Uruguay 1

Arriving in Montevideo (the mandatory) one hour late, we took a cab downtown and began yet another search for a room.

I may have touched on this recently but the excitement of sourcing a suitable bed for the night has all but left us so the next hour was not the most enjoyable.

The first room we tried was discounted on account of price and the second because we wouldn't have stayed there if it were the last flea-pit on this earth.
With spirit flagging I asked Kerry to look at the next one on her own and just tell me "yea" or "nay", I simply couldn't face hoying my case up a flight of stairs to be shown yet another drab and characterless room.

I wished I had though. Standing outside in the street in my 'sminkers', blue shorts that have somehow been faded to a pinky hue by the sun, I felt an itch on my left calf and looked down to see half a dozen mosquitoes attached to my leg. Bites on the other leg soon became apparent and by the time we'd found an acceptable gaff I was histrionically nursing 21 itchy welts which I could have cheerfully dug out with my penknife in order to relieve the discomfort.

We paid a high price for our room and though it was about the size of a telephone box, had no wi-fi and a mattress seemingly made of stone we had had enough. This would have to do if one, or both of us, were not soon to become quite mad.

We chose our dining emporium carefully as we made our first foray into the Uruguayan night: with a plague of mosquitoes visible as we walked, it had to be somewhere indoors.
We found somewhere affording said prerequisite though it turned out to be a noisy and tacky joint patronised by a rather disgusting-to-behold mayonnaise addict.
This fellow was eating a hot dog and squirted huge amounts onto every mouthful, dollops that, over the period of our being transfixed, squelched over large areas of his face, the table, most of his clothing and his hands.

Despite wearing a long-sleeved shirt I received two more mozzie bites, through my shirt!
Voracious buggers they are here.

After a poor night's sleep and a feisty breakfast we acknowledged that this couldn't go on and we simply had to get to the coast and relax.
Montevideo would have to wait until we had rediscovered our mojo.

We made our way back to the bus station and bought tickets to the nearest coastal resort mentioned in the Lonely Planet, that of Piriapolis.

What? The nearest seaside resort to Montevideo is a Greek island?

No, Piriapolis is a 90 minute drive east from Montevideo and is named after an enterprising fellow called Francisco Piria who built a large hotel here about 100 years ago and ferried Argentinians to it in order to enjoy the beach and warm waters.
(For those that like me to spoon feed you every morsel of information you need, 'Polis' is Greek for city or city-state. For those that don't you may omit to read the text within these brackets.)

Everything had become a trial by now: attempting to understand the unintelligible Uruguayan accents at the bus station, dragging our cases along the unpaved road from the bus station once we arrived at Piriapolis, trying to find the right room for our Christmas by the seaside.

That last quest really was tricky. We thought we might stay for anything up to two weeks so it was critical we secured the right room at the right price, though we were soon to find out that the right price doesn't exist in these 'ere parts.

We pitched up at a nice seafront place and soon ascertained that the nice room with a view was about $120 more per night than we really wanted to pay.
Despite our audible scoffs at his quote, the owner offered to look after our bags while we sought the right room - a much appreciated gesture.

Well, we looked at so many rooms it got to the point where we could no longer remember which one we liked best or which had which features.
Kerry was still ailing with her stomach bug so traipsing around in the heat was getting to her, thereby getting to me.

After three hours of looking, punctuated by lunch, we finally opted for the splendidly appointed (if you like 1970s, beige corduroy wallpaper) Davivas Hotel, a snip compared to some of the others, sea view, balcony, breakfast, wi-fi.

Exalted, we returned to our kindly baggage minder and walked back to the Davivas, checked in and promptly lay on the bed in a state of sweaty and semi-crazed delirium.
Kerry curled up in the foetal position to ease the pain coursing through her guts and I thought I'd have a quick check of the old footy online.

Pillow in place, belt undone, glasses perched on the end of my hooter........................no Internet.

"Er, there's no Internet in the room Kerry".

"Huh?"

"THERE'S NO BLOODY INTERNET"

I think the scientific term for our reaction to this state of affairs is "to have an egg".
I sought our proprietress and after much arm waving, gabbling and indiscernible gibberish on both sides we were checking out, swatting mozzies on our legs as we went, once more into the hideous breach.

I have no doubt that, had she had the energy, Kerry would have wept at this point.
Realising this I led us to the Rex Hotel, a slightly pricey number but one with a nice clean room, pool, and a few other nice-to-haves.

We checked in and lay on our bed in a
state of sweaty and three quarters-crazed delirium.
Kerry curled up in the foetal position to ease the pain coursing through her guts and I thought I'd have another go at the footy.

Pillow in place - check, belt undone - check, four-eyes in situ - check......................,....no Internet.

"Oh, bloody hell, there's no Internet in this room either".

"Huh?"

"THERE'S NO BLOODY INTERNET IN HERE EITHER"

As we lay there wondering whether to end our misery by self-asphyxiation or do a Reggie Perrin and just swim out to sea there was a meek knock at our door.
It was the receptionist, come to tell us that the wi-fi wouldn't work in this room but if we'd care to follow her she would upgrade us to a superior suite for no extra charge.

Well, that cheered our misery ingrained faces up no end. The new room was fabulous; it was large, had a big telly, a minibar, great big shower, wi-fi, the works.
Proof that it sometimes pays to have an undignified and girly strop within earshot of officialdom.

And here endeth the whining and whinnying, the griping, the sulks, the moaning, the sobbing and wailing, the beefing and the grousing.
We were on holiday, by the sea, the sun was shining and we gradually began to feel good about everything again.

Our first day in Piriapolis proper was spent lolling by or in the pool on our air-beds. The two I've been lugging around since Costa Rica both burst but old faithful, "Wilson", Kerry's since Cancun, was still going strong.
By day two, with Kerry's Egyptian elixir having worked its magic on her stomach, she felt up to crossing the road and sitting on the beach.

Sunday was a very hot day, hot enough to render our factor 30 inefficient, resulting in scorched buns for Kerry and a face like a Belisha beacon for me.
We nursed our tender skin in the pool on Monday and with Christmas day being wet and windy we were afforded another day's recuperation.

Boxing day wasn't the greatest weather either and we began to get a little bit stir crazy, stuck in the room for hours on end with nothing much to say or do.
Though we did if course have the Internet!
I realised that we had hit a low when Kerry began to reflect verbally on the unusual design of the light bulb in the bedside lamp, and I engaged her with my own thoughts on it.

We needed a change of scenery, a breath of fresh air, we needed to get out.
We considered various ways of introducing change and interest into our days but ended up taking the easiest option.
We got trolleyed.

We bought a litre of wine at the supermarket and drank it whilst watching a South African nutter on the telly pulling huge snakes from under piles of corrugated iron with his bare hand.
Abuzz from that excitement, we went across the road to a restaurant and complemented our juicy steaks with a beer before striking up conversation with the party at a nearby table.

The British Head of Marketing for a leading sportswear brand, her German husband and another Brit about to re-emigrate to Sydney were travelling together for three weeks over Christmas and we found we had an awful lot in common with them.

Most remarkable was that "Jacks" was an absolute doppelgänger for Fi, one of Kerry's best friends. Looks, voice, attitude, ballsiness, it was all there and the more the grog flowed, the more rip-roaring time we all had.
(So I'm reliably informed, I can't remember much).

The two fellas were a hoot too and the night passed in a flash.
It turns out that we didn't get in until 2am, an ungodly hour for your generally clean living heroes.

Needless to say, the next day was spent nursing quite dreadful hangovers but where better to do so?
We had but nothing to do all day, so we did it.

Yes, this is working out quite well. The trials and tribulations of getting here are already near forgotten.
All hail the recuperative powers of a Uruguayan beach.

Iguazu Falls

We have learned much on this trip: we get on rather well and still have no (great) desire to throttle each other, small denominations of South American currency are exceedingly hard to come by and being positioned within ten yards of anyone under the age of five on public transport is liable to be accompanied in the not too distant future by the aroma of their previous meal mixed with bile.

Though perhaps the most sobering realisation is that when one is away for so long and has been exposed to such wonders it takes something truly majestic and wonderful to really get you ooh-ing and ah-ing.

It was inevitable I suppose, but neither of us had thought about that for even one second.
The things we loathe so back in Blighty: food shopping, routine, having to do things through necessity and not choice, have manifested themselves, albeit in slightly different ways, out here.

For food shopping read: sitting in a restaurant ordering a meal that isn't quite what you want.
For routine read: "Up, pack, to the bus station, arrive new place, find a room, repeat ad nauseam".
Necessity comes of the trip nearing it's conclusion and we have a commitment to be on a flight from Santiago on 15 January.

We think ten months might be too long so we've decided our next trip will be for a maximum of six.

Having said all that, there are some places in this wonderful world that make any length of time incarcerated in a sweaty bus worthwhile, restore lead to the most flaccid of pencils and raise the spirits of the weariest traveller.
Iguazu Falls is just such a place.

We arrived at Puerto Iguazu on Tuesday just after lunch, having successfully negotiated the world's most confusing border crossing, that of Paraguay to Argentina via Brazil.

We trundled our cases in a westerly direction from the bus station, reaching the Casa Blanca hotel after barely five minutes of my handle continually coming off in my hand, wheels catching my feet and of even the tiniest obstruction causing my luggage to pirouette.
I have mixed feelings about my case. On the one hand I'm proud of its battered look, missing pockets courtesy of Easter Island airport, broken handle with strategically positioned sock by way of padding, wheels about to split in two and the very fact that a £32 case from a backstreet shop in Teignmouth is going to complete an arduous ten month trip.
On the other I want to hack it to shreds in a frenzied machete attack before setting fire to it, then buy a new, non-aggravating case like Kerry has.

Having hardly slept last night due to the bed bugs we didn't have the stomach for a long and hot search for a room so, despite the proprietor of the Casa Blanca unyielding over the price no matter how much I tried, we took it.
The deciding factor was the pool, a blissful escape from the oven-esque heat of the day.

We were out of cash so before we could go and eat that evening we had to find a cashpoint.
With Puerto Iguazu seeing hordes of tourists you would have thought that the town would be replete with banks but, as far as we could tell, there was only one.
It was on the other side of town and when we reached it we found a rather large queue ahead of us - frustrating but there's nothing you can do except suck it up.
Queuing at ATMs is very much the norm in Argentina. I haven't seen one yet that didn't have a dozen or more people waiting to use it.

As we were leaving Argentina again tomorrow we calculated how much money we'd need and went off for a quite delicious meal before turning in to prepare for tomorrow.

We fairly dragged our wearisome frames out that morning, down to the bus station and onto one of the many shuttles to Parque Nacional Iguazu.
Iguazu is not just a spectacular set of waterfalls, there's a zoo and nature trails and various other things to do here.

The bus fare was high and the entrance fee was double what we expected but we were soon inside and riding the little train to "Garganta del Diablo", The Devil's Throat, the main part of the falls.

A walkway of 1km in length leads you to the falls and as you approach you begin to hear a foreboding roar. Spray is rising up above the jungle and people you meet coming in the opposite direction are usually wet through and beaming excitedly.

Nothing can prepare you for what greets you as you reach your mecca though. The walkway deposits you in the middle of a 260 degree wall of water and you can do nothing but stare agog for a few seconds before involuntarily exclaiming something like "ho ho ho, look at THAT!!" and descending into excitable giggling.

You cannot see the bottom of the falls due to the amount of spray generated but I can tell you that the drop is 82m, higher than Niagara Falls by some 30m though 20m lower than Victoria Falls on the Zambezi.
What a sight they must be!

Figures shmigures. To stand before Iguazu and soak it all up, literally and figuratively, is such a joy that you cannot imagine there is anything more wondrous to behold on the entire planet.

The Devil's Throat, fabulous though it is, forms only a small part of your day here. There are hundreds of smaller falls, emerging from verdant jungle and thundering down onto rocks below.
When I say smaller I still mean awe-inspiring and world class in their own right.
They're amazing and it's difficult to describe in words just how beautiful a sight they are.

Just install a visit here to the top of your bucket list. You won't be disappointed.

We walked a long way around the park so were about pooped by the time we were done.
As we were deep in the jungle we were soggy with perspiration too, a less than ideal state to prepare to board a night bus.

With the day costing more than expected we didn't have enough money to pay for dinner so had to cobble a part peso/part dollar payment together, a situation that rendered us completely currency free as we waited for the 1745 to Concordia on the Uruguayan border.

All buses were late, something about flash floods somewhere, so we had to wait before boarding and feeling the bliss of an air-conditioned environment about us.
Kerry wasn't dealing too well with the situation and engineered a seething row with a bus company official over the confusion surrounding our departure.
A dodgy stomach compounded the poor lamb's misery and no doubt intensified the wrath her unfortunate adversary was feeling.

A temporary diversion in the form of Ecuadorean Andrea, arriving from Salta for her Iguazu experience, helped us all out; hugs, kisses and "see you in Uruguay"'s all round and before too much longer we were away.
We neither of us slept that well but at 0800, two hours late, we were in rainy Concordia.

Our late arrival meant we'd missed the bus to the border, thereby missed the connection to Montevideo. Uruguay is also one hour ahead of Argentina so we were now looking at arriving at our destination at 1800 - another full day on the road.

This border was a sensible and logical affair and we were soon passing through the countryside of our 17th country with much interest. Before coming I knew next to nothing about Uruguay save for its capital city and the fact that the first world cup in 1930 was held here.
I don't believe I'd ever even seen a picture of the place.

I can now tell you that it is seriously underpopulated, low-lying - the highest point is only 1600 feet high and the people are pretty much exclusively descended from white Europeans.

It has a nice feel to it but can it offer us the quiet beach resort that if we don't find soon we may very well become demented?

The Paraguay Sketch

It had been a bit of a grind but here we were; Asuncion, capital of Paraguay.

Argentina was hot but this was something else. As we travelled by cab on Saturday evening from the bus station to a hotel selected from the Lonely Planet, we felt desperate for a cool breeze but there was none. We wound down the windows hoping our inertia would generate a refreshing blast but instead it felt like a thousand teenage girls were aiming their hair dryers in our direction.
It was, as Kerry so eloquently put it, boil pig.

Paraguay is noteworthy for being the first South American country to declare independence from Spain and Asuncion, handily placed on the Rio Paraguay, has always been the capital.

Ruled by various dictators and military personnel over the years, one such despot had every building above two storeys in height demolished to reduce the risk of being assassinated by a sniper. His paranoia has left a city quite reminiscent of Managua in Nicaragua; somewhere that doesn't quite have the feel of a city, much less a capital, at all.

We pulled up at the hotel and had soon changed and were out on the prowl for sustenance.
We were, as we often seem to be, in a less than salubrious area but once we'd negotiated the missing drain covers, four feet high and fly infested piles of rubbish and stepped over the prone individual who appeared to have needed the lavatory about an hour ago, we happened across a little belter of a restaurant.

We once again felt a bit out of place; travel grunge, flip flops and a fetid stench emanating from one armpit for us; best bib and tucker, nice frocks, jewellery and pleasant, perfumed odours for the other patrons.
However, we were placed in a corner so as not to offend and the food was lovely.

Having slept like new born babes, we availed ourselves of the gratis breakfast and stepped out to explore this baking metropolis. The first thing we read in the guidebook was that on Sunday's the city centre resembles a ghost town, something we can now vouch for.

On the plus side this meant we were spared having to inhale dangerous levels of carbon monoxide, also we could cross roads without fear of ending up under the wheels of a jalopy.
Another plus was that in one single visit to the cashpoint I found myself a millionaire.

I think the best way to sum up Asuncion is to say that it was nice to see, it will be nicer to say we've seen it and that it is probably more likely that we visit the moon before we go back again.

There were one or two nice buildings, though only two storeys high, a couple of lovely plazas and I particularly liked the idea of the "Pantheon of Heroes", an impressive, domed mausoleum containing the remains of anyone and everyone deserving in Paraguayan history.

Because of the ease with which we crossed the road, and in no small part because of our desire to escape the relentless sun, we were about done with the city by lunchtime.
That sounds dreadful I know but we'd seen all the buildings as recommended by LP and walked in a big loop around the whole of 'downtown'.
There just wasn't an awful lot here.

In the afternoon we caught a bus through a much more swanky suburb and went to a shopping mall to see if we could find a couple of bits we were after. We couldn't, but we did enjoy the lovely air-conditioned surroundings for an hour or so.
Re-emerging into the afternoon was hard as the temperature had risen to 40 degrees. (That's about 107 Ma).

Asuncion was but a stop-over en route to greater things and on Monday morning we were haring through traffic in a taxi, hoping to make the 0900 bus to Ciudad del Este.

Ciudad del Este (CDE) means 'City of the East', not the most inspirational moniker I grant you. It was previously known by the name of a president but when he was disgraced it was changed to its current, less controversial title.
From what I can gather, similar is happening across England as I type with all those 'Jimmy Savile Avenues' being renamed 'One Direction Road'.

CDE is on the border with Brazil and Argentina and, so I thought, the place to go to see the Iguazu Falls.

We made our intended bus but we wished we hadn't. It was a second class service which took over an hour to leave the limits of Asuncion and when it did get going it proved to have the least effective air-con imaginable. It was better to open the window but when we did so the conductor shut it again, so we boiled.
The journey took a seemingly interminable six and a half hours, yet another child vomited in our proximity and by the end of it all I calculate that I lost half my body weight in sweat.
(If only!)

You may have picked up on a theme of late: desperation to alight from various modes of transport, pained agonies at the length of journeys, weariness per se.
Yes, we've about had it and this last big push, from Bolivia to the beaches of Uruguay via Iguazu, is hard going.

The driver of the taxi we took from CDE bus station was unhinged.
(Bear in mind that Paraguayan Spanish is seemingly like broad Geordie English, utterly unintelligible to all except their own)

-Hello mate, to the town centre please

-Where do you want to go?

-The centre, the town centre, the central area of town

-You want a particular hotel?

-No. The town centre please

-Whereabouts?

I show him my map

-There. Just there. That bank marked there. That's where I want to go.

-So you need money?

-(Weeping) No, I just want to go to the town centre

We set off, he stopped to ask other taxi drivers some directions and then, when I shouted
"Here. This'll do"
on seeing a decent looking hotel, he stopped immediately, in the middle of a large junction, oblivious to his holding up scores of cars, not to mention our safety.

I'd been struggling with the heat these past few days and, later on, when I saw a barber shop I knew it was time to wave 'adios' to my thick beard of two months.
Over dinner I admired my new, youthful complexion in the mirror behind Kerry and read the LP with horror, realising that Iguazu Falls are not only not in CDE, they're not actually in Paraguay at all.

As faux pas go it's quite a pearler, explained by my seeing "Foz Do Aguazu -1km" on the CDE map and thinking it meant Iguazu Falls.
(Foz is actually a town. In Brazil.)

Easily explained or not, we found ourselves in a bit of a dump and nowhere near the attraction we sought.
In order to save face somewhat we were lucky that the world's second largest dam was but fifteen minutes out of town.

The Itaipu dam was constructed in the 1970s in a joint partnership between Paraguay and Brazil, the fruits of this partnership producing 80% of Paraguay's and a quarter of Brazil's power.
Impressive stuff.
Less impressive is that 10,000 people were forcibly moved to enable the project and that bigger falls than Iguazu were flooded when the dam lake was formed.

We planned to see that on Tuesday and turned in early so as to be up and out first thing.

As we lay there Kerry thought she'd been bitten by a mosquito so we rigged our net up and settled down.
At 0400 I was woken by a commotion; showering, lights on, cussing; Kerry was sporting sixteen nasty lumps about her, courtesy of bed bugs.

Putting a positive spin on things I'd say that to go for eight months through the third world on a different bed every other night and only to fall foul of bed bugs once is a result.
I didn't bother pointing that out though.

Another positive aspect of being awake so early was that we were among the first visitors of the day at the dam.
We watched a quick film in Spanish and then hopped on a bus for a tour to a couple of lookouts and across the dam itself.

With that out of the way we just had the simple task of crossing the border to Argentina, finding a room and preparing for the visit to Iguazu Falls next day. (Now we've ascertained exactly where they are).

What followed is quite a painful and convoluted sequence of events so I'll just list them for impact's sake:

•Stood by side of road in blazing sun waiting for bus to the border

•Advised by a bus driver we need other side of road

•Cross road. No buses apparent for ten minutes so gave up

•Walked to taxi rank. Asked driver how much to Argentina border. $60US. Declined kind offer. Took taxi to bus station

•Bought tickets for next bus to Argentina border

•Bus crawls through town, past where we were standing an hour and a half ago

•Bus sits whilst driver has a fag

•We have a change of driver

•New driver is thirsty. Bus sits whilst driver has a drink of orange juice

•Bus arrives at Paraguayan customs, 400 yards past our hotel. We are told to get off.
"Will you wait?"
"No. Get next bus".

•Customs is utter chaos. Taxis, buses, cycles, motor bikes, people everywhere. We decide to walk across the bridge to Argentina customs.

•Before we set off I decide to check we are doing the right thing. I am glad I did, if we cross that bridge we are in Brazil!

•Finally determine that we need a bus which will cross the bridge, go through a part of Brazil without stopping to reach Argentinian immigration

•Stood like lemons for 45 minutes before a bus for Argentina finally comes. Success!

So, we're back in Argentina, in Puerto Iguazu and buses to the falls run every twenty minutes from here.
We've nearly cracked it.

They'd better be worth it!

Hard travelling - through Argentina

For one reason or another Bolivia just wasn't doing it for us. Sure, the salt pans were amazing, La Paz was fine and I wouldn't have missed Death Road for anything, but the prospect of spending much more time here sent us into a bit of a tizz.

What would we do?
Head north into an Amazonian National Park? Very interesting but the wrong direction in the grand scheme of things.
Go to Potosi and visit the silver mines where the Spaniards enslaved so many? Ummmm, a tad morbid and not really our cup of tea at this juncture.
Meander west and make for Paraguay? Nope. Too slow and time's running out.

With one more 'must do' on our radar, the spectacular falls at Iguazu on the Brazil/Argentine/Paraguay border, we worked out that the quickest way to accomplish this was to drop down into Argentina, travel across the north of the country and then enter Paraguay.

So, after our three days in the jeep, in the same clothes and without showering, we made for the railway station at Uyuni and bought first class tickets to Villazon for that night's 2240 departure.

It was a foul evening in Uyuni and we had around five hours to kill before departure.
We chose one of the many pizza restaurants in which to dine, one with a menu that incorporated a wider range of fare, ordering vegetable soup for starters.

"No sopa" barked the portly and indigenous waitress.

Fair dos; we'll continue our vitamin free diet and simply have meat and rice again. Oh, and while you're about it, bung some chips on the side, I still have another couple of holes in my belt that I can make use of when the need arises. (which will be soon).

Fifty minutes later we were still without food and though we had time to dispense with, we were not of the mind to do it whilst suffering from hunger pangs. Hunger makes one tetchy and you can't afford to get the hump when you have but one friend in the world.

Finally our food arrived, though mine was so laced with chili that I couldn't finish it.
I'd ordered a beer half an hour ago, then again ten minutes ago and when it finally arrived it was nectar to douse the inferno within.

Whilst I sat trying to discreetly emit the gas generated by my fizzy lager, a club-footed chap with one leg about six inches shorter than the other and with one arm in a sling lurched out of the kitchen.
He turned out to be the chef, possibly explaining the severe delay and associated agitation expressed by all patrons as they waited an age for their nosh.

It was freezing cold at the station, pouring with rain outside and the bench on which we were sat was not kind to our sorry rumps. Our mood lightened somewhat on meeting Ecuadorian Andrea again, also off to Villazon, into Argentina and ultimately Iguazu.
However, what we really wanted was our train to be on time, to get on-board, settle down and try to sleep.

The train was about twenty minutes late and some rather noisy Canadians were in our carriage but they finally shut up around midnight, affording us the perfect conditions for sleep.
It was dark, quiet, the seats reclined and we had a blanket and pillow. Kerry was out for the count before we left Uyuni and we both slept pretty solidly until around 0630 - a great result when all things are considered.

We were chugging along at about 25mph but that didn't matter, we were due into Villazon at 0710 so we'd soon be off, having breakfast and crossing the border into Argentina where we planned to find a nice hotel and relax for the rest of that day.

At about 0700 rumours began to circulate among the English speaking contingent that we were running rather late.
How late?
Well, a look at our iPhone GPS map thingies suggested we had travelled about a quarter of the journey so far - Villazon was still an awfully long way away.
We collared the guard and asked what was going on.

"Ah, mucho rain in the night señor. Mucho late. Arrive Villazon 1300. Ish."

1300? That's in six hours time, plus, that's a Bolivian estimate, we can probably add an hour to that.

Bolivian railways, admirable as it is that they're there at all, are unlikely to be described as "High Speed" or "Inter-City" anytime soon. As I sat with nose pressed against my window for the next few hours I reckoned we were going at around the same pace that I could expect to cycle on the flat, probably 20-25 mph at a guess.

We had little choice but to suck it up and I was particularly miffed that I had no battery left on my phone. No battery means no reading, no photography, no blogging and no playing the games that have been such a godsend during some of our more tedious journeys and long evenings in our room.
(For the record, Kerry accepts she'll never top my Scrabble score, I've given up trying to beat her at Sudoku and honours are pretty even on Jewel Quest).

The train did at least have a dining car so we took breakfast and, as we were still trundling along at 1230, lunch too.
It was 1330 when we arrived in Villazon and it was a glorious feeling to be released from our incarceration and to feel the sun on us once again.
We took a cab to the border a mile or so away, changed our Bolivianos into Pesos (except that large stash in 'Rot' - whoops!) and joined a long and unmoving queue at immigration.

We had an awful feeling we were standing in the wrong queue for some reason and when we saw 'Che Guevara', a rakish Argentinian traveller from the train that had chatted up a blushing Kerry every time I went to the lav, we realised we were.
We had joined a party of Bolivians from a bus trip, explaining the quizzical looks they were giving us.

Borders are so confusing. There is no standard, people are milling about all over the oche and there are no comprehensible instructions. This one was also Argentine and, rightly or wrongly, this made us a little more apprehensive and self-conscious than usual.

It's fair to say that the Argies don't care much for the English and, to a large extent, that sentiment is reciprocated.
Anyone over the age of 40 will recall the Falklands War and the mildly curious will know that those islands have always been a bone of contention between us.

Our sovereignty of them harks back to our imperial days and, since 1833, Argentina has felt (possibly quite rightly) that they're theirs.
It's the equivalent of the Isle of Wight being governed by Argentinians so you can see their point.

Anyway, enough of all this political nonsense. Yes, we have Argy Bargy over the Falklands, yes, as free-thinking citizens of a democracy we abhor the period in the late 70s and early 80s when multitudes of Argentinians 'disappeared' because they were judged to be a threat to the military junta, but what really causes strife between our nations is football.

It all began in 1966 when we were drawn against Argentina in the quarter-finals of the world cup. Their captain, Antonio Rattin, was sent off and refused to leave the field, prompting Alf Ramsey, in his post-match comments, to refer to Argentinians as 'animals'.

Twenty years later and four years after the Falklands Conflict, the nations met again at the quarter final stage with Diego Maradona punching the first goal with his left hand and subsequently describing it as the 'Hand of God'. England fans love an injustice and that was perhaps the greatest of all time (along with Geoff Hurst's second against West Germany in '66).

A classic encounter in 1998 saw David Beckham sent off for a sly kick at Diego Simeone who made a ridiculous meal of it, and England lose on penalties to an Argentinian side that allegedly cheered, banged the windows and generally mocked the English as they drove past them on their bus after the match.

Finally, in 2002, England gained revenge by knocking a highly fancied Argentina out in the group stages, courtesy of a dodgy penalty, then putting the icing on the cake by mocking the vanquished in the way they had been four years earlier.

We represent the two schools of football: Us, the pious upholders of gentlemanly competition* and them, the scurrilous and under-hand 'win-at-any-cost-even-handball-in-the-world-cup-quarter-final' mob.
(*I feel we may be wavering from this reputation now but that's how things were once).

So, we're into Argentina, we've had our bags scanned for drugs, weapons and "Diego is a cheat" tee-shirts and the first thing we see is not "Welcome to Argentina" but a sign stating "The Malvinas are Argentinian".

We walked through the town of La Quiaca and, with the help of a couple of locals, found the rather uninspiring Hotel de Turismo, a concrete edifice of great ugliness.
Our room had a bed though, plus a hot shower - all that we needed after our recent travails.

Dinner was not easy to come by in La Quiaca but we eventually found a dingy cafe and ordered steaks and salad. It was very expensive and we mused whether we had paid extra for the ten or more flies buzzing around us and trying to settle on our grub throughout our patronage.
Argentina is not cheap - certainly not when compared to Bolivia.

Our journey to Paraguay would be an arduous one. Five hours south to San Salvador de Jujuy, fourteen hours east to Resistencia and five more north to Asuncion in Paraguay.
The way we tackled this was to head for San Salvador on Thursday morning, wait four hours there for an overnight bus to Resistencia, hole up there for a day and night to rest and then hop to Asuncion on the third day.

Sounds a doddle; was, in reality, a tedious and bum-aching, expensive drag.

The first leg was ok, though we were stopped twice for exhaustive luggage searches by the sinister sounding "Ministerio Del Interior" (whose interior? Not mine I hope!).

For the long leg we were in for a shock price-wise, the fare being four times what the Lonely Planet suggested it would be. On the plus side we both slept soundly on the bus, even if I did wake up with a strangely sore left armpit.

We went to quite a nice hotel in Resistencia and, as I peeled the shirt I'd had on since I couldn't remember when, I was horrified to see a suppurating sore under my left arm which had an aroma part teenage boys trainer and part boxers jockstrap.

I'm glad to report that a couple of days of hygiene (fresh shirt, washing, that sort of thing) it seems to be on the mend but yesterday I was close to emailing Channel 4s "Embarrassing Bodies".

Resistencia (presumably translated as 'Resistance' - funny name for a town!) was boiling hot, surely over 32 degrees.
We had a delightful day lounging by the pool and braved the sweltering heat later on in the search for food.
The leafy streets, plazas and western shops were a world away from Bolivia and Peru and, if truth be known, it felt nice to be here, surrounded by familiarity.
We must have still stood out from the natives though, judging by the amount of stares we got. I like to think it's my blue eyes they're all so fascinated by but it could be Kerry's overheated pallor.

The final leg, with Asuncion just over the border, should have been a breeze but a late bus, noisy kids behind us, two-hour border formalities and inexplicable 90 minute skirting of Asuncion turned into a very long and tiring day.

We made it though, back to sea level, back to the tropics.
Man it's hot!

The Salt Pans of Uyuni

In accordance with the gospels of Matthieu, Marcus, Lou and Jean (authors of our Lonely Planet guidebook) we, along with a million other sheep-like gringos, were next to head south to a town called Uyuni, starting point for tours to the nearby salt pan.

Bolivia is something of a rarity in South America in that it has an operative rail network and, as luck would have it, Uyuni is well-served.
Before you go imagining a speedy, half-hourly service in all directions though let me quantify "well-served".
There are four trains per week passing through, originating in Oruru and making for Villazon on the Argentine border.
Four trains per week was cause for unbridled celebration though, it's four more than we have become accustomed to.

Oruro is four hours south of La Paz so we took a bus on Friday morning, 'admiring' the bone dry and litter-strewn landscape as we progressed.
With 60% of the population of Bolivia being of indigenous descent we were also treated to the sight of bowler hatted women shuffling about under the weight of several layers of woollen clothing.
Despite being 12000ft up we find the days boiling hot and are usually only wearing tee-shirts. The locals wear so many clothes that it's a wonder they don't overheat.
Near us on this bus was a guy in a wooly hat, a blanket, a coat, two visible jumpers, a shirt and a vest.

Here are a few other points of interest about Bolivia for you:
It is usually women who dress in the traditional way, men eschewing ponchos and sandals for western clothing.

Large amounts of silver were discovered in the country by the Spanish in the 1500s which resulted in the deaths of around 8 million people who were enslaved to extract it.

Simon Bolivar oversaw the creation of the Republic of Bolivia in 1825, the new country being named after him.

In the 180 odd years since independence was declared there have been almost 200 governments in power.

Back to the present day, we had three hours to kill in Oruro before our train departed so we bought our first class tickets (reclining seats, air-con, includes a meal) and had a lunch of thigh of goat in a watery broth in quite a swanky joint.
I felt a little out of place in flip flops, cargo pants and with my two months worth of beard dangling into my soup but Kerry demonstrated more acceptable standards with recently dyed, luxuriant brown barnet and had even conjured a stain and aroma-free top from somewhere.

Waiting at the station for the train, a steady stream of gringos pitched up, among them the familiar face of Andrea whom we'd met on the bus to Tiahuanaco the other day.
After high-fives and travel banter with her the train arrived and the station was a hive of activity and excitement. We found our seats, miraculously both facing forward and with an unrestricted window view and settled down for the seven hour journey.

As expected when travelling in a continent obsessed with television, first class accommodation came with the 'added bonus' of this medium.
Glitzy Hollywood movies are favoured, preferably with pyrotechnic displays and a multitude of explosions. Jason Statham appears to be revered here (rightly so) but dubbed in Spanish? Deary me!
Some people should never be dubbed: Statham, Ray Winstone, Clint Eastwood, Samuel L Jackson etc.

However, it wasn't Hollywood trash on the screen but none other than "The Old Grey Whistle Test" so, for once, we didn't have to plumb into our iPhones to escape the noise.
It couldn't last though and once we'd enjoyed twenty minutes of reminiscing, a truly dreadful Disney film was played where talking dogs saved Christmas.

By 1800 we were a bit peckish so took our seats in the restaurant car for our inclusive slap-up, only to be told by a heavily perspiring and seriously under pressure steward that we had different tickets and we should return to our seats where we would be brought something.
We waited a frustrating hour and a half before a chap waddled up the train with a plastic shopping basket administering paper bags to Uyuni bound passengers.
We could have eaten a scabby horse so you can imagine our dismay when we excitedly tore open our bags to find a packet of five biscuits and a sickly, E number-laden drink.

Deciding to pay for a proper meal in the restaurant car, we not only now found it full but with a queue having formed for the next available table.
Another hour passed before seats became free but the lukewarm chicken, rice and stone cold veg were just another disappointment.
The "Andean Explorer" this was not!

We arrived in Uyuni at 2210 and after much relationship-threatening prevarication, we wound up in a room with leaky sink and a pervading aroma of vomit for three times the price of the alternative (don't ask!). The beds were comfortable though and, providing you're not a fan of water pressure, the shower was hot.

Uyuni is a hole.
It only exists to service the salt pan so every other outlet is a tour operator, 90% of the rest are shoddily serviced pizza restaurants with the remainder made up of clothes shops where you can buy ethnic clothing to make you feel like you're truly embracing the continent and all it affords/look like a twat*.
(*delete as appropriate).

There were three options open to us tourwise: a one day, two day or three day tour.
Knowing that the next train out of here was Tuesday night and that any more spare time here could render us suicidal, we opted for the full monty, three days on the salt pan and beyond; in fact, a 1500km circuit of the far south west of Bolivia.

We convened on Sunday morning with our fellow travellers, people we would be confined to a jeep with and with whom we would share meals, a bedroom and rudimentary toilets.
We had actually selected them quite carefully, trawling round the agents asking to see who was booked for their trips.

There was Vincent and Elska, thirty something's from Am-schter-dam and Bengt and Lisa, late 50s from Stockholm.
We got into the jeep, me bagging the front seat to try to protect the old derrière as much as possible, and there was immediately a rumpus behind me.
A strapping chap with large backpack had taken a seat in the back, making seven in our six seat vehicle.

It's a well-known ruse of the agents, sell a seat that doesn't exist, squash them in, maximise profits. We remonstrated with the tour operator but he wasn't budging so it boiled down to leaving with an extra bod in the jeep or not going at all.

The first day of the tour was amazing. We visited a 'train cemetery' where defunct steam locomotives have sat and rusted since 1947.
Then we hit the salt pan and whilst only pictures really do justice to the tremendous vista we were confronted by, words like; otherworldly, mesmerising, surreal and breathtaking give you some inkling into what we saw. The brilliant white terrain made you feel you were in the Arctic and the clouds and blue sky exacerbated its beauty.

The salt pans were created when, ten million years ago (give or take a day or two) a huge inland sea dried up.
After suffering a puncture we visited a coral island which gave a fantastic 360 degree view from its highest point, flat and white as far as the eye could see.

There was great excitement on the island as two salt-encrusted cyclists rolled up and planned to spend the night.
I asked the guy, Dave, about the flag on his panniers as it looked like the Cornish flag.

"Yes, that's right, though I'm living with Sarah at the moment, in Devon, Exeter to be precise."

"Exeter? You're joking? We're from Exeter! Whereabouts?"

"Topsham".

It was such a coincidence and, if you're interested, you can read about their Alaska to Tierra Del Fuego cycle ride at www.5monthstomexico.blogspot.com.

Feeling very envious of them, their bikes and their true freedom I accepted the whistle from our driver as our cue to get back into the jeep and continue the tour.
(Baaaaa!)

We spent that first night in a salt hotel, accommodation fabricated completely with bricks of salt. It was a relief to see inside because outside it looked like a dilapidated hovel where one might keep pigs. The salt bedside table, salt bench and salt beds (with non-salt mattress) were quirky and fun.

Many jeeps from several agencies were running the same tour so there was a good thirty or so people spending the night here. Pre-dinner drinkies and chit chat flowed with representatives from most European nations.
We turned in early and slept like salt logs. It was incredibly peaceful and our salt door ensured we didn't hear a peep all night from anyone else.

We were roused early next morning for a full-on day visiting such natural wonders as: red, green and white lagoons - most with pink flamingos, a volcano, a stone forest and a desert, all interspersed with hours in the jeep gaping at scenery that would grace the pages of National Geographic.

Before setting out we had breakfast and a German chap took exception to Kerry and I helping ourselves to toast from his table. In an effort to smooth Anglo-German relations I apologised and offered him his choice of the flowery baps we had on our table.
He declined citing that toast belonged on his table and baps on ours.

We were finished quite early on the second day and had three hours to kill before dinner. This was made more difficult due to our accommodation being dormitory based, our seven jeepsters sharing one room, so lounging on ones bed in nothing but your grids was not an option.
Seeing Vincent and Elska outside our room taking tea and biccies at a table, Kerry and I joined them for a chinwag.

Herr Picky from earlier came along and asked if we'd seen a jar of Nescafé. I looked at our table and saw one so picked it up and offered it him. He declined saying that it might not be the right one to which I suggested he may be being a tad anal.
What followed is best not described in detail but suffice to say Germany and England were unhappy, Holland shocked, Sweden highly amused and Bolivia inexplicably agitated.
Its a shame because I have found Germans to be wonderful people over the years.
I guess I just brought the wurst out of this fellow.

After eating we had a couple of hours of inter-continental banter where we learned that our Swedes were both GPs and exceptionally well-travelled. Countries they have visited which were casually dropped into the conversation included: Vietnam, Uganda, Afghanistan, India, Iran and every country in Europe except Luxembourg, Latvia and Lithuania.
Not to be outdone, Ben, our dashing Bavarian and seventh man in the jeep, told tales of flying over the Colombian jungle in a military helicopter, drinking twenty bottles of lager with a priest in the slums of Medellin and having photographic evidence of being at the controls of a private jet at 45000ft.
He was a really likeable chap; gregarious, handsome, biceps like an arm-wrestling champion and teeth that could flog Colgate.
Why then he felt the need to pepper our evening with such tall-sounding tales I don't know.
On the other hand, if they're all true, he is the Christiano Ronaldo of travelling - he has it all.

On the third day we were woken at 0430 because we had around 600km to cover, 95% of which was off-road.
We set out under cover of darkness and made for a geyser field and the gurgling fissures of an active volcano.
We then bathed in the 30 degree water of a hot spring at 13500 feet before driving close to the Bolivia/Argentina/Chile border to drop Ben and a few others off who were Santiago bound.
That just left a 500km drive back to civilisation, mainly through scenery that could elicit gasps of admiration from a blind man.

One jeep broke down halfway back and we have no idea how long it and its six passengers were marooned there. Our driver tried to help but it was beyond him.

On the final approach into Uyuni, with bottoms aching and every other fibre of our beings yearning for anything but the inside of a jeep, we hit a particularly slippery section of mud road and slithered off, down the embankment and into a field. I guess we were lucky that we weren't, as you so often are around here, on a cliff edge.

Having seen the capital at length and now visited the fabled salt pans of Uyuni, we felt that we'd seen enough of Bolivia so undertook to head south into Argentina as soon as possible.
That opportunity was available to us on Tuesday night with the night train to the Argentine border.
Just what you need after three days in a jeep, with little sleep and without washing.

La Paz

Our pre-booked taxi failed to show so at 0715 on Monday morning I was hollering down the road at the fellow reversing out of his property, asking him to give us a lift to the bus terminal in his jalopy.
He obliged and ten minutes later we were boarding the bus for Copacabana, not the beach in Rio where bronzed torsos and taut buttocks reign, but a gringo hideout on the Bolivian shore of Lake Titicaca.

Here we would change buses and head to La Paz, whereas many of our fellow passengers would stay put, lose their shoes, omit to shave or wash, bang some bongos and get routinely pie-faced.

The Europeans that is. The rest of our bus was made up of young Peruvians (or they might have been Bolivians, they all look the same to me) and, because we were crossing a border there were formalities to adhere to.
These are no great shakes. Complete the paperwork you're given by the bus conductor with name, address, passport number and where you're headed to.
There are no trick questions and neither are you requested to explain the theory of relativity, to translate a 1000 word passage of Mandarin into Gujarati nor explain the offside rule to a woman.

Why then, it took the woman opposite us one full hour to complete her paperwork I know not.
What I do know is that her borrowing my pen for that length of time made me strangely uncomfortable and ridiculously possessive of the inanimate object that I had managed to charm out of a Colombian shop assistant for nothing anyway.
Maybe I've been away too long.
I knew it was irrational but I couldn't help wanting my pen back and tucking it safely in my bag, away from frivolous misuse.

Despite this, and the constant chatter of these young South Americans around us, the bus to Copacabana was much more comfortable than our connection.
On this second leg we were allocated seats at the very rear of the bus, seats which seemed more cramped than any others and which we're broken in the 'recline' position.
Not a normal recline position though, they were somehow curved so that your shoulders and hips were about a foot further back than than your midriff.
It would have been fine were we contortionists, yoga practitioners or on a different bus altogether.

I chatted to a Californian guy as we skirted Lake Titicaca, the usual stuff: how long are you travelling, where'd you start, where are you going to finish etc.
Like many twenty-something guys (and girls) on the road, his trip seemed to be based purely on alcohol.
Whilst I'm all for drinking to excess every now and again I don't know how these people do it (or afford it) night after night.
I must acknowledge though that I am undeniably 'middle-aged', a dreadful realisation but it explains why Kerry and I haven't truly bonded with anyone we've met.
Travellers seem to be either 20-30 ish and grooving on down at Part-ay Central night after night or sextuagenarians on three week long, all inclusive tours.
We are neither fish nor fowl.

We arrived in La Paz, elevation 12000ft, at tea time and found a good room, slap bang in the city centre with views of the nearby church and plaza of San Francisco.
The clocks had changed by an hour giving us an extra hour's daylight so we made use of this and had a bit of a wander.
For dinner we espied a self-proclaimed 'British curry house' and couldn't resist a rogan josh and a madras, the perfect antidote to the bland fare we've endured for so long.
They need to work on their naan bread and their take on pilau rice was truly bizarre but the sweat-inducing "Ruby Murrays" certainly hit the spot.

On Tuesday we set out to explore the city and, if truth be known, if you're not a museum buff it needn't take you long.
We walked about five miles in a loop around town and, because of the altitude and high pollution, it rendered us pooped quite quickly.

The city houses a million people and it appeared that they were all attempting to walk around the city centre at once.
It was chock-a-block and a real assault on the senses with bowler-hatted women shuffling about, menacingly masked shoe-shine boys and more beggars than we've seen since the USA.

It's quite a cosmopolitan place, not as upmarket as Panama City for instance, but it definitely leaves the likes of Tegucigalpa, Guat City and Managua wanting.

Our last major archaeological site of this trip could be found on the outskirts of La Paz so, despite the rain, we set out on Wednesday for Tiahuanaco.

Tiahuanaco culture predated the Inca but not a lot is known about them.
There is a lot of conjecture about when they were at their zenith, ranging from 10,000BC to 1000AD, a fantastic date range proving that next to nothing is truly understood or accepted.

It was a trial to get there as first we had to take a local collectivo to the city cemetery and then change there for another collectivo to Tiahuanaco.

Only one person was in the second van when we arrived to take our seats, not a good sign given that these usually only depart when full.
After quickly realising that we could sit there for aeons we paid for all the seats in the van so that he would leave immediately. While this sounds extravagant, each fare was only about a pound so it was still a bargain for the near two-hour journey.

We chatted to our fellow passenger, Andrea, discovering that she was that most unusual of travellers, a young, lone, female, South American backpacker.
She began telling us some of her tales and we were all astounded to realise that a companion of hers on a trek in the Peruvian cordillera four weeks hence was the same Derek we'd trekked to Machu Picchu with.

It was freezing cold, raining and blowing a gale as we got out of that van high on the Bolivian altiplano.
Those waterproofs and my super-insulated trekking jacket that I've carried in my pack for eight months through steaming jungles and to beaches hitting 32 degrees?
They'd be in the room back in La Paz!

We traipsed through this inclement weather, mud affixing itself to the soles of our trainers as we walked and to cap it all the site was a severe letdown.
The Sun Gate, something I'd wanted to ogle for many a long year, was much smaller than I thought it would be and the rest of the complex was in such ruinous condition that you'd have to be a serious archaeological nut to get too much out of it, particularly with it being so cold that our nipples were taking on the appearance of chapel hat pegs.

One short hour later we joined an equally underwhelmed Andrea in a collectivo back to La Paz, reaching there in good time to find a bar in which to watch Chelsea v Nordsjaellands in the Champions League.
Not any old bar either; Oliver's is run by a Villa fan from Birmingham who came backpacking to South America five years ago, met a local girl and decided to stay.
It was lovely to talk footy with someone who knew their onions, despite his questionable allegiance.

I had two pints of the local beer as I delighted in watching Chelsea's demise and never have I felt so sloshed on such a paltry amount.
Not good considering what I was to undertake the next day whilst my travelling companion had a well-deserved day of pampering and self-indulgence.

On Thursday I was up early leaving a slumbering Kerry to her own devices, which turned out to be hair dyeing and emailing just about everyone she knows.

I was making for the Cafe Alexander, rendezvous for those about to embark on a traversal of 'The Worlds Most Dangerous Road', a 65km downhill mountain bike extravaganza.

You may recall this road from a Top Gear Special a couple of years back.
It links La Paz with Coroico in the Yungas region of Bolivia and is notorious for the number of deaths that have occurred on it.
Since it opened in the 1940s an average of 26 people have met their maker at its hands each year.
Since mountain biking down it began in 1998 around 20 cyclists have succumbed to stupidity, carelessness or misfortune and not made it back to claim their "I Rode The Worlds Most Dangerous Road - and survived" tee shirts.

We travelled by minibus up to a pass at 15300ft and were issued with our bikes, full suspension MTBs, and our professional looking gear.

The first 20 odd kilometres were on the tarmac and the wonderful rush of careering downhill on a push bike soon engulfed me.
A couple of young Aussies in our group seemingly had a death wish, overtaking a lorry which was overtaking a bus on a blind bend but I guess that was up to them.

We soon arrived at the main event and had a stern briefing from our American guide about road etiquette and not to take stupid risks.
In our favour the road was effectively decommissioned in 2007 with the opening of the new road. On the other hand, knowing you were unlikely to encounter much, if any, traffic could lead to foolhardy derring do, falls, injuries or worse.

The surface was atrocious. Perfect for mountain biking but it was little wonder
that so many accidents had occurred over the years. It was essentially scree with hairpin bends, waterfalls which fell directly onto the road, a couple of landslides, two streams and precipitous drops which, when flashing past on a bicycle, did not require dwelling on.

Well, obviously I came to no harm.
And don't worry Ma, I slowed down from 50mph to 45mph for the corners.

It was an absolutely brilliant experience, cycling at its most extreme and a fabulous thrill.
Of course it was reckless and at my age I should perhaps know better but I know I would have cursed had I not given it a bash.

Plus, I now have a new tee shirt.

Puno and Lake Titicaca

Puno, the Peruvian gateway to Lake Titicaca, seemed a bit easier on the eye with the advent of daylight and with some breakfast inside us.

That said, aside from a couple of nice plazas and a rather impressive and imposing cathedral, the only reason to come here really is to visit the lake.

Lake Titicaca is the world's largest high altitude lake and the area in general is renowned for its crystal clear air - an oasis on the parched and barren altiplano.

We formulated plans to visit the Aymara people, who live on floating islands made of the tortora reeds found in the lake on Sunday, with a view to a more extensive overnight visit with a family on Monday and Tuesday.

Feeling the effects of the 12000ft altitude, we procured a bicycle-taxi to take us to the docks once we'd knocked the opportunistic, gringo exploiting driver down from 50p to 30p.
It was an interesting half-mile journey. There is one main street in Puno with travel agents and restaurants abounding; outside of that the town appeared to be little more than a down-at-heel receptacle for rubble and rotten fruit, patrolled by approximately one squillion mangey mongrels.

We soon arrived at the docks, found a captain and began negotiations. For just a few soles 'El Capitan' would take us to Uros, the floating islands, leaving us for a couple of hours to explore.
Tomorrow, he would take us to the Isla Taquile, four hours away, picking us up the following day.

In an inspired piece of reticence, Kerry suggested we hold off from paying for tomorrow's trip until we'd seen what today held for us.

Things began well with our boat pootling out over the lake and we were soon ploughing through channels in the reeds and, rather incongruously, passing a sign welcoming us to the floating islands.

We entered an expanse of water and saw a two-hulled reed boat being paddled by two natives which, with the bright clear sky as backdrop, provided an awesome sight.
At the other side of this body of water were 53 floating islands, one of which we soon berthed at and were greeted by no less than the President himself.

Not the president of Peru or Puno or even of the Uros islands as a whole. Carlos was the president of this particular island, an island inhabited by his family alone.
By that token this blog is brought to you courtesy of His Greatness, The Exalted Grand Archduke of 15 Chelsea Place, Master Of All He Surveys (except for the garden where next door's cat has the nap hand).

Despite his delusions of office he gave us a relatively interesting lecture on the history of the islands, the people, how the islands are made and maintained and how they sustain themselves.
Though exclusively in Spanish, we picked up that fish forms the staple of their diet, that they have to keep laying new reeds as the ones at the bottom rot away and that tourism is booming.

That much was evident. Our boat with nine or ten passengers was one of thirty or so on the lake, all visiting different islands.

After El Presidente's spiel we were invited into his bedchamber. This took the form of an 8'x8' hut made of reeds in which was nothing except a bed, equally made of reeds.
It's doubtful that any people anywhere are so intrinsically linked with a plant: they live on it and in it, they sleep on it, sail on it, make rope out of it and crafts too to sell to fair-skinned suckers who will be wondering what on earth they're going to do with that miniature reed boat before they even get back to Puno.

I'm not entirely sure why but sitting on the presidents bed with a swathe of Peruvians, being addressed by the great man himself tickled both Kerry and me.
I think it was the absurdity of it all.
I'd love to report that we experienced some sort of epiphany by meeting these amazing people who eke an existence so close to nature and know little of the world at large.
Instead we found it all so staged and touristy.

We were then invited to board a double-hulled and two-storey reed boat for a short trip to the 'capital' of the Uros islands.
Here we found a gaggle of teenage boys begging for coins to be thrown into the lake so that they could retrieve them, more craft stalls and a cafeteria.

Not wishing to contribute to the performing monkey psyche of the boys and having traded a few soles and a packet of biscuits for a rather fetching hat and pendant we took a seat under a parasol (made of reeds) and I ordered a coffee.

It looked unpalatable and tasted worse but I persevered, only considering half-way through that the water for the drink must have come from the lake.
Suddenly worried that they may not have boiled it fully and I may therefore be in the process of introducing a parasite to my intestines I surreptitiously poured the remainder away and tried not to think what may be occurring within me.

After giving a bag of sweets to a young girl and a bag of apples to a crone we were on our way back to Puno.
Our captain met us off the boat expectantly but we had to disappoint him. There was no way we could spend two days on an island on the lake after our semi-excruciating visit to the Uros.
Don't get me wrong, it was fascinating but it all just felt peculiar, like they were an exhibit in a museum or animals in a zoo. Half a day was plenty for us.

That left us plotting our escape and with us only being around six or seven hours from La Paz, capital of Bolivia, that seemed a logical step.
We bought tickets for an early departure next morning and went out for dinner.
With it being our last night in Peru I was determined to eat guinea pig, it having so far eluded me or been discounted because it was double the cost of other options.

We took our seats in a restaurant, close to a triumvirate of Aussies who had been on the Pisco Sours for a while by the sounds of it.
Nothing wrong with that I know but the intoxicating liquor had loosened the female member of the party's tongue such that she rattled non-stop, and about the most banal subjects.
Her pillows and bedding, how she likes a spare bed to put her case on, how Machu Picchu is one of the most wondrous places on this earth (you don't say!), how widely she's travelled, how pissed she is, how her first husband used to indulge her and a barrage of other mind-numbing diatribe, all delivered in a particularly irksome dialect.

They left as our meals arrived and my relief at one was equalled by my disappointment and antipathy towards the other.
A rite of passage it may be if visiting Peru but there is nothing clever about ordering an undernourished rat for your main meal of the day.
A baked head, curled up claws and tail are off-putting to begin with but extracting less than the equivalent of one mouthful of gamey meat after thirty minutes endeavour confirms your choice as an abject failure.
I never thought I'd say this but I'd have preferred chicken and rice.

An hour later I was wishing even more vehemently that I hadn't bothered.
Or was Titicaca gold blend responsible?

And so ends our time in Peru.
A heavenly beach, surfing, paragliding, nature, dune-buggying, light aircraft, history's mysteries, a wonder of the world and a visit to an incredible lake and its people.
It's been a brilliant five weeks but with time slipping away we need a beach if we're not going to go crackers.

Hmmmm, isn't Bolivia land-locked?