Copacabana is errr... Shall we say, not as exotic as expected! Nonetheless, it´s still an interesting place to stay with plenty of culture and people-watching opportunities. Firstly, we did our duty and visited the local Cathedral, noted for the Black Madonna. The main Cathedral was rather unexceptional, but the Chapel for the Black Madonna was very highly decorated with plenty of devotees keeping an eagle eye out for heathens. Luckily, we passed muster and sat inside the Chapel for a few moments. The Cathedral took nearly 200 years to complete and was finished by around 1860. Another duty [View Full Entry]

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Just thought I would do a quick entry on the foods and drinks of Bolivia and Peru! Not for the squeamish.... The beer here is rather good - very typical, European lager-type beer, that´s very drinkable! In La Paz, brewing beer is rather hit and miss because of the altitude - water boils at a mere 83 degrees rather than 100 elsewhere. Another alcoholic drink is Pisco Sour. Every time I drank it, I could picture the look of horror that would be on my mother´s face if she were to see me! The base is some sort of local firewater [View Full Entry]

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Today, we left the Isla del Sol to move toward Peru. Met up with the bus at Copacabana and crossed the border into Peru. After jumping the usual bureaucractic hoops at both borders, we arrived at our hotel in Puno at lunchtime. After lunch, we took the option of visiting the Uros Islands on Lake Titicaca. Those islands are made entirely out of reeds grown in the lake and are floating islands with unique Islanders. The boat passed various birdlife including ducks with bright blue bills and what looked like moorhens. We also passed what used to be an Island Prison, [View Full Entry]

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Today, after a night spent trying to regulate my heartbeat, we moved on to the Isla del Sol on Lake Titicaca. Rob took the walking option while I took a taxi (for unpleasant reasons, I needed to be near a bathroom). The taxi followed a dirt track along the shoreside of Titicaca, all I could see were reed beds, some ducks and various birdlife. No other vehicles, the most high powered being laden donkeys, herded by old ladies. After an hour, I arrived at the rendevous point for meeting the others. It was an extremely basic hostel although the ladies were [View Full Entry]

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The hotel room we had was lovely. First time, I think, I´ve had a sheer rock face complete with a tree root for a bathroom wall. The shower was at best extremely tepid and weak. At worst, it was very cold and weak. Never mind - the view from the bedroom window was worth every single Inca Step and drop of frozen water. We had a lovely bay window with 3 big windows, all overlooking Lake Titicaca. After the storm of the previous night, the air was lovely and clear. Had a leisurely breakfast, during which we discovered that walking up [View Full Entry]

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Yesterday we visited Tiwanaku, an important pre-Inca settlement, some 50km or so out of La Paz, up on the High Plateau. We left after a breakfast consisting of mate de coca (which is delicious!) and a small, buffet breakfast. Climbed up to El Alto at 4050m. We had stunning views of La Paz on the way up. Going through El Alto was fascinating as it was Market Day, so the place was absolutely crammed and packed of local flavour. We didn´t stop but our heads swivelled and eyes were spinning to catch everything. The bus then drove along the High Plateau, [View Full Entry]

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Have now spent 4 days in La Paz and it´s a fascinating city. We arrived at 6am(!) before dawn at El Alto Airport, the worlds´ highest airport. The runway is 5km long to allow planes time to slow down! The plane did take a long time to slow down due to the thinner air at altitude but it was a perfectly smooth landing. All went well through customs etc and we met up with our driver to take us to the hotel in central La Paz. Checked in. Went to sleep! Woke up a few hours later, feeling more or less [View Full Entry]

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Well, had a rather bumpy flight over the Atlantic! We are safely on terra firma, so no worries there and the weather was very good during the flight - I had lovely views of a rather cold-looking Atlantic with the odd boat! For some reason there seemed to be a lot of cross wind today and the flight went through a 2-hour stage of bumping and creaking all over the place. Unfortunately, 5 hours in the flight while we were crashing about inside the cabin, someone behind us fell over in the bathroom and cracked her head open. Ouch! Naturally, a [View Full Entry]

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Well... Departure is imminent. The cats have gone to their holiday home, backpacks are packed, currency has been purchased and all that's left to do is pack away my trusty laptop and give my mobile a full charge up. Nothing edible left in fridge, but I'm enjoying my last glass of wine on English soil! CSI: Miami is on the TV in the background. It's a real shame I won't see anything of Miami during our 10-hour stopover, but at least we'll be comfortable and happy enough inside the airport. Luckily we've been given a complimentary airport lounge pass, and it [View Full Entry]

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Just thought I would make an effort in keeping something resembling a journal while on my travels. Not sure how much time I'll have, but will certainly have a bit more time after Lima on 5 October. At the moment, the pre-departure preparations are well underway. Have photocopied everything except my bottom, put out tonnes of clothes, 99% of which will have to stay behind and ensured I have the indispensible Lonely Planet guide for each country I'll be visiting, so the books take priority! Have double and triple checked my passport (it has another 5 years to run) and re-checked [View Full Entry]

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