To africa I fly

Tomorrow(Monday) I'll fly to Morocco! It will definitely be interesting. I haven't booked a hotel or planned anything. So far I have always booked things beforehand... I'll be meeting a Moroccan student there, who'll show me around a bit.
I don't even have exchanged money beforehand...

As price politics go these days I am not flying the shortest route, because that wouldn't be the cheapest!
I'll be flying to Madrid first and 2 hours later fly to Fes from there. And then I'll be lost for the first time and see where my path leads me. :)

No time left. I'll write again, as soon as I find an internet connection over there. ;)

Traveling and equipment

If you go travel for longer periods, you have to carefully consider what to take along and what not. I thought I'd post every now and then what proved useful and what didn't, as it might be useful to others. ;)

I bought most of the things at http://www.globetrotter.de/ (you can also find the link in my link section) they basically offer everything a traveler needs and also deliver to other countries than Germany. ( I had them deliver things to Spain, that weren't on store when I was still in Germany)
However it didn't make sense to buy everything beforehand because I'd have to carry things around half a year before I put them to use eventually. ;)

Well let's start with something I didn't buy and why. Functional Clothing. The main reason was just price. The more affordable products all had mixed reviews. Then the wool products would have been a risk as I've never worn wool and don't know how my skin would have reacted (some people really can't wear wool clothing). Lastly also some South America travelers advised against it and said cotton products would make more sense. So I just stayed with cheap cotton products, which can be cheaply replaced on the road. ;) Downside more clothing is required and thus more weight, but so far I am still light enough on the weight side of things.. ;)

Dangerous Wildlife

For the most part Mallorca is not dangerous. Sure there are gangs robbing public busses and sometimes there is police armed with MGs patrolling the streets, but that's just humans.. !
So at first I thought that's it. But then I learned there is actual dangerous wildlife here.

The first, which I have not actually encountered yet, is the common snapping turtle. I never saw turtles as a source of danger until now. These ones are supposedly capable of biting off your hand and they are also fast moving!
Not the slow helpless thing I had in mind when I thought of tortoises. They even have claws, surely the only thing missing would be spikes on their shells.(Image is courtesy of Wikipedia)

Then there are Thaumetopoeidae caterpillars.. When I was a kid it was: "Look a caterpillar" not "Stay away from caterpillars! They are dangerous." How so ? Well it doesn't bite off anything it just has nasty bristles which easily break off to become airborne death threats. That is, if you breathe those bristles in. Just coming into contact with them isn't enjoyable either, resulting in rashes and pruritus.
You can see a nest, of which I have seen many today, on the image (which is also courtesy of Wikipedia).

So even turtles and caterpillars are dangerous!

Time passes quickly when days are so short. Almost 2 weeks now, since I last posted. Time for a birthday post!

Of course most days I worked - we only work when the weather is good (which is most of the time) but we also went hiking again.

Trash was to be found at many places ( there was a microwave oven in the midst of a forest...). This is just another example showing that most people here care little about nature. They are also rather trigger happy with chemicals here, which has lead to the demise of many a roaming cat here. They seem to have little respect for animals in general here. The streets contain quite a few dead hares, chickens and cats. Those things which once were animals have been driven over so often that they are little more that a thin layer on the street and it is almost impossible to figure out which animal such a thing once was..

I really should register with one of these picture sharing sites to be able to post all of the pictures. I have a few higher resolution pictures now which were taken by my uncle (no, I don't have a good camera now).

I feel older now. Not a birthday post anymore. I'll have to go to sleep now and continue soon!

Incoherence

I have been on the Balearic island called Majorca for a week now and didn't yet manage to write here. When I arrived it was getting dark already and so I just 'settled in' that day.

(if you want a google maps link where you can walk around here(in 3D) tell me via facebook, mail or some other means) The next day I started working, and did the same for the following days. Everybody has a pool around here .. kind of strange considering we aren't that far away from the sea.
On Saturday then my relatives here were going to hike with some friends and I joined them. We walked along a beach and picniced after an hour or so. Then on our way back we walked past a sun bathing topless woman(She actually had been there when we came already [maybe she thought her skin was looking to young] and greeted me[people here seem far more likely than Germans to greet] just lying differently, leaning against an old bunker and nobody seemed to notice her then. There also was a cliché-weirdo, wearing sunglasses and sitting about 15 metres away, constantly staring at her). So everybody (actually mostly the women, but not only) started complaining that there would be a nudist (FKK on German) beach nearby. Beforehand (the women) suggested that I go bathe nude in the sea... Well that much for coherence in behaviour.
Later then I checked Online - they were wrong  - that was actually the nudist part of the beach. Now I can tell everybody that I have been on a nudist beach. :D

The next day I rode an old bike to Palma - well actually almost rode through Palma!

The locals don't seem to care much about signs here. There was no sign indicating that I was in Palma and names of streets aren't given at every crossing. The only reason I stopped was because I couldn't imagine El Arenal being that huge! Then after I finally found indications that I was in Palma I got lost a bit in the streets and had to head back already because there was a storm predicted. Apparently even here people think of Bavaria when hearing Germany. They have "Oberbayern" here(meaning upper Bavaria, however this also means something like "in the deepest woods". Ober is similar in meaning to "Uber".)
It wouldn't have made much of a difference though, if the storm wouldn't have been predicted for that time, since it was getting dark at about the same time the storm came and the bike doesn't have lights etc.. so I'd have returned at about the same time no matter what.
In the end I realised I wasn't cool enough for biking .. so I cooled down somewhat:

(The wind and salty water proved quite nasty when I was close to the beach with the bike - I had red eyes when I arrived in Palma)

To be continued.

The Start

So the flight goes today. Originally I wanted to post beforehand, but in the end time somehow flew away and I still have a bit to do before I can board the plane, so I'll keep this short.

I'll have to get the last vaccination shot today, unfortunately I forgot to call the pharmacy yesterday to ensure, that they'll have the vaccine on store. I hope I am in luck, at least they said, they normally do have the vaccine and I should just call to be sure..

Then I'll still have things left to pack, for example this Laptop I am currently writing on. I decided to take it along in the end, (probably being a bad idea) which cost some extra time yesterday moving data around..
Well I'll better stop now and call the pharmacy.

I'll finish off with this image:

Translation: Tame birds sing of freedom, wild birds fly !

P.S. A small tip: you can subscribe to the RSS feed to always see when I wrote something new.

Dhrontal

Now, with just a few days left until my journey starts (on the 24th) I thought I'd show the place where I am spending my last days (in Germany). Which is a perfect opportunity to present the miserable image quality that I'll have to live with for now, since I'll be using a 'smartphone' to take the images. I am hoping to find a cheap camera of reasonable quality while traveling.. A cheap high quality camera is acceptable too. ;) Anybody willing to part with a waterproof Canon for a few bucks ? :P

The place I am staying currently is a place in the Dhrontal. The Dhrontal is a forested dale and I grew up here. Originally there was a water mill of some sort here, but nobody knows exactly what the mill processed. The water came from the brook called Dhron. When looking at the pictures the Dhron is between the willows which separate the pastures.

I made a few shots on a cloudy, cold and unfriendly day.

This is the maximum quality. Yep a maximum resolution of 320x240.
Awesome isn't it ? The neat thing is, that this seems perfect for blogging purposes! Oh and I can shoot thousands of images considering their small size.
Another option is to use a small crappy crappy video camera. That way I could make higher resolution images, which are just horribly noisy. That isn't the only catch though, battery lifetime is extremely short.

And lastly a few shots from today with better weather:

The Dhron:

 

 

I lived in that house, back when I lived here:

 

And before that in there:

There used to be an aviary of which you can still see the beams.