Australia day in Sucre and the mines in Potosi

Since I was traveling with two australians (Mietta and Naomi) we had to celebrate Australia day. I never heard of this day before, but they said it was just about hanging out with your friends, drinking some beers and having a good time, so I was in for it. We went to the supermarket to buy some groceries so we could have a good time cooking some nice food and drinking wine. On the way back from the supermarket we passed some australians and Mietta chooses to say "happy australia day mate". They were excited! They told us they were gonna throw a bbq at the hostel and have some beers, we were welcome to join in. We gave one of the guys some money and he bought beers and meat for us.

In the evening they fired up the grill and we started to get to know each other over some nice australian music. More and more people joined during the evening and we had delicious food. As a desert we had lamingtons. Lamington is a sponge cake that you dip in chocolate icing and roll in coconut - thumbs up for Australia on this one. We also played heaps of drinking games.

In one of the games, everybody needs a fuckname. You start the game of by yelling "hands in the middle, down with the shizzle and fuck" and then you start making a melodi with knocking the table twice and clapping your hands twice. First person mentions their own name, says "what the fuck, how about a" and sends it on to someone else. I taught everybody the game and it was a great success. Half of the people that evening I only know by their fuckname like "sensuel fuck", "aussie fuck" and "squirrel fuck". After way to many beers of playing this game, we decided to catch the happy hour at a bar near the hostel.

The happy hour was 2 cocktails with plenty of alcohol for 15bolivianos (around 2$). Here we continued playing drinking games, this time ring of fire where you place a lot of cards around a bottle and every cards has a function that makes someone drink. If you break the circle of cards you have to finish your drink. Four cocktails later we thought it would be a great idea to find a karaoke bar. That is how the night ended, beer and karaoke until we were about to faint.
When I come back to Denmark, I will definetely start celebrating Australia day!

Besides an awesome Australia day in Sucre, we also walked around the city. It is a really beautiful and calm city and the market might have been the best I visited so far. It was very clean, the food was fresh and delicious and the people were nice. You got to try cheeses, fruits etc. before you bought it.
We bought some fresh bread, cheese, tomatoes and salsa on our last day and had a lovely picnic in the park before we left for Potosi.

We found a great cheap hostel in Potosi called The Koala Den. There is two of them right next to each other, where the one of them is cheaper. It was a very cozy place with a great breakfast included! The best hostel breakfast so far. We booked a tour to the mines through the hostel which was just as cheap as anywhere else and we got a great guide!
I went in a group with Mietta and an elder couple from France. First we got our clothes, headlamp and boots for the mines and then we went to the miners market. It is optional, but common, to buy gifts for there miners here. We bought some dynamite, water and juice for the miners and went back into the bus towards the mines. On the way up, the bus stopped and we got to have a great view and take pictures of Potosi from above.

We entered the mine with our guide. He was young and loved to joke which was great. He called our group "the sexy llama fuckers". There is heaps of different mines and levels inside the mountain and the tunnels are usually very small. Most of the time you need to walk with bended legs and back. Sometimes you need to squeeze yourself up against the wall when the miners come running with a wagon filled with rocks and hopefully for them silver. The wagons are too heavy for them to stop if it goes just a bit downhill, so if you see a light coming towards you quite fast, you better go up against the wall.

We walked through the tunnels and into a small place with different statues. One of them of "El Tio" - The devil of the mine. You have to offer a sacrifice to him and we could see that many people put a cigarette in his mouth and threw some coca leaves in front of him. I believe this is for luck and protection.
We then moved further into the mine and down two levels. Our guide told us that on this level people worked with machines, but on the level below, they only had a hammers and nails, dynamite and shovels. We decided to go down there. It is incredible how they work! There was one guy with a big nail and a hammer trying to make a big enough hole in the mountain to place some dynamite. It would probably take around and hour if not more to finish this hole. Not only that, but it was also getting really hot down there, and he had to work for 8 hours.
Our guide pointed out to us, that they were all very happy that tourist came to visit the mines. He put it like this "You buy an expensive flight ticket from your country, you travel around, stay in hostels and eat out most of the time. You paid 100bolivianos to go on this trip and still you bring presents for the miners!".

It was a very interesting experience and I don´t think you can understand the life of a miner unless you decide to visit a mine yourself. Even after that it can be hard. They start working in their teens and in most cases they die around 20-25 years later. This means that most of them wont turn 50. It is different from mine to mine how much they have and how well equipped they are, but it is usually not well enough.

La Paz: Free beer, Alasitas, Death Road & Diabetes

When we came to La Paz on the 23rd of January, we checked in at adventure brew hostel. Included in the 49 bolivianos pr. night you get pancake breakfast and a free localy brewed draft beer every night. We arrived in the evening and went for our free beer and decided to sleep early.

The next day we went to book our trip on the Death Road. The tour agent told us that today was a special day. It was the day of abundance (Alasitas). Many bolivians go to the market and buy stuff in miniature such as houses, cars and money. Then they go to get it blessed and hopefully the miniature will help you get what you want one day. This is what we did. We bought some money and different stuff and went to an old lady with a small fire in front of her. She took my money and placed them in a plastic bag that she gave back to me. Then she made a lot of smoke and made my hands and money fload over it while she yelled stuff out to bless me. She threw in different kinds of flowers in the bag, threw salt over me and stuffed some kind of alcohol in my mouth with her finger. We all went through this amazing blessing and recevied fake dollar bills from locals since that is considered to also bring you luck in the future. A very special day, just once a year at 12:00pm. That was pretty good timing :)
In the evening all five of us went to the cinema to watch the Hobbit. Huge room but only about 10 other people than us in there, since the movie was in english.

We woke up early on the 25th to do the Death Road. The Death Road is considered to be the world most dangerous road and probably for this reason it became a big tourist attraction to do a biketrip on the road. First we went to the tour company to get our breakfast and equipment. Then we were driven up to around 4700 meters altitude where we got instructions and our bikes. The first part of the trip is around 20km on a normal road down the mountain. This is the part were you need to go as fast as you can! I've never biked that fast in my life.
After this you go to the Death Road for about 40km and down to the altitude of 1200 meters. At first it is a bit difficult. Your hands are shaking a lot because you have to hold on to the handlebars and the brakes. This starts to hurt after a while. The road is a rush though. It is great fun and amazing views. You have a lot of stops to wait for everyone and enjoy the views which was great. We even drove under a few small waterfalls. At the end of the trip we had a beer and a great lunch buffet. You need to bring insect repellent since there is tons of nasty mosquitoes or something similar that bites you. These bites are small but itches a lot!
We had to rush back to town since we had a bus to catch. We were off to Sucre at 8:00pm and the trip back to town would take around 3-3,5 hour, which meant we would miss our bus. Fortunately our tipsy driver and drunken guide insured us that they could make it in two hours and so they did. On the mountain road in extreme fogs, they rushed back to town and left us 2 minutes from our hostel. We got our stuff and made it to the bus, which turned out to be 20 minutes late anyway.

My bloodsugar on the Death Road was easy to control. I brought a snack in my pocket just in case, but it wasn't necessary. You barely use any energy on the trip, since it is just down hill and you don't actually need to bike. You just need to hold on to your bike and that's all. Remember that you go from 4700 meters to just 1200 meters, where you will have your lunch. The big difference in altitude probably means you need a bit less insulin for the lunch.

Pisaq ruins for free & Isla del Sol

The sacred valley consists of many villages and inca ruins. I decided to go to Pisaq since a few people recommended me to go there and see the ruins. When I was about to start the hike to the top, I got stopped and told that I have to pay around 100 soles to enter. This will give me access to several of the inca ruins around the sacred valley. Since I´ve already been on the inca trail and seen plenty, I didn´t want to pay that much. I returned back to the village disappointed. I walked around the marked, went to some small shops and a nice and cozy cafe where I got a great lemon and ginger tea! Every one of the locals that I talked to told me to go to the ruin before 8am in the morning, then nobody would be there to check my ticket.
I decided to return to Cusco and chill out with some of my new friends. I drank a beer with Rob and got introduced to Mietta, Naomi and Daniella. I thought I was going to bed early, but since it was quiz night and they were great company, I stayed up for way to many beers. I woke up at 5:00am the following morning after not enough sleep. I walked across town to catch a collectivo to Pisaq, arrived at 6:30 and begun hiking!
It was beautiful, quiet and hard. I was a bit tired and didn´t eat any breakfast. Fortunately I brought a huge avocado and some bread. When I had hiked long enough to have a good view over Pisaq, I decided to stop and eat my breakfast. The hike was surprisingly amazing! Filled with beautiful and big inca ruins, terraces and great views! Best of all, I only saw 4 other tourists up there on all of the hike for around 4 hours.
I returned to Cusco in the evening for another night of drinking games and hanging out in the hostel bar.

The following day I caught a bus to Copacabana with Rob, Naomi, Mietta, Cecilie and Daniella. Copacabana is the place to eat trout! For just 20 bolivianos (3$) you get to sit by the beach and eat a full delicious trout with rice and fries. Later that night we cooked food and drank wine. Cecilie had to go back to Cusco while the 5 of us continued to the northern part of Isla del Sol.
Isla del Sol is filled with tourists, but still it doesn´t feel that touristic. The village was nice and quiet, filled with all kinds of animals walking around and with the most amazing views of snowy mountains and the incredible lake Titicaca! We spent the first day just hanging out, walking around and playing "super mega ninja destruction" that Naomi taught us - great game! :)

Next morning we decided to do a small hike to the inca temple and a picnic. After breakfast we bought some food and panrelleno (something like a big empanada). First we crossed a small field with sheeps, beautiful lambs and donkeys. Then we walked across the mountain hill, not very steep and with great view of the rest of the hills. The view over the lake looked like a moviescene. I imagined it being like "The Truman Show". The clouds looked like someone just painted them and it looked like you would bump into a wall if you went to far on the lake. Just as Truman does in the movie.

Just before reaching the temple, we decided to have our picnic. We threw out two blankets, got out some crackers, bananas and panrelleno and enjoyed the view. Two small local girls came to us. The one of them very insisting pointing at our panrelleno. We gave them some crackers instead. Even after getting the crackers, she kept pointing to our bananas and panrelleno which was quite rude. After a while, she found out that she was not gonna get any more and then she left. The other girl "Pamela" was really sweet. She asked us many questions and she ended up doing a drawing of the five of us that she gave to us. Afterwards we taught her how to play super mega ninja destruction and she loved it :)

We then went to see the ruin of the inca temple. Quite nice, but not overwhelming after being in Cusco. Definetely nice though and still a great view. We walked down to the lake and sat on a small bridge with our feet in the cold water - Rob even went for a swim! We chilled out for a few hours on top of the ruin, enjoying the amazing view and kind of waiting for the sun to go down. But around six we were to hungry and it got colder, so we went back down and found a place to eat dinner. Turned out to be a great idea. When we entered the restaurant it started storming and raining a lot! After dinner we decided just to chill out at the restaurant, drink tea and coffee and play cards.

The next day we were headed for La Paz, but not without getting one last trout by the beach first!

The inca trail with diabetes - Machu Picchu

I had booked the 4 day classic inca trail months in advance to make sure that I would be able to do it when I got to Cusco. I have heard so many amazing things about Machu Picchu and the inca trail and I just hoped it would be as good as everyone said. When people hype a movie, song, event etc. too much, I find that it sometimes ruins the experience a bit. This is not the case for the inca trail and Machu Picchu! This journey just can´t be described in words or pictures - it has to be done.

Day 1

We had to meet up at a plaza in Cusco at 4:30am to take a bus to Ollantaytambo where we would have our breakfast. We were a group of 15 travelers, 2 guides, 20 porters and a chef. The breakfast costed 15 soles for a buffet with coffee, tea, fruit salads, juices, bread, meat, cheese, cereal and pancakes. A great breakfast + some time to wake up and get to know people - perfect. Afterwards we were driven to the starting point where we had our first group picture and some time to arrange our bags with the sleeping bags and mattresses that we got. - Don´t rent this from your company! - First of all it is more expensive than just going to a shop and renting it - which I fortunately did with hiking shoes, walking stick etc. - and secondly the sleeping bag and mattress that we got was huge and heavy! We just had to figure a way to carry it and I managed to stuff the Mattress into my bag while I attached the sleeping bag onto the bag.
We started walking uphill. It didn´t take much to make me breathless since it was a bit steep and the altitude was high. I had taken just two units of NovoRapid to the breakfast which had plenty of sugar, but all the hiking made me drop low. Just before the hike begun we got a small bag with a banana and some soda crackers as a snack until lunch - this was enough.

The first day was filled with sun. It was very hot but the view was amazing! Walking first along the huge river and then getting deeper into the mountains. After an amazing lunch it was just uphill until we reached the campsite. We walked 14km that first day. At the campsite we were provided with a bit of hot water, soap and a small towel each and I took a french shower (without the perfume/deodorant). There were a lady selling beer who had walked up from her small house along the path. We were a few people from the group enjoying an expensive beer on our first campsite on the inca trail - surreal feeling. By my request, ten of us played a namegame and since that game I remembered all of their names :) We then had our first happy hour before dinner! Tea, coffee and hot chocolate (for most of us this meant mixing coffee and hot chocolate since we couldn´t make up our mind), plenty of popcorn and crackers. We then had our first amazing dinner with a lot of variety and I ended the night playing cards in Zen and Sara´s tent with them and a few guys from the group.

Day 2

Today we had to walk 16km. It is said to be the longest and hardest day. Most km, only up and down hill and reaching the highest altitude of the trip - 4200m.
For breakfast we had plenty of carbs to help us with some energy. Pancakes, fruitsalad, pourage, cake and some coffee/tea. I took one unit of NovoRapid which turned out to be too much. Usually when I work out (dancing) I push myself hard and get up the pulse. The result is that my blood sugar is flying up and I need more insulin. Doing the hike is not like dancing. This is exercise all day! I believe this is the reason why the one unit was too much and I only needed to take the Levemir for the rest of the trip. I had expected to take more insulin because of the altitude and cold evenings, but no.

Today we learned how to chew coca leaves for altitude sickness and other benefits. First time it was a bit weird and after keeping it in your mouth for 20-30 minutes you need to chew it - not a pleasure first time. I got used to it though and now I´ve started to like it. Today I walked together with half of the group most of the time. We talked a lot and supported each other when it got hard. Just before reaching the campsite, we saw a big inca ruin. It was so impressive! Unfortunately it was foggy and we had a bad view. Russ, Nat and I decided to stay while the others went to the campsite to relax. After 20 minutes of walking around and exploring the ruins, it suddenly cleared up and we had an amazing view of the jungle and the mountains!

Day 3

Today we had a lot of rain! We walked in the rain trying not to slip and fall and hoped it would soon clear up. It was worst in the morning though. Most of the time the rain actually wasn´t that strong and it was not too bad in my opinion. We are in Machu Picchu and the weather is a part of the experience - as long as it is not foggy all the way :) When we reached the huge inca terraces, the sun came out and we had a great view and a history from our guide. The day was short and the place where we ate lunch was also our campsite. I went for a long walk back to the ruins with Russ after lunch and visited some other ruins with the group later on. In the evening we had our last happy hour with a huge delicious cake! The porters and the chef are so impressive! He manages to make pizza and cake in a pot and have a big variety of great food every day! A bunch of vegetables and proteins every day - it was the healthiest I had been eating for a while. The porters are in all ages and they all carry huge bags a lot bigger than themselves. They don´t seem to complain, they run ahead of you to make your tent and food ready and their bag does not even have support like ours does.
The rest of the night was again cardgames and going to bed early.

Day 4

We woke up at 3:00am, had a quick coffee, some bread and went directly for the check point. We wanted to be the first ones to enter when they opened at 5:30am. There was one group in front of us, but it was just 4 seniors who we got ahead of as soon as we were through the chekcpoint :)
We played cardgames for 2 hours before they opened the checkpoint and then we started walking towards Machu Picchu. There was one guy from the group ahead of me, who reached the sungate before me. When I arrived to the sungate he was already gone and it was only me and a guy who worked there. Almost alone on the sungate, the second person to get there and with the best view of Machu Picchu! This felt amazing. After 5 minutes a few more people from my group came and I started hiking shortly after. I then realized that I didn´t just want to hurry there if I was gonna do it alone. I started running back to meet my friends and then we hurried together :) We got to Machu Picchu quite early and had a great clear view of it. WOW! I have seen so many different pictures of Machu Picchu, but nothing can be compared to how it looks when you are there! I believe I enjoyed it even more after walking for 4 days to get there.

When all of the group arrived, we went down to place our bags, use a propper toilet (not a hole in the ground as for the rest of the trip) and then we entered the actual inca ruins. We walked around and got a great guidetour with plenty of information - very interesting! It is really impressive to hear about how they built it, what thoughts they had, why it looks like it looks and how they managed to transport such big rocks! After the guidetour, I stayed in Machu Picchu for another 3-4 hours with Russ and Nat. Walking around a bit and also just sitting, enjoying the view and enjoying being in Machu Picchu.

On the train back to Cusco we had a bunch of beers and rum. We celebrated the success of the trip and also that Cedric, who is around 30 years old, had his first train ride ever!
We played cards and got drunk and then went back to party all night in Cusco. The inca trail is an amazing experience which have given me a great memory for life and some amazing new friends. It is an expensive trip - but definetely worth every dollar!

Ps: On the trip I did a few dancing videos on different nice locations that I might edit to one short trailer from my trip to Machu Picchu. Hopefully I will find the time to edit the video and if I like the result, you will get to see the video. Anyway, how cool is it to say you have breakdanced on an inca ruin? ;)

Cusco & Insulin

On the way to Cusco my bus was two hours delayed. Fortunately I met Alex from France who I first met in Lima and then on Ballistas Islands - his bus was also delayed and we hung out for two hours talking and drinking beer.
It is amazing how you keep meeting the same people over and over again in different cities. In almost every city I´ve met someone that I´ve met before. I even met a danish couple and a week later I met the girl´s dad who was traveling with his wife.

Coming to Cusco was amazing and cold! After staying in Iquitos for 4 weeks and then going through the dessert, you are not used to the cold evenings they have in Cusco! Besides the cold and the changing weather, Cusco is a great city! It is really beautiful and has plenty of nice places to go. One of my first days I went on a free walking tour. The two guides took us around town for 3 hours showing us monuments, viewpoints, different cafe´s and restaurants where we f.ex. got to taste a piece of sushi, some chicha morada, choclos and chocolate tea for free. We were also shown to different museums and we got to see how they works with silver and alpaca wool. This is a must if you go to Cusco! 

My time in Cusco have been amazing so far! I get to relax a lot and hang out with different people on the hostel. I made new friends and went out for beers, dinners etc. This summer when I was hitchhiking in Europe, I met a girl from Spain. She is now working in Cusco for 4 months and we also met up for lunch which was great. I am taking my time here and trying to figure out what to do and where to go next.

Tuesday it was ladies night at the hostel. This meant that all ladies or anyone dressed as one, would get a free shot every hour from 9pm-01am. Tobias (a danish guy I met on the hostel) and I decided to dress up as girls and save some money on alcohol. We borrowed some clothes from Josse and Pernille (two other danish girls we met on the hostel) and got some attention and free shots in the bar ;) Later on we went with a bunch of people from the hostel to a club and danced all night, though in our normal clothes :)

I found out that January is a great month to travel in South America. I met a lot of peruvian, chilenian, brazilian and colombian travelers. Even more argentinians though! All of them have vacation now and are traveling. This is both great for me to practice my spanish and also a great opportunity to get some advice from locals and maybe even have a friend or two in one of my destinations :)



My diabetes have been acting a bit weird since end of december. Around christmas I suddenly went from taking no NovoRapid to taking 5-8 units for every meal! This lasted for a week and then went down to just 1-3 units pr. meal. Going from Iquitos to Lima, Lunahuana, Huacachina and Nazca have not really shown any pattern in the change of insulin. Some days I just need more than others, without having much to do with the food I eat. F.ex. I was on the flight from Iquitos to Lima and chocolate bars, vanilla crackers and soda crackers which was the food we got - I didn´t have to take any insulin! In Cusco which is a lot higher altitude, my use of insulin have been very low and is now down to none again, only the Levemir. It can´t seem to figure out why it changes all the time, but since I don´t see a pattern in the temperature change or altitude change, it might just be how relaxed I am. At the moment I am just really relaxing. I don´t worry about anything and take my time here in Cusco which is great for me and probably also my diabetes!

One more thing. I placed my hand luggage in the luggage room of the bus. Apparently this was a bad idea. Several heavy bags was thrown on top of mine, which resulted in most of my teststripboxes opened. I didn´t notice this until around 1,5 day later. I thought they would all be ruined. I tried measuring my bloodsugar with strips from 3 of the packs that were opened and one that was still closed - they all showed the same! I hope it will continue like this. I don´t know how it was possible since they are not allowed to get much air, but I am just very lucky and glad that they seem to still work fine.

New years eve in Lima, Lunahuana, Huacachina, Nazca

In Pilpintuwasi I met a group of friends from Oregon who I gave a tour in Pilpintuwasi and we talked for a bit. The same group of friends I met on the hostel I went to in Lima and I spent new years eve with them. There was a great party in the hostel. I helped with the grocery shopping to make it cheap and it ended up with food and a lot of alcohol for everyone for 20 soles each. I started early drinking red wine, whisky, rum and pisco and the food didn´t get ready until much later. Just before midnight I was smashed and as soon as I saw the fireworks, I went to bed. It was a great evening though and I met a lot of nice people. The following morning I was up before everyone else and went for along walk along the beach - amazingly quiet and beautifull in the morning sun!

I agreed with two girls from the hostel - Erin and Shea - that we should go to Lunahuana and Ica together and so we did.

Lunahuana is a very small village sorrounded by dessert mountains and with a big river next to it. When we got there, we went for a walk along the river and found a small treehouse just next to the river where we spent some time just relaxing. Extremely beautiful. The noize from the strong and wide river, the grapeplants around us and the big empty mountains. The following day we went for river rafting which was great fun and cheap!

In the afternoon we took a bus to Huacachina where we found a cheap hostel. As soon as we enter I spot the group from Oregon. Spencer, Ben, Jordan and Whitney. They had been out sandboarding and where going to Cusco later that evening.
In the evening I spent some time talking to Ben about couchsurfing, woofing etc. untill Spencer invited me to the bar and made me a great and strong rum and coke. We partied until he had to catch the bus to Cusco.

In Huacachina, Shea, Erin and I went sandboarding, dune buggy and went on a trip to the Ballistas Islands. I can only recommend people to do all of it! Great fun and incredible nature! Watching sea lions climbing from the water up on the rocks and some of them were fighting. Watching penguins and a bunch of birds outside a zoo. It was great!

Erin and I continued to Nazca. The owner of our hostel tried to sell us a flight going over the nazca lines for 430 soles each. I thought it was way to much and wanted to go ask tour agencies the following day. He kept offering me a lower price and I ended up paying 220 soles for a night in the hostel including open bar in the evening and breakfast in the morning + the flight over the nazca lines!

A few people that I met:

Lucas from Argentina. He hates the police and authorities. He had a visa to Peru for 60 days, but stayed 75. When he crossed the border they asked him to pay a fine which he refused. He thought it was stupid and he didn´t really have the money. He ended up going to jail for two days trying to convince they police that he did nothing wrong and shouldn´t be in jail. They told him that he could pay the fine and reenter Peru when he wanted to or he could spend more time in jail and never be allowed into enter Peru again. After the two days he asked for 5 hours to go sell some of his stuff to earn money in order to pay the fine, and so he did. Now he was with less than 50 soles trying to get from Lima to Bogota where he could get a job.

Carlos from Argentina and his two sons of 20 and 17 years. They are travelling around South America, trying to find the cheapest ways around and earning money for their journey by playing music on the streets. They are very talented musicians and gave a small concert on new years eve in the hostel. It resulted in a bunch of people, including myself, screaming out the lyrics of Yesterday by the Beatles :)

Spencer from Oregon. One of the guys from the group. He lives from fighting in UFC. Now he is on vacation and parties all the time. He has a lot of crazy stories to tell and he showed me pictures from UFC and of the bus that he bought - just to have a bus. What is most incredible is that he makes so many friends without knowing more than 5 words of spanish which is words like naked and drunk. In Huacachina we partied. he had just been there on night and already everyone in Huacachina knew him.

Christmas eve and more

I started the 24th of by buying a paneton to share for breakfast with the staff and the two other people at the hostel. Everybody was really happy when waking up to paneton :) I went to call my brother and wish him a happy birthday and we talked for 10-15 minutes which was nice. Liz and I went for a walk until she needed to take her flight back to Lima and Toni came and picked me up. First we went to his house - a very interesting and nice house. He showed me the great view from his terrasse and we talked while he played guitar. After a few hours we went to his sisters house. At first the family seemed very quiet. The sister has three kids - two boys around 13 and 19 and one girl around 16. They all spoke well english since their dad was from the states, but they didn´t say much. After around half an hour, the conversation really got going, they all became talkative and we had great conversations for hours. The two brothers showed me a computergame that one of them were programming, quiet impressive.
For dinner we had pizza with coca cola and champagne. Then I had brought a cake as a gift to the family for inviting me. When they pulled out the cake from the fridge, they all began to sing a birthday song for me - I was so overwhelmed with joy! Toni said that they couldn´t just skip a birthday in the family, they needed to sing for me :)
The evening was not a christmas with christmas songs or a tree, but it was with a family filled with love which was even better.

Around midnight, Toni and I walked to my hostel. We talked about "the alchymist" and about dreams. People having dreams but who don´t do anything to pursue their dreams. We also talked about beginners luck as described in the alcymist. During this conversation, I tried to figure out what I wanted in life, what was my dream. At first I couldn´t find an answer and I thought it was bad. I didn´t have a dream and therefore nothing to pursue or fight for. Then I realized I was fooling myself. I don´t know what I want to do for the rest of my live yet and what I want to be or where in the world, but I know what I want right now. My dream for many years was to go to South America, finally I was able to pursue it! This is the first step towards my future - one day at a time. I enjoy where I am instead of worrying to much about the future, and even though I try not to think to much about it, I know that I am getting closer to the answer every day :)
New years resolutions is somehow a sad thing. Why wait until new year to pursue our dreams or try to improve ourselves. If you know what you want, go get it now!


I had my last day in Pilpintuwasi last friday and went to town in the evening. On the boat it was quiet and there was a fullmoon, the most beautiful fullmoon over the river! I went to a new hostel where I met many other travellers in all ages. Some of them I knew from when they visited Pilpintuwasi. I stayed in a room with a man from Spain and two travellers from Argentina. I got to practice my spanish a lot and I heard some crazy stories and got a lot of traveling advice.
I have met so many amazing and interesting people the past week and it would take forever to write about it.
I liked being the only volunteer, I met more people on the tours and I talked more to the other workers and practiced my spanish. When I went to Iquitos, by coincidence I met people I showed around in Pilpintuwasi and it resulted in a beer with them, a walk or a change of contact information.

I decided to go change my flight ticket to Lima and go earlier (from the 5th of January to the 30th of December). I am ready to travel and I have to be in Cusco on the 8th of January. I figured that if I went to Lima earlier, maybe I would have time to visit Ica on the way to Cusco.

So far I have stayed 3,5 week in Quito and around 4 weeks in Padre Cocha. I really enjoyed it and feel that I have learned more about the cities and the culture. It is a very different experience to stay in a place for longer than just 4-5 days and get to know people. I have lived with locals both places which have also been an advantage. I hope to find another city later on where I can spend a few weeks trying to meet locals, find some dancers and also practice my spanish - but now I am ready to be on the run for a bit :)