agnesola

A little bit more than a month to go!!!
London, United Kingdom
Hi everybody...
We are still in London, getting ready to leave for the big travel... So what's the plan...???
Well it would be cruel to leave for about 9 months without saying bye to everyone. SO: we say goodbye to all our London friends very soon as we are leaving the town in less than two weeks now. Then France, where we have to see all of my family (Agnes') and it is a big job I promise you!!!
And then Sweden, where we are going to say byebye to all our favorite Swedes and to Ola's family...).
And after that.... well we are going for 9 months of adventure, starting from 24 June and covering South America and Asia!!! We can't wait...
See you!!!
Agnes and Ola
written by  agnesola on May 7, 2007 from London, United Kingdom
from the travel blog: Baby and Baby's around the world travel...

A little bit more than two Weeks to go...
Chartres, France
Clélie 1er jour
Hello everyone...!
We are in France driving around everywhere seeing friends and Agnes Family, it's great to see everyone and I spend a lot of time sleeping in cars :). France is a beautiful country and I spend some time seeing the countryside when I am out running, next saturday in Sweden I am running against my brother, it's gonna be a struggle!
It is only 2 and a half week left until we leave for Brazil!!!!!!! and our adventure.
Here in France Agnes' sister, Delphine and Husband Manu have started another little adventure, her name is Clélie and now they are a little family!
Clélie, 15 Jours
5 days left until Sweden, elk and lingonberrys...mmmmmm...nice. can't wait to see everyone there!
Love, Ola
Hi.....!!!!
As you can imagine our excitement grows day after day and we can't wait to leave, first for Sweden and then for the big trip!!!
But i am extremely happy that I could see my lovely Clélie, my niece, before the travel.... she is the cutie on the pictures and she is a little angel... I already miss her!!!
lots of kisses to all of you guys...
Agnes
Salut les gars!!!
Allez un petit texte en Francais juste comme ca... alors la on est encore en France, on decolle dans quelques jours pour la Suede et apres nous partons vraiment pour la grande aventure... le stress et l'excitement commencent a monter!!!
En attendant, on a bien profité de notre petite nièce Clélie qui est née il y a un peu plus de deux semaines et qui est un ange, une petite beauté...
Allez j'embrasse tout le monde... (et surtout Manu et Delphine!!)
written by  agnesola on June 7, 2007 from Chartres, France
from the travel blog: Baby and Baby's around the world travel...

rain, strange weather, sunshine and a big christ
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
agnes and ola second day in rio
So, we are in Brazil, finally. It is the start of our big trip and it started with rain, rain and a bit more rain. It stopped during lunch though and we went out for a little walk, it took just around 6 hours. we live in a part called botafogo and we started by walking towards another part called centro. On our way there we got sidetracked and walked towards santa teresa, it was quite a walk, very steep cobblestoned streets but is was very beatiful and bohemic with colorful houses and a very stunning view.
Tram in Santa Theresa
we continued towars centro from this part because there was not very much people and we wanted to see life and movement. We were looking for the right street to take us down from this high place and spotted a gang of monkeys running on the phonewires, our first wildlife experience in Brazil!
Monkeys in Rio
We thought the walk up was steep, but going down was harder on the feet, After struggling not to roll down the streets we arrived close to centro. We spotted the ugliest cathedral I have ever seen, we did not even take a photo from outside, but it had stunning glaswork on the inside.
after strolling around centro for a bit it was time to walk to the hostel, we picked the scenic sea route. By this time it was dark outside, we walked along the beach and there was quite a breeze. It felt like a big storm was coming or something because the sky was cloudy and dark, it was strange but it had a certain serenity to it, a calm somehow.
Well once home we took some cold showers(warm was not an option...) and went to eat, we had a very good but cheap buffet dinner where waiters came all the time with meat on a rotisseri skewer and carved at the table, it was great!
All that was yesterday, today we went to see Christ the Redeemer, we walked to catch a cog train up the mountain through the jungle! no animals along the way unfortunatly but flowers and big trees. We arrived on the top and it was very cloudy, we decided to wait for better weather and after a while we were rewarded with a great view of the statue and of Rio from all directions. it was strange to actually be standing amongst the clouds as they rolled by...
Cristo redentor
well, thats it for these 2 days, we are going to go and make some dinner and the maybe go down to the beach that is 2 minutes from our front door...life is hard...
lots of kisses to everyone, we miss you!?
Ola and Agnes
Agnes and ola front of the port
written by  agnesola on June 26, 2007 from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
from the travel blog: Baby and Baby's around the world travel...

last day in rio
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Our last day in Rio. We went to see some of the most famous beaches in the world... the copa, Copacabana and ipanema. both big beaches, ipanema a bit smaller. Palmtrees, the
beach bum
atlantic, sand and beachvolleyball... they are very nice but it is in a very big city and you can feel it, it is not really what I would consider a perfect beach, still cool though.
When we got to ipanema we realised that Rio really is a dangerous city, we walked right into a hostage situation, with a guy robbing some cafe along the beach and lots of police with machineguns and reporters around...
hostage movie shoot
just kidding, we walked into a movieshoot...hope we did not scare you... it was quite interesting actually...
well our last day in rio was all about seeing the beaches, we also went to a big lake in the middle of the city. and the next stop is a little town called Saquarema.
love and kisses
Ola and Agnes
written by  agnesola on June 29, 2007 from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Saquarema, small town of happiness
Saquarema, Brazil
sunset in saquarema
Heelllooo everybody,
Here we arrive by the bus from Rio to Saquarema.... oups... it feels a bit strange to be in a town where you dont know anything... we were at first a bit scared as it was our first time travelling into the country...BUT the feeling is completely gone!!! After sometime looking for a place to stay, we found a very nice pousada (hotel in portugese)... and the owner is french!!! Must be the only one in the whole town and we found him!!! well, he is very nice and dropped the price of the room for us to stay... so we are now enjoying a double room, with TV, shower and swiming pool for less than 7 pounds per person per night!!! LIFE IS HARD!!! ;)))
pousada catavento, saquarema
So here we are, discovering this beautiful little city, with long beaches, a nice center and a lovely little church on top of the hill, looking out on the whole town, giving an impressive view on the city....
saquarema church
we finally enjoy the pleasure of the country side, that is what we were looking for and that is what we get...
saquarema seaside
we love it!!!
Agnes and Ola
written by  agnesola on July 1, 2007 from Saquarema, Brazil

Vitoria
Vitoria, Brazil
Coucou,
So now we are in Vitoria since yesterday.. and to be honest with you it was not the best time of our life!! We arrived in the morning and had to find a hotel, which was slightly harder than we thought.... but we did it!! and then we started to wander around town to see what that town was made about!! well, to be honest with you... on a sunday... it was DEAD!!! all the shops closed and nothing much to see, no tourist info... so we walked around anyway and saw the few nice buildings around like the Ancient Palace!! But the worst was to come... we went to the banks to take out money and realised that none of my cards were working!! OUPS!!! first trouble!! ;))) as it was sunday, there was nothing to do, so we went to sleep. This morning we jumped out of bed and went to the bank straight away... they could not do much so we had to buy an international card and we had to call Lloyds in UK!! They told us that my cards were blocked, so they unblocked it!!! pfffiiiuuuu that was a bit of an adventure!!
Now everything is fine and we are going to Porto Seguro tonight!! Apparently it is the town of parties!! ;)))
Now, just a little Hello to Axel and Ana from Saquarema: guys, thanks again a lot for everything, you are both lovely and we hope that we will keep in touch, the oranges and avocado were lovely, thank you!!
Lots of kisses to all of you who are following us...
Agnes and Ola (Baby and Baby!!!!)
written by  agnesola on July 2, 2007 from Vitoria, Brazil

Un petit peu en francais
Vitoria, Brazil
salut a tous,
Alors je voulais quand meme ecrire un peu en Francais pour ceux qui nous suivent mais qui ne sont pas super top en Anglais (coucou Papy!! coucou Mamie!!).
Tout va bien pour nous et on sa ballade bien pour le moment. Nous avons passe trois jours a Rio de Janeiro ou nous avons visite autant que possible (Cristo Redentor, Ipanema and Copacabana...). Nous sommes ensuite partis vers le nord dans une petite ville appelee Saquarema...tres mignon!! Nous avons rencontre un francais et une bresilienne (qui est nee au portugal) qui tiennent un hotel tres joli. Ils ont ete adorables et ont pris soin de nous durant notre sejour.
Nous sommes ensuite retournes sur Rio afin de prendre un bus pour Vitoria ou nous sommes aujourdhui. Vitoria ne nous a pas seduits vraiment et en plus nous avons eu des problemes pour utiliser nos cartes bleues... donc nous avons decide de partir ce soir pour Porto seguro... (ville reputee pour faire la fiesta!!)...
cest a peu pres tout pour le moment, nous commencons tout juste notre deuxieme semaine!!
gros bisous
agnes et ola
written by  agnesola on July 2, 2007 from Vitoria, Brazil

First portugese landfall in brazil
Porto Seguro, Brazil
Alright!
So we are on our way to Salvador de Bahia. we just have a few stops to make along the way. Right now we are in Porto Seguro. The place where the portugese first put foot on
stone in porto seguro, town where the first portugese came
brazilian soil and started converting natives(well done by the way, they were only bloody savages anyway...)<----a joke by the way...
The town is nice, but alot of turists, which is good in a way because it is safe; but instead of thiefs here, we get jumped by people trying to get us into a restaurant or selling something else. I am not kidding they come in groups and svarme around you like bees.
Other than that there is a historical center here that is alright but not awesome, the view over the sea was nice though.
View on the sea From the cidade historico, Porto Seguro
We got lost and had to ask for directions, but the guy just pointed and said nothing...
Ola ask directions (no wonders why he is always lost!!)
We have had a bit of sunshine and a bit of tropical rain(when it rains, it pours) so we have not been to the beach yet, but hopefully tomorrow...
until next time
Tchau and we love you all
Ola and Agnes
written by  agnesola on July 4, 2007 from Porto Seguro, Brazil

Finally, the beach...
Porto Seguro, Brazil
Our hopes for better weather was answered and we finally headed for the beach.
We chose one close to were we live in Porto Seguro and went. Alot of people and big bars can be fun but not really what we were looking for and the water full of seaweed because of some earlier rough weather... so we sunbathed a bit, I (ola) got restless and went to play in the waves, it's funny how a bit of water can make you feel like 6 years old. Agnes did not go in and I don't blame her because the water was a bit yucky...
The beach was full of sellers and I promise there was not 2 minutes going by without someone coming and wanting to sell stuff. not only do they insist but how can so many people really think that I want to buy a Henna tattoo(it is quite clear that I have enough)
Anyway, after about 2 hours we left and Agnes Had a bit of sunburns, but nothing severe, her feet looked like little lobsters though.
Here there is a plce called Passarela de Alcool(the alcohol passage...)
We went for a drink, you get massive caipirinhas or mango drinks for about 6 real which
Passada de alcool, stand to sell cocktails
is around 1.5 pounds...nice...
That was all yesterday, Today we went to a nearby town called Arrail d'ajuda and it was absolutely beatiful, and the weather today...Amazing! there was a church from 1550 something, nice but very plain. The town though, located high above the sea with colorful
The town of arraial
buildings, very nice. Alot of turists still, but a nice town.
We Heard from an aussie were we are staying that around this town there is some of the nicest beaches in Brazil, so we decided to go to one called Pitinga Beach. There was a little hot walk of 2 kilometers before we arrived, but oooh my what a reward. So different from the beach we went to yesterday, not very much people, no annoying sellers and surrounded by beatiful red cliffs. And the water...nice and clean. of course we forgot our swimming gear...but hey, underwear works fine...
beach of Pintinga... a real beauty!
that's it, tonight we are going out to eat and then buy a drink and walk along the sea I think... Tomorrow morning we are heading more towards Salvador, but we are stopping in Ilheus. New town, new things...
Tchau Tchau we love you!
Ola And Agnes
On the beach
written by  agnesola on July 6, 2007 from Porto Seguro, Brazil

Quick stop in Ilheus before heading to Salvador de Bahia
Ilheus, Brazil
Hello!!!
We are now in Salvador de Bahia, old capital of the country.
Before arriving here we stayed for two nights to Ilheus, small town about 8 hours south of Salvador. To be honest it wasn't the best of Brazil as it was not a lot to see...and of course it was sunday (dead day in Brazil!!!)!! euh of course there is always a jesus!!!
Big god in Ilheus
Ilheus Cathedral
and a big church!!
But well it doesn't matter, we enjoyed to rest!!
And we also found other ways to spend time: welll i will leave you to judge those!!!
Agnes after an electric shock
Ola with hair
ok, a few explanations: i found the electic plug and put my fingers into it!! and ola's hair grow like hell!!!!
ok that's it for the moment, we will go through Salvador very sioon (it is our first day here!)
lots of kisses
Agnes and Ola
written by  agnesola on July 10, 2007 from Ilheus, Brazil

Salvador, heart of the Afro-brazilian culture
Salvador, Brazil
Coucou!!!
As I said, we are now in Salvador de Bahia. Just to give you an idea, it used to be the capital of Brazil, so it is pretty big. We found a nice little hostel in the middle of the Pelourhino which is the historical center of the town and also the party center!!! ok, it is touristic but lovely and safe! The place is full of colonial buildings which are beautiful, loads of church and lovely cobblestoned street... wandering around here is great...
Pelo street, salvador
We saw one of the most beautiful churches in Brazil, Sao Francisco, which is full of wood cravings painted in gold... it is absolutely amazing. The whole church is very baroque.
Sao Francisco church
The story tells that the slaves who did all those wood carvings sculped big sexual organs to the angels!! When you actually walk into the church you can see that the wood has been broken off on these parts of the angels so it is probably true!!!
So we enjoyed the Pelo (as the locals say...) as much during the day as during the night...: we went out with a few people from the hostel and followed for about an hour a percussion band. Everyone was dancing and the music was great, full of rythms... i can assure you that Brazilians know how to party and take over the streets!! We then sat down for a few drinks before going to a local party where I did enjoy showing off my samba and salsa talents!!! I got to meet a few great dancers (ola was one of them!!) and i did dance like crazy!!! It was amazing!!
We unfortunately don't have any pictures of the night, but you can just imagine a big samba and african party in the streets!!
Today, after a nice sleep... we found a capoeira class... it was also great. We are now feeling Brazil fully and enjoying its culture....!!! WE LOVE IT!
After that, a little nap in the hamac was very welcome for me...
Loads of kisses
agnes and ola
PS for mummy danielle: my feet are back to normal!!I will survive!!
written by  agnesola on July 11, 2007 from Salvador, Brazil

Last day in Salvador and arrival in Lencois
Salvador, Brazil
Hello,
We are now gone from Salvador and we are in Lencois for some forest and trekking.
But before that, we visited thursday and yesterday more of Salvador. We started by going to Campo Grande, a beautiful park not so far from the pelo. And Ola got lost in a massive tree!!
Ola lost in a big tree, Salvador
Then we walked all the way to Barra, well known for its lighthouse and its fort (unfortunately we dont have any pictures!!! Soorry!). The water there was absolutely amazing and you could see clearly a few meters down... the blue-turquoise water was beautiful to look at! Anyway, that was the first time that we could see such a beautiful water... and of course we had nothing to swim with, so we went away!
Ready to walk for hours, we then walked all the way to the zoo of the town which was free (budget... budget!!). The zoo was quite nice but animals didn't have so much space... (well they never have in zoos!!!).
Yesterday was relaxation as we went to the beach a few 20 kms away from the town, the wter wasn't as beautiful but it was quite clear anyway... And I didn't get sunburnt!!! niiice!!
Ole looking at the sea, Salvador
So as I said, we are now in Lencois, old diamont mine town... pretty beautiful! We went already for some nature sight seeing today... and it was amazing! But I will not say more as we can't give the pictures yet (they are talking for themselves!).
All that we can say is that we booked a three days trek to the chapada diamantina park with a bunch of seven other backpackers that we met today... and it should be full of waterfalls and beautiful nature...
More at the next blog entry!!!
Lots of kisses and i leave you with a picture of a traditionnal dress in Salvador!!
Traditionnal Dress in Salvador
written by  agnesola on July 14, 2007 from Salvador, Brazil

Trekking in Chapada Diamantina
Lencois, Brazil
(Sorry about the lack of pictures but we have a few difficulties to upload them on the website, we are trying... so keep an eye on the new pics!!)
DAY 1
We arrived in Lencois on Saturday after a night bus travel from Salvador. The town looked straight away very friendly and cute.
Lencois streets
We went around to find a place to stay, and then looked around for trekking and tours agencies (the town is full of them).
By luck, we met a group of 7 backpackers (2 Belgiums, 2 Swedish, 2 Dutch and 1 Brazilian) who were also looking for some trekking and adventure!!! So we decided to join their group: the more you are, the lower the price is!!! After talking to one of the agency, we found a great deal to see some of the nice sights of the Chapada Diamantina which is the national park situated in this region.
So there we are starting our adventure by going to Pai Inacio, a mountain about 1 hour bus ride from Lencois. After arriving to the site, we hiked for about 15 minutes to enjoy
Pai Inacio, Chapada Diamantina, Brazil, ola on top
the view at the top, and to slowly see the sunshine going down... what a relief after being for a few days in town to see such a beautiful scenery!!
Pai Inacio, Chapada Diamantina, Brazil, sunset start
But that was only the start of a three day adventure in the Chapada Diamantina Park which is one of the most beautiful place in Brazil....
After going back into town, we had dinner and went sleep, all excited for the next few days coming...
DAY 2
After a night sleep, we left Lencois at 8.30 am to go to Cachoeira da Fumaca, a 400 m waterfall.
We went by bus for 2 hours until we picked up our guide, her name was Cris, and she luckily spoke english. Another couple of minutes until we stopped. Our guide explained that we were walking 6 km to the waterfall and 6 km back. one of these kilometers was walking 800 meters in elevation up a mountain. In total we were going to be 1400 m above sea level. So we started, it was quite steep but not to bad, as we went higher up the view just got better and better.
After we had walked up the mountain there was walking on plain ground, at one part we had to take of our boots and walk through kneedeep black water to cross to another side where we continued our trek to the waterfall. The surroundings were quite plain and apparently a long time ago they used to have cows up here.
We could hear the waterfall before we saw it. We were gonna see it from 2 places, first from the side, then on top. the view from the side was just incredible, the waterfall itself was not very strong but it was 400 meters long, which is quite enough to make it impressive, and the view on all sides are mountains! we had our lunch here, and I dont think any of us has ever had lunch with more beatiful scenery!
After eating, and seeing a mountain rat!(tiny hairy little thing) we went to see the fall from the top. To get there we had to cross the actual river that makes the waterfall(cool). If we thought that the view from the side was good...this was ten times better. On the side and above the waterfall you could crawl out and look down on the waterfall and 400 meters down to the ground!!! This was such a rush! and so beautiful. We stayed there for some time just enjoying until we went back to the river we crossed earlier to bath. There is not many times in your life that you get the chance to bath 50 meters from where a waterfall plunges 400 meters down... the water was dark because of minerals and when you took some of it in your hands it was orange/brown. After drying in the sun it was time to get back before it got dark, the trek back was the the same but a bit quicker and we just arrived when the sun was going down.
This night we did not sleep in Lencois but in a town called Capao, in a very nice pousada where we had the best food so far in brazil!(the most common food in brazil is rice and beans....) we went out with our group after dinner and had a beer but then everyone was so tired so we went to have a nice sleep....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
DAY 3
Our first day going by jeep! bumpy!!! to go to where we were doing our trek there was red dirt roads with loads of holes and not very well built bridges, at one half of the group had to get out because it was to heavy, but we stayed in. As we crossed we could feel the planks of the bridge move...
Our 16 km trek through Vale de Capao started with crossing a river on some planks and stones(a lot of fun!) and then going upwards through the forest and then exiting out to a valley with breathtaking scenery, we were walking on a trail that we could see from the mountain we were on top yesterday.
We arrived to a small waterfall surrounded by lush trees and vegetation where we could swim and have lunch, the water here was freezing cold! but we went in anyway and it was very refreshing.
Then we hiked up another mountain on a 150 y old man made trail of stones where they used to transport cows up and down. We came to a where we could see the whole valley that we just trekked through, we stayed here sometime on the edge of the mountain just enjoying the scenery.
Then we bathed in another river thas was not as cold as the last one, these days are alot about walking and bathing!
The 16 km trek was definitly worth it when close to the end we walked down another stone trail with a spring flowing down it and we arrived just in time to catch an extremly beautiful sunset. All of us were a bit tired and today half the group left to go back to Lencois because they had to go back to Salvador. So now it was only 4 of us plus our guide Cris. At night we ate and had some beers and fell quickly asleep to be prepared for our last day...
The trek and hike yesterday were quite difficult, though really worth it... but today is meant to be an easier day...
It starts of course by a bumpy jeep ride through the red roads of the park (we are now used to it!!!). After a while in the jeep, we arrive at a river crossing without bridge that we will have to cross with the jeep. Just in front of us, we can see a big very old bus, almost stuck in the river!! It seems all normal for the brazilians that such a massive bus can cross a river, but it does seem quite crazy for us!! Anyway we cross the river also and arrive to the end of the road. We now have to walk!! The walk is not very long (about 45 minutes) and quite easy. It starts by the crossing of the river over stones (crossing rivers has been one of our main activity that day!!) and a wooden board. We then walked all along the river, where we learned that before being hills and rivers, this part of the park was actually the sea!! (a very long time ago of course!!). The guide explained that the movement of the tectonic plates made this area go up and the sea slowly disappeared. We could actually see that there was still some sand left from this period.
We also saw some carnivore flowers (quite pretty and looked quite inoffensive!!) and a lot of cactus from which the flowers come out at night..
Still following the river, we then arrived to a first waterfall...
But this was just the beginning. We then started to go down ladders and steep stones to arrive to a small canyon with a tropical "tarzan" feel to it... it is quite impressive and amusing as you realise how different the nature is from our own country...
We could see from there a waterfall that was going underground...
We then went even more down the stones full of green vegetation on it (because of the humidity from all the water surrounding) and arrived to a small lake of dark water (it looks really black from the top) which is linked to the main waterfall. That's where we realised that we had to swim to see the main waterfall of the area which is a 90 meters waterfall called Buracaõ (which means Big Hole).
It already feels amazing to hear the waterfall even if we don't see it and to see this lake in the middle of the canyon. The next thing to do is to jump 5 meters into the water and to swim to the waterfall... we feel so excited to do that!!
And JJUUUUUMMP!! ... youps!! it is always higher than we think!!
What a great feeling to swim in that dark but smooth water... we are now swimming to reach the waterfall... and there, after a 150 meters of swimming we see it... this impressive, powerfull, beautiful waterfall... it is difficult to explain how we felt but we did feel so lucky to have our eyes open on the beauties of the world. Feeling so small close to this massive water going down in the canyon... we are excited, impressed and I can still feel it while i am writing this few words....
WAAAOUOUHH, we scream and laugh and enjoy with all our heart... it is once in a lifetime experience and we know it... and we love it.
But it wasn't the end of the emotions as we followed the guide to go behind the waterfall, I stopped about 5 meters to getting there as I feel that it is difficult to breathe, and the water is so much that you can't really see much. But Ola did carry on and went behind this massive waterfall to touch it... and from what he says it was a real rush of happiness and amazement... well it is an experience!
We stayed a very long time there, just enjoying the view... but we had to go back and look at it from the top... Seeing it from the top is very impressive as well as you realise how high it is... a real pleasure when we plunge our heads down to see the bottom of the waterfall in which we were swimming just a few minutes ago...
Time to eat!! we reach another waterfall, smaller, but beautiful as well... and we sit down to enjoy a bit of food.
It doesn't take long for us to eat as we want already to jump again in the water and play with that smaller but still very fun waterfall... going behind, getting a massage from the water going down... we played maybe for 1h30 in the waterfall.... I feel so happy to be here, it feels great!!
The sunshine starts to go down and we know that we have to go... On the way back, we both feel sorry to leave, and we would love just to run back and see the Burracaõ waterfall again... but we know it is not possible! Who knows?? we might come back another time...
We have a long way to go back in Lencois, especially with the jeep. We arrive around midnight and went for a last drink with the guide, Cris. We are sorry to know that those three days are finished but very happy to have done it. Everything was very good as we saw beautiful things, the organisation of the trip was very good, and Cris our guide was extremely good, always smiley, very helpful when the roads and the hikes get hard, always ready to tell us about the mountains and the rivers as well as the brazilian life and cooking favorites: rice and beans ;)))
Time to leave, we are heading to sao paulo, decided to leave straight away for a smaller town called Parati.
We feel exhausted but so alive and happy...that was definitely the best experience so far and we will remember it for a very very long time....
Lots of kisses to all of you
written by  agnesola on July 20, 2007 from Lencois, Brazil

Chillin and feeding monkeys
Parati, Brazil
So, as our time in Brazil was coming to an end and having met some nice people, Brazilian and foreign, we decided to spend our last days taking it very easy...
We ended up in a little town north of sao paulo called Paraty. It is an old colonial town by the sea where restaurants, shops and houses are very well kept and decorated. Some of
the buildings are very beautiful inside, with lots of old stone and wood. it was delightful to wander around the streets.
We came at the end of a celebration of Santa Rita (they always have celebrations for a saint somewhere in Brazil...) which was nice because when there is a celebration they sell nice fruit cocktails in the streets!!
On our second day we Went with local bus to see a waterfall with a natural slide and a Cachaca distillery. The waterfall was not very impressive but the slide and surrounding forest was great. We both went down the rock which was the slide quite a few times: we are still kids when it comes to sliding down on water!!
In Parati when the tide comes in, the streets get flooded, unusual but very beautiful to
see the streets filled with water.
last but not least, one of the most fun things that happened in Parati was monkeys!!!
on our last night 8 little monkeys came around our pousada and we jumped on the occasion to give them some bread and try to touch them. They were very cute climbing down touching our hands and taking some bread! That same night was filled with very bad weather and lots of thunder and lightning, so we took the opportunity to make some mulled wine (glogg!) and spend the night outside under the roof!
thats all, now we are in Buenos Aires and starting our adventure in Argentina
With Love
written by  agnesola on July 27, 2007 from Parati, Brazil

Buenos Aires and Foz de Iguazu
Puerto Iguazu, Argentina
Hello to all of you,
Just to start, we wanted to say that we receive all the comments that you write without any problem... and we read it!! It is great to see that a lot of you follow us. Unfortunately we can´t answer all of them as they are comments only, but you can create your own adress on blogabond and send messages (those we can answer!).
Anyway keep on sending plenty of messages and comments because we love to read them...
kisses to all of you.
Alors un peu en francais...
On voulait just dire que l'on recoit bien vos commentaires que vous nous ecrivez... et meme on les lit!! C'est super de voir que beaucoup d'entre vous nous suivent. Malheureusement on ne peut pas repondre aux commentaires mais vous pouvez creer votre propre adresse sur blogabond et envoyer des messages (ca on peut repondre!).
En tout cas continuez a nous envoyer des messages et commetaires parce qu'on adore les lire...
Gros bisous a vous tous!!
AND NOW THE BLOG!!
So we are now in Argentina... Second country of our trip!!
We arrive in Buenos Aires a little bit less than a week ago and stayed there for two days...
As we always do, we went around town seeing as much as we can...the Palace of Congress, the big avenues, a demonstration, political graffitis on the street walls, the little Big Ben lookalike... and many more buildings that we don´t really remember the names of!! We also saw the famous pink palace where Evita and her husband used to live and where she used to come out on the balcony and be greeted by the population!
At night we wandered in the touristic streets of Buenos Aires and saw a great jazz/ska band called Pollerapantalon! Check it out if you can!
On the next day, just before taking our bus to Puerto Iguazu, we quickly went to see the grave of Evita in the Cimetery where most of the famous people from Argentina are buried... The graves are absolutely beautiful (in their own way) and rivalise with great sculptures.
After those two days in Buenos Aires we took the bus (20 hours of bus) to go to Puerto Iguazu where we are now... It is the main city from where you can visit the Foz de Iguazu, which is the world biggest waterfall.
So we arrived yesterday, very early in the morning and after finding a place to stay at night, we jumped in the bus going to the foz...
We started to go to see a part of the falls called El Garganta Del Diablo which means the Devil's Throat. It is a kind of hole where a big waterfall goes down to and because it is so
Foz de Iguazu, Devil´s Throat 2
powerfull (there is some clouds of water coming from the hole), you can´t even see the bottom. It is very impressive... the nature really hides a lot of wonders!!
Falls From the side, Foz de Iguazu
After seeing the Devil's throat we went to see other parts of the waterfalls.... first from the top and then from the bottom. there is so many waterfalls, you don´t know where to look next!!!
Along the way, we saw many strange animals called capotis!
Capoti in the foz de iguazu park
We then went to see another view of the park from an island in the middle. After a short climb and a walk in the forest, you see one of the waterfall from the left side... but this view seems to be the closest you can get in the park... and it is beautiful...
The power delivered by the water when it splashes down is very very impressive...
You really don´t want to fall down!! It must be like being in a gigantic (and dangerous) washing machine!!!
After seeing all of those waterfalls, we went for a trek in the forest for about 7km return. It was a real pleasure to leave a bit the touristique part of the park (it is very touristique!!) and to be more in the nature. We heard and saw a lot of birds, we saw a Capivara which is the biggest rodant in the world (kind of mix between a big rat and a rabbit!)... but we missed to see jaguars who are supposed to live in those forest !! (they even give some leaflets at the entrance of the trek to tell you how to react if a jaguar sees you.... scary!!!)
After an hour of walk we arrive to a small waterfall (again!!!) very secluded... the water at the bottom was very clear but definitely too cold to swim in!!
We then return to the park, happy to have walked in the nature.
After a nice night of sleep, we are now getting ready for 20 more hours of bus to return to Buenos Aires, but we won´t stay there long as we plan to head for Mendoza in the wine region...
Love,
written by  agnesola on July 30, 2007 from Puerto Iguazu, Argentina

The wine region...
Mendoza, Argentina
So, instead of heading downwards and seeing some whales, we decided to head to the wine country and relax for a while. We found a hostel with a yard where we could put up our tent, which we have been dying to try out for a long time. At night it is about 2 degrees minus but our little home (the tent) is nice and warm and our sleeping bags are great!
Our first impression of Mendoza was not very nice because the weather was dull and grey the first 2 days, but as the sun moves in it seems nicer and varmer.
We took a trip to a winehouse one of the days, walked around and tasted some wine which was nice. When we came out of the winery it had started snowing with big nice snowflakes, it was beautiful, but a bit cold.
They also have a very big park here in Mendoza which we spent half a day walking in and on a clear day like it was we could see beatiuful mountains all around the city.
At night we had a nice dinner with some argentinian wine, I made homemade (well, hostelmade...) beefstew with wine, beetroot and carrots, served with rice...best meal we have had so far, but i have high hopes for the food in Chile.
Today is our last day here, we are waiting for the bus that leaves in 3 hours, we visited a nice food market today and spent some hours in the sun, reading books.
Our next destination is Bariloche where we will do some trekking and downhill skiing! it is just a 20 hour bus ride away...
And by the way, the system to upload pictures on this site is working very good again, so we have put alot of new pictures from Brazil. and mom(My mom, titti that is) here is a really beatiful plant that blooms in the winter here in Argentina, maybe something for Sweden, but I dont know the name of it...
flowers in the winter again
flowers in the winter
Lots of kisses, Bisous and puss o kram
written by  agnesola on August 3, 2007 from Mendoza, Argentina

Cold weather, Snow on trees, and a beautiful lake... all in Bariloche!
San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina
Hello everybody,
After wine and... well... mainly wine in Mendoza, we are now in Bariloche... in the middle of the Andes (I know, it sounds great, doesn´t it??!!).
Bariloche is a very nice town surrounded by mountains on one side and a beautiful lake, massive, on the other side named Nahuel Huapi.
lake bariloche
After visiting the town on our first day, we decided to go and visit the surrounding mountains on our second day...
One of them is not too high (called Cerro Campaniaro) and is quite touristic because of the view it offers on the lake. One of the ways to get to the top is to use a lift (telesiege, don´t know in english!), the other way is to trek it up! Of course, because it is more beautiful (and also much cheaper: free!), we decided to trek!
So there we are, in the middle of the forest, surrounded by all those beautiful trees all covered in snow... and going up...
The hike was not too hard, quite steep sometimes though and only lasted 1h30. It was a real pleasure to walk through the forest, no tourists around (apart from us!) and the most beautiful scenery of winter snow you can find!
Arriving at the top was amazing (even though we had snow to the knees for the last 50 meters) because of the breathtaking view... seeing the lake from the top is absolutely beautiful...
Apart from the view, we also got to see two beautiful mountain birds (which we have almost no idea what is was, though ola thinks that they
beautiful hawks
are hawks!!): nature and wildlife all in one day!!
After enjoying the view for quite a while, we went down through the same way, enjoying to almost roll down in the snow (I said almost!!).
Back to the hostel, we got ready for the next day...
SKIING!!!!!! youoouhhhououu.... yes you heard!! we went to ski!!
This was amazing! Not only amazing to ski but to ski in August, and not only to ski in August but to ski in August in the Andes!!! ok, I know i am showing off a bit there but we were really amazed to do that!!
It was really funny to go down the slopes and also it was great to stop and see the view: from the mountain, you can see the lake of Bariloche and a very long part of the Andes. As the weather was beautiful, we got to see the Chilean part of the Andes!
above the clouds again
Ola of course is much better than me at skiing, but I have to say that I was not as bad as I thought!! AND... he fell down twice while skiing and I did not fall!! (well I did but without the skis on!! I know it is ridiculous!!)
Today, after a long night sleep (skiing IS tiring!), we decided to go to the llao llao parc to walk. It is about 25km of Bariloche. We happily discovered a beautiful forest which had quite the appearance of some
Llao llao forest, red trees
magical forest... Mainly because of the red trunk trees, the Xmas trees and the bended bamboos all still covered in ice and snow...
Well, that is all, we are extremely happy to have done that because it wasn´t in the original plan, but it was really worth it...
Next stop is El Bolson, two hours drive from bariloche...
Lots of freezing kisses from the Argentinian mountains!
written by  agnesola on August 8, 2007 from San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina

Quiet stopover
El Bolson, Argentina
We are now in El Bolson, 2 hours from Bariloche. It is a very quiet town, we have enjoyed just doing nothing, but it is starting to get boring, that is why we are leaving today.
El Bolson has a very nice handicraft market, which we visited on Saturday, and after that
some nice hot chocolate and a big slice of cake! We also found a great bowling place, nonautomatic. The bowling balls had no holes and were more than half the size of normal balls and you had 3 tries to get all the pins down, it was great fun!!!
Sunday was spent with sleeping for a long time, then wandering around before we took the bus to the national park of Lake Puelo, it is suppose to be very beautiful to walk around, but we only had time to walk for about 5 min before the rain started pouring down.
The lake has a very promising backdrop though, mountains on all sides and apparently
you can go to the chilean border with boat. Instead of walking around we spent an hour in a cafe with some hot tea...
That is pretty much it, We are now waiting to take the bus to our next destination which is El Calafate, some 30 hours away. We should be there on wednesday afternoon. There is apparently some gorgeous glaciers there...
We miss you all.
Bisous, puss och kram and kisses.
TRADUCTION "ENGLISH TO FRENCH" OFFERTE PAR MAMAN DANIELLE !!!
BLOG 18 : Quiet stopover arrêt tranquille
Nous sommes maintenant à el bolson situé à 2 h de bariloche. C’est une ville très tranquille où nous avons apprécié de ne rien faire mais l’ennui commence à se faire sentir et donc nous partons aujourd’hui. El bolson a un très sympathique marché artisanal que nous avons parcouru samedi et là, nous avons pris un bon chocolat et une grosse tranche de gâteau ! nous avons trouvé un bowling dont les boules n’avaient pas de trous et avaient une taille de moitié par rapport à la taille normale des boules. Il y avait 3 essais pour faire tomber les quilles. Nous nous sommes bien amusés !!
Nous avons passé une bonne partie de notre dimanche à dormir et puis nous sommes allés nous promener avant d’aller prendre le bus pour nous rendre au parc de lake puelo. La promenade n’a duré que 5 min avant que la pluie ne tombe à verse. Le lac est entouré de montagnes et normalement on peut aborder la côte chilienne avec un bateau. Au lieu d’en faire le tour, nous avons passé une heure dans un café à boire un bon thé chaud.
Là, nous attendons le bus pour notre prochaine destination qui est El Calafate, à quelques 30 heures d’ici. Nous devrions y être mercredi après-midi. Là-bas, il y aurait des glaciers magnifiques…
We miss you all. Vous nous manquez tous
written by  agnesola on August 13, 2007 from El Bolson, Argentina

ice ice baby...
El Calafate, Argentina
Hola!
We are now in our final destination in Argentina; El Calafate. A small village surrounded by mountains and lakes. The main reason we went here was to see the glaciers, but more about that later.
We live in a very nice hostel and have a room to ourselves and the hostel has a lovely view of the lake. On our second day here we went for a long walk along a bird sanctuary close to the shore of the lake, there is alot more birds during summer but we saw some pink flamingos which were quite cool and then we walked along the rocky shore until the sun set and it started to get very cold...
Yesterday, on our third day we had booked an excursion to see the Perito Moreno glacier, and also afterwards to walk on it. First we arrived at the glacier to view it from balconys
south side of perito moreno
from the front, and the size of the thing is amazing, it looks like some crazy moon/ice landscape. About 4 times the ice broke off from the glacier and fell into the water and the noise it makes is like thunder, first cracking and then falling. The ice at the front of the glacier is around 350 years old and it moves around 2 meters forward per day. The front has a height of 60 meters above water and stretches 180 meters below the water surface.
After 2 hours of watching it was time to get on to next thing, walking on the glacier...
We went by boat and were met by our guides and we walked to the edge of the ice where we put on crampons (metal things with spikes on our shoes). On the cliffs above us Condors were hovering. At the parts where the ice is most dense it has a deep blue color, very beautiful. We saw deep holes that fill with water at summer times, but all this changes at times since the glacier moves. Where we walked nothing falls off though and it is safe, but from season to season the ice changes form. Walking on a glacier that has been around for millions of years is pretty impressive, and hard to explain, but we really enjoyed it.
We walked around for about 1 and a half hour before getting close to the finish, there they had wooden tables set up with whiskey bottles and glasses (nice) and we drank
Ola drinks whisky on ice
with ice from the glacier in it, way cool. The walk back to the boat was through the forest where we could see a lot of old big trees on the ground, apparently about 100 years ago the ice advanced on that area pushing the trees down. We could also see on the rocks the marks from the ice. Another fun fact for us swedes. There is a glacier around here that is called the Upsala glacier, apparently named after our university town of Uppsala, exactly why I dont know, but it is still fun.
Today we are doing very little and tonight we are going to spend some money on a nice restaurant
and some nice wine.
On monday we move on to Chile, from where we are staying it is only a 5 hour bus ride away...
We couldn´t put more pictures on (bloody internet!!) so we will try again in chile!! sorry!
Lots of Icecold kisses to everyone!
VERSION FRANCAISE !
Nous sommes maintenant arrivés à notre destination finale : El Calafate, un petit village entouré de montagnes et de lacs. La principale raison de notre arrêt ici, c’était de voir les glaciers mais on vous en racontera plus un peu plus tard.
Nous logeons dans une auberge très sympa avec une chambre pour nous tout seuls et l’auberge a une vue magnifique sur le lac. Pour notre 2ème jour, nous avons fait une longue promenade le long d’un sanctuaire pour oiseaux en bordure du lac. Il y a beaucoup d’oiseaux l’été et nous avons vu des flamands roses. Nous avons marché le long de la côte empierrée jusqu’à ce que le soleil se couche et il commence à faire très froid…
Hier, pour notre 3ème jour, nous avons réservé une excursion pour aller sur le glacier Perito Moreno. Impressionnante la taille de ce glacier qui fait penser à un paysage lunaire de glace. A 4 reprises, la glace s’est brisée du glacier et est tombée dans l’eau dans un bruit de tonnerre avec des craquements et puis la chute. La glace à l’avant du glacier a environ 350 ans et elle progresse de 2 mètres par jour. Sa hauteur est de 60 mètres au dessus de l’eau et s’étire sur 180 mètres sous la surface de l’eau.
Après 2 heures de contemplation, il est temps d’aller faire autre chose : marcher sur le glacier…
Nous nous y sommes rendus avec un bateau et avons retrouvé nos guides pour aller sur la crête de la glace équipés de crampons. Les condors planaient au dessus des falaises. Là où la glace est la plus dense, la couleur est d’un bleu profond. C’est très beau. Nous avons vu d’énormes trous qui se remplissent d’eau en été mais avec les mouvements du glacier, tout cela change. Là où nous marchions, rien ne tombe donc c’est sécurisant mais de saison en saison, la glace change de forme. Marcher sur un glacier qui est là depuis des millions d’années est plutôt impressionnant et difficile à raconter. Nous avons vraiment eu beaucoup de plaisir.
Nous nous sommes balladés pendant environ 1 h et demie avant d’arriver au point d’arrivée. Là, il y avait des tables en bois avec des bouteilles de whisky et des verres (chouette) et nous avons bu avec de la glace du glacier (cool !). Pour aller récupérer le bateau, nous avons traversé la forêt où il y avait un bon nombre de gros arbres à terre. La raison en est qu’il y a une centaine d’années la glace a avancé sur ce secteur et a mis les arbres à terre. On peut voir sur les rochers également les marques de la glace. Une chose amusante pour nous, les Suédois : il y a un glacier appelé le glacier Upsala qui a pris ce nom après notre ville universitaire d’Uppsala. Je ne connais pas la raison exacte mais c’est amusant…
Aujourd’hui, on ne va pas faire grand chose et ce soir nous irons dépenser un peu d’argent dans un restaurant sympa et boire un peu de bon vin.
Lundi, on part pour le chili où nous allons rester quelques temps. Ce n’est qu’à 5 heures d’ici en bus… on n’a pas pu mettre plus de photos (sacré internet !) et on réessaiera au Chili ! désolés !
Lots of Icecold kisses to everyone! Plein de bisous gelés à tous !
written by  agnesola on August 18, 2007 from El Calafate, Argentina

Puerto Natales and the Torres Del Paine National Park
Puerto Natales, Chile
Hello everybody,
As you might imagine, we are now in Chile and we have been there for about a week. We arrived in a town called Puerto Natales quite far south of the country... The main activity in this area is to visit the Torres Del Paine National Park, very very well known for its trekking.
So as soon as we arrived, we got everything ready (gaz, food, clothes...) to spend 5 days in the nature...
We left on wednesday 22nd, for a 150km bus ride to the park. On the way, the driver was very keen on doing the tourist guide so he was stopping every 10 minutes to show us the
nature or animals!! We actually got lucky by seeing a beautiful eagle having caught a hare in his claws...
We finally arrived in the park, took a map of it and started walking (which became our main activity for the next few days!!) on the main trek of the park which is called the W (for the actual trajectory you take while walking).
So on the first day we hiked one of the mountains to arrive to a first refuge (most of the refuges are closed but we could still camp there). As it is still the end of winter, there was still quite a lot of snow on the mountains. After a short break, we started to walk again decided to reach another place to camp a little more up in the mountain, unfortunately it was snowing but it didn´t stop us and we finally reached the camp. Enough for the first day (about 6 hours of walk), we put up the tent and got ready for the night...
Well, as you can imagine the night was quite cold, but we survived!! mainly because we have very very good sleeping bags and also because Ola made me the surprise of taking some wine, oranges and spices to cook some mulled wine for me.... he is an angel!! It was absolutely lovely... and warm!!
So after the cold night of sleep, we started to go up the rest of the mountain, decided to see the main attraction of the park which are three tall towers of rock... but after walking quite a while we decided to go back down as we had difficulties to see the trail and as the snow was too deep. But we still got the see the towers from where we were and as the weather was beautiful it was definitely good enough...
So we went back all the way (2.5 hours), and started to walk to the next refuge, which is
4 more hours away. The trek is quite amazing as we walk all along a big lake. It was still a very long walk, especially with about 15 to 20 kgs in our backpacks!! So we enjoyed to arrive to the refuge and to set up the tent. The camp was quite nice and we managed to do a fire which was absolutely great!!
On the third day, we walked for about 2.5 hours to reach the next camp, still walking along the lake. As we arrived, we met another trekker (a girl from India who was lovely) and we started chatting. The winds on that day were absolutely incredible, really strong. None of us had ever seen so strong winds, the trees were almost bending under the power of the wind. We were supposed on that day to go and visit the Vale del Frances but decided not to as the winds were too strong. So after chatting a little more and meeting another one of the trekkers (a french guy that we met before starting the trek), we continued to the next refuge.
The winds were so strong at some points of the trail that we had to hold on to one another not to fall... it was really amazing and funny as well!!
On the lake, we could see the wind lifting the water and creating some kind of water clouds on the surface... pretty impressive!
So we arrived to the next refuge, which is open all year round. It was great to be able to
use the kitchen and we managed to set up the tent somewhere not too windy. The refuge is build in front of one of th most amazing lake we ever saw. The color is of a beautiful turquoise which is difficult to describe...
The next day, we walked to the glacier Grey, which is part of the same ice field than the glacier that we saw in argentina (Perito Moreno). It was quite impressive to see the other side and to imagine how big the whole thing is.
Back to the refuge, the guys working there let us sleep in one of the rooms instead of camping which was great.
After sleeping on real matresses!!, the last day was finally there and we nicely walked the 5 last hours in the flat and quite boring scenery on that side of the park...
What to say about the whole trek...?? well it is difficult to express. The scenery in the
park is very beautiful: mountains, lakes, forest and water streams, rivers... and we are very happy to have done such a thing, as very few do it in the winter like that...
It is a real experience to be in the nature and to have to set up the tent, cook with that tiny stove, do some fire, not to wash ourselves for quite a while (huummm not so good!!!), walk for hours, cross rivers, hike mountains, look up and see birds, crossing
wood bridges, drinking water from the rivers streams...
We walked for so many hours that we did maybe 85 to 90 kms... with about 15-20kg on our back most of the time.
We experienced all the weathers you can imagine, from rain to snow, from sunshine to strong winds...
And our feet were very very very painful after all that...!!!
But we are extremely glad we did it, we are now full of images in our heads and we can say that we did something pretty amazing...
But we deserve some rest so the next destination will be an island called Chiloe... and it should be without any walking!!
Loads of kisses to all of you
Good night!!
VERSION FRANCAISE !
BLOG 20 :Puerto Natales and the Torres Del Paine National Park
Comme vous vous en doutez, nous sommes maintenant au Chili et nous y sommes depuis environ 1 semaine. Nous sommes arrivés dans une ville appelée Puerto Natales, assez loin dans le sud du pays… la principale activité dans cette région, ce sera de visiter Torres del paine national park qui est renommé pour ses randonnées.
Donc, dès que nous sommes arrives, nous nous sommes preparés à passer 5 jours dans la nature… (gaz, nourriture, vêtements)
Nous sommes partis le 22 pour un voyage en bus de 150 km jusqu’au parc. Sur le chemin, le chauffeur s’est improvisé guide touristique. Il s’arrêtait toutes les 10 minutes pour nous montrer la nature ou les animaux !! nous avons eu la chance de voir un aigle magnifique qui avait saisi un lièvre dans ses serres…
Nous sommes arrivés enfin dans le parc, avons pris une carte et avons commencé à marcher (ce qui allait devenir notre principale activité au cours des jours à venir !!) sur le principal chemin de randonnée du parc qui s’appelle le W (à cause de la trajectoire que l’on fait en marchant)
Le premier jour, nous avons gravi l’une des montagnes pour arriver à un premier refuge (la plupart des refuges sont fermés mais nous aurions pu installer notre campement là). Etant donné que c’est la fin de l’hiver, il y a encore beaucoup de neige dans les montagnes. Après une courte halte, nous avons décidé de continuer à marcher pour atteindre un autre endroit pour installer notre campement un peu plus haut dans la montagne mais malheureusement il neigeait, ce qui ne nous a pas empêché d’avancer et d’atteindre enfin le camp. C’est assez pour le premier jour (environ 6 heures de marche). Nous installons la tente et sommes prêts à passer la nuit…
Eh oui comme vous pouvez l’imaginer la nuit fut plutôt froide mais nous avons survécu ! surtout parce que nous avons de très très bons sacs de couchage et aussi parce que Ola m’a fait la surprise d’avoir pris un peu de vin, des oranges et des épices pour préparer un peu de vin chaud pour moi… c’est un ange !! c’était délicieux et chaud !!
Après cette froide nuit, nous sommes repartis pour l’ascension du reste de la montagne, bien décidés à voir la principale attraction du parc que sont 3 énormes tours en pierre…. Mais après avoir marché pendant un bon moment, nous avons décidé de redescendre du fait que nous avions des difficultés à voir la piste tellement la neige était épaisse. Mais de l’endroit où nous étions nous avons pu les apercevoir car le temps était beau, donc cela nous a suffi…
Nous avons donc fait le chemin inverse (2 h et demie) et nous nous sommes dirigés vers le prochain refuge qui se trouve à 4 h de là. Cette randonnée est plutôt agréable car nous longeons un grand lac. Ce fut vraiment une longue marche surtout avec 15 à 20 kgs sur le dos !! on a donc apprécié notre arrivée au refuge et nous avons planté la tente. Le camp était tout à fait chouette et nous avons entrepris de faire un feu, ça c’était formidable !!
Le troisième jour, nous avons marché environ 2 h 30 pour atteindre le prochain camp, toujours le long du lac. Lorsque nous sommes arrivés, nous avons rencontré un autre randonneur (une fille indienne qui était charmante) et nous avons commencé à discuter. Les vents ce jour là étaient absolument impressionnants, très puissants. Aucun d’entre nous n’avait vu de tels vents, les arbres se courbaient sous la puissance du vent. Ce jour là, nous devions aller visiter la Vale del Frances mais y avons renoncé en raison de ces vents violents. Donc, après tous ces bavardages et après avoir rencontré un nouveau randonneur (un français que nous avions rencontré avant de commencer cette randonnée), nous nous sommes dirigés vers le prochain refuge.
Les vents étaient si forts à certains endroits de la piste que nous devions tous nous tenir pour ne pas tomber… mais c’était tout de même rigolo !!!
Sur le lac, on pouvait voir le vent soulever l’eau et des sortes de nuages d’eau se former à la surface… très impressionnant !
Nous sommes arrivés à ce refuge qui est ouvert toute l’année. C’était formidable de pouvoir utiliser la cuisine et nous avons décidé de monter la tente quelque part où ce n’était pas trop venteux. Le refuge est construit en face de l’un des lacs les plus beaux que l’on n’ait jamais vu. Sa couleur est d’un bleu turquoise difficile à décrire…
Le jour suivant, nous avons marché jusqu’au glacier Grey qui est la continuité du même glacier que nous avions vu en Argentine (Perito Moreno). C’était impressionnant de voir l’autre côté et d’imaginer la taille d’une telle chose. De retour au refuge, les gars qui travaillaient là nous ont dit de dormir là dans l’une des chambres au lieu de camper. Super !
Après avoir dormi sur de vrais matelas, nous étions arrivés à notre dernier jour et nous avons passé ces 5 dernières heures dans ce logement.
Que dire de toute cette randonnée ?? difficile à exprimer. Les paysages dans le parc sont très beaux : les montagnes, les lacs, les forêts et les cours d’eau, les rivières… et nous sommes heureux d’avoir fait tout cela, même si très peu de peu de personnes ne font cela en hiver… c’est une vraie expérience d’être dans la nature, d’avoir à planter la tente, de cuisiner avec ce tout petit réchaud, de faire du feu, de ne pas se laver pendant un certain temps !!, de marcher pendant des heures, de traverser des rivières, de grimper dans la montagne, de regarder autour de soi, de voir les oiseaux, de traverser des ponts de bois, de boire de l’eau des cours d’eau…
Nous avons marché pendant si longtemps… Nous avons dû faire 85 à 90 kms… avec 15 à 20 kgs sur le dos la plupart du temps.
On a expérimenté tous les temps, de la pluie à la neige, du soleil aux vents violents… et nos pieds souffrent beaucoup après tout cela… !!!
Mais nous sommes tellement heureux d’avoir fait tout cela. Nous avons plein d’images dans la tête et nous pourrons dire que nous avons fait quelque chose de formidable…
Nous nous réservons un peu de repos avec notre prochaine destination qui sera une île du nom de Chiloe… et ce devrait être sans marche !!!
Loads of kisses to all of you des bisous à tous Good night!! bonne nuit !!
written by  agnesola on August 28, 2007 from Puerto Natales, Chile

nice fishing town, cheap mussels and white wine!
Puerto Montt, Chile
Alrighty! after 30 hours on a bus we came to Puertto montt! not the easiest thing because the bus went in to argentina for around 22 hours to then later cross in to Chile much further north, annoying to get of the bus and do passport controls, but at least the seats were comfortable!
Puerto Montt is as the name says a port, a fishing town with a population of around 180000. We only spent 2 days so not much got done... but we went to the handicraft market and the fishmarket were we had lunch and saw a sealion playing around in the bay! very nice, then we bought about 2 kilos of mussels for less than 1 pound, at least something is cheap here in Chile!
The town has a nice feeling to it and at night we stumbled upon a demonstration, apparently it was the first nationwide strike in 20 years, the last time was during Pinochets rule and people all over the country went out to demonstrate!
Mussels in Puerto Montt
At night we had some lovely mussels with garlic and white wine and some hot fresh bread, sweet!
That's it for Puerto Montt, it would have been nice to explore it more but we don't have time for that. Now we are in the town of Ancud on the island of Chiloe... we will see what we do here, but you can read it here soon...
Lots of kisses, bisous och puss o kram!
QUI VEUT PEUT LIRE LA TRADUCTION !....
Jolie ville de pêcheurs, des moules pas chères et du vin blanc !
Et voilà ! après 30 heures de bus nous sommes arrivés à Puerto Montt ! ça n’a pas été une chose facile parce que le bus a parcouru l’Argentine pendant 22 heures pour ensuite traverser jusqu’au Chili plus au nord. Il a fallu subir les contrôles de passeports et descendre du bus mais au moins les sièges étaient confortables !
Comme le dit son nom, Puerto Montt est un port, une ville de pêcheurs d’environ 180 000 âmes. Nous n’y avons passé que 2 jours… mais nous sommes allés au marché de produits artisanaux et au marché de poissons où nous avons déjeuné et vu un lion des mers qui jouait dans la baie ! très beau ! puis nous avons acheté 2 kgs de moules pour moins d’1 livre. Au moins, il y quelque chose de bon marché ici au Chili !
La ville nous a semblé plutôt agréable mais à la nuit nous sommes tombés sur une manifestation. Apparemment c’était la première grande grève nationale depuis 20 ans ; la dernière fois, c’était du temps de Pinochet et à cette époque les Chiliens étaient venus de partout pour manifester !
Le soir, nous avons mangé des moules à l’ail et du vin blanc et un peu de pain frais. C’était bon !
Voilà pour Puerto Montt. C’aurait été agréable d’explorer un peu plus mais nous manquons de temps. Maintenant, nous sommes dans la ville de Ancud sur l’île de Chiloe.
written by  agnesola on August 30, 2007 from Puerto Montt, Chile

The island of chiloe
Ancud, Chile
Hello,
We are now just back from the Island of Chiloe to Puerto Montt waiting for our bus to Pucon. On the island, we stayed in the town of Ancud which is situated at the north of the island.
whale skeleton
After visiting the streets of the own, we headed for the regional museum which explains the history of the Island... the most amazing thing in the museum is the skeleton of a whale... it is pretty impressive to see how big a blue whale can be!
ugly face statue
We also saw some statues of old divinities of the island that were pretty weird!! and While we were looking at all that, three vultures were looking at us... spoookky!!
We then headed for the fort of the town which consists in a few canons and towers left.. nothing really exciting! But ola got caught in one of the towers and I had to save him....!!
ola the prisoner
The next day, we wen to the next town on the island called Castro. Despite what ou host in the B&B said, the town was lovely and we had an amazing day as the sun was shining and we were warm (first time in quite a while!).
We wandered around town and went to see the handicrafts market. Then we had a lovely and boiling hot dish of mussels and salmon, in front of the sea...
One of the main characteristic of Castro is that a lot of the houses are build on stilts
Other houses on stilts
(pilotis), and they are all very colorful.
We then visited the town church which is of a beige color from the outside, but all in
Church in Castro, Island of chiloe
wood from the inside which is very beautiful and gives a very warm feeling to the church...
Inside church castro
That is about it for Castro. We went back to Ancud for the night, and we caught a bus for Puerto Montt early this morning...
Lots of kisses
written by  agnesola on September 1, 2007 from Ancud, Chile

soaking it up
Pucon, Chile
we are in Pucon, a place in Chile where you can do lots of stuff, climb
Villarica Volcano
volcanoes, ski and trek...we have not done any of the above though...
We planned to maybe climb the volcano, but the tours they sell are so overpriced that we decided not to do it, after all it is just a mountain with a big hole at the top...
Agnes and ola soaking
So we have been taking it easy, yesterday it was raining like hell, so we decided to go to the Hot Springs and soak for a few hours...
Where we went they had 6 different natural pools all with different heat,
feets up!
i think it goes from around 18 celsius to 45. There is also a river close by if one wants to have a really icecold bath after the hotsprings!
strairs to the pool
there was only us and a few other people there so it was all just nature and relaxing. we stayed for about 3 hours until we caught the bus home for a nice hot stir-fry dinner.
Thats all we have done here, now we are going to Valparaiso which is 2 hours from Santiago
Kiss Kiss
Ola and agnes
VERSION FRANCAISE :
on fait trempette, PUCON au Chili
nous sommes à Pucon, un endroit au chilli où l’on peut faire un tas de choses, grimper jusqu’aux volcans, faire du ski et de la randonnée… nous n’avons pas tout fait…
nous avions décidé d’aller jusqu’au volcan mais les tours opérateurs étaient si chers que nous avons renoncé. Après tout, ce n’est juste qu’une montagne avec un gros trou sur le dessus…
Hier comme il pleuvait à torrents, nous avons decide d’aller jusqu’aux sources chaudes et de faire trempette pendant quelques heures…
Là où nous sommes allés il y avait 6 sources naturelles de chaleur différente ; je pense que ça allait d’environ 18 à 45° C . il y avait même tout près une rivière où l’on pouvait si on le voulait plonger dans un bain glacé après les sources chaudes !
Il n’y avait que nous et quelques autres personnes et c’était juste nature et relaxation. Nous sommes restés environ 3 heures avant d’aller prendre le bus pour rentrer et manger une bonne grillade.
C’est tout ce que nous avons fait ici. Maintenant nous allons à Valparaison qui est à 2 h de Santiago
Kiss Kiss bisous bisous
written by  agnesola on September 4, 2007 from Pucon, Chile

Lovely, colorful and bohemian Valparaiso...
Valparaiso, Chile
Helloooo to all of you...
What a pleasure to finally be in a warm weather!!! After Pucon, we took the bus to a town situated 2 hours west of Santiago and called Valparaiso.... Same country, but with the sunshine!! nice!!
Valparaiso, to say the least was absolutely amazing. We first went to the market, which
was very nice and lively, and then had lunch in one of the cocineras, which are small sea food restaurants.
One of the characteristics of Valparaiso is to be build right between the sea and hills. So to get high on the hills, there is a few ascensors which are kind of cabin lifts. They are going quite high and the going up is quite steep, and most of them are pretty old. But they are very fun! What is quite funny is that there is plenty of stairs and passage ways to go up and down, some of them being quite old, some very steep....
The first hill we visited was Cerro Bellavista and it is a great surprise as you arrive and you discover the houses full of colors and the little streets. We made our way to the top to see the beautiful view of the whole city.
After walking for a little while, we ended up in a little restaurant called le petit Montpellier! and we enjoyed a very nice three course meal for less than 3 pounds.
On that hill, you can find an open sky museum, which is actually a collection of paintings
on the walls of the streets... so the art is all over the place which is really great.
After enjoying our little walk around, we went for a view of the sea while the sun was
going down and ended having fun taking pictures of the motorway at the town lights at night!
After dining, we decided to go out for a glass of wine and discovered that very small bar. As the electricity was out, they had to light candles which gave a very lovely atmosphere. We were probably the only customers but we enjoyed listening to the boss of the bar singing and playing guitar...
The next day, we went around Cerro Conception, another hill of the town. And there we got charmed again. Not only were all the houses painted in differents colors, but the walls had even more beautiful graffitis on them, and the streets rivalised with beauties. We couldn't stop taking pictures of everything!!
The whole place is a mix of street art and it is great to walk around.
Well, to make it short, we absolutely loved it!!!
We then went to see a bit more of town and the port, but as it is mainly a shipping and military port, it hasn't much of a touristic feel to it... it i quite interesting to see the big army boats though!!
Very happy of our time in Valparaiso, we left for Santiago, where we are now, trying to discover what this new town has to offer!!!
Lots of kisses to all!!
Récit 24 : VALPARAISO LA CHARMANTE, LA COLOREE ET LA BOHEMIENNE
Quel plaisir d’avoir enfin du beau temps ! après Pucon nous avons pris le bus pour aller dans la ville de Valparaiso qui se trouve à 2 h à l’ouest de Santiago… c’est le même pays mais avec du soleil ! chouette !
Valparaiso est absolument sensationnelle. Nous avons commencé par découvrir le marché très joli et très vivant, et avons déjeuné dans une « cocineras ». Ce sont des petits restaurants de poissons ; l’une des caractéristiques de Valparaison c’est d’être construite juste entre la mer et les collines. Donc pour se rendre sur les collines, il y a des sortes d’ ascenseurs qui sont très hauts et qui montent raides. Ils sont plutôt vieux mais beaux et rigolos ! ce qui est amusant c’est qu’il y a beaucoup d’escaliers et de passages qui montent, qui descendent…
la première colline que nous avons découverte était cerro bellavista et quelle surprise quand on arrive de voir toutes ces maisons très colorées et ces petites rues. Nous sommes montés tout en haut pour avoir une très belle vue de toute la ville.
Après avoir marché pendant un bon moment, nous nous sommes restaurés au « petit Montpellier » et nous avons apprécié un très bon repas avec 3 plats pour moins de 3 livres…
Après diner, nous avons décidé d’aller boire un verre de vin et avons découvert ce très petit bar. Comme il n’y avait plus d’électricité, ils ont allumé des bougies, ce qui a donné une atmosphère très chaleureuse. Nous étions à peu près les seuls clients mais nous avons vraiment apprécié les chants à la guitare du patron.
Le jour suivant, nous avons fait le tour de cerro conception, une autre colline de la ville. Et là aussi, nous sommes tombés sous le charme. Pas seulement parce que toutes les maisons étaient peintes de différentes couleurs mais parce que les murs étaient recouverts de superbes graffitis et les rues rivalisent de beauté. On ne pouvait pas s’empêcher de prendre plein de photos de tout. !! tout cet endroit est un mélange d’arts de la rue et c’est formidable de s’y promener. Bref, pour faire court , on a adoré !!
Sur cette colline, on trouve un musée à ciel ouvert qui est une collection de peintures murales des rues… cet art prend toute la place et c’est grandiose. Après avoir bien profité de notre petite promenade, nous sommes allés voir la mer et le coucher de soleil et nous nous sommes amusés à faire des photos de l’autoroute de nuit !
Et puis, nous avons voulu voir un peu plus de la ville et du port mais c’est principalement un port de commerce et militaire qui n’a pas beaucoup d’intérêt touristique. Mais c’est tout de même intéressant de voir les gros bateaux de l’armée !!
Très heureux de ce temps passé à Valparaison que nous avons quittée pour Santiago où nous sommes maintenant essayant de découvrir ce que cette nouvelle ville a à nous offrir!!!
Lots of kisses to all!! Plein de bisous à tous !!!
written by  agnesola on September 7, 2007 from Valparaiso, Chile

Santiago de Chile
Santiago, Chile
okidoki... Our trip in Chile ends in it's capital Santiago, home to around 8 million people.
We stayed in a very nice hostel, very big, it used to be a mansion so it was all colonial style, groovy...
There is quite a bit of stuff to see in Santiago, we did a lot of walking and on our first day we went to se a huge food market, mostly vegetables and fruit, but very nice products, we ended up buying artichokes, avocado and lots of other stuff for dinner. We also had
lunch at the fish market close by with some fresh seafood. For the first day since Brazil we had warm weather, we could walk in t-shirt!
On our second day, we went to see cerro santa lucia which used to be a convent, hermitage and military bastion. From the top you can see far over Santiago, well you should be enable to see, but it was a foggy day so we did not see very far.
After we headed for a big park in the city, you have to take a lift to get up and then we walked down, there is alot to see, first we did not know where to go and walked into a jewish celebration of some kind, lured there by the music. the park houses a zoo (which we did not visit) pools, japanese gardens and much more, we just strolled through it gently
for 2 hours before heading home.
Well, we did not do that much in Santiago but we had a good time and took it easy. We are now in Lima and tomorrow we will be leaving for Cuzco, a 22 hour bus ride away.
Kisses
ola And Agnes
written by  agnesola on September 11, 2007 from Santiago, Chile

Lima, between crazy cars and beautiful old town...
Lima, Peru
Heeeelloooo!!!
Here we are now in Peru!! We arrived a few days ago in Lima... and the first contact with the town was... how to say... hectic!!
We usually always take the local buses to go into town from the airport. So we arrived at the bus stop, and we discovered a very strange system!! A lo of minibuses arrive without any order or announcement, they are full of stuff written on them (which we understood later are names of streets or main avenues), they arrive very quickly and a guy pops his head out screaming something like "arequuiuiuiupou, ppprrraadoo, maarueubinnnnnaa...", gets quickly the few passengers that want to go in and leaves quicker than it arrives.... all that in less than 30 seconds for each bus!!
Very courageous, we asked a guy to confirm which bus we have to take, and we (quickly) hop on one of them... and that´s where the fun starts...
THEY DRIVE LIKE MAD!! Zigzaging between cars and trucks, speeding and then stopping abruptly... and their favorite sport is to press the horn, which makes an incredible noise all over town as all of them do the same!!!
I have seen bad driving in many countries: italy, brasil, lebanon... but this beats it all!!!
Anyway we arrived safely at the hostel (it was more funny than anything!! and they dropped us very close to the hostel!!!), ready to .... SLEEP! As our last few nights were short (noisy hostel and airport sleeping!!)
After sleeping properly, we went around to the the town, first going on the sea side and
then to the hitoric center. And there we discovered some very nice places, with old colonial style.
We especially went to see the san fransciscan church and its museum where you can find
a lot of objects, relics and dresses from the church. We also visited the catacombs that are quite famous in Lima.
The catacombs are build under a convent where monks and nuns used to live. The catacombs, when they were found, had about 25 000 bodies (well bones mainly) buried in them. The tour of the all place was very interesting... especially to learn how the San fransciscans used to evangelise the quechans and other peruvian communities (by singing, changing paintings, mixing the quechan religion to the Catholicism...).
And it was fun also to learn that bodies of nuns were found with featus inside... it was apparently not a very good idea to put monks and nuns together in the same convent ;)
Well, that is about it for Lima, we walked quite a lot in town...
We are now in Cuzco... both very excited to see what the inca ruins of Macchu Picchu look like...
Lots of kisses
PS: by the way, we have discovered what will be the next CSI after Miami, Las Vegas et New York.....!!! hihihihi !!
Lima, entre voitures folles et belle vieille ville…
Nous voici maintenant au Pérou ! nous sommes arrivés il y a quelques jours à Lima et le premier contact avec la ville a été… comment dire … très mouvementé !! D’habitude, nous prenons toujours les bus locaux pour nous rendre de l’aéroport au centre ville. Nous voilà donc à l’arrêt du bus et nous avons découvert un très étrange système !! plein de minibus arrivent sans prévenir, avec une foule d’inscriptions dessus (nous avons compris plus tard qu’il s’agissait des rues ou des principales avenues), à toute vitesse et un gars sort sa tête en criant quelque chose comme « arequiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii …………..) prend rapidement les quelques passagers qui veulent monter et quitte l’arrêt encore plus vite que lorsqu’il est arrivé… tout ça en moins de 30 secondes pour chaque bus !!
Très courageusement, nous avons demandé à un gars de nous confirmer quel bus nous devions prendre, et nous sommes montés (rapidement) dans l’un d’eux…. Et là commence la rigolade… ILS CONDUISENT COMME DES DINGUES !! zigzaguant entre voitures et camions, accélérant et freinant brutalement… et leur sport favori est de klaxonner, ce qui provoque un bruit incroyable dans toute la ville du fait que tous font la même chose !! j’ai déjà vu des façons de conduire épouvantables dans d’autres pays : Italie, brésil, liban… mais ils ont la palme !!!! enfin ! nous sommes arrivés sains et saufs à l’hôtel (c’était d’un drôle !! et ils nous ont « jetés » tout près de l’hôtel) prêts à… DORMIR ! les quelques nuits précédentes ont été très courtes (hôtel bruyant et nuit dans l’aéroport !!)
Après avoir bien dormi, nous avons fait le tour de la ville, d’abord côté mer et puis le centre historique. Nous avons découvert quelques très belles places dans le style colonial. Nous nous sommes plus particulièrement attardés à l’église franciscaine et son musée où on peut y voir un tas d’objets, de reliques et de vêtements appartenant à l’église. Nous avons aussi visité les fameuses catacombes de Lima.
Les catacombes sont construites sous un couvent où vivaient les moines et les religieuses. Il s’y trouve environ 25 000 corps (principalement des os !) enterrés. C’était particulièrement intéressant… et surtout d’apprendre comment les franciscains évangélisaient les quechans et autres communautés péruviennes (par des chants, en changeant les peintures et en mélangeant la religion quechan au catholicisme…) et le comique fut d’apprendre que les nones portaient des fœtus… (apparemment, ce n’était pas une très bonne idée de faire cohabiter des moines et des religieuses dans le même couvent !!).
voilà pour ce qui est de notre visite de Lima. Nous avons beaucoup marché dans la ville…
Nous sommes maintenant à Cuzco… tous les deux très excités de voir à quoi ressemblent les ruines du macchu picchu …
Moi Danielle, je dis « désolée » mais je ne comprends pas ce que nos globetrotters veulent dire dans leur PS, mais ce doit être rigolo !!!!!
written by  agnesola on September 13, 2007 from Lima, Peru

Cuzco/Machu Picchu
Cuzco, Peru
Yeah! We are in Cuzco and the Sacred Valley. The Town everyone comes to to see Machu Picchu. but more about that later...
The bus ride from Lima was 22 hours, and since it was mountains around the road was very curvy so it was hard to sleep but we were rewarded with one of the most amazing skies we have ever seen! Since the bus was driving in the middle of nowhere there was complete darkness and we had stars all around us and so many of them, a truly amazing sight.
On our first day in Cuzco we mostly wandered around a bit and took a long nap to recover some lost sleep...
On our second day we had booked a horse riding excursion that was supposed to take 4 hours. It was very nice riding along the hills and canyons, we saw something called Temple of the moon and then we stopped in a little town to see some handicraft. After that we went riding in the forest only to arrive back at where we started, after only 1 hour and 40 minutes, our guide did not speak english so there was not much we could do. We went back to the tourist agency and complained that it was too short and he gave us half the money back.
So, third day, we had booked a full day of river rafting, but because our travel agent was a misinformed lying little shit, he had sold us a rafting that was not what he said so we did not want to go and got our money back. This was very lucky though because we
realised that the Train station closed very early and we needed to buy our tickets for Machu Picchu. The rest of the day we spent looking at inca museums and old ruins...
Day four, Machu Picchu day!
We woke up in a zombie state at 4.20 in the morning, We had to catch a bus at 5 to go to the town where our train left from. We joined up with FiKo and Silke, a peruvian boy and a Belge girl that we met in the bus on our way to Cusco and who were staying at our hotel. It is about 2 hours from Cuzco, the town is called Ollantaytambo and is very nice
and small, it has some Inca ruins on the hills around it so we wandered around for a bit before the train. The ride from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes takes around 1 hour and 40 minutes.
Once there, it is another bus ride to get to Machu Picchu... a lot of travel to get there but as we walk in it is definitely worth it. On all sides there is green lush mountains and the site itself is just amazing. There are alpacas walking around and it is just so unbelievable
and incredible how they got all these big stones up to this mountain to
build temples and houses. Apparently some people say that they were helped by aliens and I don´t find that hard to believe because to think only humans did all this...well...it is hard to understand.
The most amazing thing of the whole site is to climb the nearby mountain called Wayna
Picchu, it takes around 1 hour and there are steps that the incas built all the way up, it is
a hard climb. There is houses and remnants of their plantation there, this is even higher up than Machu Picchu and from there you can see the entire Lost city of the Incas. I(Ola) spent 15 minutes up here meditating hearing nothing but birds, wind and the river far
below while my dad did the same in Sweden. It was an experience! We spent about an hour up there and it was the most rewarding thing of the day!
After coming down we sit down to rest and get some positive vibrations from a big rock...
We walk around just looking at houses and finally up to the Caretakers hut as it is called to take a final picture of the site.
Machu Picchu is an expensive thing to do, but definitely worth it, especially if one does the climb to Wayna Picchu. The whole place is incredible, not only because it is beautiful
but also because it makes you realise how human can do incredible things, even if it is the hardest thing in the world.
..
The feeling once on the site is difficult to express... got to be there to understand... but we really enjoyed it very much.
We slept all the way home and then go to grab some food with Fiko and Silke, and then finally some well deserved sleep...zzzzzz
Now we are in Puno and are about to discover Lake Titicaka...
Bisous, kisses and Puss o kram!
ET VOICI LA TRADUCTION.... !!
YEAH !
Nous voilà à Cuzco et dans la vallée sacrée, la ville où tout le monde se rend pour aller voir le Machu Picchu. Plus de détails plus tard…
22 heures de bus de Lima dans les montagnes avec des routes très incurvées et donc difficile de dormir mais nous avons été récompensés par la vue de ciels comme nous n’en avons jamais vus… une vue magnifique des étoiles dans un ciel tout noir.
Pour notre 1er jour à Cuzco, nous avons fait un petit tour et surtout une bonne sieste pour rattraper trop de sommeil perdu…
Le 2ème jour nous avons fait une excursion à cheval qui devait durer 4 heures. C’était super de longer collines et canyons. Nous avons vu quelque chose appelé temple de la lune et nous nous sommes arrêtés dans une petite ville pour y voir de l’artisanat local. Puis notre promenade à cheval a continué dans la forêt pour arriver au point de départ, ce qui ne faisait que 1 h 40 min. Notre guide ne parlait pas anglais et nous sommes retournés à l’agence de tourisme pour nous plaindre de la prestation et ils nous ont rendu la moitié de l’argent.
Donc, le 3ème jour nous avons réservé un jour complet pour faire du rafting en rivière mais le voyagiste (un incapable) nous a vendu un rafting qui n’avait rien à voir avec ce qu’il nous promettait. On a refusé d’y aller et nous avons récupéré notre argent. C’était un coup de chance parce qu’on a réalisé que la gare fermait très tôt et il nous fallait prendre nos billets pour Machu Picchu. Nous avons passé le reste de la journée à visiter des musés incas et de vieilles ruines…
4ème jour, c’est le jour du Machu Picchu !
Nous nous sommes réveillés à 4 h 20 du matin comme des zombies pour aller attraper un bus qui partait à 5 h pour la ville d’où nous prenions le train. Nous nous sommes joints à Fiko et Silke, un Péruvien et une fille belge que nous avons rencontrés dans le bus qui nous conduisait à Cuzco et qui logeaient dans le même hôtel que nous. La ville s’appelle Ollantaytambo et se trouve à 2 h de Cuzco. C’est une jolie petite ville avec des ruines incas sur les collines. Nous nous y sommes promenés en attendant le train. Le voyage de Ollantaytambo jusqu’à Aguas Calientes dure environ 1 h 40.
Une fois arrivés ici, il faut prendre un autre bus pour aller sur le Machu Picchu… ce sont de longs périples mais ça vaut vraiment le coup. De tous les côtés, la montagne est verte et luxuriante et le paysage fabuleux. Il y a des moutons alpagas qui s’y promènent et c’est tout simplement tellement incroyable d’imaginer comment toutes ces énormes pierres ont été amenées là pour construire temples et maisons. Il y a des gens qui disent qu’ils ont été aidés par des extraterrestres et je n’ai pas de mal à le croire parce que penser que seuls les humains ont pu faire ça… bien…. C’est difficile à comprendre
Et puis grimper la montagne adjacente appelée wayna picchu, cela prend environ 1 heure et il y a des marches que les incas ont posées tout le long de leur montée. C’est une ascension difficile. Il y a des maisons et des réminiscences de leur implantation ici. C’est encore plus haut que le Machu Picchu et de là on peut voir toute la cité perdue des incas. Moi, Ola, j’ai passé 15 minutes là haut à méditer, ne rien entendre que les oiseaux, le vent et la rivière en dessous au moment même où mon père faisait de même en Suède. C’était une expérience ! nous avons passé environ une heure là et c’était la plus belle récompense de ce jour !
Après la descente, nous nous sommes assis pour nous reposer et sentir les vibrations positives d’un énorme rocher…
Machu picchu est une visite chère mais qui vaut le déplacement surtout si l’on grimpe jusqu’à wayna picchu. Tout ce lieu est incroyable, non seulement parce que c’est beau mais aussi parce ça te fait prendre conscience que les hommes étaient capables de choses incroyables même les plus difficiles.
Le sentiment que l’on peut avoir sur le site est difficile à exprimer… il faut s’y trouver pour comprendre… nous avons vraiment beaucoup aimé.
Nous avons dormi tout le long du chemin du retour, et nous sommes mis en quête de nourriture avec Fiko et Silke, et puis avons terminé par un bon sommeil réparateur…. zzzzz
Maintenant, nous sommes à Puno et nous apprêtons à découvrir le lac Titicaka…
written by  agnesola on September 15, 2007 from Cuzco, Peru

Hopping on the Islands of the Lake Titicaca...
Puno, Peru
Hellooo everybody,
We just came back from our trip to the islands of the lake Titicaca...
Just for the little info, the lake Titicaca is the biggest highest lake in the world or the highest biggest lake... well, anyway, it is big and it is high (3820 meters above sea level)!!!
We started our trip yesterday by visiting the Uros islands... basically, those islands are
Uros island
artificial and made of reed (roseaux), that's why they are called floating islands. Everything on the island is made of reed: houses, boats, beds... So we visited two islands, which are pretty small but there is 48 of them on that part of the lake. People still live there, and they have schools, but the whole thing is pretty basic. They put some more reed on top of the island every 2 to 3 weeks to make sure that the island keeps its proper high. It is really amazing to see how creative people are to use their environment to create their home!! The community living there is called the Uros, but each island has a different name.
uros boat
After a short boat trip to another of the Uros islands in one of the reed boats (pretty good boats actually!!), we went on a three hours boat ride to a second island called Amantani, but this time a "real" island made of earth!!
Once there we met our "mamas"... basically, we stayed at one of the locals house for the
the mamas amantilla island
night. So, as each of us (two or three in each family) went home with the mama, we discovered this little island where the time seems to have completely stopped. To explain more or less, they live as we would have lived in Europe but maybe 150 years ago in the country side. So no electricity in most of the houses, very basic houses where the kitchen consists in only a fire and a stone to put the pots and pans on, the bathroom doesn´t really exists and the toilets have to be flushed with a bucket of water on the side.
So we arrived at the family house to meet the son, the father and the grand mama of the family, before being shown our room for the night and being served a pretty nice meal of quinoa soup and cheese with potatoes and carrots.
We then met with the rest of the group, to hike to the top of the island where we got to see the temple of the sun (pretty much just a square wall) and we got to see the lake from the top and the sunset. Unfortunately it was pretty cloudy so we didn´t see the sunset as beautiful as it is supposed to be, but we still enjoyed it.
sunset on amantilla island
Back "home" for dinner (quinoa soup again with omelette) and to get ready for the party!!
OK!!! NOW NONE OF YOU IS ALLOWED TO LAUGH....
THE couple!! of peruvians
For the party, we all got dressed up with the traditionnal dresses of the island...!!! (the picture talks for itself!!
It was pretty funny to see all of us dressed as peruvians... and that is probably the only time that we will be able to be dressed something else than our two trousers and 3 t-shirts!!
We danced around a fire for about 1h30 with the locals, having even more of a laugh, before heading back home for a well-deserved sleep.
The next morning we had breakfast (pancake) and then went back to the boat to go to the next island. We said bye to our "mamas" and jumped in the boat, direction: Taquile island.
We did enjoy the experience of sleeping over in Amantani, seeing how people live there and how different their life is from us. The whole island is really beautiful and it is so quiet, without any car, no pollution and a lot of traditions... but we did think that the experience would have been much better if we could speak the language at least a little bit. We felt a little bit frustrated not to be able to ask questions and to learn more about their way of life...
So after an hour boat ride to the next island, we trekked for about 45 minutes to reach the town main place enjoying an amazing view from the lake... if it wasn´t for the few
Other view titicaca from taquile
mountains you see far away, it would really look like a sea!! It is really BIG!!
Arriving in the main place we had a quick tour of a photo exhibition on the island, and a handicraft market... The island is quite small so it was a quick visit. The whole group
Taquile island wall/door
then went to the restaurant, where our guide told us about a few traditions of the island.
So: we learned that depending on which peruvian hat men wear, you can tell if they are important people of the island or if they are married or single. For the women, they wear those long black cloths on their head and the size of the pompoms at the end tells if they are single or not...
Fun fact as well, there is a problem in the island because after a few generations mixing with each other, some kids are born with disformations as the parents might be related (genetic family crossings...). Well basically in such a small island (around 1700 people live there), you end up being married to one of your relatives, and your kids get physical handicaps...!!
After learning a few more things from the guide, we had lunch (quinoa soup AGAIN!! and fish!) and went back to the boat descending about 520 stairs...
We are now back in Puno, quite happy with our trip and to have learned so much about those communities...
That´s all folks!!
Lots of kisses to all of you,
Your reporters from the world, Agnes and Ola!!
PS: Mum Danielle amd Titti, don´t be scared, our mama for the night in Amantani would never be able to replace you!!!! Love U!!!
TRADUC....
Nous rentrons de notre voyage aux îles du lac Titicaca… pour info, le lac Titicaca est le plus grand et le plus haut lac du monde… (3820 mètres au dessus du niveau de la mer)
Nous avons commencé ce voyage hier par la visite des îles Uros… ces îles sont artificielles et faites de roseaux, c’est pourquoi elles sont appelées les îles flottantes. Tout sur l’île est fait de roseaux : les maisons, les bateaux, les lits… on a donc visité 2 îles plutôt petites et il y en a 48 de ce côté du lac. Les gens vivent ici, ils y ont les écoles mais tout est succinct. Ils posent de nouveaux roseaux tout en haut de l’île toutes les 2 ou 3 semaines pour qu’elle garde toujours sa propre hauteur. C’est vraiment très curieux de voir comment les gens sont créatifs dans la manière d’utiliser leur propre environnement pour fabriquer leur habitat ! la communauté qui vit ici s’appelle les Uros, mais chaque île porte un nom différent.
Après un rapide tour d’une autre île Uros dans l’un des bateaux en roseaux (ce sont de bons bateaux vraiment !!), 3 heures plus tard, nous avons accosté sur une seconde île appelé Amantani, mais cette fois il s’agit d’une « vraie » île faite de terre !! une fois arrivés ici, nous avons rencontré nos « mamas »…et avons été hébergés dans une maison locale pour la nuit. Donc chacun d’entre nous (2 ou 3 par famille) est allé avec la mama et avec elle nous avons découvert cette petite île où le temps semble s’être complètement arrêté. Pour tout vous dire, ils vivent ici comme on vivait en Europe il y a peut être 150 ans. Pas d’électricité dans la plupart des maisons qui sont très basiques où la cuisine consiste seulement en un feu et une pierre pour y poser les marmites. La salle d’eau n’existe pas réellement et les toilettes sont vidées avec un seau d’eau sur le côté.
Nous sommes arrivés à la maison familiale où nous avons fait connaissance du fils, du père et de la grand-mère avant de nous montrer notre chambre pour la nuit et de nous servir un bon repas fait de soupe au quinoa, de fromage, de pommes de terre et de carottes. Puis nous avons fait connaissance avec le reste du groupe avec lequel nous allons gravir le sommet de l’île où se trouve le temple du soleil et d’où nous pourrons admirer le lac d’en haut et le coucher de soleil. Malheureusement, c’était nuageux et le coucher de soleil n’était pas aussi beau qu’il était supposé l’être, mais c’était beau tout de même.
De retour pour le dîner (quinoa, soupe avec omelette) et préparatifs pour la party !!!
OK !!!MAINTENANT PERSONNE N’EST AUTORISE A RIRE…. (voir photo)
Pour la party, nous nous sommes tous habillés en tenue traditionnelle de l’île…. !!! (la photo parle d’elle-même !!) c’était rigolo de nous voir tous habillés en Péruviens…
Nous avons dansé autour du feu pendant 1 h 30 avec les autochtones et nous avons eu une franche rigolade, avant de rentrer pour un bon sommeil réparateur.
Le matin suivant, nous avons eu des pancakes au petit déjeuner et avons rejoint le bateau pour nous rendre sur une autre île. Nous avons salué nos « mamas » et sommes montés dans le bateau direction Taquile Island.
Nous avons vraiment apprécié d’avoir dormi à Amantani et d’avoir vu comment les gens vivent ici et comment leur façon de vivre est différente de la nôtre. Toute l’île est très belle et tellement calme : pas de voiture, pas de pollution et des tas de traditions… mais nous sommes persuadés que notre expérience aurait été encore plus riche si nous avions pu parler un tout petit peu leur langue. On s’est senti un peu frustré de ne pas pouvoir poser de questions sur leur mode de vie…
Après une heure de navigation pour accoster sur la nouvelle île, nous avons marché pendant environ 45 minutes pour atteindre la place principale de la ville d’où nous pouvons apprécier une vue splendide du lac… s’il n’y avait pas dans le lointain la vue des montagnes, on penserait que le lac est une mer ! c’est vraiment gigantesque !! sur la place principale, nous avons vu des photos de l’île et un marché artisanal. L’île est plutôt petite et ce fut donc une visite rapide. Tout le groupe s’est dirigé vers le restaurant et le guide nous a parlé de quelques traditions de l’île. Donc : nous avons appris que selon le chapeau que les hommes péruviens portent, on peut savoir si on a affaire à des gens importants de l’île ou s’ils sont mariés ou célibataires. Pour les femmes, elles portent de longs tissus noirs sur leur tête et selon la taille des pompons au bout, on peut savoir si elles sont célibataires ou non…
Mais un fait certain sur l’île, c’est qu’il y a un problème parce qu’après quelques générations qui se sont croisées entre elles, des enfants sont nés avec des déformations étant donné que les parents pouvaient être apparentés (croisements génétiques de familles…) Effectivement, dans une telle petite île (où il y a environ 1700 âmes qui y vivent), on finit par se marier à un de ses parents et les enfants ont des handicaps physiques !!
Après avoir appris encore quelques détails de notre guide, nous avons pris le déjeuner (de la soupe de quinoa encore ! et du poisson !) et nous sommes retournés au bateau et pour cela descendre environ 520 marches…
Nous sommes maintenant de retour à Puno, plutôt satisfaits de notre voyage et heureux d’avoir appris tant de choses sur ces communautés…
PS : maman Danielle et Titti, ne soyez pas effrayées, notre maman pour la nuit à Amantani ne pourrait jamais en aucun cas vous remplacer !!!! vous aime !!!!!!
written by  agnesola on September 19, 2007 from Puno, Peru

Quick Stop in La Paz...
La Paz, Colombia
Hello!!
OK, we now went through La Paz, capital of Bolivia. For those who follow very closely our trip, you will know that Bolivia wasn´t originally in our plans but we heard so much good about it that we decided to squizze it in, taking some time for Peru.
So we took a bus from Pucon, which stops in a town called Copacabana on the way. It is a small town but we enjoyed visiting the church and the "candles place" during our one hour stop.
Church in La Paz
Then, we arrived in La Paz, which is... how to say ?? quite a busy, vibrant, messy, noisy.... town!!
We actually visited very little of La Paz, as we were mainly looking for agencies to book our tours with. We still had time to see a beautiful church, a few busy streets, the Witch market, where you can buy Alpaca
foetuses (supposed to bring luck if you bury it under your house...??!!, some herbs and differents stuff that most people don´t know what it is for..., we wandered around to see some handicrafts shops and we appreciated some street circus and music!!
But that was about it in La Paz, as we had to go to Rurrenabaque to see a bit of the amazon basin...
TRADUC......
ARRET RAPIDE A LA PAZ….
Nous voilà maintenant à La Paz, capitale de la Bolivie. Ceux qui suivent de près notre voyage savent que la Bolivie n’était pas dans notre planning de départ mais nous avons entendu tant de bonnes choses sur ce pays que nous avons décidé de l’inclure et de prendre un peu de temps sur notre temps consacré au Pérou.
Nous avons donc pris un bus de Pucon qui a fait un arrêt à Copacabana. C’est une petite ville où nous avons visité l’église et la « place des bougies » pendant notre heure d’arrêt.
Nous sommes arrivés à La Paz qui est … comment dire ?? une ville plutôt affairée, bruyante et sale !
Nous n’avons pas vu grand-chose de La Paz du fait que nous nous sommes occupés de trouver une agence de voyages pour réserver nos excursions. On a eu le temps toutefois de voir une belle église, quelques rues grouillantes, le marché aux sorcières où on peut acheter des fœtus d’alpaga (supposés apporter chance si vous les enterrez sous votre maison… ???), des herbes et autres choses encore dont les gens ne connaissent pas l’utilité. Nous avons déambulé dans les boutiques d’artisanat et avons apprécié le cirque de rue et la musique !!
Voilà, c’est tout pour La Paz. Il nous faut aller à Rurrenabaque pour découvrir un peu du bassin amazonien….
written by  agnesola on September 25, 2007 from La Paz, Colombia

alligator wrestling
Rurrenabaque, Bolivia
Hello!!
Here are our 3 days adventure in the amazon basin....
DAY ONE:
So after leaving La Paz, we went on a 17 hours bus ride to get to Rurrenabaque, in the amazon basin. Just the bus ride was an adventure: probably 15 hours of the way is on a dirt road full of gravels, which makes the whole thing very VERY bumpy..., the road goes along the mountains for a very long while and you can sometimes only see the bottom of the mountain (which is very high), and to add to the adventure, most of the time it is impossible to have two truck or buses crossing each other so the bus goes backwards to leave space... well to summarize it is FREAKY!! We personnally called it the death road, even if it is apparently less dangerous than the real death road (yes, there is a road called like that!!!).
Anyway, we arrived without problem. We went to the agency (Ola, me and Kate, an Australian girl who was with us in the bus), got a bit of shower, and had breakfast before going into the jeep, to take us to the river (3 hours away).
We met the 5 other people that would be with us for the trip and got on another bumpy ride. On the way, the jeep got a flat tyre, so they had to change it, but it was very quick...
Flat tyre jeep
Once arrived to the river, we put all our stuff on a boat (pretty long) and that's where the adventure started... And it didn´t take long before we saw the first alligators and caïmans... You can´t imagine the excitement to see those wild animals so close to us, only 3 or four meters away for some of them... you see them with mouth open (full of teeth!!!!) on the river side, or only lying there, or you can just spot the eyes, the body being in the water.... We all were eyes wide open, not believing what we were seeing...
As the boat was going, we could see 100s of the crocodiles, and also birds like the beautiful paradise birds, storks....
We managed also to see a green mamba, one of the most deadly snake in the area, hanging in a tree, eating a frog.
We even saw some cute little yellow capucin monkeys in the trees...
Monkey looking at us
Another animal evry present in this area is the capivara, a kind of bit hamster/rabbit/rat, that really looks like a cute teddy bear!! We saw lots of them with a lot of babies!!
Last but not least, we saw plenty of turtles.
After quite a long time of boat, we arrived to the pink dolphins area... I know it seems crazy to know that dolphins live in a river where so many alligators live, but it is true...
They are of a grey-pink color and you can only catch glimpses of them when they swim out of the water... but they look absolutely amazing...
As we all knew (because it is in the program), we could swim with the
ola with the dolphins
dolphins... the only thing that was stopping all of us is to have seen all those alligators lying there just a few meters away...!!! But the guide insisted that there is not problem as the dolphins keep the crocodiles and other hostile animals out of the area...
A little scared at first (I WAS VERY SCARED!!! especially because you can´t
see much in the muddy water!!), all of us went in the water and started to swim with the dolphins... some of us felt them swimming close to us and apparently it is a great experience!!
We were all very excited by the experience, but didn´t stay very long as we spotted a small alligator on the shore opposite us!!!
Very happy with our swimming, we went back on the boat to reach our camp. The camp is pretty basic but quite nice... We had tea and biscuits on arrival, and got ourselves settled in the different rooms.
We then went to see the sunset, wich wasn´t a good sunset at all, but the sunset bar was very nice!! We met there another group and ended up having a beer!! Even in the jungle, beer is a tradition!!
Back to the camp for dinner, before going on a night boat ride....
On the boat at night, it can be even more scary!!! We all had some torch lamps, and as you go along the river, you try to spot the eyes of the alligators that are of a red color with the light. And we could spot A LOT of them!!! They are under the bushes, in the river, on the side... it was very interesting!!
We also stopped to engine of the boat to listen to the night noises of the nature!!!
Back to the camp, and all tired, we went to bed... we got woken up in the middle of the night by a concert of frogs that were singing to announce that the rain was coming, and they have a pretty bad kind of weird singing... VERY ANNOYING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT!!
But anyway, we did enjoy very very much our first day and night in the amazon!!
DAY TWO
After an early wake up and a great breakfast! we head out to look for anacondas...
We were given rubber boots ( gummistovlar) and our guide takes us to place where in the rainy season the river flows, but now it is all dried up so we can walk, there must be sooo much water in the rainy season...
After a couple of minutes walk we arrive at a wetland and our guide tells us to spread out, and if we happen to see an anaconda to yell out to him. The anaconda lives in the water so we walk in this water, at some parts
agnes walking in the wet lands
up to our knees, so really no point having the rubber boots because we were all soaked after a while anyway. It is exciting though to walk through all the water hoping to see a snake. The anaconda can live more than a hundred years and the maximum they can be is around 18 meters, where we where looking they dont get that big though.
We look for a few hours but all we see is a turtle and a crab, plus a lot of nice birds, dragonflys and some cobra skin, also a lot of nice flowers and
turtle scared by us!!
plants. So, no anaconda, it would have been fun to see one
firefly red
but it was still a very nice morning and fun to be in the wild walking around and looking for animals and snakes.
Back to the camp for a well deserved lunch and siesta, swinging in the hammock, sleeping...very nice....
ola is chilling out in the hammock
After the siesta we went for another boat ride looking for more alligators, birds and and pink dolphins, we stayed for a long time looking
Pink dolphin
at the pink dolphins, trying to get a good photo as they come out of the water, they are really amazing to watch and they look like some kind of prehistorical dolphin.
After this we go back to camp and head of for the sunset bar again, this time too cloudy for a sunset, but not too cloudy for a beer.
After dinner, We spend the night with a roaring fire and the guide telling us about the animals and us asking questions.
DAY THREE
We got woken up way to early (6.15) and went for a boatride in the morning, it is a bit misty on the river, but there is alot of birds an animals out, probably as tired as us.
We go back to the camp for breakfast, this time with pancakes!
After breakfast we went on the boat again to fish piranhas! of course fishing with meat.
as soon as you throw the hook in they satr biting, so there must be alot of them in the muddy water. The technique to catch on is when they start biting to pull fast...
The first one to catch one was Kate. The Piranhas are beautiful, they come in yellow, red and white. I (Ola) caught one piranha and a big log and Agnes caught 2 sardines.
After the fishing back for lunch and to try fried piranha, their flesh is a bit mushy, but with a bit of garlic and herbs I am sure I could make something good out of it...
Now it is time to leave to go back to rurrenabaque, so it is another boat ride. We started counting how many alligators we saw, but lost count at
around 150. we also saw the dolphins again, and a big monkey hanging by its tail in a tree.
red bird
The trip ends as it started, with a bumpy jeep ride that our bottoms will remember for ever.
At night our entire group met up for dinner and happy hour drinks all around!
and the day after another epic bus ride...
Thats it for now, we are back in La Paz, and in a few hours we are getting in another bus to go to Uyuni and the hallucogenic Salt Flats...
Kiss kiss, puss o kram and Bisous to all of You
RENCONTRE AVEC L’ALLIGATOR
voici le récit de nos 3 jours d’aventure dans le bassin amazonien…
JOUR 1
Après avoir quitté La Paz, ce furent 17 heures de bus pour arriver à Rurrenabaque, dans le bassin amazonien. Rien que le trajet en bus fut une véritable aventure : 15 heures sur une route sale faite de graviers qui nous a vraiment secoués… puis la route longeait les montagnes pendant un très long moment et parfois nous ne voyions que le sommet de la montagne (très haut) et pour ajouter à l’aventure, il est impossible que 2 véhicules se croisent, il faut alors que le bus redescende pour laisser la place… en bref, pour résumer, c’est BIZARRE !! nous l’avons appelée la route de la mort même si apparemment elle est moins dangereuse que la véritable route de la mort (oui, il y a une route qui s’appelle comme ça !!!). bon, nous sommes tout de même arrivés sans problèmes. Nous sommes allés à l’agence (Ola, moi et Kate une Australienne qui était avec nous dans le bus), avons pris une douche et pris un petit déjeuner avant de monter dans la jeep pour nous rendre à la rivière (à 3 heures de là)
Nous avons rencontré 5 autres personnes qui seront du voyage et avons pris une autre route aussi cabossée que la première. En route, un pneu de la jeep a crevé… une fois arrivés à la rivière, nous avons posé nos paquets sur un bateau et c’est là que l’aventure commence… et il ne s’est pas passé beaucoup de temps avant que nous ne voyions les premiers alligators et caïmans… vous ne pouvez pas vous imaginer quelle excitation ce fut de voir ces animaux sauvages si près de nous, à seulement 3 ou 4 mètres de nous… vous les voyez la gueule ouverte (pleine de crocs !!!!) sur la rive ou simplement étendus là, ou encore on voit juste les yeux et le corps immergé dans l’eau… on avait tous les yeux grand ouverts, incrédules devant ce que nous avions devant nous…
Tout le temps de la traversée, on a pu voir des centaines de crocodiles et aussi des oiseaux tels que de magnifiques oiseaux de paradis, des cigognes…
On a vu un mamba vert, un serpent des plus mortels de toute la région, suspendu dans un arbre, mangeant une grenouille. On a même vu un petit capucin jaune tout mignon dans les arbres (photo)
Un autre animal présent dans cette région, c’est le capivara : une sorte de mélange de hamster, de lapin, et de rat qui ressemble à un gentil nounours ! nous en avons vu plein avec plein de bébés !!! enfin, nous avons vu plein de tortues.
Après encore un long moment dans le bateau, nous sommes arrivés dans la région des dauphins roses.. ça semble complètement fou de penser que des dauphins puissent vivre dans une rivière où il y a tant d’alligators, mais c’est vrai pourtant… ils sont d’une couleur gris-rose et on peut juste les entrapercevoir quand ils nagent hors de l’eau, mais c’est absolument géant….
Comme nous le savions (parce que c’est dans le programme), nous pourrions nager avec les dauphins… la seule chose qui pouvait nous arrêter, c’était que nous avions vu tous ces alligators étendus quelques mètres plus loin… !!! mais le guide insista en nous disant qu’il n’y avait pas de problème car les dauphins tiennent éloignés les crocodiles et tout autre animal hostile du secteur… un peu effrayés au début (J’ETAIS TRES EFFRAYEE !!) surtout parce qu’on ne voit pas grand-chose dans l’eau boueuse, nous sommes tous allés à l’eau et avons nagé avec les dauphins… certains d’entre nous les ont sentis nager tout près de nous et c’est une expérience extraordinaire !!
Nous étions tous très impressionnés par cette expérience mais nous ne sommes pas restés très longtemps car nous avions vu un petit alligator sur la rive opposée !!!
Très heureux après ce bain, nous sommes retournés sur le bateau pour aller rejoindre notre camp. Le camp est succinct mais plutôt sympa… on a eu du thé et des gâteaux à notre arrivée, et nous nous sommes installés dans différentes pièces.
Nous sommes allés voir le coucher de soleil mais il n’était pas extraordinaire, mais par contre le sunset bar était très chouette !! nous avons rencontré un autre groupe et avons fini la soirée avec une bière ! même dans la jungle, la bière est une tradition !!
De retour au camp pour le dîner avant de faire une traversée de nuit sur le bateau… sur le bateau la nuit, c’est encore plus effrayant !! nous avions des lampes torches, et quand vous longez la rivière, vous pouvez voir la tache des yeux des alligators qui sont rouges dans la lumière. Et on a pu en voir BEAUCOUP !! ils se tiennent dans les buissons, dans la rivière, sur le côté… intéressant !! on a stoppé aussi le moteur du bateau pour écouter les bruits de la nuit en pleine nature !!!!
De retour au camp, et tous très fatigues, nous sommes allés nous coucher… nous avons été réveillés au milieu de la nuit par un concert de grenouilles qui annonçaient en chantant qu’il allait pleuvoir, et leur chant semble surnaturel… TRES DERANGEANT DANS LE MILIEU DE LA NUIT !!
Mais quoi qu’il en soit, nous avons vraiment beaucoup aimé notre premier jour et notre première nuit en Amazonie !!
JOUR 2
Après un réveil matinal et un super petit déjeuner ! en route à la rencontre des anacondas…
On nous a donné des bottes de caoutchouc et notre guide nous a emmenés là où la rivière coule à la saison des pluies, mais en ce moment c’est tout sec et nous pouvons marcher. Il doit y avoir énormément d’eau en saison pluviale…
Après quelques minutes de marche, nous sommes arrivés dans une prairie humide et notre guide nous a dit de nous étendre s’il nous arrivait de voir un anaconda et de pousser des cris vers lui. L’anaconda vit dans l’eau et nous marchons dans cette eau, par endroits nous avons de l’eau au dessus des genoux. Après quelque temps, nous étions tous trempés. C’est excitant de marcher dans toute cette eau avec l’espoir de voir un serpent. L’anaconda peut vivre plus de 100 ans et il peut atteindre 18 m au maximum. Là où nous étions, ils ne sont pas aussi gros.
Nous sommes restés à regarder pendant quelques heures mais tout ce que nous avons vu, c’est une tortue et un crabe et quelques jolis oiseaux, des mouches-dragons et de la peau de cobra, et aussi plein de jolies plantes et fleurs. Donc, pas d’anaconda… c’aurait été drôle d’en voir un mais c’était tout de même une matinée très agréable et quel plaisir de marcher dans cette nature sauvage et d’observer animaux et serpents.
De retour au camp pour un repas et une sieste bien mérités, à tanguer dans le hamac, à dormir… très agréable… après la sieste, nous avons repris un autre bateau pour aller voir plus d’alligators, des oiseaux et des dauphins roses. Nous sommes restés longtemps à regarder les dauphins roses, essayant de prendre une bonne photo quand ils sortent de l’eau. C’est vraiment super de les regarder et c’est vrai qu’ils ressemblent à une sorte de dauphin préhistorique.
Après cela, nous sommes rentrés au camp et sommes retournés voir le coucher de soleil, cette fois c’était trop nuageux pour un coucher de soleil mais pas trop nuageux pour une bière. Après dîner, nous avons passé la nuit autour du feu rugissant et le guide nous a raconté des choses sur les animaux et nous, nous avons posé des questions.
JOUR 3
Nous avons été réveillés tôt le matin (6 h 15) pour une ballade en bateau. C’est un peu brumeux sur la rivière mais il y a beaucoup d’oiseaux et d’animaux, probablement aussi fatigués que nous. Nous retournons au camp pour le petit déjeuner, cette fois avec des pancakes ! après le petit déjeuner, nous sommes retournés sur le bateau pour aller pêcher les piranhas ! bien sûr appâtés avec de la viande. Dès que nous jetons l’hameçon, ils commencent à mordre. Il doit y en avoir beaucoup dans l’eau boueuse. La technique pour les attraper est de tirer rapidement quand ils commencent à mordre… la première qui en a attrapé un fut Kate. Les piranhas sont beaux, ils sont jaunes, rouges et blancs. Moi (Ola), j’ai pris un piranha et une grosse bûche et Agnès a attrapé 2 sardines…
Après la pêche, retour pour le déjeuner et essayer de frire les piranhas. Leur chair est un peu en bouillie mais avec un peu d’ail et des herbes, je suis sûr que je pourrai faire quelque chose de bon avec…
Il est temps maintenant de partir pour Rurrenabaque et donc de reprendre une nouvelle embarcation. Nous avons commencé à compter combien d’alligators nous avions vus. Au final, on a dû en voir environ 150. nous avons vu à nouveau les dauphins et un gros singe suspendu par sa queue dans un arbre.
L’excursion s’est terminée comme elle avait commencé, c’est à dire secoués dans une jeep et nos fesses s’en souviendront à jamais.
Le soir, tout le groupe s’est retrouvé pour le dîner et pour trinquer ! et le jour suivant, une autre course en bus, épique…
Voilà : nous sommes de retour à La Paz et dans quelques heures nous allons prendre un autre bus pour aller à Uyuni et les mirages du désert de sable…
written by  agnesola on September 27, 2007 from Rurrenabaque, Bolivia

Salty, muddy and wet! but beautiful
Uyuni, Bolivia
So after a lot of bus travelling without sleeping properly and bolivian old fat ladys telling us off and other fun stuff, we arrive in Uyuni, the town from where we will start our 3 day salt flat tour!
Our group Consists of a dutch couple, 1 french guy and a swedish girl.
Day 1
We set out at around 10.30 with our so called guide/driver/cook Freddy!
First we go to a site close to town called the train cemetery, and as you might guess by
the name, it is a lot of old trains and stuff, quite fun to climb on and stuff, but we dont spend much time.
After this we start our drive towards the Salar de Uyuni, the salt flats.
We stop at a place were the salt starts, where it is the only place where they process the salt. Here there is just a lot of salt piles lying around.
We continue to a place called the fish island, it is a place in the middle of the salt desert
with a nice view and lots of big cactus. We spend some time here having
lunch and taking photos. We leave and then tell Freddy to stop in the middle of the salt desert where it is most white to take funny pictures, you can have people standing or sitting in your hand, or the car on your arm.
The salt flat is absolutely amazing and blindlingly white...and so vast that it seems to never end...
After this we drive to where we will spend our first night, a hotel made out of salt!
The floor is covered with salt crystals and tables, beds, chairs are all made out of blocks of salt. We spend the night having a nice dinner and chatting. We go to bed quite early
because we need to get up early the next morning.
Day 2
We get up at 6 for breakfast and we are suppose to leave at 6.30. We are running a bit late (well, our driver is...) so once we leave Freddy decides to take a short cut, apparently this shortcut is through the mud, and of course the jeep gets stuck...deep in the shit so to say...
We spend 6 hours trying to get it out, we are all covered in mud, so finally we go back to the salt hotel for lunch while our driver freddy stays and tries more. One reason to why it is so hard to get out is that only the backwheels work, the jeeps very important 4 wheel drive does not work...
At 5 in the afternoon we go back to see whats happening and the car has moved about 15 meters since we left it. Freddy is now joined by another driver and some locals that are a bit more clever than him (thank god). After 2 more hours, exactly 12 hours after we got stuck we manage to get it loose. We drive back to the salt hotel to spend another night when the engine dies, apparently the carburator. Luckily the other driver is a mechanic so he fixes it after 1 hour. We all realise both our driver and the car is pretty much Kaputt...
We spend the night playing cards and drinking beer...and spend another night in the salt hotel...which was not planned...
Day 3
After the troubles of the day before, we manage to leave anyway... all of us ready to see more!!
So we first went to see a volcano, that you can see smoke a little, but it is quite far...
We still enjoyed the surroundings... it is like being in a western film with all the rocks and the desert!
We then went to the valley of the rocks where you can find some local rabbits who are quite funny because they are hairy!! Ola tried to catch one, but didn´t succeed!! They are too quick those rabbits!
We then arrived to the stone tree... as the name says it is a stone that has the shape of a tree... it is very amazing actually!! Nature creates weird stuff!! Ola tried to climb it, but it was not allowed, and quite hard anyway.
After the stone tree we proceeded to Laguna Colorada, a natural red lake, absolutely beautiful, with pink flamingos in it. Thi is also where we spend the night, n a very basic lodging. Since we are one day late, our original hotel is full, so we have to sleep here, it is ok, but there is no showers, and the food is not that good.
We spend the night playing shithead (card game) and drinking cheap rum with our group. It is all very fun! then it is time for sleep because we are supposed to get ip at 5 the next morning.
We were suppuse to be woken up at 5 by our driver, but at 5.20 I (ola) wake up and have to wake everyone up. I go outside to look for Freddy and I find him fixing something with the front wheel... after a while he is finished, and we all leave, a bit late again.
We are going to some geysers, it is about 1 hour away and we see it before we arrive, alot of steam! We walk around bubbling pools of water and mud smelling of
sulphur (eggfart). There is steam coming from everywhere and it truly looks like a moon landscape.
After this we go to some hot springs to soak and have breakfast, we are all a bit frozen so when we step in the water it hurts, but it is very nice to soak and feel a bit more clean.
We have some tea and sweet bread after this, then we head to the laguna verde.
It is a very nice lake, reflecting the surrounding mountains in the water.
now there is nothing left to see, half our group gets dropped off 30 minutes after the laguna verde to catch a transfer to Chile. now it is only me, agnes and the swedish girl Emma going back to Uyuni.
10 minutes after we drop the other guys off our car breaks down again! something with the engine, Freddy looks at the engine and we stop another jeep that is not full of people and ask if we can get a ride back to Uyuni, so we leave freddy and the car behind and 6 hours later, without any car trouble, we are back in Uyuni.
We go straight to the agency to talk to them and ask for money back. The ignorant lady there just says that there is no money in the office, it is all deposited in the bank, so we ask to speak to the manager, and she says that the manager is in La paz. She makes a few phonecalls and says that someone is calling to La Paz. She offers us 10 dollars each and we all say no way. Then like through some kind of miracle she says another lady (a manager) is coming to talk to us, I think that either she teleported herself from La Paz or she was in Uyuni the whole time...
After a lot of talking and time (and we are running out of time because our bus for La Paz is leaving soon) she offers us 15 dolars each and we say no again, finally she gives us 20 dollars each which is about a third of what we payed from the beginning and we leave, dirty, tired and hungry, but at least 20 dollars richer.
So now we are in Arequipa and tomorrow we are leaving for a 3 day trek in the worlds next largest canyon, the Colca Canyon...
Bisous and kisses
TRADUC......
Salty, muddy and wet ! but beautiful
Salé, boueux et humide ! mais magnifique
Après avoir beaucoup voyagé en bus sans avoir vraiment dormi et avoir reçu des remontrances et autres choses drôles de vieilles grosses femmes boliviennes, nous sommes arrivés à Uyuni, la ville d’où nous devons partir pour une excursion de 3 jours dans le désert de sel ! notre groupe se compose d’un couple de Hollandais, 1 Français et une Suédoise.
Nous sommes partis vers 10 h 30 avec notre soi disant guide/chauffeur/cuisinier/Freddy ! tout d’abord, nous sommes allés sur un site proche de la ville appelé le cimetière des trains, et comme son nom l’indique, il y a plein de vieux trains sur lesquels il est rigolo de grimper, mais on n’y a pas passé beaucoup de temps.
Après cela, nous sommes partis pour les salins de uyuni, les étendues de sel.
Nous nous sommes arrêtés à un endroit où le sel commence et où c’est le seul lieu où ils transforment le sel. Ici, il y a des piles de sel tout autour. Nous avons continué jusqu’à un endroit appelé l’ile au poisson. C’est un endroit au milieu du désert de sel avec une très belle vue et beaucoup de gros cactus. Nous avons passé un peu de temps ici, avons déjeuné et pris des photos. Puis, nous sommes repartis et avons demandé à Freddy de s’arrêter au milieu du désert de sel où c’est complètement blanc et où l’on pourrait faire des photos drôles… on peut tenir les gens debout ou assis dans sa main, ou la voiture sur son bras…
L’étendue de sel est absolument fantastique et d’un blanc aveuglant… et si vaste qu’on a l’impression de ne pas avoir de fin…
Après cela, nous avons roulé en direction de l’endroit où nous devons passer notre première nuit, un hôtel fait de sel ! le sol est recouvert de cristaux de sel, et les tables, lits, chaises sont faits de blocs de sel. Nous avons passé la nuit autour d’un bon diner et avons bavardé. Nous sommes allés de bonne heure au lit car il fallait nous lever tôt le lendemain.
Debout à 6 h pour le petit déjeuner car nous devons partir à 6 h 30. nous sommes un peu en retard (mais notre chauffeur est….) donc Freddy a décidé de prendre un raccourci qui passe par la boue, et évidemment la jeep s’est embourbée… bien profond dans la m…..
Nous avons passé 6 h à essayer de l’en sortir. Nous étions tous couverts de boue, alors finalement nous sommes retournés à l’hôtel de sel pour déjeuner tandis que notre chauffeur Freddy restait et essayait de s’en sortir. La difficulté majeure, c’est que ce ne sont que les roues arrières qui fonctionnent, le reste non.
À 5 h de l’après midi, nous sommes retournés voir ce qui se passait. La voiture avait bougé d’environ 15 mètres. Freddy a été rejoint par un autre chauffeur et quelques locaux qui sont un peu plus malins que lui (merci mon Dieu). 2 heures après, exactement 12 h après que nous nous sommes embourbés, nous avons décidé de renoncer. Nous sommes allés à l’hôtel de sel pour y passer une autre nuit. Le moteur est mort, apparemment le carburateur. Heureusement, l’autre chauffeur est un mécanicien et il a réussi à le fixer au bout d’une heure. Nous avons tous compris que et notre chauffeur et la voiture étaient kaputt…
Nous avons passé la nuit à jouer aux cartes et à boire de la bière… et passé une autre nuit à l’hôtel de sel… ce qui n’était pas au programme….
Après les galères du jour précédent, nous décidons de partir…. Tous bien décidés à en voir un peu plus !!
Donc nous sommes allés voir un volcan dont on peut voir la fumée, mais c’est un peu loin… mais on a bien aimé le paysage… c’est comme si nous étions dans un western au milieu des rochers et du désert !
Nous sommes allés dans la vallée des rochers où l’on trouve des lapins locaux qui sont rigolos parce qu’ils ont plein de poils ! ola a essayé d’en attraper un mais sans succès ! ils sont trop rapides ces lapins !!
Nous voici devant l’arbre de Pierre… et comme son nom l’indique, c’est une Pierre qui a la forme d’un arbre… c’est très surprenant ! la nature est étonnante ! ola a essayé de grimper mais ce n’était pas autorisé, et de toutes façons c’était trop difficile.
Après l’arbre de Pierre, nous sommes arrivés à Laguna Colorada, un lac naturel rouge, superbe, peuplé de flamands roses. C’est là que nous avons passé la nuit, dans un habitat très basique. Du fait que nous avons un jour de retard, l’hôtel réservé est plein. Ça va quand même mais nous n’avons pas de douche et la nourriture n’est pas bonne. Nous avons passé la nuit à jouer aux cartes et à boire du rhum bon marché avec notre groupe. C’est très drôle ! il est l’heure de dormir parce que nous devons nous lever à 5 h du matin.
Nous devions être réveillés à 5 h par notre chauffeur, mais à 5 h 20 moi ola je me suis réveillé et ai dû réveiller tout le monde. Je suis sorti pour chercher Freddy et je l’ai vu qui fixait quelque chose sur la roue avant… après un moment il en a eu terminé, et nous sommes partis encore en retard.
Nous allons voir des geysers. C’est à environ 1 heure et nous avons vu avant d’arriver dessus une quantité de vapeur ! nous nous sommes promenés autour de mares d’eau en ébullition et de la boue qui sentait le soufre (odeur de l’œuf). Il y a de la vapeur qui sort de partout et le paysage est lunaire.
Après avoir pris une tasse de thé et du pain, nous nous dirigeons vers le laguna verde. C’est un très beau lac dans lequel se réfléchissent les montagnes qui le bordent.
Il n’y a rien d’autre à voir. La moitié de notre groupe nous a quittés 30 minutes plus tard pour un transfert vers le Chili. Il n’y a plus que moi, Agnès et Emma la Suédoise qui retournent à Uyuni. 10 minutes plus tard, le reste du groupe nous quittait et la voiture tombait en panne à nouveau ! c’est le moteur… nous arrêtons une autre jeep et lui demandons si nous pouvons être emmenés à Uyuni. Nous laissons donc Freddy et 6 heures plus tard, sans autre problème, nous sommes à Uyuni.
Direction l’agence pour les informer du problème et nous restituer de l’argent. La femme nous dit simplement qu’il n’y a pas d’argent au bureau, que tout est déposé en banque et nous demandons à parler au directeur. Elle nous dit que le directeur est à La Paz. elle passe quelques coups de fil et nous informe que quelqu’un appelle La Paz. Elle nous propose 10 dollars à chacun d’entre nous, ce à quoi nous disons « pas question ». Et alors, comme par miracle elle nous dit qu’une autre femme (responsable) arrive pour nous parler. Je pense que soit elle s’est téléportée de La Paz soit elle n’a pas quitté Uyuni….
Après avoir palabré un certain temps (et il nous faut nous dépêcher car notre bus pour La Paz va bientôt partir), elle nous offre 15 dollars chacun. Refus de notre part… enfin, ce sera 20 dollars chacun, ce qui représente environ 1/3 de ce que nous avons payé, et nous repartons sales, fatigués et affamés, mais plus riches de 20 dollars !
Nous voilà donc maintenant à Arequipa et demain nous partons pour une rando de 3 jours dans le Colca Canyon qui est le plus grand du monde….
written by  agnesola on October 3, 2007 from Uyuni, Bolivia

Trek in the second deepest canyon in the world!!
Arequipa, Peru
Helllllooooo!!
So, after our adventures in Uyuni, we arrived in Arequipa, second biggest town in Peru.
There we went on a three day tour to trek in the second deepest canyon in te world.
We started by a long 5 hours bus ride to reach a village called Cabanaconde situated at the top of the canyon.
After lunch, we started the trek to reach the bottom of the canyon. It took us about three hours and it was quite hard as the trail is very dusty and full of stones and going down is a little hard on the knees...
After a short rest, we reached a village on the other side of the canyon where we would
spend the night. It is quite amazing to see that people still live there, the have to go all the way up if they need anything fom the shop!! Crazy!!
After a nice night of sleep, we leave on the second day for 2 hours of going down again a bit further in the valley. On the way we see a beautiful waterfall!!
We finally arrive to the bottom into a amazing oasis of green trees and palmtrees with swimming pool, hammocks!!! well, a little paradise!
We enjoy the place for a few hours, have lunch, play in the pool, tan... it was really lovely!
BUT!!! WE HAD TO GO BACK UP!!! And that was the very hard part!!! 2h40 min (which is quite good!!) of going only up, without stops almost... on that rocky dusty trail!!
But we did it, and we are proud!
After a deserved night of sleep, we wake up early the next morning to take a bus to go to the Cruz del Condor. But after waiting almost two hours, the condors are very shy and we
manage to see only two or three.
We go back on the bus for a town called Chivay to soak in Hot Springs!!! A bit of a massage for the muscles!!
Back to Arequipa after a last bus ride, we enjoy a drink with the group....
But now we are looking forward to our next destination: MEXICO!!
Lots of kisses
written by  agnesola on October 7, 2007 from Arequipa, Peru

On oublie tout, sous le soleil de Mexico....
Mexico, Mexico
Heelloo!!
We are now in Merrico (you pronounce it Merrico here and not Mexico!!), discovering all
about this crazy country...
We arrived first in Mexico City where my friend Jean Marc and Michelle welcomed us in their flat in the city. We stayed there for about three days, getting back our lost sleep! and wandering around town and the historical buildings.
We visited the Chapultepec Park, which is quite a nice place, calm and green, in the middle of the town and we had fun following around the squirls!!
We also went to the Palacio Nacional, where you can admire murals from Diego Rivera which tell about the history of the country, from the Mayas to the Spanish inquisition, from the Mexican revolution to what he could see from the future.
To see more murals from Diego Rivera, we also visited a convent where the walls are full of it! Very busy this Diego!!
Coming back from the historic town we went to the Bellas Artes building which is absolutely beautiful but which is slowly sinking as it was built a very long time ago on a lake...
At night we went to a great restaurant to try some of the specialities of the country, with a traditional mexican band playing music and some enormous cocktails to drink... it was absolutely lovely!
For the week end, we decided to go with Jean Marc and Michelle to Acapulco to try a bit the beaches of the country!!
We arrived quite late in Pie de la Cuesta (close to Acapulco) where we enjoyed the pool of the hotel at night!!
The next day we went on the beach to discover how powerful the waters of the pacific ocean are!! It is absolutely incredible to see how the currents are strongs and the waves powerful... but we were very careful and had very much fun! We then enjoyed hammocks on the beach for quite a while....
For lunch, Jean Marc and Michelle took us to a great restaurant where we ate an excellent fish grilled with spices, a real treat!
And while we waited for the food, Ola did some wake board... Life is cool!!
At night, we got all dressed up and enjoyed the night life of Acapulco in a pretty big night club, where all the drinks are free once you pay the entrance!! So we really enjoyed the bar and the dance floor!!
The next day, we had time to bath a last time and went back to Mexico... Ola and me went to take our next bus for Oaxaca...
That's all for our first steps in the country of the sombrero and the eternal sunshine!
Lots of kisses,
written by  agnesola on October 16, 2007 from Mexico, Mexico

Oaxaca and we got ruined...
Oaxaca, Mexico
After Acapulco and mexico city we start our trip by ourselves again. Our first destination: the beautiful colonial town of Oaxaca.
We spend a lot of time walking around and just relaxing. Things have been a bit quick lately so we enjoy doing nothing. We were suppose to to a mexican cooking course but the lady who did it was booked up during the days we stayed so that did not happen.
There is quite a lot of nice handicraft in this town and so many stores to look in. It is also from this region that Mezcal comes from... done from the same cactus as the one used for the tequila.
There is an ancient site called Monte Alban close to here that we went to see. very impressive but not that big. A lot of big and clear spaces. An ancient ball court where
they used to settle disputes and other cool stuff. There is also a nice wiev of Oaxaca.
Back in Oaxaca, all the streets are lined with palmtrees and colorful houses, a very
pleasant town.
The town market is also very busy and cool. A lot of vendors selling coffee, chocolate, flowers, clothes, fish and pigsheads if you are in to that...
So thats pretty much it, we wandered, saw ruins, had nice food and drank tea in cafes...
very relaxing indeed...next stop San Cristobal de Las Casas and Palenque!
bisous and puss o kram!
written by  agnesola on October 19, 2007 from Oaxaca, Mexico

San Cristobal de las casas and Palenque.
San Cristobal de Las Casas, Mexico
Hello everyone!
So after the sunshine of Oaxaca, and its busy markets, we arrived in San Cristobal de Las
Casas... and it started to rain pretty much the next day, and didn´t stop until we left!
but the town is very very pretty... it is full of colonial houses and full of colors as well.
We also enjoyed very much going around the streets and looking at all the shops and markets...
On of the churches is of a beautiful deep yellow color, and another one has stone carvings and seems to be of a pale rose color.
The speciality in San Cristobal is amber, so we went around to see all the different kinds...
Other info: the area around San Cristobal, which is called Chiapas, is where you can find the zapatistas, which is a group fighting for the rights of indigenous people. This town is also the town they occupied in 1994 to make themselves known at the same time Mexico joined NAFTA. They dont only fight for indigenous rights, but also for womens rights in the indigenous villages and for the people who have lived here and are direct descendants of the old tribes(maya, tzotzil, toltecs and so on) to get some of the land they have the right to! to use Emiliano Zapatas catchfrase "Land and Freedom"! Go EZLN.
Finished with San Cristobal, we went to see one of the most impressive ancient Maya site in the world: the ruins of Palenque.
As soon as we arrived in the town of Palenque, we got attacked by the heat! No need to
move a finger or anything else here (no need to go to the gym), because you sweat just by standing! No doubt we were in the middle of the jungle area...
And that is what is absolutely amazing about the ruins is that the site is really in the middle of the jungle, surrounded by those tall trees, some of them are red, some have
the tarzan swinging things!! and a lot of it is very green and very dense!
All the temples, palace and tombs are very well preserved and it is unbelievable to imagine people living there... you can actually go up most of the pyramids (they build everything with plenty of stairs!and when it is so hot, it is HARD!) and admire the view from the top.
You can also go inside some of them and you realise how the rooms were and the corridors, and you also feel how humid and incredibly cold it is in those!!
Anyway, the whole site is absolutely beautiful, we really loved it a lot...
Next step of the trip will be with a little more relax times and adventure... but shhhh... you will know in a few days!!
LOADS OF LOVE TO ALL!!
Agnes and her beautiful amazing love, ola!
written by  agnesola on October 21, 2007 from San Cristobal de Las Casas, Mexico

cozumel
San Miguel de Cozumel, Mexico
So finally! the caribbean sea! and an island...time to reeeeelax.
Or so we thought...since we wanted to take our diving certificate here we first went around looking for what dive operator to choose. After seeing three we went for one called Deep Blue. We were suppose to be back the day after at 9.30 for our first lesson and dive.
Since we are in the caribbeans we are dying to get into the water, sadly enough there is no real beach in town, they are further away, and the most beautiful ones on the other side of the island. So we go to a bar that lies by the sea and they have a pier you can jump from, they nicely let us swim there without paying. the water is turquoise and beautiful...and extremely warm, around 27 degrees...very very nice...
Ok, back at the dive shop at 9.30, we meet our instructor Luis, he talks about what we are gonna do and then we get into a car that takes us to the dive site. Once there He goes through the primary stuff one needs to know about diving and information about pressure under water and alot of things. Then it is time to gear up,
and we go through all the stuff we are going to use. We slowly enter the water and then go under to feel how it is to breath through the tank, it feels strange but fine. We do some exercises under water
and then we follow Luis around on shallow depth looking at some fish and we even see a seahorse, really cool. The rest of our days (the course is suppose to take 4 days, but we get delayed because of bad weather one day) we spend doing theoretical exams, reading and doing 5 dives in total before getting our certification.
Agnes: "For my side, the training has been a little bit more painful... It is actually quite weird to breathe through the stuff and i freaked out a bit on the first time we went under water...
I had quite a few problems doing some of the exercises but at the end I managed to do it all! But our poor instructor had to take twice the time with me..."
We did some other things during our stay in cozumel, but since we had the diving in the morning, we did not do much else than some snorkeling and walking around in town. The day when our dive got cancelled because of bad weather we rented a scooter and drove around the island, it was windy, but beautiful. We stopped on the other side of the island on a deserted beach and had a swim, it was really like paradise!
And finally, the day we had been waiting for, as certified divers, to go with a boat and dive among the coral reefs of cozumel. We are going to do 2 tank dives, which is pretty
much 2 times 40 minutes. We enter the water through the boat and then descend to another world.
We drift with the current at 24 meters deep and it is so much like meditation, it is quiet and beautiful, it is very hard to describe the feeling, it has to be experienced.
we see alot of colorful fish, we bought a cheap waterproof camera before the dive, so we have some pictures, but the flash did not work on the second dive so some af the pictures miss color, since at depth in the water you need flash to see the color properly.
there was huge parrotfish, 2 big turtles, stingrays, doris from Nemo(a blue fish), a huge green moray eel, and a lot of other beautiful fish that we dont know the name of. On the
descent of the second dive I (ola) spotted a beautiful barracuda that the other people missed and Agnes was the only one to see a shark (a nurse shark). After the dive all of us had such a nice feeling, and we just wanted to go back down. Diving is truly a wonderful experience and now we cant wait till the next time we can go diving (Thailand!!!).
Agnes: "I was the same as Ola, absolutely amazed by this underwater world and I had such a great time while diving... It was quite difficult to face my fears and to do the certificate, but once down in the water, you forget about everything and you just enjoy! I really loved it and I can´t wait to do it again... Especially knowing that i was the one the most scared about seeing dangerous fishes and I actually was the only one to see the shark!! pretty cool! and I was not even scared (maybe because it was sleeping!!)
Anyway, the whole experience was wonderful....!!!"
So now we are in Chichen Itza(maya ruins) and tomorrow we are heading towards Taxco close to Mexico City.
Lots of salty wet hugs and kisses from Ola and Agnes
written by  agnesola on October 27, 2007 from San Miguel de Cozumel, Mexico

The Ruins of Chichen Itza and cenote...
Chichen-Itza, Mexico
Coucou!
So after the swimming, diving and all that... we went to visit Chichen Itza.
Chichen Itza is a beautiful site of a Maya Town...
Ok, we have seen quite a lot of ruins until now, but to be honest all of them have something particular that makes it exceptional.
For Chichen Itza, the pyramid that stand in the middle of the site is very big and so very impressive. All the ruins are quite well preserved which makes it lovely to walk around and think that we are walking on the steps of the Mayas.
Another very beautiful thing on the site were the "thousand columns". It is a place where is left a lot of columns all in lines ... quite impressive!
After wandering around the site for quite a while, we decided to go to a nearby Cenote called Ikil.
A cenote is a natural sinkhole, usually connected to other ones through underground cave systems... More simply, it is a big hole with a lot of water!! but usually in beautiful sceneries.
The one we went to, has vegetations going along the walls of the hole and there is black fishes in... you can jump about 4/5 meters on the side of it... which Ola and me enjoyed very much!!
Back to the town, we went for dinner and Ola saw that a young girl left her handbag on the chair when she left... As a gentleman, he ran to give it to her back!!! What a hero!!!
That's all for Chichen Itza!
Kisses
written by  agnesola on October 31, 2007 from Chichen-Itza, Mexico

Taxco
Taxco, Mexico
Once again a new town...after around 23 hours on 2 buses altogether we arrive in Taxco, 2.5 hours from Mexico City. It is a small town, easy to walk around in, and absolutely beautiful. Again as the most beautiful towns we have seen it is an old Colonial town.
But this one is very very nice.
Taxco speciales in silver, so there is extremely many silver stores everywhere.
We visited many stores looking at all the jewelry, some quite tacky, but some very beautiful pieces.
The town has another original thing, all the taxis are old wolkswagen beetles, sometimes you can se 15-20 at once in the street.
It is so nice to walk around in town, and just where we lived there was a massive livley market, and now it was extremely busy because they were selling stuff for the day of the dead. Skulls made of chocolate and all kinds of ghostly devilish stuff...
One of the nights There was alot of kids dressed up in halloween costumes at the square and they where all funny and cute, running around like little pumpkins and ghosts.
Well, not much else to say about this town, it was relaxing, we had lots of nice food
and our room had a balcony perfect for having a drink or two at night..
..
Alot of kisses from Ola and Agnes!!!
written by  agnesola on November 2, 2007 from Taxco, Mexico

Beijing
Beijing, China
Allrighty! We have not done a blog in quite some time now, but we have been doing alot of stuff and also seeing friends, thats why we havent been writing, but here it is, a combined blog of beijing and shanghai!
After some trouble finding our hostel, getting lost in the alleyways (dont worry, nothing dangerous) we arrive tired and weary, unfortunately the hostel was not very nice, so after 2 nights we changed to a supernice, superclean, and supercomfortable hostel...i think it was the best bed we have slept in so far during the trip.
We spent our first 2 days doing not much sightseeing, going to the indian embassy(closed) and the vietnamese embassy to check what we should do for our visas to go there. We are getting them later is the simple answer...
Anyway, We booked a tour to go and see the great wall of China. You can see it at many places but where we decided to see it was called Simatai. It is about 4 hours from Beijing, so we leave very early in the morning.
When we arrive we can see the wall from far, and it is making it's way up a mountain like a snake. The place we have decided to see the wall at is the steepest part so we have some climbing to do...
The Wall starts with some stairs, and it is around 2-3 kilometers to the top. We are
already a bit tired after the first stairs and we realise we have a lot left. But as we walk further and further up, we can see the wall in the other direction stretching further and further, and mountains around us, it is truly an amazing sight, and
amazing to be walking on this gigantic wall. The great wall is not from the beginning one single wall, but different ones linked together around 2000 years ago. Separate walls had been constructed by independent kingdoms and then when china was unified under emperor Qin shi Huang he made one GREAT one...pretty cool dude hey.
Finally at the top, we only had a few minutes to stay and look at the view because we had to go down to catch the bus back to Beijing...But we really enjoyed it and it was well worth the hard climb up!
Next day, we had planned to look at The forbidden city and Maos Mausoleum, but the mausoleum was closed so we went to the Forbidden city and a taoist temple after that.
Before going into the Forbidden city we went to look at Tianamen Square, the worlds
largest public square (I find it quite hard to believe that there is a bigger private square though...) It is huge, lined with red flags and monuments, it is also here
that Maos mausoleum is.
the Forbidden city is big, very big. Truly a city within a city and it is easy to get lost in
there. There is alot of artifacts from the emperors to see, old weapons,
costumes, poetry and more to see, and of course the buildings and gardens. I think the most impressive are the gardens, very nice with different shaped rocks and trees. in
some places you can also see how they lived, it was indeed a life of luxury and seclusion. The emperors and their family rarely left the forbidden city, their so called pleasure dome, unless they really had to.
After the forbidden city we hurried to see a taoist temple before it closed, it is still working and you see taoist monks walking around, taking care of the temple. It was very nice and calm with incense burning everywhere and different altars for all the different taoist gods. There was also people coming there praying to whatever god they needed help from. It is interesting to see people so devoted and believing so hard in something.
Other than the sightseeing in Beijing we went to look at some markets, ate alot of nice cheap food and just enjoyed walking around. So next stop is shanghai to meet Jeanne and Clemence and enjoy shanghai!
Puss Puss Kram Kram
TRADUCTION !
Nous n’avons pas écrit de blog depuis quelque temps maintenant mais nous avons fait pas mal de choses et avons vu des amis, c’est la raison pour laquelle on vous fait un mix entre Beijing et Shanghai aujourd’hui !
Après avoir eu un peu de mal à trouver notre hôtel, nous sommes arrivés très fatigués et malheureusement l’hôtel n’était pas extraordinaire. Après 2 nuits, nous avons changé pour un hôtel très mignon, très propre et d’un très bon confort… je pense que c’est le meilleur lit dans lequel nous avons dormi depuis le début de notre escapade.
Pas grand chose durant ces deux premiers jours du fait qu’il nous fallait aller à l’embassade indienne (fermée) et l’ambassade du Vietnam pour vérifier ce que nous devions faire pour obtenir nos visas. Nous aurons plus tard, avons-nous obtenu comme simple réponse…
Nous avons tout de même pris une excursion pour la grande muraille de Chine. Nous pouvons la voir de plusieurs endroits mais nous avons décidé de commencer par Simatai. C’est à environ de 4 heures de Beijing donc départ très tôt le matin.
On voit la muraille de très loin et elle serpente très haut dans la montagne. De l’endroit où nous avons décidé de voir la muraille, c’est la partie la plus abrupte donc il nous faut grimper…
Au démarrage, ce sont quelques marches et puis 2-3 kms jusqu’en haut. Nous sommes un peu fatigués après les premières marches et nous réalisons que nous en avons déjà gravi un bon nombre. Plus nous montons, plus nous voyons la muraille s’étendre dans l’autre direction et les montagnes nous environner. C’est une vue splendide, et c’est surprenant de marcher le long de cette muraille. Ce n’est pas une muraille d’un seul tenant mais plusieurs murailles jointes les unes aux autres il y a environ 2000 ans. Des murs séparés ont été construits au temps de royaumes indépendants, et quand la Chine a été unifiée sous l’empereur Oin Shi Huang, c’est devenu une muraille d’un seul tenant…
Arrivés au sommet, nous n’avons eu que quelques minutes pour admirer la vue car il nous fallait déjà redescendre pour attraper le bus de retour pour Beijing… nous avons vraiment beaucoup aimé, mais quelle montée !
Le jour suivant, nous avions décidé d’aller dans la Cité Interdite et au Mausolée de Mao qui était fermé. Nous sommes donc allés à la Cité Interdite puis dans un temple taoiste. Avant de nous rendre à la Cité Interdite, nous nous sommes arrêtés à la Place Tianamen, la place la plus grande du monde (difficile de croire qu’il s’agit d’une grande place privée…). C’est une place immense, bordée de drapeaux rouges et de monuments. C’est là aussi que se trouve le mausolée de Mao.
La Cité Interdite est grande, très grande ; une ville dans la ville et il est facile de s’y perdre. On y trouve des reliques des empereurs, des armes anciennes, des costumes, des poteries, etc. et bien sûr, les bâtiments et les jardins. Ce qui m’a le plus impressionné, ce sont les jardins, très beaux avec des pierres de formes différentes, des arbres. On peut voir à certains endroits comment ils vivaient. C’était une vie de luxe et de fastes. Les empereurs et leur famille ne quittaient que rarement la Cité Interdite…
Après la Cité Interdite, nous nous sommes dépêchés d’aller voir le temple taoiste avant qu’il ne ferme. Il est encore en activité et on peut voir des moines taoistes qui marchent autour du temple et veillent dessus. C’était très agréable et calme avec l’encens qui brûle un peu partout et différents autels pour tous les différents dieux taoîstes. Il y avait aussi des gens qui viennent pour prier et demander l’aide de Dieu. C’ est intéressant de voir des gens si dévots et croyant si fort en quelque chose.
Outre la découverte de Beijing, nous nous sommes promenés dans quelques marchés, avons mangé de la bonne nourriture bon marché. La prochaine étape, c’est Shanghai pour y retrouver Jeanne et Clémence !
written by  agnesola on November 18, 2007 from Beijing, China

Shanghai, to surprise Ma Janou!
Shanghai, China
Helllloooo!!
Alright! After wandering aroung Beijing for quite a while and seeing the Great Wall...,
we took a train fro Shanghai. We were supposed to arrive in Shanghai only a few days later but I got a little sick... so we decided to hurry to Shanghai!! And also it was a good occasion to surprise my friend Jeanne who was in Shanghai to visit her sister Clemence!!
We have walked quite a lot in Shanghai, to see the different areas: the French and English concessions, the shopping streets and the markets...
We walked along the Bund, where you can see old buildings of Shanghai on one side and on the other side, across the sea, you can see some of the most amazing and futurists buildings.
We also visited the old town (there is little left of it unfortunately) where the old style of bended roof tips, dragons sculptures and the small streets are still intact (or almost), even if the touristic shops have taken over the whole area... we still managed to catch a glimpse of the old times when we saw two old chinese guys playing some kind of chest game...!!
After the old town, we had to discover the new one... and in terms of new stuff, chinese are quite good!! Big TV screens everywhere, amazingly tall buildings, lights all over the place... the streets rivalise with creativity and modernism!
After a few days in Shanghai, Clemence took us out of the BIIIGG town and took us to a
small water town built around the rivers and water streams. There, most of the buildings are very old and we could visit many old homes and gardens... The old
architecture of the chinese towns is pretty beautiful as well, all made of dark wood and carvings, the gardens being made of stones, water and trees...
We could have gone around the town on a boat, but we thought that it would be much more amusing to dress like chinese people of the old times... hummm I am not sure it was the right choice, but you can judge by yourself!
Back in Shanghai, we had only a little time before going to a "beaujolais nouveau" party, which anywhere in the world has to be celebrated!! aaahh it is good to be French!!
Unfortunately the trip was coming to an end for Jeanne and Julie. We stayed another day and a half with Clemence, who took us to see more of the town. We enjoyed a bit more of Shanghai by night, and left the day after..
We are now in Xian... after a 18 hours trip on hardsleepers in the train... (quite an experience!!)
That's all Folks!!
By the way, sorry for the lack of news for a few days... So you get two bog at once !!!! cccoooooooolll!!
kisses
written by  agnesola on November 19, 2007 from Shanghai, China

Warriors!
Xi'an, China
Hello Again dear readers...
We are now in a town called Xi'an, about 17 hours by train from Shanghai.
We thought that since we were going out of Shanghai more in to the middle of China we might come to s small town, but no. In Xi'an there is around 7 million people, the same as in london. But I guess in a country with 1.3 BILLION people, it is hard to find little towns with only a few thousand inhabitants...
Anyway, except for so much people it is quite a nice town, pretty polluted but it has some nice things. There is a rather a lot of muslims living here, there is even a muslim quarter
and a big mosque. Walking around in that area is very nice with markets and food stalls and shops everywhere.
In Xi'an there is a big contrast with old and new, The centre of the town is surrounded by
an ancient city wall, it is 14 km all around in a rectangular shape and you can bike around it which we did today on our last day here. it is nice because you see the center from up above. It also has alot of old buildings, towers and temples, but also alot of new shopping malls and stuff like that, it is all mixed up.
Agnes has been sick since we got here so we ended up staying longer than we thought, so the first few days we did not do very much, but on the third day she felt better so we went to see the Terracotta warriors. It lies around 50 minutes from Xi'an and these
warriors were discovered in 197 and are more than 2000 years old. So far they have discovered around 8000 warriors, and they think there might be more.
There is 3 different "pits" to see the warriors in, but pit nr 2 was closed so there was only 2 open, plus an exhibit with stuff from pit nr 2. The first pit we saw was small but the
second one is huge, it is like an airport hangar, with rows of warriors and horses. It is so impressive to see and apparently when they were made they were painted in bright colors and they all had real weapons, but alot of these have disappeared because of theft a loooooong time ago.
The warriors purpose was to help rule another empire with emperor Qin Shi Huangdi in the afterlife. The terracotta warriors were placed in the pits in precise military formation according to rank and duty.
On our last day, except for riding on the wall, we walked around in a park alongside the wall, and you see people doing tai chi, playing chinese chess and gathering in groups playing and singing, it is very nice to see people coming together and doing things.
Now we are waiting for our train to go to Chengdu, which lies 16 hours away by train, in the state of Sechuan, so we are looking forward to the food expecially, and hopefully to see some nature.
Kiss kiss, bisous and puss o kram
TRADUCTION (c kdo !)
Hello chers lecteurs…
Nous sommes maintenant dans une ville du nom de Xi’an à 17 h de train de Shanghai. Nous pensions qu’une fois sortis de Shanghai pour aller plus au centre de la Chine, nous trouverions de plus petites villes, mais non… à Xi’an, il y a environ 7 millions d’habitants, autant qu’à Londres. Mais on peut supposer que dans un pays de 1.3 milliard d’habitants, il est difficile de trouver des villes de seulement quelques milliers d’habitants…
Cependant si ce n’était pas cette surpopulation, c’est plutôt une jolie ville, pas mal polluée mais qui offre quelques belles choses. Il y a pas mal de musulmans qui vivent ici et il y a un quartier musulman et une grande mosquée. Il est très agréable de se promener au milieu de bon nombre de marchés, de terrasses et de boutiques.
A Xi’an, il y a un très grand contraste entre le neuf et l’ancien. Le centre de la ville est protégé par une ancienne muraille de forme rectangulaire de 14 kms, et on peut en faire le tour en vélo. C’est ce que nous avons fait aujourd’hui, notre dernier jour ici. C’est agréable parce que l’on peut voir tout le centre d’en haut. Il y a un grand nombre de vieux bâtiments, de tours et de temples mais aussi beaucoup de commerces modernes. Tout est mélangé.
Agnès a été malade dès notre arrivée ici, et nous décidons de rester plus longtemps que prévu. Les tout premiers jours, nous n’avons pas fait grand-chose mais dès le 3ème jour, Agnès s’est sentie mieux et nous sommes allés voir les guerriers en terre glaise. Ils se trouvent à environ 50 minutes de Xi’an et ces guerriers furent découverts en 197 et ont plus de 2000 ans. Jusque là, il en a été découvert environ 8000 et on dit qu’il y en aurait peut-être eu davantage.
Il y a 3 différents sites (fosses) où l’on peut voir ces guerriers mais le site n°2 était fermé. Il y en avait donc seulement 2 d’ouverts plus une exposition avec quelques spécimen du site n°2. Le 1er site que nous avons vu était petit mais le 2ème immense. C’est comme un hangar d’aéroport avec des rangées de guerriers et de chevaux. C’est tellement de les voir et apparemment, quand ils ont été faits, ils étaient peints de couleurs vives, et ils avaient tous de vraies armes mais beaucoup ont disparu du fait de vols il y a trèèèèèèèès longtemps….
Le but de ces guerriers, c’était de diriger un autre empire avec l’Empereur Oin Shi Huangdi dans la vie de l’au-delà. Les guerriers en terre étaient placés dans les fosses en formation militaire précise selon leur rang et leurs fonctions.
Le dernier jour, mise à part notre promenade à bicyclette le long de la muraille, nous nous sommes baladés dans un parc voisin où l’on peut voir les gens pratiquer le tai chi, jouer aux échecs chinois et se rassembler en groupes pour jouer et chanter. C’est très sympa de voir les gens se joindre les uns aux autres et faire des choses ensemble.
En ce moment précis, nous attendons notre train pour nous rendre à Chengdu (à 16 heures de là) dans l’état du Sechuan. Nous attendons avec impatience de découvrir la nourriture et de voir, on l’espère, un peu de nature.
written by  agnesola on November 23, 2007 from Xi'an, China

PAAANNDAAS!!
Chengdu, China
Helloo everybody!
After our time in Xi'an, we took a train to go all the way to Sichuan, which is a region situated west of China. We arrived in the capital city of the region called Chengdu.
There we found a lovely, very stylish and charming hostel for us to stay a few nights.
Well, the main thing we have done in Chengdu is to see the town, we went to visit a very nice monastery where we caught a kind of ceremony where old people were turning
around in a room, singing something and repeating it all the time...
Around the monastery is a nice little old town, with a market that we enjoyed seeing.
you can also see a big statue of Mao in the middle of the town, which is nothing beautiful or very artistic...
What we found though, is a very cute area where there is a few shops, but also some
good food stalls and restaurants and bars!! As it was very pretty, we decided to come back to celebrate our 2 years anniversary with Ola in a restaurant... YES!!! ALREADY TWO YEARS!!!
It was a very nice atmosphere, we tried some very spicy snacks called Dragon toes (very
very spicy!!) and had a romantic dinner...!!!
Back home, Ola surprised me with some champagne... romantic boy, as ever...XXX
The other main thing that we did in Chengdu, is to see some Giant Pandas...
And they are absolutely the cutest animals on earth... they are so big, but they really look like big teddy bears that you want to cuddle all the time!
We arrived early in the morning, which is the best time because you can see them eating
(otherwise, during the rest of the day, when they are finished with eating, they mainly sleep!!). We saw quite a few of them, about 10, and we also saw some babies... who are even more cute, and playing around!!! We really loved them... unfortunately we couldn't take pictures of the small ones...
There is also red pandas, who are much smaller and look like a mix of cats, small bears and foxes!! They are also very cute but much less known...
Unfortunately, the giant black and white is close to extinction, as everybody knows, and it is very difficult to breed them, as they have sex very very rarely, and when it happens for the female to give birth, usually to two babies, she can only take care of one baby, so she leaves one dying...
Complicated those cute bears!!
Anyway, we were really happy to see some...
So after 3 days in Chengdu we decided to go and see a mountain, and not just any mountain, but a holy buddhist mountain!
So we arrive after a 2 hour bustrip, our plan was to take a bus up and walk 2 hours to the top, but when we arrive the last bus has already gone, so we have to stay in the village at the bottom for one night. Nothing much to do there so we just walk around in the surrounding forest playing hide and seek in the dark and later on eating and chatting with some other people at the hostel.
So the morning after we catch the bus to almost the top...the walk to the top is only around 2 hours, and along the way there is a few temples and forest to see. It is very misty and mystique. When we get to the top we are amazed to find a giant gold buddha
weighing 660 tons...we expected just some temples and stuff. It is absolutely beautiful
and covered with mist. We intended to sleep on the top in a temple, but none of the t
emples would let us sleep there, so we had to walk down for only 5 minutes and sleep in a hostel. The bad thing about China is that everything that alot of the things that are worth
seeing is so commercialised because so many chinese tourists come, so they build three star hotels and snack/souvenir shops everywhere. Which is a bit sad.
Anyway, we slept there and went up early to see the sunrise, well, that was the plan. It was too misty to see the sun at all so we started walking down instead. Here we face another problem, instead of a natural trail all the way down, there is cement steps. Which is very hard on the legs and knees. Our plan was to walk all the way down, but we only walk for 5 hours and then catch the bus down, our legs hurt too much, this also means that we missed what was supposed to be the most beautiful part of the mountain. We are still happy though and go on to our next destination the same day!
The next thing to see is a city called Leshan and their Giant Buddha, it is carved out of a
mountain and is the largest buddha in the world apparently. It is Very huge, the ears alone are around 7 meters i think. We are very tired though and walk around for a while and take pictures from the top and bottom and then we leave for Chengdu to rest
out weary bodies...
We were very happy to get away to see some trees and nature though...our next stop is a national park 10 hours from here...
Puss puss kram kram, bisous and kisses!
Agnes and Olala
Helloo everybody! Bonjour tout le monde !
Après notre passage à Xi’an, nous avons pris un train pour nous rendre dans le Sichuan qui est une région située à l’ouest de la Chine. Nous arrivons dans la capitale régionale appelée Chengdu. Nous avons trouvé une auberge très agréable et d’un style ravissant où nous passerons quelques nuits.
Notre activité principale à Chengdu a été de visiter la ville et un monastère très agréable où nous avons assisté à un genre de cérémonie où des personnes âgées tournaient dans une pièce en chantant de façon répétitive… autour du monastère, il y a une jolie petite ville ancienne avec un marché que nous avons aimé parcourir. On peut voir également une énorme statue de Mao au milieu de la ville pas vraiment belle ni très artistique…
Ce que nous avons découvert également, c’est un endroit où se trouvaient quelques commerces ainsi que quelques bonnes adresses de terrasses, restaurants et bars !! comme c’était très joli, nous avons décidé d’y revenir pour célébrer le 2ème anniversaire de notre rencontre avec Ola… OUI !!! DEJA DEUX ANS !!!
C’était une atmosphère très chaleureuse et nous avons goûté quelques mets appelés les « doigts de Dragon » (très très épicé) et nous avons fait un diner romantique…. !!
De retour, Ola m’a fait la surprise avec du champagne…. Quel garçon romantique, comme toujours …
Ce que nous avons fait d’important aussi à Chengdu, c’est d’avoir vu les pandas géants… et ce sont les animaux les plus adorables du monde… ils sont si gros mais ressemblent à de gros nounours que vous avez envie de câliner tout le temps !!!
Nous sommes arrivés tôt le matin, ce qui est le meilleur moment car on peut les voir manger (sinon, le reste du temps, dès qu’ils ont fini de manger, ils dorment !!) Nous en avons vu beaucoup (une dizaine) et également quelques bébés… qui sont évidemment encore plus adorables et qui jouent !! on les a adorés…. Malheureusement, nous n’avons pas pu prendre de photos des petits…
Il y a aussi des pandas rouges qui sont beaucoup plus petits et ressemblent à des croisements entre des chats, des petits ours et des renards !!! ils sont également très mignons mais sont moins connus…
Malheureusement, le géant noir et blanc est en voie d’extinction, comme chacun le sait, et il est très difficile de les faire se reproduire car ils s’accouplent très très rarement, et lorsqu’une femelle donne naissance, à 2 bébés en moyenne, elle ne prend soin que d’un bébé et laisse l’autre mourir… ils sont compliqués ces gentils nounours !! de toutes façons, nous avons été très heureux d’en voir quelques-uns…
Puis, après 3 jours à Chengdu, nous avons décidé d’aller voir une montagne, pas n’importe quelle montagne mais une montagne boudhiste sacrée !
Nous arrivons après 2 heures de bus et notre projet était de prendre un autre bus et de marcher environ 2 heures pour atteindre le sommet mais quand nous sommes arrivés, le dernier bus venait juste de partir et nous avons dû rester en bas dans le village pour une nuit. Rien de plus à faire et nous avons joué à cache cache dans la forêt et dans la nuit puis nous sommes allés manger et bavarder avec quelques autre personnes de l’auberge.
Le lendemain matin, nous prenions le bus qui nous menait presqu’en haut… il faut seulement 2 heures de marche pour arriver au sommet et tout le long du chemin, nous sommes à travers forêt et succession de temples. C’est très brumeux et mystique. Au sommet, nous découvrons un bouddha géant en or et qui pèse 660 tonnes… nous nous attendions à voir quelques temples. C’est absolument magnifique et couvert par la brume. Nous voulions dormir dans un temple mais cela était impossible et il nous a fallu descendre pendant 5 minutes environ pour trouver une auberge où dormir. Ce qui est désagréable en Chine, c’est qu’il y a aussi le pire du fait de la commercialisation et qu’il y a énormément de touristes chinois. Des hôtels 3 étoiles ont donc été construits un peu partout ainsi que des boutiques de souvenirs et de restauration rapide, ce qui est un peu décevant.
Néanmoins, nous avons dormi là et nous sommes levés de bonne heure pour voir le lever du soleil, enfin c’était notre projet. Mais c’était trop brumeux pour voir le soleil et nous nous sommes mis en marche pour redescendre dans la vallée. C’est là que nous avons dû faire face à un autre problème. Au lieu d’un chemin qui descende en pente douce, ce sont des marches en ciment, ce qui est très dur pour les jambes et les genoux. Au départ, nous voulions descendre en marchant mais après 5 heures de marche, nous avons repris le bus car nous avions trop mal aux jambes. Nous avons donc raté ce qui était la partie la plus belle de la montagne. Mais nous sommes contents tout de même et pensons déjà à notre prochaine destination.
La prochaine chose à voir est une ville appelée Leshan et le bouddha géant extrait d’une montagne et qui est apparemment le plus important du monde. Il est vraiment énorme, les oreilles à elles seules doivent mesurer env. 7 mètres. Nous sommes très fatigués et nous nous baladons pendant un moment et nous prenons des photos du sommet et d’en bas, puis nous partons pour Chengdu pour détendre nos pauvres corps….
Nous sommes très heureux d’avoir pu contempler la nature et quelques arbres… notre prochaine étape est un parc national à 10 heures d’ici…
written by  agnesola on November 29, 2007 from Chengdu, China

jiuzhaigou
Chengdu, China
After Misty Mountains and Giant Buddhas we decided to go north in Sichuan.
Our target was a National Park 10 hours by bus from Chengdu called Jiuzhaigou.
The bus ride was indeed entertaining, we know now that all chinese busdrivers are psychotic madmen. They drive like hell and honk the horn for everything, they honk if they want a car to get out of the way or if there is people on the road (on the side of the road that is) or if...actually, they honk constantly...
Anyway, we arrived in the town of the National Park and who could believe just 10 hours north it would be so freezing cold. We got a room in a hard to find hostel and then went for dinner. We had some of the best food so far in China, A sichuan speciality(unfortunately I dont know what it is called) quite spicy but full of flavour with lots of spices, potato, chicken, tofu, cucumber and loads of stuff....YUMMY!
After sleeping it was hard to get up because we knew it was gonna be cold as hell...
The park is famous for its amazing lakes, it is a bit annoying though that to get around in the park we had to take buses, it is impossible to walk from one lake to another because that is the stupid rules, well, anyway, it was absolutely stunning. The lakes are greenish
but extremly clear and in the lakes it is possible to see old sunken trees and
plants. They also have some very cool waterfalls. There is also old Tibetan like villages, but they have unfortunately (in the name of tourism!) been turned in to shops for crap
souvenirs that are mostly bought by chinese tourists. But we liked the views in the park very much...
We don't have alot of pictures because the download is slow so we will put more when we can
After this it was back to Chengdu and then down south To Guilin where we are now, a 24 hours train ride from Chengdu...in the south. It is nice and warm here...
Puss o kram! Bisous and kisses
Ola And Agnes
VERSION FRANCAISE !!!
Après les montagnes embrumées et les bouddhas géants, nous décidons d’aller vers le nord dans le Sichuan. Notre but, c’est un parc national du nom de Jiuzhaigou à 10 heures de bus de Chengdu.
Ce voyage en bus était vraiment spécial… Nous savons maintenant que tous les conducteurs de bus chinois sont des fous psychotiques. Ils conduisent d’une façon infernale, klaxonnent pour tout et n’importe quoi : quand ils veulent qu’une voiture les laisse passer ou s’il y a des gens sur la route (même sur le côté) ou si… enfin, ils klaxonnent sans arrêt…
Enfin ! nous sommes arrivés dans la ville du National Park et qui aurait pu croire que 10 heures plus tard et dans le nord, il ferait si froid. Nous avons trouvé une chambre dans une auberge et sommes allés diner. Là, nous avons mangé la meilleure nourriture de Chine : une spécialité du Sichuan (malheureusement, je ne sais pas comment ça s’appelle) assez épicée mais très savoureuse avec nombre d’épices, des pommes de terre, du poulet, du tofu, du concombre et plein d’autres ingrédients… MMMM !
Après avoir dormi, il nous a été difficile de nous lever parce que nous savions que le temps serait glacial… le parc est réputé pour ses lacs spectaculaires mais l’ennui, c’est que pour en faire le tour, nous devons prendre les bus… c’est impossible de se rendre d’un lac à l’autre en marchant à cause de réglementations stupides, mais c’était absolument stupéfiant. Les lacs sont verdâtres mais extrèmement clairs et on peut y voir les vieux arbres engloutis et les plantes. Il y a aussi des chutes d’eau très froides. Il y a également de vieux villages tibétains qui, en raison du tourisme, ont été transformés en boutiques de souvenirs inutiles qui sont achetés en général par les touristes chinois. Mais nous avons apprécié énormément les paysages dans le parc…
Nous n’avons pas beaucoup de photos étant donné que le chargement est lent et nous en mettrons plus dès que nous le pourrons.
Après cela, retour à Chengdu, puis vers Guilin au sud où nous nous trouvons maintenant, un voyage en train de 24 heures… ici, il fait beau et chaud…
written by  agnesola on December 6, 2007 from Chengdu, China

Finally the Blog in French thanks to Maman Danielle!!! (m'man t'es une star!)
Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Hello!! Bonjour!!
Juste un petit mot vite fait pour dire que nous sommes a Hong Kong... de retour de nos vacances en France ;)
Tout va bien et nous ecrirons un blog des que possible.
En attendant, Maman Danielle a commence a mettre des traductions francaises de nos blog pour ceux qui preferent la langue de Moliere a Celle de Shakespeare.
Alors amusez vous a les lire et un grand merci a toi maman...
Gros bisous a tous...
Agnes et Ola
Just a little word to say that we are in Hong Kong... back from our hols in France ;)
We are all good and we will start writing blogs again as soon as possible.
In the mean time, Mum Danielle started to put french translations of our blogs for those who prefer French.
So have fun reading it and a big thank you to you Mum...
Big Kisses to you all.
written by  agnesola on January 8, 2008 from Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Yangshuo, Hong kong and some time in Europe!
Yangshuo, China
Hello everybody...
YES! we are back online to write the blogs...
ok, so we left you a long long long time ago (sorry!)... so let me try to expain what happen during that time.
So after visiting Chengdu and the area around it, we went down to the south to visit a "little town" called Yangshuo (only 300 000 people).
The town is really nice, but a little touristy... we went on a bamboo boat tour along the
river were the scenery was absolutely beautiful: hills all around very tall and very steep.
We enjoyed relaxing on the river listenning to some of the boat guys who were singing... and laughing a lot!!
Other ting we visited was a cave called Silver cave. It is full of limestone formations inside and there is loads of colorful spotlights to give it some more effect...
Quite cool actually...
So Yangshuo was our last destination in China before returning to Hong Kong.
Back to Hong Kong, we had the chance to be there at the same time as my dad (Daddy Jacques). So we met him and he treated us with a wonderful hotel night, a great dinner and some time together( the jacuzzi was quite coool!)! It was brilliant and so funny to see each other after such a long time especially at the other end of the planet!
After my dad was gone, we had still a few days in Hong Kong, so we decided to see a bit
of the local culture by going to DISNEYLAND!!!! hihihi... ok it was not really backpacking style but we deserve a bit of stupid fun as well... the day was very fun even though the park is not as great as the one in Paris! And I got to learn how to draw Winnie the Poo!!! Cooooooooooooooool!
We also visited a little fishing town on the Lantau island, where we saw some amazing spiky fishes!!
After walking around for a few hours, we got back to the airport to get our flight... HOME!!
It was our little treat for Ola and me to spend a bit of time in France and Sweden... We
both enjoyed to be home... especially to see all of the family with a peruvian hat!!
After spending time seperataly for Xmas the whole swedish family came to see us in Cognac...
It was great!
And on top of all we got to spend a lot of time with Clelie, my niece who is born just
before the travel... she grows up so quickly... and she is the most beautiful little girl I have ever seen!!! So as you can imagine Ola and me were the most gouzzizii and gagaga Tonton and tata in the world!! But we love it!
Well, that's all now, we are now back travelling in Vietnam... it has been only two days that we are here but we both already love it... next blog will tell you more!
Love you all...
Hello everybody... salut tout le monde…
Oui ! nous voici de retour pour écrire les blogs….
Donc, nous vous avons quittés il y a déjà un bon moment (désolés !)… alors laissez moi vous expliquer ce qui s’est passé durant cette période.
Donc après avoir visité Chengdu et sa region, nous sommes descendus dans le sud pour visiter une « petite ville » du nom de Yangshuo (seulement 300 000 hab.) la ville est vraiment jolie mais un peu touristique… nous avons longé la rivière sur un bateau de bambou d’où le spectacle était absolument superbe : les collines tout autour sont très élevées et très escarpées. Nous avons apprécié ce moment de relaxation sur la rivière, écoutant les bateliers qui chantaient… et qui se marraient pas mal !!
Ce que nous avons visité également, c’est une grotte « Silver cave ». Elle est pleine de formations de calcaire et des spots de couleurs différentes sont du meilleur effet sur ces formations. Vraiment bien…. Yangshuo était notre dernière destination en Chine avant que nous ne retournions à Hong Kong.
De retour à Hong Kong, nous avons eu la chance de nous trouver là en même temps que mon père. Nous l’avons donc rencontré et nuit à l’hôtel, excellent dîner et du temps passé ensemble (le jacuzzi était plutôt sympa !). c’était magique et si drôle de se voir après si longtemps et plus spécialement à l’autre bout de la planète !
Après le départ de mon père, il nous restait quelques jours à passer à Hong Kong… nous avons décidé de voir un peu de la culture locale en allant à DISNEYLAND !!!! hihihi…. Ok ce n’était pas particulièrement un style de routard mais nous méritons bien un peu d’amusement stupide… on s’est amusé même si le parc n’est pas aussi important que le parc à Paris ! et j’ai appris à dessiner Winnie l’Ourson…. Coooooooool !
Nous avons visité également une petite ville de pêcheurs sur l’île de Lantau où nous avons vu de drôles de « poissons hérissons » !! après un p’tit tour de quelques heures, nous sommes retournés à l’aéroport pour prendre le vol…. MAISON !!! c’était notre petite récompense pour Ola et moi de passer un peu de temps en France et en Suède… nous avons apprécié de nous retrouver à la maison… et spécialement de voir toute la famille affublée du chapeau péruvien ! après avoir passé Noël séparément, toute la famille suédoise est venue nous rejoindre.
C’était super ! et le clou ça a été de passer beaucoup de temps avec Clélie, ma nièce qui est née juste avant le voyage… elle grandit si vite… et c’est la plus jolie petite fille que j’ai jamais vue !!! et comme vous pouvez l’imaginer, Ola et moi étions les plus « gouzzizzii » et « gaga » tonton et tata du monde !!!! mais qu’est ce qu’on aime ça !
Voilà, c’est tout pour l’instant. Nous continuons notre voyage au Vietnam…cela fait 2 jours seulement que nous sommes ici, mais nous sommes déjà enchantés tous les deux… le prochain blog vous en dira plus !
Love you all... on vous aime tous…
written by  agnesola on January 11, 2008 from Yangshuo, China

Ho ho ho chi minh...
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Allrighty! We are now back to traveling, and in hot weather again!!! nice.
We have just been 3 days in Ho Chi Minh City(former Saigon) and it is very hot and humid.
Our first priority here was to get a visa for laos, This proved very easy, actually the
easiest visa so far, it just took 20 minutes, it cost us 50 dollars though...
Walking around in HCMC is quite easy, the centre is not too big and it is easy to find your way, but one thing that can be a bit scary in the beginning is all the motorbikes and vespas, there are ALOT of them. So when crossing the road there is a special technique(and yes Titti and Danielle, we do look both ways before crossing the street) You have to walk very slowly and keep eye contact with the hundreds of people on bikes coming towards you so that they can drive around you, weird as it sounds it works perfectly.
Anyway, our explorations took us to the presidential palace and the nearby park where we saw many beautiful butterflies, some far too quick to catch on a photo though. We also saw the cathedral(well, not very impressive) and the old post office. We did not go to see so many sites, but mostly walked around in the streets and parks.
One day we decided to go for a tour to the Mekong Delta, Rising early(too early) we hopped on a bus for two hours to take us to the Mekong River. The river is extremely wide and big, full with boats and ships. The Mekong area is the largest producer if rice in Vietnam, here they also grow alot of catfish for export plus many other things.
Our first stop on the tour was to see a small candy factory where they make Coconut candy. They use the juice, and then press juice from the coconut meat as well, add sugar and sometimes spices, then they boil it til it is the right texture and let it cool and get hard, then they chop it up and package, tastes very nice. Here we also saw a small beehive and was treated too honeytee with fresh Kumquatjuice, Tasty!
After this We went to have fresh fruit on an island and were treated to traditional vietnamese music. After this it was time go go on a smaller river in a rowboat, it was really beautiful with tropical trees all around. This was the end and we went back to the bus to go back to HCMC.
Every night in the area we live we have been out eating, and the food here in Vietnam is extremely good, it is more fresh than the chinese food, but i guess with this hot climate that is necessary. There was so many nice little restaurants and bars in our area as well, with fresh fruit shakes and juices for very little money... very nice.
Now we are in Miu ne, 4 hours from HCMC. There is not much here but a beach, but we will write about that in the next blog...
Kisses and hugs!!!
TRADUCTION IMMEDIATE !
Et nous voilà de retour pour continuer notre voyage, et avec à nouveau un temps chaud ! chouette. Nous ne sommes restés que 3 jours à Ho Chi Minh (anciennement Saigon), et c’est très chaud et humide.
Notre toute première priorité, c’était d’obtenir un visa pour le Laos, ce qui fut fait très rapidement, en 20 minutes seulement et un coût de 50 dollars… se promener dans HCMH est assez facile étant donné que le centre n’est pas très étendu, et qu’il est facile de trouver son chemin. La seule chose qui était un peu dérangeante au début, c’était toutes ces mobylettes et vespas. Il y en a beaucoup. Aussi, il y a une technique spéciale pour traverser la route (eh oui, Titti et Danielle, nous regardons bien des deux côtés avant de traverser). Il faut marcher très lentement et garder un œil avec les centaines de personnes sur les engins qui arrivent sur vous et vous contournent mais tout ça s’enchaîne parfaitement.
Bon... nos explorations nous ont menés jusqu’au palais presidential et le parc attenant où nous avons vu de magnifiques papillons qui volaient trop vite pour pouvoir arriver à prendre une photo. Nous avons vu également la cathédrale (bôf, pas très impressionnante) et la vieille poste. Nous n’avons pas vu tellement de sites mais nous nous sommes surtout promenés dans les rues et les parcs.
Un jour, nous avons décidé d’aller en excursion jusqu’au delta du Mékong. Lever tôt (trop tôt). Nous avons sauté dans un bus pour 2 heures de trajet jusqu’à la rivière Mékong. La rivière est extrèmement large et envahie de barques et de bateaux. Toute la contrée du Mékong est le plus grand producteur de riz au Vietnam. Ici aussi, on élève des poissons-chats pour l’export plus plein d’autres choses.
Le premier arrêt de l’excursion a été la visite d’une petite usine de sucre où est fabriqué le sucre de noix de coco. Ils utilisent le jus, et puis ils pressent le jus de la chair de noix de coco, y ajoutent du sucre et parfois des épices, et font bouillir jusqu’à l’obtention de la texture correcte, font refroidir et durcir et ils passent à l’empaquetage. C’est très bon. Nous avons vu là une petite ruche qui sert à la fabrication du thé au miel avec du jus frais de kumquat. Excellent !
Après cela, nous sommes allés sur une île et avons mangé des fruits frais au son de la musique vietnamienne traditionnelle. Puis, l’heure était venue de partir sur une plus petite rivière sur un bateau à rames. C’était vraiment magnifique avec tous ces arbres tropicaux tout autour. Promenade terminée et retour au bus pour HCMC.
Tous les soirs, dans cette région où nous nous trouvions, nous avons mangé à l’extérieur et la nourriture au Vietnam est extrèmement bonne. C’est plus frais que la cuisine chinoise mais je pense que c’est nécessaire avec ce climat chaud. Il y a énormément de sympathiques petits restaurants et de bars qui offrent des fruits et jus de fruits pour très peu d’argent… très agréable.
Nous sommes maintenant à Miu Ne à 4 heures de HCMC. Il n’y a pas grand-chose ici à part la plage, mais cela fera l’objet d’un prochain blog….
written by  agnesola on January 13, 2008 from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Sea, sun and tan in Mui Ne and rain in Nha Trang!!
Nha Trang, Vietnam
Hello to all of you!!
Sooo! After Ho Chi Minh and its beautiful Mekong River Region, we took a bus straight to Mui Ne... Mui Ne is a little town... well it is more a long street along the beach with loads of hotels and restaurants!! To be quick, the main thing to do there was to relax and go to the beach! So, we actually exactly did that, trying to work a bit on our tan (well, Ola especially!!)
On the next day, we decided to hire some bikes and go to visit the little fishing town and the sand dunes some 10 kms away. Unfortunately, after about 15 minutes riding, Ola's bicycle chain broke!! Bad Luck! So he had to take my bike, and ride while I would be on the other bike, hanging on his shoulder to be dragged!
We got the money back, and decided that it was enough adventures for the day, so we took our towels and got back to our tan!
Next destination was Nha Trang... a little more north. On the way, we saw plenty of rice plantations, which are of a very vivid green color...
The plan in Nha Trang was to do a little diving as it is the best diving site in Vietnam... but unfortunately, it has been raining all the time while we were there, so the visibility under water would not be good enough!
So we spent our time visiting the town (under the rain), which is nice... especially the sea side which looked like if a tropical storm was coming with all the palm trees bended because of the wind!
We went to see the harbour where you can see loads of very cute blue fishing boats.
Few meters from there are the Cham Towers build in the 7th and 8th century (I think!). They are basically small temples where people come to pray...
It is very dark and Mystic in there and the smells of incense overtake the all space...
Now we are in Hoi An, which is an absolutely beautiful town... talk to you soon about that!
Kissses!
VOILA... VOILA LA TRADUCTION !
mer, soleil et bronzette à Mui Ne et pluie à Nha Trang
Hello to all of you!! Salut à vous tous !
Bon ! après ho chi minh et sa magnifique région de la rivière du Mékong, nous avons pris un bus pour Mui Ne qui est une petite ville… en fait, c’est plus une longue avenue qui longe la plage avec quantité d’hôtels et de restaurants ! pour faire vite, la chose essentielle à faire absolument ici, c’est se relaxer et aller à la plage ! c’est exactement ce que nous avons fait pour essayer de parfaire notre bronzage (surtout Ola !)
Le jour suivant, nous avons décidé de louer des vélos pour aller visiter la petite ville de pêcheurs et les dunes de sable à qq 10 kms de là. Malheureusement, après 15 minutes de pédalage, la chaîne du vélo de Ola s’est cassée ! pas de chance ! il a donc dû prendre mon vélo et pédaler tandis que je restais sur l’autre vélo, m’accrochant à son épaule pour qu’il me tire ! on nous a restitué notre argent et avons décidé que c’en était assez pour aujourd’hui et nous avons repris nos serviettes pour retourner à la bronzette !
La destination suivant, c’était Nha Trang… un peu plus au nord. Sur notre chemin, nous avons vu beaucoup de plantations de riz qui sont d’un vert très vif…
Le projet à Nha Trang, c’était de faire un peu de plongée étant donné que c’est le meilleur endroit pour faire de la plongée au Vietnam… mais malheureusement, il a plu tout le temps et la visibilité sous l’eau n’était pas assez bonne !
Nous avons donc passé notre temps à visiter la ville (sous la pluie) qui est belle… surtout côté mer qui donnait l’impression qu’une tornade tropicale allait arriver car les palmiers étaient pliés sous l’effet du vent !
Nous sommes allés voir le port où l’on peut voir de très jolis bâteaux de pêche bleus. A quelques mètres de là, il y a les Tours Cham construites aux 7ème et 8ème siècles (je crois !). Ce sont en principe de petits temples où les gens viennent prier… c’est très sombre et mystique à l’intérieur et les odeurs d’encens envahissent tout l’espace…
Maintenant, nous sommes à Hoi An qui est une ville absolument magnifique… on vous en parle prochainement !
Kissses! bisous
written by  agnesola on January 18, 2008 from Nha Trang, Vietnam

Hoi an
Hoi An, Vietnam
Ok, after the rain in Nha trang we arrived in Hoi an for a little more rain...but only for one day fortunately.
Hoi an is a very charming village with old french colonial houses, a river flowing through and it is also marked as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The old part of Hoi an has some temples and other important old houses in it.
A specialty of Hoi an is tailoring, and in this town there is around 200 tailor shops...too many if you ask me, since it is hard to choose where to make clothes. I(ola) did not make anything but Agnes made a summer dress and a winter coat, all a lot cheaper than back home! cool....and nice!
It is really lovely at night to walk around close to the river, it is all lit up beautifully in
many colors and there is restaurant and bars all along the riverside. It is all very relaxing!
BUT, to not get to relaxed, we needed to get out of town a bit , so we decided to visit a place called marble mountain, it is around 20 km from Hoi an, and in order to get there we rented a scooter. To drive on the roads in Vietnam can seem a bit dangerous, but this is not a big town so it is not that bad. And as long as you take care and are cautious it is ok...but still, they sure don't drive like back home...
Anyway, the marble mountain was very nice, it is, as the name reveals, a mountain of marble, On this moutain there is a buddhist temple, pagodas and caves. In these caves are various buddha statues carved in marble, it is all very mysterious and nice. There is also a wonderful view of the sea and the surrounding landscape. After our
trip here we ended up at the hotel and decided to vist the beach, which is around 5 km from Hoi an. We still had the scooter to go there and the view on the way there was absolutely great! the river looked like in a movie, there was ricepaddies and...well, it just looked great! Unfortunately,since we were going to the beach, we did not bring any cameras...sorry...
The beach was very cool, no bars or restaurants, no hotels, just a beach with palmtrees. The waves were great to play in and the water perfect, a nice ending to our time in Vietnam.
Today is our last day in Vietnam, we are catching a bus to go to Laos, we should arrive sometime tomorrow....
Until next time
Bisous, kiss kiss, Puss o kram!
TRADUCTION !
Ok, après la pluie à Nha Trang, nous sommes arrivés à Hoi An avec un peu moins de pluie… mais seulement pour une journée.
Hoi An est un très charmant village aux vieilles maisons coloniales françaises, traversé par une rivière, et qui est inscrit au patrimoine mondial de l’UNESCO. On trouve dans la partie ancienne de Hoi An quelques temples et d’imposantes vieilles maisons.
Une des spécialités de Hoi An, ce sont les tailleurs, et il y a environ 200 échopes de tailleurs dans cette ville… beaucoup trop si vous voulez mon avis tellement il est difficile de choisir où se faire confectionner des vêtements. Moi (Ola) ne me suis rien fait faire mais Agnès s’est fait faire une robe d’été et un manteau d’hiver, le tout à très bon marché ! cool… et joli !
C’est vraiment agréable de se promener le long de la rivière la nuit. Tout est magnifiquement éclairé et il y a nombre de restaurants et de bars tout du long. C’est vraiment très relaxant ! Toutefois, pour ne pas sombrer totalement dans la relaxation, nous avons décidé de sortir un peu de la ville pour aller visiter un endroit appelé la montagne de marbre. C’est à 20 kms de Hoi An, et pour nous y rendre, nous avons loué un scooter. Conduire sur les routes au Vietnam est plutôt dangereux, mais nous ne sommes pas dans une trop grande ville, donc ce n’est pas trop compliqué. Et tant qu’on fait attention, ça va… mais c’est sûr ils ne conduisent pas comme chez nous…
La montagne de marbre était très jolie. C’est, comme le nom l’indique, une montagne de marbre sur laquelle il y a un temple boudhiste, des pagodes et des grottes. Dans ces grottes, il y a différentes statues de bouddha faites de marbre. C’est tout à fait mystérieux et joli. De cet endroit, on a une vue magnifique sur la mer et le paysage environnant. Après cette balade, nous avons rejoint notre hôtel et avons décidé de nous rendre sur la plage à 5 kms de Hoi An. Nous avions encore le scooter pour nous y rendre et le paysage tout du long était absolument géant ! nous avions l’impression de nous trouver dans un film au milieu des rizières… enfin, c’était tout simplement superbe ! mais malheureusement, nous avions oublié d’emporter les caméras… désolés…
La plage était très sympa, pas de bars ni de restaurants ni d’hôtels, simplement une plage avec des palmiers. On a eu plaisir à jouer dans les vagues et l’eau était parfaite, une belle fin pour le temps passé au Vietnam.
Aujourd’hui, c’est notre dernier jour au Vietnam. Nous allons prendre un bus pour nous rendre au Laos où nous arriverons peut-être demain…
À la prochaine !
written by  agnesola on January 20, 2008 from Hoi An, Vietnam

A pretty fun trip into Laos...
Savannakhet, Laos
Hello!
So we have now been in Laos for quite a while. It has been quite an adventure to arrive in Laos as we were supposed to take only one bus and we ended up taking about 6 different vehicles! Well, everything ended up fine! And we had quite a laugh being taken from one bus to another and from one car to another and from one tuc-tuc to another!
On the way we stoppped in a restaurant to have lunch and we were surpised to see so many animals in jars... snakes, baby crocodiles, monkeys, scorpions... !! The food there was nice anyway!! ;) lol
So we arrived in Savannakhet, a small town in the south of Laos. As a lot of travellers said to us, Laos is some kind of very relaxed country where the stress of business hasn't catch up yet... and it feels very cool!
The town is on the mekong river, and the architecture is French for some parts. After such a long trip to arrive there, we went for a quick meal and went around to see the local temples and streets. The temples (wat) are all covered in gold and colorful decorations, they are absolutely stunning.
We stayed only one night in Savannakhet, time to enjoy the calm and to go to the next town: Vientiane.
Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisses!
ET EN VERSION FRANCAISE....
un voyage plutôt drôle au Laos
Nous voilà au Laos pour un petit moment maintenant. Ça a été une véritable aventure pour arriver au Laos . En effet, nous ne devions prendre qu’un seul bus mais finalement nous avons dû prendre 6 moyens de transport différents ! mais tout est bien qui finit bien ! et nous avons eu une franche rigolade en passant d’un bus à l’autre, d’une voiture à l’autre, et d’un tuc tuc à l’autre !
Sur le parcours, nous nous sommes arrêtés dans un restaurant pour le déjeuner, et nous avons eu une énorme surprise de voir tant d’animaux dans des jarres… serpents, bébés crocodiles, singes… !! mais la nourriture était bonne ma foi !
Nous arrivons donc à Savannakhet, une petite ville au sud du Laos. Comme bon nombre de voyageurs nous l’avaient dit, le Laos est un pays très reposant où le stress du business n’a pas encore de prise… et ça, c’est très bien !
La ville se situe sur le Mékong et l’architecture est française dans certains endroits. Après un si long périple, nous avons pris un repas rapide et nous nous sommes baladés pour voir les temples et les rues. Les temples sont tous couverts d’or et de décorations très colorées. C’est très étonnant.
Nous n’avons passé qu’une nuit à Savannakhet, moment pour profiter du calme et puis nous rendre dans la prochaine ville Vientiane.
Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisses! biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiises
written by  agnesola on January 24, 2008 from Savannakhet, Laos

Vientiane
Vientiane, Laos
After another long busride, but at least on the same bus all the time and not changing 6 times we arrived in Vientiane! Capital of Laos. Despite being a capital it feels more like a big Village than an actual city capital. There is only 200000 people living here, and for a capital that is not much.
Like the rest of Laos, Vientiane has a very relaxed feeling to it, and it is easy to adjust to the pace. The town is very charming and is mixed with alot of Wats(buddhist temples)
and old colonial french buildings. The Mekong river also flows through the town which allows for nice walks along the Riverside, and cool little places to eat at along
the river, which we did, at night, it was very relaxing...
We also went to see the most important public statue in Laos, it is a 15 meter(more or less) Golden thing, quite impressive with some cool Wats around it as well. Most people in Laos are Theravada Buddhists.
Here there is also an Arc de Triumph, not quite as big and in the same style, but anyway, it very nice!
So, that is pretty much it, walking around, eating, relaxing...it is really a holiday.
Now we are in Luang Prabang, a 11 hour journey north of Vientiane, that is just as relaxing, if not more...but we will inform you of this place in a few days!
Hugs and kisses!
Ola and Agnes!
ET EN FRANCAIS, maintenant...
Après un nouveau long périple en bus, mais au moins dans le même bus durant tout le trajet et sans avoir à changer 6 fois, nous sommes arrivés à Vientiane ! la capitale du Laos. Bien que ce soit la capitale, cette ville ressemble plus à un gros village. Il n’y a que 200 000 habitants ici, et pour une capitale, ce n’est pas beaucoup.
Comme dans tout le Laos, Vientiane offre un sentiment de sérénité et on s’y trouve bien. La ville est charmante et est une combinaison de temples boudhistes et de vieux bâtiments coloniaux français. Le Mékong coule à travers la ville et il y a de jolies balades à faire le long de la rivière. Il y a également de jolis endroits où manger tout du long et nous en avons profité le soir. C’est très détendant…
Nous sommes allés voir également la statue la plus imposante du Laos, de 15 mètres de haut (plus ou moins), assez impressionnante avec des temples tout autour. La plupart des gens au Laos sont des boudhistes Theravada.
Ici aussi, il y a un arc de triomphe, pas exactement de la même taille ni du même style, mais il est beau cependant !
C’est plutôt sympathique de se promener, de manger, de se détendre… nous sommes vraiment en vacances ! nous sommes maintenant à Luang Prabang qui se situe à 11 heures de voyage au nord de Vientiane. Nous y allons pour nous reposer normalement…. Nous vous parlerons davantage de ce lieu dans quelques jours !
written by  agnesola on January 26, 2008 from Vientiane, Laos

Luang prabang, beautiful little town...
Luang Prabang, Laos
Hello!!
Soo! After Vientiane, we decided to go north to a town called Luang Prabang. The town is Unesco world heritage and you understand why when you arrive! The town is set along a
river, and the vegetation is absolutely amazing and very luxurious...
It is also filled with beautiful Wats (buddhists temples), all rivalising with gold, red and green colors... and with architectural beauty... we couldn't stop snapping pictures every 2 minutes!
We went along the town for a while, watching the rivers and the little streets...
We also visited the oldest temple there, which is about 500 years... there is a mosaic on
one of the praying house which is very beautiful...
While europe is loosing little by little its markets... here it is full on... If you haven't seen enough at the day market, you can see even more at the night market!! And close to that
market, a very clever Laos family had a cheap street buffet where you could eat a whole plate for almost nothing! So it was full of people like us every night!!
On our last day in Luang Prabang, we went to see the Haung Si waterfall a few kilometers away from the town...
Some of you will say: "waterfalls, AGAIN!??"... well yes, each of them are special!!
This one is quite high and you can climb the mountain to see it from different height. We of course went to the top!
The water is of a beautiful turquoise and the vegetation is very green and dense, so the whole place is amazing. But the best is that you can swim there as well... and there is a rope on a tree from which you can swim and dive!!! Cooool!!
Ola was of course the first one on there, and i tried some funny jumps too (I didn't want them funny, but they were!)
Well, that was it for Luang Prabang....
EN FRANCAIS....Luang Prabang, une jolie petite ville
Après Vientiane, nous avons décidé de nous diriger vers le nord jusqu’à la ville de Luang Prabang qui fait partie du patrimoine mondial et on comprend pourquoi dès qu’on arrive !
La ville est bordée par une rivière et la végétation y est absolument magnifique et très luxuriante… il s’y trouve également de très beaux « wats » (temples boudhistes) qui rivalisent avec de l’or, des couleurs rouge et verte… une beauté architecturale… toutes les 2 minutes, nous n’avons cessé de prendre des photos !
Nous avons parcouru la ville, regardant les rivières et les petites rues… nous avons visité également le plus vieux temple d’environ 500 ans…. L’une des chapelles est couverte de mosaiques, c’est magnifique….
Tandis qu’en Europe, les marchés disparaissent petit à petit, ici il y en a plein… si on n’en a pas assez vu pendant la journée, on peut en voir encore plus avec le marché de nuit ! et tout près de là, une famille laotienne offre un buffet de rue très bon marché où l’on peut manger une grande assiette remplie de nourriture pour presque rien ! on trouve donc dans cet endroit toutes les nuits des gens comme nous !
Pour notre dernier jour à Luang Prabang, nous sommes allés voir la cascade Haung Si à quelques kilomètres de la ville… quelques uns d’entre vous diront : “des cascades, ENCORE ??”… eh bien oui, elles sont toutes spéciales ! celle-ci est assez élevée et on peut escalader la montagne pour la voir d’une hauteur différente. Evidemment, nous sommes montés jusqu’en sommet ! l’eau est d’un beau turquoise et la végétation y est très verte et très dense. Tout l’endroit est splendide. Mais le clou, c’est qu’on peut nager ici… et il y a une corde dans un arbre pour nager et plonger ! coool ! Ola s’est trouvé bien sûr le premier sur place, et j’ai essayé quelques drôles de plongeons (je ne voulais pas qu’ils soient forcément drôles, mais au final……)
Voilà, c’est tout pour Luang Prabang…
Plein de bisous
written by  agnesola on January 28, 2008 from Luang Prabang, Laos

Vang Vieng
Vang Vieng, Laos
After Luang Prabang We went straight to A village called Vang Vieng.
The village has some very nice scenery around it, all around there is limestone mountains.
The Mekong river also floats through here, as in alot of other places we have visited here in souteast asia...actually, the mekong has been in most of them.
It is a pleasant place to walk around in, seeing the rivers(there is another, apart from the Mekong) and the mountains and the Temples. We did all this, and one night catching the sunset over the mountains...roooomantic!
A very popular thing in this village is a thing called tubing. You get a inner tube from a
tractor and then the take you to a place in the river 5 km from the village and you "tube" all the way back to town. It takes around 3 hours and is very relaxing. You just float around and see the mountains, water buffalos and the nature. It is possible to
stop at some places and use swings(a lot of fun!!!). The swings are quite high(10 meters up) and it is a adrenalin rush to swing out over the river and then drop yourself in...but great fun!
well, that it is, we drifted down the river, walked and partied a little bit at a bar next to our hotel...and relaxed.
We are now in Bangkok! Thailand is nice, hot and humid...and we look forward to going to a nice tropcal island...more info about that later...
Lots of kisses!!!!!
TRADUCTION...... (fidèle ou pas ! mais j'espère le plus possible...)
Après Luang Prabang, direction le village de Vang Vieng.
Le village a de beaux sites et est entouré de falaises de calcaire. Le Mékong le traverse tout comme dans beaucoup d’autres lieux que nous avons visités dans l’Asie du sud… c’est un endroit très agréable pour la promenade, avec ses rivières (il y en a une autre, en dehors du Mékong), ses montagnes et ses temples. Nous avons tout exploré et avons réussi à voir le coucher de soleil au-dessus des montagnes…. Roooooomantique !
Une chose très populaire dans ce village, c’est ce que l’on appelle le « tubing ». On prend un "réservoir" creux d’un tracteur (photos ! pour la bonne compréhension du tubing….) et on vous transporte jusqu’à un endroit de la rivière à 5 kms du village et on vous laisse flotter dans cet engin jusqu’au village. Cela prend environ 3 heures et c’est très relaxant. Vous avez juste à vous laisser flotter et à regarder les montagnes, les buffles d’eau et la nature. Il est possible de faire une halte à certains endroits précis et d’utiliser des perches (c’est rigolo !!!). Ces perches sont assez hautes (10 mètres) et vous avez une poussée d’adrénaline quand vous vous balancez au dessus de la rivière et que vous vous lâchez dedans… mais quelle rigolade !
Après cela, nous avons continué à descendre la rivière, avons marché et avons fait la fête dans un bar tout près de notre hôtel… puis place au repos.
Nous sommes maintenant à Bangkok ! la Thaïlande, c’est beau, chaud et humide… et nous attendons avec impatience de nous rendre jusqu’à une jolie île tropicale… plus d’infos plus tard…
PLEIN DE BISOUS
written by  agnesola on February 1, 2008 from Vang Vieng, Laos

Tropical Isalnd!
Ko Tao, Thailand
Helloo to all of you...
Just to let you know that we are in Koh tao now... a little island from Thailand...
It is absolutely beautiful and we are going to enjoy somt very good diving here...
So unfortunately, we are not going to be able to write much on the blog for about three weeks as the internet here cost as much as two Rolls Royce per hour!!!
But we are enjoying dont worry about it!!
LOVE!!
VERSION FRANCAISE.... (rapide, celle-ci !...)
Helloo to all of you... salut à tous….
Simplement pour vous faire savoir que nous sommes maintenant à Koh Tao… une petite île de Thaïlande… c’est absolument magnifique et nous allons nous faire plaisir à y pratiquer la plongée sous-marine…
Donc malheureusement, nous ne pourrons pas venir sur le blog pendant environ 3 semaines étant donné que l’internet ici coûte autant que 2 rolls royce à l’heure !!!!
Mais on a beaucoup de plaisir. Pas d’inquiétude !!
LOVE!! On vous aime !!!
written by  agnesola on February 4, 2008 from Ko Tao, Thailand

ko tao
Ko Tao, Thailand
Hello again dear readers....
We have not updated our blog for a very long time, the reason for that is that we have been on the same place for the last 2 weeks, a lovely little island in thailand by the name of Ko Tao.
We arrived by boat very early in the morning and when you arrive it is really like a paradise island, turqoise clear water, palmtrees and beaches...well, the first thing we had to do was to walk with our big backpacks through the woods for about 40 minutes before finding a bungalow that was available. We were very lucky to find one and we stayed at the same one until we left, it became our little home for 2 weeks. We Had a terrace overlooking the water and the sun setting just in front of us each night...
Except for the beaches and the sunsets, the main attraction here for us was diving. We went diving 8 times and on our first dive we went diving with Gray reef sharks and Bull sharks! a really cool experience, they realy look like menacing "i'm gonna eat you" sharks. But they move gracefully and are avesome to watch. They won't attack because here they have plenty of food to eat instead of divers. We have seen alot of ohter things as well...Barracudas, moray eels, Nemo!, tuna, snapper...and one extremly cool thing we saw when diving...i will tell you later...
So our days in paradise consisted alot of snorkeling, watching sunsets and walking around the island. Once we walked to one of the highest point on the Island and could see very far on two sides of it... I (ola) also managed to get a fresh coconut down from a palmtree
and crack it open so we could get some fresh coconutmilk...pretty nice!!!
There is one real towncenter, we lived about 30 minutes from there, close to us there was a small little center with restaurants, a few bars along the beach and some shops
and divecenters, that was it. Nice and small. We had some great food here, Tom Kha and Tom Yam are 2 very nice thaisoups, Massaman curry is a new favorite as well...
As alot of you know, it was my birthday while we were here as well!!! on the 15 th of February... Agnes got me 2 dives as a birthday gift. All the time that we have been
diving here we have been hoping to see some whalesharks...but nothing, so on the morning of my birthday we were hoping but did not really think we would see any... But to our surprise when we are on the boat going out the captain yells Whaleshark! and says they have seen one and asks if we all want to go...OF COURSE! So we quickly get our gear on and jump in the water with our divemaster and descend in to the deep...and there it is a 5 meter long whaleshark, absolutely beautiful and stunning. It
is undescribable in words, but it is one of the best things we have ever done, this graceful animal svim around all of us for 30 minutes before it disappears...a very cool birthday gift! and extreme luck! we are so happy to have experienced it!
On the night of my birthday we went out to have fresh seafodd barbeque thaistyle, really
nice mackerel with thai lime/chili/lemongrass sauce and of course a birthday crepe...!
All in all, our time in paradise was great, and we were a bit sad to leave...but now it is on to new things!
Puss o kram, Bisous! kiss kiss!
PS: We will leave you there with a last picture... and we really ask ourselves...: DO WE REALLY NEED TO WORK???
TRADUCTION POUR LES FRENCH PEOPLE :
Hello again dear readers.... hello de nouveau à nos chers lecteurs….
Voilà longtemps que nous n’avons pas mis notre blog à jour. La raison en est que nous sommes restés au même endroit pendant ces 2 dernières semaines, sur une jolie petite île de Thaïlande appelée Ko Tao.
Nous y sommes arrivés par bateau très tôt le matin et quand on arrive, on a le sentiment de se trouver sur une île paradisiaque, avec une eau turquoise claire, des palmiers et des plages… en tout premier lieu, la première chose que nous avons eu à faire ça a été de marcher à travers la forêt pendant env. 40 min avec nos gros sacs à dos avant de trouver un bungalow disponible. Nous avons eu la chance d’en trouver un et nous y sommes restés jusqu’à notre départ. Ça a été notre petite maison pendant 2 semaines. Nous avions une terrasse donnant sur l’océan et les couchers de soleil face à nous toutes les nuits….
Hormis les plages et les couchers de soleil, la principale activité pour nous, ce fut la plongée. Nous avons plongé 8 fois, et lors de la première plongée, nous avons côtoyé les requins gris des coraux et les requins taureaux ! une expérience vraiment cool. Ils ont l’air de vous menacer « je vais vous dévorer ». Mais ils se meuvent gracieusement et vont voir ailleurs. Ils n’attaquent pas parce qu’ils ont beaucoup de nourriture à manger autre que les plongeurs… nous avons vu plein d’autres choses également…. Des barracudas, des morues, Némo ! des thons, des « snappers » (c’est un poisson mais je –la traductrice- n’ai pas trouvé le mot en français !) et une autre chose très sympa que nous avons vue au cours de nos plongées… je vous en parlerai plus tard…
Ces jours au paradis, nous les avons passés sous l’eau , nous avons admiré les couchers de soleil et nous avons fait le tour de l’île. Nous sommes montés jusqu’au point culminant de l’île et nous avons pu voir très loin de chaque côté… moi, Ola, suis allé cueillir une noix de coco fraîche d’un palmier et l’ai ouverte et nous nous sommes régalés avec le lait de noix de coco tout frais !!!
Il y a un centre ville dont nous étions à environ 30 min, et tout près de l’endroit où nous étions, il y avait un petit centre avec des restaurants, quelques bars le long de la plage, quelques boutiques et des centres de plongée sous-marine et c’était tout. Petit mais mignon. Nous avons mangé de la nourriture succulente ici, Tom Kha et Tom Yam, ce sont 2 soupes thaïs très bonnes. Le curry Massaman est excellent aussi….
Comme beaucoup d’entre vous le savent, c’était mon anniversaire !! le 15 février… Agnès m’a offert 2 plongées. Pendant tout le temps où nous avons pratiqué la plongée ici, nous espérions voir des requins-baleines… mais rien. Et le matin de mon anniversaire, nous l’espérions mais ne pensions vraiment pas que nous pourrions en voir un… mais, à notre grande surprise, une fois sur le bateau, le capitaine s’écrit « requin-baleine » !et nous dit qu’ils en ont vu un et nous demande si nous voulons tous y aller… BIEN SUR ! on met promptement notre combinaison et descendons avec notre maître de plongée dans les fonds marins… et il est là ! le requin-baleine de 5 mètres de long, magnifique et étonnant. Les mots ne peuvent pas décrire cela mais cela fait partie des plus belles choses que nous ayons faites ; cet animal gracieux nage autour de nous pendant environ 30 minutes avant de disparaître… un très beau cadeau d’anniversaire ! et une chance extraordinaire ! nous sommes tellement heureux d’avoir eu cette expérience !
Le soir de mon anniversaire, nous sommes sortis et avons dîné d’un barbecue de fruits de mer dans le style thaï avec du citron thaï/du chili/de la sauce à base d’algues citronnées et bien entendu d’une crêpe d’anniversaire !... ce moment passé au paradis était « géant » et nous avons été un peu tristes d’avoir à partir… mais à partir de maintenant, place à de nouvelles choses !
PS. Nous vous quittons avec une denière photo… et nous nous demandons vraiment… AVONS NOUS VRAIMENT BESOIN DE TRAVAILLER ????
written by  agnesola on February 17, 2008 from Ko Tao, Thailand

a little addition to the last blog....
Ko Tao, Thailand
hello again everyone, just need to add some stuf to the last blog because now we have gotten our WHALESHARK pictures!!!!!!!!!!
They are quite dark some of them but you can still see this amazingly cool creature that we went diving with!
As we mentioned before it i just such a cool experience and when it happened everyone wash rushing to put gear on and jumping in the water, and swimming quickly to descend into to the deep!
We were quite a few divers, so we kept bumping in to each other as we svam around the shark and it svam around us. but no one cared because we were all so
happy and awestruck to be there...well, i'm gonna let the pictures tell the rest...
Bisous!!!! ola and agnes
SUITE TRADUC... BLOG PRECEDENT
Hello tout le monde à nouveau, on vient juste un peu étoffer notre dernier blog avec les photos de notre REQUIN BALEINE !!!!!
Certaines photos sont un peu sombres mais vous pouvez voir cette créature superbement cool avec laquelle nous avons nagé !
Comme nous l’avons déjà dit, c’est là une expérience formidable et quand cela arrive, on se précipite tous dans les combinaisons pour sauter à l’eau et descendre au fond !
Nous étions quelques plongeurs et nous nous cognions les uns aux autres quand nous nagions autour du requin et qu’il nageait autour de nous, mais nous n’en faisions pas cas tellement nous étions autant heureux que « frappés de stupeur » de nous trouver là… je laisse les photos parler d’elles-mêmes…
written by  agnesola on February 18, 2008 from Ko Tao, Thailand

Bangkok!
Bangkok, Thailand
Hello!
So we are now in India, our last destination! (snif snif)
But that will be for the next blog...
After having spend some time on that paradise Island, and having seen beautiful under-water creatures..., we went back to Bangkok, to visit a few more tourists sights and to say bye to Thailand!
First, we went to see a tall Golden Tower, from which you can get a pretty good view at the whole town... but the actual site itself is not too interesting...
Close to there, we visited a temple with 5 or 6 levels that you can climb up... the place is
very quiet and each level has corridors with buddhas inside... it was pretty cool. Once up there, we could see from closer the roof of another building made of very detailed spikes ... (sorry it is hard to describe!!) and you could also get a very good view
of the town. Back down, we had the chance to talk to a monk who was trying to improve his english... he was very nice and very keen to know about us ... it was a very nice experience!
We also walked along the presidential palace which is very beautiful and very white! But Unfortunately we were not dressed to the standards to enter and anjoy the park around... so we just looked at it from behind the barriers!
One of the most important attraction of Bangkok, is the Grand Palace. It is the Royal palace, but you can not actually visit the interior, you can just walk outside, but it is also
the Royal temple called Wat Phra Kaew. It is one of the biggest temples in Bangkok, and one of the most beautiful...
It is made of a lot of different buildings, all rivalising with beauties, gold and colored decorations. Along the side walls, you can admire paintings which explain the history and legends of the buddhism.
Around the different buildings, you can find some very tall statues of soldiers and some much smaller of old angry looking fighters!!
Other figurines can be found all around the temple... full of colour and gold as well.
The main attraction of the temple is the Emerald buddha, one of the most venerated Buddha in Thailand... It is made of Jade, and it is not very big, but it is placed on a massive golden throne which makes it grand. It is quite an impressive religious thing, even for non believers like us!
(just so you know i wasn't allowed to take a picture of the emerald buddha... but I did it anyway... so sorry for the bad quality but I had to be dicreet and the lights were bad!)
Once finished with the tourists sights, we walked around town, enjoying the flowers displays, which can be quite impressive of technique, in the streets.
At night, we went to see a night market in one of the red district of Bangkok... It is a pretty soft red district and most of the people here come to see the market and have a drink... but you can't avoid to see that a lot of them are here for the girls, and in some cases the boys...
It made us quite sad at the end of the night to see how many girls do that to survive... and we also had the bad luck to see quite clearly two pedophiles...
I know it kills a bit the light touch of the blog, but you can not go to Bangkok and not see those things... Unfortunately there is little to do in such a short time, but it is crazy to see how open and accepted it is there... and how many europeans or other westerners think that it is allowed for them too...
Well anyway! Lets not let it get to us!!
We are now in India, and here it is another story as most of the women are very covered when dressed! But we already like very much the country...
All in the next blog!!
written by  agnesola on February 22, 2008 from Bangkok, Thailand

Welcome to India!
Mumbai, India
So, we are in India after leaving Thailand 1 week earlier than planned.
India is a violent assault on all the senses, and all at once. There is alot of beauty and colors, but also alot of tragedy, there is smells lovely as incence, flowers, food and spices, and also smells that are less pleasant... There is alot of traffic and noise. All this attacks the mind at the same time. Just by going from the airport in to the center I think both our minds raced in many directions and thoughts at once. I do not think we said more than a few words to each other during that trip, just lost in our own thoughts. What you see is just so much poverty, more than anywhere we have been before, but yet this country has some amazing and kind people, curious and helpful, more also than any other country we have visited.
We arrived late at night in Mumbai so we had booked a hotel from the airport, when we arrived the bed was very small, it was very tight for 2 people in the bed but hey, at least the trip brings us closer together =). So the next day we upgraded to something more comfortable with a fan with a noise, well rather a beat, you will all understand when you see our fan dancing video!
We started our first day with walking...we walk alot but it is cheap and healthy. Mumbai
is BIG, very big... so we walked the path that our guidebook suggested. We started at the Gateway of India, a huge port looking out over the Mumbai harbour, it was built in 1924 and when the british left India in 1948 it was through that gate they ceremonially marched out. It is an impressive gate, even though the view was obscured buy some restoration of it.
As we continue walking there is alot of impressive buildings, alot of them built by the british, the most impressive is the Mumbai University, apparently built by the same guy that built St Pancras station in london. It has a 80 meter tower and the surroundings are very nice, unfortunately we could not visit inside...Except for a lot of
traffic and nice buildings, the streets are filled with vendors selling incense, food, giant unbreakable ballons(why, I dont know) and everything in between. It
is hectic though and we did not have to much time because there was something else we had to do this day.
We had been invited by the hotel to work at a indian wedding, well Agnes was going to work(work...I recognise that word...but what does it mean...) and i was gonna hang around. They wanted western girls to dress in sarees and greet people as they came to the wedding party. The place looked more like a event of some kind more than a wedding party. There was a big stage, cameramen and loads of food stands everywhere. As soon as we arrived they got Agnes to change in to a saree and she was put to work straight away. I thought I could just sit down and do nothing for 4 hours, take some photos and
sample the cuisine...
I was wrong, a few minutes after I had sat down at a table some kids came up and asking questions, which I gladly answered. They asked about my country, my favorite sport, are you married, what are you doing in India etc etc. At first this was ok, just a few kids, later it was alot of kids asking the same things over and over again. Then they started asking for autographs, and when I told them that Agnes was my girlfriend they started swarming around her as well. It was kind of like being treated like rockstars. The kids were lovely though, some of them brought me special sweets from the food stands to try, juices and drinks. All of them spoke very good english. I wouldn't say that it was annoying, but in the end it was a bit exhausting, having kids all around and asking stuff for 4 hours, we all know kids have a lot of energy. It was a very nice experience but we both went to bed that night very tired.
The wedding party itself was a bit strange, the two getting married never walked around, they pretty much just spent time taking pictures on stage and shaking peoples hand when they passed them giving gifts. But I guess it is tradition here, htere were fireworks as well, but I could not pay attention to much to the wedding couple, I had my groupies of indian kids to chat with all the time.
The next day was spent with more walking, pretty much the route we walked the day before, but this time we went a bit further, we saw a market that had alot of fruit and veg and live animals. It is a bit sad to see all; the animals; chickens, dogs, birds and more in small cages like that. There was also a cow meat market, the cow is sacred here in india, but not fore the muslim that live here. We just peeked in there becuse it was not open that day but it was just as good, the smell and blood we saw was enough. Sometimes the foodinspectors in Europe complain about a little bit of dirt in between some doors to a fridge or something like that, I think they would have a heart attack if they came to this place. We also visited a nice spiceshop and bought a overpriced bag of spices, it tasted really nice though so it was ok!
Well that is pretty much all of our 2 first days in India, we are now in a town called Jodhpur in the heart of Rajasthan, 18 hours north of Mumbai. We will write about that very soon. It is very beautiful though...
Sorry that we dont have more pictures, but the internet here is very slow so we will put more when we find quick internet!
Until next time, Bisous, Puss o kram and Kiss kiss!
written by  agnesola on February 24, 2008 from Mumbai, India

Jodhpur, the Blue Town
Jodhpur, India
Hello to all of you!!
After starting our trip in India with Mumbai, we took a train to go to Rajasthan, which is a region north of India... The train to get there, was very ... how to say... interesting...!! Actually looking like a real moving prison...!! Not very comfy, but hey!! that's travellling!
So we sat in the train, and after some time, our "seat neighbours for the night" arrived: a lady, her husband, her brother and their servant.
They started chatting with us and asking questions, and we ended up sharing some food with them... which was very nice.
When we had to leave the train at our stop (after the night), the brother gave me a little book full of love sentences!!! He knew that Ola was my boyfriend but it seems like it doesn't matter so much there!!
Anyway, it was funny!! And I have his phone numbers in case !!!
So we arrived in a town called Jodhpur, which is a pretty old and big town... the streets are very hectic there, with loads of traffic...
On the first day, we only walked in town, to see all the famous blue houses. Basically, Jodhpur is called the Blue town because a lot of the houses in the old part are peinted in blue, which is said to protect from the mosquitoes. I don't know if it really works but it gives to the all town a very colorful and amazing atmosphere.
One thing which is funny, is that we, as westerners, are kind of superstars for kids in the streets. They all come to us and want to know our names and our country and they shake our hands.... it is very cute and funny! They also love to have their picture taken!!
Of course, and sadly, a few of them want pens or money... but they are all very nice and cute...
On our second day, we went to visit the fort of Jodhpur which is very famous and sits on a hill overlooking the whole town. It is an absolutely beautiful fort. We had an audio tour (you have o take it!) which explains everything about the fort and the region as well.
The old stones are beautiful, the carvings of the walls and the windows and doors are event more fine and impressive...
The fort also holds a museum with items from the Maharaja... like old weapons, carriages, jewelleries... it was very interesting...
On our way back to town, we visited a small kind of temple made of marble which is a burial site for the former Maharajas. Extremely beautiful as well!!
Apart from that, there was a market and very busy streets in the town... but nothing special!! It is just extremely intense all the time, and we love everything so far...
Next episode soon!!
Love you all!!!
written by  agnesola on February 27, 2008 from Jodhpur, India

Shanti Shanti!
Jaisalmer, India
Namaste! Shanti shanti!
Well! our next destination here in India,Jaisalmer...Is pretty cool!
It is very arabic influenced with a nearby desert, a huge fort made out of golden
sandstone and camels walking around....
It is a very nice little town, easy to walk around and with loads of old buildings. The Hotel we stayed in was 400 years old! pretty cool! The fort that overlooks the town looks like a giant sandcastle! Once again, like in other places in India, it really feels like stepping back in time. There is plenty of things to see and wandering around inside the fort getting lost is a cool way to spend a few hours.
There is old buildings with exquisite carvings, towers and walls with giant paintings of
hindu gods, and of course alot of cows everywhere. Take away the motorcycles and cars and it could be 300 years ago.
Another thing that is possible to do in Jaisalmer is to go in to the desert on a camel safari. We thought about it but decided not to. And a good thing we did not!
Because on the night before we left we were walking home towards our hotel when we
here loud drumbeats! so we decide to check it out, and there is loads of people dancing and eating icecream and lots of light and music. So we ask someone what it is and apparently it is a wedding. The man comes riding on a horse and is going to his bride who
waits 1 kilometer away. And along the way there is a truck with music and drummers fiercly pounding away! It is cool to see and everyone is dancing. So we follow the procession all the way to see the bride, and we dance and chat with people along the way. They hung flowers around our necks as well... It is so much life and joy!
really cool! well except for the bride and groom there is joy, they dont smile much, but I think that is how it is here.
The next day we were going to take a bus to our next destination, but check out was at 9 in the morning and the bus at 3.30, so we had a lot of waiting to do and did not know what to do with our day. We sat down at a cafe to have a tea and after a while we heard drums...hmmm. Another wedding we thought. I went to have a look and see a huge elephant coming towards me! The elephant was painted in bright floral patterns and
looked absolutely stunning. After it comes loads of camels, jeeps painted gold and men on horses. And of course musicians and dancers and trucks with music and
people dancing. We follow the elephant and camels for some time. The musicians dance and perform in front of the elephant. Apparently all these people come
from very far, they are at the end of a 40 day pilgrimage to a temple in this town. They are a special branch of hindu called Jain. They are like hindu but have special rules about food and other stuff.
We stand still and watch people go by, dancing, singing. Then we go with them, talking to some, they give us special shawls around our neck and invite us to dance. All the time there are people throwing a red powder around. Apparently it is for good luck, but we try
to stay away from it as it gets everywhere. But in the end it is impossible as they come with handfuls of powder, throwing on everyone including us. Not much to do but smile...And they want us to take photos all the time, not just kids, old people as well.
One old lady wanted me to take a photo of her hands...
While non of us are religious, it is interesting to see spirituality like this, it is really filling these peoples lives, and they celebrate it with joy and energy like you cant find in religion in Europe. Before we left we went back to our hotel to borrow the shower, that red powder was hard to get off....
So that concludes our trip to Jaisalmer! Fairytale forts, magic evenings and spiritual gatherings! we had a great time here!
Bisous, puss o kram! kiss kiss!
Ola and Agnes painted red!
written by  agnesola on March 1, 2008 from Jaisalmer, India

Push the car
Pushkar, India
From quite big to very small we arrive in Pushkar, a well known backpackers hangout in northern india. there is around 15000 habitants here and somewhere between 500-1000 temples. The town is set around a small lake which has alot of bathing "ghats" around it. The Ghats are where the hindus go to cleanse their soul from their sins(it is certainly not to cleanse the body because the water is quite dirty...)
As I said, the place is quite turisty, but it still has a certain charm to it because it is so small. There is one main road where shops selling clothes, jewellry and other things mix with cows, temples, tourists and motorcycles. Except for the lake as scenery there is mountains surrounding the entire town. This with the lake makes for some very nice sunsets. There is a sunset outlook point where people gather. There is sadhus, drumplayers, jugglers, cows and monkeys. The atmosphere is very relaxing and some people end up staying here for very long.
Our last day here we wandered around the lake and visited a temple. It was called the Brahma temple, apparently one of the only temples dedicated to Brahma in india. The temple is not that impressive, but they give you flowers that you have to donate in the temple, well, half in the temple and half you have to throw in the lake at Brahma Ghat...
So we go to the ghat after the temple to do just this. As soon as we arrive we are approached by someone who says they are a brahmin(priest) that wants to instruct us in what to do and help us. We ask if it costs money, he says no and just says that afterwards you can give a donation if you want...
Agnes and me we both get a brahmin each that talks to us and gives us a mantra in hindi that we have to repeat after him. There is alot of indians around that do the same with brahmins so It is interesting to see how this works. we also have a silver plate with our flowers on, plus some rice, sugar, spices, red color and something more I cant remember now. At the end we will have to throw this in the water.
After the mantra he asks me how many family members I have, then asks if I am married, have kids and stuff like that. And he says some things that will give me a joyous and prosperous life. Then he starts talking about my family again and ask me to donate money for the happiness and wellbeing of my family. And I thought it was just about the spirit, not about money. He tells me the indians usually give a 1000 rupees(around 13 pounds) so he tells me for a foreigner around 500 is ok. I say it is far too much and when i say I will only give 50 rupees and in the donation box later he says that I have to put it on the holy coconut, at this point It was very hard not to laugh. There was a coconut there but I had no idea it was the holy money coconut, anyway, I put 50 rupees on the coconut and the guy says he is not very pleased with me. After this I put my stuff in the water. Afterwards I meet up with Agnes who was sitting further away with another guy and she has decided to give 50 as well, but her guy was not as persuasive as mine and she gave money afterwards, not on the holy coconut. THE HOLY COCONUT! come on...
It was a fun experience, and I am sure there are real priests in this ghat, but unfortunately there are alot of people who try to scam money out of tourists so you never know who you can trust. Anyway, me and Agnes are starting a new religion that worships coconuts. I am sure it will be huge.
This is now year zero, birth of coconutism! Go coconuts!
that is it for now, we have moved on to Jaipur which is the capital of Rajasthan! more on this in a few days.
Pctures to this blog will come when we find a quick connection!
Kiss kiss!
written by  agnesola on March 9, 2008 from Pushkar, India

Udaipur!!
Udaipur, India
Hello!
So Udaipur... we arrived very early in the morning in Udaipur after a bumpy bus ride.
So we arrive in the touristy center of the town, and of course everything is closed and a few people try to get us in their "amazing" hotels. After a while walking around not really knowing where to go, we finally follow one of them to his hotel... And we were actually not disappointed at all. The room was relatively big and very charming! So we could sleep for a while and rest from the bus ride.
Udaipur is build around a few lakes, one of them being right at the center of the touristy area. There is an island in the middle of the lake where a beautiful hotel is... but very expensive and you can only go there if you go sleep or eat at the rather expensive night buffet!!! So we only enjoyed looking at it from the outside.
The town is also famous, especially the moosoon palace, perched up on a hill, for being the place where the movie Octopussy, James Bond movie, has been filmed... A lot of restaurants show the movie at night, so we watched it, but it has to be the worst James Bond movie ever!! Anyway, it was fun recognising places from the town!
Across the bridge from the main area, we went for a drink in a garden restaurant and
enjoyed the view from the other side, where the palace of Udaipur stands. We also went to visit inside the palace but we got quite disappointed as is it very busy with tourists and very big but not so much charm... We can't deny that it was quite beautiful for some parts especially some wall mosaiques... but is wasn't as exciting as we thought it would be. We still had fun watching the exhibition of turabn with thew master piece: THE BIGGEST TURBAN IN THE WORLD!! yououohouuou!!
OK nobody can wear it as it is far too big but Ola would have loved to try anyways!!
Other interesting sight is the Jain temple. We got a student following us inside to do some explanations on the temple, who gave quite a lot of nice info, whether or not we
wanted it from the beginning! It is not very big but the main tower has plenty of little statues carved in it which is beautiful and full of details.
And last but not least, we visited an haveli (big old house) which was very beautiful and used to be the Maharaja guesthouse!
We also enjoyed going around town and seing the markets and bazaar streets. And doing a little shopping...
Next destination Pushkar! Over to you, Ola!
Kisses.
written by  agnesola on March 8, 2008 from Udaipur, India

Jaipuuuur!
Jaipur, India
As the guy selling tickets for the bus keeps screaming; Jaipur, Jaipur JAAAAAAAIIIIIPUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUR! We are in Jaipur. It is the capital of Rajasthan and has some 2.4 million inhabitants, that is 1.4 million more than Stockholm and a hell of a lot smaller.
It has all the attributes of an indian big city. It is noisy, dusty and polluted. But it is also filled with old buildings, palaces and forts.
There is also an old part of the town with different handicrafts being sold in different streets.
We stay in a hotel that has two nazi indian brothers running it, they are really careful that everyone turns of the water when they are finished with their showers, and sometimes they turn of the main switch when they think someone is taking a too long shower. I guess this would be kind of alright if I thought they were doing it because of ecological reasons, but they themselves use an excessive amount of water everyday to water the colloection of plants they have on the rooftop, so they are just controlling and weird. Anyway, our room is ok and cheap so we don't complain.
We went to visit something called the Hava Mahal. Which is part of the city palace complex. It was built so that the women of the palace could sit and watch the everyday life of the town from a protected place. It is alot of windows facing the old city. We wanted to see the city palace as well, ut the main exhibition was closed so we did not feel like paying to see only a small part.
The next day we went on a long walk to see the city fort, which is perched on a cliff overlooking the city. It was a 2 km zigzag route to the top, but once we arrived the views were amazing and it was very nice to escape the hectic streets of the city for a while.
The fort itself is not that impressive, but it is nice to wander around there, we also stayed for lunce to relax even more.
So, we did not like Jaipur that much, but it was ok. There was a really nice restaurant close to our hotel and we stayed there during the evenings and we hooked up with some people and chatted away our nights with other travellers. So, not so interesting city, but interesting people!
Thats it. next up is Agra and the Taj Mahal!!!
Kiss kiss
written by  agnesola on March 12, 2008 from Jaipur, India

TAJ MAHAL.... beauty in the world!!!
Agra, India
There we are... When you ask someone about India, they can tell you probably a lot of things... from saris to Hindouism to ganges and spirituality...
But one thing that everyone knows about India, is that the most famous building there is the Taj Mahal!
So we arrived in Agra from Jaipur... happy to leave the business of the capital of Rajasthan... On the first afternoon, we haven't done much, we just had a lunch on a
rooftop restaurant, looking at the top of the Taj and watching monkeys jumping fom one roof to the other and having fun (with the peoples' clothes!!).
We also went around the area to see where the different entrances for the Taj are, and when it opens...
On the next ay, we got up very early, to be at the Taj Mahal at 6am and see the sunrise
on the building... apparently it is a beautiful sight but we were not lucky and it was far too cloudy that day to see anything at all!!
But that doesn't matter, wether it was sunny or not, we cold discover the Taj Mahal... and it wasn't disappointing.
We entered the site through big ochra gates and little by little the Taj was visible...
I don't think that it is necessary to actually tell you how it looks, I will simply tell you that it is a very beautiful building, looking like a fairytale Castle from the middle east, all made in white marble, which makes it look extremely pure.
We were very impressed of its beauty with Ola... and we stayed for hours just looking at it.
The inside of the Taj Mahal is actually a mausoleum built by Sha Jahan for his wife, when she died... amazing to see what love does...
The light is very minimal when you enter and it takes time to adjust to the dark... Once you do, you discover all the decorations and beautiful details...
No pictures were allowed in the inside, but we could at least enjoy all the details and writings around the main entrance of the Taj.
We stayed a few more moments looking at the outside before leaving the site, still very much impressed by it.
Once out, we decided to go and visit the other attraction of the town: the Red Fort.
And we were very happily surprised too as it was very interesting to walk and wander around the fort, where architecture here as well was pretty impressive, with some very old parts made of red bricks only, and some other, more "royal" made of white marble...
From the Fort, further away, you can see the Taj.
Inside the Fort, are also many green spaces, which makes it even nicer to enjoy...
The rest of the afternoon, we had pretty much only to wait for our next train... so we went top a restaurant and watched movies while it was raining outside! Lovely!
So we left Agra, for Varanasi, our heads still full of images from one of the most well-known site in the world!
Loads of kisses
written by  agnesola on March 15, 2008 from Agra, India

Varanasi! Acha!
Varanasi, India
okokok! After the most famous monument in all of India we go to another famous place and probably the most sacred For all the hindus! Varanasi, where many devout hindu pilgrims come to bathe in the Ganges! and wash away their sins!
We had already booked our train to leave Varanasi 2 days after we arrived, because our guidebook is strangely not so positive about the town so we thought that 2 days would be enough. To our surprise it was lovely, and the feeling of the place is very nice, or as the new saying goes, very shanti! Our guesthouse had ok rooms, but the best thing with it was the rooftop terrace where loads of travellers hang out and we met some really nice people that we spent our days there with! We would like to have stayed another day or two.
As in Pushkar there is alot of bathing ghats where the hindus come to wash away their sins, they do this very early in the morning. At other times the people who live here come
to swim, play, wash clothes and massage waterbuffalos(weird, I know...)
For us, being in this water without a very very good reason seems very weird. Actually, it
seems really weird even with a very good reason. It is the most polluted river in the world. And it shows, there is garbage everywhere, and the water is thick and dark. And we heard that an indian said that it is dangerous for people that are not from Varanasi to swim in it. Even so, the people who play and svim take the water in their mouth and spit it out, doing that would probably kill me. There is also a few special ghats where they burn bodies 24/7, one was close to our hostel. When a hindu dies and is cremated here it releases them from the cycle of rebirth. what they don't cremate is holy animals like cows and cobras and holy men. They just go straight in the river...another reason not to svim in it.
We went to the main ghat one night to see a Puja(prayer) ceremony. We met a indian lady there who was a professor in Mombai who had come too see the ceremony and to visit Varanasi. We asked what the ceremony was about and she said that we indians love
light and noise, so it will be a kakofoni of light and noise! She was very funny. We also asked if she had bathed in the Ganges and she said ARE YOU CRAZY! it is so polluted! So not all hindus come to bathe in it. She said that she thought she was a
good hindu by not doing it, to save the river. Not all people in India think like this, and not all of them have the education she does, she is a professor at the
university. But it is good to see that there is hindus/indians that are aware of the pollution problem. We had a great time watching the ceremony and chatting with her.
The day after it was time to take a rowboat in the morning to see people do the morning puja. This is when they come to wash away their sins. They start very early so the
boatride was at 6 in the morning. Just in time to catch the sun climb up over the earth and up towards the sky. It is an amazing thing to see, men and women bath, but at the main ghat you see mostly women in bright colorful sarees perform the ceremony and bath.
Still, it would take a couple of million euros to make me svim in that water. Apparently, if you have an open wound or a little scratch, you can get sick just from getting the water on it...
It is quite a hectic town, but along the ghats it is quite calm too walk, no cars or rickshaws, just people. And you meet alot of different people while walking there. It is cool. The rest of the town is mixed between narrow alleys in the old street to people and cowfilled big streets in the newer part. And with little interesting stores around every corner! even a german bakery, not a german in sight, but still... it had some great food!
On our last day we visited a place 15 km from Varanasi called Sarnath. This is where buddha held his first sermon and where he came after gaining enlightenment under a bodhitree in bodhgaya. There is a few temple ruins here but they are not very interesting. What is nice here is that it is sooooo calm. very non indian. It is a pilgrimsite for buddhists and there was many chinese and thai there. We sat down on the green grass surrounded by trees and meditating monks. It was a perfect getaway for a few hours before we went back to hustle and bustle of Varanasi.
So that is our Holy Varanasi visit...now we are in Delhi, waiting to take a train to Corbett National park for some Tigersafari...
Ciao!
Ola and Agnes!
written by  agnesola on March 17, 2008 from Varanasi, India

Tigers!
Ramnagar, India
Sooo... From Varanasi and holy water to Corbett national park for some tigersafari!
The town close to The nationalpark is a dusty noninteresting place, so the first thing we did when arriving at 0500 in the morning was getting a hotel and some nice sleep.
Once that task was finished(after about 4 hours...zzzzzzzzzz) we set out to find some info about the park, for prices and such. We also needed to rent a jeep for the safari. Luckily we bumped in to an italian guy that wanted to share the jeep with us so it got a little bit cheaper. We also wanted to do a Elephantride, but no one could really tell us much about this, apparently ity is impossible to book, the one who arrives first there gets to go. anyway, we just had to hope for the best.
The gates for the park opens at 0600. so we told our driver to pick us up at 0500, because we wanted to be the first so we could book the elephant ride. He was 45 minutes late though(bastard) and the only answer we get is ok ok, no problem... whenever you complain here it is just like that, no problem. Everything is possible...
Well luckily we were first at the gate anyway, picked up our guide and went in to the park. We arrived at the place for elephants and were told that we had to come back at 1400 to book. So pretty much no one could guarantee us anything.
The Park is very nice though and has lots of animals. We saw three types of deer: Samba
deer, spotted deer and barking deer. There is also 2 types of monkeys,
wild boar and lots of peacocks. And lots of other birds like parrots and woodpeckers. There is also wild elephants but we did not see any. We also stopped at a lookout tower searching for tigers and other animals, but only spotted a deer and some
parrots. While we were there it started raining though and there was some massive thunder and lightning. Absolutely beautiful! It felt like a big storm was coming in.
And as for the tigers, they were invisible this day, we did see some tigers pawprints that we followed for a while but unfortunatly we did not see one. We were a bit disappointed but not too much. Agnes did her best to look convincing as a tiger though. She does'nt look like one but I think she can be more dangerous...
Once back at the camp at 1400 we managed to book a Elephantride for 1530! They are just such cool animals! The ride lasted for 2 hours and took us to places the jeep could
not go. In the jungle. Every once in a while the elephant stops for a snack and uses its trunk(the long nose, snabel in swedish) to grab branches of leaves from the trees to eat.
It is totally the best experience in the park, just so quiet and amazing to be on this big
animal going through the jungle. We did not see any new animals during this time except for an eagle, but is was such a different and better experince from the jeep ride.
We enjoyed our day, especially the elephant, but the park is a bit disorganised so it takes some fun of it, I think we would have been disappointed without our bigeared friend to ride on.
So much for now, we are in rishikesh and tomorrow heading for Delhi!
Kiss kiss!
written by  agnesola on March 22, 2008 from Ramnagar, India

Palenque

ola is chilling out in the hammock

pink dolphin

ola in the pampa

big croc eye

tree along the river

queen victoria flowers

Crab in pampa

firefly red

turtle scared by us!!

eggs of pampas condor

capivara courageaous to have a swim

agnes hiding in the high herbs!!

monkey in tree

stork in pampa

bird far far away

agnes walking in the wet lands

Pampa landscape

alligator going for a swim

walking in the pampas

swedish flag at the sunset bar

bended neck bird

Ola on the boat

agnes in the boat

Pink dolphin

turtles party

Capucin monkey heeuuu sleeping!!

few monkeys

Monkey looking at us

kind of long white bird

red bird

big bird that brings babies

Eagle

Bird Flying

Bird eat Fish

Parrot

Bird long beak

Guards in La Paz

BIG bird

Colonial HOuse

Church in La Paz

Capivara Family

Capivara alone

Flat tyre jeep

Taquile island wall/door

Ola , me and the mama

Lake titicaca from taquile island

Other view titicaca from taquile

Agnes and Ola dancing around the fire

Agnes, euuuh traditional amantilla island dress

THE couple!! of peruvians

sunset on amantilla island

more sunset amantilla island

sheeps on amantilla island

weird dky on lake titicaca

the mamas amantilla island

Lake titicaca from amantilla island

very small roof oin amantilla family house

Ola and his new sun glasses

lake titicaca from the boat

baby and baby on lake titicaca

Uros island

uros lady

hair of uros lady

house on uros island

uros boat

ola shows top of waynapicchu

Macchu picchu 1

agnes top of waynapicchu

Blue water

Agnes and ola soaking

feets up!

strairs to the pool

Ola under hot spring water

Agnes and ola in hot spring

agnes soaks

Ola enjoys

agnes going in the water

the volcano with a tiny bit of smoke!

water and stones

the pool of the hot springs

Ola again in hot springs

Agnes in hot springs

stairs to the monatsery

ola in the hot springs

Villarica Volcano

Tower with the prince prisoner

Canon

ola the prisoner

whale skeleton

dome from inside

sunset, other version

sunset in ancud

candles...

reverse again

Wooden benches in church

Inside church castro

Church from street

Other houses on stilts

along the sea, agnes with a stupid smile!!

old wooden boats again

Sea, Castro

ugly face statue

Statue no arms

Reverse

More Houses on stilts

Agnes in the role of rose of the Titanic (amazing actress!!)

Vulturs in ancud

Houses on stilts

Old train

Steam machines in castro

Plaza sign

wooden boats in castro

a boat in castro

Fun buiilding in castro

Church in Castro, Island of chiloe

dinner of mussels

Mussels in Puerto Montt

south side of perito moreno

Ola drinks whisky on ice

Llao llao forest, red trees

View from the slopes

mountain, skiing

Agnes in front of mountain

above the clouds

Agnes on top of mountain

Beautiful view

writing in the snow

trees and view

agnes in the trees

Capoti in the foz de iguazu park

Falls From the side, Foz de Iguazu

Foz de Iguazu

Foz de Iguazu, Devil´s Throat

Foz de Iguazu, Devil´s Throat 2

Ola feet in the water, chapada diamantina

River in the chapada diamantina

Agnes and ola front of fumaca falls

Lencois by night

Pai Inacio, Chapada Diamantina ola and Agnes

Hike Up Pai Inacio with group

Agnes Top Pai Inacio

Pai Inacio, Chapada Diamantina, Brazil, ola on rock

Pai Inacio, Chapada Diamantina, Brazil, view

Lencois park

Lencois town

Lencois streets

Pai Inacio, Chapada Diamantina, Brazil, ola on top

Pai Inacio, Chapada Diamantina, Brazil, sunset start

Salvador, lady sculpture

Paintings in Sao franscisco church, salvador

Streets of Salvador, pelourinho

Streets of Salvador, pelourinho sepia

Court of sao Franscisco Church, Salvador

Lady sculpture 2, salvador

Ola lost in a big tree, Salvador

Cross, salvador, brazil

Ancient palace, Salvador

Ole looking at the sea, Salvador

Traditionnal Dress in Salvador

Church, salvador

View on the sea in Barra, salvador

Sao Franscisco Church inside

Ola with hair

Agnes after an electric shock

Big god in Ilheus

View of the sea from the Pelo in salvador

Ola with a big mamma

Sao Francisco church courtyard

Sao Francisco church

Pelo, salvador

Pelo street, salvador

Ilheus Cathedral

Flowers!!

Agnes on the same staircase as ola

Ola having fun in the water!!!

beach of Pintinga... a real beauty!

View from the town

Passada de alcool, stand to sell cocktails

Arrail D'ajuda, ola on colorful staircase

Palmtrees

On the beach

Sunset!!

The town of arraial

Flower on the way to the beach

Boats

stone in porto seguro, town where the first portugese came

on a canoe in porto seguro!

Cidade Historico, porto Seguro

Ola ask directions (no wonders why he is always lost!!)

Church in the Cidade Historico, Porto Seguro

View on the sea From the cidade historico, Porto Seguro

Lighthouse in the cidade historico, Porto Seguro

flowers in the head!!! ola

in front of a palmtree in saquarema

agnes and ola in saquarema

sunset in saquarema

pousada catavento, saquarema

Agnes in Santa Theresa, top of the hill

Tram in Santa Theresa

Agnes and ola front of the port

Metropolitan Cathedral in Rio

Monkeys in Rio

ola in front of Cristo

Agnes and ola in front of cristo

agnes and ola second day in rio

view from cristo place

Cristo redentor

ola with his cowboy hat

Clélie, 15 Jours

Clélie 1er jour

Agnes and ola in Sweden December 06