The Arena Of The Unwell: 2010

Friday, 31 December 2010

Santiago, Mendoza and Valparaiso - I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal labotomy

Over the last year, two big mining incidents and two massive earthquakes have made headlines around the world. Chile played host to one each of these and emerged with an hugely enhanced reputation. They're obviously doing a few things right so it sounded like an interesting place to check out.

I'm heading out of La Paz on a night flight to Santiago. I wonder if many of the travellers here even know they have an airport in town given that they think nothing of hopping on a bus for 24 hours at a time. My time will come for that but I booked today's flights way back in London so this one's a done deal for me. I'm travelling via a place named Iquique which I later find out this is a half decent place to go sandboarding. As I don't get to leave Iquique airport on my way south I may have just missed my last chance to strap a piece of wood to my feet and chuck myself off a big steep hill this year. It's the one thing I'll really miss this "winter". Whilst in transit at daybreak we are fed like wet clothing through a mangle at customs and get a proper good sniffing by an overexcited dog who clearly got more sleep than I did. After asking staff here for the seventeenth time "Are you sure I don't need to go to the baggage claim area?" we finally get back on another plane. It all seems a bit unnecessary but I'm reassured that it's all good, my backpack is safe and Santiago beckons.

Something's different in Santiago. After wading through the relative poverty of Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia I can finally smell money and I think I like it. With the possible exception of the US dollar bill which literally stinks, money doesn't actually smell of anything rancid. It doesn't eat guinea pigs. It doesn't get you stabbed on every other street corner. It's toilets can handle toilet paper. It's cars have more than two cylinders and, get this, its roads are not constructed from dynamite, but from actual tarmac. Sitting in the back of my metered taxi with a fully functioning seatbelt and a renewed appreciation of the green-and-folding, I sense a wry smile emerging.

Being unable to secure a bed at my first choice, La Casa Roja, I'm heading to The Princess Insolenta in the Barra Brasil neighbourhood for one night until I plot my next move. It's squeaky clean and brand new but, despite the friendly staff and comfortable beds, it's got no soul and I know within thirty minutes that I won't be extending my stay. Turns out this is a problem with much of Santiago in general. It looks like a city that's trying so hard to be something for everyone that it satisfies no-one. I pick up a copy of the Chile edition of Lonely Planet in the sitting room and even those guys find it hard to be diplomatic, brazenly stating on page one, "Santiago. Paris, it ain't!". I hate Paris with a passion that only the French could supposedly contemplate so what chance have I got here? I continue reading this "bible" until I reach a section describing a walking tour and head out to see for myself.

I take a cab to the starting point by the north bank of the river by a large fish market. So far so good, it's ring-fenced by seafood restaurants. I'm not hungry right now but you know the food here is gonna be top-notch. I continue into town and take a walk through to a modern multi-level shopping mall, the likes of which I haven't seen for a very long time. Now's not the time for retail therapy either so I find an exit and zig-zag my way through a stack of government buildings to the main thoroughfare at O'Higgins Avenue. The central reservation here is home to the biggest national flag I think I've ever seen. Lets be honest, Chile has a great flag. If your national ensign was as iconic and cool as theirs you'd do exactly the same in your capital. Hang on ... our flag is universally iconic and cool! What the hell is wrong with us?

I walk west to Santa Lucia Hill which single-handedly redeems a fairly dull afternoon. Now this place I like a lot. It's got historic fortresses, ornate architecture, cultivated lawns, natural shade, steep climbs and the views from the top are more than worth the effort - it's my first chance to see what Santiago and its mountainous surroundings really look like and it's pretty neat. Satisfied with the last stop on my tour, I break for lunch and coffee before trying to locate a taxi. The taxi rank by the riverbank is weird. There's not one queue here but many, with an assistant at the head of each. I pick a shorter one and get in line. I quickly notice, without fail, exactly four people are getting in each cab. This is weird. Five seconds ago they were all standing, single file, not speaking to each other and then, without any discussion, they all leap in the same cab together? It doesn't add up. I get to the front of the queue and signal to the assistant that I want my own cab to Barra Brasil which he kindly helps me obtain, from a side road. The cab I was queueing for is known locally as a "collectivo" - each queue signifies a neighbourhood and the occupants, who may be strangers, share them without question. A neat idea I think, though I'm not sure it could ever work in an insular, paranoid and space-obsessed place like London.

In the evening a small group of hungry hostel guests head out for food. The neighbourhood looks a bit more lively at night but we don't stray too far and it's a fairly sedate evening. Before I arrived in Santiago I received another hostel recommendation so I'm gonna give this one a go in the morning. The Bellavista Hostel sits in the heart of its eponymous bohemian district. My new "hood" is a short taxi ride away but a whole world away in terms of look and feel. Old and new are colourfully smashed together here with an eye-catching splodge of bars and restaurants springing from every corner and spilling onto the pavements. It kind of reminds me of Camden or Shoreditch in summer, but with less Nathan Barley's. I'm really fond of this place and decide to make it my base before I depart Chile for good. Nonetheless, it's not going to keep me entertained for a week so I make plans to cover as much ground as possible before my scheduled flight to Buenos Aires.

An Irish couple, Seamus and Neasa, I shared a dorm with back at my last place told me they're heading across the border to Mendoza so I get the maps out. It's an eight hour bus ride away over the Andes and across into Argentina. This city, famous for it's nearby Maipú wine region, was always on my longer term plans but its far enough west of Buenos Aires that a trip from the other side of the continent would be painful so I'm gonna tick the box now. I'm torn between two hostel recommendations, Damajuana and Empedrada, but opt for the latter where my ex-roommates are staying.

The bus journey, this time with Andesmar, would be a lot shorter without the painfully slow border crossing to disrupt my attempts at sleeping. The authorities know it's a bottleneck and they claim they're trying to improve things but with diplomatic relations between the two countries being so poor for so long I'm not convinced anyone cares too much. I arrive in Mendosa and bump into Seamus and Neasa at the bus station so we head to the hostel together. They check in first and the hostel manager proceeds to tell them everything they could possibly not want to know about the history of the universe. On top of this he continues to allow other guests to interrupt him in order to locate a fresh towel or debate their outstanding bill at length - and not even so much as a, "Would you please excuse me whilst I totally ignore your pissed-off look for another fifteen minutes?" Seriously, if you've just been on a bus for eight hours straight you need this like a hole in the head. I've seen this happen a few times in South America so this guy's not alone in his misinterpretation of customer service. It's completely messed up.

I have a dorm room to myself so it's not all bad but I sleep by an open window and the mosquitoes help themselves to a bottle or two of good vintage British blood. In the morning I meet the English speaking receptionist who has travelled for years and doesn't suffer fools gladly at all. She has a real marmite personality and a vicious sense of humour. One could suggest she's in the wrong job but she would defend that and say something like, "This is a hostel, not a hotel, and I am not your mother". One American guest once asked her where the ice cubes were, to which she replied, "Ice cubes? Sure, we keep them in the swimming pool", only for him to come back empty handed when he still couldn't find them. Genius.

Amongst other things in the dining room here they have a map of Argentina on the wall and I'm sorely tempted to correct the spelling of "Islas Malvinas" to "Falkland Islands". It's an easy mistake to make and I'm genuinely surprised it wasn't picked up before it went to the printers, those silly Argentinian typesetters. Perhaps they should have stuck to their previous occupation as fishermen but, alas, I think we sunk all those vessels a few years back after their government gave them a lick of green paint, equipped them with pea-shooters and sent them into the pond to catch some "big fish" ... anyway, where was I. Oh yeah, I resist my temptation and that particular map remains untarnished and firmly in its place to this day ... much like Our Majesty's mid-Atlantic subjects.

Wine tours in Mendoza come in two flavours that I'm aware of. I quite fancied the idea of hopping on a bike and attempting to stay upright whilst swigging Malbec in the bodegas but our hostel has got an equally booze-fuelled bus tour arranged so a group of us sign up in the hope that seatbelts are included. We take in three establishments in the nearby wine region.

Our first and most impressive destination of the day is Navarro Correas. They take us all to a large warehouse containing the fermentation tanks and then downstairs to their space-age cellar where the product is aged in casks. This vast place could double as a nuclear bunker with a floor you could probably eat your dinner off. Finally we get to the ever-so-slightly pretentious tasting room with spit-buckets which we pretty much all fail to use - "Oh I'm sorry, I appear to have swallowed that delicious mouthful of fine wine ... oh bugger! Silly me, I've only gawn and done it again. Anyway, just bring out the cake, Miss Blennerhassit."

Next we head for Familia Cecchin, a small organic winery with traditional values and methods which makes for a lovely story but a pretty average end product. Nuff said.

Our last tour takes place at Cavas De Don Arturo. Now despite not having a formal website or any trade links with Europe these guys have got a phenomenal product. I part company with cold hard cash for a pair of their exquisite 2006 Malbec Roble. Given that I foolishly forgot to pack my wine rack these little babies don't last very much longer at all. Now I reckon I'd pay a small fortune for wine this good in London and I only wish I could buy a few cases here and ship them home but unfortunately it's not allowed.

Our afternoon is rounded off at one last vineyard with a seven-course lunch washed down with a not insignificant amount of decent red wine. We can't believe this is all included in the price, I think it was about 15 quid, it's incredible value for money. We literally splash ourselves back onto the bus and continue the festivities back at the hostel until the wee small hours. A really pleasantly messy day out but, despite my gargantuan efforts, virtually no hangover! Hmmmm, booze that good scares the shit out of me. Which reminds me ... but I'll save that one for the pub.

I can't leave Mendoza without checking out what else it has to offer so I head out on foot and find it in the form of the General San Martin Park to the west of the city. Perhaps the blue sky backdrop is clouding my judgement somewhat but this is a truly beautiful place and so relaxing to be in. Unlike most of the surrounding countryside, the trees here are absolutely huge and create a natural canopy that the blazing heat can't get through so the cool breeze just whistles around you in the small patches of light and dark beneath. It's a real treat which I wish I'd found earlier so I could waste a day here but I have stuff to do so I press on. The Damajuana hostel is on the way back and I can't resist popping in to check it out. The hostel is right in the centre of a tree-lined strip of nightlife and it's bang on the money. Sure, it would have cost a bit more to stay here but this is a little bit of me and perhaps I should have realised it earlier. The bar is miles more swish than anything you'd expect to find in a hostel. The plush couches dotted around are fully occupied by casualties of the previous night whilst the elite troops are gathering on the lush green lawn gently limbering up for tonight's battle. No disrespect to the lovely people I met at the Empedrada hostel but it was mostly couples there and I think I may have missed out on something pretty special here across town.

It's another eight hours back to Santiago via the torturous border crossing but I've got a front row seat upstairs on the bus so I get some incredible photos en-route to compensate. At customs I briefly meet a girl from London who's heading to Santiago and looking for a place to stay. By chance there's space at my hostel so she checks in and we hit Bellavista and set the world to rights over food and wine. I've got a couple more days before my flight to Buenos Aires and I want to check out Valparaiso which is a couple of hours away on the Pacific coast. More buses.

Valpo, as the locals like the call this historic port, is famed for its colourful houses which stack up around the steep hills like broken Lego blocks. It's also home to some seriously impressive street art. All this colour slapped on a ramshackle town neatly proves that if you can't polish a turd, you can at least make it more visually appealing. I'm staying at the charming Casa Verde Limon in the Concepcion area of town. This is another hostel recommendation I picked up along the way. It's only private rooms here which is pricy but sweet - a bit of space to stretch out once in a while is a welcome change. Being an active port servicing the huge cargo ships which tower above the portside buildings, the lower streets are alive with activity. Once you go exploring the hills it quickly chills out into the picture postcard town you expected. The dogs on the streets here know the drill. They all go to the hills for their never-ending siestas, dropping to the floor wherever they like and refusing to move as you step over them. I spend most of the afternoon weaving my way around the streets, hopping on the rickety funiculars and snapping away like crazy. Valpo was a fascinating addition to the slightly underwhelming Santiago but you won't need more than a day here. It's sad but true, I barely spoke to anyone during the time I was here. Having said that it was a nice chance to recharge the batteries and have a little bit of genuine me-time.

So back to Bellavista in Santiago for one final day. Without meaning to sound cynical, I ask at reception what's left to do and get directed to head for San Cristobel Hill. The walk will take hours but, as in Valpo, there's also a beaten-up funicular to get you up and down so I choose the easy option. The peak is like a shrine to Christianity with a church, statues, blah blah blah, which are all quite nice but it's the views afforded from up here which are the big draw. The hill itself is the topmost part of a national park which drops off into the distance. There's a mothballed cable car up here which used to ferry passengers to other parts of the park but alas no more. I'd liked to have taken a bike up here and check it all out for myself but I'm short on time and I'm heading out tonight so I scoot back down to drink wine on the roof terrace with my fellow hostel mates.

Much later on we head out to a local club with the weirdest payment system ever. It's a bit like when getting booze at a music festival back home. One bar to exchange cash for tickets and another one to exchange these tickets for booze. The difference back home is that invariably you buy all the tickets in bulk at the beginning of the day and return for more only if you need to. You're not seriously gonna do that in a club now are you? So you end up queueing twice for every drink. What a load of old shit! Not surprisingly, given the circumstances, this Danish guy I'm hanging out with suggests we hit the tequilla. No joke, this has got to be a quad-shot of the vile stuff and in five minutes I can't see straight and leave without even attempting to say goodbye before it gets even messier.

Not surprisingly I check out late and get to the airport feeling pretty rough, again! Anyone would think it's Xmas ... well it is, almost. Happy birthday Jesus, have a sprout.

Next stop, Buenos Aires

Choon of the day: Arcade Fire - Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)

O'Higgins Avenue, Santiago

Santa Lucia Hill, Santiago

Santiago from Santa Lucia Hill with San Cristobel Hill in the distance

The cellar at Navarro Correas Bodega, Mendoza

Vineyard at Cavas De Don Arturo, Mendoza

Giant casks at Cavas De Don Arturo, Mendoza

Our gut-busting seven course lunch. This was just for starters.

General San Martin Parkm, Mendoza

General San Martin Park, Mendoza

Independence Plaza, Mendoza

En-route from Mendoza to Santiago

Anyone for Scalextric?

Valparaiso

Street art in Valparaiso

Street art in Valparaiso (a chance find, my favourite picture!)

Valparaiso

Street Art in Valparaiso

Bottle top mural in Valparaiso

Virgin Mary statue at San Crisobel Hill, Santiago

View from the funicular at San Cristobel Hill, Santiago

Wednesday, 22 December 2010

La Paz, Bolivia - Once You're Dead, You're Made For Life

If you're a fan of Irish hospitality and premiership football then The Wild Rover in La Paz is right up your strasse. Spread across four rickety floors which centre around an Irish themed bar, this place grabs hold and doesn't let go. My room is a four bed dorm on the top. You'd call it a penthouse if it didn't feel quite so much like a shed but I love the quirkiness of it and my roomies are real friendly. I arrived in the middle of a fierce rainstorm. Across the rooftops from the courtyard I spy a familiar looking frame, standing alone in the rain on the rooftop of the Loki hostel across the block. The Canadian stoners get everywhere.

Now, I'm fully aware the nine-to-five reader thinks spending my days on buses is a thoroughly relaxing experience and I should be full of beans every time I step off. Bollocks to that. At 3,600 metres above sea level, this is the highest capital city in the world at and I'm barely functioning. So what could I be doing instead of kicking back? In short, risking my life. Tourism round here seems to encompass a significant degree of danger - the Potosi Mines and the notorious San Pedro Prison to name a couple - which bring in hordes of hedonists who like nothing more than to blow shit up and chin-wag with convicted drug lords. Do your own research on these, I never went to either. I did however read about the opportunity to cheat death on the worlds most dangerous road and that's why I'm here.

The dark history of The Death Road is as fascinating as its modern day revival. I'll give you the story I heard. Some time in the 1930's Bolivia and Paraguay were embroiled in a bitter war over some long disputed border territory. During this period Bolivia took a number of Paraguayan prisoners and sent them up into the hills with spades and sticks of dynamite to cut a large wedge into the mountain rock and create the first meaningful trade route to Brazil. Smart move, because although they lost the war the new road would prove to become one of Bolivia's biggest post-war assets and, years later, one of its biggest tourist attractions. Ironically perhaps, Paraguay now appears to have a tourist industry on a par with North Korea and the contested land, which both sides were convinced contained oil, has yielded approximately jack shit for the "victors". The road continued to operate as the main trade artery until about 2005. Ten years previously an American development bank had published a paper it which it described "The World's most Dangerous Road", upon which an average of two hundred people per year would die attempting to navigate. To clarify, this wasn't two hundred accidents per year. Many of the passenger vehicles on this precarious route were massively overcrowded. In the worse case, back in the mid 1970s, all one hundred passengers were killed when a single truck toppled over the edge and it took a week to recover the bodies. The ambitious bypass proposed by the Americans was approved. Ten years and six billion dollars later the Death Road was rendered almost obsolete before the mountain bikes arrived in numbers. I spent much of my childhood on two-wheels and cycling is firmly in the family blood so this is a no brainer ... I have no brain.

There are currently about thirty Death Road bike tour companies in La Paz ranging from those who think it's fun to encourage their customers to race each other down to those which have helicopters on standby. I'd heard about Vertigo from another blog but the guys in Wild Rover are in bed with a rival firm named Gravity. Being short on time I signed up and paid Vertigo online a few days ago but they were treating this like a school trip to a zoo. First they asked me to repeat all the information I'd given them already (e.g. height, weight, etc.) and then asked me how I'd like to pay. When finally they suggested they pick me up from the wrong hostel I totally lost it. I've got one day left to organise this and if I have to die doing it I want it to be with a company that gives a hint of a shit about the minor details. I head down to the Vertigo office to get a few things straight. The Bolivian lady there sizes me up for the equipment and makes me sign a disclaimer with precisely the right amount of small print to discourage me from reading absolutely any of it. She then tells me I can't do it tomorrow because I'm the only one taking part and they need at least three. Jeez, I thought these guys were the real deal but right now this is squeaky bum time. I explain that I have to leave town and can't delay any further. This is total horseshit, of course - Wild Rover's screening Liverpool vs Newcastle on Saturday and I ain't missing it. So she calls her boss to discuss a refund and quickly hangs up. "You'll never guess what?", she exclaims excitedly, "My boss tells me two more people have just signed up for tomorrow!" I rip up the disclaimer in her face and reply, "So I guess that makes a total of, what, two?" before storming out like a proper drama queen. In a panic I peg it over to Gravity, bitching about South American customer service, and secure a bike for the following morning. It's a little bit more expensive but I'm past caring and sprint back to the hostel bar to calm my nerves with a few liquid liveners. With Vertigo it was just a catalogue of stupid errors which freaked me out, but in their defence no-one I spoke to had ever heard of them screwing up quite so badly before and they did refund my money promptly so I hope their future customers have a better experience than me. Lesson learned here, don't pay for The Death Road until you're happy with what's on offer.

At 7am a pack of sleep-deprived lemmings meet at Alexander's coffee shop on El Prado and wait for our guide. He's, this dude named Phil who looks like Shaggy from Scooby Doo. We hop on his bus with all the bikes strapped to the roof and set off to our starting point on a tarmac road high above the town. He asks us who's scared? Almost everyone there puts their hands up except me. "Good", he exclaims, "I'm never worried about you guys, it's the other idiots who bother me and they're always Australian guys." I guess that's the entrance exam passed then. After splashing a little good luck alcohol on our front tyres in customary Bolivian fashion we set off. The bikes are awesome - built like tanks with all-round suspension and disc brakes. Perfect for the job at hand. The fast tarmac section stretches out for a good few miles which gives us plenty to time to get comfortable and practice our cornering techniques at 60kph before the real action starts. There's a killer 8km uphill section towards the end of the tarmac road and I accept the offer of a seat on the bus for this - I'm not here to bloody graft so fast forward me to the fun bit, chop chop! Another short pep talk about avoiding the big rocks on the dirt road (derrr!) before the main act begins.

The first dirt road section is fairly wide with the mountain on the left and the steep drop to the right but it quickly flips to a narrow and more familiar orientation as we pass from one mountain range to another. The Death Road is the only place in Bolivia where it's permitted to drive on the left hand side of the road. This is because the driver, whose seat is on the left, stands a better chance of surviving if he can physically see how close his front wheel is to heading over the edge. I guess it also gives the downhill driver more time to react on the sketchier right hand turns where the mountain obscures the oncoming traffic.

Along the way we stop frequently to regroup and Phil treats us to a number of horror stories which, incidentally, don't involve Australian guys. One girl had her seat set a little too high and stopped next to the cliff edge. As she balanced on tiptoes her weight shifted and her cliff-side foot slipped. The bike casually tipped her over. Worm food. Another girl was closely following the bike in front during a rainstorm when her visor got splattered with mud and she missed the next corner. She was re-enacting the ET flying bike scene before she realised what happened Toast.

I think it's fair to say I nearly bought it a couple of times too because none of these potential Darwin Award nominees stopped me from attempting to keep up with Phil who been doing crazy shit on bikes for years. I'd heard all about the irresistible temptation to go fast and furious here and I thought I was above it. I wasn't. You can't deny yourself the thrill of getting a few inches from the edge at full speed or hurtling through the muddy puddles of a showery waterfall beneath the overhangs. Anything this much fun should be illegal. As we hurtle along I notice these patchy hot thermals which hit you like a furnace door being opened in your face and, in a flash, they're gone. It's a new and totally weird experience. All this continues for a couple of adrenalin fuelled hours.

As we approach a town near the end a young local lad thinks it'll be hilarious to squirt liquid in my face from a plastic bottle as I bomb it downhill towards him. No harm done. Best not to think about exactly what it was. In any case I probably smell pretty bad by this stage. When I reach the checkpoint, a back-marker says "Did anyone else get something squirted at them by a little urchin back there?". I explain that I thought the little shit might have learnt his lesson after I stopped to punch him in the face a few times. Note to self: I need to be very careful with this brand of humour.

I don't notice my legs have turned to jelly until we finally dismount at the foot of the valley by which time we've descended 3,600 metres. After lunch, we've got an hour to hang out with the monkeys at a nearby animal sanctuary before hopping back on the bus for the return journey back up the treacherous road. This gives us a little more time to digest the scale of what we've just done and take some decent photos, sans mountain bike. It's well after 9pm before we get back to La Paz.

On The Death Road today I randomly bumped into James and Paddy again. The Irish brothers are volunteering at The Wild Rover and we later work out this is the fifth time that our paths have crossed since we first met back in Quito. I think those guys should consider applying for a restraining order! Tonight is The Wild Rover's third anniversary fancy dress party and the place just goes mental. They have a pretty decent U2 covers band playing and there are ten people dancing on the pool table while the barmen are serving drinks between the legs of another dozen bouncing about on the ramp. Among the many girls here in fancy dress tonight is one carrying crutches. I thought they were a nice accessory until I find out she broke her leg on The Death Road the day before. Ooops.

On the Saturday, I hang out in The Wild Rover until 2:30am and hit a club in town named The Blue House. It was probably a mistake. Our three cabs rock up outside and there's a power cut in the club. They're not letting anyone in. We hang about for fifteen minutes until the lights return and we file inside. The power lasts for about twenty minutes until it's plunged into darkness once again. In the confusion I find myself getting pushed outside again and the bouncers won't let me return. A guy standing next to me says, "Listen up, the cops are here. I've lived here for two years and I'm telling you that means 'go home now'". I wish I knew where "home" was right now, how the hell did I get here? The few cabs hanging around here get snapped up and the street empties out. Nice. Now, I'm on the wrong side of town and the streets of La Paz are not the best place to be caught alone at 4am. I tuck my wallet down my socks and do my "confident" walk along the dimly lit streets until I recognise something ... anything? To cut a long story short, I get back physically unscathed shortly after 5am but it's not an experience I'd like to repeat. Turns out it wasn't my time to die. Let's get out of here before my luck changes ...

Next stop, Santiago, Chile

Choon of the day: Foo Fighters - D.O.A

Looks pretty simple from here, lets go!

Back a bit, back a bit, ...

The start of The Death Road

If anyone croaks it, my name's Bill, OK?

Piece of piss mate, doing it again tomorrow.

If only I had a bike I'd get outta here too!

I'm pretty sure this is where we saw him last, officer

The mystery machine

Come back, I didn't mean it, I love your Mum really ...

Thursday, 16 December 2010

The Road To La Paz - Halfway Between The Gutter And The Stars

In OneWorld terms, I'm travelling a land segment between Lima and La Paz. OK, so I jetted out of Lima a bit sharpish ahead of The Inca Trail but I still have to plot a course from Cusco to La Paz. There's plenty to see along the way and not really enough time.

Cusco has been very kind to me. Lovely people, decent accommodation, good food and a generous helping of western entertainment but the altitude here sucks big donkey dobblers. Whilst not exactly the epitomy of coolness, mouth-breathing is something of a necessity here. We spend years near sea-level breathing through our noses but up here it simply doesn't work anymore and old instinctive habits die hard. It's a weird experience which I can only liken to a conscious form of sleep apnea. You'll be casually going about your business until you're overcome by lack of oxygen and need to inhale like your life depends on it. I've got about another nine days of this before returning to something a little more natural.

I'm heading east and an overnight bus to Arequipa seems like a good first step. Cruz Del Sur is the daddy of comfortable land transportation round these parts so I take a taxi (which in Cusco is more like an underpowered go-kart) to the bus terminal and hop on the best looking bus I've seen in a long while. I collpase into my leather chair which doubles as a bed for the night, take my boots off and settle down. A couple of hours later the whole bus is awoken by a squeal of brakes and a huge bang which throws everyone up in the air. I work out the dozy driver has gone full pelt into a speed ramp. No harm done but I think the stewardess should have been handing out new underwear with our complimentary drinks. Getting up to take a piss a few minutes later I notice how cold the bus has gotten. The speed-ramp mishap hasn't helped matters as there's now a huge wet patch of "something" on the carpet outside the toilet which I walk straight into ... in my socks! When I ask the stewardess if she can do something about the temperature she shrugs her shoulders and bizarrely appears to blame it on the time of year. What the ... ? This bus is like a spaceship masquerading as a cryogenic chamber - they'll be hacking us out with ice picks in the morning. Wet socks removed I spent the rest of the night shivering and wishing I'd heeded Neil's advice before leaving London which I'll now pass on to you. Take a sleeping bag on the overnight buses ... and consider keeping your footwear on.

After Lima, Arequipa is Peru's largest town and a popular destination with travellers. I'm staying at The Point which upon first viewing looks more like a youth club for failed graffiti artists. The main bar area is covered from floor to ceiling with badly articulated obscenities and crudely detailed genitalia. Sure, I'm disgusted now, but within 48 hours I'll be pissed and standing on a chair with a marker pen in my hand too. Shameful.

Not wanting to waste any time I head into town and get cultural. Entry to the Santa Catalina Monastery is a little overpriced by Peruvian standards but it's absolutely fascinating. A small number of nuns still occupy one corner but the majority of this city within a city has been handed over as an attraction for snap-happy tourists. The combination of smoke blackened walls and late afternoon sun streaming through the rooms make for some pretty eerie scenes inside. The views across the city to the mountains from the highest point are impressive too.

Many of the staff at these hostel bars are English speaking volunteer staff and it's good to get to know them. They work for a free roof above their heads but party pretty hard too. They often get to know the locals and the best places to go out in town so once the bar closes we all head out to a place in town named Deja Vu. Downstairs is a little generic for my liking but the superb DJ on the rooftop terrace has a music collection to kill for and keeps the punters bouncing until dawn. Somewhere along the line a local dude in a suit decides he wants to go a couple of rounds with me because he spilled my drink. Clearly my fault. Through a rum-drunken haze I manage to remember I'm in his backyard and thankfully maintain my composure.

Needless to say, the next day is a bit of a struggle but I do manage to get my act together in time to plan a trip to Colca Canyon for the following day. Being short on time and coming so soon after the Inca Trail I decide against one of the much hyped multi-day hiking tours and take the fat tourist bus option instead. It's a criminally early 3am pickup which puts to bed any idea of a repeat performance at the bar tonight. On the bus we have a Peruvian tour guide and I think I'm the only English speaking passenger. Sucks for her, because now she has twice the dialogue to get through. She runs through her Spanish spiel at the front of the bus, bounces over to my seat and repeats it to my face in English then skips back again to continue in Spanish. It's worthy of a comedy sketch and it continues all day. I haven't got the heart to tell her I'm not all that interested in the average wingspan of the adult male Condor, we certainly didn't see any of the bastards to check. By the way, the scenery here is absolutely jaw-droppingly beautiful so, iPod plugged in, I'm snapping away like crazy whilst pretending to pay attention. The day is topped off by seeing a bunch of flamingos in a mountain lake - Galapagos promised these and totally failed to deliver so I'm pretty happy with my day and upon return to the hostel I totally overdo the celebrations.

The next morning, with a head like cotton wool and a hint of last night's stagger, I head for the bus station and bid farewell to Arequipa. Next stop is Puno on the western bank of the vast Lake Titicaca which stretches east into Bolivia. I'm doing it Cruz Del Sur style again. No breakfast, seat back, legs up - this one's a rough ride and I try to sleep off my excesses. I'm staying at Puno's branch of The Point - it's not winning any prizes for the cosiest hostel and the town itself doesn't fare much better. Perhaps harsh, but for travellers Puno is a one trick pony. Every morning dozens gather by the docks and head out onto the lake on the slowest boats known to mankind.

Our first destination is the floating reed islands which are impressive and truly freaky. Nothing can prepare you for your first step onto these mattresses on water. The people who live here literally survive off the reeds which cover large areas of western fringe of the lake. The occupants have perfected the art of tethering the reed beds to produce little floating villages on which they build reed houses to live in. They move between the islands on boats built entirely from reeds. I'm not kidding, they even eat the stuff - but I suspect they're just showing off to us because the reed hut in the corner sold me a Snickers bar and I reckon they've got a stash in their back pockets for when we leave. "Well done son, we fooled them stupid gringos again!"

The next bit I could have done without. It takes us nearly three painfully slow hours to get to Taquile Island. The ridiculously long journey time totally detracted from what should have been a decent bit of cultural tourism. Yes, the views of the lake are sweet and, yes, it's fascinating that the main occupation of the native men here is knitting (?) but I was done for and just wanted to leave as quickly as possible. If you manage to find a half-day trip which does just the floating reed islands I suggest you do that, sack off Taquile and get an early bus out of Puno.

It's time to leave Peru on the most picturesque, if slightly uncomfortable, bus journey so far. We hug the southern banks of the lake all the way to Copacabana just across the border in Bolivia. Along the way I see constant reminders of what makes rural Peru tick. Forgotten women, children and (occasionally) men scraping a living in vast crop fields surrounded by churches and dilapidated buildings festooned with political propaganda for this weeks great saviour. They're clearly just surviving but they seem happy and proud enough. Are they? What exactly do they expect to achieve this year that they patently failed to for the last fifty? I don't really know for sure. I'd love to speak to them and find out. Putting my philanthropic hat on for a sec, why the hell don't we move away from the mostly pointless French and German bias in UK schools and teach Spanish (or Chinese) instead? I'm sure more good would come of it. Am I alone in thinking this? The language barrier forces my head into the sand once again. Must try harder.

The border crossing at Bolivia is little short of embarrassing for American travellers. Bolivia appears to discriminate against them, operating what's known as a reciprocation fee to enter. A pair of US backpackers on the bus leave themselves a bit short of cash and are turned away. The bus can't wait for them so we leave the poor sods to trudge back through no man's land, fully laden, to the nearest ATM as we continue to Copacabana and our onward buses.

My connecting bus is bound for La Paz. It's packed full, pretty ropey and smells like the exhaust has somehow been fed back into the cabin. A few miles down the road we're turfed out again. We're crossing the lake at it's narrowest part and have to pay for the privilege. Looking at a map I'm not exactly sure why this is necessary. Presumably the road to La Paz is better on the northern banks but I can't help wondering if this is just another case of the bus drivers abusing their position to subsidise the income of their friends and family which seems to happen all the time. The passengers take a small motorboat as our bus bobs along precariously on a flatbed barge. The final stretch to La Paz is utterly gorgeous and well worth the inconvenience of the lake crossing. The polished surface of the lake inverts the terrain as it stretches off into a hazy horizon. We weave between the mountains as the sun starts to set, one minute the lake is on our left bathed in light, then in the shadows on our right, then swiftly back to the left again - you don't get to see this variety of terrain and colours often.

Some time later we enter the El Alto neighbourhood of La Paz. It's an absolute hell-hole. I'm hoping things improve further in and I'm rewarded quickly enough. The main part of town is in a huge crater-like shape surrounded on all sides by huge mountains. The road spirals around and down into the sprawl. The relentless descent reminds me of one of those funnel-shaped charity coin boxes and our bus has just been rolled in from the top. It's the first town I've seen with buildings over four floors high since Miami and I feel strangely at home. As we come to a halt the thunder and rain start. On board the bus I met a couple from Ireland who don't have anything booked in La Paz but have heard good things about The Wild Rover, where I'm staying, so we run through the rain to a waiting cab and head straight over to the hostel. As we arrive the rain is worse than ever and the driver stupidly decides to leap out to help us with our bags without taking payment inside which results in a mini stand-off between the passengers gathered under the canopy of the hostel and the driver sitting behind the wheel waiting for his fare. One of us is gonna get pissed on. I try to look busy until one of the others gives in a gets a soaking. I think I still owe them too, hehe!

Next stop, altitude with two-wheeled attitude ... The Death Road.

Choon of the day: Arctic Monkeys - Only Ones Who Know