Naff 'orf!

"Jesus unimpressed at papparazzi intrusion..."

Just a bit of gold

The churches in Peru have to be among the most elaborately ornate in the world. We've never seen so much intricate carving and if there's a golden equivalent of snow-blindness, this is where you'd suffer it. Life-like effigies of bloodied Jesus' and locally venerated saints peer down at you in every church, which can be a bit eerie, and as many churches were built upon old Inca ruins, elements of Inca mythology are often incorporated into their decoration, such as Jesus wearing the Inca headress of the sun god. Catholic synchronism at it's best.

Cocaine beer!

There's a prophetic ancient poem to the sacred coca leaf that says
"Guard its leaves with love and when you feel pain in your heart, hunger in your flesh and darkness in your mind, lift it to your mouth. 
You will find love for your pain, nourishment for your body and light for your mind.
But when the white man touches it he will find only poison for his body and madness for the mind."
So does coca beer count?

I think so...

Sadly Macchu Pichu is still closed, but we came to Cuzco anyway as there are lots of other Inca ruins here and in the nearby Sacred Valley to explore, such as the brilliantly named Saqsaywaman with it's pitch black tunnels, 70 tonne stone walls, and altars with carved channels to deliver the sacrificial blood to Paccha Mama, or Mother Earth.
Our route here followed the river that caused the Macchu Pichu train-line to be washed away, and we saw examples of the devastation it caused - small clusters of blue plastic temporary shelters next to damaged and crumbling homes, either being repaired or just bulldozed completely to start anew.
We're still nearly 4km above sea-level, and the Peruvian rainy season is clinging on tenaciously. Most days start dry and warm, but turn wet and chilly by late afternoon. The locals are all wrapped up in puffa jackets and boots, while we're wearing most of our clothes at once and dodging showers in flip-flops and shorts. But where in England would you get sun-burned on a grey, overcast and rainy day?

Who's a pretty boy then?

All safe

Just got up to the news of the earthquake in Chile, so here's a quick line just to let you know we're safe and un-affected.
We are heading towards the coast of Peru, but not for another day or two - so we'll keep an eye out for tsunami warnings.

Oops

Still on Lake Titicaca, we're just back from a boat trip out to where the Uros people have lived for centuries on floating islands built of layers of reed. It felt strange to walk on the damp, squishy, un-solid surface and think that people spent their whole lives there. The houses, boats and handicrafts were also made of reed, and it's even burned as fuel for cooking in their clay ovens. The only concessions to modernity were small solar panels attached to the thatched reed roofs of their huts.
Ned's intrepidness nearly became his undoing as he followed a dog between some huts and fell through a gap in the islands. Luckily I saw him plunge into the lake and managed to pull him out in the nick of time, soaking wet and a bit shaken, but thankfully un-hurt.

¡Hasta luego Bolivia!

Bolivia has been brilliant. It's taken us completely by surprise with it's scale, beauty, heritage and character. We really only passed through because it was 'on the way', but it's definitely been one of the highlights of our trip. ¡Bolivia nosotros mucho gusto!

Fleeing

Carnival seems to be following us, or we it. We've just left Copacabana (not the Barry Manilow one) a small town on the Bolivian edge of Lake Titicaca (no sniggering Alan). It's normally a fairly sleepy town, most notable as a base to explore nearby Isla del Sol, the centre of Inca creation mythology - but this weekend was Carnival. The main square was full of local groups in costumes that'd put a Pearly Queen to shame, dancing to marching brass bands and huge latin sound systems, while the surrounding streets were terrorised by gangs of marauding children spraying everyone with water, foam, flour and confetti. I haplessly got caught between gangs and as the only Gringo within striking range got properly 'owned' before a local lady took pity and dragged me behind the shutters of her shopfront for safety.
After the excitement of the day we had more to come as we had to flee our hotel in the middle of the night when a freak hail and thunderstorm leaked through the ceiling and flooded our room. The young guy left in charge for the night was no help at all, bar offering us a mop and bucket, and even threatened us with the Police for non-payment as we dashed out into the rain looking for another hotel.
We had planned on visiting the Isla del Sol, but between the floods and dwindling cash in a town with no open bank, we figured it was an omen to move on. 
So here we are now, just across the border in Peru. I'm finally realising a childhood ambition to visit the homeland of Paddington Bear, though I never envisioned I might be fleeing here as an international fugitive with a price of £15 on my head!

Bolivian crack house?

Even more questions...

Which country gets the most meteors landing?
Why do onions make your eyes water?
How did people find out what's edible or not?
Why don't bulls like the colour red?
How do they make bullet-proof glass?
How much does a horse cost?
How much does your head weigh, and how can your neck hold it up? 
How do your ears work?
What makes a diamond so hard? 

Been there...

La Cumbre (above La Paz) to Coroico is officially the world's most dangerous road, in terms of fatalities. Barely wide enough for a single car, it's gravel track winds 64km down a lush green mountain and descends 3,600m vertically in altitude. It's the only left-handed road in South America, so that drivers can see if their wheels are going over the edge. Cycling down it is a big tourist attraction, despite regular fatalities and an average one traveller a week hospitalised. I just hoped it wasn't going to be me. (Don't panic Sandra, Annie and the boys stayed behind).  
Starting at 4,700m above sea level, we rode down through the clouds, led by Ben, an American downhill racer. Cycling (and occasionally skidding) around corners with deadly sheer drops only inches away, past and even through huge waterfalls, and splashing across streams it was hard to concentrate on the road as we travelled down through some of the most achingly beautiful scenery (I now know the true meaning of that phrase) I have ever seen - made all the more dramatic by the low clouds and misty rain. It's probably one of the most scary, exhilarating and fun things I've done, and luckily we all came through un-scathed, earning ourselves complimentary 'badge of honour' tops - so I can now say: 
"Worlds Most Dangerous Road? Been there, done it, got the t-shirt." 
Literally.

Carnival

It was inevitable. After four and a half months away we've had our first bouts of illness. Ned and Kim both had dodgy tums, with Kim suffering the most, but thankfully it only lasted 48 hours and we had a nice room with TV to convalesce in. 
We're in La Paz now, the highest capital in the world. It's not a pretty city as such, but it's got a busy buzzy vibe and plenty of colour and life. Houses cling on top of each other to the steep valley walls, and our hotel is in an area called 'Witch's Market' where you can buy a dried llama feotus to bury under the steps of your house for good luck.  
It's carnival time here, which means four days of parades and the biggest water fight we've ever seen. It seems the whole city is armed with huge water guns, water bombs and cans of spray foam, and everyone's a target. So it would've been rude, and foolish, not to arm ourselves and join in.

Climbing in Bolivia

How high? Ned the Fearless, yet again. And just in case you're worried, he is on a rope.

Dino

Just outside of Sucre is the largest collection of dinosaur tracks in the world. What was once the flat shore of a lake has been pushed up over time by volcanic activity until the fossilised footprints stood vertically as a wall, only to be uncovered as part of a concrete quarry. We had a great time learning about the different tracks and the dinosaurs that created them, how mountains are formed by movement in tectonic plates, and studying the life-size replicas of the dinosaurs themselves. 
The same day we also ended up in the Bolivian Museum of Independance, which sparked several conversations on colonialism and sovereignty, leadership, battle tactics, and facial hair fashion through history.  
Who says the boys are missing out on school?

Sucre

We're loving Bolivia - every stop get's better than the last. We've riden horses in cowboy country, drunk coca tea (made from the same leaves that cocaine is derived from - I had a numb mouth by the end of the cup, but it's all legal, honest), crossed the world's largest salt flat on the roof of a 4x4, been to the highest city in the world (beautiful Potosi - at 4070m above sea level, higher even than Llhasa in Tibet) where I sang kareoke in Spanish, and now we're in the white-washed colonial splendour of Sucre. The restaurants are fantastic, Annie's been pampered with a simultanious haircut and pedicure, and we've just watched Avatar in a swanky multi-screen cinema. The secret's out: Bolivia is brilliant.   
The only glitch was when leaving Potosi, and Kim had his bag stolen at the bus-station. After his initial and understandable anger, he coped really well - especially when we promised to replace it's contents for him. When listing what was missing he said "...reading book, jumper, keys to my private jet..."
Well, there's no harm in trying is there?

Pablo & Cherry

Ever since coming into Bolivia we're more acutely aware of being on the 'Gringo Trail', as we're forever bumping into travellers met in previous towns, hostels and cafe's - which is nice and creates a special kind of cameraderie, not to mention the value of swapping notes on activities and destinations.
Special mention must go to Pablo and Cherry, our travelling companions of the past week (since the salt flats), who successfully taught our boys to swear in Spanish, were great company with a shared sense of humour, and who very kindly volunteered to child-mind the boys so we could go out for a drink with another couple we'd met back in Chile (get us, the social butterflies).
Pablo will forever be remembered as the man who christened a purse a 'lady pocket' (so wrong, but so funny), and Cherry for braving a chilli so hot she had to brace herself as if in childbirth. 
The intensity of travelling makes you feel like you've known someone forever after just a day or two, but I think we've made two more good friends who we'll hopefully catch up with again further along the 'trail.

Uyuni

Again our guidebook mis-guided us into thinking that Uyuni was just a platform town to explore the nearby salt-flats from, but we really liked it. A busy street market populated by cheery round ladies in bowler hats, llama meat pizza for dinner, a train graveyard (all old English locos) and a quirky little museum housing mummified Inca bodies and deliberately deformed skulls (they used to tie boards to girls heads to shape the skull into a cone, but we're still unclear if it was for fashion or some other purpose) make it somewhere to stop in it's own right.

You couldn't make it up!

Salar de Uyuni

The highlight of this part of Bolivia is the Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat in the world. As it's the rainy season here, the 12,000 sq km of billiard table flat salt rock is covered in an inch of water - creating mirror clear reflections for as far as the eye can see. We've palled up with another Argentine/Brit couple, Pablo & Cherry, and shared a 4x4 out onto the flat for the day, stopping for lunch in the middle at a small hotel built entirely of salt-rock, including the tables and chairs. The vast open flatness, silence, surreal reflections and good company made for a truly magnificent experience. Big wow.

Round #10

Bolivia!

One of the first things that has struck us about Bolivia is how clean it is. Sure the roads are dusty and some amenities can be basic, but there's very little litter and the market floors are swabbed down with bleach throughout the day. 
We caught a train from Tupiza (where we rode horses through a canyon close to where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid met their end) to Uyuni and were pleasantly shocked to find reclining seats, TV, a fan with built in air-freshener and a conductor who constantly swept the floor and cleaned the loos. Admittedly we were in 'exejutive' class, but at £9 each for a six hour ride, why not?