Homeward Bound

This will be my last blog for this trip. As I've crossed a few time zones today's (28th August) will continue from where I left off yesterday.

On the way to the airport I finally realised why all the cars looked a lot more menacing in Miami they had no number plate on the front (I'm blaming the lack of sleep for not realising sooner). So what normally looks like a nice face now looks a little scary (again lack of sleep!).

To confirm the menacing nature of the cars (and their occupants) a car with its back bumper hanging off tried to push in the queue on the highway. Our taxi driver was having none of it though. He wound down his window, shouted something out of it then creeping forward getting as close as possible to the car in front.

This made the occupants of this particularly menacing albeit lopsided car somewhat angry and out got the driver and came towards our car shouting and waving his fist.

Fortunately he saw Stu and I in the back (we must have been doing a very "menacing face") and he quietly got back into his car before zooming off up ahead to try his luck at pushing in up there.

About 15 minutes later we saw him again several cars behind us. Huh ha!

Whilst we sat in traffic we chatted with our taxi driver Jose from Ecuador. He told is that in Miami there is no regulation on driving hours for taxis and theoretically drivers can work 24 hours a day without penalty (other than getting really tired!). Our driver didn't agree with this as he's seen some really tired drivers endangering the life of passengers. Unfortunately there are no plans to do anything about this :-\

Eventually, with no more incidents, we got to back to Miami airport an hour before boarding. We went straight to our security gate where the person shook their head disapproving as we obviously hadn't left enough time. 30 minutes later with full body scans complete we were through.

First on our (Stu's) list to do was to buy a bag of neodymium magnets. We found the shop and stuffed as many as we could into a small bag (that's how you buy them) with a few peaking out the top.

The shop assistant had been watching us push them in with a big grin on her face which got bigger when we gingerly handed the little bag, full to bursting, over to her hoping none would pop out. I don't think she's used to two adults doing this sort of thing. They're for Stu's teaching...promise!

Mission complete we went to our security gate to board the plane. When we got to our seat I had the joy of sitting next to a kid and his mum. Great we thought, no sleep for us tonight either. We hunted through our bags for the stuff we wanted for the flight then sat down. Unfortunately (again I'm blaming tiredness!) I'd left our eye masks on the previous plane :-(

Shortly after sitting down there was a lot of commotion with a mum complaining her 3 kids couldn't sit together. The air stewards were trying to rearrange the plane to sits families together. Then the kid and mum next to me got up, collected their bags and went to the front of the plane. Result!

Unfortunately the two Italian men who were now sitting next to me were far worse than any child could have been. Playing Tetris on a plane is quite a noisy and lively sport apparently. To add to it the chairs were also extremely uncomfortable. I've been in little pain for the duration of the holiday, rarely needing painkillers but last night was most definitely my worst :-(

Stocked up on painkillers I attempted to sleep, getting just enough to see me through the rest of the day.

Having got out bags we went outside to find our taxi but none was there for us. I rang the taxi company to find out if they were delayed, but what had actually happened was they had lost our booking! Just over an hour later they arrived and finally off we went.

Given we had been traveling for the last 45 hours by taxi, bus, taxi, taxi, plane, taxi, taxi, plane and nothing had gone wrong I guess we were kinda lucky. This was also our first missed connection in a month!

We cat napped in the taxi getting a few more minutes of much needed sleep. When I opened my eyes everything was green. The sight felt so odd. We are used to desert and golden grass, not larger lush green trees everywhere!

We got home to find everything where we'd left it and the garden looking pretty good (next door's grandson, Jack, had been cutting our grass whist we were away and doing a good job too!).

Home at last! It feels strangely good to be home but a little sad it's all over :-)

Hello North America

We landed in Miami just after 5am this morning (27th August) around 30 minutes early meaning we got less sleep on the plane! However this plane was really uncomfortable so we weren't getting much sleep anyway. Imagine bad cinemas seats that only recline slightly and make your bum go numb. Hopefully our next plane will be nicer.

By 7.30am we had made it onto South Beach, with passport, customs, etc. taking almost 2 hours to get through! Although the sky was overcast the air was nice and warm albeit very humid.

We had a delicious American breakfast in a place recommended by our taxi driver.

Whilst eating breakfast we watched the world go by. A squirrel ran down from a palm tree, which for some reason seemed rather strange.

Stranger still was the woman who was taking her dog for a walk but decided it was to much for it and picked it up and put it in a dolls pram! There it sat as she continued her walk.

After breakfast we went for a walk along the beach getting our feet wet. The water was lovely and warm but we had to watch where we walked as the shore line was filled with little jelly fish, dead coral and the odd live sea anemone.

The clouds also made the sky look beautiful and there were lots of pretty little (dainty) sea birds along the shore.

Unfortunately my knot tying skills had something to be desired and my shoes fell off my bag into the water, with one shoe and sock getting quite wet :-(

As we approached the end of the beach we stopped on a lounger to read (and to dry my shoe/sock!). As we approached the lounger a guy came up to us and asked about the water. We responded it was nice but this was our mistake. He decided we were a nice couple and sat next to us on the sand chatting away merrily. Stu decided he'd revitalise the conversation every now and again whilst he sat on the far lounger reading his kindle!

Eventually the bloke left for his swim and I got back to people watching. Several people came near running, stopped, did a few stretches making strange little sounds then continuing on.

Someone else had decided to take a surf board and paddle with an oar standing up along the coast. I suppose it gives you something to do when there aren't enough waves to surf!

Having sat on the loungers for just over an hour we got turfed off (or we could have paid $10 each but we were going to leave in 20 mins anyway).

According to Trip Adviser Coconut Grove is a hotbed of galleries and arty things. As it was only 12km away we hailed a taxi and off we went. On the way we saw a huge dog hanging out the window of the car in front of us. When I say hanging out I mean its entire upper body was out the window not just its head. It looked like this was its favourite pastime of this dog as it was strapped into the car to ensure it couldn't climb out too far.

Unfortunately the 12km is as a bird flies, 30 mins later (and $30 lighter) we arrived to find 1 art gallery and a whole complex of  closed down art shops :-(

On the bright side we did find a traditional American diner where we had lunch, a huge burger and a just as huge chicken club sandwich. Yum!

Feeling stuffed once again (the last few days seems to have been characterised by over eating!) We set off in search of a taxi. As we approached a junction, having not seen a taxi on the 10 minutes we had been walking a taxi appeared. As he got closer we saw he had a passenger but then he started making some odd hand motions which I interpreted as "wait here" and Stu as "I'm occupied". With nothing to lose we decided to wait a few minutes to see if he would reappear and low and behold he did!

So we set off to South Beach where we had left one of our bags and planned to stay there for the rest of the afternoon until we needed to go back to the airport.

On the way back we struck up conversion with our taxi driver, Vincent. Our turns out that Vincent had only been a taxi driver for a year. He used to be a civil engineer and had two master's degrees but got made redundant a few years ago and has had little luck in finding an equivalent job. He'd like to be a math teacher at high school (his wife's a science teacher!) but there's a 3 year waiting list for the training, so in the meantime he's being a taxi driver to pay for his two kids to go to college.

On arrival back at South Beach it had unfortunately started to rain adj were decided instead to just settle down in a cafe for an hour, leaving for the airport slight earlier than originally planned.

(Posting this now as I'm unlikely to get an internet connection at the airport. Will update tomorrow if anything interesting happens!)

Goodbye South America

Today (26th August) is our last day in South America. Tonight we catch another fight to Miami then onwards back to the UK :-(

We couldn't have a big lie in today as we are hoping that today we will be able to go to the Islas Bastellas.

Given how stuffed we felt after breakfast yesterday we decided we'd do breakfast when we got back from our trip and just have a small snack before the trip.

The hotel staff had been busy all yesterday evening and this morning cleaning the hotel grounds. It was starting to look a lot better although lots more dust had settled overnight (our balcony had been cleaned when we went for dinner but was now dusty again).

Although the sky wasn't as blue and clear as yesterday the wind had almost completely dropped.

As we walked along the beach we found even more pelicans, egrets and other birds crowded onto the pier.

As we approached the pier where our boat was we could see people starting to be loaded onto one of the boats. The boat trip was on today. Wahoo! Lucky we had decided to take a bus from Pisco today else we would have had to have left at 9.50am and missed our chance to go to the islands!

As we waited for the boat to depart we saw a dolphin off on the distance.

With our boat full we set off for the Islas Bastellas, but first we had a look at 'The Candellabra', a giant cactus carved into the sandstone pointing out to sea. The carving had been dated to be more than 500 years old but why it was carved is unknown. Stories include pirates did it to mark their territory, it was used to guide ships or my favourite to let all passing boats know there were hallucinogenic cacti nearby! Photos taken we moved on to the main stop of the day.

As we approached the islands we could see thousands of birds lining the edges of the cliffs and more coming to the island flying in long straight lines.

As we got close we could smell the ammonia-like guano. It was really strong, much stronger than the bat caves we visited in Malaysia!

As we got close to one of the cliffs a passenger towards the front of the boat got a little present right on the head! On the bright side, guano is expensive and Peru mines it from the island for export every 7 years. With 7 million birds living on the island you'd have thought they'd do it more frequently.

Further around the island we saw some penguins and all the small rocks in the sun were covered with sea lions. The boat got really close to them so we could see the sea lions up close, so close in fact I'm sure the could have jumped into the boat if they had wanted too!

Thankfully we kept a little more distance between us and the sea lions that were fighting.

With our hour up cruising around the island we started our return to the hotel, however we had one last stop: the harbour to see the dolphins from earlier!

There were around 5 dolphins in the harbour and 3 of them decided to follow our boat, swimming under, behind and beside us!

Eventually they got bored and disappeared and we returned to the hotel pier with us heading straight for breakfast as soon as we returned!

When we got back to our room we rang the Concierge to book a taxi to take us to Pisco. On arrival at the hotel the Concierge had told us we just needed to arrive around an hour early at the bus station however the guy on duty today said we had to reserve tickets 2 hours in advance. Tickets reserved, just in time, and taxi booked we finished packing and checked out. Another dust storm was due to hit Paracas and Pisco at 1pm so instead of spending an hour in Pisco we got the 1pm bus back to Lima.

Just as we were leaving the hotel the staff had managed to get the place and pools looking clean again, ready to do it all again this evening after the next dust storm hit! We thought about suggesting that they should have sand bottomed pools to save them some work!

Arriving on time back in Lima (makes a change, Cruz del Sur are normally late however this time we took a local direct bus, Soyuz VIP), we went to collect our luggage.

We got to the hotel just after 5pm and I asked reception what time we should get a taxi. She said "now". Supposedly Lima becomes a car park after 6pm on a Monday so it was leave now and get to the airport for 6pm, 2 hours earlier than we wanted or leave in an hour and the journey would take at least twice as long!

So off we went, arriving at the airport 5 hours before our flight leaving us plenty of time to get through security (the salt from Uyuni in my bag looked like drugs so my bag was searched!) and have a slow dinner.

As Far As You Can See

Today (25th August) we were booked on the 10am trip around  Islas Bastellas. This meant we could get up at a sensible time and have a leisurely breakfast.

Although they recommend only having a light breakfast the buffet was so good we wanted to try everything! Feeling completely stuffed we went to the pier to catch our boat.

On the way we saw lots of pelicans diving into the ocean and other sea birds standing on the rocks or floating on the ocean, their feathers being ruffled by the wind.

When we got to the pier we saw lots of people getting off the boat not looking as happy as they should given the trip is meant to be fantastic. A few minutes later we found out why, the wind was too high to get close to the island and they had to turn back before getting there. This meant our trip was cancelled :-(

I had been really looking forward to seeing the sea lions, penguins and other wildlife and felt really disappointed. Fortunately we are here long enough tomorrow that they booked us on the 8am boat. Fingers crossed the wind has died down by then!

We walked along the hotel's beach until we reached another pier where we found a load of pelicans and egrets sitting sunning themselves and drying their wings.

If we weren't going to get to the island today I was determined to see as much wildlife as I could around the coast! We crept as close as we could without disturbing them and just stood and watched them for a while (obviously taking lots of photos!).

After Stu scared off the last remaining pelicans (he'd had enough of watching birds on a pier) we went back to our room to change so we could go on a walk around the nature reserve a few kilometres away.

Once changed we went to see the Concierge to book a taxi. The price though seemed extortionate, £50 for two 25 minute trips! We've been getting a taxi for a whole day for that sort of price!

After some more discussion we changed our plans to walk in the north of the reserve instead because the wind was coming from the south. With the taxi still too expensive we decided we would walk to the nature reserve with the north coast path starting just 4km away.

Route decided we went to the hotel shop to stock up on water. They only sell Evian in the hotel and a 750ml bottle cost 22 soles (£7)! Given that the town was just a few minutes walk away we opted to go and buy our water there first even though it was in the opposite direction to the nature reserve.

When we got to the promenade we saw a load of pelicans on the beach following a man around. It turned out he had a bucket of fish off-cuts which he fed to the pelicans to enable us tourists to get some interesting photos.

Having spent around 30 minutes watching the pelicans on the beach and diving into the ocean we noticed that the peninsula where the nature reserve is was no longer visible, nor were the Islas Bastellas. There also seemed to be a lot of dust on the air.

As we went to find some water we found that all of the local shops were starting to close. A little later we found out why, a huge dust storm was coming our way! We sped to get a cup of tea and coffee, hoping the dust storm would ease up but it just got stronger so we bit the bullet and started back for our hotel.

By the time were got back we were both covered in dust and even though we had kept our mouths closed salty dust had got in there too. Lucky we hadn't gone for a walk in the national reserve (which is full of sand!).

We spent the rest of the afternoon in our room reading and ordering room service for lunch.

By around 4pm the storm had finally subsided and we could see hotel staff busily sweeping and cleaning to get rid of the dust which was now everywhere.

As there was still a lot of dust in the air and we had a relatively late lunch we decided to eat at the hotel for dinner (it's not recommended to walk to/from town after 8pm).

After dinner we went to the bar and tried a shot of neat pisco. It was surprisingly nice and very strong!

So although all plans for today were foiled by the dust storm (we couldn't even go for a swim!) we still had a good, relaxing day, seeing lots of birds on the beach before the dust storm was in full swing. Fingers crossed tomorrow the weather will be better!

One Last Trip

Today (24th August) we got up at a sensible time, 8am! Breakfast wasn't due to finish until 10am so we had plenty of time to get ready and go down for breakfast.

Unfortunately breakfast was a little disappointing but compared to yesterday it had a lot to live up to.

Having finished breakfast we decided we'd go get a delicious chocolate croissant once we had finished packing and tidied the room, giving us an incentive to do this quickly!

Having paid and checked our bags in at the hotel (we're not taking them down to Paracas with us) we went to get our chocolate croissant (and takeaway sandwiches for our bus journey).

We had noticed straps on the chairs at all the restaurants and cafes we had visited. At first we were puzzled by them but then realised it's to attach your bag to your chair to stop someone stealing it!

I forgot to mention yesterday about the police officers standing at all the major traffic lights with whistles and little light up batons (they turn them on in the evenings!).

Today one car tried to jump the lights and the police officer came over shouting and waving his little baton. The car tried to keep coming but the police officer came running over blowing his whistle and waving his baton at him. The driver eventually stopped, car half way across the pedestrian crossing with all the pedestrians ignoring the whole debacle, crossing right in front of him so he couldn't move even if he wanted to!

It seems in Peru and Bolivia they like their whistles. As you walk along a busy street in Lima or La Paz all you can hear (above the traffic noise!) are whistles being blown. In Machu Picchu if anyone violated a rule, for example sitting on a wall, the tourist police there would blow their whistle and wave their hands at you!

To help the pedestrians cross the road there is a funny little green man dancing (I think he's meant to be walking but it definitely looks like dancing to us!) to indicate when to cross with a count down.

Unfortunately a green man doesn't mean there won't be any cars! When the time's up a little red man appears with his hands on his hips. Again, just because he's red doesn't mean that the cars are all going and at times this actually felt like a safer time to cross the road!

The hotel called us a taxi to take us to the bus station. I noticed when I got in the taxi yesterday the driver locked my door and again today when I got in the hotel concierge tapped on my window and indicated to me to lock the door. Once we'd set off I noticed all doors on the car were once again locked.

The journey to the bus station was uneventful, getting there more than an hour early giving us time to attempt to get a refund on our bus tickets.

We queued up to transfer our online voucher for tickets and I ask about a refund but was told "no English". I tried a few more times with a few Spanish words but still "no English". I gave up and went to the information desk where she directed me straight back to where I had started and unfortunately the queue had got significantly longer. Grrr.

After another half hour of waiting we eventually got back to the front of the queue and they were able to gives us a refund only losing 15% of the ticket price equivalent to just over £2!

With 20 minutes until departure we sat down in some comfy seats. As Stu sat down he realised his wallet was missing. We had it out in the taxi so our either didn't get our properly back on his pocket and fell out (our hope as the taxi driver was really nice) or someone managed to get their hand into Stu's pocket and steal it (quite a feat as his pocket tops are quite tight).

Either way we lost around £15 and a £2 wallet.  Annoying but not the end of the world. I'm surprised we've managed to survive 30 days without losing anything (bar two odd socks and a t-shirt in the laundry).

Just after 2pm (the bus always leaves late!) we set off for Paracas.

Yesterday was the first day we didn't see the sun or a blue sky. Today we had to wait until we got to Paracas to see the sun. Lima in winter tends to be cloudy which is weird as the rest of Peru which we've visited has had blue skies all the time.

As we left Lima we passed around 30 furniture shacks all lining the main road each specialising in something different; chairs, tables, shelving units, etc. At the end of the row stood a huge Ikea-like building also selling furniture! I wonder what Ikea would do if 30 furniture stalls set up next to one of their stores?!

At just after 6pm we arrived in Paracas (late as usual!) meaning we missed sunset :-(

We took a taxi to the hotel. The driver was really friendly telling us all about Paracas as we drove to our hotel in Spanish. Surprisingly we could understand pretty much everything he said!

On arriving at our hotel there was a large security presence outside. They wouldn't let the car in until they confirmed we had a reservation!

Inside the place looked amazing! It calls itself a "luxury resort" and it lives up to that name!

The hotel comes complete with concierge, bell boy, health spa with sauna, several restaurants, private beach, several pools and lots of villas.

We got to our villa we were blown away by what we saw inside, especially compared to what we have been staying in for the past month. Huge bed, huge room, beautiful bathroom, balcony, etc. This is our treat for the end of the holiday :-)

For dinner we went to one of the recommended seafood restaurants in town. We had scallops with lemon and parmesan to start and both chose a prawn dish for mains.

When I had a similar scallop dish in Cusco I was given three small scallops. At this restaurant we were given 16 including roe and some were doubles! For the main we each got 25 king prawns. Needless to say we both stuffed ourselves with the seafood and felt way too full once we had finished.

We walked back to the hotel and with our appetite renewed we settled down for pudding and tea/coffee. The food in the hotel was absolutely delicious although our pudding and drinks cost almost as much as our dinner and drinks at the restaurant in town!

(No decent photos today but hopefully lots tomorrow as we have booked the boat trip around the Islas Bastellas - I'm really looking forward to it!!)

Up, Up and Away

Today (23rd August) was our earliest start yet with the alarm going at 3.40am!

We arrived at the airport with the designated 2 hours to spare. Fortunately our taxi driver helped us find the right queue and a trolley as the queues seemed utterly random.

For the next two hours we basically stood in various queues. First to get our exit voucher, then the boarding passes, next the airport tax payment, then confirmation we'd paid, then immigration followed by a drugs bag check (they didn't bother opening mine and only did a perfunctory check on Stu's), then standard security checks (except bottled water is allowed on South American flights!). The penultimate queue was at the gate then finally we joined the queue to board the plane. Phew! Lucky we'd allowed the recommended 2 hours!

We finally found our seats on the plane (after a little more queuing as our seats were rights at the back) and could relax. This plane probably had the smallest amount of leg room we'd ever seen. To get one of our bags under the seat I had to stand on the seat!

Once again on time we approached the runway. El Alto (La Paz's airport) is the highest international airport in the world. Due to the thin air the runway needs to be 5km long to enable planes to land and take off. Planes have to be equipped with special tyres to withstand the extreme forces involved with landing as they have to land at twice their sea level velocity!

The engines started and off we went and it felt like it took twice as long to take off than normal with the plane veering slightly to the left and right as we sped along the runway. Finally we took off getting our final and very short glimpse of La Paz before slowly rising above the clouds.

On the flight our breakfast was a tasty chocolate muffin, certainly one up on the slightly stale bread and super sweet jam most places serve for breakfast!

Once we arrived in Lima we took a taxi to our hotel. The drive was interesting; at one point there were 10 lanes of traffic converging into 3 lanes! Lots of horns honking and fearless driving by our taxi driver meant we got through to the 3 lane road pretty quickly.

The taxi eventually came out on a clear road along the sea front. As we drove along we kept seeing signs for a tsunami escape route! Dotted along the sea front were steps leading up the side of the cliff to the main town. Two thoughts came to mind when I first saw these, firstly thank God we aren't at altitude else those steps would be near impossible (I can rub up 4 flights without getting out of breath now!) and secondly how is everyone from the beach and road meant to get up those narrow sets of steps if there was a tsunami?!

Having arrived in the Miraflores district of Peru and our room not yet ready we set out in search of a more substantial breakfast. The hotel receptionist recommended a bakery 5 mins walk along the road so off we set.

The place was really busy and we were lucky to get a table. We each had a chocolate croissant, the best we've ever tasted!

After breakfast we explored the area. Miraflores is noticeably wealthier than La Paz: gated compounds with nice houses, lots of new cars, slightly more organised traffic and some drivers even stop to let you cross the road!

After lunch (same place as breakfast but this time also sampling their gorgeous ice creams) we returned to the hotel to catch up on missed sleep from the past couple of days.

However it was at this point I noticed that our return bus ticket from Paracas was wrong. The departure time and boarding time were 3 hours different getting us to Lima after our flight departs! This was because the departure time is from Nazca not Paracas so the arrival time in Lima is 8 hours after departure not 3.5 as I had thought!

So the next stop was a travel agency to buy some alternative tickets. We'll find out tomorrow if we can get a refund or not :-\ Luckily I'd bought the tickets really early so they were super cheap so not much lost if we can't get a refund (there isn't an alternative bus by this company).

One mistake in 4.5 weeks, moving pretty much daily isn't a bad track record either. ;-) All the connections have been perfect! And at least I spotted now rather than waiting for a non-existent bus to turn up on the day of our flight home!

Before dinner we went out in search of bus companies. Unfortunately all the travel agents deal only with Cruz del Sur who I already have tickets with and don't have any suitable  alternative buses.

We were directed to the waterfront where we were told the bus companies had booths. As we had been planning to have a walk here this evenings anyway we were quite glad to be directed this way.

When we got to the sea front we could see Lima lit up in the distance with two neon lit crosses.

As we went down the steps we saw something we didn't expect, a very western shopping centre very reminiscent of The Quay in Portsmouth, complete with cinema! Unfortunately no bus companies :-( but there was a tourist information desk.

We were told that two bus companies have buses every 20 minutes and no booking is required. Given the journey is almost 4 hours this seems quite frequent so tomorrow we are making a slight detour and confirming with the bus company this is the case.

For dinner we went to the most expensive restaurant of our entire stay. The prices are equivalent to a mid range UK restaurant.

On arrival we were offered Pisco Sours, now my favourite cocktail, that were particularly strong and relatively large meaning it went straight took my head!

For dinner we had the two recommended dishes duck with coriander rice and baby goat with local sweet potatoes. Neither of us has had goat before so we were in for a surprise!

We shared both of the dishes and thought they were both absolutely delicious. After the first one we were full but the second one was too nice not to eat too!

We were so full, we couldn't manage the pudding and worked our way back to our hotel.

Late Laundry

Having survived the overnight vibration test we arrived back to La Paz today (22nd August) safe and sound albeit a little tired.

Fortunately it seems La Paz folk also like getting up late as relatively little is open until 10am. I'd therefore booked a room to enable us to get an extra couple of hours sleep before setting out for the day.

After putting our laundry in for cleaning (it's priced per kg and means we don't have as much to do when we get back!) we had a wander around the city again and obviously went back to buy some more of the lovely chocolate! Probably the nicest we've ever tasted!

When we were looking at one of the stalls lining the street I felt someone try to pick pocket me. Unfortunately for them all they got was a soggy tissue! Huh Ha! (The dust plays havoc with your sinuses!)

We're now just relaxing for the rest of the day as we have an early flight tomorrow back to Peru so we're moving hotel to one nearer to the airport, that has heating and hot showers. What a luxury!

At around 4pm we moved to our new hotel. The reviews say that this hotel has the best showers in Bolivia and I think they were probably right! Having mostly repacked our bags for the flight home and feeling contented and refreshed we ventured out for dinner in the new part of town we had yet to explore.

We walked round to the nearest plaza where we were told we could get dinner to find lots of Bolivia's fast food restaurants and nothing else!

Given we only had just over an hour until we needed to leave to pick up our laundry on the other side of town we settled for pizza and were pleasantly surprised. For £6 we got a decent sized and tasty pizza to share, a local beer and a sprite.

As we wanted same day collection for our laundry we had been asked to come at 8pm just as they close. Allowing more than double the time to get across town than it took earlier in the day our taxi arrived (albeit a little later than planned eroding some of buffer tube) we set off.

After around 10 mins we hit the nightly traffic as expected. Unfortunately this wasn't the normal nightly traffic. Tonight there was a massive protest blocking the one and only main road in La Paz and thus all the roads surrounding it!

8pm came and went and we were still sitting stationary in traffic. Stu and I were thinking of various ways we could get our clothes to Peru if we couldn't get them tonight (we were hoping they were working in Bolivian time and 8pm actually meant 9pm).

At one point a police officer told our driver to turn around and go back. He started shouting out the window that he had tourists but the police officer was having none of it. So instead our taxi driver promptly drove straight at the police officer, refusing to turn left as instructed. The police officer quickly moved out the way and instead focused his efforts on making other vehicles turn left.

Unfortunately the road ahead was completely jammed up and everyone ended up turning their engines off. There we sat for more than 30 minutes stationary. The police officer on this street helpfully suggested the cars should move closer together so more could fit on the street even though they were already pretty much bumper to bumper with 3 lanes in a 2 lane street!

Finally a journey that should have taken less than 20 minutes we arrived just before 9pm, having sat in the car for 1.5 hours! We had thought about walking a couple of times but our taxi driver strongly advised against it (distance and safety).

As we pulled up in front of the shop we were extremely relieved to see it was still open. Phew! Clean washing in hand we made the return trip to our hotel. This time the taxi driver took a different route and we got back in around 15 minutes.

Arriving back at our hotel much later than planned given our early flight tomorrow (need to leave at 4am!) We finished packing to find one item of the laundry was missing. Stu's new green Nazca, and now favourite, t-shirt (see photo on 20th August!). Unfortunately it was now far too late to do anything about it :-( so fingers crossed we can find another one in Lima or Paracas!

(Sorry no photos today - my only regret having now left La Paz is that we didn't get time to properly admire the city from above other than from a steamy coach window or speeding taxi in the dark as it looked truly beautiful :-( )

Crazy Day

The first stop this morning (21st August) was a small village called Chantani where there is a small museum run by an old man called Santos.

Santos returned to Chantani 17 years ago when his mother became ill and wanted to die where she was born. 

Unfortunately Santos' wife did not want to return to the village as she preferred city life. Therefore Santos returned to Chantani alone with his mother.

During the time he attended to his mother he started to collect natural rocks which resembled animals. He scoured the surrounding area and carried anything back on a sledge on his own. He said the other villagers all thought he was crazy: the rocks he brought back were frequently bigger than him!

Over 4 years he collected a garden full of interesting rocks and started to carve some himself. He also started to build his own house and discovered all sorts of centuries old pottery and tools in the surrounding land.

Santos now runs a museum with these artefacts and gives tours of his garden. Fortunately his wife saw what he had achieved and a few years after his mother died she returned to Chantani to live with him.

After our tour we had a look round the deserted and ruined village which Santos lives in. We were warned not to go too far as one other person lives in the village; a grumpy old lady that doesn't like tourists!

There was a tiny clock tower which we both climbed up giving fantastic views of the salt flats and surrounding mountains.

Once we had seen everything there was to see at Chantani we entered the salt flats. After around 45 mins of driving we stopped. As far as we could see in all directions was salt with the occasional mountain. Perfect for crazy photos!

After around 30 mins of jumping and running back and forth to get the perspective right we decided we'd had enough.

Exhausted (because of the low oxygen levels) we continued on to the only salt hotel on the salt flats. It's now illegal to stay here overnight due to the impact on the environment but you can still visit to see the salt carvings.

When we arrived the hotel was half knocked down as they were in the process of rebuilding it. In a small room at the back all the salt carvings were proudly(!) on display.

Our penultimate stop on the flats was the salt extraction site. At the edge of the Salar they divide it into squares then scrape the salt into large piles where they leave it to dry for a week before it's taken to a processing facility. The salt from Uyuni is not exported and 50kg would cost a Bolivian just a couple of pounds!

The processing is still quite a manual process with the only automation a petrol driven grinding machine. It seems it's not common to sell the salt in chunks and we had to specially ask for some. The salt processing worker was more than happy to oblige, picking up some chunky salt for us while we waited.

The final stop of the day was a train cemetery. This is where all of Bolivia's broken trains get left with the oldest having sat there for over 35 years.

They were all rusted substantially as the "cemetery" is right next to the salt flats. They also have all have graffiti all over them and two have been turned into swings!

The cemetery was quite an odd but beautiful sight in a strange sort of way.

Eli and Johnny dropped us off in Unuyi where we had a 6 hour wait before our bus departed. We said our goodbyes and they set off for their 5 hour drive back to Tupiza.

In less than an hour we had seen all there was to see in Uyuni and settled down in a cafe for the rest of the afternoon.

At 7pm we arrived at the bus station and were loaded onto the bus almost an hour early. They promptly started serving dinner and we even set off on time!

Of the 550km journey almost 200km are on dirt tracks and most of the remainder on basic (non-tarmac) roads.

If you can imagine driving on a rumble strip at 50mph (for vehicle vibration testing) for 4 hours that's what it felt like followed by a slightly less aggressive vibration test for a further 7 hours. This explained why they served dinner before we set off!

Surprisingly though for all the nights we've spent on buses this was my best nights sleep and Stu's worst!

Across the Desert, Around the Lakes and Under the Sea (Not Forgetting the Flamingos!)

We woke up this morning (20th August) in Huaylla Jara with ice on the inside of the window. Luckily it seems that a fleece lined sleeping bag plus 3 blankets is just enough to keep warm at 4600m when there's no heating! Last night the outside temperature was -20C!

After changing extraordinarily quickly we had breakfast which was a real treat: our guide had cooked us some delicious pancakes! We ate them quickly before they got cold and then were on our way.

The building techniques in Bolivia are quite interesting (as I already mentioned in one of my La Paz posts!). 

Out here they use rocks to hold the roof down and our hostel last night was no exception! No wonder it was cold. At least there was glass in the windows!

Our first stop after breakfast was Laguna Colorado again (altitude is 4300m). This morning it was mostly frozen and the red colour wasn't showing as clearly as yesterday. The flamingos (and terns) had more sense than to stand in an icy cold lake, they instead chose to stand around the edge where the incoming water from an underground volcanic vent was warm and steaming.

We were told that we had plenty of time today for pictures and Stu and I could have spent several hours here just watching the steaming water, flamingos, terns, small birds (like a finch) and the reflections. We spent so long (my nose got so cold I couldn't feel it!) that our guide had to call us to tell us it was time to go. Our guide and driver had slightly more sense and had enjoyed the view from the warm jeep!

We quickly scrambled, breathlessly, up the side of the hill back to the jeep and set off to our next destination.

The Desierto Siloli has a famous stone called the Árbol de Piedra or the Stone Tree. It's an odd shaped rock which has a hard, heavyiron heavy top and soft lower half meaning the bottom has been eroded by the wind more heavily creating a tree like structure.

There were several other interesting rock formations. Stu's favorite was one he called "The Slug" and I liked the one that looked like a worm just coming out of the ground. Even though there were lots of really interesting rock formations only the Stone Tree is protected and you can touch and climb all over the other rock formations. The stone tree is the most photographed rock formation in Siloli and it's predicted that it will be irreparably eroded within the next 5 years which perhaps explains why the Bolivian government is trying to protect it as much as possible.

Looking in the opposite direction to the rock formations was a beautiful mountain range. I sat in the car as we drove along with my gazed fixed on the mountain range. The colours were extraordinary and the best was yet to come; one of the peaks had 7 different colors due to the mineral content.

Okay enough about mountains. A camera can't really capture the scale and colours so you'll just have to come and see them for yourself! Further on were 5 lakes, each rimmed with naturally occurring borax. These lakes are a favourite spot for flamingos. 

Due to the lakes having not melted yet (they are only 50cm deep!) the flamingos were close to the edge meaning we could see them close up (and take lots of photos!).

For lunch we stopped where there was the highest population of flamingos at Laguna Hedionda. Stu and I spent more than half an hour just gazing at them. Three different species come here to feed and we could now finally get close enough to see their knees and beaks to be able to tell them apart!

At the final lake we were in for another treat, a herd of vercuñas were grazing and relaxing at the shore line. We were able to get within 10m of the herd getting a good look at the babies which were lying down snoozing. As we got back into the jeep we saw an Andean Fox running off, a rate sight we're told!

After lunch we got as close as we could to another active volcano that is on the Bolivian-Chilean border, Ollague. We could tell that we were close as for the first time we saw clouds on the sky and the volcano is predicted to erupt within the next 10 years! The last eruption was over 3000 years ago and the next one is predicted to be a super eruption; the volcano is growing in height by 1cm per year!

In front of the volcano is a large lava field which we climbed up and over to get a better view.

As we started back to the jeep a huge (to us) dust devil started up in the distance and came directly for us! Exciting! Fortunately it changed course and just went over our jeep instead :-)

Next we crossed another small salt flat, Chiguana, which only had a couple of centimetres of usable salt.

After the salt flats is the town of San Juan. Around a 1000 people live here and in the rainy season (Jan/Feb) the town is completely cut off from the rest of Bolivia as the salt flats to the south, Chiguana, and the north, Unuyi are flooded. They therefore have to stock up every year to last the full two months alone. They can however cross over the border to Chile on foot (1.5 hrs) where there is a monthly market.

Perhaps more interestingly though is that San Juan used to be under the sea and here ancient coral is littered everywhere and its the building material of choice for the houses and tombs.

800 years ago the inhabitants used the giant coral structures as tombs, carving out the inside and placing mummified bodies inside with belongings to help them in their next life. Unfortunately the Spanish found these tombs and took almost all of the gold and silver (one silver brooch remains!), melting it all down :-(

Shortly after leaving San Juan we entered the Salar de Uyuni. The Uyuni salt flats are the largest in the world with an area of more than 12,100 sq km. However we weren't going to see much of the flats today as our aim was to get to Isla Incahuasi, a coral island full of giant cacti, before sunset.

About 30 mins before sunset we arrived at the island and started to ascend it to settle down and watch the sunset. Tonight was the first night we saw any clouds which made the colors even more vibrant. However the sunset was nothing compared to the moonrise. Tonight it was a huge full bright moon that looked golden as the sun set. Normally the island is overrun with tourists but tonight we had the entire island to ourselves making it a really magical evening.

Once the sun had fully disappeared and we were able to take our eyes off the moon we started to descend the coral mound. On our way down we saw several chinchillas who also must have been moongazing whilst preening themselves.

Finally we made it back to the jeep (chinchillas and a beautiful moon, what more can you ask for?) and set off for our hotel, one of the salt hotels on the north shore of the salt flat. 

Unfortunately it was now almost dark and compasses don't work on the salt flats (because of iron deposits in the salt) so drivers have to navigate by landmarks which isn't much help if you can't see them! Fortunately the moon was so bright it was causing shadows and the remaining rays of sunlight meant we were able to make it safely off the salt flats.

The salt hotel was interesting but  not as exciting as we hoped. It looked just like any other building except instead of the bricks being made of mud (like last night) they were made of salt. The chairs and tables in the restaurant were made of salt which was interesting but quite uncomfortable and unfortunately Stu is still determined to visit an ice hotel :-(

The bed in the room had a salt base which was surprisingly comfortable and we even had heating (and tepid water) in this hotel!