South america

so.. with a mind full of thought we proceeded to La paz. The highest capital city in the world. A great city a stinky city. managed to do alot of shopping, bought alot of things for friends and family and now have the struggle of getting it to you all. The bolivians i love, i love Bolivia. The women and their funny charlie chaplin hats sat on their heads whilst they wear their fancy dresses and embroidered blankets. The lama fetuses of tradition, you place them under the house and they bring good luck.

The following day we embarked on Death Road. The moist dangerous road int he workld with a bus going over it just 10 days ago and all passengers being killed. We were to mountain bike down it. 80km from 4700 metres to 1200 metres, in the jungle. It was amazing. A grit road with sheer drops that were stomach churning just looking at them. The brakes would want to be working, it was razy. Full speed i dread to thin t what speed we were doing. It wtook ohours we fell we laughed we cried at the site of dead buses all along the stretch.. well in the distance at the bottom of the valleys. I stupidly thought the bus taking us home was taking a different oad and soon realised it was taking the same road back up. 5 hours later after a hair raising experince of a mini bus of us trying to go up and many 7% beers later after i had been afraid of the monkeys biting me.. we got home. And with a t-shirt telling us we survived.. ha! great day though!

i am so far behind on this thing i donno if i can catch up.. so i met the gruop back agin in Argentina in salta. The wankers of the group had left and the dinamics had improved so much.

A big walk up a hill in Salta a beautiful city gave us an amazing view of the smog ridden air. I tried my hand at horse riding again and loved it. A day with a true cowboy, a groucho that was awesome called enrique.. some magnificent views and some great red wine at the end of it.

Onto the road journey to Bolivia and a road block. Probably one of the highlights of the tour as the truck stopped at the side of the road and we stayed there the night. The road was blocked as the native andes people were trying to gain rights to the land so there fore blocked peopel passing through. 2km´s of traffic and a big party.. some argentinian wine to wash it all down with and a really memorable night.

We were in fear that we were gonna have to stay ont he road till it opened and the guide andy was going to take us lot over the barracade to take public transport to the next destination. Becasuse James the driver was gona be alone i chose to stay with him for company.. but as this was decided the barracade came down and on we travelled.

Bolivia here we were and what an amazing place. We stopped the first night in Tupiza, an unexpected stop and fter sleeping int he truck the night before it was well needed. A tinty little town that gave a great spirit to our first experience of Bolivia.

A massive drive the next day as the roads were blocked somewhere else so we drove off road all day down rivers and streams and through the most incredible terrain i think i have ever encountered. From rolling hills, the dessert flats, cliffs and mountains.. rugged to steep to flat.. th ecoloyrs were beyond me and the mountain people as we increased in altitude have to be as hard as nails. Watching as we drove past them and their flocks of mainly larma and sheep in their funny bowler hats and colourful blankets.. an amazing sight that wont ever leave me.

We got to Uyuni a sleepy dive of a place where we were to embark on the salt flats the next day. Bolivia is immediately very poor, with beggars everywhere.. it has amazed me as it is so incredibly different.. so amazing in ots beauty yet it has no money and the realisation to a westerner that lives in a world of so much money is that we really dont need so much.

The salt flats were mind blowing.. white for as far as the eye could see.. we drove for over an hour over them as we neared an island, fish island full of massive cacti.. wow! A cacti grows 10mm a year and these were massive.. it was incredible. So peaceful... a beautiful day.. followed by a great hotel where we drank sangria until dark.

From here we went to Potosi, once the greatest city in south america, a silver mining city in its day and now poor run down city striving to be as it once was.

On our way here we went past the place that Butch Cassidy robbed his last train.. not much of a place either but in its day it must have been a silver centre.

Ptosi was mind blowing for one reason. I went on a mine tour, somethign i may chose to never do again because its quite clausrtrophobic but also because it was a real eyeopener at what goes on out there. It upset me alot to see the conditions these miners are in and what they are working for. Absolutely nothing, mining only tin, zinc ad a little silver very little these days. These miners drink 96% alcohol, eat cocoa leaves all the time for altitude and are generally in the mines for between 12-24 hours a day for maybe a pound in payment. They were wankered when we came out of the mines, abused by the alcohol.. maybe happy but the last 2 men that we saw really made me sad.. to look into their eyes they had nothing in there.. they were sad.. they begged us for our buscuits and dinomite and they were struggling for survival.

I´ll end this here as this was the biggest eye opener i have ever had in life. I work in a commercial environment wher money is sen as a neccessity. These giys had nothing, they worked their arses off for somthign taht years ago was a rich ting and was once there. 6000 workers worked in these mines stil to this day.. the smile that a biscuit gave them even though it couldnt replace that lost soul that had gone from their eyes.. it was a momentous happiness.. short lived...i wished i could have done something else..

we walked away and i still havent stopped thinking of that moment.. of those eyes.

anymore and i`ll turn into one.
My long voyage to meet my group again across the otherside of the southern american plains and i am still on this long and trecorous voyage... i was told it was 30 hours but theres one thing you never do.. believe a brazillian first off.. i have just learnt that the long and painful way.

So i set off from the beautiful islands where the sun started to shine and surfers played with their waves and headed for the main land on friday night. I took a night bus saw my ankles swell with pride and crossed the brazillian border into Argentina yesterday. And what a contrast they are to the brazillians. I have taken a slight dislike to them immediately.. and i shouldnt as i know its my warped no sleep mind that is causing this! they dont smile as much thats for sure!

My lack of the language doesnt help, even though i had my lessons it went in one ear and out the other! So i waste a day in Iguazu on the argentinian side and catch anoter night bus last night to this place in argentina called Resistencia. I was told by the lovely brazillian lady at the argentinian bus depot that instead of getting the direct bus to my location that was 28 hours long i should get this one to Resistencia and change to salta as it would be far quicker as they have many buses a day.. at what point did i not question this i donno.. maybe i could see the light at the end of the tunnel... so off i trot.

On my 2nd night bus, alot nicer.. down i pop a valium and hey presto i sleep the entire journey, feet arent swollen, i am in great spirits. Arrive in the arse end of nowhere this morning at 7am, cold as... lots of staring as you can imagine as i am dressed like i just stepped off a carribean cruise.. so yeah.. i get to the ticket office and shit i´m fucked.. i cant say anything...

I scurry through some pigeon spanish and ask for a ticket to salta.. not till 6.30 tonight.. fuck! wicked.. so with my knowledge of the brazillians i go ask someone else.. they say the same.. and again and again.. fuck!

So heres to another day wasting the hours away dreaming of the night bus i am about to encounter tonight and what standard it will up to. I woke last night with a meal next to me which i thought was pretty nice, even though i didnt eat it.. the old valium and the fact it was 3am made me lose my appetite.

Apparently this town has 300 sculptures in it so i guess thats enough said about how busy i can be today searching for them... it may not be so bad after all.

i just got an email from my tour guide who says i started a trend and 4 group members have left followinhg my trend.. oops.. but the good thing is its all the idiots.. good one emm.. so i can rejoin minus them!

so.. think i almost forgot i was writing this thing.. whats been happeneing.. the truck the kids.. have i seen anything.. oh yeah i have!
I´ve seen some great coast lines, a pirate town which was pretty amazing.. i loved it but unfortunately i didnt see any pirates... many parrots though, maybe there had been a mass culling... some long hours on the truck then..

I went to check out iguazu falls.. amazing.. the brazillian side wins over the argentinian side but all in all it was pretty spectacular.

Done a whole load of camping.. the back was handling it but my brain wasnt handling the essex accents that woke up to on a daily basis.. that´d be 2 members of the toucan tour.

With alot of umming and arring i decided that i didnt want my memories of south america to be scarred of essex accents and with an independent mind as i have i decided i had to go solo on this trip. A harsh decision some might say as i have paid alot of money for this but its a decision i had to go with. I mean i had just spent 10 days in the hands of natives.. literally! oops.. and i loved it... as part of a tour you are seperated from the natives and it sucks.. you dont even need to know when to toilet.. they tell you.. or at least it felt that way. Having sat down with the tour leader a good aussie bloke and the driver they fed me some wine and encouraged me to take what i could from the tour as we do cover some amazing ground.. so i chose to take that route and leave them for a week.. re join them for the good bits and take time out again.. its a good decision i think.

So here i am.. i escaped to a surfing island.. ummm.. interesting bunch as any surfing lover can imagine, no cars all sand tracks.. its rained alot and i have read alot, its off Paranagua, int he south coast of Brazil.. a small island called Ilha do Mel. typically its sunny as i go on the internet...

i have been here for 4 days and today having spoken to myself a little too often today i think i need to leave.. i head on a 30 hour bus journey to Salta in Argentina, bring on the valium... thats where the group are.. so lets see what my reception is like having obviously left as i find them all quite difficult.. ha! i tell ya.. its better than any reality tv thing this.. and the stories i have of me going solo.. geeze.. i cant publish those! until soon omegos! i enter the world of gouchos... ye ha!

Rio rules.. what a beautiful place, the landmarks and the beauty all wrapped up in one.
So i left the love of the north of brazil with a bang at a trance party and flew hung as a donkey after a sad farewell to Sandro to the high life of |Rio. It was fun for the 2 days i was there. I had a row with a banker who was a Wanker and robbed me of money.. i swore at hime and threw a tantrum and he made one of his armed guards stand next to me..nothing quite like making a fuss in a foreign bank and therefore allowing them to steal 400 quid from yoi... buggers!

anyway, so i flew round Rio as i had hardly any time there and saw all the sights.. it has to be revisited though, you need a good 2 weeks there easily.. this might be on the agenda at the end...

So on to the Bus.. the toucan tour that has left me with a bunch of isiots. There are a bad bunch on board for sure.. theres maybe 2 or 3 that are ok but these people are toomuch to be spending this amount of time with each other. I wont rant on about it asd i am about the only positive person on there.. alot ofmoaning going on which is hella tiring.

I will give it some time to see some more sights and theni may dpart it. I want this trip to ba a memorable one for myself not for the idiots i was couped up with so if it gets too much i may wellleave it.. fuck the money.. i can sort something out.

We travelled down the coast sawsome amazing sights and havenow turned into the border of Argentina and Brazil and Paraguay i think to see Iguacu falls tomorrow. 2 long days of travelling has tested us all there have been a few laughs here and there usually me at myself!

I am feeling a little lost as this way its more like being an american tourist on a trip with a guide than the way i would and know best mingling with the locals... its easy to leave i am sure.. i havent paid allthe money yet either so i am clever enough i should run now... or soon...

Just gotta get myself a bumbag, workon my smile.. show lots of teeth and walk around with my camera round my neck.,. then i´m sorted! i look the part... nearly american!

sohere goes.. big falls at Iguacu tomorrow.. plenty of roomto push them off one by one! ha!