Goodbye Cusco :(

SO before and after the Inca Jungle Trek we spent a fair amount of time in Cusco. I think it's safe to say that Cusco has been my favourite place we've visited in South America :)

On the 31st it was EVIE'S 19TH BIRTHDAY so of course we went out to celebrate. I got her a little prezzie and a card signed by lots of different people that we've met throughout the duration of our travels. She was SO surprised so of course I was well happy that all my sneakiness had paid off. Also Matt got her some mustard...



In the evening we went out with the gang to Norton's, Indigo and the Wild Rover which was lots of fun, even if we did get kicked out at like 2.30am. I thought the Wild Rover was supposed to be like party central?? Honestly.







Another aspect of Cusco that cannot go without a mention is Jack's Cafe which is without a doubt the best place for food in South America (well, that I've been to so far!) A little pricey for Peru it has to be said but 100% worth every penny. I don't really think the pics do it justice but I'm going to share them anyways...





We also caught Corpus Christi by accident which was quite nice. Peruvians really do know how to do a religious festival! It was almost impossible to move around Plaza de Amas and they had all these massive elaborately decorated statue things that they were carrying through the streets. Plus music and dancing and food EVERYWHERE. It was great!!



I was rather sad to say goodbye to Cusco, but I reckon it wont be my last visit. I would definitely recommend a visit to anyone :)

Lake Titicaca and the Isla del Sol

After La Paz we headed to Copacabana on Lake Titicaca, joined by Charles and Lucy who we met at the Wild Rover. En route we had the nice surprise of having to get off the bus and take a boat across part of the lake whilst our bus did the same, on a rather rickety looking barge. We came to the conclusion that we had to get off the bus as the barge it came across on looked so unstable, there must have been instances in the past where the whole thing has capsized... Luckily the boat, bus and all our luggage made it across safe and sound.

Our bus... on a barge.

Once in Copacabana we spent a couple of days enjoying the sunshine and hiking up a nearby hill which was quite the challenge at this altitude (we're over 4000m up!!) but the view of the lake was beautiful. I can't believe how HUGE it is, seriously puts 'the lake' at the bottom of Newman College to shame :p

Outside the Cathedral!

It took real skill to get the self timer on this right.


We're now back in Copacabana after spending the past few days on the Isla del Sol, which was ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE. We spent a day hiking from the north to the south side of the island and checking out the ruins at the Inca creation sight. The views were stunning, take a gander:

Steve, Georgia, Lucy and Charles have all head of to Arequipa for a few days before coming to meet us in Cusco for EVIE'S BIIIIIIIIRTHDAY on the 31st. I can't wait! We're still debating whether our next move will be staight back to Cusco or to the Uros Islands on the peruvian side of Lake Titicaca. All depends on pennies really, but fingers crossed we'll be able to get everything in :)

A week in La Paz

I don't know how we did it but we managed to spend a whole week in La Paz and do very little. But that's not to say we didn't have a good time.

After a whole day in bed recovering from our hectic journey from Sucre, we spent a large portion of the second day making jewellery on the street with a brazilian guy called Denny, who was allegedly 25 but has been travelling for over 10 years... However he was pretty cool and taught us how to make bracelets and anklets, tying Georgia up in a rather amusing fashion in the process. We also had to put a good thought into every knot and make a wish as he burned the ends in order to ensure the item held 'good energy'. I love travelling hippies.

Evie and Georgia both got tattoos at Pepe's tattoo parlour during our stay.

Evie's:

(If you can't see it, it's an arrow on her foot. OUCH.)

Georgia's:

Georgia designed both, pretty impressive eh? So that just leaves me now, any suggestions on what I should get?? :p

Watching the Champions League Final at an english pub called Oliver's travels was quite a highlight. The pub was FULL of Bayern Munich supporters, Germans, Israelis and English alike, so Evie, Steve and I decided to support Chelsea, just to add some diversity. It was SUCH a good game, though I'm not sure how Chelsea did it, I was sure it was all over multiple times. Unfortunately it did ruin the mood in the bar a little as the Germans didn't exactly take the defeat well, but our band of about 6 Chelsea supporters were loving it :D

On our last day we made a trip to the witches market which was rather interesting. You could buy all sorts of bottled potions and there were llama foetus' hanging everywhere (something about warning off evil spirits). Evie and Georgia also got their tarot cards read which was MEGA CREEPY because the lady was REALLY good. It freaked me out far too much so I whimped out.

The rest of our time was spent mainly partying at the Wild Rover (we got to go to our second UV party, whoop whoop!) or eating at Cafe Banais. The Wild Rover was really great fun and we met some proper cool people there. But probably spent a little too much time there instead of exploring the cultural side of Bolivia's capital city. Ah dear. But I did get a few pics of around the city...

Sugar Daddy, G-Meister General, Eve-ster and The Cow at the caf. (It would seem I got the short straw on the nickname front)

Journey to Sucre

Here's the belated update for Uyuni-Potosi-Sucre. I apologise for the slight overload of posts to follow!

The journey from Uyuni to Sucre wasn't the most pleasant one we've had. Nevi (our driver from the Salt Flats tour) warned us that there were bad, very bumpy roads for the first 5 hours of the journey and he was quite right. However the views were INCREDIBLE. Bolivia has to be in the running for one of South America's most beautiful.

We had to change buses at Potosi, the world's highest city, but as always buses in SA are never very reliable and we ended up waiting an extra 2 hours on what we were originally told.

In this time we decided to grab some lunch/dinner as we were all rather peckish. As we'd never been at such a high altitude we did overestimate our ability to wander around with our backpacks on and after a walk that should have taken 5 minutes and 0 effort in England, we were completely exhausted.

And the meal we received turned up on a school dinner and was... Well I'll let Evie explain:

'Imagine dog food. Not Pedigree dog food. Asda dog food. 30 per cent meat dog food. Imagine it minced to a state of neither solidity nor liquidity. Imagine it sandwiched between two pieces of bread, one stale and solid as a rock, one soggy and limp. Imagine it garnished with a tomato that is festering before your very eyes. Imagine the six lonely chips served in the adjoining compartment. Imagine a burger that almost drove a grown man to tears.'

It was really horrible.

We also discovered that in Potosi they worship the devil, call him uncle and scarifice animals to him. Their logic behind this being as they work in the mining town, they work closer to the devil than God. So as you can imagine, we couldNOT wait to leave.

On arrival in Sucre we had to ask around as to where our hostel was, as the bus didn't drop us at the terminal. We were surprised when a girl told us that we were on the other side of town to where we thought we were. She tried to encourage us to get into an unmarked, unlicensed taxi, but luckily we're not stupid and therefore had a look around for something more official looking. When we showed the driver the address we discovered the street we needed was actually the one we were on! The lying so and so obviously has tried to bundle us away in her boyfriends taxi so he could rob us for all we owned and leave us stranded in the middle of the surrounding hills. I hope they've never actually succeeded in praying on any other poor unsuspecting gringos.

Look how pretty Sucre is!

The next three days were pretty chilled out, we explored the city, watched the football, ate a lot and had a look around a really pretty graveyard. So yes, the news about Joey Barton being a complete tool has reached an international level.

Visiting the graveyard was a pretty emotional experience. Its difficult to describe really how it made me feel. There were some graves like this:

Huge elaborate things obviously for those families who are absolutely minted.

Some like this:

I have to say the ones all piled on top of each other did freak me out a bit. In my opinion it's not really right that the bodies should rot in a compartment and not give back to the earth to help give life to other plants and animals. But they were mostly beautiful, really elaborately decorated with gold and silver and things that one would associate with that person. From these graves it was easy to see the divide in wealth in Bolivia, as some hadn't yet been able to afford more than some spray paint and a pringles tube to home some flowers.

There was one section on the graveyard I couldn't bring myself to photograph because it had been completely smashed up. It was obviously the section for those with the least amount of money, just like a mass grave really, with little crosses and homemade grave stones. But see it be treated with so much disrespect made me feel sick in the stomach. Everybody deserves dignity after death and every family deserves somewhere to mourn.

As you may have guessed from my last entry, we're now in La Paz but are leaving tomorrow! Update on our antics here to follow shortly...

N.B. Sorry about the length of this post, so much has happened it was hard to summarise anymore!