Bolivia and my body never really came to terms with each other. On more than one occasion over recent weeks I had been lauding myself as being almost invincible to illness, disease, and calling myself 'iron guts atkins' (which I quite liked the sound of) because I barely courted any health problems at all on my 9 month trip. However I was ill on three seperate occasions while in Bolivia and got rather annoyed with not feeling well. I consider only one of those three incidents self inflicted, I knowingly ate a pink burger and then proceeded to eat my friend´s burger (also pink) which she had sensibly pushed to one side and refused to touch. I´m out now and am in Brazil feeling just fine.

Last time I wrote I was in La Paz and enjoying my last few moments of feeling ok and just before I did a trek in a valley near the city. It was a 3 day affair organised through one of the travel agents in town and was worringly cheap at 75 USD for guides, camping gear, food, and transport!. There was only five of us in the group, myself, a french/malaysian couple, and two Bolivian blokes who doubled as guides/tent & food carriers. It turned out to be quite a hard slog, mainly because I had to carry all my stuff and almost the whole thing was downhill which gets quite painful on your legs after not very long at all. It was a good workout though and nice to get away from the city and breathe air that was less than 60% vehicle fumes. The trek passed without too much incident but my favourite bit was on the last day when we passed the ´casa japonesa´ i.e. the japanese bloke´s house. There was this ancient japanese guy with an outrgeous hunched back who lived in this house in the middle of nowhere and seemed to spend the majority of his existence making sure that every passing trekker write in his guest book and tending to his garden. He had been there 38 years, not been to La Paz in 30 of those nor the nearest town for 28. That town was only about an hours walk away! I can´t believe I forgot to get a photo with him.

After the trek I was back in La Paz for only a couple of hours and caught a night bus down to the town of Uyuni (aslong a road that seemed to be made from corrigated iron it was so bumpy) in the south west of the country. It was in Uyuni, a kind of wild west type town, that I was to meet the group from my last tour to join them on their 3 day tour of the salt flats and the Acatama desert. The salt flats are a bizarre landscape formed after a salt water lake dried up many moons ago. The first day of the tour was driving around over this absurb place, stopping off in odd places like a salt hotel and an island covered in gigantic catci! The highlight was of course the silly pictures that were possible on the salt flats, with all the white around you lose all sense of perspective. I had planned ahead and brought a variety of props with me, some purchased in Uyuni. In fact my bag of props was so vast that it was similar in size to my rucksack I had brought with me on the outing. I've put some of the better shots in the photo album I have just put on. The next couple of days (and extremely cold nights) were spent in the adjacent Acatama desert where we stopped off at variations lagoons and strange landscape formations. I found it a little dull, not helped by having I think the worst cold I have ever had . I left the rest of the group at the border with Chile as that was where their tour was continuing into and I went back in one of the jeeps to Uyuni.

From Uyuni the gringo trail dictates the next stop Potosi (4000m!), home to a famous mine and at the beginning of the 16th century the biggest city in the world. I caught a local bus that was very bumpy, dusty, and hot. I was sandwiched between and old Bolivian lady who was sitting in the aisle and smelt of squashed bananas, and a dutch girl. The Dutch Girl (TDG) was also planning on stopping in Potosi briefly to visit the mines and continue on to Sucre so we buddy up for a few days to share costs. There was no doubt she was dutch as a) she owned 4 bikes b) she pronounced the ´s´ in Marc Overmars correctly (and had actually met him) and c) owned clogs (which I was surprised to learn are not merely joke footwear and according to TDG were for ´hard working in the garden´). The hostel we stayed at offered on the the tours of the mines that involves them decking you out in miner gear, visiting one of the shops in town to buy some dynamite, and then braving the mines themselves for an hour or two. When the Spanish were still in town before independence the mining activity was primarily aimed at extracting silver which the spanish made a pretty penny out of by the sounds of things. They used to ship slaves over from Africa to work in the mines, sometimes they were kept down there for 6 months at a time and had to be blindfolded when they came out to avoid blindness. It has been estimated that up to 8 million (not a typo) people have died inside the mine. Conditions haven't really changed a great deal nowadays and often miner (who are now extracting zinc) die around the age of 40 due to silicosis, a lung condition brought on by breathing too much dust. The purpose of the tour wasn´t really to have an enjoyable experience but to see first hand the conditions the miners work in every day. It was by the way quite horrific. We were kitted out in miner gear and taken into the mountain down some tiny passages as the temperature rose and where the dust in the air became almost suffocating. Some of the people left before going too far in, it wasn't for the claustrophobic.

Luckily TDG was fluent in spanish and this seemed to make general arrangements go extremely smoothly. She had found out that the next day most of Bolivia was due to be on strike, including blocking all roads out of every major town/city. Given that we had done all there was to do in Potosi, and that the strike was potentially due to last 4 days, TDG organised a taxi to take us to our next port of call Sucre that very same night.

Sucre was very nice and a little warmer at a mere 2700 odd metres and the location of a very good Dutch cafe serving good food and cracking coffees. TDG and I stopped here for 3 or 4 days and did a day biking with a guide from the dutch cafe and also hired the same guy to take us on a city tour. We also had an interesting visit to the house where Bolivia's declaration of independence was signed and where visiting presidents are usually entertained. apart from the hatred for the La Paz'ite president Evo Morales they have in Sucre, the guide also told us the story about Bolivia and its coastline. Bolivia is landlocked and really doesn't like it. They lost a war against Chile and still moan about it to this day, often try to claim their sea back. Apparently it is a running joke among Chileans that each new Bolivian president will visit Chile and ask for their land back. Chile's last reply was that 'you lost it in a war, get it back in a war. By the way we can destroy the whole of Boliva in 17 minutes wuith our far superior weapons'. 17 minutes! They had clearly made a calculation! My favourite thing about Sucre was that around 30% of the dogs living on the street were dressed in human t-shirts. Presumably the locals do this to help the dogs keep warm in the winter but it looks extremely funny (is there anything funnier than an animal dressed in human clothes?).

I had vowed to not watch too much of Euro 2008 while away, with England not there I didn´t really care too much about the outcome and wanted to see as much of Bolivia/Brazil as possible while out here. This lasted only a few days in to the tournament when I realised that this was a ridiculous attiitude to take and have since been planning my days around the games and ensuring all sightseeing/activities/travelling is finalised by 3.45pm when the matches kick off here in Brazil. I have been enjoying the South american channels coverage of the matches, mainly for 2 reasons i) they really do scream an elongated ´GOLLLLLLLLLL´whenever anyone scores and ii) I have not had to be subjected to the horror of the British coverage (namely Motson/Lawrenson and anything involving Andy Townsend). I was particularly tickled by an article on The Times website by one of their sports colomnists who described Linekers Van der Vfaart joke and ridiculed Motson´s comment when France took Nasri off after Abidal saw red. "Is this the shortest appearance ever by a substitute in the European Championships?", I can imagine his excited tone when he sensed a potential new stat. Sounds like I am missing such other gems as:

Motson: "Where do you rate that save by Buffon?"
Lawrenson: "Up there. It's up there"

From Sucre I was lucky enough to fly to Foz do Iguacu in Brazil (via Santa Cruz in Bolivia) from where I could visit the frequently recommended to me Iguacu falls. The flying option was particularly good news given that otherwise I had bargained on a 20 hour train ride by probably at least another 2 10 hour ish buses. However on closer inspection of my flight ticket I realised I wasn´t actually flying to the town of Foz do Iguacu in Brazil, instead to Ciudad Del Este in Paraguay. I knew that this wouldn´t be a huge problem as the waterfalls themselves sit on the three way border between Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay but that I would have a longer than expected taxi ride, have to negotiate the border crossing, and also Ciudad Del Este itself (a town with a reputation for housing terrorists, narcotics activity, and general criminality).

TDG was also going to Santa Cruz so we flew there and I had an early start the next day to catch a flight to Asuncion the capital of Paraguay whereas TDG was staying in Bolivia. In the transfer lounge at Asuncion myself and the other bemused passengers were treated to some soothing music from a guy playing a massive harp and then I boarded my connecting flight to Ciudad del Este. The taxi driver dropped me at the Paraguay exit post at the border (I ran between the car and the building) and then again at the Brazil entry one where I was relieved I didn´t need to join the queue of hundreds, or possibly thousands, of Brazilians who were waiting with the tax free goods they had picked up in Paraguay to be authorised back in to Brazil. It was some of these people that provided a very amusing incident on a bus I ended up catching from Foz to Sao Paulo. The bus was mostly full with people who I noticed had extremely large bags. A couple of hours in to the journey the bus suddenly stopped and almost everybody bar me, a confused australian guy and a couple of locals, rushed off and started clamouring to get hold of their bags from the storage locker. Once they had got their stuff they started running away from the road into this disused warehouse to hide in the dark. Apparently word had come through that their was a police checkpoint up ahead looking for contraband goods being brought from Paraguay to ensure the tax had been paid on. Suddenly things became clear!

From the Brazilian town of Foz do Iguacu I did two day trips, one to Iguacu falls the Argie side (where you can get very close, and wet, to the falls), and another to see the falls from the Brazilian side (from where you get a better panoramic viewpoint). This place was incredible, I had no idea that waterfalls could be this good. There is a indescribable volume of water effectively pouring out the jungle that makes for an utterly amazing spectacle. I was lucky that the sun was shining both days as the whole area is full of rainbows that appear in the sray, which on the boat ride to the bottom of the falls, are so close you can almost touch them.

From Foz I caught a bus to the concrete monstrosity of Sao Paulo, South America´s biggest city. I only had one night here as I planned on catching another bus the next day to the small colonial town of Paraty which is within striking distance of Rio. I chose a hotel recommended in The Book which turned out to be fine (expect that the lift made a noise not disimilair to what I would expect Brontosauruses made and was clearly audible from my room) and apart from watch the France Italy game, all I had time to do was go up their version of the empire state building for the view and then get a bus to Paraty the next morning.

Paraty was a nice town with old buildings, very cobbled streets (dangerous to navigate in flip flops), and from where I have a couple of days to kill before bussing back to Rio to catch my flight home. I hired a bike for two days and rode around a bit, I´ve decided that I´m now fat and need the exercise (the backpacking lifestyle often involves lots of ice creams and next to no activeness). Yesterday I rather ambitiously decided to ride out of town to a very well rated beach place. It was a 50km round trip that would most definitely not be regarded as flat and I ended up with a headache and feeling ill at the end of the day.

I am back in Rio right now having arrived this afternoon on a bus ride from Paraty with great scenery, the coastline west of Rio is absolutely stunning. I have 48 hours here before flying home on Monday night - the end is nigh.

I´ll do one more blog when I get back.

Mother - please ensure the fridge is fully stocked and the larder contains Dorset muslie and baked beans.