Patagonia trip: 3 weeks in the nature!

Hi from Buenos Aires!
I have just come back from my 3-week Patagonia trip, which was simply amazing! Amazing is actually such a limited word to describe the incredible experiences I had...and the breathtaking beauty of the nature: lakes, mountains, woods...
I spend the first week in Bariloche and thanks to Mario, my CS host, I had a bike for 2 days to ride around and discover the place.
Here you can see a few pics.

Here the whole photo album from Bariloche.

After Bariloche, I moved to El Bolson, where I "woofed" for 2 weeks in an organic farm, collecting raspberries, cutting wood, etc. I had a wonderful time in the "Granja Los Pinos", together with four other volunteers: Alice and Angus from England and Patrick and Theresa from Austria! Incredible but true, they are old friends from the Vienna time and it was such a huge surprise to suddenly meet in Patagonia! So the days passed quickly, I did not even try to reach Ushuaia (soo far away) and came back to the capital with the feeling of being really close to nature and very motivated for the next part of my trip: north of Argentina in February!
Here the whole photo album from El Bolson.

My life in Uruguay

It has been a while since I last wrote in my blog and many things have happened since then.
Last time, while writing my love message to Brazil, I had just arrived in Uruguay. Now, nearly 3 weeks later, I already left the country. I am in Buenos Aires right now. Tomorrow I will start a 3-qeek trip to Patagonia and I am really excited about the endless landscaped and the breathtaking nature I will see there.

But before starting my new part of the trip, I want to say goodbyw to Uruguay, a big small country :-)
I arrived knowing little or nothing about it, and I must say that after a few days - when my saudade for Brazil diminished a little - I started liking the country a lot.
Some of the highlights:

• Meeting people in the street in Montevideo having a Free Box exactly the same as in Vienna, only they call it "Gratifiera" :-)
• Surfing for 9 days in a container! Alex, my host, has a wonderful farm 20 km from Punta del Este, but no space for me in his house, so I had a lot of fun feeling me at home for more than a week in a container. I heloed collecting rucola in the morning, spent the afternoon at the lonely beach against from the tourists of the city
• Visiting an eco-village near the city of Rocha, hitchhiking to get there and back to "civilisation". I climbed the highest "mountain" there, a hill of 500 meters and enjoyed a magnificent view
• Seeing the last sunset of 2011 and the first sunrise of 2012. Two unfogettable moments I spent alone thanking the sun for all the energy I received and will receive from it :-) Between the two suns I spent hourse dancing with other couchsurfers. I eventually concluded my Ner Year´s Eve celebration at 4 pm!

Well, these were some of the best moments in Uruguay, but I have many more memories.
Here you can find a pic collection:
Uruguay, 18.12.2011-03.01.2012

And now it is time to go, Patagonia is calling!!!

Gratifiera in Montevideo

The first sunrise of 2012



Me and my container :-)



3 months in heaven: THANK YOU Brazil!

After 3 days in Uruguay, I am slowly realising that I have left Brazil. Montevideo is a nice, quite city, people speak Spanish and drink maté all the time. I am liking it here, but my heart and my thoughts are still in Brazil, the first country of my trip, the country I fell in love with.
It is difficult to express with words the incredible variety of landscapes, people, feelings I experienced during the 3 months I have spent in Brazil. So I won't even try...What I can do and I have just done is to create a photo collection of my time there. The result? 50 unforgettable pics repsresenting 50 unforgettable moment of my trip.
Many more thousands memories will stay in my heart forever.
Thank you Brazil, see you again in June 2012!

Best of Brazil, 21.9-17.12.2011

After this moment of grateful review of the time in Brazil, I feel ready to continue my trip.
8 more days in Uruguay, then Buenos Aires.
I love my life on the road!

Time is running out: last day in Brazil!

Nearly a month has passed from my last post in the blog! The time has passed so quickly and I still can't quite belive today is my last day in Brazil, at least for the moment.
I have spent the last weeks mostly in big cities (Sao Paulo, Curitiba and Porto Alegre) and I am missing nature. But in a couple of weeks I will leave for Patagonia so it will compensate, I guess ;-)
I don't have many words now, only the big desire to enjoy the last hours in Brazil and, as soon as I find time, to write a text to say THANK YOU to all the wonderful people I have met in the last 3 months.

Here a few pics from:
Sao Paulo
Curitba and Morretes

Visiting Don Bosco schools in Rio

Hugs with the sweetest kids on earth :-)

Group pic with the whole class

Rio is not only Corcovado, Pao de Azucar and Copacabana. Rio is also „famous“ for his many favelas, where hundreds of thousands of people live. During on the my last day in Rio, I had the opportunity to visit two Don Bosco Centers and have a closer look at one of the biggest favelas, the Jacarezinho. I spent the morning in the Youth Center of Riachuelo. I met manye children and youngsters there, playing football, table tannis, capoeira, etc. They all live in the favela, which I visited in the afternoon. Walking there with a Salesian priest (it is too dangerous to go there alone, he said), we reached the other Don Bosco center, a school right in the middle of Favela. There I spent 2 hours visiting all the classes and I was welcomed by the children like a rock-star: everybody hugged me, wanted to make pictures with me, asked me many questions and even autographs. And manye said with my new haircut I look like Neymar, a famous brazilian young football player, star of the moment.
What a fun and at the same time touching experience! I promised them to visit them again and I want to keep my promise in June 2012, when I plan to be back in Rio for at least one month.

More pics of my visit

Hiking to the Corcovado

Christ the Redeemer...and me :-)

On Friday 4th November I had one of the most spectacular days of my whole life!
What did I do? I hiked on the top of Corcovado, until the statue of the Christ the Redemeer.

Not alone, but with five other people: my dear friends Mathieu and Anne-Therese from France and three argentinian couchsurfers I have met in Rio: Laura, Meli and Emanuel.



To go up, it was a 3-hour hike in a street first, in a narrow path in the forest then, and along the train track in the end. With around 30 degrees temperature not the easiest walk, but definitely a beautiful one. Turning the corner you never know what to expect, it could be another part of the forest or a breath-taking view of the coast!

Once reached the top, we spent around 2 hours at the base of the Christ statue. The landscape is so incredible that I could not stop looking at the most incredible combination of nature and human buildings I have ever seen!

We walked back using another path which brought us to the park Loge, near the Lagoa, where we also met a few monkeys.

Overall, a glorious day and some more unforgettable memories to add to my unforgettable trip!

 More pics from the hike to Corcovado

the wonderful six :-)

An amazing view from the top

My first week in Rio

Rio is a big city, no doubt about it. More than 8 millions people, so basically all of Austria in one city!

I arrived last Tuesday and after 1 week here I have the impression I only saw a small part of the city. At the same time, I already feel completely at home.
I was hosted for 6 days by Mathieu and Anne-Therese, old friends from the Vienna time and it was wonderful to spend time. We saw each other for the last time in February in Vienna with the idea of meeting somewhere in South America and I am really happy we realised our wish :-)

The weather was sunny at the beginning and rainy in the last days, so until now no classical tourist places visited like the Christ and the Pao de Acucar, but we I went to Copacabana, Ipanema, Forte do Leme (with wonderful views!), I had a crazy party night in Lapa and I was at theater in the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil on Sunday night. Moreover, I read two books, spent a lot of time with old and new friends, had great food.

Life is so great here that I decided to stop for a longer period, until 20th November. Last night I moved to another part of the city and I was welcomed by my new cs host, Thalia. She is a wonderful person, complete trust at first sight and immediately went along very well. This morning when I woke up after a confortable sleep on a real bed, she left me a note with perfect description of basically any information I might need about the city and...a lot of delicious fruit in the fridge (ananas, mango, kivi, papaya) which she extra bought for me knowing I am vegetarian. As if this was not enough, I could use her washing machine to wash all my dirty stinky clothes ;-) I guess they were really happy to be washed well after the last 3 hand-wash I made in the last weeks!

I feel so thankful for all the wonderful experiences and people I am meeting on my trip, they are giving me a lot of energy and trust in a better world!

Well, I think I have writenn enough for now. it is raining outside  so I will go to visit some museums today. I am looking forward to another day in Rio!

Here are some pics from my first week in Rio

Por-de-sol in Copacabana

Mathieu, me and Anne-Therese in Forte do Leme

Amazing view of Rio!