29/6/04- 1/7/04 La Paz, Bolivia

After 4 nights on the road I have never been so pleased to have a nice hot shower.

La Paz is an interesting city, it is bloody high up so it is hard to go anywhere and still have the energy to do the thing that you intended doing at the beginning of the journey. So we didn't do a great deal. We did find the contemporary art museum which was one of the best in South America and the witches market with their dried Llama foetus´ for only 10 bolivanos (about 75p) bargain way to get bad spirits and guests from your house. We also found the Coca museum with its strange change of empathsis part way through so now I don't know if coca is good for me or not.

One thing you can do in La Paz is go down the most dangerous road in the world on a mountain bike- you get a lift up to the top of the hill first. People we have met have seen buses go over the edge of it and apparently it is a single track road up the side of a mountain with two way traffic, hence the fatalities. Obviously this is not helped by tourists hurtling down the road uncontrollably on bikes but at least this maintains its reputation and keeps it as a tourist attraction.

25/06/04- 28/06/04 Uyuni & around

We met a bunch of really lovely people and saw a bunch of really great things. I will leave it for Roger to fill you in on all the details or better still go there yourselves it is really one of the most amazing places.




Flamingoes in a lake. First time we ever saw a flamingo in the wild it was dead in the road and we couldn't work out what it was as it looked so odd. Actually I suppose that it wasn't so wild. Did you know that flamingoes aren't pink for the first couple of years of their life? Don't bother writing to me and telling me if you did or not unless you have something fascinating to add about falmingoes. Like how their name is spelt. It's actually a typing error I won't bother correcting.



Hmmm lovely landscape. Amazing in fact. Yes, you should go.

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Fiona outside the now defunct salt hotel- closed down for environmental reasons. This salt hotel is in the middle of a salt lake with nothing else around so I assume the waste disposal system was questionable. They have the gall to charge you to have a look at a room as well. Tsk. We simply threatened them with buckets of warm water.



It looks like a tree but it's not- the four of us shared very very cold rooms together with good grace and humour and all that- and fun it was too. Oh, it's just the way the wind shaped the rock. Blimey.



Train graveyard. Lots of old trains and bits of trains and such like- most with grafitti of which most was rude.

23/06/04- 25/06/04 Sucre

This is a really beautiful city as all the buildings in the town are painted white and it is also full of really interesting churches and museums. Whilst we were here we did quite a bit of sightseeing and in one of the museums we were given the history of South American liberation which was fascinating, until the guide started to take the mick out of the British Museum's habit of retaining other countries treasures. Also one of the church caretakers let us go up onto the roof so that we could see views over the whole of Sucre and even encouraged us to ring the bell whilst we were up there.

We also took a trip out to the Dinosaur park where they discovered footprints which was interesting but a bit scary as it is on a site that is still a working quarry so whilst we were wondering around the workers were busy blowing up the area.

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Proof that i have now conquered my fear of heights



Sucre- very nice. That thing that Fiona is up in is meant to be a copy of the Eiffel Tower- can I be honest and say that it didn't look even the slightest bit like the real thing?

All the buildings in Sucre should be painted white so they all blend in all that except the fine for not doing so is US$50 which means that if you really couldn't be bothered it was cheaper not to do it. Interesting? It was to me.

22/06/04 Death Train, Bolivia

I know we don’t usually give descriptions of the journey but this was so completely weird that it has to be one of the best/worst experiences of the trip so far. I imagined that in super Pullman we would have facilities that were similar to those offered in the 1920´s by the Orient Express. I could not have been more wrong. The train was basic to say the least, super Pullman just meant that we had a seat each, lights after dark and nobody sleeping in the luggage compartment above our heads. Food was provided by the locals in passing towns and the entertainment was a cross between swatting hundreds of huge mosquitoes and watching the locals fighting for space in the carriage behind. At the end of the journey we were so exhausted that we decided to get straight on an overnight bus for Sucre.

Just to say that I am glad I am not a poor Bolivian trying to drag their mountains of duty free tupperware through cattle class and sleeping in their own mess (long journey- twenty something hours- their access to our smarter carriage and lavatories hampered by padlock and security guards with guns. They had no light or toilet.) and getting bitten alive. Death presumably comes in the form of malaria or asphyxia. Bless.

19/06/04- 21/06/04 Corumba

After a very long journey overnight and all of the next day we arrived late in Corumba and as there were no facilities in the bus station decided to take stay at one of the touts hostels as they promised air conditioning and a swimming pool, unfortunately they didn’t mention that the air conditioning would not be on and that we would be sharing the room with a variety of animals so the next morning we checked out and checked into a posh place for our last night in Brazil. We spent the day wondering very slowly around the town as it was incredibly hot and sitting by the pool. Corumba is lovely but most people use it as a jumping off point for tours to the Pantanal which is supposedly a wonderful place to see wildlife. Unfortunately we had completely run out of time so had to limit our wildlife tour to what we could see from the bus on the way in, which in itself was pretty amazing.



Lovely town- much nicer than Bolivia's effort on the other side of the border. Above is the view from our window - the second hotel with pool and unplayable billiards thing. A far cry from the strange hostal thing that we first went to with the gaggle of pushy, incompetent kids and the mother they kept refering to who never materialised. However, aside from frog, no other incident in shower

16/06/04- 18/06/04 Brasilia

Arrived after another overnight journey and got completely lost looking for a hotel despite the fact that the ever helpful tourist police had given us very clear instructions at the bus station and the town is designed so that it isn’t possible to get lost. We ended up booking into a really horrible place but it would seem that there isn’t much in the way of budget accommodation in Brasilia. After a brief and rather uncomfortable sleep we set about exploring the town. There really is some stunning architecture in the town, most of which is down the main avenue so sight seeing wasn’t too difficult. We also managed to find the main shopping district and the cinema, though I think that we saw the worst film ever made.

The following day we managed to get lost again, this time in the cemetery (Roger was very scared) and then got on the wrong bus so ended up about a hour out of town. All in all the day was a bit of a disaster. On our final day here we got to go up the TV Tower and to see the cathedral, which is a smaller version of the Catholic cathedral in Liverpool. After that we went to the Parliament to see democracy, Brasilian style. We were allowed to go into both the chambers and in both there was only one politician talking to themselves as no-one else had bothered to show up. It appears that politics is the same world over.

Aaahhh Brasilia- designed by urban planner Lucio Costa and that man Oscar Niemeyer again- great architecture but a bit souless. It's in the shape of a bird / plane / man with arrow you know.

This is the inside of the Cathedral- oh yes very fancy:


And this is JK's car- JK was President Juscelino Kubitschek who was the Brasilian president (as opposed to being a president of any other country) who wanted to move the capital of Brasil to where it is now (middle of the country, middle of nowhere) and later on in life (actually, at the end of his life) he died in a car accident. And this is the car he died in- it looks in a pretty good state but that's because he crashed into a field of nettles and ended up scratching himself to an itchy end. Tragic.


Actually, we saw another tragic end to another president in Rio. I'm not letting Fiona driving a hire car again. And Vargas shot himself and we saw the bullet and the pyjamas he was wearing (monogramed they were too) and the room he did it in.

08/06/04 – 14/06/04 Lençóis

We intended to spend a few days here in order to break up the journey to Brasilia and ended up staying for longer than we have in any place so far. It is really very beautiful here and everyone was so friendly that we just couldn’t leave.

The countryside surrounding Lençóis is some of the most stunning that we have seen on the journey so far and we were definitely the most active here than we have been anywhere. The first few days that we were here we took organized tours around the area to explore the waterfalls, caves, mountains and rivers, but then for the rest of the week we stayed closer to the town and swam in the river, went down the waterslides and properly chilled out. We met up with a really great bunch of people while we were here so it was really hard to leave.

This is me talking on what passes for a phone in Lençóis- as you can tell it is a mobile.


And in the background on the right is the natural water slide on which no one has stuck razor blades on with chewing gum like we were told the ones at home had had. Oh and in the foreground is us. The slide is actually quite long and locals can go down it on their feet. Visitors can as well but are more likely to die.

04/06/4- 07/06/04 Salvador

This is a fabulous town, full of really old lovely buildings and the old town, where we were staying, had a carnival atmosphere all the time. The music was amazing and the whole place is set up so that you can´t help but get involved. On Sunday we were walking back from a trip out to the beach and stumbled across the gay parade which was brilliant.

We did do a bit of the cultural thing whilst we were here and visited the churches and museums which were stunning. We also took a few trips out to the beaches for the sunsets and the fresh water lake which I am sure is lovely provided it isn´t raining. It was funny to see everyone jump out of the lake and run for cover to avoid getting wet though.

I managed to get a dodgy tummy from eating some wierd food thing from a street vendor but Roger told me that I had to as it was a local tradition. Other than that and getting completely soaked in a downpour on our last day we had a fantastic time here.


See those people in costume in the background? They are some of the many obnoxious people one encounters in Salvador who will try and sell tourists junk trinkets and wishes and such like. It was quite a game avoiding their attention though I felt it was a bit of a drain and, gentrified and fun etc. as Salvador was, I did feel like I was in pergutory.

02/06/04- 04/06/04 Recife

Nice enough city (especially Olinda) but not a patch on either Natal or Salvador. As a result we didnt stay very long. We did have a lovely day wandering around Olinda and trying to avoid all the guides who insisted that we had to pay them to walk around the city. We also had an amusing tour of the city on one of the local buses when we got on one we thought was going to the airport but in fact had just come from there. Thankfully we had plenty of time to catch our plane.

I haven't got much to add except to say that as pleasant as Recife was, I wouldn't bother going there- had I not already been there. I needed someone like me to tell me not to go but I am me and I still went.

Oh Linda! Named after the vegetarian sausages apparently. Dutch lost the town from the Portuguese and there are no animal products there.

28/05/04- 02/06/04 Natal

Arrived in the middle of the night and had fun trying out booking a hotel over the phone in our best Portuguese. Roger´s spanish saved the day and we managed to find ourselves in a gem of a hotel right on the beach and a stones throw from the huge sand dune. Spent 5 days sitting on a beach trying not to get too sunburnt and enjoying the local beer and live music at night. We did make a few attempts at sightseeing while we were there, we popped down to the site of the largest cashew nut tree in the world one day and took a buggy ride another which was fantastic even if I was left with bruised ribs at the end of the day.


I'm sure I was speaking Portuguese. Anyway, Natal is great- tree in Pirangi (O Maior Cajueiro do Mundo)is big but low so don't be expecting a tall one; size of 70 normal cashew trees. Buggy ride was with Billy Crystal's fearless Brasilian cousin. And relax...