..back on track again.. ;)

time to catch up with my blog.. I`m here in Arica, Chile.. it`s 1.30am and I passed out watching TV (musst have been pretty exhausted again ;) but as long the internet isn`t occupied at the hostal, I write down some lines..

first of all: Mom, if you see this: My internetaccount is blocked and I can`t send you any mails (GMX should fix me that soon!) if you don`t extended my insurance, wait with it.. will write you back in the next days.

So I finished all my tasks in CBBA: sending my last packet with clothes and roleplay stuff, giving back the TV and DVD and saying good bye to my friends (to some of them playing paintball, what totally rocked!!! haha! :) got two bruises, but had a lot of fun! :) was "action-jackson" again on the court ;)
then I had the last minute idea to get some bodypart lasered ;) but disappointingly found out that this is an over a year progress, that takes many sessions.. well, it would have been such a badass move ;) hehehe ;)

last Saturday when we woke up, Karen was not in a really good mood.. sad that I`m leaving and bailing out from paintball and finally getting sick, so I haven`t seen her all day long :(
therefore I changed my plans to leave on Sunday, but doing this on Monday instead, having another full day with Karen. I`m so happy I did it!! :) Karen cooked for me in the night.. DELICIOUS!! :D she brought a little table grill and we made some meat, russian salad, fried yucca, rice, sauce.. it touched me so much that she made all that tasty food for me!! I love that girl so much!! :*

then finally Monday morning, after the last sex, I headed out to the wide, wide world again. when I woke up first in the morning, it was clouded (Sunday would have been the perfect day to take off), but then cleared up and when I was starting in CBBA, I just wore a T-Shirt, because it was so hot! :)
but then going up to 4500m.a.s.l. it became much more freezing and I also got some rain (was OK to have Karen NOT with me, she would have suffered so much ;) (P.S. and the bike would not have liked it at all).
so on the way I had to put much more clothes on to not be frozen all the way through ;) ..was a pretty rough ride.. along the way to El Alto and then the turn off to Tambo Quemado that I actually reached, by passing a nasty storm at 5000m.a.s.l. :P really.. while rain was pouring down onto me, there were lightnings so close to me, as I`ve rarely seen them (because I`m mostly in a warm, dry bed if things like this come down ;) hehe ;)
before I could answer myself the question, how probable it would be to be hit by a lighting, I already passed that storm and was close to get to the frontier. There was snow lying next to me (and it was so cold that I wondered why it`s still drops of rain and not snow falling down..

when I got to the place, there was not much to do.. a few huts that mark the Bolivian boarder. Got myself a 7USD room with not much in it and ended up drinking tee and falling asleep at 18.30, watching some non-sense-local-TV-channel. Slept then about 12 hours, until they opened the boarder in the morning. (even started raining, when I was lying in my bed.. and COOOOOLD)
so at 8.30am I passed the Bolivian boarder and about an hour later, I also did all the paperwork on the Chilenian side.. for the first time in my riding-history, I`ve been searched.. had to take all the stuff off the bike and a guy in white plastic gloves went through it. Hey, what do you exept to find: a kg of coke?! ;) don`t think any backbacker is in the big drug dealing business.. but anyway, they probably did what they had to do. didn`t comment a lot on the bag of sextoys and the other personal items I had in my luggage ;) hehe ;)
well.. didn`t find anything and sent me on the way again, after I collected half a dozen of stamps. Well.. leaving the bike in Chile is not what I`m going to do, so I pretty much figured out that I`ll sell it in Bolivia in about 3 months. But then driving down to Santiago de Chile brings me pretty much down and I`d have to climb up again in Argentina.. we`ll see :) but saying good bye in CBBA, there were so many people (above all Karen) that make me wanting to go back!!
so then today (wow, that was just today :) I dropped 5000m down to the beach (where I`m now :) it cleared up and while I was driving through a snowy landscape with beautiful mountains, the road was leading constantly down, bringing warmer and warmer weather to me! :)
Yes, it was a beautiful ride over the Andes after all! :) big canyons and colorfull rocks (the red ones I liked most.. gave me some Mars ambient ;)
then after just 180km I arrived at Arica.. what can I tell you about Chile so far: first of all.. gasoline is of better quality (93/95/97 Octane) but also muuuuuch more expensive.. I think, I`ve never payed as much as 1.50USD outside of Switzerland :P but anyway, I hope they do something useful with these taxes ;) then the food is really tasty, but ended up always paying around 8USD for a meal.. can probably optimize that, but the beers I grabbed today were also pretty costly. I think I have to check some more ways to obtain daily goods (as drinking water).

Then I got here and took a room for 24USD (breakfast included at least) to stay until tomorrow (where I head down to Iquiqe and do some paragliding there! :D
was not too bad today (besides missing Karen a lot and having such a big change in my life again). changed my money (1USD = 500Pesos) so you easily have thousands of Pesos on you ;)
and made a little trip with my bike to the end of the beach road, checking some caves and doing quite some fancy-kung-fu stuff to move my body and fight my back pain (and having fun doing this stuff on the cliffs, while the surge was hitting the rocks below :D
then for having my bike unloaded, rode up to some antennas (above the lookout-point-with-Jesus where everybody goes ;) Arica is the driest town in the earth they say, so the terrain was perfect to drive a heavy bike without studded tyres up and down the hill! :D
..passed then the Jesus, filled my tank and my stomach and got even a haircut here (yes, was about time ;) and even when I doubted during the process, the guy did good work for 4USD :)

So tomorrow entering more into the heart of Chile.. living is more expensive here, but I think, I can handle it ;) still fit`s into the budget! :)
haven`t talked to a lot of people so far.. will connect myself more to the world again, but after being in CBBA with Karen, having this other life, it is a really, really big change to what I`m having now! but then it`s also OK.. traveling on your own doesn`t mean you`re always super entertained, but on the long run you get so much more out of it that it`s worth to pass through the other moments as well.
Then was doing pretty cool stuff today, I wouldn`t have done otherwise and I got a bit of my style back.. my wild, wild, adventureous spirit that brought me so far! :)

OK.. hope I didn`t leave out too much on this one ;) I`m pretty sure, I`ll have something to tell over the next days.. happening a lot, while being out there ;) hehe ;)
have fun and hear from me soon! ..just got that old spirit back of conquering the world ;)