Much ado about nothing

Route
La Paz - Coroico (bus)
Coroico - Rurrenabaque (bus)
Rurrenabaque - La Paz (plane)

• La Paz is an odd city. It has that crazed, polluted intensity that I imagine a lot of Asian cities have. There are people everywhere and they´re all trying to get somewhere else, fast. The city is full of tiny micro buses with guys hanging out the side shouting out the route. These will stop and pick you up pretty much anywhere. The city seems to suck in backpackers who are in the mood to party, particularly those on the lookout for the old "Gringo Protein". If that´s your scene, fine, but I´m not really looking for that so I only spent four nights here initially which was plenty - there´s not a tremendous amount to see or do. I soon legged it to Coroico.
• Coroico is billed as a bit of a hippy enclave. It´s about 3 hours north of La Paz and a good couple of thousand metres below in terms of altitude. Most people get here by biking down the Most Dangerous Road In The World, which isn´t all that dangerous by the sounds of it - the bikes they give you are more likely to do the damage rather than the road itself. I´m a big chicken so I got the bus.
• Coroico is really pretty. It´s perched on the side of a hill. The lower altitude means much richer biodiversity. The surrounding countryside is lushly forested and is ideal for hiking, pony trekking and the like. I stayed in a place run by an expat French lady. Six quid a night for a room that overlooked a pristine valley - the most beautiful setting. I teamed up with a Belgian guy called Chris and we spent a day hiking to and along a stretch of river known as the Rio Negro. It was pretty cool, there were tons of butterflies around, some of which were quite impressive. I wish I´d spent more time in Coroico.
• I hadn´t planned on heading to the jungle while in Bolivia, but people had said the Pampas tours from Rurrenebaque were amazing. Chris was heading that way anyway, so I tagged along. This meant the worst bus journey I´ve had so far. Fourteen hours on bumpy dirt track on the back seat of a bus that didn´t appear to have any suspension. For the first two hours, the road had drops of about 600m to the side. This was made worse by the fact that the bus often had to reverse to a passing point when it encountered oncoming traffic- which happened with alarming regularity. This was utterly terrifying, and wasn´t helped by the vast clouds of dust that were thrown up by the frequent traffic along the road. Not fun.
• I got off the bus the following morning to realise I had a healthy fever. A quick stop at the docs and the throat infection I suspected I was carrying was confirmed. I was prescribed some pretty heavy antibiotics. I felt pretty lousy to be honest and decided against doing the tour. So I spent three days in bed in a hostel, sweating it out. I managed to pick up a pretty heavy cold at the same time and coughed so much that I´m pretty convinced I cracked a rib! Again, not fun! Rurre is pretty fucking tiny as well, there are about ten restaurants and I think I ate in most of them. I did meet quite a few people in the hostel though. Most of whom stayed well away from me as I was so obviously ill!
• Apparently the bus journey back to La Paz is better - you get right of way so don´t have to reverse along the death roads, and apparently you´re asleep for that bit anyway. Whatever. I wasn´t prepared to find out, and booked a flight back to La Paz. Flying from Rurrenebaque to La Paz is a bit of a lottery. You book a flight, and your scheduled time means "any time within the next 48 hours, or when the runway is dry". The runway is actually a field. Which isn´t a problem when it hasn´t been raining. But it had been raining. A lot. Which meant a backlog of a couple of days, and another night in Rurre for me! Joy.
• I finally made it back to La Paz about 2 days ago. I feel like I burnt quite a bit of time doing nothing, so I´m raring to go again. I had a Secret Mission to accomplish which meant I needed to stay an extra night. Job done though. To be honest the extra day of hanging around was probably good for me - I was still weak enough after feeling ill. I´m getting the bus down to Uyuni tonight (13 hours, better roads apparently - I´ve bought sleeping tablets though). Then it´s Argentina and civilisation. I´ve enjoyed Bolivia but it´s challenging - things take about 3 times longer than you think they will, and it´s all quite chaotic. But it´s dirt cheap and the locals are friendly (and better looking than the Peruvians, though I´m not sure that´s saying much).
• If you run a broom over the feet of a Bolivian lady, it means she´ll never get married. I found this out the hard way. I seem to be doing things like this with alarming regularity. Just as well I´m such a charming bastard.
• I love South America - the chaos and laid back attitude are endearing. Nevertheless, I´m a European at heart and realise that I like my nice, clean European lifestyle, with it´s paved roads and sanitised foods.
• It´s not necessary to speak much Spanish to survive here - basic restaurant stuff, numbers etc is typically fine. Where it would be of use is when you encounter things and you´re not sure what´s going on. For example, there have been countless demonstrations here, one in practically every town I´ve visited in Peru and Bolivia. I´d have been keen to ask a local about them, but no dice. Ah well, I´m still eating and drinking so I can´t complain too much.
• Speaking of drinking, apart from two nights in Peru and a couple of minor sessions the first time I was in La Paz, I haven´t been this sober in months. It´s a nice feeling!

That´s all for now folks, Ciao!

Bueno Estente from La Paz

Instead of a blow by blow account of what I´ve been up to, here are some of the interesting things that have happened me over the last week or so.

Where I´ve been since last time: Puno to Cusco (taxi and plane instead of bus), Inca Trail to Machu Piccu (foot), Aquas Calientes to Cusco (train and taxit), Cusco to La Paz (plane).

• Food poisoning is rarely fun, much less so when you are trapped at altitude in a cold hotel room in Puno. We blamed the freshly made soup from the vegetarian restaurant which obviously hadn´t been boiled enough - we could hear them blending it just before serving. Not good.
• Altitude can be a real bitch. I had a four day headache when we ascended to Puno (3800 metres up). I had nausea and breathing difficulties and a high heart rate. I´ve been at altitude for about 10 days now and I´m still quite short of breath if I exert myself. The altituded sickness tablets they sell over the counter seems to help, as does chewing coca leaves.
• Peruvian drivers are obviously instructed that the other side of the road should be used as often as possible. Particularly on the blind corners of small mountain roads that have massive drops to the side. While driving a massive bus. At night time. The horn is also to be used liberally. I´m sure there´s a linguisitcs PhD waiting to be written about the subtle use of the horn in South American driving.
• As mentioned we needed to change our plans to get from Puno to Cusco due to the strikes. We got a taxi at 3am - the roadblocks were cleared in the middle of the night so folk could get by them. We arrived at Juliaca airport at 4.30am, whereupon the driver announced that we were all going to sleep in the car until 6am when the airport opened! Thankfully he´d brought blankets. This was perhaps the most amusing location I´ve ever had for an impromptu nap.
• Cusco is a cool town but we didn´t really make the most of it due to still feeing shitty from the food poisoning and the altitude. Due to the strikes the taxi driver had to drop us a few blocks from our hotel, which was located at the top of a massive hill that got steeper and steeper the further up you went. Nice practice for the Inca Trail, particularly with full backpacks.
• The Inca Trail is pretty special. The scenery is breathtaking, stunning Andean valley after stunning Andean valley. I´ve put some photos on Facebook. It´s hard enough work but I was expecting worse to be honest. Everyone says that the second day is the toughest, what with climbing 1000 metres up over the course of the day, and they are right. Day three is tough as well - it´s mostly downhill which means different sets of muscles. The weather was good on the first day but overcast and a bit wet for the remainder of the treck, but I don´t think that this detracted from the experience - in fact I can imagine it being a hell of a lot tougher in the heat.
• You can see the stars properly at nighttime when you are in the middle of the Andes. It´s unbelievable how much we miss out on when in our light-polluted cities. I´ve not seen a sky like that since I was a child. Amazing.
• Macchu Picchu is one of the most amazing things I´ve ever seen. Words and pictures can´t do it justice. The Incas were a pretty clever lot to manage to build a city of this size in such an efficient manner right up a big mountain.
• Aquas Calientes is a town near Macchu Pichu that consists entirely of restaurants and hotels. It´s like being in a bad part of the Costa del Sol.
  
• I´m in La Paz in Bolivia now. It´s pretty cool, it´s built in the caldera (crater) of an extinct volcano. The suburbs are built up the side of the crater and the city centre is along the deepest part. I´m in my first backpacker type hostel - rooms for six pounds a night. I´m across the road from the Wild Rover hostel where I went for a few drinks and games of pool with some Aussie folks last night. It´s about 1.40 for a rum and coke or a beer. Nice! Quite a young crowd, lots of folks on gap years and the like. I´m not sure how much of that I can take! Although there are folk of all ages around. I´m enjoying being on my own though, it´s nice to be able to set my own schedule and do what I like. I´m going to chill here for a day or two and figure out how best to spend my time in Bolivia. I think I´m going to go up north to Coroico for a few days, then come back to La Paz and figure out how to see the Salar de Uyuni. No plan is the best plan!

That´s all for now, questions and comments to the usual address please! Still missing you all tons, let me know all the Edinburgh/Ireland gossip!! Catch you soon, D x

Hola from Peru

Hope you´re all well! I´m in good form, I´ve had a great first week in
Peru. Some of this might be a bit long but this is a record for me
too... also this keyboard is crazy so apologies for the punctuation.
For any of you who have been to Peru before, I am sure you will find
this all familiar...

We arrived in Lima last Monday after an epic journey - door to door
for me was 24 hours with three flights involved. The journey didn´t
start well with me leaving my mp3 player on the plane from Edinburgh
to London - I realised this as I was queueing for my flight to Miami
and it was too late to go back. So no decent tunes for the next couple
of months - not a good situation! I have actually been having dreams
with techno soundtracks... Anyway, I decided to not stress out about
it, in a way it was good to get the "losing something" part of the
trip over and done with. I got into Lima airport about 10.30 in the
evening local time and thankfully there was a guy with a sign with my
name on it to bring me to my hotel. He sorted me out with a taxi. By
this time I was sleep deprived and had The Fear and started to freak
out a little when the taxi driver pulled on some fingerless leather
gloves and drove me down a deserted street - but it turns out he was
just on the way to the highway to Lima, phew. Second minor disaster
there - a bottle of shower gel exploded in the bottom of my rucksack.
Ah well, lessons were learned etc.

Lima is nuts, we only spent a night and half a day there, and in the
nicest area at that. Which to be honest wasn´t very nice. We had
occasion to eat in a Swiss restaurant that was holding a risotto
festival - I hear its a Peruvian tradition.

We soon high-tailed it down the coast. The scenery in this part of the
world is desert, desert and more desert. Well, after the slums on the
outskirts of Lima. Our first stop was the village of Paracas. The bus
had to drive over the sand to get to the stop. Mental. We were only in
Paracas one night - the reason being that we wanted to take the early
morning boat trip to the Islas Ballestas. These are known as the poor
mans Galapogos but they were worth a trip - got to see lots of
birdlife including pelicans, as well as sealions.

Next stop was Huacachina. This is basically a holiday resort in the
desert which is based round a lagoon - proper oasis style. Huachachina
is good for chilling out by the pool, sandboarding and going on tours
to local wineries. Some chilling out by the pool lead to us meeting a
Dutch couple and a couple of Canadian girls who were all good fun. We
went sandboarding with them - basically a crazy Pervian driver pelts
you around sand dunes on a buggy contraption at about 40 miles an
hour, the higher the angle on the dune and the more chance of rolling
over the buggy the better. Think roller coasters without ANY of the
safety features and you are nearly there. They let you out
periodically to get belly down on a sandboard and hurtle face first
down a dune - again the higher and steeper the better. This is
ridiculously good fun and I heartily recommend it. Actually, funnily
enough our driver got stuck in a dune on the way back due to some
Canadian dude getting motion sickness - loser - which was quite
amusing - we had to be rescued and the driver was slagged off big time
by his amigos. Me and Mark also went on a 10am tour around a couple of
wineries where they make Pisco, the local brandy. Drunk by lunchtime,
I'm sure you are all surprised by that carry on.

I also did my first bit of solo adventuring in Huacachina when I
taxied it into the nearby town of Ica to purchase tickets for The Bus
Journey From Hell, more of which later. I should point out that most
of the west coast of Peru was flattened by an earthquake in 2007,
which explains why most of the buildings are half built or in rubble.
Not pretty.

Onwards from Huacachina to Nazca where we went on an overflight of the
Nazca lines, which are basically these giant carvings of unknown
origin in the desert. Pretty impressive, but I was concentrating quite
hard on not dying or throwing up in the little 4 seater rust bucket
they sent us up in...

Yesterday and the day before were spent on a marathon trek across
country to get to Puno where we are now. Saturday saw us take a nine
hour journey from Nazca to Arequipa, the second city of Peru. This
wasn't too bad, we knew what to expect, they fed us and kept us going
with movies including a second viewing of PS I Love You, which I was
happy about as I had missed the last hour on the Paracas to Huacachina
journey. Cruz del Sur, the bus company, are your best friend in Peru.
We stayed overnight in Arequipa, with the intention of boarding a
10am, four hour bus to Puno. Instead, it turned into The Bus Journey
From Hell. Four hours late departing, it turned out that they had lied
to us and it actually took six hours, one movie which they showed at
the start of the journey and no reading lights - it got dark at 6pm.
Thankfully the altitude sickness was kicking in at this point and my
hallucinations were keeping me amused. Mind you the delay did mean we
got to go back in and have a look around Arequipa, where we saw a
mental parade that seemed to consist of police, military, chefs and
air hostesses, so it wasn't all bad.

So here we are in Puno, about 3800 metres above sea level. I was
suffering pretty bad with the altitude this morning, headaches and
nausea, but I feel better now. I think it is kicking in for Mark just
now. Today we had a wander round Puno in the morning - there were tons
of riot police about, in preparation for some sort of massive protest,
which we had a good look at. Nuts. This afternoon we visited the
Sillustani, which are ancient burial towers where they buried Inca and
pre-Inca rulers. Pretty awesome and about 4k up in the most beatiful
mountain terrain. Tomorrow we are taking a boat trip out on the
amusingly named Lake Titicaca.

The plan then was to take a bus up to Cusco for the Inca Trail.
Unfortunately we found out today that there is a three day national
strike on in Peru starting tomorrow. Now, the bus companies are mostly
willing to keep running, but the problem is the mad bastards who set
up roadblocks on the roads, consisting mostly of boulders and other
heavy things. So we have booked a flight from Juliaca, which is about
an hour away, and have organised a very, very early taxi, which will
be taking "alternative routes" to the airport. Fingers crossed. In a
way, I am glad not to have to face the inside of a Peruvian bus ever
again. The drivers are all crazy - think overtaking trucks on blind
corners and you have the gist of it - and the erattic timing leaves
something to be desired.

It wouldn't be like me not to mention the food. So far, its been
decent enough. Actually the food here in Puno is very good, we had a
really good two course meal last night for under a tenner.

Overall I am having a great time. You just have to be accepting of the
fact that this is Peru and that things work differently here... I am
looking forward to Cusco and the Inca Trail. After which, into the
great unknown of Bolivia, which should be interesting... Missing you
all - hope JPs is kicking along without me. Stephen and Graham, send
my love to Matt and tell him I said thank you. Ciara, you might want
to forward this to your ma, she said she would be interested in
hearing how I am getting on. Susie B, hope the replacement flatmate is
adequate. I have actually been significantly detoxing since leaving
that flat, coincidence I am sure... thanks for reading folks, I will
do another update when I get to Bolivia.

Love to you all,

Daragh xx