Mendoza. One for the road?

Mendoza. The city where a bottle of incredible Malbec costs $3. The city where it'd be rude not to with every meal. The city where a lot of people (or one at least) get so drunk on their first night they're sick ( proper teenager first night out ever sick) for the next 24 hours.  After 7 months of not much booze, my drinking tolerance is diminished to say the least. 

But we're in Mendoza so one must push through the pain and work harder so we booked in to  Maipu, home of the wineries and bodegas, for 3 days of intense training. 

The done thing in Maipu is to hire a bike and cycle from bodega to bodega enjoying the educational wine tours and the sampling sessions. With this in mind we had visions of French-style countryside, lanes with tipsy cyclists ambling from site to site and vineyard picnics.  The reality is an incredibly busy road dominated by trucks and buses with intoxicated tourists (as much though diesel fumes as wine) desperately trying to keep balance on a bike with no brakes, gears, and invariably after a few hours of cycling, air in the tyres. 

Once off the main road though, the vineyards are lovely and the family run boutique ones especially (some only making 90k bottles a year) give great tours and tasting sessions for a couple of dollars.  Day one of touring was quite civilised - we got home around 8.30 after a wobbly ride home in the dark (with a stray dog running alongside us the whole way- chris thought this was funny but I suspected it was mental and probably had rabies) having learned quite a bit, and drank quite a bit more.  Day 2 however got a little out of hand. 

We started at mid-day with a terrifying cycle to the furthest vineyard, listened to the guide telling us pretty much the same as we'd heard the day before, and went on to the tasting.  Learning from the previous day when it became apparent that not many places do food, we took advantage of this bodega having a restaurant so ate lunch. And had a bottle of red with it. 

From there it was only a short cycle to 2 more bodegas. One of which had the standard 3 glasses included approach, but the other had a tasting placemat so you could keep track of every wine you'd tried.  Clearly this made it a challenge and being competitive types we drank our way through each variety until we'd won.   Then, as the sun had come out and it was a nice  view, we had a bottle of red. 

On route to the next venue Chris got a puncture so we phoned Shouting Mario, the morbidly obese bike-rental man, who bellowed his way to us with a new bike. By the time he reached us though we'd decided we were bored of cycling so he agreed to load all 3 bikes on his car and drive us to another tasting bar instead.  As a gesture of good will he then bought us a bottle of red. 

Chatting with 3 lovely Americans we'd seen at the first venue (and therefore after a days drinking greeted like old friends) we 'sampled' a further bottle of sparkling red (every bit as awful as you'd imagine), a white (Argentina is not famous for its whites but the torrentino is very impressive) which we disrespectfully treated like a pallet cleanser, and then a further 2 bottles of red. I only know this from photo evidence of our table. 

Then Shouting Mario turned up with 2 more bikes for us to get home on, so we finished off our drinks, bought another bottle (?!) and proceeded to cycle home. 

Thank god Maipu doesn't have CCTV on the streets. I lasted a good 4 meters before I fell off. I then resorted to scooting as I couldn't do the bit where you take both feet off the ground and start pedalling, but couldn't balance enough for that either so ended up using the bike like a Zimmer frame and pushing it back to Mario's. 

It took a long time to get back to our hostel and when we did, we opened a bottle of red. The octogenarian who owns the place must have been thrilled to sit up with us talking (shouting I expect)  Spanglish at her until the early hours. Every pensioner's dream. 

Remarkably no sickness the next day but it was all I could do to lift my head off the pillow for 3 hours before returning to my pit with the most immense fear.   Vowing to stay off the pop for a few days, giving myself the 'moderation in moderation' talk, and packing a fair amount of self- loathing in with our luggage, we left Mendoza and caught the night bus south to Bariloche.   Please don't let there be vineyards there too.....

Chile. It's alright s'pose.

San Pedro de Atacama is known for being a tourist hot spot in the middle of nowhere - the gateway to the salt flats from the Chilean side. It's a small town full of overpriced artesan (tat) shops, bars and hostels. And the most miserable people I think I've ever met. 

In our 30 hour stay we witnessed some of the best bad service we've seen since setting off- from the full on row we had with the hostel owner who thought it was ok to change the rate once we were in the room, and then change the check out time by 3 hours (neither happened but only due to my one woman sit-in until 11.59) to the consistently indifferent service in the bank/shop/bars.  For a town reliant on tourist dollars they really can't be arsed with tourists. 

Luckily we were only there to get a bus down to Santiago so didn't loiter. On night one we went out stargazing in the desert with a local astronomer and saw some beautiful views of the planets and various constellations, and then the next morning Chris did some sand boarding (like snow boarding but shit) while I continued to argue with the battleaxe. 

Getting on a 23 hr bus was a relief and we slept/read/slept through the most unremarkable scenery ever. For the first 7 hours it was boring to see desert, scrubby bush, desert repeated but when we woke up the next morning and the view was still identical we did wonder whether we were actually progressing or if in the spirit of Atacama hospitality we were going round in a big loop.  Then a glimpse of the Pacific appeared and in no time (relatively speaking, it was probably another 3 hours) we hit Santiago. 

3 days was enough to see that Santiago is a fully functioning modern city - very easy to navigate, great Metro system, easy to kick back and relax in the parks, bars and restaurants etc. but has little of interest to offer travellers looking for cultural difference. Probably a great city to live in (reminded us a lot of London with it's 'many small towns make up the city' feel) but not that compelling to travel in. 

The exception was the human rights museum which chronicles the Pinochet regime.  It serves as an idiots guide to modern Chilean history and a memorial to all those who died/disappeared in the struggle.  Pinochet, like his bestie Thatcher, very much divides opinion in Chile and while the 200+ monuments across the country acknowledge the suffering experienced by his opponents, there is a substantial living contingent who prospered under his rule.  However good he was at economics he was a sadistic dictator and we were suitably ashamed to be British when it came to the end of his story. 

The plan was to move from Santiago due west to Valparaiso but a huge fire had been raging for 3 days, thousands of homes destroyed and the town declared a disaster zone so we changed direction and headed for Mendoza, Argentina instead.  Sad to miss Valpo, and sad to see what was happening in Valpo but tourists getting in the way  didn't seem right. Time to make up for months of fizzy beer in the home of Malbec. Sorry liver. 

What's flat, salty & Bolivian?

The antiplano is a high altitude huge strip of land that runs down Bolivia where the Andes split. Once upon a time it was the bed of the Pacific but now is a bizarre landscape of salt flats, lagoons and geysers. 

Bolivia boasts the worlds largest salt flats, and claims that only the locals know how to cross them without getting lost, or driving on the thin bits and drowning.  With that in mind we got into our jeep with Driver Leo and three kiwis we'd met in Sucre and set off for 3 days of brilliant white terrain and, it quickly transpired, a soundtrack of techno. 

Because the white salt is so white, perspective gets confusing and it's customary to dick around for a hour with a load of props and a camera.  As one who refuses to high five or whoop as a collective I was dreading this bit of 'enforced fun' but surprised myself by partaking with a modicum of enthusiasm. Was secretly a bit relieved when it was all over though. 

That night we slept in a salt hostel, on a salt bed, eating on a salt table etc..  Very comfortable and warm but remarkably no table salt. 

Day 2 felt like we were travelling through different countries the landscape was so varied. From desolate flats, to rock gardens, to flamingo populated lagoons we eventually climbed up a volcano of 5300m where mud geysers spurted and spewed all around us.  Unlike other geyser-tastic countries (yes, you Iceland) where regulations decree you must stand behind a barrier a sensible distance away from the 800*c spurting mud and steam, we were given the instruction to 'try not to fall in the wet bits' and set free to pick our way through.   At altitude it's staggeringly cold so being able to stand in a cloud of (admittedly sulphuric) steam was great.  

We'd been warned the accommodation on night 2 was a little more basic but the dry toilet ('just throw some ash on it') and 6 bed non-heated dorms didn't matter once we'd all grabbed some booze, put on our cozzies and pegged it down to the thermal pool 100m away. 

Beautifully surreal to sit in hot water, in cold weather, under a starry sky drinking red wine and vodka with a group of previously unknown friends.  So much so we stayed there for hours until wrinkly skin and lack of booze made us run back to our salt beds. 

A combination of the above, and the respiratory challenges of sleeping so high gave us staggering cruel hangovers the next morning.  Suddenly the aroma of the dry loo was too much  to cope with and it was all we could do to slump our green faces onto the jeep and succumb to some more hardcore house as Leo drove us to the Chilean border. 

For all the altitude, protests, shonky airlines, challenging loos, alligators, and bed bugs we've had a great time in Bolivia.  Sad to wave goodbye but after 7 weeks of altitude we're looking forward to some sea level living again. 

Walking with dinosaurs

Back in La Paz it was hardly a surprise that there was a protest going on but we underestimated the impacts of this one. We'd heard that the city centre was gridlocked due to a protest so walked the 25 minutes to the bus station only to see buses parked across by roads and tyres being set on fire.  Not leaving that night then. 

We trudged back to the city centre and promptly exchanged our bus tickets for a flight out 2 days later (first available).  Bored of La Paz and unable to do any activities (Chris wanted to cycle the death road but no-one could get to that either) we kicked our heels and waited.  When we got to the airport at 5am we we a bit miffed that our tickets were invalid and that there were no seats on any other flights out of there that day. 

Back to La Paz then for a row with the travel agents. Rowing done, tickets were rebooked for the following morning - another day to waste, and another 4am start the following day.

Better luck though and our flights were uneventful if a bit indirect (it took us 3 flights over 6 hours to get to Sucre - normally a 40 minute direct flight) courtesy of Bolivia's military airline. Not entirely sure but given the amount of passengers in uniform we think it's a military fleet that takes the opportunity to make money by putting civvies in the empty seats. 

Who cares- it got us out of La Paz!

How we laughed when fellow travellers in Sucre told us they'd been unable to leave for days due to the same protests and that we were now stuck there instead.  Thankfully Sucre is a lot warmer with lower altitude and a heap of bars to sit around chatting to people in so we found out a bit more about the problems.  The government is trying to dramatically increase the tax miners pay. Mining is a horribly dangerous profession out here (most people die by their mid-40s due to silica inhalation if not due to an explosion/collapse earlier) and due to the depletion of silver is not a prosperous career anymore.  Miners form co-operatives to protect themselves from corporate fatcats who wouldn't pay death in service for example, so a hike in taxes hits the workers directly.  In protest then they'd blown up the major roads around the mining towns (plenty of access to dynamite after all) and called for other unionised workers (hence the bus drivers) to join the cause.  After watching  a documentary on Bolivian mining - The devils mine- and seeing the conditions the 14yr old miners work in (c800 kids die each year in the mines, if they work in the most dangerous they get the most wages - up to $4 a day) we stopped moaning about being stuck and booked another flight out of there. Via b@stard La Paz! 

Sucre doesn't have a huge amount of sites but what it does have is dinosaur footprints.  I didn't know there were dinosaur footprints in existence (subsequently been told there's quite a few on this continent. Stupid) so was almost as excited as the 6yr old boy next to us when we boarded the dinobus out to the park. 

Story goes, an earthquake destroyed a lot of Sucre so they built a cement factory on the outskirts to start the rebuild.  After digging great holes in the mountains for 40+ yrs there was a landslide and one morning someone turned up to work and noticed a load of marks where a new layer of mountain had slid away.  The marks turned out to be hundreds of footprints left by terrapods, sauropods & ankylosaurus.  Due to shifts in the tectonic plates the ground they walked on in the Cretaceous period has been pushed upwards so now appears as a vertical wall - a perfect display. 

To illustrate the type of dinosaurs who'd left the prints there, and to cause general excitement to the real and inner-children, there were life sized models around for us to pose by too.  Who doesn't love a dinosaur?!

Back then to the airport for another indirect route across Andes and rainforest to Uyuni.  After vowing we weren't stepping foot in La Paz again we got delayed in La Paz, again. Wasn't boring though as we all got to watch our plane get the tyre replaced and the landing gears repaired before boarding. Very reassuring. 

In The Jungle. The Mighty Jungle.

 After toying with the idea of 'doing the rainforest' from Peru, Columbia and Equador we opted for Bolivia instead. It's cheaper, less touristed, and now the major floods have passed (6 weeks ago c1000 families saw their homes washed away on the river banks), accessible via a short flight from la Paz. 

The amazon basin accounts for c40% of Boliva and is mainly divided into Pampas (low lying swampland), and jungle. The temperature is around 35 degrees in the day time, 25 at night, and humidity hovers around 95%, day and night.  We got there one week before the rainy season was officially over but the climate doesn't stick to the calendar and it was due to pour down most days. It didn't disappoint on that front. 

After a short wait at the small airport in La Paz, we were informed that we'd been called for boarding prematurely because they were still sorting engine trouble.  One of the passengers from the previous incoming flight on our plane didn't seem too comfortable with their experience - they had to be wheeled away from the plane in a wheelchair while sucking on an oxygen mask.  From that point nobody was comfortable with the prospect of a 19 seater propellor plane across huge snow-capped mountains with the potential for panic attack inducing engine problems. Everyone had seen 'Alive' and we were starting to weigh up the relative nutritional merits of each other.  Needless to say despite a completely smooth 40 minute flight, the nervous flyers (including Gayle) were on the highest possible alert and didn't blink throughout.

We touched down to a unanimous relief in Rurrenabaque, where there's just a runway (and the ground marshalers used their flags to chase horses off the runway rather than direct the planes).  We stayed the night at a hostel and had a slap up dinner while we got used to the idea that there may be some uncomfortable moments ahead given we don't like insects, spiders and general discomfort - although you may have already read that we'd have been getting better over the last 6 months.

At the start of our Jungle trip we met Ron, our Guide.  He is the size of a 12 year old (as we shook hands, his disappeared completed as it was enveloped by my less diminutive paw).  He has a great passion for wildlife, a really sharp eye, always had a chuckle and a story ready and also had the heart of F1 racing driver - I'll explain more in a bit.

1st, The Pampas - river / swamp area - 3 hour drive on a terrible road, where our driver giggled at the drivers trying to dig lorries out of the mud, giggled at other drivers' trepidation at picking the remaining solid parts of the mud road, giggled when he shared a joke with one of the many fellow travellers he knew, giggled when he filled a canister with petrol - there was a defining characteristic in there somewhere.  He didn't mess about getting us to the river from where we had a short boat ride to our lodge.

From here Ron took us on many excursions over the next 3 days.  The 1st was Swimming with Pink Dolphins.  Smaller (and pinker of course) than their seafaring cousins, they were still impressively large animals (twice as big as us) - and as friendly and beautiful as they are, it's not a natural thing to jump into the murky river water with them.  But that was what the excursion involved and who were we to change the itinerary?  Thankfully we were assured that the Dolphins would beat up any errant Alligators for us, unless they were really big, but these are almost never seen.  Oh, ok then, fine, in we jump...  They did entertain us a bit by constantly popping up behind us, surrounding us or splashing our faces - they thought they were hilarious.  

That night we went out spotting reflective Alligator eyes.  It was incredible being on the river in near pitch darkness.  There seemed to be a hundred times more stars than I'd ever seen before, and yes the Alligators eyes did reflect Ron's torch.  We didn't get to actually see the rest of them though, but no fear it turned out there was a 2m long specimen that camps out near our boats.  This little fella was destined to provide a lot of entertainment on our last day...

We also fished for Piranhas - which is a novelty thing really given the typical non-South American thinks they are as dangerous as portrayed in James Bond.  Still they are quick aggressive little buggers who took no time at all to eat the bits of beef from my fishing hook, leaving the hook completely alone!  Ron had a little more of a killer instinct and produced 3 specimens for us to get a closer look at before letting them go (hoping they can find a Piranha infirmary somewhere).  Ron's version of leaving wildlife completely alone and ours differed greatly. 

Throughout our stay other critters of note were:

- Families of Capybera - Believe it or not, they are rodents but they can grow up to 100kg.  That is one bloody big hamster.

- Mopho butterfly - difficult to get a piccy (you can always go on Google!), but these things are bright blue and the size of a dinner plate.  I'm no great fan of any bugs, but seeing these lazily flap by is pretty mesmerising.

- A troup of Squirrel Monkeys.  Typically cheeky and curious little fellas - and you can't help loving them as they look and express themselves so much like a 1ft tall person.

There were hundred of Birds & Monkeys that we saw from far away, Ron would use his driving skills to try and get closer, which entailed manoeuvring the boat with a subtle engine noise: "HHHHHHNNNNNNNGGRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEIAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!" And as the wildlife in the surrounding area scattered towards Argentina he would declare they are 'afraid of cameras'!

Our days were filled with beautiful scenery, a lodge which had comparative luxury for Bolivian jungle, hot food & drink.  (No wine though - this was roughing it!)  I should mention that Gayle was being driven mad as she was bitten to pieces by bugs each night - even within a mosquito net and 90% DEET.  She picked up around 70+ bites, while I lay around in the same bed under the same net and picked up One.  One tiny one on my finger, which didn't attract much sympathy for some reason.

We spent a lot of time getting rained on or sunburnt while Ron took the racing line around the area in the boat, or walking not to see an Anaconda.  We had been a bit spoilt by the immediate availability of wildlife in the Galápagos Islands, the relentless activity of Macchu Pichu and the constant socialising in both.  We had one girl with us on the first day - then we were the only customers from that point - generally it was a bit quiet.

We also noticed a couple of things about Ron.

- If you asked him a question that he didn't understand the he would just answer 'yes' or with the answer to the question he wanted to answer

Us:    'Is a Caiman a name for an Alligator or for a Crocodile?'

Ron:  'Yes'

(Bases covered I suppose)

Us:    'How often do the Squirrel Monkeys have children?'

Ron:  'There are 2 or 3 males in a family.'

Us:    'Erm, thanks'

He also had a plethora of stories that involved people getting into trouble with animals (usually young women in a state of undress for some reason) like a tarantula crawling into bed with them.  These people (read inventions) always required him to come to the rescue.  I somehow doubt a tiny man with a scant grasp of what is being asked is often asked to rescue anybody.

On our last day in the Pampas Ron spotted a snake in the forest surrounding the lodge.  Having spent hours searching for illusive snakes earlier in the week he offered his trophy for my photographic pleasure.  Then the snake took off towards the river and the resident 2m long Alligator (looked it up and they were actually crocodiles!) who didn't take much encouragement to start flipping the unsuspecting snake around like a rag doll.  Again not the kind of 'don't touch' approach to animal conservation we were expecting, but I did get a cracking video of it.

The Jungle

Part two of the trip, we left the swamps and headed to higher ground. 'The Giggler' drove us back towards Rurrenabaque where the rain had left a much more difficult prospect and even his spirits were hit a bit when 5 jeering friends of his had to push his van out of a muddy ditch.  The 4 hour drive back was incredibly uncomfortable as the rain and lorries had lain waste to the route. Instead of getting an hour break in Rurrenabaque where Gayle could pick up some much needed drugs to combat a growing recurrence of a kidney infection, we were pushed straight down a muddy bank onto the boat for the Jungle.

This part of the journey did afford some astonishing views of a raging river in great surroundings, but we did arrive after dark after crashing into a fallen tree.  Queue scrabbling up a muddy bank and into a lodge where everyone is waiting for us so dinner could commence.

We decided a rest was needed rather than a night walk, so we retired to our room.  I picked up a huge leaf like insect called a 'Katydid' that took a fancy to my t-shirt.  This prompted me to practice an odd pogo dance move with the intention of persuading it to leave me alone without actually having to touch it.

Then there was bed - I found a 1" long ant on our bed inside the mosquito net, so decided I had better 'deal' with the situation lest we get (more) bitten in the night.  The little bleeder took a huge amount of compressing within my Sudoku book before it finally gave up the fight.  The I was free to drift into a restful sleep (read frantically check the whole net again before hardly sleeping).

The next day was to be our Jungle trek with overnight stay in the wild.  For entertainment the best prospect was a 4 hour walk to see some Parrots and then ride on a raft back to the lodge - you can almost call it luck that Gayle was feeling increasingly ill and dehydrated at this point and after 4 hours of ducking weird spiders in a hot wet jungle we called time, walked back to camp and were on the boat back to relative civilisation - which was characterised by antibiotics, pizzas and red wine.

Quite the hardy adventurers.

Sun gods & witchcraft: La Paz

Lake Titicaca is the birthplace of Inca beliefs. It houses the Isla del sol,  Isla del Lunar where the god of sun and moon resided, and is still home for a number of indigenous people.  It's the worlds biggest high altitude lake (c3900m), stretches 75km and crosses the border between Peru and Bolivia. The Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca is a bit rubbish. 

The lakeside town, Puno, is an ugly grubby place. Rather than base the hotels/retail/entertainment alongside the lake, they've gone for a stretch of road 30 mins away in the middle of town with no discernible plus points.  Despite being a 7 hour drive away from the Inca site, it has 3 takeaways called 'Machu Pizza'. Shoddy punmanship. 

We took the worlds slowest boat for a day trip two of the inhabited Islands - the first, Uros, is a series of 40+ floating Islands made of reeds where the people live a simple life making and selling crafts to tourists. Sort of interesting but mostly a wafer-thin ploy to avoid taxes and make money. We were told of the indigenous ways of life (locally elected presidents, marshall law, interbreeding etc) but when we questioned things like healthcare and education our guide admitted some of the villagers also own properties on the mainland and spend time their when it suits.  Next. 

Onto Taquila, a much more modern island with a town hall, town square and a building dedicated to 'the knitting men'. Men that knit. That was the highlight. 

Several hours v slow sailing back to Puno, we packed up and crossed the border into Bolivia where the same lake looked and felt so much more interesting.  Copacabana is the lake side town and unlike Puno recognised the benefits of being lakeside. We spent a few days there drinking cheap beer, singing the song,  and doing a bit more trekking on the Isla del sol. 

And with that it was time to say goodbye to Jan. We took the late bus to La Paz ensuring we arrived at seedy O'clock where everything and everyone looks ominous.  Found nowhere open to eat so our last meal together was an egg/hot dog sandwich from a street vendor near the bus stops. Never let it be said that we did not show Jan the highlights of backpacking. 

Saying goodbye at the airport was sad and made us both acutely aware of how far from friends and family we are, but on the plus side it was fantastic to spend 2 weeks together and we're very grateful Jan made the long journey out. And she bought us new knickers, swimwear and contact lenses - the mark of a true friend. 

So onto La Paz - the highest altitude capital city. It's small (1.7m people) but very hilly. It's hot in the day if you stand in the direct sunlight, otherwise it's cold and then gets a lot colder from about 5pm onwards.   

Bolivia has c90% indigenous population so unlike other countries where you only see traditional dress out in the sticks, La Paz has vast amounts of women in bowler hats,  waist-length plaits, bright multi-layered skirts ( the broader you make your silhouette here, the more attractive your are. Given these women rarely reach 5ft they're often as wide as they are tall) and leg warmers selling their wares. 

The markets go on for blocks and sell the usual fruit, knock off CDs, polyester fashions and potatoes (over 400 types here and don't think one women can't have all 400 varieties on her stall), but the most intriguing stands are the witches stands. 

Mutual hatred of the USA/the Spanish occupation/neighbouring countries has meant that the witches and the church haven't had time to fight each other.  Instead they've taken a synchronistic approach that means elements of pagan beliefs are present in the cathedral, and the witches sell crosses as part of their packages.  As such witches are recognised as holding genuine powers, and their spells are relied on for many occasions: 

When you move into a new house you must first do the 'new pad' ritual which involves burning a llama foetus (found on every witch stand) along with some other stuff your local witch provides ( sweets, blessed bits of twigs etc.)

If you're lonely you buy the 'follow me follow me' spell (dust) and blow it on your intended victim who will definitely fall in love with you. 

If that doesn't work entirely to plan you can buy the follow up 'come to me, come to me' spell (more dust) and that has to be thrown down your intendeds underwear. Again, will definitely work and not have you ostracised as a pervert. 

A more ominous spell that now has it's own public information advert playing on TV is for a super-stamina Viagra. After a glut of dead men were found, tests were done and the findings were less witchcraft and more equine husbandry. It's Viagra for horses, now with a street name of Die-agra and despite the corpses, still a best seller! 

Witches and dead llamas aside, the other thing La Paz has notoriety for is San Pedro prison. Mainly because of the book Marching Powder, but the macabre draw of the place is still going strong. 

Built to house 400 men, it currently has c2000 people in it. Right in the middle of the city it takes up a whole block behind a relatively low wall (with holes where attempts at escape have been made) and only 15 guards who patrol it from the outside.  Inside, the prisoners rule.  The rich live in furnished flats, the poor in tiny shared cells. The very poor have their family with them as they can't afford to live outside without the breadwinner- very Dickensian to see small children leaving the prison gates to attend the school opposite.

The prisoners make the purest cocaine you can buy in Bolivia and throw it through holes in the corrugated iron roofs where it's collected,cut & sold for them. The money then comes back in under the nose of the bribed guards: the wealthy stay wealthy and the men serving a drug related sentence stay profitably in the market.

The 'peace' is kept inside by various gangs who when not killing each other (riots aren't uncommon), are drowning paedophiles in the well (it's only purpose), and feeding new rapists to the incumbent rapist.  Maybe hard to care how a bunch of hardened criminals treat each other until you discover that you get sent to San Pedro as much for proximity to your home as for the severity of your crime. And that in Bolivia you are guilty until proven innocent.  First time suspected thieves are just as likely to end up here for months on end as their families scrape funds together for a defence as big time drug/people traffickers. 

Up until a few years ago it was quite easy to bribe a guard to let you in, where a prisoner would take you on a tour.  It's beyond me why a traveller would want to do this- not so much the macabre draw of the squalor (I get that bit but Channel 5 provides that several times a year under the thin veil of documentary), but because of the danger of putting yourself at the mercy of caged criminals.  The worst did happen recently when a couple of European women went in so it's now much more difficult to do, although not impossible and people around us were still chatting about the pros & cons of a visit! 

It just made us feel sad. Bolivia has so much going for it but the judicial system has a lot to catch up on.  Not so the celebration of brass music though where Bolivia is head and shoulders above the rest of the world. Nothing occurs in La Paz without a brass band accompanying it: a protest about litter in the streets, celebration of the navy (the only water they have is 1/3 of Lake Titicaca but they still have an active navy), a politicians birthday... Several times over the 5 days we were there the traffic drew to a halt and a marching band took over. People stood and sang the national anthem, fireworks were let off, dancers appeared and did their thing, then the band marched off somewhere else and it all went back to a normal manic city centre.  If it weren't so bloody cold I could really like La Paz. 

Macchu Pichu

So excited to see Jan,  getting water-bombed 3 times & covered in shaving foam on the way to the airport (carnival) could not dampen our spirits. Poor Jan had jet leg to cope with as well as the change in altitude so we spent a few days exploring Cusco and doing lots of catching up, getting ourselves match fit for our trek. 

On the advice of other travellers we'd hired a porter for the trek which meant we carried our day packs but he carried our sleeping bag, roll mat & 2kg of other stuff for us.  When packing for 4 days in a climate that changes massively every 30 minutes (fierce sun followed by torrential rain by day, torrential rain and -5 by night) 2kg doesn't cover much so we agreed to forgo toiletries other than toothpaste, loo roll & one bar of soap, and wear everything we owned at night time. All good unless our one pair of boots/trousers/fleece got wet...

We'd chosen our trek company carefully based on them being Peruvian owned and having a good rep for treatment of porters (Trek Peru). This paid off as not only were the logistics handled really well but it meant we trekked with 13 like minded others. Our porters travelled with us to the start point (km82) where they skipped on ahead and we began the first days walk.   A relatively gentle day to break us in, it stayed dry & when we got to camp one the porters had got the tents up & a 3 course dinner for us. 

Cook & his assistant never failed to impress. The camps are carried from place to place in total so he has nothing more than a gas canister style camping stove but provided huge amounts of food (never the same meal twice) for c40 people 3 times a day. On day 3 he made and iced a cake for us. I can't do that in a fixed kitchen in London. 

To ensure the porters aren't abused our group had a weight limit p/person. This meant in total we had 16 Trekkers, 2 guides, 2 cooks, and 20 porters. The porters sleep in the meal tent in the same kit as us - we saw other porters sleeping in toilets to avoid the rain as their shonky company didn't provide them with tents - this is no reward for carrying around 20kg+ on the same difficult & treacherous routes - but nearly twice as fast as we could manage and with around 10% of their load. We had awe, respect and gratitude for their efforts - but still there is something amusing about watching men who rarely top 5'2" carrying huge packs that are bigger than them up & down mountains at speed.  

The afore mentioned toilets are 'day-5 festival long drops' with no running water. Using them took a very deep breathe and the threat of kidney failure if you didn't.  So it must be an act of desperation for other company's porters to be using them as accommodation.  This is no thanks for their legendary efforts.

Day 2 is notoriously the hardest as it starts at 6am with a 5 hour climb to Dead Woman's Pass (4215m) followed by a 2 hour descent down steep, steep stones.  The first half of the day was by far the easiest as despite the lung-busting climb it stayed dry.  Most of us were following the porters lead (they do it weekly but still huff & puff their way up this bit) and chewed coca leaves to manage the altitude sickness.  We were told at breakfast to go at our own pace, but to make that 50% of our normal pace as the trick is slow and steady. We were to expect nausea, dizziness, headaches and mood swings - anything else we had to sit on a rock and wait for the guides (leading from the back) to reach us with the oxygen bottle. 

Coca leaves taste vile, leave your face numb and, if like me you can't do proper man-spits, mean you spend the day with green bits in your teeth. They also relieve headaches within minutes, stop dizziness and give you a short term hit of energy to keep mind and body in good check.  You don't chew them so much as cram a wad of leaves in the side of your mouth and press the juices out until for 20mins or so. Gives the appearance of a cowboy with baccy, or a hamster.   Not a strong look but when you're wearing old clothes and turning things inside out counts as 'clean', it's not a massive concern. 

Coca leaves also hold significant value to Incas who gift them to the earth mother (pachumama) and the animal spirit guides in ceremonies. Our assistant guide Pedro followed Inca tradition and on day 3 performed a prayer for safety at the top of the second pass which we all took part in. As he spoke in Quechen we understood very little but there was something moving about standing atop of Andean mountains, hearing a true believer give thanks to Mother Nature and seek protection for the remainder of our journey.  We all gifted our best coca leaves beneath a stone collected from the valley that morning and braced ourselves for the descent. 

Back at the notorious Dead Women's Pass the rain started and the normally difficult descent became treacherous. The drops alongside the stones are very steep, slippy and unforgiving, and seeing others fall focussed the mind quickly so we went slowly. The rain poured and the wind blew our stupid ponchos over our faces obscuring vision so we went slowly, fearfully and coldly. 

It took hours to get to camp 2 but despite seeing several casualties along the way all of our group made it home safely and in daylight.  By now we were soaked, our kit was damp (porters rely on the same cheap ponchos to cover person&bags in one), and the tents were pitched in soggy ground. Proper camping! 

Sleeping at altitude, in damp clothes, in a damp sleeping bag is an odd and not entirely enjoyable thing but all part of the package. We were part of a group of 16 people ranging from 21 to 51.  So different ages, abilities, experiences and expectations - but completely on the same page that despite any hardship or difficult conditions - we all loved the actual trekking (or at least the feeling of completing some parts!) and we were all going to have a laugh while doing it.  We have been assured that this is not always the case and small camp sized civil wars have been known.  However we were left with a sense of camaraderie that is difficult to reproduce other than through exhaustion, damp, discomfort and a joint feeling of doing something extraordinary - we had such a great group for this and it really does make a fantastic experience even more special when you get to meet great new friends along the way.

We all slept intermittently but as the night got colder it got harder. The 5.30 wake up call was a relief and putting on the same day-clothes again we set off for the longest days walking...

Over 6 hours we descended through cloud forest into jungle and the change in oxygen levels as we dropped 1000m was palpable.  Rain bursts made us expert at poncho changing (grab the persons in front, throw it over their head & pack while someone else does the same for you) as when it starts you've got seconds to avoid being drenched but the minute it stops the ponchos serve as an unpleasant one-man sauna.  

Despite the rain and the section with 3000 steps down (knee problems anyone?) we saw some fantastic views that day. The inca ruins are impressive of course but the Andes themselves steal the show.  Rain is an annoyance but the constantly changing cloud form meant the view was different every time we looked up. 

Knackered but happy we were ready to hit the cold ground sheets at 9pm in preparation for the final day.  Just before bed it was time to thank our porters and the cook, this consisted of an introduction to each man - who supplied his name and age.  We have no idea why they do that, and we really struggled to hold our 'inappropriate laughter valves' as the group gasped at the news that some were 40+ and some were under 25... Plain bizarre but very entertaining - didn't change our levels of respect - as our 'volunteer' spokesmen Justin and Matt ably and sincerely shared.  After the touching words and feelings of real gratitude welled, the porters surrounded us and shook hands with us all in turn while exchanging pleasantries with us at navel height... So glad those laughter valves were still just about in tact!

Day 4 begins at 3.30am and off everyone walks to the sun gate to watch Machu Pichu emerge with day break.  The reality is all 500 of the Trekkers (that's the daily volume of licences issued so there were probably less than that as we're in low season) have the same idea so the hours of slippy narrow path walking are done largely in single file but in very high spirits as all the effort is about to pay off.   Machu Pichu is of course stunning. The largest of its kind, steeped in mystery (no one knows why it was abandoned), hidden by trees until 1911 and surrounded by incredible mountains every step is worth it.  Huge smiles and some tears were shared in the group as we realised we'd completed an amazing experience - and another one that will stand out in our Americas travels.

Of course you can avoid effort and save 4 days by taking the train up, or by staying in a hotel in the nearest valley town & taking the early bus up but then you only see the site from the site, not from the mirador we had at The Sun Gate.  With a sense of entitlement and superiority over the day trippers we walked the final hour to the site itself and became acutely aware of how bad we smelt but really didn't care. 

By 11.30  we'd toured the site and got down to the nearest town where we had beer & pizza. Then more beer. Exhausted but very very happy. 

Several hours later, drunk with camaraderie and booze we got a bus back to Cusco. Acknowledging our ragged state the driver encouraged us to relax and sleep the 2 hours home then put Eye of the Tiger on full blast and drove into a rock/dog (not sure which).  Back to normality....