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I got up early this morning. It dawned on me that I'm walking forty miles on Saturday and although I've done a lot of walking in the last few months it's mostly been of a plodding up hills nature rather than distance. So this morning I went out to the coast near Lima and walked, there are much worse ways to spend a Sunday morning. Incidentally if you would be interested in sponsoring me you can still do so by clicking through to my sponsorship page.
http://www.keswick2barrow.co.uk/sponsor/welcome.asp?ID=1093
So far I'm struggling (a lot) so any donations would be very much appreciated, all monies going to a whole host of excellent causes. Details of which can be found on the k2b website. Thanks
Last time I wrote on the blog I was just about to embark on an eighteen hour bus journey. One thing I've noticed about the buses in South America is that they have a display showing the current speed at the front of the passenger deck. At least the posher ones do,the ones that look like they've come straight out of Whacky Races don't tend to bother. I presume this is done as measure to show passengers that the company they are travelling with are concerned about safety (ostensibly at least) and their drivers abide by the speed limit - one thing you notice is that when the speed exceeds 10 kph,a buzzer sounds and usually the driver slows down. This is fine, this is fine, even reassuring on the motorway, however very little travel in the Andes is by motorway. Instead roads tend towards narrow mountain passes, typically withh sheer rock face on one side and a drop of several thousand feet on the other. In this situation you do not want to know the driver is still doing 100 kph whilst cutting blind bends. This is terrifying! Now you could argue there's a simple solution to avoiding this, which is to ignore the speedometer. The problem with this is after 12 hours on a bus you're so delirous with boredom that you just can't help yourself. It's a bit like when you pass a car crash, you know looking is bad but you do anyway. The difference this time is you're imaging your own fiery death as the bus plummets to the depths of a seemingly bottomless canyon.
Apart from envisaging my own demise, what else have i been up to. Well quite a lot really, after my bus journey I arrived in San Pedro in the Atacama Desert - the driest place on Earth - although judging by the number of puddles and amount of standing water it had just finished raining. From San Pedro I joined 3-day four wheel drive tour of the beautiful, psychdelic Salar de Uyuni. A giant salt flat as well as lagoons and volcanoes, all at 4000 metres above sea level. The tour finished at the salt flat itself which covered in a shallow lake of water. In these conditions the surface essentially becomes a giant mirror leading to excellent photo opportunities. The whole tour was great fun, although the soundtrack provided by our driver, how can I put this, was interesting...
It consisted of Bolivian pop music which follows a formula of seemingly random percussion with some lunatic shouting place names over the top and some panpipes thrown in for good measure. When one of the other tour group members (foolishly) asked the driver if he listened to English music at all, he proudly turned over to what sounded like late-90s Eurodance. These tracks would have been rejected as Vengaboys B-sides,they were awful! It was a fun trip.
Following this madness I ventured up to La Paz,a city with a lot character which I liked a lot and then on to Copacabana (the Bolivian version, rather than the Rio beach) on the shores of Lake Titicaca. From here I took a boat trip to some of the islands in the lake.
I've got to be honest, I didn't really know what I was booking, due to the language barrier,but it turned out ok in the end. I decided to adopt a policy early on that when somebody asks me a question I do not understand I will just say yes. Sort of like a Spanish 'yes man' - a 'si' man? Sorry terrible joke, I couldn't resist. Anyway I was hoping saying si would lead to unexpected adventures, but it hasn't really, it just means I occasionally get served food I wasn't expecting and ripped off by shoe shine boys (yes like Victorian London).
In the case of the shoe shine boy I would usually say no, but I made an exception in Cusco. I was sitting on a bench and really enjoying it. He said it would only cost 1 soles (about 25p) so I relented. I should point out at this point that I was wearing trekking shoes, which are primarily made of a mesh material, so he couldn't really polish them. For the tiny amount of leather on the toe cap he pulled out a bottled marked 'especial' and proceeded to clean them with this. When it came to paying the price had increased to about 4 quid. Although I initially refused to pay it quickly became clear I had more to lose in any standoff. I'm not sure what half a bottle of especial shoe shine retails at, but I'm pretty sure it would be less than my passport and credit cards. To be fair he did pull out a price list which showed the price of 'especial' polish and it did shine my shoes. At least until about 2 hours later when I stepped in a batch of freshly laid concrete.
From Cusco I did the Inca Trail, a definite highlight of the trip. Amazing scenery, a good group that I did it with and I actually started to feel quite fit doing it. Although an impromptu game of football at 3000 metres showed there is still room for improvement.
I'm now in Lima and heading home on Wednesday. I'm going to China on 10th June to start the Trans Mongolian Railway so will try to kee this blog going then.
However before then I think I should just give a quick food update. The steaks of Argentina and Chile have been left behind to be replaced by
Ceviche - raw fish marinated in lime and chilli. I tried it, not sure I will do again
Llama and alpaca -there's one 'meat' llama reminded me of - donor meat, it looked very similar. I'm guessing I didn't get the finest cut. Alpaca had a texture similar to roast beef and a mild taste of lamb.
Guinea pig - not tried thid one yet. I'm not usually squeamish about food, but with guinea pig they serve the full animal including the head. I might give a try before I leave.
Thanks for reading
Joe
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