Rant #2- Travel companions and crimes against photography

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Here we are in La Paz in perhaps the smokiest internet hole ever filled with obnoxious Israeli tools having had the most uncomfortable night bus trip ever, hence my need to vent. ( Had a great trip to the Salar but more about that when I'm in a lighter mood ).

Organised tours are all pretty much the same regardless of the operator the only real variant is the people who are booked on the trip with you. Unfortunately you cannot control this unless you travel en masse. We have thus far been very lucky but our luck ran out recently. On our mine tour we were coupled with a father daughter duo from Australia who were mildly annoying. They happened to be on our bus to Uyuni and became irritating and I was just praying we wouldn't be stuck with them for the 3 day Salar trip. I should have known, we even quizzed them about their agent so we could use another but to no avail.

Now it is quite odd to travel with ones father, especially if you are a 31 year old, but the sentiment was noble as it was a 60th birthday pressie to see Machu Pichu.
Peter was by far the least offensive of the 2 and I even started to like him. Peter knows everything about everything. Peter wears sensible khaki clothes and has a webbing belt with an attchment for his pocket knife. Peter likes to brew up on his army issue hexy stove and drink strong tea out of a mess mug. Peter is in the army reserves. Peter raises the volume of his voice considerably to make himself understood to the stupid natives. All round a no nonsense older aussie bloke with very poor coping skills. I especially liked his ability to revel in others misfortunes, a real glass is half empty mentality...eg, when informed we would be sitting in the front seat of the night bus he responded " when it crashes you'll be straight through the window!" Nice.

Natalie is the afore mentioned daughter and a real pain in the arse with her heart in the right place. Natalie has travelled quite a lot and started literally every sentence with " When I was.... Here last year/ In Africa/ In England/ Working in the burns unit..." and so forth. Here is a girl who cannot stand a silence which really grates after 3 days couped up in a 4x4. When anyone else is asked a question it was invariably Natalie who answered. she told us about England and argued with a consultant Gyanaecologist about appropriate medication for pain relief. The final straw came when I spilled some mayonnaise on my trousers and had the gall to mention it later " yes well we've all heard about that.." was the response. I nearly bit my tongue clean off in an attempt to curb the torrent of abuse that was surging up from my bowel. Natalie, travelling does not make you interesting and if I want your opinion I'll ask.

I feel much better but I still have to mention a real bug bear of mine. I love digital cameras, they are a fabulous invention and they´ve saved fortunes in devoleped and discarded rubbish photos. My problem is this, people take photos of utter dross, hundreds of them,from every angle and if anything is worthy of a photo then you can´t move for being in someones shot. If there were still film in those cameras people would stop and think. I´m often aghast looking at a vista that someone is taking photos of wondering why they would think it looks nice and if they think it will magically transform within the camera. I have seen people taking photos of information placards in museums but not the exhibits! The reason for this rant is Peter. Peter took hundreds of snaps of nothing through the window of a very bouncy 4x4. If you´re invited to Peters house to see his holiday photos, don´t go. Now I´m no David Bailey and the wife is certainly guilty of taking some dull shots but some people are in a different league.

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