Final stop: Brazil.

Reality hit hard as soon as I landed back in Norway. I haven´t had the heart to even look at the last photo memories from our amazing adventure around the world. As the world cup in Brazil is all over today’s media, I finally found the motivation to go through my last shots from the trip of my lifetime.

Wandering without shoes on Ipanema beach in Rio De Janeiro was such a relief after spending over a month in the cold. Nothing beats the smell of salty water and the feeling of the sun forcing the freckles on my nose to pop up. We had our own litle apartment between Copacabana and Ipanema beach, and spent our days exploring different sides of Rio.

The very last week was spent on the Bahia coast, in a small surfer village called Itacaré. In Itacaré the days passed by relaxing on the beach, surfing, swimming, reading books and feeding homeless kittens…

View over Rio from Christ the Redeemer

Copacabana beach 

Rio seen from the Sugar loaf. 

Bohemian Santa Theresa, RIO. 

ITACARE, BAHIA

 

Peace & Love 

AK

La Paz: dried llama fetus, bowler hats and mountain biking

It´s difficult to point out exactly what La Paz did to give us a rather dodgy impression. Bolivia’s capital came on to us as polluted, noisy and a bit scary. The Bolivians we´d met before coming to La Paz had been very friendly, but as we came into downtown the smiles and hospitality suddenly disappeared. 

Our dirty little hostel was located in the "Witches Market". The streets that make up this market are one of the main tourist attractions in the city. It´s filled with small shops that sell dried llama fetuses and other strange things that are used in different rituals. Women are dressed in traditional dresses and bowler hats - and they were not very happy with a pale tourist lurking around with a big camera.

The smell of cocoa leaves, dried llama babies and incense made us wanting to get out of the city. And as La Paz can offer crazy downhill biking down ”death road”, we had no other choice than getting our asses on some bikes. ”Death road” is a old dirt road between La Paz and town called Coroico. It is 62 km long, and drops from 4800 m.a.s.l to around 1000 m.a.s.l. In other words, some adrenalin filled hours down hill! All in all, La Paz turned out to be a good place to arrange some action filled adventures, but not a city we would like to hang out for longer than needed.

- LA PAZ - 

Witches market 

Finally a happy old lady in her micro shop.

The strangest and scariest mannequins, I still don´t get it. 

 - LA PAZ TO COROICO ON "DEATH ROAD"- 

Starting off on a paved highway

Heading into waterfalls and bumpy dirt roads

We survived without any bruises or broken bones, and spent the night in tropical Coroico with the view over the valley of the Yungas. Starting the day at high altitude with snow, and ending up by a swimming pool in the valley was fantastic! 

 Waking up to this @ Esmeralda Hotel

 Happy biker

 Hammock time!

“One always begins to forgive a place as soon as it’s left behind.” 

– Charles Dickens

KLEM 

AK