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quiggsy on tour
And so to Bolivia.... The land of cheap everything, electrocuting showers, and no diesel.
We managed the Peruvian - Bolivian border with no mishaps this time, everyone across with passports intact (and all in daylight - bonus). We stayed 2 nights at Copacobana, a small town on the shore of Lake Titicaca which apparently is the namesake of the more famous beach in Rio de Janiero.... So not quite as much going on but it was a really nice little village. Luckily for us there was a really nice pub/bar which was showing all the football and also had rather nice wine for only 2 quid a bottle, bargain. We watched the Argentina - Holland game with a load of Argies which was fun - they are completely mad! Luckily they won. Then we had the best lunch of fresh trout from the lake with chips and rice (a quid) before a spot of shopping for useless tat.
Had a 30 second cold shower as I didn't want to risk electrocuting myself having a hot one - they have some weird system which means that the taps are quasi-live so if you touch them with wet hands its not a pleasant sensation. Anyway, from Copacobana we had a short drive to La Paz which is basically built in a kind of bowl, surrounded by hills. It was officially the last day of the first section of my trip, and also Alex's birthday, so of course we had to celebrate.... Geoff arranged a meal at our hotel which included all the drink, very dangerous. So again a fun night was had by all and some tables sustained dancing injuries.
The next day we managed to drag ourselves out of bed to meet the new people joining us for the section to Rio, and to say sad farewells to those leaving us. We also visited a part of La Paz called the valley of the moon, so called as it supposedly resembles the moon's surface. The strange rock formations are from old deposits from a lake which used to cover La Paz.
La Paz is a really cool city - around 70% of the population are market sellers - there are a lot of markets! So we spent quite a lot of time just walking around, buying lots of tourist tat and street food (pasties!). The funniest thing is that many of the streets have 'themes', so you have an electronic street, a shoe street, a skirt street etc etc where all the shops on that one street all sell the same things! Very random, but quite useful.
We left La Paz yesterday (yes, we did miss the football, very annoying but at least we won) and when we had got about 50km out of the city realized that none of the petrol stations we passed had diesel. So we went back to La Paz to find some diesel. Only to be told that there was none in La Paz but there was in Oruro - a town on our way. So we left La Paz again. In Oruro we were told there was no diesel there either..... I was actually getting rather worried that we were going to have to spend another night camping at a ridiculous altitude and being very cold. We stopped at the tiniest petrol station in the middle of nowhere and, yet again, they said they had no diesel. But luckily Shauna, one of the new girls, told them in Spanish that if we didn't get diesel we wouldn't get to Potosi, our destination. And of course then they did have some for us.....
So we made it to Potosi, although I am still dubious about the amount of diesel we have and if we will ever be able to get any more in Bolivia (it doesn't really bode well as we are going over the Altiplano to Chile in a few days where there are no petrol stations at all...). Potosi is famous for its mines - it used to have the largest supply of silver but now mainly mines tin. Some of our group went for a tour down the mines but apparently the conditions are appalling for the workers and it is very claustrophobic so I opted out. We might try and find some hot springs this afternoon....
Although the weather here is nice (sunny but not too hot) I am very jealous of all the reports of amazing weather in England.... We are looking forward to the next England game which we think we will actually be able to see. Reiko has drawn the most amazing world cup chart which we have stuck up in the truck so we can follow it all....! Also worked out that we will be in Argentina for the final so that could potentially be very exciting!
That's all for now, much love faith x
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