Coca museum.

As mentioned in yesterdays bloging I went to visit the coca museum. I had read about it in lonely planet and searched for it the other day but was unsuccessful. Following a tip of from another traveler I managed to track it down. Its signposted alright, but you would only notice it if you were a giant. It was all the way up the wall. Anyways, the museum was quite interesting, took about 1.5 hours to get all the way round. There was a lot of reading to do, luckily they had a translated manuscript for gringos like me. Don't get me wrong, I have enough Spanish to get bye, but when I'm faced with a wall of text its a bit hard. The tour gave a lot of information on the traditional uses of the coca leaf all the way up to its synthetic uses in modern medicines. One interesting part was the bit where they gave information on the medicinal uses from thousands of years ago. As well as a full rundown of the development of cocaine and its notorious reputation world wide. one interesting statistic: America represents 5% of the worlds population and apparently consume 50% of the worlds cocaine. Says a little bit about western culture I think.
Today I tracked down the super market to bye some snacks, it took like 3 hours to get there and back! I see why this hostel hasn't bother with a communal kitchen, its much more convenient and probably cheaper buying you meals from the hostel or locally.
Tomorrow I plan on visiting a few museums in the north of the city, apparently they can all be done in a few hours. There about the history of La Paz and its indigenous population, as well as having gold and silver artifacts. Should be interesting. Sorry about there being no pictures for today, the museum wouldn't allow photography.
If its worth blogging  I'll  have another short piece to read tomorrow.

Easter in La Paz

-->Ive arrived in La Paz.

The views of La Paz as the bus arrives was pretty awesome. La Paz being a large valley and the houses and  city taking up the whole of the sides! Pretty impressive. So 1st impressions of La Paz were good.

I'm staying in a hostel called wild rover. to my horror it was full of English people. when i say full i mean FULL. A bit disappointed having left the group i had in Santa Cruz. oh well, new people new places right?

With it being the Easter holidays most of La Paz was closed during the day so i never really got a feel for the hustle and bustle of La Paz until Easter was over. During the evening the streets were filled with people on there way to church, it was very busy and there were people dressed in strange full body and face suits with pointy hoods, like the KKK but with big colourful crosses sewn onto the front, unfortunately i didn't have my camera on me to capture this. On the bright side on Easter Sunday i was exploring the streets and markets and stumbled upon a parade of musicians and people dancing in red and white outfits (photo attached).

As mentioned the hostel was quite British and quite disappointing, however now i have managed to meet a few people, i forgot there names, but the Ozzie i met on the 1st night, Shane i remember saying we should really stop standing next to each other when we introduce ourselves. "hey I'm Sean, I'm Shane" "ooh that'll be easy to remember, Sean and Shane" inevitable names get mixed up with them forgetting which is witch!

Visually La Paz is very nice, a lot of beautiful churches and the sheer fact its built on slopes makes the whole experience very different. Orientations wise its very handy in that whenever i get lost all i have to do is head downhill and I'm soon in the main thoroughfare, which i know directions from. One thing i found quite funny, the local women are small dumpy and wear the most strange little top hats.                                                                                                            

 I think Santa Cruz and samaipata set very high standards for La Paz food and company wise. sorry to say but La Paz is shockingly westernised, everywhere there are fast food places and you have to really struggle to find a decent local restaurant that isn't rock bottom fast food prices or sky high post eats. and so regrettably Ive been eating at the hostel more and more with it being a pub and a hostel.

The day after Easter it seems like the whole of La Paz came out of hiding. and the city is back to normal, full of markets and people. One of the most notable markets is the witches market, this place is strange. from stuffed frogs to mummified lama baby corpses. apparently bought and berried under the porch of new houses to bring good luck.........Bizarre. Speaking of lamas, Ive purchased myself a nice local jumper made from lama wool, pretty warm and comfy, need to shrink it on a hot wash tho as the only did mediums.

One of the good points about the wild rover hostel is the tour operators that are stationed in the hostel lobby, allowing easy access to the activities around la paz. me and Shane decided to do the "worlds most dangerous road" tour. 400 Bolivianos, like 40 quid for a whole day of mountain biking from 4,000 feet above sea level to 1,500.

It. Was. Epic!

As the name suggests the road was very dangerous, to the left a seer drop of apparently 750 metres and this is on a very uneven, narrow gravel road down the mountain. pritty adrenalin filled. We were in a small group of 4 males and so we were able to really push it and go quite fast. i rode into a ditch once and came pritty close the the edge a few times, my heart was pumping. On the way down there was waterfalls and apparently very beautiful views from the top. I say apparently because it was raining like crazy for the 1st 2 hours, nevertheless we all got soaked. As we decended the views got better and i was able to take some decent pictures. on a side note, the instructore gave us all nicnames, mine was shaggey from scooby doo and his was choie, like chobucka from starwars, good idea with he nicknames as i seem to find it harder to remember latin names then english names, and ime terible at that aswell. To top it all off when we arived at the botom we had a beer, a buffet lunch and a swim after a hot shower. all part of the package. We arived 2 hours before the other groups, just goes to show how fast we were going.

 

So thats the main blogable parts of la paz so far, tomorow I plan to visit the coca museum, i hear its quite intresting. Ile let you know how it goes.

Welcome to the hippy vilage.

Santa Cruz. What can i say. its been eventful! the food is amazing; the drinks are just as good. every person I have come across has been helpful and accommodation to my hybrid language of English and Spanish.
a point to mention, I now know the names of my acquaintances. Roy and Timo from Amsterdam, Florian from Cognac France, Lolo from cape town south Africa and mark from Berlin Germany. I know a right mix of people. well the 1st night we all decided to spend the day exploring Santa Cruz, a nice town, beautiful looking buildings in the city centre and as you get further and further from the centre the more it becomes shacks. a lot of places I have been now seem to follow a similar pattern. (See attached pictures for the diversity). as it was getting late into the evening we decided to go out and eat, found a nice little place called KIWIS. run by a local who moved to America, married then moved back to Bolivia to start up a restaurant. we then went on to a bar locally and drank and got merry with the local people, was good not to be surrounded by gringos! the next day myself and Lolo went in search of somewhere for him to bye some cloths (the airport lost his luggage). we got epically lost in the very poor parts of Sata Cruz, on the bright side we were amongst the more indigenous looking Bolivians and the markets were very nice to have a wander through. there are so many good places to eat and drink in Santa Cruz, on the second night after leaving a swanky looking bar we stumbled upon some local Bolivian people (mainly down to Lolo’s impeccable charisma. on the spur of the moment we all piled into a car and were off for a house party! the night was very spur of the moment. the next morning some of the people in my group went off to meet up with the females they had become attached to on the night, I had a swim and in the evening a good all you can eat BBQ put on by the hostel. all you can eat and drink sounds good to me for 7 quid. needles to say I was stuffed by the end.

Roy, Timo left for Sucre, mark for Asia and Lolo for somewhere else in Santa Cruz. so me and Florian decided to have a 2 day trip to samaipata to visit the mountains and a word heritage site called la Fuertes, an ancient pre-Hispanic Inca fortress on top of a mountain. we did a lot of hiking, the scenery was, indescribably (pictures attached). I tried to capture the beauty but was unable to. in samipata we sore quite a bit of wild life, vultures, birds, insects, butterflies. it was nice. saminpata is properly one of the most beautiful places I have been in my life and I will most certainly be returning here when I am older. its a village full of hippy travellers and indigenous mountain people, giving the town a very relaxed feel and the buildings are lovely. I bought some souvenirs from the hippies, hand crafted from organic materials sounds good to me. I am now back in Santa Cruz, hostel in La Pàz booked for tomorrow, bus to La Paz booked for today. 17 hours. I could have flown for a slight increase in price but with the altitude of La Paz they say its better to acclimatize slowly on the way up instead of flying. I look forward to the activities in La Paz, mark came from there previously and he climbed snow caped mountains and rode bikes down dirt roads, both of which appeals to me! A bit of adrenalin never killed anyone. 

ile blog next from la paz.
Sean

The death train got nothing on me!

Still alive, well what ive been up to since my last post. i underestimated Campo Grandee, initially it looked like shacks but after a little exploration there was enough to keep me ocupied for one day. markets, sights and the local people. the bus to Corumba was fairly decent, managed to arrange it from the shop next door to my hostel. result. 6 and a half hours. arrived in Corumba not knowing the location of my hostel so i got a taxi. i got ripped off terribly! 20 Reals for a 5 minuets cab. the hostel was nice, a little weird as it had so many rules. i met this cool Greek dude who had been living in Scotland for 5 years, he was a true wild man, beard and all. he went with me to the boarder. 3 hours to get a stamp and that was it, welcome to Bolivia!. from there i located the train station hoping they would have a ticket for the death train spare, they did luckily. there i got chatting with a group of 3 dudes, one from Amsterdam, one from Holland and one from France, their on the same route as me to Santa Cruz and then La Paz. I've decided to tag along, there doing a different city and the salt plains before going on to la paz, ime considering taking along for that instead of spending so long in Santa Cruz. would be more exciting as there's most likely only about 2 to 3 days worth of activities in Santa Cruz. one is a trainee doctor and knows of my condition which is lucky (I have Chrons diseas for those of you that don't know).
the so called death train wasn't to bad, 16 hours at night is more like 5 because i spent mos of the time sleeping or trying to watch S.A.L.T (movie) in Spanish audio ANS subtitles. terrible. the only way the death train almost killed me what the sambas! really cheesy music videos.
I'm now in Santa Cruz with the group mentioned. tomorrow we plan on visiting some small town outside of Santa Cruz that has old inka ruins, and i hope to see the botanical gardens maybe on the following day. i also plan on visiting the several markets to have a bit of a mingle with the locals. one point to mention. there are less of the stereotypical fair skinned Latin Americans you see in Rio around. there seems to be a lot more indigenous people.
i have a few pictures to put up but as the computers are terrible I'll have to wait till i can upload them.
that's all for now.

Did i just try to snugle a armed officer =S.

Well, the 22 hour bus ride to Campo Grande terns into 24 hours. yet again arriving in a town alien to me in the dark. The coach ride was alright, the coach was a sleeper one. legs forward, seat back, i slept. to begin with the coach was half empty but as it stopped at most towns on the way to Sao Paulo and then to Campo Grande it gradually filled up. i didn't realise that the police rode on the coaches at night time, fully armed up with shooters and all. one took the seat next to me. whilst i was asleep. i vaguely remember yawning and putting my arm all up in his face and then terning to try snuggle! yes i tried to snuggle a armed police officer. ops. still alive tho. didn't give me his nomber either. i took a few cool pictures of the countryside because that's all there was to see, country, was quite nice. well i say country, as we were leaving Rio ans Sao Paulo it was the slums. like seriously the GHETO i feard for my life. well not really the bus driver was going like 90 mph in a coach. yes he drove like a mad man and still the trip took 24 hours. anyways back to the ride. everyone along the road seems to be either broken down in there car, a mechanic, a farmer or selling some fruit. so as you can guess there was a lot of fields. one point to mention was the areas where they had cut down trees and it was like one large patch of read soil. but then there was places where they had attempted to replant the forest. it looked like a well trained army of trees. there was acres of forest that was regimently order you could have sprinted in a straight line for a few minuets, done a 45 degree tern then ran dead straight for another few minutes, it looked strange. had the urge to go running through the forest.
Campo Grande was not worth the trip. its small, full of shacks and run down. the hostel is on the street and from the front looks like a shop. luckily it has a food bar next door and on the other side a bus agent where i swiftly booked my bus ticket out of here. next stop is Corumba. yeah Bart a Simpson style quot. i Corumba.
I'm still a little sceptical about this hostel, on arrival they didn't have my name down for the room and looked at my hostel bookers reservation in confusion. The man behind the counter said he will give me a room, and only  charge me for a dorm, I'm happy with this as the rooms are sub standard. lets hope he sticks to his agreement. otherwise i shall be writing a letter! one good thing about this hostel is that it has a pool, might go for a little swim later, after a little excursion into Campo Grandee and sun it up reading a nice book by the pool. this is all Campo Grandee has to offer me.

Blisters.

Woke up nice and early today, had to check out of the hostel by 11. luckily I'm allowed to leave my luggage and chill in the hostel until my cab comes later on today.
today I've spent the day exploring a bit more of Brazil, i took a leisurely stroll through the markets in Rio, lots of fruits and veg, as well as people selling trinkets. speaking of trinkets, picked myself up a nice little string pattern bracelet thing, something for the misses yesterday on Copacabana beach.
on a side note, the beaches are gorgeous! the waves are crazy, i tried body surfing with the other dudes i met the other day, i failed. the trick is to go in deep enough so the developing waves pass you, well, I'm too short to go that deep so i was battered continuously being at the point where the waves broke. exhilarating few seconds being dragged under towards the shallows, but very tiring, i had regular breaks. the beaches have tuns of people selling everything from beers, bracelets, blankets to hammocks, get annoying in the end.
if you've been reading then you know i intended to go on a boat party the other day, we all decided against it, it was quite expensive and apparently not very good.
we all went for dinner in Copacabana in a all you can eat meat restaurant, very nice, every imaginable meat! the lamb was a must. afterwards we went back to the beach, it was dark, we had a few drinks at the beach bar, and unfortunately one of the girls in the group had her bag snatched on the beach, we all went back to the hostel afterwards. there's a real vibe around the beach bars in Copacabana, musicians playing, chilled environment.
so back to today, i went to Ipenema beach to get some cool pictures of the mountains, i was successful (see attached pictures) i did this alone today as the group have gone to see the sugar loaf mountains, which I'm waiting till with john to see, as he didn't when he got here.
feet are quite blistered from all the waling and my feet adjusting to the flip flops i bought.
i managed to track down the bus company and have my bus to Campo Grande booked for today at 7, i plan to leave for the bus station in Centro at 5 as its about 30 minuets taxi ride there.
Blog  next from Campo Grande, hopefully the 22 hour bus ride doesn't nacker me out!

1st day (well 2nd)

Crashed out asleep at last night, must have been the time difference.
met some cool people today, group of 8 from Lester. 6 of them just flying in from London for a holiday to meet the other two dudes who been travelling for 5 months.
Today i got up early, had breakfast and luckily met the group mentioned, they were just getting in and off to the beach while they wanted for the check in time.
we all went down to Copacobahana beach and sunbathed, the waves were ridiculous so i decided not to go swimming.
we went on an excursion about the city, through the markets and on the streets. its a very busy city.
Lunch time came and we were all pretty hungry so we had the option of a R$3 burger from ¨bobs burgers¨ or hit up McDonald. i couldn't pass up the opportunity to see if foreign Mcdonalds  meets British standards.......it doesn't. food was average and seem to be just a plain chicken burger from Iceland's in a bun. in case you don't go to Iceland's, its not very nice.
tonight the hostel are arranging a boat party, open bar, all you can eat buffet, 2 levels music, should be fun. going with the group which makes me feel 100% safer out and about, now i have people i can talk with. the 1st night at dinner, i was the only English speaker.
tomorrow I'm off to the bus station to book my bus to Campo Grandee, 22 hours, fun. and also i plan to book my hostel tomorow.
in terms of budget, I'm on a slight overspend, by about 20 quid, not to bad, mainly the extortion rate i payed for a taxi from the airport and tonight boat trip, but hey, when in Rio!
That's all for now, I'll update when something interesting.

Arived!

well as the3 title suggests, i have arrived. I'm not going to lie, its kinda scary being alone, my heart dropped when the dude told me my reservation was canceled because i didn't phone then a day in advance (i forgot) so now I've got a bed on the floor for tonight. tomorrow my reservation is still good which is a bonus. its too late to go exploring tonight so I'm just going to relax, all you can eat pizza tonight with a free beer, awesome. tomorrow i plan on visiting the beach. My 1st impression was 'oh shit what have i got myself into! but I'm sure all will look better in the day time, as i went past many favelas in the taxi. A dude at the hostel invited me to a favela funk party, party with the locals in the favela, I'm giving it a miss. i think the sooner i get to meet up with john the better as I'm shore this lone travelling thing is going get lonely.
that's all for now,
I'll blog when i can next