Yo all,

We've been a bit busy over the last few weeks and completely neglected this whole thing. We're now in the Bolivian capital of La Paz following many adventures through canyons, lakes and rainforests.

Next after Cuzco was Arequipa on a bloody freezing overnight bus. Not much happened there, we went on a tour to Colca Canyon, the second deepest canyon in the world, which was mildly interesting. We saw llamas and alpacas and vicuñas (oh my!), but no condors. There was some traditional Andean music and dancing put on at a tourist restaurant, and Vic danced (not through choice) with a man who appeared to never have come in contact with a woman (other than his mother) before. He looked very happy. A selection of childs also asked if they could have a photo taken with me, that was a bit random.

At the end of a bus journey down to the next stop at Puno on the shore of Lake Titicaca, we were met by a tout who took us to a reasonable hotel (and took a rather large commission). After the taxi driver dropped us off, he reached into the back seat and, as I later found out, pocketed my phone. He later offered to sell it back to us for 50 soles (about $17), though apparently he was being generous because he could have got at least 60 for it down market. b******. Incidentally, it was all done through tout-lady who, of course, took her commission from the transaction. Tout-lady continued to stalk us for the rest of our time there, trying to sell us onward bus tickets for double the going rate.

From Puno we went on a day tour around some Peruvian islands on Lake Titicaca, starting with the floating Uros Islands. The islands and everything on them (apart from the TVs etc.) are made from the reeds that grow in the lake and float several metres above the lake bed. They're a bit squidgy. There we were shown very politely around a local's house and then guilt tripped into buying their tat (with our lunch money). It's a good system. Next was Isla Taquile, an island where the community do stuff, or something. It was nice enough.

Next onto Copacabana on t'other side of the lake. On the bus over we were given a massive questionnaire (in Spanish) about what we thought of Peru. They were asking us how much we'd spent in a country we'd spent the last month in. The border crossing was nice and scenic, and the Bolivian stamps funky. Simple things. We went out onto the lake in a big swan pedalow in the afternoon, which was nice. Next day we popped across to Isla del Sol, the biggest island on the lake, and mooched around a bit. We had to get a big pizza in a plastic bag to avoid missing our boat back.

We got a bus full of school children over to La Paz, and about an hour into the journey, everyone else got off and it drove onto a little boat and crossed the straits. First thing after lunch was to collect my iPod from the post office. We've been severely starved of music for months and we now finally have something to block out the screaming childs on 19 hour buses. The next morning we came out of our hotel room for breakfast to find two scary looking women dressed in lycra doing some sort of exercises outside our door. Not pleasant. We spent the morning at the Musical Instrument Museum, which was quite funky, and most importantly I got to play a harmonium. We walked out to find the streets filled with protesters moaning about something or other. The Highest English Pub In The World for the football. Match wasn't much fun but the curry and the cocktails were good.

The next morning we embarked on a 19 hour bus journey (which included the World's Most Dangerous Road, with more deaths annually than any other) to Rurrenabaque, down in the Amazon Rainforest. It involved a lot of random people sleeping on my lap and shoulder. That afternoon we met Fat Face from Keane part 2 (he's a coffee merchant for Starbucks, don't ya know) and encountered some kind of cult involving dungarees and floral dresses. We spent a few days after that on a wildlife-watching pampas tour. We saw alligators, pink dolphins, capybaras, howler monkeys, spider monkeys, lots of birds, a sloth, lots of turtles, and bats, and fished for piranhas what we then had for dinner. We didn't see an anaconda though. Lots of mosquitos, too.

After a quick sleep in Rurrenabaque we kicked off a two day jungle tour. We saw lots of plants, chanchas, an alligator, more birds, the back ends of a marsupial and a tarantula, and some monkeys.

The journey back to La Paz was altogether less pleasant than the other one. The bus was crappier and extremely uncomfortable. Ah well, we're here now. We arrived at 5am to find our hotel had closed up and had to ring the bell for about 10 minutes before a very sleepy looking man answered the door.

This afternoon we went to the bus terminal to buy tickets to Uyuni but found there was nothing that meets our high standards, so we're going to Iquique tomorrow instead.

Love,
Nick and Vic