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    du lebst den traum! respekt und weiter so!

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      Hehe danke! Jetzt mach ich aber erst mal ne Pause ;) Guter Zeitpunkt für eine neue Statistik da mich hier so viele nach den Kosten gefragt haben...

      Round-the-World Trip Statistics #02



      It’s been 270 days or 9 months since I started my trip in Canada and so far I have spent nearly 13.000 €. I will actually take a break from traveling now for a couple of reasons, but have a lot of material left to keep you guys busy for a while – no worries :)

      A lot of people have asked me how much money I would spend on this trip. It was always hard to answer before I actually started, but now that I was on the road for nine months and thanks to my neat little Excel sheet, I can now provide you with some information!

      My total spendings so far add up to 12.758,22 €

      This figure includes everything: food, accommodations, booked trips and all the rest like buying new shower gel or paying to get into a climbing gym. Whenever I spend money, I convert the local currency to Euros and add it to my Excel sheet. The biggest part of the above sum was the cruise to Antarctica in March.

      More interesting for yourself might be how much I actually spend on the food (including all sorts of drinks too) and accommodations in each country. The following stats will give you an insight on that. Luckily, I was able to Couchsurf every single day in Canada, making the average spendings in North America look a bit low because it just reflects Mexico. It is also interesting that South America matches Central America in terms of average food spendings!

      Hope you liked that information, I will continue to gather the data in my lovely Excel sheet, haha. (I’m soooo German, I know…)

      >> Link

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        Live #59, Tayrona National Park, Colombia



        25/02/2015 Tayrona National Park should ring a bell for a lot of people, forming one of the most spectacular coastlines in Colombia. About four months ago, I spent a few nights there and can finally present you my story wandering through the beaches, doing some great bouldering and exploring the “mini” lost city Pueblito :)

        I arrived at the entrance of Tayrona National Park around 11:00 after being stuck in traffic with the public bus. First off, you need to watch a video and actually receive a ticket as proof that you saw the video – without it you won’t be able to buy your entrance ticket. I met a few people in line that had to go back to get the ticket as it is not very obvious. The line was not really huge, but thanks to the fact that only two people sold tickets, I ended up waiting over an hour to get my ticket, leaving me enough time to make new friends which would explore the park with me together :) We finally were able to pay the 40.000 Pesos entry fee and started to walk along the paved road and hiking path for an good hour before arriving at Arrecifes beach. You can also take a shuttle for more than half of that trip if you are short on time.

        The landscape at the first beach was nothing short of impressive, combining an awesome beach with huge boulders and a thick jungle in one spot! It was also very hot in February and walking in the sand did not make it any easier. None of us had any spot to sleep yet and the little group split up a little bit, me ending up with a German couple at a place called Finca don Pedro, offering Hammocks for 12.000 per night after some negotiating – a pretty decent price! We relaxed for the rest of the day before heading down to the beach for sunset. It actually took about 15 minutes of walking to get there, but we preferred to be up in the jungle a little bit and would then stay right at the beach for the second night.

        Having all those boulders around, I decided to grab my climbing shoes and make my way to the beach for sunrise in the next morning. I arrived at 6AM, just a few minutes before the sun came out of the cloudy sky. Barely any people could be seen along the huge beach line and I came back to one huge boulder I spotted the day before. Some nice cracks and the sand offered me two great easy routes (V1 and V2 I’d say) which I could do without using a crash pad. It was so much fun to finally climb again and I ended up staying for 2 1/2 hours in that one spot before heading on to find some more boulders further down the beach.

        I was able to find some, but actually ran out of time, because I really wanted to see Cabo San Juan as well, being the most famous beach in the Tayrona National Park. Arriving at the check-in, my plan was to get myself a nice spot in one of the hammocks for the night already. However, rumors turned out to be true and they did not sell any spots until 2PM, which was 5 hours away by the time I got there! I had no intentions to wait that long and decided to find another spot while checking out the really amazing coast line over here. Walking up to a little hill towards the more expensive hammocks offered a great view, perfect beaches dotted with palm trees everywhere. Oh and guess what- I met my friends from Australia once again over here, they were actually sleeping at the beach last night :)

        Since there was no other good place to stay the night at the beach, I grabbed all of my stuff and decided to walk towards the “mini” lost city “Pueblito” La Ciudad Perdida to then sleep in Santa Marta afterwards. It was really hot by the time I started the hike through the jungle and boulder fields and the journey turned into a sweat-fest. After doing some more bouldering within the forest area, the path constantly went uphill through more and more huge boulders. I had to squeeze under some of those as well and actually used some climbing techniques to get on top of some others with my backpack. All of that made the hike very physical challenging in the speed I progressed, but man how much fun it was hoping and crawling on top and under the boulders!

        Once I arrived at Pueblito, I finally had time to rest and enjoy the pineapple I was bringing along. Drinking the rest of my 5L water canister, I realized that I was completely alone at the site and spent a few minutes exploring. It was really enough time as it was pretty small. Nonetheless, it was nice to see the terraces and it made me look forward to my hike to the actual lost city in the next days. My water ran out and I hurried up towards the main road and alternative access point of the Park. I quickly bought 3 bags of water there for just 200 each and entered the public bus, which was presently inspected by some police. That same procedure actually happened again two more times within just ten minutes of driving! It took a very long time to return to Santa Marta and to round this nice trip up, they would just drop me at the roundabout outside the city, forcing me to take another shuttle towards the hostel, where I could finally relax a bit and reflect on the amazing trip I just had!

        >> Pictures

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          Live #60, Palomino & Santa Marta, Colombia



          27/02/2015 Sometimes you come along a place you had no idea it even existed and then find yourself at that very place the next day. This happened to me in the case of Palomino, a small cozy settlement not too far from Santa Marta in Colombia on the way to Riohacha. It is famous for tubing down the river Palomino and a great place to just relax and enjoy the calming effects of the ocean.

          Once again I hopped into a bus from Santa Marta towards Tayrona National Park, but this time I would stay in the bus for a bit longer and get off at Palomino instead. I spotted a familiar face and strangely enough, it was Tristan – the guy we picked up with the Jeep on the way to Minca! He’s really nice, so I was glad to see him again and of course we joined forces. The ride took two hours in total and we started to walk through the sandy streets to find a place to sleep. One of the first places along the road was really rude, pushing us to sign in while I was still checking if they even had a working WiFi. Ending up in another, much nicer, place for 20.000 the night, I could finally start enjoying the relaxed atmosphere of the town.

          I had no plans of doing the tubing myself, it just seemed to be much more enjoyable in a bigger group and Tristan was not so keen on it either. So instead I was walking to the point about 20 minutes away along the beach to see the groups coming in with the tubes. The beach there was really nice and because of it’s length, it actually feels like you are alone there. It is not a major tourist spot yet, so actually there are not too many people around and having a beach of that size certainly allows you to find a spot just for yourself.

          I could see people walking towards me way in the distance, having their tubes on their back. It made up for a nice photo motive while the sun was slowly setting in the background. Arriving at the river Palomino, I could still see groups coming in with beers in their hand while the sun eventually went down, turning the place into a beautiful display of sunset reflections on the river. Walking to that spot just to see the sunset was already amazing, although I would have done the tubing as well in a bigger group.

          Once again, I could negotiate the price for the bus ride and paid only 6000 to return to Santa Marta. Arriving there at 6PM, I made it to the water front just in time for another nice sunset. I had no CouchSurfer to host me so far and looked out for a place with WiFi. Sadly no one new came up to host me, so I decided to look for a cheap hotel instead. Meeting up with some CS for some dancing and drinks, I was told that the area of my hotel was a really bad one and the guys tried to convince me to go somewhere else. I already put my stuff in the room though and was too lazy to get it now.

          After a great night out with some interesting Break dancing artists in one bar and then another awesome roof top party in a hostel, I made it back to my hotel at 3AM, wondering if something would happen. The only thing that happened were some homeless people asking for drugs and some prostitutes offering their service – nothing serious and nothing I could just thankfully decline :) The only thing that was a bit worrying was the fact that I had no key for the hotel and I was forced to ring the bell in the middle of the night. After 15 minutes of waiting, the not-so-amused owner finally opened the door and I could retreat into my smelly, hot (but very cheap) single room without any drinking water left and totally thirsty, looking forward to get out of this mess as soon as I can in the morning :)

          >> Pictures

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            Was war bis jetzt das geilste/ wo du am meisten geflashed warst??

            Kommentar


              Grönland / Antarctica / Galapagos.

              Von allem muss ich noch die (längeren) Reiseberichte schreiben, Bilder und Videos gibts davon auch noch 0.. Mehr Zeit bräuchte man haha! :)

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                East Europe Roadtrip Part II – Vilnius, Riga, Tallinn, Helsinki



                The second part of our East Europe Road Trip led us to Vilnius in Lithuania, Riga in Latvia, Tallinn in Estonia and last but not least, Helsinki in Finland. I had no expectations coming into the Baltic states, because there was just no one heading that way and telling me “Go to Tallinn!!”. Roughly four years later, I find myself being that person and was not only fascinated by Tallinn, but also the other towns along the way – even though Tallinn was definitely my favorite! Check out why in this post…

                >> Pictures & Full Report

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                  Live #61, Ciduad Perdida & Taganga, Colombia



                  01/03/2015 Relaxing at the gorgeous beach of Palomino was great, but if you followed my blog for a while, you will know that I actually prefer to put on my hiking boots and be a bit more active. The 5-day trek to the “The Lost City” of Ciduad Perdida deep in the jungle of northern Colombia seemed to be a must-do for me. We certainly had a lot of action thanks to the poisonous snakes in the area. One of them bit a soldier, putting him in a desperate need to be rescued by a helicopter, and one other was found and killed by our guides on the way back!


                  The first time I heard about Ciduad Perdida was during my trek to Machu Picchu in July 2013 and a bit less than two years later, I made it there myself! There are several options to do the hike: 4, 5 or 6 days. All of them use the same route and even the price is the same for all of them. Fast people tend to use the 4 day option while slower ones, obviously, take 6 days. I picked the middle option, mostly because I wanted to relax a bit and did not mind to get free food and accommodation for one extra day :) A lot of stuff happened and I will try to get it all into this live update, which will propably end up more like being a complete travel report. For this reason I actually included the live updates for each country into my travel report overview now!

                  Day 1


                  I picked Turcol as a company to guide me to Ciduad Perdida, but all companies charge the same and they actually shuffle around guides as well, so I think it doesn’t really matter which one you pick! We left their office at 09:00 to pick up some more people and more importantly, buy tons of food. There were about 70 people to start the hike on that day and each jeep picked up something for the group. My group consisted of our guide, two people from Italy and a British girl. All jeeps met up at the last village before the starting point of the hike, which would also serve us for some sandwiches for lunch around 12:30.

                  About two hours of easy hiking later, we arrived at a natural swimming pool which enabled me to do some deep water bouldering again. Sadly I didn’t bring my climbing shoes, so I was pretty limited being bare feet. A huge spider was sitting at the rock as well, having no problem with me being super close to her for some pictures. You should zoom in the picture to see her hairy legs, haha! We had a quick break for Water Melons at 15:00 and continued the hike in a pretty slow speed. Our Italian friend seemed to be a little bit uncomfortable walking around in the jungle and took his time. I was relieved to spot our camp site in the distance, asking for permission if I could go ahead and wait for them there, which my guide accepted as long as I would be careful. Of course I would! I made it to the camp in my own speed soon after at 16:45 and could pick a nice hammock for the night. There were about 30 hammocks overall and some of them were already used from a group coming back again on their last day. We also shared dinner with them, each group being served by their own guide and cook. They prepared Rice, Chicken and Potatoes for us and even though it tasted okay, I was missing the awesome food we received at the San Blas Islands in Panama; they set the standards pretty high!

                  Day 2

                  The second day started early at 06:45 in the morning and we were joined by a second group full of dutch guys and their own guide. After some time downhill through the jungle, we eventually made it to a village of the indigenous people. Some curious girls in their white ropes came over while the guide explained about their culture. We were served a huge fish lunch at the next camp and could go out for a swim in the nearby river. The water there was crystal clear and cold, which was very welcome after walking in the heat for quiet some time. It was pretty interesting to see our Italian’s friend tanning pose, hard to describe in words but he really looked funny and certainly enjoyed the hiking break! No one could finish the lunch this time and we continued the hike at 12:00, back into the jungle.

                  Several hours later, I realized why the guides won’t let me go alone this time: We had to cross two rivers and while the first was no problem for everyone except the Italian guy, the second one was actually a bit trickier and I slipped at the end, landing in the knee deep water with one foot. Just then it also started to rain for the firs time – a very welcome change, because it got pretty hot in the jungle. Not long after we would find ourselves in our camp for the second night, arriving at 15:45, about two hours before nightfall. It was dark, still raining and I was just about to head to dinner when I suddenly slipped into a dark corner and suffering two open small wounds that bled a bit. We disinfected them with alcohol, lime and salt, allowing me to finally eat up before heading to bed and watch some Mad Men since it was still pretty early. This time we had actual beds and no hammocks and even though they were not super clean, it was still better and thanks to the relaxing sound of the rain pouring down, I could fall asleep pretty fast.

                  Day 3

                  You could consider the third day as the highlight of the trek as we would reach the famous terraces of the Lost City today. Starting early at 06:00, we walked about 45 minutes through the rain and crossed one more river before suddenly standing at the beginning of a 1000 steps stair case, built by the tayrona indians somewhen between the 8th and 12th century. Those guys used to be very short (1,50m – 1,60m) and once you walked on their stairs, you will see why. Some of the super steep steps required some attention, but overall the hike was not too hard. The sun finally came out as well while we were walking up to the first terrace, where our guide started to explain about the lost city and their former inhabitants. For instance, they built everything with the use of fire, water, wood and stones. Not much of a breaking news. More interesting was the moment we reached the most famous of all terraces, fully occupied by a complete squad of about 50 soldiers! I’m not really sure why they need so many there, but it might also have been because of the fact that one of them was just bitten by a highly venomous snake…

                  The military split up in groups, some of them taking care of the bitten comrade, others occupied keeping the signal fire up to produce enough smoke for the upcoming helicopter, and some just documenting everything on their smart phones. It was a pretty intense situation, the soldier only had about 30 minutes to get treatment before the bite would kill him. I asked our guide and they told us that snake bites here are not too uncommon and it was also not the first time for him to see a helicopter coming in for rescue. About 20 minutes later, the helicopter finally got in and the whole scene with all the soldiers felt a little bit like being in a movie! Hoping that the soldier received his medication in time, we eventually started our hike back with just one more stop for some more explanations about the area. Turns out that Ciduad Perdida is 200 years younger than El Publito, the “mini lost city” I visited in Tayrona National Park!

                  The guides spotted something in the bush on the way back to catch up with the rest and it was actually the same kind of snake that bit the soldier earlier! I could really tell that the guides have been in those situation before, quickly cutting a branch of a tree and shaping it to a Y shape to capture and then kill the snake with their machete. I spent the last 1% of my camera battery to take some cool close up pictures with the snake and her blood on the eye and was really happy to be here to witness this while the others of our group already went down – hopefully they would not find another snake! The terraces have been really enjoyable despite all the action we had. We were the only tourists at the time and despite the warnings, barely had to fight with any mosquitoes! The weather was great as well and the jungle surroundings made for a really cool Indiana Jones kind of atmosphere – it was totally worth coming here. I received permission to walk back in my own pace since the wound on my foot from last night was hurting a bit and I wanted to get out of the hiking boots to rest as soon as possible, arriving at the camp again at 15:30, taking just 90 minutes for the hike that took us four hours this morning.

                  Day 4

                  The Italians and myself woke up at 07:30 while the others in our two groups already left the camp at 05:00. They are on the 4 day trek and have to get back all the way to the end while we will have another night in the first camp. I waited a bit to dry my wet clothes, which were a bit wet every morning due to the humidity in the jungle, and soon after would catch up with the Italians who left an hour before me. Arriving at the camp at 11:00, we would have a full day to relax now. The Italian girl, our guide and myself decided to take a little excursion to a nearby waterfall at 15:00 and only a 20 minute walk away. We arrived at the top of the pretty big falls and had to climb down to the bottom. The girl decided to stay on top because the climb was an actual climb and I was happy to be able to use some Bouldering moves to get down :) Enjoying the view from the bottom and the waterfall it self, we returned to camp at 16:30 for a nice dinner. I was glad to take the 5 day hike, as I would not have been able to see the pretty nice waterfall otherwise.

                  Day 5

                  The last day started at 07:00 and we walked back to the starting point after breakfast. Our Italian friend turned out to be a great entertainer as he started to scream as loud as he can from a tiny slip. He was so careful all of the time and I think his scream was rather out of disappointment that he fell down rather than actual pain resulting from it. It was pretty amusing to see though and both the guide and myself were looking at each other in disbelief while he was crying out loud for about two minutes straight. Eventually, we made it back to the extraction point and I had enough time to take a shower before the car would drive us back to Santa Marta at 09:00. The Italians stayed in a hostel in Taganga and we dropped them off there with a quick stop at the viewpoint overlooking the bay. I returned to Turcol’s office to get my stuff, had some food and then headed back to Taganga myself, since I planned to stay there for my last night in the area. I made it just in time for the sunset at 17:30 and met up with a CS for some nice dinner at the bar Babaganoush, highly recommended if you are in the area. A dutch chef is serving really nice food over there for a decent price of 30.000 Colombian pesos. That’s it! I had no time to do any diving in Taganga but was very satisfied with my visit of the north coast. Up next for me was a flight to the capital Bogotá and a short visit to Villa de Leyva before flying down all the way to the southern point of Argentina, getting ready for my long awaited cruise to Antarctica…

                  >> Pictures

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                    Live #62, Bogotá & Villa de Leyva, Colombia



                    06/03/2015 It’s been my second visit to Colombia’s capital Bogotá and I met up with some friends from my last time over there. We were also headed to Villa de Leyva for a little roadtrip, a beautiful small colonial town about 160km north east of Bogotá.

                    Returning to Bogotà was really nice as the city has a lot to offer and I did not have a lot of time two years ago. After breaking my lens during the trip, I would also finally receive a new lens here as a friend’s friend came to visit from Germany and was kind enough to take a new lens and winter jacket along for me! This saved me a lot of hassle and also money as this stuff is just cheaper in Europe. My former Arc’teryx jacket was stolen in Canada all the way back in October last year and ever since leaving Canada, I didn’t really need a jacket. But now with Patagonia and Antarctica up on the horizon, it was time to gear up again :) I could even play some guitar AND football table that evening as well, just a very nice night before heading off to our road trip to Villa de Leyva in the next morning.

                    Villa de Leyva was something I was not familiar with, but luckily, my friends told me about it and we got a nice group of four people together for a little roadtrip. Arriving there on a perfect sunny – and not too hot – day was great timing to explore the beautiful little town, covered in nice houses along the cobbled streets. We could also do a little hike to the viewpoint (mirador) overlooking the complete town and surroundings, it was not the easiest hike and in combination with the then hot sun around 1PM resulted in a sweaty affair. It was totally worth though, the view was amazing and the even had a little Jesus statue up there. Sadly, my camera would run out of battery and I was not able to take as many pictures as I would have liked to.

                    Some delicious ice scream at 15:45 marked the end of our visit and we were headed back to the capital. Everyone became pretty tired during the drive back and we just had a few beer in the evening before getting some sleep. I would have to get up pretty early to catch my flight to El Calafate in the South of Argentina, with a stop over in Buenos Aires. I could not wait to finally leave the hot zone and breath in some nice crisp clean air in south of Patagonia during the colder off season there!

                    >> Pictures

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                      Video from Panama



                      This video from Panama will finish up my journey through Central America and you can now find all the videos on my video page. I’m already working on the video for Colombia and will probably have it ready after my upcoming live updates from Patagonia. The places featured in this video are Boquete, Cangilones de Gualaca, Panama City, Pedasí & finally, the San Blas Islands cruise to Colombia. Hope you like it :)

                      Check out the Live Updates and Pictures from Panama here.

                      >> Direct Vimeo Link

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                        Live #63, El Calafate, Argentina



                        08/03/2015 After 126 days of hot climates starting in Mexico last year, it was now finally time to head down all the way to the southern tip of Argentina to enjoy the crisp air of Patagonia during fall season. I booked a flight from Bogotá to El Calafate with a short stop over in Buenos Aires. Finally arriving, huge mountain ranges in the background looked majestically and I couldn’t wait to get out there!

                        I originally had a long stop over in Buenos Aires, but thanks to the very nice lady in charge of Aerolineas Argentinas, I was booked onto an earlier flight to El Calafate and only had to wait at the Buenos Aires airport from 03:35 to 07:45, touching down in El Calafate with some turbulence at 11:05. As usual, I was not able to sleep on the plane and instead spent half an hour observing some pretty amazing display of thunderstorms below us. Finally setting foot in Patagonia felt a bit strange after all the hot, humid and tropical places I’ve been before. It was also much more expensive, paying 170$AR for a return shuttle airport-city for instance. The landscape was pretty flat and dry, with light blue lagoons scattered around town. After checking in to my hostel, I started to explore a bit and walked to Laguna Niméz. You have to pay to get in, but you can also just walk along the fence towards the lake and since the area is pretty small, you can actually see all the wildlife from there as well. At least for me it was okay and I was more focused on the awesome mountain range in the distance :)

                        After buying a used isolation mat for about 3€ from a guy who just returned from his hikes in El Chaltén, I was now trying to get there myself. Public transportation in Patagonia is very expensive and I wanted to try hitch hiking here. Unfortunately, I had to walk about 30 minutes from town to actually get to a good spot for hitch hiking just at the big round about near the police station. Two other guys been there as well and I didn’t even notice them at first because I stayed in front of the station while they waited behind it. There were barely any cars coming and after half an hour, I decided to stop the next bus at 13:15 – too bad the driver didn’t stop. After all, I am not in Guatemala and their chicken buses anymore :) Soon after my isolation mat nearly flew away in the strong Patagonian winds and I could barely catch it again, so I decided to walk back to town and wait for the evening bus. It’s not that I couldn’t afford it, unlike the other guys on the street. One of them apparently waited for 2 days already to get a ride and when I passed him in the bus about 5 hours later, he was still waiting there. Soon after I would arrive in the Patagonia’s trekking mecca of El Chaltén and writing about all the amazing hikes there will take me a few live updates for sure :)

                        >> Pictures

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                          Live #64, El Chaltén & Laguna de los Tres, Argentina



                          11/03/2015 My second stop in Patagonia was El Chaltén, truly a paradise for hikers. I reserved two complete weeks for the immense amount of treks there, including the highlight to Paso del Viento. To start off though, I decided to head east first for a 3-day hike towards Paso del Cuadrado. Soon after arriving at Laguna de los Tres, I was forced to turn around… my camera stopped working and it would be a shame if I could only take pictures with my phone in this incredible piece of nature.

                          I arrived in El Chaltén at night after taking the late bus from El Calafate. Having a hostel recommendation from someone in my head, I was walking down the street all the way to the other end of town close to the starting point of the Fitz Roy hike. The cheap hostel I was looking for was easy to find but, unfortunately, already booked out! Just another minute walking up the street was another hostel called Hem Herhu for the same price of 100 pesos though, and it turned out to be a really great one. After finding a place to stay, the next thing to organize was a tent. Spending the first hours of the following day to walk around all the outdoor shops, I hoped to find a reasonable priced tent. The hikes I had planned high up in the mountains required a good one and those tents started with 140 pesos a day, which would result in a lot of money for my two weeks there. I ended up asking a girl working in a coffee shop if she might know someone who could give me a tent for a better price and it turned out that she had one herself, giving it to me for free! She insisted on not getting any money for it and I could even use it as long as I wanted, I was really lucky to run into her!

                          With the tent situation sorted, I could start buying the food for my first 3-day hike. The nearby shop was super expensive, but you don’t really have any choice down there. I fell in love with the Argentinian Dulce de leche pretty fast and got addicted, eating about 200g each day! Meeting a group of three girls packing up for their own hike randomly on the street, I was now also not on my own anymore and we decided to do the hike together. They were already done packing and went ahead while I was packing up myself. I eventually started the hike at 15:00 and reached Laguna Capri about 90 minutes later. A really nice lake with view on the Fitz Roy massif. Just as I was taking one of my countless Panorama shots, my Sony A6000 camera suddenly stopped working with the error message “Camera Error. Turn power off then on.” I first thought it was just temporary, but would soon after realize that it is actually broken and not something I can fix here. With less pictures to take now, I was walking faster as well and caught up with the three girls pretty fast.

                          We arrived at the camping spot pretty late and had some snacks. You can actually only camp on those dedicated spots here in the area, with some rangers patrolling as well. Compared to the huge amount of people that passed along the way, I was surprised to see only about 20 tents set up. Most of the hikers here are doing day hikes and return to El Chaltén before it gets dark. There was only a little bit of extra hiking to do between the camp and Laguna de los tres and we arrived pretty late at 20:30 after climbing up a rather steep mountain part for about an hour. It was pretty cloudly and started to become pretty dark, so we could not stay for a long time and went down again. Throw in some rain and slippery rocks and we found ourselves in complete darkness soon after! Using the moon light and phones to get back to camp, we very much enjoyed the “Nachtwanderung” through the night for about half an hour very much though, providing a very special atmosphere.

                          It was raining heavy the next morning and while the girls still needed some more sleep in the tent, I was going back to El Chaltén on my own as fast as I can to start a process that would hopefully help my still not working camera. There was actually one person that used to fixed cameras in town and after tracking him down by talking to the locals, I left my camera with him and hoped he could do some magic. In the meantime, I used the bad weather and bouldering mat of my hostel’s owner to do some bouldering just five minutes away. The huge boulder was protected by some big trees, allowing me to even climb in the rain, even though I was pretty limited both because of my missing strength after months of no climbing and the fact that I was on my own and nobody could help spotting and moving the mat. It was great anyway and I was so happy to finally do some climbing again! And it would not be the last time in this area, but more on that in the upcoming Live Updates :)

                          >> Pictures

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                            Live #65, Laguna Torre, Argentina



                            13/03/2015 After a failed attempt to fix my broken camera in El Chaltén, I went out on a hike to Laguna Torre with just the phone camera. The second most popular day hike after Fitz Roy was much less busy and we had great weather too! Just Cerro Torre was always covered in clouds sadly…

                            The second day in El Chaltén started off with checking all the internet posts and support mails in a desperate hope to somehow fix my camera. After exploiting all possible options, I eventually gave up and put a process together to at least get a new camera before heading off to Antarctica in less than two weeks; it was just not possible to go there without taking decent pictures and I decided to buy a new Sony A3000. It’s basically a less capable, bigger and much slower version of my old A6000. Putting all my trust into the good spirit for Couchsurfers, I sent 700 US$ to a strange person via Paypal and she bought the camera for me at the tax free Zona Austral in Punta Arenas, Chile. From there, she gave the camera to a friend who would spent the next three days on a ship to sail down to Ushuaia in Argentina. At the final destination, he would give the camera to my Couchsurfer and I actually got the camera exactly on the day my ship departed to Antarctica!! :) Patagonia pictures, however, would have to be shot with the low quality phone camera.

                            The 9km hike to Laguna Torre was very pleasant and I had good company in the two Julia’s, both equipped with an extremely positive and always-smiling attitude. The sun was also shining all day long and we had a lot of fun walking up to the camp spot. A few excellent viewpoints along the way made me missing my camera again, but the pictures from my camera turned out to be okay as long as the lighting conditions were good. We arrived at the nearly empty camp spot, set up our tents and cooked dinner. Julia 1 didn’t feel so well and rested in the tent while Julia 2 and myself headed out to the actual lagoon. It was getting dark and pretty cloudy as well and we could not really see a lot, especially not Cerro Torre. It was also extremely windy and we decided to only go half way around the rim of the lake after nearly being blown away from the now very strong wind.

                            After spending the night in the cozy tent, the girls had some problems waking up in the morning again and I started to head off to hike up to the top of one of the surrounding mountains: Loma de Las Pizarras. It was actually a really nice hike with great views and therefor I will tell you more about this part in the next live update :)

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                              Live #66, Loma de Las Pizarras, Argentina



                              14/03/2015 Hiking back from Laguna Torre offered me a little excursion that actually deserves it’s own live update: Climbing Loma de Las Pizarras! The peak granted me with a superb view and I could actually see a bit of Cerro Torre this time too. Some rainbows paired with huge winds that nearly blew me off my feet made up for a great experience.

                              I was on a mission. Having my broken camera in mind, I wanted to return to El Chaltén as soon as possible, but on the other hand I was standing at the entry point of the 1600m high Loma de las Pizarras and I could not resist the temptation to hike up there. Leaving my backpack behind in the woods, I quickly ascended through the forest and could not find the actual path. Instead, I was making up my own one as there was only one direction anyway: Up! Soon I would get out of the forest and the first views presented themselves, some pretty nice panoramas including a rainbow. The further I got up, the windier it became and instead of trees, I was now next to a few big boulders and walking mainly on loose scree.

                              Soon after I would arrive at the top, looking down at the glacier and up to Fitz Roy. Cerro Torre was still hiding in the clouds but I could tell that I would just need a little change of weather to finally see it. After waiting in the extremely windy summit, sometimes sitting down on my butt because the wind would have thrown me off feet otherwise, I eventually saw Cerro Torre for a split second before it disappeared in the clouds again. I would have another chance to finally see him on another hike. For now, I had to get back because it was already getting late and I still wanted to take care of my camera in town. First though, I had to get down the mountain and find my backpack again!

                              It actually turned out to be quiet a challenge, because everything just looked the same in the forest and I ended up using my GPS tracks to retrace my route and finally found the backpack to drink the water I desperately needed. Speeding up again, I made it back to the hostel and analysed my GPS data for the first time, using the Android App OruxMaps. The complete path from the camp at Augostini to the summit of Loma de las Pizarras and back to the hostel took 3 hours, 46 minutes while walking 17.64km with an altitude gain of 1082m and altitude loss of 1288m!

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                                Live #67, Laguna Piedras Blanca, Argentina



                                19/03/2015 After some rainy days in El Chaltén, I used the upcoming good weather window to start what was supposed to be a four day trek to Paso del Cuadrado. Joined by Rene from the hostel, we knew that the first day would still be rainy; we didn’t know what kind of adventure we would be heading into. Soon after leaving the beaten path, we found ourselves in the middle of a snow storm in freezing temperatures, forcing us to set up an emergency fire at Laguna Piedras Blanca and actually staying the night there as well. For the complete story, keep on reading!

                                A lot of rain forced me to remain in El Chaltén for a total of four days and since Rene had no climbing and only little trekking experience, we decided to skip my original plan of tackling Paso del Viento and instead headed towards Paso del Cuadrado, another challenging hike compared to the simple day hikes in the area. Leaving at 12:00, we started to walk in the rain and knew that this wouldn’t change for the rest of the day. It would take us one day just to get closer to the area of our destination anyway and the forecast looked great for all days coming up afterwards, so we decided to start the hike in the rain, allowing Rene to continue his hitch hiking journey without delays. The hike was rather boring for me; we could not see a lot in these weather conditions and I had also just returned from the day hike to the Fitz Roy a few days before in perfect weather. The rain turned into snow and I could witness how the C.B. Poincenot camp looks covered in white, it was a pretty cool sight! We used the camp to have lunch and our hands were freezing already. Things got worse when we walked north along the rocky path next to the river towards Laguna Piedras Blanca. Faced with an now extremely lower temperature, we were now covered in thick snow and quickly soaked completely wet. Getting in the gloves was now an extremely hard task and we knew the situation actually became a bit serious now. We would have to make a decision between returning back to El Chaltén or keep on going, having in mind that the sun will come out the next day. Obviously, we chose the latter…

                                Freezing our asses off, we kept on walking along the river to find shelter at one of the huge boulders at Laguna Piedras Blanca. Taking pictures was a nearly impossible task now as the thick snow flakes constantly messed up the touchscreen of my phone. Luckily, we walked right into a massive boulder of at least 20 meter in height, offering natural protection from the wind and snow from 3 sides. Once we stopped walking, our already cold bodies started to freeze even more and we had to do something about it. Some people left dry fire wood behind here and even though it is not allowed, we just had to get a fire going to warm up and re-evaluate the situation. Walking back for hours in these conditions would have been very unpleasant. We quickly gathered some tinder and even brought a lighter and toilet paper, making the process of getting the fire up very easy… if we could only use our fingers!! At this point, our hands were so cold that Rene was not able to use his fingers at all anymore. Luckily, I still had some energy in them left and could get the fire going, finally offering us the desperately needed warmth.

                                After enjoying the fire for a while, I went out to explore the nearby area and also climbed up to one of the hills to get a better overview. It was still snowing a lot and I could not see too much, not even the lake that should be very close to us now. At least I was able to find enough dry wood to keep the fire going for a while. Returning back to our little camp, we started to think about what to do. It was already getting late now and we would have another two hours of walking to reach the next camp, something that was out of question considering the fact that the amount of snow actually increased with time. So we decided to call the boulder our home for this night and aligned the sleeping bags next to the fire to sleep there without setting up the tent. It was actually a really great experience in the end and I enjoyed it a lot. Rene gained back his good spirits as well the longer he could warm up on the fire. We shared some stories, had some rum and eventually fell asleep next to the fire after a nice meal.

                                Waking up the next morning was an experience I will never forget. The forecast was right (as usual on the norwegian site yr.no) and all the clouds disappeared, leaving us with a perfect clear sky. The sun did not yet rise up over the mountains around us, but for the first time we could see Monte Fitz Roy in the background with the first rays of sunshine on it’s face. Spirits were high and we wasted no time to climb up to the viewpoint to finally see the lake as well. The climb was pretty steep and some parts were still covered with ice from last night, but overall it was not a big deal to get up there. The views were amazing and having the sun in my face again made me look positively into the future. We enjoyed the moment for a while and then started to walk back to our temporary camp, it was time to pack up again and continue our hike towards Paso del Cuadrado with a slight delay. More on that in the next update :)

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