So long, South America, and thanks for all the fish

The journey from Cuzco to Lima was singularly remarkable in that we got on the wrong plane. As the trip draws to its conclusion, the Peruvian capital being the final destination on the grand tour, it seems only fitting that something as esoterically preposterous as this should take place during our final internal flight. Only in South America could there be two aeroplanes bound for the same city leaving at exactly the same time from precisely the same gate. And only in South America would the wrong airline staff wave you onto their plane. Peruvian Airlines. Star Peru. It was all the same to us. And all the same to them, until a member of the Peruvian Airlines cabin crew, registering the cock-up, came to usher us off the plane and back into the departure lounge. As we boarded the slightly delayed Star Peru flight it occurred to me how gutting it would be should we, having come all this way, end by careering to our deaths in a fuselage fireball. 'If only we had stayed on the other plane' we'd lament while assuming the brace position (if such a stance existed on this continent), 'we might have made it to Lima'.

Make it to Lima we did, but for all my gratitude at not combusting en route, I'm more grateful that we only allocated two nights to the place before flying back to London. The Peruvian capital is, for want of a more colourful word, grey. Not grey in the sense of a few steely clouds on a miserable Autumn day in London. In Lima the entire sky and, by reflection, the land beneath, is a uniformly boredom-tinted block of non-colour all the time. Whether this is the result of the frequent gales of black crap being emitted from the exhausts of clapped out motors or simply Lima's unique microclimate, I'm not certain. Maybe it was just that we were visiting. Upon arrival at our hostel the kindly proprietor offered us a hand drawn map of the city, indicating the main points of interest. These transpired chiefly, our host being quite a big fellow, to be eateries. 'But what are all those emphatically scribbled crosses, coloured in with pink highlighter pen for enhanced visibility, daubed over the bulk of the map?' we wondered. 'Ah yes', our guide elucidates, 'these are places you tourists must not go. It is very dangerous. You will be hacked at with a rusty bread knife, robbed and left profusely bleeding in a dark alley while the rats gnaw away at your still-blinking eyelids' (I paraphrase). So it was that, with ninety percent of Lima off limits, our scope for exploration became reduced solely to the Miraflores area. The focal point of this part of town is a long road of covered outdoor restaurants, all of which are identical in their equipment of jumbo television screens, all broadcasting music videos featuring heavily oiled strumpets grinding provocatively against members of (and belonging to) the Hip Hop fraternity. The waiters stand outside accosting the passing gringo with offers of free drinks. Not so much a vignette of authentic South American life as a stag weekend in Magaluf. One waiter talked so much that we sat down at his place in order to make him stop. Despite the off-putting Costa Del Sol marketing system deployed by the restaurant, the fish we ordered was surprisingly some of the best we'd had on the whole trip (see previous disenfranchised, bad fish related entries).

Apart from eating, there seemed little else to entertain us in the Peruvian capital... until, that is, we realised that after three months without a cut Matt's hair was now long enough to make into a ponytail. So that's what we did.

Oh, how we laughed.

Another chapter in the 'Make your own fun when it's too dangerous to go outside' handbook is entitled 'Why not photograph a bottled water, the name of which, correct spelling and umlaut not considered, is marginally un-PC and slightly comical.

So, that's what we did.

Just when we thought things couldn't get any more wild, we looked out of our hostel window and saw this, a youth quite literally turning tricks in front of cars waiting at the traffic lights.

I don't know which was more impressive, the head-spinning hula hoop display or the sight of South American drivers heeding a red light.

That was Lima and then it was time to go home.

So that's what we did.

The tooth about Cuzco: A city worth flocking to

Having spoken to many a fellow traveller on our way around South America we came to learn that Cuzco was, by all accounts, a shit hole not to be lingered upon. But if like us you want to visit the revered Inca site of Machu Picchu, Cuzco is, in it's proximity to the Gringo Promised Land a logical base camp and a necessary evil. We stayed in Cuzco twice, both before and after our big trip to the Inca ruins, and were relieved to find that the city wasn't nearly as much of a tourist-robbing stab spot as we had been led to believe.

We stayed at the laughably titled Walk-On-Inn. Situated as it was at the top of a very steep hill at an altitude of 3,400 meters, it would more accurately be named 'The Claw-Your-Way-Up-What-Seems-Like-A-Mountain-All-The-While-Panting-Like-A-Dog-In-A-Hot-Car-Before-Collapsing-At-The-Entrance-In-A-Crumpled-Heap-A-Shell-Of-The-Person-You-Once-Were-Inn'. Despite this minor drawback, we liked the hostel for its beautiful views of the town below and for its friendly staff, who took great pride in meticulously polishing every leaf of the hundreds of indoor plants.

Our lofty hostel served as a good base for exploring the many eccentricities of this much maligned place, one such quirk being the local attitude to animals.

Exhibit A.

Yes, this picture is what it looks like. A trio of Peruvian women knitting and clutching small lambs. Yes, the lambs have woolly hats on. The ladies have gone with this seasons must have head accessory - the lampshade. This photo pretty much encapsulates the sublime/ridiculous balancing act that characterises many a custom the continent over. It wouldn't have surprised me to see these women weaving their garments using yarn straight from the backs of these little sheep. If there was ever an animal less in need of a woolly bonnet... No matter. We wandered into another hostel in search of a travel agent and found a tiny lamb frolicking about with his green parrot friend. Yep, that's something you see every day. Also commonly sighted are people walking around the streets of Cuzco with a llama on a rope. Unblinkingly we accepted this to be the Peruvian equivalent of the classic British tramp with a dog on a string.

Another thing that I will remember about Cuzco is its inhabitants love of gold bridgework. When looking around for trips to Machu Picchu and conversing in fractured Spanish to people in little travel offices, I couldn't help singing my own little song - 'The Man With The Midas Tooth' - in my head, of course. On a trip to San Blas (the area that is to Cuzco what Montmartre is to Paris) we came across two initially intimidating but eventually amiable policemen. The one with the blingy, Jaws from James Bond teeth was called Ebert while his sidekick was introduced as John Rambo. Our delight faded to disappointment as this turned out to be no more than a nickname. Eddy was Rambo's crime fighting name by day. 'Thank god it's their job to protect us and not rob us of our valuables and lives' we breathed as we said our goodbyes to the chatty rozzers. The fact was, the two men were built like brick shithouses and Ebert had a handshake vice-like enough to reduce a man's digits to an unrecognisable pulp. The presence of such hulking policemen certainly seemed to do the trick. We roamed the idyllic cobbled streets of Cuzco largely unmolested, except for the occasional offer of a massage (insert own happy ending gag here).

Much to Matt's chagrin he had forgotten to bring out his knitting needles and flock.

Inca-redible Machu Picchu

All those many months ago, when Matt and I first declared our intention to go travelling around South America, the immediate response from our friends and families was always "are you going to do the Inca Trail? You have to do the Inca Trail. INCA TRAIL! The Trail of all the Inca shit. Blah blah blah!" Over-brimming with excitement and anticipation at our forthcoming adventure as we doubtless were, the concept of the Inca Trail was at once a distant, mythical figment of our imaginations as well as an imperative of our trip. You can't go to Peru without doing the Inca Trail, can you? And now flash forward approx. four months. We have visited Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Bolivia... and now we're back in Peru. For the best part of three months we have schlepped around, explored, hopped on buses, taken planes, traipsed around a bit more, slept for a few hours here and there... and carried on walking around, and around, taking in as many of the amazing sights, sounds... (maybe not the smells) as possible. When in Cuzco a traveller is but a llama's spit from the gringo Mecca that is Machu Picchu. It would be an abominable slight to all those Incas and their nifty architectural skills to not go and have a butchers. But after three months of high octane 'dash and flash', speeding around the continent taking pictures of everything, can we really be arsed to embark on the Inca Trail? We're talking a four day trek, people. With camping. And no showers. Or bogs (this is a significant factor for reasons I can't possibly relate with any couthness). After at least eleven seconds consideration, the decision was made. Hell No. Not a chance. Fortunately for us, Machu Picchu has become such a boon for the Peruvian peoples that there are now measures in place to transport lazy, bloated tourists such as we are to the hallowed viewing spots of the promised land. Day trip to the Inca ruins anyone? Yes please! We decided to make things easier for ourselves by visiting a travel agent in the form of an American man called Erick. It soon became apparent that Erick had been in South America too long and had adopted the manana approach to organisation that characterised the Peruvian administration. Ironically, our labour saving objective had backfired, leaving us to traverse the red tape that is Macchu Picchu bureaucracy ourselves. Train tickets purchased from the PeruRail kiosk and passes to the Inca site obtained from the municipal offices at Cuzco, we were eventually good to go. The following day we got a taxi to Ollantaytambo from where we had the pleasure of queueing for roughly seven years with thousands of other travellers, only to be shooed onto a collectivo (mini-bus). Once on the bus, an arse-breakingly rocky ride was enjoyed by all, along a tiny road so dusty that visibility (and breathability) within the vehicle proved scarce. to add to the excitement, the 'road' was barely wide enough for one car. should another bus be trundling in the opposite direction, one had to reverse for about a mile to let the other scrape past. Such japes! And all before we'd even arrived at Machu Picchu! The next leg of the journey involved queueing for three quarters of an hour to board a charmingly antiquated little train that would take us to Aguas Callientes, the home of some hot springs and base camp for our long awaited day trip. At a mere hour and twenty minutes, the train ride seemed a piece of piss compared to some of the other journeys we had undertaken, and after all that standing in line and catching connections, here we were at our riverside hotel, an Inca bricks throw away from the big cheese of the Gringo Trail. We were met by the guide we had hired to show us around all the Inca shit the following day. Her name is Esmerelda (The Bells! The Bells! etc) and she wanted to know what time we wanted to be picked up in the morning. 'Not as early as all those fruitcakes who get there at 3.30 am only to be pissed on by freezing drizzle' was the answer we paraphrased. The more civilised hour of 7.30 am was agreed upon, and Esmerelda gave an audible sigh of relief at being off the hook for sparrows' fart duty.

Even as it was, the 6.30 am wake up wasn't a good way to start the day for me. So befuddled was I at being faced with breakfast at an hour that I consider to be the middle of the night, I erroneously ordered tea instead of the usual coffee. Matty promptly slapped me around the face and rectified my order to the perplexed waiter, thus rescuing me from a day of semi-consciousness. My hero.

True to her word, Esmerelda defied the usual South American guidelines on punctuality and was waiting for us in the foyer at the appointed hour, radiant in a pink shell suit jacket. What a don. We all caught yet another collectivo up the vertiginously winding mountain road to the entrance of Machu Picchu, where you can get an awesome little souvenir stamp in your passport for posterity. Wasting no time, Esmerelda took us to the main viewing point of the site, from which apparently, all the classic shots of Machu Picchu are taken. Our guide, having seen it all before, remained blase while Matt and I were quietly blown away by the beauty of the scene before us.

It doesn't matter how many pictures of the Inca ruins you see in guidebooks etc, being there and seeing it for yourself is the only way to completely appreciate its awe-inspiring splendour. Nothing can prepare you for the astonishing beauty of the sun reflecting off the square stoned buildings, the incredibly steep and vertiginous terraces and the unusually verdant grass which, unlike most of the grass in South America, looks more like an English country garden than a baked brown drought. Except that most English lawns don't have llamas for lawnmowers.

As we wandered around, our guide, Esmerelda conscientiously explained things to us that we might not have picked up on had we gone it alone. The sun temple with a window so aligned as to let in the light to it's centre specifically on the Summer and Winter equinox. How did they do that? The condor statue (as previously emulated by Zoe and Co. - see Arrequipa post), sculpted from stone to form two giant wings. The straight precision of the masonry, impossible in it's symmetry. What, did these Incas have rulers, or what?

Esmerelda took us to the Botanical Garden next, where we marvelled at more varieties of orchid than I even knew existed, bamboo and a wealth of other exotic looking flowers. Delightfully enough, we were able to get really close to the llamas that amble around the grounds, though thankfully not spitting distance! This is evidenced by the nine thousand photos of the animals we will have shown you if you were unlucky enough to receive the pre-edit slide show - eg Lucy and Neil. After a couple of hours of tour guiding, our lovely Esmerelda left us to explore by ourselves, so we took the opportunity to walk up towards the famous Sun Gate. This is the point at which people doing the Inca Trail proper enter the Machu Picchu site after four days of hard slog. Having witnessed a few such unfortunates - exhausted, stinky and so over walking, we were quite glad that we'd chosen the lazy-arse option. Even our short ramble up the path was a bit much in the scorching heat, but well worth it for the interesting and beautiful foliage you see along the way, not to mention the staggering views of the ruins from above.

We made it back down the hill in time for one last perambulation around the stone ruins and a fond farewell to our llama friends before the heavens began to open. Just as we were catching the collectivo back to Aguas Callientes the first rain drops started to fall. This also coincided with the arrival of a whole coach load of Japanese tourists, cameras at the ready. Bad luck, we chortled as we took shelter on the bus, our Machu Picchu adventure finally ticked off the 'To Do' list of our lifetimes.

La Paz and All That Jazz

When I think of 'the Jazz Bar' I invariably have visions of a smoky blue, dimly lit basement, little round tables with candles and wine, gravel-toned musicians and of course, a stage full of musical instruments. In my head, 'the Jazz Bar' is always in the 1970s or, having never been there myself, how I'm positive the '70s must have been. Bearing all these romantic fantasies in mind, imagine my delight when I got the chance to visit a real life '70s jazz bar! But it wasn't in the '70s! It was in this very decade! Coma awakeners and the forgetful, it's 2010. The Thelonious bar in La Paz has it all from the razor throated waitress right down to the hangover inducing cheapo table wine. Hooray! On our first trip to Thelonious there was a band comprising two silky voiced ladies, a hyper-enthusiastic guitarist, bass player and a keyboard player whose lack of a thumb on his left hand failed to impede his fabulously frenetic performance. Also present was a man with a table upon which was a vast array of instruments. Maracas, the triangle, a washboard. It was as if he's raided the music room cupboard at my old primary school. As he played each item in turn and seemingly at random, it became clear that this fellow had The Dream Job. The resulting sound of the band's collective effort was a kind of 'elevated elevator music', easy listening speeded up with an upbeat Bossa Nova rhythm. We returned to Thelonious after our trip to Uyuni. The Salt Flats, whilst offering their own unique brand of saline entertainment, were a musical wasteland. Thus, the aurally deprived Uyuni contingent all hot footed it sharpish down to the jazz bar.

This time our performers were two men, one large, one smaller, the latter bearing a resemblance to Lionel Richie. Both proved to be breathtakingly accomplished guitarists and surprisingly emotive vocalists. Lionel had a wind chime that he ran his hand along for that lounge room ambience. His guitar also had a CD for a fret board. I know not why, but it seemed to work. We found from our Canadian friends that we'd arrived just too late for the Buena Vista Social Club medley. Obviously gutted, we were cheered by the rapid and adept guitar duo as they stirred the audience with their impassioned, intense and typically Latin singing. Only one member of the audience remained unmoved. Having had, I can only assume, a tiring day at the office, to say nothing of a few too many drinks, a man sitting in front of us kept dropping off. Mr Snooze's buddy, meanwhile, danced around furiously. Aghast at the napper's apathy to such uplifting music he occasionally slapped his friend on the back of the head in an attempt to rouse him from his slumber. zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

The Curious Magic of the Uyuni Salt Flats

The overnight bus journey from La Paz to Uyuni was the most bone-shaking experience of my life. Emerging blinking into the morning sun like a newborn fawn, sleep deprived and with aching bones from the rocky and laughably named 'road' I thought "This bloody trip had better be worth it's salt". We had a couple of hours to kill before the Jeep was to take us on our way, so we pottered around the early morning market, surveying the diversity of complete tat being peddled. Our newly acquired Canadian friends and our companions for the Uyuni adventure, Meg and Fed agreed that garish-coloured plastic dinosaurs would be an ideal prop for the silly perspective pictures we were looking forward to taking later that day. How original, we congratulated ourselves. No one else is going to have these. Not so, as it later transpired that the Salt Flats had more dinosaurs than Jurassic Park. That Prehistoric plastic vendor must make an absolute killing from fatigue-addled gringos freshly stumbled from the Hell Bus, such as we were. Dinos duly purchased, the four of us tramped off to meet our driver and guide for the next two days. Elias is a quiet, gently spoken chap with floppy hair, Roy Orbison shades, a fine alpaca jumper, and no determinate age. Our first stop is the Cave del Diablo, a low-ceilinged grotto with several square holes carved into the ground. These were said to be the tombs that housed the local dead, although the bodies mysteriously no longer lie there. Legend has it that the Devil possessed the bodies, taking them with him to hell, a typical example of imaginative Bolivian folklore. Nearby are 'the Galaxias', another cave, this time filled with astonishingly fragile rock formations, uncannily resembling corroded mammal bones. The fun didn't stop at marvelling at extraordinary rocks. Oh no. We then entertained ourselves no end by looking at the perfectly formed salt pyramids harvested by the salt miners and then going and standing upon them. A most diverting exercise. What japes! Lunchtime brought us to a salt hotel. At first glance a very basic structure with craggy and uncomfortable furniture, it is remarkable for the fact that everything - walls, chairs, tables, though mercifully not the bog - is made from compacted salt blocks. It came as no real surprise to our group of by now seasoned travellers, accustomed to the quirky illogicality peculiar to the South American peoples, that there was no salt made available for consumption with lunch. It was all we could do to resist stealing a pinch from the floor to enhance our essentially flavourless meal. My main reason for wanting to visit the Bolivian Salt Flats had always been that they afforded the opportunity to pose for and compose ridiculous perspective photographs. Puerile, I know. Imagine my childlike glee when after lunch we drove to an optimum spot for taking just such a frivolous collection of snapshots, the Islas Pescados. After cavorting about on the crunchy salt crystals like ecstatic five year olds in the first snow, Meg, Fed, Matty and I set about the task of trying to make our little dinosaurs look gigantic and menacing against the expanse of blinding white landscape and brilliant blue sky. Like the other two hundred and forty eight people wielding toy dinosaurs alas, we failed, as evidenced by the unconvincing menagerie enclosed below.  Other props we utilised to better effect were: a corkscrew (On account of the blog title), a bottle of wine, a Rough Guide to South America, a pair of sunglasses and a borrowed house of cards. By some incredible magic we discovered that, if we positioned ourselves at certain distances on the salt, it would appear that a tiny me was standing on a giant Matty's hand or a miniscule he was dangling from the fingertips of a gargantuan me. We played about for ages and revelled in the tremendous environment of the Salt Flats. They possess a bizarre and surreal quality, reflecting the mountains of the horizon, giving them the effect of floating on air. It's really like nothing you've ever seen, as cliche as this must sound. 
On day two of the Uyuni trip a series of events unfurled that made us grateful for our reliable guide Elias, the follicularly blessed and well-sunglassed. The first was an encounter with another tourist Jeep sporting totally threadbare tyres, one of which had unsurprisingly given up the ghost. It was obviously written into the Uyuni Tour Guide Code Of Honour that, upon encountering a colleague in vehicular peril, one must stop to help. Elias did just that, supplying the unfortunate driver with a jack, thus facilitating his assuming a very precarious position with his head beneath the offending Jeep. If jacks are as unreliable as every other article on this wonderful continent we didn't hold out much hope for him. Still, the incident passed without fatality and freed our party on the way to the next debacle. We had on our travels often heard tale of the relaxed attitude Bolivian drivers have to abstaining from alcohol. In that they don't bother. So we encountered another tour group, most chagrined at having been forced to send their driver home. It was ten in the morning and he was pissed as a newt. Perhaps he had forgotten to spit out his mouthwash that morning but, given the general profile of driving folk in Bolivia, this seemed unlikely. Anyway, back to our trip, with the thankfully sober and well tyred Elias. Next stop was the mummy cave. There is no small amount of pleasure to be gained from seeing a rock with an arrow pointing the way and the legend 'Mummies' painted on it with white paint. Or it could have been Tippex. The mummies were exceptional and creepy. The story we heard from the guide was that a nocturnal people had perished when they were forced from their cave into the sunlight and incurred terrible burns. This didn't exactly ring true but the event seems entirely un-Google-able. Answers on a postcard please. Speaking of holiday correspondence, the happy news came today from Matty's sister, Lucy and her beloved, Neil that they had only just received the postcard we sent two and a half months ago from Argentina. God love the South American postal system! Yes, the mummies. We gawked at the strangely preserved, gnarled and grotesque bodies for some time, wondering how on earth they manage to retain their hair when all around us living specimens fail to do so. I would never recommend trekking up a volcano in flip flops, much less at an altitude of 4, 200 meters. At this height, every step you take feels like a sprint and by golly, I was exceedingly out of breath approx. two steps in. Our youthful guide Elias, who we shamefully found to be no less than fifty years old, coursed up the volcano with nary a wheeze. Imagine my consternation when Meg and I, she a mere twenty three years of age and I (only 20!) found it a right challenge to get anywhere at all. The scenery was beautiful, as far as I managed to gather from the inexplicable altitude induced hayfever symptoms. Many a cute ear-tasselled  llama dotted the landscape, as did the odd lurid red quinoa field. The views of the salt flats below, the many-hued orange, red, grey and green volcano and the birds eye aspect of the Salt Flats and it's mysterious floating mountains all made this a voyage worthy of the considerable effort. Fed and Matty were given the chance to drive the Jeep across the Salt Flats. Now, I'm not a driver myself, but even I knew that this is no mundane motoring experience. The salt is almost completely unmarked and navigation is done by simply staring at and following the tracks left by the previous vehicles. This must be soporific in the extreme. Since you rarely pass anything by there is no frame of reference as to how fast the car is going, and obviously it would have been foolish to expect anything as ordinary as a functioning speedometer aboard our Jeep. Against all the odds we made it to our final port of call, the Train Cemetery in Uyuni. Here lie an abundance of once-glorious, now rust-coloured and abandoned steam locomotives. Decrepit as the old trains are, they still appear very striking against a Western movie-style backdrop of parched red earth and deep blue sky. One local couple found this antiquated bygone scene the perfect place to canoodle, while the four of us found the anachronism stark, sad but very beautiful. One comedian graffitti artist had scrawled in Spanish on one of the decaying machines 'Mechanic urgently required'. Clearly that ship had sailed but it was a nice concept.

   

Various Notes on La Paz

The bus journey from Copacabana to La Paz proved to be unique in that it didn't take place wholly on land. Leaving Copacabana the bus seemed always to be following Lake Titicaca. We saw it to the left, then the right, then before us and behind. Now, my geography wouldn't win any prizes (except that I once got 100% in the USA geography quiz at school in 1993), but even I knew that in order to get to La Paz we should probably be moving away from the lake. At the very least we were expecting a bridge. The situation that followed could well have featured in a poster campaign for  'Travelling In South America: An Idiosyncratic and Off the Wall Pursuit'. So we all had to get off the bus at this pseudo port and pile into a rickety old fishing boat to, as the chicken jokes go, get to the other side. While on the vessel a German girl asserted 'I'm fine with this. Some people get really seasick, but I'm not one of them No, I'm not feeling sick at all'. Sitting directly opposite her, I instantly thought that the German girl was feeling ill as the proverbial hund and was trying to talk herself out of it. Getting across the pond without being spewed upon was definitely one of my greatest achievements to date (notwithstanding that quiz at school). So, what had become of our bus in the interim? Obviously nearby there was some hastily constructed bridge to cater for the overflow of tourist traffic that has risen over the past few years, a bridge that couldn't take the weight of both passengers and vehicle. Ho ho, not so, as we witnessed our bus floating across the lake on what appeared to be a makeshift raft. I have enclosed a photo here as this mode of transport would be beyond belief for any commuting tube connoisseur. After this delightfully diverting passage, La Paz was a bit of a culture shock after party-centric yet laid back Copa. The steep, narrow and broken pavements and streets are flanked by as many artisan markets selling alpaca jumpers and other diverse wares as can be imagined. However slim the streets might be, you still take your life into your own hands crossing them. Beeping, decrepit buses make their presence known by virtually nudging your legs as you pass. There is no pedestrian right of way per se, although the Bolivian street walkers appear to be used to it, despite the collectivos coursing toward them, probably because the bumper to bumper traffic disallows them squeezing through with their portly frames. It's a wonderful minefield. 

The Bolivians are a superstitious bunch. One of their idols is a fat little buddha-like character called Ekeko. The locals have his image in their house and load him up with all the things they want during the forthcoming year. Aspirational items such as cash, SUVs, mansions, lottery tickets and, bizarrely, cigarettes are purchased in miniature and piled onto poor overburdened Ekeko. Then you take your little figurine to a Witch Doctor to be blessed so that the tiny trinkets become a mega reality. Matty and I bought a little wooden carving of Ekeko but strangely couldn't locate a Witch Doctor in La Paz. I'm afraid our ship might not come in on this occasion. At high altitude any beverage you choose to partake of has an accentuated effervescence. Imaginative people as the Bolivians doubtless are, they've managed to cultivate a game from this geographical quirk. If your out on the town with your friends and happen to be sharing an oversized beer, do the pour and observe what fate has decreed. Too much head is a curse to male lager drinkers (we're not in bloody Holland now) but a blessing for those same males in other areas of their lives, where there can never be too much, if you know what I mean. Nudge nudge, wink wink. Anyway, if you're in Bolivia and find yourself with the most frothy beer, you're the lucky one. The next thing you need to do is take a pinch of your beer head and pop in in your pocket. This action apparently guarantees you no end of fiscal wealth in your forthcoming life. A flimsy consolation prize to having less actual beer than everyone elseat the table and more bubbles? Perhaps. It's quite a nice custom nonetheless. Speaking of booze, another fantastic thing about La Paz is it's shower gel. We bought this red wine infused body cleanser from a street vendor, not least because procuring any goods whatsoever from a South American pharmacy is the epitome of a massive faff. So, the pharmacy gig goes thus. You select your chosen toiletry and take it to the counter, cash in hand. The person you've approached at said counter looks befuddled at your brandishing of money so early on in the transaction and issues you with a ticket, stipulating the product you're interested in and it's cost. This ticket then needs to be related to a second pharmacy assistant who is, to all intents and purposes, The Cashier. He or she accepts your ticket, along with the long wielded money,  and stamps the document. The next step for the customer is to transport the now validated ticket to the original shop assistant you had dealings with (remember, all those moons ago, when you wanted some SPF15?) who will finally pass you your goods with a receipt. Who would have thought getting some sun lotion on board would be such a time consuming rigmarole? Regardless, how about that red wine flavoured shower gel? To think, I went into the bathroom smelling like booze. Now I can emerge, doused in cosmetic cleansers, smelling not wildly different. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall of that particular Lux focus group. 

Music and llamas were always the passion at the Coooopa...

The passage from Peru to Bolivia took us to Copacabana, a bijou little town on the shores of Lake Titicaca. As we disembarked blinking from the bus, the scenes before us were much larger than life. This is one of my favourite features of travel around South America. You can jump on a bus from one country to another and emerge in the midst of the most boisterous May Day celebrations. Cars and outsize cartoon trucks were decorated with gaudy flower arrangements and garlands. All around were dancing processions of traditionally attired Bolivians being led by vivid marching bands. Standing in the town centre, one is subjected to an aural assault from all sides, at least six factions of warring bands competing for the attention of your eardrums with varying degrees of musical proficiency. I'm not saying that the sounds was terrible, only that the musicians might have put a spot of practice in, or at least tuned their instruments in preparation for the festivities. I suspect that the jarring tunelessness of the instruments could in part be attributed to the fact that the players were fantastically sloshed. It's just a hunch, of course. Perambulating along the lake front, little llamas, adorned in scaled down versions of the vehicle's ostentatious regalia, frolic in our path. Afternoon revellers, unaccustomed to boozing, a dangerous habit at this heady altitude, totter and tumble around, many being escorted home by their stoical wives. The funniest vignette had to be the sight of one couple, both as inebriated as each other, reeling precariously and bumping into one another like two disturbed Weebles as they went. Hilarious spot-the-drunkard fun. In a bid to get into the alcohol fueled jollity we went for a drink at a bar that was apparently being run by a ten year old boy and a girl that couldn't have been more than four. Talk about starting them young. White wine in Bolivia seems to have the same novelty status as ostrich schnapps. We ordered a bottle of Vino Blanco and promptly saw the little boy leg it to the local shop and return to the bar, smuggling the exotic beverage back under his jumper. The wine was hideous but the sunset was something else. A line of yellow hung over the dark mountain and beneath a perfect blue sky. Breathtaking. We watched the little llamas with their rosary necklaces for a while, until a small boy herded them into a van where they stood patiently, peering inquisitively out of the window, waiting to be taken home after a long day of delighting gringos. The following day, traversing the ramshackle pavements, we chanced upon yet another marching band being led by traditionally dressed men and women, many of them dancing with gusto. It didn't escape my notice that a few of the musicians were lagging severely behind the rest of the troupe , no doubt struggling desparately through the hangover of yesterday. It goes without saying that the instruments were no closer to being tuned.