Paraty is a beautiful colonial town on the Brazilian "Costa Verde" which we already visited in 2016 but really wanted to experience again. This time, we had a help of a local... Well, Michel actually comes from France, but he's been living in Paraty for ten years now. He sailed his beautiful sailboat from Canada and remained anchored in the bay of Paraty ever since; apart from some sailing trips around the region. He kindly accepted us aboard as couchsurfers and helped us out with recommendations for experiencing the local cuisine. The weather was extremely hot and the sea temperature (above 30°C) didn't really offer any refreshment so we visited one of the nearby mountain streams that form cascades and pools filled with crystal clear and cool fresh water. After that we decided it's time for another of our crazy adventures. We packed our camping essentials, rented a simple "sit-on-top" kayak and started a three day exploration of the nearby Mamangua bay. During our trip, we met a whole expedition of sea kayakers with proper equipment and plenty of experience. Their leader Christian (who turned out to have Slovenian heritage) recommended us some nice places to visit and our three day kayaking trip turned out to be a breathtaking experience. Once again we combined our impressions in a short video. Our "vagabonding" had finally come to an end. And how better to finish the South American journey than with one of its most representative places - the marvelous city of Rio de Janeiro. We had already visited the main tourist attractions such as Christ the Redeemer and Pao de Azucar back in 2016. This time we took it easier. We slept at a place of a charming couchsurfer Thiago just a hundred meters from the Copacabana beach. We chilled around, visited the Rio's markets to stock up on cachaca, acai powder and guarana, we strolled the modern promenade with the famous "Museum of tomorrow" and graffiti of the Brasilian artist "Kobra" and paid a short visit to a "bloco" - a pre-carneval party at one of the town squares. We also hiked to one of the best viewpoints over the city. The hike to "two brothers peak" begins at a pacified favela which is only reached by a sketchy taxi-motorbike ride with one of the locals. At the beginning of the hike, the favela didn't seemed to be completely pacified to us - there were around ten young men and boys walking around fully armed with guns and rifles, hunting someone that apparently broke the favela rules. They didn't really gave much of attention to us and so we hurried along not to be caught in a potential cross-fire. We reached the top without incidents and were joined by some other tourists as well to watch the amazing views over the city. Four days went by like nothing and all of a sudden, we were on a plane back to Europe. We reached Munich at noon and the sun had been good to us to warm up the winter temperatures at least a little bit. After more than a year we breathed in the cool European air with all it's aromas and smells and even though we were not yet back to Slovenia, everything felt very familiar. Well, staying with Jose (our friend from the times we had lived in Munich) and meeting up with some friends added an important part to the feeling as well :) But in the end... nothing can compete with the overwhelming feelings of coming back home. The drive from Munich to Ljubljana was another pleasant experience as Gaja & Peter redeemed themselves for taking us away for the long journey in the first place. Seeing our parents, siblings, nephews and the closest friends brought out many feelings and memories and for the next couple of days we had been meeting-up with people and getting back in touch with the surroundings. Only then it really became clear to us - we are back to "normal life"!
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Finally reunited! :) Manca's parents have made it to Santiago after a looong trip from Slovenia and it was time for well deserved hugs and kisses after more than eight months of separation. Although tired, we haven't really given them a lot of time to rest since we had planed a pretty long road-trip for the next three weeks. First day, we strolled around Santiago and visited a viewpoint offering a smoggy look over the huge city. A six million metropolis is not something you see everyday and especially for Manca's parents, the novelties and surprises were practically constant. The next day for example, after briefly visiting Valparaiso, we stopped at one of the many Pacific beaches to cook dinner and sleep wild just meters away from thundering waves. The road led us north, retracing the long drive through Atacama that we did a couple of days before. This time, we made a detour in the charming town of Vicuna, where we observed the endless vineyards and went for a very interesting star-gazing tour in the Mamalluco observatory. The hand of the desert was waving us goodbye as we finally reached Antofagasta where just a comparably short drive to San Pedro de Atacama was separating us from some amazing sightseeing. A crown event of any Altiplano visit is the famous Laguna route - an off-road passage which runs through the remote southwestern part of Bolivia passing several high-altitude lagoons, volcanoes and deserts on the way. A mixture of sandy, gravel and rocky roads with practically no services for 500 kilometers requires some preparations and despite having only 2WD drive on our car, we decided to take our chances. We filled up with gasoline, bought provisions for some days and took off. After a hundred kilometers of well maintained gravel road, we drove off the piste and into the mountains. The rocks on the track were big and we could only advance slowly but already when we reached the first of the lagoons with hundreds of flamingos calmly stomping around in it and feasting in the nutritious waters we realised there is a special experience in front of us. Still southbound and once again in the freezing Altiplano, we continued through barren and dry landscape while regularly stopping on the way to observe and take pictures of the free-roaming llamas, alpacas and vicunas. But before we continue with the marvelous landscape of the Sajama National Park it is time for another edition of "everyday Bolivian experience". This time - fueling up the tank :) The government regulates the fuel costs and defines different prices for foreigners than for Bolivians. If a local can buy fuel for around 3,5 BOB/L (0,45€), the official price for the foreigners is about 8,7 BOB/L (1,1€). But as usual in South America and especially in Bolivia, almost everything is open for discussion. If you are cunning enough to ask for a service without the receipt, some gas-station employees will happily enter the local price into the computer while actually charging you a slightly higher price. We usually ended up at 5 or 5,5 BOB/L which meant that we payed far less than we should have and that the employee went home with some extra daily paychecks in his pocket. But it hasn't really worked out every time and it very much depended on the mood of the employee and our bargaining skills. Many times we would visit as much as five places before being able to fill-up for a lower price - but with our way of travelling every cent counts and we tried to haggle as much as possible :) Back to our travel itinerary... National Park Sajama is just at the northern Chilean border and encompasses the volcano Sajama and its close surroundings. The volcano, also the highest Bolivian peak at 6542m, is mostly surrounded by wilderness, filled with vicunas, rhea birds (a South American variety of emu) and plenty of thermal springs and geysers. We spent two days soaking up in the hot thermal water and trying to stay warm during the night when the temperature dropped under -10°C and our water bottles were freezing inside the car where we were sleeping (we didn't dare to use the rooftop tent). We filled two 5L plastic bottles with boiling geyser water and left them under our bed - we're not really sure if they actually helped in a way. After heating up the car-engine on the powerful Altiplano sun (we slept at 4500m again) so that our cooling system became liquid again, we continued with great anticipation towards our next destination. |
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February 2019
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