The Iguazu falls was one of the few things I knew I wanted to do on this trip before I left home.  It`s a huge cack in the earth with 230 waterfalls cashing into it.  One side is part of Brazil and the other is Argentina.  Paraguay bordes it too.  Foz do Iguazu, the town on the Brazilian side, is about as exciting as Camborne.  The hostel seemed to be a holidlay destination for mosquitoes and fleas.  We were scared to reach out fom under our mozzy nets to grab the mozzy spray!  The falls made up for it though, apparently they make the niagra falls look like a stream.  They seem to go for miles.  The most powerful bit at the top of the crack (called the devil`s throat) is unbelievable.  You can hear it from miles away.  The less poweful ones are more beautiful though, you can see the rocks and bright green moss through the water.  It`s a bit mind blowing to think that`s been thundeing away for thousands of years.  Of course there`s the obligitory legend that someone pissed off a god back in the day and he made the earth split and water fly everywhere.  Loads of pics under the my photos link.

10 minutes over the border into Argentina we were at the town of Puerto Iguazu.  The much nicer Argentine version.  Oh the bliss of Spanish!  Having been mute for the last week in Brazil it was great to talk again.  I was busting to get to Buenos Aires so we booked another overnight bus for that night and headed off to see the falls from another angle.  Actually thee`s only so much staring at gushing water you can do so we decided to go for a more interactive approach.  We stripped to bikinis and boarded the speed boat ready for a soaking.  The boat whipped us around and dunked us underneath a few fairly mild falls, they felt kind of like a power shower, a cold one.  Then we headed for a big thundering torrant and screamed as hundreds of buckets of freezing cold water were dumped on our heads, so much fun.  We then sped off down river, the sun and wind drying us off almost instantly.  A speed boat on Rio Dulce, the Galapagos cruise, white water rafting and now this.  I`ve discovered that I love being on water, maybe I should get a house boat.

This overnight bus was pure luxury, better than any plane I`ve ever been on.  Super comfy seats that recline to horizontal, meals, wine, films, even a pillow and a blanket.  It was a pretty nice 18 hours.

Only just getting over the loss that was leaving Rio, we arrived in Buenos Aires.  I`m so fickle, I`m now also in love with this city!  It feels like Paris, only without the Parisiens.  Huge ornate buildings with little balconies and canopies ove the windows, everyone sitting outside cafes watching everyone else.  It`s totally different to Rio.  It feels very European and more sophisticated and less liberated, more uptight somehow.  The antique shops, art galleries and boutiques ae wonderful.  Bev and I found a hostel in San Telmo, an area known for tango, which is my mission here.  Whilst wandeing around window shopping we bumped into a couple of girls Bev had previously travelled with and we spent most of our time hanging out with them.  That night we went out for a few drinks in some trendy bars.  I tried at sophistication and ordered a strawberry daquari, is that sophisticated?  It was a pretty cool night.

I spent the following morning scowering the streets for tango classes and found a group class fo that night and private classes starting the following day.  It`s been about 8 years since I did Argentine tango but I think I`m a bit bored of salsa so I was keen to try it again.

In the afternoon we visited Recoleta cemetery, it`s a super exclusive place to be buried, full of the famous, rich, politicians and military.  The tombs are more like houses and you can see all of the families` coffins through the doors, quite strange.  A funeral took place while we were there, luckily the cemetery was big enough that we managed to avoid it.  We did take a look at Eva Perron`s grave though, more about her later.

The group tango class turned out to be just me to start with, then 2 others later on.  It was ok, group classes are always a bit slow though.  That night we went to a tango show in Cafe Tortoni, one of the oldest and most famous tango cafes in Buenos Aies.  I was absolutely enthralled.  On a very small stage, in a tiny dark room filled with tables, a singer, double bass player, accordian player, pianist and two dancers entertained us.  It was a great show, lots of super fast leg kicks and over emotional singing, brilliant.

When I arrived here all I knew was that Evita was some chick played by Madonna in a film  I didn`t even know she was the same person as Eva Perron!  I blame the education system.  To get it all straight we went to the Eva Perron museum.  Interesting, quite biased but at least I now know that she was the Prime Minister`s wife and a bit of a feminist and all round do-gooder.  She died when she was 33 and had a 14 day funeral.  I think she was a bit like an Argentinian Princess Di.

Back to tango.  I donned my heels and flouncy skirt for my first private and quite expensive lesson with Ricardo.  He`s surly and a bit scary and an absolutely brilliant teacher.  We just got up and danced, some of it came back to me after all this time.  After an hour I was scooting across the floor, leg flicking and spinning around.  It`s a very intense class, just what I wanted.

I`d heard that shopping in Buenos Aires is excellent and I hit the shops hard.  It felt great to go home with 10 shopping bags and a new haircut.  It`s a funny thing about this place.  It`s the most sophisticated city I`ve ever seen.  It looks and feels rich and expensive but the economy collapsed overnight 5 years ago (how does that happen?) so it`s incredibly cheap.

Tango lesson number 2 was much harder.  A different girl tore apart my technique, I learnt a lot though…bitch.

Bev and Fiona (one of our new travelling buddies) were off to Southern Argentina the following day so we went out on the lash.  We started at about 1am in true Argentinian style and headed for Palermo, the trendy bar district.  We started off well, sitting in a nice bar chatting with two super friendly Argentinian girls.  Then we moved on and Fiona and I hit the bubbly (at 8GBP a bottle we had to).  An extremely posh group of very English people came in.  One of them, Indy, started talking to us.  He was wearing a Hackett shirt, corduroy jacket slung over his shoulder (probably Dickens and Jones) and super expensive jeans…in an attempt to look casual.  We talked for about 10 minutes and covered polo, how many languages him and his father (a Dubai businessman) spoke, a recent visit to the Sheritan hotel in New York, Tokyo and his graduation as a lawyer.  He wandered off and we discussed whether we were being prejudiced and anti-posh or whether he was actually a tosser.  Nevertheless we joined their table.  Thee was another boy, we`ll call him Prince William, and a bunch of girls who were lovely and had really good hair.  They all just became fully qualified lawyers.  At 3am we thought it high time we found a club and jumped into 2 cabs.  Prince William insisted on paying for ours, I began to feel uncomfortable.

Sorry, this long story has nothing to do with Argentina but it was a new experience for me and I have to write it down.

There was a queue outside the club.  Fiona and I started chatting to some locals, not at all fussed about waiting.  Next thing I know Indy herds us to the front of the queue and we walk straight in!  Turns out they told the bouncers how much they were going to spend and bought our way in.  I was mortified.  Prince William then nastily said to a security guy (in Spanish), I`ve paid for a table, I want an f`ing good table.  I went from mortified to livid, who did these people think they were?  Locals were turfed out of their seats to let these arrogant spoilt children and their newly bought friends park their expensively clad arses and order vodka by the bottle.  Surely it`s cringeworthy enough to flaunt cash like that in England, but in Argentina?

I was absolutely jumping, Indy put his arm around me, he never came on to me, he was just shmoosing his new friends.  I had to work hard not to smack him one.  I sat at a seperate table, bought my own drinks and bored this poor local guy stupid as I ranted about them.  Oh dear, I`ll never make it as an it girl.  Ironically, it was a very naff club (they played Vanilla Ice at one point) and within an hour or so thee were loads of spare tables.  It was all so unnecessary.

I think we got home at about 7am.  I hadn`t felt too drunk but the next day told me otherwise.  I was wrecked, a dodgy milanese chicken the night before added to my pain and I didn`t make it to tango, oops!

So now it`s my last day.  I`ve had a couple more tango lessons, seen another show and done even more shopping.  At 7pm I have to get a cab to the airport.  I arrive at about 5pm on Monday afternoon, UK time.  I feel funny.  All apprehensive but excited at the same time.  Wish I could just be there now and skip the whole 17 hour journey bit.

I won`t do a big emotional sum up of the trip and how it`s changed me because I have no idea what to say.  Maybe I won`t know until I get home.  I think it`s pretty obvious from this blog that it`s been a wonderful time though, I`ll leave it at that.

But thanks so much for reading everyone, your comments and emails have really meant a lot.

See most of you on Saturday and if not, very soon.

Maps
xxx

I spent a couple of days getting to know my way around, doing laundry, all that stuff. They have a metro system here which makes me feel like I´m in London. I got on in rush hour one day and rushed along at top speed like everyone else, not quite sure why. I visited the famous Copacabana beach, where the Stones played only a week ago. It´s vast and lined with a mixture of posh and ugly hotels behind which stand sugar loaf mountain and Christ the Redeemer. It was overwhelming to stand there in the heat, staring at the huge waves and seeing all those famous Rio landmarks. Then Bev arrived, yay! I haven´t seen Bev since I left London, she´s been travelling through Central America for 3 months and flew down to Rio for carnival. We didn´t do much on her first day here but ended up in an Irish bar (they´re bloody everywhere) until the early hours.

Friday 24th February

Officially the first day of the carnival. Beautiful Rio is surrounded by 300 favelas (slums), one of which was the subject of the film City of God. The slums are a mess of concrete structures like badly fitted together tetris blocks climbing up the sides of the mountains. Some are dangerous but some aren´t and we decided to take a tour into one of the safest - Rocinha. Before I continue, this is not dangerous. 20 odd tourists go in each day. The locals are used to it, they know the guide and it brings them money. The dealers have no interest in shooting up tourists. So, we drove to what seemed like a perfectly normal area at the bottom of the mountain which the favela clings to. From there we each hopped on to the back of a motorbike and sped up the hill, that was pretty cool, although a bit hairy at times with the traffic. When we hopped off at the top it seemed just like any poor neighbourhood in a South American city. I must admit from the film I´d expected the kind of slums you might see in South Africa or India. This was the business centre of it though, it got worse. 300,000 people live here. No-one pays tax or rent because you buy a piece of land (or someones rooftop as there´s no space left) and build. The property is yours and there´s nothing to tax you on. They don´t pay water rates because they knick it from the forest. The electricity poles have hundreds of cables coming out because they attach their own and steal the electric. This area is run by the ADA group of drug dealers. ADA stands for Friends of Friends (in Portuguese of course). With only one group managing the area there isn´t much fighting. Last October though the main guy was killed by the police. 9 of his main guys were then all killed within the favela, I guess as part of the power struggle. There is a photo of a little boy who´s dad was one of those men under the my photos link. Now things are stable and a new guy is set to take over. It´s generally a safe place to live because the guys who run it don´t want bad things to happen. If they do the police come and that´s bad for them. As we walked, our guide told us not to take pictures of certain things. One was a big black tank type thing, apparently the police. Another was a guy with a gun down his trousers! Seeing how they live was really interesting but it did feel a bit voyeuristic. Especially visiting the community centre with the kids, that felt like a zoo. But everyone was very friendly and it certainly changed my idea of what a favela is like.

That night we headed to a bloc party. These are unofficial parades organised by the locals. 6 of us walked there from the hostel, all uphill. By the time we got there I was awash with sweat. Actually, I´m always awash with sweat here, it´s boiling. We hit a wall of people and culture shock. There wasn´t really any music and the parade was just one truck with some guys on top singing the same song over and over. We couldn´t move, it was really claustrophobic and men grab you and try to kiss you. On top of all this we were tired and not in a drinking mood, the carnival spirit evaded us that night.

Saturday 25th February

Well, nice to wake up without a hangover at least. I should say something about the food here. Everywhere you turn cafes sell beer and salgados. They´re like little snacks, pasties and balls of stodgy potato type stuff filled with chicken or beef. They´re absolutely delicious and I´ve eaten nothing else. I don´t know how everyone isn´t obese here.

Today we did something I wouldn´t dream of doing in England, went to a football match! A local derby between Flamengo and Botafogo, neighbouring districts. The astmosphere was great. Some of the chants I recognised but most of them are more like samba music, complete with drums. The drums start, they sing a couple of lines, then they all jump around and dance. It seems less agro than English matches, they even sell beer. The match was great, I got much more into it than I´d expected to. I even shouted ¨hoof it¨ at one point and I nearly wet myself whenever they scored. We were sitting in the Flamengo side so obviously we supported them, they won 3-2.

Our night out was much more successful, maybe something to do with the alcohol we drank before leaving the hostel. Some local brew that tasted like (and had the effect of) prune juice. We headed to a gorgeous area called Santa Teresa and this time the carnival was in full swing. We danced with some locals to live music from the stage. The people here are unbelievably friendly, more so than anywhere else I´ve been. When I told the lady we couldn´t speak Portuguese she had her little girl translate into Spanish for us. In another area we stopped to dance with an impromptu samba band. Great fun but slightly ruined by the unbelievable stench of wee. No-one bothers to stop partying long enough to find a toilet. I saw some real sights here, one lady/man wearing a sequin thong and nothing else who had the most amazing boobs kind of sticks in my mind! We followed the sound of drums again, this time into a warehouse. Another band were playing and beautiful girls shook parts of their bodies in total isolation to the rest of them. We just watched in awe. A great night.

Sunday 26th February

After a lie in we headed to Copacabana beach for a couple of hours of sun. It was definitely enough to turn me quite pink on one side. Beaches at the weekends are full of locals. They set up bars all the way along and play beach volleyball in speedos and tiny bikinis. Such an amazing culture here, these people really love life. I´ve slightly fallen in love with their language too. I don´t know about Portuguese in Portugal but here it´s gorgeous. I like speaking Spanish but I much prefer the sound of Portuguese, wish I could speak that too.

In the afternoon we were booked to go hang-gliding. I was so excited and nervous that when the call came to cancel due to weather conditions I was gutted. All that adrenalin for nothing. We were re-booked for Tuesday though. Instead we went up to Christ the Redeemer, the statue of Jesus with his arms out standing high above the city. The view is unbelievable, the city seems to have squeezed itself inbetween the mountains and the sea with a man made lake in the middle which is apparently meant to be in the shape of a heart. The statue is amazing too, he looks very serene standing there with his arms outstretched. I hope pigeons don´t land on him. We saw sunset from Ipanema beach, by far the most beautiful one, and went home for a night in. Tomorrow night is the big one, the all night parade so we needed some kip.

Monday 27th February

I tried to do some official things today, not realising that everything shuts for carnival. With no-one getting any sleep I suppose they don´t bother going to work in the morning, fair enough. In the afternoon we headed to Sugar Loaf mountain. Because of it´s shape it was named after the ceramic mould that was used in the process of sugar refining back in the day. Anyway, it´s pretty cool looking and you can get a cable car up to the top for another fantastic view over Rio. This time we did it for sunset, great to be up there while the sun goes down and the lights start to come on. I must admit the cable car freaked me out a little bit though, it´s as big as a pod on the London eye and it sways around a bit too much, I started to have doubts about hang-gliding at this point!

During carnival there are the un-official parties going on everywhere which I´ve already talked about. The stuff you see on TV is the big parade in the purpose built sambadrome. The samba schools parade for about 45 minutes each, with all the floats and amazing costumes, it´s a competition with first and second division schools and they take it very seriously. Most schools have around 5,000 people in the parade! We´d booked tickets months ago back in England and managed to get fantastic seats right near the front. The sambadrome is like a grandstand which goes up really high, kind of reminds me of a quidditch match. The parade runs from 9pm to 7am, watching all those sequins for that amount of time is impossible so we showed up at 11pm and saw it through to the end, very surreal to be there while the sun comes up. The parade was absolutely spectacular, some of the floats are unbelievable. There´s all the traditional stuff with the bikini clad girls and all the feathers and glitz on totally over the top floats but there´s also some really clever stuff with the way they use the floats too. One of them had a giant UFO which came in to land and dancers dressed as aliens poured out of it. Another one had a stage with curtains on all 4 sides. The curtains would open to reveal 20 Elvis Presleys dancing away, then close and open again to reveal 20 Michael Jacksons or 20 James Browns, very clever. It was an amazing night that I´ll never forget.

Tuesday 28th February

After rolling in at 8am in the morning, we weren´t up to much during the day. Just sitting around getting more and more nervous about hang-gliding! Oh my god, this was absolutely mind blowing. We actually ended up para-gliding rather than hang-gliding because there were so many people flying that day we would´ve had to wait ages. Hang-gliding is when you lie down and hang on to a triangular metal frame with the wings attached to the top. Para-gliding is sitting down attached to a parashoot. It actually worked out for the best as you get more time para-gliding. There was a lot of waiting around while they got everything ready for us, that didn´t help the nerves. We drove up to the top of a cliff which overlooks mountains, a beach and the favela we´d visited earlier. Bev was to go first, she got strapped into the harness and walked to the edge of the ramp to be attached to our instructor, obviously it´s a tandem flight! The ramp is actually angled down instead of up so you literally feel like you´re walking off the edge of a cliff, which is infact exactly what you have to do. I watched Bev as she took off, screaming, and whizzed off into the air, terrifying. When it came to my turn the sun was starting to set and I was pretty much the last one to go. I stood on the edge of the ramp, feeling seriously uncomfortable and unsafe in the harness and walked two steps forward waiting for the shoot to yank us off the ground. Unfortunately the wind was too strong at first and we had 3 missed attemps at take off. I´ve never been more scared, it would kind of pull us but then not so I´d end up sitting on my bum on the edge of this cliff not knowing if we were going to be dragged forward or up or what. I almost couldn´t go through with it, but you don´t have much choice by that point. Eventually we got away, wow, what an amazing feeling. You just seem to float in mid-air, hundreds of metres above the city, looking out over the sea at the sunset. I could´ve cried. We stayed up for about 20 minutes, it felt like a lot longer. We twisted and turned and did some spirals, that thing where the pilot flys in circles and seems to be spiraling out of control towards the ground, wasn´t so keen on that bit. Then he let me drive it for a bit, very strange to be holding these two bits of string knowing that if you let go you´ll be plummeting to the ground. We landed right next to the beach, landing is much nicer than taking off, you just kind of stand up and start running as you reach the ground. I think my legs started peddling quite a way before that though!

After such an adrenalin rush I was ready for a big night out. It was the last night of carnival so everyone in the hostel was up for a party. We went to Lapa, an area of Rio where there is always a big party going on. I had a great time, dancing around, drinking capirihnas, soaking up the carnival atmosphere. I even had an hour long conversation with a local who had absolutely no English. I don´t know how we managed it with the language barrier but I feel like I know her pretty well! As the sun came up and our hostel started to serve breakfast, we trudged home. A really great end to carnival.

Now I´ve got another day or two here (I don´t want to leave, might throw a tantrum) before heading down to Iguazu falls, a massive set of waterfalls on the Argentinian and Brazilian borders. Then I´ll be spending my last week in Buenos Aires learning tango, I hope I´m better at that than I am at samba!

There´s loads of new photos of the carnival and Rio, I´m afraid my camera couldn´t cope with the parade too well but there are some good ones.

See you all in a couple of weeks!

In Bolivia, in fact in almost all countries I´ve visited, if you give someone a large note to pay for something they react as if you´ve just taken their first born.  They´ll spend at least 10 minutes dramatically insisting they couldn´t possibly give you the change.  Then, when they realise they´ll lose the sale, they miraculously produce the cash.

Customer service doesn´t exist.  If you´re asking the lady behind the counter what time the bus leaves and how much it is and someone else comes up, you´re likely to stop being served while she has a natter with them.  One morning in Uyuni I ordered my pancake and coffee just as 10 army guys came.  They all politely buenos dias´d me as they sat at the next table, stinking of aftershave.  The snail pace waiter acted like he had a rocket up his ass and my little order was entirely forgotten until all the soldiers had their eggs.  Admittedly the 15 rifles propped up against the wall may have had something to do with it.

Having said that, Bolivia isn´t as hard for travellers as I expected.  The people are very friendly and straight forward here.  The physical act of travelling is more tricky than say Peru, only 5% of the roads here are sealed.  Also there isn´t as much to do for backpackers because they haven´t fully realised their tourism potential yet.

Bolivia is known for drugs.  It´s a shame.  For thousands of years Bolivians (and other South Americans) have grown coca.  Coca leaves are a huge part of their society and tradition.  They drink it as tea, chew it and exchange the leaves rather than shaking hands.  Coca has absolutely no negative affect on health and to become addicted you would have to chew a shed load of it.  I wouldn´t have coped with the altitude without chewing coca leaves.  Then North America got an appetite for putting the refined stuff up their noses.  Demand grew and so did supply.  Now Bush, with his war on drugs, is pumping money into finding and eradicating the coca growers.  But of course the supply only moves from region to region because as long as North Americans want it, South Americans will grow it.  Ironically, the new Bolivian president comes from a family of coca growers!

Despite all this stuff, I feel like right now Bolivia has the most potential of all the countries I´ve seen.  I´ve thought about how I can do my little bit when I get home by donating to charity but in this continent it is an absolute minefield.  With all of these corrupt governments, getting help to the right people seems almost impossible sometimes.  But right now Bolivia is the poorest country with the most promising government it´s ever had.  It feels like a country on the verge of much better things.

I´ll get off my soapbox now.

On my birthday we went to see some dinosaur footprints.  The cynical me assumed they weren´t real!  For some reason Jurassic Park filled my mind and I´d subconciously reached the decision that dinosaurs are fictional.  No Sharleen, that´s dragons.

The prints were found on a vertical wall by the workers who were blasting the area for cement.  That was back in the 40s, they didn´t know what they were looking at but word got around and by 1994 (no-one rushes here) the paleontologists came over from Europe to check it out.  Now the workers are still dynamiting very close to the wall.  We even felt a couple of explosions while we were there.  We wandered around the site as our guide pointed out the different tracks.  At first I said ¨they have to be fake, how did they walk up a vertical wall?¨  Our guide explained it was once flat, then the tectonic plates moved and pushed it up, whatever.  About 6 different types of dinosaurs hung out here, it was a busy little spot.  We saw tracks of mothers and babies walking together and some where the dinosaur had broken into a run.  The stone is soft and constantly falling away so new tracks show up all the time.  It was really interesting and, of course, real.

In the evening we went out for a mediocre dinner vastly improved by a bottle of wine and swapping embarrassing teenage stories.  Sometime later I found myself being sung happy birthday to by the entire bar whilst wearing a silver hard hat with a lit candle on it and drinking a flaming shot through a straw!  Random.  It was a great night, I even managed to dance a bit of salsa with a local and fall into a wall on the way home.  The rest of my time in Sucre is a blur of shopping and watching cable TV.  Rolf Harris is much better dubbed into Spanish.  There was also an interesting incident when we tried to use the gas oven in the hostel and I lost the hairs on my right arm.

Now I´ve had to say goodbye to the girls.  That was really sad, travelling with someone for 2 months is a pretty intense way of forming a friendship.  I don´t know how I would´ve managed the food poisoning and fear of the dark in the depths of Peru without them.  They made Christmas and New Year really special too.

After saying our goodbyes I headed to Santa Cruz, about a half hour flight away.  I was only supposed to be here for one night and I´d booked a 4 star hotel to treat myself.  It turned out to be 3 nights because of problems with the airline, life´s hard.  It was lovely: swimming pool, air con, things I could steal from the bathroom.  Only problem with staying in such places is you don´t meet anyone.  None of the other guests want to interact, they´re older and on business so it can be a bit lonely.  The flight to Sao Paolo in Brazil was pretty frought, lots of turbulence and what felt like 3 attemps to descend for landing.  I didn´t have an onward ticket to Rio but was desperate to get up there quickly and managed to get on a flight within 2 hours.  Another interesting one which involved fork lightning and even more turbulence.  I felt like I was in that film Airplane, I thought any minute now we´ll all have to line up to slap the most hysterical passenger.

I finally hit the hostel at about 10, having met some great people to share a cab with.  It felt so daunting to arrive in a new country, again.  On my own, again.  With the bloody language barrier, again.  Daunting but actually really refreshing.  I feel like I did in my first few weeks, all timid and lost but too scared to ask anyone because I don´t know the words!

From the little of seen of Rio so far it´s amazing and totally different to anywhere else I´ve been.  Next Brazil update should be mid or post carnival, depending on how nocturnal I become!

One night I went to a gringo bar and watched City of God, a Brazilian film about the favelas (slums) in Rio, based on a true story.  Such an excellent film, weirdly Guy Ritchie in style.

For the first few days I was pretty much on my own, which prompted a bout of self analysis.  I might post those diary entries later.  As ever, I met people as time went by and ended up having a wonderful day with Hannah and Katalina who I met on the bus journey here, plus Michael and Cristoff who I met in the hostel.

The 5 of us decided to go for a hike.  We got the details of where to go from a travel agency, we would´ve gone with them until we realised it was $25 per person.  That´s a lot for a 5 hour hike but as the guide put it “You´re tourists so you have a lot of money.”  That was the end of him.  Armed with the name of the village to start at and Michael´s GPS, we set off.

The taxi took us to the beginning of a dirt track which led to the village 13km away.  From here we had to grab a lift with one of the trucks heading that way.  This isn´t dangerous.  When buses don´t go somewhere the local trucks and vans become substitute buses, they even have a small set charge.  In fact, hitch hiking in South America is a very common and safe practice.  So anyway, our `bus´ was a big flatbed truck.  We climbed in the back amongst the builders sand and, grinning widely, clung on for dear life as we headed up the mountain road.  The scenery was stunning.  When you´re in it, open air, smelling it and ducking from the passing trees, it becomes so much more special.  4 or 5 locals hopped in and out of the truck as we went and one helpful guy offered to show us the way.  We never really found the actual trail but it didn´t matter.  We had a great walk through a couple of tiny traditional villages.  What a treat to go somewhere other gringo´s don´t.  We spotted an amazing building in the distance it was once a very grand colonial style mansion which is now derelict.  We decided to check it out.  On the way we encountered a pack of dogs who were pretty upset by us being there.  5 small children emerged from what I thought was another derelict building to see what was going on.  Turns out they all live there, their parents had gone to Sucre all day and they had to stay at home to look after the dogs, pigs and chickens!  It´s amazing the lives that different children across the world live, can you imagine that happening to you Dan and Tab?  (Niece and nephew)  Another family were working on the land just in front of the old mansion.  Two little boys were playing at sliding down the hill on two old plastic bottles that had been squashed flat and arranged in a cross shape.  A 19 year old girl and her parents were nearby.  They were so happy to talk to us and let us see the place.  The dad was attaching a wooden bar between the heads of two bulls, while the mum looked on.  They work 3 hours per day to cultivate a patch of land shared by the whole village.  What they can´t grow they trade their crops for in Sucre.  What an interesting encounter.

We had lunch of bread, cheese and sausage down by the river and were joined by a century old woman with no teeth who invited us for tea!  On the way back the village was in full party preperation mode.  A local girl had her 15th birthday, a very big deal in South America.  For a village with very little facilities they certainly had a good sound system.  They offered Michael some of the local brew and even invited us to stay and dance.  How I would´ve loved to do that, but we had to make our way back.  That was definitely a day I´ll never forget.

On Sunday me, Justine, Pippa, Hannah and Katalina went to a local village for the famous market.  Some of the communities around here are known for their weavings.  I´ve become addicted to these gorgeous textiles and am on the look out for one to hang on my office wall.  The market was great, although having my arm constantly grabbed by sellers with arms full of blankets started to wind me up.  I had a serious lesson in bargaining from Katalina, she´s really good at it, much tougher than I am.  Anyway, I never found the right textile for the right prce, there´s still time.

So now I´m nicely settled into my own hotel room here.  I even unpacked my bag and arranged my toiletries on the shelf, that´s a nice feeling.  Katalina and Hannah have left Sucre for La Paz sadly, but not before giving me a beautiful birthday present.  I´d commented on how much I liked Kat´s earing so she gave me the other one!  Really lovely of them.  On my birthday I´m planning to go and see the nearby dinosaur footprints then go out dancing with Pip and Jus.  Valentines day is definitely cancelled.  As long as the Bolivian airline stops striking I should be on my way to Brazil on Sunday.

By the time we arrived in Uyuni, we´d multiplied to a group of about 7 gringos all heading there for the same reason, so we trekked around the one horse town together at 3am, looking for somwehere to kip. After breakfast the next day in a joint entirely made of salt (the floor was loose salt, like snow, very cool) we got out of our hell hole of a hostel to find something with flushing toilets, this really is a small town. If it weren´t for the tours that run from here I reckon it would be a ghost town. We met up with Deirdre and Paul (a lovely Irish couple who did the Inca trail with Jus) and hit the tour agencies to find the best deal.

With that sorted and full of excitement for the next day, we headed to minuteman pizza, oh good god. Who would´ve thought that I would be eating a pizza with olives, sun dried tomatoes and gorgonzola washed down with a glas of sangria. Thank god for expat gringos who set these places up, my stomach hasn´t been so happy with me for a very long time.

So this salt flat thing, basically there´s a 9000km area which is a blanket of salt. In the dry season it´s white and cracked, now it´s covered in water, up to a metre deep in places. Because of this we could only drive a short way in. 9 of us in total (us 3, Deirdre and Paul, 2 Argentinians, the driver and the cook) piled into an ancient Toyota Landcruiser, the bottom of it hanging out. Just before driving on to the flats we all climbed on to the roof rack to get a better view.

It really is other worldly. With about a foot of water in every direction, everything appears twice, once the right way up and once reflected upside down. There´s no visible horizon. Purple and yellow monet clouds reflect and make strange mirror images like you´re looking through a kaleidoscope. When the low clouds are reflected they look like the pictures psychologists might hold up and ask what they make you think of. The hills look really weird. They don´t go into the ground, instead they go into a perfect reflection of themselves so that they look like pieces of rock suspended in mid-air, like platforms on a video game. If sonic the hedgehog jumped on them they would dip and then fall away when he jumped off.

We stopped at the salt hotel, yes it is entirely made of salt, to walk around and take pictures. With jeans rolled up and bare feet we winced and yelped as we walked through the water covering the prickly layer of salt. There were loads of tour groups unfortunately. One group of hideous testosterone filled Kiwi boys had their guide take a picture of them all lined up mooning, brilliant.

After being rushed back on to the truck (I hate guided tours but sometimes it´s the only way) we drove off the salt and headed south towards the Reserva Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaroa, catchy.

I almost can´t bring myself to write about this because the pain is too fresh in my mind. Basically we spent almost the entirely 3 days squashed into the car, receiving no information from our so called guide who insisted on driving at 40km per hour. As he repeatedly got lost and drove like a learner it became obvious that he was totally inexperienced. We were hours behind all the other tour groups and as a result had much less time at each locaton and ate 3 hours after everyone else, it was the most frustrating experience. The accommodation was basic (no showers) and the food was basic but fine. Had it not been for the 8 bottles of wine, 3 tubes of Pringles and 32 mars bars we´d packed I´m not sure we would´ve made it through.

On the plus side, the landscape was amazing. Red dusty land with bits of spikey green scrub and the beautiful snow capped Andes in the background. We saw lagunas in blue, red and green (something to do with micro-organisms in there, our guide didn´t know) and hundreds of flamingos, which are officially my favourite birds.

We saw a variety called James flamingos (hee hee) which look mainly white until they fly when you can see their black and flourescent pink wings. They run really stupidly as they come in to land, little pink stick legs flying everywhere. We also saw loads of llamas, especially babies. They´re adorable animals who also run in a really stupid way. The owners for some reason tie red ribbons to their ears, adding to their cutenes.

One morning we set off at 5am in-15 degrees to see the geysers. I broke my previous altitude record here by hitting 5000m! The geysers are boiling pools of mud and sulphur. It stinks like a thousand rotten eggs. The pools burble and plop away at 150 degrees, it reminds me of the bog of eternal stench from the film Princess Bride. Of course being Bolivia there were no safety measures, you can get as close as you like and poor Paul got spat on by boiling mud, he didn´t get burned though. When the pressure from the underground heat gets too much shoots of sulphurus steam go up high into the air, pretty cool.

So the landscape went a long way to make up for the discomfort, which was added to by the fact that I find it really hard to go to the loo outdoors, the only option most of the time. I get stage fright squatting behind a wall with the Andes mountains glaring down at me. I can´t even tell you how much I´m enjoying having a toilet right now.

The company helped too, one night after much wine we played stupid games until the early hours and ended up lying in bed singing at the tops of our lungs. All of us were in the same room and we each sang our national anthem. I was the only English, I´ve never put so much feeling into God Save The Queen! Other numbers included It´s a Long Way to Tipperary, Oasis´ Wonderwall and Stand By Me.

It was a trip I was really looking forward to and I´m still glad I did it but I wish we´d had a guide who´d done it more than once before (as we discovered).

So now I´m back in Uyuni. Justine, Pip, Deirdre and Paul all headed south east to a town that didn´t appeal to me. I´ll be heading north to Sucre tomorrow and staying there for over a week before flying to another town called Santa Cruz then over to Brazil. If all goes to plan Jus and Pip should join me in a few days for our last stop together.

Sorry for the lack of photos within this page, haven´t got the software here, but there are lots of new ones of La Paz and the tour under the my photos link.

Right, I´m off to eat another gorgonzola pizza.

Copacabana is said to be the folklore capital of Bolivia. There´s all sorts of crazy legends about the lake and the Catholic stuff is pretty big here too. The Brazilian Copacabana is named after this one because of the important Catholic shrine here. It´s a pretty, albeit run down little town at a very high altitude, the summit reaches 4200m. Initially we checked into a pretty basic hostel (non-flushing toilets) but when we realised it was costing us 60p per night we upgraded to one with private bathroom and a view of the lake all for 1.20GBP! This place is frighteningly cheap.

One of the first differences we noticed was that all the cars, trucks and buses were elaborately decorated with fresh flowers.

At first I thought it was a wedding and peered through the window as they drove past, oops. Then I realised they all had it. We discovered that people from all over Bolivia drive their cars up here to get them blessed outside the church (they even slosh holy water on the engines), crazy. This is a very religious country. Getting into the spirit, Jus and Pip asked a couple of nuns for a blessing as they´ve been quite poorly recently. It just so happened that mass that night included a blessing for health. Off they trotted in the best clothes they could find in their backpacks. I couldn´t cope with sitting through mass, it feels wrong as a non-believer, but I crept in at the end to watch them up at the front, covered in a cloth, being blessed. On the way out some guy dipped a carnation into a bowl of holy water and dripped it on my head, shoulders and hand.

We just happened to have rolled into town in time for the fiesta of abundance. This was wonderful. Everyone buys miniatures of what they want to achieve in the future and takes them up to the summit for a ceremony. We decided to make our own but the streets were lined with stalls selling the funniest things. Favourites were miniature wads of dollars or little houses and cars. It got pretty surreal though, some stalls sold little piles of bricks, sacks of coca leaves, mini tins of evaporated milk, ceramic bulls, all sorts. At the summit we observed how the locals did it then took part ourselves, we were the only gringos there. We bought our square foot of earth, flower petals and streamers to decorate it and beer to splash around. An old guy who seemed to be somehow in charge but was totally legless, gave us a certificate for our patch of earth then began the ritual. He said lots of very serious sounding stuff we couldn´t understand while splashing beer on our decorated miniatures then threw some beer over the edge and on to the lake below. He then took a pretty serious gulp of it himself as we watched on in bewilderment. This went on for quite a while, he even splashed some beer on my head at one point but he definitely drank more than he splashed. After he´d wobbled off to initiate someone else´s ceremony we did a bit of beer slooshing and well wishing ourselves and even slooshed on to some other people´s plots to wish them good luck.

It was a unique experience, great to get involved and no-one seemed to mind our presence, although they seemed a bit confused by our miniatures, we´d gone a bit Blue Peter, an empty toilet roll was used.

We found it hard to drag ourselves away from this little town, especially knowing we were headed for the big brash capital of La Paz.

I think Bolivia is the poorest, least developed country in South America. How then, can it have such a lovely, non-threatening capital? Compared to the likes of Guatemala and Nicaragua´s capitals it´s a dream. OK, it´s big and ugly in places. It´s set in a crater and the buildings cling all the way up the sides of it, especially the slums. It´s full-on, busy, loud and with horrendous traffic but it has a nice personality. The police and military presence is massive and they look terrifying. Some are done up like full on riot police, most of them have tear gas guns and canisters in their vests. Political uprisings aren´t uncommon and they like tear gas to disperse any rowdy crowds. However, this is a very good time to be here. In Copacabana we watched the brand new President on TV doing his first speech. This wouldn´t normally be big news, they get a new President almost every year but this guy is indigenous (the first ever in South America) and apparently not corrupt, yet. Bolivians are very happy right now. Imagine our surprise then when, innocently standing in the square, chatting to some friends and watching a military flag ceremony, 3 official looking vehicles screech to a halt in front of us and out hops el Presidente and about 15 bodyguards! We were dumbfounded. He waved at the cheering passers by (including us) and ran into the Presidential Place which we were unknowingly standing in front of.

Good god, how many crazy, wonderful experiences is this trip going to contain? I think I might pop.

So now we´re hanging in La Paz. I had a wonderful day of retail therapy followed by a hairdresser appointment (yes, the black is back). We´ve got some official stuff to do like flights and post and the girls will probably do this crazy bike ride down the most dangerous road in the world (I won´t be), then we´ll head south to the salt flats.

That´s going to be another crazy experience, I think I need to lie down.

The animal cruelty has been a shock too, I try to remember that in England we treat dogs as well as we treat our kids. Here they´re just dumb animals and besides, the kids often aren´t treated that well either.

I think Peru contained one of my best weeks, just after new years when we saw the sacred valley, Machu Picchu and of course the slightly life changing white water rafting. I still look at white water and want to be on it.

I´ve reached a point here with my Spanish where I don´t get anxious anymore. That´s not to say I´m brilliant, far from it, but I suprised myself with a torrent of decently formed sentences when I got into a shouting match with yet another lying bus company. Seemingly anger helps, alcohol definitely does.

I´ve decided whilst in Peru that I´m going to embrace my Englishness, because I really am bloody English. On the Titicaca trip were a couple of Brazilian families. Lovely people, so un-English. Two of the adolescent girls stripped off to very skimpy bikinis and jumped into the lake, followed by about 10 pairs of male Peruvian eyes. Their dad was right there and he didn´t care! One bikini clad girl sat back down with everyone and proceeded to bash a tambourine and sing in a shrill voice. Myself and another English girl stared on as we sat there, cross legged, very covered up and quietly reading our books. Next an Argentinian guy got up and started crazily waving a Peruvian flag around, then the super gay Belgians got up and started dancing topless in the style of party boy from Jackass. This was all too much for me to handle so I shuffled off below deck muttering about sunburm. I´m a prude and I don´t care!

I think Brazil might be a bit of a challenge for me. I might ditch my idea of dressing up and dancing in the carnival parade. I would probably be incredibly awkward and uncomfortable with all those g-strings and nipple tassles. I think watching will have to do.

I planned this trip so loosely that all I knew I wanted to do in Peru/Bolivia was Lake Titicaca. It´s the highest navigable lake in the world at 3800m. The lake spans the Peru and Bolivia border so we started on the Peruvian side. We visited as part of a tour that would include an overnight stay with a family, all very touristy but very cool.

As well as regular islands, there are 38 floating islands, created in pre-Inca times, they´re made of reeds, piled 3 metres deep and as the reeds at the bottom rot away they pile more on top. It feels really squishy to walk on. The people fish trout and catfish from the lake and trade them on the mainland. I don´t think their lives have changed much over the last few hundred years.

It took 4 hours on the boat to reach the natural island of Amantani. I spent the whole time lying down in the boat, the altitude was making me feel seriously nauseous. On the island we were assigned a family for the 3 of us, this was the closest I´d been to really traditional Peruvian life. The house was a few rooms off a muddy courtyard with a seperate kitchen in a mud hut, a non-flushing toilet also in a mud hut and a few sheep milling around. The matresses were made of something crunchy and underneath them was a layer of reeds. There was no shower, no running water and no electricity. From what we could tell 3 generations lived in the house and the girls all wore the traditional brightly coloured full skirt, white embroidered blouse and long black embroidered scarf worn over the head. Lunch consisted of soup followed by potatoes, a fried egg and tomato, washed down with coca tea. Potato is a big part of the diet here, they grow black, purple and yellow ones.

After lunch we climbed a further 650m (can´t believe I hit 4100m) to the summit of the island for a fiesta celebrating mother earth. This only happens once a year so we were pretty lucky although our altitude was so bad that we took forever to climb and missed most of it. Still we saw one community dancing along the top of the mountain waving flags and playing flutes, all very Andean. Our tour guide had abandoned us and we ended up being shown around by the 7 year old son of our host mum. Although we missed the main fiesta we had a fantastic walk back down the house.

Dinner was the same soup followed by rice and potates washed down with coca tea. We were starting to struggle with the stodge. Then things got really weird, Libia (our host mum) brought us all traditional clothes to wear up to the community hall for a spot of dancing. It was pretty cool getting dressed up and trekking up the terraced fields in the dark (I had a torch this time, see previous entry). Dancing felt like being at a school disco in a village hall. 3 guys played traditional Andean music while the locals pulled us up to swirl our skirts around in a really monotonous but quite fun traditional dance. It was really touristy, they do it every night and you could tell the locals were a bit over it.

When we got home we could hear a grown man balling his eyes out. Libia´s dad, who danced in the fiesta, had a few too many beers and had to be carried back to the house and put to bed. I must admit it seemed like the whole community was pretty drunk.

The next morning (after sleeping in all my clothes under 4 alpaka blankets) breakfast was some kind of deep-fried batter, pure fat. This time we resorted to taking some with us so as not to offend. We headed to another island called Taquile, a smaller and even more traditional place. Here the men knit their own hats (like bobble hats with bits that cover your ears and pom poms hanging off two bits of string). Single men wear a certain type shaped like a cone. The top, floppy bit is bent over to the right if they don´t have a girlfriend and to the left if they do. If they´re not looking they flop it backwards (the little boys wear it this way too). The married men wear a different type of hat which they make themselves. It takes them 1 month to knit and it looks like really intricate embroidery. The married guys also knit a bag for coca leaves and they greet each other by exchanging leaves rather than shaking hands.

Lake Titicaca was everything I hoped and we still have the Bolivian side to see. We´re all pretty nervous aobut Bolivia, it´s the least touristy country and famous for food poisoning and altitude sickness, something we´ve all had enough of. We head there in a day or two.

As for my mental state, I still feel like coming home, I´m pretty exhausted and the hardest bit is yet to come. One month in Bolivia will be tough. Just the idea of carnival is wearing me out! I´m kind of craving the Heathrow arrivals lounge now that I´ve got less than two months to go. I feel like I just want to spend the next 7 weeks in somewhere like Buenos Aires learning tango and having a nice time. I think after people have been travelling for a while they need to stop somewhere for a bit. Maybe we´ll find somewhere in Bolivia to do that. If not, I can always change my plans and go somewhere more developed to sit tight for a while, who knows.

Arequipa is a nice enough place with a very pretty mian square but after Cusco it was nothing special. However, and this is going to sound really gringo, we found a fantastic place for falafel and ate there almost every day.

The town is worth a visit purely for the St Catalina Monastery, an amazing mini town founded by the Spanish invaders. It´s a maze of bedrooms and kitchens once inhabited by nuns. Apparently it was set up by a really well off order and they all lived pretty nicely. Then the Dominican order came in, they´re one of the most servere ones so I reckon they shook things up a bit. It closed down pretty soon after, although nuns of that order live there now (we saw them hanging up their knickers, hee, hee).

Near to Arequipa is the Colca Canyon, over 3000 metres deep it´s deeper than the grand canyon and people visit to watch the condors there early in the morning. On the way we stayed in a place called Yanque, possibly the most remote place I´ve seen so far. Our hotel was a family affair with chickens and guinea pigs in the garden (definitely not for pets might I add). The husband escorted us down to the hot springs via some fantastic scenery of canyons and ancient inca terracing. While we soaked ourselves it became dark, not something I´d thought about when he showed us the dirt track to return by later. For those of you who don´t know, I´m scared of the dark, pathetic at 26 I know. The road was pitch black and a bit treacherous what with the steep drop into the canyon on one side. As we began walking I started to suffer from altitude and couldn´t breath very well. What with that and the terror of not being able to see, I had a bit of a melt down and we had to ask the guy at the baths to help us. He flagged down a car which must´ve contained 10 people already. Unbelievably the driver squeezed the 3 of us into the boot and away we went, all tangled and foetal with me snivelling like a child. We stopped a couple of times while the driver got out and kicked the side of the car that sounded like it had no tyres. Before you freak, family, this wasn´t a silly, dangerous thing to do, there were women and children in the car too and we asked for the help of a local.

The next day we went to the Cruz Del Condor, a great look out point. The view was great but I couldn´t really enjoy it as I felt like I might vomit at any moment, I hate altitude sickness. Peru is definitely the country of dodgy tummies too, all 3 of us have had constant problems.

I must admit I´ve had a few days now of feeling like I´m ready to go home. I think it´s the constant bus trips and illness. I also feel like if my trip finished now I would´ve had an amazing time already. I need to find the extra motivation for the next couple of months. Next stop is Lake Titicaca, on both the Peru and Bolivians sides. Hopefully we´ll all have a great time and I´ll be back on track.