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A frequently discussed topic among singles is how you find a girl- or boyfriend that matches your wishes. Until now, I used to quote a study stating that you’re most likely to know him/her at work or while shopping, and it’s quite unlikely to know him at a party.

This week, the Swiss newspaper 20minuten.ch asked this question to their visitors - a quite randomly selected crowd, of course biased demographically to younger people as they use the internet more:

Surprisingly, “Ausgang” (at a party) is 33%. So for all those who are entering a job where you don’t expect to find your partner (e.g. because you simply don’t want a partner that has the same as you do), go out to party! There is a good chance to find someone out there.

What would have been interesting indeed, is a more comprehensive questionnaire - for example adding a quality tag to it in order to judge which group is happiest with their partners.

Contrary to other years, I did not organise a birthday party this year. Instead we had a decent dinner at my home with roast veal.

The grill is on fire:

Roast veal, 3 lbs:

The barbecue thermometer shows the current temperature inside the meat - at 75° celsius the roast veal is a point, ready to enjoy.

For aperitif, Sabrina made a delicious selection of snacks and for dessert, she prepared an exquisite strawberry tiramisu - a perfect three-course dinner!

Downhill track from Fünfländerblick to Rorschacherberg, one of my favorite tracks just next to where I live.

Trade winds continue to be absent (on Saturday, they should be back and I am back on the surfboard). Therefore I made a trip to Maui’s highest mountain, the shield volcano Haleakala.

No, this is not Switzerland in November - this is Maui, every day! As there is always a layer of clouds around the volcano, you have to pass the clouds while driving up the mountain.

above the clouds - very clean and dry air, deep blue sky.

volcanic surface and vegetation:

View into the crater with various cones - too bad this volcano is not active anymore (last lava came out in 1790), this must have been an incredible spectacle when this whole landscape was formed.

The summit of Haleakala is more than 3000m above sea level - the drive from sea level to the peak took me around 1.5 hours. Even more impressive is that the volcano has only 1/3 of it’s size above sea level. The ground is nearly 6000m below sea level here and the volcano is about 9000m heigh from the sea ground - incredible how much lava has been needed to form this giant mountain. It took 800′000 years to form this mountain as it is today (and some thousand years ago the mountain was even higher, erosion is decreasing its height now).

The Magnetic Peak - compass needles all point to this peak here as its stones contain a high concentration of metals that make the peak magnetic.

The observatorium at the top of the Haleakala - this is the world’s fourth best place to look at the stars because of its low light pollution and clear air.

Here an interesting illustration explaining how the weather works on Maui. Wet air from the Pacific is pushed to the Haleakala mountain on the right (east). As a consequence of the ascending air, clouds emerge. The climate is very wet, rainfalls are frequent. The weather is always cloudy. This is the area around Hana I have been to yesterday - they have many rivers, rain forest, and exteremely humid conditions there. Clouds climb no higher than a certain height - that’s why the summit and the crater are always cloud-free and very dry. Then, on the other side of the Haleakala, the climate is dry - once there has been a dry forest. The weather here is usually sunshine. A third consequence is that the Haleakala presses the trade winds (from the right on the illustration) to the north (”behind” the volcano in the illustration) and increases their strength. Kanaha Beach Park an the other windsurf spots are all in that area where trade winds are multiplied by the Haleakala - as you see, the weather of all areas in Maui is heavily influenced by the Haleakala. And there is always rain, sunshine, fog and wind on Maui at the same time.

Sunset on Haleakala:

As a consequence of the absence of trade winds, I drove the famous Road to Hana yesterday. This road with over 600 curves and 54 one-lane bridges is famous among highway-liking Americans as “very difficult to drive”. For us Europeans, being used to passes over the Alps, curves and one-lane tracks are not too spectacular - therefore I didn’t buy a “I survived the Road to Hana”-shirt, either. Nevertheless it’s a nice scenic drive along the coastline and through the rainforest.

A remote beach where the rainforest meets the sea.

One of those one-lane briges - many of them date back to the 1920s!

Some driving action:

…passing by many small waterfalls…

Tropical vegetation:

As a consequence of different “erodabilities” of magma layers, this river comes down the mountain in various basins. It’s currently high water (water is brown) but when there is normal water, you can go swimming in those pools.

I made the 4-miles hike (1.5 hours as it’s quite a tricky trail) to Waimoku falls.

Of course, you are in the US - you are warned about everything. For example “Dont jump from cliffs” - the cliff where this sign was placed was about 30 meters high so I doubt a normal person would ever consider jumping down there.

The trail led me through a bamboo forest - something I have never seen before. The bamboo forest is impressive because it’s very dark and you don’t see more than 3 meters into the forest as a consequence of the density of trees. Also, when the wind blows, the grees clack together and this sounds a bit scary.

Finally I arrived at the Waimoku Falls (height: 400 feet - about 120m). (The image below is merged together from 5 different images I took in order to cover the full waterfall) - the hike was worth it!

Vacation is also time to read. While doing so I came across the following quote from Nobel-prize winner Herbert Simon. I like what he states because if you think about it, most of the activities you perform regularly and in the long-run can be divided in those two groups. Moreover, he connects the idea with the economic concept of needs - with implications for business as well. The Maslow pyramid of needs is more detailed and more business-connected but less convincing on a personal level. So here is what Mr. Simon said:

“Man is a problem-solving, skill-using, social animal. Once he has satisfied his hunger, two main types of experiences are significant to him. One of the deepest needs is to apply his skills, wherever they may be, to challenging tasks - to feel the exhilaration of the well-stuck ball or the well-solved problem. The other need is to find meaningful and warm relations with a few other human beings - to love and be loved, to share experience, to respect and be respected, to work in common tasks.” (Herbert Simon, 1965)

Life is as simple as that, but the difficult part is - as always - implementation.

1. Drive to the beach: You defintely need a car on Maui because without you would not be able to get to the beach nor would you get the gear to the beach (there are no surf stations on the beach, only surfshops in the town nearby).

2. Assemble your gear: When going to a windsurf shop, you get 3 sails, 2 masts, 1 extension, 1 boom with harness lines and a mastfoot - so the first thing to do when you get to the beach is to put everything together and make your equimpent ready to go.

3. Check the beach out: Maybe it’s worth doing this after assembling your gear in order to choose the right sail. As a lot of surfers know this area better than I do, I usually check what sail size they ride and how they go about the wind. The beach I surf is Kanaha Beach Park, next to the airport of Kahului - the “beginner” area on Maui.

In order to provide you with some more action-loaded pictures I installed a water- and shock-resistant video cam on my boom:

4. Surf! Bring your gear to the beach and enjoy surfing!

5. Regenerate! After a full day of windsurfing you feel quite tired. Therefore I always take some Calcium in the morning and Magnesium in the evening - that helps to avoid muscle ache.

The only thing that I am currently missing out to be a 100% windsurfer on Maui is a sexy surfergirl. But as Sabi arrives in a bit more than 1 week I am looking forward to be a 100% windsurfer by then.

Finally, I arrived in Maui where I will stay for 2.5 weeks.

After getting all the necessary things like ready-made food, beverages etc. from Walmart I wanted to go windsurfing today. So I drove to the beach where I want to surf. I had to rent a car - getting around without car is just virtually impossible here - there are hardly any cabs nor public transportation, so renting a car is the only option.

At the beach, there were many windsurfers and great conditions - but no windsurf station at all. Not even a restaurant where I could ask or they might rent some equipment. It took me about 2 hours to find out how this works here: You rent windsurf equipment in a windsurf shop. Equipment includes 1 board, 3 sails, 1 mast and everything that comes with it. It includes also a roof rack for your car. So you are supposed to pack your equipment on your car and drive to the windsurf spot then - completely different from the European model where you go to a windsurf station where they have everything ready. As a consequence of the time passed until I found that out, I decided to start surfing tomorrow morning and make a small tour around the island. Then I also have enough time tonight to search for some useful tutorials how to rig a sail on the mast - I never did that before, so at least I have to learn this.

Hooki’pa, the world famous (maybe the most famous) windsurf spot - a spot where I will never be able to surf in my life, only for expert surfers:

Some beaches - not exactly like in Mexico, but still beaches:

What impressed me most about Maui is it’s incredible diversity of nature and topography: In one moment you feel like in the Swiss Alps (Engadin), 15min later you are in plain rainforest, after that you pass a Cote-d-Azur-looking scenery, than you see amost a desert - and this all within an 80miles drive around one of the two volcanoes on the island.

My room:

As Cancun is well known as one of the vacation party metropolies on earth, I sum up our key findings during our nights out in Cancun:

If you are in Cancun, you must see Coco Bongo! According to one of their own statistics, 98% of tourists in Cancun have been to Coco Bongo, quite impressive.

Pictures from inside Coco Bongo can be found in an earlier report of my blog - this was already my fourth time in Coco Bongo, slowly but surely an overdose!

For dinner, the best recommendation remains the Cambalache Argentinean Steakhouse. There are only two sizes of steaks, 400g and 800g. Size matters, but what matters more is quality - and those 400g were just among the best 400g of steak I ever had, and with delicious sauces.

Americans (and Canadians) go completely crazy in Cancun, also off Spring-break. With an extreme “Nobody knows you” and “You are on vacation” mentality they do what (I hope) they would never do at home. For us Europeans this is quite shocking, as they go beyond our common limit of dignity. The place to see crazy Americans partying is Señor Frogs.

Two girls, cheaply dressed, dancing even cheaper. Too bad I couldn’t capture the climax of this copulation-like dance: The girl with the rosa top puts her hands on the floor in front of her and moves her ass up and down - well, in civilization we wouldn’t call that dancing, I guess - and it’s not even considered to be sexy, but more about how to be sexy below.

But actually, the guys are no better at all - they are more the equivalent: Usually arm-free t-shirts, artificially pumped muscles, copulation-like dancing style too, taking their shirt off on every occasion… it is interesting to see, but I wouldn’t consider it a great party.

What is impressive though is how Señor Frogs can activate the people. There is a guy, always talking and motivating people to dance. Every few minutes some free shots, free t-shirts, banana eating contests, beer drinking contests, Tequila drinking contests, wet t-shirt contests and so on. And people get involved! As Swiss you are happy never to participate in any of the contests as the contests are always US vs. Canada vs. UK vs. Mexico (or even without Mexico but with more US participants).

Here an example of one of the most “hardcore” contests we saw in Señor Frogs: In order to win a bottle of Champagne, four girls had to give a lapdance to a Mexican server (tied to the seat). One girl from Canada, one from Texas, one from Philadelphia and one from Wisconsin. So they were asked to do a lapdance, meaning to dance sexy in front of the guy sitting.

What happened: The girl from Wisconsin (and the girl from Canada imitating her) immediately took off their hotpants, even before dancing, showing almost everything. Then they basically started a dance similar to the one I described above. I have to point out: The girls have never been asked to take off anything!! I know, nobody reading my blog would ever do that, because that is beyond dignity.

But the more interesting thing is the following: The girl from Wisconsin, despite of her stripping and decent looks, did not even make it to the second round (2 of the girls made it to the second round). Selection for the second round was democratic, the louder the crowd screw, the more votes. Who finally won was the girl from Philadelphia, against the girl from Canada (which showed basically everything during her “show”). The girl from Philadelphia did not take off anything nor show anything - the only thing that was a bit offensive was a short lift of her skirt, just as high to kick off imagination what is beyond.

So what can we learn from that? Slutty behaviour is not attractive, not even to the most “lets-get-laid” party crowd on earth! Girls, don’t wear slutty clothing - wear sexy clothing, that just covers everything (but, for example with skirts, short enough to estimulate imagination)! Sexy clothing is not about being naked, it is about covering the right things in the right way! If this is true in Cancun, it must be true throughout the world!

By far my favourite club in Cancun remains the Nectar after club. Getting crowded only by Mexicans at around 4am and being open until at least 10am, with direct access to the beach and a nice whirlpool, this is definitely where I love to party! Music also differs from the US-style clubs - here you have fine house music instead of the chartish US-sound. The pictures have been taken between 7am and 8am, that’s why it is not dark anymore.

Regarding the Mexican-US-tradeoff: I still fancy Mexican girls more than American ones! Not only are they less Barbie-like (or extremely fat - the two American stereotypes) and more individualistic, but they also keep up their dignity and don’t have that “lets get laid”-attitude (what makes them more attractive in my opinion - men are looking for challenges, not for slutty women).

After all, some nice nights out in Cancun - but almost more interesting from a sociological point of view (what we called “Ami-Watching”) than from a party point of view. For parties I prefer Mexico City, Acapulco (and also Vallarta). Yes, I really liked Mexico City… one of the very few cities I could imagine to live for a longer time!

We spent our second last day in Cancun at the Playa Cabana Beach Club, just between The City and the Coco Bongo. This is defintely one of the most beautiful places to hang out - many hotels should take this as a role model.