I'm writing this as we begin our 13 hour journey from Sucre to La Paz. Before proper boredom sets in, and Beth begins her customary 11 hour sleep on a bus, I thought we would try a blog on the things we are missing from home and what we are not missing. Obviously this does not include family, friends and work (I will let you make your mind up on which of these we are missing and which we are not).

Mal: As it's still only been 6 weeks on the road, it's hard to think of what I'm massively missing at the moment. There are a few things that have creaped up in the last few weeks:-

A Bookies - I do miss go to the bookies religiously on a Saturday morning to put a five team accumulator on and to have a dabble on the horses. I'm not sure if this says anything about any kind of addiction although I'm not sweating an shaking when I realise I can't put a bet on!! I do still find myself checking the League 1 & League 2 scores so I can keep my eye in for next season!!

Match of the Day: Another football related one but I do miss sitting down on Saturday night to watch the football particularly when Newcastle have done well. I even tried to find it on YouTube the other week with no success. I think I might just download the theme tune and listen to it by myself on a Saturday night!!!

Proper Chips: The chips or fries over here aren't bad at all but I would love a bag of chips with oceans of vinegar on!!

Feeling clean most of the time: I do miss the feeling of being clean most of the time at home. That's not saying that I'm not clean when we are away but after a long bus journey I probably wouldn't want to be within a couple of metres of either of us!! Also there is no guarantee of a hot shower in a hostel, even though they all say they have, and this can mean that the time in a shower is severely curtailed.

Routine: I'm not missing doing mostly the same thing day in day out. It feels like an adventure to book a bus to the next destination or search for hostels in the next place. I don't miss sort of labelling the days where a Monday morning feels awful and a Friday afternoon is class. Days are not treated any differently and sometimes we forget what day of the week it is.

Beth:

Smoked salmon: Beth is seriously missing her favourite food of all time. I'm not so secretly happy as it stinks!!! By the way smoked salmon has been pretty much impossible to come across in South America.

A kettle: Beth has lost count of the amount of times we have both burnt ourselves on the gas Hobbs attempting to boil some water. She now has a life long scar on her thumb from the incident in Buenos Aires. Seriously how hard can it be for hostels to buy a kettle?

Hot bubble bath: Beth's second favourite thing of all time. She told me she was tempted to lie down in the shower the other day but given her past history with random people walking in on her in the shower we thought this might not be a good idea.

Washing machine: Beth hands show the sheer extent of how much she misses the washing machine! Hand washing is not fun.

Paying bills: Beth usually sorts our bills out at home so she is loving the fact I'm in charge of the budget over here. She actually told me that she didn't want to know anything about how it was going she just wants to know how much she has left to spend!!!

That's pretty much all we can recall now. It's been a few days since our bus trip from Sucre but this is he first chance we have had to update this blog.