South American travels

Take 2 - i spent and hour updating this a few days ago while in Copacabana (and NO i havent been able to rid my brain of that freaking song for over 2 weeks now!)and managed to lose it - it was heartbreaking, i ended up starting drinking at 12pm that day.

Anyway, lets see how well I can recall the last month. After doing the extremely hard and draining 4 day Salar De Uyuni trip (and after the second worst bus trip in the world from Uyuni to Potosi - i spent most of the bumpy, dusty and freezing trip leaning over Annelie throwing up out ther window)it was to the Silver mines for us. When we eventually arrived in Potosi - which is incedentally the highest city in the world - we took a day to do a bit of recuperation from the Salar trip and because it was so god damn high we could not breath too good. The following day we went on the mine tour - i have really started appreciating my life alot more after seeing the conditions these miners (and generally through Boliva) live and work in. Most die of lung cancer or some other lung related disease by the time they are around 40. There are even little kids around 12 working in the mine which is really sad to see as they will never make it out of there. It was a tough 4/5 hours, we got given a hat and torch and in we went. The shafts are really small and i had a wheelbarrow crash into my leg with 2 tons of stones in it because i couldnt get out of the way, i still have a bruise. We climbed up 90 degree shafts with dust and rocks falling on us, crawled through tiny spaces - not for the claustrophobic or asmatic. The moners all have massive balls of coca leave in their cheeks, it helps numb the pain, work for longer and keeps the hunger at bay. It was a tough but worthwhile experience, it nice to see how the people live and work rather than just pass through a city taking in the sights.

After Potosi it was another great bus to La Paz, as luck would have it we arived a day before the Footy World cup and 2 days before La Paz and Bolivias largest festival - The religious festival of Gran Poder.We found an English pub called Olivers Travels (Oliver was just another traveler passing through La Paz. fell in love with it and now has one of the most successful pubs in the city. Its a great place if you are missing some gringo company)had our first proper coffee since leavinbg Argentina as well as a bacon and egg sandwich - i was in heaven! La Paz proved to be and interesting pit stop in our travels, after having a hard few weeks travelling we were ready to let our hair down. Out came the high heels and Paris and Nicole set off to paint the town red - which we did in style! We met some very interesting if crazy characters along the way, saw a huge amount of llama foetuses ( they were more than foetuses though, some must have been a few weeks old they were so big), enjoyed the festivities that surrounded the festival and did a bit of shopping for the first time which was good fun. The heels were probably not such a good idea as La Paz is the highesy capital city in the world and set in a crater so the streets are extremely steep and slippery, not good for heels. We also met up with people we had met way back in our first week in Buenos Aires which was weird, its been amazing how many times we have mewt up with people we have met half way across the continent, it feels like meeting up with lifelong friends when we see them again even though you only met a few weeks earlier, i think its probably because you go through so much in such a short time,when you see each other you cant get the words out fast enough and a familiar face is always comforting.

After having partied for a full 3 days we were in a slightly "fragile" state when we had to make our way to the airport (flight was obviously delayed by 4 hours), for a flight to Rurrenebaque fort a bit of Jungle action....3 days in the the jungle from high heels and parties in La Paz, it was just what we needed. It was so good to be at a respectable altitude after been over 3500 metres (mostly at around 4000m)for the last 3 weeks.

We had the most awesome guide for the trip, Louis, proper proper Indian from the jungle, his family still lives deep in the jungle somehwere. Rambo of the jungle if there ever was one. He caught us a massive cobra while anaconda hunting, caught an Alligator (the former he kindly wrapped around my neck when i wasn't watching and the latter he put on my head). He has 2 necklaces around his neck made from the teeth of the Puma he killed with a bow and arrow (no guns for him, that would be cheating)He speaks perfect English, very bright guy, must be as we found out from a local that he does a little more than just jungle and Pampas tours but a bit of Drug and Weapons smuggling too.....we do attract them. We went swimming with Pink dolphins which was cool, had i known how close the thousands of aligators were to where i was swimming i may not have as hasty to take a dip. But at least i can say i have swum with Pirana´s, aligators and pink dolphins now...

From Rurrenebaque we took the oldest bus i have ever seen the 24 hours to Copacabana (great, now the songs back in my head), it was in this hunk of junk that we went down the worlds most dangerous road, i do feel lucky to be alive i have to admit. We made it to "that place" in tiume to go watch some more football - i have to say, i have never watched this much footie in my life. I actually know whats going on now and am starting to make some informed comments which impresses the guys hugely :-)Where better than South America to watch the Football Mundial!?

We took a boat ride to the Isla del Sol where we laboured up the 240 steps at an altitude of 4000 metres, onlly to find that we didnt have enough time to actually get to the Inca ruins on the Island, bloody stairs! Im not too upset though, i am going on a 4 day inca trail tomorrow and then travelling through Peru - there will be no shortage of Ruins Im sure, in Cusco at the momento and there are ruins here and massive walls still standing made from the biggest rocks i have ever seen. They are put together so perfectly that you could not slip a cion in between the them, with no cement, its unbelievable.

From "that place" we took the most amusing mini bus ride with some English guys we met watching England play Sweden to the border and then on into Peru.A bottle of Whiskey and wine and 3 hours later we arrived in Puno in as slightly inebriated manner (especially Miss Annelie, i now understand why she said she shouldnt mix wine and whiskey!)We arrived in Puno at around 9pm and took our drunk butts for some food, Annelie had Guinea Pig, you could see its little jaws and had some tin foil round its little legs, the poor thing.Early the next day we started our tour of the floating reed islands of Lake Titikaka which was really interesting, then further into the lake (3 hours on the boat to be exact - its a mother of a Lake)to the Island of Amantani (meaning Love) where we spent the night with a family there. It was an amazing experience to be able to see how the people of the island live, still very tradtinoally, there is not running water, electricity and obviously no heating. The doors came up to my waist as did the people (will post pics when able), little Potatoe people. The food was not great, dried potatoe, black potatoes, worm looking potatoe - any type of potatoe you got it. Its all that grows on the island it seems. In the evening we were dressed up by our "mother" in tradtional Kechuyan (spelling is horribly wrong) dress and had a traditional evening of dancing to folklore music played by the men. It was a great experience that humbles one yet again and makes you very gratefull for what you have (a flushing loo being at the top of the list with heating in close second).

The next day was to the island of Taquile, not tequila as our guide pointed out gleefully, andf back to Puno where we had a fantastic meal and then a terrible bus to Cusco, where i am writing from now.

As luck would have it again, its the biggest festival of the year here - Inti Rama (winter soltice festival. There are feiestas all through june but today is the culmination of all of them so its fantastic to be here to experience it, there are massive colourful processions going through the streets, fireworks, music and dancing (as well as some very drunk people!). Cusco is really such a beautiful city, nothing like I was expecting, it blew me away with its unbelievable churches, cathedrals and buildings in general - the Inca walls dont hurt either.

We are off to do the 4 days Inca Trail mañana which is really exciting, its definitely one of the things i have been looking forward to most on this trip. Ill write all about it apon my return.

I havent seen any comments people, come now, this is a very one sided relationship we are having here!

Rxxx

Yup, we thought we were roughing it in Argentina, in reality we were just on Holiday there. We did eventually make it out of Chile and travelled 30 hours up to the north of argentina to Salta. Exhausted when we arrived!

The next 2 days are a bit of a blur consisting of Red wine, a terrible club call El Salon and a Taxi driver smoking something that was not in way close to legal while driving us to the club.We had an average of 2 hours of sleep a night if that and i blame this mainly on the 2 Irish Lads we met in the Hostal Terra Occulta where we were staying. When we arrived at 3pm (yes afternoon) the one, Keane, was just getting into bed from the night before and his friend P short for Peter who was in another room came out to say hello - not such a good idea in his state, i cant understand the Irish at the best of times but one who has not been to bed for over 24 hours is beyond by capabilities!

A surprise visiter was Laurence the Quebecan we met in Mendoza a few weeks earlier added to our 4 strong team and we headed out. If you are ever in Salta, do not, i reapeat, DO NOT, go to El Salon...what a terrible club with music that is impossible to dance to. It may have been because it was a Sunday (our last experience of going out on a Sunday night was the Gay/bisexual place in Mendoza previously mentioned) that is was so bad, who knows? Anyway, the following day was abit of a write obviously and that evening i went and had dinner with the Quebecans and got my French up to speed (sort of), Annelie and the Irish boys and Mike - the canadian we picked up in Bariloche who decided he would prefer to travel with us - arrived at around 2am and we drank more wine only to get to bed around 6am. Unlucky for me, this was the day i had to jump of a mountain - with a parachute obviously - in laymans terms, Paragliding. It was pretty God damned scary running for a cliff face with this massive parachute thing pulling you backwards but was amazing all the same. the wind picked up while we were up ther and i did get a little nervous when it started wipping the Chute around the place and the thermals started taking us higher and higher, adrenaline overload!!

We left that evening for the border town of La Quiaca (border with Bolivia)and this was offically on eof, if not the, worste bus rides of my life, and i have had a fair few. There was actually ice inside the window, i was trying to catch up on 3 days of lost sleep and came away with a wet cardigan (couldnt find my bloody travel pillow so had to try sleep on it). No Sleep and frozen we arrived at the border - it was then i think that we realised we were not in Kansas anymore. The people were much more indeginous and and they were not as friendly as further down south. An extremely painful and freezing walk down to the border (and out of Argentina) at 6am in the morning later, we found that Annelie was not allowed into Bolivia so we bid the Israelie and 2 Germans we met while complaining about the cold at the bus terminal, we ventured back into Aregntina to wait for the Bolivian consulate to open. Finally armed with a Visa a couple hours later and $30 less in the pocket than before. We ventures back across the border and finally into the Bolivian town of Villazon - dont go out of your way to visit unless you are using it as a crossing point. I think the fact that we had now had less than 5 hours sleep in 4 days and it was hot (surprisingly enough - Murphys Law i think, when you are hungover with no place to go - the sun will beat down on you with no mercy whatsoever)did not help the Paris and Nicole cause nothing,nada, f-all! The next bus (as we obviously missed the 9am one due to the Embassy milarky) was at 3pm - piping hot bus with no airconditioning, windows didnt open and there were some less than appetising smells radiating from some on the bus. Most of the bolivians and some lucky tourists had a bunch of coco leaves stuffed inside there mouths (made them look as though they had a golf ball in there)- this however did cause alot of spitting and coughing which was lovely. The fact i need the loo all the way was not good (bearing in mind that Tar roads have not quite taken off in Bolivia, you can imagine how comfortable that was.) This all sounds like i am complaining, im not at all, its all part of the experience and we have now eventually joined the world of the traveller rather then the holiday maker in Argentina.

From Tupiza we booked our 4 day Salar de Uyuni expedition which left on the morning of the 2nd May - our group consisted of Annelie, Mike (Canadian), Imri and Sowl (Israelies - diem for a dozen of them here, its unbelieveable), Gabriel (ironically enough he was the Quebecans i met through laurence on the fatefull night in Salta), the driver Marcus and cook Pelissa (i have no idea, it sounded something like that) and moi. So, 8 in the jeep, cook and driver in the front and 6 of us in the back (4 boys rememeber), pretty cramped! The jeep had no breaks so it was first gear all the way down all the gorges and mountains - pretty slow going - and the one window did not open either. So good start....:-) The first day was filled with views of Massive red and other multicoloured mountains, scary going with sheer cliff faces too close for comfort...really beautiful. The first nigh was spent in a tiny 500 strong village in a equivalent of a mud hut with one fairy light as the loght for the 6 man dorm room. Here is where the sleeping bag purchased from Ebay came into good use, as did the Peters Vodka (bought for 25 bolivianos about 1 quid in Tupiza)- it was around -5 degrees. The second day was filled with Laguna Verde and Blanco as well as volcano´s and more amazing scenery. We slept next to the Laguna Colorado (red lake) 4800 metres above sea level so pretty high! It was about -10 to -15 degrees that night, no hot (or even running water) and no heating obviously. When we left the following morning it was about -9 degrees, i have never experienced anything like that desert bone chilling cold in my life. I will write about the next couple days soon, my time is out on this PC.

xxx