Oaxaca

On the way to the pacific coast I made a stop in Oaxaca. Quite nice city, a bit bigger than Guanajuato and not as charming, but it's got quite a few sights nearby. We became quickly a nice group on people doing adventures together.

Day 1: Market and Mezcal tasting (Mezcal = similar to Tequila, but from a different region) and a bit of clubbing with some nice fellas we met at the Mezcal bar.

Day 2: Adventurous ride in the back of a truck to Hierva de Agua - gas and minerals bubbling up from the ground that make massive formations that look like petrified waterfalls (se picture). We had a bit of a hike to see all of it, which was rewarded with swimming in natural pools at the site afterwards. mmMmm!

Day 3: 8 Crazy gringos on bikes in the middle of Mexican traffic! We rode about 50km, first uphill to some ruins in Monte Alban, then to El Tule, the world's widest tree. The ruins were..you know, ruiny, the tree was BIG! A bit disturbing that there's a church next to it and it happened to be a funeral there that day, in the middle of us tourists taking pictures of the tree. Salsa dancing in the evening - not that many people but great fun. The only sort of mexican in our group made a fool of himself (and us) by shouting " La Bamba para los gringos!!!" to the band several times.

Guanajuato

I finished

my stay in Tulum with an amazing snorkeling tour in caves

- not recommended for claustrophobics - I got a sensation of potential panic. And yeah, a crazy party night where I ended up at an after party at a rich polish guy's house

with some mexicans, a frenchman and an argentinian. Didn't know any of them. It included jumping into his pool from 2nd floor and me frying sausages for the whole party. I woke up, quite confused, at 3pm in one of his MANY guestrooms the next morning.

After 2 weeks of beach bumming, I decided that I needed some cultural input. So i booked a flight to Mexico city. Only stayed there for a night. The only thing worth mentioning was an "art presentation" at the hostel. It consisted of 3 weird looking guys screaming out long complicated texts and poems with psychedelic music and lights in the background. One of them even wore a mask! I think it had something to do with an earthquake, not sure. Complicated spanish.

Then I went straight to Guanajuato. My friend Veronika recommended me to go there, and was kind enough to fix me up with a host family, her friends and salsa people. It was definately something different and more "real Mexco". I met up with some of Veronika's friends already the first night, and had LOADS of fun with this lovely group of salsa people, dancing almost every night and sleeping most of the day. I did a week of spanish lessons there as well, to freshen up and fill up the days. It was expensive but good! The other students in my groups were all 50+ americans who'd gone there to find themselves and learn spanish, I think I was considered a quite exotic element. I actually had such a great time in Guanajuato that I stayed for 2 weeks instead of one. It's a beautiful city: small, safe, great atmosphere - every night is a party night and the center is allways filled with people strolling around and enjoying the city. And the dancing it great!!

But I had to let go at last. After 12 hours of bus rides, I'm now in Oaxaca, trying not to be too sad about leaving Guanajuato. It's been really nice here so far, but I arrived late at night yesterday, so I'll tell more in a bit.

Lots of love from Mexico!! :)

And here we go again..

Yeah, I'm travelling again!! For the ones I haven't talked to in a while or with a goldfish memory, here are the facts:

Why: Because I have to wait for 6 months for my internship in Gjøvik anyway

When: 5 months - september - february

Where: Ehm..starting in Cancun, Mexico, haven't booked a return ticket yet.

Goals: Not many! Practice spanish. Be the most tanned doctor Gjøvik has ever seen.

Like last time, this blog will be in english to make sure everyone who wants to can follow it, and like last time, the language part of my brain's being heavily challenged these days, so my english might get bit funny. I haven't decided weither I should bother uploading pictures here or just to Facebook - any opinions?

So far it's been ALL about the sun&fun! :) I started in Isla Mujeres after just one night in Cancun. I got there JUST in time before the whale shark season ended, had an amazing tour where we were snorkeling right next to them. Because it was the end of the season, we only saw 2-3 and not 20-40, but I was just really glad we found them at all! We had great opportunities to see them and swim right next to them. I didn't think I would, but I got a bit scared - they're MASSIVE! Unreal. It's been my dream for years. Unfortunately I don't have a waterproof camera, so I don't have any photos :(

Otherwise, it wasn't much going on on the island. The beach, turquise water, excellent hostel with a beach bar, hammocks and nice people. We hired a golf cart for a day and drove (I drove! My company was more trusting than what's good for them) arond the island, checked out a turtle sanctuary on the way.

The night before, we had an even more amazing turtle experience: We were hanging out at the beach bar, suddenly one of the guys discovered that there was loads of baby turtles crawling up from the sea! Apparently, they're attracted to light, which should normally be the moon, but in this case - big lamp posts on the beach. It must have been hundreds of them, and we walked around making sure all of them made it back into the water. I'm not completely convinced that it was really necessary, but it felt very inspiring there and then.

And yes, we had a "cocology class" at the hostel, which was quite random, since I think our teacher was either high or half asleep, it was raining a lot and the palm trees were too wet to climb. But we did sort of manage to open a coconut, stick a hole in it, drink the milk and get the meat out.

Now I am in Tulum, a bit further south. It's a bit more quiet here, and the beaches are even better. Today we went to a beach where you can just bring snorkeling gear, swim for 5 minutes and right there, there's massive sea turtles hanging out, you can get as close as you like! The biggest ones' shells were probably almost a meter in diameter. We saw a few sting rays as well :)

.. and she's home!

Yep, back to real life! Yep, I know I said that I was going to Peru for a week, but some of you may not be surprised to hear that it didn't exactly happen, got stuck in Montanita for another week instead.. Totally normal, happens to everyone. But it was definately worth it! Had a good crew of 4 girls who got stuck there too. And got to do a lot more surfing! Yeeah!

Because of the strike in Spain, I spent my last 17 hours in Ecuador at the airport in Guayaquil, great. And only escaped the coup attempt by 1 day, woops!

I had a super weekend visiting my friend Bea in Madrid, great to experience some european urban life after 7 weeks of latino madness! And i realized for the second time that gay clubs aren't as fun as you'd think. Just like any other club, except that you don't get ANY attention what so ever - not my thing.

Well, I thought I'd finish this blog session with some priceless quotes - travellers know how to put it! :

"Guys keep leaving the country to get away from me!"

"And then he did something that can only be described as purring into my ear"

" Why is my hoo-haa green?"

" He fucking destroyed my vagina and he's a retard!"

" I hate cockroaches! They're worse than Hitler! Maybe they didn't kill 40 million people, but they've molested 6 billion."

" They speak spanish and are a little bit retarded sometimes, but otherwise the people here are just like in Europe"

"I'm tired and disfigured. I'm going to bed."

Montañita!

At the moment I'm getting ready for my last night of partying in Montañita - and last night in Ecuador - decided a few days ago to step by Peru before going back to Europe!

I've been at the coast of Ecuador for about 2 weeks now. First I went to Canoa, a beach town further north from where I am now. A really nice place, but definately made for sun, which was non-existing for the time I was there. Someone should have been doing her homework and would then discover that september is the lowest of low season in Ecuador.. So Canoa was a ghost town - nice to relax there and cool that you could get familiar with all the locals within hours, but I left after a few days. Went paragliding there tho - awesome! check out the photos on facebook.

Then I went south with Lora - a nice english girl I met at the hostel in Canoa. A night and a day in Puerto Lopez, which also was very quiet, but is where you can go whale watching! Turned out that in august/september is when all the humpback whales go up along the coast of Ecuador for mating. We went for a few hours and saw 6 whales! As a lot of you know, I have a mayor thing for whales, I was about to cry when I saw them coming jumping up right next to the boat. I do have photos, but I suppose they don't seem that spectacular to people who weren't there.

Then I went down to Montañita, a hippie/tourist/surftown and The Place to Be in weekends. I've had such great fun here - wicked parties, good surf, great atmosphere. I've actually only surfed twice, cause the waves have been waay to big for a little chicka most of the days. But the times I've been out there have been super! Great to be on the board again! And I still remember how to do it, even if it's been 2 years. My muscles have forgotten everything about paddeling, though.. And yep, easy to get some locals help you whenever you need it!

I also went horseback riding on the beach here, some peruvian guy took me to this random farm a bit away from the centre. It didn't seem like anyone was home, but then the owner turned up, offering me a bit skinny looking horse. I paid $5 and could do whatever for an hour. So I went to the beach and the horse went mental! SO fast, great fun! Just went running full speed for most of the time. And put some local kids on it for a little while.

I've taken some spanish classes here, but only 2 hours per day and it's been very relaxed, we've just played games, read a couple of stories and chatted a lot. Exactly what I wanted. And it's also been extremly easy to practice spanish here, I meet "spanish teachers" on every corner. The people are nice and fun here, but a little crazy. They just tend to smoke a bit too much, I suppose. Specially the boys, of course. I feel like I have many "friends", but not any real friendships. They all tend to turn weird at some point. Any girl who's been to south america would know what I mean.

Almost done in Quito!

I'm having my last weekend in Quito now, leaving to the coast in 2 days! It's weird and a bit sad since this has become more or less my home. The hostel is great, but it changes a lot. For my first and last week there's been really good groups of people to chat and have a beer with, but there aren't many long term stayers and in between it's been pretty dead. But it's also a good thing, because I've been forced outside the hostel on my own to get a network, which mostly have been through salsa and in spanish.

But: I can't wait to get to the beach!! Quito's got about 2500 altitude meters and it's only warm when it's sunny. One cloud and it gets freeezing. I got a lama jacket my first week here, and I fell in love with it immediately - I even got married to it - (we had a "ceremony" one very late night, an australian chick was the priest - "do you take this jacket to be your lawfully wedded..jacket? I do!You may put on your jacket!") But now we've developed this kind of love/hate relationship - it keeps me warm but I'm sick of needing it.

My days have pretty much gone by like before - spanishsalsaspanishsalsa. Great fun but lots of work. Last week was crazy - I started cheating on my salsa school and took 2 lessons every day - one at each school. And the spanish grammar is getting a bit out of hand. At some point you feel like they keep throwing tenses at you that doubt you'll ever use. They got something like 27 of them in total, my last three have been: 1 for the future when you're not sure something's going to happen or not, 1 if it's a possibility that something happens, 1 if you just want to suggest that something might happen. Yep. I'll probably take some more spanish lessons on the coast but only chatting. No more tenses, please.

I did a horseback riding trip all of last weekend, it was amazing! Just riding around in the jungle/farmland in Pululahua, a volcanic crater about an hour away from Quito. My horse was absolutely perfect - just wanted to gogogo but easy to stop if I wanted to, which didn't happen much. Otherwise I haven't really explored much - haven't had the time and energy for it.

Yesterday I ran into a "familiar" face. My friend Astrid's boyfriend's sister (!) lives in Ecuador and I've gotten lots of good tips from her through facebook even if we've never met - she's a sweetheart. She lives quite far from Quito, but suddenly I heard "Tine Sommerfelt, right?" in swedish and there she was - in my hostel! Cool to see her in person and thank you Svante for hooking me up with her!

Same chick, new adventure

Well, I've recieved some complaints about missing information about my trip to Ecuador, here it comes, for everyone who fancies it! I figured english is the most reasonable - I'll have to be excused if write a bit funky - I've never been more language-confused!

Some facts:
Destination: Ecuador with a short stop in Madrid
Time: 7 Weeks - 9th of August - 4th of October
Goal: Spanish, salsa and surfing
How: 4 weeks of spanish/salsa classes in Quito, 3 weeks of sun, fun and surf at the coast

Okey, so far?
My days are pretty packed in the weekdays - doing 4 hours one-on-one spanish and quite a lot of homework every day. I actually enjoy it a lot, can spend ours the living room like an old granny with my blanket (it's cold here at night!), a cup of tea and look up words, do my homework etc. And it works! I still speak spanish like a kid, but we've been speeding through an unbeleivable lot of grammar and words in the last 2 weeks. Now I can actually have a conversation (not a good one though) and my salsa teacher only speaks to me in spanish now - yej!!

yep, salsa takes a lot of my time too - doing one hour a day (also one-on-one) and try to go out and dance a bit in the evenings as well. Great fun! But I don't know if everything will be useful for when I go back home - seems like they're doing things a bit differently here, they tend to dance a lot closer here (surprise..!)

The rest of the time is spent hanging out at the hostel, partying, walking around. I finally got around to get outside my little bubble this weekend too - did a day trip hiking up Cotopaxi, a big volcano outside Quito - and biking most of the way down, weee! Really cool. I don't think it would be allowed in Europe tho, the roads were supersteep and extremely bumpy. Like the last time in South America - I love that they don't care that much for safety here - makes everything a bit more adventurous! :)