thunderbird). I finally made it to the tomb and the guard was really enjoying himself, seeing I had a map of Caracas in the LP. I visit the crypt a bit, which was quite impressive and took me some pictures of the tomb and the ceiling.

I left to find me some internet which I did and typed up a blog post and fill out the insurance documents, but they didn´t had a scanner, so I took them with me and returned to the metro station to discover this was also closed (is 24 of June a holiday or what). I walked to the next station and found it open and took the metro back to Petara and from there a micro to the terminal. The luggage guy was playing domino with some others and he gave me back my backpack and I waited for the bus to depart. Around 3, I could enter the platform and put my back in the bus and this time go a leather receipt for my bag (This is a first) and got on the bus. We were only 5 people on the bus and this time it was a real cama bus and this only for 30 euros (My plan was actually working : taking benefit from the cheap bus system in Venezuela to get to Brazil instead of paying way to much for a Colombian flight).

The bus left on time and I started to wonder at what time the bus from Santa Elena to Manaus was going to leave. I watched the landscape a bit and around 5, we pulled in for food, but I was devouring my french bread and a Venezuelan started talking to me and we were having a pleasant conversation. The bus left around 6 again and I went to sleep only to be woken by the television who was broadcasting some soap opera where the main form of communication was yelling, screaming and being overall hysterical (The people on the bus were loving it). I did my planning for the next 2 weeks, trying to squeeze in Angel Falls or Roraima, but then I had to skip the Patanal in Brazil. I fell asleep around 9 and except from waking up a couple of times (When people got on and off the bus), I had a decent sleep on my frontseat.

Due west

Today is the first day of my trip westwards (You made still remeember the post Due north from begin March) : I covered the entire continent from the most southern point to the most northern point in the last 3,5 months and for the next 10 days, I will travel west to reach the Atlantic Ocean by July 3th.

A baby next door started crying around 5h (Definitely a noisy hostel) and kept me awake for 2 hours so overslept myself and got out around 8h30, but still had enough time to make it to the bus station, so I packed the remainder of my stuff and went on the internet some more to look up the conversation ration between USD and VEF (which was 0,47) and said goodbye to the hostel owners (This makes it so hard to leave, I had an excellent time in Taganga and the hostel had become my second home, especially since the owners were so considerate). I decided to take a micro to the bus terminal. Again the micro refused to pick me up, so I headed down to the center to take a cab and encountered a Dutch girl, who was also going to take a micro to the airport. I told her that was probably not possible, but she insisted. Her Colombian friend said the same, but she didn't want to hear. 2 Micros later and being brushed away by both, I suggested to take a taxi, which we did and the taxi driver asked 6000 to Santa Marta and 10000 to the bus terminal (which was way too much), but we took it anyway. In the taxi, he suddenly changed the price from 10.000 to 15.000 in addition to the 6.000 to Santa Marta, so I decided to find me another one in Santa Marta (Taxi drivers are such thieves, they can smell that you are about to leave the country, I suggest taxi drivers are being given their own nationality, since most of the time they are a disgrace for their own country).

The Dutch girl told me she was robbed twice in Bogota and once in Santa Marta and now headed to fly back to Bogota to take the plane to Letitia (my original travel plan). In Santa Marta, I told the taxi driver to give me my backpack and he wasn't to please about it, but it was his own fault : he shouldn't have tried to rip me off. I found another one for 4.000 and he took me to the bus terminal, strongly discouraging me to go to Venezuela, but hey man, I don't have a choice. He dropped me off a the bus terminal and the bus ticket was the most expensive ever (165.000 pesos for 18 hours of bus). I had the instinct to check out the other company, which didn't make you change buses at the border (Brasiliano), but after waiting half an hour (and there was only person in front of me), I bailed out and bought me the expensive ticket (So strange, I will haggle for 10 minutes and/or walk 10 blocks to save 1000 pesos, but everything it comes to big amount, I simply don't care anymore and pay the full amount and thus completely cancelling out all my haggling work on the small amounts. I must clearly pay more attention to this).

Around 11, a police offer came along and searched my backpack and daypack for drugs (quite thoroughly) and afterwards I left the bus terminal to buy me some cheap food (Here you go, perfect example). The bus left almost on time and I immediately went to sleep.

Around 4h00, we made it to the border (An hour early) and I followed the others to the migration. When I looked behind me the bus had gone (Cool), so not knowing who was on the bus and who was not, I started asking around and found me a couple who had to take the same bus. The immigration was so slow : I was only 2 people behind the couple and it still to 10 minutes to stamp the first one, so I asked I could skip the line and I could. I got my exit stamp, took my daypack and ran to the Venezelian side of the border and in the process cutting my foot on a branch (I am so unlucky with the feet). I found the migration and the couple again and it seemed there were some girls sitting outside filling out your entrance cards for a mere 1000 pesos, but they didn't do a great job : half on the information was wrong (I was 33 for example), but I got in the line and waited and waited and waited and after half an hour, it was my turn. I got my stamp immediately despite of the wrong information and walked to the bus, where a police offer was inspecting all luggage and was really unloading everything and scrutinizing every peace of luggage (One of the guys had some clock with him with dates on it and every date had some chocolat inside and he opened them all and sniffed all pieces of chocolat, much to enjoyment of the others). When it was my turn, he opened everything in my daypack (even took my dvds out of their protective paper), but hardly looked at my backpack (I was really enjoying this, now I know again why I prefer taking buses over planes : every couple of miles something happens that makes it all worthwile sitting more than 20 hours on a bus)

Finally we could load everything again in the bus and took off, leaving Colombia behind. I have been there for 23 days and it was one of the best parts of my trip : people are friendly, there is a lot to see, ... Colombia has it all. I am going to miss you, Colombia and I will be back some days, I promise.

Venezuela looked as it never had left the eighties (American sedans, ....). Too bad nobody bothered to clean the country since the eighties either. In the next village I saw a picture of Bart (Simpson) mooning Mayor Quimby and Quimby bore some striking resemblance to Chavez (Hehe). At 6 o'clock, they stopped us again and searched us in person on the bus and had a look at our passports (It took ages for mine, since the guy was admiring all stamps in the passport). Around 7 o'clock, we were stopped again and our stuff shoved through an X-ray scanner. A guy was really complaining (even to me), so they picked him out of the row and let him unload all his stuff in the middle of the street (as everyone told me : the police in Venezuela likes to pester people with it). I got away clean. We put everything back in the bus and took off again.

We crossed through Maracaibo around 8 and took the bridge over the bay, which was really impressive (Is around 8 kilometers), but around 9, my entire body hurted since I was so uncomfortable in the seat and didn't had enough space at all (And everyone told me this was one of the best companies, my ass, this was as comparing carbon coal to diamond, where diamond are Argentian buses). Around 10, I fell asleep, waking up every hour because some part of my body was hurting as hell due to the uncomfortable position or because of the cold (The AC was working perfectly). The bus made a stop around midnight for food, but I went to sleep again.

Improvement is the way ahead

Again the same dog woke me up at 5h30 (The dog is more punctual than a rooster), so after lying in the bed for another 2 hours, I walked to the diving center to do my 2 fun dives. I wasn't feeling too well and probally even looked worse. And so did Jonas.

I packed my gear and around 8h30, we headed out. The others (including Jonas) were going to take the advanced open water course and thus were going to dive to 25 meters and learn to tackle currents. I was going on 2 fun dives with a divemaster. Arrived at the spot, I geared up and fell out of the boat (a really nice start), but was ok. The guy explained me the dive plan (We were going to circle a rock) and descended. The dive was nice and the guy were friendly, he checked on me every 2 minutes or so. The mask I had taken didn't fit very well (It is a good company, but their equipment management doesn't seem to be the best) and the divemaster noticed so he just yanked it of my face (He did some gestures I didn't understood perfectly) and put it back, this time a bit better. Luckily for me, I didn't panic this time and we started our dive, diving between coral banks and enjoying the sealife. I had some problems with achieving neutral buoyancy (I was way too heavy) and had to use the BDC all the time to steer clear from coral reefs. But the trip was definitely a success : I had a swell time and saw a lot. When circling the rock, a current hit us again and started pulling us away and although I tried to swim towards the rock, I did not make it (Steering away from currents is advanced material) and the dive master came to get me. We continued our trip and surfaced after 18 minutes (which was quite fast), but the others had the same problem : even Jonas surfaced 2 minutes later out of oxygen of fighting the current.

We took everyone in and most were indeed exhausted from fighting the current and Jonas was even not feeling too well after going to 25 meters (If you read all these stories, you would think scuba diving is a lot of misery, hard work and dangerous. Well, it is not. We are just rookies making a lot of mistakes and slowly building our experience). We took a long break on the beach and I fed the dogs a bit, since they looked completely miserable and very scared of humans (Charlotte told me a lot of dogs in Taganga were really hurt by people and thus fearing a bit people. Even the wound on the dog in Casa Del Felipe was contracted by one of the staff. Poor things). After an hour or so, we went back on the boat for the second dive and this one went superb (Except me falling from the stairs again).

I had myself calculated my optimal weight and this time I was really neutral buoyant, only having to use my breath to ascend and descend and swim between the coral banks. I didn't even had to equalize my ears anymore .. I was doing it automatically. It was a splendid dive and I even saw some sea horses (They are quite difficult to spot). You simply can not believe what you will find on the bottom of a sea : tires, old cooking pots, complete crankshaft, chimneys, .... all being devoured by local plant life. We swim for a while and my oxygen was going down slowly (I was moving quite slow and only moving with my legs). When I was running low on oxygen, we made a 3 minute safety stop before surfacing (to prevent the bends) and than broke through the surface : we had been down at 18 meters for 30 minutes, a new record. I was actually learning (Normal time for an experienced diver is 40 minutes, but the divemaster was quite impressed and so was I : I had increased my oxygen efficiency by 50%). Back on the boat, I didn´t see my watch anywhere until I noticed I was still wearing it, so it is definitely waterproof (and tested for 18 meters).

We waited to pick the others up, which took a long time, since they were only doing exercices at 8 meters, which about doubles your oxygen lifetime. Jason did not look too well and we returned to the diving center for cleaning and rinsing of our gear. I got my certification paper and me and Jason went for food, both almost falling asleep on the table. I said bye to Jason and went to find me an internet place, but most places were closed on Sunday and the one that was open was completely crappy, so I headed back to the hostel and uploaded my pictures there. After some blogging I returned to the diving center to wave Jason out who was going on a night dive and collect my log book, completed with todays dives. I talked a bit with the girls, who wanted my email and if possible wanted me to stay longer, but I had to go to Venezuela (This entire Venezuela deal is freaking me out, I wanted to buy my tickets to Manaus today and the company does not fly on Manaus anymore until July 2 and other companies are double the price and the cheapest one being Copa Airlines forces me to fly over Panama City losing 2 days, thus obliging me to take the bus to Caracas. Crappy situation).
I returned to the hostel, made my backpack and headed out for dinner. Around 10, I returned to the dive center to say goodbye to Jason, but Jason was nowhere to be seen, so I waited and put my muscle shirt on his door (He asked for it). While waiting Camillia came rushing in and invited me to go out on my last evening, but I was too tired. Not wanting to be rude, I joined the girls to the beach and we talked a bit and they were clearly sad I was leaving. The American from diving joined us and this was my cue to leave, I said goodbye to them all and returned to the hostel, really not looking forward to the days to come : I had more than 100 hours of bus, 4 days of boat ahead of me in the next 100 days. I am just wondering if I am going to do it in one go or make stops, problem is that I have to be in Manaus, Brazil on June 30th, the latest to make it on time to Rio (If I want to visit all things on my list). I will probably completely skip Angel Falls, since it is tremendous expensive to visit them and it is dry season in Venezuela, so I will lose a lot of time and money just to see some water drippin).

Top gun

I only made it to the diving center around 8 and we had to wait for Jonas for half an hour more, because he overslept. Meanwhile, I took out breakfast and watch the dogs a bit : they got a small shepard which is completed messed up, he will bite at anything and even bit on of the bigger dogs in his balls, starting a most amusing fight. 2 minutes later, he tore out on the pages in my course book.

We packed our gear, headed to the book, got it ready and then went to the diving site for a dive to 18 meters. I had no problems at all with my ears and we made it down quite easily and after the exercises went for some fun diving and I was most enjoying the view. Suddenly I was lifted upwards and couldn't descent anymore although I tried to swim back to Jessy and Jonas for a couple of minutes completely draining my oxygen. Only seeing Jessy vaguely and being dragged into the ocean by a strong current, I decided to ascend. Shooting quite fast from the ocean, Charlotte (a French instructor) saw me emerging and asked me immediately where Jessy was. I told her down. Charlotte was not feeling comfortable at all and I got on the boat, waiting for Jessy and Jason. A minute became 5, an 5 became 10 and everyone was very worried and Charlotte was completely stressed out. Some minutes later, they surfaced and entered the boat and Jessy told me, she had found Jason, but had to hide with him underneath an overhanging rock at the bottom to protect him from the current and they had to stay there for over 10 minutes and how she was worried about me. I found it a really cool experience and didn't feel unsafe for a second (We were being well trained and I had the right instinct to surface).

We took our break and after eating some sandwiches, Jessy learned us to swim with a compass and told me I moved way too fast in the water, which was the reason I was burning oxygen this fast. We took off again and dived again to 18 meters, but when doing the mask removal exercise, I started panicking big time, because I couldn't clear my mask and it was full of water and I took some seawater in (I was already a bit stressed, because again they mixed up my gear and I only discovered it at the bottom, having difficult time doing the exercises because this time I was overweight and my BDC was way too small). I wanted to surface and Jessy took me there, and I was so mad at me and really wondered if diving was something for me. Jessy told me I should continue because I may have some problems with relaxing when breathing from a tank (suddenly I didn't like being dependant of technology), but I was a good swimmer, understood all procedures and concepts of diving very well (Which is true, Jason is more used to swimming with tanks, but he messes up regularly with his equipment and the protocol) and I was one of the most determant divers she had every seen and there was no reason to be ashamed : she told me when she lost both of us in the current this morning, she panicked to for a couple of seconds, before getting back her bearings (and she has been diving for 10 years). I proved this determinance again, by diving immediately again.

Back down, I wanted to redo my exercise (I had to to succeed my course) and this time everything went well, except I started hyperventilating and panicking again immediately after the exercise, for no reason whatsoever. It felt so strange because I was in control, feeling completely silly, but couldn't not stop the panicking feeling, nor the hyperventilating (No I understand how panic can overtake a person and make him make the worst mistakes, which can cost him/her his/hers life). After 30 seconds, I calmed down and we went for some sightseeing, but I wasn't feeling to comfortable. I was again buring oxygen as hell and had to share oxygen with Jessy, not really helping to make me feel comfortable. After 5 minutes, we surfaced and I was glad to be out.

We returned to the diving centre, rinsed our gear and she learned us how to keep a logbook of our dives. We went out to eat and I started reading in my course book while waiting for dinner. I returned to the hostel, did some more reading and really wanted to do the exam today and going way to slow, I started reading diagonally and finished 300 pages in 2 hours (I even read the diving table part, which nobody explained to us and was quite advanced). I returned to the diving center and asked them if I could do the test and Jason was already there, finishing the last exercises. I completed the remaining 50 pages faster than he could finish the last exercise and helped him out a bit with the calculation of the diving tables.

Around 7, we finally started the exam and had to take a quiz first, which I finished in 10 minutes (you get 30 minutes) and I had made 4 stupid mistakes, just by not reading the questions decently. We got the examen and I was already bored (I was already there for 2 hours) and finished the damn thing in 10 minutes (official time : 1 hour) and gave the page to Jessy for correction. After 2 minutes or so, I heard someone yelling and it was Jessy telling me I score a perfect 100% (making me one of the 2% who scores 100% on the Padi Open Water certification : I was fucking Top Gun, now I just have to get rid of the panicing) and I got 2 free dives the next day. Sweet. Camillia asked me out to Santa Marta and while waiting for Jonas, I talked a bit with Max (the owner) and he strongly discouraged me to go through Venezuela, so I was definitely going to fly to Manaus. Jonas finished the test half an hour later, barely passing it but he did.

I returned to my hostel to shower and clean up and when getting back to the diving center, everybody was gone, so I waited. Jonas opened the door after 20 minutes and while going out for dinner, the girls asked us to join them and I talked a bit with Max about Colombia and diving and how Taganga doesn't have water and they have to bring in trucks every week or so. While eating, some idiot (I use the term loosely) introduced himself as being Israeli, America, Canadian and Aussi and being 45 years old and started ranting about how rich he was and doing the most stupid things. Max told me the guy was a fucking idiot and such people must be controlled. I went sitting next to him and this guy was indeed loco : he told us how he hated Colombia and the people were stupid, how he liked music, god and the devil and didn't like spending time with people (So why then was he joining us). He made a completely fool out of him (trying to throw a sigaret in his mouth and missing 10 times), insulted Jonas and the girls all the time (He called Jonas a pedophile for hanging out with the girls, but Jonas didn't flinch). When he asked me my nationality, he started being abusive about Belgium, but after one look of me, he shut up. Next was throwing kisses at Camillia and finally went the bill came, he insisted on paying it and just ripped it out of our hands. Jonas was furious. Meanwhile the girls were asking me all the time what he was saying in English, so I translated and one of the younger ones really bursted in tears when she heard that he found Colombians lazy and stupid (Poor thing).

We tried to shake him of by taking a taxi to Santa Marta, but he got in the second one and completely commandeered it by bribing the cab driver. Arrived in Santa Marta, he kept on following us and when Camilla went to the bank, he followed her. So did I and I just turned the corner to see him harrass Camilla, but seeing me he back off. Not finding a place, we took another taxi to another part of Santa Marta and again he took a taxi to follow us. At the entrance, he paid for everyone (120.000 pesos) and when Camillia told her she didn't want to and nor did Jonas, she just yelled : Shut up, bitch at her, completely infuriating Jonas and myself.

We got in and he started buying all sorts of liquors, so we drank them, but he was spending shitloads of money (The bill for the liquor was 600.000 pesos). We left him behind and went dancing a bit, enjoying ourselves. The place was total coolness, a huge hut sitting in the middle of an articifially created lake and completely high-tech. We had a pleasant night, dancing, talking, taking pictures of ourselves with the girls and Jonas was completely hitting on Camellia and talking to the English speaking girls. The Spanish speaking girls kept feeding me Aquaduriente and asking me to translate everything for them. I was addressed the entire evening by other gringos asking me how in gods name did I manage to get 10 Colombian girls to go out with me and I was surely going to have a good night (Wink, wink). They continued by asking if I could introduce them to the girls (Well, that is the reason why girls ask me out a lot : I do not look at them as a pair of breasts and a vagina as most partiers do).

Around 1, I headed out for donner kebab and when coming back, Jonas and Camillia were kissing, which wasn't really beneficial for the atmosphere. It really split up the group. We stayed until 2 and than took a cab back to Taganga and I paid for it completely, wanted to actually pay something that night.

The girls asked me along to the beach were we talked a bit (Jonas and Camillia already left for the hostel) and a couple of them sqeezed themself against me but around 3, I headed back to the hostel and went to sleep. Well, if you come to think of it, it is a miracle I have not taken a girl to my bed in South America. But than again, it does not interest me, I just want to have a good time and not bang every girl who crosses my path. And besides and most important at all : I am loyal to my girl at home.

The sixth continent

I got up at 7h30, which hurt, but wasn't really a problem since some dog in the neighboorhood had been barking since 5 in the morning and I had been awaken for a while and was covered in bite marks : they got some very aggresive kind of fly here and the reaction to it is quite bad. I went to the diving center and me and Jonas went for breakfast.

The boat (and we were taking the big one) was leaving around 8h30 and we prepared our diving gear. We got at the diving site around 9 and after doing some exercices (the same we did in the swimming pool), followed the anchor line down to the bottom (10 meters). The pressure in my ears was quite painful, but I made it and for some reason or another, I started panicking a bit when down, but quickly recovered my senses and we started swimming. After 10 minutes of swimming I was unable to keep my depth and even deflating the BDC didn't work at all and I had to surface. Jessy followed me and it seemed someone had mixed up my diving belt and I was carrying way too less weights. When trying to give me one of hers, she dropped hers in the ocean and we decided to try it again. But this time my ears hurted like hell and I couldn't equalize them at all. I shot back up and Jessy told me to go to the boat. Not being too happy about the weight belt, I snapped at her and then asked if I could try again. But to no avail, my ears were killing me and my entire nose was blocked, so I had to resurface and wait on the boat.

When Jessy and Jonas made it back to the boat, she told me to sniff sea water, which is extremely painful, but clears out your nose. At that time, I was already having problems with correctly hearing too, so during the break, I did so and my nose was indeed clearing up and Jessy took me down to 10 meters again to try my ears and this time I was able to equalize them. We returned and the group boarded the boat again and we went to the next diving site. After some more exercises (which hard quite difficult), we did some free diving and enjoyed the underwater scenery and Jessy pointed me out some local fish and vegetation. I am so glad I am doing scuba diving, this will allow me to also visit the sixth continent and having even more places to travel to. Burning my oxygene like hell, we had to resurface after half an hour (It seems I am not really yet comfortable at breathing from a tank and I am moving way too fast).

We got on the boat, picked up the others and returned to the diving center where we learned to rinse our gear and called it a day. It seemed the last day was already tomorrow and so was the test, but I told Jessy I was going to do it on Sunday, because it had to take some money out in Santa Marta and mail my dvds home. Jonas and I went out for dinner and ice coffee (really tasty one). While walking the street a Colombian came to us asking us what we (gringos) were doing in a dangerous country as Colombia. Clearly the guy was making a joke and we had a nice talk. Some other guys (Americans) joined the conversation and were being extremely rude to the guy (another bad point for US of A). I took a micro to Santa Marta (after waiting for 40 minutes to get my credit card from the safe ... so slow). As always in the weekends, there was a huge line at the ATM, so I went to the postal office to mail my dvds home and this time they got it right. I got a number, an invoice and even had to put down my fingerprints for mailing the dvds home, declaring it weren't drugs. So obviously the guy in Popayan just put my money in his own pocket, because I never gave me a reference number, nor an invoice, nor inquired about the contents of the packet (and the dvd is still not home). I found me another bank and took out a million pesos (I would like to see my bank statements in pesos, I must have billions), but had to do it in 3 times, because the machine only allowed 400.000 pesos a time.

I went to the beach a bit and could see an oil tanker heading to the beach and cutting it quite closely. I didn't found me a micro back, but after some walking around (no one knew directions), I found one and had to sit in the door, because it was quite full (which was fun). I decided to screw the plane and just take the bus through Venezuela (I change my mind every day, which is extremely rare for me, but I don't want to sit on a bus anymore for over 50 hours). Arrived in Taganga, I immediately headed to the diving center and paid my course, disposing of the money and went to apologize to Jessy for snapping at her, but she didn't even remember. I went for food and found Natascha walking the street and checking out other hostel. I accompanied her and when leaving an hostel, someone threw a life lobster at me. It scared the living daylights out of me). I went for a fast hotdog and returned to the hostel to do some studying, but was feeling terrible tired, so I stopped quite fast and went to check on Jonas, who was also tired from last night and not planning on getting out. I had another hotdog and returned to the hostel and talked to an Aussie guy about diving and than watched the Fifth element on television. I had a difficult time to staying awake till the end of the movie (everybody was now watching it ... good movie) and went to bed, having the room all to myself

Back to the classroom

I got up around 7 together with Carlos as he was going to the Lost City and myself wanted to enroll in a diving class today. Carlos was extremely unfriendly, so I said goodbye and headed to the diving center, which was still closed. While searching some breakfast, I met Carlos again and wanted to be friendly and started a conversation, but he just ignored me. So I headed to an internet cafe and I typed up a blog entry and searched and found me a cheap flight with Varig from Bogota to Manaus on Wednesday. I returned to Poseidon around 8h30.

Prices were quite steep (It is one of the more expensive ones), but I decided to enroll, since then I could dive together with Jason. The lady gave me a medical checklist to fill out and showed me the way to the video room, where I could start the training videos. Around 9, I was already so bored, I decided to buy me some food first and returned. I needed to complete all videos before 1pm, before classes would start.

I was in the middle of section 2 when Jessy entered, introduced herself as my instructor and asked me to call her after section 2, which I did. It seemed she wanted already start classes, so she gave us our gear and did an short explanation on it. Next was gearing up and going in the pool to do some exercices. Normally exerices are done over the whole course, but she decided to do them all in one day. Being submerged for the first time with a scuba tank strapped to your back, especially when the regulator didn't shut off properly after using and wasn't delivering the needed air. After a couple of minutes, I was forced to surface to breath and Jessy gave me a new regulator, which worked much better. We did some exercises as inflating and deflating the BDC, switching on and off our tanks, swimming without mask (I lost almost a contactlens), replacing your gear while being submerged, ... During this time, I had to go 2 times to the toilet : swimming with scuba gear tends to do that. We concluded our first day around 2 and went out to eat.

Afterwards, we did the next sections of tutorials and boy was this boring. It does help you to get some background and ideas on what you have to do, but boring .... After each section we took a 15 minute recess and around 6, we finally completed the videos and went for some ice coffee. There we met 2 friends (Scott and Mark) of Jonas (also coke heads) and we were going to have some beers with them in the evening. Again, I noticed how Jonas changes behaviour so eaily, in the day we got along quite well, having decent conversations and now again, he was again in his primitive mode with as most important conversation topics being women, drugs and overall vulgar talk. We went for a swim and encountered 2 of the 10 colombian girls, who were staying at the diving center and chatted a bit (They studied English in Canada). I so love this place : friendly people, a beach to kill for, ... Afterwards went to eat out in an Israeli bar and talked a bit about degrees, work, manual labors and salaries and then headed to Casa Del Felipe around 8. It took ages to get our food : people are so friendly in Colombia, but also so slow, everything takes ages. Even getting the key for the room takes 5 minutes.

The hostel looked really cool and we found the guys drinking some vodka and joined them. It seemed Scott was a civil engineer and we talked some math and physics. But quickly the conversation was back to drugs and sex and I decided to shut up a bit. When they left the table, I confronted Jonas with his attitude shifting and he agreed with me, he indeed does that all the time and doesn't have any problem being around whosever, but he was also quite happy Carlos had left, because the guy worked on his nerves. I told him he was quite good at it (He seems so sincere) and he told me I wasn't indeed the first one who told him, but found it a nice compliment. There was a dog walking around with a rather nasty and deep head wound, it looked awfull.

Around 11, we took off to El Garage, where we were suppose to meet the girls and found them quite quickly. We talked a bit with them and then moved to the dancing floor. Jonas was definitely hitting on Camilla and didn't leave her side for a second. The other girls were continiously inviting me to dance or chatting with me. We had a more than decent time. Around 3, we called it a day and walked back to the hostel and went to sleep.

Change of plans

We got up at 7, because we wanted to take the earliest bus to Santa Marta, but the guy who had the key to the safe was only to arrive in the hostel around 9, so we had to wait for him. I went to have a quick breakfast and luckily the guy arrived around 8h30, so we took our belongings out, paid and grabbed a taxi to the bus terminal. Since we had so much things on us (especially Carlos and Natascha), it was quite crowded in the taxi and most things were hanging from the trunk.

Arrived at the bus terminal, someone tapped my shoulder and it was Jason. I was extremely happy to see him again, since the last couple of weeks I had been going awire in getting back together with people (Daniel and Annabel in Cuzco, Scott in Quito, Bruni in Huaraz, ... mostly because of me, but hey). It seems he knew Carlos and Natascha as well (they stayed in the same place in Medellin) and we put Carlos bargaining powers to work to find us a cheap bus to Catanga (I had changed my mind in the taxi and was going to join them to Catanga, which was only 5 kilometers of Santa Marta). The guy loading our bags in the bus was extremely stressed and was yelling at us to board the bus asap. After this the bus left immediately (That is a first) to stop 50 meter down the road to wait for other passengers. This took over an hour and while waiting a dozen of vendors tried to sell their good. There was even a mute woman, who grabbed my book from hands and gave me a flyer. I put down the flyer and started reading again, noticing this she started to making some whistling noises at me and some very unfriendly gestures. She did the same with Jonas 2 minutes later and this time we could clearly see what she was saying : Jonas was going to go to hell for not giving her money. She performed an entire show in the bus for another 10 minutes and then left. It was quite the circus.

The bus finally left around 10h30, after some people started yelling at the driver and Carlos and Natascha started banging the windows (sigh). I read some on the bus and around 1 o'clock, Jason told us we were still 120 kilometers from Santa Marta (so far for the 3 hour bus ride) and they threw us off in the middle of some town (I found it quite funny, the others didn't) and we found ourselves a connecting bus to Santa Marta. Hearing the bus was going to stop in Catanga, we asked the bus driver to leave us off at Catanga and he tried to charge us 15.000 each just to get off (No way, a cab was way cheaper).

On the bus there was a little Colombian girl harrassing all of us and when her mother told her to stop, she just replied : But they are only gringos (The others made the remark, I had early noticed a couple of days earlier : the north of Colombia doesn't feel as Colombia anymore. I do hope so this is not the influence of Venezuela we are already feeling). They dropped us at the site of the road in Santa Maria around4 o'clock and we had spent most of our money on the bus buying some food. Finally we found a taxi to Catanga and everything had to be loaded and strapped on the roof and they guy took us to Casa Del Felipe, which was sadly fully, but we quickly found a cheaper (and in my opinion a better place).

In the hostel, I saw the girl with whom I shared the bus to Salta 3 months earlier (Not everybody already left for home) and talked a bit with her about Venezuela and heard the most horror stories (People leaving the country after only being there for one day and how everything is so expensive and dangerous). A British guy told me the same thing, and I wasn't already to happy to go to Venezuela. I asked Natascha to find us some food and we went to eat arepas on the beach (very good ones) and than stopped at a local sandwich shop for ice tea (Yummie, really). Back in the hostel, I gave my belongings to the receptionist and after putting them in a bag, he just threw them to the upper floor, where the safe was located. I almost died, since there was some sensitive electronics in it.

I decided to shower and in the middle of my shower, the water just stopped. I put on a towel, ran down and he switched the pump on again (Everybody was watching me running around in my towel). I went back, waited for 5 minutes and still no water, so back down it was. The guy told me I shouldn't shower this long (which I didn't) and put the pump on again. Still no water, so I cleaned the soap of me with a towel and headed out, telling him there was no water at all. I went to have a coke and a small boy kept on begging me for it, so I gave him the last drops in the bottle. Not feeling to awake, I headed to bed around 8.

After sleeping for an hour, I decided to give myself a treat : I was supposed to have a good time in SA and I was really just being cheap and decided to screw my penny saving behaviour and go for the PADI Openwater certificate (which is scuba diving). So I got dressed, headed out and found everything closed, except one guy was sitting on his porch and he was wearing a Stella Artois T-shirt (definitely a Belgian). I asked him for diving lessons (in Dutch) and he told me he closed his shop, due to personal problems with his wife, how with Colombians everything is always about moneyt (like the rest of SA) and he was so sick of it and wanted to go back to Belgium. At one point, he was actually crying. I tried to console him a bit and then he suggested me another diving school. I also asked him for pointers on Venezuela and he told me not to go : the country is corrupt (tourists being held by the police for hours just to extract money from them), unsafe and way too expensive to just visit the Angel Falls. Since this was the 10th person in a couple of days, who told me the same thing, I started to think to not visit Venezuela anymore, but I had to find another way to get to Manaus, so he suggest me some flights. When talking Jonas showed up and we went for beers after saying goodbye to the poor guy.

We met Carlos a minute later and he invited us for some beers with some other Canadians in a hut overlooking the city. It took us a while to get there, since Carlos was completely stoned and finally made it to one of the best hostels you can ever imagine. I was already planning to stay with Mark and Luis in the hut, when I discovered 5 minutes later they were completed cocain and marihuana addicts, especially when they started passing drugs around. Everyone participated but I declined. Not wanting to be impolite I stayed with Jonas and Carlos, but really wasn't having a good time and was really feeling an outcast. I proposed after an hour to go to town for dinner and beers, and so we did. Everybody was really unfriendly to me now and while they had been involving me in the conversation in the beginning, I was being left out completely now (Now I know how a undercover agent must feel in a drug gang). We had some beers and pizza (most delicious pizza) at the beach. The others were talking utter nonense and the most gross stories first : how they went to the whores on cocain in Cali, how the gangbanged a local in Bogota, yelling sexist remarks at all the passing girls and thrashing each other all the time. Luckily I was able to talk a bit with Luis about Canada and travelling. I was surprised even Jason was participating and having a normal conversation was completely impossible, even the most normal talk or most funny stories were completed ignored or listened to with sheer boredom. : I never felt so outside of a group, an outcast and a bore, but actually I didn't care and most of all ... I don't do drugs. But I can understand them : they are only 20 and for them is still all new, but I have been done that road : I had my shares of nightly adventures and shameful moments back in the days and now I don't feel like making a completely full of myself anymore.

I paid my bill and we left to the hostel and nor Jonas nor Carlos even said a single word to me, nor said me goodnight (They did to each other) and we returned to the hostel. In the hostel, I told Natascha about the Venezuela thing and she and Carlos made quick a fuss about me changing my mind on Venezuela. Back in the room, Carlos made another quite nasty remark about me changing my mind and I just let him. What is your problem, it is my trip, you don't need to make a fuss about it. Do you do it about every decision someone else takes.

Pirates gold

It took me a while to get out of bed and I had to rush to the harbour to catch my boat, thus not eating. The waiting process was a bit chaotic, since no one did an effort to explain which boat went to which island. Finally around 8, an old guy told me, I had been waiting in the wrong queue and showed me the correct one. At the correct queue, it seemed the boat was only going to leave around 9, so I took me a breakfast and did some reading in the Cryptonomicon (Definitely have to look me up the Riemann Zeta Function) and the boat finally left around 9h20.

I had been avoiding sitting in the sun for the last hour, because I didn't bring any sunblock, but while sitting on the boat, I could already feel the sun burning on my shoulders. The boat went quite fast, being powered by 400 horsepowers and we quickly doubled the big ferry which was going to Playa Blanca (So happy not doing the Playa Blanca thing, we were only 20 or so, compared to the 300 on the ferry) and I shot some pictures underway.

Around 10h40, we made it to the first island and let off some people. Again it was quite difficult to figure out if we were going to stop here or just drop off some people, so I stayed on the boat and 5 minutes later we took off to our destination, being El Media Naranja. Since I got no answer here either, if we were going to visit the other islands first or first have lunch, I stayed again around the boat and again this was a safe bet (Buying your tickets from a street vendor may be cheap, but the guide had no desire whatsoever to explain me the plan of the day). The islands were beautiful and ranged from only being a couple of square meters in size to being full blown islands. This how paradise must feel like : I definitely could see myself living on one of those. Blue water, blue sky, white sands, palm trees. What more do you want (a T3 line perhaps).

I didn't buy me a ticket for the aquarium and settled me in the shades (My left shoulder was considerably burned, so better take care of it tonight) a bit and enjoyed the view and read my book. You could see tons of birds circling the islands and those suckers were big. Next, we finally headed to the island and I did some reading while waiting for lunch, which was actually quite good (I especially liked the fish a lot : big chunks of meat and almost no grates). All the time while waiting for lunch and eating, I got bugged by locals trying to sell me trinkets in which I wasn't interested at all (I was clearly the only gringo on the island), so I started playing a game with them, when they asked me my nationality, I simply didn't respond and let them guess. No one did guess.

After lunch, most of us went for a swim, but I settled under a palm tree and slept for a bit. I was woken 2 times by guys trying to sell me things, but I ignored them and turned my back on them (Just leave me alone, no cash flows from me to you are going to happen). Around 3, the lady told me we were bound back to Cartagena (which was an hour earlier) and I boarded the boat again and after picking up some more people from the other islands, headed back to Cartagena. The sea was quite rough and when approaching the bay, I so felt like being in Pirates Gold : a 90's hit computer game, where you commandeer a fleet of galleons and fregattes (if you are good) and can attack Carribean towns, lay waste to them and plunder their resources. One of the towns in the game was Cartagena and you could sail into the bay and see the governors house sitting on a cliff overlooking the bay (as in real life).

We boarded, I left the harbor and returned to the hostel. As yesterday, I was harrassed on every corner by locals, asking me for money or buying their stuff and seriously overcharging me for it (8000 for a bottle of water). One even almost dragged me into a taxi, even not knowing where I wanted to go (the other side of the road actually). Next was internet and copying of the pictures, but that didn't work out since the internet was so slow. I had some arepas for dinner and returned to the hostel. On the way back, a guy introduced himself as boss of the street and asked me if I wanted some drugs or whores : definitely a dodgy part of town we were staying, but then again it has some character. Around 8, I made my backpack and read some more.

When wanting to go to bed around 10, a small mouse was running through the room, scaring Natascha.

Awaken from a dream

I woke up around 7 and it seemed the bus was late (did you expect otherwise), so I snoozed some more and watched the landscape and it looked a whole more caribbean than the rest of Colombia. Sitting on the bus was ok, but it was the freaking kids that got on my nerve : the mother had brought her baby son/girl and it was screaming all the time, but she simply didn't care. She was even listening to music (I don't give her a day older than 20) while her kid was lying next to her screaming as hell. Her 2 other children (around age 6) understood there was a problem and tried to calm the baby, but of course they didn't had the needed experience on how to do it.

Finally the bus arrived in Cartagena (only 4 hours late) and immediately we got struck by the heat. My god, these degrees. I asked Carlos and Natascha (the dutch girl) if I could join them to their hostel and we took a cab together. Every bus company in Colombia has a scorecard in his office, showing the number of accidents, injuries and deaths every month and a total on a yearbasis. Well, there was a company in the bus station, which showed 1 injury for May 2008, but no injuries for 2008 (which was quite funny). Well, back to the story. I became quite obvious we were getting close to Central America : people looked a lot more caribbean, more like negroes and everything was chaotic, filthy and worn. You could even see through the rust holes in the buses we passed by : I was loving it. Natascha on the other hand didn't and started whining how everyone told her Cartagena was so fancy (I should have known she was more of a snob, because she was travelling south america with a fancy suitcase). Carlos and I told her the old town was.

By the time, we had reached the hostel, our clothes were completely soaked and Carlos haggled down the price a lot (The guy is good at haggling). The hostel was full, so we were forwarded to a second one, which looked like a construction site and we took it. Clearly it wasn't good enough for Natascha, so tried to get a room in the first one, but that didn't work. We checked in and we started talking a abit to an American about travelling and Carlos told us, he had been travelling for 5 months alone and didn't like being around people, but now the last 3 weeks he was going to party a bit in Santa Marta to get used again to being amongst people (WTF ?). While I started talking to the American (he asked me from where I was), I explained him the situation in Belgium : Flemish against French and tried to be objective about it, as always (I give the French part a lot of credit) and then continued about our beers (He knew Duvel and Hoegaarden), when Carlos snapped in and told me : You have to listen to this guy, he is trashing half of his country and then trashing other ones beers. I tried to justify myself, but then let it go. Indeed, he has the social skills of a walnut. Something that showed again when we were preparing to take our stuff to the laundry and he just headed off with the words : I don't feel like waiting for you, guys. On the street, I saw the same thing again as I saw a couple of times before in Medellin : young men walking hand in hand and being way too familiar with older women (And we are talking 60, 70 not your average MILF).

I changed into dry clothes and took my clothes to laundry (Half of my backpack) and then start discovering the city, walking from point to point and across the fortifications : the city is beautiful, full of little alleys with balconies and this all enclosed inside huge defense walls. I quickly noticed how much more acustomed locals are to gringos and on every corner I was addressed for buying something or being begged for money, taxis were stopping in front of me blocking my way, telling me I had to take them because I was walking in a dangerous part (As if). Even while eating, 5 people begged me for money and one even started pulling my arm. So I started being sceptical, which is too bad, because I loved talking to Colombians, but first the first time in weeks I felt like a dollar bill again (Gone was the warm Colombian feeling and back was the abusive South American mentality). While walking from church to church, a Colombian addressed me and asked me from where I was : I told him Belgian and he started talking about Belgium and how he had some friends in Merksem. He was extremely friendly so I asked him where I could book a tour to the Islas Del Rosario and he took me to a tourist office. On the way there, he tried to sell me cocaine and I started to have serious second thought on this guy (He even told me I wasn't normal, travelling through Colombia without using drugs). Clearly he knew the person very well and they charged me 70.000 for it (normal price : 35.000). I thanked him and told him I had to discuss this with my travel buddy (which was the first time in weeks, I had to lie). So he gave me his phonenumber and insisted I made up my mind as fast of possible and inquired when I was going to meet my "friend". Meanwhile, the lady from the tourist office signaled me from behind his back, he was crazy (Good to know). I told him I was going to visit the cathedral first and then head back to the hostel, so he decided to accompany me and was really dragging me along from church to church. Not wanting him around all the time, I let him walk ahead a bit and then just took another street. Not funny.

I returned to the hostel because of the heat and talked a bit with the American again and then headed out to the harbour to buy me a boat ticket to the islands, there were a few islands and I choose to be a snob and going to a private island, which was a lot more expensive, but I didn't feel sitting on an island with 300 others. Prices started as high as 70.000, but eventually haggled the price down with a street vendor for 50.000 (I also found one for 45.000, but this one had some credentials where the other one didn't) and decided to take a leap of faith and buy it from him (So I haggled 33% of the price. The internet showed a price of 45.000, so I didn't do to bad but still lost 5.000 pesos. Crap ;).

I picked up my laundry and had dinner and returned to the hostel. Almost every locals addressed me on the way back and I never highfived so many people before. Back at the hostel, everybody was still asleep and I did some reading in the courtyard and finally Natascha came out and we talked a bit : It seems she is partly Brazilian and contacts her mother all the time for tips on how to travel South America and she was totally disgusted by the hostel now, because she had seen a rat in the kitchen (I just knew the dog wasn't up to the task). Around 7, Carlos woke up and was in a much better mood this time and we had a pleasant conversation. I headed out with Natascha to eat an Arepa and then showed her the cheap internet place. I returned and talked a bit with Alfredo (a mexican), Rob (another Dutch guy) and an Israeli and they asked me along for some beers, but I friendly declined. After doing some more reading, I went to sleep around 10.

I had the nicest idea : when I get back to Belgium, I am going type up the blog entries for America and Russia (based on my memory and pictures taken) and then (after some serious spelling checking and picture selecting) will print an hardcover book of them, which I can leave in my living room, for people (and myself) to read.

Meet the parents

I got up around 9 and found Maria still sleeping and not wanting to take the laptop from her room, I made my backpack, showered and did some reading. Around 11, she got up and ordered some breakfast from the supermarket and made me breakfast (I felt so guilty, but she insisted) : some Colombia Arepas with cheese, really good and then gave me so more sweets. I did the laundry to repay her somehow and gave her the bag of my Panasonic, which I didn't needed anymore and she was quite happy with it (She had been looking for a bag for a couple of months now).

I could lend her pc to burn my pictures on dvd and burned 2 copies extra, which I could leave with her, in case dvd 5 or 6 (It takes awfully long this time) wouldn't make it home. Around 12, I headed out to get some money and but that time, her parents had arrived to pick us up for lunch in a local restaurant to celebrate her fathers birthday (I was meeting her parents without having a fling with the girl, that is a first time). They took us to an Italian restaurant and the food was quite delicious (I had lasagne). Maria kept feeding me shrimps, when she discovered I liked them. I understood the conversation a bit better than yesterday and after a while started talking with parents and they were inquiring where I have been before and they couldn't believe I was doing the entire of South America by bus (I seemed the parents had done some extensive travelling of their own) and Maria told me my camera got stolen in Ecuador, but I was quite handy with the Canon (I was actually blushing).

When the bill came, the father paid for me and took us back to the appartement. I thanked them extensively and I changed into my travelgear and cleaned up her pc a bit, she had some problems with Vista (Don't we all). Next was an icecream (and this time, I was paying) with a friend and again it was quite good (I am really developping a sweet teeth in SA). We returned around 5 and Maria showed me her travelling pictures (She seems to be a biker chick) and what else I could visit in Colombia (She was really doing an effort to promote the country and make me come back and around 5h30, I said goodbye and headed to the bus terminal. I was really leaving Medellin with mixed feelings : wanting to see more, but also wanting to stay in Medellin : I have had the most amazing time.

At the metro station, some military guy stopped me and wanted to search my backpack, but I declined and only showed him the contents of my daypack. I took me 45 minutes to get there and haggled me a busticket for 65.000, which is good deal, considering the peak season just started and prices doubled. I went a bit on the internet and typed up the blog, waiting for my bus. While heading for the bus, I met Natascha again (the dutch girl from Manizales) and it seemed they haggled the price down to 55.000 (Crap, I was already so happy with my effort). It took ages to put our bags in the bus and leaving and the bus was completely full (this due to the holidays starting). A girl insisted I gave up my place, because she wanted to sit next to the window, so I did, but boy, was she a pain in the ass. She took most of the seat and was turning and moving around almost every 5 minutes and making phone calls all the time. At the same time, some kids were playing and running through the aile and hitting the others passengers (and myself) frequently when passing by. This was definitely not going to be a comfortable bus ride.

They were showing a couple of movies starring The Rock and I watched them, because sleeping was quite difficult, but finally around midnight I feel asleep. She woke me up around 4, when she had to leave the bus and finally I had some room for me and could have a decent sleep.