Wandering

I wonder what the election turn out is in South America, there's political graffiti everywhere. The current Bolivian president is the first of indigenous heritage, and is acting accordingly. The rich, white east wants more autonomy, though if you believe the graffiti in Santa Cruz they want independence. I received an email recently from a guy I met in Chile enquiring how things were in Bolivia, since "there is a chance of civil war soon". You could have fooled me. On a less serious note, driving into Peru there was some classic put your X here graffiti in support of Juan Huanca. Pronounced the Spanish way to English ears it sounds quite rude!

Mum, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that I made it through Bolivia without mishap, you can breath a sigh of relief. The bad news is that I am closer to Colombia :)

I've put up the lightning pictures and video. The pictures all looked the same unfortunately and the video is virtually all black, so you just have Dan's commentary and a few flashes of lightning.

Boring Anecdote III (These Things Always Come In Threes)

Tuesday morning I came down the stairs of our hostel in Copacabana and came across a lone wallet midway. After handing it in to reception I thought nothing more of it. Later waiting for our lunch we realised that we might be too late for the boat to Isla del Sol and so I went to fetch our two bags. At the hostel the receptionist asked me about the wallet and then asked me if I could wait a moment. He went off and came back with the Big Boss Man. BBM proceeded to open the wallet and tell me that there was $150 missing, pointing the finger at me and mentioned the police. I was speechless, never before has Jamie "Honest" Kitson been accused of stealing $150, in fact I don't recall ever being accused of anything! As I was showing him exactly where I had found it, with Hollywood timing, a Friendly Face appeared around the banister and claimed the wallet as his own. I explained what was going on in English, and FF was suitably confused. BBM asked FF how much money had been in the wallet, FF replied under 100 bolivianos, BBM checked the wallet, found 30 and FF said "Yeah, 30, sure." BBM's demeanor suddenly changed to smiles and hand shakes and I was allowed to rush off back to lunch and our boat across the water. Moral: Don't stay at Residencia Solar in Copacabana.

I had A Moment on the island. Dan and I were filming/photographing the approaching lightning a top a hill, at 4025m, on an island in the middle of Lake Titicaca, Bolivia in the encroaching dark, thinking "What kind of life is this?"

But where are all my Valentine's emails?!

I'll put up the lightning pictures and Dan's video as soon as we rejoin ADSL land. Hopefully tomorrow in Puno, Peru.

Pushing The Boat Out

We really treated ourselves last night. We started at a Japanese restaurant, eating lots of lovely sushi, then went on to "Dumbo's" and had ice cream and coffee with cocoa lacquer, chocolate and cream. Then we sat on a bench feeling sick for a while before crossing the street to a bar which turned out to be a karaoke bar. As Dan remarked, we don't even need to look for them any more, they come to us. This one was much cheaper and younger than the one we'd been to the previous night, some friendly locals were so impressed with our singing (Dan - Help and Hey Jude, Anne - A Whole New World (unfortunately she only knew it in Danish) and I - House of the Rising Sun and Every Breath You Take) that they took us out to a club. Clubs have to shut at 4am in Bolivia due to government licencing. Nearly as backward as the UK! :)

I've uploaded some videos, the most interesting, me being an idiot, has a nice shot of La Paz at the end. Unfortunately though you can't make out the way that the houses go all the way up the sides of the hills.

I really hate rushing, it's now Tuesday 13th Feb, and we're in Copacabana. We have to spend a day in Peru to renew our Bolivian visas before Thursday, and then maybe head back into Bolivia to a carnival in Oruro for the weekend, giving us about a day to "do" Copacabana and the islands in lake Titicaca.

Paranoid Androids

Dan and I went out with a new female friend (we shall call her N, for that is her name, sort of) last night and we ended up at a karaoke bar. After singing a couple of numbers (Dan - All Day and All of the Night, N and I - California Dreaming) N announced that she was feeling strange and abruptly left. The next morning N knocked on our door to say good morning. Later, in private, I confessed to Dan that I was relieved as I had been concerned that N had left after I had leaned over to speak with him and perhaps inappropriately touched her leg. Dan replied that he had also been worried that she'd left after he'd touched her leg accidentally. She is now sharing our room, so the experience can't have scarred/scared her that badly. Although I'm not entirely sure she understood all the Spanish, and Dan and I might have been a little economical with the translation :)

The Peace

Before coming to La Paz I had yet to experience a video on a Bolivian bus, it turns out they have similar habits to the Argentines. Our bus left almost on time at 11pm, the lights were put out at about midnight, then an hour later, just as we were all trying to grab our sleep from the 5 hours left, all of the televisions emitted a loud buzz and Alien Vs Predator came on. I was at least glad of the English subtitles, else how would I have known what the hell was going on?

I managed to change my flight today. I will be back in your green and pleasant land on 4th July. Changing my flight cost £50. The phone call cost £20. Apparently a teacher makes about £3 a day.

Me mate Dan has some interesting photos up of our time together. Look out for our mate Dave.

My brother writes a funny blog. Yes Sam, I am jealous.

Dry At Last

Opening my bag upon arriving in Cochabamba I found a moldering pile of damp clothes, smelling the same as my room had in Santa Cruz. Why oh why did I spend a week there? I have things to do, people to meet, places to be, I want to be in Mexico in April! Onward and upward!

I was beginning to think that Santa Cruzians hated foreigners, without exception, when, Goddess of irony strong as ever, we went for a cuppa half an hour before our bus left and encountered an extremely friendly waitress, who sat and chewed the cud with us. Yes Alanis, it certainly is like ra-ain on your wedding day.

Anyway, Cochabamba is nice and dry and hot, all of my clothes are out airing on the washing line as I type, and apparently the night life here is all within the centre. Things are looking up. Just hope no one's run off with my pants.

I wrote this yesterday. Ms Morissette is having the last laugh. My dreams were invaded by thunder and lightning during the night. I swear it was right above us. In my dreams there was no gap between the flashes of lightning and the cracks of thunder. It is now tipping it down. It's still not humid though, thank God. And no one took my pants.

You're Not That Far

I'm really not that enamoured with Santa Cruz. I think it's partly the weather, it's really, really humid. Once your clothes are damp that's it. And I don't think it's helped by my dank room, I've been meaning to change hostels for days, but I've not managed to catch the midday checkout time yet, and I intend to leave for Cochabamba on Monday. Anyway, apart from the humidity, this town is apparently like an American town in that there's nothing much to do in the center (sorry, centre), you have to get a taxi out to the "strips", where lots of big neon signed karaoke bars live. So far the song that has gone down the best for me has been Big Spender, during which I did big kicks for the Bah-Baah-Bah-Bah bit, afterwards a guy came up and gave me a drink(!) we rocked the party!

But I've been loving Bolivia so far. It's really surprised me, one of my favourite phrases of the moment is "I just wasn't expecting this from Bolivia." And it's not just the flamingos. No one prepared me for the food. I had been warned that it was going to be boring, and my first meal in Bolivia, after asking for a steak sandwich (lomito, a speciality around these parts) and then a hamburger, I was informed that there was only one thing on the menu which used four of the most boring ingredients known to mankind: roast chicken, chips, rice and pasta (I kid ye not). Topped off with a chili sauce which WAS NOT HOT. But since then I have been amazed by the culinary delights of these parts, though at the moment we are frequenting a place reminiscent of Disney World.

Being a stickler for credit I have to thank Maddy for the title of this post, though aptly she thought the song went "Santa Cruz you're not that fine."

No Future II

Life is beautiful.

Recent highlights include: watching a group of friends sing Manu Chau's Me Gusta Tu at a Bolivian karaoke bar, watching a very drunk Dave fall through the screen at said karaoke bar*, spending the afternoon lazing with Melanie watching Sucre from a hilltop**, getting soaked to the skin running through the pouring night rain and lightning of Santa Cruz with the same Melanie.

* Afterwards the owner of the bar wanted $500 for a broken guitar, Dave, being a musician, and drunk, demanded to see the "probably just scratched" guitar. The "scratch" was actually a break at the neck.

** Unfortunately this meant we got to the bus stop 15 mins before all the buses left for Santa Cruz and had to travel on separate buses. This made the forced stop behind a landslide at 3:30am quite sweet, after walking a not insignificant distance in either direction I discovered her bus was directly behind mine. The journey was only supposed to be 13-17 hours, it ended up at 24.

Guess Who's Back

Well I am back in the land of civilisation, kinda.

I don't know what springs to your mind when you think of Bolivia, but for me it is certainly not flamingos, but they are here, in their thousands. The four day tour was spectacular, check the photos, just getting up at 5am and into a landcruiser was pretty cool. Yes Mum, we all felt the altitude (we were at 4500 - 5000m most of the time) at various points and to various degrees. I had spent a week at 3000m, and for the first two days was fine, but on the third day had a headache, which turned into a general feeling of ill-being.

So I am now in Potosi (4050m), about to do a tour of a working mine, and since I haven't been able to find a bed for the night, and me mate Dave is there I am going to try to head for Sucre tonight.

It Never Rains

If there is anything funnier than a middle aged Australian couple arguing in an internet cafe over a group email trying to control their voices then I have yet to find it.

"Chris, you are brain-dead when it comes to this stuff!"

So since mentioning the rainy season in my last post it has been raining about 50% of the time. Mostly during the night luckily, but I got caught out last night and am now wearing plastic bags for socks.

The road to Iruya is 56km of dirt track. There isn't one bus a day, there's a convoy of five buses that all leave together. Safety in numbers I think. There were no problems on the way there but on the way back we had 4 punctures between the five buses and had to stop several times to help other stranded vehicles. I suppose it's the rain.

Humahuaca is a black hole. There's nothing here but you can't leave, and when you do leave you come straight back. Not that I mind, we had a really nice lunch at the hostel yesterday, I was trying to work out why the locals were laughing at me, at first I thought it was because I was eating the chili sauce so easily, but after a while the hostel owner showed me how to peel my broad beans(!)

Ok, that was all so long ago, I am now in Tupiza, Bolivia. The internet still sucks. I will be out of radio contact as I am going on a four day trip to the salt flats/deserts/pans/whatever, so don't worry too much if I don't email, I don't think they supply internet on the jeep.

Also this blog has moved to http://blog.kitten-x.com, I thought it might be easier to remember. Over and out.