Well I am currently in a town called Cochabama, close by to where we{re supposed to be volunteering.

Puno was quite fun. The day the others went to the floating straw islands in the local lake I went into town and hung around in the local main square which was quite pretty. When they got back we still had another 2 days in Puno because of the bus strikes so we decided to have fairly lazy ones to have a break before volunteering. One night Paul learnt a new card game and got pretty drunk as a result (it involves buying drinks for people depending on whether you win or loose), but the others had a fairly early night.

Another night the hostel decided to celebrate the Dutch Queens birthday (Im not really sure why!) by having an orange party. So we went out to buy bright orange material and all made outfits from it. We then played some really random games such as 007-Bang which Sally adored!

The final day in Puno we spent packing (it took me a while!) and souviner shopping. I had to buy a bag as a souviner to fit all my other purchases in as I no longer have room in my main bag!

Finally though the strikes were over and we got a bus into Bolivia on the 1st. It wasnt as easy as you might think though! Both countries have a boarder control which happened to be 1 to 200m apart up quite a steep hill (not much fun on crutches). Then, once on the Bolivian side of the boarder, we all had to get off the coach to get on a tiny boat to cross the lake while the coach boardered a pontoon-style thing to be pulled across. Getting on and off a tiny boat when you can only hop if an interesting experience, but we all made it! Then, once in the nearest town to the boarder, we had to change coaches, which involved a 300ish m walk and about 100 steps, also fun when on crutches, especially for the others who had to carry my bags!

Anyway, we finally made it onto the final coach and thought that would be an end to the difficulty. But nope! La Paz is often surrounded by blockades by people protesting various things. For that reason our coach was unable to take the main road into La Paz. Unfortunately, the secondary road barely exists! For about an hour we could barely discern the road from the surrounding fields and scrub. The coach seemed to be coping amazingly well with the cross country terrain until the path was blocked by two oil tankers whose drivers appeared to be having a chat. Instead of waiting the driver of our coach decided to go round and so plunged into a mound of loose gravel. This proved to be too much for the coach which got well and truely stuck. We all had to get off while the driver and a number of irate locals attempted to free it. After about 5 minutes of wheel spins and yelling they finally succeeded but it was decided that we had to meet the coach 100m down the road incase it got swtuck again. Since I couldnt crutch it across loose gravel very well Steph stepped up and gave me a piggyback all the way! Thanks Steph!

So, we eventually made it to La Paz about 3 hours after we thought we should. Unfortunately our first choice of hostel was full but we found a nice, cheaper other one whose only downside was the large number of uneven steps between the roadside and our room.

I really enjoyed La Paz, despite the many hills! We did a few touristy things such as looking at a couple of churches and browsing an area known as the witches market. It used to be full of stalls selling herbal remidies, curse repellants etc but few of those remain and it´s now mainly souviner stalls. It´s still a nice area though. We also had a really good night out in one of the hostal bars, although both Paul and I suffered for it the day after.

On the final day we had booked to cycle the most dangerous road in the world. Well, obviously I didn´t cycle it, I did it in the minibus used to take us there, as did Steph who doesn´t get on well with bikes, even on flat ground. But both Sally and Paul cycled it. It´s a pretty scary experience I think. You have to go relatively fast to minimise the bumping and if you break when going round a corner you´re likely to skid. The road is also really narrow so there isn´t much room for error. But we all made it alive and uninjured!

That night we got an overnight bus to Cochabamba, where I am now. Steph and Sally got another bus straight to volunteering. Paul has decided he can´t miss out on Rio while he´s in South America so he got a flight there last night and will join up with us again in a week when (fingers crossed) I´ll also be able to go to volunteering.

Until then I have to amuse myself in Cochabamba. I successfully managed to change hostels this morning with all my bags, it was an adventure but I made it. So that was this morning´s entertainment. Who knows what this afternoon will bring!