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Susques, San Antonio de los Cobros
November 25-28: Susques, Puna, San Antonio de los Cobros, Cafayate Friday November 25th we leave Yavi on time in the morning because we want to make a long day. We first want to go to the Laguna de los Pozuelos, a lake of approximately 16,000 hectares at an altitude of 4200 meters. Here you can find tens of thousands of flamingos in the summer. However, from the owner of the hostel in Yavi, who we give a lift to La Quiaca, we hear that the laguna is still almost dry, after a dry summer and a dry start of spring. It is therefore not that beautiful and there are relatively…
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El Chalten – Argentina
December 28 – January 1 – El Chalten After the glacier spectacle, we first do some work the next morning and then leave for El Chalten, a small town in the north of “Parque Nacional Los Glaciares”. On the way we make another stop at Bosque Petrificado ten kilometers west of Parador La Leona on Lago Viedma. This place has its own small dry microclimate and fossilized dinosaur trees and bones can be found. The archaeological site is not further marked, so we have to find it ourselves. We can still find the petrified trees, but we lay people cannot distinguish dinosaur bones between all the stones. Then we drive…
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Trip to Mount Kailash
Woooooow: Mount Kailash and Manasarovar. This was one of the most special, most splendid and most interesting trips we have made. From the empty, bald, cold, quiet, superb Tibet we are now back in the green, sweltering hot, busy, but also splendid Nepal. Still full of this splendid trip and a little disorientated after the fast descent of the Tibetan high plains through the beautiful gorge of the Bhote Kosi river to Kathmandu now we will make up for the departure to Amsterdam coming Saturday. Below you’ll find our report of the Kailash/Manasarovar-trip. Sunday 15 May. The day of the anniversary of the Hamro Niwas children home, a day on…
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Mount Kailas & Lake Mansarovar in Tibet
We had changed the program of the trip and first walked the Mount Kailash kora to be able to join the Sagadawa festival in Tarboche and afterwards we would go to Lake Mansarovar. Our Tibetan guide gave us the choice between camping at the festival area or stay in the guesthouse and go to the festival area in Tarboche the next morning. Since most of us found the night during the Mount Kailash kora extremely cold (minus 15 degrees in a tent), almost everyone chose for the last. Unfortunately the guide had forgotten to verify whether there still were rooms available in the guest house and only found out all…
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Mendoza, Villavicencio, Uspallata, Los Penitentes
Night bus to Mendoza Friday September 30 we took the night bus from Buenos Aires to Mendoza. A journey of more than 1,000 km that you cover in a super luxury bus in approximately 13 hours. As some of us have already heard from us, we were unpleasantly surprised at the Buenos Aires bus station. In a moment of diminished attention, one of our bags was taken. Unfortunately with quite a few valuables, fortunately not with the really important papers, such as tickets, passport or driver’s license. The most annoying thing was that a backup with important data was in the bag, so we had to take some measures to…
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Manakamana & Bandipur, Nepal
17 – 19 nov – Manakamana & Bandipur The weekend of 17 to 19 November we went to Manakamana and Bandipur. These two towns are close to each other, roughly half way along the Prithvi “Highway” between Kathmandu and Pokhara. Manakamana can be reached from the hamlet of Cheres by cable car, currently the only one in Nepal and fortunately Swiss-made. The Manakanama mandir (= temple) is located in Manakanama. People come here in very large numbers on Tuesdays, Saturdays and holidays to make offerings to the Goddess Bhagwati (incarnation of Parvati, the companion of Shiva) who makes wishes come true and newlyweds pray here for having a son. Since…
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Tilicho Lake Trek IV
Report of a trek to Tilicho lake in the Annapurna area in Nepal from May 17-28 Tilicho up closeThe next morning we will first make up for the damage from the previous day. The 3 of us take a walk to the almost completely frozen lake. It is beautifully situated at the foot of the Tilicho massif. Due to the rising temperatures and the forces of the water and the glaciers, the ice has turned into a large mass of ice floes that lie against each other. Climbing to Mesokantu LaAfter taking a good look at the lake, we start the tour at 10:00 am towards Mesokantu La pass from…
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Tilicho Base Camp
Report of a trek to Tilicho lake in the Annapurna area in Nepal from May 17 to May 28 – Part 3 Tilicho Base Camp is located at the end of a glacier in beautiful surroundings. The weather is wonderful and in the tent camp we really have a camping holiday feeling. Sangeeta, who has a much too thin sleeping bag, is already worried about the night temperature in the tent in advance.Santosh and I take a walk and climb a few hundred meters higher for acclimatization. Here we come across a herd of 12 rare blue sheeps. On the way back, it starts to rain and an icy wind…
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Thanchowk – Tilicho Base Camp
Thanchowk – PisangFrom Thanchowk we walk through a deep valley to Pisang (3200 meters) where the area becomes drier and barren. We have now walked a bit through the Himalayas and the monsoon should have less influence here and indeed from this day we have less / hardly any problems with the rain. Along the way we meet many road workers who do dangerous and unhealthy work in dangerous places, for a meager wage of rs 120 a day. In some of these places the trekking trails are narrow and steep and one of our porters finds it a bit scary. This porter turned out not to be a “real”…
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Tilicho Lake trekking, Nepal
Travel report of a trek to Tilicho Lake in the Annapurna region of Nepal On May 17th we gather at the trekking office at 8:30 am and not at the horrible time of 6:00 am as the agent would like, but against which we protested strongly. Santosh’s knee and elbow are fully bandaged. He looks more like he has just returned injured from a trek than he is fresh at the start of an adventure. From the trekking office we go to the Gongabu bus station. In the end, we only left there at 10:00 am with the microbus to Besi Sahar, where we arrived at about 4:00 pm. Here…
