A tribute to the awesome powers of tectonic plates

I'd like to take some time now to write about the Andes. It will probably end up taking quite a while since all the wine and barbecue from last night has left me in a state of slight brain paralysis and malfunctioning hand-eye coordination. My stomach is also at war against everything trying to sneak in for rescue.




But the Andes! They have turned my love for mountains into an obsession. There is no way I could go on with my life without coming back here one day to explore the wonders of the southern Andes. I must, some day, visit Patagonia, hopefully on a bike via the pan american highway, those interested are welcome to join, but expect stopping at every single quirky rock formation and also be ready to go to awesome lenghts to reach the perfect viewpoints of awe.

What is so special about the Andes then? Thats something I'll try my hardest to explain, but there's really no way to explain the beauty of something unimaginable in words, since words are only hints and when put together will form a picture totally distorted to the unseen eye. So to know for real you should visit, and visit you should.

These so called mountains are not really mountains but giant teeth of rock sticking up from the flat and arid deserts around it. Rather than growing gradually from highlands and hills, they just kind of go up like crubling skyscrapers of wicked heights, or like a sloppy row of dominoes that have been standing there for an eternity, some still standing, resisting to fall, yet crumbling under their own weight.

Naturally, the ride from Mendoza to Santiago left my neck numb from trying to take a peak of the peaks of mountains literally leaning towards the snaking road, I also dislocated my jaw when turning here and there trying to eat in all the colours of rock and sand with a somewhat dumbfound expression on my face. It's amazing, the colours and the rough forms that are all there to see for your eyes. This is due to the fact that the mountains dont actually get much rain where there could otherwise be vegetation so nothing is hiding these masterpieces of green, red, white, blue and every other mineral colour. Vegetation only excists in the gravel that has fallen of to form piles of sand at the roots of these gigantic faces of rock. Not much can grow on the mountains themselves since every face is steeper than the other, so steep in fact that they can't hold snow.

I don't know what I can say. Nature scares the crap out of me now. I got to say young Niklas had it right when he couldn't sleep due to worries conserning the tectonic plates.

Location:Santiago, Chile

Just dance in ghost town you soon to be fossil

Full of gaga

I hate it when people play music in public places via their phones. In addition to the crappy stereos, the music is often something that does not fit in to my category of good music. But there's one thing worse than playing music from your cellphone: Playing music on repeat on your cellphone.

Yesterday we were taking the bus from Mendoza to the ghostly town of San Juan. Next to us on the bus sat a 30 something mama's boy, who had an obvious obsession over Lady Gaga. I respect Lady Gaga for writing her own songs, but not as much to enjoy her lyrics over and over and over again. The guy kept playing Just Dance on his cellphone speaker and also had a very loud conversation with his mother via the same hellish invention.

While he played the song for the fifth time in a row, I was manicly looking for some headphones I got on the plane to give him. Unfortunately I had stuffed them in my backpack that lie out of reach in the luggage compartment, so when the song started playing again I was close to ripping his head of, ramming the phone into his brain and duct taping his head back in its place again. That way he would know the pain of Gaga I was going through.

Needles to say my day hadn't been too good before the busride either.

Out of town

San Juan turned out to be a bit of a bore. It's off season, so we're the only residents in our quiet hostel. Also everything here smells strange. Like kerosene and sewer. We weren't supposed to stop here, we were on our way to San Augustin de valle fertil, but the last bus of the day was full booked and we were forced to spend the night here. The room wasn't too pricy, but the bed kept me awake all night with springs pushing painfully against my skin and bones. By the time the pain had turned into a numb beat the sun was up it was too hot to sleep.

But today we continue to the valley. It only has 4000 inhabitants and that's a good thing since all this riding the bus has been way to stressful and in a place with no people, there's a good chance nobody will be playing Lady Gaga on their cellphone right next to me. But if that were to happen, some new strange dinosaur fossils might appear in Ichigualasto National Park.

Short stories

I'm a lazy person and to be honest this blog busines is a pain in the ass. Literally. Because my ass is broken. So here are some short stories from here and there that I don't feel like writing down into some ''interesting and bewildering reading experience''.

I said I'd write about El Bolson and all that it some point, but I really don't feel like it, so lets just say it was a cool and picturesque place but in a serious need of some Cartman hippie control because of all the ''natural contsruction'' and ''living in peace with the earth'' wanna be intellectual folk. Sure they had some good ideas, but I'm not interested in having a lecture on them, I mean, I went to Kallio.

Oh and we got a ride in a police car in Mendoza. The cop was speeding like hell, honking at families running across the street on a road that had a limit of 40km/h. Also the guy offered us a chance to lie in our police report in order to make the process quicker, but we didn't since we wanted Break Point hostel to get what it deserves.

The manager of Break Point should learn a lesson about how to run a hostel. Sunbathing is not good managing. Helping, or at least caring for, people who got their money stolen from your hostel would be, but i don't think anyone told her that. I mean, she could have at least called the locksmith, who was ''fixing the lock'' of a broken locker in our room during the time the money dissappeared, and even if not blaming him then at least asking him if he had seen anyone else ''fixing a lock'' during that time. But no. She didn't even lift a finger when it happened again the next night to another guy.

But at least we didn't have to do a trek with an about-to-burst gangrenous appendix.

Now my ass hurts, so bye.

Oh, and if you want to go oohmar and aah looking at strange and distorted images of our trip, check out Niklas' way more finnish blog including better grammar: cihkal.blogspot.com

Just a small town girl

BLAU!

Livin in a lonely world
Tittiidii

She took the midnight train
Shazaam!

going anywheree!


Do you find this post a disappointment?
Were you looking for juicy details about the life and struggles of Tessa Dean?
Here's an interesting fact: You can go llama trekking here in Mendoza. That's cool.

Today is a lazy day. Like yesterday. And the day before.

Lazy is good.
Good is ice cream.
Ice crean is tummyache.
Ice cream is still good.
Especially mint.
With chocolate chips.
Mmmm...
Chocolatechipminticecream.
Gotta have some.
Gonna get some.
No moneyy.
Should go to the ATM.
Don't feel like walking.
But if I had a llama..

Tomorrow we're going llama trekking. Yes. And then we're getting ice cream.
On llamas.
Ice cream.
Creamy ice.
Mint cream with chunks of chocolate turned into an icy dream land of deliciousness.

Tomorrow begin our last 100 days of traveling.
Last 100. Thats like 50 days times two. Or 20 days times five. It's not much.
Eww Finland in the winter.
No deliciousness there.
Just winter coats.
No llamas either.
They would die.
From all the ice cream.

Eww.
Dead llamas.
All icy and lifeless.
Eww.

Finland.
Llama killer.
Destroyer of creatures.

Yeah.

Tomorrow I'll write proper, I promise.
Really.
Not.
Not really.
Maybe.
Probably.
Unless we go llama trekking.
That would be cool.

K bye.

Buenos And Balls

Argentina, argentina... It's not as wacked up as Brazil, but somehow we have experienced far more crooked events here than in Brazil. Brazil didn't take our camerabag, and it gave us fresh new bills straight out of moneyland, not fake ones to whipe your ass with.













Our first night started well with juicy and cheap steaks the size of our heads, but what we didn't know is that when you gain a kilo, you lose at least two, and apparently from your luggage. So off we went to Buenos Aires to search for a replacement camera, bag, lenses and a flash. Due to this and the battery of the iPhone running out, we only have three pictures from the Argentinian side of the falls.















Unfortunately we also lost our Brazilian portuguese hand book, so there's no going back into the arms of Brazil and Hostel Natura. At least there we could throw our stuff around and nobody would take it, not from next to our beds.




Like Brazil, Argentina is HUGE so our bussride from Porto de Iguazù to Buenos Aires took about 20h. It was an overnight buss, but I couldn't sleep since the sky was full of stars that I personally can never get enough of. While Niklas snored off in his fully reclined cama suite chair-bed-spaceshuttle, I took my time trying to figure out if there was anything familiar to spot in the glittery sky. The moon perhaps, but even that was upsidedown.
Sooner than we thought, the lights of Buenos Aires redded the sky, stars disappeared into the haze of co2 and other shit shat by the millions after millions of porteños and the time came to pick up our gear and go hunting.








Buenos Aires was a pleasant surprise, another surprise was that the ex-president/current presidents husband had just died, so Buenos Aires was in a state of confusion. What confused the confusion was the census being counted on the day of our arrival, so basicly when we entered the city it was very ghostly and empty, nothing was open and nobody was out, except señora Taxi Driver of course. But luckily our driver didn't distort the calculations too much since me and Niklas filled in like heroes. Now we are finally part of something: the population of Buenos Aires.




But the bueno in Buenos Aires doesn't end in being part of the population, it is the design of the city, the vibe it gives out and the weird way it feels so European but has details that scream Latin America. I loved how street music, even the worst, sounded awesome. The subway ride back from the delicious Vegan take-away went by fast as two random guys displayed their talent of singing and drumming weird objects.




Restaurants are also a bueno. In the land of sweet Pablo the cow it's hard to imagine such a wide range of good vegan and vegetarian restaurants, maybe some people here just understand what makes Pablo so perfecto and have decided they'd rather perfect themselves by eating Pablos food.





We are bound to go back to Buenos Aires in some point, to check out stuff we didn't have time to do on this visit. Halloween threw us out from the city for now, but we'll be back, even if it's just to get our non-fake money back from the deceiving taximan. Thanks for the fake ones though, made a nice origami. (I must say he was a very talented scam artist though, points for that.)




We are now on the way to El Bolson. This time we're traveling in cama, and they don't even offer us water. Our surroundings are a mixture of red dead redemption and mars. Very red, dead, dry and monotone. Roads are a standard straight, cars passing every 10 minutes or so. My question is, how long do we have to go?














... Been in el Bolsón a few days now

:)))

Location:El Bolsón, Rio Negro, Argentina