Unders

In my oppinion the worst city in Bolivia, others would beg to differ but for me it just didnt appeal, crowded, dirty and the smell!! wow its an ugly place. Because of this we didnt ever stay long in la paz only a day or 2, I can tell you it has a rather attractive train station though, thats about it really! Once out and above the city though there are spectacular views of this incredible mass of favela style houses surrounded by snow capped mountains....that is worth it. worth the smell, people and cars just for that one moment of absolute incredibleness (is that a word...who knows). well if you want to know about la paz find a sympathetic guide book...i cant tell you, just make sure you get above it on a clear day. ... read more

Nothing like remembering your first weekend in bolivia... Well Adam arrived friday morning/thursday night. He seems like a nice chappy, american and upbeat at the moment (this is all about to change). He decided last minute to come with us and thus didnt have a seat next to any of us...Unfortuanetly not the best first impression of us for him as a group as he remarked 'at least you can touch each other' this was followed by a sleepless stomach ache filled journey all the way to Potosi (13 hours away), we arrived fairly early in the morning and up at 4500m Adam was feeling the worst and we were all feeling pretty shoddy too...Philip and I had already started the Coca leaf chewing, water drinking routine that would get us through this first day. Well ... read more

Well hello again everyone....Despite popular oppinion back home I am still alive!! I have actually just returned back from a sunless 3 days in rio where it rained the whole time and i couldnt go to the beach. But it is still a beautiful city nonetheless, I went on the crazy shouldbebanned by health and safety tram (if health and safety are reading this I was JOKING and dont ever go to South America it is a fantastic paradise for lots of wonderful unsafe things). This took us from the church of Santa Theresa up into the oldest part of the city, very like european cities really, you could tell the portuguese had been here!!! I also sampled various types of food, carne seca (dried meat), hundreds of different types of feijoada (beans), churrasco (bbq) and ... read more

I am in Brazil!!! Sao Paulo!! I am excited!!! cant you tell? im going to try and get all my stories up briefly in the next 2 weeks so you can all have lots to read about and enjoy my tales before i get back and then i tell them all again with pictures...how does that sound? well im at Guilhermes (my brasilian friend) house after arriving yesterday, i dont remember the flights cos i slept on both of them. Had a perfect last night with the volunteers, a group of us and my host mother went out to dinner then back to my house where we stayed up reminiscing until 5am, they then said good bye and i left for the airport, I checked in, realised i forgot my sleeping bag, went home for another ... read more

Philip 'the diving dutchman' Van Gruitheysen- aged 19, likes to sail, good fun to go out with, always up for most things, a nutcase....he wanted to bike with me down the death road outside of la paz (usually i would do it after the other things ive done but will save that for next time!), the other half of Charlotte, the organized one, not too sure what to do with his life but is thinking about medicine, works in a health centre and is the best at spanish. P.S: a Spy of the famous 4/5 (will explain at the end).PPS: He has a remarkable talent to pee for around 2 minutes....then boasts about it afterwards when Adam and I cant beat it...how does he know? he times us. Adam 'I like my bed' Bensimhon- Aged 23, ... read more

Wow its been a long time since I let the world know what ive been doing and its a lot! Well to start with I am just going to let you all know that this weekend, for the first time ever i got my phone stolen! But that will all come later...Well last weekend and this weekend I went to Oruro for Carnaval! last weekend was the dress rehearsal and this weekend was the real thing. Both weekends we left on friday evening and arrived early saturday morning, the reason for this is that you have to fight against several thousand people to get tickets and in our case wait til one company opened up another bus because all the tickets sold out by midday! Anyway after 8 hours in the bus terminal, the boys taking ... read more

I got weed on last week....and I didn´t mind a bit! I think that I might be falling for the little niños of Cochabamba, I´m now into my 3rd week of work and each day is getting more exciting. I am being given more responsibility, most days i will be operating the enfermary mostly single handed while Alejandrina potters about the health centre injecting things or people. I am also teaching the interns how to use scales, take the arterial pressure and put thermometers where they shouldnt go. You have no idea how many parents bring in 4yr old children and are shocked that they still have to have the bottom treatment, and the funniest thing is is that a 4 yr old child cant hold an oral thermometer in its mouth (most dont want it) ... read more

Well unlike the rest of the male population here I was born without the salsa gene....And I mean that nearly every male and female here knows how to dance, they may not know the steps but they do have the style! So i am attempting to force feed it into my system with lessons. And the man to do that is Wilson, my unbelievable teacher....hes been training for 16 years and competing for 10! He´s had the opportunity to go to the world championships in latin dance but his partner couldnt get a visa, he´s currently the best in Bolivia and I can say that he´s my teacher! What can I say about our lessons....we start with a stretching warm up, thrusting our hips, shaking our shoulders and most of the time attempt to make our ... read more

This is the one you´ve all been waiting for! My first weekend in Cochabamba! What crazy antics will I get upto......what did I do? I made friends!!! On saturday morning I was boring and had a lie in...getting up at 6.30 every morning when your my age really does take its toll...its murder. Then I thought I would go to the market....alas it was about 11 when I finished breakfast and lunch with my host mother is at around 1ish, and I really want to spend the day there (at La Cancha-the market). So I ended up entertaining you, my followers with stories about my week! After Lunch...which was a delicious dish called ´sil plancho´a meat, rice, salad meal.... I was certain that I would go to La Cancha, but as I was waiting for a ... read more

This is a short one ladies and gentlemen on the wildlife of Cochabamba, that i´ve seen so far! First of all parrots....ive named them the Perez family, and so the 2 i´ve decided to talk about are a married couple called Paulo and Paula. Why these....well these were the first 2 I saw, and they were building a nest. The parrots here are found all over South America in both rural and Urban environments, they are green parrots and about 7 inches tall! The good points are that they look pretty, the bad points are that they are incredibly noisy and live in groups (they wouldnt be as bad solo, but in groups the noise is ear splitting)! We also have dogs, stray dogs and dogs with rabies (the first two types are pretty much the ... read more