Author Archives: ladina

Seclusion in Montaña Grande

by ladina

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged
to find ways in which you yourself have altered.

 — Nelson Mandela

 

The smells are still the same: the smoke from the burning fire in the kitchen, the steaming dark Costa Rican coffee in the mug, the scent of the dogs and of the horses in the garden.

The sounds are still the same: a rooster crows, a dog barks, Angela shouts unintelligibly at Macha’s house, Rigo hammers a nail in a log, the telecaster babbles along though nobody watches.

The earth is still mercilessly scorched by the sun. No wind stirs. There is no escaping from the heat.

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Wiederseh in New York

by ladina

Wär hätti je dänggt, wo mir uns vor über mne Johr in Basel verabschiedet hän, dass mir uns in New York wieder träffe würde?

Damals sin d USA nid mol uf unserer Reiseroute gstande. Won ich allerdings ghört ha, dass dr Kaspar und d Fabienne im April uf New York göhn und d Salome au in däm Monet uf ere Studiereis dört verbigo wird, han ich plötzlich afo Plän schmiede. Worum au nid uf New York — e Wältstadt wo mich scho immer greizt het — wenn mir das au no mit mne Träffe vo däne liebe Lüt verbinde könnte? S Flugticket nach San Francisco hän mir jo scho ka und vo dört an d Ostküste isch es fascht e Katzesprung.

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In the Bay Area

by ladina

The Caltrain came to a halt and dozens of IT specialists from different companies located in the Silicon Valley spilled out of the suburban train. As we waited for them to clear the way before getting on, our backpacks shouldered and exhausted from the twelve-hour flight from Auckland to San Francisco, a man with Google Glasses caught my eyes. Was he screening me? Or just checking his emails while walking? I could not stop staring at him. It was surreal and frightening. The doors of the train beeped, calling me back to reality,  and I swiftly got on the train before the doors closed behind me.

Oh brave new world; that is quite a change from the isolated, calm New Zealand to the heart of today’s technological development area. Hello Silicon Valley!

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Recipes against homesickness

by ladina

After one whole year of traveling, I had the first real blow of homesickness when we arrived in Wellington. I longed for my own room, my family and friends, for Swiss German, known places and European food. Constantly being on the move, meeting unknown people, discovering new places and cultures — I was fed up with all those realities that are the traveler’s day-to-day life. I needed a break, time to breathe and recover. Cooking my favourite dishes, drinking coffee and chatting with beloved ones on the other side of the globe helped a lot to ease my sadness and to start thinking forward again.

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South Island: leftovers

by ladina

The last two weeks on New Zealand’s South Island consisted in a lot of driving and stopping on the way at famous sights. From the alpine scenery in Mount Cook National Park, we crossed the Alps to reach the West Coast with its famous Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers that are partly embedded in rainforest; only to arrive, a few hundred kilometers further north, at the marvelous beaches of Abel Tasman National Park. At the end of this road trip, I felt very tired for we changed our campsite every night and did not have time to relax properly. In this sense, I was relieved when we finally boarded the ferry to cross the Cook Strait and reach the North Island. But it also meant leaving this marvelous, diversified part of the world behind us…

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On the Milford Road

by ladina

Intrigued by the pictures of Milford Sound that haunted us from tourist guidebooks and postcards, we set out to discover New Zealand’s most famous fjord on our own. The Milford Road, probably one of the most spectacular highways I ever drove on and which leads — as the name suggests — to the sound, invited us to stop at many sites to absorb the beauty of nature. Once arrived at Milford Sound, a two-hour cruise took us through the fjord and out to the open sea. The crisp air, the morning sun and the misty clouds hanging in the green mountains composed a serenity that brought deep pleasure to my heart. The pictures only convey a small impression of the whole scenery, but being there, living it, proved me once again how precious traveling is, allowing you to feel those places.

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Otago Peninsula, New Zealand

by ladina

New Zealand, one of the countries on the very top of my list, awaited us with new adventures: the very first and most demanding consisted in driving on the “wrong” side. We decided to rent a small car for our time in NZ, a little extra to our backpacker’s existence which would allow us to visit more secluded places and give us a whole new feeling: freedom to go wherever we wanted to, whenever it pleased us, without depending on others.

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