I have decided that I am pretty rubbish at writing a blog looking at the date of my last entry! I don't think it helps being on a tour where you are one night here, two nights there and with no real down time. Trying to type whilst travelling on our stomach churning bus/truck runs the risk of my iPod flying through the air or worse case last nights dinner!

Anyway when I wrote last I was in Paraguay. Our arriving gift to the locals in Asuncion, the capital city, was to take out some power lines with our bus, the cables then narrowly missing some pedestrians. As you can imagine we were pretty mortified by this and of course we stopped to apologise and to offer assistance - oh no hang on, that's what we all would have done, but not our tour leader and driver - we just drove away leaving the locals to foot the bill. We were ashamed to be tourists.

Our tour leader, Laura, is leaving quite a lot to be desired. This is her first tour and boy do we know it. Our orientation tour of Asuncion consisted of her missing the turnings to the main street because she was too busy chatting, then leaving us to 'explore' when we had no clue where we were or how to get back to the hotel. Oh and she had left our maps behind.

Trip advisor is coming in very handy, as the recommended restaurants from the tour leader have generally been poor quality all you can eat buffets. A group of us found a fab restaurant called Bolsi and the food was so good we ate there both nights. I even took some photos of the food which I don't do very often.

We did a city tour with a pretty cool guide, and then with a couple of hours spare I decided a hair cut was in order. Not having many Spanish hairdressing phrases to hand, I was a bit nervous of ending up with a shaved head, but my friend Margot came with me for protection and translation. Whilst washing my hair the lady kept trying to ask me something, which Margot then translated as her asking us if we were missionaries!! I´ve been called many things before but........ Anyway the nice lady then proceeded to cut my hair whilst talking on her mobile the whole time which I have to admit was quite a feat, but amazingly it turned out ok - phew a bargain for 7 quid.

Next day travelled to Salta Argentina, stopping off for a quick sleepover at Saenz Pena. Decided on cereal for breakfast, but there were no bowls. Asked the breakfast lady for one, and she very kindly poured the cereal on to a plate for me!! Quite where the milk was supposed to go I don't know....

Anyway a couple of drizzly non eventful days in Salta followed, although I did see a mummified child that had been sacrificed to Patcha Mamma (mother earth). Three of them had been discovered high in the mountains and were incredibly well preserved. They were children of the highest families and were drugged with alcohol and then buried alive. The eyes were half open so it looked as if they were looking at you, so a bit freaky.

Finished off in Salta with a cheeky visit to the cinema to see The Hobbit. I needed a film fix and to hear english voices ; )