Oh Santa Cruz, you know you´re not that far...

Goodbye Peru! The faces of boats on floating islands on lake Titaca, bit scary.

Occasional moment of beauty, lake Titicaca, Bolivian side, at 3800m.

Military Mike misses his hair, but tries to put on a brave face, in La Paz (3600m)

Spiders in the Bolivian jungle, near Santa Cruz, soon before I fell in the river.

For my next trick, I will make Machu Pichu disappear in a puff of smoke... tada!

(at least it hides the llamas mating) (and dont worry, it cleared up after)

South Americans take their politics very seriously, its really exciting.

Unfortunately for the grannies above, so do the police.

This is Cusco in Peru, but Bolivia, in fact, has had more presidents than years of existence (no joke). I met one of them, he was president for 4 days.

Life at 4900 metres... (Peru, Colca Canyon)

It looked like another planet I thought. Beautiful and strange.

I just kept wanting to take photos. This is family of vicuña.

For an English boy like me, these long straight roads are mind blowing.

Granddad and the devil dogs,

Delightful Jen from Georgia, who I met on the road, invited me to stay with a Peruvian family she knew in Arequipa. So I did. They were wonderful. The granddad, Amador (which as far as I know translates as lover, or lover boy) is one of the coolest Granddads I know and should be a comedian. His sidekicks are his two dogs. The one with the glowing bulging eyes is called Beethoven. We had something in common because my eyes also look weird in flash photos. He also liked slobbering on me.




Oh, and this is why latin american people are so good at dancing (well, at least that´s what i´m telling myself). Instead of having music lessons and stuff, they just go to the youth club and practice dancing after school. Hundreds of them, with two guys at the front showing them what to do. The family showed us this place, I couldnt figure out how to put video up sadly.

Palm monkey

1. Palm trees are good, as are their shadows, for photos and for the heat.
2. Can you see the Monkey in the sand? Its drawn in the sand by people a 1000 years ago. I couldnt see it because i was busy trying to stop myself being ill all over the other passengers...

What´s the capital of Peru?...

Lima! Wow, I´m almost doing collages now, this is exciting. Anyway, that´s two pieces of Inca / pre-inca art, the skull lady with no eyes scares the hell out of me, and by the looks of it, she also scares the face on the pot next to her. Below is lovely Lima and the pacific ocean herself.

Lets start at the very beginning, a very good place to start...

I suppose you´re just going to have to tilt your head, these are mountains at sunset on flight into Peru, I presume they are the Andes...

Valentine Udders

Valentine´s Day, Salta, Argentina: I had forgotten the date and was writing postcards on a bench in the plaza, when but was approached by a bunch of 18 year old Argentinian girls, who sat and chatted me. Obviously, they were too young for me but I had shaved that morning, and with my short hair probably looked about 15. But it was flattering all the same, at least until I showed them photos of my family and they asked me for Duncañ´s email address. Not mine, but my little brother´s. I blocked them on my msn in revenge. This plaza however, was really beautiful, I actually spent several hours every day more or less just sitting in that plaza, sipping coffee, people watching and reading Harry Potter in spanish. It was great just to do nothing for a bit.

Local Cuisine: I ate barbecued cows udder. Hmm. The Chilean couple I hitch-hiked bought the mixed grill but didn`t tell me what I was eating till after and they didn`t eat it themselves. It had a weird texture and was a bit milky... not that nice. Since we´re on the subject, i also ate barbecued cow´s heart in Bolivia, which was really nice, but I was pretty ill that night. Also a whole tongue (of cow) and cow lymph/pítuitary glands... not bad really. I also ate frozen dehydrated potatoes there, a specialty apparently, which are grey and bit a boring.

Paraguay: Stayed with lovely family, in gorgeous house with pool, and became the Lord of the Flies. This was not because I hadn´t showered for a bit. The first day, bees kept following me and trying to drown themselves in my glass, it happened 4 times in 3 days. I saved them of course. And then, 2 butterflies landed on my hand. And then, my least favourite subjects, the mosquito, bit my feet a great deal (they have dengue fever here). Finally, while swimming in pool at night (which had view of a purple starry sky with Orion) bats paid homage to me by flying squeaking over my face several times and interrupting my breast stroke by swooping down and drinking water in front of me.

Brazil: I just like the fact that I am in Brazil. The flag is cool, and the word is cool, and Brazil nuts were always my favourite. We went to a huge huge waterfall (iguacu, for those who know), it was very exciting. So exciting that I threw of my shirt and went for a swim, and realised 5 minutes later that I had my body belt on, with passport, money and travellers cheques. I had to dry them all out on a rock, people gave me funny looks. I was sad because my paraguay passport stamp was running. In general, Brazil is really nice, but I consistently am annoyed by the fact that they speak Portugese! On the 1st day got stuck in this hotel in the middle of nowhere that looked like it was out of psycho and almost when psycho myself out of frustration because he didnt understand a word of spanish, or english, or even nepali!
´
ok, enough writing, i will put photos up tomorrow...
lots of love
Michael
p.s. I have spent too long in cafe that it is dark and i have missed bus back to hostel, so will have to walk back in dark! In Brazil. Richard Coelho and Kate Oliver say they are going to tell my parents that my last words were that i didn´t love them, i would like to officially say here that I do love them lots. I think also that my chances of surviving the walk back are very high, lots of people do it and i haven~t spoken to a single one that got killed.

Penguins in the Desert

I´m alive!

I was by the side of the road at 9 and stood in the shrinking shade of a sign for Chile for an hour, trying to hitch hike and being rejected by happy families and obese truck drivers alike. Then one not so obese truck driver with sharp metal poles in the back of his car stopped, to tell me that I was standing in the wrong place.

Anyone going in or out of Chile has to go through the customs office. You have to walk through disinfectant in case you bring in some terribly dangerous Bolivian mud causing an epidemic of bird flu or foot and mouth. A lady in heavy protective clothing (in the middle of the scorching desert, which is hot, by the way) sprays the wheels of cars with orange disinfectant. I was going to play it cool but I buckled under the pressure and confessed to having a dessicated Bolivian flamingo bone (it was pinkish!) in my bag and another lady promptly disposed of it, giving me a "I´m disappointed in you Michael" look.

Anyway, it was here, in a mist of disinfectant, that I found my hitch (I´m supposing thats the word for those that pick up hitch hikers). They were the definition of safety: a young married couple, she was pregnant and he was a civil engineer - no sharp poles or obesity in sight. And... they had a new spacious car with air conditioning, 4 wheel drive and i had the whole back seat to myself. Safe to say, I didn´t die. The views were amazing, red deserts, yellow deserts, snowy mountains, green mountains and even purple mountains. Also huge cacti, llamas and seriously, I swear I saw a penguin for a moment, but I reckon it must have been the altitude or a mirage.

Algo Anthropologico

I think this is anthropological. Some kind of cultural exchange going on. Quoted from an Argentinian guy i met who spoke very good english, but edited a bit in case my grandma reads it...

"Everyone knows that Argentinians are the best lovers. Its true! Maybe its because there was a lot of immigration from Italy. But anyway, well, an Argentinian man always [----] in bed and then he stays with her the whole night. Argentinian girls are very demanding, if you don´t treat them good, you´re out. Not like Brazilian guys, they just [do their thing] quick and leave straight away, they dont even bother with showers.
So, at least once in their life, all Argentinian guys go on a holiday to Brazil. When Brazilian girls find out that Argentian guys are in town, they go crazy. And Brazilian girls are real women, with real curves. Everyone wins. Well, Brazilian guys don´t, because Argentinian men dont let their girlfriends go to Brazil."

p.s. Have ended up in Chile by accident and there are available seats in buses to Argentina until 24th February (!) so am hitch-hiking tomorrow. If I die, rest assured that I love you all. (but only those who read the blog before I was reported missing)

dsfds

Ok, here is an unfinished blog entry I thought I better send off now before I disappear off to a desert for 4 days, am having a wonderful time, sorry I have been rubbish at communicating... ´ve given up on the photos for the time being, i´m going to trywrite something inthe30minutes ihave before the busleaves, so forgive the mistakes. Lima: I really loved this place, and as I landed in a gorgeous red sunset (the guy next to me wouldn´t let me take a picture in case i made the plane crash) I remembered it had been my favourite capital city when I was little - so feel a life ambition has been realised there. I braved the sewage and went surfing (in the pacific). I almost drowned with only my board and a floating Inca Kola bottle for company. Lost: A sock. Machu Pichu: This was amazing. No one was there in the afternoon so we sunbathed while an official told us stories about how every year hundreds commit suicide there and how lots just fall off because there are no fences or signs indicating just how dangerous it is. In the background (well, actually, no, right infront of my face) Llamas made the most of mating season, providing an interesting soundtrack to my Inca experience. Lost: An umbrella, offering to Mother Earth we decided. La Paz: wow, an excitingly steep city where altitude is inversely related to wealth of the neighbourhood. I cut my hair really short, to see what it would be like, the lady at the hairdressers kept trying to dissuade me and finally looked away as she took out the clippers (which was worrying becuase I wanted to keep my eyebrow). It was fun looking like an army conscript for a day but then I began to miss my hair. But its not so bad, except for when its sunny and your head burns (someone should have told me) and subsequently look like someone who has leprosy of the head. I now put sunscreen in my hair and blend in with the other greasy latinos. Lost: my hair. Jungles: Gorgeous waterfalls, trees, big spiders, uncomfortable horses. Frequent application of super strength mosquito repellent and constant fidgeting kept the swarms of mosquitos from landing a single bite. The side effect of this was that when jumping to avoid a mosquito i hit my head on a tree and fell back into a river (without piranhas), without my mullet as protection I ended up with huge bloody scab on head for a week. Lost: my friend´s cap that i borrowed.

subjugating the natives

I have used my anthropological knowledge to finish of what the Spanish started. Here I am, punching a nice indigenous boy, near Machu Pichu.
Sadly, this photo took an extremely long time to put up, so I am going to try again tomorrow in a different internet cafe...

Bolivian Birthdays

Hola Chicos,
5 weeks into my trip and i still haven´t sent a group email or done a blog entry. I am alive but not well, having got sick yesterday when i set aside a day to write blog (maybe its psychological). I can assure you i´m having a fantastic time (I would have written more if I wasn´t) but currently do not have the strength to write prose so am going to see if i can just stick in photos and comment on them.
Lots of latin love,
Miguel

p.s. By the way, its my 23rd birthday on wednesday, anyone who sends a belated card to the poste restante post office in buenos aires will get points in the league table of friends I have been secretly keeping all my life. I fly back from there on 11th march, so you have time...