Day 150 – Isn´t it ironic?

How is that for ironic: all the way I have gone for cheap buses traveling over night until now when I took the luxury class. The difference, besides the food served, is that the seats in the normal class only recline so much that you basically sleep almost sitting- if you sleep at all that is. In luxury class the seats go all the way back and a butler gives you an extra mattress, blanket and pillow so you basically have the luxury of a bed.

I got tiered not getting a good night sleep (naturally you get tiered from not sleeping) on the Argentinian buses. However, one day before my luxury experience I catch a stupid cold and end up awake all night yesterday until I realized (at 8 in the morning) that the only way I could at least grab two hours of sleep was sitting almost upright, since that unclogged my nose.

That is what I call ironic! I guess I am just not meant to sleep on buses.

Talking of being ill, that is a reoccurring issue and I wonder what it might have to do with. Constant changes in foods, irregular sleep, changing weather and climate in different regions I visit or just a depressed immune system due to the psychological demands of traveling alone and lonesome in the vastness of the planet we call earth. Dunno, I do know however that my usual maladies (to do with my digestion- I spare you details) has not been a trouble for almost the entire time. Except from India where I acted as a stomach-bug-trap. Hmmm, if my immune system is suppressed than for the better concerning my stomach? Something hard to stomach, I got to digest this fact. (God I am funny )

Anywho, I have arrived at the Atacama dessert, well over 2500 meters above sea level and reside at San Pedro right now. Some of the “hills” in the background are in fact 6000 meters or more high and I guess just seem tiny due to the vastness of the desolate plains before them. Man, this really is desert here, but busy nonetheless since it seems to have loads to offer. Hence I was told that it is hard to impossible to find a room spontaneously and of course I had not booked anything in advance. When I arrive I was greeted by a lady with my surname “Kramer” and tagged along. I was wondering all along how she knew my name but my Spanish was not all that sufficient to figure that out. Just now a guy from Germany arrived by the same surname. Riddle solved and my room-problem too.

Some coincidences are too ironic…

Day 148 – Religilous!

While traveling one meets people of all kind of believes, and probably a larger than usual number of individuals sincerely searching for their “path in life”. A travel is an escape for many from the restraints of their usual environment and one has a chance to arrive at conclusions about themselves and their life not possible otherwise.

However, many seem to stop thinking for a while as well and must have left their brains home. They indulge in overly emotional spiritualism while they expose themselves to religious practices strange to their cultural upbringing. While an open approach is fine it should be done with a skeptical attitude, as we can see easily when we look at the negative effects of cults on people´s psychology (just think of Scientology, Jehovahs Witnesses, Mormons and the even more dreadful examples of suicide cults).

Atheists world-wide have been quiet for too long. Often due to a risk of being severely discriminated against. But eventually atheists have begun to speak up. Richard Dawkins [1] for instance who does the best service to atheism in my opinion. And now finally the long awaited documentary by Bill Maher, who is an excellent fighter for atheism using humor, has been released: Religilous.

It really has become a “mockumentary”, but WTF? Why not? The way he had the interviews with religious individuals of all flavors cut is daring, to say the least. It is clear that Maher´s intention is not really to make religion look good. I was a bit disappointed by that at first, as I would have expected a fair dealing with religion.

But after digesting the matter I came to the realization that the people who watch this are not going to be the ones believing, but the ones that came out the other side of their doubt as atheists already. People who believe would not watch this piece of highly entertaining sarcasm without having their heads explode. Besides, they usually do not react to reason and logic anyway.

Hopefully some people wondering about how serious they should take religion watch this though. In which case there is a fair chance they realize that people following religion must have turned their brains on the setting “white-noise” and that the religious dogmas are mere laughing matter (hence the title “religilous”, as a contraction of religion and ridiculous). Especially with all we know in the 21^st century (anno domini).

Concluding, if you are sensitive about your believe and you cannot take any blasphemous jokes about your personal type of superstition, stay away from this work. If, on the other hand you are tiered of the nonsensical and at times aggressive arguments that religious people throw at us sincere non-believers in order to “convert” us, this is the movie you must see.

This movie offers some relaxing 90 minutes in the good company of a Bill Maher who approaches the religious nonsense laughing. He exposes the nonsense for what it is and exposes people who have decided to stop thinking. Again, after some initial sensitivity about the mocking of seemingly innocent religious-nuts I came to the conclusion that it is actually just fair to mock them. After all, we are not the ones holding unprovable and childish believes. Here, dear believer, we do not laugh with you, we laugh about you!

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1) http://richarddawkins.net/

Day 141 – Southern Culture: Los Alemanes

One of the fun insights in the south of Chile was that there is tremendous influence of Germans in the Lake region and the so called River Region. Names, products, food, culture and so forth are all to some extend tainted by German traditions. Naturally I was not sure if that was a good thing or not. However, it was a funny fact.

 

We went to a local fair where I fortunatly became exposed to some traditions who have their own dynamic, maybe the real chilean traditions? When it comes to food the chilean cuisine is on the more natural side of things. No big tricks are played on the composition of the dishes or in the way they are spiced.

 

Though that being said, when you have had a stew with clams, mussles, chicken and sausages all in one dish you must be surprised of the composition for sure, yet the good thing is there is something in there for everyone, unless you are taking your vegetarianism very seriously…

 

No matter though what you think of the cuisine here, the amount of freshly available seafood is lovely, and a wonderful wine to guzzle any food down with is never far away. There are so many great wines here for cheap, it gives you a bad concience to order a beer (which then of course has a German name and is made by “Germans”).

 

I loved the dancing at the fairs most. StuffI had never seen before and yet it felt somewhat familiar. I guess there is in the end a striking similarity to european customs. And do those guys not resemble some Austrian indiginous guys after all?

Day 140 – Outdoor man in Chile

Due to the fact that we brought a surfboard we felt obliged to go surfing of course. Naturally, for two untrained individuals, Gerardo and I spend more time in the water or falling into the water than balancing the board. However, both of us were surprised how fast we progressed and after some half hour or so we managed to cruise a bit.

Unfortunately the crossing back against the wind turned out to be the real difficulty, which handed us the chance to get some swimming exercise, when needing to get back to shore. However, it was much fun all in all!

The other activities were walks on beaches and into the forests, exploring some hot springs close to the many volcanoes here and some fishing in the lakes. Well, the fishing…Let me say it like that, we had not been eating too much fish had we not bought some. However, even without fisherman’s luck you get a great variety of clams and seafood for very little money. Especially a fish called Sierra has become one of my favorites, reminding me of Baracuda a lot. We were lucky enough to enjoy the chilean hospitality at Gerado’s grandmother’s place. We got a nice treat of here excellent skills as a chef.

While not catching some fish I had caught some virus instread, which gave me some bugging throat pain. I went to the hospital today where there was not just one but two German speaking doctors taking care of my virus. In a way I bizarrely enjoy going to foreign hospitals, it give an insight into how good we have it in Europe. While in the USA medical service is just outrageously expensive and the size of your wallet dictates the quality of the service you get, in many “second and third world” countries health care is widely available but surely not top notch when it comes to quality. In Europe we do have- despite the widespread complaining- still the worlds best health care systems in my experience! Everybody has access to high standard health care without having to take much care of insurances and the like…

My Pan-Americana trip came to an end now, and I am back in Santiago. I decided against a continuation into the far south. For time and money reasons, and also because of the weather. I am keen on getting into the tropics now and explore less nature but more archaeological wonders. However, before that, and as soon as my new credit card has arrived (I lost one), the next stop is going to be one of the driest places on earths, I can’t wait to see them.

Day 139 – Southern Chile: Little moments of perfect beauty

Finally we headed off with a four-wheel-drive in order to investigate the south of Chile. We were on a (thanks to Gerardo and Paula) well organized and equipped camping trip. Our aim was to explore the region of the rivers and lakes- hence called lake and the river district.

We had to realized after the first night that the nights here become much chiller than we were expecting (hence the name Chile, haha, have I not cracked that lame joke before already? ). Especially when camping directly next to a lake during full moon it gets a bit cold. However, it was a fantastic sight! The nature there is stunning. Around every corner there is a petite and picturesque piece of landscape waiting for you…

Much there reminds of Germany and Switzerland at times. In fact you could think you were transported to Switzerland in some towns, thanks to the architecture which has been influenced mostly by German, Swiss and Austrian immigrants. But that is of course only how it is in the major villages down here, which also have been prepared for the streams of foreign tourists. With a car you can nicely get away from the crowds of “mainstream” tourism and smell some real southern Chilean atmosphere. Which smells good…

Day 126 – Kings for a day fools for a lifetime – the end of oil

I found a sentence of a speech of the to be USA-president Barak Obama really quite amazing. He said that the current crisis is probably the worst in our life times and that it can take many years before we even begin to see the end of it. Most intriguing however was his statement that if we do not manage to do something against it, we would maybe not get over this crisis at all [1].

I have not transcript of the speech and hence cannot be sure. But if he is trying to say that there is a chance that the (western) world will never return to its prosperous past, he has a valid point. It is indeed a risk [2].

One reason for this is that the IEA has announced this year for the first time, that we are running low on oil [3]. Now, if you are familiar with the concept of peak oil (otherwise check a previous post on it) then you will know that it means that we will have oil for many years to come. But this remaining oil is going to be ever more expensive, because we can not produce enough oil anymore as we need.

I am amazed about the head-in-the-sand strategy that economists and politicians, but also friends of mine, share. Some seem to think that this is such bad news, that it can simply not be true. One friend even suggested that oil has not been produced via million year long biological processes, but that it quickly is reproduced somewhere in the earth- he had heard “somewhere”.

Rest assured, that this is nonsense. However, if you prefer to ignore the possibility of a potentially dreadful future, do not read on.

The fact being that oil production is coming to a peak within the next 20 years, or even has done so already. The huge difference in these estimates owes mostly to the fact that geologists have to estimate how much oil is going to be found in the future.

Were we to have only what has been found already we would be indeed running out of oil altogether in a couple of decades only. However, they do estimate that we will find more. The amounts that are being found each year are decreasing for the last 40 years already (since the 1960s). This means that we are heading towards a depletion of all our reserves.

These simple facts, on which most scientists and geologists can agree on (some I personally talked to) are not really promising the brightest future. Because if oil production does not meet demand any longer our economies are heading towards decline too. You may be surprised, but we are entirely dependent on oil for production of the vast majority of our technological goods.

Even if we would use alternatives for transportation and would not use oil for energy production we were tremendously reliable on oil for production of plastics, colors, drugs, rubber, fertilizers and thereby food. Up to 40% of oil is needed for other purposes than burning it for energy.

10 Calories from oil are used for the production of one calorie of food. An insane fact, if you consider what this would mean for food prices.

So, yes, maybe Barak had that in mind. Maybe not. No matter which thoughts made him say it, he should have these things on his mind when he says, that there is a risk that we will not see the end of this crisis. Ever. That means…Never.

Did you know by the way that “peak-oilers” predicted the credit crunch for a while…like in this video from 2005:

I guess I keep traveling for a while then…burning the last oil on cerosin…

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[1] http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,600142,00.html
[2] http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article7089.html
[3] http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article5141848.ece

Day 125 – Hanging loose, rindin´smooth

After spending the New Years Eve festivities in Santiago with friends I have been taking some time off of traveling. The sheer amount of things and events that hit me the last couple of months deserves some digesting. However, the momentary slow down leaves me with a funny feeling of almost being nervously restless.

Santiago is not my favorite city on my circuit so far but it does have its charming sides too. It offers a bunch of nice bars and restaurants and a few nice and lush green parks for the locals to retreat and use them as their hangout and make-out places. The heat with which the mid-day sun burns down on the town is incredible. But as soon as the sun is gone a pleasant chill moves into town (hence the name: Chile ) and allows for some relaxed quality sleep.

Valparaiso with its funny colored houses.

The closeness to the mountains and the beach are a refreshing possibility for excursions. So I have made it to the sea side resorts of Valparaiso and Viña del Mar which are very nice, though admittedly not my favorites either, when comparing to some of the beach-places I have seen in South-East-Asia. However, as someone pointed out the other day, after a sufficient amount of traveling there remains only space to impress you. I do not have the cash for that yet. Hence, to overcome this downside of an overwhelmed mind partially a break comes in handy.

New Years Eve I spend with the family of a friend and we barbecued outside in the comfortably warm Chilean summer evening weather. However, New Years in sleeveless shirt, eating barbecued steak and slurping nice Chilean wine does not provide the necessary backdrop for induction of the semi-melancholic winterly feeling I am used to connect to this evening every year again. On the other hand I do not mind at all to skip one winter season, especially if it is the hardest in 30 years in Europe…

Now the plan is to head down south and see where it takes us. A friend here has a Jeep and camping equipment ready for us to leave on Saturday. I am looking forward to seeing some of the rough and rural south and to cure the restlessness in me with some more thousands-of-kilometer-biting road tripping…

Day 124 – Loss of credit card and what to do guide

On a totally different note:

I have somehow managed to lose my Credit Card. I noticed with a delay of some days and am now anxiously waiting to see if someone has been able to use it. Fortunately I have a card of another bank. So what to do in a case like that? The obvious first choice is to block your card immediately. For this reason I have prepared the numbers and contact information in order to do so previous to my trip. I would recommend anyone to take care of these things before you leave as you want to have these things handy in an emergency. My tip is to upload these numbers and infos to a place on the Internet. A good place I think is Google docs, especially if you have a Gmail account anyway (there you can also upload pics or PDFs of your Passport, vaccinations pass, flight tickets etc).

In case someone has abused your card you can try to claim the money back from your bank. Keep all the necessary info, like bank addresses handy too for this possibility. You should always inform yourself in advance what to do in case of a faulty booking anyway.

The simple reason being that for instance it happened to me that City Bank in Sao Paulo booked too much off my account for a cash withdrawal I performed at one of their ATMs. So I after that had to avoid City Bank in all future and claim my money back. I wonder in the first place how that can happen except it being fraught. Similar wrong bookings happened to other people when they used their credit card at stores (in these cases most likely a case of clear fraught though).

These things are among the less pleasant events when you travel but they are prone to happen if you travel long enough. Being prepared takes some of the distress off you though.

I advice therefore also to have a second credit card. Maybe even a totally separate account. In that case the abuse someone can carry out with your card limited by the amount of cash you have on the account. I am assuming you have implemented daily and/or general spending limits, which I also strongly advice to do. In the end you are not going to buy a car while you are on the road, so a daily limit is a feasible and sensitive protection.

A second set of cards is advisable also because for instance traveller´s cheques are not that common anymore and occasionally not accepted even at major banks, while you find ATMs in most large cities in almost any country, certainly in south America.

In emergency situations most credit card institutes will issue you a emergency card with 48 hours or less delivery to your hotel. However, these cards can be used only as credit cards and come without PIN-code, hence without easy access to money, even though you may get some type of cash advance in some places, in my experience the fee can be a hefty 10% or more though! So again, a second card is the card-loss-antidote of choice in my mind. And because you should never underestimate neither bad luck nor your own stupidity, I brought a third card.

Needless to say, to be safe keep them in different locations at all time. When moving around only take it with you if you need to. And keep one in a money belt while you have another card in a wallet or another place close to your body.

As I had to learn now, my bank only sends a new card to the address at home which you gave them. If you really need to get the substitute card with a PIN it can therefore be useful to have someone at home who then will forward it to you wherever you are. But beware that poste restante (a way of keeping mail for you at a specified post office) is not save in all countries as in places like India for instance cases are known where staff opens mail. In that case money and/or cards may disappear.

Stay safe!