BlogScot

I’ve uploaded the last of my photos to flikr. They are from Copacabana, Bolivia; the trip to the Isla del Sol and the trek down the Colca Canyon in Peru. Some are good, some are crap - for some reason I took a photo of the toilet at Paradise, which is down the bottom of the Canyon. Don’t ask me why, I have these crazy moments!

I’ve created a new non-travel blog at Shine on you Crazy Diamond. If I ever get the opportunity to roam carelessly around the world again, I’ll start posting here once more. Until then, adios amigos!

I was sitting in a cinema in El Prado, La Paz eagerly waiting for “War of the Worlds” to start, when the trailer for ‘buying pirate films is theft’ came on the screen - I almost fell out my seat. What were they thinking? In Bolivia you can buy the pirate DVDs before the film appears in the local cinema! What’s more, a few of my fellow travellers have sent back bundles of illegal DVDs to their friends and families in the hope it makes it past customs. I wish them lots of luck!

When travelling around third world countries, it’s inevitable that you’re going to be faced with unexpected and unwanted occurrences. For example when I was travelling Guatemala strange marks began appearing on various part of my body. I waited a few days for it to go away, which usually works, but not in this case. By luck, one of the people I’d met in Guate was a retired nurse. When I mentioned my “concern” she was kind enough to offer to take a look. I still remember pulling down my trousers so she could get a better look - at my thigh! I waited with baited breath to hear whether I was critical or not; she explained that I had an attack of fleas! When you’ve been worrying about various tropical diseases this is actually good news!

I bring this up now, because I’ve had another attack of “something” while I was in Sucre. My guess I picked it up from Troy, an Australian backpacker who had been visiting one of the small market towns nearby (a flea market, d’think?).

As far as I know, your average flea will leave a line of bite marks as it crawls over your body. For me, however, the bite marks seem to come in pairs, which is very strange as I don’t think there are any vampire bats in Bolivia. After two weeks it seems that I’ve finally got rid of the little bastard(s). The method I use is to simply give myself a good hard rub down all over, everyday until the biting stops. The fleas also stay in your bed, and clothes. I used fly spray in Guatemala on my bed as I was staying in the same spot for a while, which isn’t a problem this trip. Putting on a whole set of clean clothes also helps. An extreme case was a friend who was working in all over Central America with deprived families. She explained that she had had lots of trouble but wearing treated dog collars around both ankles did the trick.

I was sitting on a bus in Bolivia when we stopped by a highway check-point. I guess they charge drivers to use the highways. In someways Bolivia is very non-PC as they have lots of calendars with pictures of semi-naked ladies in shops, garages and I noticed one in the booth that we’d just stopped at. From where I was sitting I couldn’t see it very well, and as you do - if you’re a man - I tried to see if I could get a better look as we took off. Alas, I didn’t. But what I did notice what a large picture of John-Paul the Second hanging on the same wall. An interesting combination, I thought.

I’d just crossed over the border into Bolivia and was standing at the Villazon bus station pondering what to do next. A couple of kids came up offering me some help. As I only had Argentine pesos on me I asked them if there was a bank in town. They looked around and pointed at a bench. “Yes”, I thought, “That just about sums this place up!”.

banco
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1. bench
2. bank