This weekend was one of those experiences that will stay with us forever. One month ago James said to Julie: I want to climb over 6000m and Julie replied: yeah whatever! She hoped that this would never eventuate. But regardless of Julie's reservations, on Saturday at 8am both James and Julie (and Ryan) stood at the top of Huayna Potosi, a mountain that is 6088m high. To put things in perspective…Mt Cook is 3753m. The highest mountain in Africa, Mt Kilimanjaro is only 5,895 mts. The highest mountain in all of Europe, Mt Elbrus is a smaller 5,642 mts. The highest mountain in North America, Mt McKinley is just a little taller at 6,194 mts. In fact outside of the Andes, the only other ranges with taller mountains are the Himalaya/Tibet and Hindu Kush ranges. It ... read more

I've just spent the last three nights sleeping on half a straw mat on a concrete floor in a village in the middle of nowhere! It has made life in La Paz look luxurious! I went with a team organised by the church we have been going to - as well as with 3 doctors, 1 dentist and 3 dental hygienists that had come over from the States especially for this trip.  We drove in a jeep about 6 hours out of La Paz - mostly on one-lane gravel road through the Bolivian Andes... (with no guard rails/barriers)... it was preferable to face the hillside than steep drop-off on the other side.  We stayed in this remote village set in the mountains, practically in the middle of nowhere.  It was a poor village - the houses were all ... read more

Things in La Paz are settling down a bit and we've got into a bit of a routine. I've been going to an orphanage for four afternoons a week and helping with the 2-8 year olds... all of the kids are second generation street children, so I think most have parents that are still on the streets. Some of the kids have suffered abuse from their parents and have run away, some of them had been made to work on the streets by their parents... there's a 5 year old who is already an ex-gluesniffer! I mostly sit with them while they eat lunch and then help them with their homework... not an easy task when one's Spanish vocab is rather limited! I'm having to learn how to say words for things like... ok don't stand ... read more

We've nearly arrived at the two week mark in La Paz... and so far we have successfully managed to blow up/stop from functioning a nice list of appliances... the school's photocopier, the fridge (yet to confirmed), two transformers and yesterday, the vacuum cleaner. A good record for less than a fortnight! The voltage here is 220V, but some of the appliances are 110V because they are from the States. Other than that we have been occupying ourselves settling in to life in Bolivia. La Paz is in a canyon in the Andes with the city sprawling up the hillsides... and it is one of the highest cities in the world at 3600m, which means that walking a short distance feels like running a short sprint. We have moved into our own apartment and put our backpacks ... read more

After our sad border-crossing experience a few days back we decided to invest in some post-trauma rehab time at the beach in Mancora, Peru. James managed to hire himself a surfboard and had his first surf in three months and we both managed to get sunburnt. It was good to be at the ocean again. And after an overnight 8 hour bus ride we are now in Trujillo, Peru... We´ve been visiting these ruins from around 700AD. We walked through this city (Chan Chan) which was massive in terms of distance. It was all made out of stone and sand... and there were still some massive walls standing. It was crazy to walk down these pathways in this city and to think about who built these walls many years ago.... the ruins are definitely the oldest ... read more