Anyhows, Bolivia just got on my to go list. Apparently you can survive in Bolivia with $3 per day (I mean by surviving that you live like a king)
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Coca leaves
So many people think that it helps if you shew coca leaves when u r up in the mountains. According to some who have tried the effect is unnoticeable. But, there is good joke related to coca I heard today... It took place at a museum in La Paz (Bolivia) and goes like this: The guide in the museum explains: there are 17 elements in coca leaves that are very useful for human beings - carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, carbohydrates, proteins, water, .... (the list goes on :) ). And the north american government wants us to stop producing just because one of them! No, we can't do this.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
About Zurich and Swiss history
Well, things are in ordnung here. When I arrived to Zurich and took a tram to Youth Hostel for the first night, two street musicians came in and started playing guitars. They were pretty good with latin-american stuff. Anyway next morning the same guys at YE breakfast table were complaining that the police had come and now they have to leave Switzerland in 3 days. They don't tolerate begging in Z. Guys had french nationality, but originated from Morocco I would guess. Anyway they had done ok in Geneva, but decided to come to Z for the big bucks. Back to France it is for them...
Another thing I learned today is why Swiss are rich and why there is lots of money here. Anybody?
It's not the chocolate industry, it ain't the watches, it's because of textile industry the Swiss have the money. Never heard anything about Swiss textile industry!? Me neither. In the second half of 19th century they were huge exporters of textiles to the USA and Asia. By doing that they accumulated lot's of cash which needed of course good banking system. The textile industry was the main driving force for Swiss chemistry industry and the University also here at Zurich who had to produce the dye for textile coloring. Also Swiss precision machining was developed to feed the textile factories with motors and stuff... So the success story of textile. Who knows, maybe they produce textile goods even today...
...because stuff is expensive: bottle of Coke (0.5l) was 4.50 CHF (=45EEK) at city centre, as was cup of tea, so beware those who come from eastern Europe.
Have to go to train museum soon. The history museum had no clues why the trams in Zurich have so ugly blue color on them.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
My XDream History
I'll try to remember how I gave my finger to XDevil...
XDream is an orienteering multisport race series held in Estonia with 4 races per season. Idea is that 3 member team must find its way along control points by running, biking, canoeing, rollerblading and complete special tasks like rope climbing, puzzles and etc. One race on longer track is approximately from 6 to 12 hours. Race web is here: www.xdream.ee.
---- 2005 season ----
Well, it happened thanks to Merlin, merci Merlin. Merlin invited me to participate as a part of Nublud team with her sister as third team member. We had lot's of fun on B-track, we never really pushed it to the maximum, but rather enjoyed the wild.
2005 1. race @ Kose - 5:20:08 / Nublud / B 57 overall / 17. mixed
2005 2. race @ Ilumetsa - 7:41:29 / Nublud / B 48 overall / ? mixed
For the third race our team was scattered and we never got back together again :(
But the seed was planted, there was no way back anymore. I persuaded two of my best friends to try out the A-track sprint event. Without any preparation we just went and back then none of us were really training, just occasional bikerides and some skiing in the winter time for fun.
2005 4. race @ Viljandi - 5:31:00 / Maratoonarid / A 4th from the last / A 29. males (the last place!)
We used universal street bikes instead of MTB and didn't dare to swim accross Viljandi lake in late september to gain the few minutes to escape from the last place. Anyway this result was a good motivation to start training more seriously.
---- 2006 season ----
After plentiful ski wearing during the winter the spring came with the old problem of finding motivated team members. After some effort old friend from basketball team (Riho) and his friend (Thomas) were ready to team up, but only for shorter B track. Better than nothing I guess...
2006 1. race @ Kõrvemaa - 5:47:03 / Jalutajad / B 47. overall (out of 116) / B 32. males (out of 58).
We skipped 2 races because of the team members were doing other things during the summer, but were back at the last race of the season and on the longer A track.
2006 4. race @ Võru - 7:52:01 / Jalutajad 2 / A 53. overall / A 36. males (out of 39).
I remember that we made many stops on this race, since the hilly bike track almost killed some of our team members. But it's the participation that counts, right...
---- 2007 season ----
After a lots and lots of more training during winter I got very pleasant offer from my friend Ivar Hütt from Hansa Rajaleidjad team to join him and Peep. I had some doubts about my performance, since they were usually around top 20 not among last 5 as myself, but I said yes very quickly. The plan was to go take part in 36hour competition this year and the XDream series was just a good training for this event. We took part in the warmup race WinterDream, where I was suffering from mild fever and was out of steam after 2 hours and was just wandering around. We started off on skies and changed to running gear at about halfway.
2007 WinterDream@Haanja 07:28:59 / Väle Tigu / 53. males (of 75)
Now in spring the real racing started and motivation was high. Body was full of red blood cells from hundreds of skiing kilometers including the Vasaloppet ski marathon.
We made almost perfect race orienteering-wise to start off the season with maybe 10 minutes from ideal.
2007 1.race@Türi? 04:29:27 / Väle Tigu / A 23. overall (of 89) / A 16. males (of 61)
2007 2.race@Otepää 12:29:28 / Väle Tigu / A 33. overall (of 74) / A 23. males (of 51)
Otepää race took place only one week after 36 hour race and I could feel it in my legs. Especially when rollerblading to Kääriku and back with headlamps @ night. But race was fun even though we followed a bunch of lost contestants in the woods for 5 minutes and as a result got lost ourselves for about an hour.
But this was a small mistake compared to what we pulled out from the hat on the 3-rd race.
2007 3.race@Keila Joa 23:06:10 (penalty 13h) / Väle Tigu / A 62. overall (of 74) / A 44. males (of 52).
The magic trick we did was the one of losing our SIman, Ivar. We reached CP 2 (or 3) in the caves just behind Randy from ISC Adventure Team and Ivar went into the cave to mark the CP. But in the darkness it took some time and and when he wanted to get out then the opening was flooded with about hundred people all trying to get into the cave :)
Anyway in that mess myself and Peep agreed that we saw Ivar leaving the place and started off to follow him... and we convinced ourselves that he even went on from the next CP without us but finally about an hour later when we reached first CP with marshals we of course realized that Ivar was probably still waiting for us at the cave, so we headed back to find him and were dead last very soon. And Ivar had actually been waiting at the caves and had just started moving towards us when we met him... a bad mistake (lost about 2 hours), which we promised never to make again! Without motivation we decided to complete the track but ended up searching a CP from dark bunker with a guy who was supposed to remove the SI station, but without flashlight it eluded us and after about an hour of searching in vain we left the bunker feeling really depressed. We completed the race and reached and passed few slower teams at the end and finished with a good lesson that none of us will ever forget :)
To be continued...
XDream is an orienteering multisport race series held in Estonia with 4 races per season. Idea is that 3 member team must find its way along control points by running, biking, canoeing, rollerblading and complete special tasks like rope climbing, puzzles and etc. One race on longer track is approximately from 6 to 12 hours. Race web is here: www.xdream.ee.
---- 2005 season ----
Well, it happened thanks to Merlin, merci Merlin. Merlin invited me to participate as a part of Nublud team with her sister as third team member. We had lot's of fun on B-track, we never really pushed it to the maximum, but rather enjoyed the wild.
2005 1. race @ Kose - 5:20:08 / Nublud / B 57 overall / 17. mixed
2005 2. race @ Ilumetsa - 7:41:29 / Nublud / B 48 overall / ? mixed
For the third race our team was scattered and we never got back together again :(
But the seed was planted, there was no way back anymore. I persuaded two of my best friends to try out the A-track sprint event. Without any preparation we just went and back then none of us were really training, just occasional bikerides and some skiing in the winter time for fun.
2005 4. race @ Viljandi - 5:31:00 / Maratoonarid / A 4th from the last / A 29. males (the last place!)
We used universal street bikes instead of MTB and didn't dare to swim accross Viljandi lake in late september to gain the few minutes to escape from the last place. Anyway this result was a good motivation to start training more seriously.
---- 2006 season ----
After plentiful ski wearing during the winter the spring came with the old problem of finding motivated team members. After some effort old friend from basketball team (Riho) and his friend (Thomas) were ready to team up, but only for shorter B track. Better than nothing I guess...
2006 1. race @ Kõrvemaa - 5:47:03 / Jalutajad / B 47. overall (out of 116) / B 32. males (out of 58).
We skipped 2 races because of the team members were doing other things during the summer, but were back at the last race of the season and on the longer A track.
2006 4. race @ Võru - 7:52:01 / Jalutajad 2 / A 53. overall / A 36. males (out of 39).
I remember that we made many stops on this race, since the hilly bike track almost killed some of our team members. But it's the participation that counts, right...
---- 2007 season ----
After a lots and lots of more training during winter I got very pleasant offer from my friend Ivar Hütt from Hansa Rajaleidjad team to join him and Peep. I had some doubts about my performance, since they were usually around top 20 not among last 5 as myself, but I said yes very quickly. The plan was to go take part in 36hour competition this year and the XDream series was just a good training for this event. We took part in the warmup race WinterDream, where I was suffering from mild fever and was out of steam after 2 hours and was just wandering around. We started off on skies and changed to running gear at about halfway.
2007 WinterDream@Haanja 07:28:59 / Väle Tigu / 53. males (of 75)
Now in spring the real racing started and motivation was high. Body was full of red blood cells from hundreds of skiing kilometers including the Vasaloppet ski marathon.
We made almost perfect race orienteering-wise to start off the season with maybe 10 minutes from ideal.
2007 1.race@Türi? 04:29:27 / Väle Tigu / A 23. overall (of 89) / A 16. males (of 61)
2007 2.race@Otepää 12:29:28 / Väle Tigu / A 33. overall (of 74) / A 23. males (of 51)
Otepää race took place only one week after 36 hour race and I could feel it in my legs. Especially when rollerblading to Kääriku and back with headlamps @ night. But race was fun even though we followed a bunch of lost contestants in the woods for 5 minutes and as a result got lost ourselves for about an hour.
But this was a small mistake compared to what we pulled out from the hat on the 3-rd race.
2007 3.race@Keila Joa 23:06:10 (penalty 13h) / Väle Tigu / A 62. overall (of 74) / A 44. males (of 52).
The magic trick we did was the one of losing our SIman, Ivar. We reached CP 2 (or 3) in the caves just behind Randy from ISC Adventure Team and Ivar went into the cave to mark the CP. But in the darkness it took some time and and when he wanted to get out then the opening was flooded with about hundred people all trying to get into the cave :)
Anyway in that mess myself and Peep agreed that we saw Ivar leaving the place and started off to follow him... and we convinced ourselves that he even went on from the next CP without us but finally about an hour later when we reached first CP with marshals we of course realized that Ivar was probably still waiting for us at the cave, so we headed back to find him and were dead last very soon. And Ivar had actually been waiting at the caves and had just started moving towards us when we met him... a bad mistake (lost about 2 hours), which we promised never to make again! Without motivation we decided to complete the track but ended up searching a CP from dark bunker with a guy who was supposed to remove the SI station, but without flashlight it eluded us and after about an hour of searching in vain we left the bunker feeling really depressed. We completed the race and reached and passed few slower teams at the end and finished with a good lesson that none of us will ever forget :)
To be continued...
Welcome to Blogging
Just found out that I am an old bloke already and keep forgetting things. Naturally one should start writing things down then, but as always there is no pen around when you need it the most. But there is internet, so here I am in da Blogger. Another reason why I signed up is the plan to list some of the sports events I have been to and since huge travel fever has struck again - some travel related posts. Peace.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
