jimandmel

We eventually escaped the evil clutches of the bus strike - they were striking because they were being asked to pay 80 Bolivianos (6 GBPounds) tax a year - and headed overnight to Sucre, Bolivia's second capital. White-painted, red-roofed colonial buildings and numerous historical sights abound, but the main draw was... the Dino Truck! We were a little sceptical of this gringo-magnet, complete with pictures of dinosaurs on the side, but the guidebook told us to leave our scepticism aside - so we did just that. The truck drives (cue kids running down the street yelling "gringo!") up to a limestone quarry. Several million years ago, the area was a lake bed; after some tectonic upheav.....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz! and a bit of mining, a 200m high mudrock wall stands, covered in dinosaur footprints. Very impressive. The footprints prove ... read more

With slightly more stable stomachs we departed to the bus station in Cusco to travel to Puno. The train had looked very promising until we discovered it costs twice as much and takes four hours more. The bus it was then, only our bus company decided it lacked bov on that particular day, so a very friendly lady helped us swap buses. We spent the next eight hours at the front of a very busy double-decker, watching the altiplano go by through a smashed window - don't worry folks, they'd used sellotape to fix it. Push the Scottish highlands up by two thousand meters and stick some llamas and alpacas on it and you have something similar to our kaleidoscopic view. Puno was our last stop in Peru, and we were glad it wasn't our first ... read more

Determined to escape the desert, we travelled into the Canete valley and to the town of Lunuhana. The taxi dropped us off in Imperial, a district of Cañete, amid a swarm of market traders. Seconds later, a colectivo materialised. Colectivos are a cheap way of getting around: they consist of a man, a van and a lad who hangs out of the side door screaming the destinations at passers by. Lunahuana´was our destination, 30km up the valley, and I don't think it was possible to cover those 30km any faster. Tyres squealing, taking the racing line the whole way, the canyon walls flashing by alarmingly close at times, we clung on and exchanged nervous glances. At one point we saw dazed, bleeding passengers standing on the road, their collectivo having left the road in spectacular fashion, ... read more

We finally left Patagonia and felt like we were starting on the next stage of our adventure. And it shall be called the "Hot City" stage. Mendoza was a pleasant enough city, but most importantly we were in beds again. After spending half of our time in Patagonia camping we were saying goodbye to our tent, and hello to space and new clothes. That was the plan anyhow, but the Argentinian post office had other ideas. We tried to post the tent in Bariloche first, and after a mere hour of queing were told that we couldn't post it on that day; only packages of less than 2kgs were allowed. We checked when we could post and if it was the same for the whole country and were assured it was possible the next day. Our ... read more

Here begins the tale of failure, we hope it´s not a chapter that is repeated often. Count them and see. After Christmas in the tent we were determind to have a slighly louder New Year, shame that we didn´t realize that everyone goes home to be with their family at ten o´clock (Failure 1). After a fantastic steak dinner and spending an entire 10 pounds on the two of us it took a while till we even found a pub that was open (Failure 2). We welcomed in 2006 to 'William Tell´s Overture' (Failure 3) and watching Red Bull videos. We thought of you Rob! Glad that we´d waited, we set off to see Fitzroy with hangovers (Failure 4), arrived at the campsite and went to sleep for three hours (Failure 5). 2006 started well! Determined ... read more