Done! (for now)

All the pictures have been added, if there is anything else appearing on this blog it will actually be new material. At the moment I'm taking a break in Valparaiso, see my other blog for details. As you might have noticed I have not made it to Tierra del Fuego yet, but I will!
My new plan is to go in November (I will have to cross to Argentina again beginning December, I thought to combine the two). I will make my way south either by ship or doing some hitchhiking, go hiking in Torres del Paine, see penguins and somehow end up in Ushuaia (Argentina).
If anyone wants to exchange European autumn for Chilean spring, come and join me. But bring your own tent unless you are very, very small (or don't mind a cuddle).
In two days Erin is coming to live for a month in Valpo, we will probably end up traveling and hopefully have some crazy adventures, so watch this space

10 000

jay, 10.000 hits! this blog will be offline soon (in less than two weeks) and I don't know when/if it will come back online (probably new and improved) as I have to find a flat, job etc.

Hope you all had a good time reading it and there is still email/skype/chat to keep in contact (but never, ever facebook :)

Love,
Christina

More technical fails

So, when I started this trip I applied for a credit card (never had one before...) and decided to take my fathers partner card as a backup. I also have an Icelandic EC card with a couple of hundred Euros still on my Icelandic bank account and I thought, what the hell, better safe than sorry.

So here are me 3 cards:



Of these are currently working: 0

My fathers master was the most useless of them all, although more due to human error than technical failure. I had the wrong pin and we never found out which the right one was. I also could not pay with it, as I look nothing like my father, people generally find it hard to believe that my name is Heinz (like the Ketchup!) and I'm bad in forging signatures. I think I once paid a hostel online with it. It is blocked now anyway, because I tried to donate money to public libraries.

My credit card was just blocked by the bank now as well, not because I donated money (learned my lesson, charity is bad ) but because it got skimmed. Where, I don't know, but it is a common occurrence the whole hostel in Santiago is full of people waiting for credit cards.

I thought, wow, now I get to use my Icelandic EC card after all, only to find out it is expired, ah well, I guess singing on the street it is.

technical fails

I tried to be good and donate money. Not to some obscure shadowy organisation, but the the public libraries I visited to use the internet in USA.

Libraries in the US are awesome, if anyone here really believes the stereotype of the illiterate American, who only watches talk-shows all day, go and visit any random library in any random town. They are well organised, have free internet access and are staffed by lovely people. And even random tiny towns somewhere on the road have one.
They are also funded by the individual communities and are mostly underfunded. Therefor as a thank you for the nice service I pulled out my credit card and tried to donate 10$ to each. These are:

Palmer (Alaska) Public Library
Seattle (WA) Public Library
Portland (OR) Central Library
Library in some random fishing town in Oregon
Some Library in another random fishing town, in California
Monterrey (CA) Public Library
Yuma (AZ) Public Library (the only one not in the centre of town)

Now my credit card is blocked. Because? Because.

I also bought a phone, as I have to grow up and get a job. I even went all the way and bought a smart phone. Aaaaaaaaaaand I don't like it.
Well, I like that I can use it as an internet access, but it really bugs me that I cannot delete any pre-installed applications. Not the useless (to me) Facebook application, not the You Tube viewer (I'm not that much into cat videos), not the music video viewer and not even the downloader for some game I don't want to download.
I identified 13 apps I don't want or need. This might be ok, but there is not that much space on the phone (even with moving apps and contacts etc to the SIM card) to install all the apps I actually DO want. And why?
Because if one allows people to play with their system too much,they might brake it and it would be too complicated to provide service for them.
Seriously, that was one reasoning I found on the internets. Thats like building a car, which can only drive 30km/h because if one drives faster one might crash it and repairing it might be too complicated. Its my phone and I should be allowed to destroy it as much as I want too.
So I tried to root it, but every method I tried failed (phone still works, though). What does a skill lacking geek girl do? I guess I don't have a choice, I have to befriend computer nerds again... Does anybody know someone in Chile?

P.S. 9000 hits, yeahhhhh, lets make it 10!
P.P.S. I'm fine, not in Santiago, Valparaiso seems riot free...

Happy New Year!

See you in 2013

Astonishingly I found an article in Elle Magazine which I liked

The Lonely Planet (yes I love bitching about it) sees female travellers not only as a subspecies of the "general" traveller and poses their advice in a special section and not under "dangers and annoyances" but goes with their advice as far as wearing a weddingbad to keep the hormone driven latino macho men at bay.
So I found it especially funny to read this.
I will at some point in time describe my own experiences as a single female traveller, but I haven't felt the need to start wearing a wedding band or make up a husband yet, nor do I think it is going to stop anyone who has his mind set on herassing me. It's not as if they would be looking for a relationship or care if I'm in one:

Me(to rapist): But I'm married!
Rapist: Well that changes everything, of course. Have a nice day

A Security Code for comments!

My blog was getting spammed to death, so I decided I need to have a security code for it. Therefore I held my Dads hand into his first (stumbeling) steps into the maze that is a linux filesystem and made him change the script of my blog for me:



what a hacker :)

a new place for my pictures

I used to upload my pictures to owncloud running on my localhost and then link them to this blog, thus hosting the pictures myself.
This worked well until I tried to install a plugin to owncloud, messing up my installation in the process (my guess is that the plug in was not compatible with the version of owncloud I was using) and now only get an error when I try to access it.
As my computer is far across the ocean, my father is linux illiterate and the old pictures can still be seen on the blog, I decided not to try and solve the problem but to find a new place for my pictures.
After some minutes of despair, in which I feared I might have to entrust my pictures to google I remembered I still have an old (and a bit misconfigured) installation of friendica running on localhost as well.
I uploaded a picture, put the link on my blog and voila!



it works. On a sidenote, pagekite(which makes my localhost visible to the world) has been running like a charm since July, and even then it only stoped because I had forgotten to pay...

If somebody wants to friend me on friendica, my profile is: efia@tine.pagekite.me/friendica or tine.pagekite.me/friendica/profile/efia (other friendica and StatusNet users should be able to add me as a friend), but as I said it is somewhat miscofigured, I installed and played around with it sometime in January and then forgot about it, so I´m not sure if it actually works.

losses

I have been on the road for three months now, half the time I planned for the trip. Time to count some of my losses. I have the tendency to lose or brake the expensive things, or the ones difficult to replace. A list!

1. white long sleeve top; I forgot that my hair was still giving off colour, so when I washed it while showering it stained redish/orangy. I replaced it with a shirt from a Microbrewery in Oregon :)

2. clothes line (not that dramatic) left it hanging in the trees on a campground in Oregon

3. ukulele (very sad) forgot it was on top of my scooter when driving off, it fell down and the neck broke off somewhere in California

4. blue top; I actually did not lose that but donated it to the kitten I found in the rain near Palenque

5. hiking trousers and socks; forgot it in a hostel in Samuc Champey. It had taken me ages to find the perfect hiking trousers, now I was down to 1 trousers...

6. A bra in Antigua. I really don’t know how I lost it, maybe some pervert took it :)

7. my good rainjacket in Grenada; this is the heaviest loss, I believe a good rainjacket is essential and I have not found any store selling good ones anywhere yet (hope for Panam City). Additionally, I did not lose it, but it got stolen.

Ok, I did forget it in the internet cafe for 5 min, which was enough for the streetkid sitting next to me (they play computer games, too, yay for globalisation...). I guess he needed it more than me though I doubt he has an idea how much it was worth (the only gear I had bought in Iceland, dead expensive).

I tried finding him, consulting other streetkids, thinking I might be able to buy it back, but either they did not want to rat their friend out and only made a show of walking with me through the city and look for him, or he was hiding. Anyway, the older of the two (13) gave me a friendship band to console me and they both got a coke out of it for helping me. And who can say they hung out with two streetkids in Grenada? I file that episode under cultural experience....

8. My other hiking trousers ripped at the knee when I fell down at the border to Costa Rica, if I go on like this I might arrive naked in Tierra del Fuego.

Countdown...

I'm on my way to bed and at 5 in the morning tomorrow I will drive to the airport.
If anyone wants a postcard on their birthday, send me an email with address and date. But no promises, the postcard will only be more likely....

14.8 kg

that's what my backpack weighs, with food that might go up to 20 kg. Still, considering how much stuff I have and how extensive my trip is that is quite efficient I think. And I did not even forget my camera...

skills

I went into the woods with my nephew the other day to try and use a compass. We both made it out alive, but learned the valuable lesson that sliding down a wet slide is a bad idea if you like your trousers to be dry. So now I know how to use a map and a compass and how to navigate using landmarks and a compass. And I will beware of slides.
Another very important skill I wanted to master before I leave was playing (and more challenging: tuning) my ukulele. As carrying my guitar back from Iceland in the heat while also having a big backpack was a: way to heavy and hot and b: I managed to strain my hand doing it, fortunately my advanced physio magic saved it, I decided taking the ukulele is a better choice. If you wonder why I'm taking an instrument at all you a: have no soul and b: it goes with my hammock, so come October, imagine me lying in my hammock which is attached to two palm trees on the white Caribbean beach playing my ukulele. And to think that other people take an iPod instead, phew.

ukulele tuning website

Stuff

The last week consisted of shopping sprees and a family weekend. Now I have nearly all the stuff I will need and a good reason to flee the country before I have to attend another family weekend. Only kidding, my family is great.
Buying all this stuff (I did not own much of it) was really expensive, though fun. I tried to buy cheaply (going to decathlon and only to the globetrotter outlet) but it still comes up to almost 700€

So, here is a list of stuff I will take with me

tent
7° sleeping bag
silk inlet
fleece inlet/blanket
mattress
hammock
stove and cooking utensils
first aid kid, containing next to plasters and stuff water purifier tablets, aspirin, paracetamol (for dengue fever), malaria prophylactic, fenistil, a whistle (for the bears) and a rescue sheet, which my brother said he used all the time (for shelter etc, not to actually rescue people)
toiletries include sunscreen, anti-mosquito spray for skin and clothes and the usual
clothes are difficult, as I have to prepare for everything between under 0° to +40°. So next to underwear, socks and tops I have two light hiking trousers, one pair of long underwear, a light woolen top, a very pretty hooded fleece pullover, my hiking boots, sandals, leg warmers, sun hat, a woolen hat, my scarf which can also be a skirt a bikini and gaiters.
Documents I have not collected yet, but I will need: my passport (and a copy), USA ESTA, printed ticket to USA and Mexico (for USA immigration) vaccination documents (yellowfever) driver license, credit cards, emergency phone numbers for credit cards, health insurance documents, some dollars.
Other stuff: my camera and film (yes, I'm that old-fashioned, sun glasses, a fan, Alaska guide book (I will exchange them in the hostels), Spanish guide book, water pouch, day-pack and (the coolest) pepper-spray.

I would have never thought to buy pepper-spray myself. It was part of the survival pack my family gave me as a goodbye/late birthday present. Most of the stuff in there was things I had thought of myself (sunscreen, first aid kid etc, but there was also the rescue sheet and pepper spray. I'm supposed to use the pepper spray on animals (such as bears) but I guess if people are too annoying... :) I can imagine that pepper spray might piss of a bear even more, so maybe my family was not looking out for me after all...

Couchsurfing cities

Fairbanks 19.06 1 night
Anchorage 26.06 3 nights
Seattle 7.07 2 nights
Portland 10.07 1 night
San Francisco 16.07 1 night
Mexico City 3.08 3 nights
San Cristóbal 6.08 3 nights (excursion to Palenque!)
Antigua or Quetzaltenago around 12.08 2 nights
Cópan (?) 23.08 1 night
Grenada (around) 11.09 2 nights
Panama City (beginning October) 1 night

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to my blog. If you are interested to hear about my future adventures, want to give me some advice about or join me traveling from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, this is the place to be. Every country has a category, so just go to the country you are interested in/know something about/want to go to and leave a comment!
You may leave a comment in any language you feel comfortable in providing I speak it (English, German, Icelandic, Chinese or Spanish) or contact me

My itinerary is as follows:

Alaska: June 21st to 2nd July
-ferry through the inside passages to 7th July-
USA: July 7th to August 2nd
Mexico: August 2nd to 12th
Guatemala: 12th - 22nd of August
Honduras: 23rd August - 6th September
Nicaragua: 6th - 16th September
Costa Rica: 16th - 27th September
Panama: 27th September - 8th October
-4 days sailing through the Caribbean
Columbia: October
November: Ecuador, Peru
December: Chile



I'm using pagekite to publish this blog directly from my computer without having to put any data into the cloud :)

Money

Visas:
USA Visa 14$
Other around 3$ per country around 27$
Visa for Chile:

Transport:
Plane to Alaska: 944$
Ferry ticket from Alaska to Seattle: 547$
Plane from Yuma to Mexico City: 245$
Cruising from Panama to Colombia: 500$

Other:
Diving: around 600$
Inca trail: 600$ or 800$ depending on which trek

Total: 3477 / 3677
Paid: 1203

Visa

USA: no visa, if:
im Besitz eines Reisepasses sind,
mit einer regulären Fluglinie oder Schifffahrtsgesellschaft einreisen,
ein Rück- oder Weiterflugticket (welches - außer für Personen mit festem Wohnsitz in diesen Ländern - nicht in Kanada, Mexiko oder den Karibikinseln enden darf), gültig für den Zeitraum von max. 90 Tagen ab der ersten Einreise in die USA, vorweisen können und
im Besitz einer elektronischen Einreiseerlaubnis sind („Electronic System for Travel Authorization“-ESTA 14$ https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov).

Mexco: no Visa needed, Touriscard (FMT) at he border, which needs to be stamped (check time) if the stamp is forgotten, it can be acquired at the Instituto Nacional de Migración (need to show the bus ticket)

Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua "CA-4: Für deutsche Staatsangehörige ist mit Reisepass ein visafreier Aufenthalt in der sog. "CA-4"- Region bis zu insgesamt 90 Tagen möglich.

Guatemala: Die Aufenthaltserlaubnis wird kostenfrei bei der Einreise erteilt. Es ist unbedingt darauf zu achten, dass der Reisepass mit einem Einreisestempel versehen wird.

Honduras: Kein Stempel, 3$ Touristensteuer Gelber Einreisezettel muss bis zur Ausreise aufbewahrt werden.

Nicaragua: Bei der Einreise wird der Erwerb einer Touristenkarte verlangt. Diese kostet derzeit 10,00 US-Dollar, zuzüglich einer Einreisegebühr von 2,00 US-Dollar. Bei der Ausreise wird die Gebühr von 2,00 US-Dollar ebenfalls verlangt.

Costa Rica: no Visa (stamp?)

Panama: no Visa, but return/exit ticket (stamp?)

Colombia: no Visa, stamp

Ecuador: no Visa, stamp

Peru: no Visa: Es sollte darauf geachtet werden, dass die beabsichtigte Aufenthaltsdauer durch die Beamten der peruanischen Einwanderungsbehörde im Pass oder auf dem (stets auszufüllenden!) Einreisezettel (Tarjeta Internacional de Embarque/Desembarque) vermerkt wird. Es kann andernfalls vorkommen, dass die Beamten der Einwanderungsbehörde die Aufenthaltserlaubnis im Pass willkürlich auf z.B. 30 Tage begrenzen, obwohl ein Aufenthalt von beispielsweise 45 Tagen geplant ist.
Yellow fever vaccine!

link:http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/DE/Laenderinformationen/SicherheitshinweiseA-Z-Laenderauswahlseite_node.html

Outline of the trip

June 21st to 2nd July: Alaska
-ferry through the inside passages to 7th July-
July 2nd to August 2nd: USA
August:Mexico, Guatemala
September: Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica
October: Panama, Columbia
November: Ecuador, Peru
December: Chile

Pan-American highway, first entry!

This is my first entry concerning my big plan to travel from Alaska all the way to Fireland.
All the other entries have been moved (Except for Status Update), as their only purpose was to get myself acquainted with this blog. General is now the general overall plan and I will have a category for each country. If anyone reading this wants to come along, write into the comments. Any suggestions what I should definitely not miss on the way are welcome!

I will land in Alaska on the 20th of June and plan to be in Puerto Toro http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Toroon the 21st of December.
The plan is to plan as little as possible maybe have one or two things I want to see in each country and otherwise go and see.