Dear Friends and Family, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! The past year of 2009 has been most eventful for the two of us. Eva finally finished her Ph.D. in June with a degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Washington in Seattle. We are currently on a one-year adventure traveling almost literally around the world. We stashed our stuff with friends in Seattle (Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!!) and drove cross-country to Chicago last August, stopping by Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore, and the Badlands. After a week with Eva´s family, we flew [View Full Entry]

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We're now in Peru. Thank god. They nearly didnt let me leave Bolivia...i'll get to that in a minute but first an update on our last few days in 'lovely' Bolivia (i only write that with muted sarcasm becasue Bolivia has really pissed me off in the last 24 hours, i love it really!!) So we ended up getting delayed in our Amazon oasis, Rurrenabaque for another day as we were rained in meaning no planes could fly. By the end of our week there we were getting a bit fidgety and as everyones stomachs had turned to sludge we were [View Full Entry]

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Been a while since the last blog, we have been super busy travelling the length of Bolivia and loving every minute of it! After we left Potosi behind we headed further north to Sucre on a fairly pleasant but bumpy six hour bus ride, a little sceptical about going to another big city but we were very pleasantly surprised. We spent a good day or so just pottering about the city tasting the local market foods and of course the local beer! We decided that it was about time we did a bit of exercise so we hired a couple mountain [View Full Entry]

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I arrived in Puno, Peru bright and early on Monday morning (4:30am) and took a mototaxi to my hostel, only to find that my reservations had not been processed and the only habitacion available was a triple with private bathroom, costing $30. I treked across town (moderately enjoying the sunrise over Lake Titicaca -- the largest lake in South America and the worlds highest navigable lake). I found a Lonely Planet-recommended hostel on the West side of town with a friendly owner. The place was clean and hospitable, but extremely CREEPY. There were little dolls everywhere, which were even more di [View Full Entry]

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An early bus, booked all on our own now we were off the tour took us to Copacabana on the shore of Lake Titicaca. Stunning little place and we managed to get a brilliant room overlooking the lake. The sun was shining, and there ain't much to do around there, so we basked in the glorious weather and sampled the local food & drink. Got a bit drunk and forgot to put suncream on, burnt face. They love the set menu here, so for £1 you got a 3 course meal & a drink, albeit a soft drink, but bung in [View Full Entry]

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Our next stop was our 4th South American country, Bolivia, and more specifically Copacabana on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Despite its altitude of 4000 metres the days are hot and sunny, although the nights are pretty chilly. We decided to stay here for 2 nights, so that we could spend a day chilling out, and a day on Isla del Sol, an island on the lake. The day we arrived was as described above, hot and sunny, so were able to wander around the town, visit the cathedral, and have some trout from the lake for lunch. In the evening [View Full Entry]

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So I finally made it into Bolivia. We ended up in Copacabana which is the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca and meant to be much nicer than Puno. As I may have said in my earlier blog, I skipped Puno for all but the bus station. After the pretty hectic ride that we had getting to Copa, we all had a pretty chill day and didn´t do anything really exciting. We had the standard day of looking around for the high quality woven llama goods and hunted around for food. We then decided it would be a great idea to climb [View Full Entry]

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Wednesday morning we were once again up early in readiness for our bus journey to Copacabana. So after our all you can eat pancake breakfast we were once again on a bus heading to Lake Titicaca. The bus journey was pretty uneventful till we arrived in San Pablo de Tiquina where we had to get off the bus and buy a ticket to cross a 200m part of the lake to San Pedro de Tiquina. The amusing fact here is that we crossed on a small motorboat whilst the bus boarded a large barge and crossed separately. Once in Copacabana we [View Full Entry]

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Hi everyone, we hope you´re all well and welcome to the Bolivia blog from the last couple of weeks. This was one country that we were a bit dubious about, but as you´ll read on we really enjoyed it. A bit of a step back from Chile, but it provided a more cultural view of South America as well as a view of the poorer side of the area. So, we start at the end of our Chile adventures in the desert town of San Pedro de Attacama. We really enjoyed this little place and were sad to leave (especially all [View Full Entry]

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Here are some of my photos from our stay in Copacabana. This was where we took a day tour onto Lake Titicaca and visited some Inca ruins with a guide, who only spoke Spanish. I am not sure I understood everything he was trying to tell us, but I will bore you all with it when I get back! Copacabana was a nice place, and had a great custom of a daily blessing of its cars! More text in a few weeks! [View Full Entry]

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