Thoughts on a train
Here I sit, listening to Acton Dread by Rusko, in the S train. All in colours, not wearing a mask, unlike everyone else. I just got kicked off my original train, not because of the mask thing, and I have a ticket, but because there has apparently been seat tickets reinforced, but only on some trains this time! And right after the conductor checked my ticket, he told me to get off at the next station and switch trains, while right after he told everyone very loud on speaker about the penalty of 750 DKK if one did not have the (FREE) seat ticket booked before embarking. All this only on some trains, and still as we have to wear masks in the trains, which was what originally anulled the seat ticket rule… You follow so far?! Because I certaintly don’t! Fuck…
But the reason why I felt inspired to write actually, was that I sit here, in all my colours, without a mask, but with a smile because I listen to good music and am on my way to beautiful and loving people. And then suddenly I notice that I feel wrong for showing my happiness here. I look around and only see bored, tired and sad people. I feel wrong, like I have to adapt to these sad surroundings or someone is going to be angry at me for not showing “Samfundssind” aka solidarity!
I imagine this little film in my mind, where a speck or splash of colour, maybe even small explosions of rainbow paint (me), dance around in between the grey and uniform people at a train platform (my surroundings), bursting with contagious happiness not easily received but craved, alone or rare in the odd society the world has become… And I can’t decide whether I can before myself more now, or less.
Just thoughts on a train, but oh so very relevant and realistic thoughts!
Childhood memories
So I wanted to start blogging again, whenever I can, and for some reason in English this time. Maybe just this once, maybe I will continue or switch whenever I feel for it! In whichever language will express my feelings and inner visuals the best 💖
I took a walk in the park around the corner from my place the other day, I had already taken a walk on the concrete sidewalks and was on my way home, when the beautiful sunset and the scent of trees and feeling of wind drew me to turn around and continue to the park, like a magnet pulling me towards Nature, with willow trees and a lake. I started walking, took off my headphones and breathed in to the sound of birds singing. I saw some of the first white flowers on a cherry tree, just unfolded and fresh. I suddenly remembered how I used to take long walks in nature where I grew up, with or without music but certainly without a phone!
I was lucky to grow up right next to large areas of fields and nature, and used to spent much time there and went for long walks alone for kilometers even as a kid. It was a place I could dwell in and display my feelings, positive or negative, without judgement and self censorship.
I got so happy – standing there with the cherry blossoms between my fingers (do correct me if I’m wrong) , and remembered that we should always keep doing what made us happy as a child. Don’t forget. That was your intuition speaking to you, your higher sense of healing, and it has unlikely changed that, what made you happy back then, makes you happy today.
Remember 🙏
Fes, Day 244: Crossing Gibraltar, Tangier → Chefchaouen → Fes
So I made it on one of the last ferries to the African continent that day, thrilled to have made it to my goal – to cross the same day. I got a ride to Tangier and the truck driver stayed and waited for my host an hour with me, even though he had a family and children waiting, long into the night. I ended up sending him home and waiting alone for my host, who had sad ‘3 minutes and then I’m there’ and again ’10 minutes’ and even so he came one and a half hour later then he shuld have. My stay with this host ended up being a bit absurd, like living with a Moroccan incarnation of Michael Cera from Crystal Fairy; he constantly told me white lies to improve his image or who knows what, he did weird ninja-like morning gymnastics in front of me when I woke up and also, woke me up in the middle of the night, telling me how he didn’t understand why I wanted to sleep and why I didn’t go out. And if I wanted to watch movies, also complaining he couldn’t buy cigarettes during Ramadan and that he was bored and had nothing to do. His house was filthy and we only ate the food that I bought, because his was aldready gone bad. But besides that he was actually trying his best and wanted me to have a good time I think.
During these two days I had talked with another couchsurfer about HH to Chefchaouen – the hash capital and old city of Morocco. So we did, it only took us around 3 hours. Chefchaouen is a charming little city with the whole medina painted blue, in the mountains with chilled out vibes. I really like the place and will come back one day.
Chefchaouen at night with a true Arabic moon and Venus and Jupiter above. Stunning!
After that, I went to Fes alone with a bus – note to travellers: DON’T go with local bus companies unless you speak good Arabic or French. I did the mistake of buying a cheaper ticket than the ones that the tourist company CTM offers, resulting in me having to change bus twice, the last bus wanting to charge me for another ticket even though I had already paid in the start of the journey, and the whole bus full ofangry men and little me fighting in Arabic over whether I should pay again or not. One guy ended up paying for me, because he was so angry at the busdriver charging me more apparently. So nice of him! Bus confusing sitting in the middle of a discussion in Arabic, with fasting and irritable men, not understanding anything.
I arrived 2 1/2 hours later than expected to Fes and it took me several hours to track down my host, Fatima, but I finally found her at her work place, the Ryad Mabrouka, which was like arriving in a 1000 and 1 night fairytale-paradise where Fatima prepared the most delicious food and mint tea for me, sitting in the garden by the pool and talking with the loveliest lady of all time. So much love.
More pics of Fes from the following days below.
Dear Fatima
Breaking the fast on night with Fatima 🙂 Time for breakfast!
Today I’m planning my trip to Marrakech where I will spend my last 4 days of my journey here in Morocco before I head back to France and Europe! Uh exciting!
Hopefully I have learned more than 5 french words by then haha. Let’s see how it goes!
Madrid, Day 233: Home!
Oh yeah I lied, so I’m not home exactly, but arriving in Europe was like coming home. A thrilled sensation of something very familiar hit me the second I got into the city center of Madrid and the sensation was elevated even more after aknowledging that I could still very much communicate with people, in the Spanish that I had learned in the past 8 months. To think about the level you get in high school in 3 years, intensely taught several hours a week, versus learning it slowly in the street in a latin country, it seems almost futile to learn a language outside of it’s natural frames.
I spent almost a week in Madrid, waiting for a letter from my bank in Denmark, moving house and changing host 2 times – the next more lovely and kind and cool than the previous. I spent smiling and enjoyable times in luxurious apartments, with the best WiFi I had had in 8 months, with the sweetest people, eating delicious Spanish foods. If it hadn’t been for the wish of being in Morocco, unknown and exciting territory, as soon as possible – I had probably stayed in Madrid! Haha.
But nonetheless, a week after my arrival to Spain I ventured south alone to hitchhike my way to Tangier – the first city you reach (if taking the ferry from Algeciras in Spain) after crossing the Gibraltar strait, on the African continent. The first ride I god outside of Madrid by hitchhiking, was with a very old guy who ended up really reminding me of the old man in Into the Wild that ends up wanting to adopt Alex. He was the sweetest guy, buying me food, talking to me about his young days when he had long hair and used to sit in the side of the road, partly covering his face with his hair so drivers would think he was a girl. When they stopped, he would then jump in before they realized he was a guy and then started to talk to them so they would realize he did no harm at all. A tough world for a male hitchhiker – still is!
He was also smoking joints while driving haha, but driving skills were good. I slept a bit at a point and whenever we passed through beautiful regions he would wake me up so I could see.
It took me around 16 hours to HH from Madrid to Tangier and I was very lucky – Hitchwiki states that southern Spain is one of the most difficult places to hitchhike. I even got a ride, in Algeciras, with the first truck I signalled to – onto the ferry and through his connections, all the way to the city Tangier afterwards (which is 40 km from Tangier Meditteranean, the habour). The Moroccan men have been very very kind to me; giving me food, water, a place to sleep and all this in very poor language skills on both parts, partly in Spanish, French and English.
I will never forget that day of HH experience – I met so many nice people and it again gives me the feeling of wanting to pay it forward and do good to other people, in order to repay all the kindness.
Adventures in Morocco with pics will follow later 😉
Lovely Carolina/Mundo was my 2. host in Madrid and by far has the sweeeeetest apartment!
She is also very nice 😉 haha, kidding, she’s the best!
WIll visit again, and you are always welcome in my home!
Animation
UFO and Cosmos exhibition – this is melted sand from a desert that is created when meteors hit, from the intense heat. It was/is worshipped in some African tribes.
A painting from 1461, showing a knight being beamed up by a UFO it seems
Huge drawing in kiddy-style like fashion of alien killing machine/spaceship/solar-powered alien tech something something
Time machine!
Bogotá, Day 224: Big City → Summer humidity → The Caribbean → Jungle → Big City
I get pulled out of my dreams into the limbo between asleep and awake, with a whisper
“…Everything’s so different…”
I hear sounds emerging quietly from the new world I am waking up in, feeling myself lying in the buschair, wrapped cosily in my blanket. I’m lying on a seat by the window and when I open my eyes the only thing that keeps me from visibly reacting in awe of the sight I’m seeing, is my tired state of mind. In front of me through the window, as if the glass was not even there – is a crystal clear sky of baby blue, pink and faint yellow like a lollipop painted sky above a white fluffy sea surrounded by brown plains of desert with tall, green cacti as the only vegetation growing more than 50 cm out of the ground. In the sunrise this inredible sight, as the bus floats through the mountains, amazes me. It takes me several minutes, looking at the infinite sea of white fluff, to realize it is not the sea.. we are driving on the mountaintops over a sea of clouds that streaches out into infinity!
When we reach the foggy middle, we descend under the great layer and down to clouded valleys way down below and all the way down to the sea and Lima.
My first impression of Lima is dirty, trashed, very big, populated and smelly. We arrive at a small terminal in a clearly poorer part of town, or at least a very dirty neighbourhood. I call Lili and get directions for a taxi. I go to meet her in a park in the Miraflores part of town. To get there, we drive for quite a while and enter a way more modern and clean part of Lima with many restaurants, café’s, comercials everytwhere, skyscrapers, parks with WiFi and neatly dressed people. She finds me after some time and we exchange loving hugs and catch up. I meet some of her friends and we go to her mom’s house where her mom, three sisters, nephew and a very sniffy dog live. I get more insight in Peruvian families and culture while I stay there for a few days and how different some family members can truly be from the rest of their family sometimes. My theory is, that all the black sheep from most families meet and make friends. That’s at least what my group of friends, across countries and social layers, seem to be made of. It’s lovely so see Lili again and talk some more, and I end up wishing I had more time in Lima to talk with her and share talents. However, after a few days in the immense Peruvian capital, I have a flight to Bogotá in Colombia. Lili and me have a cozy last day at the beach and want to meet up with Essie (whom I made friends with in Pisac, Peru) who arrives that day too, on her birthday, and have to fly out of the airport almost the same time as me. It doesn’t work though and the whole evening end up in stressful chaos as both me and Essie getting stuck in traffic separately for many hours, resulting in me arriving to the airport 30 minutes before my flight and the personnel not wanting to let me in. I have to buy a new flight ticket for the next morning (as I had a connection to the Caribbean beach town Santa Marta the next afternoon) for 170$ extra and have 11,5 hours in the airport. First I’m pissed and frustrated and on the verge to tears but then I give it up and buy myself a big icecream and the biggest cappuccino at Starbucks. I sit down and use the Internet and become happier and happier for not having to stress more after a 3,5 hours of being stuck in traffic on the way to a missed flight-pain-in-the-ass situation; find a lot of food coupons and guess who shows up: David from Wisdom Forest! A really nice guy whom I liked to talk to when I was there but didn’t have so much time with before I left. We end up talking for hours and drinking more coffee and having a really good time. He leaves around 3 in the morning; his flight was at 4:20 haha. I was good going for quite a while until around 6 in the morning where the caffeine didn’t seem to work any more and the airport-full-of-gluten-food started to get to me. However, I made it to Bogotá and only had to wait for a few hours before I had my connection to Santa Marta. A wall of heat hit me in the later afternoon when getting out of the plane and I welcomed the 33 degrees gratefuly. I met a nice guy and his dad on the plane who helped me getting to a hostel in Santa Marta before my adventure out the next day to find this Alex guy that Stephan recommended me to visit – in a forest by the beach out of Santa Marta. Santa Marta is definitely a place where local or international tourists go to kick off at the beach and buy expensive food and drinks. We ate at a Chinese place in the evening where the waitress didn’t know what integral (whole grain) or trigo (wheat) meant! Unhealthy lifestyle ftw!
The next day I went with a bus to try to find this house of Alex. The bus dropped me off by a bridge with a shop in the jungle, and that was IT; nothing else. I asked the people in the shop who told me Alex was in Bogotá, but there was one other camping further up the path across the dried out river below the bridge. I had crossed the equator and reached summer in Colombia – a really hot one without much rain this year.
I walked between the banana palmtrees, almond trees, mango trees, mandarine trees, the big trees with beanpods as long as my arms (I forget what they’re called, but you can eat the white fluff around the beans inside like with the cacao beans), the dried out river bed and coconut palmtress. Birds were twitting and chipping and the golden rays of the afternoon sun penetrated the many shades of green. Midway I came to this huuuuuge, ancient tree – one of those where new, thin, brown roots grow out from the lower branches of tree; hanging down and growing into the ground, making the trunk thicker and thicker with age, looking like a giant redish brown jellyfish connected to the ground with the tails, all green on top. You can push the hanging roots aside like drapes and walk into little spaces between them, seeing the trunk from the inside where a net of roots have made walls for spider colonies to live in and people to climb up into the tree (I thought, but didn’t try it out). I found La casa de Gloria, which is a beautiful place with open structures, a nice water system, small and big dreamcatchers, crystal alters everywhere, small dolls and figures, art, colours, many plants and lots of piglets and puppies. Gloria herself and a guy, who was staying and working there temporarily, where the only ones there. Interesting people both of them – Gloria a strong woman with strong charisma and opinions and a bit frightening force behind her eyes, could be both friendly and helping and very interesting to talk to but also very aggressive in her way of speaking and interrupting and not listening always. I found out she was double Saggitarius and worked with crystals. Carlos on the other hand was so so soft and lively and feminine, very feminine, and very lovely and funny. Lots of energy too. Taurus he was, embracing his feminine sideswonderfully.
I definitely had some interesting conversations but also had to deal with my boundaries being crossed a few times, within myself, with the very dominant personality of my host in some ways.
She ended up actually owing me money at the time I left and couldn’t pay it back.
“Pero tu tienes, tu tienes” she said (but you have ((money)), you have); but just because you’re blonde, European, American or just LOOK Western, doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re rich.
Anyway, she shared with me a lot of interesting things and advice and gave me a good contact for buying rare crystals in Bogotá. I found the guy, and several others in the Artesania (crafts) network, and made a good deal of making a ring with a little beautiful a rare Tanzanite.
I was a bit pissed to say it mildly when I arrived to the airport in Santa Marta as my host had cheated me for some money and I had to pay a ridiculous price of 25.000 Colombian pesos for my boarding pass just because I hadn’t printed it out beforehand. I arrived to Bogotá in a better mood though as I had talked with an American/Lebanese guy on the plane that insisted persistently he wanted to transform my mood to the better. It worked. We went to get something to eat after landing and I found Mati – a good friend of Cedar and Andrea’s ex girlfriend. I just had the loveliest weekend with her with lots of good food, weird-ass movies (thanks Beth, we enjoyed Black Mirror) and lots of graffiti pics. I also went by this art gallery where they private-collect streetart on canvas, photos, stickers, clothes and all kinds of artsy stuff from upcoming artists in Bogotá and Colombia, promoting and helping the artists becoming bigger and getting connections. They also make 2,5 hour free graffiti tours every morning around Bogotá. They saw my photos and really liked them – even some curious street walkers dropped in and looked at them too while the owner was looking, asking who made those. A shame I’m not staying! The shop seemed like a good place to hook up contacts 🙂
Now I’m in the airport, about to leave South America after being here for 8 months, crazy! It seems so strange, and I’m kind of glad I’m landing in Spain – still being able to communicate and ease out of the Latin ambient before I have to relearn French and learn some Arabic in Morocco.
Bye Latin American continent, you will see me again!
Lima, Peru:
Polaroid toilet roll in a hipster-analogue-shop
A pretty Lili
Flying (to Bogotá) over the indefinite sea of clouds that I had seen from the bus
Vrinda restaurant in Lima
Vrinda restaurant in Lima
Vrinda restaurant in Lima
Vrinda restaurant in Lima
Exhibition in Kennedy park, Lima
Nice piece, except her tattoo! a shame
The sea by Lima ❤
The love park where boyfriends and girldfriends gather to cuddle
Santa Marta, Colombia:
All you can eat Mangos – mango trees everywhere you go
Ascension board!
The dishwashing station
A part of the Quebrada Valencia waterfalls – fresh drinking water and natural 10-15 m deep swimming pool!
Wise old lady
My favorite note so far in the whole world
First glimpse of the Caribbean, the 4th of June!
Happy birthday Hof, Ulle, Cedar and Sofie ;D I spent your whole birthday completely alone, completely naked in the sun and shade of the palm trees on the beach by the Caribbean with the sound of the waves and the wind as the only sounds. How better to celebrate?
Bogotá, Colombia:
Lovely nights
My cool host 😉
Graffiti event: all who wanted gathered to make a sketch of the same tag/word. The best ones got to paint it together on a wall 🙂
Every single heart has it’s root deep in nature
Nice weeds 😉
Reminded me of a Santana cover!
A little pic upload
– From my time in the little house in Pisac with a garden, a very healing raw-fast and lovely people!
One of Helenas paintings in process
Helena and Jaga
The dreadlock fairies
Pisac, Day 205: Fast Carribean Bacterial Parasite Trance
Sooo I haven’t written much for a while. For various reasons (I was dancing, in bed sick, didn’t have internet or didn’t give a fuck), however now it must be time to update the ones who likes to know, and also I’m getting to a point where I am trying out everything there is to do from bed/my room.
After Bolivia I went with Carol to hitchhike to Arkana festival in the Sacred Valley in Peru near Machu Picchu. My friend Sara from Sweden, whom I met at Wisdom Forest and who was going to play at the festival, invited me.
Carol and me didn’t exactly end up hitching much more than 3 rides – although we did get to the festival pretty cheap – but had a great trip where we saw The Gate of the Gods by the Titicaca lake, called Puerta de Hayu Marka locally, which is an ancient star portal of the gods. It is believed that the gods have entered through there before, also an Inka priest have gone through to the gods never to return, and the gods will one day come again.
We met Mono, Carol’s friend who’s also a DJ, on the way to the festival 2 times at separate places until he decided to travel with us. We arrived to the festival roughly 24 hours after leaving La Paz (we also took a night bus at some point) and set up our tent. The festival was probably the tiniest I’ve ever been to. The little deco that was there was nicely made and a lot of good food was offered. It was situated at old Inka crop terraces, which are spread out all over the Sacred Valley. We set up our tent at the “DJ terrace” – right below and next to the stage. Nicely situated, but only a few meters from the right speakers. But who needs to sleep?
I didn’t see Sara that night and it would turn out that I wouldn’t meet her at all. She never came, and that was not the only surprise during that festival. We quickly found out the next day, after Mono had played prob. The best set I had heard so far, of really nice Fullon trance, that apparently the owner of the festival had gone to jail even before the festival started! For what, no one knew. I did meet Will and Jake from WF though and it was nice seeing them again. This cocky Peruvian guy with dreads had come over to me on the dancefloor that morning and I thought he seemed familiar but couldn’t place him. He said he liked the way I danced and that he thought we had met in a previous life and blablablabla and that I should just do what I did and he just wanted to tell me, and ‘Ciao Hermosa’. YeYe I thought, smartass. After he tried to get my attention a few times unsuccessfully, he tried with Carol and succeeded. She loved it and they ended up having a lot of fun together – so much I had to find another tent to sleep in one of the nights, but whatever. Haha. I was happy for her, although it was a bit inconvenient for all parts every time I had to get something of mine in the tent. As it turned out later, she didn’t go back to La Paz directly after the festival as planned, but stayed in Cusco with the guy. Oh and the guy, during the festival, came over and said: I made that dread on you, didn’t I?
And I thought, OOoohhh yeeeeah that’s where I met him! Haha. Another life, right.
Another, but probably the biggest surprise that day, was that in the afternoon I went by the eating area and thought I saw Emil’s face talking to someone. I thought I had seen wrong, but kept an eye on the person while I passed some people to get to see better. But when I saw him properly, it was freaking him! I was in shocked disbelief and went up to him, tapped him on the shoulder and said: “Hva’ fanden laver du her?!” (In english, what the hell are you doing here?!)
He turned around with a weird look and quickly as a spark lit up in a huge smile and gave me a big hug. We hugged a few times and couldn’t believe what was happening. Then, of course, he told me that the other Emil was also here. He took me to him and we hugged all three of us for a long time with shriek voices of happiness and still a bit of disbelief.
We ended up dancing almost contact-impro-like to the whole set of the only Danish DJ present, who played something really smooth, a bit alike Trentemøller, in the Techno-tent (the other stage). It was so much fun and almost weird to appreciate it so much just to see Danes.
There was a river right next to the festival in which I was bathing in every day – so refreshing, and it provided delicious mountain drinking water.
On the Sunday I met some lovely fairies who invited me to their house in Pisac and we exchanged contacts. In the evening I said goodbye to everyone, traded a massage for a pair of earrings I’ve wanted for a long while, and headed for The Camping in Ollantaytambo – the nearest town. By then, I had learned that four different in the Valley was known for each their element. Ollantaytambo is Water, and I enjoyed the rizzling sounds of the many small irrigation systems on the way into town.
I found The Camping, and a bed – the worst! It had boards under the thin mattress whide spread apart and most of them juuust long enough to reach the end of the frame – which resulted in, if you moved too much or just sat down sometimes, the boards would fall down and your bed collapse in a incomfortable sandwich. It was, however, a bed, and what I needed that night since I had no tent.
After spending two nights at the actually really lovely place with a garden and outside town, I felt uncomfortable with the people at the place, and even though I had got up by sunrise that day with terrible diarrhea, I decided to gather some strength and pack my stuff and leave. I could have dealt with the people situation, but didn’t at all feel up for it that day, so I ran like a chicken. Next time, I told myself, I will confront the situation. I water-fasted that day and the next in Pisac, where I checked in at a nice vegetarian restaurant the morning after arriving the night before. That morning though I was so weak, I could hardly drag myself to the bathroom. I was constantly freezing, having cold feet and hands but feverish head; being pale as a grey sheet. After some Skyping with family and friends, I got convinced on dragging myself out of bed, putting on clothes, and telling the lady who had the hostal that I needed a doctor. She was an angel and led me all the way to the hospital and even stayed for the entire 5 hours I was there for observation with drop in IV and experimented on with different shots. She went out and got some prescribed medicin at the farmacy while I got, what appeared to be (the nurses were not exactly keen on communicating what they were pumping me with!) antibiotics in a shot, because I sat straight up and vomited in a bucket a nurse was fast to put under me, right after she had taken back the empty syringe from my IV. I was lying there freezing while they gave me different stuff in shots and asked me questions. Some of the shots burned so much in my veins it felt like acid was being pumped up through my arm. The lady, Anna her name is, from the Hostal was almost there the whole 5 hours though and helped explain stuff the nurses didn’t have time to; asked questions for me and talked to me and gave me water. She was simply the nicest and I’m glad she was there. Finally after 5 hours and a bit of verbal pushing and questioning from Anna to the nurses, I got my IV taken out and could walk back home to my room, with the message to come back tomorrow if I felt worse or the same, to make some tests.
The next morning Anna forgot to wake me up so I could see if I needed to go back to the hospital, but I did feel better. I had contacted Essie, one of the fairies living in the house in Pisac, and we ended up meeting up to move to their house. I hugged Anna and said thanks and Essie was just the nicest and carried my bag all the way to the house, which is 5-10 minutes out of Pisac with a view over cornfields and the mountains in the valleay, + Pisac itself. The loveliest spot with a garden with peaches, apples, onions, parsley, mint, cilantro, all kinds of salad, quinoa and many other things I’m sure. All four living there I had already seen at the festival and they greeted me so warmly. We made a bed for me at the floor and had a lovely night watching Ancient aliens and drinking tea that Essie made. Essie and Beth went to the jungle the day after and I now have the room for myself for a few days until they come back. Out here you notice the wildlife again, and I haven’t seen the same yellow and turquoise birds since Ecuador! They are so beautiful. There’s a frequent visitor here, Chocolate they call him – a pretty but a bit cocky dog, who has a broken front leg. He is really cute an terrifired of the dynamite explosions they perform at the other side of the valley in the mornings, and when that happens, he jumps into my room and hides under the bed. The girls made a bed for him with a pillow, a water- and food bowl and a blanket under the stairs outside where he sleeps once in a while and gets leftovers from our meals. He started following me when I go to town or the house all the time and is a nice, halting companion. I wait for him and he waits for me.
I ended up making tests at the hospital anyway, and now know that I both have a stomach infection AND a parasite. The doctor prescribed me electrolytes and antibiotics and told me to eat meatsoup. When I said that I don’t eat meat, she chuckled a bit hopelessly and said: “well then we have a problem”. She only thinks meat is good for my stomach right now and no fruits and vegetables are good – they are too watery. Uhh excuse me, water is what you need when dehydrated! And meat: the healthiest thing, seriously? Meat has so many fibers, it might even make my digestions fuck up even more.
I said thanks and went to the pharmacy and got the electrolytes (which comes in a huge bottle with fake strawberry flavour, yuck) and didn’t get the antibiotics. I instead googled antiparasitical foods and bought a good bagful of raw goodies. I have decided to antiparasite-raw-fast until Thursday where I will take a bus to Lima and continue my travels. That gives me half a day today, 3 whole days and half a day Thursday to raw fast, unless I cut up some veggies and fruits for the journey. I could do that..
Staying here at the house, if the girls allow it when they get back, with sun, a garden and only raw stuff and immune-strengthening tea everyday + positive thoughts (watch the doc: “What the bleep do we know?” so follow my train of thought) cannot make me worse. Meatsoup, hah. Go home!
Gate of the Gods:
Arkana Festival:
Nice ash trays!
And easy to make!
Something for Danish, and other, trance festivals?
Arkana (main) stage
Well, you wanna be seen like that, you will get published 😉
Essie doing acro!
Essie doing acro!
Essie doing acro!
Out lovely house and a little trip in Pisac to the Kinsa Ccocha lagoon, perfect place for psychedelics!
It was like we had teleported into Scotland or Ireland (these last 4 are not my pics btw).
The little house with the veggiegarden I stayed and raw fasted in!
La Paz, Day 196: Pics upload, Salar De Uyuni
Here are some mixed photos, but mainly from me and Tyler’s hitchhiking adventure down through most of Bolivia to visit the famous Salt Flats near Uyuni, going through Potosí on the way and visiting Sucre – The White City – after that. I hitchhiked all the way back to La Paz alone and made it in one day – 678 km 🙂 What an adventure!
Movienight!
Movienight!
El Alto Market – once a town for itself, now melted together with growing La Paz. Here I got my wallet stolen for the 2. time in South America!
Teleferico from EL Alto
Birds have made a nest in the bar’s glass wall where a cube is broken from the outside
Vegan Chai ❤
Vegan Orea cakes! omg!!
Our little kitchen, which now has wallpaper! Wow!
The roof
View over the brick waves of La Paz
View over the brick waves of La Paz
Shittiest room I probably slept in, since Old Tingri in Tibet ´09.
Biking to Salar de Uyuni
La Paz, Day 189: Birthday night
So this night was crazy busy with a wedding in the salon, a shot party upstairs and the chef’s birthday on top of it all. She made sushi for us – vegan for Jakob and me, and (some of us) partied to the sun rose. I will let the photos speak for themselves!
Oh and I n.e.e.d. to get that playlist Stephan! Damn it those were good tunes!
Skeptical Jakob 😀
Stephan DJ’ing!
La Paz, Day 168: Party and happiness
So hitchhiking to La Paz was actually no problem, even though I went quite late in the morning. I got picked up by a little family of three and got a ride all the way to La Paz. Driving into La Paz, impressions of poverty, muddy and bumpy roads and ugliness occupied my thoughts, but as I got dropped off and worked my way into the center with 3 different buses, my impressions improved a little. La Paz is huge though – imagine hills as big as the mountains they actually are; made of red brick houses, spreading into infinity. A sunshiny center in the middle of the valley with only, what seems to be, a few skyscrapers compared to the volume of the city. When I arrived to the area where I had to find Café MagicK where Stephan lives and works, I got a different vibe from the now more fashionable neighbourhood with more trees, actual concrete roads and little signposts for different bars and café’s. I found café MagicK and walked into a little front garden, followed by a nice little two-story house with a cute café. Nicely decorated as well, with a lounge on the first floor. Nothing less to be expected from experienced deco/festival/burner people though. Cool staff and guests greeted me, and Stephan soon came and took me upstairs to a room I would share with a German guy who works here. Tonight there has been a busy party with a private birthday upstairs and an Indian music concert downstairs. I decorated upstairs with what I could find of candles and balloons in the nearby supermarket and got a sweet veggieburger free from the kitchen – so nice of them! I tried to ask if I could help the rest of the night, but they seemed to be well staffed for the job. There’s a lot of good stuff to say about this place, but my favorites so far are definitely: their soya-milk cappuchinos and chai’s; their bowler hat lamps; their windows; their staff and the fact that they just have vegan options on a lot of stuff. Yeeeees, finallyyyyyy. And good WiFi. Wohooo!
Made it for the Indian Music concert at MagicK!
Copacabana, Day 166: Welcome to Bolivia
SOoo yesterday I started out early at 7:00 am from Cuzco in Peru to try to hitchhike all the way to Copacabana in Bolivia, which is 531 km and 7,5 hours in car according to Google Maps. I did ALMOST make it – a sad hour late for the border though, as the immigration had closed. The day started out with a free taxi ride from a guy my exact age as well, but who ended up putting his hand on my thigh one time too many, which made me give him such an instinctive look of disgust – he pulled over and let me out before my destination. So, I took the bus to the Regional Hospital in Cuzco where busses would depart for Urcos – the first destination after Cuzco where I could hitchhike, according to Hitchwiki. So, a sleazy taxi ride and two bus rides later I was at Urcos (a town outside Cuzco), where I quickly got a ride with a nice local guy – an engineer on his way to work near Ayaviri – the next, big stop on my way to Puno (a port town at the Titicaca lake which is between Peru and Bolivia). He dropped me off at the exit out of town, where some kind of security guards were checking every car going into toen more or less superficially. I started hitchhiking, when one of the security men came over to me to talk. He, like all the other 8 of his colleagues, was wearing a bulletproof west, boots, a cap – all in black. Hot in the sun, I thought. He smiled (a lot, almost laughing) at me and asked what I was doing, while I heard some distant yelled comment about him talking to the ‘gringa’ and then someone laughed. I smiled in return, thinking this would not be the first time someone had a laugh on my account on this trip of mine. While I explained to the guy what I was doing, whom was actually nice enough although a bit cocky – his colleagues were peaking curiously out from behind their temporary workstation set up on the road, some trying to contain themselves – others laughing obviously. After a little while the guy left, but came back: saying “why don’t you come over to us, we can help you get a ride. No one will stop here.” I looked at the spot I was standing in: loads of space for a car to pull over – compared to the space where they were working with bad visibility of the cars passing and not much space to pull over. I argumented that the cars would probably not stop there (thinking: especially not if the drivers think they are being checked by a swarm of security) – but the guy was very persistent and I gave up and went with him. His collegues finally got their curiousity satisfied when I put my stuff down and said hi to them. Soon I was swarmed by security myself, being asked all sorts of questions, ranging from, if the Loch Ness was in Denmark and if the Loch Ness monster existed; to – if the women in Scandinavia were really the most beautiful ones. I thought, “oh man, it’s gonna be hard to find a ride swarmed by security like this”. They asked me more questions than helping me find a ride – and the drivers of the cars they did stop looked rather nervous – I would too if a group of almost military-looking guys stopped my car. And so 1 hour went by, then another, and finally a truck came by that they had to check, going into town, and meanwhile I stopped a pick-up myself with two guys who said they were going to Puno. I quickly grabbed my stuff before any of the security guys came back, yelled thanks to them and got into the car. I found out my ride was only going to Juliaca, which is a really ugly and a bit dangerous town on the way to Puno I heard, so I was not too thrilled, although it was a good part of the way I wanted to go. The two guys were nice and stopped in Ayaviri to have lunch. They asked me out to lunch, but when I said I didn’t have money for that (and besides had brought my own food and didn’t eat meat) they gave me some coins to buy lunch for! So nice. Afterwards, we drove through the most beautiful landscapes with grassy steppes and hills, snowy mountains and small creeks. When we arrived to Juliaca, they took me to some corner, paid for a motortaxi, which would take me to a terminal in Juliaca, and even gave me money for the collective which would go to Puno. They didn’t want me to hitchhike out of there apparently. Wow, so many nice people exist in the world 🙂
After I had found a collectivo (a van ((or a can)) they stuff with people) to Puno, we arrived to Puno’s bus terminal an hour later, which was situated on the mountainside with a great view over the immense Titicaca lake. A storm was rising and lightning was striking into the lake in front of me – an impressive view. I tried to find a bus to Copacabana, but was told that only collectivo’s went to Yunguni, which was the last Peruvian town at the border, and from there I had to take a bus to Copacabana. It was getting dark and no one would tell me where the exit was out of town so I didn’t think my chances of hitchhiking would be great. With the money I was given earlier almost spent on getting to Puno, I asked how much the collective for Yunguni was. I was told it was 8 soles and it was the very last one to depart tonight. It would take two hours to get there. I was surprised and a little sceptical, as the one hour ride to Puno had cost me only 3 soles. They told me that to Puno it was 3,5 soles and that it didn’t take one hour. I laughed and told them that I had just taken it though, and that it was 3 soles and one hour. They denied it and told me otherwise – as I had not just taken the ride myself. They would not go down in price and when I didn’t understand all they were saying, they just laughed at me and wouldn’t explain. The guy I was talking to kept wawing me away, saying something about a ‘dueño’, which I didn’t get. I finally guessed that I was speaking to the wrong guy and that ‘dueño’ must mean driver (I later found out it means boss). I then finally found the driver, but he didn’t want to talk to me. I sat staring into to open space, distressed about what to do now, while the guys I had been talking to kept yelling “Yunguni, Yunguni” to find people to fill up the collectivo. 15 minutes went by and as it got darker, I put on more clothes, thinking I couldn’t sleep there – it would be too cold. Finally I went to the guys, asking if I could come with them for 6,20 soles (I would just have to cut into my food and accommodation budget for the next day) – and then this guy, who had first told me to speak to ‘el dueño’ said I could come with him. He beckoned me over to another van and showed me a little edge behind the front passengerseat where he had put a little pillow. “You can sit here, for 5 soles” he said, telling me to embark as the very last one. I thought, “oh, so the other collectivo was not the last one to depart today afterall, huh!”, but said nothing. I agreed to sit on the edge, back to back with the front passengers, by the door, for 2 hours. It was a very freezing ride, especially by the door, but I got to Yunguni two hours later – grateful even though my ass hurt badly after sitting on an edge, clammed between the door and a big, Peruvian mamita with all the traditional skirts (they must wear 7 or more, since they bulge out like that, or they just eat too much gluten, which is not unlikely either). The ride was quite beautiful though – driving beside the Titicaca Lake and the thunderstorm over it the whole way. When I arrived to Yunguni at 20:00 pm I learned that I was just one hour late for the immigration center to be open, and had to spend the night at a hostel. I bargained the price down to 10 soles, which was then bye-bye to my budget for the next day (today), but whatever. I soon learned I had to exceed my daily budget of 10 soles each day, the next few days.
Today I got up early, went to fill up my water bottle with the delicious quinoa/apple/cinnamon/sugar drink they drink a lot of hot in Peru in the mornings; bought some bread; a bag of peanuts and two apples for the road, and went to get my stuff to start for the border. It was closer than I thought – I could have walked there instead of taking a motortaxi. I went to the immigration before the border, got a stamp easy peacy by a friendly lady, and walked through the big stone arch to the Bolivian side. When walking down the road, a guy from the Bolivian immigration office whistled for me as I went too far. I went there, smiling and said goodday – a bit embarrassed that I had forgotten that I of course had to go to immigration on each side. A Mister Serious Guy took my passport and said, giving it back to me with a commanding stance, that I had to apply for a visa beforehand. I said no, that I had checked it, and I could just go to the border and get my stamp. He asked me whom I had paid, and I said no one! He said, well you need to pay then. I told him, no – as a Danish citizen I did not have to pay but could just go to the border to get my stamp. He asked, clearly frustrated and very close to my face, “well! Who get’s paid then? Someone needs to get the money!” I stated that I simply didn’t know, just that this was the agreement between his and my country. He looked at me like I was stupid, but then his colleague, who was clearly the Stamp Guy, mumbled to him that it was not obligatory to make the visa beforehand. Mister Serious Guy then waved me away angrily, saying, “fine! Go then!”. I said, well, I need a stamp. He said I didn’t want one, I said: “Yes, of course I want one, or else I have no proof that I entered Bolivia and will have trouble when I leave!”. He denied me one, but I persisted and then he aggressively grabbed an immigration form, gave it to me, saying: “Ok, for the VERY last time..!” almost as a threat. I filled it out, asking one of his other 7 or so colleagues what one of the questions meant, but he just mumbled something nervously and looked away. I didn’t fill it out. After I had done the form, I went to Stamp Guy, who had previously mumbled that the pre-applied visa was not obligatory to Mister Serious Guy, and he easily and sufficiently stamped my passport. I got 30 days. I smiled to him, said “Buenas dias!” loudly as I turned to get my stuff, received no answer from the 8 or so men, and went out of there as quickly as possible, mumbling “idiots” to myself on my way. I heard some of them laugh in a harsh way as I went, while I was, thinking “They need some women in there, if anyone dares to work in such a macho atmosphere!”.
I went down the road until I was out of sight of the immigration and then found a place for my stuff. I started hitchhiking. It was only 8 km to Copacabana and I considered walking. Just then, a car came by and picked me up. The guy was very nice, but I did the mistake of asking if the car was ‘libre’ instead of ‘gratis’, which made the difference of ‘free’ in a spaceous term, and ‘free’ in the term of payment. He was very nice to me and I ended up paying him 1 peso. He smiled and seemed happy enough. I had already exceeded my budget and would much more later that day: After finding a place to put my stuff and with a bed (at the rainbow hostel) I plugged in my computer, fiercely with tape and took a semi-hot shower. As my facebook status stated: “Welcome to Bolivia
Her kan vi tilbyde: tvære immigrationsarbejdere som vist ikk har fået noget i lidt for lang tid og åbenlyst kun har mandlige kollegaer og som synes det sjoveste er at være røvhuller overfor turister; det koldeste af det røviskolde vejr: søde lokale som gir lifts og gode råd; masser af brød men ingen frugt og grønt; samt de varmeste bade og bedste elektronikinstallationer! (Not)
All I needed though was a semi-warm shower and I’m clean (wow!) and smiling! 😀
After 1 1/2 days of traveling it is now time to see Isla Del Sol and HH further to La Paz tomorrow.
Peace!
After all this I tried to find a way to get to Isla del Sol. I found a guy whom I bargained down to 20 pesos – return ticket the same day, which was a good price as the other prices people on the same boat had paid were more like 30 or more per person, or 20 pesos one way. Bolivian pesos/Bolivianos are equal to the Danish Crown. Soo nice and easy for me, although it makes you realize how cheap or expensive some things are.
The boat ride was over an hour each way and we had 50 minutes at the big island. I chose not to pay for a tour and went up on the island by myself, after paying another entrance fee of 5 pesos, and found a grassy terrace to put out my crystals in the sun and meditate. I had apparently found the best place, ‘cus soon I was surrounded by tourists, posing beside me for the view. Oh well, they went away soon enough and then this lovely, lovely, big white dog came and jumped right into my lap after I had meditated (not the first time dogs come over after, or during, meditation) and it just wanted to be cuddled and played with. I could give it so many hugs and it wouldn’t mind – not that I had much of a choice when it was standing with its front paws in my lap, head right next to my face. I had to push him down when I felt like it was time to get back to my boat, but then he just threw himself down next to me, cuddling up against my legs and gently biting my hand in a playful manner. When I quickly packed my stuff and went – he went with me. Such a beautiful white dog: white and fluffy as the huge cumulus nimbus clouds over the sea-like lake.
When we arrived back to Copacabana I had fallen asleep on my backpack and was unbelievably tired. I thought, “screw it – I have already exceeded my budget so much, I might as well get a coffee”. So, I had a coffee with Baileys while I watched the sunset over the lake. Incredible.
Tomorrow I’m going to hitchhike to La Paz and visit a Danish burner (a Burning Man Festival participant, for those who do not know what a burner is, mom? ;)) who has settled down in the capital of Bolivia and founded a café called MagicK with his Bolivian wife. The distance to La Paz is much shorter than my trip yesterday and it should be no problem to go there in half a day hopefully. Let’s see! Hopefully I can also find work there too.
hitchiking from Cuzco, Peru, to the Titicaca lake, Bolivian side
racing with the train
Crossing the border between Peru and Bolivia
Temporarily fixed..
Happy after showering and made it to Bolivia!
On the way to Isla del Sol
Cloouds ❤
Cuzco, Day 159: Easter
The days up to- and through Easter have been so busy; I hardly have had time on the Internet. Cedar, his dad and I have been traveling around the Sacred Valley for a week, starting in Cuzco, then Aguas Calientes which is the little tourist-money-hole of a town next to Machu Picchu; next after that Ollanteytambo where we found the most magical vegetarian restaurant; next after that Pisac and then back to Cuzco. We have been up every morning between 4:00 am and 6:00-7:00 am for 8 days and now I’ve said goodbye to my travel companions and landed in another part of town in Cuzco where I will be couchsurfing for a week. The house is a big, new mansion-like place with walls around house and garden, in a neighbourhood with big, empty roads of concrete – that is also walled in with manned security by the gates. What a contrast to the cute little center of Cuzco far away with cobble stone narrow streets, old houses and wooden balconies carved in great detail, the San Pedro market where you can buy all sorts of stuff including that of the name really cheap, and traditional clothed ladies walking around with lamas on a leash and babies on their backs or baby goats – that’s all for tourism though: they dress up like that so they can charge money when tourists take a photo. Nonetheless, that’s how they used to dress. I’ll see if I can sneak a good picture.
Easter here is not the same as I’ve seen it in Andalusia in southern Spain; here people walk around in a parade with a black cross-dressing jesus on a cross: wearing a silver skirt and blood running down his dark skin. People are all dressed in black suits, lookind dead serious, except some musicians and kids dressed up in colourful ponchos, playing some kind of horribly off-key rhythms. Definitely not the same as the beautifully colourful and flowery parades you see in Spain where Virgin Mary is carried on a float with flowers all over – professional orchestras playing in line – people dressed in their finest Sunday clothes. I might just have seen a fraction of what Peru is capable of, in the little town I was in though.
On this day we had the weirdest put together, most extensive Easter lunch in my entire life. The mother of Antonio – named Fortunata btw (meaning Lucky), my couchsurfing host, cooked together with me and the other couchsurfers for probably a full day all in all, to present an impressive lunch table for 12 or more guests. Francesco from Italy made Gnocchi out of potatoes and wheat flower, in a pesto of herbs, oil and spices, topped with chopped almonds. I made a huge salad of vegetables, pears from the garden and a mango. One of the Spanish girls made some rice with condensed milk and raisins, and hummus with cut up carrots, the other: potatoes with eggs and unions, fried. Besides that, there was a vegetable soup, a fish and shrimp soup, bread, cakes, meringue, some kind of flat pastry with colourful sugar nibs on top – which is very popular here in Peru, fried fish with onions, fish eggs, boiled apples and peaches made into a drink with the fruit still inside, a gelatine drink (which is also very popular in Ecuador and Peru, disgusting if you ask me), Humitas and Tamales (a corn paste with various spices or cheese, wrapped in corn leaves and baked or eaten fresh), boiled corn cobs, green and purple grapes and watermelon. Strange combo isn’t it? :b Interesting and very filling though. And loads of food for the day after, even two.
The San Pedro Market in Cuzco
Funny hat I
Funny hat II
fake inca guy posing in front of artesania market
The most cool little hippievan!
The most cool little hippievan!
cuzco
The sweetest lady
Out temple of the moon companion
Temple of the moon
Temple of the moon
Temple of the moon
Temple of the moon
Temple of the moon
Temple of the moon
Biggest San Pedro cactus ever
Yo Yo
You and your mango
Easter
Biggest San Pedro cactus ever
Mr Lama
Easter parade with a black cross-dressing Jesus
Train coffee… more like, milk with a teeny tiny bit of coffee!
Train to Machu Picchu
Aguas Calientes: the tourist trap
Pretty though
Camping next to Machu Picchu
Early morning climb on empty stomach to reach Machu Picchu. We started around 4:30. it tooks us about 45 minutes
Machu Picchu flower
The Inca bridge
Temple area
A chinchila! those and lamas jump/wander around the sacred site
(no Cedar, it’s not a kangaroo)
Fierce river between Machu Picchu and Aguas Calientes
My home for a week in Cuzco, couchsurfing
My little alter
View from my room
Piura, Day 150: Ciao Ecuador, Hola Peru!
Bye Vilca and Bye Ecuador! In memory of Ecuador, I post this one to all out you who are interested in how it sounds like to be in Ecuador most of the time, in buses, at restaurants, on the street, in taxis.. Basically all you hear is Reggaeton, Cumbia and Salsa and these are favorites among the ecuadorians these days apparently. Kind of like mainstream poptracks for them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyPcZ9Pe6DU After some sweet days in Vilcabamba again we headed for Peru. I was a bit nervous for what they would say and how long they’d hold me back at the border, because of my almost two month expired visa – but as it turned out, they didn’t even give me a COMMENT or nothing – I went to two offices with everyone else and no one asked a thing or held me back. We went through fast and smoothly and I was smiling like a shining sun afterwards. I couldn’t believe I had worried for almost two months, and then they didn’t even say anything! Incredible. Goood start! We have now arrived to Piura and it’s been a crazy hot day with the biggest, most beautiful and gigantic clouds. Tomorrow we will start out as early as this morning; before the sun rises. We have a flight at 7:30 in the morning to Cuzco – The Sacred Valley. I’m Psyched! Beautiful day for celebrating my mom’s birthday, both of us on Spanish speaking land, even on the other side of the planet 🙂
made it to Peru without A N Y trouble! Amazing.
Cuenca, Day 144: Crazy rides and karma
So Tyler, a Canadian guy from Montreal with whom I’m hitchhiking with, and me started out from Wisdom Forest yesterday to start down towards Vilcabamba. We started out later than expected, getting on the road at ten am, but we had the most awesome breakfast with cake, icing, fruit salat and icecream before and ended up leaving with good people so we didn’t have to say goodbye to all the awesome lovelies at once. You see, Iolani, our just-turned-20 topchef cook, was leaving too and had made all this deliciousness for us. Not surprising though – I’d come to learn during my stay how impressive that girl is. I hope she realizes that someday too 🙂
After saying goodbye to Julie, Eliza and Iolani at the busstation in town, Tyler and me left for finding a good corner to hitchhike to Puyo – our first stop near town on the way south. I told Tyler that we should wish for a ride, to the universe or mother earth. He smiled at bit funny me, but I think he did wish, for 5-10 minutes after, we got a ride with the greatest, most chatty guy all the way to Puyo. I learned on the way that Puyo means cloud (as Puyo is surrounded by cloud forest) in Quechua, one of the main native languages in Ecuador, and I silently smiled and confirmed that I was indeed going to name one of my kids that one day – I had already written it down before I knew the meaning.
We went to Puyo and got a ride with a guy in a truck to Macas – a three-hour ride more or less. He was being a bit creepy though and stared a lot at me when Tyler was asleep, obviously trying his luck while he had a chance, so I was glad to get out of there when we arrived to Macas. When we did arrive, Tyler started revealing that he was actually not feeling so well, so we went to get something real to eat, another than the big tubberware of peanutbutter we had made. After that we found a good road and stood there for ten-fiveteen minutes or so before we got a ride all the way to Cuenca with two older guys in a rented car. One of them had apparently just arrived from an indigenous tribe in the jungle only reachable by airplane and he had to go back to the ministry in Cuenca to report some data. We later found out that they had a deadline and the guy driving was driving pretty fast. Which was fine, until he after sunset decided to take a shortcut – a road in construction with tons of millions of holes and puddles and gravel and rocks. I have never had a bumpier ride and the mountaneous curves did NOT help. Tyler and me both felt sick after a while, personally I was nauceous for the entire 5-6 hour ride. Tyler had to vomit on the way, poor guy. But I think it made him feel much better.
It was cold in the mountains, but still the driver was in t-shirt and turned up the aircon. Everyone else but him was wearing scarfs and blankets and I wondered, annoyed, if he was on coke or something, since he was driving like a madman too. I asked him to turn it off or down, and he did – for maybe half an hour. The other guy just gave me a smiling upgiving look and laughed.
At some point we were waiting behind a truck on this, anytime else abandoned, dark road – when our driver decided he couldn’t fucking wait and started pulling into the track beside us – which was half a meter to a meter lower with a slope of gravel in between. The loose gravel soon buried the back wheel and we were stuck, tilting so much to the side I was afraid we were going to tilt over! My heart was in my throat and I asked if I could get out. Not waiting for an answer I opened the door, which slammed open by gravity and my iPod, headphones and waterbottle fell out into the rain. I jumped out, quickly gathered my stuff and backed away from then threatening, tilting car. Two cars slowly passed us going in the other direction, until our driver started using all four wheels to get the car out of there – luckily we were driving a pick-up. I was NOT getting in until that car was standing straight and plane, but luckily it did soon enough. The other guy came over asking me something and I exclaimed how crazy I thought this was. He laughed at my comment, agreeing. They both seemed pretty chill about it. Ecuadorian people do mostly – when something happens they only get annoyed at the most, unless it’s getting life threatening. I got into the car and felt aggressively angry and pissed of of this whole ride but calmed down as wel drove into Cuenca, onto better roads, and felt graditude instead for making our wishes come true. They were actually really nice people and talked with us a lot, asking us questions about our countries and life and so on.
When in Cuenca, Tyler knew a cheap place we could stay at and we were glad to be able to sleep properly finally, without banging our knees and head into the side of the car every time we hit a bump. Tyler felt sick the next day and weak and have said he’s possibly not able to go further today. It reminds me of when Andrea, Cedar and me were delayed in Baños because of my parasite attack and I smile of the karmic irony of now being on the other side of the situation. Of course I’ll stay and take care of him until he’s better. I haven’t been in Cuenca anyway. The only thing I’m wrinkling my nose about is that it exceeds my budget paying for a hostel, and it’s shit cold here, but whatever. Everything is going to be just fine 🙂
Pics upload :)
Since it’s been so hard to upload pics, now that I finally have a decent connection, here you go! 
Just
Tena, Day 142: Temazscal night
My last night in Tena at WF Bhaga had promised me a Temazscal night (the sweat lodge ritual) and even though people seemed to have had a bad experience at the last Temazscal and some were hesitant, AND Bhaga was so sick – he almost didn’t come, we still had an amazing night with Bhaga and around 20 other participants. It was my third Temazscal here and it was by far the best in the sense of community and unity. Bhaga and all of us encouraged each other to sing, louder and louder, in the Spanish and English medicin songs and Hare Krishna mantras. Buddhi, an indigenous Sachila, was also there and used a fan of some kind of Ecuadorian stinging nettle on our bodies before the ritual and also blew hot steam at us with another fan during the rounds inside the temazscal. The power of 20 people singing or Ohm’ing at the same time is incredible, especially when all participated without hesitation and self-judgement – and it serves the exact purpose of making you forget a little how hot you are. Between rounds I went out into the pool, but just the 5 steps from the opening of the Temazscal, pass the fire and into the pool was so hard due to first being blinded by the fire after the complete darkness inside the structure, and then having to use your legs after crouching down; sweating out toxins – I almost stumbled many times and actually did fall into the pool once. When I came back up, slightly embarrassed and surprised by my lack of leg-control, Buddhi was laughing his ass of at me in the other side of the pool. Hehe. It was kind of funny how everyone stumbled around in the darkness around the fire like we were all drunk. After the third and last round, me and a guy called James went to dry off with our towels and saw this incredibly bright star, which seemed to be moving – actually it looked like two suns circling around each other. Also, the sky kept flashing from time to time, like thunder too far away to be heard was sweeping high over the mountains. We wondered if we missed some kind of astronomical event, and James was convinced UFO’s were watching us.
Oh and I forgot to mention that Orion’s Belt AGAIN was right above our heads, as with my previous and strong Temazscal on the beach of Mompiche. It was pointing at the Temazscal too, as last time. Interesting, no?
Tena, Day 139: Friday the 13th!
Friday the 13th started even before midnight the day before. We had gone way early to bed apparently after playing werewolf (great game btw, so much fun!) but I hadn’t seen the time when I went to bed. I woke up not so long after by a someone outside calling for Bhaga, which I thought was weird because Bhaga never sleeps at the volunteerhouse, so it must be a stranger I thought. The whole house besides that was dark still and everyone was asleep. The stranger made me alert and awake and I sat up as he kept walking around the house, yelling. Someone speaking Spanish went outside to talk to him though after a while and I feel asleep again. In the middle of the night I woke up again, by two people being in the house, yelling “buenos noches!” several times to find someone to talk to I guess – again strangers. Then someone talked to them, I heard, and I got up and went to the bathroom in the dark. When I got out, I got first of all blinded by the light from the open door into the hallway at the other side of our room, trying to cover my eyes AND myself as I was almost naked; seeing a man coming ind with his big backpack fumbling for the light switch, with a woman behind him. I said a rusty hello in Spanish, telling them to wait one moment. They tried to ask if there wasn’t space in this room for them, but my sleepy just-got-awakened-from-deep-sleep-twice brain didn’t function well in Spanish at that moment so I just kept telling them to wait. They went out and waited and closed the door, while I took a sheet around me saying, “What the fuck is going on, it’s in the middle of the night!” out loud, as Sarah and Alex had awoken as well. I went out confused, tired and sleepy-eyed, wrapped in a sheet and messy hair, to try to politely ask them what they wanted. They seemed like Krishna devotees and I wondered why on earth they came in the middle of the night, not even knowing where Bhaga lived. They asked if there was space for two people in our room or in other rooms and I told them, in very bad Spanish with my porridge-zombie brain, that there were female and male domitories upstairs. They thanked me and I went to bed again. I got up a bit later than Sarah next morning, around 6-7, and felt tired and weird all day. The devotees that had arrived ended up leaving before breakfast, as we were doing the Spoon Revolution awareness today. A Krishna devotee started the Spoon Revolution, and I’m pretty sure I met him in Santo Domingo; his name is Rama. Great guy, very patient with speaking Spanish with foreigners, but my Spanish was not that great at the time I met him, so I’m not sure he was the guy who started it. Anyway, it’s about eating vegetarian, or vegan – saving the planet and the animals. The fork and knife are used to eat meat with and can be potential violent tools, where the spoon on the other hand can be seen as peaceful and used for all vegetarian and vegan foods. Therefore we only eat with spoons at the Krishna farms. This day we collected banana leafs (big, green flat palm leaves that we use instead of baking sheets and sometimes also instead of serving plates) and cooked a massive amount of vegan food and went with Bhaga as a leader and speaker for our activist group of the day, to serve vegan food in folded banana leafs to the people on the streets of Tena. We had a soundtrack made for the Spoon Revolution playing while Bhaga spoke about the cause. The food was free and it was fun to give it away to curious kids, their parents, and run after the busses in traffic to give people food through the windows. I felt energized after that and happy. I was not so tired anymore. Sometime in the evening Alex told me with a grin on her face that she had looked at the time when the first man the night before had woken us up – then when the couple had, and it had all been before eleven at night! Hah. And I thought it had been in the middle of the night, being all pissed off and annoyed and felt righteously tired half the day. Hah. Apparently we had gone to bed before nine the night before! 
Cooking for the Spoon Revolution
The Spoon Revolution in all it’s happiness!
Tena, Day 132: High on LIFE!
Ugh! Were to start… So I am soo so happy and vibrant and SPARKLING with energy these days! The concentration of beautiful, bright souls here at W.F. is just incredible and unbelievable, and new friendships are evolving rapidly; Simultaneous evolving and ascending is happening when people are opening up to their inner feelings and selves and the vibration is rising excitedly within intense conversations. I realize that I do rarely get much higher levels of energy from almost any other situation than having these amazing conversations with people – it’s CRAZY how I can almost feel the magnetic field around me and the other person vibrating when we look into each others eyes and keep the intense connection while sharing our very inner feelings and perceptions. It’s like I can feel our souls ascending in wisdom and evolution. That feeling is priceless and a wonder to me.
So me and a girl called Iolani, have been teaching an acroyoga workshop, and it’s the first time in soo so so long for me – possibly a year or more, and I’ve been so excited about it! It felt so awesome to teach people who had never done it before and see them do advanced stuff at the middle and end of the session! So awesome, I love it! Also, after doing so much yoga almost every day for a while, my hamstring is now so flexible I can actually base a flyer without rolling to the sides all the time! Yay! It’s the first time I feel like I’ve been able to base properly and actually even be able to do something else than just trying to balance the flyer.
I am now so psyched about learning so much more that it feels like it’s the first time I’ve tried it.
Me and Sarah, a Swedish girl whom I will maybe be so lucky to travel to a trance festival in Peru with (her DJ name is Ayni, check her out), have decorated our little room for the short time I’m going to be here in W.F. and have put some of my pictures up on the wall and made small alters of crystals and Palo Santo. We also have a visitor whom Sarah maybe thinks is her sister – in the shape of a big, black dragonfly. It has been siting in the windowsill, next to the open window, for 3 days now – in the same spot, next to Sara’s crystal necklace. When she comes close to it, it moves it’s wings though.
Oh and there’s so much more, but in my serotonin filled brain I can’t think of it right now 😀 I’m just so happy!
However, I can share some pictures!
Our pretty visitor how was with us for several days next to Ayni’s bed
So fragile, so beautiful
Acroyoga! Wohoo!
Her little cave on a quiet day
On the way to teach in Talag school
Tena, Day 120: Back to the family!
Today I left Marco and Puyo – promising to come back one day to get to know him, and the spirits of the plants better. He is planning to expand his own place, or find another one, in order to be able to accept guests himself where no other volunteers or people visiting Juan Pablo (who owns the farm we were at) will interfere. Where there will be nice, wild jungle and not too many tourists.
I went to Puyo, found myself a bus to Tena, bought my ticket and got seat no. 22 – exactly as when I was leaving Tena. Good decision both times indeed!
I have now arrived; randomly joining up with 3 other people in the bus who also happened to go here the same time, same day, AND 3 more arrived a few hours later. That’s 7 new people in one day and Bhaga isn’t even here! So many new faces to get used to, but it’s going really well already. It’s so good to be back; to see Julie, Berty and Jake again; to listen to happy people chatting about health foods and how to cure onerself through urine therapy; to hear different people jamming on various acoustic instruments, and hear the well-known sounds of the jungle. Oh, and eat so well again. A little too well. Need to work on not overeating…
I’m so happy and soo, so tired.
Puyo, Day 118: Paralel dimensions
Yesterday early morning (around 6.30) I took Malacagua – a certain vine kind of plant where you drink the juice squeezed out of the soft, peeled bark. I tastes way better than Ayahuascha I can tell you – more like the peels of peas, juiced and given to you fresh. The liquid is pretty and green, kind of milky, and tastes a bit bitter. The bitterness made my mouth dry up and I felt thirsty throughout the entire trip, but that was probably the most uncomfortable physical effect at all, so that’s not very bad.
Before giving it to me, Marco had made a little nest for me in the forest next to our cabin – which is basically just a little hillside with many trees and plants. He had built a little raincover and put a mat and a blanket for me on the ground. He came to check on my every half hour – I suppose, as I had no sense of time what so ever. Some hours went by and Marko took a walk with me around the hillside in circles, holding my hand, as the normal effect on the body from this is that your legs can be a bit weak and your motor skills are failing somewhat in general. Also, Your pupils dilate quite a lot, which I realized when objects started getting bigger and kind of cartoon like, and the expressions on Marco’s face were different than usual. You come to learn how much everything changes once your vision does – how the smallest wrinkle or shadow changes the appearance of things and people. So the point of taking this medicine is to enter another dimension, which is parallel to this one and co-exists all around us, where one can communicate with the spirits of plants. As I didn’t think I saw anything, after walking around with me some time, Marco apparently took me back to my cabin, not that I remember going there. I met Cedar around that time (much later, at that time it was around 16.00 in the afternoon) and tried to explain some things to him and just smalltalk, but I then realized how much I was still tripping. I kept mixing the three languages I can speak together – forgetting the point after a few seconds of trying to find the words. For the life of me I couldn’t read any text at all either or see small details – it was like the whole left side of my brain was turned off – if I COULD see a letter, it would change to other letters or turn into symbols I don’t recognize or unto numbers. I did articulate a sentence saying something like “As I took Malacagua yesterday morning” but Cedar stopped me, saying no dude, you took it this morning… You haven’t slept”… I had been absolutely sure a day and a night had gone by, because I was starting to remember this crazy dream I had had, but had to chockingly realize it had been my visions I had seen, but I had no idea when they had happened and what I had done in this reality meanwhile. Also seeing Cedar, who was happy and smiling, made me remember what I actually had seen throughout the day – because I had seen him a lot, camouflage himself as a tree so well, I almost didn’t see him. He was looking very sad or neutral and did not look like himself. Also I remembered throughout the day that I had talked to several people who, when I turned to look at them, weren’t there all of a sudden. Not only had I seen Cedar, but also Andrea AND talked with them both. I had also had conversations with people, who also responded, only to see them turning into a tree when I looked again. I also saw this random guy who kept following me/appearing through out the day in a tree, on the grass, or his face sticking out of the grass. I felt like I kept waking up from dreams where I had talked to people, only to realize I was standing there like a fool, talking to a branch or a shrub. Had someone seen me? Who was even permantly in ths reality? I was not sure. Also this one tree moved around 3 times during the day, just a few meters every time. Every thing seemed to have a rainbow aura around it. It didn’t really scare me that my memory seemed to be so shattered or bother me a lot that my language skills had seemed to gone to shit, it more bothered me that I couldn’t place where what happened and that I had no one to verify what happened when. But I’ll talk to Marco later today. I also remember that I kept thinking, and saying to him, that Cedar looked so different today. Maybe it was because he had been so sad in my vision and happy in this reality.
It was definitely an interesting experience and I still feel it a bit today – the day after. My pupils have a hard time to focus immediately and also I still see some rainbows and patterns in nature. Oh, and did I say that when I took a shower and heard the water running, all kinds of conversations, monologues, whispers and voices can be heard in the water? This also happens to me at home though – when the water is running in the bathroom if I’m washing my nands, sometimes I’m convinced I can hear laughter, cries, conversations or shouts in the apartment, but whenever I turn the water off, there is none. Interesting no? 😉
(Later)
So Cedar went today, to be in Baños for a night and then to Cuenca to meet his dad for the Galapagos. It’s more than strange to be alone again, as I actually haven’t been alone for one and a half month! Wow time flies… Or does it even exist? 😉
I feel strange being alone, like I’m waiting for something or someone to motivate me. But I guess I’ll have company soon, as I’ll be heading for Wisdom Forest, Brendan and Tena in a few days.
It’s nice to be in the jungle again and I’m down with all the vegetation and beauty, however I’m actually looking forward for heading south again – out of the humidity. My hat and toilet bag are starting to mold! I would rather not have to throw those out.
Puyo, Day 116: Oh well
So I had my second Ayahuascha trip last night. This time I managed to hold the liquid in my stomach for, what would seem to be, sufficient time for the effect to kick in properly instead of disappearing right after vomiting. Strangely enough, this time the effect was way less intense as the first time, which might have been because of me still being weak from the parasites the first time… I wonder.
It was only Marco and I this time, which was pleasant, but it became very quiet and a bit awkward for me, when nothing happened really. The tingling sensation was there in my body, but not so strong and I was lying in my hammock for the first hour I think, without much effect. With my eyes closed, I saw a bit of the central pattern of colours I aways see; I saw two big cat’s eyes in green and yellow; I saw myself as a toddler (2 or 3 years old) running over a patch of grass; I saw my mother young with short hair and big glasses, maybe when she was around 30; I saw the sunflower again and felt quite content and happy. With eyes open I saw mother earth’s face again, or just a female face – first being a bush turning into the face, turning into an old woman’s face, turning into a miniature elephant saluting in Marco’s direction. It was so cute. I also saw a dog, a German Shephard lying down looking tired or bored. After going to the bathroom, doing the obligatory diarrhea run, I vomited once and went back to my hammock to lie down. I had learned from last time to breathe slowly and deeply, not to swallow the foul tasting spit after vomiting (or I would just vomit again riiight after) and to lie down a lot. Like this I felt much better but also not much effect. After a cricket right under my hammock startled me so much, I woke up from dozing off apparently and was in a state of light shock, I was lying there breathing heavely. That cricket had been so loud and so close. Marco, who was probably freezing in the hammock next to me after so little activity (and tired after many days of taking care os us), asked how I felt and if I wanted to go back to my bed. I said yes and he helped me back. I fell afsleep after a while and woke up lazy.
I’m tempted to say I almost feel disappointed but have decided not to be as this is not the time for me to take Ayahuscha apparently, or it just does not have much to show me at the moment. After all, it has been a good introduction to the plant as I am not afraid to take it again, should the possibility occur.
Cedar writing down his trips
Puyo, Day 114 and 115: A flute in the night
I get pulled out of my dream, still dark outside, by flute tunes traveling my way. As I wake up, I hear only the song of crickets and Marco playing the flute. As the sounds of the flute come closer, he wakes us up – saying it’s time for Guayusa. Today is Tuesday, and we are going to take Ayahuascha tonight at seven in the evening. In order to do so, Marco planned for us to take Guayusa – tea made of a certain leaf from the jungle by that name – at 5.30 in the morning to cleanse out our stomachs. The rest of the day we will not have anything else than water until the Ayahuascha.
The legendary yellow flower that started the trippy happiness
We follow Marco over to the fireplace, where 5 other people have gathered. Apparently they are also taking ayahuascha tonight which was kind of against our plan, as we want to do it the three of us together, but I guess we assumed that and didn’t talk to Marco about it, and Marco didn’t ask us. I guess we thought he would, but there’s not much to do about it now.
Marco pours a cup of hot Guayusa tea for each person and tells us we will want to vomit after drinking as much as we can, as fast as we can. This ritual is usually with liquid tobacco, but now got replaced with this tea, which hardly tastes like anything else than hot water. I’m grateful for that. I had to drink 7 cups within half an hour though, before Marco gave me another cup – telling me to down it – and then a leaf to tickle my throat with in order to vomit. I had to do this for every cup I had drunk I felt – only liquid for what seemed like the content of one cup came out every time. As the sun was brightening the misty sky, the morning filled with the noises of people vomiting. I stopped after provoking vomiting 5 times and went to sit down. After a while, I went to get my camera and took a walk to take some pictures of the place. A beaufiful sunrise with coloured rays through the mist would be ideal, but the grey misty ambient also makes the jungle look quite pretty – and mystical.
After taking pictures, I sat down on the porch meditating, sending a message to mother earth to be gentle to me tonight.
(Later)
The Ayahuascha experience was unlike anything I ever tried I must say. It was the strongest effect on my body I had ever experienced and yet, not so strong on my mind. There were definitely patterns, colours on layers on top of each other, shadows in the trees and bushes (but those I had already noticed during the day before we took it) and sensatory hallucinations. But there was no reason to be as nervous as I was – my mind kept coming up with positive solutions to bad/paranoid thoughts or images, if I even had any, and I kept seeing flowers. Sunflowers especially, which Cedar reminded me of a connection to, after the trip: that he had seen my energy as a sunflower on our third San Pedro trip. That was a nice reminder. It was like The Mother kept reminding me to stay happy, not to worry. I sent her lots of love and thought of some of the people I love the most and felt their presence, kisses and warm hands is mine.
So I have decided to do Ayahuascha tomorrow again, but alone this time, with Marco. I think there’s more for me to see, or at least I hope so.
I also have another rainbow song I’d like to write down 🙂
Buscando el camino, que llega a la esencia
Escucha el llamado de la Madre Tierra
Voy corriendo en las valles
Voy saltando las montanas
Voy volando por el cielo
Voy danzando con el agua
Sigo este camino de magia y mysterio
Voy sin equipaje, llevo solo mis respetos
Voy seguro y voy sin miedo
Gran espiritu mi guia
Tranquilo y sin apuros
Hoy la tierra da me el pulso
Asi voy recordando a mis abuelitas
Asi voy agradaciendo a mis abuelitos
Nos mostraron el camino
Nos dejeron sus tesoros
Sagradas ceremonias
Podorosa medicina
Asi voy apprendiendo y compartiendo este mensaje
Somos hijos de la tierra
Y debemos protegerla
Trabajando con mis hermanos
Somos guardianes y guerreros
Curamos con nuestros cantos, nuestros retos a la tierra!
Uh! And look at my bed, fits juust right to the environment ^____^
Vilcabamba (and Baños & Puyo), Day 100: Made it!
Day 100 wohoo! I made it!
Now this is just actually more of a praise and reference to Into The Wild – my day 100 was far less dramatic, but I’m going to write a bit about it anyway. I actually don’t remember what I did, but I remember that I was going to be in Peru – or so I thought. However, that didn’t happen obviously and now, many days later (day 109), I arrived to Puyo with Cedar, and Andrea – whom we met in Baños. After delaying our journey because of a horrible parasite attack I felt slighty better the next day to go, but had to brace myself on the bus when an accident happened on the road and we were delayed for a while. My stomach was still not feeling well at all after the 24 hours of explosive diarrhea, burbing nasty sulphur smelling air, having fever attacks and cold sweat, dreams about guys stabbing me, stomach pain, intense weakness, headaches and so on. Today, three days after, I feel much, much better and must admit that I could not have gone to a better place than this, as Marco, the shaman we are going to take ayahuascha with and whom we are going to stay with for a week, is a real medicine man. He advices me what to eat, gives me fresh dragon’s blood (the tree sap) – instead of the old I had, asks me out about my symptoms and also gave me some other extract of some wood and bark in cane sugar alcohol. On my almost empty and weak stomach, I got so tipsy of this tiny shot of red, strong liquid; I was swaying a bit when walking, and my pupils widened instantly. Doing this diet (The plant medicine diet: No garlic+onions, no spices, no sugar, no stimulants like coffee, no fruits), while eating consciously without any gluten, these little parasite bastards are going to be gone in no time. I also eat papaya seeds of course – they’re supposed to be one of the best remedies against parasites. Marco even called yesterday, when we were supposed to be in Puyo and asked how I was feeling. He keeps checking up on me and is not just a good shaman but also a good host.
When we arrived yesterday, we sat down and planned with him what we are going to do the week we’re here. Cedar has to leave in a week to go meet his dad in Cuenca, bus as I’m going to Tena and Andrea is going to Colombia, the two of us can stay longer if we want to. We planned to do Ayahuascha all together on Tuesday, (tomorrow) and they boys are going to do an additional Malicagua ceremony and perhaps another Ayahuascha ceremony before that. All with one day in between to recover though – and meditate on what happened. As it is my first time (I don’t really count the one in St. Domingo, as it didn’t affect me really), I decided to take Ayahuascha once on Tuesday with the boys and then decide from there what to do next.
4 other people have arrived – they are going to do a plant nursery for 3 weeks here and might take Ayahuascha as well. I’m not sure. I was hoping we would only be the 4 of us here, but I guess not – apparently Marco is just working here, it’s another guy owning the farm, and he has other plans.
Natural shower in Puyo by the stream
Natural shower in Puyo! Amazing view over the jungle marsh
Ahh. It’s nice to be in the sounds of jungle, away from the city noises; drunk people’s drama, car alarms going off every hour, police sirens, tourists blabbering, locals selling towels, sunglasses and what not on the street… Now it’s only crickets, birds, pigs, chickens, roosters and an occasional car passing on the road outside the farm. Lovely.
And here are some pictures of the cutest little puppy who Carlos, Marco’s son, had brought for some hours. It’s only a week old, got attacked by a bat and is now given to some neighbors. Poor little thing wines everytime you give it some warmth; it can’t walk without tripping over its own feet, and searches for crevaches like elbows, hands or armpits everytime you hold it – to burry its head and fall asleep. Nuuurh.
Rambo!
Hah, and by the way, his name is Rambo. X’D
Here’s a thought I had when we were traveling from Vilcabamba to Ambato + Baños by the way, around 10-12 hours or so: “Accommodation and sleep in a night bus in the mountains of Ecuador, is like being half asleep while doing painful yoga – not really knowing what position you’re in, your limbs taking turns on going numb – mostly your ass, which will hurt after a short while. Your bed is way too small and weirdly shaped and it’s situated in a fast rollercoaster ride – in the dark, so you have no idea when the next turn is. The AirCon is NOT working and the staff won’t allow you to open the windows, or they’re locked, which makes the possibility for slipping off your strangely shaped bed – just by being sweaty – even more likely. Your obese neighbour is way too close to you in the next room and besides all the previous obstacles for sleep – he is snoring like a pig was stuck in his throat. In what seems like the middle of you finally falling asleep, the staff decides to kick you out at the side of a highway, rushing and yelling at you, only turning on the light for 5 seconds in order to get your stuff. You now have no idea where you are, feel like you just awoke but not really, and stand in the side of the road at 5.20 in the morning when it’s still dark, your clothes so wet with sweat from the humid condense-water-running-down-windows-room, you are freezing your tits (or balls) off in the morning cold. Thank you, come again.”
Be chevere! Hahaha
In Baños
In and against the wind
NomadeSylfiden 
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