This blog entry has been a work in progress for a few days. We´re now on day 21 of the tour and have just arrived in Peru. Enjoy...

So we´re 19 days into our tour, which finds us in La Paz, Bolivia. The reason the blog entries and emails have been so scarce is because everything has been happening so fast with the tour. Different activities every day or 12 hour bus trips, but most commonly the internet access has been slow and frustrating. I have handed over the photo uploading to Rob because I crack the s***s after waiting 20 minutes for 4 pictures to be up loaded.

Anyway, enough excuses. Since Rob´s last Blog entry we have obviously met up with our tour group. A varied bunch mostly from England, some from Oz and Wales, and a lone Canadian and American. We span a few age brackets but the majority of us are between 25 and 35 and although there are the more eager partiers and those of us not so keen on hangovers we´ve all got along really well. The frequent cases of travel belly and other not so comfortable moments have brought us all that much closer.

We began in Santiago, Chile. Having toured the city extensively prior to the tour Rob and I caught up on washing and sleep. It was really quite nice to be in a hotel with some privacy. Our first destination was La Serena. A coastal town 7 hours north of Santiago. The main attraction here was the Elqui Valley, in which we took a tour to see the Pisco distillery which made use of the hundreds of hectares of vineyards that carpet the valley floor. We ate at a restaurant de sol that uses solar energy to cook all its food. Pretty safe means of cooking seeing as they have over 300 days of clear skies per year. The highlight though would have to be the astronomical observatory we visited that night where we saw clear as ......well night, the rings of Saturn. They weren´t the colourful discs you see everywhere. More like a little white line cutting through a little white ball, I guess you had to be there. It was also quite fasinating having all the constellations pointed out to you by some one who had a real passion for the stars.

From Las Serena we travelled to San Pedro de Atacama, a small, adobe built, tourist driven town at the start of the Atacama desert. I think the whole group was glad to arrive in this dry as character flooded the town. The only traffic you had to watch out for were the K9s who were sunning themselves in the dusty streets. This is where the optional tours started to come into their own, giving the group a chance to do their own thing or explore as a group. Rob, myself and a lovely Canadian girl, Pansy, chose to hike out to some nearby Inca ruins, that were testing at 2500m above sea level. A couple of days later as we started crossing the desert in Bolivia we reached 5000m at Laguna Verde, a green lake in the middle of the desert. San Pedro was were we started our diet of Coca leaves that were meant to fight off the effects of Altitude sickness. Apart from some shortness of breath the true benefits of these wonder leaves was lost on us and we kinda just felt like the goats and sheep you saw around the place ..... chewing on leaves. The second day in San Pedro had us bathing in beautiful cascading thermal hot springs in an oasis in the middle of a great desert canyon before hiking up monstrous sand dunes in Death Valley, strapping on vintage snowboards and carving down the face. While my experience on snow helped a lot I think the group had a good time rolling around in the warm sand. I think the sequence of our activities would have been better swapped around. The end of the day took us to Moon Valley where we were just in time to see the mountain ranges and volcanoes in the east painted several shades of pink and red.

The next day we scrambled aboard a small bus for a quick trip to the Bolivian Boarder. Despite the blazing sun the cold desert wind was a cruel preview of the freezing days ahead in the desert. We had our passports stamped and all ran for cover in the 3 Landcruisers that awaited to take us across the Atacama. With the eighties greatest hits blaring courtesy of Lisa´s Ipod the girls sang as Mike and I secretly tapped to the beat of electronic drum kits and synthesizers while our driver, Abell, smiled and quietly chewed on his ball of coca leaves. The first day on the the Atacama had us see the Laguna Verde The Dali Rocks, a small hot spring and some sweet smelling geisers before arriving at our cute, but FREEEZING first nights stay in the desert. We drove down to Laguna Colorada, a brilliant red lake filled with flamingoes and watched the young brown coloured ones trying to get their fill of plankton and algae so that they too could become a pretty pink colour, and also watched some vicuña (wild deer/alpaca type animals that have the finest natural fibre in the world). Needless to say we both got a bit snap happy! That night, had it just been cold then Rob climbing into my concrete bed with horse hair mattress should have made it a cosy night BUT being at 3200+m made even breathing difficult. Funnily enough though, only while lying down. So I think between the 17 of us we got just as many hours sleep. I think it was the distress you felt as you struggled for air that kept you awake, as well as the splitting headaches. Anyway we all survived and subsequently chowed down on coca leaves the next day. I actually woke before everyone, even the sun, and rugged up to go for a walk and catch our first desert sun rise which turned out to be a highlight of the desert experience for me. As I wandered around the baron landscape waiting for the sun to peak through the mountains I heard some loud thumping noises. As I crested a small hill I was waved over by 3 youngsters (teenage fellas) who were kicking the soccer ball around before they were called to work. I joined them for a while, running myself well out of breath as the ball was deflected in all sorts of directions off the small fist sized rocks that littered the ground. While the sun rose at my back the mountains in front of me made for an amazing back drop for this unique game of football as they were illuminated in all the colours of the morning.

Wearing just about as many layers of clothes as we could find we piled back into the 4 wheel drives and set off across the desert again. We saw the Stone Tree, some little rodents called Vizcachas that look like rabbits with long tails, the Ollague volcano, which forms part of the border with Chile, several lakes, and an ever changing landscape. It was a magical experience! Despite having ascended to about 3700m our second night in the desert was 100 times better, having become a little used to the altitude. This time we stayed in a hotel made of salt. Everything, including the beds, tables, chairs was made of blocks of salt! After dinner we had a performance by three of the local boys playing on the traditional drum and pan pipes. They were very cute and shy, until it came time to pass around the hat for tips!

Our final day in the 4 wheel drives was spent crossing the Uyuni Salt Flats, or Salar de Uyuni. The salt flats are 12000 square kilometres, and one of Bolivias big natural resources. It´s the biggest salt flat in the world. Strangely, we didn´t see too many animals in this part. Our first stop on the salt flats was an island of cactuses. This particular type of cactus grows 1cm a year, and there were some that were 1200 years old! We had lots of fun taking photos, and puffed a lot walking to the top of the island. The photo fun continued when we drove out into the middle of the salt flat and took lots of photos taking advantage of the lack of perspective afforded by white as far as the eye can see (see the photo album for some of our crazy antics). At the end of the salt flats is a small town called Uyuni which was basically a place to rest after the desert crossing. It was a massive, dusty, delapidated town that served no apparent function other than tourism. But, they had hot showers, sometimes, and the beds weren´t made of salt or concrete, so we thought we were in heaven! We spent a few minutes at the Cementario de Trenes, the train cemetery, which was just a group of rusted old trains outside town. If it wasn´t for the hoards of other tourists and the deadline to catch our bus we would have taken more photos.
From Uyuni we spent 5 and a half hours on a little bus on corrugated dirt roads through the middle of nowhere. We´d occasionally pass a little farm, or a local with an alpaca or two. There were some spectacular mountains and some scary bends in the road, and our driver was very keen on sitting on the horn. We arrived in Potosi in the middle of football traffic and experienced more crazy driving! Potosi also afforded me my first experience with bed bugs. Grrr. I woke up the next morning with about 20 bites in a cluster and was not happy. Alex didn´t get any lucky boy. Actually, no one else in the group got any either. Alex tried out his brilliant Spanish and got us moved to a different room for the next night, however this room had 2 single beds, only one of which had sheets, so we had another uncomfortable night. We visited the Casa de la Moneda in Potosi, which is the old mint, where coins were made for hundreds of years, starting with hand hammered, variable shapes ones, until 1951. There was also a minerals collection and some art that was quite interesting. Unfortunately everyone was at church, being Sunday, and nothing else in the town was open. The following day a group of us went to the silver mines. I´ll hand over to Alex to talk about this...he´ll tell you about it more later. Alex was particularly moved by the experience as he had his underground time in Australia to compare it too. It was shocking enough for me with no comparison. The miners actually have to pay to work in the mine, and in return earn ridiculously small amounts, in the order of $8 AUD for 10 hours of hard manual labour. There are very little safety measures in place, and in fact 3 people a month die down the mines. There are children as young as 12 working down there, even though they´re not supposed to be under 18 years of age. On the way to the mine we bought bags of gifts for the miners which contained coca leaves and catalyst, to help them deal with the conditions, dynamite, ammonium nitrate, fuses and detonators, biscuits for the kids, and cigarettes. They were all so grateful for them. Alex also brought some helmets and gloves to give to the kids. More on this from him later.

Our next stop was Sucre, the judicial capital of Bolivia, which was a really lovely city. It was clean, had beautiful parks, and the whole town was getting ready for the 200 years of independence celebrations that will happen on the 25th of May. We did a great city tour, which included a visit to a castle just outside town that belonged to a Prince and Princess, and the Museo de Arte Indigena where there were amazing weavings, some of which dated back up to 2000 years. We also got heavily into silver shopping here, and I made friends with a nice lady while we haggled over the prices. She loved me really! It was funny that we enjoyed shopping so much, as normally Alex and I both hate it as much as each other! I also had a massage, which was quite disappointing. At the end, my masseur, a guy from Potosi who is studying Physiotherapy in Sucre (my Spanish is slowly getting a little better) told me that massage is not very popular in Bolivia. I´m not surprised. Alex went on a horseride with the girls, who were all very glad he was there when they had to climb up sheer cliff faces and he was able to help out. He´s getting a name for himself as the adventurer. After 3 luxurious nights in a lovely hotel we were a bit sad to leave, particularly when our next stop was Cochabamba.
This was our second night bus for the trip so far, and everyone was a little on edge as there wasn´t a toilet on the bus and we´d heard horrible stories about how the local ladies will just lift their skirts and pee on the floor if they need to go. We had garbage bags ready to put our day packs into, but thankfully everyone was well behaving. We drove out into the middle of nowhere on dirt roads and were mystified as to why there wasn´t a more major road between the two capitals for Bolivia. The first excitement for the trip was when we found ourselves stopped in the middle of the night with the driver banging on the wheel. They kept the story close to their chests, but our interpretation of events was that the wheel had started to fall off. A couple of buses went past in either direction so we knew we wouldn´t be stuck there forever. Eventually though, after a lot of banging, we drove away. It wasn´t exactly reassuring! Later in the night I looked out the window and promptly looked away again. It was better not to see the lack of dirt out the sides of the bus! I´m not too keen on sheer drops. As we drove into Cochabamba our bus also hit a taxi and our driver kept on going. Needless to say the taxi driver wasn´t too happy about that! Cochabamba seemed to us to be an unnecessary stop between Sucre and La Paz. The only thing to see in town was the big statue of Christ atop a hill, reminiscent of the one in Rio de Janeiro, and apparently 5cm taller. My belly chose this location to decide it was very unhappy and I spent the rest of the day lying flat on my back in bed, which was the only thing that made the cramps feel slightly better. The next day we headed to La Paz, back up to 3660m above sea level. The city is spectacularly nestled in a 3km wide canyon, with buildings sprawling up the sides, and snow topped mountains as the back drop. We were initially daunted by the huge numbers of people in the streets, but after spending a day wandering around the shops selling alpaca products, which were full of gringos, we became a bit more comfortable. The dried llama foetuses in the witches markets didn´t fail to shock every time we walked past them. Alex and I wandered over the the main square which houses the Governmental Palace and the Cathedral, and discovered that there weren´t any tourists, only a lot of locals feeding corn to pigeons on a Sunday afternoon. Alex continued to live up to his name as the intrepid adventurer, cycling down Death Road. The name says it all really. After spending a couple of tense hours waiting for Alex to get back far later than he was supposed to (thanks for Lisa and Mike for keeping me company) and being very relieved to find him alive I was told that someone had died on the road 2 days before. It´s lucky I didn´t know that before! I´ll let him tell you about it: So now that I´ve survived I can tell you the story of how I conquered DEATH ROAD!!!

Death Road is a stretch of gravel road near La Paz, in Bolivia, that winds dangerously through the mountains and drops over 3500m in 16kms. The road itself is no longer used by traffic but is used by thousands of bikers every year. While the tour companies that guide the hoards down are more often than not staffed by skilled bikers with years of experience, the road still manages to take the lives of an average of 5 people a year. The most recent of which was a British man who left the edge 2 days before my descent (luckily Rob didn´t learn of the tragedy until I returned that night).

The guiding company I went with gave a couple of options. The first was a rapid descent down the paved upper section of the new road and then descending the true Death Road half way down. The Option I went for was entirely off road. It started at te top of the old railway line (no longer used) and cut straight down the middle of the many switch backs taken by the old steam trains. It then winds through towering valleys dotted with old, stone farm houses and small herds of sheep being pushed along by old women in traditional dress. One of the ladies thought that I was using one of the old ruins as a toilet and I had to try and explain to her in my best ¨spanglish¨ that I was only posing for a photo in front of the beautiful house. I think she believed me as she didn´t send her flock of sheep after me. Our Guide, Ariale, was a local teacher who had served 3 years in the Bolivian army training in alpine rescue, and had been riding the area for the past 7 years. His fastest descent of the first option I described above was in 1 hour and 45 minutes (it takes the average tour group around 6 hours). He´d also ridden the proper death road section (lower section) wearing nothing but shoes, gloves and his helmet. (I took that as a true gauge of his confidence in his experience on the road rather then his crazyness).
After winding down approximatley 1500m of narrow dirt roads and single track short cuts we met the support van that took us back up to meet the 7 Israeli girls who were also in our group but opted for the easier, paved road option. The van then took us all to the start of Death Road proper, a climb of 100m vertical that was once ridden by the bikers but has since been changed to a shuttle due to how much it takes out of the riders and inadvertently contributing to some of the accidents on the second half of the decent. It turned out that the girls were a little more cautious and took quit a while to make their way down. Luckily, because we had an extra guide, Nathan and I were able to shoot off ahead. I was able to keep the stones flying off Ariels back tyre bouncing off my goggles as he lead me down the winding road, some times passing tour groups and their support vehicles that were ahead of us (pretty fun considering the road was a single lane wide at best). As you fly along the tops of sheer cliff faces, some 300m tall, you were always aware of the consequences of a misjudged corner or a bad choice of line, but again, being right on the tail of Ariel, I was able to get as much out of it as I could. The bikes and gear that we were given were all high end and made all the difference. The ride was an Iron horse full down hill, with 6 inches of travel up front and similar out back, so even the rougher technical sections were made easier. My hands and wrists are certainly grateful for all that travel seeing as that we were flying over some pretty chunky road for the majority of the 16kms.

Well it´s pretty hard to put the whole journey into words and having just viewd some of the pics taken by the tour guides you wont see the beauty of the place quite as clearly as we did, but you´ll get the idea.
Today we have crossed the border into Peru. We´re in a town called Puno on the shores of Lake Titicaca, really looking forward to our homestay on one of the islands tomorrow! We´ve had a great time in Bolivia, and a great time with our original group, 4 of whom finished their trips in La Paz, and we have 4 new travellers and a new guide. Just to make it really confusing there´s a Robyn and a Rob, and our tour leader, who´s from Lima, is called Alex! More news soon (hopefully)!