Pool, Birds in G Strings and Crazy BA Weekends!!	0 minutes ago
	Went out with some of the boys to play some pool and ended up in a pool hall where all the girls were wearing their underwear. Kinda strange but not wholey unpleasant... Pub crawled round BA and ended up in the Shamrock bouncing about till the wee hours. Stupidly bet some girls that I would wear the kilt tonight so hopefully they will not appear! dad and Ruth arrive tomorrow at bastardo oclock so easy one tonight. Food internet and psp is the order of the day methinks!! C

OMG it´s still fecking raining. Been here for 5 days and it has lashed with rain every day so far. Feel like i´m back in Asia in the monsoon. Not much to do in BA if the weather is shit!!

Had a monster night last night. Ended up in some dodgy hip hop club trying to out podium dance some other drunk idiots. Managed not to fall off the thing but it was a close call!

Might go out again tonight as with weather like this there is not much u can do except cinema and bevy!! Only so many games of shithead you can play!

Later folks,

Chris :)

Finally managed to escape from La Paz and after a ridiculous flight i arrived in BA. Had to fly LAB which is SA's most dogeramma ariline. Flight consisted of La Paz to Cochabamba, plane breakjs down and will take 60mins to get fixed but then the pilot changes his mind and its everyone back on board, Cochabamba to Santa Cruz and 11 mins to get out and back in through security. Met a welsh girl who was in the same predicament so we did a LOT of pushing Bolivians oput of the way, shouting and blatant queue jumping. Managed to get the plane on time and don't u know the fucker was an hour late!! Finally arriuved in BA about 7 last night and checked into the Clan Hostel which seems to be very cool. Therre was free BBQ and beer last night as yesterday morning there was an attempted armed robbery at reception. 2 guys with guns, one girl got hit on the head and some boy got chot but with a ricochet!! Bonkers eh!! ashing with rain today so going to havew a wander and see whats BA all about!

Mex

Huayna Potosi - 32nd Highest Peak in the World

Day 1

Me and Elizabeth met at the tour office at 9 with all our gear and were quickly bundled into a prosession of taxi´s, stopping off for all the usual crap. Breaky for driver and guide, Meths, Coca leaves, ect. After an hour on a V bumpy road we ended up at low camp. Basically a half built building, a house we couldnt go into and a wierd looking sheep thing. So it was kit issue time and man, am I glad i brought lots of my own gear as both of the jackets had dodgy zips so i gave the best one to Liz and just used my own (it wasn´t really designed for this kind of thing but had to be the gentleman!!). We then set off for the glacier with 2 guides and 2 English lads. Spent the afternoon learning the finer points of ice climbing, cramponing, rappelling (abseiling for those who speak proper english) and other ice related activities. Pretty hard to haul yourself up 25m of ice wall at 4000m above sea level but we rose to the challenge. Had an early night and crashed out in the tents.

Day 2

Next morning it was up at 8 and hiking to the high camp by 9. Only took 3 hours as it is only 600m just to the edge of the snow line. Not much to do once we got their except get our kit sorted and hit the hay, My ipod doesn´t appear to work above 3000m for some wierd reason so no tunes for Chris!!

Day 3

The reason we all went to bed early is that we had to get up at 12:15am to have some coca tea a spot of breaky before starting the climb. It was lashing with snow and blowing a gail, something that was going to be a constant till we got to the top 1000m further up. So we donned our snow gear, crampons, ice axes and bergans and started the acsent. I was feeling pretty happy with the whole thing till we got to Camp Argentina where the first people started spewing and turning back. The nest section was 50m of almost vertical whiwhc almost killed us and this was the easy section. Very strange experience not being able to see anything except some snow that your head torch illuminates - quite otherworldy! The main part of the trek was me concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other and making sure Liz was ok. Not too ardious...

However the last section of the peak was 200m slope at a constant 55 degree angle so you are basically ice climbing the whole way. Took us about an our to get up it as we had to stop every 10m or so our lungs and hearts didn´t explode!! But 10m from the top we broke through the clouds and summited in sunshine at 6088m above sea level. So got some savage picks of the dawn. Unfortunatly clouds on the other side weren´t being so helpful so no views of lake Titikaka. But the guide did say that that is about the worst conditions that they will let people climb in and out of the 9 people trying we were 2 of 5 so not a bad effort. The trek back down was fine apart from me bitching that whole way about wanting my snowboard!! Honestly virgin untouched snow, awesome slopes and prob only a handful of people in the world have ever ridden them! Would have been worth the extra effort to carry it!!

Got back to the high camp for some much needed rest and a good cup of tea before having to hike back down to the low camp to meet the transport. This was prob the most dangerous part of the whole trip as all the rocks were snow covered and our legs were not as stable as they had been 24 hours earlier!!

Anyway awesome experience and also one of the most physically challenging of my life. Will get the pics on bebo over next few days!

C

Well still alive and still in La Paz. was meant to be doing the death road again with the rafting combo but the water is too high for rafting so might squeeze it in at the weekend before I fly to BA. Am planning on doing a 3 day trek up a 6400m volcano day after tomorrow which may or may not kill me. Its me, this German dude and a Norweigan chick all crazy enough to do it!

Had another impromptu night last night but met some cool people and had a right laugh. Paddy´s day was messy as expected with me finally calling it a night at 10:30 the next morning, a few other brave souls kept going but it was getting ridiculous! Sun was a total wright off and i was only awake for about 5 hours!!

Off to the cinema tonight but not before treating myself to a nice steak as it is after all STEAK & BLOW JOB DAY for all you that had forgotten. No chance of a gobble but the steak will have to do!

Hope all is well back in the really real world!

Laters,

Christophe

Hey Everyone,

Just a short one as am in bits after a monster session last night. Went to Coppacabanna with Nial after hardly any sleep then managed to get the early boat over the Isla de Sol (Island of the Sun). wasnt living up to its name when we got there as it was pissing down and some people we had dinner the night before told us that there were always porters at the jetty to lug your bags up the Inca steps. Well apparently they dont work in the rain so we had to lug both our bags about 500m up this cliff. I thought my heart was going to explode as Lake Titikaka is over 3000m above sea level!

Anyway we managed to get to the hostel checked in and passed out for an hour. Weather cleared up and did the 18km walk to the North to check out the Inca ruins and the village. After some speed marching and excellent navigation by Chris we managed to the South=North=South trip in just over 4 hours. Some nice pics. The massivo storm the night before we arrived had knocked out the power for the whole island so it was torch action for dinner and getting back to the hostel. Woke in the morning two very pink boys so have been staying out of the sun for the last day or so.

Shopping and Spanish tomorrow...

C

Well survived the most dangerous road din the world unlike as Israeli from one of the other groups who died taking a flyer off a 450m cliff yesterday!! The weather was horrendous. Rain and mist and vis was down to about 20m. The fast tarmac bit was especially bad as u had to wear glasses to be able to see but they kept fogging up so flying down a mountain at speeds of 45km/h half blind!! But that wasn't even the dangerous bit. The road is a lot easier now as there is almost zero traffic on it but this means that people go far faster. Niall and I were in the fast group and managed the whole 70km without any real problems. Couple of hairy moments but nothing to be concerned about. In fact no one in our whole group even fell off. We went with downhill madness who are the best group around. Excellent guide, awesome bikes and great service. Went out with the gang last night to celebrate and it was another 6am affair. Trying to sort our lives out at the moment. Going to head to Copocabana and check out lake Titicaca tomorrow for a few days then maybe head back to la paz.

Adios amigos,

Christophe

Spent yesterday afternoon doing the silver mine tour in Potosi. Started by getting decked out in miners gear which was tres amusing, then onto the miners market to buy some presents for the miners. Oh and some dynatmite and ammonium nitrate!! Got broken into groups of 7 then marched into the mine. i have never been clostrophobic before but this put me pretty close. The mine is dark tight and hard to breath in. The deeper we went the worse it got. Sort of like a journey to hell, in fact the miners worship the devil as they recon that the mine is his turf. We were all chewing coco like it was going out of fashion as it was meant to help!! I felt really sorry for the miners as most of them start at 15 and work till they are 40ish then they usually have 4 years off then die. Not the nicest of lives. They have to work in cramped, toxic, dangerous conditions for up to 16 hours a day. The only good point is that they are all coop mines so they are working for them selves.

After we escaped the mine we got to set off some dynamite which was pretty cool. Not as good as some of the explosions I have seen with the Army but quite close. Not bad for 2$ US.

Got the night bus to La Paz which wasn't nearly as bad as i thought and V similiar to the other buses we have got here. Now in a wicked hostel and going out for a HUGE one tonight as we have been laying off the sauce while Niall has been ill.

More later,

C

Ola Amigos,

Spent the last 3 days speeding round the Attacama desert in a 4x4 with 4 Japs, a mexican chick and Niall. The salt plains are awesome and have some very cool pics of me falling into barcardi bottles and standing on peoples hands, oh and the ubiquitous jumping shots, have perfecting the flying side kick!! Got frazelled a bit on the plains as it was proper scorchio but once we got into the mountains it started snowing. What is it with me deserts and snow..not quite as cold as the Gobi but certainly chilly. The highest we got to was 5000m above sea level and really felt the effects. Spent my time munching coca leaves, which is the main ingrediant in Bolvian marching powder but helps with the effects. Got a wee bit of a headache but the dodgy gut was the worst. but then Niall has spent the last 24 hours leaking out of both ends if you know what i mean!!

Stopped at a graveyard as saw some Bolvian mummy's in their crypts. Pretty creepy stuff as they are close enough to touch. Got some wicked sunset shots and had a good nights sleep the first night, apart from some crazy dreams. Dreamt was still living at home and Mum had randomly turned the house and my room in particular into a hostel!! Must be the altitude!

2nd day was pretty cool and went to see the stone forest. Good pics but the weather was pretty hit and miss although this was good for me due to scorchioed neck from the salt plains. The Attacama looks V much like the Gobi but with more mountains and less sand dunes. Stayed the night at this wierd outpost beside a reddishy lake with loads of other vans, went for a hike and got some good shots of what is supposedly called the Attacama cat but looks very like a bit rabbit with a long tail to me! Tauight the rest of the people in our bit of the hostel the best card game in the world "shithead" and had at least 15 converts to the cause! had to get up at 4am this morning so we could get to the Geysers for dawn. We actually arrived just before but it was bastard cold so took a quick pic then onto our breakfast stop. Spent an our in this thermal pool with loads of other people, which was really cool as it was still 6am. Highlight was prob 3 yank girls who had forgotten their swimmers and went in starkers instead :)) After breaky legged it to the Chilian border to drop off 2 of the japs then long road back to Uyuni. Stopped at the train graveyard for a quick pic stop but got a flat and managed to miss the bus to Potosi by 6 mins. To be fair though it did leave 30 mins early so now having to spend another night in this flee bitten town!!

But good pizza, a hot shower, and a good nights sleep are beconing so adios amigos...