Unboliviable.

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Those of you who know me well know how long I've been wanting to make that joke for, and it gladdens me to do so.

Final day in Chile was spent recovering from less good coach up from Pucon and going up the most unsafe 1987 railway the world has ever seen to the top of a mountain/hill thing, followed by an equally precarious cble car. Met a chap from Canada called Michelle (silly name) who was very boring but wanted to b efriends and go out that night, so i took his number and told him i didnt want to go. insrtead watched tv and ate junk food and went to bed early.

Also went to the locals market, where i had a soup thing with pòtatos rice and lamb and sweetcorn in it for a pound. good deal- even ordered in spanish and was complimented on it. I´m the man.

Today involved a 4am start, followed by taxi to airport flight and arrival in bolivia at brilliant little hotel (i persuaded them to let me have my own room for the first time since christmas) which is really nice, and has en suite and cable! brilliant.

shower and off to explore- La Paz is brilliant, really bizarre place where cars and mental looking buses with people hanging out the side seem to drive on the left or right as it suits them, looked on by lots of policemen with massive shotguns. They also seem to have an inability to not use their horns a lot. This makes it quite a noisy plce, especially with the marching bands of school kids. I dont know whether its just today or is a normal thing but theres hundreds of them. they arent very good either.

another funny thing (not really funny haha, more odd) is that all women over about 30 seem to be at least 60, tiny (smaller than farzad), with a giant multicoloured duffel bag on their backs. strange.

Bought an amusing alpaca hat with ear flaps which i regretted almost instantly as i suspect i may not wear it very much, however I was excited by the fact that I am essentially loaded here. To that end I decided that I should celebrate with a nice lunch. The only resaurant I could find (sort of) did steak, so I had one of those. Huge fillet srteak with blue cheese sauce, a beer, a water, and some little bready things with nice dip for about 3.50.

The one thing I was concerned about in La Paz was the altitude (ius the highest capital city in the world) and have heard variouis stories about people being ill for 3 days etc. I was fine, so before I had a shower I did a few pressups, then walked all the way round the city, then had a massive dinner and a beer, then essentially passed out in the restaurant. It´s called a 'whitey', where I basically nearly fainted. Being used to nearly fainting I popped my head between my legs, and the nice waiter gave me some coca tea (helps with altitude sickness). Allegedly I went a funny colour. I certainçly got a bit of a cold sweat on. Fine now though. amusing nonetheless. Have learnt lesson about eating lots though.

Going back to nice room nowto chillax before meeting new friends at 6 for meeting. Their names are on the board, and aside from pablo, they sound pretty normal which is a relief.

Adios amigos...

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Comments

[Cousin Cath]

Wowza!
Ooooh that sounds bit unpleasant - good that you are such an expert fainter! And at least you got all your altitude probs out the way in one go - hope you feeling better again and enjoying having your own room. Cx