Chapter IX & X - Sashy equator and last bits

Quito (Ecu) - Otavalo - Quito - Ipiales (Col) - Bogota

So finally it is time. Time to return to South America and to write about the last part of our journey. We should have known that if we don't write about the trip while being on the trip, it will never be written. After over a year of pondering we took the time to tell you what happened in the last week of our trip. (One week!! Damn it we are lazy!) In this week we travelled about 1050 km and got to know two capital cities.

Our busdriver on the way to the equator told us the story of his life
 because we pretty much sat on his lap the whole trip. He was from
 Spain and had moved to Ecuador because of the unemployment in Spain.
 A cool guy who tried to get us party with him. We passed. 

This old man seemed to be doing some kind of strange rituals,
where he summoned spirits and people around him threw coins at him.

Although we had made the decision that we would not fly inside of South America, we realized that we didn't have enough time or energy to sit in a bus for days to travel from Lima to Quito. We were sure we would die in  a plane crash, but ended up flying anyway. The flight costed about the same amount as a bus would have, or even less.

The magical border of south and north (Mitad del Mundo)! Fun Fact, the actual
 border is not here. The construction workers just moved the border,
because the soil in the actual spot wasn't suitable for a big ass monument.

We arrived in Quito late and spent the night in a picturesque hostel that had a really homey feel. For some reason that we don't remember anymore we decided to change to another hostel the next day - great decision yay! because we met some very nice people. The new hostel keeper told Anneli he had even visited Finland couple of years ago (must have been a rich guy :D).

There were two things we wanted to do while in Ecuador: visit the equator and the Otavalo market. At the equator we wanted to do something memorable and asked two random guys to film us. We went to have a snack and incidentally the same guys came in to eat aswell. While eating we found out they were staying at the same hostel as we. Because of these guys and their friends we ended up staying in Quito longer than planned because we wanted to join them on a trip to a thermal spa.

OMG we are in the south and north hemisphere at the same time!!!

Wonderful breakfast just around the corner from our hostel.

Weird local figsandwiches. White bread with roasted figs.

Anneli bought a wooden warrior mask (as you should do when travelling)
that probably supported that artist a whole year. 

Otavalo is a little town about an hour away from Quito. Every Saturday there is a huge market, where local people sell their products. It's usually packed with tourists trying to find the best deals. We went there to check out the atmosphere and ended up buying some artwork. During our travels we had seen the works of the artist Nativo a couple of times, but at Otavalo he was everywhere and every salesperson said they were this person. Then we found a small tent that only sold Nativo art. The woman told us she was Nativos wife. We asked around and found out she was telling the truth, so we decided to buy his art from her. Sanni bought some paintings and Anneli a wooden mask. Our official "we were in South America, belive us" items. 

Four days before our flight back to Finland we decided it was time to continue the trip. Since wise travellers know everything, we knew that it'd be better to cross the Colombian border during day time than in the middle of the night. We hopped onto a bus and travelled the night from Quito to the border. There we hopped off, crossed a bridge in the morning sun and checked ourselves into the wild country of Colombia.

A friend of ours gave us something to disguise ourselves with, should the situation
get too heated or some kind of trouble occur. We thought the border between Ecuador
and Colombia would be the place. Thank you Tuomas, these really saved our lives.

Town of Ipiales just across the border on the Colombian side

Santuario de las Lajas, perhaps the most beautiful church we have ever seen.

After some touristing-around in Ipiales, the town at the border, we continued our journey: only 800 km to go until we reached our last destination, Bogota. It wasn't even our longest bus ride, but it still took half a day and a whole night.

Waiting for the taxi at around eight in the morning. We tried
to find somebody who would like to share a taxi with us.
Eventually a kind young man told us, that wasn't common
here and not wise to do, but ended up sharing his taxi with us.

We were wondering, what to do in a city where it isn't safe anywhere. We found out a bike shop close by our hostel did bike tours in Bogota and joined along. And what a relief it was when we mounted our bikes - they weren't broken but nice and sturdy. It was a great way to see the city; the market places, bull fighting arena, graveyards and coffee roastery.

Yummy yummy fruity fruits!

They told us Colombia is fairly safe for tourists, but the people living and
 having their own opinions are the ones in danger. The graffiti is
a tribute to a comic artist who was killed because of his views.

Delicious Colombian coffee (to be honest neither of us was a coffee
 addict back then so it didn't taste much different than Juhla Mokka).

A square near by the hostel was home to maybe one thousand pigeons and to this handsome man and his handsome llama (at least during the days). Riding the llama costed a peso or two and was sooo worth it!

Since we had a lot of time to spend in the city, we went to see some local art. We found some magnificent works by Fernando Botero, a world-famous Colombian artist who specialises in portraying his objects, well, fat. We saw fat Mona Lisa, many fat families and a fat horse. Among other fat things. To make sure we were snobby and European enough, we also went shopping for real clothes (clothes that we can actually wear in Finland too). After 3 months of just looking at things and never getting to buy anything so we wouldn't have more stuff to carry, this was heaven.

Fat bananas

Fat cat

Some traditional local food. No idea what it is.

We will be posting once more, and let's hope it will be soon! We'll write about how it felt and feels to be back in Finland, what one might want to know before travelling to South America and what to take with you when travelling for a longer period of time.

Chapters VII & VIII - Great encounters make happy travellers & Piccu Macho

San Pedro de Atacama (Ch) - Salar de Uyuni (Bo) - La Paz - Capacabana - Random town between Copacabana and Cusco (Pe) - Cusco - Aguas Calientes - Cusco - Lima - Quito (Ec)

Sunrise at Salar de Uyuni.

The morning of our trip to the biggest salts flats in the world had arrived. This was the part of the trip I had been the most exited about in advance. Because we would be spending the next 3 days with the same four people, we were hoping for a good group. In the bus on the way to the border of Bolivia, we heard that a group of 4 friends had chosen us to be in their group. We were very happy about this because our group couldn't have been better. On the way to the flats we got to see unbelievable landscapes, swimm in a natural hot spring and see a lot of flamingos (one of my childhood dreams since I watched the Lion King). Pictures don't do justice to our experiences, but neither do words, so we'll settle for pictures.

Doing the "Flamingo". Presented in the picture are the ladies of our group.
Great people that we sure hope to meet some day again!

Lama baby: "What an idiot!"

Exhausted Sanni at some lavastone formations.

Salar de Uyuni.

At Salar, Sanni decided to do some acrobatics on the guitar and Anneli's safety ring.

Anneli was just feeling lazy and sat around.

Sanni was pretty much the only one of the whole group
affected by the altitude. Many got tingling fingers and
felt a bit light headed, but she was in pain and at some
point began to feel sick. Luckily the worst was over after
a good sleep and some extra oxygen (though she was
only able to use the bottle once before the damn thing
broke). Apparently 5000 m of height was too much.

From Uyuni we headed to La Paz with a 4WD on a road that was pawed only on a fraction of the way. This bus ride was the most horrible one we've ever been in. I was pretty sure we'll crash and die. After sleeping for maybe an hour combined, we arrived in La Paz safe and sound. We spend in La Paz a couple of days with our friends from the Uyuni trip. Most of the time was spent searching for the perfect alpaca jacket and some yarn for Sanni. I did end up finding it and for everyone who asks, it's definitely real alpaca-lama-mix. Not synthetic. After asking from about twenty different shops, Sanni ended up finding one tienda that sold alpaca yarn, also definitely real stuff. La Paz was a cool city with A LOT of hills to walk up, but it was also the most polluted city I've ever been in. Hard on our altitude-weak lungs.

Mumified lama babies at the witch market of La Paz.
We were told all of these have died of natural causes.

The biggest high altitude lake, Lake Titicaca was our next destination. We were supposed to stay at the lake for some days, seeing the islands and chilling, but sometimes life throws you an offer you can't refuse. At the hostel we heard that these two guys from New Zealand are travelling around South America by car and are going to Cusco the next day. So we ended up hitching a ride from them. Going by bus is easy, but going by car and having the chance to stop everytime you feel like seeing something is way more interesting! The way to Cusco took us twice as long, but time spent with these guys was definitely worth it.

Sanni was a bad-ass and swam in Lake Titicaca. The water was freezing!

When we were in Cusco it was time to start thinking about the different ways we could get to Machu Picchu. The easiest way was taking a tour. Because we were still hanging with the Kiwis we also considered just driving to Aguas Calientes (the nearest city to Machu Picchu). We soon realized that that could be a problem, the city not having any access to it via car. We ended up taking a budget tour by van to the nearest city with a car, Santa Teresa, and hiking the last 12 km. (Just to let somebody who considers driving themselves to Santa Teresa know, it is possible. Whatever everyone will tell you.)

The road to Santa Teresa. Worse than the
Death Road, said our friends who
had been to the Death Road already.

Ready to hike 12 km on the train tracks to get to Aguas Calientes.

We spent one night in a hostel and woke up at 4 to start the climb up to the ruins. The hike from previous day had ruined Sanni's already throbbing feet (note to anybody considering a pedicure: make sure the lady knows what she's doing so you won't end up with nails growing into your toes so badly that they hurt even in your sleep) so she unfortunately had to take a bus up. I walked the 1700 stone steps up arriving at the gate of the ruins in the brink of day. To not make things too easy after the hour hike up the stairs, we had booked a ticket to climb also the Machu Picchu mountain, a 2 hour hike up even more stairs. Even though Sanni's feet were killing her, she dug up some finnish sisu and finished the hike with me. I have never been as proud of her!

There it is then.

The way up to the Machu Picchu mountain
consisted of steps like these.

OMG SO FLUFFY!

With the time running out on us we had decided to fly from Lima to Quito. Now we just had the stress on getting to Lima on time for the flight. This was in theory no problem because we had bought our bus tickets in advance. The only problem was the landslide that had cut the road between Santa Teresa and the rest of the way back to Cusco. After waiting for an hour for the road to get cleaned and cleaned again after three more "waves" of mud, stones, sand and water hit it, we ended up running through the sliding mud between vans trying to get over at the same time. Fortunately everybody survived and we got to Cusco only an hour late. The Kiwi's weren't unfortunately going to Lima, so we had to say goodbye to them and get a 22h bus to Lima.

That's a video showing a small part of the landslide we run across. When we crossed it, there was thankfully not so much stones coming down, more mud and water.

Our hiking boots after the landslide.

You can't go to Peru and not eat the local speciality Cuy (Guinea Pig).
Happy little rodant! We also tried alpaca - you'll find the most delicious
steaks in Nuna Raymi in Cusco. Tastiest meat ever.

We had only one night in Lima, so we didn't have time to see the city so much. The only thing worth telling is that we both swam in the Pacific Ocean for the first time in our lives. It wasn't as cold as we had expected, but because of the heavy waves, we both were lucky to get out alive. Too soon we had to say goodbye to Peru and fly to Quito.

The Pacific Ocean

On the way back to the hostel I stumbled on
a stone step and ripped the top of my toe open.
We went to a near hospital to get a bandage,
but they ended up cleaning it properly and
everything. And because we had no
money with us, they did it for free.

Our flight back to Finland leaves the day after tomorrow, so we will not have time to write about Ecuador and Colombia. That will be done from back home. Now we will enjoy our last two days and do some shopping and relaxing. See you soon home folks!

Pisspot!

Chapter IV - Picturesque views

Araxá - Rio de Janeiro - Curitiba - Ilha do Mel - Curitiba - Foz do Iguaçu

Up first, pictures from Araxá:

Meeting some of Sanni's friends after six long years!
Andim, Fred, Wilker, Poliana, Arison (and later
Hugo and Rogerio too), foi bom ver vcs!

Visiting Barreiro with Sanni's brazilian mum Eliene,
who let us stay in her home for the week.

SWEET PIZZA and salami, thanks Diego!

Oops, rebellionism. Two piercings in different
ears weren't the best idea, after more than a
week they still hurt when laying in bed :<

We went to see small waterfalls near Araxá.

Behind you can see some of the falls. In front
Anneli almost falling off of a cliff. On the same
trip we got a proof that brazilians drive reclessly
 - though the car didn't break, the front tire
wasn't as lucky.

Everyone we told about us being homesick and in some way wanting to go back home just said, wait and see how you will feel in a couple of weeks. We were waiting forward to the feeling of excitement and wanted to really start our trip. Thankfully we guessed correctly and Araxá was the thing to pull us out of our culture shock. After a week of relaxing and doing fun stuff with Sanni's friends, we headed to Rio. Sanni had been there 3 times before, so she wasn't as excited as I was. The song Copacabana had been stuck in my head for days before going there (and was the whole time we spent in Rio). We arrived in Rio early in the morning and had to find out something to do for the hours before check in. We of course went to the beach and ended up falling asleep and burning ourselves partially. Sanni now has a (hopefully) permanent hippo'ish' looking creature on her right thigh and very brown feet.

Everybody wants to go by bus!

Sanni's now probably permanent hippo friend, who was
at some point infested by a rash and sun allergy. (Note to
Sanni's mum, she put Bepathen on it many times a day.)

There is so much to see in Rio that we were wondering how we could see it all the easiest and cheapest way. Originally we didn't want to do the 'tourist thing' and do an expensive tour where you go see everything with a guide. But in the end, we did it anyway and it was a good choice. We could see all of the biggest attractions in one day and met a couple of really nice people on the way. From our guide we heard a secret tip that you can actually hike up half of the way to Pão de Açucar (the Sugar Loaf) and get a free ride up to the actual mountain with the locals after 7pm. Because we love being stingy, we always take the chance to not pay for something. Two other people from our group decided to do it with us. According to our guide the hike was supposed to be easy and even her small son could walk it. It ended up being 30 minutes of natural 'stairs' made of tree roots and rocks. But we made it and the feeling was great! Then it turned out that her information was outdated and we couldn't get all the way up. It didn't matter though because the sunset and the view were just as great from the lower landing.

Jesus was touched by Anneli. Or the other
way around. Can you see the Holy Light
emitting from the touch? (Sanni does
not approve of this joke.)

The way up to Pão de Açúcar. Easy, right?

Desperation?

Sunset in Rio

After Rio we took a night bus to Curitiba. It was the best so far! We sat in the first row of a double-decker so we could lean our feet against the window and sleep properly. Sitting next to us there were two very nice grannies, one of them had just turned  100 years old. From Curitiba we were planning to travel to Ilha do Mel (the Honey Island). This time we were smart and found out in advance if there was a room for us. When we arrived to the beautiful island that has no cars and proper roads, just sand everywhere, we found out that our hostel keeper would find a room for us somewhere on the island, not in his hostel. Because he also rents tents, we decided to stay in one, paying only a half of what we would have paid for a room. A decision at least I grew to regret. The first night it was hot like hell and the second it rained and stormed like I had never experienced before. I was sure the tree covering the campsite would fall on us. Well it didn't and everything turned out just great. The island was absolutely beautiful and the water warm like 'birds milk' as the Finns say.

Ilha do Mel

Anneli trying to cool off in the breeze and also
 trying to take a cool pic. Sanni admitted of timing
the picture taking the way that only 1/8 pictures
does not have a bum showing. You are welcome world!

Now we are in Foz do Iguaçu trying to plan our next move. We just don't feel like leaving this hostel and its comfortable beds.  We have already been here for one night more than planned and seen the falls from the Brazilian and the Argentinian side. We know we don't have so much time to lose, but then again...comfortable beds (and good breakfast and nice atmosphere and people). We know we will go to Paraguay next, most likely to Encarnación to experience their twist on carnival.

Brazilian side with our new Irish friends

View from the Brazilian side of the falls

Unbelievably cute, fluffy and rabies-carrying mammal.
We thought it could be Marsupilami but apparently
it's some sort of raccoon or aardvark (maasika).

Devil's Throat, Garganta del Diablo - the first
and biggest of the falls.

We told you before that we are going to write about the feelings we have had about Brazilians and some of the cultural differences that have effected us the most. Now that we are leaving Brazil it feels like the best moment to tell you about them (not that we haven't been negative before. Heh. Heh.). After the first days in Salvador, we wrote a short text about our feelings. We didn't post it online, because we wanted to see if our feelings would stay the same after the initial shock. We do still feel shocked about the way people treat this unique and beautiful country they have, filling it with litter, cans and plastic bags. Seriously, they give one plastic bag for each item when you go grocery shopping.  To us it seems people don't see the effect of their actions. We have been laughing about how Brazilians must feel if they go to Finland and nobody packs their groceries, not to talk about the huge bags we have (bad customer service anyone?). The government tries to remind people not to litter by putting signs and billboards by the roads, but people learn to not care since childhood. I saw a 3-year-old eating a candy and just throwing the paper on the ground, just like the older lady next to him. Again, we have to say there are exeptions like D'Aventura, the firm we told you about. Brazilians are also very proud of their recycling system, something we haven't seen in action, but what hopefully works.

We took a shower under these waterfalls.
No one stayed dry on that boat ride.

In the text we also wondered about the attitude towards other people. We are not sure if we have just gotten used to it or do we just see things more positive, but people just don't seem so bad anymore. Somehow we have felt and still feel like many people would have a 'me first' -attitude to things. We don't know where this feeling comes from and also don't feel comfortable talking about it, because the subject is a nation that consists of groups with hugely different economical status. How people show caring and worry for the lesser, if they do it, is a riddle to us and in that sense also hard to understand for well-cared students from Finland. Respect towards other people and how it's shown is a very complicated concept and it defines a culture greatly. It's impossible for us to know if we can see respect in any other way than our own. We have talked with Brazilians about our feelings and some of them do agree with us, so maybe we are not totally off in our views.

View of the falls from the Argentinian side

After this labor-like try to get our feelings and my over-analytical head in order, we have to say that Brazil has been a joy and a puzzle. I'm sure it won't change in other South-American countries, but it has given us a good start to this trip that is turning into a load of deep hows and whys. In the last post Sanni was giving me compliments about being a good sport among all this portuguese, so now it's my turn. Poor Sanni has to listen to me analyze my head, her head and the head of every person that walks past. That's really not easy.

Oh and if you wonder about us not listing good and bad things about each other, we decided that it's none of your business. We still talk about all of them (mostly because I have to and make everyone else talk about everything), we just don't have the need to tell you about Sanni warming the water bottle with her hands and me screwing the cap unnecessarily tight. All you need to know is that we are having loads of fun, eating a lot of meat and inspite of our disagreements we still love eatch other (Sanni read it and made a throw-up-face).

We went to eat in a churrascaria, where
different types of delicious meats are
served to tables in swords. This picture
says more than a thousand words.