Everything you always wanted to know about SEO – Part 1

Completely travel unrelated but I had to put it somewhere. Some people have asked what have I actually done before my travel, what are the projects I am still sometimes working on about, then what is SEO etc. etc. Of course SEO was not the only thing I worked on over the last year, but it was quite a bit too.

SEO is “Search Engine Optimization” for starters. And that is to optimize an existing Website the way that it should be best found when people are looking on search engines (i.e. mainly Google) for things you consider your website offers/sells/gives information about.

How do you do this?

So there are onsite factors – things directly on your website like the URLs, the page titles, meta-tags, page content, internal links (links from one page to another one of yours), hey, just Google “onsite SEO factors”, you will get a lot of answers. Generally onsite factors are easier to influence, since it’s your website…

Then there are offsite factors – things like links from other website pointing to your site, the age of these links, the general value/trust/age/reputation the website has which is pointing to you, etc. etc. Again, just google “offsite SEO factors” and you get a lot of more answers.

But how are those factors weighted in the Google algorithm – or: which factors are most important to determine the position of your website in a specific Google search result? Find below what I would consider a pretty good summary and comparison of factors regarded by top SEOs as being most important for influencing your ranking in Google – from 2005, 2007 and 2009. I highlighted onsite factors in BOLD. The rest is obviously offsite factors, i.e. inbound links with different aspects being looked at: number of links, diversity, topics, link anchor text, “trust” of linking domain (age, own link history etc.).

Enjoy!

Background:
SEOmoz ranking factors is done by interviewing reknown top SEOs from different agencies and companies (from US…) and building a list of factors out of that with 2 variables: 1.) Importance score of factor, 2.) Consensus score – how much or little did SEOs agree on a factor

Summary: lot has moved from importance of onsite factors to importance of offsite factors – apparently - though see the “grain of salt”, “top queries vs. long tail” and “takeaways” comment below too.

Top 10 Ranking Factors in 2005 (http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors-2005)

1. Title Tag – 4.57
2. Anchor Text of Links – 4.46
3. Keyword Use in Document Text – 4.38
4. Accessibility of Document – 4.3
5. Links to Document from Site-Internal Pages – 4.15
6. Primary Subject Matter of Site – 4.00
7. External Links to Linking Pages – 3.92
8. Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community – 3.77
9. Global Link Popularity of Site – 3.69
10. Keyword Spamming – 3.69

Top 10 Ranking Factors in 2007 (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/ranking-factors-version-2-released)

1. Keyword Use in Title Tag (4.9)
2. Global Link Popularity of Site (4.5)
3. Anchor Text of Inbound Link (4.4)
4. Link Popularity within the Site’s Internal Link Structure (4.1)
5. Age of Site (4)
6. Topical Relevance of Inbound Links to Site (3.9)
7. Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community (3.9)
8. Keyword Use in Body Text (3.9)
9. Global Link Popularity of Linking Site (3.7)
10. Topical Relationship of Linking Page (3.6)

Top 5 Ranking Factors 2009 (http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors)

1. Keyword Focused Anchor Text from External Links
2. External Link Popularity (quantity/quality of external links)
3. Diversity of Link Sources (links from many unique root domains)
4. Keyword Use Anywhere in the Title Tag
5. Trustworthiness of the Domain Based on Link Distance from Trusted Domains (e.g. TrustRank, Domain mozTrust, etc.)

The grains of salt:

• this list and SEO opinions in general tend to overemphazise a bit everything which is new. SEO is also a bit of marketing… First it was ALL onsite, then it was ALL overall relevance with emphasis on quantity, then for a very short while it was ALL social media optimization…, now it is ALL “trust” score
• different markets still behave differently – that just depends on how mature a market is in terms of optimization of webpages. See it like this: in a market where there’s tons of crap pages, one which is very basically optimized onsite will still go up easily. Also if there’s a lot of bad pages in a market, or even just a different way to create pages and content in general, Google cannot use the same factors to rank websites for queries. If the market is mature and all companies do their best to have a good quality site, accessible and relevant content, use all ways to optimize onsite, then obviously there have to be additional factors to distinguish the better from the not so good results for any query
• after all this list reflects not so much what are the most important factors for ranking in Google, but what are the most important factors to touch when you want to make a site go up within a measurable amount of time: looking at the factors from 2005 to 2009 the summary would be: before it was easier/faster, now it’s a bit more mid/long term
• AND:
  • could you ignore external links before? Better not, how would you now have old and trusted links
  • should you ignore onsite optimization now? Well, it still counts: Still Google has to match queries with content… And still it’s something which is directly in your hand.

Top queries vs. long tail (…chunky middle, chewy bits…):

• there’s also a difference how you can optimize for top queries vs. for long tail queries: for top queries there’s simply more competition, also there’s more history on search behaviour… For long tail queries, the more KWs are used in a query, the less documents will be relevant for a query, less external links for a specific topic, etc. etc.
• same is valid for markets (see above)

Take-aways:

• onsite optimization is not “done”, it should just be done on your site by now - all the other guys in your market already did it too
  
• try to get those links from those trusted sites… That’s a marketing and a business development task: engage your audience, engage with other important players
• So it’s just a sign that internet is maturing as a channel: before you could get traffic almost entirely with Tech resources, now you actually have to have a business behind too

25.-29.11.09: Rio de Janeiro

DOs in Rio de Janeiro:

• Stay in Santa Teresa, the old bohemian living area on a hill directly overlooking Lapa’s nightlife and Rio’s metropolitan center, for example in: Terra Brasilis
• Take the old tram, “Bondinho” from behind the Cathedral/Petrobras Building to Santa Teresa or right up to the foot of Corcovado
• Go by bus: you see a lot of Rio, the ticket clerks are usually very nice and  tell you where they go, where they don’t and when to hop off. Also Rio bus drivers all seem to love formula 1, at least they try driving that way, but the buses only seem to jump out of the curves, they really don’t
• Go up to Corcovado’s Christ the redeemer statue, it’s really worth it
• Try as many juices from the juice stands you find every 20m in Rio – once you’ve left Brasil you will miss them
• Try the burgers at the juice shops too, they are not the usual McDo stuff, they taste great
• Have a cold can of beer on Saturday evening/night (around 7-8pm) at the Curvelo station (first stop in Santa Teresa): locals gather to play, sing and dance samba on the street. 100% non-commercial
• Have a Sunday afternoon stroll through Lapa. Maybe don’t go into too dark streets, don’t wave around with you wallet and don’t wear golden necklaces (where would you do that in South America anyway…), but though that nightlife area looks a bit run-down during the day it’s really actually the closest you can get to a historic center in Rio

DON’Ts in Rio:

• A city tour – there is really nothing you cannot see yourself, and Rio is not about specific buildings or sites (o.k., the Corcovado, see above) but the whole setting and atmosphere – you will not take that in from a bus driving through the traffic jam
• Pay an agency for a “tour” to see a Samba school rehearsal – it’s really not worth it, and if you really want to go just take a taxi to the place. They are not in dangerous favelas (whatever the tour operators want to make you believe – crime and danger in Rio seem to be a business factor too…), taxis do drive there and you can leave whenever you want as well. Though still, rather go to Curvelo on saturday evening or a samba show in Lapa

Narrow streets down from Santa Teresa to Lapa

Ons of many stops for a quick fruit juice (recommended combinations: Papaya / Orange, Orange / Goyaba, or just plain Water melon, hmmm)

Tourist on Copacabana

Christmas feeling in Ipanema

How to resist that maracuja caipirinha...

Ipanema beach at late afternoon (see Caipirinha above why not early afternoon )

Walk through the "historic center" - not much left of it, Rio center seems to be "modernized" mainly in the 60ies/70ies, same as elsewhere they just loved their concrete back then...

Alô?

Taking the "bondinho" back to Santa Teresa - with a very nice brazilian from Belem we've met at the station

Santa Teresa by night

Santa Teresa by night II

Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas from Corcovado

Cristo redentor - Christ the redeemer. Planned in 1922, inaugurated in 1931

Pao de Azucar from Corcovado (Sugar loaf, Zuckerhut...)

Rieke and a japanese bunny on Corcovado (no, we did not ask...)

A happy couple on Corcovado

At maracana stadium - with the great tour we did we actually did not enter the stadium (nor did we see much else of what we had thought. TOP TIP Rio: do not make tours...)

The sambodromo. Here goes the world known Samba parade on Rio's Carnival - and just here. Every samba school (there are 12) has 90 minutes to parade up and down that road, 200.000 spectators fit in here, but the parade never leaves that place. I'd think it's a bit sterile, and though people in Rio think carnival is the best in the world here I'd rather go to Recife or Salvador or elsewhere.. I was stranded in Corumba in the Pantanal in 1995 and that carnival there was just great too

Metropolitan Cathedral with Christmas deco

THIS reminded me SO much of my good old Ruhr-University in Bochum... 60s/70s concrete sins look similar all over the world I guess judge yourself

That could well be between Hörsaalzentrum Ost and the N buildings...

The Petrobras building. Looks nice at night in green and yellow

Bondinho by day - at Curvelo stop in Santa Teresa

Nice mansions in Santa Teresa

Not so well preserved but grand old building in Santa Teresa

Parque das Ruinas in Santa Teresa - a cultural center (theater and stuff). That's where we had the pleasure to meet and chat with an 83 year old man, turning out to have been a pretty successful playwright and music compositor back in the days, and the son of the late founder of the Brazilian Comunist Party (Abilio Nequete). Incredible the people you meet travelling

Locals playing Samba and generally having a good time near Curvelo on Saturday evening

View from our room over Lapa and the city center

even our bathroom had a view

Walk through Lapa

Wall painting at the aquaeduct in Lapa

more wall paintings

More of Lapa - how nice could that part of the city center be (and in fact then would be the real historic center) if overhauled it a bit, like they did with the Pelorinho in Salvador de Bahia...

Christmas deco on our way to Leblon

At the samba school rehearsal (yes, we went... Don't do it unless you don't mind tourist events)

A bit of "Pagode" before the Samba part

Samba

Good-bye Rio

22.-25.11.09: Iguazu – waterfalls and butterflies

We were received by water falling – from the sky – already on our bus tour to the falls, around 12hrs before we reached Iguazu. Water continued to pour down the whole first day we spent there, while the water in hostels, aka hot shower or toilet…, was cut  in the whole town. Technical problems.

Later we read in the newspapers that this was the worst rainfalls in years and the whole region had suffered damages to streets and other infrastructure. So we were extremely lucky with the day we picked to visit the waterfalls, on the 3rd day in Iguazu rain started again and we had the only really sunny day on the falls in the whole week.

Iguazu itself was amazing – of course the waterfalls, and all the more with the amount of water coming down there with the whole region being soaked with rain – but also the nature around is incredible: I had never seen so many butterflies, and for sure none ever before sitting on our hands, hats and backpacks all the time. We also saw humming birds, monkeys, all kinds of lizzards… Veeeery nice.

Birds waiting for tourists (and food) on the way to the waterfalls

and butterflies

Lots of butterflies

and they seemed to really like us

Garganta del Diablo - Devil's throat, from the argentinian side

a few more butterflies

Garganta del Diablo from further away

another butterfly from pretty close by

Someone who probably likes butterflies too

The Iguazu waterfalls on the argentinian side

below one of the boats we took a bit later - you can already imagine it's a pretty wet adventure

another waterfall - every single one has a name, but it's nearly 200 different ones I think

Queuing for our waterfall baptism

after the boat tour - though with 30 degrees or more every refreshment is well received

after the boat tour II

Ein Waran? (monitor lizard?!)

his bigger brother (on the left...)

View from the argentinian upper walk

Another view from the upper walk

A humming bird - Kolibri

Rieke is hungry

Another little visitor

That one was pretty persistent

In the evening we couldn't resist to try that Hostel's barbecue as well

though with a bit healthier touch now

Charming christmas decoration at Iguazu Airport

rain again - electricity went down again too, but luckily in the end we only had a 2 hr delay to Rio

Last view on the Iguazu falls from above

No change in Argentina…

This is not meant politically though I think the Peronistas govern this country for decades and here the Kirchner’s managed to do what the Clinton’s failed at in the US.

No, this is meant entirely monetary: it’s amazing! The whole country does not seem to have small change!!

I mean, you’re used to some degree of that problem when you are in countries like Ecuador or Bolivia, or Guatemala if you want: you go to a bank and withdraw the equivalent of 100 USD – and you get 2 bills of the equivalent of 50. Fantastic idea you think, that’s a worker’s monthly salary in one bill, great idea to fill the ATMs with these… But then you plan a bit and pay your next night bus ticket, hostel bill or whatnot with it first.

But Argentina! And here we are not talking about the equivalent of a worker’s wage. I am talking you go to a shop with a 20 pesos bill (5 USD…), buy a water, a juice and 2 empanadas which amounts to 15.50 pesos (as an example) – and the guy at the cashier looks at you with a sorry face: “do you have it smaller please?”. EVERYWHERE. And in50% of the cases they REALLY do not have any change – in the other 50% they act as if they do not have any, just in case for the next time they need that change again… Which makes it even worse: because everyone is so neurotic about small change nobody wants to hand the small bills out to anybody – you never know when you might really need them next time…

The most crazy example for me, so far: on the night bus to Iguazu we have ONE stop where we can buy water and some crackers etc., around midight. I arrive at the ONLY shop open there, want to buy the water, the crackers etc. – for 15 peso, with a bill of 50 pesos (12 USD). No change, sorry. Can’t sell you anything, sorry. HA. Luckily there was this nice guy from Heidelberg who just gave me a 10 pesos bill at least for the water.

Now there’s only 4 possible explanations for me:

• Small bills cost too much for the argentinian central bank, or they think “if I print a 2 pesos bill I can as well print a 100 pesos bill for the same price of ink and paper!”
• Small bills are rotting so fast – nobody uses wallets in south america, bills are kept straight in the pocket – they can’t be replaced fast enough?
• It’s an entirely psychological thing: someone started this “do you have it smaller” thing, then everyone started keeping their small money for “later”, that’s why it justdoesn’t circulate
• Someone eats the small bills…

Anyone with another good explanation?

PS: It took me THREE days to see my first argentinian coin! I am not kidding!!

18.-21.11.09: Salta, Cachi, Cafayate

(Disclaimer: the following accounts – and pictures – are not suitable for vegetarians… )

Initially we wanted to travel south in Chile from San Pedro de Atacama – but seeing the prices, and also considering that southern Chile still was a bit chilly and hopefully would warm up a bit in a few weeks, we decided to venture through northern Argentina to Iguazu and Rio first. Also I had not seen anything of northern Argentina in my last travels, so we came to see Salta and its sourroundings. And what a luck, it’s beautiful there! We could have easily spent a full week there too, so we only had 3 days on our schedule – and decided it was best to rent a car for 2 days and drive south to Cafayate and back on another route, both amazing. Or well, actually that was Gaëlle’s idea, the french girl we had met with Or on the border from Bolivia to Chile. Lucky once more.

But first we had a look at norther Argentina culinary treasures: steaks, steaks, steaks

The first steak in Argentina (one of many to follow) - 600 gramm bife de chorizo...

Or liked his too

So did Gaelle and Rieke

Next evening: making use of the barbecue at our hostel

A whole filet (800 gr) of the best quality bought in the local supermarket for 3 USD... the best meat I have ever eaten...

Some interesting facts about Argentina and its steaks:

• Until recently Argentina had a population of 96 million cows. With the current government putting a 35% export tax on beef (to keep farmers from exporting and making beef artificially cheaper in Argentina…) cow population has gone dramatically down and next year things might well be different on the beef market.
• Argentinians eat an average of around 150gr of beef per day…
• We bought whole pieces of fillet (= 800 gramms), the best of the best quality, for the equivalent of 3 USD, that is 2 EURO… If I remember right in Germany we pay some 40€ for a whole fillet piece
• But it just tastes incredible. I am not a big meat eater, e.g. I very seldom buy meat myself for cooking, and I do understand vegetarians pretty well – but here it’s just something else… The good part is: they live happily out on the vast meadows until their time has come

Our Gourmee

But enough about food here’s the fotos from our trip with the rented car to Cachí and Cafayate, amazing landscapes changing virtually every few kilometers:

Leaving Salta towards the countryside

Our car - no horn, doors did not always open, but it served us well

Climbing up to the pass (4.000m)

On the pass

Cactus fields

Big ones

Stopover in Cachi - beautiful little village

A light lunch... Gaelle had apparently challenged the owner of the place by saying the pieces of fillet looked smaller than the ones we had eaten the evening before - what came to our table was "slightly" bigger than the usual portion. Though the local white and red wine he had proudly poured us in well enough too helped. And Rieke driving the 2 hours afterwards too

From Cachi to Cafayate. At the car rental they had warned us about the bad roads - but actually this was almost better than most interstate highways in Peru and Bolivia

Vicuña farming

Church in the little village Merced

The local hotel - in the 17th century home of some spanish governor

Getting closer to the red cordillera

Driving through stone formations - apparently this was sea ground millions of years ago

Ayer's rock Argentian version

Red mountains on the left

...blue mountains on the right

Our hostel in Cafayate

Next morning, driving past kilometers and kilometers of vineyards

Then sand dunes

The big dune

Mud formations (the former sea ground still) - was this supposed to the the "castle"?

...or was this the "castle"...

The monk

Looking down on the whole valley

Looking for the entrance to "the Amphitheatre"...

There it is

In the "devil's throat"

Beautiful trip, all this in 24 hours.

…and then we had to run for the bus to Puerto Iguazu already.

15.-18.11.09: No cash in San Pedro de Atacama (Chile)

Próxima Parada: San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. Here I had been back in 1992 for a few days – back then it had 1 hotel, 3-4 hostels, 2 agencies offering tours to the Geyser, Salar and Valle de la Luna, and no electricity after 22h (which made for an incredible star filled sky at night at 2.400m in the desert with no other artificial light closer than in the 150km away Calama).

I also remember that I did the tour to Valle de la Luna with a very nice woman who said that she did worked with tours when there were enough tourists around, but actually was running for mayor in the next election and that she had big plans to make this the eco-tourism center of northern chile. I don’t remember her name, don’t know either if it was finally she or someone else who did it, but someone must have succeeded with that mission: San Pedro de Atacama has changed sooo much. In a really nice way btw., the only downside is that everything is not only made and presented in a very pretty way there, it has also become pretty expensive…

One thing though which reminded us of the “good” old times (and a bit surprisingly when you come to the “tourism center of the north”): there are a whole of 3 cash machines in the village – and all 3 of them were EMPTY when we arrived on a sunday afternoon… The last one apparently emptied by the german couple who took out 200.000 pesos just before my turn.

But no problems we were told: they will be filled again on Monday, or the latest on Tuesday, and on Thursday the bank bus comes anyway (no bank in town, just one bus from a bank coming in one day per week). Or you just take the bus to Calama and get money there – Calama is an 2 hr bus ride, one way…

We finally left San Pedro again on Wednesday, and still no money in the ATMs. So here comes the TOP TIP for San Pedro: bring cash, plenty of cash…

And many thanks again to our friend Or who lend us all the money until we arrived in Salta, Argentina, with him and could pay him back in Pesos.

With all that money back and forth we actually totally forgot to take any pictures from within the village, so here go some from the internet.

San Pedro de Atacama - main street

Church in San Pedro (2 of the ATMs are around the corner, in case you ever have to look for them - but don't expect too much )

We did take a lot of pictures from a very nice trip to Valle de la Luna – and most of all of one to a salt lagoon and the northern tip of Salar de Atacama.

Valle de la Luna:

On top of Valle de la Luna ("Moon valley")

Valle de los muertos - "Death valley", Chile version

Into the death valley

The big dune

Salt formations: the Angel / Dinosaur to the left, The three Marias to the right (why not three Victorias or Lauras, Sandras etc. nobody explained to us)

Hm, salty... surprising!

Sunset over Moon Valley

The salt lagoon (Laguna Cejas) and sunset in northern tip of Salar de Atacama – where we had the most beautiful sunset I have witnessed so far…:

...but considering that we were floating pretty well in Laguna Cejas, in the Death Sea people float on top of the the water?

just a bit cold there to stay too long - surprising, the desert is pretty hot but the water comes from the mountains was explained to us (and is quite deep)

Andreas a la sal

Rieke a la terre

The guide said the mud has medicinal properties... For sure it looked nice from the outside

The not so salty lagoon afterwards

And then for a sunset-pisco sour to the Salar

This one was so salty, you could actually WALK on it

o.k., it was very shallow... But I had never seen such colours in nature before

...

....

towards the Valle de la Luna

Pisco sour time

Pisco enhanced photo shooting

Pisco enhanced photo shooting II

Pisco enhanced photo shooting III (I had Rieke's too, that's why I jump higher )

Zombi feet after the salt walk

The last sun rays

Good bye Salar de Atacama

Coming up: No change in Argentina… (that’s not meant political, it’s purely monetary yet again)

12.-15.11. Salar de Uyuni

After La Paz we went to southern Bolivia, to see the famous and world’s biggest Salar de Uyuni (12.000 square kilometers of pure white, salt crusted desert…) as well as the national park with lagunas in all colours, flamingos and a geyser fielt on the bolivian-chilean border.

But first had to come another night bus – and yet another example of Bolivian Marketing:

• “The bus is a direct bus, just 1 stop and it takes 12hrs” – …after you have stopped a dozen times within La Paz it’s only actually 2 or 3 more, and of course it’s 14hrs, but hey, that’s just a bit more this time
• “Do you have movies on the bus?” – “Of course!” …the movie was a poster fixed over the spot where once was the TV

But much funnier example of Bolivian Marketing later “As opposed to some other agencies our drivers are responsable and never drink!” humm…

15 hrs nightbus from La Paz to Uyuni - that's how the road looked most of the time

Uyuni city center, nice place! (when there's no sand storm)

And here starts the 3 day Salar de Uyuni and National Park adventure: 1 Colombian, 2 Dutch, 1 Israeli and 2 Germans (ourselves) and a parttime drunken driver in a Jeep, crossing a the Salar, climbing up to 5000 meters, among volcanos, flamingos, ancient corral landscapes, geysers, hot springs, red and green lakes, sleeping in salt hostels and one without tab water – all in all, with the exception of the 2nd day which was a bit stressful to keep the driver A. on the road and B. awake a fantastic experience! Oh, and not to forget dice games “with the adviiiice… to pass it on!”

Day 1:

Part 1: The train cemetery near Uyuni - piling up old trains since 1945

Trains...

...trains...

No worries here, trains come Tuesdays and Thursdays

Main square of a village in the Salar. That's a dusty life...

Lunch with our little family - we were extremely lucky on this trip (not counting the driver's 2nd day....) the nicest group we've met so far!

In the salt desert

Sal primera, sal tercera...

The illegal Salt Hotel - in the middle of the national park, an illegal structure, but nonetheless it stays there and every tour passes by there. Well, guess keeps existing there for the same reasons Hotels can be on the coastline in protected areas in Spain

Unendliche Weiten

Cactus on "Fish Island"

On Fish Island - actually no fish there, but million year old coralls

Unendliche Weiten 2

Sagrada Familia?

The "quarry" for the salt hotel and other salt buildings

Our salt hostel at the boarder of Salar Uyuni where we spent the first night - with double room and hot water, luxury!

Salt hostel at night fall

Dinner with our little family - and afterwards 3 hrs of dice games - "with the adviiiice to pass it on" from Eqypt to Israel, priceless!

Day 2: Tunupa volcano, Stone tree, Red lagoon – and 12hrs of watching over a drunken driver…

Sunrise in the salt desert (and what a pity we could not catch the star sky at night with our cameras, you could see the entire milky way...)

Playing with the Llamas - we also had plenty of time, since our driver who had had the fantastic idea of drinking until early in the morning with another driver had just forgotten about us and was somewhere a few hundred meters away and around the corner - we found him after 45 minutes and he acted pretty surprised we had taken that long there (only he forgot to tell us that he would not come back but wait for us somewhere). Still, better than the other group whose driver had hitten a few walls with the jeep on the way from the salt hostel to this stop....

This is when our Jeep broke down on the next stretch - we decided this was to be our lucky day

Tunupa Volcano at 5.000 something meters (again...)

This green thing is a bog / lichen (deutsch: Moos, Flechte...) which must have been a thousand years old - not that any guide would have told us anything on this tour, but I remember I had been on the altiplano 15 years ago and someone had told me that these things grow a square milimeter per year or so... Unfortunately they also burn pretty well and so they had been almost extinguished everywhere where there had been mines with the need for cheap combustives

Then came the flamingo lakes

Just the lakes were amazing, with water in different colours, flat like mirrors

More flamingos - and they must eat all the time, at least I don't remember we've seen many one of them with the head up (but of course, now meantioning it: this here seems to be an exception)

walking a bit between two meals...

between two lakes

Vicuñas grazing

Flamingos grazing

From the lagoons to the "Stone tree" - that was the point where our driver was falling asleep every 2 minutes, and commented our attempts to keep him the f... awake with the legendary sentence "don't worry if I fall asleep, the road is good here"

The stone tree

Our camp for the second night - no water, no double rooms, but in an amazing landscape

...the red lagoon!

What is red is really the water, was it iron and sulfur?...

Day 3: Getting up at 4.30h in the morning (this time for real) to see the Geysers at sunrise, say quickly hello the green lagoon and be in time for our transfer bus to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

At the geyser field at 6 am

This is an artificial geyser, a drilling done for the energy plant there

Not recommended for a hot bath here

Hot springs a few kilometers further down

VERY recommended for a hot bath here (even though or just because it's below 0º air temperature when you arrive there early in the morning)

...only getting out again is a bit of a challenge

From the hot springs to the green lagoon

Last group picture at the green lagoon: Or, Makram, myself, Rieke, Omaira and Tom (from left)

The white lagoon, a few hundred meters further

The bolivian-chilean border near San Pedro de Atacama - 500m behind that post my first spotless asphalt road since Costa Rica Kulturschock

Racism?

A story which came to my mind now, having been in Chile and Argentina after many weeks of Ecuador and Peru:

When we were travelling in Galapagos we once went with a taxi-driver, really nice guy btw., and chatting away he suddenly asked me how was it about racism in our countries and what did I think about it living in Spain. I was a bit surprised about the question, but then he explained to me that he had cousins who were living in Spain and there it apparently happened all the time that they were adressed as “Indios”… Well, I remembered a few stories from my ex-housemate Elise who told about other not so nice experiences travelling with black/coloured friends from Canada and UK in rural Spain and had to answer “well, yes, sometimes people can be a bit stupid over there – but I’d say it’s really rather a minority”.

Now after having been travelling through Ecuador and Peru – nations with mixed populations which claim oh to be so political correct about races and different origins of their populations – and now being back in countries which remind me a bit more of good old Europe, my answer would have maybe been a bit more elaborate

• everywhere we went in Ecuador and Peru (and Guatemala before) people call me “Gringo”, doesn’t always have a too nice sound to it either
• almost everywhere in those countries it’s a huge struggle to pay less for stuff than 50% more of what the local population pays (or other non-european/american looking people for that matter). Even when you ask a totally unrelated person about a price of a local bus, a taxi and whatnot  it’s a rare moment of revelation when that person tells you the actual bus or taxi fare straight away somebody could listen to them giving away the secret?
• when we watched TV or I bought newspapers the actors as well as fotos of editorial staff, reporters etc. could have been taken from any European country
• in the bigger cities it’s a funny game to see a car and guess how “white” the driver would be – the more expensive the whiter the people

…talking about racism in Europe of course I don’t want to downplay anything, but it’s funny to see the differences in perception.

8.-11.11.: La Paz and “World’s most dangerous road”

After many days with culture or pure nature we had to do some real touristy stuff then – also highly recommended by Oliver who did this a few years ago: the mountain bike downhill trip on the “World’s most dangerous road” near La Paz.

Unfortunately we had to pay this 1.75 times %) as I became sick again the exact night before the trip* we had already paid and they had a no refund policy, but then again we really wanted to do this trip – where else can you ride down from 4.700m to 1.100m in one go on a 64km long descend – and we were decided to do this with the best company possible as you really don’t want to have any trouble with a not so well serviced bike when right next to you there’s a 600m abyss.

(*TOP TIP La Paz: Brush your teeth with mineral water…)

But first, getting into La Paz from Lake Titicaca, what great views on the city:

View on La Paz at 3.600m, arriving with the bus from Lake Titicaca

And here’s the trip on “WMDR” – catchy marketing abbreviation btw.

Some special features: the second part of the trip, which goes the actual “most dangerous road” is not only a mostly one line gravel road with no walls or other limitations whatsoever to the abyss besides you, but you also have to go down on the LEFT, where it goes up to 600m straight down – the reason being that as a car or truck driver driving on the left side down you can see exactly where you can still put your tyres before you fall off the cliff, as you actually sit on the side where it goes down.

As a biker driving on the left side near the cliff has no other advantage than not hitting the cars coming up – as well as some added thrill driving only a meter from that cliff Which in turn makes you drive quite a bit more carefully. Though considering the warning stories of our guides as well as the amount of crosses on the roadside not everyone was always more careful…

Getting ready for the 64km descend from 4.700m altitude to 1.100m...

First part is asphalt (and big trucks)

Then comes the nicer part - not that difficult in itself, but gravel and going down as far as 600m on your left side

Getting greener down there

...and much much warmer

At the end of the trip there was a nice suprise with the company we chose: lunch at a animal rescue station – they take on and care for animals from illegal animal trade, mistreatment etc.: from parrots to all kinds of monkeys. It’s a beautiful place where we could have also stayed over night, but we just didn’t think before it would be THAT nice! So we just stayed the afternoon, and had a great time anyways.

.

Blue parrots at the animal rescue farm

...and red parrots

...and lots of monkey business!

Monkey on my back

They ARE sweet

...that was almost advertising to take one home maybe not the intended effect of an animal rescue farm

On our way back we see a car having gone down the the precipice... Fortunately the only 2 passengers survived! But what a luck: the driver of one of the other bike tours had fallen asleep, with one woman sitting in the car who was too tired or too afraid of going down further by bike. Great idea: the car had gone down STRAIGHT the hill (just where the people stand on the right), but fortunately did not roll down but actually going on the wheels, finally being stopped after 50m by the trees...

7.-8.11.: Copacabana / Lago Titicaca, Bolivia

So we ventured from Cusco La Paz, making a stop at Copacabana on Lake Titicaca to rest a bit after the night bus.

Impressions from an extremely peaceful border:

...to walk the dog... who could resist? They got my 2 bolivianos

View on Copacabana - and the hill we finally did not climb. There's a limit, no more climbs up to over 3.700m for this month. If anyone has a picture from the for sure fantastic view from up there, we'll be happy to post it for you

…btw, no more Inca ruins either this month we decided – so we did not visit Isla del Sol, Isla de la Luna, Isla del Pluto and whatnot… After all it’s just some more stones. O.k., Kulturbanausen but really, did you realize that when you look at the Inca ruins fully restored with their straw roof they actually only look half as impressive? Oh, not even a quarter. And funnily enough, there’s quite a lot of fully restored Inca temples and housings now, but try to find any picture of them on the Internet – nobody takes a foto of them because they’d look just like another indigineous hut. And considering that the romans build their colosseum 1.500 years before Machu Pichu, any Rhine castle is older than Pisac or Ollantaytambo and did not need a straw roof, well, you get my point. Or am I making some enemies here. Of course they are all great sites, all different history, just mentioning it for perspective…

Popcorn in all colors and sizes in Copacabana, as in any Bolivian city we saw. Though I never saw anyone buying a pack actually

View on Lake Titicaca from the bus

Country life around Lake Titicaca

They also waited for the...

(for the ferry see also Bolivian Marketing)

...Ferry.