¿Donde esta la fiesta?

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Hola! Buenos Dias!

2/3/10

Bus gets into La Paz from Potosi at 5am. Yes, 5am. After a nap on a couch, a pancake eating competition is mooted. Most mere mortals manage a meagre 5-6 pancakes, but 'the human dustbin' Shrennie reluctantly finishes his 10th pancake. A clear and worthy victor, but he pays the price for his gluttony over the next few days with constant stomach problems. Walk around the 'Witches Market' where they basically pay for you to have their stuff. So cheap. Buy lots of souvenirs. In the evening, the boys enter a poker tournament. Many hours later, and Adam walks away 3rd and myself second with 60 extra Bolivianos in my pocket (6 quid - big money). Head to 'Blue Club' in the middle of La Paz and end up falling asleep on the toilet. Always a sign of a good night.

3/3/10

Day of rest and recovery for all.

4/3/10

Today we dare to ride on the World's Most Dangerous Road. Our guide is a Kiwi called Alaistair, a relatively normal looking man except for a ridiculously long ginger beard. Despite not feeling 100%, I still attempt it. As the altitude decreases, breathing becomes easier and everybody feels a lot better. This altitude thing is nuts. A short walk up some stairs has everybody panting like crazy. Maybe on our return to the flat plains of England, we'll all be as fit as athletes? Probably not. The road itself is so much fun. We get given these super bikes with incredible suspension and disk brakes. They are pretty much uncrashable. Which is just as well considering the sheer drops off the side. If you fall off those, you're going to do more than just break your arm. At the bottom of the road we visit an animal sanctuary. Get loads of photos of the monkeys who we are told were originally trained as pick-pocketers. That's why they kept trying to unzip my bag. Cheeky monkeys. On the journey back to La Paz, we get hit by a couple of major delays. Firstly by a lorry stuck in the mud. After an hour of confused Bolivian logic getting nobody anywhere, a JCB arrives and drags it to safety. However, immediately after passing the lorry we get delayed again because of a Bolivian strike. The bus and taxi drivers are blocking the road because of... wait for it... they want the right to drink alcohol whilst driving passengers. Obviously. They must think that to endanger the life of a paying customer for an unnecessary pleasure is an enshrined human right in Bolivia. You just could't make it up.

5/3/10

Get woken up at 6am by the sound of Dave falling out of his top bunk. Today is Adam's day of finally sorting out his monetary situation. Over the last few weeks, he's managed to run up a substantial tab on 5 different people. After visiting 9 different banks, he finally gets his card unblocked and can pay his debts before the bailiffs get sent into the dorm. I forgot to mention that at the bottom of the bike ride, there were lots of sand flies biting everybody. Unfortunately for Shrennie, he gets hit the worst and has what looks like meningitus on his feet. Ouch.

6/3/10

Get the bus to Puno in Peru. It's a town which is right next to Lake Titikaka. In Puno the pedestrian green man symbol is quality. It's basically a dancing green man. Why can't they have them everywhere? It makes crossing the road fun as well as safe.

7/3/10

Get on a boat to the floating islands on Lake Titikaka. The floating islands were built many years ago for the locals to escape from the Incas. And they're pretty cool. Get back on the boat and travel for 3 hours until we reach the island we are going to stay at for the night. Instead of doing a hike to the top of the island to watch a picturesque sunlight, the lads decide to play football against a mixture of Scots and Peruvians. Boys will be boys. Great game, but unfortunately the physical presence of the English loses out to the style of the Peruvians in a closely contested game finishing 8-6. In the evening we get dressed up in local Peruvian clothing and head to a 'fiesta' (party) where we do some weird dancing. Walk back to our house where we see some crazy lightning on the horizon.

8/3/10

Get the boat back to Puno where we play an incredible amount of 'Guess Who?' (which for those of you who don't know, involves one person thinking of anybody famous, and everybody taking it in turns to ask questions that will get you closer to the answer). There have been some incredibly leftfield ones over the last few days, my personal favourites being Tinky Winky, Pontius Pilate and Ronald McDonald. Shrennie is feeling pretty poorly in the evening but a few of us make it out where we take over an entire attic in a bar.

Something I haven't mentioned about Puno is that the entire town is like a communal toilet. I've lost count of the number of men I've seen simply unzip, drop trow and take a whizz on the middle on a pavement in full view of everybody. Makes life a bit easier for the person concerned I suppose but is pretty unsanitory.

9/3/10

Get the bus to Cusco - the home of the elusive Machu Picchu that has managed to escape our grasp on this trip. Europeans are so bloody rude. They simply barge past you, and are generally quite insensitive to anybody else. Especially the French and Germans. You can tell where someone is from in the world by how they deal with a queueing system. Learn some manners you rude, funny speaking people. Get to Cusco where we check into a hostel and immediately head to an Irish bar to catch the end of the Arsenal game (5-0!).

10/3/10

Today is a day where the girls and guys have gone their own separate ways. I think the girls are getting a touch frustrated by the constant talk of sport and are spending the day getting a massage followed by shopping. The boys are going to watch more football (vamos Milan).

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Comments

[Eric]

Hey James, I really enjoyed reading your Cusco post. It really reminded me of my time there. My blog is looking for some good travel photos. If you have the time send us some at dirtyhippiesblog @gmail.com or check us out at dirty-hippies.blogspot.com. Continued fun on your travels, Eric