Now i´ve of course read about Bolivia. Its renowned for being a hard place to travel around, or at least it used to, its renowned for coca leaf production and therefore keeping half of Europe and Americas noses powdered and its renowned for its crazy llama textiles and clothing. In the last few days we have experiences all of this (NOT the powdered nose bit, just the leaf!!!), and more. As soon as we arrived at the Argentina/Bolivia border we could tell it wasnt going to be an easy crossing. For starters, we had to queue for about an hour, for [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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A3 Tour - A2 Amazon Zoo Matka on jo edennyt kovaa vauhtia ja tätä kirjoittaessa olemme jo käyneet viidakossa, palanneet sieltä ja ehtineet autiomaahan. Matkanteko on täällä sen verran hidasta, että nytkin on 2 päivää mennyt ihan pelkästään matkustamiseen, ensimmäinen päivä jokiveneellä viidakosta ihmisten ilmoille ja lento takaisin La Paziin ja sen jälkeen seuraavana päivänä ensin lento Aricaan ja sieltä Antofagastaan ja sen jälkeen 4 tuntia bussilla autiomaahan. Yhteydet Boliviasta Chileen maateitse ovat ihan mahdottoman huonot - tässä ihan lähellä on rajanylityspaikka Ollague mutta [View Full Entry]

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Hola Everyone, So it´s been a while, last time we wrote we were at Machu Pichu. From there we moved on to Puno in the south of Peru. The town itself was less than inspiring but we were lucky enough to be there for the annual festival which saw people from the surrounding villages turn out in their hundreds. The costumes were beautiful and the dancing fantastic. Chris´s favourite being the men pretending to be drunk and swinging their sticks and (empty) bottles around their heads. It was a great experience to see all the traditional dancing as well as the [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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This 4 day tour was a real experience. Far more driving around in a jeep than any of us expected, but it got nice and cosy in there with Huan Carlos our driver and guide and Mama our cook, the three of us and Mike and Jared, who we met in Salta and were also in our jeep. The major themes of the tour, mountains, llamas, lagoons and flamingos, being at high altitude as well as sitting in a jeep, trying to sleep, the cold outside, the heat in the jeep and the driver only ever addressing the girls: "hola chicas!" [View Full Entry]

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After an eleven hour local bus trip from Puno we arrived in La Paz, Bolivia, but not before an entertaining border crossing near Copacabana (not the Rio one). Leaving the bus to cross the border without us, we had to walk through the (slack) passport and emigration controls before re-boarding the bus on the Bolivian side. Several hours later, we had to leave the bus again as it crossed the end of Lake Titicaca by punt while we had to pay for a ferry ride. La Paz ... what a disappointment! Set in a bowl surrounded by up to 6,000m high [View Full Entry]

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Our next outing was to the salt flats of Uyuni in South West Bolivia which are the largest of their kind in the world. We were scheduled for a leisurely 10.30 start only to be told the night before that planned strike action by truck drivers meant we needed to leave at 7 to try and avoid the blocade on the edge of town. After an hour or so driving in the jeep over the flats we reached the bizzarely named ´Fish Island´, which is a rocky, cactus covered island in the middle of the flats. Certainly no where near any [View Full Entry]

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So i guess I´m in Bolivia. How and why i ended up here i do not know. From as far back as i can remember I´ve been waiting for my life to start. As a child, even as a romantic teenager i never remember having the urge to travel. Just the all consuming believe that there must be more in the world than the small patch i´d experienced in Spennymoor, when i left for Univeristy - even just travelling the 200 miles to the middle of my cozy island made me realise that i´d lived a sheltered and nieve life, as [View Full Entry]

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Lake Titicaca/Bolivia After saying goodbye to Sandy I headed off on my own to Lake Titicaca - the highest lake in the world (3827m). I joined a 2 day tour and visited the floating islands before staying the night on Amantani, one of the real islands. The group split into pairs or threes to spend the night with a local family as a homestay. It was all very cute and quaint until after dinner when they dressed us up in their local traditional get up to go to the community hall for a “dance” - bizarre and CORNY! I met a [View Full Entry]

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