Hi everyone! We've made it to Bolivia safe and sound and we are currently in the packed, bursting at the edges capital, La Paz. We will be flying on into part of the jungle in northern Bolivia tommorrow (Monday), so now's as good a time as any to fill you in on our first sights in the country.

Last week, we strolled through the Peru-Bolivian border at Lake Titicaca without any problems and immediately witnessed a change. Greeted by a smiling Bolvian immigration officer, the first thing we noticed was the difference in peoples attitude. Peruvians can often be quite reserved, especially when it comes to dealing with foreigners, but this doesn't seem to be the case so much here. On the whole, they seem to like a bit of banter and usually have the time for the odd wisecrack, which was refreshing and unexpected.

Following closely behind this, the next thing we noticed was how cheap everything was. Our first meal in the border town of Copacabana, consisted of soup, a main course and tea and set us back 12 Bolivianos (EUR 1.20) for the two of us. Nice and tasty too; we couldn't fathom how it's possible to make a profit at these prices. During our time in this pleasant town, we managed to see a procession of vehicles which were heavily laden with decorations, getting blessed by the local priest as well as taking an excursion over to on of the islands on Lake Titicaca, Isla del Sol. The island was beautiful and so small that we walked it in about four hours. As usual in Bolivia, there'a a "world highest" attached to everything and Lake Titicaca's claim to fame is being the worlds highest navigable lake at around 4,000 m.a.s.l.

Although there's been a big drop in the cost of things since entering Bolivia, I'd like to remind you that there has also been a change in the quality of service to accompany it. The added unpredictabilty with trying to get even the simplist of things done, means that it's hard to know how smoothly things will go during the day. This is summed up perfectly by our experience on the (supposedly) 3 hour bus trip from Copacobana to La Paz. It was fairly straightforward for the first couple of hours, apart from when we had to dismount while the bus was loaded onto a boat and taken across the lake; us following after it in a separate boat. Soon after this stretch though things came to a halt in the middle of nowhere. Explanations detailing problems with the diesel and an apparent strike in La Paz, didn't give us any hope that we were going to be moving anytime soon. Rumours were starting to spread that we might have to spend to night in sitio. Luckily after nearly 45 minutes or so a local campesina lady came to the rescue and poured a bit of diesel from an old beatup can into the buses fuel tank. This was enough to get us to a gas station that had some diesel for sale and from that we were able to get to our destination. Phweh! Because of problems we'd heard with the local service, we'd taken a tourist bus to try and avoid problems like this. If this was the best they had to offer, I'd hate to think what the normal service is like!

Our last five days have been enjoyably spent wandering about the hilly streets of La Paz. There's another "worlds highest" for you fact freaks out there... this time La Paz holds the title for the worlds highest capital. Due to the amount of cars and people crammed into this relatively compact city centre the hustle and bustle was a bit unnerving on arrival. The amount of people and stalls mean that on some roads there's no room for walking on the footpath (so you have to negotiate a path with the cars). The stalls and street sellers are amazing here though, selling every sort of knick-knack imaginable and some more unusal items such as llama foetuses and other offerings to the gods should you feel so inclined. Some of the other things that made an impression on us were the bavaclava wearing shoeshine lads (who are usually students, wishing to avoid recognition), a downed power mast right in the middle of the road which didn't seem to bother anyone and an industrial looking, natural gas powered clothes drier which seems a long way away from the domesticated comforts we take for granted in Europe.

That's all the news for now. Make sure you check back next week for news of our adventures in the jungle!