La Paz a continuacion...

So, still in La Paz, and I'm undoubtedly going to be ready to leave in two weeks. The city itself continues to be fascinating from both an engineering and cultural perspective. The longer I spend here the more evident the cultural division between the gringos, the Ketchuans and the more middle of the road Bolivians. This strange meeting of values produces an almost uncomfortable feeling in the city; the gringos being unwelcome from a Ketchuan perspective, but hounded by the more progressive Bolivians for the tourist benefits. Theres an absolutely massive ex-pat community here, to the extent where you could genuinely live in this city without ever speaking Spanish or meeting any Bolivian's other than those you run into on the street- indeed I've met many who do. And after a mere three weeks here I can walk into many of the resturaunts and bars within this city and be greeted on a first name basis by the bar staff- La Paz is a very seductive place to be, you feel like you know everyone here almost instantaneously and for this reason people seem to struggle to leave this place. However, as many of my friends I've made through work are leaving tomorrow I strongly expect the biggest tie I will have pulling me back to this place will be the children I work with in the orphanage. The city itself is unlikely to make my favourites list for this trip, although I did enjoy seeing a bit more of the real La Paz yesterday when I enjoyed my first whole day off for 16 days in the local park and actually got to speak to some of the locals, who, when the eventually stop trying to sell you things, are actually a lovely and chatty people (the Ketchuans excepted- they dont talk at all). Plus also I enjoyed getting to break out some more challenging Spanish to meet new people here.

Aside from that, this weeks activities have included more volunteering at the orphanage, which only tugs more at the heartstrings as I get to know the children better and they in turn recongnise me. This Friday was particularly difficult as one of the little girls, Daisy, turned one. Its seems spectacularly unfair that through no fault of her own Daisy was left to turn one without proud parents to bake her a cake and take hundreds of photos of her smiling and happy in her highchair (as she was, the children at the orphanage are spectacularly well behaved- I strongly suspect simply because when they cry there aren't enough people to look after them, so they've stopped). One of things I learn daily on this trip is how ridiculously lucky I am.

On Thursday of this week the girls who work behind the bar at Loki decided to throw caution to the wind and be a tiny bit touristy and signed ourselves up to bike the worlds most dangerous road. A 43 mile road that hugs a cliff as it winds from a snowy mountain peak into a tropical rainforest and finally finishes at an animal sanctuary. For those interested the link to the wiki article is below. We forked out for the best tour company to go with, and luckily they gave us pleantly of time to practise with the top end equiptment before embarking on the road. Which was just as well because I became rediculously overconfident on my hydraulically breaking bicycle, flew round the final practise corner not realsing my guide had stopped, locked out my breaks and did a youtube worthy skid for about 10m along the gravel road. If I had been stupid enough to be going so fast even 10 minutes later I would have skidded over the edge of a cliff and had more than a few scrapes and bruises to show for my adventure. With the thought 'mum'll kill me if I die' constantly alternating with the llama song in my head for the remainder of the 5 hour descent, I decided to take a more sensible place further back in the group, and took no more risks ('llama, llama, duck...'). We reached the animal sacturary a little after 1 in the afternoon, and I was able to have my first swim since leaving the UK, which was very welcome. We then took the minibus back up the road, just to see how amazing the views had been on the way down (you really only look at the gravel path, as our guide explained 'your bike goes where your eyes go, two weeks ago a bloke went over the edge. When I asked him why he said he watched a butterfly fly past. He now has two arms in plaster. And he's the luckiest man I ever met'), and it really was the most scary road I have ever seen in my life. An amazing experience though, and a wonderful day out with my friends Zoe and Leah. It's nice to have some girly mates out here in this very masculine environment, and we´ve become very close as a result of having to stick together (especially on 'offensive Sunday' when the boys are allowed to say anything they want and frankly it all becomes a little bit much sometimes). We stopped on the way back to take the typical silly photos, and then totally wiped out on the way back to the hostel- an impressive feat to sleep while driving a Bolivian road!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yungas_Road

Its been a good week, a busy week no doubt, but a good one. La Paz is definately the most exhausting place I've ever been. The babies require so much attention (and I want to give it to them) that I come from the orphange wiped out, and then if I'm working the mid shift I have 30 mins to shower and get behind the bar (showering a must as at best I'm doused in slobber, and worst in lower down excretia- Alex of three months ago would die of shock at the things I deal with daily now). The late shift requires a few hours sleep in the afternoon to enable me to be able to function till 3am and get up again at 7. None the less I really enjoy working behind the bar, more so now I'm drinking less. And I think some of the friends I've made here will last a lifetime. And I'm finally acclimatised enough that I can go proper running here, although I need to note that after 3 hours outside my suncream will wear off and I'll be a beetroot, attractive. But, like I said at the start, this is a big continent, and I'm starting to feel like there's not much more of La Paz to explore, so when my flight to the Amazon comes in 2 weeks I'll be ready to jump on it and see something new of this amazing and diverse place!

A tale of two cities

Having started this week at the orphanage my life is now becoming increasingly bizarre; my days now consist of a 7am start and breakfast with my firends Matt and Leah before catching one of the tiny minibuses (collectivos) out to a part of town called Obrajes. The drive in itself is awe inspiring (and only paralysingly terrifying the first 5 or so times), crossing between the mountainous peaks that La Paz calls home. The driving style here is much the same as that of the rest of south America, think dodgem cars, the main difference being that when you shunt the guy next to you in La Paz he falls 2000m to his death.
We get to the orphanage for about 9am everyday and stay till half 12, I'm assigned to work with the 1 year olds and our morning activities mainly consist of getting the babies up and washed, giving them their morning snack, and later lunch, and putting them down for their lunchtime nap. Truth be told, most of this activity is auxilliary as they have a mamita to care for them the main reason these babies need volunteers is to provide human contact, so we spend a lot of time playing and cuddling and helping them to walk. Despite the fact I thought I would HATE working with babies (having almost no experience) I am really starting to enjoy the volunteer placement (Beki, don't die laughing... I'm serious!). The orphanage in itself is a wonderful facility, but that does little to deter from the sad fact that there are 10 babies in my salle (group) alone. Most of the babies in the orphanage are the unwanted results of the Bolivian sex trade, and they have little chance of adoption here as the process takes a minimum of five years and the adoptive parents simply get assigned a child at the end.
And so my mornings are preoccupied with this sad reality, and my afternoons see me back at the Loki and out and about around La Paz taking advantage of the 40% staff discount we get at local buisnesses, eating deep fried mars bars and going out dressed up as rock stars. For me La Paz couldn't be more of a city of devision, and keeping up with my crazy double life is exausting but at the moment I'm really enjoying myself and am even starting to construct some semblance of routine here.

The Peace (yeah right)

It was unfortunate that the bus was so incredibly cold when we arrived in La Paz, as the approach to the city is a wonder in itself. The entire construction is perched on the side of a mountain; there is no flat in La Paz... However, with steamed up windows and little light as we drove up at 7am we could see nothing of the beautiful cityscape. What we could see however were hundreds of Chicalitas clad in traditional Bolivian garb of multilayered hoop skirts, bowler hats and multicoloured blankets in which they carry their wares. Famously bad tempered, these little old women I learned fast are best to get out of the way of (I realise it's impossible for all of these women to really be old, or to really all be as totally round or as bad tempered as their repute, but at the same time not avoiding the determined bowler hat- plait combo coming towards you really is a fools errand).
My first day in La Paz was much warmer than I had steeled myself for what with the altitude and all, but what was interesting was that while its much warmer here than on the salt flats the altitude is much more noticable (after 5 days I´m still puffing at the top of the stairs). Once out of the evil bus of death Lucy, Sophia and I made our way to the Loki hostel, made infamous by its Lonely Planet reference 'insomnia pumping... if you haven't already heard of it you probably shouldn't stay there'. Luckily we had already heard of it (Loki La Paz really does have quite the reputation on the travelling circuit here), and I had been tipped off by some of the girl I met in Buenos Aries that they took on Bar Staff in the hostel. Once at the hostel we were greeted by an austere victorian style mansionette that had been decked out in traveller appropriate decor (lots of focus on drinking and socialising), needless to say I absolutely loved it and was delighted when later that day the bar manager Cam told me I was welcome to a job starting the following Monday. The first night I was here was the last night of Neil's stay (the Ozzy lad whose job I was pilfering) and as a result he was being auctioned off for charity, we had a fantastic night at the bar, and I was happy to meet my new workmates.
As I wasn't working until Monday I had a few days to explore the city (read 'have nasty hangover' for my second day- altitude and tequila shots being a poor life choice), and I did so by visiting some of the tourist markets with Sophia who was looking for presents so close to the end of her trip. While we were out Sophia introduced me to the Bolivian concept of jugo bolsa (juice bag), which is where you pick fresh fruit from a market stall and they make it into smoothies for you and put it in a little sandwich bag with a straw for you to take away. Absolutely delicious but unfortunately has to be made with powdered milk here as the water isn't safe to drink (many castualties at the hostel are testiment to this on a daily basis) and there is no fresh milk. One of the things I have found incredibly difficult about travelling is the difficulty of getting fresh fruit and veg that wont leave me sweating and crying for three days after, a massive bonus of working in the Loki is the European kitchen where all veg is cleaned with purified water; never been so excited to see a salad in my whole life! Naturally the downside is that they don't really serve traditional Bolivian fare, but after nearly two months of empañadas and deep fried everything I feel like I've earned a few days of fresh tomato soup with meatballs and a tuna melt or two! Being totally in the centre of La Paz Loki is also well positioned to go and eat Bolivian should the need arise, although bizarrely the resturants that fare the best here are Mexican, Indian, Steak and an English pub- the Bolivians catering for the recent massive influx of first world tourists (Bolivia has really only become a tourist destination in the last 10 years). I experienced this phenomenon first hand on my third night here when I decided to go and try the 'most dangerous curry in the world' at the Star of India along with two English lads I had met when I was at Iguassu Falls who had ended up at Loki, Zoe a fellow bar recruit here, and an insane Ozzy called Brendan who was determined to finish his dish inorder to get the free 'I survived the worlds most dangerous curry' T- shirt. Despite not being a massive curry fan I felt the gauntlet had been thrown and dived in with the boys ordering the 'death dish' (Zoe being the only sensible absainee), the first few bites of the curry itself were actually delicious but soon the burning, crying and sweating started and it became a race to the finish- clean plates only get a t shirt! I finsihed first, with the English guys coming in not far behind me, Brendan on the other hand actually looked as if he was about to die and took a staggering 1.5 hours to finish and I think left the resturant about 3 stone lighter from sweat loss. However it was very good night, and we celebrated by going back to the bar and joinging the staff in a few 'blood bombs' (redbull, vodka and grenadine drunk as a shot); a big part of being staff here rotates around being involved in the party... terrible burden. After my first few days I was able to move into the staff room, and had taken steps to find out about volunteering here in my spare time... looking forward to my 5 weeks at the Loki!

Salty Flats

Getting up in time to be collected at 7.30am (read 8) was a tiny bit chilly, but nothing compared to what was to come during the next three days living above 4000m. I met my tour group in San Pedro and it was directly off to Chilean customs to get stamped out of the country so we could enter the Bolivian national park. I would be spending the next three days with Benjahmin, Estoban (twin brothers from Chile), Christian (Benjahmin´s buisness partner), Lucy (Brazilian) and Sophia (Korean). When I went to book my tour I had been told that I was the only native English speaker, and as all the others spoke Spanish we defered to this for the group language of preference. This meant I speant the few days being slightly less chatty than usual, although not for want of trying! Unfortunately the child friendly Spanish learnt in Paraguay, "¿Donde esta la pellota verde?" (where is the green ball?), wasn´t particualarly useful to begin with, but ever the creative adaptor I was soon able to pìck up a little bit of adult conversational Spanish. Language barrier aside (and some cultural differences- Sophia was horrified that the boys considered infidelity a suitable subject for jokes) we actually had a brilliant group and it was an incredible experience to spend a few days only talking Spanish, and being surrounded by people from cultures so different and varied from my own.

Beyond the sociological impact of my trip, the salt flats themselves were amazing and the pictures uploaded here scarce do them justice. For those not in the know the Bolivian Salt flats are a stretch of land peopled with lagoons in various colours, active volcanic lakes with bubbling lava, huge stretches of naturally crystalised salt stretching for miles and bending all perception, gorgeous mountainscapes, some of the hottest and coldest weather in the world, all at 4000m above sea level inhabited solely by llamas and flamingoes (as you can just see in the picture of me against the landscape). You can only explore this amazing natural phenomenon from the back of a 4x4, and it takes a minimum of three days to get from the Chilean border all the way through to the first Bolivian town of Uyuni. The entrance fee to the park cost a measly 15 pounds, and I think it might be some of the best cash I have ever parted with in my life outside of a Jack Wills store (ha ha).

Day one of our trip saw us visting beautiful natural mountainscapes and a series of vibrantly coloured lagoons, some of which were so cold you could walk on the ice at the edges of them, and others of which were so hot the steam rose into the air around them. Chewing coca leaves to help with the altitude sickness (much nicer than you´d think) we were all fine up high. We stopped off at one of the warmer lagoons for a quick swim against a background of imposing mountains and wild llamas roaming (awesome!!!!), and then piled back into the jeep to go and see a beautiful pink lagoon completely chock-a-block with wild flamingos. One of the most surreal views I have ever bourne witness to. At the end of day one we stopped at a small hamlet in the middle of the desert, and enjoyed buiscits and jam around the fire until the elctricity generator cut out around 9pm, we ran out of fire wood, and the temperature plummeted to a cosy -20 degrees celcius. No matter how many blankets and clothes you´re wearing (six blankets, two jumpers, two t shirts, a hat, gloves, scarf, trousers and two pairs of socks) its actually not possible to sleep properly at that temperature and altitude and the experience was much more akin to passing out than to any kind of slumber.

Day two and we saw more lagoons in every colour of the rainbow, from vivid greens to dark reds, we visited the stone tree (pictured above) which is a completely natural rock formation created by the unique environment, we saw bubbling volcanic lava lakes where the molton rock was actually jumping out of the ground around us. And in the greatest tradition of South American health and safety the guide's only words of warning were 'don't step in the lava, that would be bad' as we wondered through the boiling pools. That night we stopped off at a hostel made completely of salt, which I think would have had much more appeal if salt had better heat retaining qualities. None-the-less the structure was impressive, and the lighting here held out until nine, at which point we were able to sleep a little better as the temperature was a mere minus five.

Our final day on the salt flats and we actually got to see the salt for the first time; miles and miles of crystalised ground. A marvel to behold, and more importantly a wonderful opportunity to take crazy distance perception photos for hours and hours until our hands got so could we could no longer hold our cameras. We then went on to visit fish island (no idea about the name), an island in the middle of the flats devoid of salt and completely covered in cacti. Before heading to the train graveyard (for some unknown reason the Bolivians dragged all their old steam trains into the middle of the flats, and then someone graffitied scientific equations all over them. But after days of volcanoes, flamingoes and ice nothing really seemed that weird anymore.). Our tour guide dropped us off at the tiny hamlet town of Uyuni and Sophia, Lucy and myself started the wait for our bus to La Paz. Absolutely shattered, freezing cold, but having seen some of the most amazing sights any of us will ever behold. And we still had the trauma of the first Bolivian bus to go.... to think in just the last blog I was complaining about a lack of sandwiches... 12 hours of jolting, stinking, freezing, unpaved bus journey later and I've never been so pleased to see somewhere as I was La Paz on Thursday morning. What an epic few days of adventure.

San Pedro de Atacama

Definately getting used to sleeping on the bus, I was passed out for a large swathe of the 25 hour journey to San Pedro. However, I was awake long enough to discover I don´t know enough Spanish to watch three films in Castellano and properly understand what´s happening, the North of Chile is pretty grim, and that one sandwich and a biscuit is not enough food for a whole day (meals included ticket... yeah right!). The town turned out to be very pretty and very tiny, absolutely gorgeous weather (being a desert and all) and full of incredibly friendly locals trying to sell you things. On my first day I just about mustered the energy to go and find the recommended tour company to book my salt flats tour (3 days across the Salvador Daliesque Bolivian Salt flats and into Uyuni), and then ventured back to the awesome little hostel I was staying at to meet my room mates. I was in a room with a young English guy on his holiday from Uni and a couple of German girls (one from Hamburg!), we had a nice evening chatting and discussing the relative merits of the recomended high altitude aclimatisation diet. Post bus starvation I was less than thrilled to be told the best way to feel good at high altitude is to avoid dairy, red meat and alcohol (alcohol seems logical to me, no idea about the other two), however two days of eating cereal and veg later and I was fine when we ascended to 4000m; I´m becoming a big fan of following the advice of locals! We then went to bed at the pathetically early time of 9pm as there´s no electricity after that point, and the desert at night is freezing cold!! The next day I decided to go for a bit of a run around the town, totally failing to factor in the 2500m altitude and being suprised when after a mere 20 min jog I was wheezing like a 40 year smoker running a marathon. Upon realisation I treated myself to a day of Ben Elton and chilling out in a hammock in preperation for the sleep deprivation that was to follow on the Salt Flat tour. I also invested in a pair of llama wool gloves (with llama motif, love being a tourist sometimes) having had a tiny taste the night before of the temperatures that could be expected up so high. And the next day I was off to face the cold and astonishing beauty...