Bolivian Bus Story (and a Peruvian one too)
Trip Start
Nov 15, 2006
1
15
60
Trip End
Aug 04, 2007
La Paz,
Bolivia
Friday, January 19, 2007
So we left Santiago one afternoon and headed 7 hours north to the coastal town of La Serena.
There isn't a lot to say about La Serena as there isn't a whole great deal to do there. Its a very pretty colonial (or fake colonial) town that has miles and miles of lovely wide sandy beaches just down the road, which really is enough to justify a visit. We were also lucky enough to stay in the best hostel to date. It was blummin cheap (for Chile) and really friendly and quite small so we were greeted by the owners and fussed over and generally given the low down on what there wasn't to do in La Serena and had a lovely little room all to ourselves. We found an enormous supermarket close by that puts Carrefour and Tesco to shame and spent hours wandering around looking at all the food that wasn't bread and cheese. We (well I) bought chives and parsley just because we could. Oh the joy!
The following day we went and had a look around La Serena ... half an hour later we booked ourselves onto a trip to see some stars and then headed to the beach. Gorgeous, hot, wide, sandy, beach where we just soaked up some sun and read and generally felt very smug about not being at work. Somebody obviously wanted to kick us out of our smugness as we got enthused to death by a small spaniel and by 4 o'clock the whole beach was absolutely rammed and you couldn't hear yourself think for hawkers selling everything from ice creams to bat and ball; pancakes to miniskirts; drinks to necklaces. That said, it was lovely just enjoying the rays and watching the world go by.
La Serena is very close to several large astronomy observatories. The area is supposedly blessed with only 50 cloudy days a year - although every single day we were there it was cloudy at least in the morning (obviously the Wensley Weather Luck is continuing post wedding)- and that combined with little thermal activity (I believe) means that it is a perfect spot for astronomy and as such there are several large professional observatories in the area which have telescopes somewhere between 8 and 10 m across. There the boffins are busying themselves looking for a new home planet for us for when we finally finish this one off. Unfortunately us tourists aren't allowed into these places to view the stars, in fact the boffs themselves only view the constellations etc through computers; all very dull. We, however, wanted the real deal and handily there are several observatories, set up for gringo stargazers. So after an amusing supper with two sarcy girls from New Zealand and Oz (believe it) we were picked up and taken the 60k's to a little town called Vicuņa and then up a steep hill to the observatory. Quite amazingly we happened to be in the same minibus as the Swiss couple from Navimag and a couple from Manchester who were just starting their travels and whilst very amusing proceded to whinge about everything they'd experienced since they'd got to Chile ....
We had an amazing time at the Mamalluca Observatorio. For me Number 2 in the list of things done after Torres del Paine. It was a moonless night so we could see even more stars than normal and saw everything from the southern cross, to two other galaxies, the whole of Orion (not just his belt), Cirrus the dogstar, Seven Sisters (took me right back to Finsbury Park), Taurus, Leo, shooting stars galore and the highlight of the whole evening was being able to see Saturn; rings, moons and all. Amazing, despite the Manc lad's assertion that it looked like a Blue Peter cut out had been stuck to the end of the telescope.
Useless trivia for you. Did you know that there are now (since 4 months ago) no longer 9 planets. Pluto has been demoted. Apparently it is just a large lump of rock and so is not grand enough to be a planet and therefore is a planetoid. Do tell me if I'm boring you.
It was incredible, I've never seen stars like it and probably may never do again, although I will be purchasing a telescope and guide to the galaxy on our return.
The following day (9th January (for Annie BFīs benefit!)), we decided we'd pretty much exhausted all that La Serena had to offer and so booked ourselves on an overnight bus to travel the 19 hours to San Pedro de Atacama; a tiny little adobe village, that as the name suggests is in the heart of the driest place on earth - the Atacama Desert. Now, normally I wouldnīt bore you with details of bus journeys, other than the eponymous Bolivian one and this one. We had the mother of all buses. A downstairs compartment occupied by ourselves and two other English guys, which had seats so spectacular that you could lie down fully flat and we even had a man to tuck us in. The 19 hours therefore passed in a dreamless sleep and we awoke to quite the most surreal landscape Iīve ever seen. The Atacama is a desert and is therefore very dry, but itīs not all sand. Vast tracts of it are comprised of salt and there is an inordinate amout of red rock. It does look very much like the surface of the moon, she says, of course having been to the moon.
San Pedro is a funny little place. It is absolutely tiny yet completely inundated with Gringos as the place from which to see a whole host of bizarre landscapes and natural phenomena. After finding somewhere to stay we went to the Valle de la Luna. This was an excursion which involved, a walk in Valle de la Muerte Death Valley (not quite the same as the one in the US, nobody has died there, just some French bloke got confused with the Spanish for Mars (Mart) and the French for dead (Mort) and bizarrely the name stuck but in Spanish - confused?) We then visited some caves that are made entirely of salt. Ben was more interested in my useful if slightly geeky head torch than the caves, then it was off to see some stones that are a million years old and optimistically called Las Tres Marias (Three Maryīs). Pretty cool that theyīre so old but ... and finally it was to Moon Valley (Valle de la Luna) to watch the sunset. It was quite a stunning experience as the whole landscape completely changed colour as the sun sunk further and further. It is weird enough to begin with, sand dunes plus rock plus salt and little else all in the bizarrest formations thanks to wind, wind and more wind and then the colours in the rocks just go blue, purple, green and all sorts ... spectacular.
The next morning, after an interesting nights sleep plagued by ozzies who couldnīt hold their beer having fisticuffs with the local police and our hostel owner at midnight for disturbing the peace, we got up at 4am to go and see some Geysers. I was more than a little miffed when our ride didnīt show until an hour later ... but the day soon improved as we saw the hissing and spitting water El Tatio Geysers (highest in the world at 4,200m above sea level), soaked in some thermal springs despite it being minus 4 degrees C and had lunch of llama kebabs (seriously tasty ... like a cross between lamb and venison). We then had one day to amuse ourselves before heading out on our much anticipated trip to the Salar de Uyuni which we filled with an ill advised bike ride into the middle of the desert. I need say no more other than that it was my idea, and it was a bad one!
So on Saturday 13 January we presented ourselves early to catch our jeep to the Salar de Uyuni. This was after a night on a the Pisco Sours with Darren and Paul the two guys from our bus who Ben had (s)talked into having a drink with us and proved a very amusing and interesting evening topics of conversation ranging from Hugh Grant to Anthrax to Benīs terrible jokes, to the intricacies of Daylight Saving (does anyone know the justification for this and we donīt want to know about it helping the farmers as this is clearly rubbish?) Suffice to say one of us wasnīt very chatty the following morning and for once it wasnīt me.
So, the 3 day trip which culminates in crossing the Salar de Uyuni - the largest Salt Flat in the world which is just over the border in Bolivia - started with a very grumpy Ben. The Salar trip is much talked about not least because some people have a complete nightmare with their jeep, driver, food, companions etc, but we seemed to hit the nail on the head, for once. I could write about the trip for days and days as it was an amazing experience, but here are the highlights in brief:
- Breakfast at the Bolivian border with one foot in Chile and the other in Bolivia and a pee behind the immigration hut!;
- Three lakes that were truly white, green and red (well pink when we visited it but still crazy) thanks to the minerals and micro-organisms therein;
- Altitude ranging between 4,300 and 4,700m meaning waking up in the middle of the night convinced I was suffocating;
- Sleeping on concrete beds in potentially the coldest place Iīve ever been and watching the children who lived there having water fights ... nutters;
- A fabulous group of jeep buddies, including another Brit, two Kiwis, a Pole and our Bolivian driver Sandro. As Malgosia (Pole) and the guide didnīt speak any English the majority of the 3 days was conducted in Spanish and I have to say both Ben and I were more than a little surprised about how well we fared ... well half of that statement is true.
- The Valle de las Rocas, when Ben climbed on top of a rock that was shaped like a condor and couldnīt get down again!
- More geysers, but this time ones bubbling lava that were far more interesting (and stinky) than the water ones.
- Flamingos, flamencos and more flamincos .... could never get it right.
- Bathing in 30 degree crystal clear thermal baths with similar temperatures outside (and lots of naked middle aged Italian men ... eugh) one minute then, having a snowball fight around a stone tree the next.
- Having conversations about the monarchy (Len, Balls, Pru, Andy youīll be pleased to hear that everyone agreed with ME!), the commonwealth, the Big Bang and Lollipops;
- Helping Malgosia dye her hair a different colour blonde, whilst in a place where running water is at a premium, but she was insistent!;
- El Cementerio de los Trenes - a random siding type place outside Uyuni which is home to loads of rusting steam locomotives, mostly dating from the late 1800īs ... kind of like the Marie Celeste but for trains;
- And finally, the Salar itself. Our original trip was supposed to drive right the way across the salt flat, which is 12,000 sq km (which by my reckoning is half the size of England) and 200km wide at the widest part. However as it is rainy season the flat is entirely covered with at least 6 inches of water and in some places this gets up to 3 feet deep. As such we couldnīt cross it but went around it and entered from one side about 15 kilometres in. It was initially a bit disappointing that we couldnīt do the whole thing, but as soon as we got there all that disappeared as you marvelled at the most bizarre landscape you can imagine. Itīs impossible to tell where the sky ends and the earth begins. As far as you can see in any direction is white, white and more white, but even more strangely it was all covered in water and so everything was reflected. We had the most amout of fun, splashing around and creating "amusing" photographs with the reflections. Then under the water, which is completely clear and obviously leaves your feet completely white from all the salt, there is a beautiful honeycomb pattern where the salt cracks. And then we travelled back to Uyuni on top of the jeep! So crazy!!
Uyuni is the most isolated little town and there isnīt a lot to do there. We couldnīt get on a bus that night to La Paz so we had a day to kill (mainly filled by trying to take subtle pictures of all the traditionally dressed women and failing miserably) before boarding the bus at 8pm the next evening for the 12 hour journey to the Bolivian (de facto) capital. When I say Uyuni is isolated, I mean that the only road out takes minimum 7 hours to the next town and is only a dirt track, which given the immense amount of rain that preceeded us, was a complete quagmire. As a result weīd been warned that the journey could take longer than the 12 hours billed, however, we werenīt quite prepared for 22 hours. After 4 hours of rattling along the road to such an extent that you couldnīt read, the road was that bumpy, we suddenly came to an abrupt halt. This was bliss for all those of us with TB (tiny bladder as Mel would say) who raced to the door, pounded on it for it to be opened and fell out into the muddy fields to relieve ourselves without a care for who could be watching. For Ben, who was so desperate he didnīt put his shoes on, this was even more exciting as he came back with a strange grin on his face and very very soggy feet. Fortunately he hadnīt been that desperate, but had walked straight into a stream. We all piled back on the bus at about midnight and waited, and waited, and waited ... and waited. Eventually we fell asleep and when we awoke at 6.30 the next morning, we were still in the same place. The reason for our hold up became apparent as the sun rose. We were third in line of a queue of buses, the first of which was submerged up to its windshield, in a deep, fast flowing river that it had attempted to cross. It seemed that the other drivers had seen this in the middle of the night and decided there was nothing they could do in the dark and so waited until it was light. Fairly sensible we concluded. The next 3 hours were not.
It took two hours of deliberation and procrastination (including rumour that this was the only route and that it was crossed regularly but the river was never this high so weīd have to wait until the water level went down which could be five hours or five days ...) and several tow-lorries to dislodge the offending bus, then when it was finally moved, to much celebration another bus managed to get across the river, but was prevented access to the road on the other side by a third bus trying to cross the opposite way at the same time. This then caused much argument, honking of horns and fist waving by the 300 plus people (including ourselves) located on each side of the river. Finally, after another hour of this, the biligerent bus backed down (or up) and our bus driver charged across the river and up the other side without a moments hesitation and to great applause from all aboard. Only 9 and half hours after we stopped! So thatīs our Bolivian bus story. Others weīve heard have involved scaffolding holding up the roof of the bus and more scarily, 3 people on a mini-bus who were robbed at gunpoint and held hostage for 24 hours. Ours was never dangerous, just ridiculous.
So 10 hours late we finally rolled into La Paz (on the 17 January, Annie) and what an amazing sight that is. La Paz looks like a can of paint has been dropped at the bottom of a canyon and the contents filled the canyon and splashed all the way up the sides. You approach it from the altiplano and you come around a corner and suddenly before you is the worldīs highest capital city glistening in the canyon. It is quite breathtaking and was a wonderful end to a unique bus journey. I totally fell in love with La Paz. After Santiago and Buenos Aires, which seem so normal and European, it is a bustling, noisy, vastly colourful mass of humanity and you really feel like youīre a long way from home. It has some really pretty, if faded (rather like Havana) architecture, steep steep hills, gorgeous churches and wonderful people. The area we stayed in is predominantly indigenous and all the women dress in the customary layered skirts, bowler hats and brightly coloured scarves (in which they carry everything from shopping to washing to babies) and have their long black plaits down their back. It was just a feast to view and the huge and numerous markets (including the Witches Market which sells stuffed armadillos and llama foetuses for luck ... ick) that engulf this part of La Paz are equally fascinating. We had a great couple of days just exploring the markets, buying the obligatory alpaca wool garments and loving the city and went to the cinema (OK it wasnīt an educational Peruvian film, but Casino Royale, but the novelty made it the best film ever!).
Then Ben needed to do an "activity" so we went to try and cycle the Worldīs Most Dangerous Road ... WMDR runs from La Paz to Coioco, and is officially that, with more than 26 vehicles disappearing over the preciptious edges of the road each year. Infamously in the 90īs a bus fell the 1,000m (and no that isnīt one too many noughts) drop off the edge killing all 100 people on board. Obviously itīs now a Gringo tourist thing, to cycle this single track road and try to avoid getting knocked off the edge by a bus or by the road simply collapsing. Depending on which way you look at it, considering a) my fear of heights and b) Benīs accident-prone ness, it was probably a blessing that the villagers of Coioco are pissed off with all the Gringos descending on them the whole time and there was some kind of argument going on that meant we couldnīt do it. Oh well... except there is another similar road which can be done. Great.
So (on 19th Jan Annie), the Wensleyīs accompanied by two very excitable 20 year old Germans cycled the 33 km gravel preciptious road to Zongo which takes you from over 4,000m down to just over 1,000m. Suffice to say I kept the follow up van company and took in the (absolutely amazing - to rival Torres del Paine) scenery and pretended that I wasnīt interested in going fast when I was simply plain terrified; and obviously, Ben was very keen and, trying to keep up with the guide, came clean off his bike and Iīve only just stopped plastering his hand and knee up now.
The next morning we sadly left La Paz (by tourist bus so as to avoid the gunmen) and headed for Copacobana - not the Brazilian beach, but the little village on the Bolivian shores of Lake Titicaca. How excited was I. Having learnt at school all about the "highest navigable lake in the world" (which incidentally is untrue) and wondered about it all my life, it was absolutely fantastic to actually be there and it doesnīt disappoint. On arriving at Copac.. we decided that weīd head straight to Isla del Sol, one of the larger islands in the lake that is one and half hours from the shore (well 20 minutes in a normal boat, but hey). Depending on who you talk to Isla del Sol was a really big deal in Incan life as it was believed to be the birth place not only of the first Inca but also the sun. It is also the place of the Puma Rock which was held as sacred and from which the lake get its name as in Quechua (I believe) Puma Rock is translated as Titi Kharīka ... more trivia.
Anyway, we arrived at the island, climbed an Inca stairway - not easy at 4,000m with a 20kg pack on your back - Ben found us a fab place to stay with views across the lake in both directions and then found a terrace to have a beer and watch the sun go down. Most definitely the best sunset ever ... simple as that. We got chatting to a Brad (Kiwi) and Yael (Israeli girl) who were travelling together and ended up having pizza, beer and conversations about nipples and Adam Gilchrist (including a full demonstration of cricket with props, fielding and bowling for the benefit of Yael who didnīt know what it was).
The next day saw us walk the length of the island and back which included the famous rock, impressive Incan ruins and a glimpse of Isla del Sol life. There are no cars and every family seems to have pigs, sheep, llama, donkeys and if their really lucky a cow or two. It was fascinating and so tranquil interrupted only by a full on football game played on a swampy pitch next to a little beach. Weīve seen full size football pitches with proper goals in places where there is only one house and squeezed into every imaginable location and at some fairly exciting angles. It was an idyllic place to spend a few days and despite the relatively large numbers of tourists that come to visit the ruins and chill out, it manages to maintain it`s traditional Bolivian way of life. The only slight fly in the ointment was the 20 plus Argentinians armed with guitar and mandolin who proceeded to murder classics (including Pink Floyd, Guns`n`Roses and various others) until the early hours of the morning.
From Isla del Sol we headed back to Copacabana to catch a bus over the border leaving Bolivia behind and heading for the Peruvian side of the beautiful lake. We bumped into Brad again at the bus office and headed off together. The border crossing was as mickey mouse as usual and some amusing photos were to be had with the welcome to Peru sign, by covering up the `eī for the benefit of my sister (Pru). It was then a quick hop to Puno, where, whilst Ben spent nearly an hour counting Bolivianos to change them into Soles (his track record with currency conversion is abysmal) and I listlessly looked at postcards, we bumped into one of the Swiss couples we had met in Bariloche and decided to go to dinner with them. Travelling, particuarly on the Gringo Trail means you constantly meet people you`ve met before, good and bad, and this was reiterated the following morning, when whilst on a minibus going to visit some floating islands we waited outside a hostel for some other people to join us and who should jump in but Brad. And then two 50 something couples from England, who were so posh and so English and made me want to see my folks!!
The day (23 Jan, Annie) involved a visit to some floating islands. These are made entirely of reeds and are a couple of k`s off the shore of Puno in Lake Titicaca. People have lived on these islands for over 500 years as originally the Uros (the current inhabitants ancestors) escaped to the lake to avoid being conquered by the Incas. It`s a mad existence, they spend their whole lives building the islands as they gradually rot from underneath, the islands are anchored with big stones and when they want to have a party, they just pull the islands together. Similarly if they fall out with their neighbour, they just get a saw and start cutting! We met the president of the island and his wife. As usual in this part of the world, the wife does everything and whilst she (Olga) rowed us to see another island I had a chat with her. I established that she was 23 and her oldest child was 6 and when I told her how old I was (bless her, but I look younger ...!) and that I didn`t have any children, she was shocked and wanted to know why .... hmmmmm! It was a fascinating morning, a million miles from Finsbury Park and tinged with a little sadness as this life is slowly dying with the older generations and the people are left behind with a short life expectancy (thanks to living on the water) and none of the opportunities that are available to their compatriots only a couple of kilometres away in Puno.
The afternoon was a visit to Sillustani which is home to some of the best examples of chullpas in Peru ... bet you didn`t know that. Chullpas are massive cylindrical towers that were used as tombs by the Collas (pre Incan folk) and it was our first taste of the ways in which Incas and their predecessors managed to know what time of the year it was and so on by using the sun, stars, moon and mountains to help them.
Factual ponderous moment ... the Incan empire only really lasted just over 100 years and came to an end pretty much with the arrival of the Spanish in the early 1530`s. What fascinates me is that looking at their architecture, engineering and hearing about their worship of Mother Earth, the Sun and the Mountains, makes you think that they should be a much older civilisation comparative to say the Ancient Egyptians. It seems crazy to think that they were relatively recent, but then when you think they had absolutely no contact with anyone outside of their continent, unlike Europe etc, what they achieved was phenomenal.
So having exhausted ourselves of tours, we left Puno early the next morning (24 Jan) headed for the beautiful Colonial town of Cusco. On the bus on the way there we got chatting to 3 young English girls and swapped some books with them. One of them was a book about, I quote, "this dude who went to Israel and was held hostage for like ever" ... it turned out to be Brian Keenan`s account of his time in captivity in Lebanon, these girls had never heard of him ... god did we feel old. Cusco was the heart of the Incan Empire (called Tahuantinsuyo it stretched from Ecuador though Peru, Bolivia and into northern Chile and Argentina) and as such became the heart of Spanish South America not long afterwards. It is absolutely gorgeous - all shallow red tiled rooves and white walls - some of them built on the original Incan foundations - but it is also the most visited place in Peru and therefore full of touts trying to sell those silly peruvian hats, drugs and ... massages, obviously ...
After a couple of days of visiting ridiculously ostentatious cathedrals and churches (that would have had my mum up in arms over the "excesses of the catholic church"), admiring Incan stonework, enjoying the views, sampling a stunning milkshake by the gorgeous Plaza de San Blas and buying the obligatory alpaca-wool jumper complete with llamas, we headed to the offices of our guide for the Inca Trail, amusingly titled United Mice. Our guides Edgar and Milton gave us our pick up instructions and sent us on our way. The Inca Trail and Machu Picchu merit an entry of their own and will duly get one, so I will leap ahead now to the last few days.
We left Cusco bound for Arequipa (on 30 Jan) - La Ciudad Blanca - 10 hours south of the former. We didn`t really have many plans, but being absolutely exhausted after 4 days walking and many many hours drinking we thought we`d take it easy for a few days. Oh no ... not us. In the last 7 days we`ve been up it, down it, through it, around it and climbed every conceivable thing you can imagine. Arequipa is most famous for one of it`s - largely frozen - inhabitants; Juanita the Ice Mummy. A young Incan girl who was sacrificed on top of one of the Volcanoes near Arequipa (Ampata) over 500 years ago and was discovered by accident when the neighbouring Volcano started erupting in the mid 90`s and therefore melted the glacier on Ampata that had served as Juanita`s tomb and preserved her for all that time. We visited the musuem which is now her home, although true to Wensley form she was on vacation and we had to make do with her mate whose name is Sarah or something like that. It was more than a little macabre and Ben found the whole thing completely distasteful and whilst there is a lot to be said for leaving things be, `the scientists` have found out a lot more about the Incas as a result of her discovery and prevented the looters nicking all the goodies that would have adorned her during her sacrifice. We also visited a beautiful monastery (although it houses nuns so surely it`s a convent) but for Ben too many museums means it was `activity` time again. This involved walking up El Misti.
(1 and 2 Feb) El Misti (which overlooks Arequipa) is a 5,822m active Volcano and we thought it would be a good test of our recently acquired trekking skills to tackle this beauty. OH MY GOD. This involved walking up 2,500 vertical kilometres in less than 24 hours; spending the night in a freezing tent at 4,800m unable to breathe and terrified that the volcano was about to erupt (even though it hasn`t done so for more than 600 years); getting up at 2am to climb the rest of the way in the dark and literally only just managing to shuffle forwards if I stopped for a rest every 20 paces; and doing all this with the most miserable companions we`ve ever had the misfortune to meet. It was the hardest thing either of us has ever done and I have never ever seen Ben look so miserable, but we did it. We climbed higher than the equivalent of the base camp at Everest and vowed never ever ever to do that kind of thing again. My plans to tackle Aconcagua and Kilimanjaro have since been shelved. The best bit, although we were too knackered and grumpy to appreciate it, was running full pelt down a different bit of a mountain that was covered in Volcanic (black) sand. It was kind of like skiing without the planks on your feet - although in this case Ben was much better at it than me!
When we finally got back to the pick up point, we had to wait two and half hours for our lift. When he did turn up complete with lady friend, who was obviously the reason for the delay, the jeep then developed a flat, which delayed us another hour whilst they took all the tyres off and moved them all around so that the spare would fit the front wheel ... I have no idea how this worked, but the whole way back I was convinced we were going to be plunged into the open pumice stone mine by the side of the road when the spare tyre`s dodgily patched up hole gave way. Needless to say, the guide received a few choice words from me - in my best stroppy Spanish. And as if that wasn`t enough, the next morning we were picked up at 5.30am to go and trek Colca Caņon.
(3 - 5 Feb) Colca Canyon is the second deepest canyon in the world and until recently was thought to be the deepest until `they` changed the rules for what makes a canyon deep. Nevertheless it is only 200 m short of the deepest and is twice the depth of the Grand Canyon. Our ill-advised but ultimately successful trip there involved walking down over 2,000m spending the night in the canyon, getting up close and personal with Condors; enjoying a local fiesta complete with marching band that played the same tune for 3 days solid, having a swim on the canyon floor at the aptly named Oasis and then climbing the same 2,000m out again. A totally ridiculous thing to do after climbing El Misti, but absolutely awesome (in the true sense of the word not the usage of our Australian companion for the trip). Having left the canyon the final day was spent visiting a viewing spot for Condors - we didnīt see any and I`d be gutted if I`d done the 4 hours from Arequipa just to see them like a lot of people do - and soaking our weary bones in the local thermal baths, which are the best of the 3 we`ve been to and was like the biggest and best bath you`ve ever had, aside from the lack of bubbles.
From there it was the 4 hour journey back to Arequipa. Having spent an hour and half standing on the bus earlier that morning and jostling for elbow space with 40 other
people (Ben counted them) including a woman selling yoghurt and at least three people next to us who were sleeping standing up and kept semi-collapsing into us, we were delighted to have some seats. This didn`t last for long. Ben had small child asleep in his lap for an hour until he gave his seat (and mars bar) up to the child`s mum (who had spent the journey so far throwing up in bag) and her remaining children- one a 7 month baby who would not go to sleep and insisted on hitting me with a newspaper all the way back. When I remarked to the mother (who had stopped throwing up as soon as Ben donated his seat) that he didn`t seem to ever sleep, she smiling broadly said, no he was a spirited child ... Come back Bolivian buses, all is forgiven ... although we were a little sad that amongst all the acres of broad beans and other merchandise that was fighting for floorspace there wasn`t a single chicken. We are now (6 Feb) relaxing in Arequipa before getting a bus tonight to Nazca, home of the famous lines. After which we hope to go to the jungle ... oooooo.
I have given up trying to load photos onto this website as it just won`t work and crashes everytime I do it. So I`ve set up an account on www.webshots.com where you can view some of the photos we`ve taken over the last couple of months. They`re not completely uptodate yet as it takes a bit of time to do it, but have a look. There are individual albums that relate to each of the entries on this blog. Information on how to find it is in the covering email.
