fredrik_p

We arrived in the morning, the weather was great and we started walking towards our hotel. As we didnt have a map we asked some people in the street who were extremely helpful, trying to communicate with hands and feet and some english, and thanks to them we easily found our hotel. The room at the Jacob Lenz Guesthouse was nice, clean and big and we left our luggage to go have a look at the town.

Riga is the capital of Latvia, has over 700 000 inhabitants and is situated on the coast of the Baltic Sea. It is the largest city in the Baltic states and its Historic Centre has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is also famous for its extensive Art Nouveau (Jugendstil) architecture, comparable in significance only with Vienna and Saint Petersburg.

The first thing we did was walk straight through the city to the train station to by the tickets to St.Petersburg. We had some slight difficulties but nothing worse than expected. From there we walked around the Old Town, just strolling around, getting to know the place a little better. At 18.00 we met up with Kerstin (my aunt) and Ann-Britt a friend of hers. They were in Riga for a couple of days and had just been to a Spa to get some manicure and such. Together we went to the Skyline Bar on the 26th floor of the Reval Hotel Latvija (fancy pancy hotel). We had some drinks and among other things tried out the Black Mojito made with the local "Balsam" liquor (like Jaegermeister). The views over the city were spectacular as was the sunset. Later we went for dinner at the Slavu Restaurant (typical food) in the Old Town. The food was expensive, dry and tasteless. The best thing was the blankets we got, so we could sit outside!
Then we went for more drinks at Velvet, popular with tourists and the nouveau rich. We sat at the door so we didnt see the gogo dancers until at closing (2.00 am) some girl came walking by our table in her underwear and we didnt know what to think!

The next day (6th) we had breakfast at the hotel and then we went to meet Kerstin and Ann-Britt again just, to have coffee and say goodbye. We did some more sightseeing, some parks, the Dome Cathedral, St.Petersburg Church, House of Blackheads, lots of medieval architecture and Art Nouveau buildings.

In the afternoon we also went to the Central Market, originally built as a series of Zeppelin hangers during WWI. We bought some fruit and enjoyed watching people. We went to a cosy tea house right in Vermanes garden where we sat among the cushions and rested for a while. In the evening we went to the cinema and saw the Bourne Ultimatum which was not too great.
We strolled around some more and then finnished off with dinner at the great restaurant DaDa with interiors inspired by the Dadaism.

On the 7th we slept long and then went to the Occupation Museum, dedicated to the Nazi and Soviet occupations of Latvia. The various exhibits display the atrocities committed against the people of Latvia and the systematic destruction of their nations sovereignty. After about two or three hours there we went on a lunch break at the Medieval restaurant Rozengrals. Excellent food and atmosphere! We then spent another hour at the Occupation museum again before going to a cafe and then to an internet cafe. We had dinner closer to our hotel, at Kaptaina Enrico(?) which had great food, better service and a very nice vibe. It also had some very random swedish decore, a hockey shirt from Brynas and a poster for Husqvarna chainsaws...

Today is the last day in Riga and we will just take it easy, write some mails and get ready for the long trainride to St.Petersburg (12.5 hours with the night train). Wish us luck!

Take care!!!!

Lots of hugs,

Fredrik and Sabrina

PS. Have a look in a couple of days to see the photos.

We took a really cheap flight (about 20 Euros per person with Tuifly.com) from Hanover and were picked up by Helen (my mother) at Arlanda Airport in Stockholm. We spent a couple of days in Koping, my hometown, and did just one trip. The trip was just 45 minutes by car, to Orebro to visit Pelle, Stefan and Stefans girlfriend Carola. Cristoffer also came by the restaurant (O'Leary's) to say hi. We had a great time as allways even though it was a quick visit.

In Koping we had lunch with my grandmother Marie (eating out about everyday). We watched photos and spent as much time as possible with our family. Of course we also had to prepare for the next leg of the BIG TRIP.

On Monday the 3rd of September we went to Stockholm, spent the night at David and Karins place again and ate at David and Johannas. Wow, incredible how Matilda has grown!!!! Then on tuesday the 4th we took a ferry to Riga, in Latvia. It was pretty small (for a Cruise ship) but it was nice and there were hardly any people on it anyway. We had a nice dinner buffet, listned to the Bulgarian band, saw the obligatory tacky dance show and went to bed. We slept like babies and woke up just in time to make the breakfast buffet. Yummy. An hour later we landed in Riga.

By for now!

Fredrik and Sabrina

That was really something...

We left Huaráz early Thursday morning. We travelled about 2 hours before we reached the starting point of the hike, at an altitude of 3900 m. The group consisted of Fredrik, Sabrina, Emily (from Australia), the guide Americo and the porter/cook Roger. The plan was to hike to the location of our base camp at 4700 m and set up camp there for the night. It was relatively cloudy and we were a bit concerned about the weather predictions for our climb to the top the next day. A man with two donkeys transported the equipment and the food.

As we reached the site of the base camp it started to snow. It wasn’t too bad, it was just a little. We set camp and Roger prepared some tea, crackers and soup with rice. Fredrik was already feeling the altitude and had a headache and was feeling pretty nauseous. Already at 4700 m. Great. We went to bed at about 7 pm and got up already at 1 am in order to start walking. We slept probably no more than an hour in total but in the morning Fredrik was feeling better again. Sabrina felt so-so, but we had a small breakfast and went on our way.

With headlamps we trekked through stony terrain and reached the edge of the glacier when the sun started to rise, i.e. about 6 or 6.30 am. As soon as we stopped, Fredrik was sick and said goodbye to his breakfast. We put on the crampons, tied ourselves together with a rope and grabbed the ice-axes. It was already a mighty sight to see the sun rise over the snow capped mountains.

Slowly, slowly we started moving upwards. We had to keep the rope tight, but at the same time not too tight as to not hinder the person in front. At the same time we should breathe, something that would prove to be the hardest part. Damn, that was tough! Fredrik felt constantly sick and Sabrina was exhausted.

Hour after hour we fought on. Emily was so cold she didn’t know what to do and Americo had to do the trick with the armpits you know (warming her fingers in his armpits) and when the sun came out it was all right.

It was an indescribable walk over the glacier. We stopped and rested a couple of minutes every half hour or so and then we kept going and so on. We were ready to give up on several occasions but kept on going.

After a total of 9 and a half hours of hiking we reached the summit at 5752 m. Fredrik was sick one last time and immediately felt better. The view was amazing!! We stayed for about 20 minutes, took photos and enjoyed the sunshine. Wooao, incredible!! Once we started our descent our strength started to return. Now we just had to go back as far as we had come!

Downhill was definitely easier and we returned to the base camp at 4 pm, after 14 hours of tough hiking with only short breaks, hardly anything to eat and far too little to drink. But what happiness to be back!!!

We took it easy for a while, everybody was pretty exhausted. We had soup, rice and fried eggs. The night was clear and we could see the constellation "the southern cross", which is only visible in the southern hemisphere. It was cold, but we fell asleep straight away after having put out the lights, at about 7 pm.

The following day the weather was great and we packed everything together and started our walk back. We saw our first Condor!

All in all it was pretty tough. It was incredibly beautiful and feels great having done it. Next time we will make sure to be better acclimatized to the altitude and to do a couple of shorter hikes/lower peaks before though.

Tonight we start our marathon buss ride to Cusco (Machu Picchu). The coming two nights we will spend on busses. Hold your fingers crossed that nothing happens. We just read in the latest edition of Lonely Planet that they warn about bus robberies, roadblocks and assaults!!!

Take care,

Fredrik and Sabrina

We had anticipated the weather to be something like in Quito but maybe even a bit colder. After all Huaráz is situated a bit higher up in the mountains and further south from the ecuator compared to Quito. However the weather here has been incredible. Very sunny and warm during the day with clear blue skies. Of course its cold at night but we had expected it to be worse. It kind of reminds us about being in the Alps, only higher up.

To save some time we decided to go directly from Máncora to Huaráz, a trip that took us 24 hours by bus. It was pretty tough, but with so little time and so much to see, what do you do? The first bus took the prize, they showed no less than 3 Steven Seagal movies. Volume blazing. The TV was just over us so we could see it if we bent our heads as far back as we possibly could. Then when they were finnished they showed all three movies AGAIN!!! The torture stopped around 01.00 am....pfff....
The second bus was through "Cañon del Pato" a dramatic canyon with amazing scenery, ravines, landslides, tunnels and we went on a small winding "trail" with hundreds of meters down on the side. On the left hand side we had the "Cordillera Blanca" or the white mountainchain, with its snowcapped tops, and on the right hand side we had the "Cordillera Negra" the black mountainchain with its impressive dark tops looking through the clouds. SPECTACULAR!!!

We have now rested a bit, slept a night in a nice and cozy bed and tried the local remedy for altitude sickness; "Te de Coca". We also had some juice with ginger (supposedly a good Ecuadorian remedy against altitude sickness). Tomorrow we will take it easy, and possibly do a small excursion or something, to prepare ourselves for the big adventure that we have booked for the day after tomorrow.
We are doing a three day expedition to climb the peak of the mountain Pisco (5751m)!!!

More info comming shortly!!!

Love,

Fredrik and Sabrina

As some of you might have already started to suspect we stayed a bit longer than planned on the island of Roatán.

Roatán, being the largest of the Bay Islands in Honduras, is situated about 50 km from the mainland with ferries leaving twice a day from the harbor in La Ceiba. The sea wasn’t very rough, but because of the speed it got quite bumpy and a lot of people got sick. When we arrived we got a ride on the back of a pickup and then took a “Collectivo” to the part of the island called West End. There we found a perfect little cottage in the jungle.

For you who haven’t heard about Roatán before it’s worth mentioning that it’s supposed to be the cheapest place in the world for dive certification which is part of the reason we went there. We found a nice little dive shop that is run by a Danish couple and we signed up for an introduction dive and a certification course. Even though Sabrina on and off had panic attacks and sometimes rather would have taken the “Puke-ferry” back to the mainland, we managed to get through the course and found out that we LOVE diving.

Since then we have stayed, trying to dive as much as possible. We have had quite bad weather a couple of days and on Sundays the dive shop was closed and we “were forced to” go to the beach instead, to do some snorkeling and just lie in the sun.

Now we have managed to scrape together 16 dives, i.e. one Open Water Certificate, one Advanced Open Water Certificate (allowing us to dive to 30m depth) and including among other things a night dive and a wreck dive. We have seen moray eels, sea turtles, rays of different kinds, scorpion fish, barracudas, sea cucumbers, lobster, etc, etc. It has simply been amazing and we finished off with a 32m wreck dive where we had a close encounter with a large spotted eagle-ray.

Fredrik’s birthday we celebrated with our new dive “buddies” drinking Cuba Libre and the Honduran Port Royale beer.

Roatán was perfect, incredible, amazing, so it was quite difficult to leave but if we wanted to see something more on our trip it was definitely time to move on.

We are now in Santa Rosa de Copán, a small mountain town, on the way to El Salvador where we are going next.

Lots of love,

Fredrik (and Sabrina)