Hi everyone!we thought it was about time we continued telling you some of our travelling antics - sorry about the delay but you'd be worried if we did something on time!so as not 2 bore u all silly we'll try and summarize into highlights (and some lowlights!)...

Bolivia:
1)our 1st stop was copacobana - no not the one from the song but pretty gd all the same. Our first error was forgetting the time difference from Peru so we missed our boat trip by an hr on the 1st morn,doh! We got it the next day tho and went to isla del sol which consisted of stunning scenery on the walk from north to south.
2)next stop was the crazy capital La Paz. Our 1st morning we woke to gun shots & what sounded like a war going on outside!after tom's excitement and beth freaking out we later discovered that this was a normal daily practise in La Paz (except 4 the wkends ofcourse!) and it is the miners doing walking protests in the street which includes throwing sticks of dynamite to blow up part of the street to cause general disruption so cars can't pass - very civilized!
3)After persuasion from fellow travellers we decided to cycle 'the death road' aka the worlds most dangerous road,basically constant downhill mountain biking on a narrow gravel road with a steep drop on one side.the views were pretty awesome and it was all going well until I started relaxing and enjoying it - error! One short look at the camera man on the side of the road led to me falling off,getting knocked out having a pretty messed up face,chipped tooth and concussion, can't remember a gd half hr after - woop di do! after an interesting ambulance ride through the street protests and the driver throwing my bag of sick out the window we arrived at the wrong hospital!once at the right one I had a head X-ray confirming I was one lucky child and we headed to a luxury hotel for recovery.
4)After our little bit of luxury we headed to Coroico on the edge of the jungle. We were driven by none other than the Bolivian version of Jean Claude Van Damme and then enjoyed the sun, swimming pool and frolicked with some monkeys at an animal sanctuary.
5)Next stop the salt flats and atacama desert via a 14hr night bus and arriving in the early hrs into freezing temperatures. We quickly booked onto a tour lured in by a man who had a fire! We were then driven around for the next 3 days in a 4x4 driven by S'ee'mon with 3 Frenchies and a crazy American who thought she could feel 'the spirits'. Very fun times lots of different coloured lakes, strange rocks, star gazing and hot pools.

Chile:
1)The tour took us to Chile more specifically San Pedro de Atacama; a little town that looks abit like a western. Here we took in some sandboarding, some more stargazing this time with a man telling us what we were actually looking at, visiting a massive valley that goes red at sunset and a night walk through some salt caves.
2)We then endured another massive bus ride to arrive at the Chilean coast, La Serena. Not alot to do here other than visit an island with penguins, seals, pelicans and dolphins. We also got followed by a stray dog for an afternoon he waited outside restaurants, next to us on the beach, all fine until he bit an old jogger who threw some abuse our way. Not satisfied the dog then teamed up with another dog and started attacking a puppy!pretty freaked out we couldn't shake him off we decided to get on a bus along a motorway - panic over!
3)next we headed to Valle de elqui where we had a private 3hr horse ride experience up a steep valley with a genuine pot smoking Chilean cowboy.fun times except for our journey home where the last bus didn't turn up so we ended up hitching a ride with the friend of a Chilean policeman, fun times!
4)the rest of chile involved stopping at a couple of cities on the way to Santiago for our flight to nz. Santiago was pretty brief -a free walking tour which we bailed on and a trip up to a viewpoint with a rather large statue of Mary.

to be continued....