Tuesday 27th

Hola chicos!

all is well this side of the equator although it appears that i left my constitution down at sea level a couple of weeks back when we first came up to altitude...and consequently my stomach has been playing silly b*****s with me ever since. On the plus side it is helping me to shift the weight i was determined to lose after New Zealand due to the fact that my stomach appears to have shrunk some, on the down side my whole group plus other members of the general public had to witness me being sick out the window of our train back from Machu Picchu. NOT how i want my group to remember me, and scarily it nearly happened again on a bus today...though thankfully i fell asleep just in time to nip it in the bud!!! So, yeah, South America is not agreeing with me and im finding its dampening my whole opinion of the continent also, though am determined to stick it out and hopefully my gut will toughen up soon and i can get on with enjoying the rest of the the trip and the final leg!

I haven´t yet been able to fill you all in on the physically and emotionally draining Inca Trek scenario nor anything else since my first South America blog...so here goes...

First off i need to correct my stupid mistake in my last blog of detailing all the altitude heights at feet rather than meters. If i was really struggling for breath at 3000ft then you should all be seriously concerned, as it is we have now hit 4200 METRES as our max and me and all my new extra red blood cells are getting on swimmingly. Shame they cant do anything to help my jippy tum.

We are now in Boliva, La Paz, so Peru part of the trip is over though we are still up at about 4000m and wont be back down at sea level until Chile in a couple of weeks i dont think. We meet our new GAP tour leader and 3 more group members tonight, and unfortunately also say goodbye to 3 originals tonight which is a shame. Really love the group as it is and the novelty of meeting new people has well and truely worn off for me so not that bothered about the newbies...though i will of course put on my super polite and friendly hat for the occasion!!! I am sure they will be lovely really but now that i am on the home stretch and am just sooo looking forward to getting home to all you familiar faces and all the familiar places, my room, my own space, my things, etc etc...! There is still so much of the world that i have now realised i want to see and things i still want to do but for the time being i am happy to be due home soon as i am in need of some of its comforts! That was particularly how i was feeling post-Inca Trek after 4days of camping, walking, camping, more walking, rain, more rain, stinky squat toilets and a 500-year-old unsteady, donkey-poo-covered trail! I don´t think i have ever experienced anything so challenging; namely the second day during which we trecked 4 hours from an elevation of about 3100m to 4200m and then had to descend almost the same distance down steep steps to our campsite. The third day was potentially even harder as, despite not having such a long and steep climb, we woke up to the rain hammering down on our tents and as it had been pouring all the day and night before we had to dress in clothes that were still wet and cold, set out in the rain and had another climb and even MORE steps! We all swore by the end of the trek that if we never saw another set of stairs in our lives we would be happy, particularly as, for such short people, the inca´s seemed to be big fans of ridiculously high steps. I think the most challenging part of the whole episode however was the 4 and 5am wake up´s and having to use squatter toilets in the pitch dark with a torch that decided to start failing me on day 1 of the trek! In all seriousness, tired limbs, dodgy knees, thousands of steps, rain and stinky toilets aside, the hardest part of the entire trip was getting my head around what the 21 porters (to our 14 group members, and 2 guides) did for us each and every day. Watching them run down the steps with 20kg worth of our things, camping gear and food on their backs, with worn sandals on their feet in order to get to the next camping site so that everything was set up for us when we arrived, having taken our time and probably had a bit of moan along the way (about what, in hindsight and thinking about what the porters had to endure at the same time, i am now not sure) AND THEN standing around and aplauding us as we arrived at the site...was so incredibly humbling, but also quite shameful and at times upsetting. I really had to hold in the tears on a couple of occasions when, firstly, we were officially introduced to all of our porters on the second day to discover that the oldest was 66 years old and that they really only get paid pittance when you see how much work they do on these 3/4 days straight just as an extra means of supporting their families on top of farming as their livelihood, and secondly, when we said goodbye to them all on the final full day and had them wish us all safe journeys and happy healthy lives...seeing and hearing how genuine they were, even after having had to pamper to our our every, relatively pathetic, whim for 3/4days straight, was so humbling i am struggling to put into words how it made me feel. Those 21 porters though really represented as a whole the Peruvian people; warm, welcoming, sincere and content with their lot in life. I thought Asia had opened my eyes to some poor standards of living and to how lucky we are in the Western world, but coming here to South America has shown me a whole lot more. When we drive into some of the towns and cities here, it seems as though we go for miles and miles through outskirts which, if you were to take out the people, appear to be old, abandoned, dilapadated communities.

What a ramble...sorry about that, but hopefully it gives you some idea of the impression that this place has had on me so far.

Wednesday 28th

Well i had just written a hell of a lot more here about our homestay on Lake Titicaca, another incredibly humbling experience, and La Paz so far but the window just closed half way through so i lost the whole thing before i had a chance to post it....consequently i think i will let the pictures that i am uploading tell the stories for me as i am in now in no mood to rewrite it all...feel like picking up the computer and throwing it out the window to be honest, but then i would most likely have to pay for the damage and wouldnt have any funds left for all the beautiful South American wares that tempt me at every market we visit. So, i shall take a few deep breaths and carry on as normal.

In short, homestay on this island of two thousand was fantastic. Andrea and I were staying with the community leader Juan (29 years), his wife Lucy (25 years) and their two daughters Cassia (6 years) and Ofelia (5 years). Such a wonderful family and very forgiving of our dire spanish skills, though that was their second language also after their traditional Andean dialect. Sitting on the floor of what looked like a mud-hut kitchen/living area with Andrea, Juan, Lucy, the two girls and Juan´s parents, watching Lucy cook our dinner in a mud kiln and then not being able to eat all of the generous portion for fear that my shrunken stomach might actually explode, was so ridiculously humbling, embarassing in a way, and once-in-a-lifetime-bizarre-and-amazing-at-the-same-time! The only way i can think to describe the whole thing, sorry!

So now in beautiful, crazy, noisy, market-tastic La Paz after another horrible tummy day yesterday during which we travelled on bus and boat for the majority of the day and i mustered all my energy not to be sick! Thankfully, felt better last night and went out for my first proper meal in a good while which seems to have agreed with me so fingers crossed i am on the mend. Again on the plus side, Bolivians dont seem to be as lazy as Peruvians at having taken down their Christmas decorations and so we are now, finally, Christmas free!

Pictures are taking approximately forever to upload, so i will wrap this up and attend to those. I hope all is well with you at home, not long now until i return and i CANT WAIT to see you all!

Sending all my love,

Lone Gringo a.k.a. Vic x