Pi$$ed in Puno & a Not-So-Healthy Entrance to Bolivia

One of the great things about travelling in a group is that there is a fair amount of birthday celebrations. Our return from Lake Titicaca coincided with the birthday of Biscuit (her real name is Vicki and its a long-ish story for another day), so our guide Kike arranged a spot at a local bar and we hit it with a vengeance. A spot had been put aside for us in the bar and decorated with streamers and balloons, and there was even a cake for Biscuit. Kike kept feeding us with tequila, and as a result everyone had a good time. Simon, Sam and I all pitched in to give Biscuit a special birthday present from the three of us - a lovely striptease and lapdance for the lucky birthday girl. I can confirm that video footage and photos exist, but they shall remain safely stored away in a vault! In the end it was a particularly big night for me, and I really should have taken the hint from the Jenga blocks cascading over at the bar that maybe I had imbibed too much.

As with all alcoholic overindulgence, the real price is paid the next day. As so often with my drinking timing, it coincided with a travel day and a border crossing. I was in a particularly bad state today, with not only vomiting but also diarrhea. Couple that with the altitude, a bus-driver that wouldn't open the onboard toilet, and some of the roughest roads Bolivia could muster, and I wasn't in a great spot!

So it was in such a state that I crossed into Bolivia, and reached the highest capital city in the world, La Paz, at about 3.6km above sea level. Bolivia is the poorest country in South America. It sits on lots of natural resources but a combination of factors, including being landlocked and a lack of industry to refine those resources, means that Bolivia is in a poor economic state.

La Paz also signalled the end of our current part of the trip, i.e. Lima to La Paz, which meant that we were gaining some additions to our group, and losing one. That one wasn't a group member but our leader Kike who had lead us since Day 1 and had guided us through Ecuador and his native Peru. We were all very sad that Kike was leaving and he had become a big part of our everyday lives that it was going to be weird not having him and his cheekiness around.

I was laid up for a couple of days recovering from my big night in Puno so I didn't go into my usual tourist mode whilst in La Paz. There is also a fair bit of crime in the city so I was a bit dubious about taking my camera out and hence I don't have any snaps of La Paz. You're all not missing much though, although in retrospect I wish I had taken some pictures for my own memories. One unfortunate thing about recovering was that I missed the bike ride down the world's most dangerous road. Well that could be a fortunate thing in the eyes of some of my family members, especially Mum. I understand that the road isn't used now other than for tourists hooning down on their bikes, but in its "heyday" there were many cars, trucks and buses dropping over the side, which I understand was a big drop!

I mostly caught up on admin things whilst in La Paz. I caught up on emails, uploaded photos, got photos put on CDs buying a new diary to replace my already filled 1B5 textbook, and checked out the markets in the local vicinity. One particular market excursion was with a new couple that had joined our group, Amit and Nisha. Amit and Nisha are from Manchester and are both pharmacists. They had just finished a trip through Peru and then dashed down to Rio de Janeiro while they waited for this leg of our tour to start. Some of the markets had some great cheap clothing, electronics, DVDs, and weird items like llama foeti. Random! Probably my best pick up was a portable DVD player that came in handy during my recuperation/lazy phase in La Paz.

Our second night in La Paz was spent farewelling Kike at a place called Mongos, and welcoming our new guide, Hugo from Argentina. As I said it was sad to farewell Senor Munoz, but Hugo had beers for us all so that went some way to making us feel better! Hugo loves Che Guevara, and to be honest he looks like him too! Our other additions were a couple of Canadians (Chris from Toronto, so I had to hit him up about that due to the fact I was heading there after my travels to try and find a job, and Benoit a crazy French-Canadian doctor), and two Poms (Sean from Norwich who had been shouted the trip for his 50th birthday, and Sue who spoke fluent Spanish and had been travelling around on her own steam for a while). Needless to say there was the usual bonding session over a few drinks and they all fit in really well.

Our group was now at full strength, and after another night in La Paz we headed off to Sucre via a place in the middle of nowhere called Cochabamba. This was just a place to stop and really isn't much to talk about. Probably the highlight for most of the group was a chance to have a feed of Burger King, as well as catch up on some sleep. We were into Cochabamba over a weekend so there really wasn't much on. One funny thing to come out of Cochabamba was that we spent about one hour trying to hail three taxis to get to a restaurant on the other side of town. It was ridiculous, then to make matters worse the taxi drivers took us to the wrong address, but somehow we managed to find the right place in the end!

So other than some good new additions to our group, the start to the trek through Bolivia hasn't really started off all that magnificently. Still there's a lot more to go, and plenty of things to see and do ahead which should make up for the lacklustre start.

Personal Grooming

Some of the more observant among my readers will have noticed that the most unemployed part of my toilet bag would have to be my razor. As a result of laziness and a "just cause I can" attitude, I managed to grow a reasonably bushy beard over the last few weeks of travelling. It has been great not having to shave, but after a while the beard gets a little annoying, especially when it starts to get all messy, food (and vomit on the odd occasion) gets caught in it, it gets itchy, and it's not so good in the warmer climes. Since I was mostly bearded when my tour started, none of my group really knew what I looked like without a beard. I decided to give them a taste of the real Andy and clip most of the beard off to leave a handle-bar moustache. I had last grown one in November 2006 as part of Movember and was quite keen to sport one for a few weeks. So without further adieu, here are some before and after snaps. Enjoy.