or „Vegetation is over. Time to ripen„

read on to come to know the truth about tomatoes:

[…] As I tie up the stalks, I think about the storms that blow through this time of year – bruising rain, sudden downdrafts – and it’s good to know that the tomatoes, at least, are safely moored.
[…]
But the truth is that I would rather grow tomatoes than anything else. Pathogens may spring from the soil in a hard rain onto the lower leaves, corrupting them, but the tomato stalk pushes upward, rampant, always probing outward, feeling its way, almost disregarding the fruit it was meant to bear.

Verlyn Klinkenborg, The New York Times

[full story at www.IHT.com]

worst product of the month:

the keyboard in the internetcafé at lima-airport (where i had quite enough time, as i had 27h delay…)

seen, tested and found it wanting. the power button right next to enter and del is indeed not a good idea.

hit by accident the pc shuts down immediately, without promting. no matter if you just had been editing a great story about lima in your browser-window…
bad thing….

anyway, by now im back in BsAs and try to enjoy my last few days as much as possible… 😉

still in cusco, but taking off soon.
now i know why it is called the rainy season, you could almost set your watch. every day, same time, same rain. after feeling quite lazy some days i moved myself to the agency to organize my trip up to muchu picchu.
due to haevy rainfalls the inca trail is closed, but there is a 2 days alternative, so i choose this option.

what really pissed me off, is that the whole thing is a big rip off. the only way to get into the valley is to take a train, you just get a ticked if you show your passport and then they charge you up to 45US$ oneway!. the cheaper ticket still is 35 bucks… tourists-tariff.
just at night and very early in the morning there is a mixed train for 12US$… so i took this one at night to aquas calientes and spent the night there. in the morning (at 6:00) i hiked back the rail tracks to km104 where the 2days trail starts. there i had breakfast with some loacal people (chicken with rice at 7:00am) and then i met up with a little group (you cant do the camino de los incas without guide) and we begun to ascend the mountain.
an amazing path, but very narrow and scary steep. passing by waterfalls, seeing a lot of beautyful flowers and funny animals. we spent the night up in the mountain in a kind of hostal to continue the next day at 4:00 am to machu picchu. as soon as sun set it started raining and didnt stop til dawn, when we were already on our way…
the first time we saw machu picchu it was quite covered in clouds, but it was still an amazing view!
it was good to be there before all the buses from aquas calientes arrived, coz then it bacame terribly crowded. altough it was rainy, cold and cloudy…

so here are the pictures, not as brilliant as you might be used to, but next time i will take more sun with me
have to stop spoiling you guys 😉

more pics…

there are things you have to do… but you better tell your parents afterwards. after you survived.

as i was in potosí of course i visited a mine. those mines are not like a tourist-tour, they are still in use. there are still people in it digging all day. eight hours a day, seven days a week. the youngest are ten (10) years, till the end – expectation of life is about 45 years.
if this sounds shocking to you now, you may figure out how it feels being down there. four levels underground, hundrets of meters inside.

descending wasnt a big deal, although the wholes you have to crawl through are really narrow, neither feeling the beats hitting your body if there are explosions somewhere in the mountain (the agency i went with, is told the be the safest e.g. no explosions during the day, but other mines in the same mountain dont care about safety regulations), neither the heat of about 45ºC, bad ventilation or low oxygen because of the altitude of about 4200m was the really bad thing to cope with. chewing coca-leafs helps you to get over that…
but seeing 10-14year old children pulling the trolleys (each about 1,5t to 2t), standing beside them, staring and maybe taking some pictures like in a zoo makes you feel truly bad. somehow you legitimate your behavior by telling the world what unutterable happens there in bolivia.
on my way back to the surface i felt the first time something like claustrophobia. i dindt freak out, but my only thought was i wanna get out’a here!.

miners earn about 2-4 bolivianos an hour. 1€ is about 7 bolivianos…

mainly owend by canadian companies, but other so called developed countries are not better. europe (also austria) uses these commodities as well… at least your computer contents materials very likely mined in potosí.

more pics…

what do you see on picture 1 and 2?

picture 1:

picture 2:

right now i’m at 4070m in potosí (bolivia), an old mining town.
the last few days happend too mach to tell everything now. salar de uyuni was amazing, flooded with about 30cm of water like a perfect mirror reflecting mountains, clouds, everything. sleeping in barracks at 4600m. geysers at dawn at about 5000m, thermal springs to take a hot bath and lots more.
on the way back a stop in a little village joining them having a traditional celebration of whomever, getting stuck in the mud in the middle of nowhere with our 4×4 enjoying the thunderstorm (amazing lightnings).
getting back to the ‚dark-city‘ of uyuni because the power supply line was cut due to the storm. having dinner with candles.
cought the last ticket twoday for the bus-ride (literally a ride, coz just 5% of all bolivian roads are paved) to potosí. told to be the highest city in the world, dont know if its true. btw. does anybody know the altitude of mont blanc?

es muss uebrigens nicht unbeding mustard sein, ich nehm auch gern euren senf…

more pics…