jeroen oorschot

Biomass practice: it is mainly about variation

2011-05-30T07:12:00.000-07:00

De praktijk: "het gaat vooral om variatie" (door S. van Gils)

Interview met Jeroen Oorschot, VVA Magazine mei 2011, 'Streekhoutmarkt is onvolwassen',

pp 8-9

Biomass from forestry

2011-04-03T07:44:00.000-07:00

I was member of the discussion panel in Vakblad Natuur Bos Landschap of Februari 2011 (pp 8-9), as it went about sustainability of biomass from forests. Is it in contradiction with dead wood and biodiversity creation? My reaction is to be summarized as: I can imagine the fear for taking too much biomass from the forest soil. But it clearly depents on the type (fertileness) and development stadium of the soil. It does not look like biomass yield in forestry in the Netherlands has increased much. Forest owners should look at it as an investment in the quality of their stands (logistics, species mix) and timber; it's a way to manage young forests with more benefits!

Virgin forests, wetlands and wolves poops in Poland

2011-01-03T02:41:00.000-08:00

Report "Oerbos, nattigheid en wolvenkeutels" KNBV foreign forestry excursion Bialowieza and Biebrza 18-24 sept. 2010

By Jeroen Oorschot and Casper de Groot; Vakblad Natuur, Bos, Landschap, Wageningen, november 2010.

Extended excursion report on http://www.knbv.nl/ Editors: Jeroen Oorschot, Casper de Groot and Onno de Bruijn.

Winter camping in Sauerland

2011-01-03T02:20:00.000-08:00

Camping at minus 13 (especially breakfast is freezing, but we still fry eggs), hiking through half a meter of snow and ice - the WinterExperience 2010 was great again!

This pic made by Bertil

Happy new year to everyone!

Fl'eau Rafting: two silver medalls!

2010-06-11T08:51:00.000-07:00

My sister's raft-team Fl'eau did it again: they won the open Dutch championship in France and became second at the European championship in Italy! So they placed themselves to join the World championship in Costa Rica! CONGRATULATIONS!

Watch: www.shesports.nl/artikel/252/raften-twee-keer-zilver-op-ek.html and

http://www.teamfleau.nl/

Performance of HMN in Utrecht

2010-06-04T03:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, His Master's Noice played at the opening party of the new Food and Goods Authority nVWA of the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture in the Jaarbeurs Halls of Utrecht.

We had a great performance for about 2100 people!

Bigband HAN zoekt muzikanten!

2010-05-01T07:59:00.001-07:00

Kijk voor meer info op http://www.bigbandhan.nl/

Space for biomass

2010-01-28T06:29:00.001-08:00

Ruimte voor biomassa - Het verzamelen van houtafval heeft potentie

Publicatie in Grondig (1, 2010, CUMELA Nijkerk), pag. 48-49, door: M. Boertjes, J. Oorschot, M. Boosten, J. Oldenburger en J. van den Briel

Ghana is impressive

2009-10-25T11:41:00.000-07:00

Ghana was impressive! Within a few hours we'll fly home again and now we are waiting for diner and our flight, with a cool beer at the swimming pool of the hotel (how bad...). Today we visited the capital Accra, with massive government buildings and statues and people living in terribly poor conditions beside them, which really shocked me again after my experiences in Indonesia and South America. At about 30 degrees C and moist weather, it really feels tropic and sweaty. Fortunately Accra is sited at the Atlantic Ocean so we had a bit of sea winds blowing, and more fortunately the hotel's pool was great to cool down after our city trip. Below you'll find some pics, made by Jan-Frans because I could not empty my camera yet.

Degraded tropical forest: all the way from Accra up north we only saw these pictures instead of dense forests with ancient trees! Here you see illegaly planted pepper plants.

Overloaded transport on bad roads cause many accidents and break downs...

Visiting world heritage near Kumasi
Accra beach - the white building is Osu castle, from which once slaves were transported all over the world. Nowadays the Ghana parliament is settled there.
The harbour with wooden fishing boats. In the harbour we saw shocking poor slums
Jeroen passing an ancient British fort and fish drying on the pavement

Greetz from Ghana!

2009-10-19T14:33:00.000-07:00

It's been many months since I wrote my last blog. Lots of things have happened since, but the most important thing is that I'm very much in love with Loes! This feels great. We went on holiday to the Loire region in France and to Luzern and the Swiss Alps last summer. Just before, I had some trouble with my leg so we took it easy with hiking in the mountains. But it was great and we visited Naín and all Freiburg forestry master friends in Luzern and Torsten, Ulli and Libby in Freiburg. We also did some motorbike trips and visited the Dutch beach a few times, which was great and relaxing!

Furtheron, I'm busy as usual with work, scout's chairmanship and cook on a summer camp, big band, motorbiking (some nice trips with the scouts, my dad and Loes to Belgium and Germany this summer) and forestry society. And for my job, my colleague Jan-Frans and I hopped on to an airplane at 6.15 this morning in order to fly to Ghana! So I got up at 2.50 am this morning and now I'm blogging from my hotel room in Accra at 23.45 (which is 21.45 Central African Time), so it's been quite a day! But we drove to Amsterdam, flew to Frankfurt and then to Accra. We could walk to the Airport View Hotel, but many taxidrivers tried to talk us into their cabs. This evening, we had a nice lokal Ghana meal with two forestry experts, which was very interesting. We could end the evening in the hotel bar watching soccer with some hotel employees and now I'm blogging... And I'm very excited for actually being in AFRICA, where we will be for the rest of this week!

A nice beer at the hotel pool after a long journey View from my hotel room

I don't think I will continue blogging that frequent as I used to do a few years ago, because of my busy days at the moment, but I might write someting special if something nice occurs, like this great trip. But don't hesitate to mail or skype, cause I really like to stay in contact with all my good friends in Europe, the America's, Indonesia and Africa.

So for now greetz from Ghana, time to catch some sleep...

Roelian's rafting team 4th on Worldchampionship in Bosnia

2009-05-26T07:27:00.000-07:00

Congratulations Teva Revolution Rafting Team with this great performance last week! Even better: at the sprint games, they became WORLD CHAMPION! More info to be found at http://www.revolutionrafting.nl/

Teva Revolution Rafting Team in action near Oss in january 2009!

Bigband HAN zoekt muzikanten!

2009-04-07T02:04:00.000-07:00

The logistic chain of woody biomass out of forest, nature and landscape in the Netherlands

2009-03-04T11:56:00.000-08:00

Report: "De logistieke keten van houtige biomassa uit bos, natuur en landschap in Nederland: stand van zaken, knelpunten en kansen"

By: Martijn Boosten, Jan Oldenburger, Jeroen Oorschot, Martijn Boertjes
& Jaap van den Briel

To be downloaded at: http://www.probos.net/home/pdf/090303%20Eindrapport%20-%20Biomassa%20praktisch%20bekeken.pdf

Probos Foundation - Borgman Forestry Consultancy - Biomassa Stroomlijn

Wageningen, january 2009

Loads of news but no post...

2008-12-31T03:22:00.000-08:00

Well there's a lot to tell about the nicest and prettiest girl of Nijmegen and far surroundings called Loes, but I think this is not ment for the world wide web at this moment. So keep on waiting Joost, the post will come...

I can tell you about my camping trip through the Ardennes of the past days after Christmas though: with Léon, Annina, Mark, Bertil, Sanne, Anne and Lian we went at -10 degrees through the Ardennes between Remouchamps and Coo: frozen eggs to fry in the morning, ice and frozen evapouration in my tent etc... It was quite hard this year, but great weather and superb athmosphere on the other side!

And further on, Léon and I have been decorated with the bronze medall of appreciation of the Dutch Scouts Association by our Scouts group. Mark and our colleagues of the board have organised this great surprise after 14 years of leadership, organising activities and chairmanship - it really is a great honour and we both were quite speechless, which sais someting indeed...

A happy 2009 for everyone!

Jeroen

From summer till winter

2008-11-23T09:41:00.000-08:00

My last post dates from August, as I had just returned from Indonesia. The monday after the saturday that I arrived back home, I started working again - we had loads and loads of work to do! Since then, I have been working until last week, as I took a short break, because I was getting tired, had to spend my extra working hours and wanted to drive motorbike with my dad before it was getting too cold and icy on the roads.

Last wednesday and thursday, my dad and I drove a great route: following IJsseldijk from Dieren to Kampen (we had lunch in Zalk where Klazien has lived!), then through the Flevopolder and crossing the Houtribdam to Enkhuizen. We had a coffee break in Medemblik and then we went to the Afsluitdijk and into Friesland. I Workum we found a nice place to stay at the Van der Valk farmhouse, very nice people (no relatives of...) and a nice appartment with a slight cow manure smell... The first day had been great weather, the second was forecasted a lot worse but in the end it was ok. There was a lot of wind and I got cold feet on the highway, but furtheron, the worst rain was while we had lunch at a bakery. Actually, we wanted to drive to the Ardennes to visit Roelian and Geert, but it was freezing there and loads of whet leaves on the roads, so we decided to cancel that.

There was another reason why I wanted to ride motorcycle so badly: I bought a "new" bike: Yamaha 750 Super Ténéré from 1989. It had some electrical problems that my father solved, so during the trip it did a great job! It's a great bike to ride, it only still has some problems starting cold and humid in the morning...

We were back home in time, because thursday was quite stormy and since friday, it's snowing in the Netherlands! My cats have cold feet and problems to keep upright while running through the garden, but furtheron it's great!

The rest of the autumn, I did some nice things:
- visit to my sister and Geert in Belgium
- wedding of my niece Elke and Matthew in Amsterdam
- excursion with the Forestry Society to Belgium, Germany and Southern Netherlands. I had to organise this trip with Reyer, Meine, James and Marnix and I drove the van, which was nice to do but quite tiring as well!

- a paintball session and barbecue with all our scouts leaders
- visited a concert of Het Gelders Orkest with Carel Kraayenhof on bandoneon (very nice!)
- motorbike trip with our Scouts' bike club
- wine tastery at Chris' winery S-akker and luxurious dinner with my jazz combo in a restaurant
Pics made by Chris

- guest player in the Noviomagum Wind Orchestra (a great experience in a very good classical orchestra)
- two days of felling trees - one in the Ardennes with dad, Roelian and Geert and one with Léon and Gerard in Drenthe. Very nice work and I still had the chainsaw techniques under controll, only in the Ardennes, my car broke down. It had to be picked up by the Belgian AA service and to be transported back to the Netherlands, where it officially has been classified as "economically dead". Well done Jeroen... So now I drive a VW Polo 1.4 - the best forestry car there is!

Now, St. Nicolas and Christmas are coming (snow is already there...), I'm looking forward to see many friends, go camping etc.

Bye! Jeroen

Belanda Goreng

2008-08-18T11:55:00.000-07:00

I'm back in the Netherlands, after two days of travelling over tarmac and through the air! My parents picked me up at the Düsseldorf airport, it was very nice to see them again and to be taken home by car. And there my cats were waiting, although they were a bit scared after one month of not seeing me.

I thought I would not be having that much news about the last day in the jungle, but there is some: I went to the monkey feeding (monkeys who cannot live in the forest all by them selves are being fed and hopefully reintroduced into wildlife). With another Dutch guy and an English girl, we were early and we were already brought over the river in the canoo by some boys. A ranger and his young daughter came too, and all of a sudden there appeared an orang utan. The little girl started screaming because the monkey came too close and took her bag. So the father tried to get the monkey away and to push it on the ground, like in a pub fight. But since orang utans are six times stronger than men, this did not work out quite well and the monkey bit the man, a part of his finger was off! We took the girl in a safe position and brought the man back to shore by canoo to visit a doctor. This was quite an experience. The feeding show afterwords was quite relaxed though. It appeares again that it is still about nature and wild life, and that we are interfering in it...
The evening I spent in the restaurant of my own hostel, singing and playing harmonica with a few guides who could play guitar very well (although they don't know much lyrics, they just sing "fake English"...). It was a very nice evening that went on late.

The next day it was time to leave Bukit Lawang. On the one hand, it was a pity because it was a great place with nice people and stunning nature, but on the other hand, I had enough of my hostel (a toilet with the shower above it leeking, to you were getting wet while visiting the toilet, and a very old and stinky mattress...) and most of my stuff was getting humid, laundry was not drying and my shoes were still wet. So time to leave... With two German guys, I took the bus back to Medan. I had plenty of time, so I spent the afternoon visiting a street with some old colonial buildings and a nice pub where they even sold saucijsebroodjes! On the airport, I had dinner and talked with a taxi driver, and then went to check in. But my plane to Singapore was one hour late, so I had to wait more.
Then, we flew to Singapore, transited to another plane and flew to Colombo and Dubai. We arrived there at 5.30 am and my plane to Düsseldorf would leave at 14.30, so I had plenty of time to visit the city. And I had prepared this by tellling the customs in Medan that I would like to check out in Dubai. At 8.45, after a nice breakfast and some reading (finally there were English newspapers again!) there came a tourist operator who could organise a city tour, so with some other tourists, they drove us through the city. It was amazing, we saw the artificial islands with the palm shapes, we saw the highest building in the world (800m!), we visited the beach near an extremely expensive hotel, a museum about ancient Dubai (city of pearl divers, traders and fishermen) and we visited a clothing and furniture store with carpets of about 25,000 Euro's! It was a very relaxed trip, although we drove around in an airconditioned car, and outside the car it was 46 degrees, that was hard! I could not imagine living there... Unfortunately my digital camera was full, so I only have analogue pictures of this trip.

And then it was time to leave for Düsseldorf - a great trip had come to an end. I'm very glad I did it, was sometimes shocked about the poverty, primitiveness and traffic (especially while driving the motorbike) but it is a great country with nice people and food and great nature and landscape! The title of this text is "Belanda goreng" which means "fried Netherlands". I never met people who tried to convince me of their religion, no Muslims, Buddhists, Hinduists or Christians, everyone was very nice and open minded. But especially on Sumatra, they did have criticism at the Dutch colonial time (therefore fried Netherlands) and of course they were right, although it's two generations ago as it stopped. At the 17th of August, Indonesia celebrated it's 63rd year of independence, which is a good thing I think...

Below you'll find some nice pictures of my trip, and some small movies (without sound)!

Bye, Jeroen

Amazing (sweaty) wildlife:
Like th e bloom of a banana t ree: and the Jati tree, which is called teak wood too:

Sumatr an pa l m oil plantations, and the palm fruits being transported to the refinery

Pigeon run in Dieng

Carved cow skulls at Bali and the sudden end of a beach road...

You see loads of happy kids, but child labour too!

Scout's g roup on Java

Jungle fever

2008-08-13T21:31:00.000-07:00

A long bus ride a few days ago brought me, after three times a bus change and sitting in a bus of which I thought: no idea if it really goes the way that I want... But finally I made it to Lake Toba. We crossed by ferry and it was a superb view over a huge lake, with high mountain walls rising from it. That and nice weather gave me a real paradise-holiday feeling. I came in a quite nice hotel, with a small beach for swimming in the lake! This was the first thing I did next morning, because you have to be able to tell that you swom in one of the biggest lakes of South East Asia... As I was waiting to meet Anton and Kirsten, friends from forestry university, and Emma who I met in the plane on my way to Indonesia, I kept my cell phone on (they both had delay) but went on a bike trip up to the island of Samosir. This has had the animist religion, and until 1860 there were cannibals.

Great Lake Toba and an ancient Batak house.

After visiting some ancient villages, I tried to cycle up the mountains, but this was very hard. I climbed for two hours at first or second gear, wondering how on earth the Tour the France cyclists manage this with more than 5 kmh, and then I returned, because I was exhausted and hungry... But very nice it was, and great views over the lake!

The night before, I finally managed to buy an English written book, after weeks of not being able to read anytning, simply because there was not anything to buy in English. So that was great relaxing, but I also met a nice couple who lived next door in my hotel. Roy was constructor, building another hotel, and his wife Analisa and little boy were visiting him. Analisa was glad to be able to practice some English and we had nice contact, but they hardly had money to eat something, so I bought them a drink and a breakfast. It keeps hard, those difference between you being a rich tourist and them being extremely poor (it must be hard for them too...).

The next day I visited Anton and Kirsten and this was very nice, we talked for hours. And in the evening, I had a nice dinner and chat with Emma, which was very nice too. It were very relaxed days on Samosir, but then it was time to move on to the final and most exciting part of my trip! With Anton and Kirsten, we decided to go to the jungle together and travelled all day to Medan and on to Bukitt Lawang. This is a small village which was heavily damaged by a major flood a few years ago, which killed over 400 people! So almost everyone in this village has lost relatives, but they go on, they live from ecotourists who come for a trekking in the rain forest. We had a nice evening with our guide Dony, who had acompanied us from Medan already, and we played some music together (I had been carrying my harmonica for almost a month and finally could use it now!).

Anton and Kirsten on the ferry from Samosir

The next morning, we went trekking, the three of us, acompanied by two guides! We hiked in silence, because the goal was to see as much animals as possible. It was very hard work, because it was warm and very humid, so you kept on sweating, but great, amazing! We saw meranti, jati (teak), merbau and danbar trees, the ones we (ab)use to build windows etc. And here they were protected and huge! Illegal logging in this Gunung Leuser National Park is stopped because they involved the loggers into guiding, which works great - everyone is convicted about the inportance of the forest and the environment, so you hardly find any rubbish on the streets, and not at all in the forest (in contradiction with the rest of Indonesia...). Therefore they burn their rubbish...

We hiked with just a little gear, I had my big back pack but they told my to leave my jacket and fleece blanket, because I was carrying too much (I'm used to hiking in European circumstances...) The first day we saw one orang utan, white gibbons, "funky monkeys" (Thomas Leave Monkey) and Macaques, that was great! Then, after following a river for a while (I had to change shoes and stocking because of getting wet, which is really a handicap now and then) we came at the camp site: a great spot next to a small river, cascade which could be used for bathing and a tent made from bamboo and " agricultural" (?) thin black plastic. We had a swim and then dinner was ready: fish from the big river barbecued on camp fire, and rice, great flavoured sauces etc! Then a tea and night instruction: if you want to go peeing, wake up a guide so they know you're gone and don't leave your flash light too close while peeing, because a very poisonous and rapid Fire snake might come to the light and bite you! And don't sleep next to your mattress, because there are some scorpion-like insects who might bite... A nice thought to go sleeping. But sleeping didn't happen until 1 am, when the heavy rain stopped again, which started at sunset. Very heavy rain meant the river rising very quickly, and other rivers starting to exist, which was quite anxious, because we needed to cross the river the next morning and our tent was not build that high above the river! The tent wasn't really waterproof as well, we used my hiking poles and some mugs to improve it, but still Kirsten and Antons mattress went wet a bit. So it was a tense evening but in the end it went okay and we went to sleep.

Our shelter and our cook preparing dinner

The next day it was perfect weather again and we hade a great breakfast: our cook made toast and scramled eggs in a wok with palm oil on camp fire! Then we started hiking again, starting with crossing the river which went down as fast as it had came up. That morning after hiking in silence again, we saw some hornbills (tukans) flying! Because Dony could imitate their sound, he had directed them towards us, this was great and very special! He also showed us many healing plants, like e.g. against malaria and fever. And then we saw the second Orang utan, eating and hanging at a liane, and we had plenty of time to make photographs! It was amazing! After that, we rafted downriver on tractor tubes, a great trip through a deep, rocky and forested valley.

Find the Orang Utan!

After drying everything and washing in the river, we ate together and played music again, with a big group of people but no one really knew lyrics of songs... I said goodbye to Anton and Kirsten, because they would go home the day after. It had been very nice trekking with them.

The next day I hired a guide who would bring me to elephants! With three guides, two motorbikes (quite a big escort...) we had to drive 30km on unpaved rocky/muddy forest roads (the real Camel Trophy feeling...) to ride to Tangahan. There were the small Sumatra elephants, which were great. I could ride on them for two hours, I even was allowed to sit on it's neck, where the driver usually sits! Quite hard to keep sitting because of the movement of the elephant's shoulders, but I managed. Then we had to drive back the 30 km. We started at 16h but we had three flat tires and heavy rain. So my shoes were wet (the water came from above and from the front wheel) and we took a break at the place of a friend of one of the guides. We were all soaked so we got hot tea, which was great. In than village, the muslim prayer was sung by a kid and spread through the village by megaphones (like everywhere in Indonesia, even at 5am...). Then we could drive home, in the dark, on the unpaved, hilly and muddy roads/ruck tracks, sometimes running behind the motorcycle and pushing it. Finally we were home at 20h! It had been exhausting but great!

Elephant ride and the first repair break of a flat tire...

Today I'm relaxing, sitting bare feet in the internet cafe because of the wet shoes, and preparing for my trip back to Medan tomorrow, and my flight back to Duesseldorf, where my parents will pick me up again. It has been a great experience, a month goes so fast than! Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! When I'm home, I hope to post some movies I made - this takes too long in the internet cafes...

Bye, Jeroen

Sumatra Highlands

2008-08-06T03:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Joost convinced me of placing another story, and today I had some time and I needed to empty my camera, so here it is:

Today, I climbed about the lowest peak of Sumatra with 2000m (starting in Berastagi at 1000m), but after the last time I wrote, I climbed the huge Gunung Agung of Bali, which is about 3100m (although we did not reach the real summit since it was on the other side of the vulcano, so we came till almost 3000m, starting at 900m). To climb it, transport came at midnight. We drove two hours with a very friendly and english speaking driver. Then we had a small breakfast and I went climbing, together with my guide Klotok. It was a very hard climb (2000m in 3.5hrs in the dark with only 3hrs of sleep...), but then we saw the sunrise from the top and this was really worth it! We (me and about 20 other tourists and guides) felt like being on top of the world, because we were above the clouds. And you could see the highest vulcano peaks of Java. On our way up Klotok had to stop for a pray for our safety, which was very interesting. It was very cold at the summit, so I wrapped myselve in a matress to sit on and a rain trousers... On the top, the batteries of my camera were empty, so I have more analogue pics than digital ones... We went down in about 2.5 hrs and then had to drive back again. Then I was broken and fell asleep. At the summit of Gunung Agung at about 5.30 in the morning (still lauching..)

That night, I went out for dinner with my neighbours Vincent and Evita which was very nice. We ate a real German dinner with Bratwurst!

Mother and kid monkey in Ubud.

After another day of relaxing, visit Ubud's Monkey Forest (with free but well fed monkeys) and picking up the last nice souvenirs (very nice carved wood!), I took the plane to Jakarta and to Medan-Sumatra. Although, I wanted to, but I had two hours delay in Jakarta. That's why when I arrived, I stayed for the night in Medan, which is another poor 2 million people city, of which I had actually seen enough on Java. That night I also lost my digital camera (and found it again, thanks to the barkeepers of the cafe I had been eating!) and could not sleep because of street and hostel noice. So it was time to leave Medan for Berastagi. One funny thing about Medan: there are not many tourists coming, because I felt like being game: everybody lauched at me and shouted "hello mister!". Only the taxi- and becakdrivers are not that greedy of a ride like in the Java cities and Bali, and that's nice. Everything stinks after exhaust smoke in Medan, even the Becaks are motorised here... And Medan street kids: first they ask for a pen or a candy, then for money, but then a picture is ok as well...

To Berastagi I came by public transport: a van that was made for 14 people but we were in it with 20, so that was quite cosy on a 2hr ride... Berastagi is a country town in Karo Highlands which is famous for its fruit production. So there are at least three markets, also with dead fish laying around in 30 degrees... I'm in a very nice hostel on a hill called Sunrise View, a nice place to stay. I had a nice dinner in such a stall along the street which looked pretty ok, and there was the owner of my hostel with his friends as well, so we had a nice time.
Yesterday I drove motorbike to some ancient places (the Dutch city of Zundert appeared to be partner city of Lingga, so I was welcomed in Dutch and had to write my name in the guestbook with a Gemeente Zundert-pen). It's sad to see that the ancient houses are in bad state and that the Indonesian government has (or gives) no money to restore them. I hope Zundert can do something... The King's house in Lingga, with six families living in it (all with their own stove), but the thatched roof is in very bad condition.

And today I climbed this mountain, at the summit crater there was sulfur smoke coming out with high pressure (it really made noise like a train passing) and I had great views. After hiking down along a very narrow path with bad concrete stairs with all the jungle sounds around me, I had a great day! We drove back in a van that was filled with baskets with grass and some people, so again it was a cosy ride. On the Gunung Sikayan, there's vulcanic smoke and deep green forest with nice insects and real tropical forest sounds!

Berastagi was very relaxing! Tomorrow I will travel on to Lake Toba, where I will meet Anton (from forestry school) and his friend Kirsten and Emma whom I met in the plane to Indonesia, this will be a very nice reunion. And after that, I will spend the last four days trekking through the jungle with a guide in the Gunung Leuser National Park, to which I'm really looking forward! I think I will post my last post from NL again.

Bye! Jeroen

P.S. Sorry for the bad typing but this is an ancient keyboard of which the letters are almost vanished...

Wonderful Bali

2008-07-31T01:08:00.000-07:00

I send greetings from Bali, a wonderful island to celebrate holiday, some different athmosphere than Java. And a little bit more wealthy as well, although this morning on a remote beach, there were children begging again, which I find really hard to see.

Since Surabaya (where I had the first problem with my Lonely Planet quide - I walked to a restaurant in the night but it was not there anymore, in some remote suburb in the dark, that's quite bad but I came out by cycle taxi again...), I had a quick trip to the magnificent volcano Bromo on east Java: I arrived there at 14.30, at 3.15 we woke up and went around and on this volcano by jeep (a great old Toyota Landcruiser 2.4 ltr 6 cylinder) and at 9.30 I was in the bus again, in order to drive all day to Bali. Now I know again why I said to myself: I don't want to hurry from place to place. Because I did this time and I immediately regretted it. So now I'm taking it easy on Bali and Sumatra afterwards!

But Bromo was beautiful. It was an old vulcano (like Dieng) that collapsed, but in the plain area that then occurred, a new vulcano started (so on the pics, it's the lower smoking white thing that is Bromo, the nice one is Gunung Batok and then you have the great smoking one at the back of which I forgot the name again...

Gunung Bromo is " just" the small grey hill with white smoke in the left down corner of the pic!

First we had a view of the sunrise (together with about 300 other visitors, of which at least half of it were Dutch) and then we drove to Bromo itself and climbed it. Although it was quite dusty (because you were walking in the same path as the to be rent horses were riding), it was really nice.

Dusty lava sand on the way to the Bromo crater

And immediately after, I went into the bus for a very tiring ride to Denpasar on Bali. We started at 9.30 (which in the end appeared to be 10, like all Indo busses do) to come down the mountain and finally, after 0,5hr ferry trip, we arrived in Denpasar at 22hrs (which became 23hrs because of 1hr difference in local time). So then I completely had it and together with two Slovenian people and one Dutch guy, we found a hotel just behind the bus terminal. Although I had to rent the VIP room because there was nothing else left, the toilet still had to be flushed with a bucket and the shower was still cold... Then I appreciated the simple hotel near Bromo more: the same conditions, but without a stinky hot city and the great view...

The Dutch guy Luuk had been ill and did not really appreciate travelling on his own, he was quite broken. So we had a beer and he wanted to come with me on Bali, but the next morning, he decided to go back to his brother in Java. Helping him kind of gave me more strength because for me my journey works out in a great way, I'm enjoying it all the time!

That morning I took a private taxi to Ubud, handicraft center of Bali. I actually wanted to go by public transport but I think the drivers knew that if they would wait long enough with starting to drive that I would get impatient, just like every tourist for whom a 25km busticket only costs 0,5 euro and a private ride only 7...

Ubud is very touristic, but if you just go outside the town, it's great! Sawa's, Buddhist temples, nice farmers which whom you can speak three words of English and Indonesian bahasa, black lava beach with heavy see (I did not like to go swimming because of the high waves). I rented a motorbike for the last two days to drive around, this went ok (an automatic shifted 115cc Yamaha Nuovo), but in the end it's quite tiring (trafic still is hard and left driving, although it's way more quiet than Java). And then the Buddhist culture, with great dances, clothing and wood carving.

While touring around from temple to temple, average speed is only 50-60 kmh because of all the traffic!

Tonight, I will climb the highest peak on Bali (3100m, and we start at 900) with a guide. We start at midnight, so now I stop writing, will have dinner and will have some sleep...

Fishermen's boats (for use on the ocean!!! aren't they small?) and a tribal dance

Hope to post my next post from Sumatra, where I will fly to on the 3rd of August!

Bye, Jeroen

PS Due to slow internet and an old PC I uploaded some smaller sized pics, so they won't be that nice this time...

Surabayaaaaa

2008-07-25T23:58:00.000-07:00

The day after I wrote my first message, I left by train for Yogyakarta. Joost took me to the train station way too early in the morning to being able to keep a feeling of holiday. Thanks to his rather quick " Indonesian" way of driving, he was able to drop me at the station, 3 minutes before the train to Jakarta left, so this was great timing. The train trip after that (via Jakarta) took almost all day, at 15hrs. I was in Yogya.

Rice and fishermen's fields in the low plains of Western Java. Everything goes by hand, I only saw 3 tractors in 500km... And nice little kids who speak two words of English (guess what...)

I found a hostel and looked around in the city: the ancient Dutch fort Vredeburg and the Sultan's Palace, both very nice buildings. But further on, I found Yogya noisy and dirty, with someone on every corner asking " Hello Mister, you want taxi/batik/becak?" So I decided to have a nice meal and sleep, in order to travel on to the Dieng area next morning. The meal worked out that way, but the sleeping was worse: until late at night and early in the morning again, there were people coming and going, planes flying over and mosques singing.
Vredeburg fort, Jeroen in a Becak and the Dutch influences in the Indonesian language

So actually I was quite glad to leave Yogya again for Dieng, but first: Borobudur temple! This is a UN World Heritage Site and now I know why: a giant Buddhist temple, very impressive and destroyed several times by nature, bombing etc., and with a great surrounding landscape.

After that, I drove up into the mountains by public bus, in order to reach Dieng before dark. Dieng is a plain of about 5 square km's in the crater of an old vulcano. It has the highest village of Java (2200m) and a great view point from which you can see the sun rising next to the still active vulcano Gungung Merapi (at 6 o'clock, so again up before 5...). Didik, the guide who was working in the hostel was a very nice man, he drove me around on his small Honda motorbike. with a breakfast break in between. After the sunrise, we visited some other vulcano relicts and Buddist temples. It's a very impressive area where they grow potatoes on terraces on the vulcanoes! In the rest of Java (lower parts), they mainly grow rice, tobacco and coffee. In the afternoon, I sat on the holstel's balcony, planning my trip and overlooking the main street of Dieng.
Guide Didik on his motorbike, driving me around the Dieng plain. The great sunrise (the utter middle peak in clouds is Gunung Merapi which is still active). A coloured vulcano lake with sulfur and hot water bubbling. And the Dieng area with it's potato terraces.

Yesterday I went back down to Yogya after having a breakfast of banana pancakes and saying goodbye to Didik, Tito (another guide) and some French people with whom we had been having a nice drink the night before. It was a long bus ride but I did not want to stay in Yogya another night, so I directly went on by train to Surabaya. It was a quite heavy day, because once I came down from the Dieng plain, temperature was rising again and that makes you tired... But I had a good train ride because I had a nice chat with Rani, an Indonesian girl (vetherinarian student), after an earlier chat with a family with very cute kids.

At 22hrs I arrived in Surabaya, Indonesia's biggest harbour city and home of the navy. I wanted to go there, before visiting Bromo vulcano (my next goal), because there should be much Dutch architecture being left. My hotel was ok, an all right bed (although you should not expect any cleanliness or comfort from budget hostels out here!) but again two mosques singing, at 3 and 3.45hrs... This morning I went into town and this really shocked me! Just near the hotel, people were bathing in the dirtiest river I've ever seen, and selling all sorts of food, car parts etc. in stalls in which we would not even leave our waste bin... And again Hey mister, hey mister. So with quite mixed feelings, I went into town. Well you had to look well between the bill boards and concrete buildings, but indeed there's a lot of ancient colonial style buildings to see, very interesting: trader's offices, banks, ware houses etc. And I also went into China town, where it was very crowded, stinky but interesting, with a lot of trade in anything you an think of (single ax-tractors up to paperclips...). After visiting the harbour, with old and heavy loaded ferry's leaving for Kalimantan, it was time so search for the air conditioning of this internet cafe (WarNet as they call it here).

I hope that I gave you a bit of an impression and hop to write more when I'm at Bali!

Bye! Jeroen

After five days in Indonesia!

2008-07-21T00:33:00.000-07:00

Dear friends,

I've started my fifth day in Indonesia quite tranquile. I'm a guest of my good friend Joost, who had to work today. So I had some time to wash clothes, prepare my trip for tomorrow when I will be heading on from Bogor to Yogyakarta and go into the city alone for the first time with my Wat & Hoe-dictionary...

Until now it has been GREAT. Warm, sweaty, traffic jam, loads of people, dirt, motorcycles, "Hey mister", very nice food but the best is the hospitality of Joost, Erik (two classmates from my time at Larenstein Forestry University). Together with Joost's girlfriend Widya and Erik's wife Dewi, we had a great time singing kakaoke, visiting the Bogor botanic gardens and their working space at PT Planters/GFU violin/geranium nursery and visiting a nice mountain area near Bogor, with cascades and hot springs. And first of all, they picked me up at the Jakarta airport when I arrived after a flight which was far too long...
Erik and Joost with some kids from the Kampung near the nursery. " Hey mister..."

Ancient Dutch soldier's/colonist's cemetery at the botanic gardens of Bogor

Since I am enjoying Joost's virtual hospitality now as well, I will make it short and just upload some pictures to give you an idea. And I have to go into town now, because at 18hrs it get's dark already!

Having a chique goodbye meal in Cafe Batavia in Jakarta, were the ancient Dutch colonists used to drink their cognac and trade.

Hope to be able to tell you more soon and best regards from Bogor, Java, Indonesia!

Jeroen

A very young cat found in Widya's street in Jakarta. We took it home and called it Manga!

Cleaner, safer and more efficient with GPS

2008-07-09T06:52:00.000-07:00

Source: Houtkrant #11 - 09-06-2008, Apeldoorn (NL)

Wild river news

2008-05-26T13:06:00.000-07:00

For a long time, I thought my sister was crazy or at least tired of life because of her hobby: rafting, going down a wild river in a tube boat. But since yesterday, I know how it's like and... It's cool! Heavy but cool!

My sister's rafting team Rafting Revolution started last year and won the open Dutch Championships. Then, they went to South Korea and became 8th on the World Championships! A few weeks ago, they became Dutch Champion in France again and directly after, they became 2nd on the European Championship in Austria! And this is an even bigger effort since there's no natural wild water in the Netherlands, apart from the North Sea coast...

Those relatives and friends who sponsored the team had the chance to try rafting yesterday, in the wild water park in Zoetermeer. First, we had to swim downriver (about 50 m) in order to practice the experience of nearly drowning. Although you wear a life jacket, it's very hard to keep your head above water and stay on your track. But ok then you're used to the wild water and we started rafting. Although my team was not as fast as my sister's team (that showed their great skills afterwards), we did quite ok. The first run, I went over board so I had to swim another time, but the other runs went ok. It's a matter of not thinking and paddling in the team's rhythm! And it gives loads of adrenaline! The last run, I even was in the front of the boat, which was great!

I want to thank the Rafting Revolution Team for this nice experience and the good introduction and guidance (and my mom for the pictures)!

The Rafting Revolution Team:

Watch http://www.revolutionrafting.nl/

Back online after a while

2008-05-12T12:04:00.000-07:00

A two day solo motorbike tour brought me back to my blog: yesterday and today, I drove a piece through North West Germany. I planned to go to the Teutoburg Forest but this was such small (like Dutch forests) that I went through it before I knew it. So I ended up on a camp site near Uslar in the Weserbergland. This is such a nice area! I visited it once before when I was about ten years old, so you can imagine that I did not know much about it anymore.

On the map, you can see where I've been. The motorcycle was my dad's Moto Guzzi 1100 California. This drives great, but after 850km in two days at 27 degrees, you can feel the big V-twin all over your body. I'm not far away from RSI now I think... But it can carry myself, my tent and everything, even with 150kmh, which is great!

I camped on a nice camping site, but there was a great trike-meeting going on: about 100 trike-bikers with tattoos and loads of leather where there drinking beer and having fun until late at night. I celebrated my own party while reading about Indonesia, where I will be going this summer.

Waiting to cross the river Weser by boat.

Then, I need to say that my sister's rafting team became Dutch champion in France last week - congratulations!

Furtheron, I've been working a lot since my last report of November, and I've been doing a lot of work for my scout's chairmanship. And apart from that, I became member of the commission of foreign affairs of the Royal Dutch Forestry Society, which is a nice job to do. So time's flying!

In November we had our Meinardi-family-meeting in Hemmen. This was very nice, because we don't see eachother that often!

Thanks to cousin Tjeerd for the pictures

In December, we went camping again with our hiking group. This time, we could start in my sister's back yard, which was great. We could make a big fire with old building wood and that was good because it was a cold evening. The other days, we hiked south west of Journal and had a great (but sometimes wet and cold) time.

At the end of January, we went on winter camping again with the scouts: about 40 people went to the area east of Houffalize. It was a very nice trip again.

Before Christmas, my cat Dame Noire came back to me after living with my parents for two months. She had damaged her leg before and it took that long to recover. I and Dame Noire thanked my parents for taking care, but it was great to have her back again, and you can hardly see that anything has happened now. Both cat's are growing well and the 2nd of May, they celebrated their first birthday with a nice meal of meat!

Dame Blanche likes to climb on my back just when I bend over, and Dame Noire likes to eat my cell phone when in rings...

Then I celebrated New Year with the Betuwe4Ever group at my place. We ended up at Vincent and Laurie's place, where you could hardly see anything of the fireworks because of the fog. It was a very nice evening.

Vincent cooked boerenkool (Farmer's cabbage?) for us at New Year

The Netherlands are hot news nowadays because of our right winged "politicians" Geert Wilders and Rita Verdonk. They have their very nationalist and right winged opinions about foreigners. And loads of people are supporting them! I don't like that and went to a meeting ont the Dam square to make a voice against these people during a demonstration. I hope it will help a bit...

Before, in November, we went to Belgium with Betuwe4Ever. You can see loads of pics about this trip on http://betuwe4ever.blogspot.com/ !

While my cats eat meat, I myself quitted to eat meat for lunch (except exceptions of course, I'm not a real vegetarian...) because of the whole environmental issue. So I started eating cheese after 30 years! It's quite ok!

In addition, Vincent and I have weekly "Keek op de week" meetings, in which we discuss the past week and other important or less important things, listen to music etc. I hope this will go on for a long time, because those are very nice, relaxed evenings!

The Keek op de Week-team has just installed a nice beer attribute which I got from Michiel

At the end of February, I drove to Freiburg, to meet Torsten, Ulli and Libby and loads of other people. And I hoped that I could ski, but there was hardly snow and storm coming up, so even Switserland was no option this year. But seeing everybody again was very nice!

The 29th of March was very special: with my sister and dad, I went to a concert of Anouk in Arnhem. This was really great! I had never been to such a big concert before (30,000 people) and Anouk was singing superb! I do have some pictures of it, but they're still in my cell phone, I still have to find the proper cable to upload them...

At the 20st of April, our scout's motorcycle club came together again and we had a great ride to Amsterdam-Volendam-IJsselmeer-Veluwe. This was a very nice day with good jokes, food and great weather. In the early autumn, we might go to Belgium or so. Watch http://www.scoutingzetten.nl/ for these and loads of other scout's pictures!

The 4th of May is WWII-Remembrance Day in the Netherlands. I was asked to play the Last Post tune in my village again, so I rehearsed and did it. I already play trumpet for 21 years now, but such performances are the hardest: you're playing alone, with an audience of about 200 people, there's the remembrance atmosphere and the tune is a signal, so you can't use your valves, only your lips and breath. So it's quite hard to play but it worked out again and that feels great!

But then one day after, the 5th of May is Freedom Day and then it's time to party. I went to Wageningen (where freedom was signed in 1945) and there always is a big party. I met Mark, Sanne and loads of other people and we had a great time with good music and beer!

My bands are going well. I hope we can perform again with our big band, but at the 1st of June, our jazz combo "His Master's Noice" will play in the Accordeon Museum in Heumen! http://www.accordeonmuseum.nl/

My bigband recorded a nice tune during a rehearsal lately and we were quite satisfied. So I mailed it to friends and family, and it even ended up at my niece Anneke's breakfast in New York! Listen http://www.bigbandhan.nl/ for more recordings.

So this is what I did during the last months in a nut shell. I hope everybody is doing fine as I am - hope to hear from all of you!

Bye! Jeroen

Forestry and timber sector on the right track with GPS

2008-01-04T03:00:00.000-08:00

Source: Vakblad Natuur Bos Landschap, Wageningen dec. 2007, p 6-9

Short message and some pics

2007-11-25T08:27:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody, I'm doing fine but am very busy with work, scouts and music. So here you'll find some pics and short descriptions!

Greetings from Jeroen!

In August, September and yesterday again, I was a guest player in the party band "De Borrelnootjes", that plays party music on party occasions. It's always fun to play with them!

In September, I went to Sumava National Park in Chechia. That was amazing, huge spruce trees in comparizon with the Dutch forests. But also huge parts of the forests that were heaviliy damaged by bark beetles! Watch http://www.knbv.nl/commissiebuitenland/122/dagverslagen-knbv-excursie-tsjechie-2007 for the report and http://picasaweb.google.nl/CommissieBuitenlandKNBV for loads of pictures!

In September again, we went with our scouts' party band to play at the Scout In, a gathering of 5.000 Dutch Scout leaders. That was heavy (we played one day until 1 at night) but fun, watch the pictures on http://www.scoutingzetten.nl/newsite/algemeen/fotoboek.nsf/index?openview&count=1000

In October, my poor cat Dame Noire has damaged her Achilles tendon and is out of duty for seven weeks! Luckily my parents have time and place to take care of her, but it still is quite sad... Dame Blanche is going well though!

In November, our friends group Betuwe4ever went to the Ardennes for a short holiday: watch http://betuwe4ever.blogspot.com for some nice pictures of the castle we rented!

Then, in the Netherlands, we have the ancient habit to celebrate Sinterklaas' birthday at 5th of December instead of Christmas. In November, Sinterklaas arrived in the city of Breda - I joined the lifeguards for one day as a guest of Eelco's

Winter season is coming now, so we're planning to camp again and hope for loads of snow coming!

Scouts, builders and cats

2007-08-10T06:14:00.001-07:00

Summer holiday is almost over again, but I had some great weeks! At 26th of July, our "Scoutbands on Tour" massed Dutch Scout band shipped to play in Great Britain and especially on the World Scout Jamboree. We had rehearsed a few times together but did not really know eachother, so it was quite exciting to go on this trip for 10 days with 50 musicians and 20 participants. (pic made by Joop Weseman) But it appeared to be great! We played marching gigs and concerts in Colchester, Cambridge, London and Chelmsford (were the Jamboree is), and of course we played on the Jamboree. First, we rehearsed together with Irish and English Scout musicians, this was an orchestra of more than 100 people. At the 1st of August, we played at the anniversary of 100 years Scouting. At 7 in the morning, we played a concert on a big stage in the central arena of the Jamboree site. We had an audience of about 40,000 people from all over the world. There was a great athmosphere while playing some movie music and some golden oldies like YMCA and Love is in the air. And when I played a small jazzy solo, I was even filmed and shown at the big screens on the field! After the ceremony, all 40,000 people went around and wrote their autogrammes on eachother's scout scarves, which really gave a special feeling! Then we marched along the Jamboree site and played at several spots, and we even made a picture with the grandson of Baden Powell, the founder of Scouting. After that, we played as a "party band" at some spots, e.g. we went with a big Dutch delegation into the German "Bierstube" (were they only sold Karamalz and alcohol free beer...). In the leaders' dining tent, we played some tunes for more that 1,000 people!

At the end of a very busy but great week, the 70 people learned to know eachother very well, we really became one group and that was another great experience! We even had some funny coincidences, like losing our "disabled" cook Piet at the Jamboree site and finding some of our Scout group members in a crowd of 40,000...

As I returned from the UK, my sister and her boyfriend had the good news that they were finally able to start building their wooden house in the Ardennes in Belgium. So I promised to help them building a bit and I drove to them. This was very nice and interesting as well, since I don't have that much building experience. Their house is like a scale modell: they have all the wooden beams laying around, all numbered, and they have a big book of numbered drawings to know where to put which beam. But before we could start putting the beams together, we first had to finish the concrete cellar parts, which was great work to do. One day, it was 30 deg.C and the other, it was pooring with rain... At the first pic, you can see the beams waiting to be put together; Geert, my dad and me building...

After finishing my contribution, my sister and Geert had a great present for me: they had three kittens of which I got two! Now, they are getting used in my house, demolishing everything up to 1m and having fun playing around, then sleeping and then of course shitting, which they are very good in as well. I called them "dames" ("ladies" in Dutch). One is more or less white, which is called Dame Blanche (after her mother Blanche as well, and of course after the famous icecream) and the other one is white and black, so she is Dame Noir. It is really great to see how they jump around!

Well so far this was the news. Tomorrow, Torsten and Ulli from Freiburg will visit me for a few days, so I'm studying on coffee shops and other typical Dutch culture at the moment. And monday, forestry calls again...

Bye! Jeroen

Time to write...

2007-07-21T08:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, our Scouts Band hat the great experience to march along with 34.000 walkers during the last day of the Nijmeegse Vierdaagse (4 days walk). We had an audience of thousands of people, but we had some delay because there was pooring rain and thunder in the afternoon. We had a combined Band out of three Bands and with those people, we will visit the World Jamboree in England next week! So this actually was the final rehearsal...

After this experience, I went into town with Michiel and I met Theun, Bertil, Freek and Henk. Later, Martijn and Janneke came as well and they offered me to sleep at their place, so I didn't need to drive home. The party ended at about 3.30 with a long walk to their place... During this week, there were over a million of visitors in town, much music, food etc., which gives a great atmosphere!

The pic was made by my dad who waited for hours in pooring rain and thunder to see our Band...

So today I came back from Nijmegen and I'm basically doing nothing, for which I didn't have much time the last months. I've had a very busy time, because of my job, the chairmanship of the Scouts group and my musical activities. Fortunately, now it's summer holiday, so all the activities stopped until half of August. Which gives me a bit of real free time, time to do some gardening, motorbiking and other nice things.

And of course: work! The job is great: the colleagues are nice and the projects are very practical and interesting. I work four days of nine hours, of which I'm two days in the forest or visiting customers, and two days in my office. The forest work contains marking trees, organising and coordinating harvest and inventories, so it's very diverse. In April, I even went to Orléans, France, to visit a forestry expedition. After one night in a hotel, I camped near the Loire river, which was very nice. On the way back, I visited the forest of Fontainebleau.
Furtheron, it's a very busy job, with loads of projects. But this makes it interesting, every day is different!

At the end of April, it was time to have the Scouts' "summercamp". This was a few months earlier than we are used to, because of the World Jamboree. We had extremely hot weather and a very nice camp with great activities. I was the cook again (and no one got sick...). One night, I even fried chicken in a stewing pan, that was delicious! The previous night, we watched a movie in the middle of the forest!

At the 4th of May, I had to go home from the camp, to join the World War II remembrance in my village, where I played the Last Post signal. This always is a tense moment, but very nice and an honour to do.

At the end of May, Léon, Annina, Anne, Mark, Sanne and I went to the German Vulkaneifel to hike. This is a great area with a volcano-landscape. We had some moments of heavy rain, but furtheron, we had a great hike and good company.
The first weekend of June, Wilms last day before being father came and we celebrated this, with some close friends, in a very special way: his brothers picked him up from Brussels (suprise!) and we went canooing in the wetland-area Biesbosch. This was a very nice weekend, only without much canooing, because after 500m, the first two canoos went under water (mine stayed dry!). So the weekend was more like camping, barbecueing and drinking beer...

This is Wilm, who became father of Zenne a few weeks later!

And this is Captain Jeroen driving the motorboat with luggage, barbecue meat and beer!

A few days later, I had a nice play with my jazz combo: we had to play at a wedding-anniversary and this was a very nice party. I "grow" more into playing jazzy solos every time! I bought a trombone, at which I try to play some jazz as well, and I even had my debute on harmonica by playing a blues!

The next musical highlight was the wedding of Cindy and Victor, a few weeks ago. We formed a band out of a samba drum band, a hard rock band and Thijs and me, two trumpeters from our bigband. Together, we played "Late in the evening" from Paul Simon and that was great! Without any rehearsing, we could play it quite good!

So now it's July, the last half year went by very fast and I think the coming will be the same, because loads of nice things to do are planned. I hope to hear from everyone of you and hope to be able to meet you all again!

Jeroen

My sister is Dutch Rafting Champion 2007!

2007-05-31T14:26:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, my sister and five colleagues became Dutch Rafting Champion 2007 in southern France! As a member of the Teva-PBO-team, they won the championship and in the end of June, they will go to South-Korea for the next game. Congratulations Roelian and good luck!

Alder dieback caused by Phytophthora alni in SW-Germany

2007-04-08T07:15:00.000-07:00

by Sígrid del Río Merino & Jeroen Oorschot

In: Ber. Naturf. Ges. Freiburg i. Br., 96, S. 33-58, Freiburg 2006

Loads of news!

2007-02-02T07:50:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody!

A lot has happened since the last time I wrote. On this blog, you'll find some Dutch publications (from me and Sígrid about the alder dieback (my MSc-topic) and about my leg in a Dutch medical magazine, for those who are interested. Furtheron, I will upload some pictures about all the things I did during the last months, and tell something about it.

From July up till Christmas, I worked at the Dutch State Plant Protection Service. I had a nice group of collegues and some interesting projects. But at the end of november, I found a new job as forestry consultant, so I quitted my job at the service. In December, we had a very nice lunch at my chief Frederiekes place, where I got a very nice goodbye-present from all of my colleagues: an apple tree! A few days later, I planted it in my backyard. But before I was able to plant the tree, I had to remove some cubic metres of stones. Léon and my father helped my with that.
Then, we went hiking in the Belgium Ardennes, which was a quite humid and cold expedition. But it's always great to go camping in winter time, especially with this group of friends! New Year I celebrated with Martijn, Janneke, Robert andChristmas and New Year were very relaxed. At Christmas, I ate with Vincent and Laurie and with my parents. Saskia, which was a very nice party.

In January, I had a month off before starting with my new job. It was to switch off from my old job, to read some papers about forestry and of course to enjoy some holidays! I started with decorating my new office (because I partly will work at home) and to visit friends. Since a lot of friends still live in Freiburg, I drove down there to visit some (but I did not manage to see everybody...). This was great. First, I went to Brussels, to visit Wilm and Frederique. Then, in Freiburg, I could sleep at Torsten and Ulli's place, Libby's place and at Timo's place, which were very nice reunions. I saw two new born baby's Dalia and Magalie. And Radek even organised a house party, at which a lot of forest students came. With Timo, I even went skiing for one day in Switzerland (since there was no snow at all in the Black Forest). All this was possible because my parents didn't mind riding their bikes for one week, so that I could use their car!

During the last week, I worked in my garden with my father: we planted a hawthorn hedge (I hope that by that, dogs stop shitting in my garden...), an oak tree and a willow tree. I think by now, my garden is getting more or less acceptable... And I bought some furniture for my office.

Then since yesterday, I've started at Borgman Beheer Advies, a forestry consulting company! I'm really looking forward to this job. My new chief George warned me that it will be a "flying start", because the storm damages loads and loads of forest in the Netherlands and western Germany. And with this new job, there came a new car (a Renault Kangoo 4x4!) and a new mobile phone number, so everything's changed again... Some more information about the company you will find at the website www.beterbos.nl

By the way, the storm also damaged my own garden while I was in Freiburg (as you can see, it's good that I have a good contact with my neighbours...):

The last but not least at all, some hobby-news. My bigband is going well, it's very nice to play in Arnhem again! And now I'm playing at a jazz quartet "His Master's Noice" as well - it already excists 20 years and started as a Plant Protection Service-Bigband, but now we are with four (former) employees: Minoes (singer/pianoplayer/accordeonist), Jan (drums), Chris (bass) and me on trumpet (and perhaps on trombone, I bought one lately...).

And then the boyscouts! I became chairman in August and together with Mark, Léon and Ronald, we're working hard to run the club, but it's a lot of fun and going well! Loads of meetings with a beer to soften the topics work really well... In december, we had a James Bond evening, so you can see it's not only about camping and hiking!

It's been great to hear from all of you now and then! I hope we'll meet or mail again and I whish you all loads of luck!

Bye! Jeroen

Interview with Jeroen about lymfatic edema

2007-01-29T04:41:00.000-08:00

by Jade van Brakel. In: Lymfologica nr.2 (2007), Haarlem (NL), pp. 22-23.
- click on the text to enlarge, and again to enlarge to a page-wide format.

Forstdienstleister sind in der Mehrzahl Kleinstunternehmen

2006-12-22T12:17:00.000-08:00

by Till Westermayer, Thomas Brogt & Jeroen Oorschot. In: AFZ-Der Wald 23 (2004), München (D), pp. 1247-1249.
- click on the text to enlarge, and again to enlarge to a page-wide format.

Pseudoschimmel veroorzaakt elzenziekte

2006-12-22T12:01:00.000-08:00

by Jeroen Oorschot & Sígrid del Río Merino. In: Vakblad Natuur Bos Landschap nr.10 (2006), Wageningen (NL), pp. 21-23.
- click on the text to enlarge, and again to enlarge to a page-wide format.

Best Christmas whishes and all the best for 2007!!!

2006-12-20T08:15:00.000-08:00

Not proud at all...

2006-12-01T05:26:00.000-08:00

During the last weeks, some bad news about the Netherlands was spread through the world: abuse of prisoners by Dutch military police in the middle east; in the national elections, 9 out of 150 parliamentary seats are taken by extreme right-winged politicians (who are elected by Dutch citizens!); young people attack ambulance employees and firemen when they come to help; yesterday, 600 Rotterdam soccer fans demolished stadium and pubs in Nancy in France; and this morning, a man killed a small child in primary school. Those are moments at which I'm not proud of the Netherlands at all! This is unbelievable behaviour, I hope people start thinking and caring again...

Jeroen

Bikes

2006-11-12T06:49:00.000-08:00

I found a new project! It's not that I have plenty of free time with my job and applying, boy scouts chairmanship, music and so on, but I got a 10 year old Kawasaki 550 Zephyr from my friend Aernout. But he didn't give it away for nothing: loads of oil were coming out of the engine and the front fork, and loads of other things are to be repaired. So this bike is a real challenge to get it on the road again. Fortunately, my father does have plenty of time and technical experience, so here you see the start of a restoration project! I hope to be able to drive the Kawa this winter, when the Moto Guzzi gets it's winter sleep because of the dirty, salty streets...

Here's my dad working on the Kawa this morning. And here are the Moto Guzzi California 1100 together with my dad's BMW R75/6 in South-East Germany in August, on my way to Munich to visit Torsten and Ulli, and after that to Vienna, to visit Lisa. In one week, I drove 3500kms by bike! With Ulli, Torsten and friends Olli and Öse, we flew over the Alps in a small plane and we visited Munich (the pic below shows our Weisswurstfrühstück). Together with Lisa I drove a three day Austria tour by motorbike (pic of Lisa at a lake in the Salzkammergut - since it is at dawn, it's a bit dark but still very nice...).

Housewarming

2006-09-24T06:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, it appeared to be time to celebrate my new house. Of course it still is not fully equiped, but the weather was too good to wait any longer. I only invited a small group (in the beginning, I had a list of 65 people, but they would never fit into my living room when it would be raining). Therefore, those who were not there are most welcome to visit me another time (there's plenty of beer and wine left...). The pics gice a small impression of the party and the "cycle parking" at about 23hrs:

Thanks everybody for the nice evening and all the presents! And of course, thanks to Sam who helped me cleaning!

Movement part 2

2006-07-31T11:57:00.000-07:00

Some new pictures: things are going very well and rather quick, because a lot of people are helping: e.g. my mom; Martijn while painting...

Movement

2006-07-29T09:30:00.000-07:00

I'm about to move to my own place. I've rented a family house in my village Zetten (yes, it is quite big for my own...). It's great, with a new kitchen, a garden and a shed and a few rooms on three levels! Only the front garden is a quite ugly rock bassin, but this might change once... My mom and dad are helping quite a lot with redecorating and cleaning up, which is great.

Today, my dad and my friends Léon and Louis helped me with moving the most parts, away from de Fliert and my parents' place...

Argentinean feelings in the Netherlands

2006-07-20T03:37:00.000-07:00

Well we've got a hot summer at the moment: watch my friend Patty's thermometer at her balcony in Amsterdam: 48,5 deg. C at about 20hrs at night, yesterday!!! I've never seen this before, not even in South America! Furtheron (e.g. in the shadow), it's about 34 deg. C, which is very uncommon for us as well... The only way out is to work with airconditioning (like I do at the Plant Protection Service) and to have siësta and then dance all night with some new Dutch drinks: a toppertje, a breezer ananas or a double whisky (although I prefer a cool beer)!

Jeroen

Netherlands-Argentina 0:0

2006-06-22T06:37:00.000-07:00

It's time to write a little bit about yesterday night's exciting soccer game Netherlands-Argentina, the last play of our dangerous "pool of death" in the first round of the World Soccer Championships in Germany, because during the game, I had to think of my good friends in the Southern hemisphere who must have been enjoying this exciting game as much as I did.

The Argentineans were ruling most of the game, that's a fact. The Oranje players, la "Naranja Mechanica" as the South-Americans call our orange team, were playing ok, but they were lucky that our defensive player Boularouz didn't score in his own goal and that the Argentineans didn't succeed in scoring (I don't know how this happened, because there was strong support from Maradona himself as a member of the audience). On the other hand, the Dutch had some nice chances (Dirkie Kuijt) and some very nice savings by our great goalie Edwin van der Sar, so in the end, they did quite well I think.
Marco van Basten, our coach, said the following after the game in Dutch television, in presence of our Crown Prince Willem-Alexander (who married Máxima, an Argentinean lady...): "well, I adviced my men not to score, because otherwise, the situation in the Dutch royal family would have become bad..."

For this game, I was dressed in orange, but I had a maté with my dad during the game! I hope we'll meet the Argentineans again in the finals (and I hope we'll win this time...).

Greetings from the Netherlands! Jeroen

At the pics, you can see the Löwenhosen (Dutch lion's trousers in stead of German lederhosen, leather trousers), which are not to be carried by supporters in stadiums, because they are from the beermark Bavaria, which is a competitor of Heineken and Budweiser...

Pics of Nat.Park Laguna del Laja, Central Chile

2006-04-22T07:00:00.000-07:00

Just scroll down for my last contribution about Salta, Mendoza and Buenos Aires or click on http://jeroenoorschot.blogspot.com/2006/04/salud-de-holanda.html

The pictures of the Nat.Park Laguna del Laja, Central Chile, which couldn't be posted in my story at: http://jeroenoorschot.blogspot.com/2006/04/back-in-argentina-after-many.html

(The vulcanic lake where I got dropped out of the car and where I could impossibly camp; the Laja river near the campsite; my tent with great scenery, before the wind started...; vulcanic remains that block Laja river; a condor!; the lava blocking of the Laja river made these great cascades, a real paradise!)

Salud de… Holanda!

2006-04-22T05:52:00.000-07:00

(Back in the Netherlands: Windmill "De Vink" of Herveld, near Zetten)

Well, finally I made the big crossing of oceans again and arrived safely in the Netherlands. My parents picked me up from Amsterdam airport Schiphol and now my residence is my parents’ place in the metropole of Zetten (5.000 heads). Now I’m writing about the last piece of my trip through Argentina and Chile, at my own fast computer, with a CD of the Argentine band Los Fabulosos Cadillacs running in the CD player.

Some things are still to be told about my last days in Salta (if you live in the Netherlands and you’re interested in Northern Argentina, watch the TV programme “Wie is de Mol?”, this is filmed in and around Salta): I rented a car again, to visit the rainforest of Northwest Argentina in the National Park Calilegua (this is part of the rainforest belt which goes into Bolivia). It was a nice Chevrolet Corsa 1.6 Sport (actually an Opel or Vauxhall with another name on it) which drove perfectly. On the way up to the north, I took a policeman and an old farmer as hitchhikers, which was a nice contact. After parking in the forest, I asked the maintenance men of the National Park what was the best way to hike. But they did not explain it to me before I had some coca leaves with them: small leaves that you put into your mouth like a guinea pig and chew and suck a bit (I didn’t feel a thing…).
(Visiting the rain forest of Calilegua: chewing coca leaves; the river grows and turns red from heavy rainfall; without a 4x4, I could come up to 1.000m on the dirtroads; the great colors of the forest)

As I went into the forest, I found out that I completely forgot my mosquito repellent, which is not so smart when you visit a rain forest. The mosquitoes started attacking as soon as I came out of the car. So I dressed in my coat and long trousers, although it was very warm and humid (26°C) and immediately started sweating. I drove around for a bit and hiked some smaller trails and this was really amazing! It’s the red soil, the land slides, the thick green vegetation with brightly colored flowers, the warmth and humidity and the sounds you know from Discovery Channel or any travel or forestry magazine, together with birds, huge colored butterflies and grasshoppers, really amazing and worth driving up there! The raining season had just started there (although it was dry all day), so I could not make it up to the small indigenous villages with my car, but I still had a great experience. But you could see the rain coming: there were thick and dark clouds and the bigger rivers already had been transporting loads of water, since you saw a lot of red streams flowing.

Back in Salta, at the camping site, I talked with a French biker who was on his way “through the world” for more than a year already, and with two German motorcyclists, who went through South America for a long period on their enduro bikes (www.zwei-auf-reise.de). This was a nice and interesting meeting.
(The worl d travellers in Salta; two "helpers" while drying my tent)

This camping site was in the middle of a poor suburb, so there was police protection at the gate, and the police was patrolling around our tents at night! I don’t know if this gave me a secure feeling or rather not…

Salta was also the place to buy some souvenirs, as you can see on the picture with the windmill: a nice sheep-woolen poncho and alpaca-woolen hat.

Then it was time to finish the trip: since I was running out of time, but I was also getting very tired of traveling and organizing everything every day again (I think, when you know that three months come to an end, it’s been enough as well). I took the bus back to Mendoza (again 18 hrs.) to round my circle through Argentina and Chile. A very nice meeting with Alejandro and his family took place. It was at Eastern, so we also had a great lunch at Eduardo and Delly’s (Ale’s parents) place and we visited Ale’s girlfriend Luci’s house in the pre-Andes. The first night, we went for dinner and playing pool with Ana Maria, Silja and Vivienne from the language school, whom I met in January.
(Bingo game in the bus from Salta to Mendoza; Alejandro and family at Eastern)

And I bought another great and important souvenir: a black leather trousers for motorbiking!

Last Monday, Ale brought me to the airport for my last trip: visiting Buenos Aires! This was just for one day and night, but it was really worth going! Such a nice and living city (and huge, 14 million people!), such great buildings (you think you’re in Paris!). I took a city tour, to get to know the highlights in the short time that I had. This was nice, we passed the square of the “mothers of the lost sons”, the church where the body of San Martin lays (the liberator of Argentina and Chile from the Spaniards), the tango place San Telmo, the poor place called Boca (with all the colored sailor’s houses and the soccer stadium of the Boca Juniors) and the rich place Recoleta (with it’s interesting cementary and monastry). Unfortunately, after the tour, many places to visit where already closed, so I went back to San Telmo to have dinner and find some tango. The first thing functioned very well (very nice steak again…) but the tango didn’t: there where some shows for € 50,=, where gala clothing where asked (so I didn’t fit in there, unshaved with my hiking boots and T-shirt). I ended up in another nice bar with a live folk band and good wine, which was fine for me.
(Buenos Aires: the Boca Juniors stadium; a surprise at the end of the city tour, me dancing with...; the main square with ancient, colonial and new builings, much crowd and noice, the statue of the Republic and the daily socialist demo against unemployment and poverty)

The next morning, there was not much time left in Argentina, because my flight went at 1pm from Ezeiza airport, which is about 35km from the city. So I walked a bit around San Telmo and then I took the subway and bus to the airport. And then, after 13 hrs of flying to Milano and a great flight over the Alps, with a marvelous, very clear and sunny sight on Mont Blanc, Monte Rosa and Matterhorn, I landed in Amsterdam, last Wednesday morning.

So this was it: I’m sleeping much now, getting used to Holland again (which is not so difficult with the great spring weather we have). I already did a motorbike tour with my father. The next weeks, I will be a trumpet teacher. My friend Harald plays with his military police orchestra in Australia, so I will replace him in his music school, with about 30 pupils from 8 to 60 years of age (also on flute, keyboard, guitar, clarinet, let’s see how that works…). And after that… who knows? Even Joost doesn’t!

I want to thank you for reading and reacting on my stories. This was not only to inform you about what I was doing, but more about keeping up the contact and about telling about my travel experiences (which you really need when you’re traveling alone!).

Then thanks a lot to everybody who made this trip to a success and made me feel at home in Southern America: Alejandro, his family and friends, Alina and Francesco from CIEFAP in Esquel, my Welsh friends Clare, Esyltt and Christian (who got married at Eastern, congratulations!!!), Lily from Chiloé, Klaus from GMF in Salta, my parents and all the people who gave their hints about where to go and what to do in advance and the Intercultural language school in Mendoza.

Thanks again to NBBS Traveling for the “luggage experience” I had in Buenos Aires, to Lowe Alpine for making the most expensive but worst gaitors I’ve ever had, to Euro car rental who rented me a broken car for a two day desert trip, to Salewa for making a water proof and breathing jacket which does everything apart from keeping strong rain out and letting sweat out and to Vaude for constructing the most basic “tent” I’ve ever used. But then, many thanks to Karrimor (backpack 100ltr., at least already 15 years old and still rocking (and thanks to Fred for that!)) and again Vaude (small backpack), again Lowe Alpine (compression bag, about 13y.o.), Leki (hiking/tent poles 4y.o.), Trangia (camping stove on burning alcohol, 14y.o.), HanWag (hiking boots, 6y.o.) and to Nomad (sleeping bag) for not letting me down and to Lonely Planet “South America on a shoe string” for helping by planning this trip (in my 2004 edition, Argentina was very good; Chile was not really up to date anymore; what really misses is good info on National Parks)! And thanks to the three great cars, numerous bus companies, Alitalia, Aerolineas Argentinas and LAN Chile for taking me around Chile and Argentina safely. But the main equipment price gets “Cadans Star” (probably a “Bristol” or “Zeeman” shoe brand…): my basket ball shoes that I bought in about 1991 for school sports and were still serving me during this trip! Now they rest in peace, somewhere near Mendoza…

(The travel award 2006: my Cadans Star basket ball shoes of 1991!)

I hope to see you all soon!

Jeroen

Back in Argentina after many kilometers of desert

2006-04-10T18:19:00.000-07:00

(The trip`s almost round...)

The last ten days of my trip have started. I`m writing you now from Salta, a big, poor and dirty, but on the other hand beautiful colonial city in the North-West of Argentina. So I left Chile again after a small month of great experiences.

From Los Angeles, I went into the great adventure that is called "Parque National Laguna del Laja". Even coming there is one big adventure (Chilean state forest service CONAF seems not to understand how to get visitors to their parks). 100 km in an over-crowded bus and then... the Park is still 8 km away. The same thing happened to me in Hornopiren, you see that the National Parks are not prepared on people without a car, which is a strange thing, I think (especially a Nat.Park should to be reached by public transport, because that`s the most environmental friendly way to travel...). So I started hiking with 24 kg in my backpack and a plastic bag with food for three days, wine etc. Then, a van stopped and I could hitch-hike into the park. But this man said: the nicest part is up near the vulcanic lake and you can camp there very nice. At the entrance, there was no map or any information and a very unmotivated park guard, so I decided to believe the van driver. So we drove another 8 km through the park and there I stood, in the middle of vulcanic rocks, near a huge lake with steep shores. No way to camp with my little tent... So I took some pictures and started hiking down again, because near the entrance was the camp site. On that site, I was alone and this was great. Next to it was a deep valley with a rough river (river Laja, which is partly blocked by the vulcanic deposits), and the sunsets on the vulcan and the mountains was really nice. It was a very quiet evening, but at night, a very strong wind started. I had to get out of the tent two times to stick tent pins back into the soil! The advantage was that my tent finally ventilated well... So the next morning, I replaced my tent to a more quiet (but wet) place, where I camped the second night. That day I hiked around. Once, a big shadow flew over from behind. I looked up and a condor was above me, perhaps only 25m! After this great hiking in the mountains, I went back to Los Angeles again, where I could catch a bus the same day to the next place.

Sorry, the pictures of the National Park are on a CD in my backpack at the camping site of Salta, so I will put them online later...

After Los Angeles, I went to the harbour-city of Valparaiso, at the Pacific coast. This city is famous of its harbour (there are some Dutch navy vessels that Chile just bought and there were some problems with it, although I didn`t quite understand what was wrong, since the news was in spanish...) and of the way the city is built: it goes up on steep hills; people who work down town go up by big (and old) elevators to go home. And it is a city woth many colors: all the houses are painted, which gioves a very friendly atmosphere. But on the other hand, it also is a poor and dirty city, which really makes you sad sometimes!
I went into a rather nice backpackers hostel and I thought about sleeping early, because I was very tired of my experiences in the National Park. But at night, there was the year opening beach party of the students. So we went with some packs of cheep wine and cans of Cristal beer (THE beer of Chile; Cristal sponsors all the soccer teams in Chile, so on television, you see the competitors with the same shirt advertisements...). This was very fun, I talked a lot with Chilean students.
Valparaiso

Then I went for a killing 20 hour bus ride to one of the driest deserts in the world: the Atacama Desert, with great sand and rock mountain formations, salt lakes, geysers and more natural beauty. I went to the uninteresting city of Calama to hire a car, because I didn`t have much time to visit the desert, and I didn`t want to spoil my time sitting in a tour van with bored tourists (as I saw enough the past months), visiting places I didn`t want. I hired a Nissan Terrano pick up, 2.5 ltr turbo diesel intercooler (no 4x4), brand new! This looks a bit too much for a poor student, but you needed a car with high clearance to be able to drive up to the geysers. Well I drove 75 km with it and then it stopped working. I had stopped the car to look at some nice views and after that, nothing worked anymore! In the middle of the desert, that was quite scary! I could hitch-hike the next 10 km to San Pedro de Atacama with a Chilean family to call the hiring agency for help. It took about three hours until I was helped. I thought the problem was with the car key (such a smart key with a lock function), but as the mechanic tried it, he said: this car is dead! He looked at the motor and found out that the battery was staying loose (not attached to anything) and because of the battery jumping around while driving, one of the poles had come of. So by attaching that and by improvising to attach the battery, the car was ready to go again. This was quite sad, because it took a lot of time. I drove up the desert valley, visited some indigenous ruins (you had to cross rivers, that was fun to drive), took some hitch hikers with bikes with me (this is the great advantage of a pick up) and finally ended up at 4.300m above sea level at an abandoned research village near the El Tatio geysers. They are famous, because it`s a great geyser field and at sunrise, you have the most marvellous views. I had no clue where the geysers really were (there was a sign, but I didn´t find them), so I made up for a cold night in the village and decided to wait for the tour buses that would come at 5.30 in the morning. I cooked and slept in an abandoned hut and made a great fire outside, burned a lot of old furniture and other wood, because as soon as the sun sets in this desert, it`s getting really cold! To test this, I put my cup filled with water in the pick up and at 4.45 the next morning, it was completely frozen! That`s also how it felt while trying to sleep...
But the next morning, my trick with the tour buses functioned and in a queu, we drove to the geysers. This was amazing! The geysers made sounds, bubbled and spit water and steam (about 85 degr.C).
So at about 8 in the morning, I had seen my first point of my second "desert day by car". After a lunch in the sun (warming up, because seeing the geysers was a freezing event), the rest of the day, I saw great valleys with cactuses, a huge salt lake with flamingoes, the sunset in a valley that mostly looks like a moon landscape (sand hills with salt on it and with great scapes) and small ancient villages.
At night, it was time to return the car in Calama (after more then 500km of driving through the desert). With my bad Spanish and his bad English (at least his appearance...), I couldn`t convince the man from the rental company to lower the price because of the break down of the car, so in the end I had to pay the whole price (which fortunately wasn`t much). Then, it appeared that the hostel in Calama that I reserved was occupied. Fortunately, they could organise another bed for me, but I was exhausted after this weekend of driving and bad service experiences and I had to get up early again to go by bus to Salta, Argentina.
Well, this bus drive took 12 hours instead of 8, because in some mountain village there was a traffic jam because of a catholic holiday, so I was even more broken when I arrived in Salta at 1 at night. But finally, I could build up my tent and enjoy camping again!
Those were some bad and tiring experiences, but that doesn`t mean I didn`t enjoy the time in the Atacama desert. This was really a superb experience to see those empty flat and hilly landscapes, cactuses etc.!!!
(The Atacama desert has many sights, but this is at least a "real desert" to me...; The car broke down; A memorial site for victims of the Pinochet regime - 36 people were shot in the middle of the desert; Crossing a river - a fun car when it works...; Jeroen near his first cactus!; Camp fire to stay warm at 4300m; The El Tatio geysers; A Atacamena-church at over 4000m; Flamingoes in the Salar de Atacama)

So now I`m visiting the city of Salta. I just went to the German-Swiss wood and forestry company GMF S.A., which produces tropical hardwood with sustainable, European forestry systems. This was a very interesting private excursion; I have to thank Georg and the director of the company for this! Tonight I will eat with the people of the company. Tomorrow, I will hire a small car again and drive to some rain forest in a national park, to which I'm really looking forward! And at thursday, my trip back to Mendoza will start, another long bus trip, but with a good address to arrive: I will visit Alejandro again. Next week, after a short stay in Buenos Aires, I will fly back home to the country of tulips, wooden shoes, mills, grass and Dutch speaking people. I might inform you about my last experiences from home!
(Spanish colonial history in Salta)

Until then: ¡Chau! Jeroen

Standing on top of the world (oh well...)

2006-03-31T16:51:00.000-08:00

(Very happy and almost on top of the world - Vulcano Villarrica)

(The nice fishermen`s houses in Castro, Chiloe)

Again I`m writing while being filled with great experiences, stories and at the moment beer as well (so if the story gets too confusing...). The last mail was from the island of Chiloe. But my adventure on this island wasn´t finished at that time, because I went to the small fisherman`s village of Quicavi (yes Georg and Irme, I made it!). There was no campingsite there, so the local grocer said I could camp next to the church, in the middle of the village! This was funny of course, every villager who passed greated, some pigs, chicken and dogs were walking around. This place was so nice, it was an ancient fisherman`s village in a rural surroundings, and still quite untouched by tourism.
(If you look carefully, you`ll see my little green tent in front of the big wooden church!).

After that, I took the bus and boat, following the Carretera Austral south. This road is some prestige project from Pinochet to connect the Lake District with northern Chile. But for travellers, it is a great road through evergreen forest and small villages. I only went a small piece, to the Nat.Park Hornopiren. This park is situated around a vulcano, which gives a special view. But the weather was very wet and I still was a bit ill. Fortunately, I had the luck to rent a "cabana" (wooden hut) for only half of the normal price, complete with fireplace and TV. So I could recover completely from my cold and do some nice hiking. In the pub of this resort, the owner asked if I wanted to chat with an American guest who didn`t speak Spanish (so he didn`t have any contact with the owner and we were the only visitors). He appeared to speak Spanish quite well, but he was hiding it, because he (Chris) was a journalist for the Lonely Planet guide! But still we had a nice chat. I hope that Chris writes down some of my experiences that I told him, because the LP is uncomplete in Chile, and also is very focussed on fun and outdoor holidays (so for visiting some natural or cultural sites, it`s not sufficient)...

On the boat back from Chiloe, and later from Hornopiren, you have free and non-touristic animal tours: first I saw swimming seelions and a dolphin and later, we saw a lot of see lions, laying on rocks and gliding into the water!

Then, because Puerto Montt really is the connection between north and south Chile, I had to go back again to this not interesting city. Fortunately, this time it didn`t rain and I found a quite good hostel. But my next target was Pucon. This is in a hilly area, but there`s one mountain: the active vulcano Villarrica, 2800m! And you can climb this steep piece of rock, lava and snow if you want. And I wanted this very much (I had to, because my sister had been on top of it already...) so I signed in at an outdoor activity center (you are not allowed to climb the vulcano on your own, unless you can show that you have a lot of mountaineering experience). this was well organised, with a small group of nice people and some explaining about how to use your ice axe, crampons and mountain shoes, and with a lot of equipment. But after all that I heard and saw, the climb itself wasn`t even that heavy. Fortunately, so that we could enjoy the magnificent view very well. The vulcano is the only really high point in the area, with great views to other vulcanoes in Chile and Argentina, and we had a really blue sky! On top, you were breathing sulfatic smoke, which wasn´t that nice, but it showed that you were really on an active vulcano. And the way back was gliding in the snow on your raincoat and trousers, which went quite quick, but wasn´t really dangerous (although some people got hurt by their own ice axe or by sliding group members...). This was a weird experience and very funny.
(Vulcano Villarrica from Pucon at dawn; climbing up; me on top!; sliding down a vulcano really is a weird experience)

The night before the climbing, I heard some trombone and went into a music school and talked a bit with the people. The following night, two of these people were playing in our hostel (trumpet and piano). This was a nice coincidence. I went to them and played a bit with them, which was very nice. I had been two and a half months since I played the trumpet the last time, so it was quite hard to "keep pressure", but it was nice to play again!
(Dawn over the lake Villarrica in Pucon)

Furtheron, I wasn`t really satisfied with Pucon. OK the weather was great (I could swim in the lake, which had a black beach of vulcanic sediments and had great dawns) and I met some really nice people from the Netherlands, Britain, USA, the Basque Republic (no no not from Spain!) and France, but for me, it was much too touristy and "cool-outdoor like". So I decided to head east, to the Mapuche (Indian) village of Hurarrehue. There, people produce their own products and live in their Mapuche community. This was great. I visited the museum of the Mapuche culture and ate Mapuche food (fruits of a tree, a variation of potatoe and great sauces). I talked a lot with the people there. There is a project running which is partly subsidized by the EU, to organise a sustainable way of life, agriculture and forestry (see http://www.araucaniatierraviva.cl ).
Because the camping municipal was closed, somebody said I could camp at here friend`s place, some 3 km out of town. So I walked down there and met the very nice Raquel and Ivan. I could camp on their property and at night, we had a great talk about the Mapuches and of course about Dutch football.
(A Mapuche lunch)

And now I´m heading for the National Park Laguna del Laya. This is quite near Concepcion and the Chilean version of L.A.. I`m now in Los Angeles, which is just a normal city (200.000 people, loads of neon light, cars, ugly buildings, a horrible hostel etc.), so I`ll go on to the park first thing tomorrow, to enjoy nature again!

I hope to write more soon. I have to head up north and start going back into Argentina now (after visiting some last spots in Chile), because my plane leaves for Amsterdam at the 18th of April - time`s really flying and there`s still a lot to see!

Bye! Jeroen

Now complete with pics...

2006-03-23T07:45:00.000-08:00

Well the last story has been completed with some pictures from Chiloe! See: http://jeroenoorschot.blogspot.com/2006/03/sea-kayaking-and-small-world-of.html

Greetings from a rainy Puerto Montt again...

Bye, Jeroen

Sea kayaking and the small world of foresters...

2006-03-21T06:46:00.000-08:00

Now with all the pictures...

Man the time flies when you are having a great time and when you`re in a natural area without internet (fortunately, I must say - it`s no punishment to live without the square screen for a while!). My last story I wrote at the 11th of March, so almost two weeks passed, in which a lot has happenend. Which follows summarized (haha I won`t bother you with complete stories). I`ll type it while sitting in the door opening of an internet cafe in Castro on the Chiloe Island, where the cold, but smelly air (fish, shipyard etc.) waves in...

El Calafate was the last place I wrote from, and after that I went into Chile. But not after having a beer and dinner with some viajeros I met before: a Dutchie who happened to be a friend of my friend Mark v.W. (and who had the most interesting stories about his survival tours with too many kilograms in his backpack), Alan from the UK whom I met while hiking around Bariloche and a Swedish guy. And that night at 4 o`clock, my bus left for Chile. So after drinking loads of wine, I got sober again while sleaping a bit in the bus station. That`s the real tramp feeling, only without a paper box.

While waiting for the second bus in Rio Gallegos (at the crossroads of the Argentinian shore, the way to Ushuaia and southern Chile), I talked with an old Chilean hippy called Luis. That was really funny, we had a good talk, also all the way in the bus to Punta Arenas. This trip took a long time, because we had to wait for hours at the customs again (that looks like former eastern Europe; waiting for hours, first at the Arg. customs and 500m later and the Chilean customs again, showing everything you carry with you, especially food, because Chile is very anxious for agricultural diseases).

There I found out that my Lonely Planet was not really well adapted to the last developments for hostelling in Chile: two times, there were hostels described who were not there anymore, which is quite ignoring when you have been on a bus the whole day. So I ended up in Carmen`s cosy family hostel which actually was a bit too expensive, but very family-like: Carmen was a grandmother who cooked every night for her grandchildren and daughter and there was a puppy running around as well. But the good thing was, she organised everything for me (she got a bit angry as I organised a trip my self...), so I relaxed a bit there. P`Arenas is a nice harbour town, the connexion to Antarctica for Chile and as well the harbour for all the cruises through the Chilean lake district. It has a lot of ancien collonial buildings, which gives it European flair (of course, you`re not looking for this in S.America, but it`s part of history).

The first afternoon, I wanted to visit a forest monument nearby, so I rented a bike. But heavy rain, unbelievable strong and cold Andean wind and a closed forest office (so no map) forced me to turn around. Again a thing missing in lonely planet. But the next day, I went to go sea kayaking on the Magellaen Strait! This I read about a few times in the Op Pad (Dutch outdoor magazine) and interested me a lot and it was a great experience! Waves of about a meter and loads of wind, and apart from that, the steer broke, so I had to use my river Linge canoing experience to steer the kayak back to the shore, of course with the help of Maria from Australia who sat at the front seat. A second trip with the guide made it extra great - I sat at the front seat and had to paddle like hell because the wind was much stronger than before. I was completely covered with salt afterwards, it was great!

That day, we (Maria, the other kayaker Emily and I) visited some museum and some pubs, which was nice.
The next morning, I went on a real touristy trip to Fuerte Bulnes, which was the first colonial (fortified) settlement on the shore of the Magelhaen Strait, but 400 years after the discovery of the strait! This really surprised me, I wouldn`t think it would take so long to build some wooden cabins...

By then, it was time to leave for central Chile, the lake district (although I was very glad to having been able to visit the most south and windy part of S.America a bit longer, after leaving Ushuaia so quick before). I flew to Puerto Montt (unfortunately, the weather was not good, so I didn`t see anything of the Andean glaciers and the Lake District), which is the saddest, poorest and ugliest town I've seen so far. I ended up in a dirty hostel with an uninterested owner and there were very many beggars on the streets, unmaintained houses, a lot of dogs and dirt etc. This made me sad (the heavy rain as well... - well people said that Chile was doing better economically than Argentina at the moment, that might be, but it starts developing from a lower level, I think, because up till now, it`s really much poorer (except the few rich houses and cars) and more simple than Argentina!) so I moved quickly to the nice Island of Chiloe.

Chiloe is a peasant and fishermans island with a lot of native Indian inhabitants, which gives it a very special atmosphere. There, after spending the night in a more luxurious hostel, I felt a bit ill, but I still went to camp in the national park. This was not such a good idea, because the weather changed, so I got a bit more ill, especially in the morning, after waking up in a complete wet tent (it really is not suitable for humid weather...). But fortunally, Lily, the camping guard, a woman of about fifty, offered me a bed in her little house, including the greatest meals, coffee, liquor etc.

She needed some company and I liked this very much as well, we had nice chats in Spanish (more or less...)!
I did some day hiking in the gorgeous park (the climate is here so nice that the fuchsia`s grow meters high and there are small birds who fly vertically and drink the nectar!) and I went to the beach of the pacific ocean! My first meeting with this big lake!!!

But the greatest part in this paradise came yesterday. In the morning I did some horse back riding with Nelson, an Indian man who told a lot about live on the island, which was very interesting.

Then, I wanted to leave for another place but... at once I was invited (living in Lily`s house for two days already) by the French practical trainee Alexandrine to join her and a Conaf (Chile`s forestry service) park guard to visit a farmer. We drove along a most gorgeous coast for kilometers and walked around a bit. At night, some friends of Lily`s and Alexandrine`s came and... there you see that the foresters world really is a small one: I met Franco who works for another forest and rural development project (Bosque Modelo) and... who knows my good friend Mark v.B. from his practical training in 1998! Apart from that, another mystery guest appeared: a friend of Alexandrine named Virginie came, who studies at the forest university ENGREF in Nancy (France) and... who knows friends of me from my Freiburg time (Jean-Marc, Julien)!!! This was unbelievable, we had a great night with some music, much wine and very good French food!

And there I sit in Castro, the "capital" of Chiloe again, typing my stories which I hope you are still enjoying. You see, it`s great to travel alnoe: you meet new friends who are young or older people, new friends who actually are old friends (of other friends) and old friends from travelling. This is amazing! I`ve got about one month to go and I know it will be very nice to return home again, to see everybody, play my trumpet who might miss me, laying apart in pieces so it doesn´t rot, and look for a job, but I surely will miss this!

Greetings from Chile!

Jeroen

Back to: http://jeroenoorschot.blogspot.com

A small motorbike story I forgot to write...

2006-03-11T10:56:00.000-08:00

Well just for the bikers among you (dad, Timo, Hans, Gert, Jan-Kees, Tjeerd, Kees&Annemarie and...): In Ushuaia I met two Americans who had been driving all the way from Virginia to Ushuaia on a Moto Guzzi enduro 1100cc. That was quite impressive and really made me wanting to drive! Who knows...

Heavy wind, rain, snow and beautiful mountain views

2006-03-10T09:55:00.000-08:00

Somebody might have read the short message I've posted in between, about a week ago (see http://jeroenoorschot.blogspot.com/2006/03/bosques-petrificados.html or scroll below).
This activity started with visiting the Perito Moreno glacier near El Calafate. The pictures tell it: this unbelievably huge piece of natural power was very impressive. It`s about 50m high and 14km long! If you (and the 200 other visitors) were silent, you could hear the ice working. It sounded like an exploding mine or sometimes like a shotgun (I know these violent comparisons don´t really fit to this wonderful peaceful natural thing, but I don´t know any other sound to compare...).
(The glacier Perito Moreno: At the third picture, you`ll see a white point on the water, in the middle, in front of the forest: it`s a quite big tourist cruise boat with two floors, just to imagine the size of the glacier!)

(The Gol VW 1.6 was very new and not really 4x4 or all terrain adapted...)

Then, the same day I drove to the Bosques Petrificados. On the map, you can see that El Calafate is at the western border of Argentina and these petrified forests are at the eastern coast, very far away... But a very interesting ride through the most lonesome place I`ve ever seen! Imagine there`s really nothing for about 200km! Once I picked up a Canadian hitchhiker, he was only 19 years old and on his way on his own. He was waiting for three hours in the desert, so he was very glad to get this ride. Before dawn, I couldn`t find the right track and stood alone, but fortunately, there came a trucker who sent me the right way. At 1am I finally arrived at a car parking quite near the Bosques and I slept in the car. So the next morning, ater a very tiring car tour through the desert, I visited petrified tree trunks of about 70 million years old, some of them with a diameter of 1,5m! And you could see all the wood structure very well. This was a great experience, and really worth the 1500km (of which about 750km on unpaved roads...; I just don´t know what the hiring company found about it...). Between the trip, I slept in the car, so when I came back in El Calafate, I was completely exhausted, but very satisfied. Still, not many people know about this site and there are no guided tours or public transport going, so I tell everybody about it, it`s really worth visiting.
(In the desert, these guanaco`s were the only company) (The stone trunks!)

After resting a bit (I even bought a book about the history of Patagonia, which makes travelling around even more interesting!), I organised my next trip. Because El Calafate is next to the Andes, it was worth going to one of the most famous Andean hiking regions, near El Chalten. In this backpackers and mountaineers paradise, everything was twice as expensive (but great artesanal beer), there`s no ATM, there are just mountains... and very strong wind, rain, even snow. But when they sometimes fail, you have such great views on snowcapped mountains, glaciers, lakes etc. and only at an elevation of about 1500-2000m. The two famous peaks Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre (both over 3000m) where hidden in clouds all the time. I hiked for two days in rain and wind, discovered that my tent really is unsuitable for this weathertype and actually, my new jacket as well (which was a disappointment) and then I took a small bus, some 40km north.
(There I am in the rain and wind of El Chalten...)
There, on a campingsite, I would meet Alejandro, who would come there to do research. And indeed, after hiking around a bit and hiding in my sleeping bag the rest of the day because it was really cold (and my tent doesn`t isolate at al...), in the evening, there was the jeep of their research team coming! We had a great evening together with a camp fire and some nice food (and Bols oude graanjenever, which is made in Argentina!). In the morning, we hiked up to a glacier to prepare Ale`s research and... there we saw Mount Fitz Roy, without any cloud. It was like a medieval castle or church on a mountain, very spectacular.
(Ale and I with the Fitz Roy mountain at the background; the research team of CRICYT Mendoza at the camping site of Lago del Desierto)
After that, it was time to head back for El Calafate and to say goodbye, but very nice to having met again! It was good to leave El Chalten though, because it had been a very hard camping and hiking experience while being underequiped.

And now I've got a wash, relax, internet and travel preparation day out here. Here we`ve got sun, good wind to dry everything, a beautiful lake and some nice Argentineans from Buenos Aires with whom I had a mate the other night. For going on the internet, the noon is a great time, because all other shops apart from internet cafes have siesta, so you can`t do anything anyway!
The funny thing about El Calafate is, that everybody goes there. Until now, I´ve met 8 people who I`ve met before on my trip in this small town. So tonight we`ll have a beer together!

I`ve changed my plans a bit now. Actually I wanted to go to another, world famous mountain area and climbers paradise Torres del Paine (just over the border in Chile), but because my tent and jacket are not so good, my leg has had plenty of backpacking excersice and because autumn really has started in the mountains (it freezes at night, rains and winds a lot so you don`t have much chance to see the gorgeous mountain peaks, like in El Chalten, because of the low clouds), it might be better for me to visit other areas. Of whom there are plenty: I will head for Punta Arenas (so I will enter Chile), visit the Magellan island and after that, I will fly to Puerto Montt and visit the Chilean Lake District, the Chiloe Island and the land around the Carretera Austral (which is the only main road through Chile, south of Puerto Montt). I`m even really interested in hiring a motorbike for that - depending on the prices, clothing, weather etc.

Let`s see what happens, first I have to organise my trip into Chile!

It`s great to hear what happens in the Netherlands (and Germany, Indonesia etc.): people bought a house, found a job, are doing well with their studies, are getting married. I really like to hear this news, so keep on mailing!

Hey could anyone tell me if Maxima and Beatrix are in Argentina now? They weren`t in El Chalten on every case...

Jeroen

(Just some pics from Tierra del Fuego: a village with wooden and iron plate houses (like Skandinavia?); the north east is much flatter than around Ushuaia, but very nice and impressive as well; Crossing the Strait of Magellan by boat (heavy waves, salty water on the camera...))

Bosques Petrificados

2006-03-04T07:09:00.000-08:00

OK just a short message in between: I`ve made it to the petrified forest!!! It was a trip of about 1300km (see the map - the circle from El Calafate to the Bosques Petrificados) in a hired Volkswagen Gol 1.6 (no, no Golf as we know it in Europe) and with that, I drove two days, from which at least 500km on unpaved roads. So the nice white Gol turned into a yellow dusty (also inside) all terrain vehicle. At night, I slept inside, as a cat around the shift and the steering wheel, so I was quite exhausted as I came back in El Calafate yesterday. But very satisfied about seeing these 1500km of pampa, desert, the Atlantic ocean again and THE PETRIFIED FOREST. This is a must to see as a forester I think. It was very impressive! I`ll write more about it when I have the pictures with me! Tonight I`ll travel on to El Chalten to get my holiday rest (I even bought a book...), to hike around in the Andes and hopefully to meet Ale, who has to do some research work there!

Jeroen

Back to: http://jeroenoorschot.blogspot.com/2006/03/heavy-wind-rain-snow-and-beautiful.html

After snow, rain, wind and condors back in the dusty Andes again

2006-03-01T09:54:00.000-08:00

Here`s a lot to write since I left Puerto Madryn on the Atlantic coast to visit the Welsh village Gaiman, about a week ago. It was very nice to meet Esyllt, Christian and the Welsh guests Merion and Melery again. We had some nice evenings together and Christian showed us his home area. This is a valley around the Rio Chubut, which has been cultivated by the Welsh immigrants, about 150 years ago. After a nice tour in the back of Christians pick up, we climbed up the range around the valley and you could see the effect of irrigation: the valley is green and fertile and the surrounding land is desert! We enjoyed this nice view with a mate.

As I came into Gaiman in the evening, it was raining. I didn`t want to put up my tent, because it has only one compartiment and this would mean that everything would be wet by the time the tent would stay, so I went into an ancient small bed&breakfast with an owner that was as ancient as his house. There was no hot water in the tap and it wasn`t very clean, so I decided only to stay one night. I was so hungry that I cooked a meal with my cooker in the bathroom (I know it`s not a really nice thing to do, but this was an emergency...).

The next night, I camped on the site of the Fire Department. In Puerto Piramides, I had been camping at the site of the Police Dept. already - apearently it is a way to earn some extra money for these services, or to make an extra service or to make people convenient with the state services or something. I like the idea! The funny thing at this camping site was though, that the wheat was growing one meter high. There hadn`t been much mainanance the last years, I think, so you had to search for a spot to build up the tent. In the beginning, I also was the only camper! (The Firedept`s campsite. You can see the camping`s toilets just through the wheatplants...)

In Gaiman, the whole Welsh group from the wedding in Esquel also landed again. This was a funny coincidence. I did not expect that my Argentinean holiday would have such a Welsh character.
The next morning, I could have a lift to Trelew, where my flight to Ushuaia would leave in the afternoon. Esyllt and I had a nice coffee with medialunes (croissants) together and then we said goodbye. I watched around in the city a bit and went to the airport then. Well, my plane would be leaving at 17h but there was a heavy delay because of heavy storm in Buenos Aires. So everybody waited until 19h in the waiting room and then we heared (after asking at the desk; don´t think they will tell you anything by themselves...) that the plane would leave at 3am!!! We got a voucher to go back into town by taxi and enjoy a meal in a very expensive hotel, which was a nice gesture. After that, everybody fell asleap everywhere in the lounge and the congress hall of the hotel. It looked quite helpless. Meanwhile, I had a beer with the English James, who was guiding a group of retired British and US-people through Argentina and who was quite desperate to talk with somebody a bit younger... But finally, after 9 hours of delay, the plane took off and at 5am, we landed safely in Ushuaia on Tierra del Fuego. Fortunately, it was still dark and raining heavily and I was not tired at all, so I dicided to wait and sleap a bit in the hall. There, I met the very nice English painter John, who would travel to Antarctica afterwards, to paint birds and the Antarctic ice in oil. This was a very pleasant talk while waiting (although I didn`t sleap as planned...). His paintings are to be seen at http://www.galleryofbirds.co.uk. I saw some of his paintings and they were very good! He also wrote a European bird guide.

This is the most southern city of the world (so they say; the Chilenians don`t think so) and is the take of for cruises and research on Antarctica. It is situated at the Beagle Channel, which connects both oceans. I think it has a Skandinavian atmosphere, a lot of coloured wooden and metal houses and a very rough landscape. Although the mountains where only 700m high, there were glaciers on them! I landed in a decent hostel (I start to think I rather camp than go into a hostel, because you don`t have any privacy or room in such a dorm with five other stinky travellers...) and went into town. I really love harbours, sea smell, wind, a bit of rain doesn´t matter as well. This was a GREAT city! And fortunately, they had a good and cheap parrilla (grill) restaurant again!
The next days, I hiked into the National Park Tierra del Fuego. I was warned for bad weather but actually it was ok. There I did two days of hiking. The first steps on the first morning were going wrong already. I mixed up east and west (remember that the sun goes the other way on the southern hemisphere...) but by that, I saw the greatest humid peat fields. And after that, I hiked lots of kilometers along mountains, lakes etc. I camped on a free site which was wonderfully situated and there I had to do what I promised Alejandro and his Cuban friend Candice: I smoked a Cohiba Cuban cigar on the most southern spot I would visit during my trip. I carried it along from Mendoza, in a container made out of a burning spirit bottle, and this was the time to smoke it! I had some good Mendoza wine to it, and this together with the great view, the silence, some owls flying past and the fact that it was not raining made it very special! It was very cold, so I also made a small fire to it, which completed the good outdoor feeling!

The next day, I left my tent on the site and hiked up the highest peak nearby. Even without a backpack, it was a very heavy climb (3,5h), but the view from there was really marvelous - over Ushuaia, the Beagle Channel, many purple and red peat fields and the already slightly colouring trees (autumn comes early in this extreme climated area). And I saw two nice woodpeckers, a lot of other birds and a CONDOR!!! Also it was snowing while walking, it was a great experience. As I came back on the camp site, I was exhausted. I had to pack my stuff then quickly to get the bus back to Ushuaia (to organise things - see the next chapter) and it started to rain. So Tierra del Fuego was showing it`s hard side in the last hour!

But back in Ushuaia, the "stress" started. I`ve got in my mind to visit a petrified forest, quite far away from the places I originally wanted to go. In order to do that, I have to hurry a bit and that started that evening. I booked a but, mistaked in Spanish and this resulted in the fact that my bus would leave for Rio Gallegos and El Calafate the next morning at 5.30! So after my bad flight experience and two days of hardcore hiking I had to clean my gear, went into bed at 23h and up at 4.30 again. And apart from that, I actually left the nice Tierra del Fuego a bit too early. But it was my own mistake, I have to watch out with my Spanish...
But ok, I made it into the bus on time and the trip to El Calafate after that was so nice! We drove through the T`del F. mountains, the endless fields (then they say that Holland is flat...) and then passed the Maggelan Channel by boat (heavy waves - pictures coming up next time...) and endless fields with cows again afterwards. And finally, at 1am, so after a 20h bus ride, we ended up in El Calafate, back in the Andes again. I will take a small break now, which is important for my holiday feeling but especially for my right leg, and after that, I will visit a very beautiful but touristy glacier and try to get to these ancient stone forests. By then, I will write again!

A short thing to think of in between: apart from all the nice people that I meet and all the great things that I see, I also see some less nice things. Argentina has come down after the crash in 2001, which you see with the poor builded houses on the edge of every big city and some begging children. So I`m having a good time here, but there`s a lot of poverty, which should not be forgotten! For instance, in El Calafate, I camp next to a road worker, who works here every day and his camping equipment looks really bad. And there I come with my nice gear and fancy outdoor clothes, from Europe on holiday... If I speak to Argentineans, they always ask: why did you come here, is it because our country is so cheap? A lot of travellers do I think, and behave like rich foreigners, which isn`t nice. But fortunately, when you speak with the people and exchange some opinions (and the competition in football, which will start in June in Germany with Netherlands - Argentina) you always get a smile. I don`t hesitate to travel on or to enjoy my trip, it`s just good to know this other side!

Thank you all for your nice reactions - let`s stay in contact!

Jeroen

Delay to Ushuaia due to a storm in B'Aires

2006-02-24T15:36:00.000-08:00

Well I wanted to write my next story from Ushuaia, but until now, instead of flying down there, I haven´t come further then the 10km from Esyllts village Gaiman to Trelew, due to a heavy storm in Buenos Aires. Because of that, my plane couldn`t leave, so my flight from 17.50 is being delayed to 3am, but therefore I got a diner-voucher in a nice restaurant. Some Spanish people took me into the city in their private taxi (they speak a lot better SPanish then I do, which is very handy...), so everything works, although this wasn´t really planned...

OK the next REAL story, and everything about my stay in Gaiman, with new pictures, I will post in about a week or so!

Bye, Jeroen

The atlantic ocean: penguins, sea lions, orkas and rain...

2006-02-22T09:10:00.000-08:00

So today is very rainy, so it´s no waste to sit in an internet cafe. I`ve had enough wet sea breath for today...

The time in Esquel became a real party week, with much meat, beer and less sleep. The crown on it was the wedding of Welsh Heddus with Argentinian Luis, at which I was invited just the night before. Furtheron, we had a very nice time with Clare and Esyllt (from the language course) and the people from Wales. It was great to feel that much at home in a total strange place!
(Welsh grill meal with Esyllt and Clare on the left)

And of course, I visited the National Park Los Alerces with Clare. This was a very nice and huge NP, with great trees. The biggest Alerce tree had a diameter of more than 2,5m (or even 3?) and was very impressive. It was over 2000 years old and still going strong! Furtheron, it was a nice, but touristy boat trip over lakes, where you could see glaciers and nice mountain ranges.

On friday, I visited the CIEFAP, the research institute at the forest faculty of the Esquel University. This was a contact from Reiner Muehlsiegl from Freiburg. In Freiburg, he already told me that I really had to visit the university if I would go to Esquel, so this fitted great. And it was very interesting as well! I met with Alina Greslebin, who was doing research on (possible) spread of Phytophthora in Cypress trees. I worked at the same topic (on alder trees in Southwest Germany) for my Masterthesis, so this was great. We talked a long time and she showed me the university.
On saturday, I met friends of Reiner: Francisco and Celina invited me for dinner. This was very nice, we had a nice talk in German (which was quite relaxing after hearing much Spanish and Welsh) and after that, they brought me to the bus.

The bus drove me in one night through 800km of pampa with great sandy mountains that I couldn´t see because it was dark, to the east of Argentina, to the Atlantic coast. There you have Peninsula Valdez, a National Park, World Heritage Site and that of obvious, because there is such a great amount and variety of wildlife! Guanaco´s (llamas), sea lions (they were just changing their skin and laying quiet on the beach), see elephants, orkas, penguins and sometimes you can even see whales (but I was off the season for that). This was a great experience.

I also met some really nice people, had a camping sit in with French Frederic and I had a very nice day with Georg and Irme from Austria. We started with coffee while waiting for the tour bus to the wildlife sites and we ended with a nice meal. We had a lot in common and they had great tips for my travel (Georg is a wood technician who worked in the north of Argentina for half a year to set up a sawmill with sustainable wood harvest).
I also found it great to be out of the Andean dust and heat. Here it rains, is about 15 degrees and is very windy. But great, yesterday I rented a bike to experience the great wind. It`s a very special island, without ANY tree (this really hurts for a forester). It`s just plain with shrubs, sheep and guanaco`s, anywhere you look, so I`d like to call it "great Noordoostpolder".

Although my tent is not really suitable for longer rainy camping adventures: it does not resist wind very well and after a night of breathing, it rains as hard inside as outside. But well, what can you expect from an "emergy-refugio", as they call it. Therefor, I went again into a hostel in Puerto Madryn today, to dry and wash a bit.

Haha here`s a joke that I wanted to make all the time since I`ve been in Argentina. Now I finally found the right sight: you see that they didn´t forget our Dutch crown princess (who originally is from Arg.) and that they are preparing the celebrations for her 40th birthday already...

In an hour, I will drive to the ancient Welsh village Gaiman then, to meet some people of the Welsh community again. This will be a nice reunion! After that, I will fly to more or less the most southern city of the world: Ushuaia at Tierra del Fuego! I hope I can tell you more then!

Jeroen

P.S. Anamaria and Gabriella from Mendoza: I met your Irish friends on the beach of the P.Valdez (I recognised them on the footballshirt you`ve exchanged)!

Bariloche and Esquel: Visiting Andes and National Parks

2006-02-13T07:49:00.000-08:00

(Red line is y route)

At the moment (actually it was yesterday, as I started writing...), I'm waiting for the bus to Esquel, the third place I will visit in Argentina. A lot has happened the last week and on Martijns advice, I bought a digital camera, so that I can illustrate the stories with some pictures (although it takes long to load them in blogger...), and that I also can make more pictures, instead of choosing the exactly right spot with my analogue camera.
I left Mendoza after a nice barbecue (asado) with Alejandro's family, at which they gave me a mate (a cup to make the Argentinean variation of coffee or tea with the yerba plant, with a metal straw). Yesterday, I was drinking mate at a camping site and a man from Buenos Aires came to me. He asked if I was drinking mate and looked into my cup. "That's no mate, that's soup", he said. Because I put way too much water and less yerba in it. So with two friends from a Buenos Aires outdoor club, they showed me how to make it and we shared the mate (drinking mate is a social event - one prepares it and you all drink of it).
In Mendoza, we also had a nice lunch with Alejandro and his brother Guillermo and a few goodbye-beers with all the Spanish-students and -teachers. In the weekend, Ale showed me around in the Mendoza region and we tried to fiend some vineyards, but that was not easy, because every yard was fenced. People are quite scared for burglary as it seems. All houses also have bars in front of the windows, and you hear a lot of car alarms in the night.
It was sad to leave Ale and his superb hospitality. He brought me to the busstation. We might see eachother in the south, which I will visit and where he might do some fieldwork in March. But on the other hand, I found it nice to travel on to a cooler place without the smog of Mendoza! (Over 30 degrees, sandy soil and loads of old diesel cars, trucks and buses really polute the nice air, and because of the unsafe situation, everybody takes his car instead of a bike).

Then, a 18-hour bustour followed, through the pampa and later through the lower Andes. This was a marvellous tour! Although 18 hrs. in a bus is a long time, I could speak in Spanish with my neighbour and see the great sandy and redish rocky mountains, rivers and lakes. Finally, we arrived in Mendoza and I found a nice, simple hostel... with Dutch guests. And the days after, I hiked into the mountains and met Dutch people again. They are everywhere. It's nice to relax and talk Dutch, but on the other hand, I did not necessarily need to meet them... I don't really like this "us"-feeling.
(Lago Nahuel Huapi and the National Park)

But about the hike: I wanted to hike for three days, so with a heavily loaded backpack with food, my little tent, cooker etc. I took the bus to Villa Catedral, a ski resort. But as soon as you hiked away from the lifts, you entered the marvellous National Park Nahuel Huapi, with it's great forests (partly burned, unfortunaly, but that gave a special vegetation again), big trees, bamboo (!) and lots and lots of sun and dust. This, in combination with a steep trail up to 1700m made the hike very heavy. But finally, I made it to the refugio and camp site and it was great. There, I met a Belgium, Scottish and English guy, with whom I hiked on during the second and third day. First, we hike apart, but we kept on meeting and then we joined. Their company and my camping cooker made a great team, we had a lot of fun. I really like the British dry humour, their travelling stories (they were all on their way for several months) and Doug, the Scottish, even gave a small golf course. They were relaxed hikers. Back at the bus stop, after three days, we had some beers together and then... there came no bus. But after waiting and hitch-hiking for 1,5 hrs, there came a fourwheel drive who took us down to Bariloche again. We were very late, I was tired and had to clean and wash a lot, because today my bus was going, but it was a great experience!

About Bariloche: it`s a very touristic, Alpen-like place with great views on Lago Nahuel Huapi, the National Park N.H. and... wooden houses and Saint Bernard dogs! See http://sintbernardhonden.blogspot.com for some pictures...

OK then a small time jump: it's one day later, after a long bus trip through the great Andes and pampa, I've arrived in Esquel. I've just had lunch with Clare, who I met at the Spanish course in Mendoza. She teaches Welsh to the people of the Welsh community here in southern Argentina. It was very nice to meet again and tonight, we'll be having dinner with more Welsh people and Esyllt, another Welsh girl from the language course.
(The view out of the bus on the pampa and the first hills of the Andes)

Meanwhile, I´m camping in my 1,5 person Vaude Refuge, which has my hiking poles as tent poles. Until now (without rain...), it's been small but alright...
(My private hostel)

There you see how easy it goes to learn to know people in Argentina. That's really great. Everybody is very interested in what you're doing and if you try to say something in Spanish, they help you or try to speak English, they really want to communicate.

Well the next message will come from Esquel or the next stop: Peninsula Valdez at the Atlantic Ocean!

Greetings to all of you!

Jeroen

!Hola, hablo Castellano un poco!

2006-01-31T14:58:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody, just a short message from Mendoza. Everything is fine down here. It`s very hot; last saturday it was 42 degrees and dry. It is a warmth record for Mendoza. You already sweat wenn you just sit and don`t do anything, it's just my favorite temperature... But you get used to it.
Last week, the Spanish course had started. It actually is going great, I'm satisfied with my skills up to now: I can rent a bike in Spanish (sorry, Castellano, the Argentine version...), drive by bus, order and pay a drink or dinner, ask the way or something in a supermarket and do some smalltalk in the school, with Ale's friends etc. But it takes time. I found out that I get confused because of my (small) skills of French and because of learning a lot of words, verbs and tenses in 1,5 week. But I think, by repeating, talking and let it settle a bit, it will improve during travelling. On every case, we have nice teachers (Gabriela and Ana Maria) and a nice class, with Alan from Liverpool (who doesn't like Manchester United...), Sophia from Seattle, Silja from Berlin and since this monday also Esyllt from Wales. We have a lot of fun and learn Spanish in a relaxed way, by speaking a lot. We can eat lunch at the school and in the afternoon (when all the Argentina's heva siesta, which isn't for nothing with this heat) we have some activities (watching a movie, walk through the town or singing songs, all in Spanish), which help a lot to learn.
After those activities, I have been walking a lot. At one (very hot) day, I hiked up the first pre-Andean hill, la Cerro de la Gloria, which forms the viewpoint of Mendoza. It was a very long walk through the city and the enourmous Parque San Martin and a terrible climb in the sun, I got a heavy sunburn, but the view was great. And on my way up, I even saw a Carausius (don't know the English name, but translated out of Dutch, it's a "walking branch"), which I had never seen before in nature.
Yesterday I rented a bike, so now I can go by bike through the city. It's quit dangerous, a lot of people warned me for the trafic and for bandits on quiet places, but if you stay in the centre, it's ok and better than walking or by bus. The school is about four kilometres away from Alejandro's house, so it is worth to go by bike!
The people here are great and very friendly, they really make you feel at home. At friday, we had a barbeque at Ale's parents' place with the whole neighbourhood. Barbequeing and eating cow's meat is food number one in Argentina and it really was delicious, and very nice as well. One neighbour had her birthday and they organised a trumpet, so I could play happy birthday and some jazztunes. That was very nice.
During the weekend, Ale and I drove up into the Andes to hike and camp, into an area which is called Vallecitos. We drove a marvelous tour with Ale's fourwheel drive and ended up near a skiresort at about 2.500 meters. We hiked up to over 3.000m to camp. The good thing was, that the temperature only was about 20-25 degrees instead of the 42 in Mendoza. On our way up, we met a bull that didn't really like us, but we managed to get passed and climbed on. At a plane morene area, we wanted to camp near some other tents, but there were a lot of cows and bulls and as this one bull came up, they started to fight. They nearly run over a tent with a sleaping guy in it, imagine that are more then 200kg of barbeque on your sleeping bag... By throwing stones and shouting, we chased them away, but later on, we camped on a higher and safer place. The view was so nice at sunset and later with very much stars, the milky way was superb and of course the stars of the southern hemisphere (so no Dutch boyscout training would have helped my if we got lost...).
The next day, we hide the main gear, and climbed up the mountain San Bernardo (whose name perfectly fitted to me being a St. Bernard), which is about 4.300m. The view was more nice every step we did, we saw an Argentinean lama called guanacos and we might have seen a condor, but we weren't shure. After a lot of rocks (it remembered me of the holiday at Monte Rosa in 2002, but with a slower speed...), dust and climbing, we stopped at almost 4.000m, because it was already late and the way to the summit was a steep ridge we did not necesarily needed to go (if you know what I mean, because of heigth fever...). But the view was marvelous. We saw three summits of over 6.000m (one of them Plata, a mountain that is being climbed a lot as a training for Aconcagua, the highest peak of the Andes), great landscapes of former glaciers and to the east, we saw the plain country of Mendoza and the pre-cordillera, as the lower Andes are being called. We hiked down to our luggage again, loaded our backpacks and started to hike back to the car. But that was the heaviest past, because we were not used to the heavy backpack anymore, and we were already tired. But we made it, and then drove down to the holiday house of the parents of Ale's girlfriend Luci, where we were welcomed very friendly again, and had a nice meal. At least, at 23.30 we were back in the heath of Mendoza and I had to get up at 7 again for the language course. So it was a very great and exhausting weekend!
Then thanks to Ale's digicam, I can show you some pictures of our great weekend:

OK that's it for now. It's 21h here and I nead to cook, after a wine tour with the school this afternoon. You see that you get used to the local habits easily (good wine and eating late).

Goodbye! Jeroen

Bienvenudo a Mendoza!

2006-01-23T10:46:00.001-08:00

Hello! Greetings from Argentina! Yes this means that I made the big trip down south and that I´m doing fine! Last Thursday I took the plane from Amsterdam to Milano and Buenos Aires. My mother and sister came to the Airport to say goodbye. Although we had been waiting and talking relaxed for a while, it was hard to say goodbye in the end... But then finally, my plane went and the adventure started.
In B´Aires, I had a coffee with Veronica which sat next to me in the plain. She was picked up by her mother and aunt and didn´t see her for two years, so it was a happy meeting. Then, Veronica showed me the right bus to get to the Airport for the final flight to Mendoza. That was a great help, for an airport is a crowded and busy thing and my Spanish stops at "vamos a la playa". I heard from my Dutch travel agency NBBS that my luggage would be transported to the other Airport, which was about 45 km away from the airport where I arrived. But as I arrived at the other airport, I heard that my luggage was NOT taken there. So I first try to call Alitalia (my flying company - I found out that I was lucky to get all my flights as planned because they are striking), but they couldn´t help me. So I hired a taxi and drove in a suicide action (you´ll understand that if you see the B´Aires trafic and the way my driver was driving) back to the main Airport, got my bag and drove back again. Fortunately I made the check in on time, but I was quite stressed and very angry with the NBBS, who already had been sending my tickets to Freiburg instead of my Dutch address...

But I want to forget this bad experience and start to enjoy - Mendoza is in the central-west part of Argentina (a wine region, close to Aconcagua, the highest peak of the Andes). I got picked up by the parents of my friend Alejandro, because Ale was on holiday. I could use his appartment, was invited by his brother Guillermo on a student´s grill party the first evening, the second eve I was invited on another party (but I didn´t go - they wanted to go at 2 at night and I wanted to give my leg a bit of rest - unfortunately I couldn´t take my Kaiserstuhl that I used in Freiburg with me, so I have to take care of my leg a little bit more) and yesterday, I was invited to have a great lunch at his parent´s place. This hospitallity is great and everybody is trying to make me feel at home, that´s superb.
Yesterday night, Ale came back from his holiday, so now we´re the two of us in his apartment - it was very nice to see him again after summer 2005 in Davos.
Furtheron I did some walking through the city. There´s a nice and relaxed city center with parks, pubs, music, palm trees etc. and a very big park (almost half of the size of the city itselves). Mendoza is situated in a desert, but as in Freiburg, they built small canals with Andean water and therefore, a lot of trees can grow. It´s a very green city in the middle of desert and artificially watered vineyards.
Mendoza is not really rich, but not really poor as well. I found out that pour and "rich" are mixed. You see a lot of very old cars, dogs and life takes place on the streets a bit more. I like that, the city lives.

And this morning, I had to get up at 6.30 (damn it´s my holiday...) to be at the language course on time. I went by bus, driving by the "micro" also is an experience if you don´t speak any Spanish. At 8.30 the course started. We´re in a small group with an American girl (hey Libby I already met two girls from Seattle, did you send them?), a German girl and an English bloke. It´s a really relaxed and friendly course, but hard to start when you don´t know a word. It´s really learning the basics. But there´s a lot to laugh and practice. In the afternoon, there are practical activities - today we went into the city and a supermarket to practice common words like trafic light and orange...

I´m very happy to be here. In the plane, I sometimes thought why I was doing this, but now it feels great and it´s going to be better every day I think. I´m also really looking forward to start travelling. I´ve heard and read so much that I now want to see it.

OK that´s it for now! I´ll write my new experiences soon and send you a mail to confirm that there´s some news on the site!

Good bye and greetings to all of you!

Jeroen

Welcome

2006-01-11T04:50:00.000-08:00

Hi I'm Jeroen and I've just created a web site to tell about my trip to Argentina and Chile. More news follows...

Greetings from Holland,

Jeroen