It's Happening

While the departure day gets closer, things are happening here. I'm meeting people with a message for me, coming across magazines that have articles I have to read and quotations others have made about their trip of a lifetime!

In this article I wanted to talk about some of those things and what I hope this journey will bring to me.

"I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of." - Michel de Montaigne

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." Marcel Proust

"The hidden meaning of travelling is to be homesick." - Erich Kästner

"I'm looking at the earth. It is big and radiant and beautiful." Neil Armstrong

"...The great affair is to move; to feel the needs and hitches of our life more nearly; to come down off this feather-bed of civilisation, and finde the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints." - Robert Louis Stevenson

"Travel frees you to re-imagine yourself." - Alain de Botton

Those quotations describe perfectly, what I hope to find along the way. I  know - I should not expect too much as I could be disappointed. But I will definitely stay open to the discoveries and surprises our trip to Peru brings.

As I said in my first article on this blog, I've had the vision of me being there 7 years ago. That vision has accompanied me every since and I've always felt the urge to follow my intuition and visit that country.

Now that it's almost happening, I am excited. I don't know who I will meet, I don't know what I will see and I definitely don't know what I will feel.

I want to free my mind of those things that held me back in the past and I hope to find a piece of myself again...realizing what person I am, what needs I have, if and how my future plans fit with what I'm supposed to do - not what I THINK I need to do.

In a few weeks I will have to pack my backpack which itself will be very exciting. But what I think is even more exciting: I have to my spiritual bag and get ready mentally. It will hopefully be a time when I can leave everything at home...no thinking about problems, work, difficulties or so.

There's a song I wrote some time ago which describes it perfectly! It's called "Fly" and you should definitely watch this video!

I will fly...and this is what excites me the most!

Three weeks left

Miraflores/Lima

I can't believe it - but when I started to create this blog and to post the first articles, I never thought the time would fly this quick. Now it's only three more weeks before we leave for Peru.

We will be spending the first two nights in Lima in the Miraflores area to check out the city and it's nightlife.

Macchu Picchu

After that we will follow the coastline direction south until - after a few stops I guess - we reach the Lake Titicaca and its floating isles - the "Uros" and the town Copacabana. Maybe there is time for a short trip to La Paz/Bolivia too. 

Lake Titcaca/Uros

On the way we will take a flight to observe the Nazca Lines by plane...which is going to be very exciting I guess.

Our route will then take us back to the north via the Andes to visit cities like Iquitos and Cuzco where we will visit Macchu Picchu. We also plan to do a trip into the jungle but we will see how it goes when we're there. We didn't want to plan every step on beforehand but take things as they come along.

The whole trip will take 3 weeks and I'm getting more and more excited about it. The whole gear is in place and I got everything I will need during these three weeks. I will take my cam along to capture every moment of this journey but still - I decided to take a three-weeks-break from things like telephone, internet and e-mail.

I want it to be a whole new experience taking the time to get to know myself, to become clear about my future plans and to learn how to make my dreams come true. Yes - it is in deed going to be a very spiritual experience.

The Nazca Lines

Another thing I have planned to do is to learn spanish and I think that's the best occasion to do so. I already started to do some training with friends who teach me a lot. And being forced to speak spanish will hopefully inprove my language skills even more.

I don't know if my next article will be online before or after the trip because I won't be able to update the blog along the way. Anyhow - stay tuned for a detailed article on that. :-)

Trip Preparations

1. The bagpack

I chose the Deuter Air Contact Pro 60+15. I would suggest that you visit the sports and outdoor equipment store you trust and try on some bagpacks. It's important that it's comfortable, handy to use, not too big nor too small and that it has a reasonable price. For my purpose the Deuter is perfect. It comes with a lot of practical feauters like rain cover, compartments for drinking systems, it's extendable and very comfy. I paid something like 230 $ which is ok.

2. The shoes

I would say that the shoes are the most important piece of equipment you will need for such a tour. Don't save on good shoes cause you will be spending weeks in them and have them on for several hours a day. They should be comfortable, strong, support your feet and give you good grip on every underground you come across. I chose the Lowa Kody GTX II Mid. It's a trekking shoe and suitable for flat and slightly rocky underground. As I'm not planning to hit the mountains in terms of climbing, it's the perfect shoe to go for. It's around 180 $. I suggest you get good outdoor socks - which by the way are the only way to control the tempreature in such a shoe. The shoe is made of a Goretex material and thus very respiratory - anyhow...the right sock makes sure you don't sweat too much or it will keep you warm in higher regions. Ask your retailer - he'll be happy to help you on that matter.

3. A knife

You will spend a lot of time outside on a backpacktour - so I believe that a good knife will be very useful. For me it was important to get a small, lightweight and flexible knife. I chose the Gerber Remix foldable knife. It's small, made of aluminium and has a serrated blade as you can see on the picture.

4. Clothes

Space is the only thing you don't have on a backpack tour cause you don't want to carry around a heavy bagpack. So you need to cut back on the clothing you take with you and choose wisely. What I take with me is 3 tee's, 6 briefs, 3 pairs of socks (2 for warm temperatures, one for cold temperatures), a hat to protect your head from the sun, a thermo shirt for the mountains, 2 pairs of outdoor pants with zipper to take off half of the legs, a raincoat. If there's anything else you need, you can still get it at your destination. And to be honest - I'm really looking forward to get one of those alpaca wool pullovers they sell there. :-)

5. A moskito net

As we'll be spending nights in the jungle or nearby a lake, a moskito net is definitely a must-have. I got one from a friend which is very small and lightweight.

6. The first aid kit

You never know what might happen - so I think it's wise to take some medicine. A few basic things like aspirine or paracetamols, something against diarrhea, patches for small wounds, desinfectant, insect repellent and not to forget: the vaccinations you should get beforehand! These would be Hepatitis A and B, yellow fever, tetanus, polio and typhus. Talk to your doctor to find out about that.

I think that's all for now. I will add things if I can think of more. If you have any questions - feel free to ask! :-)

Travel plans are getting more precise

After not posting for a long time there's finally some news about our trip to Peru.

We finally decided about when to go. We will be flying to Lima/Peru on the 9th of January and fly back on the 29th of January.

Lan Airlines

We decided to cut back on the duration and to keep it simple: Only basic hotels and guest houses, economy class tickets for all flight sectors and there has been a change in the routing. We won't be flying via Caracas/Venezuela but we decided to take Bogota/Columbia since this is more convenient as Lufthansa has a direct connection departing from Frankfurt/Germany which takes us there in 12 hours.

It's going to be an adventure flying with Avianca and Lan Airlines in South America since I've never used any other Airline outside the EU. The flight will take 15 hours in total and after that we will be spending one or two nights in Lima to familiarize with the public transport system and of course take some time to get to know the city.

Avianca Airlines

After that our trip will take us to the coastline of Peru all the way down to the Lake Titicaca from where we'll be taking a national flight to the north to continue our journey. We are currently working on the waypoints - which spots we absolutely need to see like Macchu Picchu, the Lake Titicaca, the Urus - floating islands on the Lake Titicaca and so on. Once we figured it out I will post up a map with all of those spots.

I am so excited right now cause it really starts to come together. We will soon get the tickets and send in our vacation planning. Once this is done we can think about getting all the stuff together.

Intuition leads us...

Sometimes it's hard to see why things might be related to each other but today I want to tell you a short story.

Some time ago I used to go to the gym on a regular basis because I wanted to do something to keep me fit and in shape. Last year I quit because it wasn't fun anymore. I always felt I had to force myself to do it and so I cancelled the contract and stopped working out.

In the meantime I always wanted to do something more challenging, more satisfying. I looked around a bit and one day I thought about climbing - or better "bouldering" which is the indoor alternative. But you know how it is...sometimes you get caught up in your daily life and time flies by...so things take sometime longer than they should OR the time is not right and when the time IS right, everything just happens naturally.

During the last 2 or 3 days the thoughts about bouldering came again repeatedly and I decided to finally make the next step: look for a bouldering hall here in Munich. Yesterday, while surfing around and checking on the different websites the next step came to my mind: get the equipment to start with! And so I looked up what I needed to start bouldering. Then the next step: find a store in Munich.

Today I went to town and got shoes and the other equipment for a reasonable price. Tomorrow I will try it for the first time - and I'm excited!

What has all this to do with synchronicity? Well I'm not sure...but think about Peru...the Andes...maybe it gives me a new possibility. Maybe I get the chance to get to places I could never reach without this climbing technique. Who knows - maybe I will have a chance to climb in the Andes. Just thinking about it gives me goose bumps.

I found the photos on google...I hope that's ok. If not - let me know and I will delete them from this post.

A brief overview of the planned journey

Preparations start from this point...the raw idea of the whole trip. Refinements are of course coming in the future.

For now I think our journey will take us from Munich, Germany to Caracas, Venezuela where we will spend a night or two before we take the flight to Lima, Peru.

In Peru we decided to just use public transportation to move through the country. This might be more challenging but it will definitely be cheaper and I think with our language skills we'll get along pretty well - since I want to learn some spanish soon.

Here is a map of the general route...travelling around half the world. Pretty exciting, isn't it?

The detailed plans for Peru itself are to just follow our intuition. There will be some spots we definitely want to visit...but the biggest part of the decisions about the journey will happen while we're in the country.

Some good books...

 To start my preparation I looked for a good travel guide about Peru and the one that had the best ratings and reviews was the german guide "Reise Know How: Peru & Bolivien" that you can get at http://www.amazon.de.

The guide is very extensive and has tons of information about the country, the culture, hotels, several maps, tours and much more in it and though becomes a perfect companion on this journey.

Somebody to share this with...

I was not sure if I should do this alone or take somebody with me. But thinking intensely about it made me decide that it would be better not doing this alone. As South America is not the safest place, it is reasonable not to be alone. Furthermore it's more intense if you can share your experiences and insights with somebody.

The tricky thing was to find someone I knew I could spend 4 to 6 weeks, 24 hours a day with - without having to worry about what to talk about or not knowing if I could rely on or trust him. The only person I know, who meets all those requirements, is Chris.

Why I wanna do this...

"Dearest Umberto!

Giving you this book is like sharing a little part of me. Enjoy!

I love you!"

These were the words a very good friend of mine wrote on the front page of the book "The Celestine Prophecy" that changed a lot in me. This was in December 2003.

When I first read the book I was truly inspired by the story and the figurative way of describing the places in this masterpiece. I felt like a part of the story and I think I read the book in a few days only. From that day on I continued reading the subsequent books that were released - I literally devoured them!

Anyhow - while reading "The Celestine Prophecy" there were several moments I felt the urge to go and see those places described in the book - not knowing if all of them existed for real or if they were only fictitious. But that couldn't stop me. I knew that I had to go there to find out what this country had to offer to me personally.

Something about this blog and my celestine journey...

The trip to Peru starts in one year from now but the journey starts already today with all the preparation, gathering of information, reading of guides, collecting experience from people all around the world and so on.

I want to describe the whole thing: the beginning - the thought to do this trip and my motivation, the decision - why I had to do this and how I chose the person who accompanies me, the planning - what I feel is important, what to take with me and so on and last but not least: the trip itself.

During this whole time I want you to participate actively. Please come back to check on updates, comment on my thoughts, let me know about your experiences, places you think I have to visit and everything else they might come to your mind when you read this.

Let the journey begin...