Peaks and Troughs 'innit

So, after the delights of Rio, we had to retrace our steps a wee bitty. This involved getting a very long bus back down to Foz de Iguazu (the big-daddy of waterfalls that we'd previously seen from the Argentinian side, for the benefit of those with short-term memory issues). Here we did not go to the waterfall, but to the ITAPU dam further upstream. It's a beast of a dam and we booked ourselves on the super-duper extreme tour of the dam. Here Spange started getting crazy excited about the prospect of wearing a yellow hard hat (which you didn't get on the normal, non-super tour). I was much more excited by the shower cap you got in the hard hat to stop you from catching fleas from the person who'd been wearing it before.

Anyways, the Brazilian visa expired and we were away. Back to Paraguay. This time, we knew the ways of the bus and got off in Brazil before getting exit stamps and walking across the bridge to Paraguay where we very successfully got entry stamps before travelling to the capital. Pure dead genius innit? We stopped in Asunction long enough to both purchase new cameras and book a bus out to Bolivia.

It was a bit of a rickety bus with a lot of morman-esque types on it, and more people than seats so people were sleeping in the aisle. One puncture was obtained at 2 am. We then exited Paraguay at 5:30 am and didn't enter Bolivia until 10 am...That's a lot of no-mans land if you ask me. There was a lot of desert and scrubland to pass through before we made it to our destination of Santa Cruz, the old capital that's still a capital in certain respects. Somwhere in the desert, we obtained our 2nd puncture that was accompanied by an important bit of metal snapping. Problematic.

3 hours later and the guy that had been sent to hitch to the next village about 10km away to try and find a mechanic, was nowhere to be seen. 5 hours after his departure, people started trying to hitch. Apparently it's not too safe to stay by a broken bus in the middle of nowhere, with night fast approaching and all your worldly belongings with you. Hmmm. There was 1 army guy who we thought would protect us, but then he got a ride. Eventually it was fixed and we hadn't been robbed of our new camers (pure dead fantastic). Arrived in Santa Cruz at 3 am.

Santa Cruz has a lovely dry climate accompanied by frequent sand blastings to exfoliate your skin for you. We tried out the micros - mini vans designed for transporting about 12 or 15 people max short distances, I counted 37 in ours! We did other exciting things like washing and ate ice cream, which was chuffing amazing by the way. Angela's washing didn't come back clean, which to my surprise caused a full on hissy fit complete with tears. The only thing that stopped her was when I took a bite of my noughat which I'd saved from earlier. Turned out it was covered in ants so I spent the next hour compaining that they were wiggling and jiggling inside me.

There was a landslide which prevented us from leaving for a few days, but eventually it was cleared and off to the proper capital of La Paz. It's the highest capital city in the world at 3660 m a.s.l. and Angela got altitude dementia, which meant nothing but baby steps, cocaine (coca) tea and soup for 3 days (she claims 2, but she's lying). Once this had passed I convinced her to do the Road Of Death. Wahey!

You start by driving up even higher to + 4000m. Then you jump on a bike, test the brakes, and cycle 80km downhill to 1253ish m. At the start the road is tarmac, but it was snowing so a wee bit slippy. They hadn't told us to bring gloves so my fingers resembled sausages within minutes at the high speed I obtained because my fingers were too cold to squeeze the brakes, which therefore made them colder. Vicious circle. Reached the gravel part of the road. It now started raining. There has been a new road recently built as a result of the more than 100 deaths a year (7 of which are tourists) on the older. The new road is wider and not gravel. Unfortunately this road is curvier and consequently uses more petrol, so many taxis and buses still use the old one. Hmmm.

The views were top notch; valleys below, overhanging cliffs, cycling through streams and under waterfalls. I was super slow and careful for a while until the speed demon inside got the better of me. Then we'd pass one of the many crosses along the route marking where someone went off the cliff and I slowed down again. Anyway, I recommend it - a highly entertaining outing.

Next adventure...Lake Titicaca (tee hee). After a driver who aimed for people and dogs, the choppiest boat crossing I've EVER been on and a lost passenger (never stray too far from the bus), we arrived in the tranquil setting of Copacabana (the second for us at least). Watched some cars getting blessed at the local cathedral, which involves fire crackers and flowers in case you want to try it back here, before setting off on a hike to the Isla de Sol.

Beautiful times were had - Angela although not ill, inhaling air like a vacuum cleaner in order to get as much of that precious oxygen as possible...And that's on the flat bits! Many an hour later and we were accosted by a young chap who wanted to row us across to the island. We decided he seemed honourable enough so hopped in his boat and watched him struggle against the wind for 2 hours. I offered/requested a go, to which he said in a little while and kept saying this until we got there. On arrival, 2 young schoolboys who spoke English met us and were our unofficial guides for the rest of the 'avo, showing us ruins, plants and eventually our hotel.

They did a good job with the hotel. The views were spectacular and we settled in watching the sunset from our comfy bed. Did some more walking the next day, the length of the island, where Angela got heat stroke...sickly child. So a couple of days later we headed from La Paz to Oronu where it's a) freezing, b) they have a really weird cinema and c) a train south to Uyani where we planned to do a tour of the salt pans. Plenty of reasons to go.

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