Blog

Peru - Walk the walk

Robert Harley Mostad — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 07:11:54 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, me and Vibeke came back from Peru, a trip that almost went down the drain! For some idiotic reason we did not reach our flight in time and our whole flight was cancelled as a result of the "no-show". After about two hours of hectic calling and frantically surfing the web for new tickets we realized that we were going to Peru!

At the beginning of the two hours the only tickets I could find would have costed us about 40 000,- kr ($8000) but in the end I got away with 100 000 miles and 800 eur. The happy end of the story is that the new tickets was business class, a welcome treat on a almost 13 hour flight :D Thank you very much to ECO Expeditions (http://www.ecoexpeditions.no/) and Mr. Geir Ulstein for his help in rescheduling the trip.

We landed in Lima, spent one night there and left for Puerto Maldonado via Cusco, before heading straight inn to the Jungle, about one hour with a car and four hours up a river with a boat. And the fun part begun!!

Getting woken up by desperate and horny sounds of bugs and birds is a pleasant experience. We spent all our time awake exploring every plant, bug and animal around us. From the huge tarantulas crawling around in the roof in the dining room to the enormous trees scattered around the forest. Here is a few pictures.

The second part of the trip was visiting Inka ruins and walking the Inka Trail to Mucha Pichu, this was done with 3 more people from Norway and another 5 from Spain. Walking the endless amounts of stairs in altitudes up towards 4200 meters was a experience for life! More pictures follow.

The last part of the trip was a excursion to Titicaca Lace (3800 masl) and a tour of the "Floating Islands".

Thank you for a very nice trip! I will defiantly go back and explore the jungle!

My girlfriends surprise trip to Santorini Greece!

Robert Harley Mostad — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 11:26:46 +0000

About one month a head of the trip she told me that I had to take one week off work in the end of August! I off course asked what se had in mind for the week, but all she told me was that it was a surprise. Since we have a trip planned in the end of September to Peru, I just figured that it was a week vacation to somewhere close.

As the days went by and we came closer to the week, I still had no idea what she had in mind. But a few days before she told me that we were going to fly to Oslo, she had also given me a couple of hints like "Motor bike", "White and blue" and some other weird hints that I could not make anything out of.

The same day we were going to leave, I told here that I had to at least know what to pack?!. "No, you don't.... I will pack for you. Please let me know what you would like to pack if you were to go to a cold place and if you were to go to a warm place" Was the answer I got. She told me to get lost for a couple of hours and when I got back she had already packed two backpacks.

Throwing the backpacks in the back of the truck and on the way to the airport I still had no idea what I had in the backpack or where we were going except that we were flying to Oslo.

As we got to Oslo and were going to pick up the luggage she told me that we had to check in to the airport hotel, but that was all she told me. I figured that we were going to take a flight tomorrow, but that only left me scanning hundreds of flights that were scheduled to leave the day after.

Not until we were at the gate and were about to walk inn to the plane did I see that we were going to the beautiful Santorini in Greece, with is a place I have only heard of as a beautiful place.

The week turned out to be abselotely amazing! As you have seen under my "Phone blog" I have already posted two photos, but below are some more ;)

Advanced River Rescue

Robert Harley Mostad — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 11:02:21 +0000

This summer I attended a Advanced Swift Water Rescue course. Loved it and the other course attendees made it even better! Below are some pictures from the course.

Climbing "Munken"

Robert Harley Mostad — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 15:15:07 +0000

Right across the fjord of Trondheim there is a climbing/walking path up to the mountain called Munket. You look straight at it when you are standing in Munkegaten in Trondheim looking towards the sea.

The walk up takes between 1 and 2 hours and it takes about one hour down. Very nice walk with a fabelous view if the weather is nice!

Below are a few pictures.

Playing with Macrophoto

Robert Harley Mostad — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 21:23:14 +0000

Just took a few hours in the forest next to where I live an played with my macro objective.

Nice business trip to Japan

Robert Harley Mostad — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 09:36:44 +0000

My last business trip went to Japan, around the Osaka area, but also further south. I always like the trips to Japan and nonetheless this time. I got to experience two of the famous things Japan is known for, fabulous sushi and earthquakes. I also had some time off and got to visit some of the local sights like the Osaka Castle and the Aquarium. You will see some pictures below.

Here are a few pictures from the Aquarium in Osaka

"Dud... Please let me out!"

The making of Dumplings! No where in the world can you find as good dumplings as made in Japan!

Cant but love them crowds :P A several kilometer shopping street!

Short update... A certain someone.

Robert Harley Mostad — Mon, 30 May 2011 16:48:22 +0000

It has been a while withough any update now, and there are a couple of reasons for that. In February I met a certain someone that has ended up booking all my time lately and I cant say that I have made any efforts to reschedule any of it. I cant wait to find out how it turns out in the long run, but for now I am on cloud 9!! Here is a couple of pictures form a trip we had earlier this spring!

The rest of my time has gone to the Red Cross, arranging for new members, old members and coming members to have all the information they need to stay happy. Here is a picture of a few of us marking the Red Cross Day downtown Trondheim.

Right now I am on a business trip in Germany until the end of the week. And the rental car companies really seem to like me again, this time they asked me if I was willing to drive a different car than the one I rented back to the place that i was dropping it off at. I said yes, and they provided me with a BMW 535d...

Visiting these USA´s

Robert Harley Mostad — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 22:13:15 +0000

Its always a love/hate relationship with visiting the US, Its amazingly easy traveling and getting around, the people are always nice and I have a good time! The only issue is the food and once in a while I meet very ignorant people, but these are less common! I must say though that I had some ignorant views my self when it came to the American health care system, but I have partly been proven wrong. I have never had to go to a hospital in the states, or anywhere except for Norway for that matter, but now I see that I am lucky that the US was the first place where I had to go to one! *See the post from India*. I started getting sick the day before I left for the USA and after 5 days of high fever and getting worse I realized I had to see a doctor. So I went to a hospital, got my own room within 10 minutes, was checked out by 3 nurses and a doctor within 30 minutes and had all tests done and a chest x-ray within 60 minutes and were diagnosed with pneumonia and realse´d within 2 hours! Impressed!! The small drawback is when the bill comes I guess, I did not see the one from the hospital, because that one was shipped directly to Gjensidige Insurance, but I had to pay the antibiotics for 5 days costing over $220 and that gives me just an idea of what the hospital bill came to. Under you see the pictures from the past week, one from my x-ray and several from a trip to Chicago after I got better ;)

First trip of 2011 to England!

Robert Harley Mostad — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 16:11:14 +0000

This is actually the first time i have ever been to England and i must say I was very anxious on driving a car there, especially when I was upgraded to a Mercedes!! I had three goals for this trip and that was to drink a lot of local beer, eat fish and chips and sights around London. I got through all of them :) And since my expectations for England was not very high i was very pleasantly surprised :) Here are a few pictures.

The Hide London Hotel, a very nice and reasonable priced one!!

Right now i am in USA and a post from that trip will be posted in not to long ;)

River Rescue in -15c

Robert Harley Mostad — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 11:20:40 +0000