rent in new york

no, not another comment about the brutal rents here in new york but the name of the musical i watched today! i'm not really that big a fan of shows, but you can't really leave new york without visiting a broadway show and i picked rent... well, i didnt actually pick it, it was the first thing i've heard at the half price booth this morning hehe

apropos, insider tip: there's a half price booth at the seaport south of the brooklyn bridge, no queues there at 11 in the morning! much better than getting in the line at the one at times square

hell that musical was good! great play and an amazing cast! plays for 10 years at broadway, for a reason; unfortunately my camera's batteries died, so no bootleg pics of the show

during the day i explored williamsburg, the area in brooklyn i was staying the last few days... it has the interesting edgy character i like a lot... its a mix between ghetto look and trendy shops & bars



flickr set: new york - williamsburg

when i was planning my trip, i didn't want to spend much time in south america because i could not imagine that i would like it: too much sun, crime and spanish

looking back, i was wrong and i already plan another trip in my mind

the crime statistics for me during the 2 months there:

0 pickpocketing
0 robbing
0 murders

so, nothing happened at all... the only second hand stories i've heard were of people being robbed / pickpocketed in situations where they have acted 'stupid' and could have been easily avoided

don't believe the hype, its not as bad as 'everyone knows'

sure, sometimes i was in dodgy situations, but the benefits outweigh everything:
- great scenery (uyuni, macchu picchu, rio, ...)
- people (cusco, rio)
- prices (bolivia)
- culture & lifestyle (everywhere)

just amazing!

but next time, no more tours and as much travelling off the beaten track as possible... central america, colombia and down to chile & argentina!

sooo... finally some minutes to deal with my handwritten backlog of blog entries this one is lying there for weeks hehe, a comparison of bolivia and peru, two very unique countries i got to love while travelling through them!

scenery

bolivia has all the extremes: enormous mountains, really bad looking shantytowns huge white salt lakes, etc. everything much more colorful than peru and salar de uyuni and the national park are just amazing, nothing compares to that

peru got the inca trail, but as previously said: overrated! and besides, you have seen enough inca ruins already before entering the trail, as they all look the same (except macchu picchu, which is huge) the feeling is more like "oh great, ANOTHER ruin wall"

perus mountains are nice, but nowhere near the impression you get from bolivias landscapes

1:0 for bolivia!

people

bolivians dont really get the whole "be nice to tourist" idea... peruvians are much friendlier, always smiling and make you feel a lot more welcome. besides you dont feel like being scammed all the time

but santa cruz is the notable exceptions for bolivia: people there are great, but still... dont compare to peru.. especially the highlanders are great to be around

1:1

cities

cusco vs. sucre is the obvious comparison of cities, which is a clear win for the versatile cusco compared to the rather boring sucre! sucre has white buildings and chocolate, yeah, but cusco.. so much to do and a fantastic nightlife of course!

but if you take santa cruz of bolivia into consideration, its a close race, since its a much more modern city than there are in peru

i dont even mention lima and la paz... those city are just disgusting places which should be avoided at all costs


2:2


no winner there, but since bolivia is about two times cheaper than peru: GO THERE