Coming home at last...hopefully

Neither the London office nor STA were much help when Mum called them for me from England. I tried calling Bogotá and eventually got through, but the woman I spoke to was useless and just said that I was on the waiting list and would have to wait till at least 20 August unless I wanted to buy a ticket for a September flight, and didn't seem to understand what my ticket situation was at all.

The parents insisted that I buy a new flight home on them to get me home ASAP, and we can hassle Iberia for a refund later. Rich is going away on Monday and Mum sometime this week too, they want to see me before I go. So a trip to the travel agents in Bogotá later and I had myself a flight with American Airlines leaving 7.35am via Miami and Boston to get to Manchester at 7.35am on Sunday.

I'm scared to write it and tempt fate to screw me over again, but, fingers crossed, finally, I'm coming home tomorrow!

Going nowhere yet

Pissing fucking airline companies. Aarrrrrghhhh! Why is noone explaining what is going on? Why are they being so bloody awkward?!!

They say I probably can't get home till at earliest 20 August. So frustrating!!!

Had a lovey chat with Laura on the MSN video calling function yesterday afternoon. That cheered me up a lot. Then I went to the cinema to avoid the cokeheads offers of coke trying to drag me out with them. Watched The Simpsons in Spanish. Wasn't too hard to understand, and was just what I needed. Enjoyed it a lot.

Ended up going out with the cokeheads anyway when I got back. They're actually really friendly and normal. Mostly. There's a crazy Irish dude but he's funny and he seems to like me. Ended up playing cards whilst pot and coke got passed round in the common room of the hostel till 4am. Was fun. Maybe waiting won't be truly awful.

Still waiting.

Thought I could fly today. There was a cancellation so there was a space from Bogotá to Madrid then Madrid to London. But then the man came back and said I couldn't go because there wasn't a flight from London to Manchester. I said I didn't care but he said they had to issue tickets for the rull route I'd purchased or none at all. Even in Bogotá, I get Little Britain. Computer says noooo.

Plus my hostel is full of crazy cokeheads. Not in the mood for socialising, especially not with cokeheads who stress out about getting their next fix. They snorted lines in my dorm last night. To be fair they offered me some.

Just want to get home, waiting is shit.

Not home yet...

I think my day started to go wrong when I got toothepaste on my t-shirt this morning. Then I left my walking boots under my bed in the hostel in Cartagena.

Right now I SHOULD be somewhere over the Atlantic well on my way home. Instead, I’m still in Colombia. And I don’t know when I can get home or how much it’s going to cost me.

I queued for over an hour to get to the front of the queue to check in at the Iberia desks, with all my bags packed and ready, only to be told when the lady entered in my ticket reference that the change I thought I’d made to my flights about 4 months ago had not been confirmed. I was not on the flight. I couldn’t believe it. I had a printout in my hand with the details of my changed flights, under which was written “reserva confirmada” and “feliz viaje”. I knew I hadn’t yet paid for the change but I had been told that I could pay here in Bogotá. I wasn’t told that unless I paid for the change some time in advance of the flight (have no idea when) my reservation would be cancelled. Apparently this is what had happened. I didn’t know how to react. I tried unsuccessfully to fight the tears.

“You have to go to the Iberia office,” the lady at the desk told me. “Upstairs?” I asked, assuming there’d be an office in the airport as there is in every other airport. “In the centre of the city.” My heart sunk. “Is it far?” “About 45 minutes away.” I was definitely crying now. “Is there a chance I can make it?” I begged in broken Spanish. She pulled a very sceptical face. “Check-in closes at 4.” Then she added, “But the flight is full.”

“Can I leave my bags here whilst I go and find out and come back?” “No.” I got my bags together again and went to find a taxi.

I didn’t want to leave South America, but by now I was set on flying home today. I didn’t want to stop travelling but I definitely didn’t want to extend my time like this. I was looking forward to going home. I’d been picturing meeting my family at the airport, driving home, sharing a pot of tea, going to the pub with my friends. They were all expecting me. I was very pissed off. With Iberia mainly, for not explaining the process to me when I’d changed my flights (or thought I had) in Buenos Aires, for not having an office in the airport, for making me queue for ages, for their plane being full, for not letting me on anyway when I started to cry. And at myself, for getting into this mess. Why hand’t I called up to confirm the flight 48 hours ago like they always tell you to?

I accepted the offer of a taxi from a dodgy looking guy in a mismatching tweed suit holding a sign for some hotel and an umbrella. Normally I’d have steered well clear from a man like that but I didn’t really care at that point. I was highly sceptical when he returned in a beaten up little red car (real taxis are yellow) with no taxi sign, and for much of the way I wondered whether I was about to be robbed or worse. Fortunately he just ripped me off.

Waiting in the Iberia office was agony. It was like going to the deli counter in my old local supermarket. Despite telling them it was urgent, I was given a ticket and told to wait my turn. Finally a young assistent stopped with his paperwork and called me over. I blubbed what had happened in bad Spanish and waited for his response but he didn’t even look at me, just took my printout and started tapping keys on the keyboard and reading the screen casually, occasionally chatting to the girl at the computer next to him. I felt like screaming but I just sat waiting anxiously wiping the tears away. Eventually he told me again what the lady in the airport had already told me. “But what am I supposed to do?” I asked.

The flight was full, I couldn’t fly today. They didn’t know what the situation was with my ticket tariff, and BA operated the London-Manchester leg of the flight, so nothing can be done until they hear from London. But he’s either put me on the waiting list for the same flights tomorrow, Friday and Saturday, or he will do if it’s cleared with the London office tomorrow. He’s going to email me when there is any news. I have to wait.

I have a new printout with the times of these flights. Above them on the same printout is a list of my flight to Quito in January (FLWN) as well as the flight I’d originally booked from Sao Paulo on July 30th (also FLWN). I really really do not want to pay another fortune for another flight. I really really want to get home.
On the brighter side, I managed to find a bed in the same hostel that Hayley (a lovely girl I met in my hostel in Cartagena) is in. I met her when I arrived. It was great to have a friend to tell my problems to, and getting to the hostel and seeing her made me cheer up a lot. She’d managed to get money out from the bank this morning, so her crisis was resolved. She understood how I felt. We went to the world famous gold museum this afternoon, which was really impressive and tastefully done, and took my mind off my situation. So I’m feeling less emotional. I just want to get things sorted out. Doubt I’ll take up my crazy Irish roommates’ offer to join them on a night out. Need to be ready to rush around tomorrow morning to chase a flight.

Islas del Rosario and a Mud Bath

I felt crap on Monday morning but I managed to get up and drag myself to the ferry launch point for my tour to the Islas del Rosario, which I'd been looking forward to for ages.

It was disappointing. Stomach cramps didn't help. The boat was a monstrous great big thing, and gradually filled to over capacity with about 200 mostly Colombian tourists. Turns out Colombian bank holiday tourists are about as loud, obnoxious, drunken, fat and scantily clad as British ones. I tried to console myself with my blackcurrant flavoured rehydration solution. Two and a half hours sat in the blazing sun amongst this chaos whilst we reached our island was not fun. It wasn't really mediated by the overbearing family from Medellín who decided they wanted a token English friend. Nor was it fun when we pulled into the shore and all 200 of us disembarked onto an island of about 50 square metres. We were herded about like human cattle.

I got chatting to another solo traveller from New York who felt the same. Whilst whinging about how bad it was, we managed to miss the boat when it left, despite sitting about 10 metres away. We'd been thinking we'd wait until the queue died down. We overdid it a bit.

It turned out well. We got a ride on a smaller speedboat that carried about 30 people and went much faster. A much more intimate and enjoyable way to travel. We got to sit at the front too. On the other hand, it was a bit of a white knuckle ride. Many times I thought the boat was about to break in half when we rose up and then crashed down hard over the waves. We considered how difficult it would be to swim to the shore and contemplated our obituaries.

Fortunately we made it to Playa Blanca, the lunch stop. Unfortunately we had to wait for our steaming giant to arrive. It couldn't get to the shore, so the hordes had to be ferried on little boats to the beach. We waited lazily on the beach with our books, then realised our error when we had to queue another hour for our food, which left us no time to enjoy the nicest beach in Cartagena. Neither Saraj nor I could face getting back on the boat, so we paid 15,ooo pesos for a more exciting journey back on the speedboat.

After wandering round the old city with Saraj for a bit I went out for dinner in the old centre with three other backpackers from my hostel dorm. Anders (Danish), Carl (Irish) and Hayley (English) were really lovely company. I felt much better than the day before.

The next day the same four of us went on a tour to a volcano just outside Cartagena. It's a volcano made of mud, hard on the outside and gooey on the inside. (Bit like a cream egg. Mmmmm...) It looks like it's been artificially constructed at least to some extent, just rising up steeply and narrowly about 50m from the otherwise flat surrounds.

It's such an odd experience to submerge yourself entirely in luke warm grey-brown gloopy mud. It looks and has the consistency of emulsion paint. In many ways it's quite pleasant. You just float in the stuff, and moving around is almost impossible. You have to grab onto the side and pull yourself, or else lie horizontal and be slid across it. Locals provide mud massages, which are quite enjoyable. The problem is you know that thousands of people from all over the world, with all their international sweat and grime, have bathed in the same small volume of mud over the years, and there's no cleaning system. If you pull your hand through a bit of it, you get other people's hairs caught in your fingers. This Tuesday being a bank holiday meant that the tiny volcano was completely full to capacity, which is about 20 people. For us, the experience was enriched by the sight of a disgusting fat old man lying on his back rubbing himself all over with mud, including inside his shorts.

We washed off in the shallows of a lake nearby, where thousands of people had done the same over the years, meaning that the water was filthy already.

Later that afternoon, after a proper-ish shower (in the dark, as the power was off) I did a bit of souvenir shopping and explored more of the beautiful old town. It really is pretty. Shame it's so hot and humid here. Within 20 minutes of a cold shower, you feel sticky and grimy again. I am so greatful for the air conditioning in our room.

That night was Hayley's last night in Cartagena and my last night in South America, so we'd agreed on a night out. Unfortunately, Hayley was having a bit of a crisis.She'd just reclaimed her suitcase containing her bank cards only to find that they weren't working so she had no money. We went to call the bank but they couldn't help, saying she must have forgotten her PIN. I insisted on lending her money but she wasn't in the mood to go out. Instead we went out for dinner at Crepes and Waffles (very un-Colombian but delicious!) and wandered round the town a bit.

I'll be on my way home tomorrow!!! I'm feeling very twitchy. I think it's a combination of relief at being well again, excitment about going home sooooooooo soon, sadness about leaving South America and ending my traveller-bum phase, and love for my beautiful new Colombian bag. And maybe having just eaten a big mango sweet thing containing about a week's recommended intake of sugar.

San Agustín, Cartagena and being ill.

Arrggh I despise mosquitoes. I will not miss them when I come home (in three days). I think they'll miss me.

I also won't miss having to buy food out all the time. I'm struggling in Colombia, there are hardly any veggie options. You ask them what they have in the restaurants and they say, "Everything! Rice with beef, rice with chicken, rice with pork, arepa with beef, arepa with chicken, arepa with..." You stop them and ask if there's anything without meat. "Without meat??" I've been eating so badly this last week or so. I'm sure that's why, for the first time in these entire seven months, I've got ill. Maybe I boasted about my stomach of steel one time too many. Nearly fainted today in the hostel when the receptionist was explaining the house rules, I had to go and lie down. Will be having an early night tonight.

Our visit to the Santa María on Tuesday was a great day out. It's located in some more beautiful Colombian countryside in the Valle del Cauca, in the foothills of one of the mountain ranges sheltering the valley, affording great views of the rest of the area. It's the gorgeous colonial house of a Colombian writer, Jose Isaacs, who wrote the Latino equivalent of Romeo and Juliet, so they say. We had a tour of the well-preserved elegant mansion, which included a summary and snippets of the tragic romantic story, supposedly based on the writer's own tragic love affair with his cousin. I bought the book on a whim. A silly whim. It's not only in Spanish but antique Spanish. I doubt I'll get too far. But I hear there's a film.

That night we left for San Agustín, a pre-Hispanic archaeological site two bus journeys away from Calí. Along some very windy, nausea-inducing roads. It's located in some of the many pretty Colombian hills. I now understand why guerrillas are such a pervasive problem in Colombia. Much of the country seems to be a network of interlocking hills covered in dense tropical vegetation - impossible to track people down in, but very lovely from an aesthetic point of view. The monolithic statues, carved into the shapes and faces of cartoon-esque indigenous people, are really impressive, and the tombs which they guard are eerie. As well as numerous statues, we also visited some fantastic waterfalls spouting out of the lush green valley walls of the Magdelena, the longest river in Colombia.

The town of San Agustín is really pretty too, full of lots of colonial style white houses with red rooves. Carlos made sure I tried lots of typical food, which often took the form of delicios exotic fruits (including the "snot fruit" - literal translation), but sometimes involved trying to make me eat meat.

I wanted to go back via Popayán, a well-preserved colonial city along an alternative (and considerably shorter) route back to Calí, but Carlos thought it was too dangerous for a white English girl to attempt. It seems that the guerrillas often come down from their mountain hideouts in the region and stop vehicles along that road. Whilst they usually don't kidnap normal Colombians, Carlos seemed to think that they might make an exception for me. So instead, we had to take the long bumpy windy way back again. Which was agony with a very sore bruised bum. Whilst hiking down to see some waterfalls, we had to negotiate a particularly slippy muddy downhill section. About 20 minutes after scoffing to Carlos, "No me voy a caer!!", I slipped about two metres and landed hard on my bum with my legs in the air. Funny, maybe, but sooo painful!

We were going to go out on Saturday night, but I was feeling dodgy with a fever. I never got to try salsa in it's homeland. I'm in Cartagena now, an historic colonial city on the Carribean coast in the north of Colombia. Carlos and his family persuaded me that it was unmissable, so I splashed out an bought flights, since buses were unviable with so little time. I've been wandering round the impressive, elegant walled part of the city today, with it's lovely colourful balconied houses and pretty plazas. There are some really nice churches, and I've been cultural and visited a few museums. I especially liked the instruments of torture in the museum on the Spanish Inquisition. It wasn't so much fun with stomach cramps, light-headedness and nausea though. Hope it passes soon.

Cali with Carlos

Well I safely made it into Colombia. I didn't get arrested for carrying drugs for anyone. (Not that I did carry drugs for anyone. Nor did anyone ask me.) I've not been kidnapped by armed guerrillas. I'm safely installed in Carlos's house in Palmira, a town near Calí, one of Colombia's principal cities in the south west of the country. And they're not drug barons, or guerrilla-harbourers. As far as I can tell so far. They're very nice people.

I managed to come at about the worst possible time though. I arrived Friday evening, and Carlos's grandad died at lunchtime on Saturday. The entire (in true Latino style, large) family descended on the house that afternoon for the wake. It was a little awkward, to say the least. And the awkwardness was compounded by the fact that they all seemed to be under the impression that I was Carlos's French (?!) girlfriend. It would have been tricky had they all been English, but with the language barrier...difficult.

The funeral was on Sunday, and poor Carlos didn't have a clue what to do with me so he gave me to one of his best friends, Andrés. I felt a bit bad that he was lumbered with some foreign girl he didn't know and had to speak really slowly to. Introductions to his family and friends were interesting. "This is Lucy, no she's not my girlfriend, she's a friend of a friend from England, but my friend's not here..." Andrés was great though. We wandered round Palmira, sampled some of the local fruits, showed me his photos of his experience as a missionary in remoter parts of Colombia (he happens to be a born-again Mormon), and then he made me a CD of Latin music that I'd been hearing over the last 7 months to take home.

By yesterday morning (Monday), the resident family was back down to normal (for Colombia) size: Mum, Dad, brother and sister, crazy but lovely Grandma, three aunts and an uncle. They're all really lovely and are making me feel at home (from home). And Carlos is now free(r) to do more touristy things. We've been into Calí round the posh modern shopping centres, to a fancy part of the city with open air restaurants and to the bohemian cuarter further up in the hills with amazing views of the city lights at night. I've sampled Colombian coffee, in Colombia (a rarity). Yesterday we went to a nature reserve in the mountains that surround the valley and walked up to a viewpoint, through a forest full of a variety of fruit trees and tropical plants. The views of the valley are beautiful. A friendly local we met in the cafe at the viewpoint told us that guerrillas and paramilitaries stake their claims to alternate mountains in the area, but that now it's generally ok. We didn't find any, at least.

Today we're off to an estate in another part of the valley, where the first well-known Colombian author wrote his famous tragic love story, La Maria, apparently the Latino Romeo and Juliet. This week I'm really not sure what to do. Colombia seems amazing, there are so many places that I want to visit, I wish I had more time. How do I choose between an island just off the pacific coast with a whole variety of animals to see, one of the country's most important pre-Conquest archaological sites set in dense tropical forest, and historic colonial mountain towns? I only wish I had time to get to Cartagena, the Carribean coast with its beautiful beaches (I crave beaches), and the Ciudad Perdida (the Lost City) deep in the rainforest.

The mix of people here is much more diverse than in any other country I've visited so far. There are people of African descent, Spanish descent, and indigenous descent, and a whole mixture in between. I'm particularly enjoying the heat in Calí. After so much time up mountains and in high cities, a tropical climate is most agreeable. Not so chuffed about the mosquitoes though. They seem to love my blood.

Lima Again

Phew, I've caught up. I'm back in Lima again. Survived the 28 hour bus journey, despite the truly awful films they tortured us with. A Peruvian man decided to adopt me as his conversation buddy and chatted at me when I didn't have my eyes close or my nose in my Jodie Picault book. I thought would be really trashy (and is a little) but I'm actually enjoying it rather a lot. I took a few photos when we crossed over the border by the side of Lake Titicaca. Some of the scenery through the window was stunning. I'll miss Bolivia. Not least the prices.

Lima is a little more expensive. I managed to find a bed in a mixed dorm of a hostel for $9, which is a bargain for Lima. With others having to walk through my dorm to get to theirs, I'll definitely be wearing the ear-plugs tonight.

I was hoping to spend the day catching some sun on the beach and do some reading, but it's been pissing cloudy all day, and even raining. I guess with much of England swamped and flooded, I shouldn't complain. Reading in cafés hasn't been so bad.

I'm not a huge fan of Lima. Looking forwar to getting to Colombia tomorrow. Though reading on BBC online news about it being the country with the most landmines in the world - amongst its other little problems of drug violence, guerrilla fighting, kidnapping and gun crime - is a little concerning. I'm sure it'll be fine.

Two weeks to go!!!

Saying Goodbye

First to go were Ellie and Jen, who were headed back to Cochabamba on Sunday morning. Jen's situation regarding Ronnie had become somewhat complicated. When she confronted him the previous Tuesday to collect her stuff, he denied everything, in such a way that Jen didn't know what to think. He said there had been one ex-girlfriend who was a bit crazy and wanted him back, but that he was not engaged to anyone nor seeing anyone else. He showed her his ID, which clearly states that he is indeed 37, and not 42 as Ximena had said. She did some digging, and went to the registry office, who told her that he hadn't been married before. It seemed like Ximena had got a lot wrong. I felt awful, but Jen promised me that things weren't right with Ronnie anyway and she's glad that something made her end it, even if it was something as strange as this. She's had it out with Ronnie and they sorted things out amicably. I keep wondering how Ximena got things so badly wrong. Anyhow, I waved her and Ellie a sad goodbye at the bus terminal.

Next to go was Jack the following morning, on a bus to Cuzco. After travelling with him every weekend and then spending the last two weeks with him everyday, he was probably the person I'd got closest too.

Jonny and Alexis weren't leaving until Tuesday morning, so we had lunch in the Colonial Pot and marvelled again at the fallic images carved into the wood panelled walls, went to see Harry Potter (it was just as good the second time), and had a rather disappointing curry. I had to get up early with them the next morning and sneak past reception after staying in their room without paying. I said a hurried goodbye to them as, typically, they were late for their bus.

And then there was one. I miss them all. I'm sure we'll meet up again though.

Rainforest, Alligators and lots of Mosquitoes

We were too knackered on Saturday evening to do anything but eat and sleep, so we had to save Harry Potter until Sunday evening with Ellie and Jen, who arrived that morning. Jack wasn't mad keen on seeing it, and nor was Jen, but there was no way I was missing it. It was every bit as good as I'd hoped, though I still had to struggle against sleep. You just can't beat the magic of Harry Potter.

The next morning Alexis and Jonny arrived. Alexis was taking his TAPA holiday from being a farmboy in Puerto, whilst Jonny had flown in that morning from England (well, via various other places) after returning home the previous Tuesday for his Grandad's funeral. He was glad he went, and he seemed back to his usual cheeky self. We rushed around buying food and typically left to catch our bus to Rurrenabaque 20 minutes later than scheduled, with five minutes in which to make a 15 minute journey. Fortunately, in true Bolivian style, the bus didn't leave until about 12.15pm anyway, a good hour and a half after it was due to depart. It was not a pleasant 19 hour bus journey - very bumpy, rather smelly, and increasingly hot and sweaty as we descended over 3,000m to almost sea level. Ellie brought her travel sickness pills, which produced some rather entertaining effects. Half an hour after taking one I couldn't stop giggling and felt very lightheaded. I'm sure they'd be classified in England.

Somehow or other, I seemed to be one of the most organised amongst us, and had to chivvy Alexis and Jonny away from their coffee and empanadas into town to get us a jungle tour. They started calling me 'mum'. They assured me it was an affectionate nickname. We had to wait around for ages for the jeep to pick us up, and I was knackered so waited with the bags whilst the others went to sort out exchanging money and flights. Jonny, bless him, felt sorry for me and managed to persuade a coffee shop to let him bring me a tray of coffee in china cups!

The journey to our jungle lodge was beautiful. We were taken some four hours by boat - a long, narrow canoe-type boat with an engine and thankfully a roof - along the river Beni, one of the tributaries to the Amazon, from the shores of the little jungle town of Rurrenabaque into the heart of the Madidi National Park, just inside the Amazon basin. On either side the dense green vegetation of the rainforest, often blanketing abruptly rising hills, contrasted with the sparkling water and the blue and white mottled sky. It was a long journey, though, and we were all glad to finally get out of the boat.

The lodge was very basic. Built in a clearing some 100m from the shore of the river, it consisted of several wooden shacks, one of which contained a dinner tablen seperated by a thin partition from the cooking area whilst the rest housed several wooden beds. There was no electricity or running water. Thankfully, all of the windows and doors were mosquito-proofed, and every bed had a net. Everything smelled of dank, though, the result of the inescapable humidity. We took the room of six beds whilst the four girls with whom we were sharing our tour took the two rooms of two. There was a race for the four hammocks.

After lunch, our guide Antoine took us off for a hike into the forest. It was already 5pm, so our scheduled afternoon and evening hikes were squeezed into one, and we had to take our flashlights. Antoine was a good guide, although, speaking in Spanish, his subtle jokes were lost on most of our group. Despite Jonny's limited Spanish Antoine had already picked up on his cheeky ways, and the two of them developed a running joke in Spanish that went something along the lines of, ¿Que mujer siempre sabe donde esta su esposo? Una viuda. (Which woman always knows where her husband is? A widow.) Not the best joke in the world, but being one of the first jokes Jonny had understood in Spanish (though it took him a while) he found it hilarious. Antoine pointed out various different trees, plants and evidence of wildlife. We saw the walking man tree (it covers about 6m per year by growing new roots and planting them further towards the light, whilst new roots arguably have a fallic resemblance), lots of poisonous and non-poisonous funghi, the jungle viagra plant (whose powers Antoine attested to), a "chicken" up a tree (some sort of fat jungle bird), deadly giant ants, and various other natural phenomena that I forget.

I slept incredibly well that night. Even the girls next door could attest to that. Apparently I snored a fair bit. A real bed was heaven after a sleepless night on a hot, bumpy, smelly bus, and I don't think I'd really caught up after Huayna Potosí. Though I did have to go for a pee in the middle of the night. It was terrifying but I'd drunk so much water in the evening that I just couldn't hold it in. I managed to ignore the rustling noises in the surrounding jungle but I couldn't stop myself running back into our little hut, scared.

After an amazing breakfast of all sorts of yummy Bolivian delights (made all the more delicious thanks to Jonny's gift of Marmite from England - love you Jonny), we headed out for another jungle hike. This time we heard and glimpsed through the vegetation several wild pigs, some brightly coloured parrots, and some monkeys. Antoine found us some vines to swing on (very Tarzan and Jane), and a couple of rivers to cross. I'm sure we saw various other rainforest things, but again I forget. It was very enjoyable. After lunch, a bit of jungle frisbee and a swing in the hammock (Alexis took great delight in swinging my hammock as hard as he could and making the whole hammock house construction sway worryingly, choosing only to hear my terrified giggles rather than my broken protests), we all got back in the boat to return to Rurrenabaque. We were with the current this time, which made for a much swifter journey.

On reflection, the jungle had pleasantly surprised me. It was much less oppressive than I'd expected - probably because it had been cloudy it was really quite cool, and I didn't get bitten at all. Still, it was nice to get back to civilisation and have a (tepid) shower.

Rurrenabaque is a very touristy town. Every other building is a tourist agency or a restaurant. We were definitely doing the touristy things that week, and in true gringo spirit we found the most gringo bar-restaurant in town. Mosquito Bar served cocktails (half price during Happy Hour between 7pm and 9pm), pizza and pasta, but the best bit was three pool tables. We were embarrassingly shit. Ellie and Jen were the first to call it a night, and Jack, Alexis and I weren't much later at around midnight. Jonny, however, was hitting it hard. We left him attempting to take on three Americans at pool, teamed with an Irish guy who looked even more pissed than he was. He got back the next morning at about 6am after being invited back to the Americans' hostel for further fun that involved dubious weed, good coke and several quadbikes. His hangover lasted two days.

He had one day to recover, though, as there was some sort of strike going on in the province of Beni (in which Rurrenabaque is located) and none of the tours to the Pampas were leaving. Well, that's not strictly true. Jack and I (having volunteered to get up stupidly early and find a tour whilst the others enjoyed their lie-in) did find one agency that offered to take us. The proprietor proudly showed us his printed A4 piece of paper that supposedly granted him passage as a tour guide. We were right to be suspicious, I think. The people at Indigena, with whom we'd done our jungle tour, said that any vehicles attempting to leave Rurrenabaque risked being shot at. Over breakfast we decided that losing a day was preferable to losing our lives, and went back to bed. Since nothing was open because of the strike, we had a very lazy day in the hammocks, reading, playing cards and laughing at Jonny's self-induced misery. He couldn't even summon up the energy that evening to flirt with a bunch of Irish girls he'd been chatting up the night before, and went to bed at about 9pm. That night's pool was a little more successful.

The next morning we had to do the rounds of agencies again, to find one that would take us on a pampas tour for two days rather than the usual three to five, at an affordable price. Most said no or offered us a price we didn't want to have to pay, and one generously sized Jewish American tour agent did plenty of running around and talking on his walkie talkie but couldn't come up with anything appealing. I ran into a couple of fellow former Worcester College students that I didn't even know were in South America, which was bizarre. We ended up passing them several times during the tour, and I ran into them twice later in La Paz. Small world. Eventually we opted for Anaconda Tours.

An agent in a tour office in La Paz had warned us, when we contemplated booking a tour with them in advance, that Anaconda was the Israeli tour agency, and that most European tourists didn't like being grouped with Israelis. This was the first time I'd become so aware of the Israeli-rest of the world divide when it came to travellers, and since then I've noticed it more and more. Israelis really do group together, and yes I suppose some of them are pretty loud and obnoxious. On the door of the ladies' toilet in the hostel I stayed in last night I noticed a lot of anti-Israeli (and corresponding pro-Israeli) graffiti, such as "Why are Israelis so loud?" and some rather more offensive comments.

Unperturbed by what the travel agent had said, and attracted by the nice price, we signed up. Plus, Ellie and me shared a bit of a crush on hairy, mysterious Israelis.

Getting to the pampas was another long and very bumpy road trip, this time in a jeep. Jonny, still unrecovered from his bender, was not a happy chappy. We finally arrived at the bank of a river, where clusters of other gringos were awaiting their turn to get into long narrow motor-powered canoes, this time without rooves. Somehow we jumped the queue and, being only six rather than a standard group of about ten tourists, zoomed down the river at a rate of (hehe) knots, a look of macho glee on the face of our guide. I feared for the river wildlife.

The pampas, as far as I understand it, are tropical wetlands near to the jungle. It's true that, if animals are what you're after, the pampas rather than the jungle is the place to go. In the entire length of the river, we saw countless alligators and caimans, various types of exotic birds, pink river dolphins, plenty of turtles, and several jumping fish that frequently landed, flapping frantically (as was I in these situations), in the bottom of our boat. We stayed in a lodge on stilts with a bar and lots of Israelis, and spent the evening playing Yaniv, an Israeli card game. We went to see the sunset in a field a short boatride away, and the guide brought a football to keep us busy. Bad move. The sunset was beautiful, and the football and volleyball was fun, but the mosquitoes were neither. In those 30 minutes I acquired 43 bites, which continue to itch me a week later. They are the only 43 bites I got. Yes I counted them.

In the dark, we went out to spy alligators' eyes with our flashlights. Apparently they're active at night, that's when they catch they're prey. Providing them with six fresh young humans didn't, to me, seem the best idea, and after the initial excitement of seeing glowing pairs of eyes everywhere around us, I was quite glad to get back to our little stilted home. The next day, we went out on the river again to swim with the pink dolphins and fish for pirhanas. Neither activity appealed greatly. The former sounds quite nice written down like that, but in reality involved jumping, scantily clad, into a very brown river with alligators in sight no more than 20m away and in which we knew there were pirhanas. Yes there were dolphins, and we did get quite close to them, but it was not dolphins that brushed against my legs. I'm just hoping I haven't caught any fatal parasites. Being a vegetarian, fishing has always slightly repulsed me, and I was not persuaded to entice fish to spear themselves with a hook at the end of a string this time either. Even though they were pirhanas with vicious looking teeth. (Apparently these ones never attack humans.) Jen, a fellow veggie, was with me on this one. We watched, mildly disgusted, whilst the others had a go, and I squealed every time a fish came near me.

It took us even longer to get back to Rurrenabaque than it had to get to the pampas. Our driver had to keep stopping to collect bits of the roof rack that fell off. We ended up squeezed between all our rucksacks after he decided, wisely, to give up on it. Alexis provided much of our entertainment that night, deciding to shave off his 2-month beard but leave his moustache. He looked very French. Jonny provided the rest, wearing a high-knecked black jacket despite the heat after burning the front of his chest bright red sunbathing in the boat. Despite applying some cucumber cream as often as he could, it was as painful and red when I last saw him on Tuesday morning, and probably still is. Plonker.

We'd opted to fly back to La Paz the next morning rather than face another nightmare bus journey. The airport is tiny, and flights are often delayed because rain renders the grass runway too muddy for planes to take off. We were lucky; our flight was only delayed by a few hours because of a small backlog from a previous cancellation. Nevertheless, I was concerned to watch three men, including the pilot, have to push the plain out of the mud where it had stopped in order to get it to the start of the runway. It was a tiny plane, holding about 25 passengers. We could see straight into the cockpit, and there was no need for flight attendants. We could feel every bump. It was pretty scary. But the views - first the vast Amazon, then, in minutes, snowy mountain ranges - were spectacular. In thirty minutes, we were back at 3,600m in La Paz.

So that was the jungle. I'm still taking the malaria pills, I still itch, and I'm definitely getting checked out for parasites when I get back.

Huayna Potosí

The snow also proved a problem for me and Jack. We'd booked an acclimatisation hike with the agency Huayna Potosi to leave on Monday, but we were told that the transport would not be able to get through the snow to take us to the start of our trek. They tried to persuade us to put both our climb and trek back a day, warning us that the heavy snow meant that climbing the mountain would be dangerous. (They had cancelled all their climbs for a few days.) Worried, we spoke to Bolivian Mountains, the agency with whom we were due to do our climb on Thursday, but they said everything was fine and the climb was still on. Which I found even more worrying. Were we doing the right thing?

We made the most of Monday nonetheless, spending most of it souvenir shopping. We found some beautiful rugs that according to the lady in the shop were each made from traditional, old matrimonial ponchos sewn together. They'd sell for about 200 English pounds each back home, but we got them for about 20. Two other memorable things happened that day. We were walking past a cash machine when Jack noticed a credit card poking out of the card slot. Someone had done a me and forgotten it. We had a look at the picture and I wandered off to find the guy. Somehow, I spotted who I thought was him in a shop not far away. Sure enough it was the very same Jerry, a middle-aged, balding blonde American with a growing double chin (this is
how I identified him). He was very grateful and tried to offer us money but we refused. A little later, we were having lunch in a pizza place when in walked Jerry and his wife, who again expressed their gratitude. I knew what was happening when I saw his wife walk to the counter with her handbag and start talking to the waiter, glancing meaningfully over at us. Sure enough, when we asked for the bill she told us that she'd taken care of it, along with the tip too. It would have to be the day we decided to go for a cheapie and share a pizza and salad. It must have come to about 2 English pounds in total.

Before Jerry had come in, another character interrupted our lunch. He was a short, incredibly grimey, sun-browned guy wearing very tatty clothes and peasant sandals, and he introduced himself as an inmate from La Paz' famous San Pedro prison. He said he gets let out every lunch time, and was offering tours to tourists, and would we like one? All we'd have to do is pretend to be journalists there to interview him in order to get false press passes. To encourage us, he said there were some guys from Liverpool in there as of last week on cocaine charges. I was very tempted. We'd read about the prison in the guidebook and had considered trying to find a way in earlier. But Jack was not keen at all. I reluctantly gave him 5Bs for food and sent him on his way.

The weather was a little better on Tuesday so we agreed to do just a two-day hike instead. It was more difficult than we'd anticipated, not least because we'd been under the impression that porters would carry everything except our day packs, when in fact we had to carry all our equipment except our tent. At 4,300m plus, the going was tough. But, covered in snow, the landscape was impressive. White mountains towered above crystal clear lakes, and llamas, alpacas and the odd sheep searched for food beneath the snow on the grassy hills. It snowed heavily again on Tuesday night. Camping was coooooold. The roof all but collapsed under the weight of the snow. It made for some beautiful photos the next morning, but it also made me even more worried about the climb. It was bad enough that this would be the highest mountain I'd attempted, I was pretty out of shape, and I'd failed to summit Kilimanjaro and Cotopaxi. Now we had the danger of avalanches and atrocious weather to deal with. Wednesday saw us crossing high passes (5,400m perhaps) in the wind and snow before descending down into a warmer, greener valley. It was a long hard slog on the uphills, and both Jack and I felt a bit nauseus and headachy from the altitude at times. And yes, Gail, I did fall in a hole or two... We were taken by jeep, weary and sleepy, up to the refuge of Huayna Potosí, at 4,700m, from where we would begin our climb.

Huayna Potosí had suggested that our night in their refugio would be a night of near luxury, but we should have known better. There was no running water, so there wasn't even a cold shower never mind the hot one we'd been promised, and the toilets were just disgusting. Clear evidence that altitude can mess up your bowels. I've heard of projectile vomiting, but projectile diarrhoea was a new encounter. The stench penetrated into every room. It was freezing too. To think they charge $15 per night. The Polish guy wasn't too far off when he mistranslated the place as a refugee camp. He was an eccentric Polish physicist who decided to do the climb on a whim and was due to leave the next day. He got very excited to learn that Jack was also a physicist and the two of them nattered away about string theory and suchlike for much of the evening. That was when they weren't too occupied with trying to build a fire, similtaneously proving their manhood and burning away the last traces of oxygen in the place, making it even more difficult to breathe. A French couple joined us a little later. The male half joined in with the fire building and science chat whilst his poor girlfriend suffered with altitude sickness.

Fortunately, despite being promised that it would be there when we arrived at the refugio, the stuff that we'd left at the agency's office during the trek (we cut down after discovering that we had to carry everything ourselves) finally arrived midday on Thursday, just in time for our ice-climbing training prior to the climb. We had lunch first (fried eggs and rice for me, no surprises there) and met the other members of our group. Except for Roberto, a Brazilian in his mid-50s I think, we were all English. There were Mike, a 23-year-old Mancunian just graduated from Newcastle Uni, Richard, a 2nd-year student at Nottingham, and David, a gapper. David and Richard were both from Norwich and travelling together. Being the only girl was quite comforting - I could use the excuse of being of the weaker sex when I failed, I figured. I think we were all feeling the altitude: light-headedness, mild headaches, nausea, difficulty breathing (Roberto), bowel problems (Mike) and loss of appetite (me). I never lose my appetite. Uh-oh, I was thinking.

The ice-climbing training was fantastic. We traipsed round to an snow-covered glacier, and our guides demonstrated how to use the crampons and ice pick when facing a near vertical gradient. I was very glad to hear that most of this was just to make us more comfortable and confident with our equipment; it would not be this difficult on the mountain itself. Except for a 200m high ice-wall, that is, but I decided to worry about that later. I discovered that abseiling was not my strong point. The glacier was amazing, blue in part and full of deep icy crevasses and enormous icicles. I hoped we didn't have to cross any crevasses on the real thing. Our three guides, Eduardo, Pedro and Jose, were really good fun and seemed very profesional, the other guys in the group were good company, and the afternoon (and probably the sunshine too) made me feel a little more optimistic. Even if I didn't make it, I was determined to enjoy it. We returned to the camp as it was getting dark for another night in a tent. Me and Jack started on the Diamox, which I had left over from Kili, just to see if it might increase our chances. That night I could tell it was working. I got tingles in odd places, and I had to get out of the tent and into the snow to wee in the middle of the night.

The next morning we trudged up some 500m to the first camp on the mountain, at 5,200m. It took about 2 hours, and it was hard but manageable. I know it's awful to say but I was slightly encouraged to find that others were struggling more than I was. We had lunch (fried cheese and rice) and later all of us but Roberto (who had collapsed on a mattress in the refugio to sleep) gathered our crampons and ice-axes and went for a hike up a short stretch of the route we would be taking in the very early hours of the next morning. It was pretty steep, and hard work, but the snow was soft and I was not going to be pressured into trying to keep up with some of the others. My previous experience had drummed into me the importance of going slowly and steadily, and I was determined to stick to this principle. I heard the French guy in the refuge say that the best thing to do was to go as slowly as possible, at such a pace that you don't need to take a rest. It's so true that stopping at such altitudes and in such temperatures can tire you out more than continuing. Mike and Richard were having to stop every 5m because they were going too fast. I felt a lot better about my approach when Eduardo said I had a good rhythm. Wahey. I'd give it my best shot.

After a bit of dinner we settled down on our mattresses (me in my two sleeping bags, just about warm enough) up in the refuge to try and get some shut-eye before having to get up at 12am. I was very very scared. The beautiful mountain almost looked inviting in the bright sunshine and under blue skies, but in the freezing cold, pitch black night it was a completely different thing. I must have got some sleep though, as apparently I was snoring. I felt like shit when I was woken up at midnight. Standing up, let alone walking, made me want to spew, and my head was spinning and throbbing at the same time. I seriously considered copping out and getting back into my sleeping bag. At that point I almost persuaded myself that I didn't really want to climb the mountain, it wasn't really a big deal. But something made me go through the painful motions of getting dressed, preparing my bag, emptying my bladder, and forcing some hot water down me. I took a few ibubrofen and whinged at Jack, who was brilliant and made me feel a bit better.

Very reluctantly, I left with the others to start the ascent. Jack and I were roped together with Mike behind Eduardo, who decided that because I had "good rhythm", I would go behind him and set the pace. In other words, I thought, I was the slowest and if I didn't set the rhythm I would probably tire too quickly. But I was very glad of it. I deliberately set a very very slow pace, not caring that people would probably overtake us. As it happened, we overtook other groups whilst they stopped for breaks. It was terrifying at first, but I got used to it after a while, and, as on Kili and Cotopaxi, looking up to see sets of lights moving very slowly upwards ahead of me was pretty special. There were times when the going got really hard, and I wondered how long it would be before I had to give up. The first ice wall was probably the time when I came closest to quitting. It was very steep - it felt vertical, we had to dig in our ice axes and use arms and legs - and there was a lot of it. It was impossible to tell what I was hauling myself up in the dark, which made it scarier. Several times I had to stop, panting madly, to catch my breath, and force myself to go on as Eduardo tugged on the rope and urged me up. Concern about what the others would have to do if I gave up made me keep going uncertainly. I consoled myself by telling myself that in twelve hours I would be back in La Paz, watching Harry Potter. I seriously think that I have Harry Potter to thank for getting me as far as I got.

Shortly after we made it to the top of the wall, Richard and David pulled themselves over the top. They looked exhausted, and I wondered if I had looked so drained a few minutes earlier. The three guides each had walkie-talkies to communicate, and we'd heard that Roberto, who was some way behind with Pedro, was struggling, and Pedro's feet were very painful with stopping so often. Now, Pedro wasn't responding on his walkie-talkie at all. Eduardo shouted a few times down into the darkness, but we heard nothing. I was worried. Should we be continuing if something might be wrong? But Eduardo seemed to think so. We left Richard and David behind and pressed on up the (thankfully gentler) incline. About 20 minutes later, Eduardo was unable to contact either Jose or Pedro. We then heard somebody shout Eduardo's name, and the words, "Hay un prblema!" several times. This was all we heard. After pausing for a few seconds, Eduardo shouted down, "Nosotros no tenemos problemas. Vamos a continuar." I was fairly worried by this stage. It seemed that both Jose and Pedro were in some difficulties. I remembered all of the mountain-climbing horror stories I'd heard - Touching the Void, 999... - and imagined Roberto with severe altitude sickness drifting in and out of consciousness, or Richard at the bottom of a crevasse. "Vamos," said Eduardo. "Estas seguro?" I asked. "Si, vamos." On we walked. I tried to focus my mind on the task in hand.

Some time later, I noticed that the sky was no longer pitch black. I pinkish glow on the horizon meant that the sun was starting to rise. Jack had wisely banned us from looking at our watches, but when Eduardo mentioned the sunrise I decided to break our pledge, hoping that it could only be good news. Sure enough, it was nearly 7am and according to Eduardo we only had an hour and a half to go. He pointed out our route, and the ice wall leading up to the top that would be the final obstacle between us and the summit. I felt a surge of excitement. I was feeling fine, I still had plenty of energy to keep going. For the first time, I allowed myself to believe that I was going to reach the summit. "We can do this, guys, we're going to make it!" I said, in cheesy American movie style.

By the time we got to the foot of the ice wall, as Eduardo had promised, it was light. The sunshine helped a lot. Although it meant we could see the full vertical 200m of snow and ice looming above us, it also meant we could see the progress we were making, and most importantly, the summit, ahead, within reach. One of the other English gappers we met in the refuge told us that statistically 70% of climbers get to the ice wall, and 55% make it to the top. That means that 15% reach the ice wall and give up. Slowly slowly, we inched our way painfully up the ice wall, with Eduardo constantly tugging me to continue whenever I took pause to breathe (very difficult at 6,000m). After just under an hour of hard climbing, we finally hauled ourselves onto the flat narrow snowy ridge of the summit. Feelings of relief and disbelief and happiness were soon overtaken by the excruciating pain of my freezing toes coming slowly back to life. Thankfully the pain subsided to an almost tolerable level, and I took in the incredible views from our position. The urban sprawl of La Paz was clearly visible below us, and to the other side, the other, lower, snowy mountains of the Cordillera Real glistened under the light from the newly risen sun.

We had time to take a few (precarious) photos, eat some celebratory chocolate and take on some water before Eduardo urged us to go down. I'd refused to let myself worry about how I was going to get down the wall whilst I had been climbing up it, but now I was pretty terrified. Abseiling was very scary, but I got the best deal. Jack and Mike had to practically walk down. Since we only had 50m of rope, we had to do it in several stages, which meant lodging our ice axes into the wall and clinging on for life whilst waiting for the others to reach us, one by one. It took a very long time, and Eduardo got a bit anxious. Several groups overtook us, including, to my relief, David and Pedro. Richard had turned back safely. Eventually we got to the bottom of the wall, and could begin walking the rest of the way down. I spent most of the descent in awe at the beauty of the snowy landscapes we hadn't been able to see on the way up. Jack, drained from the difficulty of the descent down the wall, was walking clumsily and slowly, so Eduardo made him take the lead. Abseiling down the smaller ice wall was a little easier than the first, but in the light I was shocked to see two giant crevasses on either side of the narrow route we had followed. I was very glad not to have seen those on the way up.

It was about 3pm when we finally made it to a hostel in La Paz, exhausted and unwashed after five days of strenous exercise. That shower felt very very good.

Leaving CochaB

There was Cristo hill running, there was article writing, and there was partying. We went out every night - karaoke Tuesday, (damn good) Japanese food in Brazilian Coffee Wednesday, and on Thursday a meal in the best restaurant in town before hitting La Tirana and of course Pimientas for some more flashing bracelets and glowsticks.

But my last week in Cochabamba was dominated by bad news for Jen. I was chatting with Ximena, my TAPA supervisor, on Wednesday, and it turned out that she is, or used to be, good friends with Jen's 37-year-old Bolivian boyfriend Ronnie. Only she told me that Roni was in fact 42 and engaged to a very young Bolivian girl. I couldn't believe it. Ronnie was more than just Jen's boyfriend, he was her world. Working and living in a country with a different culture and where the people speak a different language means she had no really good girl friends. Of course the TAPA volunteers become her friends, but they come and go. So she depended on Ronnie. They didn't live together, but plenty of her stuff was at his house, and she spent most nights there. I didn't really know what to do, so I asked Gail. She always seems to know what to do in awkward emotional situations. Of course I had to tell her, but how and when? I made sure with Ximena that all this was really true before deciding to tell her on Friday, two days after I found out. Thursday was no good - it was Ronnie's birthday. So that meant a long time of torture, spending time with Jen knowing that her world was about to fall apart - and also knowing that I'd have to tell her on my last day. Jen, here's some truly awful news that will turn your life upside down, but I have to go now bye bye.

Jen arrived at the house for lunch on Friday upset. It turned out that Jen had hardly seen Ronnie until the previous night in Dali's, his bar, where he got very drunk and spent the evening chatting with his friends, so Jen felt rejected, understandably. There wasn't a option but to tell her then. Obviously, she was a whole mixture of emotions and thoughts, and not a happy one, but I was so impressed at how she dealt with what I had to tell her. I'm sure I would have hated the world and been pretty angry in general, but not Jen. I persuaded her to come to La Paz that weekend with me and Jack so that we could help her take her mind of things and get some space from Cochabamba.

That Friday I had to say goodbye to Amy, Kevan and Gail, who were going to Salar de Uyuni. I'm sure I'll see Gail again. I'll go and find her in Wagamamas in Manchester when I get back. And maybe I'll see Kevan and Amy too. I managed to pack in about an hour, despite a power cut that meant I had to do it by candlelight for about 20 minutes. Just about made it. I said my goodbyes to the family and Vicky, who were having some sort of birthday party that night and were a little distracted. Although they didn't get round to opening them, they seemed appreciative of my presents.

Nationwide miners' strikes since Tuesday meant we nearly didn't get to La Paz, but fortunately the problem (whatever it was) was resolved in time for the weekend. The weather was miserable. It was cold and rainy - snowing in El Alto - but we had a great few days and hopefully cheered Jen up a bit. We had a lot of good food, perused the artesania in the cobbled streets of the witches markets, visited a few museums, and took a bus to the Valley of the Moon, a touristy attraction just outside La Paz with a strange rocky landscape that does seem reminiscent of the moon. Jack braved a dodgy looking hairdressers for a long overdue cut, and came out with a mullet. I had fun trying to tidy it up with my little pair of scissors I'd saved from a Christmas cracker. We said goodbye to Jen twice, as heavy snow meant that the first attempt to get a bus to Cochabamba failed. By early Monday morning it was just me, Jack, and the prospect of climbing a big mountain in a few days.

Alone Again (but not too unhappy about it)

I'm back in La Paz, for about the 100th time. Not that I don't love the place: I do. Even though it reeks of wee. Today, as I wandered round on my various errands, people were marching again through the streets for something or other, and firing disturbingly loud gunshots into the air at regular intervals. Probably they were on their "La sede no se mueve" rant again, objecting to proposals to move the seat of government to Sucre. (Similar protests are happening in Sucre, I am told, with people chanting the slogan "La sede si se mueve" instead.) On several occasions I apologised for bumping into people before looking down and realising that the campesinos had deliberately shoved their open palms into my stomach in the hope that I'd give them a Boliviano or two. I sometimes did.

This is my first day in about two and a half months as a lone traveller again. It always feels a little strange to be alone again after travelling with friends that you've got to know over the last month or two. You'd think I'd get used to it by now, I must have done it about 10 times on this trip. But arriving at my hostel room for one I still experienced the feeling of mild hopelessness thinking of everything I had to sort out without anyone to discuss it with, and slightly at a loss as to what to do with myself. I suppose I have been in Bolivia now for two and a half months, and every time I've travelled in Bolivia I've been with friends, so it has been my longest stint travelling with others.

And today has been pretty demanding. I had to sort out getting to Colombia for this Friday, which was a bit of a mission. I thought I'd won yesterday when (after much searching through Spanish websites) I found a flight from La Paz to Cali for 300 Euros. Unfortunately it turned out I couldn't get away with inventing a Spanish address to make the reservation (I even found the corresponding postcode!), so the company cancelled my ticket. I tried calling them and persuading them to sell me the ticket anyway, but they said it wasn't possible. So I did some more internet searching and did the rounds of agencies before deciding that unless I wanted to pay a small fortune I ought to get the bus to Lima and fly from there. So I had to go to the bus station and begin another search. Finally, after about 4 hours of kerfuffle, I had my flight and my bus ticket. I leave tomorrow morning for Lima. My next job was carting two heavy boxes of stuff across La Paz to the post office to post home. It was hard work dodging marching protesters and trying not to drop my load every time a gunshot sounded, and I had to make a seperate trip for each box. People must have been very curious. I'll be home about a month before my package, but it was double the price to send them by air so they're going by boat. It's probably a good thing I've had my hands full today (haha) as otherwise I might have got a bit sad about parting with the others and gone on a frenzied artesania shopping spree to make me feel better. I've just about managed to fit everything in my bags after sending loads home; buying 10 kilos more of Alpaca knitwear and patterned rugs would not have been a good idea.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a happy lone traveller. I've got plenty of fantastic memories to think back over, a couple of books to occupy me, and I'm in one of my favourite cities. I enjoy being independent and I like my own company most of the time. Plus I'm only alone till Friday or Saturday; then I meet Carlos for some Colombia travelling. Plus plus, in a little more than 2 weeks, I'll be home. Until recently I'd always thought I didn't really want to go home, but as it's got closer and closer I've started to look forward to home things. Friends and family I've always... I'd use the word miss, but that has sad connotations. I've been looking forward to seeing them since I left, and I've always imagined sharing my experiences with them, but never I've never wanted to come home and stop travelling to see them. Because I know there'll be time when I get back. I think that's one of the things that Africa taught me: to enjoy where I am and the time I have because home will be home when I get back, and I'll enjoy it more for it. No, what's new is that I've been fantasising about things like water on tap, English TV, a proper cup of tea, my local pub (ah, the Cherry Tree), a good curry, and mum's cooking, amongst others. But right now I'm actually relishing the prospect of settling down tonight in my little one-man room with my book and getting a good night's sleep. (I'm even looking forward to the 26 hour bus journey tomorrow. That's something I'd never have said before South America.)

Although it might be some time before I get back to my little room, as it's been a hell of a long time since I last blogged so there is much to catch up on. I think I ought to do it in instalments.

Sucre and Disappointing Dinosaur Tracks

TAPA's super-keen new social director, Ana Silvia, had organised a "Talent Show" evening for Thursday. She'd sent out invitations about 3 weeks ago. Alexis came back from Puerto for the occasion, though really it was an excuse for him to have a long weekend with English-speakers. He gets a bit lonely in his little jungle village without Jonathon, who is now volunteering in Cochabamba. The talent show idea had seemed pretty lame but it was a good warm up to a night out. We had a barbecue of, amongst other things, anticucho (pigs' hearts) - or rather, the non-vegetarians did, I had some delicious vegetable soup that Ximena made - and were treated to some traditional Bolivian dance from a troup in funky costumes. The evening quickly turned into an excuse for more karaoke, since the only other talent anyone came up with was Kate's hula-hooping. Though Ellie later displayed a talent for downing a litre of Taquiña through the long tube of a broken hula-hoop, with the help of Jonathon pouring the beer. We moved on to a couple of Cochabamba's finest clubs to continue the party, where all of us, boys and girls, had to fend off the attentions of a very pretty but scarily predatory Bolivian girl. Jonny didn't bother trying to fend her off, so had his face mauled for the remainder of the night. He managed to extract himself from her when we were leaving, and in his drunken state has lost her number. He's been trying to decipher her first attempt at writing her number on a different scrap of paper, but so far to no avail.

As for Sucre, if there is a God I don't think he wanted us to go. The morning after the night before I realised I didn't have my bag, and therefore didn't have my phone or purse. I figured I must have left it in the club. I was supposed to be buying the bus tickets in advance to avoid the problem of the week before. Instead, I spent the morning and my last 10Bs trying to find my bag (the club was shut until late that night) and get money out with my emergency credit card (had to call Mum and drag her away from a social to get my PIN, and when I did the card didn't work). I was supposed to be at Jack's for his birthday lunch at 12, so I had to call him and apologise for being late and stressed. That was when he told me that he had my bag. I suppose I should have guessed; he does love carrying my 'man-bag'. He'd picked it up from the cloakroom for me and had got out of the taxi with it still over his shoulder, and had assumed I knew he had it. Jack's birthday lunch was therefore less stressful. His family is really rather posh, and their house is amazing. Lunch was exquisite. I'm sure they selected Jack specifically from the potential volunteers on the basis of his public school background, public-school good looks and his public-school interpretation of 'smart casual' to be v-neck jumper, pin-stripe shirt, chinos and loafers. Fortunately for him they didn't follow the Bolivian custom of pushing the face of the birthday boy into the (very gooey chocolate) birthday cake. I think I might export the tradition back to England.

With my bag I made it to the bus station early in the afternoon and bought seven bus tickets. I'd managed to persuade Gail, Jonny and Alexis to come along with Jack, Amy, Kevan and I this time. We agreed to meet at the bus station at 7.40 for the 8pm bus. Most of us made it there for ten-to, by which time a lady from the bus company ran over to us and screamed that the bus was leaving and we had to run to get it. Jack hadn't arrived yet. Gail, Amy and Kevan went to find the bus whilst the rest of us waited anxiously for Jack. At 8 he came, and we ran with the lady to find the bus. Gail, Amy and Kevan were nowhere to be seen because the silly woman had pointed the wrong way, so I sent her to look for them. At 5 past 8 all seven of us were chasing after the bus as it drove out of the terminal. Luckily it stopped for us, much to the annoyance of the other passengers.

It wasn't the best of journeys, but we got to Sucre at about 6 in the morning, and found a lovely hostel recommended to us by two Germans Jack and I had met in Potosí. The receptionist was unbelievably helpful, bringing us freshly squeezed orange juice, clean towels, and apologising for absolutely nothing. We had a bit of a nap before heading out to see supposedly the most beautiful town in Bolivia. It is stunning: every building is white and looks freshly painted, and all are in the classic colonial style. The plazas, framed by grand old buildings, are very pretty. It took us about two hours to have breakfast though (not least because the waitresses kept getting our orders wrong), so by the time we'd wandered round La Casa de la Libertad, everything else had closed. La Casa de la Libertad was worth the visit though, displaying in a beautiful mansion plenty of paintings and artefacts from Bolvia's history - and, obviously, bemoaning the loss of it's coastline in the war with Chile, and of various other territories to various other countries. The Bolivian football team seems to be faring similarly in the Copa America, incidentally.

Faced with two hours and no museums or churches to take pictures of before we went to see the dinosaur tracks, we went to the park and pretended to be eight years old. We had a ride on the kiddies' quad bikes and played on the swings and the slides. Gail scared herself and us getting stuck in a compromising position on the (terrifyingly high) climbing frame, and Jonny broke Amy's belt and bruised his bum attempting the rip-wire. We later took the "dino-truck" (which may as well be called the "gringo truck") to the park outside Sucre which exhibited some pretty impressive life-size recreations of different dinosaurs. It made me want to find my dinosaur books from my childhood. The dinosaur footprints themselves though were rather disappointing. For a start, we could only look at them from a great distance. They could have been anything. Second, they ran up a near vertical wall. The official explanation runs that tectonic activity has pushed up that particular bit of earth from an originally flat orientation. Third, they were coincidentally located right next to a cement factory. Gail concluded that the workers from said factory got bored one day and decided to cover part of the cliff in concrete, don some dinosaur-foot-shaped shoes and climb the cliff. I prefer this explanation.

Somewhat disillusioned, we returned to Sucre and had a beer in a bar to watch the Bolivia-Venezuela game, which Bolivia of course lost, before hitting a restaurant. Jack offered to go to the bus terminal to get tickets for the journey back on Sunday night. He came back with the news that all of the buses were full. We'd struggled to get to Sucre, now we couldn't leave the damned place. Gail and Amy were quite excited by the prospect of an extra day off work, but Alexis had to get back to return to Puerto, and Kevan didn't want to risk his chances of wangling time off to go to Salar the following weekend. Jonny, Alexis and Gail went to investigate flight options and clubbing options whilst the rest of us went to get some overdue sleep. Fortunately (or not for Gail and Amy), Jack's suspicion that there may be more buses to choose from the next morning proved correct, and going to the bus terminal at some ridiculously early hour on Sunday paid off: we found spaces to get back. We had another leisurely breakfast and took a taxi to a market town two hours outside Sucre. Yep, just one taxi, for seven of us. It took a bit of persuading, but we convinced a taxi driver that we could evade the police check and put two of us in the boot under our coats and jumpers rather than forking out for two cars. Kevan and Amy had an uncomfortable journey. The market was fun. We bought yet more alpaca items of clothing. I even bought some peasant sandals made of old car tyres for about 50p. They're really uncomfortable. Alexis bought a plastic bag of meat and corn for 3.50Bs (about 20p), and unsurprisingly found that he'd purchased a bag of offal. It looked disgusting. He ate it anyway, despite Jonny telling him it was a bit gross to eat an anus.

Our nice taxi man waited two hours to take us back to Sucre (I guess 180Bs meant pay day for him), and we managed an incredibly greasy Chinese (almost a national cuisine) before getting the bus home. How the bus can have been so bumpy when we were on a surfaced road I don't know. It was a struggle to stay on the seats, and Gail wished she was wearing a sports bra. Amy and I had taken travel sickness pills, which were very potent and meant we were semi-conscious even when awake, so I slept a fair bit. Though I did hear Kevan getting a bit miffed about the local approach to leaving babies behind when they get off to go to the toilet. "There's babies strewn all over the floor!" It was true. Ah, Bolivia.

Ho hum

Perhaps my weekend wasn’t quite as doomed as Gail’s. Whingy Dutch Charlotte came back, after only a week of solo traveling (and a week of bliss for Gail), with two weeks left before her flight home. She moved back in to spend the remainder of her time with her host family and Gail, and invited herself to Copacabana with Gail and Kate, another volunteer. Gail couldn’t really say no. On Saturday, Gail got another migraine. As if this wasn’t enough, Kate got very ill during the bus ride home from La Paz to Cochabamba on Sunday, a 7 hour journey. Poor Kate spent those 7 hours continuously throwing up into plastic bags lovingly provided by Gail (save one with a hole in provided by Charlotte, less thoughtfully), who didn’t know what else to do with them but throw them out of the window. I just hope she didn't hit any of the peasants who do tend to walk along the roadside.

I can’t believe I’ve only got a week left in Cochabamba. I’ll miss it. I’ve even managed to get on the right side of my family now, since Amy is with Kevan for most of her free time and therefore spends even less time in the house than me, and speaks no Spanish. I stopped going to Los Tiempos in the mornings this week, which means I’ve had my mornings free. It’s been lovely. I’ve been able to reply to emails that I’ve been putting off for ages, do some reading and sunbathing in the garden, and go running and Cristo-hill-climbing. I even got my hair cut yesterday, for the first time in about a year, for the equivalent of a little more than three English pounds, which is rather expensive by Cochabamba standards (Ellie had hers done for about 50p). She took off more than I wanted but did a pretty nice job of it. It's been very nice. Wish I'd stopped with Los Tiempos earlier. Although all the climbing has given me stiff calves for the last week.

Cochabamba Capers

I had an exciting morning on Tuesday. First, I was asked to take photos of a couple of interviews, which was mildly exciting. But most excitingly, there was a road block just outside of Cochabamba, and Noe (one of the photographers in Los Tiempos) took me along to cover it. The people of a poor barrio (district) were protesting because the government had not completed the surfacing of a main road linking it to Cochabamba city, and the completion of the road was not included in any of the newly published city plans. When we arrived at the site of the road block, at about10.30am, we were faced with queues of traffic that had been waiting to pass for five hours, including several large intercity passenger buses. A melee of campesinos were sitting on benches and standing together lengthways across the road to block the traffic, holding homemade placards imploring the government to complete the road. A couple of hundred metres back from the protesters, groups of armed police were stood around their riot vans preparing for action. There were some agressive verbal confrontations between some angry protesters and a few policemen, and sometimes between the protesters and frustrated car and bus drivers anxious to get moving. But it was only towards midday when things started to happen. The police began to line up with their shields and their guns at the ready, and Noe told me to go and wait out of the way in case it got dangerous. Sure enough, the police began to fire shots into the air and released canisters of tear gas, dispersing the crowds and sending people fleeing in all directions clutching their noses and mouths. There was lots of shouting and the threat of violence, but there was I think only one injury. Within half an hour, the police were able to usher the traffic through again. I'm not sure what will happen regarding the uncompleted road. I got a lift back home on the photographer's motorbike.

Wednesday night, the shortest night of the year, was the Aymara new year's eve. Traditionally (or not, if you listen to my host father) the Aymara people stay up all night and welcome the sunrise, and by extension the new year, with open arms. I'd heard that many people climb up to the Inca ruins in Sipe Sipe, about an hour and a half out of Cochabamba, on Wednesday night and welcome the sunrise from the top of the hill on Thursday morning. Despite much persuasion, I could only persuade Jack to come with me, as poor Gail was ill again. We got a few hours of sleep before leaving at 2am by bus to Sipe Sipe. We'd been told it would take no more than an hour to walk from the village plaza up to the top of the hill, but this turned out to be another Bolivian mis-estimation. It took us two and a half hours to reach the top, one and a half of which were spent stretching our lungs and working our calves to capacity hiking up one very steep mountain. I very much regretted going to the gym earlier that evening, and wished I'd opted for a small bottle of vodka instead of lugging four glass litre-bottles of beer up with us.

It was worth it though, to see hundreds of people wrapped up warm drinking, singing and playing guitar clustered around little bonfires waiting for the sunrise. Some students recognised Jack from his English classes and invited us to sit around their bonfire and share the beer. Unfortunately they weren't bonfire experts so, except for periods of a few seconds when lighter fuel was poured over the embers to produce vigorous flames, we spent the next hour or so gazng hopefully at a few dimly glowing but very smokey twigs. Eventually, light from the sun began to appear and intensify, so we followed everyone else in making our way towards the edge to watch the sunrise and the coming of the new year. It was a magical occasion, as everyone raised their palms towards the yellowing sky, arms outstretched, silently waiting. The atmosphere was only interrupted occasionally when an inebriated youth clumsily tripped over a rock and fell over. The festivities ended quickly and everyone began to disperse once the sun had fully risen. We found a trufi that was heading for Cochabamba, and had breakfast in town before returning back home for a pre-lunchtime snooze.

Jack and I had been planning to go to Sucre for the weekend, and we'd managed to persuade Amy and Kevan to come too. Getting to the bus station 45 minutes before the buses are due to depart is usually plenty early enough to buy tickets, but this time we were unlucky. Obviously everyone was travelling to friends and family for the festival of San Juan on Saturday, and there was no space with any of the companies. I felt a bit responsible for getting Amy and Kevan to the bus stop in anticipation of a fun weekend away and then failing to find space it the buses for them. We decided to postpone Sucre for a week and use this weekend to see more of Cochabamba. Disheartened, we made straight for a bar and spent the evening eating pizza and pancakes, drinking sangria and playing pick-up-sticks. Someone else had Jenga. I'd even been looking forward to the bus journey.

The next day I met Jack early with the hope of finding a tourist agency that hired bikes so we could go exploring the surrounding countryside. No such luck. Instead, we caught a bus to Quillacollo, the original site of the old city of Cochabamba, to see a festival of maize that my host sister had told me about. It was taking place at the Inca maize storage towers just outside the town. It was an enjoyable way to spend a few hours. On the way up in the taxi we passed hundreds of youngsters dressed in traditional clothing (including brightly coloured Andean hats) running from Quillacollo to the site of the festival in a historic race to mark the occasion. Policemen and women, seemingly with nothing better to do that day, tripped over themselves to explain the history, cultural importance, and uses of maize to us, which they'd obviously memorised, or in some cases just read, from the noticeboards behind them. We sampled some real chicha (beer made from maize), chewed some coca leaves, and watched ceremonies performed to win the favour of Pachamama (Mother Earth). Since Jack had a burger at the festival, we had lunch in a vegetarian restaurant back in Cochabamba, and spent the rest of the afternoon searching for an outdoor swimming pool. Two were empty of water, but we eventually found one that was open and functioning and paid our 20Bs entry. It was brain-freezing cold. Not even the most frenzied swimming could make it bearable. So we sampled the eucalyptus and camomile flavoured saunas before calling it a day and going to the cinema. We had a choice between Shrek 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean 3, so for no particular reason we opted for the latter. It was a bad film, bafflingly surreal at points, but quite entertaining thanks mainly to Jonny Depp. That night the family were having a barbecue at home, which, along with bonfires and fireworks, is the traditional way of celebrating San Juan. I got a cheese sandwich washed down by a couple of glasses of vino caliente (hot wine) and some delicious hot egg-nog type drink made from condensed milk, coconut, and cane sugar liquor, before hitting the sack.

I had a little chat with my host father about San Juan and the Aymara new year. It went much like our other little chats: I mention where I've been and what I've seen, and how interesting and fun all these events seem, and he attempts to destroy my enthusiasm with his cynicism. I said how nice it was that everyone celebrates San Juan, and he replied that it's not a traditional Bolivian festival at all but a recent Spanish import, and that whilst in Spain the fireworks and bonfires are nice affairs, here the festivities are out of control, with people setting off fireworks in the streets and setting fire to everything. I suggested that the Aymara new year festivities are a nice symbol of how traditional Bolivian culture is being kept alive and that perhaps they help to provide a sense of unity and nationhood, but he said that it's all lies, that the solstice has only recently been celebrated and that nobody really knows anything about how things used to be done. Hermán maintained that it's not at all a force for unity, because only a small portion of the population is Aymara, and the people of the Cochabamba area are all Quechua, if anything. He suggested that if he went into the street on the eve of the Aymara new year and killed a dog, he'd be applauded, because people consider it 'traditional' and 'Andean' to sacrifice animals, and how barbaric this is. To conclude, he referred to the birth of the Andean cultures on Isla del Sol on Lake Titicaca, where supposedly the Andean society was formed around three laws: do not be lazy, do not steal, and do not lie. According to Hermán, those who claim to be descendents of the historic Andean cultures and who glorify their ideology, the supposedly 'indigenous' majority of Bolivia, are lazy thieves and liars. For Hermán, this is perfectly evidenced by the protests of the campesinos blocking the road to Quillacollo on Friday. Instead of working hard to earn their living and feed their families, these people expect and demand gifts from the government, leeching off the good industrious Bolivians, like Hermán I imagine. Such are the divisions in Bolivian society.

As agreed, I met Jack at 8.30am the bottom of his street in my sports gear to run to the bottom of the hill with the giant statue of Chirst, and up the 1250 steps to the top. We'd attempted it the previous week, at a far less sociable hour of 6.30am, but only made it half way up before we had to return in order to make it to work on time. It had been knackering, for me especially because I was trying to keep up with Jack who, at over 6ft, has legs about twice as long as mine. This time, we had no time limits, and I was setting the pace. After half an hour of running before getting to the start of the steps, we were already pretty tired, but we went for it. I ended up just climbing as fast as I could walking, but Jack tried to run and beat me to the statue. It was exhausting but it felt good to get to the top. I hadn't brought my camera, assuming that the statue wouldn't be open to climb up so early, so (after a long break to let our heart rates return to something approximating normal) we ran back down and back to my house to get it. We got a bus back to the base of the hill, but being the exercise junkies we both are, we refused to take the cable car and climbed it again. It was good training for Huayna Potosí.

The inside of the Cristo is really pretty grim considering the majesty of the well-kept, white statue. It's just dirty bare concrete and loose handrails running up the rusting cast-iron spiral staircases, with graphic signs warning visitors not to urinate inside. Barbed wire fences now prevent tourists from getting too close to the person-sized holes at the end of each arm, from which a few people have reportedly committed suicide. It is no longer possible to climb up into the head of Jesus, but only up to his shoulders, but the views are great from the small holes in the walls of his chest. Or they would be, were it not for the thick borwn-grey cloud of smog that hangs over the city, almost obscuring from view the beautiful green mountains that enclose the city. The viewholes, which from the outside make it look as though Jesus quite likes acupuncture, were at just the right height for me. I'm not sure whether it's a good or a bad thing that I seem to be the same height as the average Bolivian.

I had lunch with the family that Sunday for the first time since my first weekend in Cochabamba. Sunday is Vicky's day off, so Cristina cooks. It was a classic lunch of eggs, cheesy rice, baked bananas and salad. I caught up with Jen, who was busy conducting interviews and reading as research for her book. I can't wait to read it. Amy had gone with Kevan on a tour to the Inca ruins at Sipe Sipe that day, but they (probably sensibly) had opted for a four-by-four ride to the top, rather than climbing the mountain. That afternoon, Jack and I went to a park in the centre of town with our books to chill out after our strenuous morning. We'd wanted to go and lounge in the botanical gardens, but it was shut, so we had to resort to the smaller and busy municipal park. Typically for our weekend, on the one day we wanted to chill out in the sunshine, it was cloudy for the first time in weeks. We stayed anyway. The swings proved irresistable and (should I be admitting this?) the highlight of the afternoon. We endured the drumming band that had chosen this park and this day to rehearse and the campesinos squeezing their hooters to remind us every 5 minutes that they were selling ice-cream, and read our books whilst watching the kids go round the concrete paths on their go-karts (one spoilt little brat even had a motorised version). When it got too dark and too cold to sit out any more, we found an ice-cream parlour and had some cake. Globos need a lesson in what is and what is not a brownie; fruit-of-the forest chocolate cake most definitely is not. I'd been looking forward to that brownie all day. Going to bed at 10pm almost made up for it.

The Jungle

When I got back from Salar, Amelia and Marie-Ann arrived back in Cochabamba after their month of travelling to collect the stuff they'd left before flying home. It was good to catch up with them. We all went out for pancakes on Tuesday night. On Wednesday, a new volunteer arrived to stay in my house. I was invited to move out of the little annex and into one of the rooms inside. Although I miss having my own bathroom, I don't miss the smelly leaky toilet and the cold nights, and having a double bed and loads of storage space is very nice. Amy, a really lovely 20-year old medical student from St Andrews, moved into the annex. She's come with her boyfriend Kevan, but he's living elsewhere.

I only had to work two days this week - TPA had organised a trip to Puerto Villa Roel in the jungle departing on Thursday morning. In this respect, the trip was a great idea. In another, less so. Jack, Gail and I had been planning on going to Puerto that weekend to visit Alexis, one of the volunteers there, and see the jungle. We mentioned it to Daniela, TPA director, and asked if we could stay in the volunteers' lodgings. She promptly hijacked our trip and turned it into a TPA-wide militarised working weekend. At a meeting on Tuesday night she produced copies of our 'schedule', detailing exactly what we would be doing at every hour of the day. All four days involved getting up at 6.30am at working until 6.30pm, and even stated that we would be taking an 'early night' on Thursday. A little bit put out, Gail and I decided to go to Puerto for the first two days and head to Villa Tunari, another jungle village, on Saturday morning for the weekend. Jack was going to stay in Cochabamba and join us on Friday night in Puerto.

On Thursday morning we drove down from Cochabamba through the mountains of beautiful cloud forest into the lowlands, reaching Puerto Villa Roel, at between 200 and 300m above sea level, some four hours later. Within minutes of getting out of the van, I was sweating pints with a shiny face and ever-fluffier hair. We walked to the volunteers' house along a dirt track by the side of the river, passing fruit trees and even coca bushes. Gail and I were very excited to note that the house had a hammock, as well as cat with a tiny little kitten. Well, Gail wasn't so excited about the cats; she is allergic. The women who worked in the house had prepared a lunch of gloopy overcooked pasta soup with bits of dubious meat, which we picked at. This was to be the culinary theme of meals in Puerto. That afternoon we met Alexis and Jonathon, another volunteer. Alexis was planting and building and generally getting his hands dirty and his legs bitten, whilst Jonathon was working in the guardería, or nursery, in the village, and wearing trousers. We found some machetes and took each others pictures pretending to hack away at a banana tree, and then wandered into the village. We watched some boys playing on a dugout canoe in the river and sat at a little café to sample some chicha de maiz and chicha de maní (drinks made from corn and peanut respectively), which I enjoyed but everyone else seemed to find repulsive.

Dinner for me was a great improvement. After telling the cook that I was a vegetarian, I was presented with a plate of rice, egg, fried bananas, potato, yuca and salad. The other volunteers, faced with a similarly overcooked, gloopy soup, were very envious. It made a nice change. Whilst washing up, someone spotted what looked like a fish on the floor of the kitchen. We all stared at the strange creature for a while, and then were even more amazed when it began to walk (or waddle) across the floor and out of the door. "Let me through I'm a zoologist" Gail identified it as a lung fish. After dinner we went back into the village to find a bar for a drink. On the way, whilst happily chatting to Mel about journalism and suchlike, I managed to fall neck-deep into a ditch, which seemed to entertain everyone immensely. Jonathon and Alexis took us to the best bar in town, which had a ramshackle jukebox and a broken pool table, and - like all the bars in the village - served only large bottles of coca cola and one type of beer. Local children swarmed around me and Gail when they spotted our cameras, so we had some fun taking pictures of them. Mel and Carmen, one of the more fun members of the TPA staff, spent the evening flirting outrageously with Alexis and Jonathon. Gail and I had managed to claim the only spare bed with a mattress in the boys room, so had quite a good night's sleep. We needed earplugs though, to block out the sounds of the jungle. The 12 or so other volunteers were sleeping on the hard tiled floors.

The next morning, thankfully later than scheduled, we started work at the guardería. It was in an awful state. Formerly an abattoir, it was dark, dirty and smelly. There was rat excrement everywhere, even up the walls, which were crumbling badly. The mattresses and blankets for the cots where covered in faeces, pee and vomit. It was hard to believe that children were cared for here. We began by clearing the place out, sweeping up, and cleaning and disinfecting. I spent most of the day mixing cement and filling the holes in the walls so that they could be painted. It was hot, hard work, but with music from the retro ghetto-blaster it was enjoyable. We worked all day, save for a couple of hours at lunch, but without electric lights, by 6pm it was getting too dark to paint. Dinner was fish omlette, made from the same big fish that had been sitting in the sink outside all day, and salad: a marginal improvement on gloopy soup, was the consensus. That evening some of the volunteers took Jonathon and Alexis' English lesson for them, teaching a group of 20 or 30 village children in the main room of the volunteer house for an hour, whilst the rest of us played with the kitten and chatted. Daniela, Jack, Amy and Kevan, along with another member of the TPA staff and her boyfriend, arrived that evening. Gail got ill that night and blamed the fish. She went to bed, her sickness justifying another night on the only mattress, whilst the rest of us went out to the only 'club' in Puerto. It was different from the bar of last night only in the volume of music, which was almost too loud to shout to the waiter how many beer and cokes we wanted. Not wanting to disturb Gail, I slept on the un-cushioned wooden frame of the other spare bunk in the boys' room. It was still better than the floor, and I slept remarkably well. Jack, on the harder floor, did not.

Jonathon arrived just as we all woke up that morning. He claimed he'd been for an early morning walk, but he'd clearly spent the night elsewhere with a Bolivian lady. Evidently neither Carmen nor Mel had succeeded in seducing Alexis, for he slept in his own bed last night. A little while after the other dedicated volunteers traipsed back off to the guardería to get back to work, Jack, Gail and I got a taxi to Villa Tunari. We found a nice hostel with real matresses on the beds, and, finding that a recommended restaurant that served vegetarian food only opened at 4pm, had a yummy pizza lunch. We contemplated rafting or canoeing, but settled for a jungle trek with a crazy guide and his dog, who proved to be even more useful than the guide. I spent the trek wondering why on earth the guide had told me to wear my trainers instead of my flip flops, as most of it was spent wading waist-deep through a river. Gail and Jack had sturdy sandals on whilst a mound of sand was growing in each of my squelching shoes. It was a lot of fun though, clambering through lush, dense jungle and spotting huge brightly coloured butterflies and tuneful birds. We sampled some of the fruit from which chocolate is derived. This red, hard-skinned fruit containing sweet, furry purple beans seems far removed from chocolate, and certainly tasted nothing like it, but was quite nice. Wading through the river was slow work. Before long it got dark (and I mean dark) and we still had three hours of trekking to go, so we got out our torches. We had a bit of a scare when the guide's big lamp died. Jack tried to help by offering to share mine or Gails and give his torch to Jorge, but then promply dropped it in the river. Fortunately it still worked. The veggie restaurant was closed again, so we had a pizza dinner too. My trainers were in a sorry state when we got back.

The next morning we went to visit Parque Machia, a jungle wildlife reserve famous for it's community of monkeys rescued from the maltreatment of owners. They were loads of them, and they were very cute. One took a liking to Gail, and brought her a piece of banana whilst it sat and ate a piece of papaya on her shoulder. Having been warned not to take anything but ourselves beyond the park entrance, Gail had bought a disposable camera to snap the monkeys, but it had a good chew. Another fell in love with Jack and stubbornly hung on to his neck whilst we walked up to a viewpoint. It was clearly in a state of excitement (he was male, we could tell) and gave a jealous squeal if Jack prodded me or Gail. After about half an hour, Jack got sick of having a hot neck and tried to get rid of it, but he had to run from the little bugger who followed him up the path. Fortunately, we thought, it took interest in a little girl when we got to the mirador and climbed up her instead. But the girl panicked and the monkey bit her, quite deeply. We spent the next hour or so trying to keep the monkey, who was now rather agressive, away from her and from another little girl it bit about 10 minutes later, whilst Jack ran off to get help. The girl's family had to take her to hospital. I no longer wanted a monkey as a pet.

That afternoon we played a few games of pool in a bar, found a swimming pool and had a swim, and had a bit of dinner before heading back. The veggie restaurant was closed again, so I had to make do with an omlette. It took six hours to get back because rain had made the unsurfaced roads hazardous.

The next day I had a look at the photos of the nursery taken on Sunday before the others had left. It was almost unrecognisable. The cots, blankets and matresses had been cleaned and the walls were pink, yellow, blue and green, and free of rat poo. I felt a little guilty that I hadn't been there on the Saturday and Sunday, but they seemed to have done a good enough job without us.

The Salt Flats, Sunsets and Shooting Stars

I'm getting rather behind with this blog. It's Tuesday 19 June today, and I went to Salar two weekends ago. Hopefully I can remember it accurately.

It was a long awaited trip. I'd had it penned in my diary since my first day with TAPA, when I managed to persuade Ximena to let me plan some time off to visit the salt flats on the condition that I write an article about it, and that we keep it a secret from the rest of the volunteers and director Daniela. Not much of a penalty really. We'd had a look on the calendar and decided that if I made use of the public holiday of Corpus Christi, on 7 June, I would only need to take one day off to do a full four-day tour.

Although I'd have been happy to go alone (I was kind of hoping to group up with some Israeli men...), I'd been half-heartedly suggesting to selected others that they take time off and join me. I didn't really think anyone would be able to, so I was very glad when Jack told me on the Monday that he'd managed to rearrange his Friday classes for Wednesday, which was "The Day of the Teacher", or in other words a day off for teachers. Having done very little research (I'd learnt my lesson from planning for La Paz last weekend), we left on Wednesday afternoon by bus to Uyuni via Oruro. The first bus was fine, if a little hotter and smellier than usual, but the second leg was an overnighter in a very shitty bus along one of the bumpiest roads I've ever experienced. We had to spend a good 10 minutes when we arrived searching for our things at the other end of the bus among the snoozing campesinos and their big bundles of God knows what. We'd been warned it got cold, so we'd taken our sleeping bags on board, and sure enough, by the early hours of the morning ice was forming on the insides of the windows. After a sleepless night, we arrived into the frigid, sleepy town of Uyuni at sunrise.

At 6.30, nothing was open in this tiny little place. We considered following the advice of the Lonely Planet and camping out in the office of the bus company for a while and taking advantage of their gas heater, but it was full of locals doing the same, so we decided to take a wander into "town". Before long, tour agencies were beginning to open their doors and agents were wandering the streets looking to prey on unprepared travellers. This suited us well. Under the premise of shopping around a bit, we accepted several invitations to come inside agency offices and take a seat in front of their gas heaters whilst they gave us their spiel. There's not a great deal of variation between the agencies, and we were to discover that most of them grouped their tourists together to fill the jeeps, but we knew we wanted to leave that Thursday morning on a 3 or 4-day tour that perhaps incorporated a bit of exercise and ideally in reverse so we got the long day of travelling out of the way first and had more time on the salt flats at the end. After seeing what numerous agencies had to offer, we we torn between a 3-day tour in reverse and a normal 4-day tour that included climbing a volcano. Over breakfast, in a deserted hostel canteen, we decided on the latter. We took a quick shower in another of the hostels (we weren't confident of having another chance for the next four days), had a quick wander round the market, and bought water and snacks, and then we were off. As we should have expected, the two Argentinian girls and two American guys with whom we shared a jeep, had booked through different agencies, but it didn't really matter.

First stop was the train graveyard, a strange place near the edge of the salt flats where a dozen or so old trains lay rusting. Jack quite liked it; Dad you'd have been very excited by it. I suppose the old wrecks did make for interesting photos. It didn't take long in the jeep before we were on the salt flats themselves. It was almost too soon to appreciate. We spent half an hour trying on daft hats in the artesan stalls and climbing the mountains of salt that had been piled up near a salt processing plant before driving to the middle of the Salar. We had a bit of time next to a field of evenly spaced-out pyramids of salt shovelled up to allow the salt to dry, each of which was surrounded by a perfect square of shallow water reflecting clearly the bright blue sky and fluffy clouds. We stopped for lunch at the Palacio de Sal, a hotel constructed entirely from salt, in the centre of the flats. The place is amazing; we didn't go for more than two minutes without a "wow" or two escaping our lips. Standing beneath a bright blue sky on a perfectly even, frozen sea of brilliant white salt stretching as far as the eye can see is a surreal, otherwordly experience, and difficult to describe. As we walked, the salt crunched satisfyingly with each step, and tinkled magically when shards were dislodged with a little kick. Inspired by photos taken by previous visitors that we'd seen (mainly on Facebook), we took advantage of the illusory landscape and attempted several perspective photos. I hung in miniature from Jack's finger, a tiny version of Jack stood on my shoulder and whispered into my ear, he held me in his hand, and we both sat in my walking boot. At one point, an aeroplane landed not far from where we were. Eating was an odd distraction; each time I looked up from my plate I was amazed anew by the incredible landscape. One of the Argentinian girls made the inevitable joke: "Is there any salt for the chips?"

It took several hours to reach the little hamlet where we were to spend our first night, across miles and miles of seemingly endless salt, which dries in curious perfectly tesselated hexagons. The hostel was, as described, very basic: metal beds, with blankets (thank God) but no heating, and only with electricity for about two hours between 7pm and 9pm. We headed out, well-wrapped up, past the herd of llamas and/or alpacas grazing near the hostel and the smelly pink flamingoes doing their thing on the water at the edge of the flats, to see the sun set over Salar. As the light faded, the sky turned from blue to pink, purple and orange, and the sun cast its vivid colours over the mountains in the distance and across the sea of frozen salt. All was reflected in the still water at the edge of the flats. It was beautiful. After dinner (including welcome bowl of hearty soup), we put on even more clothes, grabbed our torches, and braved the cold again to see the stars. Clambering over the stepping stones was a little trickier in the pitch blackness, but it was worth it. The night sky was not dark at all but twinkling with millions upon millions of stars, and it didn't take long to spot a few shooting stars. The Milky Way was unmissable; a broad cloudy smear across the sky. We lay on the salt for a while, gazing up, before the cold became unbearable and we got numb bums and had to go back inside.

Jack woke me up in the morning as my phone alarm hadn't gone off to wake me up in time for sunrise, but we made it outside before the sun had arrived from beyond the horizon. Although not quite as beautiful as the sunset, it was impressive. That morning we set off to explore Volcano Tunupa at whose based we had camped. We wandered into a cave in the mountainside where several shrivelled but well-preserved mummies sat curled up, before hiking up to a viewpoint with great vistas over the flats. This, apparently, was "climbing the volcano". We managed to hike a bit further before we had to return, but the terrain was less than ideal, involving trampling over very spiky and very painful hardy little shrubs. Waiting by the jeep, we thought we'd have to interrupt our philosophical discussions about animal rights, religion and such like to send a search party out for one of the Americans, who had gone off to hike up the volcano on his own, but he eventually turned up fine. We drove off across the salt flats again, this time to the Isla Pescado (Fish Island), a name I never quite understood as there were no fish to be seen. Rather, it was a rocky mound in the middle of the even white salt flats covered in giant San Pedro cacti. Entrepreneurial Bolivians had set up a shop, toilets and a restaurant, and planted a giant Bolivian flag on the top. We hiked round the mound and took a few more perspective photographs before our time was up and we had to board a different jeep and meet our new crew and travel buddies. The guide and cooks were much the same - slightly grumpy and not very talkative. We were now sharing a jeep with two middle-aged Austrian women, one a teacher and the other an executive, a friendly short-haird Hong Kong girl and a very quiet South Korean guy, both in their early 20s. We drove off again towards the little village of San Juan, amusing ourselves with a game of i-spy and taking photos through the windows of the Bolivian army who seemed to be doing training exercises in the middle of this barren nowhere.

San Juan is a cold, windy, brown-grey village which claims to have 1,000 inhabitants but surely can't be home to more than 200. Somehow it feels remeniscent of the wild west; I expected a Bolivian cowboy to swagger out of one of the houses into the street and say, "Oi, gringo, this town ain't big enough for the both of us". It really wasn't. We paid a visit to the tiny museum there, and in the eerie twilight explored the strange tombs of fossilized coral in which ancient mummies had been preserved, huddled up as if sheltering from the cold. Despite there being no more than about 4 streets in the place, we managed to get very lost on the way back to the 'hostel'. We were entertained during dinner (soup again, but this time a bottle of wine to share) by a group of local boys of perhaps 10 years old playing various musical instruments and singing poorly rehearsed songs. Bored, Jack and I headed out to find the bar featured in a well-read leaflet that had been thrusted into our hands on the way to the museum, advertised as the most happening place in the vollage. It took a fair bit of finding, and we were the only visitors that night. It was worth it for a few glasses of the vino caliente (hot spiced wine) and to hear the proprietor warble to Bolivian tunes on his Andean flute. It was cold that night.

The next day we drove through desert landscapes, fascinating rock formations and stopping at beautiful but austere lakes, snapping flamingos and vicuñas. One stop was at the famous Arbol de Piedra, or 'tree of rock', surely one of the most photographed rocks in South America. Dutifully, we got photos of that too. We stayed that night at the shores of Laguna Colorada, or 'coloured lake', so called because the algae in the water often makes it appear bright red. We watched another beautiful sunset, but the night was even colder than the previous nights, so even with twenty layers on we couldn't stay outside watching for shooting stars for more than 10 minutes. With six people in the dorm, the night was just about bearable. We had an early morning start the next morning, leaving the hostel at 5.30am, in order to reach the geysers just as the sun was rising. Despite the rotten-egg stench, standing in the sulphur-infused steam from the ferocious pools of boiling mud and water was actually quite pleasant given the freezing conditions. Not for the first time, I was reminded of Iceland, except for the absence of any safety cordons to prevent sleepy visitors wandering straight into these hellish holes in the earth. On we drove up to another lake, at the shores of which was a naturally heated bathing pool. Silly me had forgotten to pack my swimming costume, but Jack was brave enough to strip down to his trunks in the sub-zero temperatures and take his cup of tea down for a dip. He seemed to enjoy it enough for the both of us.

We stopped at several more lakes en route to the 'bus stop' for the bus to Chile, where we lost the two Austrians and the Hong Kong girl, but gained a lovely Swedish girl with green hair called Boel. She'd been studying in Val Paraiso, in Chile, and now had two weeks to travel round before returning home. She spent the day asking us questions about where we'd been in Bolivia, and wrote down all our recommendations. I think we've inadvertently planned her entire two weeks for her, even down to which hostels to stay in. We had lunch in another tiny adobe town whose most interesting feature was the tail end of an aeroplane perched up in the rocks that overshadowed the village. We arrived back into Uyuni in the early evening, but because of problems with my phone we ended up having to stay another night. I'd left my phone in the hostel at Laguna Colorada, and it had been sent back to Uyuni with another tour guide. He apparently had four or five wives and mistresses, and although we knew he was back in Uyuni we didn't know which woman he was with. We evenutally arranged to have my phone sent to me on a bus the next day, but by the time we got to the bus station there were no spaces left in the bus back that night, unless we wanted to sit in the aisles (which we really didn't). On the plus side, it meant I could collect my phone in person the next morning, the promiscous man having returned home. So we had to head back to Cochabamba on Monday, and finally arrived back early on Tuesday morning. We opted for bus cama ('bed' bus) thinking it would be more comfortable, but far from it. Although the seats reclined a long way back, the base of the seats themselves were positively sloping, so it was a constant fight to stop sliding off them. I thought Lord of the Rings would make insomnia slightly more tolerable, but it cut out half way through. To top it off, there were two babies sat in the seats in front and to the side, who wailed frequently and whose mothers insisted on changing them during the journey to let us all smell what the inside of a Bolivian nappy smells like. Ah, Bolivia.