Hola from Bolivia,

In our last night in Cusco, Mal tried some guinea pig......not overly impressed but you can clearly see the paw in the photo in our album! This goes paw in paw with the alpaca he tried earlier in Peru!

We were very glad to finally cross the Border into Bolivia from Peru. The on going strikes in Peru made travel a constant headache (we actually left Puno one day at 5.45am to try and ´beat´the strike, but the bus was turned back when protestors had blocked the road and started running towards the bus! The only upside was that we stayed in a really nice hotel courtesy of the bus company....for a discounted price! TV, carpet, hot shower and free internet....what more could you want!) The extra day in Puno was spent sorting out Nat´s Visa Card as some nasty person in Ecuador has decided to purchase over $7000 on our behalf! Luckily the banks are onto it and we should have the money returned within the coming weeks!

We have spent a great week on Lake Titicaca on both sides of the border. It is one of the highest navigable lakes in the world and lives up to everything the guide books say about it.......sparkling water, crystal clear air and endless horizons. You constantly have to remind yourself it is not an ocean you are looking at. We spent two days on the Peruvian islands staying a night with a local family (meals were a very quiet affair with a bit of miming the only means of communication!). We enjoyed a local dance fiesta where our families insisted we dress up in local gear and dancing at that altitude certainly takes it out of you! The floating reed islands we visited were also amazing and totally unique. It was a weird sensation walking on them as they are quite spongy.

In Bolivia, we have instantly noticed how cheap everything is, rooms on the island for $3 each, meals for $5 and the people are lovely and friendly. We think we´re going to love Bolivia!

We spent a day and night in Copacabana and observed the local custom of ´Blessing of the Cars, Trucks and any sort of automobiles´! This happens twice a day outside the cathedral and people decorate their vechicles in all sorts of paraphanelia and then after the priest has blessed their locomotive, they spray champagne around it! We then took a boat across to Isla del Sol and chilled out for a day outside our hostel with stunning views of the Lake. The following day we decided to trek the island and whilst providing fantastic views and impressions of the Lake, hiking for 6 1/2 hours at around 4000m above sea level is not an easy task! As we´ve been living at altitude for a couple of weeks now, once you are out of the sun and especially at night.....it is very very cold! Mal reckons he has not slept with so many clothes on since his last year as a student in Edinburgh when he lived in a freezing flat with only a one bar heater!

We are off to La Paz today and will spend a couple of days here before tackling the ´World´s Most Dangerous Road´on bike!

Lots of love

Mal and Nat