Lucy's South American Adventure

Coming home at last...hopefully

2007-08-10T19:19:00.000-05:00

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

2007-08-10T13:28:00.000-05:00

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.

2007-08-09T13:32:00.000-05:00

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...

2007-08-08T20:25:00.000-05:00

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

2007-08-07T20:27:00.000-05:00

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.

2007-08-05T18:09:00.000-05:00

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

2007-07-31T09:27:00.000-05:00

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

2007-07-26T22:30:00.000-05:00

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

2007-07-26T22:13:00.000-05:00

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

2007-07-26T14:59:00.000-05:00

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

2007-07-24T17:32:00.000-05:00

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

2007-07-24T16:54:00.000-05:00

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)

2007-07-24T16:07:00.000-05:00

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

2007-07-03T11:49:00.000-05:00

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

2007-07-03T11:28:00.000-05:00

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

2007-06-25T10:45:00.000-05:00

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

2007-06-25T09:17:00.000-05:00

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

2007-06-19T20:32:00.000-05:00

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.

Nicky, Bolivian Festivals and surviving The Most Dangerous Road in the World

2007-06-04T11:58:00.000-05:00

Last Sunday was El Día de la Madre, or Mothers Day, over here. I was in Potosí cycling to some hot springs, but dutifully I'd left a card and a box of Bolivia's finest chocolates (so the streetseller told me) for both Cristina (my host mum) and Vicky (my maid). To celebrate the occasion, TAPA organized a meal for all the host mums and their children on Monday night. It was very pleasant, I managed to hold a conversation about various things, though mainly politics (it always seems to revert to politics over here) in Spanish. Went out for a drink after with some of the volunteers, so was very tired for work the next day.

Nicky (fellow volunteer in Trujillo) came to Cochabamba on Thursday! It was really lovely to see her and catch up. She arrived late so we went straight out for a pizza and a beer (like the old times) and then met some of the gang in town. It was a huge crowd in Casablancas, including the Americans I've met a few times before who are volunteering building stone ovens for rural citizens, and two Dutch guys who have been sent over by their university to re-programme a robot arm that was sent to San Simon University of Cochabamba in 1987 and unused. Apparently they're on the lookout for uses to which to put their robot arm, so we had a giggle coming up with some ideas. One drink led to another, and since Nicky and I hadn't seen each other for aaages, we just had to go out. After trying out a club that seemed more like a big house than a public venue, except for the fireman's pole, we ended up in Pimientas. After an hour in Briazilian Coffee for some chocolate cake to finish off the night, it was about 5.30am when I got to bed, very drunk. Needless to say I didn't make it into work the next morning. Instead, I met up with Nicky for a very nice lunch before we went our own ways at the weekend. Whilst waiting for her sat on one of Cochabamba's plaza benches, a tall grey bearded gringo sat down next to me and started chatting to me. You do get some characters amongst global travellers, but he was pretty special. When I managed to redirect the conversation away from me and onto what he was doing in Cochabamba, he told me that he was persuing two lines of entrepreneurial business, one of which he saw as his calling, the other provided the funds to follow it. It turned out he was primarily an evangelist, preaching to any schools and universities that would let him about "human moral values" and spreading the word by distributing his book across the continent. He funded this mission of his through his second occupation as a "professional gambler". If he recognised the irony he failed to show it.

Unusually, I'd actually made plans for the weekend. I managed to persuade Dutch Charlotte and hilarious Irish Gail to join Jack and I on a visit to La Paz to mountain bike down "The Most Dangerous Road in the World" (according to US statistics), visit Tiahuanaco, Bolivia's best pre-colonial ruins, and see the festival of the Gran Poder. Whilst recovering from Thursday night I booked us a room in a hostel, places on the bike tour, and four bus tickets. I wish I hadn't; it was more trouble than it was worth. Apparently the bus tickets (at under $6 each) were too expensive for Charlotte, as was the cost of the bike tour, despite us agreeing that we'd rather pay a bit more to go with a company with a better reputation. She made no comment about the hostel, thankfully.

Typically, the bus was an hour or so late getting into La Paz on Saturday morning, and the roads were closed for preparations for the festival later, so I had to call the tour company and promise that we'd come as soon as we could. We got our equipment (motorcycle-style helmets, shiny overtrousers and flourescent visibility jackets, and gloves) and were loaded into a minibus to head up to the starting point. We were all very nervous. Apparently only a month or so ago a couple of Israelis had met their ends when they missed one of the many sharp corners biking down "The Death Road", as the road from La Cumbre (4640m) down some 3345m to Coroico (1,315m) is also known. The safety briefing wasn't reassuring. Fortunately, the first section of the road was asfalted, so I was able to get over my fears and enjoy the ride a bit more after a few minutes. The only problem was the weather, which was less than brilliant. It was misty, rainy and dusty - so either our sunglasses got speckled and fogged up, or it was a struggle to keep our eyes open to see the road. There were a few uphill bits too, which provided welcome relief from breaking and the opportunity to overtake the group of local guys from Cochabamba who'd been zooming down the roads at breakneck pace. The second half of the descent was unasfalted, and, especially given the weather, a lot more scary. If the weather had been with us we'd have had some awesome views. From the bleak, freezing, dramatic heights of the altiplano to the lush steamy vegetation of the cloud forest at Coroico, the scenery is spectacular. We could only take their word for it. Instead, we could just about make out the edges of the road, and before long were drenched in mud and rain. But we all loved it, all 5 or 6 hours of adrenaline and exhilaration. Even Charlotte had fun, I think.

Making it back to our hostel was a challenge and a half. By the time we got back to La Paz the festival was in full swing. I'm not sure exactly what it celebrates, but it's something to do with the coming of Jesus I believe, despite what my host father says about it being a pagan fiesta. There were drunk campesinos staggering around everywhere, it was very amusing. Not so amusing was having to wait in a queue for about half an hour to cross the street because of the processions. We finally made it to the festival, which originally had been Jack's reason for coming to La Paz this weekend, at about 11pm, after much-anticipated showers and a pizza. It was a strange feeling to eat with a group of friends in the same restaurant in which about a month earlier I had eaten alone, with my book, unsure of what was to come. Good pizza though. The festival was very impressive. It was really cold, but we resisted it for a good few hours to watch the colourfully clad participants dance past, sometimes wearing little more than underwear. Some of the costumes were amazingly elaborate. Some were dressed as the devil, with masks and headresses, others were dressed formally in suits playing instruments in bands; some were well-composed and impressive, others were downright wasted. That said, some of the costumes were so heavy that even the sober dancers were struggling to stay upright. The costumes of some of the dancers are so valuable that they are protected by bodyguards against robbery. One lady on the news admitted that the jewels she was wearing were worth some 6 million Bolivianos. We didn't just watch either - various dancers dragged us off, in our ski-jackets and woolly hats, to dance in the parade.

The next morning we said goodbye to Charlotte before catching a micro to Tiahuanaco. Despite leaving our hostel at about 8am, we only got to Tiahuanaco at about 2 in the afternoon, after much dawdling in the busy market streets of La Paz. They might be Bolivia's best pre-colonial ruins, but the Lonely Planet was right to say that if you've been to Peru you'll be a little disappointed. We didn't even manage to have fun finding a guide. We were planning to audition the numerous candidates that the Lonely Planet promised would be queuing up to take us round - "Gu-idol", you could have called it - but we struggled to find even one. Nevertheless, it was a fun afternoon, if a little long. We had an entertaining return journey watching Gail tease a very cute and very happy little Bolivian kid, who was fascinated with her i-pod headphones. It was quite an effort to stop her trying to eat them instead of listen to the music coming out of them, but when she finally figured it out she was entranced. We were shown two sides to the Bolivian attitude to tourist on the way back. The choffer of the bus tried to overcharge us, probably thinking he could take advantage of our ignorance, but the father of the little girl we'd befriended insisted that he give us the change we were due, and various other Bolivian passengers asked us if we'd been charged the right price too. I can't imagine that happening on the train in England.

Primitive Mines, Disembowelled Llamas and Hot Springs

2007-05-29T11:47:00.000-05:00

I had another fantastic spontaneous trip this weekend. This time it was Potosí, an old colonial mining town up at some 4,200m in the Bolivian altiplano.

At about 6pm on Friday, Jack and I (we couldn't persuade anyone else at such short notice) decided we didn't want to stay in Cochabamba, so managed to pack our bags and catch another overnight bus an hour or so later. This one was twelve hours, and it was even colder than previously. Thanks to the chilly temperatures, wailing babies, and an hour long stop with the doors open and lights on at about 3am in the morning, we arrived into the bus terminal on no more than 3 hours of sleep just after sunrise. A glorious sunrise, so Jack told me, but I was enjoying a rare 20 minutes of sleep at the time.

Located in an otherwise unattractive area of Bolivia, barren highlands where little vegetation is able to flourish, the main attraction of Potosí are the mines, dug deep into a dusty red cerro (hill) that overlooks the town. Potosi was very sleepy so early in the morning, but we managed to check into a hostel and (after being misdirected several times) locate the tour agency with the best reputation for taking people down the mines, Koala Tours (surely set up by an Aussie expat but we never met him). After hearing some horrific descriptions of what was in store, we decided we'd rather pay that little bit more and be safe. Still a little dazed and sleepy from the journey, after grabbing a quick breakfast we signed the rather perturbing disclaimer that we accept fully the risks involved (including deaths from collapsing tunnels, gas poisoning, these sorts of things) and jumped on the tour minibus. First stop was the storehouse of Koala Tours to get kitted out in our mining gear. We did look very sexy in huge overpants and shiny overcoats, topped off by bright yellow hard hats and headlamps powered by giant orange batterys attached to the belts around our waists. Oh, and wellies. We decided to invest in handkerchiefs to put over our mouths and noses to avoid breathing in too much of the arsenic, cyanide and God knows what other toxic gases fill the mine tunnels.

Next stop was the miners' market. The markets were much like those in other Bolivian cities, full of campesinos selling their lotions and potions and wierd good luck charms, but with locally specific extras such as gas masks, dynamite, 95% proof alcohol, and a few decorated llamas awaiting sacrifice. It turned out that we'd chosen to visit Potosí during the annual festival celebrating Pachamama, or Mother Earth, which involved, as well as the inevitable copious drinking, lots of llama sacrificing. Jack and I bought some of the alcohol and dynamite to make the visit a little more exciting, and wandered round trying to avoid thinking about what was going to happen to the poor llamas. Before starting the long windy ascent up the Cerro Rico to the mines, we had a tour round the unbelievably primitive factories where the silver and other minerals are seperated from the crap that comes with them. Much like what was to come, everything was dirty and ancient, and looked like a death trap; it felt like stepping back into the early years of the industrial revolution. I found it almost impossible to believe that one of the world's most important mining towns (at one point, albeit at least a hundred years ago or so, it produced some 50% of the worlds precious minerals) had such antique processing plants.

After a brief discussion about what was going to happen, we finally pulled up our handkerchiefs over our mouths, turned on our headlamps, and entered the mines. It was one of the grimmest hours of my life, and it felt more like 10. The mine shafts are crudely dug out of the hill as if by hand, and it takes enormous concentration to ensure you don't trip over the uneven floor or bash your head on the still more uneven ceilings or the bits of wood or cable protruding from them. Poor Jack, at over 6ft, struggled rather, to say the least. Breathing was the greatest challenge down there. I can't imagine how an asthmatic claustrophobic would cope. Well, they wouldn't. The principle tunnels were bad enough, but the tunnels linking one "level" to another were appalling. We had to get on our hands and knees and crawl in many sections, at very steep gradients. At one point we had to slide on our bums some 20m down a near vertical shaft, trying to avoid the nails in the wood floor. Outside the mines, due to the altitude, it was freezing, but deeper inside the hill it began to get very hot. Temperatues reach 35 degrees centigrade in parts. To say we were uncomfortable in our well-layered thermals and fleeces would be a gross understatement. Consider also the near total darkness, the clouds of toxic dust that clogged up every tunnel, plus the double-foldedhandkerchief that we had to clutch to our mouths to breathe through, and all this at an altitude of well over 4000m, to which we were definitely unacclimatised, and you still can't imagine how miserable it was. Had I had enough breath to talk I might have asked to be taken back out. The poor miners. They still work in there. Incredible.

Finally I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. With immense relief I felt the air get cooler and fresher as we stumbled towards daylight again. But leaving the stifling heat, dust and darkness of the mines and coming face to face with what was going on outside was like being saved from the frying pan only to be thrust into the fire. Still half awake after so little sleep, and probably slightly intoxicated and oxygen-deprived, it took a while to register what we were seeing. It certainly took a few seconds to realize that what looked like bright red paint, collected in hard hats, running in streams towards the mines, and daubed everywhere, was actually blood. Upside down right in the entrance to the mine shaft, with their necks slit and their legs sprawled apart to allow for the disection to take place, were three huge dead llamas, and all around them, if not getting ready to disembowel the poor beasts, Bolivians were chatting and drinking. I thought I'd be a lot more traumatised than I was to see the scene of a massacre. Perhaps I was still dazed from the previous 14 hours or so. Though I think we were fortunate not to witness the actual slaughter itself. The revellers (!) motioned for us to take a seat, less than a meter away from one of the corpses, and handed us a beer to share. And then the shots came round. So, this Saturday morning, we sat and drank whilst right in front of us the men of Potosí proceeded to cut open three beautiful dead llamas and slowly extract their innards and shovel them into a cardboard box. If I had ever wanted a biology lesson on the physical composition of cameloids, I was getting a real treat. I'd never before seen every single organ, in real life, of an animal so close without it being on television. But I'd never been that keen on biology. Instead I was simultaneously repulsed yet irresistably compelled to watch this grotesque spectacle unfold. And the beer was quite refreshing. We sat there for a while, in a semi-trance, taking lots of photos and saying "eeuggh" and other remarks of disgust, to somehow make us feel better about taking part in the festivities.

Eventually, with all three llamas completely disembowelled, our tour guide said it was time to leave. We wandered accross the hillside, past some more Potosí men digging graves for the llamas (for good luck in the mines in the next year), and past some others cooking potatoes in hand-built stone ovens. Before we left, our guide Roland took our stick of dynamite and we had our photos taken holding the crude bomb whilst the fuse burnt down the stem.

The events of the morning didn't stop Jack ordering roast llama for lunch. He quite enjoyed it too.

That afternoon we walked round the city, wandering through the colonial plazas and along steep, narrow cobbled streets in search of the churches whose spires we spotted over the red rooftops. We didn't have the energy for the Casa de Moneda (literally House of Coins, a museum located in a beautiful colonial mansion), which my family considers a crime. Instead, we discovered that for the price of a cup of tea in the cafe of a cathedral-like building on the main plaza, the proprieter would move aside the wrought iron gate from the entrace to a narrow stairway and let us climb up onto the roof. Coincidentally, we'd timed it perfectly; the sun was just setting. From atop of one of the highest buildings in Potosí, we got some awesome views of the city skyline against the pink and orange skies. I'm glad health and safety standards aren't so strict over here.

We both slept like logs that night. After, that is, I had to climb in through the bathroom window of our room to let us in. Our roommates had left with the only key. The next day, again with Koala Tours (we ate breakfast and lunch in their cafe, slept in their hostel, and went on their tours - they got a lot of our money this weekend), we hired mountain bikes and cycled some 25km to the aguas termales, or hot springs, of Tarapaya. The ride was great - mostly downhill, but then it didn't take much uphill to get us panting like dogs in the Sahara. The lake was beautiful, and a little surreal. It was surprisingly big, and higher up than most of the land around, so I wondered how come the water didn't somehow filter down and drain the lake. The water was warm without being too hot; very pleasant, if a little cloudy.

Unfortunately we couldn't get a bus to Cochabamba earlier than 7.30pm that evening, so we arrived back, after another sleepless night shivering under a sleeping bag on the bus, just in time for a shower and a quick breakfast before work on Monday. I arrived home to find the floor of my room covered in ants. Nice.

Lots and Lots

2007-05-23T20:05:00.000-05:00

I just don't where to start on this one really, there's so much I want to put in. I guess a good place to start is last weekend. I took advantage of the civic strike on Friday (no transport, no shops open, road blocks everywhere - therefore no work) to visit Lake Titicaca, since it's quite a long way from Cochabamba and takes two buses and a good 13 hours to get there.

I was torn about what do do on Thursday night. I seriously contemplated sticking around, going in to Los Tiempos (the Bolivian newspaper I'm working with in the mornings, very highly rated nationally, I might add) and persuading the photographers to let me go with them to take photos. I had a little daydream of making my name as a journalist with my story and pictures of international-headline-worthy riots and violence, as there were in January (and as some people had been predicting). In the end, I decided: (a) it would be a bit risky to put myself in the middle of such things, since there's a fair amount of hostility to gringos at the moment given the tension with the US over coca (as well as other factors); (b) it would probably blow over peacefully and barely make national news, and if it was bigger, I could always get in on the act when I got back; and (c), it was too good an opportunity to miss to travel to Titicaca, since I wouldn't have another opportunity.

That night (I called them at about 7pm) I managed to persuade two other volunteers to pack their bags and head to the bus station at 9pm for an overnight bus to La Paz. Eleanor and Jack are both pre-uni gappers, from posh schools, and bonded well over rowing chat. We had a bit of time to spare before our bus at 10.30 so we went for a wander round the area, and came across a funfairn that looked like the attractions were built in the 1930s. We had a few games of table football (for the cost of 20 centavos, less than 2p) on a delapidated table before spotting a great big slide. The climb up the rickety stairs was almost as nerve-wracking as the descent. After a few goes and a lot of laughs, we headed over to the park's biggest attraction, the "rollercoaster". Even without loop-the-loops it was one of the scariest rides I've been on. It was so noisy and old, but actually quite fast. A very entertaining hour, for the cost of about 50p in total.

The bus journey was less fun. Turned out Eleanor hadn't quite recovered from some uncategorised illness she'd been suffering, and on top of that gets quite car sick, so had a very uncomfortable journey. So did I, sitting next to the poor thing whinging away whilst trying to sleep, but I did feel very sorry for her. Was quite funny when she got uncontrollable hiccups though. We had to change at La Paz at about 7am in the morning, and finally arrived in Copacabana (not the Copacabana of the song, but that didn't stop Barry Manilow getting stuck in my head for the entire journey - very frustrating when all I knew was that one word) at about 12.30. The bus was quite an adventure. We had to cross the lake half way through, which involved us all getting out to take a little boat over the channel whilst the bus (presumably too heavy and dangerous with us all on board) was ferried across on another. At the other side, next to the headquarters of the Bolivian Navy no less, we had to pass through "migration" (despite being a long way from any border), where Eleanor and Jack had to pay 150Bs each to bribe the official to let them pass, having both forgotten their passports. Apparently a copy was not enough. For once in my life I was the only one to have remembered to bring something!

Although perhaps not for poor Eleanor, who never felt well for the entire duration, for me it was a great weekend. Titicaca is just stunning. But what makes it all the more impressive is remembering that such a huge lake, which stretches as far as the eye can see, is located at an altitude of 3,800m. And of the altitude you cannot forget, thanks to the scarcity of oxygen that makes climbing even a single flight of stairs a superhuman effort. The first day we took a swan-shaped pedalo onto the lake (bloody hard work, we didn't get very far) and wandered round the little town. It's very touristy, with gringos in gringo trousers and alpaca jumpers (me now included) everywhere, but it's also really cute. The cathedral is very impressive for such a small place. Towards the evening we hiked up a little hill (yes it was a hike at that alitude; we had to do a lot of persuading to get Eleanor to the top) for some famously lovely views of the sunset over the lake. The colours were beautiful. The next day, we took a boat over to the Isla del Sol. It's a beautiful yet somehow bleak little island, affording some amazing views across the lake to the snow-capped mountains beyond. We hiked (poor Eleanor) from the north to the south of the island. When away from the ports at either end, it feels very remote, and despite the brilliant sunshine still felt chilly with the altitude. According to legend, this is where the sun was born, and it certainly is strong. It's also supposedly the birthplace of the Incas. There are correspondingly some very impressive Inca ruins, as well as a couple of rocks that, according to legend (we failed to see it) are shaped like a puma and a frog. The island is a hotspot for tourists too: we were entertained along some of the way by a multicoloured gringo playing his Andean flute, and bought water from some little entrepreneureal kiosks dotted along the route. Out of sympathy for Eleanor, who was desperate for some sleep, we took the bus back during the day on Sunday and spent a couple of hours in La Paz, taking in the lovely old centre and the amusing coca museum again. The journey back wasn't so bad, there were a few films to entertain us and Eleanor coped much better. The toilets were gross though - but so was the Ladies in the bus terminal, which, no joke, is called the mingitorio.

Turns out that on Friday there were roadblocks and some demonstrations, but generally it was fairly peaceful. It didn't make international news, that I'm aware of. It would have been exciting to have been with the journalists covering it, but I think I did the right thing. There are always demos going on of some form or another, Bolivians are great at organising themselves. Guess it helps that there are loads of peasants without permanent jobs and therefore with time on their hands to demonstrate. It seems to work too, especially with such a lefty man-of-the-people president, Evo Morales, in power at the moment. Last week there were loads of disabled campesinos demanding more help and support from the government - and on Wednesday the government agreed to help them. Sounds great from a social perspective, but surely this kind of approach only encourages more groups to strike...? Ah well, makes things more interesting for tourists like me!

I feel bad about complaining about gappers. They're all very lovely. There are also now much fewer of us - in the week after I arrived about half of them all left. Besides Eleanor and Jack, there are perhaps 8 other volunteers with TAPA, and a few extras that the volunteers have got to know, most of whom I met last Tuesday night. I met one really cool guy my age, Alexis, but he's gone off to a little town in the jungle for his project. A good excuse to visit one weekend though! There are two others on the same project as me: Lamin, a crazy 25 year old drifter, and Melanie, a 27 year old professional economic journalist. Lamin doesn't have much Spanish, so it's just me and Melanie at Los Tiempos. At first I was a bit disappointed that Melanie's getting to write articles and do interviews for Los Tiempos (thanks to her professional experience) whilst I've been sent to the photography department, but now I'm actually quite glad. The photographers are great fun, always making jokes, and I've been out to various press conferences (including one held by the key opposition party Podemos, immediately before which I made the fatal mistake of failing to kiss the speaker on the cheek when introduced; very embarrasing) and the site of a road accident. Today one of the photographers took me to an event in the central plaza which unfortunately had all finished when we got there, so instead we wandered round some artesan markets and an art exhibitionhe gave me some coaching in taking photos, which was very cool.

Meanwhile, for the English Cochabanner, besides making sense of articles comically badly translated from Spanish, I've conducted my first ever interview. I met with the American (North American, that is) director of a charity MedioAmbiente Bolivia to chat about their work and their new radio show. It was great fun, and really interesting, especially given my interest in environmental issues. She even claimed to be impressed with me. I'm working on the article at the moment for next month's issue. I've got another interview tomorrow with the director of a charity that works with people with AIDS. Unfortunately this woman is pure Bolivian I think, so entirely in Spanish. I am scared. I'm not sure whether my Spanish is up to it! I found this charity through a girl called Jen who works here teaching English as well as volunteering with this charity every Monday to give Reiki to the AIDS sufferers. She's a former TAPA volunteer (4 years ago in her gap year, when she had crazy dreadlocks) who loved it so much she had to come back. She comes to my family's house for lunch every day, which is really nice.

It also turns out that there are in fact decent gyms in Cochabamba, so, as I promised myself I would, I joined. It's very modern and really big (it's even got fingerprint recognition instead of membership cards for entry!), but unfortunately, like the rest of Bolivian society, it's very male-oriented. The weights room is huge, but there are only about 10 cardio machines, and it gets very busy. But it does the job, and for about 10 English pounds for a months unlimited membership it's not bad. The only thing is that with working in the mornings and the afternoons, my Spanish classes till 6, AND going to the gym afterwards, I just have no time! But then that's the way I like it I guess!

Tear gas, strikes, and other such craziness

2007-05-15T09:56:00.000-05:00

Made it to Cochabamba. I don't know what the Lonely Planet was on about, the road was fine. It took a very long time though, which was less than pleasant on a bus full of campesinos (peasants) who, with all due respect to their culture and traditions, smelt like they hadn't had a bath in a week.

With the sun blazing through the bus windows and heating up the stale air, I was feeling very hot and stuffy in jeans and a t-shirt. Yet next to me sat an indigenous, sun-browned woman with impossibly long black pigtails joined together at the ends with blue ribbon wearing enough layers to overheat an Eskimo. At least I hope they were layers, otherwise she must have been morbidly obese. She had on at least three pleated skirts and as many woolly cardigans, with thick woolly tights underneath, and little pointy shoes on her surprisingly large feet. I suppose all these layers did serve some purpose; I saw her retrieve a money box, a mobile phone and her lunch of meat and rice from the folds of her skirts. Oh, the contradictions of tradition and modernity. She was also carrying a huge bundle of God knows what (her entire life and family, it looked like) wrapped up in a huge bright pink, green, blue and yellow patterned blanket.

I got my first taste of the chaos of Cochabamba as soon as I arrived, when I had to wait nearly an hour in the bus terminal to be picked up because political demonstrations in the city centre were holding up the traffic.

I got my second on Sunday at the weekend football match between Wilstermann (named after some German aviator, I forget the connection exactly) of Cochabamba, and San José. The football wasn't too bad actually, and ended 1-1. But most exciting to watch was the crowd. The stadium is smaller than those I've been in so far, and had only concrete steps for seats, but the fans were even crazier than those in Ecuador and Argentina. The hardcore fans, again, were in clearly demarcated sections, all wearing team colours, bouncing up and down, chanting constantly, waving their arms (and their t-shirts) and letting off flares (!) of the colour of their team . There were balloons and confetti everywhere, as well as the debris that they were hurling all over the place. It was quite spectacular, but it all passed without too much trouble. Until, that is, when towards the end of the match the people seated in the away team section all suddenly rose from their seats and clambered frantically away from a spreading cloud of white smoke in the middle of the stand. I've never seen a crowd split so fast. At first looked like the smoke came from another flare. It seemed very odd, and I couldn't figure it out, until one of the volunteers I was with mentioned the words 'tear gas'. "Ooh, never seen that before," I thought, with curiosity. A few minutes later, we too were clutching jumpers to our faces with stinging eyes and noses and fleeing the stadium with everybody else. Outside, it was chaos. There were hundreds of people running in every direction, and there were armed police everywhere too. Some were in riot vans driving slowly down the streets with their guns at the ready, sirens blaring, and - scariest of all - firing tear gas into the crowds. Meanwhile, two of our group had been pickpocketed during the frenzy. It was exciting, but in such an unfamiliar and schocking situation I also found myself quite scared.

Cochabamba is a nifty city though. Despite being the third largest in Bolivia there are only about 60,000 inhabitants, so it feels more like a town to me. It seems more modern than La Paz, with plenty of high-rise offices and hotels as well as restaurants, cafés, shops, gyms (one of which I have to get round to joining)... Though there are of course the classic cobbled streets, pretty buildings and impressive plazas of the colonial era, as well as blind street beggars, hundreds of empanada stalls, bustling markets, and plenty of gringo-oriented souvenir stalls selling alpaca items, bright Bolivian textiles, and those crazy-coloured stripey cotton trousers that are everywhere in South America. They look like appallingly tasteless pyjama bottoms; none of the locals wear them and no self-respecting European would be seen dead in them at home, yet every gringo I've encountered seems to own a pair and wear them every other day. I finally succumbed this weekend and bought a more modestly coloured pair (black and brown) for all of about two English pounds, though I haven't brought myself to wear them in public yet.

The location is impressive too. I forget what cocha means, but bamba means valley in Quechua, and accordingly the city is located in a beautiful fertile valley. The views from the higher stands of the football stadium are pretty incredible; not only do you have a great view of the pitch, but all around are green mountains. Atop of one of the hills closer to the city is perched a giant white statue of Jesus - the biggest Jesus in the world apparently, bigger even than the Jesus overlooking Rio. It glows different colours at night, and apparently you can climb up into Him and walk into His arms. There has even been the occasional suicide from His armpit.

I've settled in to my new home, a lovely detached bungalow in the northern suburbs of the city with a garden - perfect for sunbathing. The family seems great, if a little crazy. Cristina is very mothering (smothering, almost) but really friendly, and her husband Germán is full of interesting information about the history and politics of Bolivia. The two daughters, Pamela and Vanessa, are really nice but don't seem to do very much except watch TV, spend hours on the computer, and sleep. There are also two cute little dogs and a beautiful white and ginger cat. Two other volunteers, Marie-Anne and Amelia, were living in the house but left last night. It was useful to have them around to show me a bit of the town and introduce me to the other volunteers, who as I feared are mostly pre-university gappers. They're lovely people and great fun but, although it makes me sound old and pompous, they do annoy me a little with their insecurities and niaivities, associating only with the other volunteers, speaking only English, worried only about going out every night and spending half of these nights dancing with different boys/girls and then whinging about what they're going to do about their girlfriend/boyfriend back home.

Similarly, being a volunteer for Teaching and Projects Abroad (or TAPA) feels a lot like going back to high-school. I've been accompanied to and from the office, had a city tour, been given sheets of rules and regulations and what to do in various situations, and explained the dos and don'ts of being here. If you believe what they tell you, Cochabamba is riddled with gringo-traps. On only my first day I put myself in grave danger by walking into town via the bridge between the northern suburbs and the centre, because under the bridge live gangs of scary evil glue-sniffers that prey on unsuspecting tourists. "You went into town on your own??" asked Marie-Anne and Amelia incredulous of my bravery. "How did you know where to go??" I'm not allowed to eat anything from the streets in my first week to protect my delicate stomach (despite having done so without problems for several months now), I'm not allowed to cycle along the cycle tracks or walk outside of the safe zones in the centre of the city, and if I ever want to take a taxi I have to call one of a few selected companies. Heaven forbid I use one from the street. Taking time off from work is strictly forbidden, and any weekend travel has to be carefully planned to the finest detail and cleared with TAPA. I have to inform my host family of my every move, and tell them when I will return home.

On the other hand, it is nice to have a good bunch of gringos to mix with, and the staff at TAPA, if a little over-protective and patronising, are lovely people. When I protested that I can't leave Bolivia without seeing the salt flats, for which I'd need at least 4 full days and therefore time off work, my supervisor Ximena suggested that, in return for writing a related article and keeping it hush-hush from the others, time off can be arranged. Definitely the best thing about arriving in Cochabamba is being able to unpack properly. No more living out of a top-loader backpack with way too much stuff to fit inside it: I've got two months of permanent residence ahead of me. Unless I get kicked out for talking to a stranger or something. My family have already commented critically that I've been out every night since I got here. (I've been out twice, and got back at 10.30 on one of those occasions.)

From one world to another

2007-05-10T12:34:00.000-05:00

Of all the cities in South America, I don't think any can be more chic than Buenos Aires. I took a city tour by bike (how very French) with a lovely Argentine girl who showed me the classic sights. We cycled along the banks of the sparkly new port lined with restaurants, expensive clubs and hotels (including the Hilton); through plazas and parks adorned with fountains, memorials (not least the memorial to those that died in the Falklands War) and statues that were gifts from various countries; by huge mansions, cathedrals and impressive government buildings (one painted in pastel pink); through the modern business district full of glass-walled skyscrapers designed by world-reknowned architects; and to the famous La Boca barrio, the amazingly colourful old centre of Buenos Aires and the birthplace of Tango, brimming with trendy cafés, bars and restaurantes as well as the inevitable souvenir shops and tango dancers posing for photographs. Even more so than the rest of Buenos Aires, it's full of descendents of French, Italian and other fashionable European nationalities wearing the latest fashions, sipping coffee or maté with friends. Maté is a strongly flavoured hot drink brewed from a mixture of herbs drank in Argentina and sometimes Chile in the same way we drink coffee. They drink it from little metal-lined spherical mugs through a special straw designed to filter out the bits. They love it, but to me it tasted like drinking cigarettes. I guess it's an aquired taste.

Besides fashion, tango and maté, Argentinians also love their football. Boca Juniors is Buenos Aires (and Argentina's) most famous team, but they were playing away during my stay, so I had to settle for watching a game of their arch-rivals River Plate instead. They were playing another but lesser Buenos Aires team, Independiente. I went with a bunch of other gringos on the trip organised by the hostel, which we paid 100 pesos for. When we were given the tickets it turned out they only cost 30 pesos each - we paid 70 for transport! And we were sat in a pretty dead section of the stands. We did have a good view of the home supporters at the other end though, bouncing up and down and singing for the entire game, and could hear the antics of the away fans above us, especially when they decided to throw debris (of God knows what) into the stands below. The football itself was a bit pants. It was a very scrappy game, with 2 players sent off, that only ended in a 1-1 draw despite River Plate being strong favourites to win. The crowd weren't too happy with the performances either, it seemed, booing and whistling after the final whistle.

I had a flight to Santiago de Chile at 7.25am on Tuesday, so I had to leave at 4.30am. There was a party in the hostel on Monday night, which I wasn't necessarily intending to get involved in, but I met one of the guys from the pub in Ushuaia there, and later got chatting to various other of the hostel-goers, so it was 3am when I finally got to bed for a power nap.

Santiago is another huge South American capital, with some 6 million people living in a valley mid-way between the coast and the Andes. Like Buenos Aires, but slightly less obviously, it also aspires to emulate the cities of Europe rather than those of the rest of the continent. I spent my day there wandering the Bellavista district, where my friendly hostel was located, amongst international restaurants, cafés and theatres, and the Parque Metropolitano, on a hill in the middle of the city sprawl. It's an interesting park, most easily accessed by a funicular, or train, up the steep hill. At the top is a church and a monument of the Virgin Mary (yup, another one) overlooking Santiago. The views from the top would be spectacular, were it not for the thick brown cloud of smog hanging over the city. The park itself is not too accessible. I wandered along a trail into the forest, but was told it wasn't safe to do so alone, so turned back to the roads and footpaths. Instead, I took the cable car down into the rest of the park to see open air swimming pools, pretty botanical gardens, and several cafes.

La Paz, on the other hand, is pretty much the polar opposite of Buenos Aires. It's hard to believe I'm in the same continent. The highest capital city in the world, sprawled across a valley at a dizzying height of 3,650m, embodies the classic South America of poncho-wearing peasants, poverty and political problems. The drive in from the airport (where security was about as lax as I've ever encountered) was a little scary in a beat-up taxi, and I was immediately reminded of the cities of Peru and Ecuador by the shabby buildings and street-dwelling peasants selling their miscellaneous wares. Exploring the city confirms it as being of the third-world, to use a horrible cliché. Many of the streets are narrow, cobbled and congested with minibus taxis spewing out black smoke. Markets fill the plazas, with stalls selling everything from household gadgets like screwdrivers and lightbulbs, wired up just to prove that they work, through herbs, potions and charms (not least dried-out llama foetuses and snake skins), to the thousands of alpaca sweaters, scarves, hats and gloves we gringos love. In the plazas, men and women try to earn a few centavos shining shoes, hiding their shame behind black balaclavas and ski masks. Tourism is obviously the most profitable trade, evidenced by the countless internet cafés, call centres (which all advertise calls to Israel at $0.70 por minuto), tour agencies, hostels and souvenir shops. I spent most of yesterday exploring the streets and watching the peasants go by. In the central San Francisco Plaza, just outside the beautiful old church of the same name, frequent gunfire alerted me to the demonstrations that were taking place (as I think they probably always are). Banners hung from the monuments protesting for something or other, a few leaders with megaphones announced their demands, and hundreds of peasants gathered blocking the streets. The armed, uniformed police or military (hard to tell) seemed to be doing little.

It's a fascinating city, made even more appealing because everything is so inexpensive. I had a great three course meal in a nice gringo restaurant for under $3. I've got a ticket for a 7 hour bus journey for $5. Entry to great little museums (including one documenting everything associated with the controversial coca leaf, which, if more than slightly biased against the West and at times simply wrong in its facts, was fascinating) cost next to nothing. A coca tea in a nice café (I've had a bit of a headache from the altitude) was about 25p. The hostel I found in the Lonely Planet is certainly cheap (less than $3 per night) but, with the exception of the friendly guy on reception, not so cheerful. My private room is bright and airy but the ensuite bathroom is locked, the matress is stiff and misshapen, I needed earplugs to sleep, and the shower was so cold this morning that putting my head under the water caused me real pain. But it was a bed, and after another early morning flight yesterday I was grateful for whatever I could get. I considered changing to a more touristy hostel with hot water today, but couldn't be bothered.

I leave for Cochabamba tomorrow morning, via bus. Apparently the road can be a bit hairy, which scares me a little, but I save about $40, and with so many buses and so many travellers using the route, it can't be so bad. If I don't blog again, you'll know it was a bad move.

Patagonia

2007-05-06T08:43:00.000-05:00

Got back from Patagonia on Friday. It was a fantastic couple of weeks, spent mostly eating (or so it feels), though there was some hiking too. The group was really good fun, except for one rather wierd guy who went crazy at the end. Again I was the youngest one by some years. There were: Ann, 58, a lovely Austrailian nurse with heaps of energy travelling the world after the death of her husband; Olivia, 33, a fantastic Irish girl who made me laugh almost as much as the previous Irish trio; Kate, 27, a really nice Harvard medical student who'd been working in hospitals in South America; her brother Dan, 30, a cute lawyer who'd enjoyed near-celebrity status as a contestant in the US reality show "For Love or Money" (hehe); Rudy and Cecile, 45 and 37, a Swiss couple who had sold their restaurant in Interlaken to travel round the world; Nina, my roomie, 29, an engineer from Austria; and finally Sean, 33, a health-freak working in computers for Meryl Lynch in New York.

Much of the south Patagonian landscape is desolate, with little vegetation, so scrubby nothingness stretches out for miles, into distant snowy mountains and interrupted by the odd lake or river. It reminded me of Iceland. In both places, long grey winters characterised by lots of snow and little daylight make the people long for colour to brighten up their lives, so they paint their sturdy houses in bold clashing colours. Bright pink and yellow was a popular combination. The towns also have a very alpine feel, no doubt owing to the European roots of most Argentinians, who sought to bring something of the mountain resorts of France, Austria and Italy to their new settlements. They are very modern though, and clearly oriented to empty the pockets of the countless tourists who pass through on the Patagonia trail. The small town centres are filled with shops selling souvenirs and cold weather hiking gear, tourist agencies advertising tours to the glaciers, cosy coffee and yummy chocolate shops, and plenty of bars and restaurants offering giant steaks and local beer.

Our first stop, El Calafate, was a collection of garishly coloured buildings stood together on the banks of a lake in the middle of nowhere. We had a day or two there to explore the gift shops, drink hot chocolate, watch a bizarre rugby tournament and fend off the countless stray dogs who seem to populate the streets of every Argentinian town. Next was the Perito Moreno glacier. It is incredible. At 250 square kilometres in area and 30km in length, it is the most famous of 48 glaciers in the Parque Nacional Los Glaciares. We had a boat trip to the terminus of the glacier, which advances into Lago Argentina, but towers 60m above the water at its end. Most remarkable is the colour of the ice: a bright turquoise blue, resulting from compression to such an extent that all of the oxygen is squeezed out. Mr Roberts would be proud that I remembered that from my geography lessons. It was freezing on the boat, but I didn't let numb fingers stop me from taking a silly amount of photos. (Must get round to posting them on the web sometime.)

Our second stop was El Chaltén, a tiny town in a valley next to a popular hiking area at the base of the Fitz Roy, the highest mountain in Patagonia at 3375m. The mountains and valleys weren't quite as impressive as those of the Cordillera Blanca in Peru, but were no less beautiful. Coming right at the end of the hiking season, just as autumn was fading into winter, not only did we have the trails to ourselves but we saw the park at it's prettiest. The snow had begun to fall, but the trees had not yet lost their leaves, so the fiery reds, oranges and yellows of the Patagonian vegetation blazed across the valleys, contrasted perfectly by the sparkling white of the fresh scattered snow, the dark greys of the rocky mountain peaks, and the striking blues of the small lakes. We walked through decidous forests and by babbling streams and picnicked on the pebbled shores of a lake with views of blue-tinged glaciers carving more shapes into the mountains above. We stayed in a cute little hostel run by a friendly Argentinian called Marcelo, but we managed to break their toilets and the woman who did our laundry managed to destroy our synthetics. Or rather, Ann broke their toilets and they destroyed her laundry. It provided lots of giggles anyway. We spent the evenings (just as we spent every spare moment) eating, as well as sampling the yummy local brew. Except Sean, who was tee-total and walked out of a couple of restaurants with no apology because he claimed to have detected a whiff of cigarette smoke.

From El Chaltén we crossed the border by bus into Chile and stopped in sleepy Puerto Natales, half of whose residents seemed to have already left for the winter. Our hotel was very interesting, with every room decorated in pastel pink, from the bedclothes, wallpaper and curtains to the frills on the toilet. From Puerto Natales we spent three days hiking in the Torres del Paine national park, full again of glaciers, mountains, forests, rivers and waterfalls, with a great guide called Mariano. We saw hundreds of giraffe-like guanacos, the Patagonian relative of the llama, and, best of all, several condors soaring majestically above us. After so much talk of them, and seeing only one in Peru, I'd considered them to be some kind of rare mythical creature, but we saw plenty down here. Mariano pointed out a condor nest in a niche in a rocky valleyside, noticeable because of the white smear of condor crap just below it. Waking up in the campsite to views of the mountains illuminated in pink and yellow by the early morning sun was pretty special. And camping was much more comfortable than I'd expected - definitely didn't need the extra sleeping bag I'd packed just in case. Sean complained of the cold sleeping on his own though. I don't think camping is really his thing. Whilst the rest of us were happy enough to rough it for a few days, he insisted on taking 2 showers per day. The night we returned to Puerto Natales the owners of the frilly pink hotel cooked us a lovely meal and we celebrated our tour leader Ursula's 30th birthday with cake and candles. We had the place entirely to ourselves, and the family got out their guitar and sung typical songs and danced for us all. (Except Sean, who went to bed straight after dinner.)

Punta Arenas, on the shores of the Estrecho de Magallanes, or the Magellan Straits. We were supposed to have an excursion to see penguins from Punta Arenas, but unfortunately all the penguins had migrated already, to go and lay eggs and start marching in Antartica or something. Very disappointing. I was soo excited about seeing penguins. So instead we wandered down to the "beach", fended off more stray dogs, wandered round some more gift shops, and ate lots. Whilst it's true that steaks are the main feature of the cuisine down here (and everyone in the group agreed that they were the best steaks they'd tasted), it really isn't too difficult to get veggie options. I had some yummy pizza, pasta and salads. In the evening, Rudy and Cecile supervised a group cooking session, which was very successful. Sean refused to eat what we'd prepared because the pasta was white and not wholemeal, despite the fact that he ate loads of white bread for his lunches.

We had a long bus ride down to Ushuaia, the southern-most city in the world, on the shores of the Beagle Channel on the island of Tierra del Fuego. It was made just about bearable with music, my book and (of course) snacking, and we got some entertainment from a couple of hungover Americans boasting loudly about their sexual conquests. Olivia grossed the entire bus out when she opened a bag of day-old cabbage. Ushuaia is an interesting city, with that familiar mixture of alpine shop fronts and garishly painted buildings. Behind the city are white snowy mountains that most of the time are engulfed in low grey clouds, and in front is the harbour, full of tour boats and cargo ships. We took a trip on a boat to the islands of Tierra del Fuego and saw colonies of sea lions and cormorants. I'm glad I took a sea-sickness pill, it was pretty rough. One of the museums is very interesting. It's called the maritime museum, but as well as displaying the history and artefacts of famous maritime explorers and Antartic expeditions it has exhibits about native life and culture, the history of Ushuaia, the oil industry, penguins, the prison of Ushuaia and its convicts, and pictures of prisons from all over the world, in a very random order. The museum is based in the former prison of Ushuaia, which served as a penal colony for the worst offenders in Argentina. Notoriously, the prison required only a thin fence for security since escapees were forced to return by the isolation and harsh climate of its location. Dan, Kate, Nina and I went hiking in the national park, and discovered a delicious vegetarian take-out place where we got lunch for each of the three days we stayed there. I was very happy! Next door, too, was a chocolate shop called the Edelweiss, with really amazing chocolate. In honour of Olivia we all (except Sean) went to an Irish pub one night, which seemed the place to be. The boastful Americans from the bus were there, as well as the other tourists from our boat trip, and the familiar mix of Americans and Israelis. Dan had to avoid the attentions of a local man with dodgy hair, and when the others left Olivia and I were approached by the remaining men as if they hadn't seen women in weeks.

We were due to take a flight back to Buenos Aires at 2.30pm on Friday, but it was delayed. SEan was due to take a flight back to New York at 9.45pm that night. He got very stressed that he might miss his flight and took it out on Ursula in the common room of the hotel in the presence of the rest of us and the hotel staff. He yelled that it was her responsibility to make sure that he got his flight home, and that GAP had promised him he would be ok. Nina and I left when it all started getting nasty, but apparently it got worse. He tried to involve the rest of the group, and when they refused to agree that Ursula was in the wrong he turned on them too, including Rudy and Cecile who he'd been following around like a puppy for the entire trip, and who'd been too polite to tell him to leave them alone. He insulted Ann so much that she slapped him, and the hotel were on the verge of calling the police. He refused to talk to any of us after that. He did miss his flight, and had to stay in our hotel in Buenos Aires and catch a flight the next day. Fortunately we didn't encounter him again, but we had a good gossip about how weird he was. He hadn't spoken to his parents in 10 years and had no desire to get in touch with them, which I think is always a bad sign. Dan reckoned he was homophobic, and it seems that he slept in a chair in the common room in El Chaltén to avoid having to sleep in the same dorm as Dan, despite Dan making it clear early on that he was straight. He told Rudy he feels uncomfortable around women, but was always boasting to the rest of us about the women he'd had, and once said that unless he leaves a bar with a woman the night has been a waste of time for him. He was an interesting guy to talk to but I think he's got OCD and probably a lot more problems besides!

Friday night was great fun. We went to a tango show, which made me sure I want to learn salsa when I head to Bolivia, and then for a drink, before Olivia and I went out to a club. Olivia found us some Irish guys to chat with, and somehow we passed the time until about 6.30am. We got back to the hotel just in time for breakfast before bed. I woke up with 2 fire extinguishers on the dressing table and very wet clothes from splashing around in the swimming-pool-type water feature in the club. Did not have the energy to go out last night, so had a very nice night's sleep. I'm in a hostel at the moment, the "party hostel". When I checked in at 2ish, my roomates were sleeping. When I went to bed at about 10.30pm, they were getting up and ready to go out. When I was waking up at 9ish, they came back and went to bed. I reckon you'd be jetlagged after a few nights of Buenos Aires nightlife. I'm off to a football game this afternoon, yay!

Chau Peru!

2007-04-18T13:02:00.000-05:00

I've not been in the best frame of mind to enjoy Buenos Aires. In fact I've had a bit of a nightmare. Maybe it's because I lost my lucky coca seed when I put my hiking trousers in the wash...

Just before I (eventually) left the airport after my flight from Lima, I decided I'd better get some money out. That's when I discovered I'd lost my Barclays debit card. I think it's those stupid ATMs in Peru that only give you back your card after you've recieved your money - I must have forgotten to collect my card. I got to my hotel at about 5.30 (my flight landed at 1.30!!) knackered and worried. Hotel Splendid, the departure point for my GAP tour through southern Patagonia, is not too splendid, but the price list said $120 for a single! At that point I couldn't face looking for a cheaper alternative and having to move out the next day, so I just accepted it. I dumped my stuff and headed off out again to find a phone place and an ATM to get some money out with my emergency credit card. I needed dollars for the local payment for my GAP tour, and some Argentinian pesos to keep me going. I tried 2 big banks and my credit card did not work. I went to a locutorio to use the net and the phone; my card was rejected by PayPal and I couldn't get through to Barclays to cancel the card, the bank of my credit card, or my parents to give me a hand. The particularly unhelpful man in the locutorio refused to accept that it was a problem with his phones and insisted that the lines in England were not working. Aaaah! I owed GAP $300 tomorrow, the hotel $120 for the night, and money to keep me solvent, but I had only about $100 to my name. I was all alone in a huge new city and couldn't get in touch with anyone at home. Plus I'd had an average of about 4 hours sleep a night for over a week now. I was pretty stressed out.

I'm just about sorted nearly 24 hours later. It turns out that the stupid man was wrong, it WAS his phones that were shitty, because another locutorio worked fine and I got through to England. It took 2 attempts to activate my credit card, and I've still not been able to get dollars, but at least I can get money. And I've been able to use my card to pay for my next hostel over the internet. Plus I've now realised that the $ sign here actually means pesos, which are worth a third of a US dollar. So my room actually costs $40. Not cheap (especially considering the naff breakfast of fatty croisants, stale coffee and disgustingly sugary "orange juice") but a lot better than I'd thought.

So, Buenos Aires. It's called the Paris of South America, and it certainly feels more like Europe than a part of the South America I'm used to. Leaving the airport on the bus felt much like leaving Manchester airport, but for the Spanish roadsigns and driving on the right. The motorways are big and modern with loads of interchanges and junctions (and functioning traffic lights that drivers actually obey), and there were green fields and big green trees, and coming into the city there are what appear to be 1960s and 1970s high rise flats and offices. The centre is full of banks, posh clothes and shoe shops, western-style restaurants and bars, and lots of pedestrianised plazas with statue centrepieces. There are even functioning pelican crossings! But what's most significant in producing the European feel? The rain. Oh yes. It's pissing it down and very grey. Just like London. So my first purchase with my newly acquired pesos was a much-needed umbrella.

The European feel is quite nice though. Argentina, since it's recent economic crash whenever it was, is still really cheap, so you can get European food, clothes and shoes at South American prices. And there are lots of really interesting little shops and cafés I'm looking forward to exploring. Also, I am small again. After feeling like a pasty blonde giant (and a bit more powerful for it) amongst the tiny native Americans, I am once more a normal looking girl in a city of (generally) European looking people.

I am sad to leave Peru. I could have spent my remaining four months just exploring more of it. Plus I only had a few hours with Hels, who was in Cuzco on my last day to start her Inca trail with GAP. We got to catch up over a wander round the town and some lunch. Very nice, but way too brief! And I definitely could have spent another week at least in and around Cuzco. It's full of gringos (I ran into a bunch of students from my Quito language school there, and one of the i-to-i girls from Lima) but it's such a cool place. Three days and nights were nowhere near enough; I could spend those just wandering round the markets buying souvenir stuff. At least I now have a lovely cosy Alpaca jumper to keep me warm down in Patagonia. And a pair of gloves, and a hat, and a new bag to hold my Lonely Planet... Bargaining in Africa was good training, I got some good deals. The city itself is quite small, but full of character thanks to its narrow cobbled streets, red-tiled roofs and impressive central plazas in which stand the historic and beautiful cathedrals and churches. There are some great cafes and restaurants - not least a place called "Fallen Angel". It's tables are bath-tubs filled with water and real fishes topped with a pane of glass, it's full of funky modern art (including a few paintings that would seem to confirm it's reputation as gay-friendly), and there are no Ladies and Gents loos but rather two cubicles decorated as "heaven" and "hell" respectively, you can choose which one to use depending on "how you feel". The nightlife is pretty good too, with clubs playing everything from 1980s ballads to salsa, reggaeton (yay) and western dance music. There are a lot of drugs about though... and, amongst pretty much every nationality imaginable, a LOT of Israeli blokes using their free post-military-service air tickets.

And then there was the Inca trail. How to summarise that week?! It was certainly very touristy. Being in a large group (16) of gringos makes touristiness unavoidable, but there were also about 100 other groups of gringos doing the same thing a few paces ahead and behind us. But it was definitely definitely worth it. First of all we had our Sacred Valley tour. That was pretty neat. There are so many fascinating Inca sites in the area that you could spend a week just discovering more of those. After trying out our first Inca steps in the ruins, we visited the "Inca Bar", where we tried our hands at a very bizarre bar game called frogs (in which you attempt to throw large metal coins into the mouth of a frog), saw a room full of guinea pigs being fattened up, and sampled some Andean chicha (beer fermented from maize). It's definitely an acquired taste. Although the pink version, "sweetened" with strawberries, was a little less sour.

The first few hours of the Inca trail only confirmed my fears that it would be way too touristy and far less beautiful than Huaraz. We left our bus in a field that served as a bus park for the countless other tourists doing the same thing, and walked down to the checkpoint, where we were given our mass-printed tickets and glossy leaflets about the trek, in return for registering ourselves with our passports. We set off, with our crew of 22 porters carrying all our stuff, along a highway of people lined with electricity pylons and cables and peppered with stalls selling soft drinks and snacks what felt like every 200m. I was pretty disappointed.

Fortunately things improved as we walked further. I'm very glad I bought a replacement camera in Cuzco before we left. Even if it is a naff Kodak EasyShare. We left the main electricity route and entered more beautiful and rugged valleys and mountains. Our crazy guide Ali made sure that we were the slowest group by stopping every 10 minutes for a 20 minute break, so we soon lost the majority of the other hikers. Although lacking the towering snowy peaks of the Cordillera Blanca, the Inca trail is undoubtedly beautiful. The views from the high passes were spectacular, and the steep jungle-covered valleys and wide winding rivers in the cloud forest on the climb down to Machu Picchu are just incredible. Best of all, the Inca trail is far more than just the route to Machu Picchu, for there are countless Inca sites along the way that are impressive themselves. Unfortunately, after three days of beautiful weather (and nicely dry paths), the day we arrived to Machu Picchu was very very cloudy. We got to the Sun Gate, from where can be enjoyed the beautiful first views of the ruined city, to see...clouds. We waited for two hours but it never really cleared up. Nevertheless, even without nice blue skies as a backdrop, Machu Picchu is very impressive. It's setting is what makes it so special - nestled between steep mountains and surrounded (covered, until the excavation) by dense jungle, it's amazing it was discovered at all. Four of us decided to climb Huayna Picchu mountain, which overlooks Machu Picchu. It's even steeper than the Inca trail and scarily so on the way down. We got to the top and saw...nothing, again. Although the picture of us sat on a rock against a perfectly white background is kind of amusing.

The trail was pretty tough, more so than I'd expected. I had no problems with the altitude, except feeling a little light headed after getting off the plane in Cuzco at 3,600m. (Though that was probably the result of lack of sleep after getting up at 3.30am following 4 nights in tents and buses.) But the path is very steep, both up and down. The ascent to Dead Woman's Pass (so called not because it claimed the life of some unlucky gringa, but because the shape of the mountains resembles a woman lying on her back, apparently) is comprised of steep, unrelentless rocky steps. Fortunately we had lots of stops to regroup and catch our breath. But the way down was even steeper - especially the section of stairs nicknamed the "Gringo-killer steps". We all bought a bag of coca leaves to help us along - as well as a a black blob of stuff that apparently is the ash of burnt jungle vegetables which. Aly showed us how to roll 3 coca leaves up with a bit of the ash, which when chewed with the coca brings out the chemicals that do the magic. It certainly makes your mouth numb. The porters seemed to like it though, they always had a lump in each cheek. (And a pint of chicha in their hands at every stop.) I got sick of the taste after a while and gave up. I didn't feel any different chewing it. My rucksack still honks of coca, however. I'd better make sure I air it properly before coming back to blighty since it's treated as a drug outside of South America.

My group was really good fun. I was the only solo traveller, the others were with friends, spouses or family, so it was a little lonely at times. But not really. It was a very international group - there were two Norwegian girls, two Swedish blonde girls, three Danish blondes, an Australian blonde who turned 21 on the day we got to Machu Picchu (!!) and her parents, and an English couple on their honeymoon, as well as the three comedy Irish guys. Our guide was very entertaining and made sure the group gelled really well. (Even if he did take it a bit far by trying it on with the girls when we hit the Cuzco clubs on the final night.) We had singing sessions and joke sessions. Turns out our Englishman, Scottishman, and Irishman jokes are rivalled by Norwegian, Swede and Dane jokes. The food was unbelievably good. Everyday we were served sit-down multi-course breakfast, lunch and dinner at a long table duly decked out in an Andean tablecloth and adorned with 18 serviettes folded differently each day. This is as well as daily snacks and tea and biscuits on our return to camp in the afternoon. On the final night our "international waiter" (still trying to figure that one out, he only spoke Spanish and Quechua...maybe it was the serviettes) brought out a beautifully decorated cake dedicated to los Chulyos, which are the Andean woolen hats with earflaps, and which was the name of our group. I do feel that the porters/cooks/general slaves are rather exploited. They do all this amazing cooking, and put up our tents before we return and take them down in the mornings, as well as lug all our stuff up the mountains about twice as fast as we do with a fraction of the weight on our backs. One porter we passed was 72!

So with good memories and new friends (some of them now Facebook friends; it's practically global...) I came down with a bump to Argentina. I'd love to go back to Peru. But there's so much more of this continent to see, I have to move on. Tonight I meet my new group for my Patagonia tour, and we fly down into the southern tip of Chile tomorrow morning. Very much looking forward to it. We should get to see seals, penguins and maybe condors, not to mention the glaciers and snowy mountains of southern Patagonia. I'm missing the mountains already.

Fresh air at last

2007-04-10T18:30:00.000-05:00

I admit that anything would appear fresh and beautiful after a month in the dry, noisy, polluted city of Trujillo, but this part of Peru has to be one of the most beautiful places in the world. Dad, you'd have been in heaven; I wish I could have shipped you out here for a birthday treat. If ever you get the chance, go to Huaraz and do the Santa Cruz hike. We walked through lush green valleys, among wild horses, cows and sheep, past bright blue lakes, and along roaring rivers with rapids and waterfalls. We climbed cold and rugged high passes between awesome snowy peaks in the sleet and bracing winds. We saw quaint thatched peasant dwellings and met rosy-cheeked kids in tatty traditional dress asking for caramelos in return for photos. We camped in the company of the highest mountains of the Cordillera Blanca, some of the most impressive in South America.

Sadly the weather was not in our favour. The path was basically a large stream which we had no option but to wade through at points, and our campsite last night (strategically located right next to a bulging river) was a swamp by the morning. It's a wonder I've not got trenchfoot after living in soggy walking boots for four days. The nights were pretty miserable - even wearing my thermals, two extra pairs of trousers, two fleeces, extra socks and a hat, it was still too cold to stop shivering and sleep. And that's when there wasn't a small pond in my tent. We only got rare glimpses of the mountains through the clouds. To top it off, the rain had weakened the valley walls and there had been several recent landslides. One large rockfall blocked the path for 500m or so, making it too dangerous for the donkeys to pass. We were therefore without our trusty burros from this point on, and had to lug all our tents, cooking equipment and rucksacks accross this treacherous rocky section and beyond. It would have been scary enough clambering over the debris with both hands empty, but carrying my sack of spare clothes and sleeping back in one hand and the bag of everyone's sleeping mats in the other across loose rocks on a steep mountainside was terrifying. Though I got off lightly; one guide tied three heavy wooden boxes to his back and set off down the valley at a sprint. Unbelievable.

But it was well worth it. Those few long-awaited glimpses of the mountains, when the clouds deigned to part for a few minutes, were all the more special for their rarity. Waking up to dawn views of six or seven towering peaks looming over our tiny campsite, before the clouds returned to shroud them from view again, was pretty awe-inspiring. Certainly, the obscurity and darkness of the mountain peaks gave them an air of mystery and danger. It was very easy to believe that hundreds have died in pursuit of their summits. When the rain (finally) ceased on our last day, we were able to appreciate the beauty of the Santa Cruz valley in sunlight. I just can't imagine how amazing it must be in the drier months when the weather is consistently good. To make it even more magical, we were treated to a rare sighting of a condor soaring above us on the journey out of the valley and back to Huaraz. It was the icing on the cake.

I hope the Slovakians didn't mind me joining their group. They were Jani and Ladi, 28 and 27, one a rock-climbing enthusiast and trek guide in the Slovakian mountains (which I am now very tempted to visit), the other a linguist and aspiring writer, both keen travellers just enoying life without getting tied down to demanding careers. Sounds good to me. Jani is mad-keen on photography and took over 250 photos in those four days. We often had to wait for him to catch up whilst he erected and dissembled his tripod next to get the perfect shot of a couple of cows or a waterfall. Oh how I wish I'd not lost my camera back in Ecuador. All three of us suffered a bit with soroche (altitude sickness) after climbing the 4,750m pass and camping at 4,250m. We had throbbing headaches, and the going was tough on the climbs. Drinking coca tea and chewing on the leaves can only do so much (if it does anything at all). Conversely, our well-acclimatised guides claimed that they have problems breathing at sea level. The guys had digestion problems too. It can't have been the water. I actually grew to like drinking iodine-flavoured melted glacier. The taste is hard to describe; I'm not sure whether it was more like licking a hospital floor or drinking from a swimming pool. The Slovakians turned out to be jolly nice chaps. I've been promised Jani's best photos (which ought to be damn good considering the number he took and the time he spent taking them) and a warm welcome if I visit Slovakia. Though I do have certain reservations. After those four days I have been left with two inexplicable puncture wounds, about an inch apart, on my right arm. Is Slovakia close to Transylvannia...?

I'm back in hot noisy Lima again today. I'm actually grateful to be here. Our trek guide Liz told me that the road between Huaraz and Lima is quite dangerous and there are frequent accidents, especially in the middle of the night when tired bus drivers fall asleep at the wheel and miss one of the many sharp turns, sending a busload of passengers hurtling over the mountainside. After hearing that, my smugness at saving money and time with a cheap overnight ticket for the trip had turned into regret and a growing sense of doom. Actually, after my terror subsided slightly when we didn't crash in the first few hours, it was actually a very pleasant journey. After three sleepless nights shivering in a cold damp tent, the dryness and warmth of the bus were blissful. In a couple of day's time I'll be doing the camping thing all over again with a new group on the way to Machu Picchu. I can't imagine that the trek will be as beautiful as Santa Cruz, but I'm praying it won't be as wet either. Hopefully I'll be acclimatised and won't get the headaches again. I'm meeting my fellow trekkers tomorrow, but I've encountered a few of them alreadys - three football-loving Irish guys in their mid-late 20s who seem to have survived so far in South America on a diet consisting entirely of beer. They were on their way to a bar.

Oh dear. I'm listening to a female gospel choir singing a Spanish translation of Robbie's "Angels". Think it might be time to go.

Happy Birthday Dad!

2007-04-06T11:17:00.000-05:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! Sorry I'm not there to say it properly in person, but I owe you a treat when I get back. Miss you!

Arrived in Huaraz this morning, at 6.30am. Had a pretty uncomfortable journey and didn't get more than a few hours' sleep (including some wierd dream about Jennifer Aniston losing her nice-girl image and her youthful looks and developing skin like wrinkled leather...), but I'm grateful I got here at all. Stupid me was convinced for some reason that my bus left at 9.30pm, but it was only arriving at the bus station at 9.25 when I looked at my ticket, which was for the 9.00 bus. I'd missed it. Thankfully, the nice guy at the counter (after laughing at me for being a stupid gringa) found me a place on the 9.30 bus.

My last week or so in Trujillo was more of the same really. Sandboarding at the weekend was interesting. I think our guide was hungover, or maybe just a bit useless. He didn't introduce himself or bother to ask our names, and we spent the 40 minute journey to the dunes listening to the old fat taxi driver cackle as he took the piss out of our guide and flirted with some other girl that came along for the ride, seemingly to take publicity photos. The taxi driver had a big scar on his arm. I reckon he probably went a joke too far one night and rubbed someone up the wrong way. We stopped in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by rocky mountains and lots of sand, under the burning sun. Facing us was a very steep and very high sand dune. Guide dude just handed us each a board, and started climbing up the sand. I guessed we were supposed to follow him. Not easy. I eventually reached him where he'd stopped, panting a lot. Nicky had stopped for a break about half-way up. He put my board down and gestured for me to get strapped on. It was only at this point, on the edge of a 50m near-vertical slope, did he think to ask how many times we'd been sandboarding before. It took the camera girl to suggest that we go from a little lower down to start with. We were both pretty useless, much to the amusement of the taxi driver, and Nicky gave up after about 3 goes so it was just me wobbling down the sand and trudging back up again. Hot, sweaty and sandy, we called it a day after only about an hour and a half.

It was sad to say goodbye to the kids in the Benificencia. Though the blow was lessened by the fact that some little blighter ransacked my purse and stole my money! I only discovered what had happened later in the evening. They didn't take much, perhaps 30 soles (8 pounds or so) in notes, including one fake note that someone had fobbed off on me the other day. I know they're poor but that's just cheeky! I decided to let it go, and didn't let it stop me giving out sweets the next - my last - day. But I did leave my bag in a box with the teacher's stuff, thinking it would be safer. I got home feeling a bit sad at leaving them but grateful for the experience, only to discover when I looked in my purse that the little bastards had done it again! I'm not trusting anyone from now on!

On Thursday Nicky and I visited a really interesting mueseum of pre-Inca ceramics. No it didn't sound very interesting to me either. But, with a guide to point out the points of interest, I reckon it was worth the 7 soles entry fee. The small room held over 1000 pieces from different pre-Inca civilizations. Apparently, in the absence of writing, ceramics were the language of the people in those days. Though at first sight they seem like a load of drably coloured and primitively decorated pots, it turns out that loads can be learnt about the culture of the times from the designs of the pieces. Sculpted human faces and figures demonstrate the presence of such diseases and abnormalities as cleft-lip, leprosy, blindness, Downs syndrome, elefantitis, thyroid abnormalities, some gruesome sexually transmitted infections and some awful-looking disease that eats away at the face. Sculptures of faces with beards and of people of African and Asian origin indicate the presence of non-native peoples way before the Conquest. Native Peruvians can't grow beards! Feeling proud of ourselves after a morning of culture, we hit the beach for the rest of the afternoon.

Huaraz seems like a pretty town. I found my hostel (a $5 a night cheapo) and my dorm easily, and woke up the only other resident in there, a friendly German girl on a break from her job in Lima. We wandered out for some breakfast, past the indigenous men pushing carts full of whole plucked chickens, and the women, children in tow, selling bread and juice from their little mobile stalls. I was hoping to see some traditional Semana Santa celebrations, but it seems that the most important event of Semana Santa - the procession reliving Jesus walking to the crucifiction site with his cross - happened in the middle of the night last night. After the German girl (still don't know her name!) left for her tour, I started what I thought would be a mission to find a company offering the 4-day Santa Cruz trek leaving tomorrow. But two other gringos wanting to do the same thing wandered into the first agency I tried. The agency seems professional - they have nice photos at least - so I'm leaving tomorrow at 6.30am with two hairy Slovakians.

Please wear helmets when on your bikes!

2007-03-28T19:14:00.000-05:00

Saw a really awful accident in the centre of Trujillo yesterday lunchtime. Given the chaos in the roads all the time and the absence of traffic lights at many busy junctions in the grid-patterned city, I'd assumed that there must be lots of crashes. But this is the first time I've witnessed a serious crash so close-up.

Already the details are a little faded. Nicky and I had literally just crossed a street at a junction when I heard brakes screeching. I turned round just in time to see, right next to us, two cars and a motorbike coming from different directions collide. The battered yellow taxi (surprise surprise) was a mess at the front, but I think that was because it was so decrepit in the first place. They weren't going too fast, and the drivers and passengers of both cars were ok. The motorbike was toppled though, and both guys fell off. One, who may have been wearing a helmet, was ok, but the other guy, wearing no protective gear whatsoever, suffered a huge impact. To my relief he got up and staggered towards the pavement from which we were watching. But a few seconds later, with blood streaming from his nose and other scary-looking places (possibly ears), he collapsed into the arms of the other.

By this time a huge crowd had gathered with their hands over their open mouths looked a bit horrified. Nothing seemed to be happening very quickly, except the swelling of the crowds, but a few people did get on their mobiles to call the emergency services. An authoritative-seeming woman that I hope was a doctor or nurse strode through. A man carried a weeping young boy away from the scene. As Nicky pointed out, there wasn't much we could do, so we left. But for the rest of the day I couldn't clear from my mind those images of the immediate aftermath of the crash: of the injured man as he staggered away, clearly in shock but as if relieved to be able to get up, struggling to get it together; and then a few seconds later the vision of his face crumpling as he lost consciousness and his body gave way to his injuries. I just discovered today that he died in hospital.

On to more cheerful things. Nicky and I went to Cajamarca this weekend, a town in the lower Andes where the last king of the Incas, Atahualpa, met and was betrayed and murdered by the Spanish conquistadors. It's a charming town with lots of pretty old buildings and quaint plazas - and less taxi traffic. It's set in a wide lush valley between green hills scattered with peasant settlements. So there are loads of cute peasants in their traditional colourful layers and odd hats working the fields and walking their donkeys accross the mountains. We took a hike up into the hills to get to a set of Inca ruins recommended in the Lonely Planet, but after 5 hours of climbing without finding it (when it was supposed to take only four), it started raining hard. After getting very wet and miserable, we decided to give up and turn back. I felt very guilty because Nicky's never really been hiking before and had no rain protection, so she was very tired and absolutely drenched! Hopefully she doesn't hate me too much for dragging her up there! It was beautiful until the rain came. The next day we visited the natural hot baths (used by Atahualpa before he met the Spaniards), some funerary niches dug into the mountainside, an touristy Alpine dairy producing Swiss cheese founded by some German dude, and a nice botanical garden with noisy frogs and a guinea-pig pen. A very nice weekend away from the noise, heat, pollution and general stressfulness of Trujillo!

I have less than a week left in Trujillo. Four days in the Benificencia, and 3 in the other institution we've started visiting, a school for kids - and adults who haven't been able to leave - with special needs and severe learning difficulties. At first I wasn't sure how I'd cope, having no experience with such people. But they're just like other kids, except that they look a bit different, are slower, more difficult to understand, and some of them are about 40. They can be really cute, and it was really inspiring playing a bit of volleyball with them and seeing how much enjoyment they got out of sport, despite being barely able to catch a ball. I do feel sorry for the kids with less severe problems though. The spectrum of severity is so broad that some kids, who to me seem compus mentus but just a bit slow, are forced to do the same tedious colouring-in activities as others who make odd noises all the time and can barely coordinate crayon with paper. I say kids, but I'm actually referring to the group of adults, aged between about 16 and 40. Mentally, they're effectively kids I suppose. They behave loads better than the little mites at the Benificencia.

I'm going to Huaraz next Weds night, since schools are closed for Easter from Thursday and I only have to be in Lima for the start of my Macchu Picchu trip for the 11th. Huaraz is up in the Cordillera Blanca, the highest mountain range in the Andes. It claims to be the best place for hiking possibly in South America, so I'm hoping to get stuck in. Not sure if I'll attempt any summits, but apparently there's a beautiful 4-day trek with amazing views that rizes to 4,900m or so, so I want to try that. Need to get acclimatised for the Inca Trail.

This weekend though Nicky and I are going to try sandboarding and surfing, and hit the beach in between! Wahey! Hopefully it won't rain like it did yesterday. It's not supposed to rain here and it pissed it down for hours, so there's been a huge fuss about it in the papers and everything. How very British to moan so much about the weather.

Trujillo and Troublesome Kids

2007-03-20T18:23:00.000-05:00

I just want to tear my hear out! The kids are insane. They're all very cute (tanned skin and big brown eyes), and there are some absolutely adorable ones that I just want to cuddle all day, but there are some right monsters too. The worst little terror, who barely listens to me anyway, has just discovered that I'm ticklish, so there goes the tiniest fragment of control over him I might have had.

I'm working in an instution called "La Benificencia Publica de Trujillo", and to be honest I'm still trying to figure out myself exactly what it does. I was told before I came that it was a home for abandoned an orphaned children, and the description of my project was "community work with orphans". But of some 150 children in the school, very few "internos" actually sleep there, and those that do only stay during the weeks and return to their homes at the weekends. All of the children have homes to go to then, even if they live with aunts and uncles. The majority live with at least one of their parents. It seems to me that the Benificencia takes children whose families cannot afford the time or money to look after them properly outside of school hours (if they are of school age). It provides supervision, food and showers for the kids during weekdays, and all children up to the age of about 12 are catered for. I've asked several people on different occasions about how the Benificencia works, but I've struggled to understand the answers correctly, and have received different answers each time! So I'm working on it...

The kids are split up into two halves: those of school age, and those too young for school. The latter group are subdivided and cared for by year group, whilst the older ones are divided into two groups depending on whether they go to school in the mornings or in the afternoons. (There seem to be two sessions in Peru: 8am - 1pm or 1pm to 6.) In the mornings, Nicky (another English volunteer) and I both help out with the older kids, whilst in the afternoons she tries to teach English to the 5 year olds, whilst I help out with the other bunch of older kids. The mornings are dead easy, as the kids are fresh and calm and work pretty quietly. The morning teacher is nice (despite having bad headaches everyday), and the kids are too, generally. When they get bored of their homework, or finish it, they come and play with us and laugh at our English and attempts at Spanish, and I entertain them by raising my eyebrows, rolling my tongue and whistling into my hands. Their amazement makes me feel less useless for being unable to roll my Rs. Being called "Señorita Lucy" is quite nice too.

The afternoons are much more exhausting. I basically help the full time member of staff, Señorita Magdelena, supervise about 22 kids ranging from 6 to 12 with their lunch and showertime, then help them with their homework in class. I'm not so fond of Magdelena. She treats me rather like one of the other kids that she has to deal with, and speaks to fast for me to understand. I feel like I'm in school again having things yelled at me that I don't understand. She doesn't seem to have much pacience for the kids, and shouts angrily at them a lot. She's lumped me at the back of the (riciculously huge) classroom with the 3 naughtiest kids, and I have to make sure they finish their homework by hometime at about 5.

Vanessa isn't that bad, she is quite conscientious and clever and would work on her own. But she plays up when the other 2 start. And basically they never stop. Lucero is infuriating. She can be quite quiet and keep herself to herself, but she has the attention span of a goldfish with ADD. She just stares into space after writing one letter (they've got handwriting practice), and then counts how many more pages she has left to fill. Giancarlos is undoubtedly the most monstrous child I know. He is unbelievably insolent, I'm actually glad I can't understand all the bad words he uses to talk back at me. He continuously fights with the other kids around him, breaks the leads of his pencils, steals and hides others' stationary and tries to piss me off. I'm still struggling with commands to tell them to behave, sit down and do their work or their parents will get mad, but even when I do say it right they ignore me. Aaaah!

Sometimes I'm told to dictate to the kids who don't have homework at the same time as supervising the terrorsome three, which is just impossible. They seek attention all the time! What makes it worse is that the kids' abilities are so different. Even of those that are in the same grade at school, some can spell and write quite long words whilst others can barely read the most basic of words. The less able kids just copy off the more advanced ones, understanding nothing. They all plead "enseñame", or "ayudame" (teach me, help me), but when I try to help the ones that don't get it, the others get bored and start fighting. There are a few really cute good kids. Juan is 10 I think, one of the interns, is very studious and wants to be an engineer when he grows up. He always finishes his homework, and comes to me to learn some more! Unlike the other kids, who just wrap themselves round me and smother me in kisses when they're feeling affectionate, he's quite shy and just comes to sit next to me. A couple of the kids have picked up on some English words and repeat them in high pitched voices playfully when I'm around. "Okaaaaay, hello!" They all want their names translating into English...

What's sad is that a few of the kids, I've just discovered, are way behind in their understanding compared to the progress of the other kids in their grades at school. One girl today asked me to help her with addition and subtraction of two-digit numbers, but when I tried to help her I realised that she doesn't even recognise the written form of numbers greater than 10. It turns out that there are a few kids like this, whose schoolteachers seem to neglect them, or fail to realise how behind they are. A Peruvean volunteer and I are trying to help them catch up, by 5 in the afternoon, after having been at school since 8am, the kids are in no mood to learn any more. I've got a challenge now though, so I hope I can figure something out for them. Explaining language and numbers is difficult enough in English though, how am I going to cope with my feeble Spanish?

To be honest, life in Trujillo is pretty boring. I'm living with and being fed by a host family again, who are really nice. They are Monica and Jaime, in their late 30s, and their 2 children Karen, 12, and Valeria, 6. The girls are lovely. Valeria has some kidney problem, she had an operation when she was younger and has to take pills every day and see the specialist in Lima every so often. I think it may be to pay for her treatment that the family takes volunteers. Jaime is one of 11 brothers and sisters! He originally comes from somewhere in the jungle, his pictures are cool. He also has an incredibly attractive (and tall for Peruvian standards, which means just about bigger than me) brother of 22, who is sometimes around when he's not army training back in the jungle. Monica's parents live in the same block too. It's huge - and they're building more. Right outside my window, and they start at 7am every morning! Nicky and I have the 2nd floor apartment to ourselves, which is nice. It's basic though, a radio but no TV, so we have to amuse ourselves. Nicky is lovely. She's 24 and from Bournemouth, and when not in Peru works in a psychiatric hospital. So she's got loads of fascinating stories about the patients. She's been here a week more than me. When she arrived she knew no Spanish whatsoever, whilst the family know next to no English, so she's been having lessons every day too. It's still very basic. She must have been so bored before me, and dinner table conversations must have been dire! Unfortunately she's not mad keen on practicing Spanish either, so I'm having to speak English way more than I should be to keep improving my Spanish. I might try helping teach her but I don't want to appear patronising!

Trujillo itself isn't that exciting. Way too much traffic (about 80% of them delapidated taxis), lots of people, plenty of street children selling sweets, and heaps of tour companies wanting business. I'm not a huge fan of cities, I'm getting a bit bored of it. There's a nice central plaza, and the food is wonderfully cheap (you can get a 3 course lunch for about 75p), but that's about it. I've been out running a few times, but have resigned myself to morning laps round a piddly little park about 5 minutes from the house, because I'm getting sick of the leery men who feel obliged to hiss or make some comment whenever us Gringas pass. Being a gringo isn't always great. I think the bar we went to on Saturday saw us as a great opportunity to get rid of their fake banknotes they'd not been careful enough to check. It worked, now I have a souvenir of Peru's false currency. It's a pretty good imitation, but the paper's starting to split, so I don't think anyone would be stupid enough for us to fob it off on.

But there are a few really cool places to see around about. There's a good beach a 25p bus ride away, which is more touristy with surfers and bars and souvenir shops. It's famous for the fisherman and their long thin canoes made of straw, which are pretty cool. There are 2 important pre-Copnquest archaeological sites close by too. Chan Chan is a huge ancient city, whose remains even today are quite impressive, though most of it has been eroded by weather, man and time, and is being reclaimed by the the desert. Without considerable reconstruction it's hard to envisage what it might have been like. More interesting, I think, is the smaller site of Huaca de la Luna y el Sol (the Moon and the Sun). They are two large pyramids, in the grounds of a now ruined city, that are still being excavated. They were religious and ceremonial sites of the Moche people, where sacrifices to the gods were made in the hope of a good harvest, for example. Thanks to the nature of their construction (every 100 years or so the Moche people conmpletely filled up the current layer of their pyramid and constructed a new temple on top) with lots of painstaking work it has been possible to unearth the original full-scale internal walls within the pyramids, and the genuine colourful murals with which they were decorated. So you can more easily imagine how things might have been.

That was last weekend. This weekend I really want to get out of the city and into the mountains, but Nicky's not a big exercise person so I'm not sure she'll be keen on hiking. I'd like to go to Cajamarca, the site where the Spanish Conquistadors met with the last king of the Incas, Atahualpa, and betrayed and then murdered him, before massacring his people. South American history is pretty violent, it helps to put the naughtiness of the kids into perspective.

Uh-oh?

2007-03-09T12:37:00.000-05:00

Well, I did feel safe, until last night 4 British guys got back to the hostal after being mugged by 3 guys with guns on the same beach on which I'd been out running a few hours earlier. They've lost their passports, wallets, driving licences, flight tickets, everything. Although to be honest they should have read their guidebooks, which always say not to take anything with you to the beach, and not to visit at all at night.

I'm also starting to notice in loads of buildings signs that say "Zona Seguro en Casos de Sismos" (secure zones in case of earthquakes).

It'll be fine!

Being a Backpacker in Lima

2007-03-08T13:54:00.000-05:00

Lima is huge compared to Quito. With over 8 million residents, and on the coast not far south of the equator, it's hot and busy. Feels really different from fresher Quito, high up in the mountains.

I had a bit of an adventure when I arrived in the city. I'd found a hostel I wanted to try from the Lonely Planet, in an area of Lima recommended by Carlos, but the phone number wouldn't work from Quito. When I arrived in the taxi at midnight at the address, it turned out the hostal no longer exists any more. So I had to again refuse the hotel suggested rather persistently by the taxi driver, and find the next one on the list. The Barranco Backpackers is ok. I guess it's kind of cliched. It's run by a Spanish woman and her two daughters who help out, and owned by an expat Londener. He's a character: tall, skinny, and fidgety, and always seems to know someone who knows someone who can help if you have a query. Despite living here for 15 years he still has only very basic Spanish with a strong Cockney accent. But he's really friendly, and there are plenty of fellow travellers to stop me getting bored. I've been wandering round Lima with an Australian guy called Chris. Not sure how old he is but he's at least 30, and because he's a little more than 6 feet tall gets cramp from sitting in the colectivos (minibus-style public transport) and at restaurant tables. Fortunately the beds in the hostal are the best he's found so far, he actually fits.

We've wandered around Miraflores, the posher touristy area of Lima. It's full of restaurants and bars and shops, lots of them American. It's home to the first Starbucks I've seen so far, as well as classy looking KFCs, MacDonalds and Burger Kind (with gold-coloured signs...). It seems, from when we were searching for a place to get lunch, that the prices increase in direct proportion to proximity to the centre of Miraflores. We took a street leading out from the main square, not being too keen on forking out 25 soles for lunch, and after walking past a series of 5 cafes whose prices decreased incrementally, settled for a 3 course lunch for 5 soles (about 60p). Bargain! And haven't been sick yet. There are very few indigenous people, everyone is (relatively) taller and tanned, and there are lots of gringos wandering round in board shorts, thongs and dreads. Mainly Aussies, I've not met too many so far. Maybe Carlos's stereotype is true - they don't stray far from the beaches. Though the beaches here aren't great, and apparently the sea is too dirty to swim in if you want to stay disease-free.

We went into 'downtown' Lima yesterday. First stop was el Museo de la Nación. As with all museums, all that standing around for hours is really tiring, but it was quite interesting. Though maybe not as much for Chris, whose level of Spanish (limited to greetings and cocktail names) didn't allow him to read any of the explanations next to the exhibits. There were a few translations into English at the start of each exhibit, but it seems like the translator got bored after the first few paragraphs and stopped. Or maybe the money ran out. After room after room of simplistically sculpted and painted ceramics, I got pretty bored, so we sped up to get to the Incas. It was good to get a sense of the history of the people of Peru though, it will put the ruins I visit in context. There was a special display organised in association with the Truth and Reconciliation Committee of Peru displaying photos and memories from the decades of terrorism in the country between 1980 and 2000, the most infamous and important of which was initiated by the Maoist movement Sendero Luminoso, or Shining Path. Hundreds of thousands were killed and many fled the highlands to the cities or other countries. The pictures were pretty harrowing and gruesome. It was interesting to see. Then we wandered round the centre of Lima. There are some impressive old buildings round the nicely kept main squares, and the Church of San Fransico (I think there's one in every South American city) was very elaborate. A glimpse down into the catacombs revealed a pile of human bones - bit gross! Outside of the immediate centre, things are a little less aesthetically pleasing. The river through the north of the city runs a murky brown (definitely don't want to swim in the sea if that's where the water comes from), and the pavements seem in need of renovation. But pretty tidy and neat compared to African capitals, I would say. The same machine-gun toting military men wandering around though, even a few big tanks sitting in the middle of the city. I assume it's all for show. Most of them were falling asleep on duty or fiddling with their mobiles and MP3s.

It's definitely different to my impression of Quito. I miss it. It was good to get to know the city. At the weekend, I had a bit more of a chance to wander around Gringolandia and the old town, as well as revisit the school and my host family in the north. I'll definitely miss the people. After a nice final supper with my tour group (good old Magic Bean again), when we had to say our final goodbye to Carlos, who'd been fantastic, I caught up with Karen, AnaSofie and Rebecca for a night out. It was soo good to see them again. We got drunk on Cuba Libras and Mojitos and danced the night away in the sweaty bar they always go to. I practiced my Spanish with a few of the local guys. The following day I met up with Sam, a guy from the school, on Sunday in the old town, and we visited the Basilica (biggest church in the city) and had lunch in the central plaza. I caught up with an Ecuadorean guy I'd been in contact with for a while in the afternoon. I wish I'd had more time to see more of him, but sadly not. Had dinner with the remainder of the tour group, and met up with Brad a little later for a drink, since I'd missed him the first time I left. On Monday, I popped into the school to see some of the students and collect my glasses from Aldis (I'd left them in the hostel in Ambato). I hardly recognised anyone, lots of the students that were there when I was had left and been replaced by new ones. It was nice to see the ones I knew though. Then I returned to the flat of my host family for lunch. I'd told them I was going to be in Quito for a few days again, and they'd told me to get in touch when I returned, so I did and they invited me for lunch. I'd been feeling a little lost in Quito, not being part of the schoolgroup any more and with the tourgroup disbanding. When my real family and friends are so far away it felt great to have a subsitute family. Albarro had told me he had to leave for the jungle on Monday morning so I would miss him again, but it turned out that he postponed his departure so that he could see me for lunch! It was so lovely to see all them again. I hope we stay in touch. Finally, I packed my bags to leave. But after such a lovely lunch, and with Karen insisting on accompanying me to the airport, I didn't feel to lonely!

So these next few days I'm going to be cooped up in internet cafés trying to complete my bloody TEFL course before I leave for my volunteer placement on Sunday, and figuring out how to fit in a week or so in Columbia without having to cancel too much of the itinerary I'd got planned. I'm loving my trip so far but I am slightly regretting having planned it out so tightly. It could cost me a lot to fit this in. Or maybe I'll just have to stay out here a little longer... If anyone's on MSN during the next day or 2 maybe I'll catch you!

Rain in the Rainforest

2007-03-03T10:07:00.000-05:00

I'm now in Otavalo, a nice town to the north of Quito. It's located in a lovely area of Ecuador, in a green valley between (you guessed it) several volcanos. We took a hike yesterday afternoon round the rim of one such volcano, that contains a beautiful large blue crater lake, with a couple of islands in the middle. The town itself basically functions as a giant tourist market, especially at the weekends. It's Saturday, the busiest day, and the streets are blocked by lines of market stalls selling ponchos, alpaca scarfs and clothing, jewellry of all colours and styles, Andean flutes, handbags, pirate music and DVDs and just about everything else you can think of. I'm trying to avoid spending more of my rapidly-diminishing cash on souvenirs that I'd have to lug around in my already bulging backpack for the next 5 months.

Rafting was really good fun. The company that took us rafting were a family originally from Ireland who moved over here about 14 years ago. They are a couple of about 50 and their 4 children, in their 20s. The boys work as rafting guides, the girls in the office and cooking the food. It's a great set-up, and they were very professional. The first day we rafted through the tropical forests near Tena, one of the biggest jungle towns in Ecuador. Because the water was a bit high, after the first serious rains in over a month (thanks to global warming, the rainy season doesn't see much rain any more), it was too dangerous to raft the normal river, so we had to take an alternative route. Half-way along there was a waterfall, way too rocky and rough to send the rafts down, so we had to get out and climb up the steep riverbank and around the side of the waterfall before continuing in the rafts. It was a bit scary, the guides had to set up ropes for us to steady ourselves with on the rocks. So we got a bit of rockclimbing and abseiling thrown in to the package. One girl fell and slit her elbow open, which was a little gruesome! But the rafting was great. Not quite as extreme as in Uganda: there were no flips. But I was quite glad of that. Instead we had fun pushing people off the rafts and ambushing other boats. One of the guys in our boat managed to pull one of the guides into the water, hehehe. He was pissed off though, because he lots his sunglasses. Oops!

The scenery was just breathtaking. It's hard to describe, but imagine a roaring river rushing between and over protruding rocks, flanked on either side by high rocky banks covered in dense, lush green vegetation. In the distance, you can see the jungle spreading out over hills and mountains, with clouds so low they look like giant cobwebs in the valleys that need sweeping away. The diversity of the flora and fauna is incredible. No two trees or plants seemed the same. We saw giant bright blue butterflies, and smaller orange and yellow ones, as well as tiny birds of all colours. Climbing across the rocks, we spotted centipedes and caterpillars and giant ants. Naturally, we got bit by the mozzies and sandflies. Well, some of us did. Haha.

The second day we rafted a river higher up in the Andes, where the world rafting championships is often held. The scenery was different but just as stunning. On Thursday we headed to Papallacta, a little town with hot springs in the cloud forest. I'm not good at relaxing, so I got a bit bored whilst the others were pampering themselves in the hot spa pools and paying stupid money for a massage. I took a hike up into the mountains nearby, which was really cool - I saw waterfalls and plunge pools and loads of flowers. However I also came across, along a deserted track, at least 5 skeletons of horses, in varying states of decomposition and consumption, some so fresh that the colours of the coats were still distinguishable. That was a bit gruesome. When I got back to the town I asked the guy in the Tourist Information centre about them, and he said the bears had eaten them. Which was puzzling, since the information on the display boards said that the bears here are vegetarian... I wasn't sure whether he was suggesting that the bears catch and kill the horses themselves, or whether dead horses were taken up there and dumped for the bears to eat, or maybe whether the horses had fallen from the cliffs above.

It's the last day of my tour today, we're heading back to Quito after lunch. It's been fantastic, I've seen and done so many things I'd never have been able to on my own, and I'm very glad I've done it. But I do miss being around people my age. It's not that I haven't got on really well with the rest of the group, I have, and it's been really interesting and fun to mix with people of such different ages and backgrounds. But it'll definitely be good to see some of the students from the Spanish school later tonight and tomorrow. It'll be great to catch up. And then on Monday I leave for Peru....!

High Altitude Adventures

2007-02-25T16:04:00.000-05:00

My tour has certainly lived up to its description so far. It said it was "active", and active it has been! In true South American style, we began the tour with a bit of excitement when our public bus to Cotopaxi was stopped and searched by about 12 armed policemen. Apparently they'd recieved information that there might have been an armed and dangerous man on our bus. Fortunately, it seemed to be incorrect and we were allowed to continue. The Canadians and yanks in the group were a little perturbed!

First up was two days of mountain biking. Having never actually been mountain biking before, this was a pretty extreme introduction! Day one began at the car park of the refuge from which we had begun our climb attempt a few weeks before. Only this time we were going DOWN the mountain side, and it's bloody steep! My fear of heights, and sharp rocky/sandy corners at high speed, returned and I soon got sore hands from over-using my breaks! But having effectively been training at altitude for about a month meant that I easily overtook the others on the uphills. The next day we took a route in the province of Chimborazo, the highest mountain in Ecuador at over 6000m. The tracks were even steeper, rockier and narrower - my hands were in agony! I was glad of the oxygen-sapping uphills to give my hands a break! It was great fun though. Our mountain biking guide, Edison, was a really interesting guy too. Also a vegetarian, I walmed to him instantly! With his athletic physique, long flowing dark hair and beautifully intense eyes, he could have walked right out of a movie about the Amazon - or the native American Indians, I'm not sure which - as the wise and benevolent indigenous hero. Wish we could have had more than 2 days with him!

In comparison to the almost jurassic scenery of the Cotopaxi National Park, the countryside in Chimborazo is just beautiful - rolling hills covered in a patchwork of fields, small woods, and babbling streams, with sheep, cattle and horses everywhere. Chimborazo has the highest percentage of indigenous people, and along every road we cycled we passed classic examples of the people of the Andes. I hadn't really believed that people really still dressed in bright green thick pleated skirts, thick blue stockings, purple ponchos and black pudding-shaped hats, but they really do. And how cute the little girls look in their miniature versions! They looked as they do in the postcards, with their pleated dark hair and red-flushed cheeks, often struggling up a hillside carrying a bale of guinea-pig feed.

Some of the group, having flown into Quito only a day or 2 earlier, really struggled with the altitude. Adrian, a Canadian in his mid-30s, had it the worst, despite seeming the most prepared one could possibly be for this trip. He'd been using altitude sickness medicine (as well as a special water filter, a padded saddle, padded cycling shorts, technical sports wear, a saddle bag...) yet even now, a week later, is still struggling to regain his appetite. But he's shown incredible determination (or maybe, given his diminuitive stature, the symptoms of short-man syndrome?) not to let it stop him from proving how strong and fit he is, and has insisted on fighting his way to the front of the group during the biking and hiking. Definitely a competitor! Most of the others have had a few headaches and coughs, as well as general fatigue, but are doing ok now.

In Chimborazo we stayed in a lower refuge of the Chimborazo volcano, the station house of a now barely used railway line built in the early 1900s by an Englishman. It's an amazing place, a little traditionally-decorated haven of coziness in a cold and bleak environment. Through the windows you just can't miss the snow-capped peak of the volcano, dominating the horizon. Yet inside the log fires and soft lighting make the retreat feel very homely. Outside, I got my first sighting of llamas and alpacas, loosesly tied up like sheep to graze in the grass in the station grounds. So cool! The station is run by the most amazing guy I think I've ever met. Rodrigo is about 50, and has only one and a half lungs after a football accident, but has more fitness, energy and dynamism than any 20-year old I've ever met. He never sits down for more than a minute, and every day goes hiking (if not running) in the mountains. He often climbs Chimborazo more than 2 times a week, ran a marathon a few months ago, and is hoping to go to the Himalayas in the summer. He knows everything there is to know about his local area, and about all of Ecuador for that matter, and has the most fascinating stories - of finding the remains of a passenger plane that had crashed in the glacier of the volcano 23 years earlier, of losing tourists to the various mountains of South America, of an expedition of Belgian doctors conducting a trial of Viagra at altitude... Just an incredible guy.

He was our guide for a little hike up to the glaciers of Chimborazo (I say little, but it proved too much for Adrian, despite his best efforts), as well as for our 3-day trek along the Inca trail to a site of Inca ruins called Ingapirca. It's Ecuador's answer to the Inca trail in Peru and Macchu Pichu. But the best thing about this trek was that we had it entirely to ourselves, with the exception of a smattering of indigenous people and their donkeys we passed along the way. The scenery was just incredible. In fact the road to the starting point was enough to give us all white knuckles. It traversed, with the sharpest of corners, the steepest of mountainsides, affording views not altogether welcome of a deep green pasture-covered valley beneath. It really was spectacular. Our hiking territory was as beautiful. We often followed the path of a river, crossing over stones and waterfalls, bridges and passes. We saw butterflies, hummingbirds, falcons and an incredible array of wild flowers and orchids - all of which Rodrigo could name and describe, naturally. I got to practise my Spanish with the guides a little too. It was hard going at times, but easy by Cotopaxi standards. Not for the unaccalimatised, though, some of whom found it very tough. It was well worth it though, and the Inca site at the end of our long trek was really interesting. The camping was less fun. Although, with the strong ecuatorial sun, the days were warm despite the altitude, the nights were definitely not. Even with 2 sleeping bags, and three girls to one tent, I was too cold to get more than a few minutes sleep at a time in either of the two nights. Plus, despite the remoteness of our camps, whether for the chattering of our little pack of donkeys or from the howling wind, it was anything but quiet. It's amazing what they can rustle up for dinner without a kitchen though; the soups were perfect, especially when chilled to the bone!

I'm now in Baños, a charming town nestled in the mountains a little closer to the Amazon bason. We're at about 1,800m here, so breathing is a lot easier! The stairs up to my (unbelievably luxurious... at least by camping standards) hotel room are a doddle, even with my great big backpack! I really want to try and run a marathon or something now, because after all this exercise at 4000m plus, I must be super-fit at sea level! Sadly, it's raining here, but I think that's typical of the cloud forest. Still, it doesn't really matter for the most common leisure activities here - visiting the hot spring baths! Sunday, it seems, is the day when half of Ecuador descends on the hot spring baths of Baños, so at our guide Carlos's recommendation, we went to the thermal spa instead. For $3, I was treated to a bizarre "therapeutic" process. I was shut in a little box of hot steam infused with a sprig of Eucalyptus(with only my head out of the box) for 20 minutes or so, released briefly to be doused with freezing cold water, only to be returned to the steamy inferno for another session. This was repeated for an hour or so, before I was hosed down with more freezing cold water. The guy in charge of the cold water seemed to take great pleasure in making the women scream! After all that sweating, I was pretty dehydrated afterwards, but I felt so relaxed I just wanted a siesta, so it must have worked!

We've got until tomorrow afternoon in Baños. Maybe the hot springs will be less busy tomorrow morning. Though, glutton for punishment, I kind of want to go hiking tomorrow. I also need to replace that jumper I lost last Tuesday night... Tomorrow afternoon, we leave for Tena, a jungle town where we begin our 3 days of rafting on Tuesday morning. It's going to be a pretty sharp contrast to move from the cold, bleak, oxygen deprived heights of 4,000m to the stifling humidity and dense vegetation of the Amazon at less than 1,000m. Not really relishing the prospect of all those mosquitoes and other creepy crawlies...!

Tonight, we're finally getting a night out. We'll be a strange group. There's: Peter, the retired English chemistry professor who studied at Cambridge but has lived most of his life in Canada; Neville, the crazy socialist grandfather from Colorado; 6-feet tall Lisa, a 42 year old boy-scout from Toronto; Tamara, a lovely athletic 29-year old German Swiss; 33 year old Yanna from Denmark (yep, another Dane) who works on a Scandinavian cruise ship; Adrian, the small Canadian dude; and Ki (33, car insurance) and Kati (25, medical student), avid mountain-bikers from Germany on their pre-wedding honeymoon since they can't take the time off after their wedding in May. Add some beer, or 80% proof local sugar cane liquor, and it should be an interesting night...

Carnaval! Goodbye to Good Friends, and Hello to Adventures New

2007-02-25T15:53:00.000-05:00

If Carnaval in Ecuador is tame, I'm almost glad I wasn't in Rio!

Ambato was really fun. I was totally knackered, since I managed to grab only 2 hours sleep on Friday night before getting up at some stupid hour to get the bus in the morning. Despite advertising that every room had a private bathroom and TV, our hostel rooms were about as basic as they came. Marilyn, Aldis and I had to share a double bed, and the only bathroom on our floor was disgusting. Still, it did the job I guess.

On Saturday, the 8 of us (Brad, Guido and three newer girls came too) went for a typical 2-course Ecuadorean lunch for $2 each, and wandered round the town, gawping at the quantity of people in the little town. There was lots going on. Brad really wanted to go see a real bull-fight, so he, Guido and the other girls went along to that whilst squeamish Marilyn, Aldis and I opted out. Instead, for some odd reason, we were persuaded by some girl from the tourist information team to go and visit a bull "show" in a suburb of the town, so we hopped in a taxi (actually it was a lot more difficult than that, with so many people wanting taxis, but it just sounded good).

The place felt miles away from the bustling, modern, touristic centre of Ambato. It was more like a quaint rural village, with a really ramshackle bull ring! The specatator stands, if you can call them that, were being erected by the locals when we arrived, and the van carrying the bulls was just pulling up. The locals were so friendly, it was if they felt honoured to have us there. We were the only tourists around. I really wasn't very confident about the stability of these homemade stands, but we settled down to watch, made welcome by one of the local men who was very keen to explain everything that was happening. It actually wasn't too bad, they seemed to respect the animals and although they did taunt them with their wafting of the capes none of the bulls got hurt. Marilyn and Aldis were even persuaded to have a go in the ring with a female cow! I watched from the dubious security of the stands. Someone had to take the photos, right?!

That night we rejoined the others for dinner. The girls were still pretty shaken up after having to watch several bulls fight to the death. (We made the right choice.) We wandered the town for a while soaking up the atmosphere and getting lost in the crowds. Brad had some friends of his host family that he'd promised to meet up with, so the same group went to some club to meet them. Marilyn, Aldis and I opted to stay with the throngs of Ecuadoreans in the streets. There were hot air balloons (most of which got caught in streetlights and set themselves alight, falling back into the streets ablaze), lots of alcohol, exciting food and crazy crowds squirting lots of carioca. Think a mixture of silly string and hair mousse, and you've got it. After getting absolutely covered by the stuff, we decided it was time to get our own back, so we invested in a few cans. The war began. Such fun! Why don't we have Carnaval?

The next morning there was a procession in the streets, so we had to get up early AGAIN. It was really fun, with lots of interesting and colourful floats, and streams of dancing, singing and instrument-playing locals in colourful costumes. But it was sooo long. I would have fallen asleep had the floor not been so damn uncomfortable to sit on for 5 hours. The rest of the day was spent wandering around and eating lots of ice-cream and cakes, the only way I could discover of staying awake, since there are no coffee shops. Finally, I had to return to Quito in preparation for my tour.

The journey was long and uncomfortable. I managed to hop on a full bus just before it left, so I had to sit in the space reserved for the bus conductor, as did a mother and her 3 small children, who decided that I made a great pillow. But I was so tired that I missed my stop, ended up right in the south of Quito, and had to pay $13 for the taxi to my hotel. Oops. I have also discovered that, somewhere in the journey, I lost my camera. Sooooooo disappointed. I would say that I had it stolen, but I think the likelihood is that it fell out of my bag. Dammit, I was doing so well!

That night and the next morning I met my tour group. I was very excited at the prospect of meeting a bunch of sporty young things, (like me!?) particularly some fit sporty men. I was even a little concerned that they'd be annoying know-it-all pre-uni gappers. So I was disappointed that I was the youngest by a long way. Two of the men are at least 60 and retired! Oh well. In fairness, after getting to know them a bit, they're all good fun and really interesting. Some real characters, not least Neville, a US-hating, factiod-spouting, ponytail-sporting 65 (?) year old yank with the worst-attempted Spanish you've ever heard! Hope I'm not that bad!

Mountain biking first, eek!

Beer Pong, Football and the Women's Prison

2007-02-16T14:54:00.000-05:00

Had to say goodbye to everyone at the Academy this weekend. It was really sad, I've had such a good time there and I'm not sure I'll meet such good friends again. But not too sad, because I've got so so much to look forward to, and at the moment I'm definitely a traveller at heart - have to keep moving!

The last week was really fun. The night of beer pong was crazy - we got through a lot of beer and a lot of pong, thanks to Brad's military rule. Obviously, we had to go out afterwards. Jared bought several fishbowls, which were about 3 times the size of the ones I've encountered before. We went to a very gringo bar, and danced very gringo (Marilyn would have been ashamed, but fortunately she wasn't there to endure the spectacle). We even played the ice game. Shameful! I really didn't think I was that drunk, but I realised when I got out of the taxi that walking was a real challenge. I found my scarf halfway up the stairs to my apartment the next day, and I never did find my sweater. Good night! Needless to say, I didn't make it into the school the next morning. I missed the little exchange of paper hearts that had been organised for Valentine's Day - and I even had a Valentine, after Jared asked me to be his Valentine the day before. Whatever that means, exactly, I'm not too sure. Yep, it's stupidly commercialised over here too!

I dragged myself, hungover, into school for 2pm for the visit to La Carcel de Mujeres (the women's prison). I am very glad I did. It was truly bizarre. I've never visited a prison in England, but I'm sure it they're nothing like this one. In the main area of the prison, inmates and visitors mingled together in a crazy mele. As in the central city streets, people wandered round selling plastic roses, sweets and drinks. There were telefone cabins and vending machines. People were chatting and laughing. Children played. After people-watching in awe for a while, we were eventually introduced to the lady who would tell us something of life in the prison from a westerner's point of view. Zoe Savage was a journalist with the BBC coming to Ecuador to make a documentary, 4 years ago to the day, when she was arrested and ultimately sentenced to 8 years behind bars. She claims that 2 cameramen from her team, contracted by the BBC, had asked her to carry something through customs, and when the bags were checked they disappeared. I believe her story. She seems genuine. She tries to put on a brave and cheerful face, and suggests that life isn't so bad in the prison. It's true that her cell, although cramped (she shares a tiny room, smaller than the worst university room, with 2 or 3 other women), did seem almost homely, with fairy lights, photos and various trinkets and drapes. Yet she explained that, as a prisoner, unless you have a steady stream of income from family or friends you cannot afford niceties such as we saw. Such cells as hers require rent. If you can't afford it, you are thrown into the most basic of cells, which even in her words are "not nice". Zoe then went on to say that she barely gets to see any of her friends and family. Her two children still believe that she is away working. For 4 years! The British Embassy, it seems, can't do anything for her. Oprah Winfrey has heard of her case, apparently, and sends her a little money. It became clear, as she fought back tears, that every day is a struggle for her. One of the girls in our group (some wierdo Brummy hippy, it has to be said), was pretty inconsolable.

On a brighter note, that evening I went with Marilyn, Jared, Brad, Sam and another girl I hadn't met before to a football match at one of the Quito stadiums. We got a bit confused about what stadium it was at, so we missed the first 30 minutes, but for $8 it didn't matter too much! It was great fun. One end of the stand was full of the supporters of both teams, the home team on the ground level and the away team above. They were drinking, dancing, singing and setting off fireworks inside the stand all night long; I wish we had been in that bit! It was a little odd to see 20 foot high fencing separating the pitch from the stands, and also to see a little golf buggy driven onto the pitch to collect injured players (what's wrong with a good old stretcher?). But the football was pretty good. Hadn't been to a game in ages! Less aggressive and definitely more beautifully played than in England.

I went out Thursday and Friday nights too, to spend my last nights with friends from the school who were going to the beach at the weekend for Carnaval. Friday was my last night with my host family, as well as being my last night in Quito. We'd arranged with some of the guys at the school to watch "Robin Hood, Man in Tights" before going out. I'd been wanting to watch it for ages and I think the other guys were looking forward to the prospect of taking the piss out of the English in the presence of an English girl. But my host family had arranged a special dinner for my last night, and Belen didn't get home till 8.30, so the plans didn't quite work out. My "special meal" turned out to be a quiche, which would have been lovely, but for the fact that Mercedes had been unable to find a vegetarian quiche. So I forced myself to eat a mediocre slab of ham and cheese quiche and pretend to be unbelievably grateful. It was a nice gesture! I'd got them flowers and chocolates, and they'd got me a lovely red bracelet. I will miss them! Especially Mercedes' food!

Had a few options this weekend. I could potentially have popped across to Columbia to visit a friend, Carlos, who I met when travelling in Africa. I could have gone to the beach, where a load of the students from the school are heading. I could have stuck around Quito and taken in the sights that I've not yet seen. But instead I'm going to Ambato, which apparently is one of the best and most traditional towns during Carnaval. We're leaving tomorrow morning at some ridiculously early hour. I have to be back for Sunday night to check in to a hotel for the start of my two-week tour of Ecuador, so I didn't really have enough time to make the beach or Columbia. After talking to Carlos I think I'm gonna spend a week in Columbia later. Yay!

Cotopaxi!!

2007-02-13T14:52:00.000-05:00

I finally managed to attempt Cotopaxi this weekend! It was a hastily arranged trip. Marilyn talked to the company on Thursday afternoon, on Friday afternoon we went to get kitted out with all our stuff (crampons, boots, fleeces and waterproofs, ice-picks, sun-goggles, head torches...), and we left early on Saturday morning.

I swear the hardest part of the whole adventure was the hour-long hike to the refuge, which looked about 10 minutes up from the car park. I thought I was going to die, and that I should just turn round and go back there and then! The guides were shaking their heads at the sight of us struggling at the first piddly little hurdle. Although, in my defense, I had brought a ridiculously heavy load in my giant rucksack. I wanted to make sure that being too cold didn't stop me getting to the top, as it had on Kilimanjaro, so I'd brought so many clothes it was stupid. Plus the refuge is at an altitude of about 4,700m, which seriously limits your physical capabilities. After stowing some of our stuff in the lockers, and getting kitted out in our cold-weather gear, we hiked up to the glacier to practice climbing with our crampons and ice-picks, in preparation for the night ascent. The main climb starts in the middle of the night, with the intention of reaching the summit just after dawn, because when the sun rises, the ice melts and it becomes dangerous. So after dinner (which no-one ate much of due to the appetite-supressant effects of altitude), we were despatched to bed at about 7pm. I felt ready for it! However, the refuge was like a giant dormitory, with loads of iron bunks and no soft furnishing to absorb the sounds of people snoring, coughing, and getting up every 20 minutes to put their heavy snow boots on and go to the toilet. Plus I had a banging headache and felt a little queasy. So I got absolutely no sleep before the guides told us it was time to get up at midnight. It took us ages to actually leave the refuge, we took ages over breakfast (can you still call it breakfast if you eat at 12.30am??!!) and we took it in turns to try and persuade Brad (26 year old guy in the US army who's served in Iraq and such places) to try and come with us. But he was too ill; he had a huge headache and felt really sick.

We climbed tied together in teams of 3. I was with Jared (23 year old US "soccer" player) and our solely-Spanish-speaking guide Gustavo. It was bloody difficult. With the exception of the snow, crampons and ice-picks, it was pretty similar to Kili. At the beginning it wasn't too bad, but there was no respite from the steep ice-covered mountainsides and the ferocious, snow-laden winds. Once more, it was a matter of determination and mind over body. We didn't too too badly; we were one of the last groups to leave and we passed a fair few teams. A lot of climbers succombed to the effects of alitude or the difficulty of the task and turned back. We passed Marilyn and her fellow hiker, Martin (a really cool German cameraman, about 30) on their way down, after Marily felt too ill to continue. Our guide kept telling us that we were only 30 minutes from a sheltered place where we could have tea and chocolate, but he was definately lying! We finally got to a slightly less exposed place in a kind of ice-cave, and collapsed there for a while. I just wanted to go to sleep! We tried to keep warm by huddling, but I lost all feeling in my fingers after taking my gloves off to try and open my energy drink, which didn't work anyway. My Camelpack had frozen in the tube. A few minutes after we'd sat down, at about 6am, the complete darkness of the night was becoming less complete. Dawn was on the way. This meant two things: first, that it might get a bit warmer and more pleasant (yay), but second, that we had very little time to try for the summit (uh-oh). Jared clearly had enough in the tank to keep going, but I wasn't sure I did. We decided to go for it, and the first hurdle was a scramble up a really steep and horribly exposed section of the mountain. It was a hurdle too high for me. The wind was vicious, and hurled hard-frozen snow into our faces, making it impossible to see or breathe. My calves burned with every step. Being able to see the deep crevasses, blue beneath the surface, made me panic. When the guide told us that it was another two and a half hours to the top, two and a half hours which we didn't have, I decided that I'd done enough. With retrospect, I feel guilty because I think Jared could have made it. I offered to join another group going down and let him continue, but he said he was happy to come down.

When we returned to our semi-sheltered resting spot, dawn was breaking. It was amazing, and even though we didn't make it it was worth the climb to be there at that moment. Now, rather than only being able to make out, in the beam of our torches, the bit of snow immediately ahead of where we walked, we were gradually able to see the magical environment we had climbed into. An expanse of perfect whiteness loomed above and below us, and beautiful ice formations surrounded us. In the brief moments when the clouds cleared a little, we were treated to incredible views of the sierra stretching out beneath us, and we saw for the first time just how steep and scary was Cotopaxi. I took a fair few photos; it was too fantastic to think about how cold my fingers would get. I'm glad I did, because when we returned to the edge of the snow-cap, the clouds had engulfed the mountain again. The descent was like walking down a black diamond ski run, but with Jared leading carefully, with the aid of crampons and the ice-pick, and with the rope to secure us together, I wasn't too petrified. It took forever to get down though. We got back to the refuge at about 9.

The rest was pretty boring - we had a bit of food, met up with Brad and Marilyn, packed up our stuff and hiked back down the mountain to take our minibus back to Quito. Had a bit of lunch (in a very gringo Mongolian cafe), said goodbye to Martin, and went home for a much-needed shower. I was knackered. Still am - 10 hours of sleep isn't enough to recover from missing a whole night's sleep and climbing for 8 hours up a snow-capped mountain. I also have another cold, which maybe isn't too suprising after my weekend.

That was really the highlight of my week. I've been out a few times, played some "fuzball" at a bar with the worst table in the world ever, had a salsa class, and generally tried to improve my Spanish. It's definitely coming on! I've now got the future tenses, most of the past tenses, and some wierdo tense called the subjunctivo, as well as lots more of the little gramatical details. It's quite exciting! Other that that, erm... no mucho! One of the taxi's I took home one night was stopped by the police for an illegal u-turn, and the policeman took his licence. I had no idea what to do, but figured it was best to get out quick and find another taxi! Saw a fat old lady wearing an English hoodie with the word "HOTTIE" emblazoned across her chest. As I said, English isn't that widely understood over here. Have experienced some classic "carnaval" fun when I had a balloon of water thrown at me from a passing car.

This is my last week at the school, weird! Jared's been here since early January and has 3 months more or so, but said yesterday lunch time that he's really going to miss Marilyn and I. Which made me realise how much I'm going to miss my fellow students and host family. I never really factored in the fact that I wouldn't just be meeting people but actually making friends whilst I studied here. But a week is a long time! Jared has the DVD "Robin Hood, Man in Tights", which he's insisting on showing me before I leave. Brad and Jared have taken great delight in mocking me for my Englishness (something I never really thought about before), and apparently this movie is similar! I can't believe I'm the only Brit here. Getting ready for a game of beer pong later! Yay!

Mission Aborted

2007-02-04T11:18:00.000-05:00

Well Dad, at least you'll be happy to learn that I didn't end up doing Cotopaxi this weekend. Though maybe the reason why isn't so reassuring!

Most of the group planning to climb Cotopaxi did an acclimatisation hike on Thursday afternoon on the volcano I climbed last weekend. My extra afternoon lessons meant that geeky me had to miss out. There were about 6 of them, but they got tired at different stages (or developed blisters, if you believe them) so they split up. Two of them (Sam and another American called Mary), it turned out, were robbed by a lone freak with a machete. From what I understand, but it's patchy and I forget exactly, they were separated, tied up, taken further up the mountain and robbed of everything they had - except their credit cards. I don't think he did them any physical harm, and they managed to get back okay in the end. But on Friday morning, when we met to depart for Cotopaxi, we didn't know what state they were in - all we'd heard, from the incredibly anxious director of the school, was that Mary was at her house and Sam had been found in a park on the other side of Quito really early in the morning by the police.

I thought I'd had a scary night - I went running into the posh housing estate in the north of the city, which I figured should be safe. But it seems that wealthy people have really aggressive dogs, and I ended up being chased by a pack of about 8 of them all barking at me all the way down the street. It was terrifying! And I thought it was just the men I had to be scared of in Ecuador! Anyway, hearing about what happened to Mary and Sam kind of put it into perspective. Meeting at breakfast, we were all really shaken up. I think the three others were feeling guilty for splitting up on the volcano - one of the girls was especially upset because she'd seen a guy hanging round suspiciously on the mountain and hadn't thought too much of it at the time. We weren't really in the right frame of mind to do the climb. Fortunately the company were great about it, and we promised that if we wanted to do it another time we'd use them. A few of us are hoping to do it in a fortnight or so.

People are, or a least were, really panicky at the school. Another one of the students was robbed twice this week, and one time she was floored in broad daylight. And there are riots going on in the centre of Quito about the political situation. It's a little scary I guess, but to be honest, although I'm definitely going to be more careful from now on (like by always using taxis at night, trying to do things in groups, and avoiding dangerous situations) I'm not going to let it stop me doing things. I don't think Quito's any more dangerous than normal, there has just been a spate of random incidents lately. In particular, everyone has said how safe the mountain usually is. I suppose Thursday night is a quiet time. I went up the volcano yesterday with Marlilyn again and there were loads of tourists so I felt totally safe. On a slightly more optimistic note, it was so much easier the second time. I was still wary of the steep bits but not petrified like last time, and I could feel that I was more acclimatised or fitter this time - we were much faster. I really do want to try Cotopaxi.

Once I heard that Sam and Mary were okay, I could enjoy the weekend. I bought a phone on Friday, and if anyone wants to send me a text or anything any time my number is 00 593 88571196. I feel a little more connected with people now. On Friday night one of the Danish girls was leaving, so the Danes cooked a Danish meal at the hostel in the school. It was great fun, we even had an exciting blackout for 10 minutes or so. Afterwards me, Marilyn and a guy called Brad (who was also part of the Cotopaxi group) went out to a salsa bar, mainly so Marilyn could practice her moves. Brad got lucky and attracted the advances of a 47 year old male tourist. Shame he's not gay. Apparently if a guy talks to another guy in a club in English, it's a sign they're gay. He knows this now! I practiced my Spanish chatting to some of the locals.

Yesterday, whilst I was out hiking, I acquired a new housemate. Alex is 28, pale-skinned, and Dutch, and arrived at 9 in the morning. By the evening he was as red as a lobster, underestimating the strenght of the sun at the ecuator. I invited him to come out with loads of the students last night. We went to a salsa party we heard about from the dance teacher at the school, held to raise money for a guy who broke his leg really badly and needs an operation. It was really fun, but the standard of dancing was way too high for me to risk embarrassing myself, so I just sat and chatted. There were a few performances too, which were very impressive. Really wish I knew some good moves! Alex is really nice, but I'm not going to get to speak as much Spanish at home since he's dependent on English at the moment. I'm not special any more! This morning we said goodbye to Alvaro, who left to go out into the jungle again. I'll miss him, he's been great to me and is really good fun. Hopefully he'll be back before I leave, but I don't know.

I'm at a bit of a loose end today. Some of the girls have gone to a little place with hot springs, but I wanted to say goodbye to Alvaro, spend some time on the internet, and study my verbs! I figure I've got six months over here, I should concentrate on learning the language first since I've got plenty of time to visit exciting places. I walked past the park, full of people being sporty, so I'll probably do some running myself later. It's the Superbowl later, is that American football? Most of the Americans are going to Gringolandia later to watch it. I'm not overly excited by the prospect, but maybe it'll be better than nothing. I shall see!

New Heights?

2007-01-30T17:08:00.000-05:00

I know the name of the maid! Mercedes. I'd heard Pilar say it before, but assumed she was talking about the car. I feel a lot better knowing the name of the person I spend every breakfast and dinner time chatting to. And chat we do. She still speaks too fast for me to understand everything, but it's much better, and I can talk to her back. I tell her all the stories from the school, and what I get up to, and we can even have a joke! Pilar, Belen and Alvaro (the cool son whose name I didn't know before either) seem quite impressed by my Spanish, but then going to anything from nothing is definitely progress.

I had SUCH a good weekend. Friday night out in "Gringolandia" was so much fun. We started off in a bar with loads of pool, ping-pong and table football tables. The music was a bit too English/American, but pool was great. I potted the black to bring victory for our team and beat a couple of guys, of which I was quite proud. Then we moved on to another, less game-based bar, and did a bit of dancing. After a mojito (at $2) or two, dancing was easy! And one of the guys from the school, Oliver, showed me a few moves. It was fun chatting to the other students and a few locals, and generally letting my hair down. Amazing how drunk you can get at this altitude though, I was seeing double by the end of the night. Though fortunately I think I managed to avoid standing on too many toes, so all was good!

The next day, slightly hungover, Marilyn (from Sweden), Sam (from New England), Aldis (from Iceland) and I went to the Mitad del Mundo. We got a few photos posing in front of the equator monument and the official line, had a traditional Ecuadorian lunch (minus the roasted whole guinea pig, thankfully), and browsed the touristy tiendas. I really wish I'd bought the llama finger-puppet! We were persuaded by a guy in the car park to take a trip to a nearby volcano caldera (impressed Tash?) for a bit of a hike. Sadly it was too cloudy up there to see much except a few metres of the path ahead, but it was really cool - more cloud-forest type scenery. The guide showed us various medicinal plants and persuaded us to try them. We sampled anis, rosemary, mint, some wierd plant that is supposed to help with period pain, and some hallucinogenic berries. It takes 40 to have hallucinations, we only had 1 each. Probably a good idea since the path was quite narrow and the drop quite steep!

On Sunday, having recovered from my hangover (but not from being continually teased about it by Mercedes), Marilyn and I took the Teleferico (a new cable car) a good way up the volcano that looms to the west of Quito, called Pichincha. From a height of 4,100m (at the top of the cable car), we hiked to the top of one of it's summits, at about 4,700m. It doesn't sound much, but it was so tiring at that altitude! It took us about 3 hours to get up to the top, and the terrain was really tricky at times. I got scared! The paths were narrow and the drops so sheer. At times we were scrambling up scree slopes and traversing almost vertical walls of rock. I don't know whether it was a good thing or a bad thing that clouds obscured the views at times. It definitely didn't help me to know that some mountaineer died up there last Saturday, which we found out half way up! Maybe because of that, there were various arrows and "NO"s graffiti-ed on the path suggesting that it wasn't the best idea to take this route, but everyone else was... And we made it down okay! The views were spectacular. Not only were the mountains we were amongst dramatic, but we could see Quito sprawled out in front of us, and in the distance the perfectly cone-shaped, classically snow-capped volcano of Cotopaxi rising out of the clouds.

I'm still not sure whether it's a great idea, but Marilyn and I are joining a group that Oliver is getting together to attempt Cotopaxi this coming weekend. He suggested it on Friday night, and maybe I wasn't in the best condition to consider the idea rationally. But he's a rock climber - in fact he teaches it - and he's spoken to a good company about getting a guide and seems to know what he's doing. At least, I thought so, until yesterday, when I heard what happened at the weekend. He and two of the other students, Matthew (from the US, like Oliver), and Maria (Danish, like everyone else), hired a car to visit Columbia for the weekend. I think all they really wanted was a Colombian passport stamp. Oliver invited me to come, and I would have been tempted had I not made other plans. Anyway, they got stopped by the Ecuadorean police on the way and searched. Incredibly stupidly, Oliver had marijuana with him. The whole group were interrogated individually, in Spanish, and Oliver ended up forking out a bribe of over $700 to let them go. They made it on to Columbia and back without a hiccup. But Oliver has not been his usual cheerful self since! He claimed he was going to use or get rid of it all before they attempted to cross the border, but even then there'd have been a detectable residue, surely. It makes an interesting travel story (which kept my host family entertained), but a very expensive one for Oliver. Glad I wasn't persuaded to go. Well, kind of...

Nevertheless, I put my name down for the Cotopaxi trip today. I'm hearing various reports. One guy at the school did it last weekend, and says it was the hardest thing he's ever done. But he made it. My host family think I'm crazy, since I have no experience of ice or snow climbing. It's true, crampons and other gear is required, but the company provides all the specialist stuff. It's expensive relative to other things I could do at the weekend, but at $140 it's a bargain, and I'm not going to get an opportunity like this again. I didn't quite make it to the top of Kilimanjaro, but I coped alright with what I did do, so I'm determined that I can do this one. Okay I'm not great with heights, but I hear it's a relatively gradual climb, and we're trussed up to one another. Plus it'll be nighttime or snowing, so I won't see the drops! I've spent nearly 2 weeks at nearly 3000m in Quito, including some running, plus I did an acclimatisation climb on Sunday. We're a group of 7, and most of them have as little or less experience than me. So I'm going to go for it. We leave at 8am on Friday (so I have to rearrange my lessons) and should get back on Sunday evening. I'm scared!

One more thing

2007-01-26T17:30:00.000-05:00

Oh yeah, and my phone doesn't work over here. I paid 20 English pounds to have the thing unlocked, but I am told that South American SIM cards won't work with it. I may try and get a cheap phone this weekend, but until I do, my phone is just my alarm clock. Not that I need one. I'm still waking up at 5.30 or 6 every morning naturally! Anyway, send me emails, I'm missing you all!

Bloody Ecuadorean Weather

2007-01-26T16:21:00.000-05:00

I thought that, travelling to exotic tropical places, I'd escape the English weather. How wrong I was. It was disgusting last night; I got drenched on the way home. This morning was the same. It's cold and wet. AND I hear England is getting snow! So not fair!! Plus I've got a stonking cold. Couldn't speak when I woke up this morning. I thought that with all the exciting fruits I'm getting I'd be more than meeting my vitamin C requirements.

I've just finished my first week of classes in the Academia. What have I learnt? Well, I'm not fluent yet, that's for sure. My vocabulary is certainly growing (the fact that you can often just add an "o" or "amente" to English words helps), but I'm a bit useless at conjugating my verbs properly. We had a test this morning, our weekly review - it's like being back at high school! I did alright with parts of the body and adjectives, but my little composition was a bit shitty. I got confused with estar and ser, which both mean "to be". Practice is the key, I'm sure, I just need the confidence to try what I think I know with Spanish-speaking people. It's not the fear of getting it wrong that makes me wary, it's the fact that I can never understand the replies! This morning the maid (whose name I STILL don't know!) was chatting away to me, trying to speak clearly, but even then I didn't really have a clue. It's a bit demoralising when two of the other people in my class of four have absolutely no problems. Now I know what it's like to be the dunce of the class! I'm definitely improving though.

It's really interesting to learn about the culture of Ecuador. Most of the exercises try to incorporate social issues. We had a (very slow paced!) debate about the pros and cons of immigration the other day, and we've covered national festivals, religion and education too. This afternoon, in my one-to-one class, we went through an article translated from an English newspaper about an affair between the mother of a Premiership footballer and her son's teammate, who was only 14. We got into the legality and propriety of underage sexual relationships, all in Spanish, it was a little bizarre!

I'm getting to know the other traveller-types in the school too. There's a real mixture. There's probably about 30 students at the Academia, and at least 15 are between 18 and 25. There are some more mature students, they're really fun too. There are a variety of nationalities, with the inevitable collection of yanks, but fewer English than I expected, and a surprisingly high number of Danish students. Most people chat in English: I'm so impressed by the Icelandics and the Danes speaking near perfect English and learning Spanish! I'm getting to know more of my fellow students. At first it seemed a bit cliquey, since some of them have been here for over a month. But it's not really. Some people are here for aaaages. Their Spanish will be great, but I think I'd get reeeeally bored staying here for so long. I'm already itching to get off travelling again. Can't wait for my tour of Ecuador!

This week has been mostly filled with learning Spanish, but there have been more exciting moments. As well as the amazing soups and veggie meals I'm getting for dinner, I got lemon meringue pie for dessert on Tuesday! My maid tried to scare me by telling me it was made of fish, but surprisingly I wasn't fooled. Bless her. The Ecuadorians do think I'm weird to be vegetarian. I hate to think what the reaction will be in Argentina, home of the best steak in the world. So, because I just can't resist all the good food I'm getting, I really need an alternative strategy to stop me putting on an extra 3 stone. I'm walking to and from school (it takes about 45 minutes) - except this morning when I got a taxi (for $1.80) because the weather was so disgusting - and I went for a run on Wednesday. It's incredibly tiring at 3000m! Good job too - I got lemon meringue pudding Wednesday night as well. My host mother seems to be on a diet and has no carbs or dessert and really small portions, whilst I get a huge bowl of soup (which sometimes consists of pasta, potatoes, cheese and milk), a big plate of rice, bean mush, salad and sometimes fried and caramelised bananas, followed by a huge slice of pie. Still, I think it makes the maid happy that I have a good appetite!

Last night there was a dancing class in the Academia. It was led by a really cute black guy with the fastest feet and hips in the world! I just about managed to keep up with the first few moves, but then it got so fast I coudn't even see what his feet were doing, let along try and copy him! It was really energetic and good fun though. We did a bit of salsa, marangue and tango. Think I'll have to have had a fair few drinks to try them out for real! Marilyn, the Swede, besides being a genius at Spanish, is also an amazing dancer and did a few songs with the teacher after the class. Wish I could dance like that! We went into the area of Quito nicknamed "Gringolandia", for obvious reasons, for a meal after. It was one of the most expensive places in Quito: I paid about $7 for a dish of veggie spaghetti and a diet coke!

Tonight the plan is to go out dancing in one of the salsa-teques. Oh dear! I'll be trying not to make a huge fool of myself. Tomorrow a few of us are going to go to "La mitad del mundo" (the middle of the world), a site right on the equator where the water goes straight down the toilet when you flush it, and various other interesting gravitational or magnetic phenomena occur. There's a museum and such like. And on Sunday, weather permitting (which, as in England, it probably won't be), I'll be going up el teleferico (a cable car) into the mountains for a bit of hiking. Quite excited about that. It'll be practice for Cotopaxi, a big 6000m-plus ice-capped volcano that I'd really like to climb. Only problem is that you need crampons and stuff... and I'm not great with heights...

Finally, I'd like to draw your attention to a statistic of which I am most proud.

Items lost so far: 0

To all of you who are placing bets, ha ha ha. (Admittedly there is another statistic of which I am ashamed. Items left in the computer room of the Academia: 1 purse. But that doesn't count, because someone handed it in for me. Right?)

Cloud Forest

2007-01-22T17:18:00.000-05:00

I got very very excited on Saturday when Pilar said that there might be a squash court at the Academia, where I'll be learning Spanish for the next month. I've just had the tour; there isn't. There is a tiny indoor sports hall with a volleyball net in, so it has potential, but definitely not for squash. After blogging and lunch on Saturday (during which I stupidly decided to stir up my diet coke with my straw and made it explode all over me in a quiet little cafe) I went into the park in the bit of the city I'm based - mainly to dry off. Everyone was playing football, volleyball and basketball, and running or cycling! I got such a craving to do some exercise. I decided that I'd go for a run round the park on Sunday. But then Pilar invited me to go out with "la familia" in the morning, so my plans fell through. I ended up spending most of the day sat in the back seat of the car as we went on a big road trip.

It was fab though. The family, it turns out, for that day at least, was Pilar, Maria-Belen, and her gorgeous "friend", Carlos - or Charlie as he seems to prefer. Charlie is an ex-boyfriend who has been studying in Argentina for 4 years and got back a month ago. Pilar claims they're just friends at the moment but they're clearly together, they're very cute! We spent about 2 hours driving around Quito: picking up Belen and Charlie from his flat, driving back to the house so Belen could have a shower, driving to a shop for some picnic material (where, having been left to melt in the car, I succeeded in setting off the car alarm by trying to open the door for some air - a story Pilar took great delight in recounting to Belen and Charlie), and driving back to the house to pick Belen and Charlie back up. Finally, we were off. I thought we'd be going to a cafe or something, but an hour later we were driving through mountains of dense forest - the "cloud forest". It was spectacular - misty clouds swirl around mountainsides and valleys, every inch of which are covered in lush green vegetation. We arrived in a touristy cloud forest town called Mindo, and stopped at a lodge retreat. It's prime attraction, it seemed, was the "frog concert", every night from 6pm till 8. It turns out that hundreds of little frogs that live in the pond find that dusk is the best time to make themselves known to potential mates, and they do it by "singing". Sadly we were too early for the live spectacle, but the manager of the lodge had it recorded on his mini digital dictaphone! The lodge consisted of several log cabins and a restaurant surrounding a little pond in the forest, with butterfly and orchid enclosure attached. Pilar asked lots of questions about the place, suggesting she was interested in staying here (was she pretending?), so we got the full tour - and some speciality ice-cream! I managed to supress my fear of flying insecty things in the butterfly enclosure; I impressed myself. The best bit was the hummingbirds - loads of them, beautifully coloured, flying freely around the retreat, hovering silently around some nectar pots. Hopefully I'll get to go back to Mindo one weekend; there were adverts all around for rafting, kayaking, tubing, and that thing where you go on a wire between trees. And next time I'll bring my camera!

So right now I'm sat in the computer room of the Academia Latinoamericana. I've just had my first day. I'm definitely being thrown in at the deep end - everything is explained en español! I did a little Spanish test (verbal and oral), which confirmed how bad my Spanish really is, and then we were taken into the old colonial centre of Quito. We visited museums and churches and watched some traditional changing-of-the-guards type ceremony outside the presidential palace. All described to us in Spanish, of course, so I have only a vague clue what we were actually looking at. It was very pretty though, and I took photos, so will try and figure out how to get them on the net. The nuevos estudiantes all seem really cool - there are 6 of us: 2 career-breaker English women in their 40s, as well as a cool Swedish girl, an Icelandic girl and an American guy who are more my age. Not sure who'll be in my class, I shall see tomorrow! Because I signed up for super-intensive classes, I've got 4 hours of group lessons in the morning, then an extra 2 hours of 1-to-1 in the afternoon. No-one else seems to be doing that! I'm going to be so sick of Spanish, and I'm getting that way already!

Right, I'd better be off to have my meal cooked and presented to me back at the house by my maid. She gives my my food and just chats away to me in Spanish. I've got no idea what she's saying, and I'm sure she knows that, but she rambles on anyway. I really have to learn so I can at least understand her!

It Begins!

2007-01-20T10:40:00.000-05:00

I disagree with what the guidebooks say: it's hot in Quito! I'm regretting wearing my jumper and bringing my bloody heavy ski jacket to explore. There are some English looking girls walking past the window of this internet cafe wearing vest tops and shorts. I've spent the last 3 hours wandering round with the sun getting stronger searching for an internet cafe and dying for a pee. I've tried asking around but my Spanish is seriously pitiful and no-one speaks English. Eventually I found this one, and the guy running it had to ask a customer what I wanted when I was asking for the toilets! "Donde estan los servicios, por favor?" doesn't seem to work here. After a overlong flight it's been good to stretch my legs at least, I suppose.

I can't decide whether I was lucky or unlucky with my journey. Getting to Manchester Airport was the worst bit - it was the windiest day ever on Thursday and we had to shift tree debris off the road before we could even get out of the drive. The traffic was awful, there was a telegraph pole hanging precariously over Glazebrook Lane, Thelwall Viaduct was shut because two HGVs had toppled over, and a tree was blocking our alternative route. When I finally arrived, an announcement declared all runways at Manchester closed and most flights cancelled. Fortunately it turned out that mine was just delayed. For some reason I'm developing a real fear of flying, which wasn't really helped by the weather conditions, or by what I thought was a fun light-hearted travel journal about South America that I decided to finish off whilst waiting for my plane. It suddenly stopped being so light-hearted when one of the 3 main characters unexpectedly drowned in the sea off Columbia, leading to lots of philosophising about the meaning of life and death and travelling. Let's just say I was very relieved to make it to Madrid! My hostel was shit. The rain dripped through the roof onto some echoey metal thing right outside my window all night. Had to shove a towel under it at 3am.

Driving to the airport the next morning, Madrid looked really pretty, I wished I'd had more time there. I thought I might have had my wish granted when I tried to check in for my Quito flight and the Iberia man told me that the flight was over-booked. Apparently this happens often! But fortunately, he said, there were some spare seats, and I was just in time to get the last one. There was some mention of an upgrade to business class but that never materialised. What happened to the people who couldn't get "spare seats"?! The flight was long and dull, but I quite enjoyed "The Queen", and got through a lot of "Into the Heart of the Amazon" (thanks Tash, it's great!). I got a bit worried arriving into Quito about the box of chocolates and tin of biscuits I'd brought for my host family, because food was mentioned as something I'd have to declare when I went through customs on the forms we were given on the plane. I confessed to the customs man and offered them up, but he laughed and waved me on. I didn't even get an Ecuador stamp on my passport! HAVE to get one on the way out. (Managed to blag one in Madrid though!)

Sure enough, amongst the crowds of people waiting to greet people off the plane (it's a small airport and it seemed ours was the only incoming flight all day), I spotted a sign with my name on in big capital letters. It was held up by a small, friendly-looking native Ecuadorean woman, who greeted me with a kiss and a hug. Aww, I get to stay with a cute native family, I thought! She spoke no English at all, and my efforts at making conversation were just dire, so we waited in friendly silence for the car to meet us outside. It struck me how small everyone was - I felt like a giant! And that's saying something!

It turned out that this sweet little lady is in fact the servant of the family I'm staying with. In the car that met us were Pilar, a retired widow (I think), and her lovely 23 year old daughter, Maria. They're tiny too! Pilar speaks a little English, so we can say some things to each other, sort of, but Maria speaks great English. She's a student of Eco-tourism currently doing her thesis, and she plays football for her university team. There's no sign of the 28 year old son, who apparently works in the oil industry (which seems at polar odds with what Maria does given the damage the oil industry is causing to Ecuador's natural environment and native communities...). In fact, I think I've got his room. The maid (who's name I've forgotten, I feel awful) cooked me a yummy dinner of soup followed by pasta carbonara (no bacon, they know I'm vegetarian thankfully) and a salad, and then some black tea. I was still a bit wobbly from the flight so went to bed at 9.30ish - which meant I woke up every half hour after 3am. Felt very refreshed after a much-needed shower. The house - or rather, flat - is lovely, I'm living in luxury! I'm very much enjoying the double bed. And the family seem perfect. I just want to learn Spanish fast so I can actually talk to them properly! There's only so far muchas gracias and muy bueno (which are probably wrong) will take me in conversation.

It's 11.30am and Quito is busy. It's an amazing city, stretching for miles in a valley about 2,600m above sea level, flanked by higher mountains, which are often shrouded in mist. I definitely felt the altitude when I was lugging my backpack up 3 flights of stairs last night! After much wandering around, I have a few observations. It's more upmarket than most of the African cities I visited (the cars don't churn out black smoke and break down every 5 minutes, and the buses and taxis actually look safe enough to ride), and I've only come across a few street kids so far. There's a hint of military presence, but not too much. And although there are the few inevitable whistles and comments, I don't feel like I stick out like a sore thumb amongst the locals here as I did amongst the Kenyans, Ugandans and Tanzanians. The sunshine probably helps, but I feel pretty at ease for the moment. And very hungry...

I'll be impressed if anyone reads to here, I've written loads! Will try and keep it shorter in future! Right, off to find a Spanish dictionary and some lunch.

What AM I doing going to South America?

2006-12-28T11:56:00.000-05:00

Quite a lot of things, actually. Here's a brief run-down:

Ecuador
It all kicks of with a 4-week Spanish course in Quito, Ecuador. English isn't very well-spoken in South America, so I'm going to need it. (January 22 - February 16)

If I've not had enough of the country, I've got a 15-day hiking, biking, rafting tour of Ecuador. Have to satisfy my exercise cravings when I can. (February 18 - March 4)

Peru
Then I'm being a goody-two-shoes with a month of community work with orphans in Trujillo, Peru. Hopefully I'll get some time off to flake out on the beach! (March 9 - April 7)

After all my selfless hard work, I'm going to do the touristy thing on an Inca Discovery Tour, including hiking the Inca Trail and visiting Macchu Picchu - yay! (April 11 - 18)

Argentina and Chile
Next, it's down to the very southern tip of the continent, via Buenos Aires, for a trip round the End of the Earth, doing some hiking and general sight-seeing round the icy and mountainous Patagonian region and visiting the southernmost city in the world, Ushuaia. (April 21 - May 5)

Bolivia
I'll be flying into La Paz, the highest city in the world. Bit scared about that, because flying straight up to a location 3,600m high carries a risk of altitude sickness. Think I'll be taking the Diamox left over from doing Kili with me just in case! I'll be doing a 2-month journalism placement on an English newspaper in La Paz. With my time off, I'd love to visit Lake Titicaca (if only for it's comedy name) and do some hiking in the mountains... (May 10 - July 8)

Chile, Paraguay and Brazil
Limited flight routes means I've got 5 days in Santiago de Chile, in the Andes. What can you do in 5 days?

Then I'll be flying to Asuncion in Paraguay, to make my way overland to the Iguassu Falls (3 times bigger than Niagara), and then on to Sao Paulo, from where I fly home at the end of July.

Hi!

2006-12-26T18:26:00.000-05:00

So this is my first post. The opening page in my journal; the launch of my blog. A momentous event.

It's Boxing Day 2006. Not sure why I chose this day to start the blog. But it's as good a day as any. Except perhaps New Year's Day, thinking about it. Hmm.

I'm still enjoying the festive period at home in the bosom of my family. You know, watching naff telly and eating far too much, catching up with old friends over lots of drinks, falling out with my brother over who gets the best chair in the living room. Good times. And yet, in the back of my mind wondering how long it will be before we stop doing the family thing at Christmas, how long before friends move away...

But in terms of the more immediate and certain future, South America looms pretty large. I'm in the process of booking my language course, but other than that everything is pretty much booked and sorted -as much as it needs to be, pre-departure. I am excited, definitely, but I'm surprisingly calm about it I think. There's lots I should be doing. I want to be up on South American history (I've got enough reading material from my brother this Christmas), I'm supposed to be getting a head start on learning Spanish with my teach yourself course, and I really ought to get familiar with the Lonely Planet, since it's going to be my bible when I'm out there. And then there's packing. How to get 6 month's worth of stuff into a rucksack? Answers on a postcard...

In fact writing all this is making me realise how little time I have left. Better get cracking on those books.