Thy Tsjee

That day I woke up with the sound of the river. Laura had already left. I walked from my tent up to the van where a big pot of coffee was boiling on the wood fire. We drank it with Pamelawhich is a solid block of raw sugar boughtpretty much from the source. There is plenty of such a place where “Kania” (sugar cane) is set into a rolling press to float into a series of metal containers under which the fire is booming. Each container contains a more brown version of the previous bigger container until the smallest one holds a thick dark brown syrupy substance, which they mold into cubes during the cooling period of the now becoming still hot, delicious, sweetness called Panela. So we use a knife to gnaw some pieces off to put in our coffee. And we drink. And enjoy. When we finish doing that, we continued to do some more nothing. 2 of the girls start making weed zapatos, a local dish from only oil, flower baked in oil. They make thin discs and we fry them well through. This gramar is shit and have also changed the tense, did you notice? Anyway, the zapatos (with weed) came with quacemole (with salt).


Alexi, a guy from France proposes to go for a swim and do some Ty Shee. Tai chi is an 'eastern somewhere'- meditation, relaxation technique whereby you breathe in and out deeply and slowly while doing postures/ making movements referring to water (Like Bruce Lee's water).


Doing this in a the cold at first, but little later sensationally re-energizing water flow made this a mystical experience (helped a hand bythe zapatos. When we came back we did some more nothing....

Bus 666

From then on my/our average speed would increase a bit...

Around 9 pm another bus comes along through the center of Isnos. This bus is full as well, but the driver agrees to seat us in the pass way for an illegal off-the-record one-time group-reduction/inconvenience allowance.

1 hour later I start to realize that the abominable state that the road is in is not gonna get any better soon. My body already aches everywhere from bumping up and down and is cramped from the tiny space it is crammed in. At a certain point the road is so bad that people fly out of their seats. Many of the passengers start yelling and whistling for a moment as a complaint and one woman in the back is nearly in tears as she yells at the driver that she has a baby in her lap. From then on the driver takes these points a little bit easier and the trips recedes to it's normal bumpy character. 10 mins later the bus stops and 2 mins later the engine switches off. We're happy to be able to get out of the bus to stretch our painful bones and some 5 m away from the bus we smoke a joint while joking about the driver being a pirate (he has no adjudant like all the others) and about how this was supposed to happen due to the bus' call sign: UJF666.

The driver and some other guy tinkle a bit with the engine and manage to start the engine over new, but it makes a loud rattling sound (supposedly from the water-cooling fan). The engine is switched off and the problem fixed. When walking back to the bus, I see through the front grill that a fan (supposedly from the water-cooling fan) is not running. An hour later this happens again, which makes me happy, as I was in a far less comfortable position as before and thus desperately watching the public speedometer lingering between 6km/h and 22km/h at the most.

Again the problem is fixed in 15-20 mins. We stop a little later again to eat a piece of bread with some unbranded, white cheese and a cup of hot Panela, company service.

Two other stops (problems with air-pressure) and three hours later we climb out of the bus at a place that appears to be in the middle of nowhere. It's 3 o'clock at night so everything appears that way. A local that helped the bus driver to some more air points us in the right direction and tells us it's an hour walk to the hot springs and we're on our way.

Average Speed

Finally San Augustin saw enough of me (and so did Laura). I take a colectivo to "la cruz" a road-crossing where the bus for Popayan is supposed to stop. The crossing runs uphill and contains one building which is a store/pub. As usual we're surrounded by green mountains. Groups of people are sitting in the sun waiting for a bus, a taxi, a colectivo or a motorbike to go to various destinations. I chat a little with different people as they arrive and get on their desired vehicle. About two hours later a bus arrives for Popayan, but no seats are left. As I ask the driver, he tells me there is other buses coming. An hour later two taxis drop off 5 more people exactly on the spot where I'm sitting at. They tell me they're going to Coconuco, a place about 2 hours from Popayan and they ask me if I want to come along. The next bus to Popayan also has no seats for us (since now we're six) so we take a taxi to Isnos, a little village 15km further. (I've been here before when I did a tour to see the Archeological park and some waterfalls). A little later, we're waiting for another bus in the centre of Isnos and it has been 5 hours since I left San Augustin. At this speed, I will be in Argentinia way before 2014...

San -doesn't let me go- Augustin

Some days after I had decided to go to Quito, I decide otherwise (since I'm still keeping Laura warm) and make a loose plan to go through the Amazon. Luc will come to Mocoa from Lima-airport (peru) over Quito (Ecuador) to Pasto (Colombia) with busses and no Spanish. Stefaan Geerts will probably be glad to help him a hand with directions since he's familiar with the area.
So I still have 5-6 days to spend in San Augustin. We are kind of kicked out our hostel because Laura's dog made a big mess in the room and the owner wasn't too happy with that. Earlier that day we passed upon a store that sells iglo's. We return to that store and for an hour try out the 3 models they have. One of them we know immediately that we don't want it as it is too small.
We camp an hour walk outside the village near the river, at a place called "la piscina", because it provides a natural place to swim. When we arrive we meet 2 travellers that we've met before in the hostal we stayed at. They're camping in a VW camper with two more people. All of them are native Spanish speakers (from Spain & Chili). We cook a delicious soup together with onions, carrots, potatoes, yuca, tomatoes and more. The meal is ready around midnight (as custom in Spain). After the meal, the Chilene and his Spanish girlfriend play some amazing music together with guitar, melodica and voice. (The melodica is a like a mini-piano that rests on your lap with a tube that you put in your mouth to supply it with air). The stars contribute to the atmosphere by throwing in some marvelous shooting stars.

San -Okay, I'll stay another day- Augustin

Another lovely village, slightly bigger than Salento and far more south.
The hostal is just a pretty as the village and is run by Mario, the loco hostal owner. The reputation about the best shower in South America being there, is not a lie.
The first morning we do a tour with a jeep (turns out to be a regular, 25 years old Renault) to visit the archeological museum which sucks, some maya-statues and tombes which lack explanation and some waterfalls from almost 400 resp 100 meters high (if I understood that well). The waterfall and the views are absolutely stunning, even for a by beauty numbed eye (that happens when you see so many beautiful things; you just stop appreciating). A small construction protrudes from the steep cliff, if you walk upon it you're litterally surrounded by the valley-walls.
The next day I decided to stay one day longer than planned and I joined Nathalie, Laura and Oren for a walk to a finca that Nathalie has bought and a swim in the nearby river afterwards. Moihikano and Patata, Laura's 9 weeks old and Nathalie's 2 weeks old pups climbed, tumbled and fell around us as the view changed with each turn, slope or hill we covered. After a brisk 2 hour walk we jumped onto the back of a jeep and continued on the dirt track (which also is the main road) for another 20 mins. At this point, only every 5 km or so a house or finca was visible, everything else was just trees, plants and animals.
The familie that lives in the finca was awaiting us when we arrived at the property. The finca is a poliered concrete plane with a wooden shed making 2 bedrooms, a kitchen and a veranda. Laura, who's dad is Chilene, started making a typical dish, so soon some pots were simmering on the wood-fuelled stove.
Then we took 2 machetes and strolled of towards the other side of the micro-valley to get wood. When we arrived at a waterfall and a wake to swim, it finally sank in what we were here to do. Of course I left my swimming pants in the house. The water was pretty cold, but after a while it became bearable and refreshing.
By the time we returned from getting the wood (which we didn't have), the man of the house fixed us a bag of approximately 50 gr weed for 5000 pesos (2€). It was, however, freshly picked, so we fast-dryed it in the wood-oven which was already warming up for the next stage of the meal. When we were finished making thin, round circles of dough, to be used to wrap around the meat and then put in the oven, it was starting to get dark. I try to ask how we were going to get back. Not that it mattered, but it is a civilised reaction, I guess, to always want to know what's happening next. Still I was taken by surprise to learn that we were staying for the night. Thus that meant sleeping with my lenses.
After the meal we talked a little bit (everyone laughed with my Spanish). One by one everyone went to bed. I kept Laura, the colombian girl warm at night because she was cold ;-)

The Science of Cryogenics

Travelling over longer distances in Colombia mostly happens at night. There are numerous companies providing this service and they try to make that as comfortable as possible. One way they do that is by using busses with comfortably soft seats that bends way backwards. The driver sits in a seperate compartiment so they can deep-freeze the passengers compartiment to make them enter a cryogenic state. This way the 16-hour trip passes mostly unnoticed for the passengers. At the destination they take all the blue, stiff body's out of the bus and put them on a big pile. In cold places the people in the center of the pile de-hybernate first, but they have to wait till the layers of people above them are defrosted and have awakened first.
Some people that often travel that way are missing a finger, a nose, an ear or any organs that protrude. The've broken off in the piling process (the craftsmen with the heftrucks don't always handle the load with the care prescribed.)
This morning I de-hybernated in Armeni...

Need for Speed (Above Ground 2)

Bogota's streets are litterally filled with busses in all sizes, ages and colours. The ratio busses cars is about 10 to 1 and they all drive like crazy. There aren't many busstops in the city so everyone flags down the bus they want to take wherever they're standing. Because of the heavy traffic and the speed, the busdriver will often fail to notice passengers that want to jump on the bus, so sometimes you have to get half accross the road, jumping up and down while waving your arms to get the drivers attention. The price is invariably 1200 pesos during the day and 1250 pesos at night, no matter if you travel from terminal to terminal (which takes up to 2 hours) or just one square. To know where the busses going you have to find the right neigbourhood on the signs in the front window which look a little like this:

GERMANIA

10 Cle y 7 K Candelaria

Galerias Cali

K 26

So to find the right bus you'll have to read all the signs quickly, hoping that your bus is not just overtaking all the other busses on the third lane, or if he is, that the driver notices you anyway after which he will dangerously swerve in front of the other busses to allow you to get in (if you still feel like it after watching the driver do that).
Because of the many accidents and deaths, now all the bus companies have to show statistics at the counter which say how many accidents/wounded/deaths they had last month and accumulative.
The alternative is taking a taxi, which is a lot more expensive and probably not a bit safer either as these drivers are just as loco...

How a/no camera changes your life

Well, not really... but somehow, seeing stunning views is directly associated with "take a picture !".
I guess from now on I'll have to work on my visualizing writing :-).

Last week I visited Salento, a little sleepy town (population 1500 ?) a good 8 hours busride from Bogota. It's located high in the mountains and you get there through curvy little roads that show you rough, green surroundings with the Colombian National Landmark, a palm tree that`s up to 35 meters high (the one you find on the 50.000 pesos bills). The view is so different from anything I've ever seen, not only because of the palm tree that tower high above all other vegetation, but also because there seem to be not one single plane that's very large. To my primitive geological understanding, it seems as these are very young hills.
The town itself is also constructed in the typical Calle/Carrerra square layout even when there`s only seven by seven streets. Because there is a fish-farm just up the river, you can get delicious fresh trout (trutcha) in every restaurant and when another traveller who came back here just to eat the fish insist on us coming along, we all end up in a nice little place and everyone orders a variation on the same main ingredient.
The centre of the village is a large square with some restaurants, a grocery-store and the police headquarters. All the buildings are painted in various colors, giving the whole square an almost fantasy-like appearance. From our hostel, called "The Plantation House" (even the locals use a Spanish pronounciation of the English name), there is a splendid view on the hills and I only have to walk 2 minutes down to feel completely surrounded by the birds, trees and ants (who's sting hurts).

Restricted Areas

You can't just walk everywhere in a city like Bogota. Some areas are to be avoided at all costs. Unfortunately there are no signs warning you when you are entering (or leaving) such an area. The city is structured just like an American / designed city. You have Calles (Streets) and Carrerras (Avenues). A helpfull person told me 17th,16th,15th,14th Avenue: Dodgy; 13th and lower: Don't go there... Great ! My hostel is in the 15th, so from 7 pm I stay inside and even during the day, the door is locked most of the time. It didn't look that dangerous to me though...
The second day I was there, I was attracted by a building on top of a nearby hill. The climb was so steep that they constructed a cable-lift with two cabins that hang almost vertically in the air. A stunning sight. I started to climb a couple of stairs but only after 10 m up, I was out of air, which surprised me since I've done may tracks before. Later I realized it must be lack of oxygen because of the altitude of the city. I was about to turn back when two guys walked past me and one said "Monserrate ?" which I figured, was the building on top of the hill. So, I anwered "¿Si, es lejos ?". They said "No !" so I started following them. Only after 10 meters, suddenly the guy in front of me turned around and said "Give me your money, mottafukka !" while they other one pointed a knife at me (he held it in a strange way though, with two of his fingers between the blade and its sheeting, so that, when it would fold, he would cut himself). So I took my wallet, first took out my bankcard and put in the pocket of my trousers and then handed over about 30.000 pesos. In the mean time the other guy took my backpack of me (I was so stupid to carry that around) which contained my laptop, my camera/phone/mp3 player/flashlight/alarm clock and my passport. The one guy had my backpack lying at his feet so I jumped forward and tried to grab my backpack in an attempt to run off with it, but I missed. Seeing that I was going to make trouble the guys started backing off and I started following them shouting to give my backpack back (I hoped to alarm other people and the police). The person with the knife threatened to throw stones at me, which he eventually did since I didn't let go of them. One heavy stone hit me in the knee and the other hit me at my ankle. Some people that were living there were watching the scene and I asked on of them what to do (he was an older guy and not likely to interfere). He told me to run down to get the police which I immediately did but by the time we came back, there was nog sign of them anymore, of course.
After searching for 1,5 hours, the police gave up and I went back to the hostel. A few hours later I started feeling dizzy in my head (I had a couple of scars from the knife) and I was afraid I might have gotten an infection from the knife. Apparently I also strained some muscle from my knee up to halfway my back, so I was limping like an old man through the hostel.
The owner arranged a friend of hers to go with me to the hostel where they desinfected the wounds and said everything else was ok (but why was I so stupid ?)...

Shades on, shades off; pants off, pants on...

The feeling that the two Finnish girls I was travelling with wanted to get rid of me, became more solid when we arrived at Bogota, the capital of Colombia (is it?). They met up with a friend they've already known from their previous visit and they didn't even try to see if there was a place to sleep for me too. Somehow glad I was on my own again I found my way into the center of the city in a hostel called "Hospedaje Cacique Sugamuxi". Everytime someone asks me where I'm staying at, I blank out at trying to remember this dragon of a name. It's significantly colder here. It put on my long pants and even a long sleeved T-shirt for the first time in 4 months. It's no surprise as the city lays about 2.300 m above sea-level.
Everyone here has a cell phone, but no-one ever has credit. Some smart-ass Colombians quickly made a business out of this and sell minutes on the streets. Walking around with a big sign, sitting down at a temporary stool or in a permanent place, they have several cell phones secured with chains where you can make calls from. It's a funny sight when people use their own phone to retrieve the phone number to type this in the "public" one.

Drifting

"Have we moved closer to Venezuela ?" I asked. Yesterday we had arrived in this little beach village "Taganga" after coming from Cartagena, the hottest city in the Americas.
"I don't know", came the answer. I remembered passing through Barranquilla, so it must be. The busride, which was said to last for 3 hours, which was then extended by a passenger to 6 hours and later corrected by the bus attendant to 1h20 more than the current duration (which was 3 hours), lasted 5 hours so we arrived around 9 pm in "La Martha", the bigger city about 10 mins from here.
Now, seated on the beach, I decide to go for a swim and plunge in the warm but cooling, flat, pearl-blue ocean water. Trying to by as hydradynamic (as in aerodynamic) as possible I swim with slow, long strokes and I enjoy the water, softly swirling away from my body as a massage o so gently. Drifting backwards I slow down my breathing, bobbing up and down as I a breath in... and out...
(I can't really drift, my feet sink :-) )
Responding to my sinking feet after holding still, I arch my back and head backwards to make a perfect bow. Through my closed eyes a very subtle gradient of red and orange fills my vision in a total, all encapsulating manner. Holding my breath I sink and release all the tension in my body. I drift a few seconds with my arms pointing down, my knees and head slightly bend and in an utter relaxed state. Next I fold my hands over my now contracted knees and I touch them with my nose. The gradients in my sight change to a less brighter but still radiating deep blue with a hint of purple. The swirling water make me loose all sense of direction but the pressure in my ears tell me I'm still sinking. Gently I touch the bottom, still in crouched position and with a soft push from one of my feet I rise slowly trying to breach the surface. Shortly after I recognize the pressure raising anew, I touch ground again. This time I push harder and I stretch my body fullout. I Swim closer to the coast until the water level reaches my armpits. While still a little dizzy, I look at my feet and wonder how clear the water is, when I white plastic spoon drift 10 cm in front of me from the left to the right, followed by a condom that, in it's inflated state, could be mistaken for a deep-sea jelly fish of some kind. In the same 5 m radius I can also see a peacefully floating bag of chips, a beautiful blue plastic bag and some empty coke bottles...

Rice and Shine

I was surrounded by water and forest and I loved it. One of the two native Indians was lazily gazing across the water while the other steered the engine-powered praw merely in the right direction. He pointed to the other side of the river towards "La Palma", a village some 2 km away. After 2 hours and some forks, the river became a whole lot smaller and more shallow. The propeller from the boat's engine clogged up a number of times because more and more water-vegetation made navigating difficult. Eventually we sat foot on land and the children that lived in "La Marea" came running from all over the village to see the gringos arriving.
Just like the two Emberos (one of the 7 different tribes spread throughout Panama) that awaited us in Puerto Kimba, a little harbour far into the jungle of Panama, they were dressed in a traditional manner. That meant that they dressed in a single piece of cloth to cover their genitals, wearing necklaces crossed over their chest and painted in tribal paintings from the cheekbones down to their feet. The women and the kids all wanted to be a helping hand and took the few ounces off luggage out of our hands so we strolled empty handed, followed by a stream of people through the village. Along the way we looked upon many huts built on poles 1,5 two 2,5 meters high (in the rainy season the whole village floods). Little eyes peered at our appearance which seemed to be so odd that many little hands were sucked by many little mouths. When we cheerfully said "Hola !" to everyone, nobody seemed to response which gave us the impression that they didn't speak any Spanish.
Later we heard from the chief of the village that the opposite was true: the children could hardly speak their own language anymore and amongst them they communicated in Spanish. Together with their language other things from their culture were also disappearing. They still painted each other with the fruit they used for that, but the paintings were now merely decorative and have lost all meaning over time. (you could tell someone's marital status, amount of children and many things more by their tribal paintings)...

San Blas

That morning we wanted to see the sunrise, so we woke up early. Leaving our bamboo hut we noticed that we were on the opposite side of the island. After a swift 30 second walk we reach the far east corner alas we went in the water. Swimming and floating we watched the sun rise over the crystal clear ocean blue water.
Around 7 o'clock we used a very rationed breakfast (all the meals are so rationed, that they advise you to foresee some extra food for in between). Hopefully today the locals that run the island don't start drinking even before most people have woken up (which is generally around 7:30). We're wondering if they only promised us lobster for dinner because they were all so drunk (and some of them also something else) and didn't feel like catching anything (or even getting of their chair)...
>From our 30m wide island we can see about 20 other little island (20 out of 374), some so small they only harbour one tree (no hammocks there)

Miraflor, Panama Canal

The Panama Canal is 80 km long. We didn't manage to find a yacht that wanted to take us through for an affordable price, so we just went to see the locks.
Boring.

Breakfast @ Chitre

Some countries seem to develop a culture upon their own culture whereas travelers are involved. In Costa Rica and Panama lots of Hostels try to make their places more attractive by offering free pancakes for breakfast (and coffee of course)... Although mostly this consist of providing a bag of premixed pancake dough that you only have to mix with water and is meant to make American Style Pancakes, not the delicious Crepes as they call our European Pancakes. When you're also offered bananas you should consider yourself in a luxury situation...
Some hostels try to be different and even offer a free continental breakfast. As far as I know that means bread with cheese, ham, scrambled eggs, fruit, jam and coffee or tea. In some cases it means a range of bread with a choice of cheese, your egg made in your choice of style with your mix of vegetables, yogurt and so on. In this hostel we stayed at, it meant: toast with jam and coffee...

Black Beaches

Our next destination is called Santa Catalina, a sleepy little town near the west-coast. It's so little that there's only two stores and when there's no tomatoes anymore you gotta wait till monday when they're re-supplied. We stay in a place called Hostel Rolos. Next day we plan to go to the beach and surf and fish, but when we come to the beach it is very windy and kind of dangerous because of falling coconuts. We decide to turn back and 2 minutes later it starts raining pretty hard. Viktor stays on the beach to fish. After a while it's starts raining twice as hard, but we're already soaking wet so we don't mind. We sing the few phrases "Why does it always rain on me ?", "I'm singing in the rain" and "I'm only happy when it rains" and keep on walking.
The next day the sun is out so we head to the beach (this time we walk to the beach in front of us, which is a 30 sec walk). There we play some frees-bee (Thomas was national champion) and enjoy the black volcanic sand.
The morning after we're leaving with the first bus at 7:00. The bus sometimes drives only 15 meters between pickups as everyone is waiting for it on the doorstep of their house. After 30 minutes we've traveled the distance that you'd cover in 5 minutes with a normal car.

Volcano with a lid

After spending 3 nights in Bocas del Toro, where I've only been drinking, mainly, I decided to go to Boquete, a small village in the mountains. I asked Victor, a german guy I met before in Costa Rica to come along so together we left Bocas around 14:00. I planned to start travelling around 10, but the hostel had problems with their wireless internet so I offered to help them out, which I couldn't due to missing passwords and unreachable people in charge but they offered me a T-shirt for the effort anyway.
>From ashore we had to take a bus to David, a city way more south. At first I didn't realize that David was such a long way from Bocas, but eventually it made sense since we payed $7 a person. Since we arrived in David just before 6 pm, I figured we would have to stay over in David, but once we arrived at the terminal, we figured out that there were still buses going that way because it was only a 45 minute drive. We booked in a hotel, appropriately called Hostel Boquete, which was situated on the river side. First thing we noticed was that Boquete is a lot colder than Bocas. Before we got to the hostel we met some people that Victor had met before and they offered us some coffee bread that they just bought. It was a little piece of heaven !
Next day we moved from this hostel to another one, because we didn't thought this hostel to be very social and ended up in Hostel Palacio which was also only $8,5 against $12 for the former. The owner very enthusiastically told us everything there was to do in Boquete so we decided to go for a short walk around the town. A little to my disappointment, the trip followed the road the whole time and the only highlight besides some views was "mi jardin es su jardin", a garden full of beautiful flowers although somewhat structured too strict, with cement pavements giving you a slight disneyland experience.
Although the trip was rather short, I ended up with a blister on one of my feet.
Back in the hostel we bought and prepared dinner while making plans to go and climb the volcano Baru. I certainly wanted too see that since I had decided against paying for volcano Fortuna and this one was for free (apart from the taxi ride there). First we were just the two of us, but after meeting with the other people in hostel Palacio we soon found some more souls to join us. After a while everyone who stayed in the hostel was sitting outside and talking and we convinced some more people, so I told the group that everyone who wanted to come I'd make Indian Curry for dinner the night before we'd leave. Ali, an American girl didn't want to come at first because she didn't do hikes for holiday, but eventually she said she'd come because of the peer pressure.
The next day we found out that there would be 11 of us and after eating and buckling up we jumped in the taxi that arrived there at 22:45.
We were lucky concerning the weather, since it was a starry night and we were in the middle of the rainy season. After walking/climbing for about 1,5 hour, we started to understand it wasn't going to be a stroll in the park and my blister from the day before had been bothering me from the start. We've only finished a fifth of the hike and I already felt like all the energy had been drained from my legs. I remembered from my survival guide that sugar quickly restores energy so I ate a Snickers(TM) and then I thought we should continue. My T-Shirt was already wet-through from my sweat and the temperature dropped with every step we went higher. Once we started walking again I couldn't believe how much energy I regained from just that half bar of a Snickers and I believed again I could make it. Around 5:00 we finally arrived at the top and the sky was stilled filled with many stars. The volcano didn't look like a volcano at all and the top was covered in some buildings with plenty antennas with dishes and other emission equipment. It was very windy which made the actual 4 degrees Celsius feel even colder. Viktor and me had decided to build a campfire there so we started searching for wood. At the other side of the rim there was a 270 degrees view into the underlying valley and I could see the lights of a big city, probably David in the far distance. We found some wood, but not enough to make a big campfire so we returned and decided to stay behind the buildings out of the wind. Some of us started dancing to keep warm, others sat down and curled up together to share the little bit of warmth there was to share.
When the light of dawn started to arise, with it also the fog came and the sunrise where we came for was fragmented in some blue spots of air every 5 minutes. Being brighter now, we managed to find some more carton and other burnable stuff and we made a little campfire. After a while we decide to descend back to earth which was supposedly to last about 5 hours as well. Starting walking again after a break, we looked like a bunch of old people because everyone suffered from something that hurted especially when starting again: some had sore knees, some had sore thighs, a sore back and I suffered from one growing blister and several accompanying smaller blisters on both feet. I thought descending was going to be less painful as they were in the back of my feet, but I had to reconsider quickly.
Around 14:00 we arrived bac at our starting point and we were all glad to be in the taxi, heading back to the hostel. Even during the short 15" ride, several members of our expedition couldn't keep their eyes open and fell asleep in the van.
We were all proud of ourselves for doing this, but for now we just wanted to sleep...

Bocas del Toro

To get to the island, we have to take a water taxi. We are waiting for it on a platform that covers the water, just like a lot of wooden sheds along the bay that looks like a river. The water taxi takes us out of the bay and we enter a vast open space of water which is flat as a mirror. After about 10-15 minutes we arrive at the island Bocas del Toro. It mainly exists out of one main street filled with hostels, restaurants, two supermarkets, a tourist information center and gift shops.
The next day we went to the party in town, which is Ladies Night (the ladies drink for free). Some girl said to me it is actually more like men's night since all the girls are drunk and playfull. I agreed totally... The party itself wasn't that great but hugely compensated by a swimming pool on the premises. Since the hotel was built on poles in the water, all the swimming pool is, is a hole in the floor revealing the water underneath. After a couple of drinks everyone started pushing everyone in the swimming pool all night long, so it became the best party ever ;-)
The day after this party we were supposed to catch a Catamaran for a round-trip along some islands, but due to the alcohol we missed it, so we opted for a shorter (and cheaper) alternative that also gave us the opportunity to see dolphins and go snorkeling.
We went snorkeling in front of an idyllic restaurant that had to be provided with food by boats (it was completely surrounded by water) and had ran out at that particular moment. When we were in the water some other people threw some shreds of bread in our vicinity and quickly we were surrounded by thousand of fishes swimming all around us trying to catch their share of the bread. When I was floating a little further off shore I saw many colorful fishes and other sea creatures living their underwater life. I suddenly gasped and nearly drowned when I noticed a jelly fish heading in my direction. After regaining my consciousness I managed to observe the jelly fish swimming which was probably one of the coolest things I ever observed in the wild. Still I didn't feel so comfortable anymore as I noticed more jelly fish so I headed back to the safe shore...
The last stop was red turtle beach. We had to pay 3 dollars to get into the natural park. We didn't see any red turtles and when we reached the beach at the other end of the park, it started raining. So then we decided to get a drink (I was travelling with English people) at the bar. Unfortunately the bar had burned down the day before...

Crossing a line

The border Costa Rica/Panama is easier to cross overland than by plane and it gives a much more authentic feeling too. The river defines a natural separation between the two countries so a small bridge allows a trouble free transfer. A bridge still wide enough for a BIG truck and a person. While walking to the other side, one after another of these mastodonts slowly advance to Costa Rica, coming to a full stop to allow me to take a picture. Their appearance on facebook is more important than the further drop down of the recession caused by their blocking of the other traffic that wants to cross the bridge.

Puerto Veijo

"Old Harbour", close to the border with Panama on the Caribean side, is a little village where life isn't too much affected by Tourism. I booked in in a hostel Called Rocking J's. The hostel has rooms for about 40 people, but they extended the capacity to 300 by putting 50 hammocks in a big room, side by side and a whole floor of tents, side by side.  The public kitchen was equipped pretty poorly, there were about 4 forks, 2 cutting knives, 6 pots an pans without a decent handle so you'd pour out your meal all over the stoves at the moments it's ready and you want to pick it up to serve it. It's a pity that the whole place had such a commercial feeling, because the whole floor, garden, benches, beams, doors where decorated a la Parc Gwell style. Guests could even create there own design and leave a permanent signature.

Guided Tours

There is lots of things to do in Monteverde. From zip-lining over the forest (you descend attached to a cable from platform to platform down from the hill, sometimes at speeds up to 60 Km/hour), to night-hiking trips, to coffee trips and birth trips. All these trips cost anywhere between 15 and 45 US Dollar. When I went to bed yesterday, some guys invited me to go for a hike on one of the only free hikes there, which they organized themselves. Around 8:30, after having breakfast and coffee, we left with 8 people and started walking. It started off on a hiking trail that was 4 meters wide until we came accross a sign warning us not to leave the tracks. It was placed in what seemed to be a small, dry river so after a short discussion we decided to follow the advice and stay on the hiking trail/road. After a hefty climb for 500 meters, one of the guys stopped us and opened the debate again, saying he couldn't believe this was the hiking path we were supposed to take. I told him I wasn't sure about it, but if he was going to take that route, I was going to do the same. 4 people decided to go on and us 4 went back down to try our luck on that trail. After only 2 meters it was already obvious that the river wasn't a river but the trail we were looking for. It led us straight into the jungle along a little river that surprised us from time to time with a beautiful waterfall from sometimes up to 15 meters high. Numerous time the path forked and after a while it became more like a joke choosing one, because no one had a clue where we were heading and sometimes we doubted if we even were on a path. One of the guys of this company had to return after a while because he booked for another trip in the afternoon. Two of us decided to go on and the other two turned back. After a while going on along sometimes track, sometimes not we ended up on probably the road we took at first. We started following that for a while which was physically probably the heaviest part of the track as it seemed to go up and up and up. After a while my company said he thought of turning back because this walking up on a road that probably didn't lead anywhere, didn't make any sense to him. I thought I should trust my gut and keep on going for a while (after all my intuition had been wrong all the time so statistically it had more chance of being right this time. Not so much later we arrived at a couple of tv-towers which made a lot of noise because of the wind blowing through them. We walked past a building in which Steve, the son of the responsible for the tv station up here, was playing World of Warcraft while listening to Slipknot. Since the door was open, we asked if there was anything up here or if this was where he lived. He answered the latter and invited us to have tea or coffee which was an unexpected but very pleasant surprise.

Quality comes with a price ?

My first impression of Costa Rica begins with a friendly local at the airport helping me out to find my sleeping bag and a backpack of an American guy, George at the luggage pick up. After 20 minutes of waiting I suddenly realize that I had my sleeping bag as hand baggage before switching planes in Panama City and that I never took it out... I won't need it for the first three months anyway...
My second impression was that Costa Rica is very clean, especially after getting used to the rubbish everywhere in the Dominican Republic. I share a taxi with George to a backpackers named "Costa Rica Backpackers". A very big hostel in the middle of San Jose with a swimming pool, a restaurant, lots of hammocks and free internet. The backpackers houses a lot of nice people and the staff is very friendly, helpful and multilingual (no Flemish though), but the kitchen lacks pots and pans, spoons, bowls, forks. It appears to me there way of promoting the kitchen.
The next day we decide to get out of San Jose and head north before we (or maybe just I) will head south. After a 4,5 hour bus trip we arrive in Pension Sante Elena in Monte Verde which is a fair big city considering the difficulties involved getting here. It resembles a bit like a skiing village and since the bus is full of tourists (probably because this place is in the Lonely Planet and I seem to be the only one who doesn't follow his guidelines) we have to hurry to get a bed in this hotel.
The price all this comes with, seems to be an identity-loss and a culture that's hard to spot.

Parc National de Los Haitos

About 10-15 Km from Las Terrenas is Parc National de Los Haitos. Geologically it is very young, only 15 000 year as opposed to the mainland. The Island is being pushed out of the water by seismic activity and contains a lot of interesting nature to visit.
Edit, de owner of Fata Morgana also happened to be a guide for over 19 years in this natural parc that you can either visit hiking or with a boat. 6 people were mandatory for Edit to be able to organize the trip. The 4 remaining people of the group of 7 all wanted to go and also another group of 4 Spanish people that stayed in the hotel wanted to come. They had to be back at 3pm so we choose the boat trip as this was shorter in time.
From Sanchez we embarked in a raft that brought us to the other side of the bay. The natural parc is protected by only 9 guards, but it's fairly hard to get on the island and only fishermen are allowed to have some shelter for there stay during their fishing days.
Our first stop was a cave where a river appeared out of nothing and Edit persuaded us to go for a swim in the water that's so pure you can drink it (which I did and it tasted very soft).
Next the boat took us to another (dry) cave thereby swerving between the numerous mini-islands above which many vultures were hovering in the seach for food. These next caves we were lead through a couple of wooden platforms and we were shown drawings that were estimated 1500-2000 years old, made by the indians when thy lived there. Later on in history these caves also housed the natives that fled from the Spanish and even more recently they have been used for political en juridical refugees. Consequently lots of drawings there are mimicking the oldest ones, but only a few are actually the real stuff.
Later on we also went into the mangrove were we got some explanation about the purposefulness of them for men and nature.
When we were about to head back, the sea became a bit more wild so we all put on yellow and orange coats and we put them on backwards.
Some people made a remark earlier on that I was still pretty white for being for two months in the Caribean, so I did a little effort this time. As a result my legs are painfully burned from the knee up halfway... The Dominicans weren't able to differentiate between me and there own people anymore !! (That's how tanned I am now)

Playa Moron

Supposedly one of the nicest beaches around (unlike the English meaning of the word), we decided to rent some horses and make a trip there. After a nice ride in the back of a truck, we arrived for the second day in a row in El Limon (almost fell as a local there), but this time with a bigger group.
So that was: me, Sarah, Anja, Noelle, Olivia, Danielle and Ray. 1 Belgian, 1 English, 3 Swiss and 2 Americans.
We checked out a Ranch that seemed okay and they prepared the horses for us. Overall the horses were pretty lame and obedient, but inevitably some were a little more furious (in the realm of Valium) than others. My horse needed a little motivation to put his next leg before the other. As a result of my continuus shouts as a real farmer ("hup hup horsie hup "), not my horse but the horses behind me started walking faster all the time...
On the beach all the horses started galloping (even mine) which was really nice, I never had done that before.

Tootache

An upcoming tootache was the forecast of a new group of visitors for Fata Morgana. They were a bunch of Aspirant Geographical Dentists that joined in a project fro an orphanage in San Pedro de Macoris, a city not so far from Santo Domingo. This gave me the opportunity to show off my knowledge of the region and at the same time move my lazy ass (excuse the language) so I took them on the same trip that I had done with Sooi, towards the "Salta de Limon".

Unlike last time we walked there instead of being walked on the back of a Mule (the locals first told us it was impossible to walk there, although we pretty soon noticed it was a bunch of crap since the guides walked along the horses). Since we, at that time, discovered on the trip that we were paying RD$500 an hour, we turned back at (what I discovered this time) only 1 minute walk from the real spectacle. I also discovered that some ranches organise a horse-back-ride to the falls for as little as RD$400 !

Dominicans that offer services for tourists can't be trusted. It's so bad that even honest Dominicans say "Hey, I'm Dominican, I know, but I'm not a thief"

Alien Abduction

Yesterday night I was abducted by aliens.
Lucky for me the held me ransom only 2 mm away from the place they abducted me from. They conducted all kinds of vivisections (and even a dissection when I wasn't looking) on me and replaced several body parts with exact replica's. 3 hours later I was completely exhausted and largely fed up with it so I turned on the light and discovered their home base under the neighboring pillow. With one mighty swipe I wiped these ants away from my bed and told them to go and abduct some banana tree or so (which they did).
I also fell with the motorbike and turned my big toe in a bloody mess.
Now the locals can track me down following the red dots. I wonder how I will taste boiled...

You'll find when you're not searching

Sooi's last evening in The Republic, we wanted to make a little bit special by cooking for ourselves and make it a little quiet evening. As we didn't know any place besides Fata Morgana were there was a community kitchen (besides the fact that we really liked the place and it was cheap) we decided to spend out last night together there. We left our hotel at 11:30 and arrived at Las Terrenas at 20:30 ! So most of that last day we spent on travelling and we were fed up by guagua trying to rip us off (or at least that's how we felt about it).
When we finished dinner, Edit, the owner of Fata Morgana tried to convince Sooi to take a bus in the morning the day his plane would leave instead of the next day. Since Sooi managed to get a Cacao Nut freshly picked by a Haitian guym he decided to follow our advice and we ended up having a second night together. We decided to spend it at the beach at Playa Cozon and simply have some beers and go for a swim...
After we sat down and finished the first one and went for a swim we came back at the bar and a couple of Dominicans were playing guitar, playing the bongos or congas or whatever it is called (I know for sure it wasn't a church organ) and singing too. After a while we put ourselves in front of the band at a table and when the band noticed our interest, they asked what we wanted to hear next. So we asked them to play merengue and bachata, what the difference was and one of the members of the band and a spectating lady even showed us the secrets of merengue dancing...
Sooi and I agreed this certainly was the most idyllic day of the trip.

After the band left, we shot the last pictures with Sooi's underwater camera (we also took these pictures under water) and we were blessed with some beautiful sunsets in the nicest beach in the country. Sooi thanked all gods of all religions (except that one religion were you need to cut of your hand, paint it blue and then sing a song in a language that doesn't exist, because that's a silly religion anyway) for staying one more night and receiving a gift like this one, without even asking for anything...

Dominican Coins

Did I mention already that the coins here in the Republic are made of
rubber ?

KeruBanda

The whole day long we were anxiously looking forward to the concert of KeruBanda. When we eventually decided to take a shower in the less than appealing bathroom (I even doubted that I would get cleaner out of it then when I got in it) we heard some music playing and figured that they had started already at 8 o'clock as displayed on the banners all over the town. As we were preparing ourselves as quickly as we could, a Dominican guy with an American Nationality told us there wasn't anyone there yet and that the music we heard was just a DJ playing. With a sigh
of relief we figured we could relax a little more. When we eventually showed up in the center of the village around nine-ish, we discovered that the gig was actually taking place inside a new club in Mimey, that had booked KeruBanda as their opening spectacle.
The guards at the door told us that the concert was about to start around 10, so around 20 past
ten we entered the club. It was a very fancy club according to Dominican standards, which we noticed because a lot of expensive cars with people in expensive suits showed up. Most of the tables in the club were reserved and some of them had a box with a bottle of Jack Daniels waiting to be consumed. We were directed to a tiny little plastic table with tiny little chairs at the side of the club. They played all kinds of loud music (Dominicans don't seem to make the connection of their country-wide hearing problems and the loud music they play all the time during all moments of the day), mostly Reggea-Ton, Merengue, Batta-something and sometimes a kind of techno that reminded me of the times shortly after "Bonzai".

Sooi was feeling the vibes and looked like a drifted-loose Kurt Cobain between all these High Class Society Dominicans who looked at him like they never seen anything like it.

Every now and then we went outside for a smoke, because you're not aloud to smoke in airconditioned places.
Dominicans don't smoke a lot and some people even acted annoyed when someone lighted one outside in their vicinity. Lots of people also warned us about the dangers of smoking. (well I'm trying to quit and smoke only three when I'm drinking and Sooi only smokes when on
holidays :-), so we take their advice for real).
Anyway, it's only because of our bad habit that we had the luck to meet one of the singers of the band in person. We were looking from a close distance at a neat van parked right outside the club. It looked like a guagua but then without the broken windows, dents and scratches as usual
and it was also brand new.
As we were admiring this vehicle, a guy came out and we asked were this van was going (we succeeded being understood already after 4 attempts !). It turned out to be the artists tour-bus and the singer's name was something that came close to a poorly
pronounced "Richard". We explained the guy that we came all the way over from Santiago to see the band play. This came across as we had came all the way over from Belgium to see them so the guy promised to give us a free cd. Unfortunately we didn't make it to the end of the concert,
because Sooi was just a little bit (!) drunk and we had to go home early.
Fortunately we managed to get Sooi's trophy which he had been dreaming of since the day we arrived at Mimey, a banner with the name of the band, where they played at and when. Ultimately we'd fancy to have it signed by all members of the band, but we had to be happy with only part one of the plan.

Pictures Link

I've changed the name of the album to
http://picasaweb.google.com/oneindelijk/RepublicaDominican#
(if anyone's interested in why:
because the name of my blog was the same as that album, and the blog automatically creates a new album in picasa to store the pictures with the same name as the blog, I ended up with two albums with the same name, which was all to confusing...)

City of Difference

The funny thing about Santiago (and then I will shut up about it) and
also the reason why I like it, is that there is such a big difference in
such short distances.
This picture, for example, is taken only two
block away from the hotel I stayed in. It felt like you're suddenly in

Africa or something (not that have ever been there).

The streets are filled with vegetables, clothes, shoes and e ven buckets filled with
toothpaste, medicins, garlic and lemmons (all in one bucket). The odour
isn't really nice there (although the rotting pineapples spread a nice
smell), because the sewers are sometimes flooding parts of the streets
and open sewers in this heat ought to smell like that.
Cars can hardly pass, but they do it anyway. It felt kinda awkward to
take pictures here (so I didn't).
Two blocks away from my hotel in the other direction was the main
street. There you have traffic jams al l the time, but not as bad as
during peak times in cities in Europe. Although they press the horn
practically all the time, they don't seem to be as stressed out in
traffic and the funny thing is, that sometimes it even seems to help.
They use the horn a lot just to provide an audible sign of their
approach towards motorbikes, pedestrian s and other cars (saves them
braking).
On the real busy crossings, a countdown-counter is installed so the
drivers can see how much time they have left before the light changes
(in both cases).

In the hotelroom we got a service that we've never had before. We had a
speaker in our room and a switch to turn it on and off. Dominican music
on demand !!

Live Concert

My traveling companion, Sooi, met me in front of the hotel, because he was searching for some live music (which was the reason I had come to Santiago), but I had to severely disappoint him. Never giving up like the man he was, he found out the next day that there was a gig the night
before. The night we've been in search for at least some dancing and stuff, but all we found was a disco were we had to pay RD200 to get in, which we didn't want to pay as it looked like nobody was even moving inside (the 'D' in DISCO stands for "don't !").
Sooi also found out that the same band also played in a little town called "Mimey", which was on the way to our original destination, "Monte Christi", in the far North-West of the country. We decided to stay there for a couple of nights and then move on to Monte Christi to chill for Sooi's last days in the country.
We had to get off in "Cruce Guayacanes" and take another one for the last stage. I could only reme mber the "Cruce" part and the locals only used the last part to refer to the town. Nevertheless they understood when I asked "¿Es aqui, Cruce ..?".
We booked into the hotel in town (it looked as there was only one) which
we payed RD200 a night per person.

The security for our personal stuff there bared me more then sorrows, certainly when the owner and a friend came by our room and immediately showed an interest in my laptop, asking
how much it costed...
So we locked out room tight, w ith the tiny little locker that we got from the hotel (the doorlocks from all the rooms were all forced open before) and went out in town, because this was the first night of the "fiestas patronales". When we came back, no grizzly-bears had entered our rooms and the toilet paper was still in place (ouf)...

Power Outage #367

I've probably mentioned it before, but power outages are a frequent thing in the Dominican Republic, so metimes because the government cuts the power, but in a

city like Santiago this might be due to the skilled way the powerlines are constructed... In santiago this is neatly done (as in the picture) compared to how it's done in Santo Domingo...
In house electricity also looks like it won several prices for living up to CEBEC-alike standards and the fan in the hotel didn't make any noises for at least 10 minutes after you changed its speed, probably because then it was trying to hard to fell of its hook.

Driveway or Dining room

I couldn't help thinking about something I read about Frank Gehry's house, where he purposely makes the visitor ask himself the question "Am I in the house or am I not ?", with the difference that in the restaurant where I was eating at for my last night in Santiago, it was not done one purpose that the driveway was also the dining room, but out of necessity. The fish was extraordinary, certainly with the added lemon and the fried bananas with ketchup were just like fried bananas with ketchup (rather tasteless), which made it all rather funny when the driveway thing was set extra in the spotlight because a home coming car drove between the tables at my side and the other tables, concealing the view to the other customers for a moment.
For the first time since I was in the Dominican Republic, I ate the lettuce without having diarrhea 30 minutes later, which was either an achievement being resistant or the lettuce was being very well cleansed...

Santiago

For the third time, I end up in Santiago. For some reason I seem to walk into the same places here. The first time we got here, we got off the bus, walked into a big warehouse, walked down that street, were we just stopped for a second to split our giant knife sharpening stone into
smaller pieces (we kept only 1/20th of it, and gave the rest away) and then jumped onto the bus to La Vega. The second time, I came here by myself, choose a rondom street, which looked completely unfamiliar at that time and suddenly walked upon the same corner as where we split our stone. I walked down another street and ended up again at the places where we took the guagua the first time. Now this time I got off the bus (not a guagua, but a full-sized, airconditioned bus with toilet onboard, which by the way only contained 5 people for the trip and was still cheaper than taking two guagua's in the other direction !??) and after a short walk was directed to a hotel on the corner from the guagua place.
It's as if Santiago only has 4 streets, two corners and the rest is just a projection that you can never enter.
I proved this wrong by searching for some food, but due to the late hour, the only thing I could still find was a McDonalds, my favorite restaurant because as a non-meat eater, I could choose between two dishes "a grilled fish sandwich" or "a something else fish sandwich".
I delayed my plan to search for Salsa/Merengue to the next evening since I didn't really trust my hotel, which was cheap (RD$ 250), but had no locks on the door. Due to the late hour I went searching for food, I left my credit card in the hotel in case I had to hand over my possessions to some sujet with a knife in some dark corner (which seemed to be an overly concerned thought, because many sweet young couples still strolled down the roads). But now I was concerned that I would find my hotel door being forced open and I was already making an emergency plan in my head in case I would end up with only 300 pesos in my pocket and not clothes, no phone ...
Of course this thought too, was an overly concerned one.
Back at the hotel, I was caught again by the 15-16 year old girl that showed me my room earlier and again she was making it very clear that she wanted sex for money, so I laughed and pushed her and her girlfriend that she introduced as well out off my room and said "fuerra !!" which I
hope means "get out !" or something similar.

Soshua

I finally left Soshua were I stayed for a week in a hotel named 'Hotel Coco'. Apparently this refers to 'ass' more specificly woman's ass. I thought it referred to coconut, which I thought to be pretty appropriate in this country...
I arrived there in the guagua, my favorite public transportation medium, with a record of 24 people in one little van. With all my bags on my lap, I was barely able to see anything but my sleeping bag. I held my breath for 1,5 hours before I got off the bus in Soshua.

The second day I visited the beach which was loaded with tourists and everything that develops around them. It wasn't very big, so after saying a 100 times "no gracias" to the locals trying to sell me either food, beer, ice-cream or the same paintings as in Las Terrenas (or anywhere else in the country) I reached the other side and I walked back to the hotel. What a great adventure !!

The third day I tried my luck in the other direction. At this beach, which was completely desolate, apart from 4 locals fishing from the rocks, I could enjoy some silence and nature. It was a good thing that I bought slippers just the day before (the asphalt was too hot to walk barefeeted, I discovered when I was in the town) but still the sharp remains of the coral when straight through the bottom of the slippers.
I made along walk along this beautiful piece of nature and eventually found a tiny little beach beneath the rocks where I went for a swim.
On the same spot I found these interesting remains of a colony of some sort...

The last interesting thing I experienced there was the nightlife. David, a 50 year old, big black American guy, who speaks Spanish fairly well and who seemed to know everyone in town that appeared often in the clubs took me out and showed me all the places. Although my plans were different, his mind was set on finding a girl for me, so his first question when we paid off our motoconcho's was "black our white girls". I said "white" and we buggered off. It wasn't clear to me (still isn't) what black or white in this country means. Some rather Hispanic guys call themselves black, while there as tanned as we could be after 2 months in a really sunny place, and some call themselves white, while there as black as the night. It's your origins that define your color, not your actual color...
Anyway, we kind of quickly scanned all the bars, had a beer in some of them (met a Walloon that lived since 8 years in the place) and David said it was a quite night. There weren't a lot of people going out (the economic recession has its effects everywhere). We ended up in a 'hooker' bar, as David stated, which I noticed as soon as I stopped walking. Girls started touching me and throwing these typical looks at me. Finally David decided to leave and I had a drink at the bar with some guy that always tries to make friends among tourists, which is often a cheap way to get through the night. Looking around I noticed other tourists enjoying all the attention they got just from the fact that their skincolor shouted 'Dineros !!' at the dominicans. I also had the feeling I could better avoid the eyes of one of the bartender girls, who kept on dancing in front of me, as not to raise expectations which I wasn't going to fill in anyway. Eventually I went back to the hotel, knowing that this wasn't the place to learn some merengue or salsa dancing...

Waterfall Adventures

When we arrived at Jarabacoa, which is pretty much the main place where tourist take off to climb the mountain Pico Duarte, as usual a guide immediately jumped upon us asking what our plans were and if we intended to go up as well. For US$ 200 he would take us, no problem, he said.
Our previous encounters made us hold him off for a while so we told him we were getting on the internet first. After writing an email to the whole world we decided that we were going to pay a visit to one of the waterfalls close by and if possible, camp there too.
The same guide took us there and try to rip us off again by claiming that the price he stated (500 pesos) to take us there was per person (which seemed to be the standard procedure to trick tourists who tried to negotiate a price on beforehand).
We told him we knew the prices for gas and we thought he'd been paid enough. Of course he made a face like a hit dog, but eventually shook our hands and buggered off.

We went up higher on the river a bit till we found a tiny little beach were we threw off our bags and clothes and started wading through the river to look if there was even a better spot. at first we crossed another much waterfall and the river curved so we couldn't see around it, so we decided to check a little further, but there we met the same scenario for a couple of times more, so we went back, happy with the spot we'd found at first.
There we made a fire and set up a improvisionairy shelter (which we took down later to lay upon instead of underneath).
Later that night it started raining, so we quickly put the shelter up again (luckily we hadn't detached the lines yet, so all we had to do was put the poles back up).
It didn't rain hard so we weren't disturbed any further that night.
Although when we cleaned up next morning, we noticed that some animal had been gnawing at our bag of bread (possibly a rat or some kind), so I was kinda glad I was sound asleep.