96 days, and a fair few stories

Well, I realised I am back on the backpacking circuit after 7 weeks working in Cusco, Peru. Which happened to be some of the happiest weeks of my travels, if not my life. It was a hell of a lot of fun working in a hostel bar for 2 months, I met so many awesome people, partied almost every night, and spent pretty much no money. Can´t complain at all. It spurred too many stories for me to recount really, but I think I covered almost every base of travel stories which I´m sure will be recounted numerous times upon my return to England, so let´s just leave it at that!

So, I guess I´ll cover the first month or so after leaving Cusco. I set off back to La Paz, Bolivia, to see if I enjoyed the city any more for not being sick as a dog in it. Short answer, no. Although I did meet up with some old friends, and the highlight of being back there was going quad biking for an afternoon. Racing down roads at 80kph (yep, kilometres per hour, thats what we use out here...), tearing up cliff edges - I was concentrating so much I didn´t really notice the big drop I was driving next to - and ploughing through water that was distinctly cow shit coloured. LOADS OF FUN.

From there I headed south to Tupiza. This included a local bus route for 7 hours, which im sure could only have covered about 100 miles in this time. Gotta love the roads in Bolivia. However, I arrived at a town called Tupiza, which is near where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid met their maker. So I hopped on a horse for a day. What I didn´t bank on was that hopping on a horse for a day was going to cause me a hell of a lot of pain. Arse, back, balls... the usual. Oh and the worst sunburn I´ve ever had. But only on my knee. Didn´t notice my jeans rip open, then 7 hours in baking sunshine turned it a very bizarre colour. It´s now about 6 weeks since that incident, and I still have a funny coloured patch.

From Tupiza, 4 or 5 days and a load of buses took me back to buenos aires, just in time for halloween! Cue much drinking, and me dressing up as some strange zombie-the hulk combination, and getting paint EVERYWHERE. So much so that when I was awoken the next morning to catch a bus to Brazil, I couldnt actually wash the paint off my face and had to board the bus looking like some mutant cross dresser... i had a fair bit of black eye make up on that night! Needless to say it took me about three times as long to get across the border as everyone else, as the migration guy was obviously pondering whether he wanted a bedraggled british transvestite in his country or not. Phew!

And then it was into Brazil, to spend 5 days with the girls I met in Buenos Aires, all the way back in July! This turned out to be a great 5 days... plus another 10! I can´t begin to thank Renata and co. for how welcome they made me feel, even if I never understood a word of Portuguese they spoke to each other. Brazil was a lot of fun though, most clubs play lots of british music, they love to drink a lot, and it was hot hot hot most days. Apart from when we took a trip to the beach at the weekend, when the weather decided to bail on me a bit! Can´t have everything I guess.

Well, that is about enough for now. More to follow soon I´m sure...

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