Le mot de la fin

Publié le 12/10/2009, à 22:21,

 This is the end of this blog. Now it's for sure :)

Life changes and the blogs as well. So, now 2 addresses where you can find me:

www.openspacetrace.org -> this is the website of my trip around the world. It contains both the space project, and the blog of the trip. It already has some content, but it will increase even more after 1 November, the real start of this crazy adventure!

http://annelieinspace.wordpress.com -> this is another personal blog, where I just publish random thoughts, more personal observations, or other trip impressions, that I don't feel should be on the openspacetrace website. Important Note: it is in French!

I hope you will visit these websites and enjoy reading them! 

Ad astra.

Update on the future

Publié le 17/08/2009, à 10:50,

This blog will probably be closed soon. I used this one as a kind of "blogging training". I don't think I am very good at it, but it will hopefully get better.

Soon, the website for our trip around the world will be ready to use. Matti and I will then be blogging from there. So if you want to continue following our adventures: www.openspacetrace.org

The work on the project has picked up in the past few weeks. It must be because departure time is drawing closer. We are now both spending our last few weeks at work. Not much time left for getting ready. First on the trip side, we need to organise our stuff, decide what we sell, what we throw, what we take, what administrative papers need to be done. On the project side, we have had a few productive meetings, the Fantastic Four together. The plan is getting more concrete. Description of it is on the Open Space Trace website. 

All in all, this keeps me real busy. Every day, excitement grows! A few more weeks to go, and I will be free! Sailing, travelling, not knowing what the next day will bring, when I will come back, how it will all end, or rather continue. It is the biggest decision in my life, and I am glad I made it. I'm not even gone yet, but it already changes a lot of things. Just this "before" part, is already completely worth it!

Let's see what the future brings. I pass it over to you, OST: www.openspacetrace.org 

 Halit and Thomas, the base team

 dream team?

 work in progress

 letting off steam

very representative hands, I find 

A summer update

Publié le 5/08/2009, à 23:42,

 A little update of the past month. Since coming back from Ecuador, I have mostly stayed in Paris, and gone a couple of times to Zurich. It has been nice, a few warm weeks.

In Zurich, we went to a wedding, swam in the lake, had a barbecue, went hiking and motorbike riding, and spent time on the balcony. Last week-end, 1st of August was the national holiday, and so we spent the evening on the balcony, drinking muscat and watching the fireworks all around. Really cool. I also had the joy and delight to miss the TGV once. It made me appreciate its existence even more. I did arrive to Zürich in the end, but had to change trains in Strasbourg, in Mulhouse and in Basel and it doubled the time of the trip!

The rest of the time I was in Paris, but there too, quite a few enjoyable things. A lot of nice evenings spent with Thomas and Philippe, work on the project, welcoming Halit to the team, seeing good friends again and hosting my first couchsurfers! And a big development for me: laser surgery on my eyes! I can now see without contact lenses or glasses, and that is the start of a new life! The surgery was very impressive, it was painful for a few hours, but then, everything went back to normal and I could just see.

For the next month, I will stay in Paris as well, for my last few weeks of work, preparing for the trip and the project, and also probably doing drama again. With my theatre group of Commedia dell'Arte we are rehearsing for a play that we should do in the last week of August, outside in Paris. It's been a while since I last played, so that will surely be interesting!

A few photos of the summer

Publié le 5/08/2009, à 23:07,

 waiting in Basel at midnight for the train to Zürich

 Urs und Anna on the Uetliberg

 Shining

 Thomas, Philippe, Christian on the river banks

 L'Académie Française

Paris by night

coucou from le Cantal

Publié le 22/06/2009, à 13:04, Massiac

Ok, this blogstarts to be a little bit of a mess and out of chronological order. I now want to post a few pictures of a week-end before going to Ecuador.

A longmotorcycle ride, first to Lyon, to meet Matti, coming from Zürich. Then to the centre of France, to meet other ESA colleagues from the running club. The Merrell Oxygen Challenge is a 4-day cycle and running trail event. Eric, our president ran the 40k one, the others the 10k, and we were just there to encourage all these sporty people. We did not run because we had a long wayback home on the motorbikes and wouldn't have had the time.... too bad! Anyway,an enjoyable week-end, nice weather, and the opportunity to get to know my new (and beautiful) Suzuki Inazuma 750. 

Ligne de départ

what a show-off

Both bikes in Lyon

Beeautiful hike

President! At the end of the 40k

The group

My biker man 

Back to Quito, last day

Publié le 21/06/2009, à 12:31,

 First of all, to answer a request for tarentula pictures ... I didn't take any because my camera wasn't around when the tarentulas were there... and I was too busy keeping them in my field of view so as not to step on them by mistake ;-)

For our last night and day in Quito, we had dinner in a very touristy-typical-posh place. My Dad was finally in his element again. Enjoying tasty wine while discussing different types of music with the musicians playing for us... it was a great dinner but sooo much food! We also saw a few museums: the cultural centre with a very interesting explanation of the history of Ecuador since the expeditions of La Condamine and Alexander von Humboldt (who both studied the Amazonian forest, the vulcanoes, the sea currents and all their treasures, and published their findings back in Europe). And also the house of Mariscal Sucre, national hero, at the origin of the independance of the country. He started his military career at 15, was general at 25, fought his famous battle at 27 and was killed at 35, but his house is very pretty, with its white and blue patio... Too bad that Ecuador now uses US dollars and not their sugar money anymore (Sucre money).

Lunch at the cultural centre

La Casa del Mariscal Sucre

24 hours later we were back in Amsterdam. And the next day, back to Paris for me... and back to work. 

Coucou in the jungle

Publié le 20/06/2009, à 21:33, Tena

It took one bus and one river boat to arrive to the Cabanas Nanambiiki where we were to spend 4 days and 4 nights, for an immersion into the Kichwa community and a discovery of this part of the rainforest.

When we got there, nobody was there however and so we waited for a few hours, watching the rain fall on the abundant green vegetation around the house. The first small insect bites started to appear on my arms. Cesar, our host and president of the community, finally arrived and called a neighbour to tour us around the community and the fields. Himself was very busy with the elections coming up... 

The Kichwa community (about 250 people) in Campo Cocha lives next to the Rio Napo and its confluents. They mostly live from agriculture (bananas, platanos, yuka, cacao, palm trees etc). There is a school as well and of course a football / basketball field! The school fiesta was scheduled for the next day and so preparations were on-going. It started pouring rain again, and we were soaking wet by the time we were back at the cabanas. Everything is so humid, there is no way the clothes can dry anyway!

At night, a group of young Quebecois arrived and we had an interesting dinner: banana (platanos) soup, white cacao, yuka, and an insect. A hot tree tomatoe as dessert. Very nice! Since night falls at 6:30, bed time is early! Under the mosquito net... a little bit stressful all these huge insects and the tiny invisible mean ones...

First sight of the Rio Napo

the terrace

On the 2nd day, together with the group of canadians, we did a boat trip with several stops. First in a museum hut where we learned how the traditional traps were made for hunting and fishing. Then, in a "refugee camp" for animals. Founded by a swiss woman, married to a Kichwa man, they take care of animals of the forest that were either found by the customs as being exported illegally, or that used to be pets (illegally as well) but were abandoned. Some of them are able to be released back into the wild, others are kept in the camp because they wouldn't be able to survive. Others are too unwell and die. Volunteers take care of them and the whole structure only functions with private funds. At the moment they have lots of red and green parrots, a few toucans, some monkeys of all sizes, a caiman, lots of turtles, an anaconda and some tigrillos (small tigers). 

We had lunch on the river side, the sun was suddenly really hot. Maïto leaves are used as tupperware, it's excellent! Our guide, Sacéo, had taken the tool to look for gold and we found a tiny sparkle of gold. Symbolic but cool :)

Then we went to another community where we saw techniques of potery and wood sculpting. Finally we went back to Campo Cocha and stayed a little bit for the school party. It was nice and we did not feel too much uneasy as tourists there. 

At night, a little adventure... 2 tarentulas as big as the hand suddenly arrived on the terrace. 2 at the same exact time. One on the floor, the other one... on the hamac my Dad was in at that moment...! We told him, he moved, it fell on him and he jumped up. It was a scary sight...! No harm done, but we were all jumpy for the rest of the evening!

The 3rd and 4th day we spent really inside the forest and slept there as well. Our 2 guides Arturo and Julian were amazing, and especially Arturo who knows everything about the medical functions of plants, trees and fruits. It can apparently cure everything, from light fever and headaches to malaria, tuberculosis and heart attacks! Anyway it worked really well on my mosquito bites! Pauline, the french volunteer, came with us as well, to translate so that we would understand a lot more of what our kichwas guides would say. But they could still talk about us in kichwa if they wanted... we wouldn't understand that! It rained on the first day and the guides were still hungover from the fiesta of the previous day, so we didn't walk long, and ended up spending all afternoon at the little hut that belongs to Arturo next to a little stream. He showed us a lot of different plants, made a few traps to show us how its done, and finally we cooked our dinner on the fire, played some cards, and went to sleep on the wooden planks of the hut. Fortunately no tarentula in sight....

There wasn't as much noise as one would expect during the night in the forest. But some really strange noises anyway... We got up at 6 with the sun, cooked breakfast (popcorn, fried potatoes, 2 different sorts of tea and a banana hot drink) and started walking again. The weather was nice, but it had been raining a lot in the past week, so there was deep mud everywhere and the rivers were high to cross. Very acrobratic sometimes... We saw a huge worm (like 1.5 meter long), a poisonous red and blue snake, lots of tiny bees and a toucan. Also interesting trees. One is called the king, it's very small but nothing grows around it at all, and inside its trunk there are small lemony ants, that we tasted. Yep. Lemon indeed. Too many things to remember them all anyway. It was really different. When we came back, Pauline and I went for a swim in the river. It's a part where this isn't much current in comparison, and still it was hard to stand and not fall over and be carried away all the way to Brazil. :)

A last quiet evening, with some more bananas and yuka to eat. Next morning we went back to Quito on the bus. Really an amazing experience, and I am a little less scared of all the scary animals and insects that might be met in the rainforest now! 

Photos from the jungle

Publié le 20/06/2009, à 21:27,

Cooking dinner

Picnic

Big hollow tree

Cacao, machete and Jullian

Open Space Trace: into the wild as well

Publié le 16/06/2009, à 03:27,

While I was wandering in the jungle, Matti did some work!

To be admired at www.openspacetrace.org (it will be much edited, it's a pre-release, but nonetheless it feels gooood!)

Thanks mein Schatz :)

Rio Verde and further to Tena

Publié le 16/06/2009, à 02:43, Tena

Before taking the bus to Tena, our starting point into the jungle, we went to see one of the numerous waterfalls that surround the city of Baños.

Rio Verde is a little town a few km away that we reached with a bus. On the way, we saw an accident, apparently a car had topelled over and fell down the cliff. Everybody stopped to have a look. Cars, trucks and even buses, with every single person running out of the bus to have a look... how strange...

We saw the waterfall from 2 different perspectives. One from a garden that overlooks the top of it. The garden belongs to Antonio, an Italian born in France, raised in Canada and living in Ecuador, who talked philsophy, buddhism and all sorts of stuff to us. Then we went to the normal touristic spot. Quite impressive, with the hanging bridge, and the little way up to real close to the waterfall. And even until right under it. I was soaking wet by then, but it was impressive! And the sun just came out to help me dry off.

Pelligro!

Then quickly back to Baños, back to the hostal, back again to the bus terminal, and on the bus to Tena. 4 hours later we were in another climate. All of a sudden tropical weather, people out on the streets, mosquitoes, a borwn river. Yes. Amazonia it is.

The hostal on the riverside and the restaurant we found as well. And the big news: Ecuador won 2-0 over Argentina. We heard it on the radio during the whole bus ride, and they finally scored when we arrived in Tena.

On the way, a lot of interesting things to see as well: lots of antinarcotics police, a little airport full of Cessna-type planes, and an amazing green building: Politechinca Ecologica Amazonica.

In the bus

Coucou from Baños

Publié le 16/06/2009, à 02:25, Baños de Yunga

We realized we wouldn't have time to go to Riobamba and take the train and go to Tena in the 2 days alloted, so the alternative became Baños.

Baños is a very touristic place because of the many outdoors activities that can be done in the surrounding area: hiking, rafting, horseriding, moutainbiking... and the presence of nice hot springs to bathe in. So it is basically gringo land, just a lot of hostals and international restaurants and quads and bikes for rent and souvenir shops. But other than that it is quite nice. We just went for a walk. Well, Papa was fed up after one wrong turn that ended up nowhere and went back to the city. I found the right way afterwards and climbed up one of the mountains that surround the city, to get the full picture. Met up with a woman on the way that was carrying wood up to her house. She also sells drinks to passers-by and invited me into her house on the side of the mountain. Very very small and she has 8 children. 2 of them, the smallest ones, I saw. The others are all working in Baños, in Quito and in Ambato. She made tomato juice from tomatoes of the garden (with a blender!), very tasty. She has all kinds of fruits and vegetables and medical plants in her garden.

Then I went farther up and saw the city from above, very nice. I followed the side of the mountain until a statue of the virgin. On the way I met up with a couple of Americans, travelling all of South America in a car during more than 1 year.

At night, I went to try out the hot bath. It's outside just underneath a waterfall. One very very hot bath, one very very cold, and one just right. I did them in that order and felt quite dizzy afterwards. Crowded with ecuadorians and tourists, but a cool experience. It was time for some food after that. A group came to play some typical music, that was very nice.

Great hostal as well, so in early for sleep. Rain started pouring down.

Baños

La virgen, watching over the city

Coucou from Quilotoa

Publié le 10/06/2009, à 01:29, Latacunga

Latacunga is definitely dead on Sunday. Fortunately there was futbol. Ecuador 2-1 Peru. Hooray! Now Ecuador plays against Argentina.

I can advise: a hike around the Quilotoa crater. It is beautiful. We thought it would take about 3-4 hours. It took us 6, but it was well worth it! With a German family (from Dresden, they were very proud of that apparently) and our silencio guide (Arturo), we saw the blue-turquoise water of the laguna from every possible side. The view all around was amazing. Indians there own the land and grow many things, almost vertically. Very impressive. Also a lot of sheep, lamas and donkeys (happy Annelie).

We drove down in the dark. Clouds didn't make it any easier. We did cross a lot of heavy loaded trucks with illegal wood. Driving at night. When we got out of the cloud, the full moon, bright orange, greeted us, and worked like a spotlight on the city down below.

The group (before)

hehe

4000m feeling good!

Coucou from Quito

Publié le 7/06/2009, à 02:21, San Francisco de Quito

The day has come for the secret destination to be revealed to my father: Ecuador! Fortunately he was pleased, very excited and surprised.

After a long journey, through Madrid, Guyaquil and finally Quito, we arrived at the youth hostel. Quite tired, but since it was only 8 am, the room was not ready and we set out to visit the city. Still dizzy from the long trip and maybe a bit from the lack of oxygen. From below sea level to 2850m can be a shock! We took the trolleybus, and found the main square, with the cathedral, the palace and the tourist office. It all seems very small for a capital. Very few tourists as well. After a visit to the small cathedral, we found a fanfare was playing outside.

Climbing up and down the narrow streets of the colonial Quito, visiting 4 churches, and getting a view of the whole city and the mountains surrounding it from the top of the basilica: those were the first few hours in Ecuador. Back to the hostel for some rest, and dinner.

Monastero San Francisco

The next day we got out of the city, to a botanical reserve in the crater of Pasochoa. We caught the bus, just like everybody else, when it was already driving. An hour and a half drive to the village of Amaguana. From there, at the back of a pick-up truck, we bumped along the road up to the entrance of the park.

Little did we know that we would walk 5 hours, and climb some 700m. But it was worth it, the view from up there was amazing... the whole valley with the mountains, and clouds.

We were back down in time to avoid the heavy rain, but no pick-up truck in sight. Fortunately a drinks delivery truck just came up to deliver and they took us back down. Cesar and Danillo, 2 funny fast-spanish speaking guys. We delivered some more drinks on the way, and then caught the bus back to Quito.

At night, live cuban music to accompany our dinner. Until we were just too tired and had to go to sleep.

arrived at 3500m!

our ride back

Coucou from Ibarra

Publié le 7/06/2009, à 01:52, Ibarra

Having read about an interesting train ride up north in Ibarra, we decided to go there first before going south. After 3 buses and a lot of going around in circles we finally found the terminal terrestre and the bus to Ibarra.

3 hours of beautiful scenery. The bus just got crowdier and crowdier. But in the end there we were. A small city. A pleasant hotel with an interesting owner. Pepe. A huge collection of small alcohol bottles from all over the world. And 9 brothers, one of them having studied in Paris...

Hotel Imbabura

The Autoferro ride. Quite an interesting thing. El tren de la libertad. Now just a bus mounted on rails. It used to go all the way to San Lorenzo on the Columbian border. Now it goes only to Salinas, which is just about 13km, and back. But it takes almost the whole day!

It passes tunnels and bridges, lots of sugar cane fields. We even saw a fox running on the rails. After a 2 hour stop in Salinas, in the middle of nowhere, back through the same route. It did fall out of the rails once. A hydrolic system, some wooden piles and a shovel, and we were back on the rails. Other than that, just lots of random stops, to pick a few flowers, take some pictures, give us sugar cane to nibble on...

El tren de la libertad

Salinas

Sugar cane nibbling

Coucou from Amsterdam - again

Publié le 7/05/2009, à 10:14,

Ok, it is not exotic or anything for me to go to Amsterdam... but it was special for at least 2 reasons: I was there for Koninginnedag, the Queen's Day, national Dutch holiday, which I hadn't seen since I was 8 or so. And I took 6 friends with me for the week-end, so that was fun, a lot of laughing, and just a relaxed time. Thanks to Dad for letting us all stay at his place!

Queen's Day was kind of crazy, just so orange and loud and crowded and beer smelly. Very fun to see. The next day, the city was a 'puinhoop', a mountain of garbage. Within 24 hours it was clean again.

Of course we did all the usual, Van Gogh museum, Anne Frank house, boat tour and just a lot of wandering in the city. Eating a lot too. A very nice dinner with my Dad on Pier 13, a restaurant in the harbour on an old ferry.

The pictures are by Matti, I did not take any... letting the pro do his job :) I was tour guide, can't do everything.

Teaser

Publié le 5/05/2009, à 11:58,

Now it's real. I am going on this around the world trip. In 4 months I leave my job, in 6 months at the latest, I will be on the roads, with:

- A backpack

- A travel companion: Matti

- A project: Open Space Trace

- A partner, a base manager: Thomas

- No itinerary

- No time limit

- Excitement

More details soon...

Coucou from St Petersburg, Russia

Publié le 3/04/2009, à 02:07, Saint-Pétersbourg

A few days along the half-frozen Neva River in the majestuous city of St. Petersburg, with a group of 6 German-speaking people (with 6 different accents and dialects) totalling 6 different nationalities. And it wasn't even an ISU group!

March is still as I remembered from my previous visit, a greyish and muddy season in Russia. Not to the city's advantage. But the one day of sunshine made the Ermitage shine and the Fortress more impressive. We also enjoyed a few flakes of snow, but otherwise it was mainly grey or even rainy! Especially in Tsarskoie Selo, the walk in the park became sooo wet.

We compensated the long walks in freezing wind by drinking lots of coffee during the day and trying out the trendy pubs at night. Thanks to Mr. Vodka we did not fall ill (it was only therapeutic use of course) and we did not dehydrate thanks to Baltika beer, and other types that are difficult to write without the cyrillic alphabet (humm...).

Russia is still a different experience, even though it's not so far from us, and the prices are even getting closer and closer to our western habits (grrr). The clothing style was especially a shock, and I felt I was of a different species, in between man and woman. I could not integrate with the latter category, since I was lacking the super high heels boots and the mini-skirt. Well of course, I would have worn that to blend in, if I hadn't had all these blue/yellow/violet hematoma on my legs, as a result of the motorbike stunting I did a few days before... it would have been a horror vision!

Anyway, now it's back to reality, and, believe it or not, but I stay in Paris during the whole month of April! So no updates until May.

In front of the Ermitage

Detail

The group in St Isaac Cathedral

Inside the Tower Pub (Tayep nab)

Yuri and me

Detail (Tsarskoie Selo)

Giants and gold

Homo Sovieticus

Coucou from Prague

Publié le 17/03/2009, à 10:10, Prague

With Marianne, we decided to leave the boys at home, and go spend a week-end in Prague. First because we didn't know the city, second because we needed to catch up on news, past, present and future. So that's what we did. A very short visit to the city indeed, just time to walk around the center and see the main centres of interest. We liked the atmosphere and the size very much. The thousand, no sorry, hundred, bell towers too.

The B&B we stayed at was really nice. We were the only customers, and our host was constantly drunk, but constantly nice too :) We "only" tried 4 different kinds of Czech beers, went to 2 classical music concerts, ate lots of meat and potatoes (and pizza, a Prague speciality or so it seems), and definitely talked a lot...

Czech the pictures out...:

Space being vandalized

Ginger and Fred, a personnification

Charles Bridge Statue and Castle

Ah, Cadets!

The light man of the Rudolphinium

Astronomical clock

Some of those...

Kafka

Coucou from Gargellen, ski week-end

Publié le 17/02/2009, à 07:08, Schruns

Yet another ski week-end. After 5 years without skiing, I go 2 week-ends in a row! This time in Austria, in the small resort of Gargellen. Very nice family place, tons of snow, and sunshine. 90 per cent of the people there were Dutch, so I did not feel in a foreign land... quite interesting.

I am quite proud I did not fall at all, well except when the snow was too deep... and I went fast enough not to be too annoying for the others. A short week-end, but very enjoyable!

From left to right: me, Matti, Barbara, Peter, Anne

As I said... snow too deep...

Gargellen from the window. Much snow.

Coucou from Jura

Publié le 6/02/2009, à 04:47, Saint-Laurent-en-Grandvaux

An ISU reunion in a cozy chalet, covered with snow, involving skiing, skating, eating, drinking, playing and sleeping... a great receipe, thank you Thomas!

The Chalet, the snow and the blue sky :) so far away from Paris!

Ready to go! I hadn't skiied in 5 years, but it went well!

Dinner for 6

Thomas, the king of cross-country skiing, on the frozen lake

Artistic skating pattern

Ca swing