Hola Amigos!

I am in Copacabana on Lake Titicaca and the weather is superb (at least after 11am each day) - I have to buy some sunscreen tho cause at altitude you burn like a bitch. Have just waved off co-travellers Matt and Renato who are heading straight to Cusco and am now finally able to meditate in quiet solitude on Isla del Sol.

From La Paz I went with Matt on a tour of the Salar de Uyuni, a gigantic salt plain on a barren plateau in the Andes. To quote someone (who I don't know personally) the landscape is like Salvador Dali and Dr Seuss hooked up and dropped some acid... I think that's the best way to describe something like that - even the pictures won't do it justice. We organised the tour from La Paz (which is a tad unusual) and it included overnight bus transfers to the Uyuni to begin the tour. Got a very flash tourist bus on the way down - it was better than anything I took in europe, dinner, a bottle of water and lazeboy-type reclining chairs - but was still no match for possibly the worst major road in the world. The bus broke down after about 90 mins and then continued to struggle to cross rivers throughout the night. Luckily I was asleep for most of it. More eventful was the trip back - we met Renato, a chilean, in Uyuni before boarding. We were on the local bus which included opressive heating, locals sleeping in the aisles and a dog, but we were going alright till about midnight when we stopped inexplicably for about an hour. The drivers refused to let people out of the bus even though we were slowly cooking in our own sweat. Got let out after about an hour and discovered we were in a queue of buses and jeeps waiting for a flooded river to go down. Ended up sitting there for 7 hours. At 7am jsut when someone told me they heard it wouldn't be going down until 4pm a bus on the far back started up their engine and plowed straight in. As they touched down on our bank the crowd cheered and we all rushed back to the bus to continue the journey. Weren't encouraged by the river water pouring out of the luggage compartment doors (especially as I had my camera in my pack) but the driver refused to let us do anything about it and luckily the bus was raised enough that nothing of mine got wet.

Made it back to La Paz around 3pm (6 hours after we were expecting to arrive) and got straight on a bus for copacabana. There was more fucking around with that bus but we got here eventually. Got to a hostel and went straight to bed. Matt and Renato went out to get some food and when they got back were locked out of the hostel. Didn't realise there was a 12am curfew. They wandered around town for about an hour before finding the only bed still available was a 'matrimoniale'! From all accounts they had a very romantic evening...

So many fucking argentinians in Copacabana. One gave me a bit of a hard time. Was on our bus from La Paz, wearing his Llama wool ensemble - the andes equivalent of the thai dye - and told me that the answers to the world weren't in a book when I was having a look for somewhere to stay. Ended up in the same cafe for breakfast the next day and he kept giving me dirty looks. I must say, it is pretty hardcore of him to come all the way to bolivia from argentina. I'm sure I'd be all high and mighty as well if I got on a bus to New South Wales... What a wanker.

Sorry, just had to get that off my chest.

I'll probably have a couple of nights on the Isla del Sol and then come back to get the bus to Puno in Peru, then Arequipa and finally Cuzco. Not long till I get home but still more cool shit to see. Keep commenting and I'll see most of you soon enough..

I'm in La Paz and I can barely breathe...

Altitude sickness is a bitch. I flew into AltoPlano airport (another 500m higher than central La Paz) yesterday from santiago and instantly I felt lightheaded. Being higher, the drive down into town was amazing from the airport - La Paz is in a basin surrounded by mountains and you get an amazing view of the whole place. Don't think the taxi driver touched the break pedal at all on the way down either, so we were driving down this near-vertical road at like 120kph. Anyway, had a fairly easy going afternoon, so as not to exert myself too much, but it wasn't enough. Seems my blood isn't carrying enough oxygen at the moment for both my brain and my stomach, so the chicken leg didn't stay down long at all. Have extended taking it easy today to eating nothing but 3 slices of toast and watching star wars 3 (a rewarding cultural south american experience). I have to acclimatise - softing out is not an option as the rest of my trip in south america is in the Andes. Tomorrow the new president is being inaugurated around the corner from the hostel. He's the first native president and a socialist so apparently there's going to be a bit of hullaballoo.

Had a pleasant few days in London before I left. Hana and I had a nice hotel room in Paddington for our last night and Hana took me to see Les Miserables (now I know what my pseudonym is all about..). Turned out Paddington is like 5 mins from Hyde Park (who knew?!) and specifically Anna Roberts' place (eliza's sister for those who don't know - where she and seany were staying). So I managed to catch up with them for 10 minutes before they rudely left for Ireland.

Had an ordinary flight to Santiago - was overnight - which normally isn't the worst but I was sitting on top of one of the heating vents so would keep waking up covered in sweat. Made it eventually and managed to find the energy to check out Santiago a bit. From what I saw it was a very nice city, if not a bit too Western. Got another 3 hours sleep that night (bringing my tally to about 6 hours over two days) before my flight to La Paz, so to be fair, I was suffering from a bit of exhaustion as well as altitude sickness...

Hopefully I adjust within the next couple of days, as I plan on making a 10 hour trip to the salt flats, but I don't know if I will if I'm not feeling better...

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Hunnakah, Eid Mubarak and so forth...

It seems a lot has happened since the last post... (I should just make it so that automatically becomes the opening line of all my blogs!)

When I left you last we (with Kate in tow) were preparing for our escape from France via a 17-hour bus ride to Madrid. Our mood wasn't helped by an arsehole french bus driver who refused to allow any food on the bus. Being the cheeky (and hungy) bunch we are, we managed to sneak on our shopping bag full of chips, biscuits, etc. under hana's jacket..

Madrid was cool but a bit of a let down. Another one of those cities that didn't really live up to expectations. Had a hilarious night out with a bunch of yanks (et al). One had been to madrid before so took us out to this 'really cool bar with 1.20 beers and you get free tapas with every drink'... after leading us round the block a few times we eventually got to 'Museo del Jamon' (museum of ham), which was completely lit up and the mirrored walls were covered in legs of ham (at this point you really need a photo because my description lacks something). To be fair beers were 1.20 but we only managed to fit one in before they closed at 12.00 and had to find a new place. Also discovered chocolate con churros which has been one of my favourite european menu items... Spanish doughnuts with a big mug of chocolate to dip in.

Went south from Madrid to Granada, which I loved. We had blue skies and sunshine for the whole time there (though it was still fucking freezing) and our hostel had a terrace with an amazing view of the alhambra. There were more staff at this hostel than guests but they were welcoming enough (they shared their drugs) and good fun was had by all. Especially the french girl who couldn't stop saying, 'I'm so exciting (sic), wooo!'.

Took a quick bus over to Seville from Granada where I met up with my parents for Christmas. Seany, georgie and selena all came for the big party. Lunch was lovely, dad did his best without an oven - it was the best microwaved turkey I've ever had! Being with my parents was profitable and took some pressure off the remaining couple of months of my trip.

Flew up to Barcelona for New Years, where mum and dad had an apartment rented in the delightful pakistani quarter. Had a bad impression of the city after the first few days, but after New Years the weather improved and we moved to the other side of the La Rambla and ended up satisfied. New Years was fun but a bit of a let down. Ended up on the roof of the apartment block watching neighbours recreate the Battle of Britain by dropping fireworks onto the opposite terrace. From Barca we all finally parted ways - Seany heading for Birmingham, Kate to Portugal and Hana and I for Morocco.

The plan was originally to fly to Malaga, catch a bus to Algeciras then get the ferry to Tangier. By the time we actually decided what we were doing flight prices had gone through the roof so we settled on the sleeper to Malaga. By the time we reached Asilah (a small beach town 45 minutes from Tangier) we had been travelling for 27 hours (a significant proportion of which was spent at the ferry terminal in Algeciras). By pure fluke we ran into a couple of Hana's sister's friends, Joel and Rowan (female) on the bus from Malaga to Algeciras. They were heading to Morocco for about a week so we made it a foursome.

Morocco is amazing. Particularly in the medinas (old arabic sections) of towns there is just so much energy. We didn't hang around in Tangiers, which has a bit of a bad rep and got the train straight to sleepy Asilah. On the 45 minute trip there we managed to make a couple of friends (one aussie and a local) and piss off a local. To be fair, we didn't really do anything to piss him off and in retrospect he was just trying to intimidate us into staying at his hotel in Asilah, but he really gave us a hard time. Luckily we had also met Imane, a girl living in Fez and who seemed to have a crush on Joel, who sat in our compartment on the train and told this guy to fuck off. Apart from that guy, Asilah was the perfect introduction to Morocco and gently eased us into the whole thing. We didn't hang around there long though, and the next night we caught the train to Fez.

The downside of second class tickets in Morocco is that there are no allocated seats. So because we were one station out of Tangier on the way to Fez, we ended up sitting in the aisle for most of the journey. We spent a few nights in Fez essentially chaperoning Joel and Imane. I had a pastilla for dinner one night (a pigeon pie coated with icing sugar) which sent me straight to the toilet, and I ended up paying for something that was already half way to the atlantic.

We left Imane behind in Fez (along with her hopes of emigration to Australia) and headed to Marrakech. Marrakech is crazy. Walk for five minutes through the main square and you're likely to see a snake charmer, a few monkeys and be offered orange juice by ten people at once even though you already have one in your hand.. For all that it was a fairly uneventful few days. On the morning Joel and Rowan left us we left on a three day Sahara trek. Were recommended the company by Hana's friend Katesy but in the end paid an arm and a leg to sit in a minibus for 3 days. Camel Trek was amazing though - finally a real desert, made of sand! Just for tommy managed to get a photo of a sand dune and the moon a la windows XP backgrounds.

Returned to Marrakech yesterday and spent a subdued day here again. Leave for London again tomorrow early and then head to South America for a month. Have decided on spending more time in Bolivia, possibly at the expense of the Inca Trail, but we'll have to wait and see. Love to hear how everyone's summers are going. Next post will be from yet another continent...