Lots of stuff

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Its been a long time since I last did a blog entry, I think I last wrote something in Sucre and since then we´ve done a lot of stuff. So I´m afraid this one won´t be as detailed as normal. To be honest they never are that detailed, most of the time I just end up referring you to Will´s blog because I can´t be bothered to do any more. A lazy approach, perhaps, but seeing as we´re on pay as you go internet (not free hostel internet) I´d rather save a few Soles (Peruvian currency) and buy a load of amazingly delicious bread from the exceedingly luxurious supermarket down the road. Sorry but it´s really good bread.

So here goes. Let´s start with Potosi.

Whilst in Potosi, we did the one thing that pretty much every gringo goes there to do - a tour of the Mines of Moria, followed by a tour of the silver mines in the Cerro Rico mountain. This started off with a visit to the miners market where we bought presents for the workers. I bought them kashmir scarves and cheeseboards whilst others bought Coca leaves and alcohol. They appreciated the coca leaves more but I think the scarves really improved their figures which is obviously important down a mine. We then went to the refinery where we saw a whole load of dangerous machinery and troughs of cyanide. Genuinely, cyanide! Wasn´t really sure how I wasn´t poisoned but I won´t complain. Then we drove up to the mountain which ominously looms over the city. Its quite daunting especially considering its history of how many lives its claimed (a lot). We started off on the first level, there are lots of horizontal levels but our tour only went down the first three. As you can imagine, being a Bolivian mine, the tunnels were incredibly low, and me being a giant, I didn´t exactly fit that well. I just accepted that I was going to have an incredibly cricked neck by the end of it. So we ventured in to the tunnel, the light slowly disappearing from behind us and the dust levels/breathing difficulty increasing every step of the way. The beginning was probably the worst bit as you haven´t yet got used to the conditions of the mines but once you carried on it got a lot easier. So, we made our way down the levels, which involved a lot of crawling along incredibly narrow holes less than half a metre tall, and we could feel the heat gradually increasing as we got further down. At one point it was 35 - 40 degrees. We were finding it hard and we weren't even working down there. The miners generally have a life span of about 15 years after starting, most die of toxic gas poisoning, and some of mine collapses further down the levels. Its pretty grim. After about 2-3 hours, we made our way to the exit and it was definitely a big relief to see sunlight and be in open space when we made it out. Overall, I cant exactly say it was a pleasant experience, but it was definitely an experince. Right, next on the list, La Paz.

After Potosi we got a bus to La Paz, which although not being a hugely nice city, is nonetheless very very cool architecturally as it lies in a huge bowl with sprawled housing all around the sides and big skyscrapers in the middle. There´s also a huge spoon in this bowl and a constantly approaching splash of milk from the sky where giant Snap, Crackle and Pops peer in and watch the daily lives of the local La Pazians. The first day here was spent wandering around the various markets including the Witch´s market where they sell Llama fetuses. Gross. The next day we did another classic thing that most people visiting La Paz do - a mountain biking trip down the World´s most dangerous road or ´Death Road´ that runs from La Paz to Coroico. It really is ridiculous this road, I honestly cannot believe how 2 way traffic was ever allowed to exist on it. It is so narrow, un-paved and constantly adjacent to a huge cliff that plummets down into the jungle. (Nowadays there´s no traffic on it because they built a replacement). The bike ride itself was really fun, partly because it was all down hill, also because the views were beautiful, and also the fact that you´re cycling down the worlds most dangerous road makes you feel like a boss. We got t-shirts at the end of it too, so we have literally been there, done that and got the t-shirt. Swell. Right no time for more details on this topic. Next one - our impromptu trip to the moon. Not much happened there, it was really grey. Next one, the jungle.

We knew we wanted to visit the Amazon basin somehow and decided the best way would be to do so from Rurrenabaque in Bolivia, from where you can visit the Parque Nacional Madidi. So we flew there from La Paz with TAM, the military airline, and after parachuting out and doing an air raid on a drugs warehouse, we did a 3 day tour with ´Mogli tours´ of the rainforest (as opposed to the Pampas tour which is a more animal-based, slightly more touristy alternative). We took a 4 hour boat ride along the river to an isolated part of the forest where we set up camp in a wooden hut in a small village settlement. There was a grapefruit tree there which we pretty much ate bare. That settlement now has no source of food. I jest, but it wouldn´t be inaccurate to say that the settlement now barely has a source of grapefruits as we´ve eaten pretty much all of them. The three days were spent making handicrafts out of things we collected from the rainforest, trekking through the jungle eating all sorts of random plants (jungle mangos, cocao, sugar cane, live grubs, medicinal plants, jaguars, bears, Swiss caramel truffles) and learning about all sorts of vegetation. We spent the last night camping out in the jungle by a lake where we tried some fishing, unfortunately not catching anything. We were also almost killed by a tree that fell on our camp at 5 in the morning. Luckily the main trunk didn´t hit us so no-one was hurt but a metre here or there could have changed things quite seriously. After giving the tree a beating of a lifetime for disturbing our snoozing we made our way back to the settlement where we spent the rest of the night, out of danger of collapsing trees. That´s pretty much it for the jungle tour. Oh, I got eaten alive by bugs, mainly mosquitos and sandflys. My entire body was a mess of red bumps, I have a photo that i´ll try and upload. Damn mosquitos, you used to be cool man.

Next. Hospital. Will and I both got intestinal infections in the jungle. Mine had some amoeba and Will´s was just bacterial so we had to spend 3 days in hospital on drips through which they pumped various liquids into our blood. Don´t know how the fanta fruit twist was supposed to help. Maybe it gave our blood a tang. We got out though and then had to speedily make our way to the next stop of the trip - Lake Titicaca.

We decided to visit the lake from Puno in Peru, where the Uros floating reed islands are. Literally everything is made of reeds - the islands, the boats, the houses, the people. It´s amazing. They do a lot of fishing and then trade the fish on the mainland for potatoes and wood and suchlike. Its quite a cool, although pretty isolated, lifestyle. Having said that they´re quite close to the mainland but its isolated in the sense that they can´t really "pop out" anywhere (you know, like for a burger or something), apart from to the furthest reaches of their small reed island, or by boat to the neighbouring reed island. Nevertheless its all very cool, no more time for this though, look at Will´s blog (sorry to keep doing this Will) for some more info. I´m really hoping Will doesn´t employ the same tactic as me, I´m completely relying on him for more in depth discussion. Anyways, moving on to Machu Picchu.

Right, as you´re reading this you are quite literally travelling through time as It is now the 16th of May, not the 9th when I started writing, and I am actually in Costa Rica. Confusing. I basically got so exhausted writing the blog that I decided to save it and finish it another time. Well now is that time, and I´m on free internet so I won´t have to rush it so much, although I undoubtedly will. So continuing from the previous paragraph, Machu Picchu:

As you can probably guess, Machu Picchu is a touristy place, and as such the various buses and trains you have to take to get there start very early in the morning so people can get there for the start of the day. We took the first train and so had to get up at around 2.30am. Just a quick note on the hostel we were staying at before I forget, it was strange. It was filled with Argentinian hippies that seemed to never leave the building, but just mull about in the kitchen area, making random foods and doing circus tricks. There was also a dog that kept straddling our legs and pissing all over the floor. Anyways back to where I was. We took the PeruRail expedition (the cheapest) train which had windows all around the carriage, as in in the ceiling as well, through the Sacred Valley all the way to Aguas Calientes, a small town that acts as the jumping off point for visiting Pachu Micchu. We took the bus up there, with the intention of walking back down, and immediately went to climb Spachu Wicchu Mountain. This is the slightly less popular mountain that you can climb. There's Wayna Picchu which is the big spikey mountain behind the citadel in all the postcard shots, and then there's Gwachu Licchu Mountain which is on the other side and overlooks both Micchu Pachu and Wayna Picchu. Despite the fact that it's not exactly considered the most hardcore of the 2 mountains available, we thought that it was a lot better than Waynu Picchu for several reasons: Its cheaper to do and you don't have to book way in advance, there's not as many people doing it so its more peaceful, the peak is higher than that of Waynu Picchu so the views from the top are way better, also the view of Scachu Chicchu that we got included a view of Wayna Picchu that obviously you don't get if you climb Wayna Picchu because you're on top of it. Also there was a theme park at the top and a llama that served you drinks as you climbed so we were pretty satisfied with the climb we chose. It actually turned out to be pretty difficult, there are endless Inca stairs to climb, some of which have sheer cliff drops on the side and the weather was a tad too hot for comfort. It was all worth it when we got to the top however. As I said, the views were unbelievable, not just of Hachu freecchu, but also of the surrounding mountains which were just stunningly green and jagged. When we got down we then went and looked around the Citadel itself, making sure to take the standard postcard photo with the llamas in the foreground. It's a really cool place. I can't tell you much about it's history firstly because we didn't have a guide and secondly because I don't want to. I can't be bothered. So after wandering around for a bit, we decided to wait for the tourist hoards to leave (which happens surprisingly as early as 2 or 3) and just chilled out on a bit of lawn, reading books and enjoying the quiet. After a short while we made our way down on foot and walked back to Aguas Calientes for the return train. We were seriously knackered at this point, I was sleeping uncontrollably on the train back to Cusco.

Quick note on Cusco. Its very very nice. Its the old Inca capital and has a really nice central plaza where tonnes of tour guides ambush you to try and and sell their Flachu Micchu tours. And at night there's an amusing amount of sly moustache twiddling men coming up to you and saying 'my friend, you want weed', and an equally puzzling number of people approaching you saying 'my friend, you want massage', but I guess if you're a fan of weed and massages then it's a pretty swell place. And it saddens me to say that that's actually pretty much it for South America (apart for a day or 2 in Lima, nothing really worth mentioning), after 2 months and 10 days we finally left the big SA and are now as I mentioned in Costa Rica. But that's another post for another time. And by another time I mean right now. I'm just going to start it as a new one to give your eyes a bit of a rest. (And also to give me the option of going to sleep and writing about Costa Rica some other time when I have the energy, like in 3 months or something. Stick around!

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