The ¨World´s Most Dangerous Road¨

Verena and I biked the ¨World´s Most Dangerous Road¨ (64 km – with a 3600 m total vertical drop according to the website) today from La Paz to Coroico – and got a T-shirt to confirm it

We left our hostel at 6:30 a.m. and left La Paz in a minibus with 12 other travelers and our guide Ben at 7:30 am. About one hour later we arrived in La Cumbre at 4660 m, tested our gear – superb mountain bikes – and started going down around 9 am. The first 20 km were on a sealed road and then 40 km on a dirt road, which is often only 3.2 meters wide and next to cliffs going down 600 meters right next to it. It´s important to go with a good, safe company and I feel we went with the best: ¨GRAVITY Assisted Mountain Biking¨. Our guide introduced himself as: ¨Hi, I´m Ben; (pause) I´m from the States – and I´m sorry about that.¨ It´s kind of interesting to meet people from the US when traveling around the world, i.e. outside the U.S.; the few I have met on my trip often either apologize for being American or pretend to be Canadians…

Back to the ¨World´s Most Dangerous Road¨, though, so we started at 4660 m at La Cumbre around 9 am and arrived at Coroico at 1760 m around 1:30 pm. There we had lunch at an animal refuge and just hung out until 3:30 pm, when we drove back up the road (this time by car), back to La Paz where we arrived about 4 hours later. - The nice thing is that although we are out of breath fairly quickly at this altitude (in La Paz), we have gotten used to it and have no headaches or other problems.

The bike tour was phantastic! If you like mountains, biking and great views, I can totally recommend it – but make sure you go with a good and safe company (people have died here by going over the cliffs)! Check out gravitiy´s website if you´re interested:

http://www.gravitybolivia.com/

PS: Flying to Rurrenabaque tomorrow morning, then going on a 3-day pampas trip, returning to La Paz on Thursday and then heading to Copacabana on Friday

Planning time – will be in NYC 3/30-4/7

Changing the date of my flight to New Zealand proves to be more difficult than expected as it turns out to be the end of the summer holidays in NZ. Right now I’m on the waitlist for Feb. 7 and 9. The flights earlier in the week were rather hopelessly overbooked. So for now I’ll be staying in Khao Lak for a few more days, probably until Tuesday, and then return to Bangkok from where I’ll fly to New Zealand eventually.

The news is that I booked the South American part of my round-the-world-trip yesterday with Verena. Verena is a friend of mine and also former roommate when I lived on E 97th Street with her and Reingard a few years ago. She then moved back to Austria, then back to NYC last April and as her visa/job ends on 3/31 we’ll be traveling in South America together   So here’s THE PLAN:

In February I’ll travel in New Zealand (probably the South Island first, then the North Island), in March in Fiji, where I hope to get to do more scuba diving…

I’ll be in NEW YORK CITY the week of Mon, 3/30 – Tue, 4/7   I’m really looking forward to this week in the city  – hope to see and catch up with many of you   Let me know if you’re around and have time to meet!

Verena and I will then travel in SOUTH AMERICA from 4/7 to 6/24. I’ll fly from NYC to Buenos Aires on Tue, April 7 (Verena will do the same a week earlier on 3/31) and then we’ll travel through Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia. We’ll fly back to NYC from Bogota on Wed, June 24. I’m very much looking forward to doing this part of my trip with a friend   If you have traveled in any of the above mentioned countries and have suggestions/recommendations I’m more than happy to hear from you!

After South America I’ll spend more time in NYC (I plan on attending graduation of the East Harlem High School where I taught the last 5 years), hopefully visit Jenny and her family in Florida, spend more time in NYC and then eventually head back to Austria at the end of July, which will mark the end of my trip-around-the-world.

After my round-the-world-trip ends (  ) I’ll be a little sad, but also happy as then the plan continues like this: in August move to Vienna, find an apartment, start working again, catch up with all my friends (  :)  ) and settle down; then maybe come across a nice man, maybe have children, etc. - basically do what most of you have been doing for the last few years   I know this all sounds a little far fetched at the moment and some (maybe a lot) of you think I’ll never really settle down – who knows?! Maybe I stay single, work and travel happily ever after   I honestly don’t really know where else my life will take me. But wherever it takes me I hope it’s some place good…  Well, I’ll see how it all goes – I’ll start with the apartment and the job first – in  August   But actually right now all these things are still far, far away and I simply enjoy the freedom and wonderful places and experiences this year :)

It’s been a dream of mine for a long time to travel for a whole year and see the world and the people who live in it; it took longer to realize this trip than I thought - I don’t know about you, but in my life things rarely seem to happen right away; it always takes a little while for my dreams and ideas to work out, but luckily in the end they do :)  (And the few things that haven’t worked out weren’t meant to be, I guess.)  So I appreciate and truly cherish this year of  traveling

So, this is enough. I’ll have a shower and then head out for dinner…

Take care!

Getting better in Saigon

Sorry to have kept you waiting with an update on my health and thanks for your nice and supportive emails

Since I started taking the cortisone on Friday I have been slowly getting better. The joint pain is pretty much gone now - only my left shoulder isn’t back to perfect, but I hope this is just a matter of time.

The last couple of days I haven’t been doing much, went to the movie theater on Monday and Tuesday and saw “4 Christmases” and “Australia” (in English with Vietnamese subtitles). Yesterday and also today I met up with Doke, the Dutch girl I traveled with in the South of Laos. It was really nice to meet her again

So the last two weeks have been a little “different“: As the pain in my joints was taking over my trip I sort of stopped traveling. I stopped making plans and meeting people. I couldn’t really make any plans because I wasn’t sure whether I would be able to continue traveling. I had my ups and downs – moments where I was in pain and felt sorry for myself and moments where I thought it could be worse and I was lucky that I could at least do this much. Having to face the possibility of my trip to end made me also realize that if the trip was to end at this point I would be ok with it  – as I had already seen and experienced so much and so many amazing and wonderful things over the last 2 1/2 months. Furthermore, I realized that I miss my friends (in New York and in Austria) and am looking forward to living in Vienna again. But I also realized that, if possible, I want to continue/do this trip around the world before I settle in Vienna. So after all these realizations, a visit to the clinic, and the cortisone kicking in, I’m continuing, I’M BACK – back on the road, back traveling, back making plans, happy to travel in and around this world – and happy that I have the chance to do this

Tomorrow I’ll be flying from Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) to Danang and then take a bus to Hoi An, a town in the middle of Vietnam. After a few days there I’ll continue north to Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital, from where I’ll fly back to Bangkok and straight to Phuket next Thursday, Jan 15. I will go back to Khao Lak and do another Liveaboard Scuba Diving Trip – just like the one I did at the beginning of November. I’m very much looking forward to this

Thinking of you, be safe wherever you are and all the best for 2009!!!