Peters resa

Taking a blogging break

2008-01-18T15:31:00.001+01:00

I'll be coming back here later to sum up my year of travel, but for the time being anyone interested in seeing something about my latest trip should head over to http://helenaopeter.blogspot.com. And bring your knowledge of Swedish! :-)

Anyone else that likes Jim Steinman?

2007-06-09T13:07:00.000+02:00

Jim Steinman is a long-time favourite of mine; composer and producer, he is mostly famous for writng and producing the Bat Out of Hell 1 and 2 (not the despicable BOH3) albums for Meatloaf, and Bonnie Tyler's mega-hit Total Eclipse Of The Heart.

However, many Steinman afficionados rate his two songs on the soundtrack to the 1984 movie Streets of Fire by Walter Hill as the best he's ever done. The group playing is called "Fire Inc.", but you can clearly hear long-time Steinman collaborators such as über-drummer Max Weinberg and keyboardist Roy Bittan, both from Springsteen's E Street Band.

If you are interested, the movie in itself is awesome if you like action movies, and the music is a highly integrated part of the movie. You can find more info on
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088194/
and a torrent download at
http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3293913/STREETS_OF_FIRE_PAL_FULL_DVD5
Sadly, as far as I know, the movie is no longer availbale on DVD.

But I'm getting away from the subject... Last night on Swedish television show "Talang 2007" (kinda of like American Idol), 11-year old Mimmi Sandén gave us her interpretation of "Tonight is what it means to be young" from the movie, as well as the Bonnie Tyler song "Holding Out For A Hero".

The reviewer in Dagens Nyheter said "hopefully Mimmi's parents realize that the most appropriate summer job for their daughter is to go on tour with Meat Loaf", which I guess is praise enough.

You can check out her version here:
http://www.tv4.se/player/categories.aspx?progId=135292

Not bad for an 11-year old kid, that's for sure! But honestly though, the original soundtrack is much better...

Video focus

2007-04-20T14:34:00.000+02:00

Well, videos are fun... During my gap year, the whole Youtube craze happened; weird to think that it hardly existed only a year ago, at least not for most of us.

I want to experiment a little with that, I have a few videos that might be fun to watch, so let's see what can happen with that in the future. Meanwhile, I'm going to put up just as a test, a vide o I recorded in Kyrghyzstan more than six months ago, as my school buddies from high school was gathering for a reunion. At the time, the thought of putting it on Youtube or something similar never occured to me!

I'm putting it on Google video instead of Youtube; I have some hope that it will be more integrated with blogger that way. Ok, here's the chance to see the mohawk in action! :-)

Oh yes, now that I have a self-produced video up there, I have deleted the Nintendo post that I had here earlier. It wasn't that funny anyway...and it possibly might have offended some.

Where did I go?

2007-03-08T23:03:00.000+01:00

Yes, I haven't posted in ages, and that is for a number of reasons. I did continue to travel after Kyrghyzstan, and over the next few weeks I will hopefully be able to tell you more about that. Right now however, I am back in Sweden, enjoying meeting my friends and family again. I have just collected all my things from all over the city (and outside of it), and I am busy moving everything in again.

The best bed in the whole world
Finally, last night, I was able to go to sleep in my own bed; the bed was picked up, I had linen, and now the bed was even put together (it took three people!), and indeed it is the most comfy bed in the world! Go Hästens (the brand)!

But after having slept on that soccer field of a bed in the lakehouse (more about that later) for so long: ohmygod how narrow mine is, at only 5 1/3 feet. And it seemed so wide when I slept there last time?

Next time I will get a bedroom that fits a bigger bed, that's for sure!

Best of Barskoon - a picture collection

2006-09-25T22:00:00.000+02:00

Only a sample of the 187 pictures in the collection

I have finally gone through the 3000+ photos from ten different photographers from the build in Barskoon, and selected the 187 best ones! In total I have spent more than 30 hours on this now, categorizing, selecting, cropping, sharpening, color-balancing, etc.

The pics have been selected from many criteria, among them:

Photographical excellence. You know, the ones with perfect focus, colors that hits you in the face, and all that. Luckily enough we had some excellent photographers with us!
Funny motifs. You know, as long as it makes you laugh it's ok if the pic is totally out of focus.
Representative motifs. I have tried to get a couple of pics from each of the main things we did.
Personal taste. I have really done my best to not crowd the collection with pictures of myself, butI am sure that the Barskoon mountains are over-represented, just because I loved them so much.

You can find the pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/inkorg.peter, so go there as soon as possible. I'm sure that you won't agree with everyone of them, but there's something for everyone.

I have had a really good time going through the pictures the last few weeks, remembering everything that happened and weeding the good from the bad, and then finally adding the captions, I hope you will have almost as much fun when you look at them!

/ Peter

P.S. Three tips for new users of Picasa Web Albums:
1. Use the slideshow function to see my witty(?) comments.
2. If you download Picasa, install it, and then get a Google account you cannot only publish your own albums, but you can also download mine and other's albums complete with comments to your own computer, where they are even easier to look at and manage. I love Picasa!
3. I have uploaded the pictures in 1600x1280 resolution and not too compressed. Although fairly good quality, I have of course the full quality pics available offline - just ask me if you want a copy.

P.S.2. If you are a member of the team and is reading this - yes, this means that I am very close to sending out the DVD's with almost all the 3000+ pics in full quality.

Too many TV's?

2006-09-25T10:52:00.000+02:00

I just read on Dagens Nyheter, (DN article), that in the US, there are now for the first time more television sets than people (including infants and such).

I was going to say something really scathing until I realize that I own three of the damn things myself. Shutting up now...

Recreational drugs - not always hard to get hold of

2006-09-23T09:33:00.000+02:00

Taylor fantasizing what he could do with this if it wasn't a Habitat trip...

Back in Sweden, getting your recreational drugs isn't always easy - I mean even alcohol is only sold in government stores for god's sake! Unless you make your own of course, but that's a story for some other time...

In Kyrghyzstan all you need to do is literally to walk out in the fileds and get it yourself. This picture is from a roadside ditch in Barskoon, but you could also find it in the parks in Bishkek!

The proudest moment of the Mohawk - and the Smiles

2006-09-22T21:19:00.000+02:00

Yes, I know that all my readers are dying to know. My inbox is completely overflowing with requests, I need a secretary just to keep track of all the requests. No, not really, no. As a matter of fact, there has not been a single request for two months, so it's probably time to get it off?

I know I have said that before, but it is really getting unruly now, so something needs to be done anyway! But before that, let's celebrate the mohawk's proudest moment, and let me tell you a little about all the Smiles the 'hawk gives me.

The proudest moment

In July, the situation was similarly hopeless as now. The 'hawk was growing all over the place, more or less threatening to take over most of my body, rather like a 50's horror movie. But to the rescue came Scott and Monica. I asked them to just trim the sides a little, but it must have been a really boring night, because they asked if they could do more. And since I am such a trusting person I gave The Siblings full reign with the machine. Well, there might have been some alcohol involved too I guess, but I don't really remember. Which in itself is a sign of course!
After a long brainstorming session, they decided to do a lightning pattern on my right side. Ok, I'm not showing you that, out of respect for thir artistic integrity of course. I don't remember which one of them it was that decided that after that disastrous apprenticeship, they were ready for bigger things, but whoever it was must have a serious case of hubris. Who wants to bet on the software saleswoman and who wants to bet on the management consultant? Hmm, looks like dead race to me...

So after an even longer brainstorming session, probably involving some vodka, the idea came up to do something to honour our revered hosts, and what could be better than the pattern from the Kyrgyz flag? Well, "anything" we thought to be honest, because not one of us actaully believed it would be any good! But thanks to the beers, I let them get it on anyway. I mean it wouldn't take more than a week for the hair to grow out, right? An probably not more than six months for the cuts and scars to heal - that would heal me in time for work at IBM anyway...

But The Siblings did an awesome co-operative job. I don't remember who did what any longer, but one of them did the broad strokes while the other did the detail work, and they did great! The divine miss M is about to quit her job anyway, and if BCG ever decides to fire Scott (surely only a matter of time!), they could definitely open up The Siblings Hairsaloon (I'm registering that web address right now guys, but you can buy it from me really cheap!).

Thanks though - I know it might be hard to believe for mom and dad when looking at the picture, but that is actually the happiest I've ever been with a hair cut!

The Mohawk in it's proudest configuration yet.

The Smiles

I'm not completely sure why it is, but I get so many more looks from people on this trip than ever before. I want to believe that it is my winning smile and charming eyes, and maybe it would be if they matched my crap posture and gut belly better. No, I think I need to admit to myself that it's all about the 'hawk...

Unfortunately, it is not only admiring looks from hot women of all ages, no there's so many different kind of looks that I get...

The "Wow, I want one of those!" smile
A gaping mouth, with the chin almost touching their chests.

This is common from boys at around eight or nine years old, and probably makes their mothers curse the crazy swede walking the streets of Bishkek. I want to come back in two months and see how many of the kids has managed to convince their mothers to let them have one. But since Kyrghyzstan is a country where they still beat their kids regularly, no that is probably not going to happen... :-(

The "Are you crazy?" smile
Heads tiliting backwards in disbelief, and a laughter that they never quite dare to come out.

Except for the kid's mothers, I seem to get this one from guys my own age. They are probably silently thanking themselves that they aren't so pathetic as to try to make themselves look younger with a hair-do. And then they run home and take some Viagra; except that in this country Viagra is a vodka brand! (Which I find awesomely cool btw!)

The Russian Viagra - better than the American?

The "please don't kick my ass" smile
A nervous smile from people looking down and trying to make themselves as small as possible.
I must be uglier than I thought, because at night some people actually seem to be afraid of me! I guess I understand now why punkers like their mohawks. It is a strangely satifying feeling though, even though I am sire it will get me beaten up some day by someone who actually has some muscles to back their hairdo up...

The "wow he's hot" smile
As we pass in the street, they tilt the head slightly downwards, and looking up towards me with a shy smile twitching around the mouth.
I remember getting this once. Fram an 80-year old grandmother to this girl I was trying to pick up.

No, seriously for a while: I do get this disturbingly often, and from girls who are half my age, and look awesomely hot. Oh, to be 20 again. Or even 35... :-) No, but it is nice to get that confirmation again, even though I am now old enough not to know what to do with it.

The "he looks effing stupid" smile

Turns out to probably be the most common one, the same smile you give the harmless village idiot back home...except it borders on a laughter. Often combined with the "please don't kick my ass" smile, just to be safe.

The nervous smile
Is the one that I give back while I'm trying to figure out what smile I'm getting...

Public banyas and other moral issues

2006-09-22T14:54:00.000+02:00

Next to my favourite hotel in Bishkek (Asia Mountains) is a suspiciously looking building, with a huge banner with a Conan-type guy on. I always though that it looked like a place where you could buy...interesting...female services, but when I have asked people they have said that it is only a public bathhouse (or "banya" in kyrgyz).

But yesterday as we were driving by the place, with two hours until my plane was taking off (which meant I didn't even have time to stick my head inside and check it out), Irina, Karliens friend told me that, yes it is a public banya, and yes, you can buy striptease (one hour 1700 som (=$40) for an hour) and massage there!! Unclear exactly what type of massage and what cost, but she admitted that there were two bedrooms on the top floor...

Now, all I want to know is how come she knew that, and even more so that she knew the exact price... :-)

Certainly not the type of public bath I went to with my family back in the 70's anyway!

Change of my future plans

2006-09-22T11:03:00.000+02:00

After coming back to Sweden (going through Turkey) in two weeks , I had planned to continue back to the middle east later on. More specifically, the idea was to travel (more or less) overland to Tanzania and the big mountain itself, Kilimanjaro. However, it was kinda dependent on two things: Getting the company of Anna (or someone else for that matter, since I am getting awfully bored with traveling by myself), and spending a lot of the time discovering Lebanon, something that I have wanted to do forever.

Well, Lebanon seems to be out of the question for obvious reasons, and now Anna has chickened out on me as well, preferring to spend quality time with her new boyfriend instead. What is it with these girls?! :-)

So now I have no idea what to do from October-February. Or rather, I have tons of ideas, but no one that seems better than any other. Care to help me out?

The hunt for good French Fries in Kyrghyzstan, Sep 19

2006-09-22T11:00:00.000+02:00

Those of you that have met me in Kyrghyzstan knows that I continously search for some good french fries. As my stay in K-stan draws to a close, I have to declare two winners:

Overall best, and winner of the home-made category: Andrew Rickard in our apartment in Osh
Runner-ups and winners of the commercials category: Aphrodite in Osh. Plus a bonus point because the waitress was cuter than Andrew. :-)

But sorry guys, none of you holds a candle against McDonalds, and today I arrived in Istanbul and in an hour or so it's lunchtime. Yummy!

The Toi, Aug 9 (or thereabout)

2006-09-22T10:58:00.000+02:00

We must have done something right when we were helping out with the houses in Barskoon, because the villagers decided to throw us one of the legendary "Toi" parties. Well, that is not entirely true, there was also the fact that Nick and Val were celebrating their one-year wedding anniversary, and there was something about them paying for at least part of it. So, credits where credits are due for this wonderful experience:

Nick and Val for having the good taste to get married exactly a year ago, and to have the even better taste to feel that they needed to celebrate it!
Zauresh and the rest of the Barskoon Habitat committee for arranging everything for us.

A "toi" is this inherently Kyrghyz party, something that most visitors to Kyrghyzstan never gets the chance to experience. It is definitely not something that you buy at a restaurant in Bishkek, or anywhere else for that matter. It is a dinner (although to be honest not that good :-)), but it is much more than that, it is most of all a cultural experience.

For us it became a weird mixture of something entirely different and strange (like eating truly weird body parts), surprisingly familiar (kids games like pass-the-egg), and a heartfelt thanks and goodbye from our host families, the house owners, and all the other people we got to know while in Barskoon.

The place for the Toi was right where it was supposed to be: up in the mountains. In this case more or less at the foot of the famous Barskoon waterfalls. Legend has it that Yurij Gagarin himself saw observed the waterfalls as he was shooting out in space from the Soviet base in neighbouring Kazakhstan during the first mission to space, and he liked them so much that he first commented on them while talking to the command center, and later came back here. I don't know how true it is, but there is at least a big bust of him up here in space suit and all!

The perfect place would have been a jailoo of course, but since there are none within a reasonable distance of Barskoon, we had to make do with this place, which was close enough. We did have a yurt, and I don't think we missed the hundres of sheep that much :-)

Talking about sheep, they are a central part of the whole Toi. A Toi always starts with a ritual slaughter of one or more sheep, and our did too of course. Not everyone took to well to the whole thing (I seem to recall having to hold Monica up), but to me it was great. "We" said a prayer over the sheep, thanking them for letting them be slaughtered for us, and after that their throats were slit. It all looked quite painless to me, but what do I know? I'm sure that they both lived and died a better life than most of the animals in Sweden, so I'm happy enough about that. (Yeah Linnéa, that is a defence towards you! :-))

After that, the sheep were skinned, and the sheep and the rest of the food was prepared by some of the villagers, while the rest of us was free to do whatever we wanted. For some obscure reason, what followed reminded me very much of the Swedish celebration when we throw out the Christmas tree! There were a lot of games, some seemed Kyrghyz, and others were definitely more western in style.

A running contest, which seemed to be taken seriously by the Kyrghyz, supposed to be an important tradition. Which meant that the Habitat teams took it easy and let the locals win... Have to say though that the main part was definitely the kids contest where everyone had a great time!
Passing an apricot from cheek to cheek in a long line. I seem to recall us winning that one.
Passing a bottle between peoples thighs in a long line. The last two felt definitely western in style, despite the bottle game being suggested by our hosts, and I was a bit surprised that no one was taking offense... I think we did it two times and each side won one each.
Shoving an egg up one pant leg and down the other. Now, if that wasn't crossing the line, I don't know what was. The clear winner was Monica - I had no idea she was that good at working strange men's pants! :-)
Tug-of-war, where us guys won, and the women disgraced us by loosing. :-)
Move-the-matchbox, a game I cannot even begin to describe (but look at the pictures), with me and Monica once and for all proving we have the best hip movements in the business!
Horse-fight, where I (as the horse) and Monica (as the knight) desperately tried to defend the Habitat colors against a nation of horse people!
Some weird running-and-hunting game, where my competition instinct made me run so hard that I slipped and ruined my pants. :-(

Compared to this, the dinner itself was a very relaxed and quiet time, and some of us had problems getting our adrenaline levels back down to normal (I was definitely one of them!). We were just lucky I guess that someone had forbidden vodka for the dinner, otherwise things might have gotten terribly wrong.

Just kidding though - to be honest I was a little bit disappointed - I've heard so much about how Kyrghyz parties get out of hand when vodka is involved that I looked forward to experience it firsthand, but no such luck. I don't even remember why we had that rule anymore, probably a Habitat thing or something - it is a Christian organization after all.

The dinner started normally enough, with some cold snacks and sallads like most other dinners in this country (although both the sausages and the cheese seemed better than normal). We also took the opportunity to celebrate Nick and Val officially, with champagne and everything. They had been hiding out in their own yurt (and we don't want to know what happened there! :-)) for some time, but joined us for dinner again.

And then the core part of the toi started! After the ritual killing of the sheep, the whole preparation of the animal is also covered by a multitude of rituals, of which I don't understand much. But once you get to the table, there are a few things you need to know.

For one thing, the guest of honor has a few...let's say "special" duties that he needs to attend to, all having to do with the sheeps head, such as:

Cutting off parts of the cheek and making sure that everone gets some.
Cutting off parts of the palate (the roof of the mouth) and give it to either someone already artistic or someone who needs to improve in that area - I forget which. But since I got a piece it must mean that you should give it to someone who needs improvement! Now I just need to explain why obviously artistically Lynn got the major part...
Cutting off the ear and giving them to the young that you want to listen to you.
Cutting out the eyes (which is a much more delicate procedure than you think, since it involves cutting the optical nerve from behind) and giving them to someone special that you want to look out for you in the future.
And finally splitting the skull in two, and mixing the brain with meat from the legs and pasta to make Besh-Barmak (Five-Fingers) for everyone.

We knew that we would have two sheep, and Nick would obviously be one of the honored guests (sorry Val, but in this country...), so we had a discussion about who the other one would be. I was pretty much the only one that didn't think the whoile thing was disgusting as hell, so the honour went to me, but I was disappointed to learn that only one of the heads made it to the table! I still don't know what happened to the other one, so maybe it's ghost is still roaming the hills of Barskoon?

Nick was nice enough to let me have one of "his" eyes though, so at least I got to try everything out, except the ears. The cheek and the roof of the mouth was nothing strange at all, and the eye was just like a big piece of fat. The brain however wasn't that great. I know a lot of my friends only took "fake" besh-barmak without the brain, and it was probably just as well...

During the whole dinner, we were entertained by some of the locals, singing songs, playing weird instruments and dancing for us - I'm still not sure if it had any ritualistic meaning or if it was "only" entertainment, but it was great fun!

As the dinner wound to a close, is where I am a little disappointed that the vodka was not with us, because with it, I am sure that the fun would have continued all night, but as it was everything just kinda fizzled out as we packed up everything and went back to the village.

Nonetheless, I had a great day at the Toi.
Sometimes I wish that I had joined the others to hike up to the waterfall, but instead I had a great time just hanging with Monica, and that more than made up for it!
Sometimes I missed some of the rituals that I thought would dominate the whole thing more, but that was more than made up for by the lovely family-style experience that we had.

And sometimes I did miss the vodka, but that was made up for by Nick's "secret bottle" - cheers Nick, and happy second anniversary in advance to you and Val!

Inland climate sucks! Sep 17-18

2006-09-19T12:58:00.000+02:00

17 Sep
Obviously it has been too long since I lived in Minneapolis - I had completely forgotten how sensitive inland climate is to the warming rays of the sun. Today the sun has been down, and the result is that I quickly moved from sweating-in-my-t-shirt to having to put on my extremely yucky fleece sweater. Bleah! Hoping for some sun tomorrow so I can go on that photography rampage!

18 sep
Not so - today is rain, which means a day in my apartment. Can't even be bothered with the blog or the photo collection (is my mood a refelction of the weather or the opposite?), so I watch some movies and read comics instead.

Trekking from Talas to Sary-Chelek and Osh, Sep 2-15

2006-09-19T12:52:00.000+02:00

Wow! The last few days has just got to be one of the best things I’ve ever done, it has definitely been one of the most scenic ones anyway! Below is my impressions in more or less diary form through the days, interspersed with what I myself think is some incredibly beautiful pictures.

Day 1 : Shopping

Day one was planned to be a sightseeing day in Bishkek; I’ve lost track of how many days I’ve spent in Bishkek now, but what I did not need was another tour of the ex-soviet cement palaces on Chui Prospekt.

Instead I spent the day preparing for the trek. I bought a new camera, a warm hat, a new knife, and some more stuff, but I mainly just relaxed by the pool...

[Update about the camera: after having researched on the Internet for hours I wound up buying a Casio EX-Z600. After using it for two weeks it comes highly recommended. Picture quality is very good (for the price, US$ 250, although nothing compared to Raquel's incredible Nikon D70 of course!), and battery life is the best I’ve ever seen – after taking 400 pictures the battery is still 2/3 charged. But the best thing is the reaction time. No more missing pictures because the motive changes while the camera takes the picture!]

Day 2: Ala-Archa hike

This was a warm-up day for the main trek. We did a four-hour hike in the Ala-Arch valley south of Bishkek. Nothing that special, except for the snowball fight we got to have at the foot of a waterfall below the glacier. Gotta be the coldest water I’ve ever seen!

Oh, and I got to meet Team Germany, i.e. the German people that will accompany me on the trek. I can’t say that the impression has been too positive: it is two guys (Ulrich and x) and a woman (Antje), that are all around my own age. But they seem so old, and to be honest, boring. Have I spent too much time with young people to appreciate people my own age?

Day 3: Bishkek -> Talas

I met the rest of the teams today. When I signed up for the trek there were only supposed to be two more participants. Sometimes Asia Mountains have talked about them as Germans, sometimes as Australian+Spanish, but today everything has cleared.

Team Belgium is a young girl, she says 25, but I could swear that she is no more than 19. Her name is Karlien (pronounced like Carlene Carter, the country singer), and is a very innocent and naïve political science student, that seems to fully believe that she will be able to come up with a way to create a perfect society, implement it, and rule the world before she retires. Well, there is certainly something attractive with youthful enthusiasm, and coupled with a very charming smile she seems to be very nice. Should be fun to spend more time with her!

When we had to leave, Team Australia and Team Spain was still missing, so we took off without them. Walkover? (Oh, in case anyone was wondering where the whole "Team" thing came from, it is of course inspired by the 2001(?) Raid Gauloise competition, which in turn was about getting around Kyrgyzstan as fast as possible.)

We have not been doing any trekking today, “only” getting from Bishkek to Talas by car. The road there was amazing, with some of the best views I’ve ever seen. As always in these situations, I managed to get the wrong side of the minibus, so I’m hoping to leach some good pics from Team Germany.

Oh, and at lunch time, a taxi from Bishkek showed up, with a nice but quite confused Team Australia+Spain. Although they seem to be very nice, I must admit that I was a bit pissed that they weren’t even able to remember which day the trek was! They actually realized at 11 am that they should have started the trek at 8 am. But they seem really nice both of them, so as long as they have remembered to bring decent gear, I am sure we will have a great time together.

Now to get to sleep in a tent for the first time in I don’t know how many years, except for the Karakol trek last week that is. I might never have done it to be honest? I wonder how many of the others realize that - I think I come off as much more experienced than I really am. It seems bloody cold, especially since I got my own tent. Would have loved to share tent with Karlien instead since we have had a good time chatting today, but of course a guy and a girl could never share a tent... :-( It’s going to be nine lonesome nights in my tent.

Day 4: Urmaral Valley; the first walk

Finally the trek has started for real. The whole team took off up the Urmaral valley this morning, although at somewhat varying speed. Me and Team Belgium (Karlien) seem to be leading the pack, and that suits me fine since she is fun to talk to. The journey was fairly flat, along a beautiful river with a mixture of pine and leafy trees.

We camped quite early, so it gave me and Karlien a chance to climb a small nearby peak, to add another 536 vertical meters to today’s statistics. I hope I didn’t overextend myself though – tomorrow is supposed to be much harder.

Dinner was very much like breakfast and lunch - adequate but not really anything special. At least the nan bread is still delicious, I'm sure I will be less enthusiastic about the stale stuff we will have in a week!

Day 5: to Chiim-Tash; my new Dos Ojos

Any long-time reader of the blog should remember my fascination with the cave diving in Dos Ojos in Mexico. Well, now I have another “two eyes” to be fascinated about.

Today we started early, as always with the clangs from the cook’s frying pan waking us up. Yes, we have a cook, which is awfully nice – the mornings are so darned cold (around 0 Celsius / 32 Fahrenheit and a LOT of humidity) that it is almost essential to have hot Chai waiting for you. Hooray for luxury trekking! So after a quick breakfast, we packed, broke tent and set off towards a high mountain pass.

Not very hard for me, but the German and Spanish girls seem to have a hard time, since they fall behind a lot. Blisters coming maybe? The hardest thing is actually to focus on the walking, and not trip while you look at the beautiful landscape!

Today I’ve spent more time with Teams Australia + Spain (Andrew and Eiger), and I must say that I like them a lot already! You meet so many people while traveling, and I don’t know how many I’ve been asked to exchange email addresses with, while knowing that I will not stay I touch. With these guys it is different though – I really like them!

We arrived quite early to the lakes, so I tried to get Karlien to do another peak with me. No such luck – I had to go by myself, but as you can see from the picture it was worth it. What was not so clever was to take a swim in the lake after the sun had set behind the mountains – I have now been freezing more or less nonstop for four hours, and I am sure it will continue until lunch or so tomorrow. Brrr!

The terrain around here is beautiful though, and really looks like what I think high-altitude country should. It is only 3000 meter, but it reminds me of pictures I’ve seen from Everest base camps – cool!

Day 6: Kara-Kuldja Valley

This morning’s camp has been right below the mountain pass, and after breakfast, we set off for the highest point on our trek – 3600 meters. The path almost went up to the small peak I climbed yesterday, after which it followed along a lovely glacier until we had a steep climb up to the Chim-Taash pass.

As I climbed over the ridge, it wasn’t only the hard wind that hit me (although that added nicely to the whole mountaineer-like experience), more than that, it was the magical landscape stretching out in front of me! Mere words can’t describe it, and pictures can’t do it justice, so I guess you guys just have to go here! :-)

Although it was freezing cold, we spent a long time here, just taking the landscape in, with what must have been the biggest smiles I’ve seen in K-stan so far on our faces! As well as a slightly more stressed look at Sasja's face, since he was bored (bored? how can he possibly be?!) and wanted to get down to camp.

The decent was slightly less dramatic, although no less beautiful, and we camped for lunch at a jailoo (pasture in the mountains with yurts and tons of sheep) next to a river. By this time I had put my MP3 player on and was playing some awesome dance music, so I couldn’t really sit still. On the way down from the pass I was dancing(!), and I just kept running around that jailoo for ages, taking tons of great pictures.

This landscape is just giving me so much energy, it feels like I will never tire!

Camp was set just a little higher in the valley which gave us a lot of time in the afternoon for the boring essentials, like cleaning yourself and doing laundry. The others insist on wearing swimsuits when washing themselves, which I find really weird, but at least I snuck off downstream as to not offend anyone. But come on guys – it’s the wilderness!

I’m getting more than a little envious of Karlien’s previous trek now though. They had a big kitchen tent where everyone was having dinner, and which worked as a communal area after that, for playing cards, talking, etc. Here we eat dinner outdoors, after which everyone is freezing our asses off, and just set off to bed. I’m sure that Andrew and Eider can come up with something nice to do in their tent :-), but I am bored out of my skull!

I have tried to lure Karlien to my tent for some talk and card games, but she seems to think that I’m hitting on her, so that doesn’t really work. And the German’s continue to be extremely shy, quiet, and to be honest, boring. I hope for warmer weather as we get down to lower altitudes, else I will commit seppuku with my pen knife!

Day 7: Kara-Kuldja pass and the pine forests

This has not been one of our best days :-(. It started out good enough, although the landscape was a little boring compared to the last two days. A nice gentle slope upward until we came over a small ridge and started the decline through a beautiful pine-covered valley to lower altitudes. It really is amazing how quickly the climate changed from one valley to the next!

But then people really started to feel their blisters. Ulrich has been walking backwards at times(!), and Eider has also had a hard day. As we have approached pine forest country, the landscape has been extremely like where I grew up in Sweden. If not for the fact that you can see the high mountains in the background, it could be home!

For those who know the Swedish forests, you also know that this means a lot of low vegetation (until know we had only had alpine grass and flowers) – and Sasha hadn’t prepared us to wear long pants. Which means that everyone has a lot of cuts on our legs.

And to top it off, the camping spot is crap. We passed a few good ones an hour earlier, but we passed them by. Instead we are camping in a field of rocks, with extremely high and sharp bushes everywhere. :-(

Day 8: Kashka-Suu pass

Today has been an awfully hard day, but as we are trekking this is of course a good thing! Except for the poor blister victims that is... :-( Finally leaving that hell-hole of a camping-site was very nice this morning, especially after a filling breakfast on porridge, sandwiches, and of course warming Chai. And as much candy and nuts as we can eat – not normal breakfast food exactly, but I’m sure we burn a million calories a day here so we need it.

In the morning we trekked up, towards a mountain pass called Kashka-Suu. The trail was not as steep as the one after the Dos Ojos lakes, but it was definitely longer. And we got to walk on real glaciers! Somewhat unexpected I must say, but a definite plus that made me feel even more like a true adventurer. :-) I have been envious of Karlien and her Tien-Shan glacier trek in August, but this at least allowed me to tick “glacier walking” off that mental list! :-)

After the final ascent a beautiful landscape opened up for us, with valleys and rifts visible from our feet to the horizon - possibly the most beautiful sight so far. We selected the right of the two ridges (I love walking on ridges), and followed it all the way down to the floor of the biggest valley, a wonderful walk.

Once again less wonderful for the blister victims (I just love my La Sportiva boots more for each day!). Eider had looked especially pained the whole day, and at the end of the day she finally let me carry her backpack for her, after tons of nagging and some fighting! No wonder: when we got to camp and she took her bandages off, liquid was gushing from almost all her foot. It was like the whole underside of the foot was just two big blisters, one at the front and one at the back!

Day 9: “Rest day” – hiking to the lake shore

I think that we were supposed to come to today's camping spot already the day before, but the slower speed of the blister victioms slowed us down somewhat. Didn't matter much though, becuase we got to enjoy a lovely morning walk down a wide (50-100 meter or so) pristine valley, with a stream in the middle and a couple of farms with their cattle surrounding it. Totally idyllic!

And the short walk meant that we arrived to the camp site well before lunch time - and what a camp site it was! As the valley opened up approaching a small lake, the creek opened up into a small delta, where horses were grazing on the small islands. We pitched tents at a lovely meadow next to the lake, and quickly proceeded to swim at the beach (the water is much warmer here than close to the glaciers!), sunbathe, read, and just generally goof around and have a good time.

Unfortunately I slept through a lot of it - for some reason that I don't really understand, I was completely exhausted and almost fainted in my tent! Well, to be honest I do know why I was so exhausted - you see, I had a little accident this morning...

When I woke up, I had a little..."emergency" to take care of. And at that camping spot it was extremely hard to find a private spot to do "number two" at. So I hastily grabbed the TP roll and threw myself up the steep mountain walls at the back of our camping spot (in front there was only a river...). But when you are in a hurry, you don't always look too carefully when you put your feet, and when I also forgot the Golden Rule of mountain climbing (always keep at least three contact points with the cliff), things went wrong.

As I stepped on a ledge of the cliff, it broke off and I fell hard, suddenly finding myself sliding down an almost vertical cliff face! I was lucky enough to fall right by a tree, becuase the frantic clawing I did at the cliff face didn't slow me down at all. My reflexes made me quickly grab hold of a tree branch and hold on for all my life, and although my arm was almost pulled out of it's socket, and I lost most of my skin on one of my fingers, at least I was dangling in one arm instead of lying at the foot of the cliff!

Looking down, I had another five meters or so to go, so that was out of the question (and my god, I would have been hurt if I had went the whole way down!), and upwards it was three meters or so. Luckily enough, I could scramble around the tree and reach the path from there though... Whew!

At first I thought I was unharmed, but it was just the adrenaline masking the injuries. I have scratches all over my body, my lower back hurts like hell, and I won't be playing badminton with that arm again for another few weeks! Not too mention that something tore a hole in the crotch of my pants, although I seem to be unhurt there - lucky!

The funny thing though is that I didn't really want to cause a commotion in the camp (plus I felt pretty stupid about the whole thing!), so I just got some desinfectant and a band-aid for the finger, and didn't say much about the rest, so no one has any idea how close we were to a serious incident!

So, yes, maybe it wasn't strange after all that I slept most of the afternoon...

Since there was plenty of dead tree branches around (we were after all at what is a river bed during the wet season!), we didn't hesitate to make a fire for dinner, and the following chit-chat. Yes, we finally had that nice relaxed conversation in the evening, and I am sure that the moonshine I bought from some of the farmers we passed helped to add to the nice time we had! As I sat by myself late, late at night and watched the fire burn out, I thought to myself that this is the life...

A sky as starry as they come with the Milky Way shining down on me, and the fire crackling and keeping me warm - what could possibly be better? Well, it should be that special someone to keep me company then! :-)

Day 10: Kuturmu pass and lake Kara-Suu

Yet another rest day I would say, with only four hours reasably easy trekking (although we did 800 verticals in rocky terrain) before we arrived at the camp site, Once again at a lovely lake, and it feels like everyone is getting the feeling that the trek is soon to be over, because everyone was happy just frolicking in the sun, swimming and enjoying a lovely afternoon.

Oh, Karlien slept under the stars tonight. I was seriously tempted to join her, but her -10 Celsius sleeping bag just gave her too much of an advantage. And lucky too, the frost on the ground in the morning did spell problems for my super-light 0 Celsius Mountain Hardwear Phantom32.

Day 11: Sary-Chelek

We got up earlier than usual to be able to spend more time at Sary-Chelek, and after an hour or two of light hiking we made it there. The porters made us a late breakfast while teams Sweden, Australia and Spain was re-united with our luggage that we have had sent from Bishkek! I’m staying around Osh for a week so I need guidebooks, clean underwear and so on, and the other two are moving south to Uzbekistan.

Seeing the luggage reminded us all that the journey is about to end, which did feel a little sad. Especially since Eider started the whole let’s-exchange-email thing. It felt a little bit awkward since I am sure that she and Andrew are the only one’s I will stay in contact with in the long run anyway...

The S-C lake itself was something of a disappointment. We’ve heard so many good things about it, but I would only rate it as average. Probably because all the amazing things we’ve seen before, but still... I made a nice hike with Ulrich and Karlien to the other side though, and the morning light was really good to us, so I got some good pictures.

Oh, and Ulrich and I skinny-dipped, which was really nice. I asked Ulrich to take a picture of me naked which I studied later, and I must say that I must have lost a lot of weight. Or at least lost a lot of fat around the waist, although I have probably gained a lot of muscles as well. Although Karlien laughed at me (when she managed to get hold of the picture) it still feels good. I might not look like I’m 25 anymore, but at least I look better than 6 months ago – and more importantly I feel A LOT better now!

The afternoon was spent in a car going through Kyrgyzstan’s counterpart to the Ruhr in Germany, i.e. their coal mines. The less said about that the better...

The evening was great though – we are staying in a great guest house in Osh, where I have my own little suite. And the price is only US$ 15, if I want to stay here after the trip is officially over tomorrow.

After arriving here, we asked the hotel staff if there was any bar or something nearby, and one of them followed us for more than 15 minutes to the local hangout (yes, that's how friendly everyone is here!). Normally I’m sure that it is completely desolated on a Tuesday, but today one of the locals was celebrating the birth of his little son, he invited us, and we had a great time!
I had far too much beer, smoked too much cigarr, and had a great time! The music they played was similar to what is played at Re:Orient/Akaba back home in Stockholm, and everyone was on the dance-floor to have F-U-N. Everyone took turns going to the center of the ring to perform (always fun!), and we even played out a small mini-play where I picked up one of the local girls and her boyfriend battled me to win her back!

Some slow dancing too – Anna, I am eternally grateful for the dancing lessons you gave me back home, even though I didn’t dare to try all the moves you taught me of fear that Karlien would think I was hitting on her!

Hey, what is this – Peter writing so passionately about dancing? Yeah, I must be changing... All in all a great night – and I will surely miss Team Germany and Team Belgium when they leave tomorrow. Luckliy enough Andrew and Eider will stay for a few more days.

Day 12: Osh

Sasha (our Russian guide) took us on a tour of Osh today. Osh isn’t a exactly a marvelous town, but the tour was nice enough. We started out at a historical museum at the foot of the Suleiman Hill (make sure you have an English guide if you ever come here), and than did the hill itself.

Supposedly the third most important Islam pilgrimage after Mekka and Medina, Suleiman Hill contains a few sanctuaries that we westerners weren’t really supposed to go to, but also a few more "lightweight" ones.

My favourite among them was the caves where you were supposed to pray to get preganant easier, but where Karlien though that you were supposed to actually have sex in the caves. No wonder that she was looking so carefully there... :-)

Also good was the slide along the mountain to cure your back. My back possibly became worse after the whole thing, but the slide itself was impressing. There had been so many people sliding down over the centuries that it was a foot deep crevasse in the rock surface!

The bazaar that we went to was quite impressive too. We were too many people to make it possible to shop, but it was nice to just look around. I will come back tomorrow or so to buy some clothes and other stuff. I still have some room in my bags that I need to fill...

After saying goodbye to the rest, I’ve spent the rest of the evening with Andrew and Eider. The more time I spend with these guys, the more I love them – certainly two of the more impressive and lovable people I’ve met on the trip so far. I’ve been reading a book (“Emergency sex” it’s called, but it is actually very serious and comes recommended) the last week, and Andrew & Eider reminds me very much about the people in the book. They have made a conscious decision to work in the NGO-like community and have been doing SO many great things even before going on their six-month journey.

And now on their journey they have a great project going on, where they document the ecological impact on people of different projects in the areas where they are traveling. Obvious things like the Three Gorges in China and the Aral sea in this area, but also less obvious things like rice farmers in Indonesia. I can not enough recommend their Environmental Memoirs site at http://www.swin.edu.au/ncs/environmentalmemoirs and their personal travel blog at http://www.weareheadingwest.blogspot.com/. If you want to know more, let me know, and I will get you in touch with them.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow, when I will get a look at the 100+ mails I got from you guys the last two weeks. I sneeked a peek earlier today, and I know that there’ll be some pleasant stuff and some not-so-pleasant. Please keep it coming though – I always love your feedback, whether as blog comments or email!

Spending my time in Osh, Sep 15-20

2006-09-17T17:05:00.000+02:00

I’ve had a much more positive feeling in Osh than I expected. There isn’t much sights to see here (we took them all in during that one day), and the guidebooks recommend you to leave for the mountains after a day or two. But it is a nice town to actually live in for a while – maybe it is because I actually came down from the mountains? :-) I rented an apartment with Andrew and Eider for a few days, and now when they have left, I decided to stay on for a little bit longer.

I have tons of things to do on the computer (catch up on mail, write blog entries, clean up 5000+ photos from the Habitat build and the trek, etc.) and the slow pace of Osh gives me a good opportunity to do just that.

Osh is in the southern, more Muslim parts of the country, and that is easy to tell. Well, not the Muslim part per se, but people are definitely different here. Where Bishkek was dominated by the colonial, Russian influences, and Karakol and Barskoon was distinctly Kyrgyz, there is a completely other vibe to Osh.

This part of Kyrghyzstan consists of the fringes of a gigantic fertile valley called Fergana, for thousands of years the dominant area of central Asia. The main part of the valley belongs to Uzbekistan, so most people call the culture here Uzbek – me, I would call it "Fergana" maybe.

The result of which anyway is that people seem warmer and more open to strangers than up north. People look slightly darker-skinned to me, and there clothes are wonderful!

Combine that with some amazing light in the morning and afternoon, and you have a photographer’s paradise. I haven’t taken much advantage of that yet, but there is always tomorrow...

Building houses in Kyrghyzstan

2006-09-16T11:06:00.000+02:00

Since I spent a couple of weeks building houses here in K-stan, can I now go home and build myself a summer house or something in Sweden? No not really!

Houses here are built in a completely different way to back home, or rather I guest that it is similar to how we did things a hundred years ago or so. Yes, I did recognize some of the tools that we were using from the historical museum we had in Härnösand (the town closest to where I grew up).

We took turns doing different chores, even though there were some tasks that were better suited to some people, which meant they got to focus on them. 76-year old Betty was maybe less suited to shovel mud up the back of a truck for an example. I probably participated in most of the things, so here’s some descriptions of what I did.

Mixing mud
Monica was the supermixer among us, but even she could not compete with this creature

I would never have guessed that there would be so much mud mixing, but boy; these people use a lot of mud to build there houses. We made many different batches, but it can mainly be divided in to three different kinds: A thinner mud to be used instead of cement to hold bricks together, a thicker one to make bricks of, and a thicker one, mixed with straw to use instead of plaster for walls and ceilings. (Plaster not being the correct word – my English fails me here…)

This was bloody hard work, where we mixed either by walking around in the mud with our feets, or used hoes to stir with. Cleverly enough we had a horse for the first few days, which meant that the mud automatically got mixed with horse poo and urine as well!

Making bricks
Drying the bricks in the shade takes longer, but gives you much stronger bricks.

We filled forms with mud (sometimes with straw sometimes without, I never really understood why), dumped them on the ground, and then left them there to dry. Since they were never ready during the builds (we used other bricks to build), my guess is that they run some kind of exchange system: you get 500 bricks from someone for your house, and you give back 550 or so acouple of weeks later when they have dried.

Laying bricks
Let's just say that Monica looks better than her brick wall, ok? :-)

Worked the same way as back home, except that the bricks weren’t exactly even, so choosing which bricks that worked well together was an added element. Quite fun, although hard to do right for those that was beginners.

Cutting planks
Bigbollah straightening planks with an axe!

The planks that was delivered to the work site still had uneven edges, i.e. they had a certain thickness, but the width varied by a lot along a plank. No one ever cared if the planks were of the same width, so we just tried to get the widest plan possible with the length we needed, which meant that some planks were four inches wide while others were twelve.

For one of the builds, we had access to a table saw, so when that was working getting reasonably straight planks was fairly easy, but far too often it just refused to work, or we didn’t have electricity. Which meant we had to straighten the edges with an axe... :-(

Yes, I would also have thought that a saw was the right choice for this, but obviously not. It did mean that the planks were not very evenly wide.

Don’t mess with Kyrghyz methods
This might be a good opportunity to say something about their methods in general: we didn’t mess with them. The first few days we had some ideas on how to improve how the locals worked, and even though you aren’t supposed to, some of us couldn’t really help ourselves. We quickly realized however that we shouldn’t be bothered. Although our methods might be better back home, over here they simply don’t work, because of the quality of the materials, the tools, or whatever. So we pretty much didn’t question the axe – especially since it was fun!

Putting in floors

First we put in the floor trusses, which were simply some logs going from one end of the room to the other. To get them on the correct height we simply balanced them on rocks!

Then the floor planks came in. Remember how the planks were very uneven? Well, to put them in, that meant that we pressed them together and then used a saw to take off the pieces of the planks that touched each other. So after doing that a lot of times, there were no gaps between the planks anymore! Clever, but it took around an hour per plank... Then the planks were pressed really hard together and nailed down.

Plastering the walls

Since the walls were...let’s say less even than they could be, we had to use TONS of plaster on the walls to get them even. And of course, the plaster being used was mud...

Painting
Or rather whitewashing I guess. Not much to say about that really, no more than we had to mix powder with water ourselves, and the homeowners wife at the last build was NEVER happy with the results. He was a really nice guy, but she was a complete bitch!

Digging

As if we didn’t get enough blisters from the mud-mixing, every now and then we had to do some digging as well. It could be either about loading sand or dirt on a lorry to get to the site, or maybe leveling the ground underneath the house before putting in the floors.

Chai time

I’m sure that there were tons of other stuff that we did as well, that I forgot or didn’t take part in.

The most memorable part of the day was definitely Chai, or tea time. You might think it was like taking a coffee brake, but there was food as well. Sometimes only consisting of bread, butter and marmalade, but just as often (at least on build #2) it was a full meal with maybe noodles or a soup.

I know that I lost a lot of weight in Central America, but NOT so on this trip!
All in all everyone had a great time while we were on the builds. Maybe we didn’t learn as much about building a house in the west as some of us would have liked, but we had a great time! As well as sore muscles...

No more pictures in the near future...

2006-09-16T10:54:00.000+02:00

OK, now I give up - I've been preparing some posts with great pictures, and lots of them too, but the Internet connections in this country is just too slow...

Starting today, I'll start to put up some posts anyway, and just add the pictures when I get to Istanbul or something.

I love Kyrghyzstan, but sometimes this country is so irritating...

Trekking to Osh, through Talas and beautiful Lake Tary Chelek, Sep 3

2006-09-03T17:55:00.000+02:00

Tomorrow (Monday) morning I'll be off on my next main leg on my Kyrghyzstan journey: a trip to Osh. We are a group of seven people (of which I have met three briefly, nice german/austrians) who will travel together. With guide, porters and a cook, I guss that makes about 15 people in total!

We will start by going in a car to Talas in the northwst corner of K-stan. Supposedly a boring mining town, but we will do not much more than set up for the trek.

Then we trek to Tary Chelek, supposedly the most beautiful lake in K-stan, and on the way we will cross several 3500+ meter mountain passes, follow some beautiful rivers, see a handful of lovely mountain lakes, and stay with nomads in a couple of those jai-aloos (pastures) that I've grown to love so much. 8 nights in tents though, so I hope that there won't be too many ice cold nights like on the last trek. Hope that there will be one though, so I get some use from my newly bought fleece hat!

And on the 13th I'll be back in civilization (and Internet!) again, in Osh to be precise. Osh is the biggest city in southern K-stan; the most muslim part of the country, and as such supposed to be quite different compared to the northern parts where I've been so far. Exciting - I plan to be there for about a week before heading back to Bishkek and my flight to Istanbul on the 22nd.

In the meantime, greetings to everyone!

Kyrgyz food

2006-09-03T17:43:00.000+02:00

A collage of Kyrghyz food - most pictures by Ian McLellan. Who ever can name all 16 dishes correctly: please tell me because I sure as hell can't! :-)

When I first read about the food in Kyrghyzstan, it almost made me not coming here. And for those who now that I eat pretty much anything, that gives you a clue as to how bad I thought it was…

It all began when I went to Leningrad (currently under the more fashionable name St. Petersburg) in…oh I don’t know. 1988 or something? I can’t say I remember much of the trip itself, since it was just about the first time me and my then girlfriend spent ourselves. Needless to say, we didn’t see much of St. Petersburg, but almost 20 years later I still remember how bad the food was. That’s my impression on russian food.

So when I read in the guidebook that food in Kyrghyzstan is completely dismal, and the only chance to get some half-decent food is to go to Russian restaurants, I balked.

Well, I’m happy to say, that the situation is nowhere near as bad as I feared. As a matter of fact, I think that plov, manti, besh-barmak, laghman, shashlik, and the other dishes are quite good. But the variety…not very good, no. When I have been at the Habitat builds, we have been staying in people’s homes, which is very nice, but when you get the same three dishes (shashlik is to expensive and besh-barmak is onlyfor very festive occasions) served every day, with small variations, then you start to long for something new…

Laghman:Mutton stew with noodles and veggies like cabbage, carrots and onions.
Manti: a steamed dumpling filled with mutton meat.
Plov: Rice mixed with veggies and some mutton meat on top.
Shashlik: Grilled mutton, served with anything from french fries to rice.
Besh-Barmak: Meat from ritually killed sheep, served with noodles and a sauce made from mutton brain(!).
Pizza: what you are dying for after having had the above for three straight weeks!

P.S. I might be overdramatizing a little – in towns like Bishkek, Karakol and Osh, there will be lots of different kinds of food available, although not often cooked as we are used to in the west – DO stay away from the hamburgers...

Who are these Habitat people?

2006-09-03T17:36:00.000+02:00

My wonderful team in Barskoon - only a very small part of Habitat for Humanity.

Well, I was wondering the same thing myself a couple of months ago. When I was in Belize in May, I was quickly reaching the point where I had to come up with some solid plans for Kyrghyzstan – it is not really a place where you just go without having any plans.

Since I really wanted to do some voluntary work, I just googled “voluntary + Kyrghyzstan” (+ of course I had to try a number of other ways to spell the country, a pity that no two people can agree as to how!), and from the different options that came up, Habitat for Humanity kind of stood out.

Not only is the cause very worthy, it was also work that I knew that I would love to do (build houses), and not least important, the organization seemed very solid and reliable.

My personal experience has been excellent. The quality of the organization, both at headquarters in the US and here in Kyrghyzstan has been of the highest standards, and all the arrangements has been great. I especially recommend them fir anyone doing voluntary work for the first time, since they are great at easing you into things.

And of course our team leaders, and indeed the whole team were great, but more about that another time…

More information about Habitat for Humanity can be found at http://www.habitat.org/

New layout and functions

2006-09-02T17:59:00.000+02:00

I had hoped to post a new batch of posts today, but the Internet place did not accept my laptop today for some reason... :-(

Instead I decided to do a couple of upgrades to the site. The first is obviously the new design - hope you like it? Secondly, the list of links that was lost for a while is back - this time on the left side. That means you can always find my current travel plans with a single click.

And thirdly, I've added a list of your latest comments to the left sidebar. I've heard many times that you have had problems knowing whether I've answered to your comments or not - well, this is the place to look.

All the weather you could possibly handle, Aug 28-30

2006-08-31T13:03:00.000+02:00

Yours truly at the 3900 meter Ala-Köl pass.

I decided to go on a short-ish three-day hike in the mountains above Karakol. This as partly to see how I handled high altitudes before going on the two-week trek from Talas next week. Well, I’m happy to report that not only did I handle the altitude well, but my gear also handled the weather pretty fine. During three days we not only had all the beautiful landscapes that I have now come to forever connect Kyrghyzstan with, but also all possible weather types.

The first day was constant raining from lunch until we went to bed. When I woke up on the second day, the temperature was well below zero, with the rain from yesterday turned into ice. And during the 9-hour trek to the next valley (we walked over a 3900 meters mountain pass), we had sunshine, rain, snow and hail back and forth, changing every other five minutes. We literally went from freezing temperatures with snow to 20+ degrees and sunshine in five minutes and then back, a few times. Weird!

So arriving to to the base camp at Altyn Aryshyn with it’s hot springs did indeed feel very good! Not to mention the cold beer…

So now I’m definitely more confident about next week’s trek, especially since we will have porters to carry the luggage, as well as having the meals cooked for us. It will be like an actual vacation in comparison!

Wasting my time in Bishkek, Aug 12-20 + getting a new itinerary

2006-08-21T18:50:00.000+02:00

The lovely Miraida - Photoshopped nonetheless! The first time I've done that with any of my pics on this site - a price to anyone who can see what I did!

Looking back on the last few days, I can hardly remember what I have done. What I do remember seems to be mostly walking back and forth through Bishkek, and writing e-mails, but I guess there must have been more than that?

Some of all that time-wasting has at least meant meeting a few nice people, chief among them is Miraida, a 20-year old business student who has been helping me with some mysterious Kyrgyz traditional rituals, such as beat-the-bureacratic-guardian-of-the-holy-visa-extensions, and retrieve-the-lost-Mastercard-treasure-from-the-banking-monster.

We have also been improving her English somewhat; although we’ve done nothing about my lack of knowledge in Kyrgyz.

A lot of my walking has been back and forth between trekking organizers and tourist agencies to try to find a nice company to go trekking with. I have decided to go with Asia Mountains, despite that they managed to mess up my reservation a their lovely guest house, forcing me to move back to terrible Kyrgyz Altyn instead. :-(

So, now I have my travel itinerary done for the next month; barring any changes it should look something like this:

Aug 22: Travel to Barskoon
Aug 23-25: Build houses, hike, and meet old friends in Barskoon.
Aug 26-31: CBT hiking and excursions around Karakol on eastern shore of Lake Issyk-Kul
Sept 1: Travel back to Bishkek
Sept 2-13: Trekking excursion from Talas to Lake Tary Chelek
Sept 13-19: CBT hiking and excursions around Osh and Arslanbob in western K-stan
Sept 20: Travelling to Bishkek
Sept 21: Final shopping in Bishkek - still hoping to find that dream Shyrdak...
Sept 22 - Oct 3: Istanbul
Oct 4: Flying home to Sweden

So tomorrow morning at 8 am the bus leaves to Barskoon, and just as before Barskoon has no Internet. Which means that the next post will be from Karakol in a few days – see ya then!

2006-08-21T18:45:00.000+02:00

I don’t know if anyone has tried to call me or txt me the last few days, but if so you have failed. I have gotten myself a local SIM card for my phone, so until September 22 (or whenever I go back to Istanbul), my phone number is +996 502 314 626.

Barskoon Build, July 27 - Aug 11

2006-08-21T18:39:00.000+02:00

Life-defining trip? Well, that might be stretching things a little, but at least I had a very good time, and learned a lot. I also got a great opportunity to do a lot of thinking and evaluation of my life, not least because there were so many wonderful people on the team, some were very different to me while others were kindred spirits.

All of them however were able, each in their own way, to give me valuable input. So many of them were outstanding examples for how to be a true humanitarian, always giving and generous, both to me and to all the other people we met. I don’t think I have ever met a group that I was overall so impressed with!

I could bore you to death with all the stories about the team, Barskoon, the build and all our other activities, but I’ll just try to give a brief overview here and then publish some focused entries later on, ok?

Meeting the team

Many of you know that I was slightly worried before meeting the team. Habitat is after all a Christian organization and I am...well let’s just say that I’m not! :-) I was worried that there would be daily prayers, and that everyone else would look down at me.

I hadn’t needed to worry though, because everyone was very relaxed, not only about religion, but about pretty much everything. When the group gathered in one of the apartments where we were staying, I was kinda worried about this Jill character, because she was dressed more or less like an Amish, but she turned out to be great, just like everyone else.

Traveling to Barskoon

The road to Barskoon takes you over the plains east of Bishkek, through the mountain passes surrounding Lake Issyk-Kul, and finally around the beautiful lake. The nature surely is very beautiful, and the moment when the road opened up towards the lake was memorable, but my favorite mist definitely be the landscape on the southern parts of the lake.

Barskoon lies squeezed in between the lake and the mighty Tien-Shan mountains, and this gives the village un unparalleled beauty. Every morning when I woke up I had to pinch myself to make sure that I wasn’t still dreaming, so beautiful was the view from the house where we were staying. A big WOW!

Building the houses

Building the houses for the locals was a truly educational experience. Many of us (myself included) came with a lot of ideas about how the houses should be built, ideas that we had to throw away right off the bat.

The Kyrgyz does definitely not build houses like we do, and although many of their methods seemed old-fashioned, they are very well adapted to the materials they have available (or does not, as may be the case), and the tools they can use.

We even had to make our own bricks from mud, straw and water, that’s how basic things were! And the materials had none of the precision we are used to from home (never again shall I complain about warped planks!), which meant that they had to use methods to adjust things that I am sure we used back in the good old days. At least I recognized some of the tools we were using from museums back home!

Very educational – and great fun!

Hanging with the locals

To be honest, wed didn’t spend as much time with the locals as I had expected. This was mainly due to the language barrier, the only people that talked English was some translators that we had on site, but in the evenings we couldn’t talk to our hosts.

Another reason was that we was so well taken care of that we really didn’t need to talk to them. Especially Zauresh, the local coordinator made sure that we had everything we needed the whole time!

And finally, we had so much fun getting to know the other 16 of the project members that we didn’t really have time for the locals.

However, although we didn’t spend too much time with them, they were exceptionally warm and kind. I could go on forever aout all the things they did for us, but that will have to wait for later posts.

Excursions

Life in Barskoon wasn’t only about hard work, we got to play a little too. First I though that we had to much non-working time in our schedules, but I soon realized that was not the case – we really need the rest every now and then.

Among the things we did was:

Daytrip to Karakol (highlight: the livestock bazaar)
2-day hike to jai-aloo (summer pastures) above Bakanbaevo
Hike up Barskoon Valley
Toi (very special Kyrgyz party) with waterfall view

All of these things will be detailed out in later posts of course

Leaving for Bishkek...

...felt very sad, but at least it gave us a warm feeling that we had touched people’s lives and actually done something good.

I know that it has made a difference in my life, and I have learned to appreciate other things than what I did before. Maybe it has been life-defining after all?

Focus posts to follow in the next few days/weeks…

Back in Bishkek

2006-08-15T13:52:00.000+02:00

I've been back in Bishkek from Barskoon for five days now actually. I had hoped to have new "proper" blog entries up quite fast, but I guess that I have just had too much fun. :-)

Barskoon and the house-builds was great, and the time here with the team in Bishkek afterwards was almost as fun. I will stay in Bishkek for another five days or so to answer my email and update the blog (as well as lounge around the pool at my hotel!), so don't worry, if you haven't received a reply yet, you should do so in the next few days.

Until then, Peter

Your own chance to visit the Cenotes?

2006-07-26T15:58:00.000+02:00

During the less-than-harmonious part of my stay in Bishkek, I’ve taken the time to watch some of all the countless hours of TV shows that I downloaded to my laptop before going away.

I started with a couple of the aforementioned “Boston Legal” episodes (recommended - James Spader is as good as always) to get my mood up. However, I quickly started to watch some episodes of the BBS series “Planet Earth” that I got from my Australian friends Kate & Allan Reed, who I met in Flores in Guatemala. DO have a look at their travel blog at http://www.diysell.com/blog - they have some truly amazing pictures from their trip to the Galapagos Islands.

But I was going on about the Cenotes - if you don’t remember how ecstatic I was over the underwater cave systems in the Yucatan peninsula, you need to go back to the entry “Tulum: cenote snorkeling”. Sorry about the language in the article, this was while I was still writing in Swedish.

When I got to episode four of the series (called “Caves”), one of the sections of the episode was about those exact Cenotes where I was snorkeling! Wow, was it exciting to see what I had been missing by only snorkeling and not diving there, and it made me even more sure that I need to come back someday!

Another way for you to experience those Cenotes, short of going there yourself, is to watch the IMax movie “Amazing Caves”, which is also shot in the Dos Ojos cave system. It’s fairly good as IMax movies go, as long as you can stand the voice of narrating Liam Neeson that is! Oh, in Sweden you can see IMax movies at Naturhistoriska Muséet in Stockholm, and I think someplace in Gothenburg.

The last post for a while – goodbye from Bishkek

2006-07-26T15:45:00.000+02:00

Happy cookies in Bishkek - hope that the people in Barskoon are as happy!

Today will probably be the last post for a while. It will also be the last day where I have e-mail access for a while.

You see, Barskoon, where we are going, is about as poor as a town gets in one of the poorest countries of the planet. I have no indication that they will have internet access there – as a matter of fact they tell me that I should be lucky to get a couple of hours of electricity each day to charge the laptop batteries!

The current plan is to be back in Bishkek next time around the 10th (but plans might of course change in any country where they have no word for “now” – the closest they get is a word that means “within three hours”), so don’t be surprised if you don’t hear anything from me until then.

If you want to get in touch with me, don’t hesitate to text (SMS in Swedish) me on +46 70 756 0874, but please don’t call me unless we have texted before – receiving a phone call in this country costs me a fortune!

And don't miss today's new posts, not only the ones visible at the top, but I also snuck in two new articles about a Blues Fest and a wedding between the "old" Stockholm and Istanbul entries. That makes for eight new entries in the last three days - better start reading before I deliver another batch again! :-)

Rounding off Bishkek, July 24-26

2006-07-26T15:26:00.000+02:00

My last entry about Bishkek was not very positive, to say the least. If the government could check what I’m writing (like in the “good old days”, when they opened and read all mail to other countries!), I would probably have been deported! Like I suspected and was about to find out, things couldn’t continue to be quite that bad…

At least everything except the hotels are cheap. A meal is 1 or 2 US$, a 1 litre bottle of water is 0.25 US$, and enjoying the sun is free! Also, a girl on the other side of the street almost walked into a tree yesterday as she was turning her head to look at me - that did wonders for my self-confidence of course! :-)

But the best thing happened on the afternoon of the 24th. I had been sleeping until noon, and spent a few hours in bed, really somewhat afraid to actually go out after the disastrous day before, when I got a phone call. It was Nargiza, the local coordinator for Habitat here in Bishkek, and she invited me to a party! It turned out that there was a special Habitat team here already working in Bishkek.

They belong to something called an interface group in Edinburgh; a group of people from all religions, some Christians, some muslims, some Buddhists, etc, and just to round it off some non-religious people as well. I didn’t have time to find out the background around that, but probably some government-sponsored project about cultural integration in the UK?

Anyway, their project was about to wrap up, and they were having a barbecue at the building site to celebrate. They had even hired a local band that was playing, so not only did I have a decent meal, I also got to dance a little with the local girls. I was trying to remember the dancing lessons I got from Anna before I left, but somehow it didn’t work as well on grass and dirt as on proper dance floor! :-(

A great time was had by all, and more or less a miracle happened: as I was introducing myself to one of the scots, a voice from behind was saying “pratar du svenska” (do you speak Swedish)? It turned out that the build site manager was trained at the Royal Swedish Institute of Technology, no more than 500 meters from my apartment in Stockholm! It’s indeed a small world, and I’m very much looking forward to meeting Sanjab (which I think he was called…) when I get back to Bishkek again. He wants to practice his Swedish, and there’s only like a billion things about his country that I want to learn from him!

A great time was had by all, but the team was going on a three-day R&R trip to the mountains the day after, and most people wanted to get early to bed, so we finished early. Really early. Like 8 o’clock early! It might have been a religious thing, because the three proclaimed non-religious girls in the team definitely did not want to stop to party, and neither did I!

So, as everyone was going back to their apartments (Habitat rents apartments in different buildings in a block in the southern outskirts of the city for the teams) for packing and rest, I was sent off on a beer run. As I got back to the girl’s apartment, the vodka bottles were out (quite decent vodka btw, even though I am far from an expert), and the party was getting started.

We poured the last vodka eight hours or so later back at the girl’s apartment, after doing a pub crawl in the neighborhood. Or in my case it was more of a pub piggy-back, since one of the girls had hurt her foot and couldn’t walk. I’m just very very glad that they had a spare sofa, so that I could at least get a couple of hours of shut-eye before waving goodbye to the team and going back to sleep at my hotel. I wonder how the girls managed their white-water rafting with a hangover? [sadistic smile]

The rest of yesterday was pretty much spent sleeping, watching TV episodes on my laptop, and blogging. Yes, as you can see, I’ve been writing a lot… And today has been pretty much more of the same. After the team (and with them all the locals I had met as well) left, I did revert back to the same scared-of-doing-anything behavior I had before, but it also gave me an opportunity to think a few things over, and after all this writing and talking to Helena over the phone, I actually feel quite ready for meeting the team and starting the project tomorrow!

News - more entries, new style, and still in english!

2006-07-23T17:40:00.000+02:00

Yes, it is update time again! Today I have added three more entries apart from this, about Stockholm, Istanbul and Bishkek - am I global or what! :-) Watch for updates regarding the slightly more mundane but nonetheless lovely Hälsingland and Åmål the next few days.

And I AM continuing in English. I have gathered quite a few English-speaking readers over the last two months, and since Helena is the only one that objects to English, that’s the way it will be. Especially since Helena says that she won’t read it (that’s a whole other story...) anyway!

Yes, I have changed the style - there's nothing wrong with your eyes. I needed to do a style update to get a counter for the site anyway, so I thought that I would try something new. Let me know what you think (it’s reasonably easy to change back), and meanwhile look at the counter at the bottom of the page. It counts the number of visitors since the 19th or something like that, and as I write this I haven’t had the guts to check it myself yet. What if it’s only mom that’s reading it!? :-(

So now scroll down to the entry "Stockholm" and start to read!

Kyrghyzstan day one: Bishkek sucks! (July 23)

2006-07-23T17:29:00.000+02:00

The lady on the right recently replaced Lenin as the pride of Bishkek - and the guy on the left is the one that tried to rob me!

Maybe I just should have stayed at the hotel (see last entry)? Bishkek has so far given me NOTHING positive, but instead a lot of negatives. I can only hope that either the city or my attitude improves, because I have three more days until the rest of the team arrives!

I arrived at 1:30 in the morning, which is never fun. At least I was sitting in the front of the airplane, so I would be quick through the passport control and off to the hotel. I thought... Instead an administrator from the biggest tour agency in town muscled his way in to the line two people in front of me, and handed in 25 (twenty-five!) passports from people in his group, and got preferential treatment! That took more than half an hour... :-(
Then, as I exited into the terminal building, I was attacked by what must have been the most intensive group of taxi hustlers I’ve EVER seen. And believe me, I’ve seen quite a few. I must have been the only one that looked clearly foreign to them (yeah, the Mohawk, I know...) because they all attacked me. I focused on the guy that looked the least menacing and negotiated the price of a taxi ride down from 35 to 13 US$ (Lonely Planet says to pay 11, so I didn’t do too bad), and got in to the taxi. The ride was uneventful in itself, but when I got out of the taxi, the price was somehow back at $35 again! I had to physically wrestle my bags (big backpack + daypack + plastic taxfree bag – difficult to juggle) from the taxi driver and his friend and fight my way to the hotel!
The hotel (Kyrgyz Altyn, 30 Manas, +996 312 66 64 12j) is decent enough, with clean rooms and shared shower (even though I can’t understand why it should cost $30 – all hotels in Bishkek are ridiculously expensive!). But of course they had managed to loose my reservation, so I had to argue a lot to at least get a bed for the night. At 2.30 in the morning and with my reputation probably spreading around the Bishkek taxi fleet, I felt my other options were limited indeed!
When I got out on the town I quickly got my expectations of its state confirmed – Bishkek is definitely a city in decline. Just like the rest of the country, Bishkek has really lost a lot when the USSR was dissolved, and everything from the communist era is slowly falling apart. I don’t think I’ve ever seen as many badly tended facades and gardens of ex-palaces and -villas as here.
All the signs are in Cyrillic script. OK, I can’t really blame the city of Bishkek for my lack of knowledge in Cyrillic letters, but what really ticks me off is that none of my two guidebooks, neither my phrase book has any Cyrillic <-> roman translation table! How the f%#k can they write names in their books and maps with only roman letters, not include a translation table, and then expect someone to find ANYthing!?
When I bought a water bottle, it was fizzy and not still. It’s that Cyrillic again… :-(
When I finally took a break from walking and sat down for the first time, in front of a monument to study the map, a guy comes up to me and says the two English phrases he knows, and then tries to steal my backpack.
NO ONE here speaks English, not even at Fatboys, described by the guide books as the best backpacker place in town. I’ve also been to two other hotels that are supposed to be backpacker hangouts, without meeting ANY other westerners. I DID see two backpackers (although they might not have been westerners) from afar, but lost them before I could catch up. I know that my dear Anna traveled other central Asian countries and managed well, but then she at least had her sister for company – being by yourself is quite another matter!
On my way from Fatboys, I took some pictures of a monument. This quickly brought out the local police that asked for my passport. Fortunately enough I had read the warnings that they will hold on to your passport until you pay a made-up “fine”, so I had a laminated photocopy to give them, but they still dragged me into a small building, searched through my pockets and backpack and tried to make me give them my watch/compass/barometer/altitude meter (I have to continue those gear articles soon!) as a “gift” to get my laptop computer back.
At the local fairgrounds I was assaulted by beggars that literally tugged at my clothes and my backpack. Also the fairgrounds was really depressing and worn down. I’m sure that there will be an accident in the not too distant future.

All in all, I look back at my first day in Bishkek and can not find a single positive thing to say, except maybe about the beer that I’m drinking as I’m writing this. Even that is US-style and very tasteless though, but at least it’s beer...

And the outlook for the next few days is not very promising either: During all my interactions with the locals they have tried to rob me (well except for the simile I got when I paid my food in the supermarket – but she probably gouged me as well :-(). If I can’t trust an ordinary man to not steal my backpack, how do I even dare to ask the way? If I can’t trust the police, what to do if something goes wrong? And since I can’t even read the signs, how do I even dare leave the hotel?

I can only hope that it gets better, otherwise I will probably stay in my room and watch old Boston Legal TV shows on my laptop for three days until the rest of the team gets here and we meet the local affiliate.

I can only say Öf – my phrasebook says that it is the kyrghyz sound used to express something that is terrible or disgusting!

Istanbul, July 21-22

2006-07-22T11:02:00.000+02:00

The beautiful blue mosque.

Up until now, even though I’ve sometimes (or you might say always...) published the blog in batches, this is the first time I’ve actually written the entries in anything but chronological order. As I’m writing this, I have just finished the Bishkek sucks! (Kyrghyzstan day one: Bishkek sucks! (July 23)) entry, and maybe that is why Istanbul felt so positive?

I don’t think so however, because I remember the feeling while I was still there! I only spent one day, or even less, in the city, so there’s obviously more to discover when I get back there on my way home, but here’s a shortlist of my impressions so far.

Cheapest airport to downtown fare in my life so far! The 0,80$ subway ride even beats what Lonely Planet claimed the cost would be in Cancun, and in reality was five times cheaper!
The hostel I stayed at (Cordial on Peykhane Sok 29, tel +90 212 518 05 76) was excellent – thanks Anna for the tip! Not only was it reasonably cheap (US $12), but it was very clean, had free Internet for us with laptops, and had good beer on tap in the bar! And it is right in the center of town!
The Bazaar was excellent – easily the best market I’ve ever seen. Especially the central and oldest parts had an excellent selection of jewelry and decorative items. Also, the water pipes looked excellent, but I didn’t have a closer look since I plan to buy one when I get there the next time.
The area where all tourists gather, around the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia is unusually beautiful and it’s even nice to sit in the surrounding parks, since no touts (“friends” trying to take you to stores, museums, hotels, restaurants, etc.) are attacking you!
Food, both in restaurants and in stores seems cheap enough.

All in all, only good experiences, except when I read the map wrong and was only saved by my excellent watch/compass/etc. – yes it definitely deserves a Gear article soon – but I can’t blame that on the city! I really look forward to coming back.

This will probably be in the end of September or beginning of October – if you are interested in joining me there around that time, let me know, I would love the company! I’m planning to see more of Turkey as well and stay for 2-4 weeks, but I am flexible if anyone wants to join. Btw, there’s a travel agent on Sveavägen in Stockholm that advertises Istanbul flights for 400 SEK or so…

Åmål Blues Fest, July 7-14

2006-07-22T11:00:00.001+02:00

The best part of the Blues Fest just might be all the street blues in the day time.

I don't quite know for how many years I've been going to the Blues Fest, but I just realized that it is the only every-year tradition that I have going. For many people it would be Christmas with your family, but for me I've spread them between girlfriend's families and my own. For many americans it would be Thanksgiving, but we don't have that tradition in Sweden. For other swedes it maybe is a midsummers party or the annual crabfish premier. Or - god forbid - the annual premier of the godawful fermented herring, "surströmming".

And the sad thing is that I really appreciate these traditions, so I've always aspired to be part of them more. Well, I guess that is something that comes from never settling down with a family, instead swapping girlfriends (and with that more or less half of your friends) every five years?

Anyway, I guess that is why I like the Blues Fest so much, because it can not possibly be the music! :-) I've never been much of a blues fan, and even if it is always nice to listen to blues live, and even academically dissect it's part in pretty much all other types of mucic from jazz to hip-hop, it has never really been close to my heart.

No, the Blues Fest to me is all about family and friends. Meeting my kid brother, and probably for the only time in a year, having the time to sit down and actually talk to him (you see, he lives in Gothenburg, and none of us is very good at phoning...) is invaluable. As is of course since the last seven years spend time with his wonderful son Eric, my adorable nephew. Not too mention the rest of my family, but more about them later.

At times, I've even been able to trick a friend of mine to join me as well, and that's always been greatly appreciated, even though it seems like I don't have too many friends found of the Blues. Maybe I just need to tell them that the Blues Fest is not really about the Blues at all? :-)

Anyway, this year was better than most, since I had the company of my lovely Helena. I guess she understands that the Fest is not about the blues, because I have never seen any blues CD's at her place and still she came!? We loaded her car with the last of my belongings from Stockholm (I'm storing everything in Åmål while I sub-let the apartment) and set off on a wonderful summer day. Driving through a country gives you a quite good image of how beautiful it is, and Sweden - I love you!

As always, my mom had made excellent preparations for us, and I quickly fell in to the role of a kid again. It's strange, at the age of 41 you would think that I am a grown-up, but as soon as I come home to my mom, it's lke I'm 15 again. I sleep most of the day, I let my mother make breakfast and generally cook for me, and this year I think it actually turned worse: she even did my laundry! I'm planning to stay with her fo a longer period later in the year, and I'm a bit afraid: what if I get so used to being pampered that I won't move out? :-)

The Blues Fest in itself was pretty much like it always is. I really think that the best part is the street blues in downtown Åmål (downtown being a relative term in a city of around 10.000 of course) during daytime, where many of the bands are playing for free at street corners of cafeterias all over town. Maybe it's not the biggest names, but somehow it's really close to what blues should really be about...

Unfortunately I had a bad case of hay fever, so I couldn't join Helena for it. You see, what most people know about hay fever is the running noses and eyes, and the sneezing. What most don't know is that (at least to some of us) also gets our bodies in a fever-like state where you need 12 hours of sleep or so, and still is constantly tired and sweating. Really a big pain, and it even seems to get worse by the years. :-(

But I did go to the evening concerts, and it was good as always, although not spectacular. Unfortunately not too many people (something like 5000 I think) this year, and it seems like the Fest is in a downwards spiral now. Too few people -> less money for artists next year -> fewer people -> etc... I hope they can get better sponsorship next year to get out of it, otherwise I fear for it's survival.

One added bonus was that my uncle Mats had come to the Fest. I don't see him nearly as much as I would like to, even though he actually lives in Stockholm as well, and it was nice to go partying with him and Helena. It was really great to see you Mats, do bring the Harley next year!

After the Fest, Helena had to go back to Stockholm for a family thing, and I took the opportunity to further regress to childhood. All that was left for to regress completely was probably to fight my brother, but since he weighs 100 pounds more than me these days, I wisely decided not to do that!

Instead I mostly spent time with my mom and dad, we even took the time to go out on the golf course together, and I am happy to report that even though I haven't even seen a golf ball the last three years, I still had the fewest strokes! I didn't even whack a single ball into the woods so that I didn't find it, and that is the first time in my life! Hmm, I already missed the British Open I guess, but isn't the PGA championships in the autumn? I wish I had thought about becoming a golf pro before taking up all these travels on my year off! :-)

Another part of the Blues Fest tradition has been to celebrate my birthday - although it is less and less to celebrate each year! :-( I guess that some year I should actually arrange my own birthday party, but it's that whole regression to childhood again, and besides, mum and dad is doing such a great job of it! Even though it is always great to be celebrated (and the presents, don't forget the presents! :-)), the best thing is that it is a great opportunity to meet the extended family: my grandmother on my dad's side and her boyfriend Bengt, my aunt Maggan and her family, Björn, Linnea and Emma. Thanks for the presents guys, but most of all thanks for being there!

By the time my birthday came around, Helena had come back from Stockholm as well, and that I guess, was the best gift of all! We even took the time to visit my sort-of-cousin Cissi to try horseback riding for the first time! Well, Helena had tried it before, but since I am allergic to horses, I never really wanted to...

However, since I've been taking these allergy shots that is supposed to make me immune to to many allergic compounds, I thought this was a good time to try it. You see, one of the things I want to to in Kyrghyzstan is to go trekking on horseback, and that's really no good if you are allergic...

Unfortunately the experiment was something of a failure, and I had a fairly bad reaction. On the other hand, I was only wearing a t-shirt and shorts, and even hugged the horse, so when I get the chance in K-stan, I will try it at least. Long-sleeved shirt, long pants, proper boots, gloves, and I can even use my buff as a face mask - that should be enough. I have this dream about riding in to a small village on the horseback, like Lucky Luke in the comic, and at least I'm going to give it a try...

As I'm writing this, there aren't that many days left until I will get my chance either! The rest of the Habitat team is arriving to Bishkek tomorrow morning, and then we will be off to Barskoon to build the houses, as well as have some R&R, which is supposed to include horseback riding. It's getting really close now!

John's and Majvi's wedding, June 1

2006-07-22T11:00:00.000+02:00

The beautiful bride and handsome groom - yes it's a traditional and boring picture, but lovely nonetheless!

Well, this was definitely something I had been waiting for for a long while.

John and I are friends since like forever, or at least close to 20 years, and even if he and I have drifted apart somewhat the last few years, he is still one of my dearest friends. When he moved to Stockholm 10-15 years ago, we used to go out dancing together, when we were both single, it was almost every week.

It always felt a little bit weird, since the success at picking up a girl for either one of us would inevitably lead to the end of the single life that we both loved so much, so I guess we were lucky that none of us were ever very good at picking up girls! :-) I have to admit that it was more often than not me who broke up the fun we had by getting a long-term girlfriend, and I always felt bad for not being there for him as much as I wanted to, instead clinging to whatever current girlfriend like I-don't-know-what.

Well, one night three years ago, one of us was finally to about to make a catch on the dancefloor - and a big one at that!

It was a hot summer night and the beat was burning. When I listen to your heart I hear the whole world turning, I see the shooting stars falling through your tenderness. You were licking your lips with your lipstick shining, and we were lying together on a silver lining, by the light of the moon, and there was not another moment to wait.

No, I got sidetracked there for a moment, that was actually the lyrics to "You took the words right ouf of my mouth (Hot Summer Night)" by Jim Steinman. Let me try again:

It was a hot summer night and the dancefloor was crowded, so many people were starting to sweat. This led John to try what I at the time thought to be the lamest pickup line ever. Not so much a line as a gesture I guess - he wiped some sweat from the forehead of a girl he was dancing with and saying something or the other, I can't really remember if he had a line or not.

I wish that I could say that it was working great, but I seem to recall that he did not have much success with the move, except for this one girl... Unfortunately enough, she disappeared from the dancefloor after a while, and after a few minutes more I could see that she was at the bar, starting to leave. John of course was in another world, desperately wiping the sweat from the foreheads of more or less the whole dancefloor, so I had to tug at his arm and tell him that the special girl was leaving, and shouldn't he try to get her phone number or something, unless he really wanted to die alone?

And I'm happy to say that his pickup move wasn't that bad after all, since the last few years it has been John that has been isolating himself from the world, despearately clinging to his girlfriend - and who can blame him!? So yes, I don't want to take the credit for them getting married, but at least John has someone to blame if the whole thing don't work out! :-)

Majvi by contrast is a relatively new acquintance, but she grows more lovely by the day. Not only is she beautiful and smart, she has even managed to finally introduce some fashion sense to John's life, and that is not a small achievement by any standard!

With Majvi coming from Stockholm, and reportedly having never been out of the city center until she met John, when the engagement rings showed up on their fingers, I was expecting a Stockholm wedding, but instead the whole affair was arranged in Hälsingland (up north), where John's from. And it was all the better for it! Most of the guests were from other parts of the country, so going there over the weekend, only focusing on the wedding was a great plan. It really meant having the possibility to concentrate on the bride and groom, and think about them.

Unless of course you have been on the other side of the world for two months, and just met your girlfriend the day before! Yes, I must admit that most of the time I was more focused on the lovely Helena next to me rather than the young couple, but that didn't mean I had any less fun of course!

The wedding festivities was mainly organized by John's dad Bernt and his wife-to-be-as-soon-as-he-decides-to-make-an-honest-woman-out-of-her Karin. Karin has this huge farm, right next to the church where the wedding was, and they had definitely arranged a perfect wedding!

The ceremony in church was wonderful and very traditional, after which we all walked back to the farm where the party was. Well, the bride and groom rode in a classic car (A-Ford I think?) as the rest of us picked up the dust behind.

And the party was the best! Quite traditional in tone, but touches like not only having pitchers of water on the table, but also pitchers of moonshine(!) added to the enjoyment! Also, the band was a classic from our youthful days: Hion Martell. One of John's best friends plays in the band, and all the other members are old acquintances as well - it was really fun to get the opportunity to talk to them again for the first time in many years! I even managed to get John on the stage (he plays a decent harmonica) together with the best man (Johan, who is an excellent bass player) and the band for a few songs. Needless to say, that was the most popular setting of the evening!

Everyone was partying in to the wee hours of the morning, and partying hard. We had a 2 kilometer walk bak to the hotel where we were staying, and I remeber that it took me and Helena half an hour just to get 500 meters on the way! We would probably still be there if not for Jonas driving by and giving us a lift - thanks Jonas, you were a real life saver!

So yes, I had a great time at the wedding, but the best time I still had every time I looked at John or Majvi, and I could just see all the happiness radiating from their eyes. If you read this guys, all the best of luck to you!

Stockholm July 1-21

2006-07-22T10:59:00.000+02:00

A selection of the people I met when I was home in Stockholm. Daniel, Christina, Emma, Sten, myself, Mats, Anna, mom, and x Helena x

As I’m writing this, it is actually July 23, and I am already in Bishkek in Kyrghyzstan. I guess the fact that I haven’t had time to update the blog until now says that I had a great time home in Sweden? Yes certainly, but it also says that there were a lot of things I had to do before continuing my journey.

As it has been some time since all of this happened and I was sometimes to drunk to remember the details :-)), I’ll try to be brief. But if you know me, you know that it will be hard for me!
When I came “home”, it was the first time I’ve come home from a journey without having an actual home to return to! You see, I’ve sublet my apartment to a lovely couple from the south of Sweden while I’m away. This means that not only do I not need to pay the costs while away, I actually make some extra money from it!

This is because Sweden has a weird system of rent control, which means that building owners have a hard time making money when renting out apartments, which means that no housing gets built, which means there is a permanent housing shortage (at least in Stockholm) for as long as I can remember. Most of the time this really pisses me off, but this year I can finally enjoy the fruits of it!

But I had something even better awaiting me at home. My lovely Helena was waiting for me at the airport, beautiful as ever, and with the hugs that I so very much needed lined up. Coming home to her and her family might very well have been the best thing that has happened to me on my journey!

Unfortunately I never really had time to settle with her and her son Robin, because we kept moving all over Sweden. Just a day after I came back we headed off to Hälsingland for the wedding of John and Majvi, two of my very best friends - more about that in a later blog entry. And soon thereafter we left for my parents in Åmål, to coincide with the annual Blues Fest, as well as my birthday – but I’ll do a separate entry on that as well.

The rest of the time I spent in Stockholm, sort of having a vacation. Don’t I have a full year off – why do I need a vacation then? Well, traveling is not always restful, you know. Going on a one-week charter to Mallorca or something similar probably is, but backpacking in foreign lands where you don’t know the language isn’t – at least not for me.

So it was very nice to just hang out with friends and really doing nothing. Going back to favorite places like Sodra Bar (my favorite summer bar on a veranda overlooking beautiful downtown Stockholm) and Kungsträdgården (a park in central Stockholm, great for people-watching), as well as finding new ones like Kärsön (a great beach next door to the royal family, with an opportunity to go nude if you want to) and a great club where I had the time of my life.

But the best thing was of course to get to meet my friends again. When I’m traveling I honestly can’t say that I miss Stockholm itself much, despite its beauty. But I do miss my friends. A lot! Guys, if you read this, it was great meeting some of you, and I’m already looking forward to when I get home the next time so that I can see the rest of you again!

And of course I spent most of the time with my darling Helena. I don’t know what I can say about it all. She gave me the best time I could ever have hoped for – and then more. We haven’t known each other “for real” for very long yet, but she is already one of the best things that have ever happened to me, and I treasure every moment we’ve had together – even our fights!
[That actually brought a tear to my eye. Oh well, time to switch subjects.]

Among all that enjoyment I also had some preparations to do for the next leg of my journey – mostly relating to my equipment. It’s more or less always fun to buy new equipment, but less so when you have to replace lost stuff. I don’t really know how I managed, but I lost the following on the trip: One shirt, one t-shirt, two pair of socks (merino wool - sniff) , two pair of underwear (I obviously need to check my laundry bags better in the future), one camera pouch, and finally one bloody expensive Leatherman pliers/knife. At least my family was nice enough to get me a replacement of the latter for my birthday!

But there were lots of other things as well – paying dad for two months worth of bills was the least fun part, but writing e-mails and sending photos to the people that I promised on the trip to do so was the best! It really brought back a lot of the happy memories from Central America. If you are one of those that haven’t got a reply yet, don’t despair. I have already sent out close to 100 MB worth of pictures, but I am getting to the bottom of the pile now!

Buying gifts and tools for the Habitat subsidiary in Kyrghyzstan was also great fun – I’ve read up a lot on both Habitat and Kyrghyzstan the last few weeks and it feels really good that everything I bring will come to good use! But more on Habitat and the voluntary mission in a later blog entry. There’s nothing like some decent cliffhangers to get people to come back to the blog is it! :-)

And on that note, I’m out of here. I’ve been in Bishkek for a few hours now, and it is time to see the town!

The last day in Central America – trying to sum it all up

2006-06-29T01:42:00.000+02:00

And today is the last day, not only in Panama City, but also in Central America. I’ve just spent it at the hotel, sleeping for long (I hit the bed at 5 am this morning), doing laundry, repacking (the customs in all the countries between Guate and here REALLY liked to unpack the box with my souvenirs... :-( ), and of course finishing the last blog entries.

So what did I think of Central America then? Well, in one word: excellent!

Everyone you meet is extremely friendly and always do their best to help you out. I don’t recommend coming here without learning some Spanish before though; not only will it be much easier to get around, but you also make friends so much easier. I found it really easy to get to know people in Belize, and I have no reason to believe that it would not be as easy in the other countries as well, as long as you know the language.

The landscape is very beautiful, with everything you could ever want: great beaches, wonderful mountains (with great trekking opportunities), although I definitely recommend to come here between November and April in the dry season. Most days have been cloudy for me, and even though the variation in the weather has been welcome, I have no doubt that the landscape will be even better looking when the weather is better!

I guess that the best recommendation is that I will definitely come back; there’s a few places I want to come back to (like the Cenote dives in Yucatan and the hikes in the Guate mountains), and then there’s all the things I never got around to do, like the diving in Honduras. And I hear SO many good things about Nicaragua that I just have to go there some day!

But now I soon need to get going to the air port – I’m really looking forward to come home to Sweden and meet all my friends, although I will surely miss all the new friends I’ve met on the road. And then there’s Kyrghyzstan – it’s now only three weeks until I board the plane to Bishkek for further transportation to a really small village in the eastern parts of K-stan were I will build houses with Habitat for Humanity - I can hardly wait.

But first: Sweden – here I come!

P.S. There's been 15 (fifteen!) new posts the last two days, and this time, on popular request, I've added lots more pictures than I've done before - I hope you like them?

So go down to the "Lanquin, June 7-11" post and start reading already! And don't forget to give me comments!!

Panama City, June 26-28

2006-06-29T01:38:00.000+02:00

At least I was able to shorten the bus trip by 24 hours by some clever bus changes, and that gave me one more day in Panama City. I really like the city here; it is very much like a real city – skyscrapers, lots of traffic jams and a hectic tempo. It is so very unlike all the other towns I’ve visited previously; I guess that the biggest town I’ve been to before had 30.000 people: Panama City has around a million.

The bus ride down here had the effect that I came to totally focus on coming back to Stockholm, so I’ve had a hard time to get very excited about doing Panama”properly”. Being here has been much more like taking a weekend trip to London than being on the other side of the world.

Bright Lights, Big City...

But I’ve met some nice people at the hostel where I’m staying, and we’ve been walking around town for two days, checking out the touristy stuff, looking at people, and just generally enjoying being in a big city again, with all it’s shops, bars, McDonalds(!), and clubs.

Sebastian and Anne in front of the Panama City skyline.

I’m explaining to Anne why it’s so great to spike your smoothies with rum.

TICA Bus, June 23-25

2006-06-29T01:37:00.000+02:00

Well, the less said about this the better – who wants to sit three straight days on a bus? :-( But I had to do it, since after trying to call Iberia for several weeks to change my ticket so that I could fly out of Guatemala instead of Panama, I had to give up and get down to Panama as fast as I could.

Iberia Airlines: stay away from them if you can!

Antigua, June 20-23

2006-06-29T01:29:00.000+02:00

Latin America is the very popular in general for learning Spanish; there are schools in almost all decent-sized towns. But Antigua is by far the biggest of them all – there are around 70 schools in a town of around 20.000 people, and the whole town is very dominated by them and their students.

For some people this is great – it is a good way for 18-year old kids to hang around with people from all over the world, and go to school in the mornings and just party and have fun the rest of the time. But if it the genuine Guatemala you want to see, this is definitely not where you want to go. Having said that, I did enjoy the more western-style feeling that you get here. Many people spoke English (weirdly enough...), there were plenty of bars, restaurants and discos, and I had a great time with some of the kids that stayed at my hostel.

The waterpipe is ALWAYS a good way to start your clubbing.

Also, the town is really beautiful, in a distinctly colonial style that you don’t see much down here, where the towns generally are VERY ugly regardless of size.

But the reason I came were the volcano hikes. Unfortunately, with the combination of low season and the soccer world championships on TV, no one else was interested in that, so the 2-day hike I wanted to do to Acatenango (4000 meter high, more than 2000 verticals on the hike) wasn’t possible (3 people minimum). It still irritates me somewhat, but a nice thing about being in these parts of the world is that you get very tolerant about how things work out. I hope that the same feeling sticks when I get back home, because I really like how I’m much less irritable now than when I left home.

Bonus picture for all my fans :-): the world’s ugliest and fattest dog lives(?) in Antigua!

Lake Atitlan, June 18-19

2006-06-29T01:19:00.001+02:00

I did think a lot about whether to do Atitlan or not, but in the end I just decided that I had to. Lake Atitlan is the place where all the backpackers go in Guatemala, and for good reason. The guidebooks talk about it as one of the most beautiful places on earth, and I tend to agree. The Lake is fairly large, 8 km long or something, and is surrounded by three enormous volcanoes, just begging to be climbed.

Unfortunately the security situation right now is somewhat unsafe, so I chose not to do any of the volcanoes, instead saving the steep hikes for Antigua. But I did do a wonderful one-day hike between some villages on the north side of the lake. It’s really hard to do the landscape justice with pictures, but I did some panorama pictures, a few of which that I’ll try to share here – don’t forget to click the pictures to see them in something at least approaching full size.

I spent two wonderfully relaxing hours in this little secluded spot outside Santa Cruz.

Looking down at one of the villages around the lake.

Along the route, I came to a Hotel called La Casa Del Mundo, and that must be one of the neatest hotels I’ve ever seen. Perched on a cliff above the lake, the rooms consists of Cabañas (small houses) that hangs out over the lake, making it feel like you are flying or something. Down by the lake, they have built social areas for sunbathing and drinking piña coladas, where you can check out the boat traffic on the lake, and the ambience is wonderful.

Not extremely luxorious in any way, but the owners are really nice and you are very well taken care of. Definitely recommended to stay a night if you are in the area. Maybe not more than that, because there really is nothing to do except to sunbathe and swim.

The place is for sale – the asking price is 3 million US$, but he was willing to go down to 2!

Weirdly enough I spent my other day at the lake in Panajachel (the main town), mostly shopping(!) – and quite enjoying myself I might add! I really don’t like shopping back home, but maybe it is the added joy of bargaining? Not only do you get to buy something beautiful, but also (at least if you’re good), you get the feeling that you’ve mad a bargain. Of course you always get cheated by the locals, but it’s more fun if you delude yourself. :-)

It started when I found the most wonderful presents to give to John and Majvi at their wedding, and I didn’t really know how to stop after that! :-) I finally wound up buying so much stuff that needed to buy a BIG plastic box to ship it in, and to pay for the extra weight when I fly home. But it wasn’t completely random, careful study reveals that Pana is very likely the best place in Central America to buy handicraft and other souvenirs – it is the perfect level of decent quality of the goods (almost all markets only have absolute crap) and good prices (places like the capitals and Antigua has at least as nice goods, but at twice the price)!

Just don’t forget to leave your gun home when you go shopping!

As for the volcano treks, I have no doubt whatsoever that they are wonderful, but you will find it really hard to find a group to join unless you go in high season. Me, I saved the volcanoes for Antigua…

A bunch of posts again - and more coming soon!

2006-06-27T08:16:00.000+02:00

I'm slowing down in my travels again, this time as a preparation for my trip back home in two days. And this gives me time to update the blog again - for the first time in almost three weeks I see now!

There's been 9 (nine!) more posts the last few hours, and this time, on popular request, I've added lots more pictures than I've done before - I hope you like them?

So go down to the "Lanquin, June 7-11" post and start reading already!

/ Peter

P.S. read fast, because I expect the Atitlan and Antigua posts to be up tomorrow or at latest on Wednesday!

P.S.2. As always I love comments - especially when you sign them so I know who wrote them! :-)

Hiking in Guatemala – where to go?

2006-06-27T08:08:00.000+02:00

Anyone wants to climb a volcanoe?

Guatemala is a very beautiful country with many high mountains, volcanoes and a very varying landscape, and as such it is as if it was made for hiking. And yes, the Guatemalans take advantage of that and offer quite a few hiking opportunities. Here’s a summary of the most talked-about, and my recommendation.

Antigua: Antigua is of course the center for Spanish-langauge education in Guatemala, but it is also situated in the shadow of three really big volcanoes and a smaller (but active) one. Unfortunately in low season there are very few people interested in trekking, so I couldn’t do the more extensive hikes. Read more about the Pacaya hike in the Antigua entries.

Lake Atitlan: Atitlan is truly one of the most beautiful places yhat I’ve been to, and the volcanoes surrounding the lake really calls to you. One-day hikes by yourself would be excellent, but unfortunately it is still huge problems with robberies along the hiking paths, so it is not really recommended. I did do a very short hike between two villages (see the Atitlan entries) and that really wet my appetite, so I just wish it was possible to do more!

Quetzaltenango: the second biggest town in Guate and the biggest one in the mountainous northwest, Xe-la (as it is known) is mostly famous for it’s growing language school scene, but it is also home to the most respected trekking company in the country, Quetzaltrekkers. Unfortuantely I did not go there myself, but I only heard great things about them, and they also do treks to nearby regions. Also, since they are big, they almost always have treks going. I wish I had gone there...

Nebaj: A new and rising star in Guate trekking, Nebaj is a small and very rural town in northern Guatemala. It has only one place that arranges treks (Guide Ixil), but if they were good it would certainly be enough. The landscape was beautiful, but unfortunately the guide that we had anyway was a big disappointment. The trek in itself was good enough, but if I were to go back, I would head for Quetzaltrekkers...

Nebaj day 2-4 – the Maya hike

2006-06-27T07:49:00.000+02:00

When I got back to the hotel I was lucky enough that there was another gringo that had gotten into town. Johnny DeLello was like a caricature of an american. He was pleasant enough to begin with, but when you spent more than 10 minutes with him, you quickly realized that he was as loud, ignorant and full of himself as they come. Johnny, if you read this, I’m sorry man, but I’ve never met anyone so full of shit like yourself!

Normally I try to distance myself from (north) Americans as much as possible down here (Canadians excluded of course!), and Johnny is the type of American that I would run from, but in this case he had one redeeming quality: he knew Spanish! So I quickly dragged him to Guide Ixil to help me set up a trek. And now that there were two of us, we actually met the minimum number of people to go on an organized trek as well. Unfortunately Guide Ixil decided to close early that evening, so we had to wait until the next morning...

When we got there, we were lucky enough that there were already a Spanish couple and an Israeli couple that had set up a three-day trek, so we quickly decided to join them. Johnny’s main argument was to get the cost of the trek down, but it was so cheap that I didn’t really bother. But two or three days alone with Johnny and I was afraid that I might have to kill him before he drove me insane. :-)

We didn’t have more than half an hour to decide to join them and then pack our gear, but as it turned out the others were really nice people and we had three great days:

Eva, Marc, Efrat, Israel, myself, and Johnny, before we set out for the mountains - we were to be much more tired and less perky three dats later.

Day 1: To the Mayan village
The first day was a relatively light hike (steep at places, but no more than 1000 verticals in total) to a remote mayan village. There were no roads to the village, and since it was a long hike to the nearest road, they had very little contact with the outside world. This was evident when you studied the village: there were pretty much no outside items (like radios, modern-style tools, etc.) that they traded any agricultural surplus for.

Which meant that in our eyes, it was a really backwater place. And since the Maya has their own languages, no one spoke Spanish either, so contact between us and the locals were really minimal. This was something of a disappointment in the beginning, but it did allow us to get to know each other much better, as well as play a lot of Tiki (or something similar, I don’t quite remember the name), a really fun Uno-like card game.

But as always in these situations, the kids got to our rescue. The adults kept their distance, but kids are always curious, so we spent quite some time playing with them. And with kids, you don’t really need to know the language either! But all in all, Guide Ixil needs to improve their relationship with the villagers a great deal. Not only were we not welcome in their homes, this is what greeted us when we opened the door the morning after:

When your neighbour takes a dump at your doorstep during the night, you KNOW it means “get the hell out of here”... :-(

Luckily enough, the view when we lifted our eyes a few feet were much better: the morning fog kept changing in the valleys below at an amazing rate, and made for some exciting morning scenery!

Day 2: To Cotzol

The morning fog thickened, and it got quite spooky at times.

The second day, we continued to climb the mountain, and by lunch time we hit the highest point on our trek. At around 2800 meters we were no more than 900 meters higher than Nebaj, but behind us we now had 1200 really steep verticals. But still not high enough to give me any idea for how Kilimanjaro will feel in eight months or so – I really need to hunt for some real heights in Kyrgyzstan!

Cotzol, the village where we were staying the second night was completely different. When we got there we were greeted by lots of kids cheering us on, and we almost felt like celebrities. These people were also fullblood mayans, but they had clearly embraced modern society in a way that the people in the previous village had not.

Kids very curious to find out how a digital camera works.

First of all, most of them spoke Spanish, very likely related to the fact that all kids actually went to school. Secondly, you could see that they was longing for western-style modernities: even though everyone had dirt floors, quite a few of them had cell phones! And of course, to pay for that you need to trade, so you need to work harder on the fields to produce a surplus, which in turn means that modernities like gasoline-driven mills were suddenly useful.

And so on: the comparison is definitely the best hands-on experience of the advantages of trade I could think of, and definitely put all those boring lessons in business school in a new light!

We were also invited to have lunch (a very late one, but still), dinner and breakfast in a number of different houses in the village. It was very interesting to see the inside of their houses, but also quite sad. To the untrained eye at least, they looked far more unsophisticated and less developed than the houses from the 1700’s that you see in Swedish museums, and it felt sad to know how easy diseases would spread in those environments. I later heard from a journalist in Antigua that child fatalities could be halved in Guatemalan rural villages just by installing stoves with actual pipes to the ceiling instead of just letting the smoke out in the kitchen.

Efrat and Eva having dinner in at a local home in Cotzal.

And just to illustrate that point, me and Johnny had a discomforting experience in the family where we had dinner. When we were almost through our dinner, we heard some incoherent ramblings and cries from the room (all the houses we were in had only a kichen plus one room). When we asked, we got to know that there were a sick child in the room next door, and that the relatives had gathered to pray for her, lead by an old matriarch (or maybe she was a shaman, we did not really know).

I still don’t know whether the girl made it through the night or not, but to be honest my hopes aren’t very high. She had a really high fever, she was rambling, and there simply weren’t any doctors for miles around. Not that I know if these people actually would let a western doctor look at their kid, and even less if they could afford one.

Those who know me, know that I am certainly not a very religious person (to say the least), but that evening I prayed. There was nothing else that I could do (my first aid kit only had things to fix cuts and wounds and could do nothing for a fever) except fall on my knees and prey... Oh, and I gave the family 100 Quatzales (or about 12 US$, more than a week’s salary I guess) for a doctor, but I think that even made less use than the prayer.

All in all the most gripping experience during the whole trip, but unfortunately not in a good way. :-(

Day 3: Back to Nebaj
The third day was definitely the most strenuous. Especially for Efrat, who had forgotten both her asthma medicine, and to tell us that she actually HAD asthma! This irritated Johnny a lot since he wanted to go faster, which strained the relations in the group somewhat, but on the whole I must say that I’m proud that I kept the situation together.

Me? Yes, because unfortunately our guide wasn’t exactly the best there was, and as the oldest of the group I did feel a certain responsibility. That was fine, but the bad part was that our guide was extremely passive the whole time, and instead of him telling us about the history and other facts about the region we had to drag every little piece of information out of him, and that really made for a less than relaxed trek sometimes.

But the trek the third day was excellent! The landscape was even more dramatic, and we were doing on average 6-700 vertical meters per hour the whole day, going up and down the mountains and valleys as we approached Nebaj.

Resting for a few minutes before the final assault of the last peak before Nebaj.

But it had been a hard day, and without any lunch we were more or less starving when we had dinner late in the evening – and never has a pizza tasted as good as that night...
All in all, I was both very satisfied with Nebaj, but also very tired, and quite happy to be leaving for the quieter surroundings of Lake Atitlan the day after…

Nebaj day 1 – the waterfall day-hike

2006-06-27T07:42:00.000+02:00

Since I wasn’t able to purchase the trekking guidebook, I did the only hike I knew anything about – the Cataracas (or waterfall) hike explained in the Lonely Planet book, and let me tell you that it was great!

It was certainly not exhausting, only being two hours long. And it certainly wasn’t hard, with less than 200 vertical meters. But man was it beautiful!

Hard to make the landscape justice in pictures, but you could do worse for yourself than being a cow right here...

Someone later likened the landscape to lowland Switzerland, and I guess there’s something to that. The hike was along a road winding along a small river at the bottom of a narrow valley, where cattle, sheep and horses were continually grazing along the riverbank, every now and then interrupted by a couple of waterfalls small and large.

25 meters may not exactly be gigantic, but compared to Swedish waterfalls it’s not shabby...

The hike was even shorter than I had expected however, so when I saw a narrow path leading off from the road a point, I immediately jumped at the chance. Even though I didn’t have a map, I DID have my compass (built into my trusty Techtrail watch), so I felt reasonably safe. And what do you know, when I got higher up on the mountain, lowland Switzerland DID turn into highland Switzerland. Except for the jungle vegetation I guess. :-)

And up on the mountain there was quite a lot of life. The mountain was full of criss-crossing paths where I met lot’s of people. I met a small family on their way to the market, I met sheep farmers at their small isolated farm, I met forestry workers on their way home from work, and I even got hunted by angry dogs!

Guatemalan cowboys – not as glamorous as the North American ones!

And when I very very tired returned to Nebaj, I was convinced that I had to work harder to get further up into the mountains somehow...

Nebaj, June 12-17

2006-06-27T07:34:00.000+02:00

Early on I had decided to do some hiking in Guatemala. The one-day hikes in Lanquin was a good start, but they were only 22 km per day and no more than 800 vertical meters up. I wanted some more challenge, and after careful consideration I chose the Nebaj area.

For one thing they have never had a reported tourist crime, which in many countries is normal, but NOT in Guatemala. Also, the trekking industry is very undeveloped here and the only trekking company is owned by locals, so my money would go to the local people. And of course, it is maybe the most beautiful part of the country.

But things did NOT start out good. First I had the worst possible luck on the way from Lanquin. That the journey took a lot of time was no surprise (10 hours to get 80 kilometers!), but that I had the bad luck of constantly sitting on the wrong side of all the four vehicles I took along the road that is regarded as the most beautiful in Central America, that really pissed me off.

So sorry everyone, I have no pictures from the journey, even though I can confirm that it WAS extremely beautiful when I was peeking between people’s heads, armpits, etc. If you are ever in the region, this road is HIGHLY recommended!

The main street in Nebaj. Yes, it really WAS that boring!

When I got to town I meant to go to the local trekking company (Guide Ixil) and set up a trek for the following day, but instead I fell asleep at the hotel and slept from five o’clock to eight in the morning! I guess I needed it, but I lost a whole day of trekking.

Then when I got to Guide Ixil the following morning, it turned out that the trekking guidebook promised in Lonely Planet was out of print. And the promised 1:50000 scale maps were not available either. And to top everything off, there was NO ONE available that spoke English in the whole town of 11.000 people! Most of the time down here I can always get translation help from other backpackers or voluntary workers, but here even they weren’t around – this really WAS way off the beaten track!

By this time I was REALLY close to just give Nebaj up and go south to Lake Atitlan or something and the main reason I didn’t, was that it was too late to make it to Atitlan the same day by bus! Luckily enough I persevered, and Nebaj turned out to be one of the most memorable places on my journey...

Starting a local business?

2006-06-27T07:29:00.000+02:00

As I might have told some of my esteemed readers before I left Sweden, something that’s definitely nagging me is the possibility of getting hold of a local business somewhere in the world. I think I described it as “buy a cool bar at a Caribbean island and marry the beautiful twin daughters of the tribe chief” or something! :-)

Well, sitting here in Lanquin, I’m half-seriously considering starting a place like this backpackers joint in Nebaj to cash in on the possible increase in tourism there. Or any other business down here really...

I’ve also met this guy Brendan today that was offered to buy a sixth of a restaurant in San Pedro (on Lake Atitlan) for 2500 US$. The interest on that would be $10(!) per month only, and for that he would also get a room to stay in as well as food each day. Sounds like a decent deal, and if it wasn’t for my trip to Kyrghyzstan I would be very tempted indeed...

Or maybe I should buy a Tuk-tuk (only 4500 US$ for a new one!) and start a taxi business? :-)

4th day in Lanquin – The Peters and rafting

2006-06-27T07:20:00.000+02:00

So who’s Don Pedro? Well, it turned out that we were three people named Peter staying at El Retiro at the same time, so we needed some way of telling us apart. I honestly don’t remember what we called the third guy, but the reason that I remember Don Pedro (apart from him being a really nice guy) was that he joined us for the rafting trip on my fourth day.

The group before heading out – Don Pedro is the third from the left.

Since the rumour about Lanquin an El Retiro seems to be spreading, there’s a few things happening around here. The new cave in Semuc is one thing and another is rafting. Martin, a dutch guy came by here a few months ago and saw the business opportunity: to set up a rafting business. He and his friend Adam has spent a few months surveying the nerby rivers in kayaks, and the week that I got there it was time for the grand finale: getting some paying customers on the river!

Martin before we set off on the trip. Or Adam? Or Martin? One of them at least...

Of course we didn’t go in kayaks – me and the other beginners would probably had been killed or something! As it turned out the rains the preceding days had made the river really hard. We stopped at one place and checked the water depth – at a place where the guides had never seen more than 180 cm before, the water now was at 270 cm!

The rapids had gotten at least one class harder, so the first real rapid was now a 5+! For those that know there rapid classifications, that is NOT a rapid where you take a boat full of beginners, especially when there is a 4+ right behind it! So we started the rafting by carrying the rubber boats 200 meters downstream. :-(

Myself with some of the easier rapids in the background. And yes, this was before I fell in! :-)

But after that it was GREAT! I fell in two times, one of them when the boat flipped and the other time when I didn’t go down fast enough when we went through a BIG wave. They tell me that I’m not supposed to admit that I fell in twice since the idea is NOT to fall in, but hey: where’s the fun in that!? But to be honest I was a bit afraid at one time when I got caught in a backdraft and had problems getting up again. But all’s well that ends well I guess... And I had the adrenalin running pretty much constantly for two hours – GREAT!

If you never tried rafting before: definitely recommended!

This scary-looking creature is actually very nice: Heather Kenison is a resident ski-bum in Squaw Valley that really made me want to come there for a visit (for the skiing only of course! :-)).

3rd day in Lanquin - Trekking to Semuc-Champay again!

2006-06-27T07:15:00.000+02:00

During my long day in Lanquin hiding from the rain, some of the other people at El Retiro told me about something that I had missed in Semuc – some really adventurous grotas (caves) that sounded really fun. So the day after I got up early, shook off the hangover (I was REALLY bad at that drinking game!), and set off again. I don’t know what the locals thought about the strange Swede that came walking by their villages AGAIN, but at least they got some business that day – my poor head needed massive amounts of Agua Pura (drinking water)!

And the caves really were worth the trip! We started by swimming into the caves, carrying only candles, and then it just got better. We spent something like two hours climbing ropes, diving, walking past waterfalls, swimming against, and drifting with, currents, and generally just having a LOT of fun! The guide we went with was not very security conscious, and maybe even a bit crazy, but it all added to the experience!

Unfortunately the camera was fogging up in the cave due to the cold water, so here’s a picture of my two companions when we were tubing down the river afterwards instead.

I also picked up a companion (left in the picture above) in Semuc; Brendan Kellogg is an artist/artisan (among other things he makes furniture) from Manhattan, and we had a great hike “home” to Lanquin – it’s amazing how much easier it is to hike when you have someone really nice to talk to! I lured Brendan back with me with the promise of all the great girls at El Retiro (well, he was more their age, so I thought I could be generous and give them away :-)), and he seemed happy enough when we got there, even though he seemed to spend most of his time with me, Don Pedro, and the other guys.

1st day in Lanquin - Trekking to Semuc-Champay

2006-06-27T07:05:00.000+02:00

I arrived here in Lanquin the day before yesterday after a whole day on the bus, so yesterday was the first real day here. Since there was supposed to be a Saturday excursion to the Lanquin caves, also including some rappelling (never done that, dying to try) as well as river tubing and canopy gliding (riding steel wires in the treetops), that really left me with the other main excursion target here: Semuc-Champay.

Semuc is a really small village 10 km east of here (over a mountain pass), whose main attraction is a set of natural water pools, where you can go swimming. Not only that, but the main part of the river flows underneath the pools, so you are actually swimming in pools that are on top of a natural bridge!

There are arranged excursions from the hostel and there are also some of minivans or trucks that you can take, but I wouldn’t be adventurous enough if I did that, right? So instead I put my sandals on a little harder, loaded my backpack with 3 liters of water (unless you already knew it; you need a LOT of water in these parts of the world) and some food, and set off over the mountains. The first two km was almost straight uphill and more than a little hard, but after I reached the summit it was pretty smooth.

Yours truly, after the hike to Semuc – note the trekking poles.

No sun, but that’s just fine when you hike anyway, and I had a really nice 2.5 hours journey. I saw a lot of wildlife that I would certainly not have seen on a bus, including two chameleons (which was a first for me), as well as a rather nasty snake! I also got to use my hiking poles for real for the first time and they were great! Although you feel a little silly around other people, they are really great when going downhill in slippery terrain and also helpful when going up. They are going to be GREAT on Kilimanjaro!

A part of the pools, with an insert of some of my companions.

When I got there, the pools were really as exciting (and relaxing!) as everyone was saying. They were just deep enough to dive in, and the water was just the perfect temperature also. So, I just spent a couple of hours hanging around by the pools, swimming, relaxing and chatting with some other people that had come with the bus from Lanquin (whimps!).

Unfortunately, after a while the weather quickly got worse, so I didn’t get any good pictures. Also, I had to hike my 10 km back home in pouring rain – not exactly the best of conditions. I DID bring my rain gear (full points to my Patagonia Stretch Elements shell jacket btw!), but in this heat it really doesn’t matter that much since you get soaked in your own sweat anyway. :-(

But that just makes you feel slightly more like an explorer, so that’s OK anyway! :-) So, that’s when the rains started, and now they have been going on for 32 hours and counting [Update: they stopped after 38 straight hours!]. The clock is more than ten in the evening and it is time to decide: should I join my English roommates in their drinking game or go to bed? Even though they have the linguistic advantage (it’s that kind of drinking game), they ARE girls, so I SHOULD be able to hold my own, right?

[This is where all feminists should start throwing bottles. Careful of the computer screens girls! :-)]

The social area from the inside.

Well, I did decide to do the drinking game, which in retrospect might have been a bad thing for the next day...

Lanquin, June 7-11

2006-06-27T06:50:00.000+02:00

Today is the morning of Friday the 9th, and it is my 2nd day in Lanquin. The rainy season has REALLY started now, with the rain starting at two o’clock yesterday and still going. Everyone says that there’s not going to be any letup today, so I’m staying at the lodge today, just hanging around, maybe see a movie or two, chat with the other backpackers, and of course watch some football: today is the first day of the World Championships, so I’m going to watch Costa Rica beat the crap out of Germany later today (yeah, like THAT is going to happen! :-)).

The trip from Flores to Lanquin was a bit more problematic than I had originally thought. I overslept :-( so I missed my 5.30 bus straight to Cobán, so I instead had to take the “chicken buses” (chicken bus is backpacker talk for the local buses, more or less dangerous to ride and quite often with chicken cages tied to the roofs, hence the name), and change four times, including once to a boat(!) before I got there.

Inside of a typical Guatemala mini-bus – also typically crowded.

And then there was yet another bus to Lanquin which means that the trip took more or less the whole day – traveling here is really slooow. Here I’m staying at El Retiro, because it is the only backpacker-place in town.

The cabaña where I’m sleeping.

But that don’t matter too much, because it is a great place. I pay 35Q for a bunk in 4-bed cabaña, which is probably expensive as dorms in Guatemala go, but you DO get excellent service for that. Lonely Planet describes it as a backpackers dream, and I would agree. The cabañas are in a shady area between the road and the river, and by the river is a BIG building with thatched roof and open to three sides that works as a restaurant/social area.

The social area of El Retiro beckoning to you when you arrive.

Today the social area has been quite full because of the bad weather I guess, but otherwise it really only crowds around dinner time. But if it gets too full, there is also a lounge with beanbags on the floor right under the roof. I’m going to spend some time there today, since that’s where the TV is (for football!), but otherwise there’s too much making out going on between the couples for me not to miss you and feel sad, so I stay away from there. Talking about football – time for the first match!

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Well, of course Costa Rica didn’t stand a chance against Germany, despite all of us rooting for them, except two poor German girls that looked liked they thought we would heap the whole WWII guilt trip over them or something. But of course they had the last laugh in the end – Germany won with 4-2. :-(

It is now 6 o’clock, so it has been quite some time since I wrote last time. I’ve spent the day, first beating some Israelis in Risk, and then playing cards with some other guys. The rain refuses to stop and is now up to 28 hours in a row. On the other hand, I wouldn’t really have a problem staying here a week or so either. :-) The food is really good, the cabañas are good, and it is really easy to get to know people and just generally have fun. No single girls in even remotely near my age bracket yet though. :-( But who knows, there’s bound to be more people showing up later in the evening.

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Now back from yet another delicious dinner – vegetarian only here which might not suit everyone, but it is great for me! Time is flying, so I better get around to tell you about my day at Semuc-Champay, don’t I?

Tikal, June 6

2006-06-07T04:52:00.000+02:00

Parts of Great Plaza in Tikal. It is Templo I to the left in case anyone is wondering. :-)

The only excursion I've done from Flores is to Tikal. Tikal is the largest Maya ruins in the world, has great wildlife and flora, and certainly deserves more than I have time to write here right now. Hopefully I can complete this post later.

It was great anyway, and comes highly recommended!

And don't miss my post on Flores below, as well as the Belize Summary post some way down. It seems like I forgot to publish it last time... :-(

Flores, June 4-7

2006-06-07T04:46:00.000+02:00

The view from my hotel - and the lake makes for a great swim as soon as you get hot too!

I rode in to town on a Sunday afternoon...or at least that what it feels like many the locals did. It’s been a while since I saw this many cowboys in one place, and with the number of stores for agriculture goods to match! On the main street there must be several hundred machetes for sale...

Or at least that’s the feeling you get in the Southern part of town – Santa Elena. Yes, once again I am in a divided town, and once again it is the northern half that has taken all the tourist trade while its southern brethren got none.

But in this case, there is an excellent reason! The town of Flores lies on a small Island, less than 500 x 500 meters in a beautiful lake in northern Guatemala. Although the town is very lovely with a lot of cobblestone alleyways and winding streets, most people don’t seem to stay here for long, instead heading for the main attraction in the area – Tikal (more on that later). Also, since this is definitely off-season, there aren’t many tourists here at all, which in turn means that it is a rather desolate village right now. But on the positive side, it seems to be quite easy to barter for living and excursions.

I’m staying at La Casa del Lacandon (no, I have NO idea what Lacandon means – the phrase book fails me there, and I have not thought about asking), a simple little hotel, but right on the water, and on the sunset side nonetheless!

I’m sure that the sunsets would normally be exquisite, but the weather we have been having is far from perfect – I probably need to realize that the rainy season is over us now. Although we rarely have rain except in the night so far, it is cloudy most of the days.

Despite the lack of beautiful sunsets, Flores would be worth spending a few more days in, but I need to move on. Before my darling Raquel left me, she gave me a few tips on Guatemala (she had spent several weeks here before we met), and I am going to take advantage of those. My main purpose of going to Guatemala was Spanish studies in Antigua and hiking at Lake Atitlán. As you may remember, I do not have the time for any Spanish classes, and as it looks now, I’m gonna cancel the Atitlán hiking as well.

You see, Guatemala is not exactly the safest of countries, and especially around Atitlán and Antigua there has been several robberies reported lately. I’m still going there (they are both supposed to be absolutely beautiful!), but I’m probably not going to do any hiking there. Instead Raquel tipped me off about an almost unknown area around the town Nebaj between here and Antigua.

Almost completely undeveloped for tourists, they have recently started a Community-Based Tourism system set up, with local guides, horses and accommodation in the villages surrounding Nebaj – in other words just like there will be in Kyrghyzstan!

Oh, and Mom, you will be glad to hear this – not only is the trekking supposed to be excellent (and VERY cheap!), but there has supposedly NEVER been a tourist related crime reported there! The more I’m reading about it, the better it sounds, and I’m really looking forward to it - thanks Raquel!

Oh, and while I am in the area anyway, I will do Grutas de Lanquin (a giant cave system) and Semuc Champey (natural swimming pools, by many rated as the most beautiful place in the country), once again as a tip from Raquel. In fact, she gave me so many ideas that I could probably stay for another month at least. But I need to head south soon unless I want to miss my flight from Panama, so I’m just going to quickly take in Lake Atitlán and Antigua on my way to Guatemala City and then probably skip Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua and go directly for Costa Rica – or maybe even Panama?

In hindsight it was of course very stupid to try and do the whole area in only two months, but I never had the time to read up on the area before I had to order the airplane tickets – I didn’t even know how big the countries were! But on the positive side, it gives me a very good reason to come back, which I most certainly want to!

I can see that I have not written much about Flores itself, and that I guess reflects what I’ve been doing and thinking about. I met a lovely Australian couple on the bus from Belize, and we have spent a lot of time discussing our previous trips (and they have shown me some EXCELLENT pictures from Galapagos), world politics and so on, and not really taken the time to enjoyed the town per se. And when I’ve been alone, I’ve been looking forward and planning the rest of the trip.

And on that note – time to finish the last of my beer hear at Capitán Tortugas, and go and post this to the blog. Tomorrow I have an early (5.30!) bus to Cobán/Lanquin! It feels like I’m starting the journey home tomorrow, and although I still have more than three weeks of adventures left, I’m already looking forward to coming home and meeting many of you!

Pictures online now

2006-06-04T18:18:00.000+02:00

Whew - Blogspot has some issues with uploading pictures, and they've had some sorts of issues around it probably the whole time I've been using it.

I think I've found a way around it though (using Picasa), and it has also given me an idea as how to post more than one picture per blog entry, so you should hopefully see more pictures in the future.

Assuming I can manage to post at all in the future - I've spent more than 10 hours to put the last 16 Belize posts in there! Don't forget to start with "The Mohawk" post and work your way upwards.

Best Regards / Peter (who's leaving on the bus to Guatemala in half an hour)

Belize summary

2006-06-04T08:04:00.000+02:00

Well, I’ve now posted 16 blog entries (including this one) the last few hours, so you better go down to ”The Mohawk” and start to do some reading!

Unfortunately, Blogspot has some issues with uploading pictures to their server right now. I've tried to divide the material between more posts than before to accomodate for more pictures, and then this happens...i'll post a note here when the pictures are online [UPDATE: They should be working fine now!] - it might take some time though, I have no idea how much Intenet I'll do in Guatemala. At least some of the pics made it, and some of them are sweet I think...

When you get back up here, you can then read my little summary of what I thought about Belize.

Belize in just a few words
I hope that you already have realized this from reading my other entries, but: I really liked Belize! The country is in many ways still a very charming “banana republic” like what you can see in 50’s movies, which is a special kind of charm in itself, and excellent when you just want to relax. But there is also a good tourist infrastructure in place, so there are plenty of activities available if you prefer that.

Here’s a short list of some of the good and the bad:

Recommended

Ride the Chicken buses (normal buses) and be open to people – a great way to get to know people.
Snorkelling in Hol Chan and Shark Alley, and go with Carlos’ at Caye Caulker. I’m sure that the diving is excellent also, especially at the Blue Hole, but I did no diving this time.
Stay at Val’s Hostel in Dangriga and talk to Dana, the owner.
ATM cave excursion outside San Ignacio; go with Snooty Fox Tours.
Eat the grilled snapper at Serendib in San Ignacio. Certainly one of the best fish I’ve ever had!
Stay at the Hi-Et in San Ignacio and spend the evenings at theie wonderful porch!

Avoid

Mayawalk tours in San Ignacio. Recommended by Lonely Planet, but did not work for us. Also uses very questionable business tactics according to other locals.
Belize City. Yes, it’s at least as bad as everyone says. If you NEED to be there, make sure that you go to Bird’s Island for lunch, coffee or dinner however.* The cab driver’s calls of “Taxi, sir?”. No wait, you can’t avoid THAT. :-)

Goodbye to Raquel Dubois

2006-06-04T08:03:00.001+02:00

Raquel, what can I say about Raquel...hopefully some of my feelings has come out in the things I have already written, but here are some closing thoughts on her as I try to summarize our time together.

Well, out of all the great times we had and all the fun things we did, what stands out is something that I haven’t even realized until she left. My gap year was supposed to be mostly about inner contemplation, but before I met Raquel, that had started to slide. I was beginning to turn into yet another of these 20-something’s, only cruising the coastline for fun.

But Raquel has been a true friend, a conversation partner, a great listener, and has been great at getting me on the right track again.

She has also given me some insight to worlds largely unknown to me, and although I cannot say that I have changed my beliefs (or rather my lack of beliefs I guess!), I have found our discussions to be very entertaining as well as thought provoking.

As an example, Raquel gave me a great card reading (similar to tarot cards, at least to me :-)) as we were getting to know each other. I know that she wants to give the credit to her little angels, but to me it is clear that it was her extraordinary loving and insightful persona that worked together with me to make me think things through and contemplate.

Oh, and Raquel is possibly the best massage therapist I’ve ever tried – that combined massage and healing session she gave me...I can only say wow! Raquel plans to eventually set up shop in India for some time to make some money to continue her journey, but if she is THAT good with others as well as me, she will probably stay there and get filthy rich!

Raquel, if you are reading this (of course you are!), I wish you all the best on your journeys, both your physical journey, and your journey of self-discovery.

The Weather

2006-06-04T07:59:00.001+02:00

Before leaving Dangriga for the mountains, I checked the weather for the region, and got really depressed. It was thunderstorms all around central America – I even checked Panama, considering a quick flight down there, but the forecast was the same everywhere.

In reality, the weather has been very nice. We’ve had no rain at all, except the day we went to the zoo, and about evey other day is cloudy and the other sunny. Really nice to get a pause from the burning sun sometimes I think!

So, the rain jacket and pants got used at the zoo, and now that I’m leaving for the highlands of Guatemala I may even get some use from the fleece? The nights are supposed to be cold, so maybe even the sleeping bag will get some use? Would be nice to know that I did not carry it in vain...

For Flores (my first destination in Guatemala, close to the magnificent Tokal ruins) the forecast is once again (scattered) thunderstorms and lows of 70 degrees Fahrenheit which should still be more than 20 Celsius. My second destination, Antigua and Atitlan could however go down to 60 (and still with those scattered T-storms...), so maybe the fleece at least?

Language and possible loneliness

2006-06-04T07:58:00.000+02:00

Or maybe you never need to be lonely if you speak the language of the animals? :-)

Another reason that I have stayed for so long is probably that I like the fact that everyone speaks English. I remember from Mexico that it was not very easy to get in touch with the locals because of course I don’t speak Spanish, and I’m sure that I am subconsciously afraid the same thing will happen in Guatemala.

Originally you might remember that it was my plan to stay in Guatemala for two weeks or so to learn Spanish? Well that plan has now changed. For one thing, I have barely started the CD-ROM course I have on my computer, and on top of that everyone I talk to is saying that unless I take at least six seeks, there’s not much idea at all. A little bit depressing, but on the other hand it gives me great motivation to come back to the area sometime in the future!

My original plan for Central America was to come here from November to February, which would certainly have given me time to take Spanish. But I am glad that I came here now instead. The weather is not as hot (even though I can not really imagine how it could be any hotter!), but most of all there’s so few tourists. I seriously doubt that people here in Cayo (as San Ignacio is often called) would have taken the time to talk to me if there had been business waiting around the corner!

Oh, and going to Belize and hanging out with Raquel has improved my English a lot, which I am very happy about.

I am slightly worried that I will feel a little lonely again as I get to the Spanish areas, but that’s just something I need to deal with then. My friend Esteban tells me that I need to find myself a beautiful local girl that knows Spanish that can guide me, but he fails to tell me how I could pick her up when I don’t know the language! :-)

Esteban’s work – mostly conch

2006-06-04T07:56:00.000+02:00

One example of Estebans work - there's at least 80 hours of work in there...

Esteban is working in many materials. As an example I have bought a very touristy shark carved from bone that I have in an leather strap around my neck. Although touristy, it is of a higher class than the others I’ve seen people sell all over the country and I really like it. I have also bought a ring made from couhun (a local hardwood) and with designs of steel wire. It’s nit quite my size, but I still like it. He’s also working in stuff like coral, but his main material is conch.

Conch is a big shell (around 20-30 cm) found on the ocean floor. The mollusk itself is really delicious, reminding me somewhat of octopus, that is often served in a Ceviche (like a thin salsa served with corn chips as snacks or appetizer) or soup.

We picked a few and ate on our boat journey to Placencia, but we just threw the shells away. I don’t know if they had been useful to Esteban since he only uses the best, but it irritates me somewhat – it would have been cool to have picked my own conch and then commission Esteban to make something of it!

The process goes something like this:
1. Select the right conch shells, based on such things as luster and lack of fault lines.
2. Examine the conch for which type of jewelry could be made from a certain part of the shell. For an example, there’s a certain place that is suitable for butterflies, while beads can be done from pretty much any parts, but then you choose the place to take the bead from to get the right color instead.
3. Cut it with a diamond rotary blad to approximately the right size and shape.
4. Grind it, once again with a diamond blade, to get it in the exact shape you want.
5. Polish it, with four different gradations of sandpaper and then with cloth.
6. Drilling a hole. At this stage 1 out of 20 breaks because of a hidden fault line, and you have throw it away.
The whole process takes from one hour for a simple bead, to several hours for something bigger like the butterfly or a dolphin! Some of the items will be sold just like that; typically it is the more touristy stuff, that I am convinced that he’s doing jut for the money.

But sometimes he gets to make something more complicated, like a bracelet and a necklace, and then they can contain upwards 80 or 100 beads and drops – just imagine the work going into that! Oh, and in that case it’s of course yet another step – pairing and combining the beads and drops in exactly the shape, color and patterns that will come out best.

It’s all amazingly beautiful – sometimes I am convinced that Esteban actually manages to store some of his own warmth in each and every one of the pieces he makes – amazing! He hopes to have a web site up soon with some pictures (some of which I and Raquel took for him), where people can commission work from him, and as soon as that’s up, I’ll post the address right here.

Belizean food – boil-up, cow foot soup and more

2006-06-04T07:55:00.000+02:00

Finally I could see it - the mythical Boil-up!

Food in Belize is maybe not the most sophisticated of experiences, but it is still very good sometimes. In one way it reminds me of Sweden in that most food served in restaurants aren’t local dishes. Instead there’s a lot of standard international food, like pasta, pizza, hamburgers, and of course Mexican!

There are some regional specialties, but those are better enjoyed in the restaurant shacks catering for the locals rather than the backpackers. The ubiquitous standard is “rice & beans” with something. It is exactly what it sounds like; rice, most of the time boiled in veggie bouillon, mixed with some black beans. It is then served with some sort of meat in a seasoned sauce, and a salad or other veggies.

In other words “rice & beans” says pretty much nothing and can be anything... In some roadside stalls, they serve it with grilled chicken or pork which can be good if you find the right place. In the restaurant shacks it often comes with a chicken stew.

Just to make it completely confusing, I’ve actually had “rice & beans” with chicken, but with potatoes instead of the rice and the beans! But it was still called “rice & beans”...

Another local specialty is the cowfoot soup. Yes, it actually is a soup, based on veggies, potatoes and such, and with the foot of a cow in there. The cow foot has been boiling for hours so as to make everything soft and juicy. I did not know exactly what I was eating from the side of the cows foot; whether it was skin or something else – but I did not care – it was excellent!

The big specialty down here is however boil-up; I don’t think they have an official national dish, but if they had one – this would be it. I’ve heard it explained as a stew, but it reminded me more of a soup. BIG pieces of veggies, potatoes and stuff, and then topped with a pig’s tail! Not too much meat on the little piggies’ tail, but it was salt and tasty. Served with a large piece of very tasty boiled dough (called a dumpling here, but the Chinese would declare war if they knew! :-)).

All in all, I haven’t thought about McDonalds in weeks, which if you know me must be a good thing!

As for drinking, the local beer, Belikin, is really quite good, not only as a thirst-quencher. They also make what they call a stout (distinguishable from the beer ONLY by the color of the cap, so watch out in the supermarket!) that is really good. I wouldn’t call it a stout, but it IS a rather good ale.

I take it VERY careful with the umbrella drinks, because they are so darned expensive, but I’m sure they would be good... I have a new favourite grogg however: papaya milkshake with dark rum – bring a flask to McDonalds and try to mix some in a banana shake or something. Mmmm...

Oh, and there’s a Ginger Fanta which is d-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s – certainly my new favorite soft drink!

Tourist security(?)

2006-06-04T07:53:00.000+02:00

The day before yesterday was not a very good day for tourism in Belize. There has been isolated robbery attacks in this area before; Kristina told me that a robbery of four tourists in the Caracol region (the most distant excursion and the towns star attraction, at least before ATM) had created a lot of discussion about how crime was on the increase and what should be done about it.

Well, this time the bandits hit a group of FIFTY tourists close to the ATM caves (much closer to civilization), held them all upp at gunpoint and made their way with all their belongings! The town is buzzing with the news, and this morning I actually saw Wanted posters in the city, just like in the wild west! There’s now a 10.000 $US reward for these guys! (And that is a lot to these people, although it only seems to buy you two washes of your car :-) - see the Canoe trip entry.)

The ambience in town is very subdued and everyone is gossiping about what happened! People seems convinced that there are bandits from Guatemala that crosses the border to do the robberies, and that is probably correct – crime in Guatemala, especially against tourists is MUCH worse than in Belize.

And I’m moving on to Guatemala? Well, just another reason to be even more careful then...

San Ignacio daytrip – to ATM

2006-06-04T07:50:00.000+02:00

One of the locals in Aktun Tunichil Muktal

What is this – do you need to do a daytrip to find an ATM ("Bankomat" in Swedish) in San Ignacio? No, it’s not that type of ATM... In this case ATM stands for Aktun Tunichil Muktal, which means Cave Rock Holy or something like that in mayan – quite a descriptive name.

ATM is part of a system of caves and underground rives stretching at least 6 km underground – some of the locals even claims that it goes all the way to Guatemala and that it is the way that the bandits (see security post) comes, but experts say that they don’t go that far.

The system has been closed to tourists until quite recently – archeologists didn’t discover the area until 20 years ago, and it has taken them quite some time to get done!

The cave is a one-hour drive plus 45 minutes trek from San Ignacio – just enough to prepare yourself mentally for the experience to come! Or you could just do like the couple in the back seat of the van and totally make out back there. To each his own I guess! :-)

During the excursion we did not go further in than 500 meters or so, but it still took around an hour to get in. There is a lot of water so sometimes you swim. There are large caves, so sometimes you almost don’t see the roof of the caves despite strong flashlights. There are narrow passages, so sometimes you pull in your stomach and squeeze. And there is generally a very magic feeling with excellent stalactites, stalagmites, and other rock formations that I don’t even know the name of.

One of the coolest rock formations on the way in must have been a curtain-shaped one that you could play xylophone on! I don’t know if it was hollow or not (I’m pretty sure it wasn’t however), but if you hit it at different places you could get at least one octave of notes out of it!

After 500 meters of that magic (took an hour, remember?), we had to climb six or seven meters up to a small small entrance to a whole other cave system – and here is where the “Holy” part of the cave’s name comes in. In front of us an enormous cave system opens up, used as a holy place by the Mayans for hundreds of years, from before BC to around 900 AD!

That means that it is full of offerings to the gods, mostly it’s pots (and shards of pots, evidently the shaman broke the pots to release the energy of the food) that contained food offerings, but there’s also a handful of skeletons left behind after a human sacrifice to look at! And of course the wonderful rock formations continues all the way inside also, and so dresses these archeological gems in the best of gowns. Stalactites, stalagmites, yes, but there’s also the stone curtains hanging from the high ceiling and the walls covered with glittering stones (which in my imagination of course are diamonds!), and, and...

The archeologists has in some cases removed the artifacts for preservation, but if so, they have put them back in the same place as before, so when you go in there, it looks exactly the same as it did when the last Mayan shaman left there more than a thousand years ago...spooky!

Well, there’s really no way to describe it. It’s like a museum, a church, an architectural masterpiece and a nature’s wonder at the same time. And it’s just...really really fantastic.

One of the best times in there was when we turned off the lights completely and just sat there in complete silence. Raquel and I had done that in another cave (see Blue Hole blog entry) before, and the sudden silent effect was eerie this time as well (isn’t it strange how LOUD your own body becomes at those times?), but there was definitely something else as well. Everyone who knows me knows that I pretty much don’t believe in anything that don’t show up on an instrument, but I definitely think that there was some sort of energy that I could not quite touch but still feel somehow...

On the way out, I think everyone was touched by the experience, since we pretty much kept quiet all the way, just enjoying the scenery, and hurrying before the lights on our helmets went out!
What a day it was. Although there is a special certification for guides before they are allowed to take people to ATM, I can highly recommend Gliss from Snooty Fox Tours. Gliss gave us lots of information on Mayan history in general and on this site specifically the whole time, and he has been making the ATM tour right from the beginning in -99. He also knew what he was doing with regards to the caving, which is not completely unimportant – we saw a couple of bad examples from other guides we met on the way in and out.

San Ignacio resident #2 – Kristina Skiadas

2006-06-04T07:48:00.000+02:00

Kristina at her favourite spot in the corner of her restaurant.

The odds for running into Kristina were never great – according to her, she is one of three(!) Swedish people living in Belize.

Kristina is yet another person who is doing that which most of us never dares. She left Sweden in the 70’s to marry a greek living in the US. While in the US, Kristina has had several restaurants (at least that’s what I perceived them as – some sort of establishment anyway). During that time she often came to Mexico, Guatemala and Belize on vacation, and when things didn’t work out with her husband, she decided to move to Belize, and after a while ended up in San Ignacio, owning and managing a restaurant, Chingo’s Bar & Grill. It suddenly dawns upon me that I forgot to ask who Chingo is – bummer!

Kristina has very much been my inside mole to Belizean society, as someone who has spent a lot of time not only in Belize, but also in the neighboring countries, she is in a perfect position to spill the beans on how things are working here, especially since she can make some comparisons to Sweden. Well, Sweden in the 70’s at least! :-)

She’s been telling me all these great stories and anecdotes on how Belize society and business life works, especially in San Ignacio of course. I hope that the allergy medicine I left with her is payment enough for the valuable insights she has given me. If anyone has any Aerius left over, send them to krissan8@yahoo.com! :-)

Belize business life – Marie Sharp and other women

2006-06-04T07:45:00.000+02:00

A local businesswoman - in this case running her own little restaurant (with excellent cowfoot soup nonetheless!)

I think that Belize’s future to a very large extent lies with the women, but let me get back to that.

To understand Belize’s economy, it is important to understand that it is a very small economy – not more than 260.000 people live in the whole country! As such, they don’t really have the economy of scale to even have any decent-size corporations, and even less so a decent government!

But then most Belizeans don’t believe they have a decent government either... They have two parties here that have been taking turns winning the elections since democracy started in 1981. But no one seems to care that much, since it’s so corrupted anyway. Getting to power seems to be more about grabbing as much as possible to your self during your mandate period, rather than doing anything good for the country – at least that is the opinion of most people that I talk to. No wonder they get kicked out every other time!

It’s not really possible for me to make my own judgments in the short time I’ve spent here, but all external sources seems to agree that corruption is rampant here.

The only large companies they have here seem to be the infrastructure monopolies. There’s one for electricity, one for communication (buses), another for telecoms, etc. All privately owned, and the general public’s opinion is that their monopolies are protected by a corrupt government. Me I’m not so sure, the market is so small that the market might simply not be big enough for any more players?

So, the country seems to be run by corrupted fat white guys in suits, with the economy run by their likewise cousins. Where’s the hope then?

Well, in the women of course! It seems like most men are content with being employed by someone else in the industry or agriculture, but not the women. It might be that they simply aren’t welcome to the traditional jobs or that they prefer to run their own businesses, but one thing is clear: it’s with the women you can find the energy that this country needs.

Many of the women I meet are very resourceful, clever, and are doing good business. They might be lacking in ambition sometimes, but they have a very good positive role model for that: Marie Sharp.

Marie started to make her own pepper sauce (like a Tabasco, but MUCH much better) in her own kitchen and traveled herself to restaurants and sold them. These days she has a fair-size factory producing the stuff, some 100 employees, distribution in the states, and of course a web site. The stuff is on the tables of EVERY restaurant I’ve been to here, and it comes highly recommended!

She’s also diversified into chutneys and jam, but I haven’t tried those so I can’t say how good they are.

Marie now runs one of the biggest corporations in the country (yes, I SAID that the country was small!), and certainly the best known. Quite some role model for all of Belize’s hard-working women indeed!

San Ignacio daytrip - Canoe trip to Rainforest Medicine Trail

2006-06-04T07:41:00.000+02:00

Raquel next to a two-dimensional palm tree - it has forgotten to grow in more than one direction it seems. :-)

The Mopal River (or Belize River, or Old River) runs right through the twin town and separates Santa Elena and San Ignacio quite effectively. It makes for a nice place to take a swim when it’s hot (like, always :-)), or why not wash your car 10 feet from the sign saying that it will rend you 2500 US$ in fines and 12 months in jail, and 500 meters from the police station...? Everyone’s doing it anyway!

It also makes for a really nice canoe excursion upstream. 2.5 hours upstream, passing by some fairly quick rapids (we had to get out only once, but then I was ready to pass out at two other) and a lot of beautiful jungle on the way, there’s some nice places to visit. We went for the Medicine Trail.

Sometime in the 80’s(?) an American botanist (or chemist or something – I really don’t remember), Dr. Rosita Arvigo, came here to work with Eligio Panti, a famous Mayan healer. She learned much of the old man’s trick of the trades before he died not long after at the age of 103, and combined them with some modern knowledge to create Rainforest Remedies, a set of herbal medicines for everything from stomach problems to light insanity.

I am somewhat skeptical of that type of medicaments, and prefer things created by chemists to that which has been grown, but Raquel is completely sold on the stuff.

Regardless, the Medicine Trail was very interesting: whether you believe that there is more effective modern medicaments available today or not, the old remedies has undoubtedly been used by the Mayans and the Bay-men (the white men who ruled Belize, first as Pirates, then as traders) effectively in their days, and as such was very interesting.

But to me, the main focus of the excursion was the canoe trip itself. I don’t know what was best, the hard exercise going upstream or the very leisurely trip down the river where I could focus on the wildlife and the flora that our guide was showing us. Among many other things I saw what must have been the biggest Iguana I’ve ever seen, high up in a tree!

San Ignacio resident #1 – Esteban Cano & family

2006-06-04T07:36:00.000+02:00

Esteban, with lovely wife Iris and adorable 7-month old Diego.

OK, so on the bus to Belize Zoo, we met this guy Esteban. I really don’t remember exactly how it happened. Maybe he approached us to sell some of his wares, but I don’t think so. He probably saw Raquel’s homemade necklace and asked about that. You see, Esteban is something as rare as a combination insurance salesman and jewelry designer/maker working in conch.

Raquel and Esteban immediately hit it off, talking about different kinds of jewels, settings, metals, and all kinds of stuff that I know NOTHING about. I can’t say that I took much part of the conversation, but I still came to like Esteban. He has this very calm exterior, but still with an inner energy that burns brightly. Not completely unlike Ernesto back home, I guess.

Esteban invited us over to his house the day afterwards to talk even more about the jewelry, materials and techniques, and although I was a bit afraid that I would be bored out of my skull, it was a very entertaining evening. Esteban is a very charming guy, but the enjoyment was in no small part due to his wonderful wife Iris, and their lovely 7-month son Diego.

Both Esteban and Iris is two of the most warm and kind persons you could possibly think of. It’s visible in their warm smiles on the outside, but even more so in the actions they take. Although they are by no means rich, definitely not by Swedish standards, but not by Belizean standards either, they are very kind and generous.

Esteban engages himself in voluntary work for local schools, trying to spread the enthusiasm for his job. He also lets young kids from around the neighborhood hang around his house to see him work, and even try to make something themselves sometimes. He has even taken ahigh-school drop-out on as a sort of apprentice for free, trying to teach some of the tricks of the trade, firstly to keep the kid off the streets, but secondly to possibly teach him how to make a living.

Iris was also in the insurance business when she met Esteban, working for a competitor, but since having little Diego, she is at home taking care of him. What a way to remove a competitor from the market, eh? :-)

Since Esteban could get more jewelry work than he could possibly manage, I have tried to float the idea that Iris could take over the insurance business and Esteban could be staying home with Diego and working on his jewelry. Not completely surprising, they don’t seem to be able to even think about that question. It’s simply one of those things that you don’t do here it seems. At the same time, most small businesses seems to be run by women, so I don’t really know what to think, but more on that later.

Anyway, I have met with the three of them (as well as their cats & dogs) on several occasions, both with and without Raquel; sometimes at their house in the outskirts of town (a 30 minute walk from downtown San Ignacio), sometimes at a restaurant in town, and I am proud to now be able to call them both my friends. As I am writing this, I am leaving tomorrow morning for Guatemala, and already I can not wait to see them again!

San Ignacio daytrip - Belize Zoo

2006-06-04T07:31:00.000+02:00

Lesson #1 today: when you go to a zoo in the rain, the pictures will be boring. Anyway, here's the national bird of Belize - the Toucan.

Belize Zoo is somewhere in between Belize City and Belmopan. Most people think that Belize City is the capital (I know I did), but it is actually “only” the largest city as well as the business center. When a hurricane in the 60’s more or less destroyed downtown Belize City, the government decided to move the capital to a small village called Belmopan.

At the time it was around 15 families living there, and some people say that there is no more living there now! Seems like someone forgot to tell the government officials that there jobs would be moving or something, because most people who works there still lives in Belize City. The upside to that is that there are lots of buses going between the cities, so doing the daytrip ourselves was very easy.

Belize Zoo has a slightly weird background. Sometime in the ‘80s they shot a wildlife movie in Belize. When the movie was done, 17 of the animals used for the film was half-domesticated, and their caretaker during the movie knew they would not make it on their own in the jungle. So she took it upon herself to create a safe environment for the animals, and what better way than a zoo!

Today the zoo has expanded of course, but all the inhabitants are animals that has had a hard time in the wild and would not make it otherwise. There’s several animals (including a jaguar!) that people has had as pets, but they were somehow mistreated.

It’s not a “sensational” kind of zoo, like San Diego or Busch Gardens, but rather what I would like to call an “eco-zoo”, focusing very much on educating people about ecology and the animals’ role in maintaining our habitat. I guess that is very useful for the (many!) schoolkids who come there, but for me it was more about the animals!

The obvious cool ones is of course the Jaguar and the Toucan bird, both sometimes mentioned as the national animal, but although both the crocs (except for a baby one and they don’t really count :-)) and the puma was hiding from the rain, we saw many other lovely animals. (But then I had already seen crocs in the wild, so... Nyah, nyah nyah, Raquel!)

One of my favorites was the Baird’s Tapirs I think. Looks like a large pig, but with a snout that looks that is a short version of an elephant’s trunk. People say the tapir is related to the horse and the rhino, but form the way they were using the snouts, I am convinced they are related to elephants!

Since this was our only day of rain, I was first somewhat disappointed that we did not postpone for another day, but on the bus we met Esteban, and without him, our experience of San Ignacio would have been nothing like what it became!

San Ignacio, May 22-June 4

2006-06-04T07:23:00.000+02:00

Main street of downtown San Ignacio. Eva's on the right and Mayawalk on the left - fistfights has been known to happen between them right here!

Wow, looking at those dates, there has been quite some time that I’ve spent here now, certainly far more than I had expected too!

San Ignacio is a lovely little mountain town, around 16.000 people lives here and in it’s twin town, Santa Elena, on the other side of the river. The competitive spirit between the twin towns is quite strong, although there are no tanks on the streets like there was in Mostar, there are rumors about fights between street gangs. It’s sort of cute though, since everyone here is still so friendly to everyone.

I guess that the start of the rivalry might be that for some reason San Ignacio gets all the tourist trade, and Santa Elena none. It seems like the tourist industry started a long time, with this restaurant called Eva’s working as the contact point between tourists and guides. Well, 15 years later, Eva’s is still around, but the guides have opened their own businesses all over town now.

Downtown San Ignacio is very much dominated by backpackers, or at least I guess it is in high season. Right now, when the rainy season is supposed to start any day now, the number of tourists is VERY small. Walking around town I very seldom see any of them, except at Eva’s that is.

There’s not much to do in San Ignacio itself except hanging out, but people come here for the excursions. The following is just an excerpt of some of the excursions on offer, and as far as I can tell they all seem to be of a high quality.

General caving
Repelling
Caving in Mayan caves – like a museum at the end of a one-hour caving excursion
Mayan ruins of all sorts and sizes
Tubing (floating on innertubes) in caves and/or rivers
Canoeing
Botanical Gardens and medicine trails
Belize Zoo
Waterfalls and cascades to go swimming in
Horseback riding

I’ll get into more details of a few of those in later blog entries.

But somehow surprisingly, I haven’t done too many excursions. Partly it is a question of the cost (a full day excursion can run up to 80 US$), but mostly it is because I have so much enjoyed just hanging around and getting to know people. I’ll give you a more detailed presentation of Esteban the insurance agent / jewelry designer and Kristina the Swedish restaurant owner in later blog entries, but there’s more to it than that.

It’s more about almost living in town, like when people you’ve met before greets you in the street and so on. And there’s never a dull moment, if I ever feel lonely I just need to walk a block or two and I am sure to find someone to chat to for a while. Except at night time – there’s another crowd out at night time that I don’t really want to get to know...

It was somewhat like that already when Raquel was still here, but since she left a few days ago, it has really dawned on my how easy it is to make contacts with Belizeans – they are a genuinely friendly people!

Jack Wilde's story – or how to build a canoe in three(!) years

2006-06-04T07:22:00.000+02:00

Jack's sailing canoe - still with the mast at the wrong end!

I don’t even remember if the guy’s name was really Jack, but Raquel will undoubtedly correct me if I am wrong. But he is somewhat my hero (as well as a really nice guy!), so I wanted to tell you a little about him anyway. [Yes, Raquel DID correct me - fixed now!]

First he has a somewhat romantic background, where he is married to his high school sweetheart. But it’s better than that. They hadn’t seen each other in 20 years or so before meeting each other again, and the love was reborn again!

Secondly he’s doing something along the lines that I guess that I’m dreaming of: During the tourist season he’s living in Belize, close to Dangriga, working as a canoe/kayaking guide, while the rest of th year he stays with his wife in Mexico.

Thirdly, he could be one of the most stubborn persons known to mankind: three years ago he bought a native dug-out canoe with the intention of turning it into a sailing canoe, with mast, sail, decking, outrigger, etc. And then sail it down the cost, through the Panama canal and and then up the Pacific coast to northern Mexico.

Well, he has had more than his fair share of problems (like the last one was when he recently found out that he had accidentally put the mast in the aft of the boat instead of the front; I kid you not!), but he has not given up. For three years he has kept on coming to Belize to work and to build on his canoe. I hope it’s gonna be done soon, so his poor wife gets to see him again.

Not that I think you’ll ever get to read this Jack, but still: Good luck!!

The Mohawk

2006-06-04T07:06:00.000+02:00

Due to popular demand, here’s a picture showing that the Mohawk is still hanging in there! I was very much considering getting rid of it completely, but since I still get compliments for it every now and then (only from boys though, the girls seem somewhat frightened by it) I decided to keep it on.

Raquel trimmed it very nicely for me to get the right spiky feeling again! But before that it was a sore sight to see – it looked fine for an hour or so in the morning, but then it looked like a plant in desperate need of water or something like that. I obviously need to take care of it sooner in the future!

Placencia and Dangriga, May 19-22

2006-05-26T03:25:00.000+02:00

Music Festival in Dangriga

Staying in Placencia would really mean just more of the same as Caye Caulker, and none of us were too keen on that. The Aussies were heading south to Honduras; James and Alikin were also heading south, while Raquel and I had some plans to go north (more on that later). But we all thought we should go out with a bang, so after finding accommodations in different hotels (we all had different budgets and different taste, but mostly because all hotels in Belize are small – none was able to take on eight people at short notice), we met up at the best restaurant in town for a grand farewell fiesta.

We just generally had a good time, taking pictures, comparing pictures from previous parts of our respective trips, and had a really good meal! I had a snapper, and that was excellent! I do wonder about the price of catch-of-the-day fish, though? At Rasta Pasta in Caye Caulker the catch of the day was Barracuda, and at 6 US$ it was among the least expensive on the menu, but here it was, at more than twice that, the most expensive item. Strange…

On Caulker, Raquel had heard there was supposed to be a music festival in this place called Dangriga north of Placencia, and I got that confirmed while we were staying on the resort. Raquel thought that sounded interesting, and I was really excited by the whole idea, so we have decided to band together for a few days.

Raquel is this totally sweet Australian/English chick. She was born in Australia, and there’s certainly a lot of that adventurous spirit that I could see in the other Aussies. But she has been living in the UK for 12 years now, and there’s certainly something of that more cool and sophisticated British streak in her as well.

She’s something of a free spirit type of girl who has done a lot of traveling over the years, and I just feel like a complete amateur next to her. She’s been all over the world, and I can’t wait to get to Kyrghyzstan so that I will at least have been in one country that she hasn’t yet! :-)

She’s also into crystals, healing, and all sorts of spiritual things, and you all know that I am definitely not! But it is really interesting to listen to her and learn about all this stuff that I knew absolutely nothing about. We might not agree on everything (such as basic scientific principles… :-)), but we totally have this great time together!
So anyway... This music festival wasn’t quite a music festival but something even better: a county fair! Well, maybe not quite (it did not have a greased pig for us to catch), but still more than just a music festival.

Dangriga is the biggest town in southern Belize, but there are only 8800 people living here, and both Raquel and I have somewhat fallen in love with the place. There are no other tourists and this really feels like the “real” Belize; even more so than Orange Walk. Although we have some conversations with the people here every now and then, mostly we just watch people go about their normal daily grind, and that’s just great! One great example: the two biggest stores here seem to be a paint store and a lumber store – no souvenir shops or five-star hotels in sight!

So for this three-day county fair, people seem to have come from the surrounding villages as well as from Dangriga itself, most of them all dressed up and with all this anticipation shining like a light from their faces! It’s obviously a very important part of their social calendar, that’s for sure. It’s just so nice looking at everyone, especially the (very!) pretty girls even though Raquel tells me the boys aren’t half bad either, smiling and having a good time. And there’s none of the fighting, over-intoxicated youngsters, or other crap that we get at similar festivals back in Sweden.

We haven´t been able to catch much else other than the music, since we missed the first day and a half, and the rain pretty-much destroyed the first half of the third day (I would have loved to see the pie-eating contest though!), so we mostly focused on the music events instead, and let me tell you, the music is excellent!

The Belizean music style is called Punta Rock and is a pretty intoxicating mixture of Caribbean music (like reggae) and western music, all mixed up with some reggae and other stuff from the two scenes here. Good stuff indeed! We have bought two CD’s, but as I’m writing this I realize they are both more soul-oriented than Punta Rock is, so maybe I’m going to buy some more CD’s before leaving?
Leaving, yes…I don’t know quite know when that is going to happen. We’ve looked at the weather forecast for the next week and a half, and there are only thunderstorms, thunderstorms and more thunderstorms over the whole Caribbean. And none of that “even if it rains it’s only going to be for an hour or two in the afternoon either”. But that’s why I brought all those films, TV series and comics on the computer, right? I just might as well stay here at Val’s hostel for another week – its cheap, its clean, I have a great porch to sit on with the computer, and the company is excellent!

Ragga Gal, from Caye Caulker to Placencia, May 17-19

2006-05-26T03:06:00.000+02:00

Sunset over Tobacco Caye

I’m gonna do this and the next few entries in English; I’ve hooked up with Raquel for a few days, and I promised that she would be able to see what I write about her. :-) I also get to practice my English writing skills, which I really need. I hope the rest of you guys can cope with that!

The boat trip was excellent! Apart from me and Raquel, there were two older couples from Australia (Peter & Lynne and Marie & Gary), plus James & Alikin, two kids from the UK. Great opportunity for me to practice my English! Also on the boat were Ramsay the skipper, and Mario the deckhand, two locals.
From the beginning I was afraid that the older guys would cramp our style somehow (after all, it was camping and all that), but quite the opposite: those Australians really are something else! Actually, the whole group really got along great together.

When we set off, we had three days of sailing, snorkeling, and just generally hanging out together in front of us, while being pampered by Mario - or so we thought at least. As it turned out, Mario wasn’t the keenest worker in the whole world, but as soon as we figured out that we needed to ask him for everything one or two times, he and Ramsay got our fruit trays and rum drinks going!

That’s pretty much how we spent the days, just laying in the sun on the boat deck (I have the best tan!), while stopping on some more or less deserted islands for snorkeling and lunch. The food was great most of the time (Ramsay turned out to be quite some chef), and the snorkeling as well. It was really just the day after the storm that visibility wasn’t too good, but more about that later.

The evenings were quite a bit different however… We were going to camp out in tents, so the first evening the others put up the tents while I and James took the spear gun and tried to catch us some dinner. Actually, Ramsay had a line from the boat and caught all the fish we needed, but it would have been fun to catch something ourselves as well. Well, we never actually managed to catch anything, but I totally blame that on James for hogging the spear gun the while time! :-)

When I got back to our campsite, I noticed that the tents were pitched on the beach, which is normally not something that you want to do because of possible high tides, the tent pegs not holding securely in the sand and whatever, but I thought Ramsay and Mario knew what they were doing. Big mistake.

After dinner (and a lot of rum punch!), we started to prepare for sleep when suddenly the weather got really bad. We probably hadn’t noticed the clouds because it was already dark (and the rum punch might have had something to do with it…), but suddenly a really bad storm hit us. The tent pegs (some of which weren’t to well secured to begin with) started to creep out of the sand, and the tents were suddenly starting to look like they were folded up instead of put up!

The picture here is from the morning after; it did not look any better during the storm. Of course the wind blew the rain straight in to the tents, and it did not take long for them to be filled with two inches of water. Meanwhile Ramsay and Mario were completely comfortable in the boat, and I had to run around securing tent pegs (to the best of my ability), securing blankets and other loose stuff under the tents, and even waded out to the boat (we were moored in shallow water) to give Mario some stuff to keep dry while the storm raged.

In the morning, we were eight not-so-happy campers, waking up to more or less a disaster area. At least Raquel had done a great job and cleaned out the water and most of the sand from our tent, so she and I were reasonably dry, but most of the others were completely soaked! I have spent quite some time complaining about the temperature in earlier entries, but I am just so glad that we didn’t have Swedish temperatures – that would have been downright dangerous.

Actually, everything looked like it was turning into a mutiny of some sorts. There was this “Survivor”-like (“Survivor” is the same show as “Robinsson” in Sweden) feeling, with the eight of us forming different and changing groups discussing how we were to act towards Ramsay (I wanted to advocate letting him walk the plank, but I was afraid someone might take it seriously!). Actually I thought the whole experience had been pretty fun, like an adventure of some sorts, but understandably not all the others felt like that.

In the end some of the others had a chat with Ramsay, and after that everything was smooth sailing (pun intended). For the next night, he set us up at a resort on Tobacco Caye (not a fancy one, but still), so that we actually got to sleep in beds and have showers(!), and in general we were really well taken care of (especially by Ramsay). And the whole experience totally glued us together as a group really nicely - just like a team-building exercise, but this time it was for real!

Ramsay also served up the most fantastic meal on the beach, and after some more rum punch, a few of us was off to a house at the northern tip of the small Caye (for my Swedish friends: “Caye” is pronounced like “key” and means small island) to watch Ramsay and some of his friends give a great impromptu drumming concert. His friends came over to us while we were having dinner and begged him to come over, and I completely understand why: not only was he a great cook, but also a great drummer.

The locals took turns at the drums and the dance floor, and just generally hung out – it was great fun! I was the last of our group to go home, but it wasn’t that late. But that rum punch…I was so drunk that not only did I have a cigarette, I also forgot to hit on Raquel back in our room! :-)

So, after a final day of sailing, we finally caught sight of Placencia. I had the opportunity to sail the boat back to Caye Caulker overnight with Ramsay and Mario, but I passed. I learned that they intended to motorsail back because we had started the trip a day later than originally planned: if it would have been only sailing it would have been really nice (if nothing else to get to know the guys better) to sail in the Caribbean night, but since they were in a hurry to go back so they decided they would motorsail back. I’ve never been too fond of that, and also I was looking forward to spending some time in Placencia with the other guys, so I bid adieu to the fair lady ´Ragga Gal´ as I put my slightly unsteady legs on the docks.

Belize City & Caye Caulker 13-17 maj

2006-05-17T04:08:00.000+02:00

Bara en liten snorklingstur utanför Caye Caulker

Jag kom in till Belize City med morgonbussen en lördag från Orange Walk, och gissa om det var en ny upplevelse! Orange Walk hade den här gulliga lilla småstadskänslan, men det här var klart en större stad. Inte större i betydelsen New York (den har bara 60.000 invånare trots allt), utan mer som att gå in i Harlem!

Jag blir inte lätt rädd i nya miljöer, men efter några dagar här måste jag säga att jag fortfarande känner mig lite osäker närhelst jag går på gatorna. Det är alldeles för många crackmissbrukare överallt; det är nästan så att jag blir glad när någon ”bara” erbjuder sig att sälja marijuana! Och när de bara vill köra mig i en taxi vill jag nästan krama dem!

Lördagen tillbringade jag med att gå runt utanför alla sevärdheter, eftersom de naturligtvis var stängda. Jag verkar överhuvudtaget vara i fel takt med de flesta av mina omgivningar. När jag kommer till restauranger så är det nästan aldrig folk där, när jag kommer till ett museum så är det stängt, och så vidare… Jag får glädja mig åt att jag verkar ha acklimatiserat mig till värmen i alla fall – trots rekordhetta så har jag varit mindre matt och trött än nånson. Jag svettas fortfarande floder (när skall DET sluta?), men det är i alla fall full fart på mig.

Jag lärde mig efter ett tag att om man inte har något annat jobb i Belize City så jobbar man med säkerhet (”I do security over there, man.”). Oklart vad det betyder, men det verkar mest bestå i att hänga runt en restaurang och spela allan för utlänningar. :-)

En av dessa security-killar berättade i alla fall (efter att ha bjudit honom på en vanilj-cigarill) lite om nöjesläget i stan. Det hetast att göra den dagen var tydligen att gå på ”Mother’s Day Bash”, en stor reggae-konsert med några lokala förmågor tillsammans med någon Tanya Stephens som skulle vara någon stor stjärna från Jamaica. Tja, hon måste vara ganska stor eftersom jag kände igen hennes namn i alla fall, men hon var inget vidare. Däremot den här killen ’Gyptian – skall nog kolla in honom på nätet sedan.

Konserttider i Belize fungerar lite annorlunda än hemma. Jag dök upp på utsatt tid vid nio, men då var det tomt! Vakterna berättade att första förbandet skulle gå på vid elvatiden (det visade sig vara närmare tolv!), och huvudnumret gick inte på förrän efter två! Tiden fram till dess tillbringade jag vid ett resande tivoli, ett sånt där litet gulligt som brukade komma till Härnösand ibland. Verkade kul, jag kanske skulle rymma iväg med dem? Kunde Homer S så kan väl jag? :-)

Konserterna var OK, men behållningen var ändå att kolla på folk. Och att bli diskriminerad! För det första så är det jättesvårt att få kontakt med folk överhuvudtaget, och speciellt tjejer. Ögonkontakt finns liksom inte. Det kan i och för sig bero på min tjusiga mohawk, men det känns inte så troligt. Och jag lyckades inte ens köpa en öl vid bardisken! Bartendrarna hoppade över mig varenda varv hur mycket jag än gestikulerade och skrek, och till slut fick jag lov att be en kille bredvid mig att köpa en ÅT mig! Bra att ha upplevt hur det känns antar jag…

Jag gick faktiskt hem innan Tanya hade spelat klart (jag skulle upp TIDIGT), och det var jag glad för: jag läste i en lokal tidning efteråt att det hade varit massvis med bråk efteråt, inklusive tre mord! Belize City – now safe for tourists? I don’t think so!

Södagen var verkligen ingen vilodag för mig. Först upp halv sju för att ta första båten ut till Caye Caulker, och innan jag varit på ön i mer än 15 minuter hade jag ett sunkigt hotellrum och var bokad på en heldags snorkeltripp. Jag är SÅ glad att jag åkte på den i stället för att vänta till Honduras. Det första jag såg när jag gled i vattnet var en rocka. 30 sekunder senare en haj. Och så fortsatte det hela dagen: jag såg allt utom sköldpaddor, till och med en delfin.

Och så kronan på verket: jag simmade med en manatee (sjöko alltså, men det låter inte så häftigt)! På sista stället var jag i vattnet långt innan de andra, och 20 meter längre bort var en manatee. Att överhuvudtaget få se dem är ovanligt, och att ha turen att få vara med dem i vattnet! Det är tydligen förbjudet egentligen, men vad skulle jag göra? Vi var inte i deras skyddade område så jag kan inte se att jag gjorde något fel – jag bara låg på ytan och svävade i säkert 20 minuter medan jag drev tills jag var alldeles ovanför henne (honom?) och min skugga nådde henne och hon simmade iväg.

Jag är ledsen Christina – men det var MYCKET häftigare än i fångenskap i Florida!

Annars har jag tillbringat ett par dagar i Caulker nu och bara glidit runt. Solat, promenerat, druckit öl, pratat med andra resenärer (väldigt få backpackers fortfarande) och bara haft det skönt. Om jag jämför det här med Mexico så är det MYCKET bättre. Billigare än Playa del Carmen, mer att göra än i Tulum, och mer avslappnat än Puerto Morelos. Skön känsla och om jag bara hade råd med mer utflykter kunde jag gott stanna här några dagar till.

Caye Caulker = Rekommenderat!

Men det får vara nog med EN bonusdag på Caulker; de andra som skall ut med båten bestämde i går kväll (när jag var i Belize City och hämtade min stora ryggsäck) att skjuta upp vår bätresa en dag. Det är visst ett lågtryck på väg in, och med tanke på hur läskigt gårdagens åskväder var (och det var ändå inne i stan) så känns det nog lika bra. Så nu fick jag ytterligare en dag att fördriva här i paradiset på jorden - stackars mig! :-)

Placencia nästa!

Hjälp - bara 15:e maj och Solnalakritsen är slut!

2006-05-16T06:29:00.000+02:00

Båten jag åker med i morgon bitti.

Vad skall jag göra, lakritsen är slut!? När jag åkte hade jag med mig nåt halvkilo av den nyupptäckta lakritsen från Vivo i Solna Centrum. Perfekt för det här klimatet, för inte bara är den hård med ett pepprigt pulver inuti, dessutom är varje karamell individuellt inslagen i papper - ett måste i den här hettan och fukten. Men nu är den slut, så jag får klara mig utan lakrits i sex veckor till. Snyft!

Det är nu tredje dagen i Belize City, även om jag mest varit på Caye Caulker, men jag får skriva mer om det senare, för i morgon bär det iväg! Ute på öarna hittade jag ett gäng som skall segla ned till Placencia i södra Belize. Det är en tredagarsresa i lugnt tempo (så att vi hinner snorkla en del på vägen), och vi kommer att sova två nätter på ett par obebodda öar långt ute bland reven.

Så jag är tillbaks i Belize City över natten för att hämta resten av min packning, och när jag öppnade datorn för att läsa lite serier så plingar det till - helt oväntat har jag ett oskyddat trådlöst nätverk "i sikte", så nu surfar jag gratis i kväll! Även om jag måste sitta på snedden över sängen för att inte täckningen skall försvinna, så utjämnar det i alla fal lite av det hutlösa priset jag betalar för det här rummet. Lite irriterande att vandrarhem verkar vara mer eller mindre icke-existerande här i Belize, det driver verkligen upp boendebudgeten en hel del för oss ensamresenärer.

I morgon tar jag första båten ut till Caulker igen för att mönstra på. Skall bli skitkul!!

Jag postade många artiklar idag, 4 stycken inklusive denna - plus att matartikeln har blivit uppdaterad igen (denna gång bara med en bild dock). Scrolla ned till "Transporter - väl fungerande" så missar du ingenting!

Orange Walk: flodutflykt till Lamanai

2006-05-16T03:11:00.000+02:00

Black Howler Monkey.

Jag är inte speciellt intresserad av maya-ruiner, och min plan har egentligen hela tiden varit att vänta med dem till Tikal i Guatemala (vilket skall vara de överlägset "bästa" maya-ruinerna i hela centralamerika), men det här lät för bra för att missa.

Det var inte så mycket målet som var intressant utan själva resan i sig. Vi åkte en båt längs en slingrande flod, ibland inte bredare än att båten fick plats, och ibland ända upp till tio meter bred. Överallt gick det alternativa flodkrökar, och hur vår skeppare hittade rätt vet jag då inte. En GPS gömd i rockärmen kanske? På kvällen visade hotellägaren mig bilder på Google Maps över området, och det påminde mer om ett deltaområde än en flod uppströms.

Hela vägen uppströms så stannade vi till och vår guide pekade ut olika djur. Ja, i praktiken fåglar, för även om jag hade hoppats på krokodiler så är de tydligen bortdrivna från floden av alla båtar. Baksidan med turismen... Coolaste fågeln var nog Jesusfågeln, en liten gynnare som sprang på vattnet (egentligen på näckrosblad) och jagade insekter.

Även om nu ruinkännare tycker att Lamanai är lite fjuttigt så tyckte i alla fall jag att det var häftigt! Miltals runt området så var det åkermark förr i världen (40.000 personer bodde i Lamanai förr!), men nu är det förstås djungel. Så att klättra upp 35m på en av pyramiderna och se ut över djungeln var en riktigt häftig upplevelse. Jag kunde se floden vi kom längs slingra sig fram, och en bit åt andra hållet skymtade de där svarta skrikaporna vi hade lyckats locka fram tidigare.

Svarta skrikapor ("black howler monkeys") är en utrotningshotad art av apor som tydligen bara finns i Belize. De är inte så vänliga, utan verkar mest gilla att skrika åt människor och kasta bajs på dem, men vår guide hade ett trick: vi letade rätt på ett träd med "intressanta" blad. Jag kommer inte ihåg vad det hette, men maya brukade tydligen rulla ihop dem och röka... Det var inte bara maya som gillade dem, utan aporna kom väldigt gärna ned från träden och plockade bladen från kvistarna som vi höll upp. Så nu har jag bidragit till att göra de sista överlevande aporna till drogberoende offer också! :)

Det fanns massvis med andra djur bland ruinerna, men de var ganska skygga, och man mer skymtade dem bland träden (tukaner - de där färgglada papegojliknande fåglarna som är Belizes nationalfågel) eller när de sprang över stigen (gibnut, en STOR råttliknande typ).

Hemvägen var tyvärr lika krokodillös som ditresan, men jag kom på att min nya kamera har en hyfsad filmfunktion, så jag tog lite "actionfilm" när vi reste nedströms, och när vi kom tillbaks till hotellet så använde jag Adobe Premier (ett filmredigeringsprogram som följde med min laptop!) för att redigera ihop det till min första lilla videofilm på många år! Det var riktigt kul att lägga på texter, göra klipp, och göra bild-i-bild. Om du har otur så kanske jag visar filmen någon gång! :)

Även om jag inte såg några krokodiler på resan så hade jag en himla tur dagen efter. När jag hängde i hängmattan på Riverside Lodge efter min misslyckade pyramidpromenad på Stängda Utlflyktsmålens Dag så snackade jag en del med tjejen i baren, och hon berättade att en av viltvårdarna hade fångat en krokodilunge tidigare på dagen, och hade den i en bur nere vid floden. De fångar tydligen in dem vid ett halvårs ålder (eller var det ett år?), kollar att de mår bra, märker dem, och släpper dem efter nån dag. Det händer visst inte oftare än en gång varje eller varannan månad, så jag hade tur!

Vi stod där ett tag och kollade på den lille när vi hörde ett rop: "watchout, croc in the river". Och när vi tittade ut över floden såg vi en fullvuxen krokodil komma glidande nedströms och stanna rakt utanför oss. Det är tydligen inte ovanligt att det händer när man fångat en liten; de avger något ljud som får en vuxen att komma dit och kolla läget. När den dök så backade vi SNABBT undan, men tyvärr kom dem aldrig fram till buren utan försvann bara i mangroven.

En spännande avslutning på en trevlig dag var det i alla fall...

Orange Walk 10-13:e maj

2006-05-16T02:59:00.000+02:00

Orange Walk - mellanvästern fast i Belize!

Så Orange Walk är det första jag ser av Belize, och det är som att komma till amerikanska mellanvästern! Nja, inte riktigt förstås... :)

Men OW är ett centrum för jordbruket här i landet, och när stan bara har 10.000 invånare eller så, så sätter det lite perspektiv på hur litet det här landet är egentligen. En gång i världen bodde det 1 miljon Maya här, men nu är det inte mer än en kvarts miljon människor i hela landet. Och det är definitivt inte bara Maya, utan en härlig, skön blandning av indianer, svarta, spanjorer (och andra vita), och här i OW faktiskt också en hel del kineser.

Och om den genetiska blandningen är total så är det inget mot den sociala: traditionella maya förstås, och en del andra subkulturer (som maya tyvärr är idag), men livsstilen i landet domineras definitivt av kreoler och garifanu. De är ättlingar till afrikaner och spanjorer respektive indianer, och de står definitivt för den avslappnade attityd som råder över allt! Här vet alla hur man slappar och festar, och punta rock (den lokala musikstilen) och reggae hörs från alla barer (och de är MÅNGA) mer eller mindre dygnet runt.

Däremot är de flesta Belizeaner inte precis är det mest hårt arbetande folket jag sett! Öppettider för butiker och restauranger verkar vara mest en slags mål att en enda dag under deras livstid kunna uppnå :), och mañana är en livsstil (även om de flesta pratar engelska!). Men alla är otroligt trevliga, snälla, och måna om att jag skall ha det bra hela tiden. Jag känner mig väldigt väl omhändertagen hela tiden!

De som arbetar mest här verkar vara kineserna (inte helt överraskande) och mennoniterna (väldigt överraskande eftersom jag inte visste att de fanns!). Mennoniterna är ett amish-liknande folkslag, alltså ett gäng tyskar/holländare som emigrerat hit och lever en rigoröst religiös livsstil. Alla går likadant klädda, männen i overaller och rutig skjorta, och kvinnorna i långa stärkta(?) klänningar med likadan hatt som amish. De undviker så mycket moderniteter som de kan och anser TV, radio och sånt att vara djävulens påfund.

Med den inställningen så kan man ju tänka sig att de jobbar hårt, och det stämmer: läser man mellan raderna så verkar det som att deras jordbruk är vad som håller det här landet under armarna medan kreolerna och garifanu festar hela dagarna!

Orsaken att jag stannade till i OW var att göra en djungeltur till Lamanai (mer om den i en separat post), men att vara här gav mig också ett skönt tillfälle att sänka tempot lite. Efter att ha kommit in med bussen från mexikanska gränsen så checkade jag in på ett underbart flippat hotell. Det drevs av ett japanskt par, och de hade kommit på ett bra sätt att göra det lätt att städa: de hade klätt varenda yta på hotellet med kakel! Överallt: lobbyn, hallen, t.o.m. badrummen! :) Det ekade inte så lite, men det var onekligen väldigt rent och fräscht!

Resten av dan tillbringade jag, garifuna style, liggandes i en hängmatta på en restaurant nere vid floden, drickandes en eller annan Belikin (det lokala ölet). Skööönt. Hängmattor på restauranger är förresten en sak som vi borde ta upp i Sverige också! Skall nog prata med Ricky på Mården om det... Dag två var Lamanai-utflykten, och det tog mer eller mindre hela dagen, mer om det på annan plats.

Dag tre var Stängda Utflyktsmålens Dag :(. Eftersom jag fick tillbringa den ensam (de enda andra vita i stan var ett par amerikanska tjejer, men min charm var helt bortkastad på dem tyvärr...) så tänkte jag se till att få lite motion i alla fall. Så till brunch gick jag till den här restaurangen ett par kilometer från byn som skulle vara jättebra. På vägen dit såg jag en skylt som stolt förkunnade att ortens lokala Rotary(!) hade möte här en gång i månaden, vilket verkade lovande. Varpå den naturligtvis var stängd när jag kom fram...

Tillbaks till byn, och nu hade brunchen hunnit bli lunch rent tidsmässigt. Men matmässigt är det ingen större skillnad: rice&beans serveras mer eller mindre dygnet runt, och är basfödan här. Den här dagen fick jag kyckling med en otroligt god "stuffing" (en slags stuvning) till.

Efter en ovanligt kort siesta (typ 15 minuter) på en bänk vid floden så var det dags att sätta av igen, till den lokala maya-ruinen; den enda turistattraktionen i närheten av OW. Beskrivningen var typ "gå fyra km längs Baker's street ut ur stan tills du kommer till ett destilleri (oskyltat), gå tvärs över fabriksgården och fortsätt tills du ser en pyramid". Tyvärr glömde guideboken vad jag skulle göra när fabriksgrindarna var låst och ingen svarade när jag skakade i dem. :(

Definitivt Stängda Utlflyktsmålens Dag...men jag fick ett par mils promenad i alla fall!

Orange Walk är verkligen uppbyggd som en stad i mellanvästern, med en huvudgata, längs vilken det finns reggaebarer (saloon, med lite god vilja), restauranger, och affärer dit bönderna tar sina pickuper för att köpa utsäde och traktordelar. Coolt! Och längs den huvudgatan gick jag morgonen därpå för att åka till storstan - Belize City!

Transporter - väl fungerande

2006-05-16T02:46:00.000+02:00

Bussarna i Belize är gamla amerikanska skolbussar - inte lika fint som lyxbussarna i Mexico precis...

I alla länder jag skall till så är det buss som är det huvudsakliga transportmedlet för vanligt folk. Mexico har ett väldigt väl fungerande och billigt bussnät som går över hela landet. Jag har åkt med det stora statliga(?) bolaget ADO, och de har fina luftkonditionerade bussar. Dagens fyratimmars bussresa (typ 35 mil) kostar mindre än 100 kr. Vad jag kan förstå så finns liknande system för bussar i hela Centralamerika. Däremot har jag fått höra (något skrämmande) att det är totalt 60 timmar med buss från Guatemala till Costa Rica. Det borde innebära att jag har ungefär 100 timmar med buss att ta mig igenom (inklusive omvägar) innan jag kommer hem!

Alla länder har också massvis med taxibilar tillgängliga, men jag har inte tagit någon ännu. Naturligtvis försöker de skörta upp turister så mycket de kan...

Mexico har också ett system med Collectivos, mini-bussar som trafikerar kortare rutter. Jag trodde först att det var privatpersoner som tog sina bussar och bara körde, typ som det var i Malaysia eller Dominikanska Republiken, men det verkar vara företag (eller kommunalt?), med logotyper på bussarna och riktiga rutter skrivna med vit färg på rutorna.

I alla fall ett väldigt bra sätt att ta sig fram bortom de stora vägarna, och jag kommer att sakna det i Belize. Hoppas det finns något liknande i de andra länderna, annars blir det dyrt med taxi!

Annars är mitt favorittransportsätt att gå. Hellre än att ta en taxi ett par kilometer till ett vandrarhem så går jag med packningen, och alla utflykter som kan göras till fots gör jag så. I stort sett varje dag så går jag nog en mil minst i alla fall...

Cykel är ju förstås bra också, men den enda dagen jag hyrde cykel så blev det lite för dyrt för min smak. Ungefär 60 kr om dagen, och det känns lite fel att betala nästan lika mycket för en cykel som för att bo. Men när jag stannar längre tid på ett och samma ställe så kanske jag köper en billig begagnad någonstans?

Tulum: cenote snorkling

2006-05-11T16:33:00.000+02:00

Detta är bara en av fem nya artiklar jag postat idag, så gå nedåt till matartikeln (inte ny, men uppdaterad) och börja med den...
Yucatanhalvön har i princip inga floder, bäckar eller andra vattendrag, så hur får de färskvatten? Jo, hela halvön är i stort sett ett enda stort korallrev som steg upp ur havet för länge länge sedan. Mineralen är kalksten, och årtusenden av mer eller mindre surt regn (allt regn är LITE surt) har gjort hela halvön till en enda schweizerost av underjordiska gångar och grottor. På sina ställen har grottor rasat in och gett en ingång till denna underjordiska värld (mayaindianerna såg det som en magisk andevärld), och det är där man fick sitt färskvatten förr i världen (nu för tiden borrar man förstås).

Dessa cenoter ger enorma möjligheter till dykning och snorkling. Egentligen skulle jag väl velat dyka så att jag kunde ta mig djupt in i grottorna, men efter att inte ha dykt på fem (sex?) år så vågade jag mig inte på det, utan det fick bli snorkling i stället.

Men jag är egentligen inte ledsen för det - det var en underbar upplevelse! Vi började i något som kallas Batcave (del av systemet Dos Ojos om du känner till det :)). Vi klättrade ned fem-sex meter på en stege genom ett litet hål i marken, innan vi kom ned till en brygga nere i underjorden. Här kunde vi vagt skymta stalaktiterna som hängde ned från taket, och de största stalagmiterna som stack upp ur vattenytan. Men det var inte förrän vår guide tände ficklamporna som vi förstod hur majestätisk grottan var egentligen!

Ovanför våra huvuden var massvis med små grottor där det bodde fåglar och fladdermöss, och under våra fötter var vattnet med alla små håligheter och gångar där alla möjliga små fiskar levde.Eftersom det är sötvatten (men det klaraste sötvatten jag någonsin sett!) i en cenote så får man naturligtvis inte lika stora och färggranna fiskar som i havet, men tro mig: det spelar ingen roll. Här är det inte fiskarna utan miljön som har huvudrollen!

De närmaste timmarna spenderade vi sedan i olika grottor (alla inom Dos Ojos), vissa i mörker där vi inte såg något utan lampor, andra med helt öppna tak. Vissa med höga grottor ovanför våra huvuden, andra med 15 meter långa sträckor med bara nån decimeter med luft att ha snorkeln i.

Jag hade kameran med mig och tog massvis med bilder (till batteriet tog slut!), varav säkert åtminstone tio gick att se vad de föreställde. :( Undervattensfotografering är svårt under de bästa förhållanden, och här var det helt enkelt för mörkt för det mesta tyvärr.

Vattendjupet varierade från en halvmeter på sina ställen till kanske 10-11 meter, och det djupaste jag dök ned till var nog sju. När jag kom tillbaks kollade jag på menyerna i kameran och såg att den bara är godkänd för tre meter, så det var väl tur att den höll!

Det kändes hela tiden helt säkert och jag var aldrig rädd utom alldeles i slutet. Men när det blev dags att simma fem meter under vattnet för att komma till nästa grotta så fegade vi alla ur. Jag kände mig väldigt instängd, och vi var alla tre väldigt nervösa för att komma upp ur vattnet med bara nån decimeter med luft ovanför oss.

Vad skulle hänt om vi slagit huvudet och tappat snorkeln? Vid det här laget hade vi alla små bulor i huvudet (och Theo ett stort blödande sår), och killen som guidade oss kändes inte helt säkerhetsmedveten så vi vände. Senare fick vi veta att grottan framför oss hade vi redan varit i dessutom!

Divemastern som ledde dykgruppen (bara två killar, man går visst aldrig fler än fyra i grottor) var däremot säkerheten själv, och jag tror alla gånger att jag skulle klarat av att dyka där. När man såg dykarna fortsätta längre in i gångarna där vi snorklare fick stoppa så blev jag OERHÖRT sugen att fortsätta in, och en vacker dag kommer jag säkert att komma tillbaks för att dyka djupt där inne... Gäller bara att bli bättre på buoyancy (att hålla sig stilla på ett visst djup) först - det har alltid varit min sämsta sida som dykare!

Tulum: cykling och strand

2006-05-11T16:28:00.000+02:00

De första dagarna i Tulum hade jag gått en hel del, så jag tänkte att dag tre så skulle jag göra en cykelutflykt. Jag hade sett det här stället Xel-Ha en bit upp längs kusten i turistbroschyrerna, och även om det verkade turistigt så kunde det vara skönt att ligga där och slöa på stranden och snorkla efter att ha cyklat en och en halv mil?

Men när jag kom dit så visade det sig att inträdet gick på 250 kr! Det jag såg genom muren verkade påminna om en Disney vattenpark (eller Skara sommarland!) fast utan några rides, och det var tusan om jag skulle betala 250 kr för det!

Jag borde väl ha anat problem när jag inte hittade Xel-Ha i Lonely Planet kanske, så nästa försök blev en halvmil tillbaks mot Tulum enligt LP:s rekommendation, där jag gjorde en avstickare från motorvägen till vad som visade sig vara ett litet paradis på jorden: Bahias de Punto Solimán. LP beskriver det som "one of the best-kept secrets on the coastline", och det stämmer nog.

Jag kom fram till två underbara havsvikar, den ena med mangrove-vegetation och full med fåglar. Jag kan ju inget om något sådant, men de var fina att kolla på i alla fall... En pelikan kände till och med jag igen i alla fall - första gången jag sett en sådan i verkligheten.
Den andra var bebyggd ungefär halvvägs med privata villor och de små lyxiga hotell (om man nu kan kalla dem för det när de har max tio rum) som verkar vara så vanliga här utanför byarna. Undrar vilka det är som bor där egentligen?

Ingenstans framför de villorna och hotellen såg jag någon endaste människa, det kändes som en spökby faktiskt. Och det fortsatte länge bort i viken, där det inte ens fanns spår av människor. Så jag bestämde mig för att det var en nudiststrand och lade mig att sola och bada som gud har skapat mig. Det var alldeles för länge sedan jag kunnat njuta av det - undrar om det är därför det är så skönt att springa näck, för att det är så sällan man får möjlighet?

De hade en restaurang också, Oscar y Lalo's, som tydligen skall vara jättebra, men 300 kr för en fiskbit...? Jag nöjde mig med en Cerveza för att svalka mig innan cykelfärden hem i stället.

Härligt med motion igen i alla fall - om jag bara hittar billigare hyrställen så kommer det att bli mer cyklande innan den här resan är över!

Tulum 6-9 maj

2006-05-11T16:22:00.000+02:00

Undrar vad katolska kyrkan tycker om att Mexicos motsvarighet till Ica heter så här? :-)

Tulum har varit härligt! Faktiskt den första byn där jag har lyckats få en känsla av att känna mig som hemma. Jag har ätit på samma ställen, så att jag blivit lite känd där, och byn är inte större än att man springer på samma backpackers överallt.

Anna och Kruten förstår nog vad jag menar när jag säger att Tulum påminner om byn vi var i på Dominikanska (vad den nu hette?). Inte för stor så att man blir anonym (som Playa del Carmen), men samtidigt inte så liten att det inte finns något att göra (som Puerto Morelos).

Längs hela den mexikanska kusten så går det en lång motorväg 2-5 kilometer in i landet, och Tulum precis som de flesta andra byar består av två delar. Dels en Pueblo (stad) runt motorvägen, och dels en Zonera Hotela längs stranden, med en väg där emellan. Jag bodde i Pueblo Tulum den här gången, därför att det var närmast till dykfirmorna, cykeluthyrning, och sånt. Plus det faktum att alla hotell på stranden var dyra. :(

Jag skulle bo på Weary Traveler Hostel: tvärs över gatan från busstationen, och så ett kvarter söderut. När jag kom dit så tyckte jag att det verkade mycket mindre charmigare än vad Lonely Planet skrev, men det såg i alla fall rent och fräscht ut så jag skrev in mig (tro mig, med all packning så vill man inte leta boende alltför länge i 35-gradig värme!).

När jag sedan gick ut på stan så ser jag Weary Traveler på andra sidan huvudgatan! Det visade sig att de har flyttat busstationen till andra sidan gatan, så jag hade hamnat på Tulum Hostel i stället!

Första dagen tog jag en promenad (15 km tur och retur) till Tulum ruinerna. Det är mina hittills första Maya-ruiner, men jag sparar mig till trakterna runt Flores i Guatemala som skall ha de bästa! De här ruinerna var trevliga, om än något fjuttiga, men det bästa var stranden inne på området! Det var inte bara härliga höga vågor att bodysurfa på, utan en ursnygg italienska stötte på mig också - måste vara tuppkammen! :)

På kvällen bara gled jag runt i stan, kollade in affärer, drack juice och pratade med folk på Weary Traveller. Naturligtvis var det mycket charmigare än mitt ställe, men eftersom det gick bra att hänga på deras innergård utan att bo där så brydde jag mig aldrig om att flytta över dit.
Jag gillar verkligen vandrarhem med en lummig gård. Det är så härligt att hänga där, läsa en bok och snacka med folk från hela världen. Som alltid har jag med mig min anteckningsbok och försöker få tips från andra som varit där jag är på väg - i det här fallet alltså Belize och Guatemala. Anna, du vet vad jag menar - jämför med stället där vi bodde på Langkawi! De hade trevliga grillkvällar också, men det kanske är därför som jag är så risig i kistan när jag skriver det här? :(

Andra dagen ägnade jag åt Cenote snorkling, men mer om det i ett separat inlägg. Det verkar som att enda sättet här på bloggen att lägga in en ytterligare bild är att göra ett nytt inlägg?
Snorklingen tog halva dagen, men var rätt så utmattande, så jag hade siesta till halv sex! Resten av kvällen hängde jag på Weary, och skrev mail på ett Internetcafé. Där träffade jag Theo, en holländare som jag lärde känna på snorklingen. Där har vi en ambitiös kille med sin dagbok! Han nöjer sig inte med en blogg, utan har en hel webbsida med hundratals bilder! Jag kollade på tidsmätaren på hans dator, och när jag gick och lade mig så hade han suttit där i tre timmar...

Tredje dagen tog jag en bad-dag, mer om det i ett separat inlägg. När jag kom tillbaks till stan så var det redan skymning, och på skolgården mittemot vandrarhemmet så hade den lokala folkdansföreningen träning. Kvinnorna utstyrda i vackra kjolar tog det hela mycket seriöst, medan killarna i jeans + t-shirt mest snubblade runt och såg fåniga ut. Påminde om en danslektion i gymnasiet alltså! :)

När jag lämnade Tulum i morse var det inte med lite varm känsla för byn. Det är inte alls omöjligt att jag kommer tillbaks en vacker dag - om inte annat för cenote-dykningen!

(Men om du planerar att åka dit så kan jag ge dig en second opinion från ett amerikanskt par jag träffade på bussen: "it was shit, we only stayed one night because we had to".)

Hälsosituationen - en rapport från sjuksängen

2006-05-11T16:18:00.000+02:00

Jag känner mig som en gammal pensionär som skall skriva om mina krämpor, men mamma vill nog veta i alla fall. :)

Allergin har jag inte märkt av alls, men det är ju bara som väntat. Undrar hur det kommer sig att jag bara är allergisk mot växter och plantor som finns i Sverige? Undrar om det är likadan för alla allergiker?

"Mygga" (myggmedlet från apoteket alltså) verkar inte hjälpa något mot de centralamerikanska myggorna. Mina ben ser ut som ett kraterområde, och när jag kommer till Belize så måste jag nog skaffa lite sånt där dundermedel som är förbjudet i Sverige. Jag har ju med mig myggnät, men på vandrarhem finns det liksom inget ställe att hänga nätet på.

Mitt knä-onda är mycket mycket bättre. Fastän jag rör på mig mycket och allt som oftast dessutom bär tungt så känner jag inte av något i dem alls. Tyder kanske på att det är något reumatiskt problem jag har? Men å andra sidan så sade sjukgymnasten att det skulle bli bra när jag kom igång och motionerade mycket så...

Det är otroligt härligt att kunna röra sig fritt utan att knäna ömmar i alla fall, oavsett orsak. Jag känner mig ung på nytt igen! :)

Ja, det var väl det på hälsofronten, bortsett från den här lilla diarrén på bussen då. Hoppas det inte blir något värre - Christina, du kommer ju ihåg hur dålig jag var i Jakarta? Jag vill INTE vara med om något sådant igen!

Den mexikanska maten – en positiv överraskning

2006-05-10T04:58:00.000+02:00

Pollo Fajitas - värsta lyxmaten!

Har nu börjat få koll på maten här i Mexico, vilken sorts mat som är prisvärd och så. Om man går till en enklare restaurang går det att få "plato del dia" (dagens rätt), vilket oftast är en soppa och en enklare köttstuvning med juice, för 30 kr - helt OK! På de flesta ställen kan man få en enchilada eller nån annan tortilla-rätt för lika mycket.

Mellanprisrestauranger är ungefär samma pris som dagens lunch hemma, eller något dyrare på kvällarna.

Ett plus för Guacamole! Till i princip all mat (utom på de allra billigaste ställena) får man alltid en röra på bönor, en HET salsa, och en framför allt: en guacamole. Min försiktighet säger nåt om magsjuka, men det är bara för gott för att avstå...

Visst finns det mat som i all fall enligt ryktet skall vara riktigt bra här (i de flesta fall fisk & skaldjur), men då är det lika dyrt som hemma (varmrätt 200 kr och uppåt), vilket tyvärr är lite utanför min budget.

Frukost är lite av en höjdpunkt på dagen. En rejäl start med blaskigt kaffe med mycket mjölk (som jag har börjat lära mig att tycka om!), underbar juice (mango-apelsin är favoriten hittills), och så någon äggrätt av nåt slag. Jag som brukar ha svårt att få ned en kopp té på morgonen, men det här får igång mig för resten av dagen!

Och så var det då McDonalds - jo, det är klart att jag inte kunde motstå det i Playa del Carmen. 40 kr för en plusmeny (de hade bara det, inga mindre pommes eller läsk) är ju 30% billigare än hemma (för de som tror på Big Mac index - nej, gick du inte Handels så behöver du inte bry dig :)), och framför allt hade de luftkonditionering! Jag satt nog där i tre timmar och läste guidebok!

Jag skriver det här på bussen från Tulum i Mexico till Orange Walk i Belize, en sextimmars resa totalt. Och vet ni vad; jag behövde inte mer än sätta mig på bussen så kom nackdelen med den mexikanska maten som ett brev på posten: en rejäl turistdiarré. Jag abonnerar i princip på toaletten där bak (vilken tur att jag tog lyxbussen - det FINNS i alla fall toalett på den!), nu gäller det bara att dricka mycket vatten och ta mig igenom dagen så att jag får vila ikväll... :(

Playa del Carmen 4-6:e maj

2006-05-09T03:35:00.000+02:00

Playa del Carmen finns ju med i utflyktsmålen för de svenska charterbolagen, så varför åka dit?

Tja, ibland undrade jag det också! Idén var ju att hitta lite mer aktiviteter än vad som fanns i Puerto Morelos, men sedan gjorde jag inte mer arrangerade saker än att åka på en snorkeltur ändå!

Men det var väldigt trevligt att få träffa mer folk. Bl.a. ett par gäng svenskar (förstås…) som hade varit i Belize, Guatemala, och Costa Rica, och jag fick en hel bunt med bra tips på vad man kan göra, var man skall bo, osv.

Playa var fullt med konstiga/roliga kufar också, bl.a. amerikanen som bodde på det första vandrarhemmet (jag bytte efter en natt eftersom det var för mycket party för mig), som var hög dygnet runt, och som visade alla tecken på att ha varit där i åratal…

Här är en liten sammanfattning av positivt/negativt med Playa (som alla kärleksfullt(?) kallar det)

+ Strandpromenaden norrut. Det var inga bögar på bögstranden, inga nudister på nudiststranden och inga nakna bögar på nakna-bög-stranden så man kanske kan kalla det falsk reklam, men skönt och avslappnat var det. :-)
+/- Snorklingen var kul, men skulle nog tagit färjan över till Cozumel och gjort den där i stället (trots guidebokens råd) – korallerna var tämligen brända/döda nämligen.
- Tunnsått med billigt boende, men massvis med dyra hotell.
+ McDonalds! Blev den sista på resan om jag förstått resten av länderna korrekt…
- Chartermässigt, även om det fanns en backpackervärld lite vid sidan av så där.
+ Killen som spraymålade science-fiction bilder på torget. Sånt får man bara se på charterorter, men jag var glad att jag fick se det. Jag filmade hur han gjorde åt en schweizare jag träffat, och det blev riktigt bra. Heja min nya kamera! För att sätta det i perspektiv gjorde han en tavla precis likadan som ett skivomslag med Asia på 12 minuter!
+ Sitta i loungen på stället mittemot Mandarina’s Café (vars undertitel intressant nog var ”pizza & champagne” – det du Helena!) och dricka öl, röka cigarr och lyssna på jazz. Korsningen Av 5/Calle 14.

Är nu i Tulum, för att ha de där aktiviteterna jag skulle gjort i Playa, men mer om det senare…

Åmåls Bluesfest

2006-05-06T17:27:00.001+02:00

Jag kommer ju att vara hemma i Sverige mellan 1-21:a juli. Jag vet inte exakt vad jag kommer att göra, men en sak vet jag: jag kommer att vara i Åmål på Bluesfestivalen den 6-9 juli.

Det vore kul om du har lust att komma dit en sväng – dels för att träffa mig, dels för att det är ett bra tillfälle att lyssna på det bästa Sverige har att erbjuda i bluesväg. För mer detaljer, se http://www.bluesfest.net/index2.html

Guideboksproblemet (nästan) löst

2006-05-04T03:45:00.000+02:00

Hade inte tänkt på att de inte har svenska tangentbord i Mexico. Får nog försöka hitta fler internetcaféer med trådlös anslutning till min laptop ändå. Speciellt som att blogspot av okänd orsak vill visa mina menyer och sånt på spanska! :-( [Uppdatering - hittat en wifi-anslutning, ändrar texten...]

Jag har börjat få känslan för mañana nu i alla fall. Det har varit ett par trevliga dagar, och de har hjälpt mig att få den rätta känslan att sätta sig.

Min orginalplan att lämna Cancun så snart som möjligt har jag följt, om än kanske av lite annorlunda orsak än jag tänkt mig... Så fort jag vaknat och rekat lite i Cancun så gick jag till en bokhandel som jag fått rekommenderad till mig, en affär med en del begagnade böcker, som tydligen var mitt bästa hopp i stan enligt alla jag frågat. Mycket trevlig ägarinna, men tyvärr hade hon inga guideböcker utom för de omedelbara omgivningarna, och jag vill ju ha hela vägen till Panama.

Men hon kunde tipsa om en kollega i en liten by som heter Puerto Morelos, som skulle kunna ha: "om inte Alma´s Books har, så har ingen i hela regionen", som hon sade. Så nu har jag tillbringat två dagar i Puerto Morelos med att vänta på att bokhandelsägaren skall komma tillbaks från en semestertripp - högsäsongen är visst över här, så han bestämde sig för att ta några dagars semester bara så där. Skönt med mañana-mentaliteten!

Jag skulle kunna vara irriterad, men det känns samtidigt så skönt avslappnat på något sätt! Och han kom ju tillbaks tidigare i kväll, och jag har fått ett par dagar i en skön liten by, så varför klaga!?

Rob hade inte precis den guidebok jag ville ha i sin affär, men han hade i alla fall Lonely Planets "Guatemala, Belize & Yucatan", som kommer att ta mig till Antigua utan problem, och dit får Helena skicka guideboken för resten av resan. Nästan lite synd - folk är så vänliga att jag börjat se fram emot att klara resan utan guidebok! :-)

Jag har hyrt ett rum hos Boyd Tollerud (rekommenderas om ni nånsin kommer hit!) alldeles vid stranden, och Boyd har varit oerhört vänlig, visat mig byn, presenterat mig för sina kompisar (någon som behöver fina billiga hammockar? :-)), och i största allmänhet visat sig vara en trevlig prick!

Vi har druckit öl med några fler av hans gäster, diskuterat politik, och i det stora hela bara slappat - skönt! Nästan synd att lämna honom, men det finns verkligen inget att göra i byn, och Playa del Carmen med nattliv, dykning osv är bara en timme härifrån så...

Skall förresten bli schysst att lämna byn på samma sätt som jag kom - en 2 km promenad med full packning längs en väg genom mangroveträsken till motorvägen. Rättfärdigar nästan de där fina vandringskängorna... :-) Kändes lite som att rida in i lilla westernstaden på min trogna springare - låt oss nu se om springaren orkar tillbaks till motorvägen också!

Framme i Cancun!

2006-05-02T05:40:00.000+02:00

24 timmar efter att jag lämnat Helenas trygga säng i Solna får jag äntligen kraschlanda i en vandrarhemssäng här i Cancun! Det har inte varit någon vidare start på resan hittills precis.

Förseningar: Planen har varit en del försenade på sina håll och kanter. Jag gillar förresten tricket Iberia körde med i Madrid: De körde fram en sprillans jumbo till vår gate, men när vi gick mot planet så ledde en trappa i stället ned till en buss som körde oss halvvägs till Barcelona (kändes det som) innan vi fick kliva på en gammal Airbus-skorv. Men jag hade tur och fick sitta i Business Class i alla fall! :-)

Ingen buss på flygplatsen: När jag kom till Cancun var det massvis med taxichaufförer och limousineservicear som väntade, men för att hitta den billiga bussen till downtown så fick man gå en kilometer till andra sidan incheckningen(!). Hoppas att inte allt i den här världsdelen skall handla om att pungslå oss turister...

Saknad guidebok: Men den stora katastrofen är att jag var så otroligt klantig att jag glömde guideboken hemma hos Yvonne! Tydligen är kombinationen av ingen sömn på två dagar tillsamans med en massa champagne inte så bra för minnet! På Madrids flygplats fanns det inga guideböcker att köpa, och på Cancuns stora bokhandel likaså. Mitt hopp står i morgon till backpackerställena, annars vete tusan hur jag skall göra!?

Men det kommer att lösa sig - jag har nämligen haft flyt den sista timmen. Efter att ha vinglat runt och letat bokhandeln i nån timme, och bara sett dyra hotell på vägen, så snubblade jag på vägen tillbaks över vad som verkar vara (det är ju mörkt ute) ett trevligt torg där det också låg ett helt OK vandrarhem. 120 pesetas för en säng i sovsal verkar OK, men eftersom jag inte har guideboken så vet jag ju inte vad det är exakt i kronor...

Och nu har jag flyt igen. Jag har ju undrat hur det skulle gå att ha egen dator med sig. Kommer det alls att gå att koppla in den? Jodå, så fort jag slår på den här på rummet så ploppar det upp tre trådlösa nätverk varav två är öppna! Om jag har samma flyt i framtiden så skall det nog bli en del bloggande ändå framöver!

Nu är det dags att gå och lägga sig, men här kommer först lite anteckningar jag gjorde på planet:

Fredag 28:e April
Party Time - kunde kanske ha varit lite mindre party?
Det var otroligt roligt att ha en avskedsfest och få säga hej då till alla kompisar. Och det gjorde inte mycket att jag inte kunde servera middag och så (se nedan), utan bara sprit.
Det var riktigt riktigt roligt, och jag ångrar mest att att jag inte haft någon bjudning hemma på så länge.

Jag ser redan fram emot att komma hem om ett år och börja arrangera lite middagar och bjudningar igen. Jag har ju knappt haft någon sedan jag började renovera om hemma 2002!

Det enda jag ångrar med festen var kanske ett par av de jag bjöd? Christian på Addnature har verkligen varit en klippa när jag letat utrustning inför resan, så jag bjöd med honom på festen som ett tack (plus att han är trevlig!), och sade att han kunde ta med ett par kompisar. Ett par av kompisarna hade jag kanske kunnat vara utan:

De blev alldeles för fulla och rev halva lägenheten: De lyckades skvätta mosad frukt över hela köket, välta Robban (min jättefikus) och spilla jord över halva trapphuset, och dessutom höll en av dem på att försvinna med min jacka. :-(
Med andra ord var det en fest precis som de jag hade på Drottninggatan när jag pluggade. Alltså sånt som hör ungdomen till...börjar jag bli en sur gammal gubbe?

Frisyren
Min frisyr (se bilden) var en sensation. Jag hade ju tänkt stubba ned hela håret under kvällen, men jag trivs faktiskt riktigt bra i den. När jag skriver detta så är det tre dagar senare, jag sitter på planet till Cancun och har fortfarande inte klippt mig...

Söndag 30:e april
Boende-avundsjuka
Oj vad mycket nya lägenheter och hus jag har sett de sista 24 timmarna! Äntligen fick jag se Daniel Larssons nya vindslägenhet. De håller fortfarande på att göra klart det sista på ytskiktet, men man ser redan att det kommer att bli grymt bra! En stor terrass i söderläge, en härlig öppen planlösning, och så då läget vid Tegnérlunden!

Josefin och Martin var snälla nog att låta mig förvara min säng hos dem i deras nya hus i Åkersberga, så jag var dit med den. Jättefint, med en härligt öppen planlösning!

Och så då sist men verkligen inte minst så var jag och Helena på sista-april-fest hos Yvonne i dag söndag. Ett alldeles underbart 1,5-planshus. Yvonne har verkligen jättebra smak, och hon har ett fantastiskt "mini-spa" i det enorma badrummet. Hon och Anders
bjöd mig och Helena att ta ett bad medan de städade efter middagen, och vi ville aldrig gå upp. Härligt att vältra sig i bubbelbad med champagne!
Jättekul kväll på det stora hela, men tyvärr så var jag dum nog att ta fram guideboken för att visa var jag skulle åka, och eftersom jag blev ganska full så lyckades jag naturligtvis glömma den kvar :-(. Vid planbytet i Madrid har jag letat igenom hela flygplatsen utan att hitta nån guidebok ens för Mexico (och än mindre för de andra länderna), och dessutom är ju alla guideböcker översatta till spanska!
Mitt enda hopp står nu till Cancun (av alla ställen!), där det ju finns många amerikaner på semester, så bokhandlarna borde väl kunna ha engelskspråkiga guideböcker? Annars vete tusan hur det här skall gå! Rent praktiskt klarar man sig ju alltid, men jag hade ju knappt hunnit börja skumma igenom boken för att se vad jag vill göra! :-(

Måndag 1:a maj
Res-dag
Reser och sover, reser och sover... Och har tid att skriva lite i resdagboken.

Utrustning, del 1: Kängor
Jag har ju lovat en genomgång av utrustningen man kan behöva på en sån här resa. Och det kanske viktigaste är kängorna så varför inte börja med dem? Det beror naturligtvis på vilken sorts resa man skall göra, men kängor är mer eller mindre ett måste om man skall ut i terrängen, även i ett varmt land som centralamerika.

Själv gillar jag kängor med styv sula eftersom de jämnar ut ojämnheter och stenar i marken på ett bra sätt, och det innebär att det är en god idé att titta på fabrikat som vänder sig till klättrare. Antingen väljer man ett par "gammaldags" kängor i läder som man får impregnera regelbundet, eller så tar man ett par moderna med gore-tex i. Själv gillar jag inte att behöva på att mecka med utrustningen mer än nödvändigt, och så blir läder så tungt, men det är onekligen inte lika charmigt med high-tech...

Ett smidigt snörningssystem är superviktigt tycker jag. Annars blir det lätt att man slarvar med snörningen och då kan man säga "hej skoskav" ganska snabbt. Räkna med att lägga 2000-2500 kr ungefär. De billigare modellerna är uppbyggda som gymnastikskor och kommer inte att ge tillräckligt stöd, samtidigt som mer än så känns som onödigt bra, om du inte skall upp på Mount Everest.

Inte alltför mycket at tänka på alltså, så det är bara att ge sig ut och prova skor! Jag har nog provat säkert 20 olika par innan jag bestämde mig för att låna hem två par och gå med inomhus i några dagar. Det kan verka som overkill, men det är vad som behövs! Så vad blev det till slut då? Jo ett par Trek S Evo från italienska LaSportiva:
Styv sula med fäste för stegjärn (om man vill), superlätta, vattentäta (nylon+gore-tex), och ett fantastsikt snörningsystem! De är inte fodrade eftersom jag skall till varma länder, men det finns varianter med vinterfoder också. Men framför allt är de supersköna! Jag har gått in dem i en månad nu, men de satt perfekt redan efter första milen, utan ens en antydan till skavsår.
La Sportiva Trek S Evo får priset "Bästa kängan oavsett pengar".

Utrustning del 2: Var köper man?
Stockholm har ju lyxen att ha ganska många butiker som riktar sig på friluftsliv. Min åsikt är att man måste vända sig till en av dem – vanliga sportbutiker är helt enkelt inte tillräckligt bra! Jag rekommenderar två något alldeles extra:

www.addnature.com. Ligger på Birger Jarlsgatan alldeles mittemot mitt hus. De har ett enormt sortiment och personalen är jättekunniga (fast några har dåligt ölsinne :-)), och verkligen använder utrustningen själva på helger och semestrar. Christian har tagit väl hand om mig för det mesta, men alla verkar jättekunniga. Och de har postorder också – kan vara bra om man vet exakt vad man skall ha, typ en Buff. De är 5-10% billigare än alla andra butiker också!

Playground. Ligger vid Adolf Fredriks kyrka. Stor trevlig butik, med trevlig personal, men de känns inte lika kunniga som på addnature, i alla fall inte de som jobbar på helgerna. Men fråga efter Saga så kommer du att bli väl omhändertagen! Skön affär att gå och bläddra och prova saker i, öppen och ljus.

Fest-FAQ

2006-04-25T01:37:00.000+02:00

Igår skickade jag ut inbjudan till min avskedsfest, och idag har jag inkorgen full med frågor, för att jag inte tänkte mig för... Så här kommer en FAQ till festen:

Skall jag verkligen inte ha med mig någon present?
Nix, jag kommer att åka mer eller mindre direkt till flyget och har ingen plats att ta med mig något.

Vad är det för portkod?
Portkoden är 3678. Och adressen är Birger Jarlsgatan 80, T-bana Rådmansgatan, eller KTH.

Vilken tid skall jag komma? Hur länge håller vi på?
Jag är på plats typ från lunch själv, men jag räknar med att de flesta kommer efter jobbet. Vid sex-sju tiden alltså. Sedan håller vi på tills spriten är slut eller solen går upp!

Jag ser att X inte är bjuden. Skall jag ta med honom/henne?
Självklart! Jag har bara inte haft tid att kolla att min epostlista är up-to-date, och har säkert missat flera personer...

Jag hade gärna kommit, men hade redan bestämt att gå ut med Olle och Lisa.
Ta med Olle och Lisa och kom hit! Festen blir högst osnobbig, och vem som helst är välkommen. Det kan vara ett bra sätt att värma upp med en grogg innan vidare äventyr.

Hur såg inbjudan ut?
Så här:
Kom på AVSKEDSFEST på fredag 28 april!!!

Nu är det dags, den 1:a maj bär det av!

Jag kliver då på flyget till Cancun, och bortsett från en eller ett par korta besök så är jag inte hemma igen förrän i mars nästa år.

Men innan dess vill jag gärna träffa mina vänner och säga hej då. På fredag kommer jag att ha ett slags öppet hus. Jag hoppas att du/ni vill komma typ efter jobbet och så festa av mig hela natten lång, men om du inte har tid så hoppas jag att du i alla fall kan komma förbi en snabbis och säga hej då! Jag har SÄKERT glömt bjuda någon (jag är för stressad för att tänka efter), så bjud med alla som du tror skulle ha kul!

* Jag hyr ut lägenheten och har tömt den på ALLT, så jag kan inte bjuda på mat. Ät innan du kommer, eller köp med sushi (rekommenderar Seoul på Karlavägen), Pizza (Ciao-Ciao I kvarteret förstås) eller nåt annat.

* Det finns inget att sitta på heller, så ha sittfläsk eller ta med en liten kudde.

* Men det finns tre flyttkartonger fulla med alkohol...

* Och om du tänkt ta med en flaska vin, blommor eller så: nej, inte den här gången - ta med en trevlig vän i stället!

Spännande? Javisst!

Vill du veta mer? Min ambition är att skriva en blog på

http://petersresa.blogspot.com

- vi får väl se... Just nu är det bara lite bakgrundsinfo om resan (resorna!) där, men det lär växa till. Titta gärna in och lägg en kommentar!

Spända hälsningar / Peter

P.S. Inget OSA-tvång, men det gör inget om du skickar ett kort svar...

Biljetter är beställda - snart åker jag!

2006-04-23T21:20:00.000+02:00

Det är inte alltid som det går som man vill. Ambitionerna var höga med att dokumentera mina förberedelser, men det blev inte riktigt så. Men på nåt sätt känns även det bra - varför bränna ut sig under ett sabbatsår?

Men fast jag inte har skrivit något här, så har det verkligen inte stått still:

Jag har undersökt volontärsarbetssituationen (vilket ord! :-)), och har en del bra möjligheter i såväl centralamerika som (eventuellt) Kyrgyzstan (jag har gått över till den engelska stavningen från och med nu i stället för den svenska Kirgizistan, annars blir det bara fel när jag mailar till dem). Tyvärr hade jag ingen aning om att alla vill ha betalt(!) för att man skall jobba åt dem. Känns lite konstigt, och passar inte ihop med min budget, så i värsta fall blir det inget alls.
Jag har köpt en hel del coola prylar. Om du gillar vildmarksutrustning, och speciellt av hightech-modell, så håll ögonen öppna i framtida bloggar. Jag har på de flesta områden gjort rejäla marknadsundersökningar och kan rekommendera en del bra grejor...
Efter en otrolig mängd velande har jag äntligen bestämt mig för var jag skall åka. Jag hade kunnat läsa på, tveka, ändra mig, osv, hur länge som helst, men till slut fick jag lov att sätta ned foten!

Så var skall jag åka nu då. Ja, tills vidare ser planerna ut nåt i stil med det här:

Centralamerika
1:a maj flyger jag in till Cancun, i östra Mexico. och flyger sedan ut den 28:e juni från Panama City, längst österut i centralamerika. Jag har hört så pass mycket negativt om Cancun och Yucatanhalvön, att jag nog tar mig snabbast möjligt därifrån, via en hyfsat snabb resa genom Belize.

Sedan har jag spanat in Antigua och Lake Atitlan i västra Guatemala. Det finns ett stort utbud av språkkurser, så jag räknar med att stanna där i tre veckor och gå språkkurs samtidigt som jag trekkar i bergen runt omkring. Det skall till och med finnas dykning i bergssjön!

Men sedan har jag inte kommit längre i guideböckerna :-(, jag får planera mer sedan. Jag har dock massvis med bra idéer: Dykning i Honduras, djungeltrekking i Costa Rica, osv - det finns massvis med saker som lockar! Men om jag kommer över ett bra volontärprojekt så kanske jag stannar någonstans!?

Sverige i juli
Jag tillbringar tre veckor i juli i Sverige, bland annat för att gå på mina älsklingar John och Majvis bröllop - GRATTIS till er!

Kyrgyzstan
Sedan flyger jag till Kyrgyzstan den 21:a juli och kommer tillbaks via Istanbul den 4:e oktober.

Den hemresan är dock ombokningsbar, och eftersom ingenting är bokat där ännu så kan vad som helst hända - det hänger delvis på vad som händer med http://www.habitat.elcat.kg också.

Fokus kommer i alla fall att vara på trekking, det är ett som är säkert!

Vad händer sedan?
Sedan är inget bestämt alls ännu - faktum är att jag är mycket öppen för förslag på resor från vänner och bekanta. Är det nånstans som jag bara inte får missa?

Eller är det till och med så att du vill ansluta på någon del av resan? Hittills har jag inte planerat att resa med någon, och det vore jättekul om någon eller några ville locka med mig på nåt äventyr!

Jag har nån slags idé om att åka Istanbul - Turkiets Medelhavskust - Damaskus - Libanon (Beirut!) - Egypten, men har inte bestämt något alls.

Men innan jag kommer hem så skall jag upp på Kilimanjaros topp, och det är högst troligt att jag stannar ett tag i Tanzania efteråt också. Det borde väl vara en bra avrundning innan jag börjar jobbet igen?

Medicinska förberedelser - och en tuff operation

2006-02-25T07:03:00.000+01:00

Inför en lång resa så är det förstås en mängd förberedelser att tänka på, och bland de viktigaste är självklart olika medicinska förberedelser.

Vaccinationer
Härom veckan var jag på Wasakliniken (http://www.cityvarden.com) och såg över vaccinationsssituationen, och nog börjar jag känna mig som en nåldyna alltid...

Hepatit B. Jag undrar egentligen varför jag tog denna, eftersom det tydligen sprids via infekterade nålar och oskyddat sex, men när jag är hos en expert på något så kan de sälja på mig vad som helst. Men om jag skulle vilja prova nya spännande droger i Thailand eller nåt så är jag i alla fall skyddad!:-)
Hepatit A. Denna däremot sprids ju däremot genom vatten och mat, så den känns viktigare. Som tur är tog jag bägge Havrix-sprutorna redan för 10 år sedan, så jag har 20 års skydd kvar!
Gula Febern. Jag är inte helt säker på om jag skall till riskområdena (Centralafrika och Sydamerika), men om man tar denna så är man i alla fall mer flexibel. Det är dessutom ett krav för att få resa in i vissa länder!
Japansk encephalit. Låg risk att få sjukdomen, men "hjärninflammation med hög dödlighet" låter inget vidare...
Tyfoid. Bakterien heter visst Salmonella typhi, betyder det att det är samma sak som den salmonella det står om här hemma i tidningarna ibland? Det låter inte kul i så fall, så det är lika bra att sticka sig en gång till... :-)
Tuberkulos. Ibland är det bra att vara gammal - vi som är födda före 1975 blev vaccinerade redan som små!
Malaria. Man skyddar sig med tabletter som tyvärr har en massa obehagliga bieffekter :-(. Så snart jag är över de värsta besvären efter operationen (se nedan) så skall jag ta en provdos här hemma för att se att jag tål de föreslagna tabletterna hyfsat bra - om inte så finns det andra varianter.

Och så där får det nog räcka - jag har inte muskler nog att sätta fler sprutor i nu. En del av de där skall ha en andra dos, så det blir påfyllning om ett par veckor igen.

Jag gillar förresten Wasaklinikens system för påminnelser. Fast de har drop-in och ingen tidsbokning så kommer de att skicka ett SMS som påminnelse när det är dags att gå dit igen - det är smart användning av IT det!

Tandläkare
Svenska tandläkare är kanske inte de bästa i världen, men jag skulle definitivt inte vilja stå med tandvärk på gatan i Bishkek och fundera på vilken av bysmederna som skall få förtroendet att dra ut min inflammerade tand! :-)

Därför var jag till Tandläkare Tommy så fort tanken på att resa slog mig i höstas. Jag passade dessutom på att bleka tänderna när jag var där - skall bli jättesnyggt till min solbränna! :-) Och jag går nog dit en gång till innan jag åker - 500 kr för en röntgen känns som en billig försäkring...

Operationer
Att inte klara av eventuella planerade operationer innan man åker är väl närmast idioti, eller hur? Jag var ju med om en trafikolycka i höstas, och kroppen har tyvärr inte riktigt läkt ihop som den skall - det var lättare att klara olyckor när jag var 20 än när jag är 40, det är ett som är säkert!

Tyvärr har handledsbrottet växt ihop snett - vilket bland annat har gjort att jag har haft väldigt svårt att komma tillbaks till jobbet på det sätt jag velat. Det går helt enkelt inte att skriva på datorn utan att ha en fungerande arm! :-(

Nu är jag nästan helt återställd, men skall ändå undersökas innan jag åker, för att se om brottet eventuellt skall brytas upp(!) och gipsas igen (urk, läskigt!). I så fall får jag göra det i juli (mer om mina resplaner i en senare post), och så anpassa mina resmål till en svagare arm - ingen bergsklättring i augusti i så fall!

Min näsa blev ju inte heller som den skulle ha blivit... När de rätade till näsan efter olyckan så blev näsväggen inte helt rak, och det ställer till med en hel del problem. Jag får väldigt lite luft genom vänster näsborre, så det är svårt att få luft när jag anstränger mig hårt, och dessutom har jag börjat snarka rejält (jag vill ju inte bli som pappa!).

Så jag bestämde mig för att göra en operation där de går in och lossar slemhinnorna, rätar ut brosket i näsväggen, och sätter dit slemhinnorna igen. Låter väl enkelt...? Det trodde i alla fall jag, men det har varit en riktigt tung vecka! Operationen var i tisdags, och hittills (lördag morgon) har jag inte orkat något mer än att glida ut och in i en dvala-liknande sömn, och så äta lite nyponsoppa ibland. Konstigt att man påverkas så mycket av att bara kunna andas genom munnen? Mamma säger att Farmor säger att det beror på narkosen, men jag vet inte?

Jag har inte ens orkat kolla på OS! Som tur är så är jag sjukskriven hela nästa vecka också, och det kommer jag att behöva för att hämta mig! Jag hoppas kunna hitta lite tid att ägna till att se över utrustningen, och gå vidare med volontärmöjligheterna - mer om det senare.

Första posten

2006-02-17T13:05:00.000+01:00

Jaha, så då är man bloggare då...

Jag har aldrig varit speciellt tjusad av tanken på att breda ut mitt liv till allmänt beskådande, men det kanske bara beror på att mitt liv inte är så intressant? :-) Det närmaste året kommer förhoppningsvis livet i alla fall att bli lite mer intressant än till vardags - 40-årskrisen är nämligen över mig!

Även om jag inte på något sätt är missnöjd med mitt liv, så vet de som känner mig att jag alltid har längtat ut i världen för att se merav den. Ibland har jag gjort något åt det och gett mig iväg på kortare resor (upp till en månad), men "det stora äventyret" har alltid hägrat.

Dessutom har jag väl tidvis haft det lite svårt med motivationen på jobbet på sistone. Hur bra jag än trivs med jobbet på IBM, så kan man inte komma ifrån att det känns lite abstrakt ibland. Vad gör jag för nytta för världen egentligen när jag sitter vid min dator? (Ja, jag sa ju att det var 40-årskris... :-))

Så det här är ett så bra tillfälle som något att uppleva "det stora äventyret":

Man blir ju inte yngre precis...det gäller att passa på medan man fortfarande kommer upp på Kilimanjaro.
Ett stort uppdrag på jobbet är nyligen avslutat.
Min kropp har lagom läkt ihop efter höstens olycka.
En vacker dag är det kanske dags för Villa-Volvo-Vovve, och då är det nog för sent för en sån här upplevelse.

Den här bloggen kommer (förhoppningsvis!) att innehålla information om mitt lediga år - planer, förberedelser, och så själva upplevelserna på plats.

/ Peter