Diary

Peru - Week 1

Peru Week 1 pictures here

Though we arrived in Lima almost a week ago, it seems more like two. The plane was very full and very heavy, and when we got to Lima airport, we watched the scores of tiny Peruvians struggling with three or four enormous suitcases each. Enrique from our guesthouse was waiting for us and took us in his beaten up car through Lima´s six o´clock rush hour. Quite an experience! We checked in at Safe in Lima, met Jean-Paul, the owner, and headed out to discover the Barranco quarter. We ended up in a little cafe called Sancho Panza where we had a couple of beers, a bite to eat, and listened to ¨poesia musicalizada¨, which, as far as we could work out, was someone singing and playing the guitar.

The next morning, after breakfast and some research (Safe in Lima turned out to be well-stocked with guidebooks!), we walked up the coast road through Barranco and into Miraflores. The vista over the Pacific was impressive, even if the weather was totally overcast and foggy. The apartments along the seafront are reminiscent of Palm Beach, Florida, and are a far cry from the tales of shanty towns and extreme poverty you always hear about Lima. In Miraflores, we managed, after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, to get my phone unlocked, buy a sim and get a spanking new Peruvian mobile phone number. We then stopped to have the 9 sol (just under 2 pounds) lunch menu in a little restaurant, and headed back, calling Paul and Rachel on the way to arrange our arrival in Chincha. After a little snooze, we headed out for another drink, and then to restaurant La Fonda, recommended by Enrique, (very close to Barranco´s ¨bridge of sighs¨), only to find it full of French people, complete with their very own accordion player! We had a very nice meal regardless before heading back for bed.

The next morning, we got a taxi to the Soyus bus station (witnessing a crash or two on the way) and hopped on the bus to Chincha. Everyone keeps telling us the Soyus buses are full of thieves, so we clutch on to our bags like two paranoids. Paul and Rachel were waiting for us at the other end and took us to El Vicerrel hotel to drop the bags. After endless debate with numerous drivers, we took a collectivo (a small minibus crammed full of Peruvians) up to El Carmen and the most unlikely place in the world for a tourist restaurant. Maime fed us hearty criole fare and we chatted to Paul and Rachel about their experience if Peru and Chincha so far. They´ve only been in Chincha for a week but already seem to have their head around the dos and don´ts. Dave and I are slightly in awe of the project they have got themselves involved in. It seems like a massive challenge.

Lunch over, we hopped in another collectivo to Hacienda San Jose to look around the impressive colonial style country house and explore the underground tunnels that once connected four different haciendas. These were small and claustrophobic and us non-Peruvians struggled with the low ceilings. The candles we were given didn´t really help us to find our footing and after ten minutes or so, we were feeling a little nervous. It didn´t help that our guide spoke a Spanish that was pretty much incomprehensible, or that he thought it would be funny to get us all to put out our candles to see how dark it was, and then disappear before we could relight them. He did eventually turn up again, but a few of us were less than appreciative of his sense of humour!

We got a collective back to Chincha (and must have broken some sort of record for how many people can squeeze into one of those things) and went back to the hotel to make some calls and book our hotel in Pisco. Later on, we headed out to meet Paul and Rachel in a Chifa (Peruvian-Chinese fusion restaurant) on the square for dinner.

Next morning, Paul comes to meet us and we take a motortaxi up to where he and Rachel are living. They are in the only two-story building in the area and from the roof, we are well placed to see the extent to the damage done by the earthquake. We spend a few hours playing Settlers of Catan (a board game which, while being fun, is also a bit of a metaphor for Paul and Rachel´s development project) and then head back to town to pick up our bags and get the bus to Pisco. We discover that both of us fit into a motortaxi WITH our bags!

When we arrive in Pisco, we need to take a taxi into the town centre, and our driver explains that things are still a little unsettled here sue to the earthquake. This becomes evident when we arrive in the main square to find the cathedral is a big empty space and that the street our hotel is on isn´t a street at all but a big hole with piles of dirt and rubble all around. We meet Jimmy in the square and he takes us to El Condado to drop our bags, and then to his ¨office¨ to book the Islas Ballestas tour. We get sidetracked and start talking about the earthquake, something that´s obviously quite hard for his to talk about. He explains that 50 or so volunteers are based in a house on the beach, and that they help by building schools and whatever else needs doing. Lots of them are tourists who decided to stay to do their bit. We book our excursion and head back to the hotel.

That evening we go to a restaurant on the square recommended by Jimmy (El Dorado) and have ceviche and steak accompanied by Pisco sour and Cusquena. There are a few other gringos around, the first we´ve seen since Chincha.

We´re picked up by our tour ¨bus¨ the next morning and the drive around town to pick up other tourists gives us a chance to see how Pisco has been affected by the earthquake. The buildings that have survived are surrounded by big empty spaces where other buildings once stood. You can imagine what Pisco must have been like before it hit – probably a lovely little town to mooch around. It´s very different now and Jimmy has warned us not to stray far from the main square on foot.

When we arrive in Paracas, there are a few moments of chaos before we finally board our speed boat and head out into the bay. Some bottle nosed dolphins pop up to say hello before we really pick up speed. Half way to the islands, we stop to look at the candelabro – a 170m-long design etched into the side of the peninsular. When we reach the islands themselves, we´re overwhelmed by the number of birds of all kinds flying, perching and fishing. The penguins and pelicans are the only two I´m sure I can identify. There are also seals, crabs, starfish and turkey vultures. We head back to Paracas for a coffee before heading into the Paracas National Park, a vast expanse of not very much at all. While all we can see is desert, our guide assures us that there are animals in the park, though we´re not likely to see them. We stop for the views over the cliffs and then are taken to a spot with a few restaurants where we stop for a beer and meet a Dutch couple who tell us about their experiences so far in Peru. They recommend staying in Huacachina rather than Ica, and give us the number for a hostal there, which we book once we´re back in Pisco. We have dinner again in El Dorado (our options are somewhat limited if we stick to Jimmy´s advice).

Next morning, we squeeze into a motortaxi with our bags and head out to El Cruce, which is where the Soyus bus for Ica stops. We´re not prepared for the chaotic scene we find there. It is Saturday and apparently this means hoards of people cramming into buses to go to other towns to visit family. And they will do anything to get on the buses, including running (very un-Peruvian), pushing, and banging on the bus with their fists. We opt for letting a few buses pass before an empty one arrives and lets us on. When we arrive in Ica, we check the times of the buses to Nasca and then take a taxi to Huacachina, the oasis. Our Hostal, La Rocha, seems to double up as a zoo, with parrots and cats everywhere. We leave our bags and wander around the oasis, which it is in the metaphorical as well as the literal sense. We find somewhere for breakfast and note that there are more gringos here than anywhere we´ve been to yet. It would be easy to stay here for three or four days. Once we´ve eaten, we can no longer resist the urge to head up the dunes and get sandy! The first one is reasonably easy, and we make plans to climb a bigger, further one in the afternoon. First, though, we head to the hostal and make plans for Nasca (they offer us a deal which includes travel, accommodation and flight over the lines). Our second dune is much bigger closer up, and much harder work. We decide the peak is beyond us, and head back defeated to rid ourselves of sand under a hot shower.

This being gringo-land, there´s a pizzeria in town, and we make this our choice for dinner, seeing as both of us have been suffering from slightly dodgy tummies for a few days and need something uncomplicated to digest. Despite our plans to check out the night scene here, we end up going to bed early, and sleep through the party happening outside which lasts until about 8am. After breakfast we go dunebuggying, and I´m very glad I wasn´t up drinking all night. We´re taken on a rollercoaster ride through the dunes, and stop periodically to try our hand at sandboarding. Dave is a natural, whilst I edge down the slopes on my backside. Once again, we are full of sand and need showers before taking our taxi to the bus station.

The scenery between Ica and Nasca is spectacular as we head up into the mountains (and heat up on the bus!). Marcos meets us at the station and takes us to reserve our night bus to Arequipa for the following night. We splash out on the ultra de luxe option, as it´s eight hours over night. Marcos takes us to our hotel (Estrellita del Sur) and we have another unnecessarily confusing conversation about money. We´ve learnt by now that the Peruvians have a very particular communication style, which we just don´t get. We head into town to look around, and end up with a few ice cold beers on a balcony overlooking the main square. We stay here for dinner and watch life unfolding on the square. We head back to the hotel to spend a few hours on the web before heading to bed.

Peru / Bolivia - Week 2

Marcos turned up to take us to the airport for our flight over the Nazca Lines, but that was unfortunately the only efficient thing to happen that day. We were taken to a little shack to watch a hilariously dated BBC documentary about the lines. Then, as no one seemed in a hurry to take us anywhere, we watched a similar documentary in French. After a couple of hours, we were eventually taken to the airport, where hoards of other tourists were waiting. It was at least another few hours before we boarded, during which time a French guy we met in the taxi told us about the crash four months earlier that killed four French tourists. As you can imagine, we couldn´t wait to get on the plane when one finally became free. There were three of us plus the pilot, who turned out to be incredibly enthusiastic and foolhardy. We were going to see every pattern the Nazcas put on that pampa at any cost! This occasionally involved him turning as sharp a corner as possible whilst leaning to point out of the back window. And we saw every figure from the right AND the left window. I was very queezy when we disembarked (my stomach hadn´t even had time to recover from the sand buggy).

When we got back to Nazca, we had a few hours to kill before the night bus to Arequipa, so we went to have dinner in a little pizza place. Harmless enough until the time came to pay the bill, and we had our first experience with fake notes. The waiter got funny about us paying with a 100 Sol note (20 pounds approx), but went off and spoke to the waitress before coming back and saying he didn´t have change for it. We, all-too-obliging, offered to pay in dollars, which they were still scrutinising by the time we left (Peruvians don´t like 5 dollar notes, and any note that has the slightest nick or is too old is unceremoniously returned). Within minutes of leaving, we realised the 100 Sol note he´d brought back wasn´t the one we gave him, and was fake. They didn´t put up a fight when we challenged them, and gave us change in Sols and our dollars back, muttering something about them being unusable anyway. We didn´t lose out, but it sort of spoilt our evening anyway. The restaurant is called La Carreta, in case anyone is wondering.

At ten we got on the night bus, which didn´t really resemble the pictures we had seen of reclining comfortable padded seats, and was actually a bit dingy and stuffy. This would turn out to be the least of my (me being Amy) problems. Still feeling queezy from the cumulative effect of sandbuggy and prop plane, the winding route up through the mountains meant I didn´t really get much sleep. But by about 6am, I started to suspect that the aches and light headedness were due to more than just an unsteady stomach. I was experiencing the beginning of a bout of altitude sickness that would keep me in bed and unable to move for around 20 hours. This was my introduction to Arequipa. Fortunately, Dave had the brilliant idea of feeding me two soluble aspirin, which cured everything within 20 minutes.

We were staying in the Sol de Oro, a hostal our taxi driver persuaded us to try out rather than the Fiorentina, which was a bit futher out of town. This turned out to be a good move, and John, the owner, gave us plenty of advice and sorted us out with a Colca Canyon trek that was cheaper than anything we were offered on the high street. On our first night, we ate in a restaurant serving pre-Inka cuisine served on huge hot stones! The second day we spent wandering around the Santa Catalina convent (absolutely stunning and very peaceful – a miniature city in itself), mooching around town and packing for our trek.

The next day was an early start (5am) to go to the bus station to catch our bus to Cabanaconde via Chivay (5 and a half hours). We were joined on the trek by Keara, an Devon girl who was keen to do the trek via Llahuar (rather than the more usual route via San Juan). Dave and I were easily persuaded and, once again, this turned out to be a good move. We were met by our guide, Waldo, at Cabanaconde, had lunch and then trekked down to Llahuar, which took around four hours and involved several Indiana Jones-style rope bridges. The scenery in Colca Canyon is absoultely stunning, as much from the bus as when you´re trekking. When we got to Llahuar, we headed straight for the hot springs down by the river, and enjoyed the hot soak and stunning mountains. As it would turn out, we were the only people staying at Llahuar that day. After a dinner of freshly-fished trout, we watched the moon rise over the valley, casting its bright silvery light across the mountains. Spectacular!

We spent the night in bamboo huts (very cool – there is no electricity in most of the valley, and it´s amazing how suddenly things get very basic), and the next day, started our trek up (and back down) to the oasis Sangalle, accompanied by our new-found friend, Tarzan the dog. The climb was tough at times, particularly with the effects of the altitide, but it was well worth it to arrive in the lush oasis with swimming pool and more bamboo huts. Sangalle is more on the beaten track, and we met and dined with a few other trekkers. However, we had to leave them to their camp fire and beer to retire early, as we were due to get up at 2.45am to start the trek back out of the canyon. The almost-full moon meant that we didn´t even need torhces for this. The climb out was a long hard trudge, and the sun was rising by the time we reached Cabanaconde at the top. Cabanaconde sits at 3,200m and we had climbed over 1000m in under three hours!

After a well-deserved breakfast, we took the bus to Cruz del Condor, where we watched condors circling, at first some distance below us in the canyon, then closer, anf finally right in front of us. There were around ten or fifteen of them and you almost felt you could reach out and touch them. We arrived back in Arequipa at around 5.30 and headed back to Sol de Oro for showers before heading into town to eat at a little mexican place recommended by Keara.

We had booked our tickets on the 8.30 bus to Puno online, and so got up early for a long day´s travelling. The various accounts of Puno and tours of Lake Titicaca from the Peruvian side, had persuaded us to head out of Puno as quickly as we came in, and cross the border into Bolivia. With the time change, we arrived in Copacabana at around 6pm and panted up the hill to the Cupula hotel, where we had a room reserved. While a bit pricier that anywhere we had stayed since Lima, La Cupula, with its white domes and view over the lake, is a real treat and well worth the splurge. We spent the evening getting a feel for this funny little town and its multi-national population of dreadlocked hippies, its dim-lit little bars and its themed restaurants. We finished the night in a little jazz bar recommended by Keara for creamy hot chocolate.

The next day, after breakfast on the terrace of a little cafe, we started out on the 17k walk up the Yampupata peninsular. We really should have started earlier when the sun wasn´t so brutal – the constant cool breeze at these hights lures you into a sense of complacency about your resistence to the sun - and by the time we had decided to turn back to save our skin, we already resembled a couple of lobsters.

That evening, we ate at one of the many little restaurants on the main street and ended up back in the same jazz bar for more hot chocolate. Celebrations for the San Juan festival were beginning, which seemed to involve starting fires up in the mountains and, unfortunately, loud music and fire crackers all night.

We had an early start the next day to catch our boat to the Isla del Sol, Inka birthplace of the sun. Ours turned out to be the slowest boat in the world – we might have been quicker drifting in the breeze. Other boats chugged past us at we took two and a half hours to cover the (not very far) distance to the north of the island. Here we started our four hour walk to the south where we were to meet the boat to take us back to Copacabana. The walk was only marred by the constant bogus demands for payment of a tax to continue along the path. The locals buy books of tickets and stand at various “control points” where they demand 5 Bolivianos entry to the next section of the trail. We twigged quite quickly that these weren´t authentic, had a few arguments and eventually refused to pay.

The return journey to Copacabana was just as slow, but we managed to find a space in the boat where we could get some sleep. After freshening up at the hotel, we headed into the (deserted) town centre for a few drinks and dinner at a Pizzeria. As always, the evening ended in the jazz bar, where we got talking to an English guy who had mistakenly flown into Lima instead of La Paz to visit a friend and had been travelling across the continent by bus ever since (and had obviously still not reached La Paz). Our attempt to stay out late failed pitifully when we went to bed at 10.15, shattered.

Bolivia - Weeks 3 and 4

Updated Peru and Bolivia pictures here

Our next and last day in Copacabana was a nothing/admin day, spent doing things like laundry. We planned to make our way up to the top of the hill to watch the sunset over the lake but bumped into our new friends from Brighton and were all-too-easily persuaded to start drinking, which we continued to do until around 11.30 (lots of Bolivian specialities to try). Luckily, our bus to La Paz wasn't due to leave until 13.30 the next day, and we spent the morning moving from cafe to cafe and trying to catch snatches of Wimbledon commentary.

In typical, Bolivian style, we were randomly moved from one bus to another without explanation before departure, but the large number of familiar faces on the bus meant we didn't worry too much. After some great views of the lake, it was time to do the crossing, which we did separately from the bus. I'm not sure if passengers or bus were more at risk, us on our creaky little shuttle boat, or the bus on it's specially-designed motor-driven platform. We watched it list precariously across the water, wondering if we'd ever see our bags again.

The rest of the journey was fairly eventless, save the incredible view of La Paz from above upon arrival. By some strange stroke of luck, the bus stopped outside the hotel we had earmarked, and we quickly checked in before heading out for a wander, and then, having failed to find a suitable local bar, we stopped at gringo central Sol y Luna for beers and eventually dinner.

Much of the next morning was spent trying to find a tour agency that would take us up Chacaltaya, one of the many peaks that surround La Paz, and scouting for good cafes, bars and restaurants. We had very little luck with either. We caught some of the Ancic, Ferrer match in gringo central mark two: Oliver's Travels, before heading back out to the agencies and finally finding a group leaving for Chacaltaya the next day. Dinner was less successful. We thought we had hit upon a good place to have some local food, but the service turned out to be so terrible that we cancelled our dessert order and went instead to the Sol y Luna and shared their chocolate and walnut mousse.

We had an early start the next day, and tasted our first salteñas for breakfast (little parcels of pastry filled with either meat or chicken, originally from Salta in Argentina but now typically Bolivian). Our driver met us and we did the rounds of town to pick up fellow passengers. Before heading up the mountain, we were taken (via La Paz's wealthy suburbs) to the Valle de la Luna, an odd little site on the edge of the city where the rain has made the clay-rich earth take on the form of giant stalectites and gorges. Very lunar. After walking among these clay peaks, we drove up to Chacaltaya via El Alto's practically non-existent roads and then winding mountain paths. We arrived at the eerie ski cabin that the effects of El Niño have left useless and abandoned (though still fully equipped with ski gear), and started the slow, cold and airless trudge up the last 200 meters to reach the peak at 5,500m. The highest we've ever been. And nothing awful happened to us, though we could feel the pressure mounting in our sinuses. A good trial run for Thorung La pass!

When we got back to La Paz, we had a quick lunch in Oliver's Travels before getting a taxi to the bus station to catch our coach to Santa Cruz. After some confusion about which company and which bus we were due to use (imagine two totally separate bus companies with the same name and same branding, running slightly different buses to the same destination at slightly different times), followed more confusion when we discovered everyone's seats had been wrongly allocated. Eventually we set off, and settled down for the next 16 hours in our ever-so-posh sleeper bus. We even got some sleep after watching A Few Good Men dubbed into Spanish.

We were rudely awoken, however, at around 7am, and told to get off the bus for a “control.” The military-uniformed police only needed to take one look at us before demanding to see our passports and unceremoniously hauling our luggage off the bus so it could be rifled through (even though the sniffer dog had returned to it's pen after finding nothing suspicious). Being the only two gringos on the bus, we were the only ones subjected to this faintly ridiculous treatment (“there are lots of drugs in the world, you know, cocaine, heroine: big problem! Any drugs in this bag?”) and got back on the bus too irritated to get back to sleep.

When we arrived in Santa Cruz, we got a taxi held together with duct tape to Residencial Bolivar, where we met the resident Toucan and left our bags before heading out and findings Café 24, which would turn out to be our local haunt for the duration of our stay. Once our room was ready, we had much-needed showers and then braved the hot, close, Santa Cruz air (we hadn't been this close to sea level for weeks!) to explore the town. As in La Paz, cafes and restaurants seemed to be thin on the ground, though there was an abundance of shoe shops and hairdressers.

We found ourselves back in Café 24 for the Eurocup final between Spain and Germany, where the Bolivian owner found his café inundated with Germans, who even draped a German flag under the TV (he discretely suggested to us that we take a pair of scissors to the black stripe). Here we met Jana (Czech), Rebecca (US) and Jorge (Columbian), and once Spain had dispatched Germany, we chatted and dank beer until dinner time. Unfortunately, due to the failure of our previous restaurant recce, we ended up eating in the Irish Bar on the square (which was jam packed with Bolivians).

After being awoken early by the noises of breakfast just outside our door, we spent a morning doing useful little jobs, including getting Dave's hair cut, something he hadn't had done in a hairdresser for around fifteen years, but seeing as we seemed to be in hair salon capital of the world… I did spot a twinge of fear on his face as the hairdresser sterilised the cut-throat razor, and we were amused by the odd look that met with the request for a “no. 2 all over.” But Dave left with a neater and more thorough cut than he's probably ever had.

Realising we needed to be well-prepared if we were to find a good place for dinner, we went further afield to scout out a few Japanese restaurants we'd been recommended (there is a significant Japanese community in Santa Cruz) before heading home for a nap, and then catching the last few games of the Murray-Gasquet match. The Japanese turned out to be a very good move, despite the fact there were no bars in the vicinity to have a drink in first, and that the only other people in the restaurant were a couple of French businessmen.

The next morning, we met Ben and Suzanne of Ben Verhoef tours to talk through our three day drive to Sucre and hand over the cash. We then set off for Samaipata, a small town two hours' drive south of Santa Cruz, in a shared taxi. The scenery was incredible, and we weren't disappointed when we arrived at the Dutch-run Andoriña hostal. Both our room and its views were gorgeous. We met Jane and Mike from Birmingham on the terrace and they happened to have met the two other brits coming on our tour to sucre. We arrange to have dinner with them all at the Tierra Libre before going for a wander and have a beer on the beautiful main square (and spotting the odd hummingbird). We watched the sun go down from the roof of the hostal (enjoying the beautiful, peaceful landscape surrounding the town) and chatted to a few fellow hostellers in the common room before meeting the others at Tierra Libre. Our fellow passengers on the tour are called Sol and Kaspar, are from Brighton, and are both nineteen. We have a lovely meal (finished off with the most amazing chocolate sundae) before moving on to a bar for cocktails. It's probably for the best that the staff recognize Jane and Mike from the (apparently heavy) night before and refuse to serve us beyond 11.30.

At breakfast, we learn that Jane has been struck down by some violent illness that has kept her up all night and meant she and Mike had to cancel the trek they had planned. Dave and I walk out of town to an animal refuge the Brighton boys had told us about, only to find them both there playing with monkeys and cleaning out cages. The enclosures were filled with the most unlikely combinations of animals (toucans with squirrels, deer and armadillos, wildcats with foxes, birds of prey with rabbits and parrots…). We spend some time getting to know a large and noisy Capucin monkey (who tried to bite Dave) and a very cute (but equally noisy) small white and ginger cat.

After meeting a few more people at the hostal, we head across the road, to Ben and Suzanne's restaurant, The Black Sheep, and have a lovely meal. We arrange to meet Ben early the next morning and head home early to bed.

The next morning, we meet Saul, our driver, collect Sol and Caspar, and head off on the Old Trade Route. There are two vehicles, one with us four and Saul, and one with Ben and a Dutch mother and daughter who are doing a slightly separate tour. The scenery is absolutely fantastic, and we are very much off the beaten track. The dust we churn up on the dirt roads gets everywhere, including our lungs. Our first stop is at Valle Grande, where we visit the Che Guevara museum and the hospital where Che was displayed to the world after capture. Ben is keen for us to see the mausoleum but the “man with the key” is nowhere to be found. We have lunch in a chifa, give up on the mausoleum, and head on to La Higuera via the small village of Pukara. Maybe I was subconsciously influenced by this place name, as at this point I start to feel very unwell, and opt out of the walk around the village to sit and turn green on a bench in the main square.

I manage (reluctantly) to get back into the car but things get worse from here and by the time we reach La Higuera, all I can do is get straight into bed and keep very still. Dave and the others have dinner around a camp fire and meet a Bolivian who is biking from the very north of Canada to Patagonia. I spend the night yo-yo-ing between bed and the bathroom, which is unfortunately located across the courtyard and is, like the whole village, without electricity. A run-in with a large and vicious-looking spider doesn't help matters. The next morning, the others visit another Che museum and then take a three hour walk in the hills to the spot where che was captured. I manage to leave my bed to do some reading in the sun and hummingbird-spotting, and by the time we have had lunch, I feel like I might be able to get back into the car. We visit a sort of mini-museum over the road that is home to the chair Che was executed in, and then set off for Villa Serrano. Just as things seem t be looking up, Saul starts looking very concerned and stops the car to do some investigating under the bonnet. It turns out we are leaking power-steering fluid, and for the remainder of the tour, we have to stop every five minutes to top up with motor oil (Dave winced and bites his tongue as he realizes what this must be doing to the steering system). We make a brief stop at the Rio Grande to marvel at the only suspension bridge in Bolivia (which Dave discretely points out is actually a stayde girder bridge), before eventually arriving in Villa Serrano. Dinner is a challenge – when we eventually find a restaurant that still has food, the waitress gets our order all wrong (there are only two dishes on the menu) and we have to ignore the hoards of begging dogs – and then we head back to the hotel for an evening of charango (a traditional Bolivian, ukulele-like instrument) music and local dancing by children from the local school, for which we have all agreed to make a donation of 100 bolivianos (6 pounds). Saul even gives us a few tunes on the charango, and the evening becomes increasingly participatory as the children invite us all to join in with the dancing.

After breakfast the next morning, we go to visit the charango-maker in his workshop and manage this time to find the “man with the key” to the town hall, home to the biggest charango in the world! We set off and stop in another small village for lunch (again after trying three restaurants that have no food). We make two stops in the afternoon, one to see a local (Quechua-speaking) women weaving a blanket, and the other to walk down into a gorge and do some fossil-hunting. We find plenty of shells and an urchin or two! Here we part with Ben and the Dutch girls to continue on to Sucre, still topping up the motor fluid as we go. We make a stop in Tarabuco to meet a man called Dirk, who turns out to be the owner of the faulty vehicle. He brings with him another car and we travel in tandem for safety to Sucre (thought this second car also develops a problem along the way!), where we arrive at around 7.30 pm. As we don't have a reservation, and as it's Saturday, we have a few problems finding somewhere to stay, but eventually find a room free at the Residencial Bolivia.

After taking our breath and shaking the dust out of our hair and clothes, we head into town like a couple of zombies and have a drink at the Joy Ride Cafe. I am by now having a relapse, and we decide to head back to the hostal but bump into Mike and Jane from Samaipata in the square. We arrange to meet them the next evening and head to bed.

Bolivia - Sucre, Silver Mines, Salt Flats and San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

Bolivia - Silver mines and Salt Flats pictures here

San Pedro de Atacama in Chile pictures here

The next day we are up early to look for a different hostal – we had people knocking on our door in the night at Residencial Bolivar, and there was just something not quite right about the place. Luckily, Dave had a flyer for a place up the road called La Dolce Vita, and the Swiss owners told us they had a couple of twin rooms free. We immediately warmed to the place (helped by the fact that Swiss Lady reminded us it was the mens’ singles final at Wimbledon that day and the lounge had a TV with cable). We headed quickly back to get our things and check out and then Swiss Lady sat us down to give us an introduction to Sucre while her little daughter vied for Dave's attention by doing drawings for him and tugging on his sleeve. As the room wasn't yet ready, we left our luggage and went to Locot’s Cafe for breakfast and to catch the first couple of sets of the Federer-Nadal final (once the rain had stopped). After a while I started having another of my relapses and we headed back to La Dolce Vita only to discover that the people vacating our room had decided not to vacate after all and we would have to settle for a room with shared bathroom. We then settled in to watch the rest of the tennis – the longest final in Wimbledon history, a nailbiter – which took us through to around half four. After chatting to a few people on the upstairs terrace, we went out to meet Jane and Mike at the Joyride, and then moved on to a place a few doors down for Mexican food and cocktails. Dave unwisely let the dice choose a drink for him and ended up with an alarming green concoction that resembled Absinthe but tasted more like white spirit. After consulting the waiter, we were told this was something called Agenjo, which is used in the processing of heroine, and which the bar has permission to serve from the Ministry of Police! The evening ended quite soon after.

After taking six kilos of dirty laundry (almost everything we own) to Superlimp the next morning, we made our way (slowly, breathlessly) to La Recoleta, the viewpoint in the south of the town, and settled in for breakfast at Cafe Mirador. The rest of the morning was relatively lazy (cafe, internet, nap). We did, however, do one useful thing, which was to sort out and book our Uyuni salt flats tour through Dirk's tour agency. We bumped into Jane and Mike on the way back from Superlimp with our newly clean clothes and, it turning out they had made an enormous curry, we nipped into the closest cake shop to buy dessert (Bolivians apparently have a penchant for enormous, elaborately decorated cakes, and this was the first time we had had a legitimate excuse to actually go out and buy some). After a drink (guess where... Joyride), we headed up to the guys’ hostal, Pachamama, and spent the evening eating (very hot) veggie curry, drinking cans of Surena and playing Uno. The posse had grown slightly and we met Gil the Israeli and French Lucie. Eventually, we were asked to leave by the proprietors.

I woke up the next morning to find David muttering and foraging around the room in search of his green trekking socks – without luck. So we scheduled in a visit to Superlimp, who promptly and apologetically produced the missing items – cleaned and paired! We spent the rest of the day doing bits of admin (internet, paying for Uyuni trip) and visiting the textiles museum (which I thought was fascinating but which sent David into ‘little-boy-in-very-boring-museum’ mode). In the evening, another of my relapses meant that instead of trying out the highly reommended (and highly expensive) French restaurant, we had a quick dinner in a little Japanese place (where David bullied me into forcing down three Californian rolls), and headed home. Luckily for Dave, we bumped into Jane, Mike & Co on the way and I left him in their care and headed back to bed on my own. The next day, we took the local bus to Potosi, and spent most of the four-hour journey listening to a (bus-to-bus?) salesman do a sales pitch for some sort of cure-all herb to the thirty bored passengers. However their indifference must have been a front, as most ended up buying a couple of packets of the stuff. Dave and I, being the only two non-locals aboard, weren't even offered a chance to purchase. On arrival in Potosi, we took a cab to La Casona, a hostal we'd been picking up flyers for for days, only to find to girl on reception sullen and unhelpful. Luckily, the Hostal Compania de Jesus was just opposite, and the lady there was a helpful, larger-than-life character who we warmed to instantly. After lunch in Cafe Plata on the square, we plucked up the courage to go and book our silver mine tour. I should point out here that this was always something that had been on our list, but as we'd gathered more and more accounts of what the tours are actually like (neither of us relished the idea of small cramped spaces underground, mud and dust mixed with Silicone and Asbestos and the faint boom of dynamite exploding all around), we had grown less and less keen and had actually decided out and out not to do it several times. But, as tour agencies are wont to do, Koala Tours persuaded us to commit (and sign a disclaimer waiving all responsibility for our death and loss of limb). While we were at it, we booked places on the bus to Uyuni, as we'd heard stories of buses getting booked up and the terminal had looked chaotic on the way in.

Wandering round town (Potosi has a lot more character than Sucre, as well as more interesting little churches and chic little cafes and restaurants. At 4020m and the highest town in the world, it also takes considerably more puff to navigate) we discovered bar 4020 and its extremely efficient heating system (Potosi is also very cold). We stayed for a few beers and then eventually dinner, and tried not to think about what we were putting ourselves through the next day.

At breakfast in the hostal, we bumped into the French couple that had come up Chacaltaya with us the previous week, and met a couple of Scottish girls who were booked on our tour. We headed with them to the agency office and waited four our tour bus and fellow passengers to arrive. There were a few familiar faces, including Gil the Israeli and Sol and Caspar! Our first stop was to collect and don our mining gear – trousers and jacket, boots, helmet and lamp – and to sort ourselves into groups by language. The guides were joking and making light of everything all the while, presumably to calm our nerves. The next stop was the miners market, where we were able to buys small gifts for the miners – fizzy drinks, coca leaves and dynamite! (We were told it wasn't necessary to buy any of the 95% Vol 'drinking alohol' for sale, as it wasn't Friday). We then got back on the bus and headed for the processing plant (frighteningly basic) and then the mine proper. The first section wasn't too bad – we could just about stand upright and there was air to breathe – but we quickly came upon our first shaft to descend to level two, and at this point I just had to stop thinking and do as I was told. The shaft was only just big enough to crawl down, and the passage thereafter didn't open up a great deal. We crawled on our bellies and hands, dodged the miners as they came past wheeling their wagons, and tried to breathe as best we could. We stopped to watch the miners at work and Juan, our guide, explained what day-to-day life was like in the mine (he had spent three years as a miner). There was then some confusion as to whether the route we had come down was still open for us to exit by (talk of more trunks being added to the space and blocking access – I did my best to remain calm) and we were given a little 'challenge’ by Juan (which involved navigating a passage by ourselves and meeting him at the end – again, I have had calmer moments). By now finding it very difficult to breathe, we eventually ascertained that the route out was open, and started the ascent. Outside the mine, we lit our remaining dynamine and had the most dangerous photo op ever befire planting them in the ground and running. At one oint it looked like a truck was going to drive right past them but with the aid of a lot of arm-waving and whistling, the four exposions went off without causing casualties, and we got back on the bus to return to town.

We just about managed to wash the dust off in the trickle of tepid water our hostal called a shower, and then headed to Cafe Plata for lunch. After a well-deserved snooze, we contemplated the days events over a cold beer in Cafe 4060, and then headed to the well-heated and welcoming El Meson for dinner.

The next morning, after a partially successful search for headphones (Dave's have packed up), we took a taxi to the Diana Tours office to wait for our bus to Uyuni. An Aussi couple we met n the bus from Potosi, and who were also on our mine tour, turn up, as does Gil, and then a group of 14 other Gringos. The bus eventually arrives, and we endure probably the most uncomfortable and long (seven hours) bus ride yet. The scenery, however, is absolutely spectacular, if barren. We arrive in Uyuni at around 6pm and take a taxi to our hostal. The rooms are set around a courtyard and the night ahead promises to be a cold one. We head out to find our agency, confirm details for the following day (and discover we need a Bolivian exit stamp in our passports before we start the tour), before finding the Cactus Bar and order a couple of cocktails. Details of the drinking feats of other customers from countries far and wide are recorded on individual cards posted on the walls. The Aussi couple join us for dinner here and we attempt to block out the loud and highly irritating English posse that has developed around the bar. We also have to deal with some unconventional shapes of glasses when our cocktails arrive! The English crowd clearly had a few too many, as we also have to negotiate the piles of sick on the stairs on the way out. Uyuni doesn't seem like a town we feel like hangng around in.

Too add insult to injury, there is no water in our bathroom when we return, or the next morning. It seems the supply is switched off during the night to stop it freezing in the pipes. I have a half-hearted argument with the woman on reception about paying for a private bathroom that has no water supply, then we leave to find somewhere for breakfast. Unsurprisingly, the Aussi couple are there ahead of us. Once the immigration office decides to open its doors, we get our exit stamps, pay the inevitable spurious fee for leaving the country, and do a spot of supplies shopping before heading off on the tour.

We met Saki (from Japan but currently living in London), Alan (from London) and Ohad and Tomer (from Israel), as well as our driver Wilder (aka Bibi) and cook Elisa. We first headed to the train cemetary, a patch of land on the edge of the town where old disused trains have been arranged in lines and left for tourists to play on. Once bored of the trains, we drove back through town and headed out to the salt planes. Around 15 to 20 other jeeps were following exactly the same itinerary and as we all sped out onto the plain, it all felt a bit wacky races. After making a brief stop to peruse various salt based craft stalls, we were soon on the salt plane proper and marvelling at the crazy paving effect caused by pressure from gases beneath the surface. We got out to play on the 'montones de sal', little mounds scraped up from the soft surface by the locals to make it easier to transport the salt back to processing plants.

The vast expanse of white makes all perspective here disappear, and it is customary to take silly pictures of each other with a range of props, to make it looks like people are fightings with mini godzillas or holding each other in the palms of your hands. Our fellow passengers had come prepared with props! We made a stop at the salt hotel to see animals carved from salt and salt tables and chairs, and then drove on to Inkahuasi Island. The salt plane used to be an enormous lake, which hundreds of years of irradiation have left dry, so this was once a proper island. Now it is covered with hundreds of tall, thin cacti, some of which are 9m tall and up to 900 years old. The rocks are covered with a layer of fossilised coral, and the views from the top are pretty impressive (salt as far as the eye can see). We had lunch here (my first taste of quinua) and then drove to La Gruta de Galaxia. This small cave was discovered by two men (one of which was there to greet us and explain the cave) in 2003, and is filled with petrified algae that gives the effect of a Doctor Who backdrop. The cave is set in another small island with similar cacti to before, only these ones are made of patrified coral and are millions of years old. A second cave is filled with small square holes in the ground where the Lipis nomads buried their dead.

We watch sundown from the top of the island before heading off in the car for a long and bumpy drive to San Pedro and our basic lodgings for the night. We have left the beaten track (most tours spend the first night in San Juan) and only one other group is staying here. The six of us are all sleeping in one room together and the dodgy generator provides only flickering light (again, quite Doctor Who). We have a long wait for dinner, which we pass playing Uno and drinking tea. The night is cold.

After breakfast the next morning, we head to the eerie Algae Army, a huge expanse of more petrified algae, this time on the plain itself and looking ready to head into battle. We pass a volcano we have been told is live, but which is looking very dead until we reach the opposite side and see a wispy puff of white smoke emanating from the back. More impressive are the layers and waves of lava that have been left on the surrounding plane. This is the highest point we have reached, at nearly 5000 metres. We head next to the Laguna Hedionda (Stinking Lake, from the Sulphur) and finally get to see our first flamingos! They make a strange chattering noise and we amuse ourselves watching them take off and land on their spindly little legs.

We decide to get away from the crowd (the other jeeps have gradually reappeared since yesterday) and drive on to have lunch by ourselves at the foot of a hill before visiting the arbol de piedra, a towering, tree shaped piece of rock caused by wind erosion. On the way, we spot llamas, vicunas (a sort of wild llama), and viscachas (a fat rabbit with a long curly tail). We eventually arrive at the purply Laguna Colorada where the accommodation is already full, and drive a little further to find our even-more-basic accommodation. This time there is at least a stove, but once this has gone out, we are left even colder than before (aas we're higher up), and I shiver, toss and turn all night. When we wake at 5.30 in the morning, the toilets (located outside) are full of ice, and the bottled of water we left in the car have frozen solid. We are told the temperature plumeted to around -15 overnight. 6am

We are on the road by 6am and spend the first hour trying to regain the sensation in our feet. Bibi is doing his best to see out of the frozen windscreen, which is just as well, as a dozen other jeeps have all left the same place at the same time and are careering around in the dark in all directions. Our first stop is the geisers, which are bubbling and steaming in the first light. We walk among them (like extras on a particularly budget Doctor Who episode), peer inside them, get splashed by the foaming water, and try to warm our hands in the hot steam.

After consulting with Bibi, we speed straight past the first set of hot springs where the hoards are breakfasting, to find a spot by ourselves beside the Laguna Blanca. There are more (and nicer) hot springs here, though we don't dare to strip off to try them. Every blade of grass is laced with ice here and the lake is frozen over. We spot a few avocets and try to take artistic shot of ourselves in the steam.

After breakfast, we head past the Laguna Verde and reach the edge of the park (where there's some confusion about needing to show tickets from the day before), and then on to the Chilean border. This is basically a collection of jeeps and minibuses, and a small shack for immigration that we don't even need to visit as we already have our exit stamps. We say our goodbyes to Bibi and Elisa, the three who are heading back to Uyuni (a nine-hour drive!), and Bolvia itself, and board a Mercedes Sprinter to discover Chilean roads and tarmac!

We descend (smoothly and quickly!) for a couple of hours into the Atacama desert to arrive in San Pedro. Despite what we've been told, immigration is a quick, eventless process, and we're soon let loose in the town. We find a lovely little hostal called Eden Atacamena with rooms for a steep 25,000 chilean pesos (25 pounds - we're going to have to get used to Chilean prices) and once our room is ready, we brave the volatile San Pedro water pressure to have ur first showers in three days. The weather in San Pedro is warm and sunny (unsurprisingly, this being the driest place on earth, and we stroll around the lovely little village and have a spot of lunch. We had planned to get the next day's bus to Salta (we've heard mixed report about Chile), but we fall in love with San Pedro and agree to wait for the next bus four days later. The chic Santiago crowd are lunching and drinking in San Pedros many cafes and restaurants and we feel light-years away from Bolivia. In the evening we have a lovely meal and an even lovelier bottle of wine (our first decent wine in six weeks) in one of the many courtyard restaurants, beside a roaring fire.

We spend the next three days reading in the sun, wandering around town and taking in the cosmopolitan atmosphere. On the third night, we venture out on a night excursion to Alain Mouray's observatory to view the moon, stars and various other heavenly objects. Alain gives us a brief introduction to astronomy as well as a potted version of his views on life, religion and the Spanish conquests.

A few observations upon entering Chile from Bolivia (don't get us wrong, we LOVED Bolivia, but arriving in Chile wasn't just like changing country, it was like travelling forward in time):

• We got picked up by a polished, white, new, Mercedes Sprinter – a far cry from the ageing far eastern rejects that bolivians drive around in
• It's all about the tarmac roads!
• Traffic singals are obeyed by motorists
• Cars are actually left hand drive, not dodgy right hand drive conversions
• When people leave a room for the bitter outside cold, they shut the door behind them
• People communicte in whole, understandable sentences
• You can get served in a restaurant without having to stand up and wave at the staff
• You can get change when you want to buy something, rather then them looking blankly at your money as if you've just given them 1000 pounds or something
• People make eye contact when they talk to you
• There are no bare, live electrical connections in the shower
• There are shower curtains and bath mats
• However, there are just as many dogs on the street, only bigger and in better condition