Seeing new things is a major part of beeing on the road, but sometimes the things you see gets so strange, that you do not quite believe your eyes (or ears for that matter). Whenever humans are involved, things can get just unbelievable because they seem so far, far away from own perspectives - and with it, follows the man made things.

[Current location]

Last day in Caracas, gave some strange views on human kind. While sitting at the internet café, reading my last few mails, I noticed two relatively strange guys sitting right next to me. The one sitting at the computer to my right, was a tiny fellow, who ran around the computer like someone who actually was working with computers. I thougt immediately, that he was some sort of systems administrator, and due to the fact, that they had rearranged the interior of the café since the day before, and put more computers on the table, I thought that he was just installing new stuff on new computers. I didn’t think much of it, until I by a “mistake”, meaning that I deliberately wanted to look at what the guy behind me was doing, found out that he was surfing porn. The first thing that striked me, was that it was a really strange place to surf internet porn, and the other thing that striked me, was that he was watching the porn in a huge window, meaning everyone could actually see what he was doing. The third thing I noticed about this guy, was that he apparently had some gas issues, as he was passing wind quite frequently. Adding these things up, I realised that I was sitting behind this fat bloke, who surfed internet porn in a crowded internet café on a huge screen in a huge window, having his eyes glued to the screen, 20 cm from the screen and passing wind in our direction. Charming fellow…

After realising that there could be other strange beeings in this room, I peeked at the guy next to me, and discovered, that he had some “ticks” as well. He was constantly talking and trying to locate USB ports and other things and I still just thought he was a system administrator of the café. He scratched his groin and/or pelvic area every minute, and at first I just though he needed to go to the toilet. I have seen this behaviour among the young boys of our race, and I am positively sure, that I have done so myself at some point. I kind of expected that he just was so absorbed and focused on what he was working with, that he didn’t want to disrupt his work to go to the toilet. I have seen this behaviour in my own person, and therefore I could relate to the guy. It is an irritating situation to be in, but hey … when the job has to be done, it has to be done. After this quick deductive and rational thinking, I had a quick peek at his screen, and surprisingly discovered, that whatever he was doing, was not system administrator-ish. He was chatting online with several different people, and strangly enough, they where all men, they where all surprisingly good looking, they where all wearing surprisingly few items of clothing on the pictures and every conversation I could read, had the words “what is your name”, “how old are you” and “where do you live”. I suddenly realised that he was a merry little gay fellow, picking up men online, and I started to wonder if I actually was at an internet caf� in some sort of red light district of Caracas. I tried to find some clues for my newly found theory, but nothing actually supported it, so I threw it away. Empiric studies were not needed, and to be honest, I really did not want to find out either. The merry little gay fellow continued doing his groinscratching “ritual” almost every time he had finished a sentence in a conversation, and I realised, that he definately did not need to visit the toilet. After a few more conversations, he hastly picked up his cellular, made a phone call, shut down the computer in a rush, and ran out of the café talking about where to meet and what time to meet. Charming fellow…

My bus was leaving shortly after, I went to my hotel to pick up my stuff and left for the bus terminal. I didn’t quite figure out how the bus system worked, and after 5 tries to get on the bus, it finally succeeded. During all this waiting, I had a snack and drank water … a lot of water. Visiting the toilet regularly I also thought that I would not worry about needing a toilet for a while, after I entered the bus. I was wrong, and I had to go allready the minute I got on the bus. There was no toilet on board, and I thought that since it was a 13 hour drive, the bus probably stopped in 4 hours. I knew I could keep it in, but I didn’t realise how bad I needed to sleep. After 5 sleepless nights since my journey started, 13 hours on a bus was to hard work to endure awake, so I quickly fell asleep only to wake up in the same second that the bus were finishing its planned stop. I tried to “talk” to the guy sitting next to me, but he did not understand me, and I did not understand him. I then just said “baño” (meaning bathroom/toilet) and he signalled for me to get pass him. I went outside, trying to look for the driver so I could tell him not to drive yet, but noone was there. Everyone else had returned to the bus, and I was now the only one not on the bus (apart from the drivers). I thought that I just had to make a run for it, and headed of to the toilet, where I tried to finish in world record speed, cause I was not interrested in beeing left alone in a place without my luggage, without knowing where I was and without having any warm clothes. It was high up in a moutain, and it was getting cold. I manage to run back to the bus throw myself through the door in the same splitsecond that the bus was leaving. That was the second lucky event on my trip so far. Luck is apparently needed.

When I got on the bus in Caracas, I saw the third strange thing that happened that day. An middle aged woman entered the bus, with someone who seemed to be her daughter. They found their seat opposite the isle from me and I noticed the fatness of the daughter. She was quite large and I would imagine, that she was not going to have a pleasant busride. After they sat down, suddenly the daughter sat on the mothers lap, which was about 1/3 her size, and she started to feed the mother food. The mother was holding her arms around the daugter and it all seemed very surreal. After whiping the mothers mouth with a napkin, the feeding ritual was apparently over, and the daughter rolled down to her own seat. Charming family.

Mérida is a nice city. Have found a hostel with nice people, and I have finally found someone to talk to. The only backside to this, is that my spanish is not getting as much attention as earlier. We are talking english most of the time, as most people there right now, are english and american. The first day here, I went on a mountainbike ride together with a norwegian and a guide, and I must tell you, that I have never been as exhausted as during and after this trip in my whole life. We should go up to some hot springs, which had 37 degrees water, and that required a quite steep climb to get there. The first part of the ride was OK - nothing exhausting, and the guide was going quite slowly. The other norwegian and myself wanted to speed up a bit, even if the guide said that we should spare our energy. We just thought he was just tired from a night out the night before, and we disregarded his advice. We had a quick stop to have a drink, and then all hell broke loose. The climbed appeared to be a 1,5 km steep hill, with average degree of elevation at about 55%. Alpe d’Huez - go home. Riding in the easiest gear possible on the bike was struggeling and after just 200 meters, I was allready tired. Gasping for air, pushing my bike up this monster hill and realised how small I was in the middle of the Andes mountains. The hill seemed endless and the guide started to shout “hehe … where is all our strength now, viking boys” and really let us know, that we should have listened to his advise earlier. Finally at the top, I was the last one, I was so tired, that I couldn’t even hear what the oter guys were talking about. The only thing I wanted, was a nice cool bath. We found a cool place, and I recovered quickly. Going back was even worse, but it all started very nice. Down the same way we came and we took another route home. This route would take us to the bottom of another steep hill, which we needed to climb to be able to go home. The climb was app. 1000 meters long, and 2-300 meters high, and we had to climb several hundred steps carrying our bikes, after a 6 hour bike ride, with only breakfast and 2 bananas in my stomach. I think I set a new world record for low blood sugar levels, and again, I lost my hearing when arriving at the top (again as the last one). The guide wanted us to do some push ups … what was he thinking?? I managed a few, but man, I was tired. The guide made several sets of exercises. Charming fellow.

I am going mountain climbing tomorrow, and the next 4 days. We are going to climb the Humboldt mountain, summit is 4940 above sea level, in 4 days and 3 nights. We are a small group of 5 people, inclucing guide and sherpa and this will be awesome. I have never been this high before, and this is the first time on the trip, that I get to do some radical stuff. Hopefully my body will survive, and I hope my head will cope with the high altitude. I am really looking forward to this trip and I expect it to give some fantastic scenery.