Aftermath

Must. Finish. Blog. With. Appropriate. And. Happy. Ending!

So those of you who made it this far are clearly all avid readers (thank you parents, Courtney, Chandni, Karin, Libs, Grandparents and what I understand to be an on/off commitment from Lizzie, Laura and Heather - anyone I've left out, leave a comment and you will be duly included in the hardback edition. No comment and flattery, no inclusion.) and will probably be aware that I am now home and have pretty much forgotten the last few days of my trip in the excitement of snow and Christmas and clothes that are not made from alpaca.

During my last three days in Lima I went to the beach, ate at a very expensive restaurant because they looked at me in a way that said 'We don't like your kind here. You clearly can't afford it.' Little did they know that I was a GRINGA EUROPEAN and one of my pennies was worth a million and three of their soles. Or at least that's what I thought until I looked at my bank balance. I also checked into a Loki which was nowhere near as party party as Cusco, but was pretty posh. I sought funs elsewhere at the apartment of a Swiss-Peruvian girl who was friends with the Swiss girl who was friends with the American, Karen, who had befriended me in the hostel. Now, when your Daddy is Swiss and works in something important and Swiss, then his money goes a long, long way in Peru. The apartment was AMAZING. I got nervous, and then I got drunk and revealed my grubby working middle class roots somewhat over-enthusiastically by going on and on about how amazing everything was. She humoured me though and let me get lost in the house before coming to find me and giving me another glass of expensive wine.

I then shopped for pretties and then, when the money ran out, just took photos of pretties to look at later and wish I'd bought. Then I read the whole of 'Catcher in the Rye' in a day, packed and took a taxi to the airport. The taxi driver was super chatty. I was not. The flights were DESPERATELY BORING apart from maybe the second where I tried to do a movie marathon. I got through three. Has anyone ever seen 'Mrs Ratcliffe's Revolution'? Quite amusing.

I'm pretty sure that mine was the last flight to land in the whole of the UK before the snow hit properly. Emotional, Love Actually, reunion with family which involved a very large bar of cadburys, and then home for the first, blissful cup of Earl Grey in four months. Five have since been consumed and everyone has been like heaven in a cup.

However, I am still having difficulty adapting to a lifestyle that involves throwing loo paper down the toilet and drinking out of the tap without contracting dysentry, but other than that, the reverse culture shock is minimal. I also have not adapted to the British pound and am still dividing all prices by four and thinking 'huh, not bad.' I went into Fortnum and Masons and did this. RECIPE FOR FINANCIAL DISASTER.

Thank you all for following and encouraging. I promise to do it again next time I run away to foreign lands.

Adios y gracias para todos x

Nazca (remains of the day), Huacachina and Lima

Gah! I genuinely thought this last week was going to be boring, but in true South American style, I have been inundated with excitement, adventures, near death, protests, skeletons and the Spanish inquisition. Hark! I hear the sound of many fascinating stories approaching. I shall try and keep them short, snappy and ete-catching...

So, remember I decided to do a four hour trek through the desert to sandboard down the HIGHEST (known) DUNE IN THE WORLD? Remember that? Yeah? Well, I did. But that's not all. I went with the most disgustingly, sickeningly amorous Croate-Argentinian couple in the world, who were the impetus for Emma's Adventure in The Desert. First up, they were about half an hour late. We were on kind of a tight schedule re: sunset. Then, they walked super slow: he was fat, she was an embarrassment to the female sex and they hadn't realised that walking for four hours in the desert meant WALKING FOR FOUR HOURS IN THE DESERT, PEOPLE! It's not going to be a stroll in the park. And yet they strolled. And stopped every 10-20 minutes not only to profess their undying love for each other and to make out, but also to take photos of themselves with desert backgrounds and of themselves making out in front of desert backgrounds. Guess who was the photographer... me, right. I have a big future in the international porn industry. I took some good photos.

But we were kinda on a tight schedule re: impending pitch blackness in the middle of the desert.

So we got to the dunes and threw ourselves down them, I quite stylishly, the couple like a couple of imbeciles (their words, not mine. I did not disagree), and got pockets full of sand and then we took on the 1km dune. The last one. The mac daddy. That's 1,000m of sand everyone. 10,000cm. At the top, I looked at our little guide Enrique and said 'Really? 1km? It doesn't look that high.' How wrong I was. So very, very wrong. I think after about 300m I sat down on my bum and just slid down. Then, when that got too difficult, I took the board off and walked down. Because walking down dunes is pretty fun, actually. Better than walking up them.

And the sunset was beautiful. So beautiful that the couple had to have a photo in front of it. Little did they realise (because they clearly didn't have a brain cell between them), that we were still in the middle of the desert and the sun was setting.

We walked for just over an hour in the dark. In the desert. With one tiny torch between the four of us.

Now I was actually thinking 'This is AWESOME', because I am British and that's how they make us in the U of K: optimistic and stoic and reliable. And slightly crazy. I had been in the sun all day. Plus, I had complete faith in little Enrique and simply followed him step for step and eventually we got to the road. But oh dear, oh dear. For more than an hour, I had heard no aclamations of love and affection from the couple. Something told me that a certain fat, lazy Argentinian was none too happy. It got worse when we got to the road because little Enrique's transport had abandoned him. So the Argentinian let rip and claimed he was dying from the walk (because he was fat) and that everything had been badly organised (because they were late and had to stop every 10-20 minutes for PDA) and that everything was terrible, terrible! And if there's something I really can't stand, it's fuss pots. The only person with the right to fuss and complain in the world is ME!

So we waited, and we waited but nothing conspired. I had now lost faith in little Enrique and, when a bus stopped (for some reason) about 50m away from us, I decided to show these people how things were done, ran up to the bus driver and jabbered away: Señor there are four of us, we are lost, in the middle of the desert, are you going to Nazca do you have space for us? Pretty impressive Spanish nowadays, hey? The poor bus driver, completely bewildered, began to tell me how dangerous it was to be out in the desert in the middle of nowhere after dark. Blahdeblahdeblah do I look like I don't realise? So he agrees to take us, I run back to the others but they say to me: don't worry, we have called the police, they are coming.

Now, I feel, this is logic that helped me to earn my first: I could see a bus. It said Nazca. They said they would take me. I could see no police car. How was I to know a police car would really be coming? How long would I have to wait for this police car when there was a bus right there? How did I know the policemen would not do something scary like take my passport away from me? So, I metaphorically flashed them the Vs and ran back to the bus. Poor bus driver: they're not coming Señor, I don't know why, I don't understand them, it's just me, let's go, forget about them! Leave them in the desert for the scorpions and the buzzards. (That last bit I didn't say in Spanish, but I feel the sentiment was internationally understood).

So I made it back to Nazca in time for pizza and palta and then moved on to Huacachina where I did absolutely nothing but lie by a pool and write my bestseller for two days. Sweet.

Then I took a 4 1/2 hour bus journey to Lima that took TWELVE HOURS because we had to sit outside a town called Cañete for six and a half hours because they wanted a university and the government wouldn't give it to them, so they closed off the whole town. Now I'm big on education, but that seemed a little childish to me. They did, however, give us free rice to apologise for the delay.

So now I am in Lima and thought I was going to another Loki hostel. The hostel the taxi driver dropped me off at, however, was called Pariwana and it was like stepping into an alternate universe: everything was exactly the same as Loki - the beds, the 'this bed is reserved sign', the rules, the dinner menu, the stock in the bar, the check out time, the activities board, the breakfast, everything - and yet they were telling me it was not Loki. So I stayed there, waiting to see what would happen. So far no dwarves have told me my favourite gum has come back into fashion, so maybe it is just a coincidence?

And today, to honour Laura's birthday, I went and did things I thought she would enjoy: I visited a monastery where, in the catacombs, they have on display the bones of between 30-40,000 people, neatly arranged femurs with femurs, skulls with skulls, and in one circular pit, in a spiral of femurs and also skulls. I only realised on the way out, that this means that someone actually sat for hours, lovingly placing the bones artistically together. Imagine that. I mean, really, imagine if that was your job? Also, the guide dropped her keys into a PIT OF SKULLS, which I found amusing, if somewhat distressing. Everywhere smelt of bones. And it's also a little upsetting that I recognised that smell.

Guest: Ah, what is that musty, old smell?
Emma: oh, that's the smell of bones. I'd know it anywhere.
Guest: What? You are sick and disgusting.

Then I visited the Spanish Inquisition museum where they have life-size how-to replicas of torture victims, so you can re-enact the Spanish Inquisition in your own time, and also access to the tiny cells they kept prisoners in as they suffered. Suffered! But the most interesting thing, of course, according to our guide, was the network of irrigation tracts that clearly indicates that this was one of the only buildings in Lima in the 16th century to have running water! Gosh!

And now I shall go and look at art. So far nothing has beaten Cordoba, but after this morning's jaunts, you never know, Lima might deliver.

Hasta pronto peeps x

Copacobana, Arequipa, Cabanaconde, Nazca

So, as we can see, since leaving Cusco, I have been on the rapid fire adventure path and have visited many places in a short amount of time. Most have been culturally stimulating, often with beautiful landscapes and historical significance. However, unless you are seeing it for yourself, this is pretty dull, so I shall sum up before getting to a more interesting story:

Copacobana: had salt and vinegar pringles at the border crossing on the way there AND back. Bliss. Took a boat to Isla del Sol where myself and a French friend, Laure, walked far too far into the middle of nowhere in flip flops or, as I learnt after about six confused references to them, 'claquettes'. We missed the sunrise and came back to Copa where I bumped into Christian, an Austrian hippie I had worked with very briefly in Cusco who is now living, yes, living, on Isla del Sol. He gave me a rock. For luck.

Arequipa: a very pretty colonial town. Begrudgingly (I have been here for four months now, let's not forget) I thought I'd better do some sightseeing. There was a protest in the square and the people sported flags of Che because, whatever it was they were upset about, he will be able to fix it. I didn't have the heart to tell them that HE HAS BEEN DEAD FOR 42 YEARS and will not be coming to lend a hand. Off I went to Santa Catalina Convent where, I am telling you, if I have little to do when I'm 65, I will be retiring there to prune orange trees. It is sweet! Every 'cell' (try: deluxe single room) has an ensuite kitchen where one of the duties was to bake cookies. Also in Arequipa I ate delicious trout (Peruvian speciality) on the terrace of a beautiful restaurant overlooking the cathedral. Price for two courses, a coke and a glass of wine? Why, only 10 British pounds!

Cabanaconde: I took a bus through beautiful Inca terracing and mountains. I walked down into a gorge and swam in an 'oasis' (read: outdoor pool), I had a flap about a drowning indentifiably HUGE bug possibly stinging me in the mouth, but it was okay, no permanent damage done to beautiful face. I took a mule back up as I have now achieved Li Hi of all Li Hi (Machu Picchu, remember that?) and feel I no longer need to prove myself. The mule farted all the way up. I discreetly joined him and hoped the horseman couldn't tell the difference. Tee hee. The owner of the hostel tried to get me drunk on Pisco sours, but I have spent three weeks in the Loki Hostel and it shall never be possbile to get me drunk again.

Nazca: now, here comes the touristically significant story. There are two reasons to come to Nazca: the lines and Cerro Blanco, the largest known sand dune IN THE WORLD. But that is a story for another day as I haven't walked up it yet. I know I said I am done being Li Hi, but the appeal of another IN THE WORLD is just too much to resist. So I am walking in the blazing desert sun tomorrow for 4 hours to throw myself down 1000m of sand on a piece of wood. I have seen the boards. I fear for my life.

Today, however, I went to see the Nazca lines, a series of images somehow carved out into the earth. I am wikipedia-ing it now to offer a better explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazca_lines There we go. Wikipedia is just so much more articulate than me. Seeing the lines requires paying a comparatively extortionate amount of money to go in a little plane and fly over them. When I arrived at the airstrip, my first thought was: are these Cessna 207s REAL planes or have they constructed them from bolsa wood? Does Peru have rules about this sort of thing? If so, could I get a copy faxed to my desk straight away? Also, who is this man? Does he look like a qualified pilot to you, Brazilian and Czech couple? What's that? No speaky English? Oh.

However, all fears dissipated when the 'pilot', if that was his real name, looked at the two couples, shoved them in the back and ushered me INTO THE FRONT OF THE PLANE. WOWOWOWOW!! What an idiot. He clearly hadn't received the urgent telegram informing him that EMMA HAS TO TOUCH DANGEROUS LOOKING BUTTONS THE INSTANT SHE SEES THEM. So, whilst he was chatting to his groundling person, I sat in the front, silently spazzing out, repeating 'do not touch unless you want to die, do not touch unless you want to die.' But the dials and red and blue knob thingies and playstation stylee joystick were so pretty, I almost considered that death would be a fine price to pay just to see WHAT HAPPENED if I pulled the thing that had THROTTLE taped over the top of it.

I managed to resist and orf we went into the sky, I, waiting and waiting for the sick feeling to come but, to my amazement, delight, pride and astonishment, the sick feeling never came! No warmth in the cheeks, no OHGODHEREITCOMES, only a little bit of warning forehead sweat. And, just because I have always been taught that competition and winning at the expense of others is healthy, I beat the lady in the back who was sick. Ha. Take that lady. Not as Li Hi as me, are you? AND I get travel sick! So I proved myself to have a firm and steadfast constitution even in the most stomach stressful situations and therefore, despite farting-mule, am still Li Hi.

Also, the lines were cool, my favourite being 'the tree', but not as cool as seeing the landscape from a tiny plane, out of which I was definitely not sick!

It is very possible that next blog will be coming from Heathrow airport as I sit waiting for my bags that will probably NEVER COME (sod's law). How exciting is that?!

Machu Picchu via Salkantay

Right-o. Machu Picchu, the whole point of coming to South America. The Lost City of the Incas. The MacDaddy of Precolombian ruins.

So before I even got on the plane at Heathrow I thought: how can I make this as difficult as possible to prove to myself and others that I am truly li hi ('hardcore' for all those not fluent in mandarin) and should replace Demi Moore in the remake of GI Jane? And the Lonely Planet, which has otherwise been entirely useless to me, told me of the legendary SALKANTAY trail and I said YES, I will pit myself against this mighty SALKANTAY and we will see who is greater and which of us has more STRENGTH and PERSEVERENCE.

And to keep me warm, the nice lady at the travel agents gave me a feather sleeping bag and feather jacket and a pair of sexy waterproof clown trousers. Nice. And I vowed to wear the same clothes (other than underwear) for four whole days and then dress up nicely for Machu Picchu, but I didn't have space in my bag so I had to wear the same clothes all the time apart from once I changed my t-shirt.

So on the first day I got picked up at 4:30am and slept on an apparently very scary bus drive to Mollepata where I woke up and met my team: 3 Americans, 3 Dutchies, 3 Frenchies, a Quebecoise, 1 Brit, 1 Japanese, 1 German and 2 Aussies. All very nice people. So off we went, and the first day was hard because first days always are because in my mind I think THIS WAS A MISTAKE, I READ BOOKS FOR A LIVING. But I remained in good spirits and quickly found my rightful position almost-at-the-back. Scenery on the first day was beautiful and camp was at the foot of the mighty SALKANTAY, which was cold. However, we did arrive before it began chucking it down with rain.

Next day we woke up at 5am and were walking by 6am through a cloud that had sat down on the mountain, completely obscuring any sort of view. We were walking from 3800m to 4600m so it was slow going - fifty metres at a time and then a rest, then another fifty metres. One of our Aussie boys, One Lung Thompson, who has a history of pneumonia was struggling so, being the team player I am, I walked the last half an hour with him, encouraging him from rock to rock so he didn't get too demoralised. But he was a trooper and the whole team made it and had a cheeky shot of rum at the top, which was well needed since the descent, although slightly euphoric, bordering on hysterical happiness at having done the hardest bit and CONQUERED the mighty Salkantay, saw the cloud break and all of us got soaked to the skin, waterproof or no waterproof. Note: waterproofs are never waterproof, only shower proof.

Snotty-nosed, we walked through some Highland-type scenery, crossed some rivers to get over my fear (I made everyone go before me) and then walked out into cloud forest where I snuck off to relieve myself and was almost discovered by some horsemen coming the other way. Whoops.

At camp the cooks nearly burnt the thatched cook hut down and I almost saved everyone's life by saying: GET OUT, EVERYONE OUT NOW! I also had a moment with my dear, dear camera which, since it is made by Samsung, has broken down and can only be opened if you grab the lense with a pair of tweezers and pull it out. What a mess. I was so happy when I finally got it to work though because I didn't think I'd be able to get any photos of Machu Picchu.

Day three we went on a bear hunt through some very deep mud that made some excellent noises. That was up a very steep hill too, to a beautiful viewpoint, and then we went down again, had a snack with some turkeys and piglets (with, not of), and then caught a bus when we reached the road to Santa Teresa. And, get this. THEY LET US SIT ON THE TOP OF THE BUS! Best way to travel on a skinny gorge-side road with cloud forest flying past, ducking to avoid low hanging branches. So beautiful!

At Santa Teresa we went to the thermal baths where we made a human pyramid. A fateful human pyramid that resulted in me being EATEN ALIVE by bugs. And this isn't a joke. Both legs swelled up with about 40 bites each, big red welts, which tightened up my skin and radiated heat like sunburn and itched like nothing has ever itched before. So walking for the next few days was stiff, but I am Li Hi and did not complain, but rather revelled in the grossness of the fact that I looked like I'd caught the pox.

After a monkey had pooed in one of our Dutch boy's pocket, we took the bus on day four to the beginning of an active train track where, of course, we walked the whole day on the track, jumping into the undergrowth every now and then when Peru Rail passed by. Flat walking, but difficult because we were stepping between irregular sleepers which messed up any walking rhythmn and made everything a bit awkward. I therefore decided to risk breaking an ankle and walk the whole way on the actual track supported by two big sticks with which to make me walk better, but I got stick shoulder and gave up after about half an hour.

We arrived at Aguas Calientes, the town next to Machu Picchu in the early afternoon and our guide Victor immediately said: who wants to climb a mountain? Now I will admit, at this point my legs felt like lead and I thought, definitely not me you crazy Peruvian man, but that would have been weak and cheating and girly so after twenty minutes of dying on a hostel bed I got up and climbed up an 80º incline, scrambling over rocks and up ladders drilled into the rocks and steps carved into the rocks. Obviously I was happy because there were steps. The whole point was that there was an alternative view of MP which was pretty cool.

On our final day, we got up at 3:30am to climb some more STEPS in the dark, and that was probably the hardest part. Trying to pick my legs up was a big effort, especially as they were still red and swollen. But getting to the top (and having another celebratory shot of rum at 5am) was the best feeling ever, and we were all in time to get tickets to Waynapichu, another mountain that we obviously wanted to climb after four days of doing nothing but climbing mountains.

Machu Picchu really is as amazing as everybody says it is and there's no way to describe it - I just wouldn't do it justice. The only way to appreciate it is to go yourselves so everyone get yourselves over to Peru! It's so beautiful, and we were so lucky to (eventually) have a clear day.

To finish off, Michael, Poonam and I walked back to Aguas Calientes in the rain and had a very long lunch with cocktails that went straight to our head. We then almost missed the train back, and decided to finish the rum and try to make the day a 24 hour celebration of our achievement and even though I remember very little, I think we might have made it!

LI HI!

Cusco

Hola!

So, another week has passed and more adventures have been had. After scary cockney girl left the hostel, it became apparent that actually, there was very little drama at Loki, and that staff and guests alike were very calm and relaxed and fun, apart from when it came to scary cockney girl, where one guest summed up the sentiments of all with the statement, 'I want to stab her in the face'. Aggressive, but maybe true and necessary.

Anyway, my bar team, who no longer need pseudonyms to protect identity, are very lovely and work hard and have lots of fun, apart from maybe Shaggy who is on a completely different planet due to the consumption of far too many illegal substances and a profoundly philosophical outlook on life. He is very concerned with good and bad energies. Yes, Shaggy...

So all my shifts are going very well. Being at the Loki hostel is a little like being at freshers week in university over and over and over again, which is fun, but quite damaging for your liver. Despite many nights out, I have forced myself to be cultural and have visited the nearby ruins of Saksaywaman, many garish Catholic churches, and a little further afield the market town of Pisaq, which also has Inca ruins. Now when I arrived in Pisaq yesterday I was feeling a little worse for wear as the night before had been a rather messy Smurf Party and as staff, I had been obliged to dress up and make a fool of myself, but when I got off the little minibus, having just driven through the beautiful sacred valley (really, really stunning), I discovered a market full of pretties that I wandered around and took artistic photos of, and then thought 'ah, these Pisaq ruins look like an easy cultural sight to tick off on my list, and since I have an extortionately overpriced tourist ticket, I should go and check it out.' Little did I know that the ruins at Pisaq are MIGHTY and AWESOME and HIGH UP and I had to walk 3 miles uphill in jeans and rubbish little trainers, feeling hungover and needing the toilet, to get to them.

However.

A most joyous and wonderous discovery has been made.

The. Incas. Liked. Steps...!

So through the mist of delicate stomachs and fatigue, and heat and sweat and chaffing jeans, I was truly and honestly ecstatic. Just imagine - thousands and thousands of very high steps, branching off in all directions to reach cool fort ruins where you can still clearly see separate rooms and doorways and irrigation systems and round look out fort bits with windows for throwing spears and shooting arrows. Who wouldn't want all that when grossly hungover and probably still full of vodka? Of course I took many photos of BEAUTIFUL STEPS that I am unable to upload onto the blog, and now I am pretty much convinced that I am somehow descendent from Incas and that this obsession of steps has trickled down through the bloodline to endow me with a special feeling every time I climb steps.

After going 'ooh, aah, Pisaq is way cooler than I expected' and realising there was an easier, fat American tourist way of reaching it by road and minibus and feeling superior and fit despite the many 5 minute rests I took on the way up to 'appreciate scenery' (read: die inside a little), I walked aaaall the way back down again and had pumpkin soup in a restaurant. And then I came home again. Home being the hostel I now feel I was born in and will never leave, and for the first time in a week had a quiet night and watched a ridiculous Will Farrel movie and ate an overpriced McFlurry. Because I am wholeheartedly embracing Peruvian culture, you see.

I have, also, had ten intensive hours of Spanish lessons and have learnt conjugation of all verbs including reflexive in the present, preterite and perfect past. Now I only have two other past tenses, the future and the conditional to learn myself... and I have to remember them all and put them into practice! It's been very encouraging that nobody I meet who speaks Spanish and has the ability to at least speak basic English, has bothered to speak English to me. This has of course left me with the delusion that I am now trilingual, which I am not. But the goal of learning conversational Spanish has been achieved. Well done.

Projects for the coming week include: trying to convince all guests at the hostel that Stu and I are in fact related, booking my trek to Machu Picchu, doing some more cultural things, having at least one night off from drinking and uploading some photos onto my bloggy blog. We shall see how many of these things can be achieved...

Only four weeks until I come home. So many things still to be done!

La Paz - Cusco

I think this might be a record for time in between blogs. A whole week!

Somewhat deceptively, the most exciting part of this blog did not happen in La Paz, it is left over from Samaipata. On my last day there I decided to take a tour lead by a crazy Dutch man into the cloudforest. I was accompanied by the most miserable German couple, but this didn't ruin the experience in the slightest: there were giant, prehistoric ferns, slugs that spat yellow acid, monkey tracks (no actual monkeys), jaguar tracks (no actual jaguars, I would probably be dead by now), and many other exciting and Othello-soliloquy things besides. It was very pretty, but alas, the computers still can't cope with photos so you'll have to wait a bit to share the beauty.

I then took a three hour taxi ride to Santa Cruz through some more amazing cloud forest scenery and got on a bus straight to La Paz. On the bus I sat next to a nine year old boy who was travelling all on his own - you thought I was brave! I felt very maternal. This bus, though far superior to the previous life-questioning buses, took so long to get to La Paz I nearly cried, but eventually we got there and I went to meet my two friends Una and Kate in our hostel.

What followed was a number of very lazy days. I have the excuse that not only were we getting used to the altitude, I was also feeling very delicate in the stomach region, and although I know exactly how to fix this, the thought of not eating for 24 hours and spending all day in bed does not appeal to me. Neither does dioralyte. So I have been suffering for some time. We therefore watched the Michael Jackson movie and 2012, ate lots of ice cream, spent long lunches in cafés, wandered around the streets shopping for alpaca themed pretties and visited some museums including the musical instrument museum where you are allowed to play all the instruments, including the armadillo harp. Awesome. We also had a number of good nights out.

I did not do the Death Road. I don't know why, but it just didn't appeal to me. Let's blame it on the altitude again (apparently 3600m above sea level). Kate and I did, however, go horseriding on some HUGE but very docile horses, all the way up to the tip of Valle de la Luna (there are lots of Valle de la Lunas - remember the one I went to in Chile? There is also one in Argentina, and apparently they are all individual and we have never seen anything like them before.) We also got to see the city from the famous viewing point, and it was pretty impressive. I am also coming to like horses more and more, though I still don't know what to do when they start to move faster than a steady walk.

Due to civil unrest and road blocks, we were unable to get to Copacobana and Lake Titicaca on a bus (pity) so we decided to be flashpackers and took a cheapish flight from La Paz to Cusco where we arrived on Sunday morning to our new hostel. We did fly over Lake Titicaca, which was pretty impressive, and don't worry, I will be getting myself down there. I'm not coming all the way here to miss the spooky Inca legends of the Isla del Sol.

Now, because I have the attention span of a fish, I am about two weeks ahead of schedule, having never spent longer than four nights in the same place. So I made the decision to stay put in Cusco for a while, and get free board and food at my hostel by working some bar shifts. There are many positives to this idea: it is only 4 days a week, leaving me free to travel to Machu Picchu and Lake Titicaca on my days off, and to learn Spanish when I'm not working, and to do day trips to Saksaywaman and other interesting Inca sites, and to do some river running. However, it is a three week commitment, so I'll have to rush the rest of Peru into two weeks (probably more than enough time, I get bored easily) and, if any of you ever heard any stories of my ski season - it looks like it might be similar to that, but now I am older and wiser and better at avoiding DRAMA by disappearing or keeping my mouth shut or simply shrugging and saying 'I don't know man, I only got here yesterday, I'm not really sure what's going on.'

So the next few blogs will probably be stories of ridiculous people with code names, interdispersed with incredible stories of freezing to death on the way to Machu Picchu. It is cold here.

Last night's story involved Cockney girl, who doesn't even work at the hostel anymore, deciding she did not like the Pretty German, as the Pretty German had apparently been running around breaking the heart of the Boy Who Should Know Better As He Is 26 Years Old. Not that this had anything to do with Cockney, but true to form of all our favourite British representatives on international soil, she decided she would express her opinion aggresively, with violence, expletives and loud enough for the whole hostel to hear. How ridiculous. Finance Bear, a fellow Brit, summed up the thoughts I had tactfully decided not to articulate: 'I came travelling to get away from pikies like her.'

So, as I'm sure you will understand, I will be asking to work the night shift so I can avoid these social delights, and will be getting up before 9am every morning to slink out to my Spanish lessons/cultural experiences.

Until the next 'International Eastenders' episode...

Sucre and Samaipata

So, after a few boring days in Sucre - highlights of which included dinosaur footprints and a really nice sandwich in a café where I read some of my spanish book - I moved on to Samaipata. I had intended on going to Santa Cruz, but I really wasn't in the mood for another big city, so I thought I'd chance it on a little village just south of Santa Cruz called Samaipata. I'd heard it was nice, there were ruins nearby, and there was a Dutch run campsite. So I emailed ahead, and not waiting for the reply, I jumped on a bus headed towards Santa Cruz, asking the driver to let me know when to get off.

Now, Bolivian buses raise many Life Questions. My previous experience, from Uyuni to Sucre via Potosi, involved the bus stopping in Potosi for FOUR HOURS in the middle of the night, whilst everyone slept, unawares (I was awares) and then a man ran onto my bus saying 'Sucre?!', rushing me off and throwing me and my bag onto another bus where all the Bolivians stared at me as I had to haul my pack right to the back seat, taking out some small children sleeping in the aisles on the way. After this experience I thought, I AM A TOURIST, and had a small internal tantrum about being superior, and wanting high quality buses, so I picked the bus company with the most deluxe looking bus photo in their office, but I suspected GROSS DECEPTION, and true to Bolivian form, what turned up was a collectivo (rattly tin bus) with soft seats and no toilet. But one must accept ones fate, and so I spent the next 12 hours pondering the following:

Why am I the always the only gringa on the bus on a standard tourist route?
Why are these buses only capable of travelling a maximum of 40mph? (slower up and down hills)
Why must we stop at every village to allow people on the bus to sell us eggs and potatoes that we don't want, or to shove soda pop through the windows as we throw money to them?
Why do Bolivians not book seats for their children, and instead allow them to sleep in the aisles?
Why do all Bolivians, all of them, without fail, sound like they have whooping cough?
Why?
Why?
Why?

It really does make you question basic concepts of humanity and existence.

Anyway, after an hour delay, a midnight stop at a random village for potatoes, chicken and rice and baño, I somehow managed to get some pretty good sleep. This makes me a superhero, as it is logistically impossible to sleep on these buses, unless you are a malnourished Bolivian child sleeping and coughing in the aisles. Then, at around 6am, the bus stopped and the driver stuck his head into the bus and said something along the lines of, 'Where's the tourist, the white girl?' I know he said white girl cos he did the international cheek-stroking sign that refers to skin colour. And THE WHOLE BUS turned around and pointed at me. Literally pointed. With fingers. 'This is Samaipata', the driver said and I, feeling very self conscious and DIFFERENT, put on my best, silly British accent and said 'oh! that's me! jolly good, tally ho!' and jumped off the bus.

Samaipata is truly beautiful. It's set in cloud forest, which is apparently like rainforest, but a big higher up, and all the hills surrounding it are green and lush and the cloud sits down on the horizon in the morning and it's very nice. I like. I'm camping in a tent lent to me by some elderly Dutch hippies who run a sustainable campsite/cabins on a hill just out of town. They make jam and have 8 types of fruit tea from their garden, and there is a herboria (I haven't discovered if it is a truly Dutch herboria yet, or if it is completely kosher), horses, beautiful dogs, fireflies, bees and frogs. It really is a little paradise and I'm loving every second of it. So much so that I don't want to leave, but I know I must!

I walked up to some nearby pre-Inca ruins yesterday with Victor the Australian park ranger, who exposed me for the poor walker I really am by getting half way through the walk back and saying: show me how much water you have! Do you think this is a stroll in the park? I did not have any water, because he had offered to share his at the beginning of the day. I also didn't have sunscreen because it was raining when we started off, which is the same reason I didn't have a hat. He also scolded me for not peeing enough, which was a clear sign I wasn't drinking enough water. But whatever, I beat him at scrabble that evening with 'DJ' plus triple word score and 'IQ', so I win.

This morning I went horseriding with Jessica, one half of the couple who will be covering the Dutch hippies' holiday to La Paz and she (who has been riding since she was 2 which is apparently possible/legal), said that I was very relaxed and competent for an (almost) first time rider, even when the horse got spooked by a bike and started to back down the hill backwards, which I'll admit, I nearly wet my pants over. I didn't tell her this, of course, as I was trying to save face.

I have noticed that nobody seems to comment unless I post photos. This is a clear indication that literacy in the UK is declining and we are turning into a visual generation. This saddens me. Do you not enjoy my stories? Did your parents not read to you when you were younger? Do letters jumble up and swim around in front of you when you try and read them on the screen? Do you not find my writing sans images deserving of comments?

Or maybe I am boring you? Hmmmmmmm? Comments please.

Uyuni Salt Flats

Greetings from Bolivia, home of the world's largest salt flats, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the HIGHEST city and lake IN THE WORLD. That's three IN THE WORLDS in one country. Pretty impressive, right?

So after Valparaiso and Vina del Mar I took a 24 hour bus trip of ALMIGHTY BOREDOM up the Pacific coast. I slept a lot, in close quarters with a young man I didn't know, waking up in the morning looking super attractive to realise we'd both been curled up in the foetal position, his face about ten centimetres from my own. Lack of personal space. Then I watched the sea for a bit and that was pretty, then the bus boy chatted to me for a long time and we began driving through the desert, which is exciting to begin with but then gets very, very dull. Highlight of the trip was the hotdog I had in Antofagasta with ketchup, mayo, mustard AND guacamole.

San Pedro de Atacama, my destination is a very cool oasis town, totally geared towards backpackers. I went sandboarding and to the Valle de la Luna (see facebook for pics) and then splurged on a really nice meal in a posh tourist restaurant. Chile is expensive.

Then I began my 3 day Tour of Wonder.

Now, this tour was particularly satisfying because I paid about 89GBS for an all inclusive tour that included EVERYTHING you could possibly want from the Uyuni salt flats and surrounding areas, where other tour operators charged 30GBS for each sight - and there were about 9 biggies to see.

So on the first day, me and my new crew - 4 Frenchies, 4 Brits and 2 Dutchies - headed off to Laguna Blanca, very pretty, and Laguna Verde, which is supposed to be a photoshop green. As we approached, I said to our driver, José 'It's not very green' and he thought, 'spoilt, tourist brat, I bring her into the middle of this amazing scenery and she complains about colours not being enhanced enough', but he said: 'just wait.' And how cool is this - when the wind blows across the lake, it stirs up a load of minerals that then turn the water this incredible turquoise blue colour, and you see it spread across the lake with the wind. Very exciting.

Then we went to hot baths and geysers (but not the ones that go puff, just bubbling smelly mud ones) and to Laguna Colorada, a huge pink lake filled with flamingos and algae that makes everything pink. Then we went to our refugio for tea, chats, dinner and a game of Pass the Pigs, which is an awesome game, if anyone knows it.

I haven't mentioned though, that Bolivia is a pretty high country and we had ascended from about 2500m to 5000m in a day so I was feeling a little fragile and the French lady had to spend most of the day in bed being sick. But the best part of altitude sickness (other than running up a small hill for spare camera batteries and having to lean on the door of the 4x4 to stop from passing out) is the surreal nights' sleep you have. I'm pretty sure I didn't sleep much, and I had the impression that a man kept standing in the doorway of our room to check on us. Fabian, one of the Frenchies, also must have had a crazy dream because he just started screaming in the middle of the night, which Brad and Jen, who couldn't sleep found really hilarious, but mixed in with my spaced out dreams, I found a bit disconcerting.

On day two we saw lots more lagunas and a rock-tree-tree-rock, and I climbed over lots of rocks and felt like a desert explorer and kingoftheworld. Then... we had lunch and... everything is blurring into one. A volcano and lots of volcanic rock and Backstreet Boys and lollies and then a small salt flat in preparation for THE BIGGEST SALT FLAT IN THE WORLD. Ah wait, I forgot to mention that I have perfected the 'how to make your tour group look like idiots' game. You say 'hey, hey you guys, who can do the best impression of a flamingo?' and then everyone stands in a line experimenting and you take a photo, and chuckle to yourself as grown men wobble around on one leg with their heads stuck out, or bent down to scoop up algae... hehe...

Our penultimate stop was the tiny village of San Juan where we were lucky enough to witness school band practice - made my day - and the drivers drank their 'non alcoholic' beers. Sure guys. When we got to our lodgings in San Martín, Mark, other Brit, had the grand idea of climbing up to a viewing point. So we did. Still at about 4000m above sea level here. We nearly died, so we decided to drink wine to see what would happen, but it didn't do much. The moon that night was so bright through my window that I couldn't sleep again.

On day three we left at 5am to catch the sunrise on the Uyuni Salt Flats (largest in the world) and it was really beautiful. Quote of the morning was Brad's sudden: 'This is crazy. It's 5:05 in the morning. I got up at 4:30. HE (Fabian) got up at 3:30!' Fabian had forgotten to change his watch to Bolivian time. The sunrise was beautiful. Now, just to explain for those who are confused, these salt flats, as with most salt flats, were formed when a huge prehistoric sea that covered most of south Bolivia, north Argentina and Chile dried up, leaving salt deposits that are, in some places, a metre deep. It is only now I am beginning to care about physical geography. Mr Barton would be proud. We then continued on to an island in the middle of the salt flats, where all the rocks are coral fossils because it was once underwater. We had breakfast here, took some wacky perspective photos and I split three nails playing frisbee. You'd think that after two days of voluntarily not washing and wearing the same clothes this wouldn't bother me, but it did. Poor nails.

We finished the day somewhat wearily seeing the salt museum/hotel, the salt mines and a small village where they had salt factories (small and medieval). We then arrived in Uyuni, where we visited THE TRAIN CEMETARY. Have you ever heard of anything cooler? Loads of 1880s steam trains, rusted and empty and lying in heaps all over the place and you're allowed to run all over them and climb on the sides like Indiana Jones singing the theme tune to yourself whilst the rest of your tour group goes 'what's the big deal about rusty old trains?' They were not quite as enamoured as I was.

So that brings us up to today. Lunch was had in José's house, where he was greeted by his three year old son, Kevin who cried 'Daddy I've missed you so much!' What a cutie. I almost died.

Unfortunately, Uyuni is not the world's most modern city, so you may have to wait a while before I'm able to upload some photos of green lakes and me standing on top of a jeep. Off to Sucre this evening for more fun and adventures (probably just two days worth of chilling in the colonial centre). Much love x

Famous!

What did you do in South America? Oh, nothing much, just made it onto local news.

Check out what I just got sent by one of the boys who got stuck in the National Park with me: http://www.rionegro.com.ar/diario/2009/10/24/125635512827.php# For all those who read Spanish, this is the somewhat exaggerated/uncensored version.

Santiago and Around

Dear all:

Since we last spoke, I have arrived in a new country: the spindly Republic of Chile, and spent a day and a half in the capital, Santiago which I was very surprised by in that I found it most pleasant. In truth, I only really wanted to go to Chile so I could drive through the Andes and get another stamp in my passport. Stamps are pretty. I had heard that Chile was expensive, apparently very European and all the friends I have met so far are having fun together in Bolivia, or something, maybe they're not there yet, but they will be at some point. So in a somewhat Napoleon Dynamite fashion I thought to myself 'Fine! I'll go to frikkin' Chile. Gosh!'

But Santiago was a really cool capital, maybe because it is so European and just like London and they let nerds like me into the National Library to geek out about books they can't even touch let alone understand. There's just something about shelves, you know? There was also, to my delight, steps that I was allowed to climb up to look at the whole city. I hadn't climbed steps for some time and was suffering slightly from withdrawal symptoms, so I dragged myself up them, sweating and panting (in a good way) to survey my domain of high rise buildings and MOUNTAINS. Then I went to the Fine Arts Museum, which wasn't weird and feverish like Cordoba, but had lots of fun things in it including a 'Living Art' exhibition where lots of art students were just doing their thing in the main courtyard bit. And as I watched those crazy art students, I thought of Chandni. Hey Chandni. Then I had lunch in the café and felt like one of those rich women who look at art and then eat off the menu in the café that has heavy ornate metal tables. Yes.

After indulging my antisocial, loner streak and talking to NO-ONE in my hip and trendy hostel but a lovely French lady, I decided I'd like to move on, so I ask my host, Santiago, what he recommended, and he said 'Well, what are you in the mood for?' and I responded: 'Steps, please.' And he said, 'Ah, I have just the thing for you, madam, you wear a size 7, am I correct...' and off we go into Emma's head again... I am picturing an elderly man in a waistcoat with silver hair and a tape measure round his neck...

So, yes. Off I went to Valparaiso, quite excited as Lucy had also written it down as a must see in The Book of Many Numbers and Organisation and Budget but alas, when I arrived, I looked at it and thought, what?! I have been duped. Coming from fancy, glitzy Santiago and swish, sophisticated Argentina, my first impression of Valparaiso was a scruffy, ugly port town. Could it be possible that I was, in fact, travelling in a developing country? No. Impossible. I won't stand for it. I travel to see exactly the same things as I have at home, but for cheaper, thank you very much. However, I pulled the stick out of my arse and met my host, Valparaiso, who said: 'I hear you like steps?' And I was filled with joy!

Now there are four important things to do whilst in Valparaiso: walk up steps OR take tiny, Victorian lift things, and then walk down steps OR hills, and I have done ALL of these things. I had a beautiful, expensive lunch on the top of a hill, not because I could afford it, but because the restaurant was so pretty and had a View and it called to me, then I got snap happy and took lots of photos of all the kooky, interesting, kitsch houses that are built almost on top of each other in all different colours and different styles and then just as I had bought salad and strawberries and thought I could no longer stand the heat, I saw MORE steps and was drawn to them and climbed some more and walked along a little balcony/bridge type thing and I felt bohemian and awesome and wanted to run around in a flat cap and bare feet and a grubby piece of material tied around my neck.

Also, this place is something to do with Pablo Neruda, but I am ashamed to say I know not one thing about him. Let's wikipedia him... ah. He was a poet. I should probably read him. If only I understood Spanish. My Christmas list full of English translations will be written up upon my return. Tomorrow I shall go to Viña del Mar to lie in the sun and do nothing, and then

Esquel, El Bolsón, Mendoza

So, remember how much fun I had in Mendoza last time I was here? So much fun that man, I just had to come back again...

No, in truth, what really happened was THE STORY OF EMMA FALLING IN THE WATER: I travelled from Puerto Madryn to Esquel (Welsh colony) and discovered I couldn't go to the National Park nearby until Saturday - I arrived on a Wednesday - so for two days I decided to go a little north to El Bolsón and do some walking around there, lovely. The weather was pretty apalling, but I thought stuff it, I've only got two days, once I'm wet, I'm wet, I'll be fine. So off I go on my walk. And there are three bad things that can happen to you on a Rainy Walk: wetcoldwind, footinbog and triponlog. Luckily, I avoided wetcoldwind, and was in surprisingly good spirits even after footinbog and triponlog-fallonface.

Marcos at the information centre told me I could walk all the way to the Chilean border in a day, so off I went, getting a lift across the delta from a friendly boat man, and then following the helpful yellow rocks, all very easy. The forests around there apparently inspired the Disney film 'Bambi' and you can really see why - tall pines, dense forest, April showers, huge beautiful lake, gushing streams. Very beautiful.

My half way marker for the trip was the gendarmerie, so I popped in to show them my passport and asked them if I could eat my packed lunch inside, and they were very hospitable, and told me that I wouldn't make it all the way to Chile and back, but since I had my sleeping bag, I could stay in the cabin they had out back. Half of me thinks: awesome adventure, the other half thinks: 5 men, 1 girl, middle of nowhere, but after telling them all about my husband in Afghanistan, I think they are friendly enough and I agree.

So off I go on my walk again, and everything is grand until on the way back, I have a classic Emma-is-an-idiot moment where I slip on my bum crossing a river and everything gets soaked. At some point during this river-slipping-bum incident, I lose my camera to the lake and everything is ruined. So I go crying back to the gendarmes: 'I am cold, everything is wet, what do I do? Boo hoo etc.' and they looked after me and gave me tea and a dry set of clothes.

However, when the three older gendarmes come back from their fishing trip, the radio tells us that there are three Argentinian boys stuck on the other side of the river, which has now swollen, so we have to get in the boat and go and rescue them and their dog - very exciting. And we all hang out with the gendarmes over night and drink maté and talk about football.

Then the next morning we are all taken home across the lake in the speedboat, but because these boys were in a bit of trouble, the LOCAL PRESS are there, and a 16 year old has been taken out of school to translate my traumatic story. I try and make it sound as interesting and dramatic as possible i.e. not 'I fell on my bum and everything got wet and I lost my camera', rather 'rapids and eels and Loch Ness Monsters and huge bridges and at one point mermaids' and then I got taken back to El Bolsón in a police vehicle and that was the end of the adventure, other than it snowed and there were no buses and I was stuck in El Bolsón whilst all my stuff was in Esquel.

Then, feeling cold and wet I decided walking, lakes and mountains were not for me, so I got into contact with Una and Kate, lovely, lovely girls from Ireland, who told me they'd be in Mendoza, so I took a 24 HOUR bus journey (my whole life), met Janet and Matt from Massachusettes and then drank a lot of red wine on a tandem bike (awesome), met the legendary Mr. Hugo, bought a new camera, allowed Mendoza to redeem itself and have just been to a very, very strange bar with some odd fish in it and had an argument with a snob about state vs. private education.

Off to Chile tomorrow, hopefully if I can get a bus ticket.

Sorry for lack of photos of footinbog and triponlog, the lake has stolen them all. I'll hopefully be able to get some tandem photos up soon... and until then, I hope these pics of the trip from Argentina to Santiago through the Andes will make up for no fallonface.

Puerto Madryn Mark II

Sorry to overload everyone with blogtime but today has been also very exciting and being a bear of very little brain, if I don't write then I will forget.

So, as I said, I have been adopted by Argentinian divorcee Veronika who, to be honest, I may strangle, if she does not show signs of comprehending 'time to oneself', and today was the day for scuba diving, so off we went to the diving place and chatted to a very nice looking Frederico who got us into our wetsuits (a sexier thing, you will not see in all your life) and then gave us our lesson: bite the regulater, seal with lips, breathe deeply, you are able to cough, spit, vomit down the regulator, just as long as you don't take it out of your mouth, this is the sign for 'ok', 'I'm cold', 'my ears hurt', 'I'm scared I'm going to die, please help me' and remember to pop your ears when the instructor tells you to.

Then we drive off in his truck along the coast until a little man called Julio bobbed up in his boat and we jumped in and sailed to THE PLATFORM where Julio, who was convinced I understood everything he was saying (didn´t), manhandled me into all the equipment, and let me tell you, you need to stand in a very compromising position to get the weighted belt onto you (don't worry, I saw him do it to a grown man before he did it to me, so I figured all was kosher, unless he and this man were very, very good friends). So, wetsuit: check, gimp hat: check, flippers: check, weighted belt to help me drown faster: check, really heavy oxygen that will apparently float in water (I think: yeah right, whatever): check, super hot goggles: check, Doctor Zoidberg gloves: check. Then I, who knows absolutely nothing about scuba diving, jumps into this FREEZING water - look on the map, we are near Antarctica down here - and I remember an English boy telling me yesterday 'Ah, a cold water dive, that'll be cool, not a lot of people do them'. Why? Because it is COLD!

But no, really, you don't feel it after a while, I am just being dramatic for literary effect. So, Mathias, my instructor once again explains everything in Spanish, but by this time I have a regulator in my mouth which I must never, under any circumstances, remove, so I just stare at him with panicked eyes that I hope say PLEASE SPEAK ENGLISH, WE ARE ABOUT TO GO UNDER A LOT OF WATER, but he does not see them because I have goggles on. So orrff we go, down, down, down the rope, popping our ears a total of four times on the way. Then Matthias takes my hand and we go for a magical journey under the sea and I feel like Ariel and any minute now, Sebastian will pop up and we will have a crazy underwater feria.

In the real world (i.e. not in my mind), I saw such beautiful things: luminous green anemonas and pink ones and silvery grey ones and - I'm not sure if this would be allowed in places like Australia where everything is protected in a serious way - but I was allowed to touch them so they got embarrassed and retracted themselves, then we saw lots of big fish who got curious of us and one stared at me for a really long time and we achieved zen together, then we picked up some starfish and a sea urchin and then Matthias showed me how to smash open a mussel to feed the fish! How cool is that!

Then we came back to the surface and I gracefully stumbled all over the platform trying to get out of the water and get my stuff off and then we went back to the beach on the boat and had soupa with Matthias and ran through the water like Pamela Anderson (did I mention how sexy these wet suits are)?

Okay, so that is all. I will try to leave a gap before I next throw stories at you.

Lots of love!

Puerto Madryn

Hello!

Apologies for the last blog: excessive alcohol and lack of sleep resulted in little wit or particular excitement. However, a 22 hour bus journey has fixed this and I am now ready to write of my stunning adventure in Peninsula Valdes, Puerto Madryn...

So I arrived, checked in and was immediately adopted by an Argentinian divorcee amed Veronika who has decided we are to be bff for the next few days. She told me to book myself on her whale watching tour so obediently, I did. Then the next day we get picked up by a minibus and we begin our tour. First stop is El Doradillo, a collection of beaches where southern white whales can be spotted with their babies. Almost immediately we spotted one and to be honest, I was set for the day. Remember that book 'Whale's Song' that has me in it as a little girl? I was living out that book in my head. So we watched the whale do its thing for a bit and I tried to take some photos, but then I realised that I can't experience life through a camera lense and gave up and just watched in awe and wonderment.

Next stop was a seaside town called Puerto Piramides where you take the boat to go whale watching. Cue dweeby photos in life jackets next to big models of whales. Off we trot onto the boat and out we go into the gulf and again, almost immediately a whale appears and delights us, but a little far off, then when it gets bored of us, we turn the boat around and are just in time to catch one in the distance doing a full on jump out of the water like in the dramatic nature programmes that make you want to be a marine biologist when you're small. So that was AWESOME and I would have gone home happy, BUT THEN (the order of events now gets a little hazy as I was overexcited) a young whale decides to come right up to the boat and hang out for a bit and I got a really great photo of him under the water. Then we watched a female stick her tail up in the air for a really long time. The guide explained why only females do this, but I wasn't listening.

Then, best of the best of the best, this massive whale comes right up to the boat, sticks his whole head out of the water to have a look at us and then swims underneath the boat and hangs out with us for a big doing that Loch Ness Monster kind of motion - back, head, tail, back, head tail - and then we went back, which is probably for the best because I was exhausted from the excitement.

But the day wasn't over, oh no. We then went to watch a colony of elephant seals, the alpha male of which has between 80-90 females in his crew (who knew you'd be reaading David Attenborough's blog today) and they are the fattest things I've ever seen. When they move, you can actually see them ripple, like that episode of the Simpsons where Homer's fat dances. Anyway, check this out (do not read if you are easily offended), so when elephant seals mate, the male flubbers up to the female and CRUSHES her so she will submit, and then rolls over and spoons to actually do the deed otherwise he would actally kill her because of his enormous weight. Just imagine. That is what the wives of fat people feel like.

So then we saw penguins, and whatever, penguins are over rated, sorry. Then we came home and Veronika decided we simply must do something tomorrow, so we booked a scuba diving trip and at some point I will stop spending money, find an internet cafe where I can upload photos, sleep and relax a bit, maybe even read my book.

Also, check this out: I have been speaking Spanish ALL DAY and Veronika thinks I'm really good and people keep being really surprised when I say I've only been learning for seven weeks. Result.

Also, officially half way through my trip now - scary!

Buenos Aires

Hola!

I am just about to finish my five day visit to Buenos Aires and I have had a really great time! I definitely picked the right hostel to stay in and have met so many fun people, mostly Brits, Irish, Americans and Aussies and have therefore had the chance to experience the BA nightlife in a social, and most importantly, secure, way. Unfortunately, Buenos Aires prices are actually quite similar to London, so I will now be living on fresh air for a week.

Despite nights out that finish at around 5-7am, I have still managed to get out of bed at a reasonable hour and do lots and lots of sightseeing. So, in order to use a colon in my blog to make it grammatically sophisticated and to achieve an A* grade at GCSE, I have visited, taken photos of and read helpful tourist plaques in the following places: the Casa Rosada where Evita did her famous balcony speech, the cathedral in the same square (I think I might start skipping cathedrals with their paper maché Jesuses as they all look the same and I never remember their name) San Martin's tomb, the National Congress building, the Obelisque, San Telmo - the antiques district, Palermo - the boutique shop and good bar district, the childhood home of Jorge Luis Borges (MASSIVELY EXCITING!), La Boca - the immigrant district where they have the famous coloured houses, Evita's grave, the Fine Arts Museum where they had a Jackson Pollock, Picasso, Rothko, and lots of Monets which I was surprised and impressed by, Café Tortini, the oldest café in the country, or something, where I had tea with two lovely Irish girls, Una and Kate, and I even managed to squeeze in a tango lesson at the National Academy of Tango next door with a very nice young man named Philip, also from Ireland.

So I have had a very good, if somewhat exhausting time, but with no spectacularly entertaining stories to tell, which is probably a good thing because my interpretation of entertaining is when things go wrong and funny things happen as a result.

I'm off to Puerto Madryn tonight to do some whale watching, so I'm very excited about that. Also, the internet is being ridiculous so photos will have to follow later...

Cordoba

Hola!

I have just spent a very fun few days in Cordoba, Argentina's second biggest town with a large student population and thus a very good nightlife. I arrived on Thursday morning and checked out the town, highlights of which included a 350 year old school that you can just wander into whilst class is in session, some great Jesuit architechure, a big gothic cathedral and some really nice cafes and restaurants. Unfortunately the main square and cathedral knew I was coming and searched in their wardrobes for their best scaffolding which they wore proudly, trying to impress me. I, however, am not impressed by fancy clothes.

Gah! Almost forgot to mention the weirdest art gallery I have ever been to. Beautiful space featuring paintings from your nightmares when you have a really high fever. South American art is straaange.

On my second day here I decided to do an organised trek to a National Park called Quebrada del Condorito, but Nancy on the hostel reception said it was very easy to do independently. Off I went then, trying not to be put off by failures of independent activity in Mendoza, and arrived very happily at the park after a 2 hour bus ride through some incredible hills, a little reminiscent of the Peak District, but bigger and drier. The walk itself was quite relaxed, despite being quite high up, and the surrounding hills were beautiful and there was absolutely no one else around, which was awesome until I stumbled across the above sign which, as far as my Spanish will allow me to understand says: Pumas and Snakes with the ability to KILL YOU live here and as this is a National Park, we allow them to roam freely. 'What to do if you see a Puma': wave your arms around, don't run away, collect all children into your arms (as children, to Pumas look very similar to rabbits and other small snack-sized morsels). 'Advice': don't walk on your own. Crap. And for Snakes: if a snake bites you, leg it immediately to the security post, an hour a half away, before you pass out from the poison. That's all I understood. Every day the need to understand Spanish is becoming more a question of life and death than common courtesy.

The whole point of doing this beautiful walk is to see the condors at the end. It is common knowledge that I have a particular interest in condors and other ugly birds of prey so I was very excited to see them so close up, but unfortunately little camera with rubbish zoom didn't catch any of them very well, but I saw lots of swooping and diving and circling and one even fanned its wings at me from where he sat upon a rock. Very nice.

Whilst waiting for the bus home a real live coolest thing ever gaucho talked to me (to tell me I had just missed the bus) and I stared at him for a really long time before he got picked up by his other gaucho friends, but I was too scared to ask for a photo. P.S. Gauchos are like cowboys and are THE symbol of Argentina and Borges writes about them and there's a big famous one called Martin Fierro so this was very awesome. Two Argentinian girls spoke to me and decided they liked me and then another Argentinian couple offered us a lift back to civilization which saved me my bus fare which was also very good.

At the hostel I made more friends, hoorah, and we had a big asado organised by the hostel staff and drank lots of red wine and then went out to dance, which was very good. Then the next day, it appeared that only me and a friend I had made, Daniel, were hardcore enough to get up and go to Oktoberfest in a small village of Villa General Belgrano, population about 6,000 people, in the middle of nowhere in the mountains. Now this village is cool. It was founded by a group of Germans in the 30s who have basically rebuilt Bavaria in the middle of Argentina. I didn't get any photos (busy thinking of beer), but all the houses are alpine chalets and it is very surreal to drive there from colonial Argentina. Apparently this Oktoberfest is the third biggest outside of Munich and I have never been to one before so I wasn't sure what to expect, but for those who are also ignorant, everybody genuinely dresses up in leiderhosen - grown men included - wears funny hats, has a parade, lots of music and you have to buy a mug and some people get a strap to attach their mug to them and then you get your mug filled up with beer from lots of different stalls and you drink beer all day. How cool is that?! I am going to Oktoberfest every year from now on.

Daniel and I made friends with some Americans, Canadians and French from a university in Buenos Aires and drank lots of beer and then it chucked it down with rain, which was fun to begin with cos the Argentinians took the tops off the tables and two men held onto them and the game was to stand and stay on the table top whilst they bounce you around on it. Good game. I did it and did not fall on my arse. Result.

Then we came home, ate pizza and went to bed and today is an administration day (Sunday) and tonight I go to Buenos Aires, so I have to figure out an itinerary and also try to figure out exaclty how much money I spent on beer yesterday...