What Daniel failed to mention at the end of his last blog is that, on our last night in La Paz, he insisted we go for a curry. I think you can guess where this may be going. His was a tad on the spicy side, however, Dehli belly didn´t start to rear it´s ugly head until we were on the bus to Bolivia´s Copacabana the next day. The 4 hours on a bouncy minibus did not bode well for his fragile state and by the time we got to our hostel he was in a very bad way. Daniel has requested that I not give you the full details of the following 36 hours but advises anyone thinking of having a chicken jalfrezi in La Paz to think again. Copacabana is an extremely small town ... read more

Our first taste of Bolivia was the "Train of Death". The name caused some concern at first but we needn´t have worried as the train itself couldn´t have been less dangerous. It gets it´s name from the fact that it is so slow that most people would rather throw themselves underneath it than repeat the experience. The journey was made a lot more tolerable by the vendors who boarded the train at every stop. Their ages ranged from 5 to 65 and their wares ranged from meals cooked on the platform to their suspicious homemade drinks. The one thing they had in common was the gusto with which they announced themselves, and their goods, to the carriage. Daniel´s enjoyment of this sideshow deteriorated somewhat when shortly after nodding off (and we all know how he likes ... read more

So we left Salvador to go to Olinda via bus (just the 15 hours). We had to negotiate the local bus to get to the station which turned out to be an interesting affair. Once it arrived Daniel got on followed by this man with two enormous bin bags full of empty drinks cans, who snuck infront of me. Before I could get on, the bus driver decided to leave, at which point I began to panic until I saw a very comical scene unfolding before me. Daniel had decided, moving or not, he was getting off that bus and he was taking the can tramp with him. I could see him barging this man back down the stairs, using his backpack as a weapon now and practically assaulting him, until the pair of them came ... read more