La Paz: The Highest Capital City in the World

We were lucky enough to get a good bus into La Paz, and thus we were able to sleep for the majority of the overnight trip. I awoke at 6am just as we were approaching La Paz, and was met by the sight of a city unlike any I had ever seen. We were at the top of a mountain descending in to the city, which lies within a valley surrounded by mountains, some of which are snow capped. What is remarkable about this city is that it climbs high up the walls of the valley. Houses are crammed in every space possible. Entire suburbs sit precariously on badly eroded mountain faces, and look as if one torrential downpour (not an uncommon occurrence here) could wash them away. It is really quite breathtaking.
We got off the bus and booked into the closest hostel, and were rewarded by our lazyness. Upon checking in the doorman actually led us out of the hostel, took us down the street to what looked like an abandoned warehouse, he heaved open a large decaying door, and led us into what still looked like an abandoned warehouse. There was no signposting at all, but we walked up about five sets of steep and seemingly endless stairs, before entering a final door to reveal a freshly renovated and quite charismatic hostel (it is the secondary residence of the place we had booked in). Being 6.30 am we assumed we would not be able to get into our rooms until at least midday, but to our delight we were shown to our rooms and beds, and passed out immediately.
When we awoke we got down to business. We came to La Paz for pretty much one reason... To shop. It has innumerable markets, with good quality stuff for next to nothing. Over the next few days we all shopped until we were way over it. Except Ness, who bought more than Sarah and I combined, and in fact is hard to find amongst her purchases when she goes to bed at night. No Ness could probably shop indefinitely, and I fear would if we were not leaving in a day.
Other things that happened over the course of our stay in La Paz, involved me getting quite sick from either accidently drinking Bolivian water, or eating rancid Burger King. However the vommitting ceased after a day (although it was quite an intense day of vomitting), and I am now almost back to my best. We also met up with our American friends Adam and Noah again, definitely for the last time, and went on a double decker bus tour of the city with them.
The tour was good, except that it was raining and we were on the roof of the bus, even that was not so bad though. What really made us question the quality of the tour, was when the bus left literally half of the tour on the top of a hill in the middle of nowhere. We were included in that half. We were left scratching our heads wondering whether they would return for us, and as we waited two friendly police women approached us, organised us a taxi and then encouraged 8 of us to pile in to this four seater. We all crammed in as if practicing the clown car circus act, whilst these police women were smiling and nodding at us, and then began our uncomfortable journey back to the hostel. It was a funny enough experience though.
Tomorrow we begin our tour with Intrepid. We are quite intrigued as to what our group will be like, as it has the potential to make or break the tour in essence. I figure at worst we`ll be able to bond over our hatred of any particularly vile member of the tour, but it would be nice if we had a good group.
This I am sure will be revealed soon enough.
But until then...
Ta ta!

Potosi to Sucre

After the mines, the only thing worth noting in Potosi is that Sarah ate a cream bun on the morning we left. At the time she claimed it was the best thing she had eaten in a while, and went on to proclaim that cream buns would be her new thing. The relevance of this will become clearer soon.
We got on a bus, and enjoyed a relatively comfortable and short trip to Sucre. However, we did come across one disturbing sight. Our bus stopped suddenly, and upon looking around I saw that many cars had stopped, but I couldn´t work our why. On one side of the road was a river that was about six metres below us, on close inspection of the road side, I saw that a whole bunch of bushes had been flattened. The driver started the bus again, and as we drove by the flattened bushes I could see that a family Sedan had driven off the road, fallen six metres, and lay crumpled upside down at the bottom of the shallow river. Surprisingly it looked as if most of the family were okay to the exception that the mother was cradling a child and weeping. It was impossible to tell whether he was alive. The clearly distressed father was warding off people attempting to help them. We were about 15 minutes out of town, and five minutes down the road we saw a police car rushing in their direction, hopefully to help them.
We arrived in Sucre, booked into a nice enough hostel, and went to look at the markets. After a few minutes, Sarah looked ill. She decided to go back to the Hostel, and did not emerge for a day and a half. She had become very ill indeed. It was only a matter of time before it happened to one of us, and I am sure Ness and I shall fall victims to food poisoning soon enough, but it certainly wasn´t pleasant for Sarah. Ness however, although sympathetic for Sarah, was not too affected by it. I say this because I witnessed something I thought impossible. During one of Sarah´s more violent vomitting affairs, Ness sat on her bed watching Sarah, quite concerned, but still somehow managing to shovel handful after handful of cerial in to her mouth, chewing unabaited by he hurling not a metre and a half away. It was an impressive feat.
Sarah is still not 100%, her appetite has not yet returned and it has been a while since she has been able to eat a proper meal. But she is certainly far better than she was yesterday.
Whilst Sarah was sick, Ness and I went to see some dinosaur tracks. You were unable to get closer than 150m from the tracks, and thus they were none too impressive. They were uncovered by a cement mining company, who only decided to preserve them because a) the soil they were in did not make good cement, and thus b) they realised they could make more money making a tacky dinosaur park and charging tourists 40 boliviars to get a far away glimpse at said tracks. They continue to mine around the tracks during the opening hours of the park. Thus it was not one of the greatest highlights of this trip to say the least.
Sucre is a nice place though, it´s a pretty town, and it´s been good to bum around for a few days. I even got to see a film in English, The Prestige, which I quite enjoyed, if only for the experience of seeing a film.
We´re headed to La Paz tonight, and shall be there until the 12th. It´s a twelve hour bus ride, so we took care in selecting a comfortable looking bus.
Until La Paz,
Dylan

Potosi: The Highest City in the World

After our first night in Potosi, I awoke well rested if still a little sick. Despite this we had booked a tour of the cooperative mines, with a group called Koala Tours. Why Koala Tours you ask? Well Koalas chew eucalyptus leaves all day, whilst Bolivians chew Coca leaves all day. Also Koalas sleep 22 hours a day, whilst miners are awake 22 hours a day. Except for the boss of koala Tours who also sleeps 22 hours a day. Well that´s what our guide told us anyway.
We were lucky to get a very good guide. A miner, who spoke very good English, and was very funny. Our tour consisted of more Australians than we had met on the trip so far. But I guess that´s what you get when you travel with Koala tours.
The first thing we had to do was get into ridiculous mining apparel, then jump on a bus to the markets outside the mines. Upon getting off the bus, we realised how ridiculous our clothes were, no other group looked like us, and the miners certainly didn´t look like us. Upon asking the guide why we were dressed the way we were, he responded, to give the other miners a laugh. And yes upon looking around we were attracting many looks and smiles. I have never felt so much like a tourist. At the markets we were to buy the miners presents. Our guide gathered us around and taught us about the presents we would buy. First of all dynamite. Our guide pulled out a big stick of it and smacked me hard on my helmet with it to mine and everyone elses horror. Then explained it was harmless without a fuse and detonator, I was not entirely convinced, but am glad i still have my head. then our guide pulled out a bottle of alcohol. 96% alcoholic it was, he said we must drink from it if we were to enter the mines. A mouthful put hairs on your chest, anymore would put you under ground. By this stage the entire group´s eyes were watering. Our guide proceeded to tell us to buy a bag of Coca leaves, and soft drink.
We bought these items, and I realised it was the first and most likley the last time I would be holding cocaine and dynamite at the same time... at least legally.
We were then taken to outside of the mines where our guide sat us down and introduced himself as Pedro, not Perro (dog), and if we ever called him Pedo (fart) he said he´d kill us. He got us to introduce ourselves, upon telling him my name he told me I must be mistaken... He was asking us what our names were. Upon reassuring him that my name really was Dylan, ya know like Bob Dylan, he decided just to stick with Bob. He then asked the girls when they started high school, and that became a running joke of the tour, getting the girls to cover their ears when he was to tell us anything remotely crude.
Pedro then pulled out a bag of Coca and asked us all to take a handful, a large handful, he wanted us strong for the mines. He then told us all to put it in our mouths and chew it. So we all stuck large fistfuls of Coca leaves into our mouths and began chewing. It tasted pretty foul, kinda like sticking a hundred tea leaves in your mouthes. As he watched us all struggle on our big mouthfuls of Coca leaves. He laughed and showed us how Bolivians chewed Coca... One leaf at a time. We cursed him between swallowing large amounts of Coca sap.
Finally Pedro took us into the mines. The ceiling was very low, I hardly ever was able to stand up straight, and I was thankful for my helmut as I hit my head often and hard on rocks and beams, but my neck got very sore. It often got so low that we had to crawl on our stomachs.
The Potosi mines are the highest mines in the world. So conditions in them are very hot, up to 45 degrees C, and there is very little oxygen in them, thus conditions for working are poor. The miners work for themselves, and have to sell their mineral themselves to the highest bidder. Thus they have no medical benefits, no protective clothing, and no special equiptment to get their minerals out of the mine. The average life expectancy of a miner after he starts working is 10 to 15 years. That said, Pedro explained that most miners were happy at present as the price of minerals were way up, and a miner could make quite a good living these days, drawing attention to all the miners rocking up in their 4X drives. Still it´s a hard life for a miner.
In the mines there were many sculptures of the devil, sporting a flattering erection, usually holding a bottle of booze, smoking a cigarette, and covered in coca leaves. This is because the miners are predominantly catholic. They believe that their mines must be close to hell and therefore the minerals in them must belong to the devil, so they worship him, reffering to him as Tio (uncle). If they have a good harvest of minerals, they feel they must show their appreciation to Tio by drinking A LOT with him. If they have a bad harvest they believe they have not drunk enough with him to appease him, so they drink A LOT with him. In fact there are many occassions whereby the miners drink a lot.
We crawled our way to the 3rd level of the mine, it was hot, impossible to breathe, and many of our group looked as if they were to pass out at any minute. I couldn´t walk in a straight line. Sarah looked as if she could have collapsed at any moment. One Hawaiian man was really struggling. Pedro explained that we should not worry if we passed out, he had carried two Israeli´s out yesterday.
Pedro continued to tell us of the miner´s bloody history, as we passed other miners giving them presents. As many as five massacres have occurrred in the mines in the past 100 hundred years, whereby the government have come in and just slaughtered them. To protect themselves the miners use dynamite as weapons, and continue to keep the cheaper crappier Peruvian dynamite on hand to kill anyone if need be. Pedro explained this in quite a matter of fact way, it was just their way of life he explained. The mines have claimed over 8 million lives in its entire history.
Upon getting out of the mines and regaining our breath the guides got some of the remaining dynamite, prepared it and lit it, and handed it to me and some other guy and just walked away. We both had a minor freak out, but the guides told us top stay there while people took pictures. Then strolled up to us casually took the dynamite walked 150m away put it down and walked casually back in time to watch it explode. I don´t think such practices would be accepted by OHSW in Aus, but it certainly made for an intersting day!
Catch yáll,
Dylan

Happy New Year

Hey yáll,
so we are well and truly in Bolivia now, and it is most certainly a very different country to Argentina. Our border crossing went very smoothly, just a couple of stamps and a walk across a bridge, and it was over. Later we found out that the border is so relaxed that you can do day trips from one country to another without any passport checking, you can literally just cross the border unchecked, which is how the cocaine trade survives so easily. The differences in the two towns that share the border could not be more apparent. You go from a well developed city to an impoverished one in the space of fifty metres, it is quite uncanny.
From the border we made our way to the train station, and slept on the dirty floor for around 4 hours whilst waiting for our train. It was a surprisingly good sleep, I think mostly brought on by the altitude. We got on the train, and were surprised by its comfort. 4 hours later and at 3.5km above sealevel we were in Tupiza, and were instantly Marauded by 15 children trying to sell us a room in their affiliated hostel. We chose one quickly, and made a b-line for it. By this stage a headache set in. Little did I know that it would not subside for three days. This was the begginning of my altitude sickness. Something that the girls were fortunatley spared of. Although I didn´t vomit, I was miserable. Whilst in Tupiza we booked a 3 night 4 day tour of the desert and the salt flats. It was $100 US everything included. Our tour consisted of me and the girls, two Germans, a Chinese Canadian, our guide, and his wife the cook. It was good to travel with these Germans and the Canadian. It made the three of us appreciate each other´s company a hell of a lot more. I don´t know what these other girls were expecting, but I think they were all suffering from culture shock. During the first stop in the desert, one of the Germans asked where the toilet was, our guide laughed and gestured to the entire countryside. The horrified look on these girls faces was priceless, but the complaining didn´t cease till the tour´s end. Myself, I was no fun for the first two days of the tour. Each day was 12 hours sitting in a jeep, getting to altitudes of up to 5km above sea level, my head felt like it was splitting every time my heart beat. Despite the amazing sprawls of desert either side of me (the types you only see in the movies), I was concerned with little other than sleep. Then when we finally got to the hostels the beds were so short, squeaky, and uncomfortable, that I hardly slept a wink.I was particularly grumpy on the second day, as I was sure I had lost my camera. It turned up in my sleeping bag, which was incerdibly lucky!
On the third day everything turned around. I still woke up with a headache, but this time I decided to treat it with Codral, the panadol had been doing jack all, and within half an hour I was feeling mountains better. Then I realised why the Codral worked so well, and probably why the altitude hit me so hard... I was getting a cold. But by this time I didn´t care, I was just glad to be awake without my head throbbing. I enjoyed the third day, even if it was much the same as the first two, but it was the first time I was truly able to appreciate the Flamingos and Llamas. We got to our hostel near the salt flats, and I was thrilled to find our beds were a good length and comfortable. On top of this the whole hostel was built out of salt, including the bed bases, it was cool.
On the fourth and final day of our tour we headed in to the salt flats. They are so vast it is impossible to comprehend. Somewhere in the middle of them is an Island of cactusses, where we stopped for a good two hours. The three fo us took the opportunity to take some awesome photos, which I shall psot as soon as I can, but with Bolivian internet being as slow as it is, that may take awhile. Coincidently, it happened to be New Years Eve. And we celebrated Australian New Years, with the girls daring me to do a nudie run into the vast, open, and deserted planes. In a rare display of extraversion, I took up the dare, and sprinted naked in to the distance. It was liberating, if retarded, and the girls got some photos of my pasty white ass in the distance. Which incidently, Sarah sent home to her Mum today. So sorry Anne, you have been warned. The tour ended in Uyuni, which is about as rural a town as you can imagine, we booked into a dank hostel, and despite there grandest efforts the girls missed New Years, opting to crash at 11.40pm. I decided I would not miss my first New Years in 15 years, and went out on to the street to watch the fireworks being set off by the locals. I watched as one local used two massive rockets as crutches, and winced everytime she threw the rockets forward, jammed them into the ground and then threw her weight on to them. I am truly surprised I didn´t see any amputees, I guess when things go wrong they can´t afford the medical to survive as cripples. As morbid as that hypothesis is.
The fireworks were alright, and satisfied that I had done my bit staying up for New Years, I headed back to the hostel at 12.05. To my surprise, the hostel had locked up... Before Midnight on New Years! Before long more backpackers turned up and became equally as disgruntled, until a crowd of over fifty of us were thumping on the door. People began resorting to throwing rocks at the windows and eventually an angry man came down and let us in.
The next day we got up early for our bus ride to Potosi. I realised that my cold had hit me with avengeance. I guess I had not exactly been taking it easy. And as soon as I saw our bus, I knew it was to be a horrible day. You see the busses in Bolivia are built for Bolivians surprisingly. And I have not felt as much of a giant as I do in Bolivia. They are on average the same height as the girls... So real short!
The girls sat next to each other and settled nicely in their well proportioned seats, falling asleep almost immediately. I looked at my seat directly behind them and wondered how I was going to get my legs in. I managed it by jamming each knee painfully into the gaps between the seats infront of me, my kneecaps were pressed firmly against the metal bolts holding the arm rests up. As I reclined into my seat I realised that the head rest met right in between my sholder blades forcing me to hunch over. Finally I realised my shoulders were far broader than the seat I was allocated to. As I considered what the implications of this could be, I watched a ver large lady approach me, each empty seat she passed only confirming my wildest fear. And thus it was realised. She plonked her enormous build practically dead on me. Her wide heavy thighs, driving into mine, driving my kneecaps further than I originally thought possible into the bolts they had been resting against. The bulk of her body crushing my shoulders in on them selves further, wedging me firmly between this woman and the window. Also as showers are a comodity in Bolivia, and the bus being incredibly stuffy, this woman reeked, and thus as she sweated on to me I began to smell the same way. The bus finally began its journey and as I sat, hunched over, bolts cutting into my knees, snotty from my cold, hardly able to breathe, partly due to restricted lung capacity, partly due to the stench, the woman fell asleep on me, began to drool, and I pondered whether I could keep this up for 7 hours.
When we arrived in Potosi, I was not a happy chappy. I made things worse by taking codral on an empty stomach. Disoriented, dizzy, sore, and tired, my map reading was attrocious, and after getting lost many a time we finally made it to the hostel. Where I slept like a baby. The following day made up for the previous one. We visited a cooperative mine. But that my friends is another story for another day. Thanks for sticking through this epic if indeed you did. Till next time, Chuckles

Feliz Navidad

Merry Christmas all!
It´s Boxing day over here, and we´re all taking it very easy after a big day of eating, drinking, swimming, and general merriment. But I´m getting a bit ahead of myself.
A couple days back we went on this big day trip out into the desert. We saw Seven Colour Hill, climbed to an altitude of 4100 metres, ate traditional Argentinian food at a self sustained farm in the middle of nowhere, visited the Salta salt flats, and visited an Inca ruin. It was a very nice day, but damn tiring.
The following day was Christmas eve, we took it relatively easy and did a bit of Christmas shopping, during which Ness tried to speak to someone politely in Spanish, and clearly getting it very wrong, she aroused a very angry rant from a local store owner, that I am sure consisted of the worst Spanish swear words imaginable. It was pretty funny.
I then tried to ring Brit and my family for Christmas, however the instructions on my phone card was in Spanish, the phone lines were jammed most of the time due to everyone having the same idea as I, and due to a storm the phone kept cutting out. After 2 hours I got to speak to my sister and Brit for about 20 minutes. Mum and Dad had gone out.
That night we went to a Christmas party at a hostel, 30 pesos for all you could eat and drink. We were only going to have a small night because we intended to have a big day on Christmas, but somewhere along the way it went horribly wrong, and it turned into a big night. Over here Christmas is kind of celebrated like New Years, with the party on Christmas eve, and a count down to Christmas followed by all the locals shooting off massive fire works. It was quite incredible, I have never seen so many fireworks filling the sky in all directions.
At 5am I decided I would try to call my parents again, seeing as it would be 7pm in Australia. I managed to get through relatively quickly, and it was nice to speak to them, but truth be told I can´t remember much of that conversation.
I finally crashed out at the hostel, and it was only a couple hours later that we had to get up and check out. I felt ordinary, but Sarah looked like death, and contiued to look quite ill for most of the day. From the hostel we set out for a house some friends we had met in Bariloche hired out for Christmas.
It´s a great house, a pool, a big backyard, and most importantly plenty af great people, 15 of us all up. When we got there we were told of a massive feast we were to enjoy later that day. It all sounded quite ambitious, so I was skeptical as to how it would turn out. When we offered to help out, these two Irish boys stepped forward and proclaimed, you can all help by not setting a single foot in the kitchen until dinner is served. And for the remainder of the day we were all locked out of the kitchen, some people attempted to enter but were yelled at immediatley. At about 6pm, with none of us having eaten all day, the boys opened up the kitchen and what lay in front of us was the most enormous feast I have ever seen. Two turkeys, roast beef, stuffing, gravy, roast veg, roast potatoes, scalloped potatoes, mash potatoes, fries, corn, wine, beer, Irish coffee... The boys had even had Brussel Sprouts Fedexed to them from Ireland. They went the whole hog. Dessert followed with more Irish coffee, 2 apple pies, and a crazy ice cream cake.
I had never invisiaged that it could be so good, a few days prior we thought we´d be eating hotdogs on a street corner somewhere, and although not a family Christmas spectacular, this exceeded all expectations. By 4am we passed out on the floor, as the house didn´t have enough beds, but what followed was one of the best sleeps I have had in weeks. And this morning we got up sometime after midday feeling well rested.
Tonight we leave Argentina and head to Bolivia. Tupiza being our next stop. It´s been a fun country, and we will miss our American friends, Adam and Noah, who we may not catch up with again, however we may see Natalie and Tracy for New Years, so that will be good.
Argentina was a good way to start the trip I think because it is quite similar to Australia in many ways, and we didn´t really experience any culture shock. Bolivia however, shall be an entirely different propostion, and I look forward to the challenges it will hold.
Till next time,
Dylan
P.S. Christmas photos are coming and maybe even a video, but it may be some days until I can get them posted.

Iguazu to Salta

First thing´s first. Booze is REALLY cheap here, and only gets cheaper in Bolivia. On our last night in Iguazu we bought a litre of vodka for 5 pesos, which is about $2.50 Aus. It smelt and tasted like Methylated Spirits, but we had a good night. By coincidence we ran into Dean, who we met in Bariloche, and this made the night even better. We had a 9am bus out of Iguazu the following day, and needless to say we weren´t feeling the flashest. We transfered onto another bus in Tucuman, and by coincidence jumped on the same bus as some American guys we met briefly on another bus. We got talking and it turns out they were friends with two other girls we had met in Bariloche and were meeting them for Christmas in Salta. The coincidences just keep on piling up. So these guys invite us to this Christmas party they´re having at this house that they are renting for three days over Christmas with a pool and everything, telling us about the huge dinner they´re going to prepare, and we agree whole heartedly. It turned out that they were coming to the same hostel as we were first so we shared a taxi and checked in. Then I get an email from the girls we know inviting us to the same party. It really is a small world. Anyway we´re pretty psyched about Christmas, we´ve got a makeshift travel family, and with the big dinner and the pool, it should be really fun.
Salta is a really beautiful city. Yesterday we took an airbus up a mountain, and despite desert only being a few kms away the whole place is greener than any city I have seen. It´s nice kicking back in one town for a few days. Buses are beginning to feel very ordinary.
However, despite this being a really nice city, and being in a really nice hostel, there are some wankers about. Last night we were cooking dinner and this drunkard kept on leaning over our food, pushing Sarah aside and taking over. Who does that? He started adding all this olive oil in it, we were making Chili con Carne, you don´t really need olive oil! I literally had to push him aside and forcefully reject his offers to help, which were not so much offers as much as they were demands as he reached over to take the pan. I was fuming and ready to throw the pot half full of boiling olive oil at the bastard, but luckily he wandered off and passed out in the hall way. How rude can you get. You just don´t touch a strangers cooking, you could get shot for that kind of thing in some cultures... well my culture, whatever that may be! For the rest of the evening I had to contend with this loser pleading with me to pick up a girl for him. It didn´t seem to occur to him that me picking a girl up would not help him in the slightest. He also didn´t care when I told him I had a girlfriend and wouldn´t feel comfortable doing it. I downright refused, and he continues to give me daggers when I walk by him in the hall ways. Jerk.
Despite these set backs, I´m having a great time. The pool table is free here, the beer is cheap, and the weather is warm. The girls have gone nuts for a cocktail that you drink out of a pineapple, however they haven´t yet mastered the art of not butchering the pineapple beyond its use as a beverage container. Still they´re having fun. I´m enjoying my last opportunity for big cheap steaks. Bolivia ain´t much of a steak country.
Tomorrow we´re heading out for a 15 hour day trip. We´re getting to some high altitudes, so that´ll be interesting. I´ll let you know how that goes soon.
Till then,
Dil pickleton.

Iguazu Day 2

Well it´s been another big and spectacular day. We got up early and caught the bus to Iguazu national park to see the falls. Again it was damn hot and humid, we all agreed that we had never sweated so much in all our lives, it was just lovely. The national park has several walks that take you to different views of the falls. Each was spectacular in its own way, and between today and yesterday we manged to do them all. The park itself is crawling with wildlife. Amazing birds, the most colourful butterflies you have ever seen, thousands of lizards including plenty of iguanas, these small wild guinea pigs, huge bugs-ants as big as your thumb, we were also lucky enough to see a family of Matis ( at least I think that´s what they´re called... I could be very wrong), they were mammals about the size of monkeys with stripy tails, and long thin noses, they came to within a foot of us. It was pretty cool. So it was a pretty amazing day. Half-way through it however, it just started pouring with rain, I mean the heaviest rain I have ever experienced. One moment it was really hot, then BAM- pouring with rain. In Iguazu it seems you´re either swimming in sweat or swimming in rain. There was no shelter anywhere, so we had no option but to grin and bear it. After you´re soaked through there´s not much you can do but enjoy the rain. I was a little worried about my camera and i-pod, but luckily they are fine. Most everything else in my bag had to be ditched though, and all my money got very wet, which is a problem when it´s made of paper. I handed the bus driver a hanful of soggy notes, he accepted them, but was none to pleased about it. When we got back to the hostel, I used Sarah´s hairdryer to dry out all my money(which I would have paid her out about bringing if I knew she had it earlier, but seeing as I needed it, it turned out to be a great thing to take abroad). It was a relief to have a hot shower and put on some dry clothes. Right now the girls are out buying ingrediants for dinner, we´re gonna make pizza, which is exciting cos although there is plenty of Pizza here it has all been surprisingly ordinary. We´re gonna make it right tonight!
Tomorrow we jump back on another long bus trip to head to Salta, where we´ll be spending Christmas. It will be good to spend a while in a town and just relax.
Until Salta,
Dylan