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 to see the children´s carnival here yesterday morning and then the Christ statue (slightly larger than the one in Rio) in the afternoon but there was a big to do with the carnival getting moved to today so all our plans changed. Also the night bus we were supposed to be getting last night to Sucre got cancelled by the bus company (even though we´d book and paid because they reckoned they´d get more money using it to ferry people to the big carnival in Oruro (the second biggest carnival in South America after Rio). Apparently such behaviour is normal around here. There was a bit of a to do in our group about why we weren´t going to that carnival considering it was so great but there we go. Anyway so yesterday we went to see the Christ statue which was cool enough. We took a cable car to the top and I paid a Boliviar (10p) to climb up the statue and look out the holes in his hands and the view. It was roasting yesterday. Last night I learned the card game s***head and we drank a lot of red wine and had delivery pizza. I was then persuaded (red wine induced) to go to a club (I never go to clubs, what was I thinking?). Someone had mentioned jazz club so I think I had that in my mind and thought it would be nice. Of course it wasn´t - it was just s*** and as everyone paired off I just felt old and s***. But truly the music was dreadful and I felt quite justified in leaving after about 90mins. I thought that was a respectable amount of time to show my face for.

Today we went to the children´s carnival here in Cochabamba. OK so that should be renamed. Yes there were kids dressed up and a kind of procession and some floats. But the main gist of it was to attack gringos (i.e. any foreigners you saw) with water pistols, water bombs and shaving foam until they were covered!!!! We were warned so we´d mainly left cash, bags and cameras at home but within an hour we were totally soaked. Really totally drenched. Little sweethearts. As I write this we have been home, showered, changed and dried off but there are still vigilante f*ckers wandering the streets with water pistols (the kind that take a couple of gallons) ready to get you from balconies and round corners and passing cars.

This afternoon we are chilling and tonight taking the nightbus to Sucre