Back across the equator from Otavalo and deep deep deep into the southern hemisphere (about 80 klms) to Latacunga (avoiding one more robbery attempt enroute). Arriving in Latacunga on a Sunday afternoon and one adjective springs to mind - DEAD. The town isn´t the most attractive in Latin America, plus you could fire off an AK47 in all directions on a Sunday arvo and not cause any human damage. So why come here? Latacunga is strategically central for a number of excursions. 1. Cotopaxi We were hitched up with 2 very eccentric retired English ladies for a hike up to a [View Full Entry]

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A two hour bus ride from Quito to Otavalo does not sound like much of a problem after the numerous and lengthy bus rides in Bolivia. How mistaken I was, with no Kwells (motion sick tablets) for 2 hours on pressurised brakes racing every corner, bus, truck, tricycle, or anything that moved. I felt worse for wear on arrival at Otavalo. However we quickly found a great hostel at US$7 pp/pn overlooking the market. The hostel directed us to a great lunch spot - 3 courses for $2 and quickly I am back on track again. Otavalo is well known for [View Full Entry]

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Quito( pronounced Keeto - for the unworldly) What did we expect? I´m not really sure, certainly a little more oxygen at just 2500m. While Quito is not as spectacularly located as La Paz, sitting in the valley of some imposing Andean Peaks with the town crawling up the sides, a competent artist could really create some interesting perspectives. A few aspects did immediately surprise. The dearth of indiginous South Americans for one. The overt prosperity of the people compared to those of La Paz, another. What about the currency. For a nation (join the queue) who vocally denounce everythin [View Full Entry]

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Flew out of Sucre with a far more reliable airline. Thus we only arrived 2 hours late back in La Paz for our final couple of days in Bolivia. We decided on a mountain bike ride down the world's most dangerous road. (the guys who named it as such have never been to a fire call with a couple of the guys on my shift driving). The death toll has been horrendous over the years but ONLY 3 tourists have been killed on bike rides in the last 10 years - I like those odds. The danger is diminished these days [View Full Entry]

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Left Potosi for the 3 hour (plus 1 breakdown) bus ride to Sucre at the dizzying lows of 2,800m - ahhh- smell that oxygen. The town is another world heritage site choc full of impressive Spanish colonial architecture, this time all white - Santorini meets Seville. Seems like a very high student population and the indiginous influence looks to be very much on the wane here. The whole town is in carnival mode. Everyone between 3 and 23 are in large groups marching around town hurling and receiving water bombs, spraying and copping white foam, giant water pistols etc. Tourists and [View Full Entry]

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We took the DIRECT bus from Uyuni to Potosi, which meant only about 12 stops to pick up extra passengers plus 1 flat tyre. We stopped for lunch at 1 interesting village which for me was a quintessential Bolivian village- adobe houses, heavy indiginous population clad in traditional garb, folkloric music wafting out the windows, a creek winding through mist encrusted mountains, a young fellow tending to his herd of llama, and the finishing touch, a half dozen bowler hatted local ladies squatting by the side of the road carrying out their ablutions- nice way to spoil the ambience gals. Arrived [View Full Entry]

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Bussed and trained down to the SW of Bolivia, a town called Uyuni. Uyuni's a dusty old town whose main reason for visiting is that it's a jump off point for a number of very unique landscapes. We launched on a 3 day 4WD tour with 4 other gringos plus the driver and cook. Among the 6 gringos, there were 2 aussies, 1 pom abd 1 german plus us. The combined age was about 180, 96 of those were us. You'd think the other four may have come to us for some worldly wisdom, but they must have had us pegged [View Full Entry]

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We spent the last couple of days around Lake Titicaca. We arrived at a town called Copacabana where music and passion are rarely the fashion in the Bolivian version (actually its Brazilian namesake took its name from this Bolivian version). The town is a ramshackle tourist town on the edge of Lake Titicaca the highest navigable lake in the world. The town is interesting enough but we preferred Isla Del Sol (Scott Kelly if you read this a quick translation please) one and a half hours by boat away. Sensational, blue water, plummeting cliffs, the odd Llama, friendlier locals, abondoned village [View Full Entry]

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So we finally made it to La Paz. I don´t Boleevya I hear you say (I couldn´t resist at least one of my corny South American puns). You´d be hard presssed to call this a pretty city but the location and overview is as spectacular as I have seen. Wandering the streets and even climbing the stairs in our hostel is a chore. At 3800 metres give or take a metre there´s apparently a few basic rules. Walk slow, drink lots of water and no grog (ouch) until acclimatised. Even following this code of conduct we tire easily and have developed [View Full Entry]

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Roadblock, this is when all that you have planned and payed for does not go to plan, and the only way through the roadblock is to part with money (lots of it) and time. I think at our last entry we were in El Calafate ready to leave Patagonia and back to Buenas Aires for 1 night before flying into Bolivia and the next phase of our journey. Sounds great in theory, right?Something about the best laid plans of mice and men rings true from here on in. Arrive at airport on time, confirmed (twice) ticket in hand. LAN (not LAN [View Full Entry]

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