I'm in San Pedro de Atacama in Chile, just over the border from Bolivia. This place is amazing. Picture a wild west town and you won{t be far wrong. Its shockingly expensive, almost UK prices ;-) but beautiful, hot, and totally, totally laid back. Yesterday I went sandboarding. Completely out of character but I had the BEST time. Like snowboarding but you climb to the top of a sand dune, strp a board to your feet and surf down it. Ending up landing on your face ...

Cochabamba We had a long coach drive to get here and are staying in a fairly pokey little hotel/hostel in a rough part of town where the owner doesn´t really like us. And there´s not much to do here. I´m getting on better with the rest of the group now and have been sharing a room with one of the Latino girls, Joanna, for this couple of days. She´s ´paired up´with one of the Americans and tends to get in at 3am so I don´t see much of her. We were supposed...

Yesterday I went to Lake Titicaca. Nope, still can´t say it without sniggering. What made it worse was that everytime the guide took a photo of me he said ´say Titi´. I can only assume it doesn´t mean the same in Spanish. Thanks god I wasn´t around any other English speakers. We took a long coach ride to get there in the morning, really great scenery with several other tourists, none of whom were english speakers. My guide was good, giving me loads of info a...

OK so what can I say about Rio? I arrived late at night. The hotel was great. And even at 11pm it was about 23C. One day it rained (pi**ed down), one day was overcast, one day was sunny - but every day was very humid. It topped off at 30C. Naturally I have sunburn but for those that know me well that´s a sodding given. On the first day I mooched about on my own. Walked down Copacabana beach (a bit past its best now apparently to those in the know - looked great...

I´ve put the category as ´sightseeing´ as there wasn´t a category of ´drinking´. Yes I´m a tad tipsy.... Have just made a chum in a bar. An Irish chap. Can´t remember his name. Might have been Neil. Let´s call him Neil. No, not that sort of chum, too young for a start, but good enough company to pass a couple of cocktails with. Hurrah, I have enough social skills to make friends in a bar. He even approached me so maybe I´m having a good hair day. Had a...