Into Bolivia

Sunday 13th April

Hello from big, bustling, busy, La Paz. The city is HUGE and scared me to death when I first arrived... all the cars and noise and buses and people and stalls and narrow streets and... phew! Am hoping to stay here for about a week and a half... if I can sort out some spanish lessons.

So I arrived in La Paz from Copacabana (on lake Titicaca), which was a cute little place. I visited the island, Isla del Sol, for a day and a night which was also nice. Did a short walk across the island and then ate yummy fresh trout, mmm. The photo here I took on Isla del Sol.

Before that I was in Puno (also on Lake Titicaca) where I took a trip to the floating islands on the lake. They were COOL. Indigenous folk live there (they moved onto the lake to avoid being made slaves) and make the islands from blocks of reed root mud stuff which they tie together and anchor in the lake... then they cover the blocks in reeds to keep their feet dry! Everything is made out of reeds... the island, the houses, you can even eat the reeds (not so tasty though).

This little dude was very cute. AND wearing knitted woolly trousers... alot of the babies and toddlers over here have knitted trousers. They are very cool and I wish I could buy a pair my size, that'd be cosy. The kiddies also start early when it comes top selling stuff... this boy was pushing inca necklaces!

Had a lively bus journey from Arequipa to Puno... wasnt feeling very well and got slightly worried when I boarded the bus and saw that the bus driver was wearing aviator sunglasses and black leather driving gloves... sure enough he went a tad too fast round a corner and we came off the road briefly in clouds of dust! Still all okay and livened up the journey.

So yes, back to La Paz... my first night here was a bit random. I met a guy staying at the same hostel (who happened to be called Robert and had the same birthday as Bert!!) and we went out for some food and a beer or two. Met 3 local teachers from the university who decided to take us on a tour of La Paz's best bars. Well, we missed our hostal's curfew (which was at midnight cos its on a dodgy road in town, apparently) and found a note pinned to the door telling us that we had to find somewhere else to stay or return at 5.30am! So we went back out and saw more bars! They took us to some of the coolest bars I've ever been to... really fun little places that dont have signs and only locals know about them. Played a popular dice game in one bar (which was a bit like polka but with dice instead of cards), tried on vintage hats in another bar, tried the most horrible tasting drink in another bar, danced (or tried to dance) to bolivian music in the last bar then thankfully it was 5.30 and time to go to sleep! Such fun though.

Have added a couple of photos from Nazca and Colca Canyon to my last blog... have finally managed to download them after a few hiccups.

Finally, thanks to Grannikins for your concern over my lack of Marmite... and thanks to Bert for bringing some out to rectify this. As you can see I have not lost any of my graphical talent since travelling! Ha.