I'm tired. If this post feels laboured and lacking in vim, you can blame the karaoke bar that sucked me into its dubious charms last night. It was a late one.
So, where was I - and where am I?
I was in La Paz up until Monday, and I'm now in Bolivia's fourth largest city - Cochabamba.
La Paz, like the karaoke bar, was beginning to suck me in. I could have stayed there for months, hanging out at Oliver's Travels, eating good steak, watching football, wheezing in the altitude.
But it was time to move on. I'd spent two weeks there, apart from the few days in the pampas, and there's still half a continent for me to visit - and less than two months to go. Eek!
My last Saturday in the city was both Easter Saturday and St George's Day. A double whammy. Semanta Santa (Holy Week) sees everyone pile out of the cities to the countryside, so La Paz was nice and quiet.
Nicola came out of hospital in the morning and we had a leisurely first lunch of her freedom and then pottered about for the rest of the day. I popped into Oli's, where Kass was already hard at work building the atmosphere for the evening's St George's celebrations.
He made me down a shot of vodka at an ungodly hour (11.45am) and forced me to wear a green dragon hat as I did so. Bleurgh.
In the evening Nic was up for a few drinks, having come off the antibiotics that morning and having spent the previous 10 days in what she called her 'jail cell'.
We strolled back to Oli's - where else? - to find various drunk people toasting the patron Saint of England. Any excuse I suppose. We stayed there until the bar had been drunk dry (literally) and then headed to Takitos - a club down the road.
The drink of choice in that particular establishment is a big bowl of fruity punch. Gin, vodka, passion fruit juice and some other stuff, all served up in a big brown bowl:
It doesn't sound the most pleasant thing to pass your lips, but it tasted pretty good.
While Nic befriended our Death Road tour guide, Leith, I hit the dancefloor and had a good time pogo-ing around to various ska tracks with guys wearing bandanas and balaclavas. Probably not a fashion choice that will catch on, but you never know.
I'd been to the same club the previous Saturday and the clientele was similar - lots of locals and not many gringos. I like.
One of the locals, Alejandra, proved to be a good dance partner - and the perfect person to do a bit of shadow-boxing with:
No idea why we were shadow-boxing. That's what happens when you drink bowls of booze.
The following day Nic and I met up with Suffolk Ben. We had no plans, until Nic suggested we go bowling. What a brilliant idea.
We searched in vain for a bowling alley we'd heard about that has old skool pins (where a little man apparently sits at the end of the lane and stacks them up after each bowl). Instead we hopped in a cab and took a scenic 15 minute ride down to the Zona Sur.
We'd been told there was a Mega Centre there, which meant little to us until we arrived to find a ginormous mega-mall with bowling alley, millions of shops, an indoor football pitch and multi-screen cinema. ie, the perfect place to spend a hungover Sunday.
First up: bowling. We changed into our clown shoes, complete with socks that looked like we were suffering with verucas, and took to the lane.
Ben won both games, Nic came second, and I finished rock bottom. My inability to roll a ball straight down a lane was driving me spare.
Spare. Geddit?
Boom boom.
With the humiliation complete, we headed downstairs to watch a film. In among the animated dross (well, dross to me), was a new Nicolas Cage film: Drive Angry.
Drive Angry is possibly the worst title for a film since Quantum Of Solace, but I could watch Nic Cage all day and so we decided to go see it.
The film was a bizarre mix of Satanism, car chases, baby sacrifice and Nic Cage having sex wearing wraparound sunglasses. I think the writer/director must have been high as a kite.
Despite the tenuous plot it was a fun way to spend a couple of hours, and topped off a successful day inside La Paz's mammoth Mega Centre.
After a final drink back in town we said our goodbyes to each other. Nic and Ben were two of the friendliest people I've met so far on my travels. It won't be the last time we meet, I'm sure.
The following morning I went to the terminal terrestre to get a coach to Cochabamba. For the bargain price of 25 bolivianos (less than two pounds fifty) I got a ticket for the 8 hour journey south.
It was decent drive - luckily on a paved road all the way (only 30% of Bolivia's roads are paved) - and the route took us through some attractive mountain ranges:
For the last couple of hours my shoulder provided the perfect pillow for an old gent in an army cap:
He was nattily dressed in a grey suit, and had a 1970s Olympus camera strapped around his neck - like a press photographer from the black-and-white days.
Cochabamba is slightly off the gringo trail, and that was one of the reasons I chose to come here. It is a big place (population: 600,000) but has a small-town, homely feel.
I checked into the Las Vegas hotel, after failing to find a backpackers hostel I'd seen online, and took a wander through town before hitting the hay. During the wander I had visited an extreme sports company, luckily still open at 7pm, and booked a paragliding trip for the morning.
I think I've mentioned before about my woeful memory, and somewhere in the recesses of my mind I can remember doing a paragliding flight - but I can't remember when or where. Maybe it never happened.
Either way, I was up for doing something a bit different and, with no bungee jumping or skydiving on offer, running off a mountain with a parachute strapped to my back sounded like a fun way to spend a morning.
We drove a short distance to a mountain overlooking the city and got prepared. While an Israeli couple were driven up to the top for their flight, I stayed down at the landing strip and chilled out in the sun.
A family lived next to the strip, and I had a visit from the son of the family - a boy named Brandon:
Trying to hold a conversation with a four-year-old in Spanish, when your Spanish is dire, isn't the easiest thing to do - but we had fun playing catch, eating M&Ms and watching the paragliders float down from the sky.
And then it was my turn.
We took a slow climb up to the summit in the van before disembarking, where I was strapped into my harness and given the briefest of safety briefings. 'Run straight ahead. Don't stop running.'
I got a couple of final pictures ahead of my leap of faith:
'It's one small step for man.... (crackles) .... one giant leap... for mankind.'
I've uploaded a short video too, which can be viewed here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26607248@N08/5664945608
On the drive back from paragliding I had spotted the football ground, so took a walk there and was hoping there might be a game happening the following day. The security guard told me the next match was on Sunday (boo) but he let me in to take a picture (yay):
In other exciting news (are you still awake btw?) I bought a T-shirt from one of the many shops that sell military clothing. I presume there's an army base nearby.
I hope there's no law against a foreigner wearing it, and I was strapped to a parachute in Bolivia - so maybe that gives me special rights.
As I was heading home, feeling like another drink but not spotting anywhere decent - I walked past a small doorway to a dark bar, the Banana Lounge.
Inside were two barmen and three women - friends of the barmen. When you travel alone you sometimes have to force yourself into slightly uncomfortable situations in order to find a good time.
The first 15 minutes in that bar was exactly that. Me with my minimal Spanish, them with their non-existent English, all sharing some awkwardly stunted conversations.
But I persevered, and within an hour we were having fun, sampling the extensive cocktail menu and watching Rodrigo - the head barman - doing his magic tricks.
No-one can resist a bit of close-up magic, and Rodrigo had some great tricks up his sleeve. First of all he made a ball of tissue levitate off his palm. My jaw dropped to the floor.
Then he cut up a long piece of rope into several bits before somehow making it a single rope again. And again, jaw hit floor.
After that he did some card tricks which blew my mind, including burning my card (without him seeing what it was)...
...and rubbing the burnt card on his forearm to reveal my 7 of diamonds etched into his skin in charcol. Great stuff.
The piece de resistance was still to come, though: making a solid coin spin horizontally through the air between his hands. It was incredible, and I still have no idea how he did it. If you look closely you can see the coin in the air:
There were no magnets, no string, nothing. It was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen.
I thought that would be the extent of the evening's entertainment, but then four Danish girls came into the bar and we were soon ordering more drinks and playing an impromptu game of Uno. As you do.
All in all, it was one of my better days: paragliding, a new football ground, sushi, magic, karaoke, making new friends. I'm glad I came to Cochabamba.
In the morning I crawled out of bed, squashed a cockroach, and made my way to a sight that was bizarrely ignored in my guidebook: the statue of Christ overlooking the city.
It was another journey on one of my favourite modes of transport - the cable car. I had a car to myself for the short journey to the top. Here's me and Mr Cristo:
And the view across the city was the sort of view you could stare at for ages:
My last few hours in the city have been spent watching a pathetic game ofhandbags football between Barcelona and Real Madrid, and eating more sushi. I just can't get enough of the stuff.
I came to Cochabamba on a whim - still not sure why or when I decided to come here - but it's been a fun diversion from the tried-and-trusted route down from La Paz to Sucre/Potosi that most backpackers do.
Finally, before I log off, I'm fully aware that this post is over-indexed with drunken nights out, but I'm not doing anything that you lot back at home aren't - what with your bank holiday rollover bonanza and a three-day week.
Have a Royal drink for me. Pimm's?
Here are some more pics, and there are even more on Flickr:
So, where was I - and where am I?
I was in La Paz up until Monday, and I'm now in Bolivia's fourth largest city - Cochabamba.
La Paz, like the karaoke bar, was beginning to suck me in. I could have stayed there for months, hanging out at Oliver's Travels, eating good steak, watching football, wheezing in the altitude.
But it was time to move on. I'd spent two weeks there, apart from the few days in the pampas, and there's still half a continent for me to visit - and less than two months to go. Eek!
My last Saturday in the city was both Easter Saturday and St George's Day. A double whammy. Semanta Santa (Holy Week) sees everyone pile out of the cities to the countryside, so La Paz was nice and quiet.
Nicola came out of hospital in the morning and we had a leisurely first lunch of her freedom and then pottered about for the rest of the day. I popped into Oli's, where Kass was already hard at work building the atmosphere for the evening's St George's celebrations.
He made me down a shot of vodka at an ungodly hour (11.45am) and forced me to wear a green dragon hat as I did so. Bleurgh.
In the evening Nic was up for a few drinks, having come off the antibiotics that morning and having spent the previous 10 days in what she called her 'jail cell'.
We strolled back to Oli's - where else? - to find various drunk people toasting the patron Saint of England. Any excuse I suppose. We stayed there until the bar had been drunk dry (literally) and then headed to Takitos - a club down the road.
The drink of choice in that particular establishment is a big bowl of fruity punch. Gin, vodka, passion fruit juice and some other stuff, all served up in a big brown bowl:
It doesn't sound the most pleasant thing to pass your lips, but it tasted pretty good.
While Nic befriended our Death Road tour guide, Leith, I hit the dancefloor and had a good time pogo-ing around to various ska tracks with guys wearing bandanas and balaclavas. Probably not a fashion choice that will catch on, but you never know.
I'd been to the same club the previous Saturday and the clientele was similar - lots of locals and not many gringos. I like.
One of the locals, Alejandra, proved to be a good dance partner - and the perfect person to do a bit of shadow-boxing with:
No idea why we were shadow-boxing. That's what happens when you drink bowls of booze.
The following day Nic and I met up with Suffolk Ben. We had no plans, until Nic suggested we go bowling. What a brilliant idea.
We searched in vain for a bowling alley we'd heard about that has old skool pins (where a little man apparently sits at the end of the lane and stacks them up after each bowl). Instead we hopped in a cab and took a scenic 15 minute ride down to the Zona Sur.
We'd been told there was a Mega Centre there, which meant little to us until we arrived to find a ginormous mega-mall with bowling alley, millions of shops, an indoor football pitch and multi-screen cinema. ie, the perfect place to spend a hungover Sunday.
First up: bowling. We changed into our clown shoes, complete with socks that looked like we were suffering with verucas, and took to the lane.
The next hour was similar to my piranha-fishing experience of the previous week: I was crap and the others were good.
Ben won both games, Nic came second, and I finished rock bottom. My inability to roll a ball straight down a lane was driving me spare.
Spare. Geddit?
Boom boom.
With the humiliation complete, we headed downstairs to watch a film. In among the animated dross (well, dross to me), was a new Nicolas Cage film: Drive Angry.
Drive Angry is possibly the worst title for a film since Quantum Of Solace, but I could watch Nic Cage all day and so we decided to go see it.
The film was a bizarre mix of Satanism, car chases, baby sacrifice and Nic Cage having sex wearing wraparound sunglasses. I think the writer/director must have been high as a kite.
Despite the tenuous plot it was a fun way to spend a couple of hours, and topped off a successful day inside La Paz's mammoth Mega Centre.
After a final drink back in town we said our goodbyes to each other. Nic and Ben were two of the friendliest people I've met so far on my travels. It won't be the last time we meet, I'm sure.
The following morning I went to the terminal terrestre to get a coach to Cochabamba. For the bargain price of 25 bolivianos (less than two pounds fifty) I got a ticket for the 8 hour journey south.
It was decent drive - luckily on a paved road all the way (only 30% of Bolivia's roads are paved) - and the route took us through some attractive mountain ranges:
For the last couple of hours my shoulder provided the perfect pillow for an old gent in an army cap:
He was nattily dressed in a grey suit, and had a 1970s Olympus camera strapped around his neck - like a press photographer from the black-and-white days.
Cochabamba is slightly off the gringo trail, and that was one of the reasons I chose to come here. It is a big place (population: 600,000) but has a small-town, homely feel.
I checked into the Las Vegas hotel, after failing to find a backpackers hostel I'd seen online, and took a wander through town before hitting the hay. During the wander I had visited an extreme sports company, luckily still open at 7pm, and booked a paragliding trip for the morning.
I think I've mentioned before about my woeful memory, and somewhere in the recesses of my mind I can remember doing a paragliding flight - but I can't remember when or where. Maybe it never happened.
Either way, I was up for doing something a bit different and, with no bungee jumping or skydiving on offer, running off a mountain with a parachute strapped to my back sounded like a fun way to spend a morning.
We drove a short distance to a mountain overlooking the city and got prepared. While an Israeli couple were driven up to the top for their flight, I stayed down at the landing strip and chilled out in the sun.
A family lived next to the strip, and I had a visit from the son of the family - a boy named Brandon:
Trying to hold a conversation with a four-year-old in Spanish, when your Spanish is dire, isn't the easiest thing to do - but we had fun playing catch, eating M&Ms and watching the paragliders float down from the sky.
And then it was my turn.
We took a slow climb up to the summit in the van before disembarking, where I was strapped into my harness and given the briefest of safety briefings. 'Run straight ahead. Don't stop running.'
I got a couple of final pictures ahead of my leap of faith:
'It's one small step for man.... (crackles) .... one giant leap... for mankind.'
With instructor Marcelo strapped to my back, I ran as hard and fast as I could towards the edge of the cliff. It felt wrong to run off the edge of the mountain, but that's what we did.
A yank to my stomach, as the harness dug in during lift-off, was the only part I didn't particularly enjoy. The rest was brilliant.
We spent about 15 minutes in the air, swirling through the mountain ridges and enjoying a stunning view of Cochabamba below:
I've uploaded a short video too, which can be viewed here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26607248@N08/5664945608
The ride was smooth, and the landing was soft. Just how I'd hoped, and the whole experience was well worth the thirty quid it cost me.
In the afternoon I watched Manchester United dominate Schalke in the Champions League and went for another wander through this picturesque city:
On the drive back from paragliding I had spotted the football ground, so took a walk there and was hoping there might be a game happening the following day. The security guard told me the next match was on Sunday (boo) but he let me in to take a picture (yay):
In other exciting news (are you still awake btw?) I bought a T-shirt from one of the many shops that sell military clothing. I presume there's an army base nearby.
I've been wearing the T-shirt today and have been getting a few strange looks, possibly because I'm a gringo wearing a T-shirt of the Bolivian parachute regiment.
I hope there's no law against a foreigner wearing it, and I was strapped to a parachute in Bolivia - so maybe that gives me special rights.
In the evening I fancied a good night out, as it would be my last in Cochabamba. I walked past a bar where tens of locals were sitting on round tables drinking multi-coloured shots. Metallica was booming out of the speakers. I went in and had a beer.
Next up, I went to the Brazilian Coffee Bar - recommended by a couple of people I'd met.
What's the one food you'd think land-locked Bolivia would struggle to do well?
Sushi.
But after Marcelo recommended it to me, I decided to give it a go. And it was perfectly made and really tasty:
In the same place I ordered a Cuba Libre, which strangely arrived in four separate parts: the glass with rum, the ice, the Coke in a decanter and a plate of limes. Self-service, but I kinda liked it.
What's the one food you'd think land-locked Bolivia would struggle to do well?
Sushi.
But after Marcelo recommended it to me, I decided to give it a go. And it was perfectly made and really tasty:
In the same place I ordered a Cuba Libre, which strangely arrived in four separate parts: the glass with rum, the ice, the Coke in a decanter and a plate of limes. Self-service, but I kinda liked it.
As I was heading home, feeling like another drink but not spotting anywhere decent - I walked past a small doorway to a dark bar, the Banana Lounge.
Inside were two barmen and three women - friends of the barmen. When you travel alone you sometimes have to force yourself into slightly uncomfortable situations in order to find a good time.
The first 15 minutes in that bar was exactly that. Me with my minimal Spanish, them with their non-existent English, all sharing some awkwardly stunted conversations.
But I persevered, and within an hour we were having fun, sampling the extensive cocktail menu and watching Rodrigo - the head barman - doing his magic tricks.
No-one can resist a bit of close-up magic, and Rodrigo had some great tricks up his sleeve. First of all he made a ball of tissue levitate off his palm. My jaw dropped to the floor.
Then he cut up a long piece of rope into several bits before somehow making it a single rope again. And again, jaw hit floor.
After that he did some card tricks which blew my mind, including burning my card (without him seeing what it was)...
...and rubbing the burnt card on his forearm to reveal my 7 of diamonds etched into his skin in charcol. Great stuff.
The piece de resistance was still to come, though: making a solid coin spin horizontally through the air between his hands. It was incredible, and I still have no idea how he did it. If you look closely you can see the coin in the air:
There were no magnets, no string, nothing. It was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen.
I thought that would be the extent of the evening's entertainment, but then four Danish girls came into the bar and we were soon ordering more drinks and playing an impromptu game of Uno. As you do.
They knew of a karaoke bar about 10 minutes walk away, which sounded like a plan. So off we went, voices ready to be put to the test.
The karaoke bar was fairly dead - a few locals mooching around and slouching on the black leather sofas, but the bar staff were friendly and we propped ourselves up on stools.
It didn't take us long to try out the Saturday Night Fever multi-coloured dancefloor, and we put our names down for a few songs from the 99%-Spanish karaoke list. Thank god for Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra.
All in all, it was one of my better days: paragliding, a new football ground, sushi, magic, karaoke, making new friends. I'm glad I came to Cochabamba.
In the morning I crawled out of bed, squashed a cockroach, and made my way to a sight that was bizarrely ignored in my guidebook: the statue of Christ overlooking the city.
It was another journey on one of my favourite modes of transport - the cable car. I had a car to myself for the short journey to the top. Here's me and Mr Cristo:
And the view across the city was the sort of view you could stare at for ages:
My last few hours in the city have been spent watching a pathetic game of
I came to Cochabamba on a whim - still not sure why or when I decided to come here - but it's been a fun diversion from the tried-and-trusted route down from La Paz to Sucre/Potosi that most backpackers do.
Finally, before I log off, I'm fully aware that this post is over-indexed with drunken nights out, but I'm not doing anything that you lot back at home aren't - what with your bank holiday rollover bonanza and a three-day week.
Have a Royal drink for me. Pimm's?
Here are some more pics, and there are even more on Flickr:
 |
| One of the Israelis coming in to land |
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| Bolivian Parachute Regiment: English Division |
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| Graffiti outside the Banana Lounge |
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| Rodrigo's balancing act |
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| Last ones standing: Louisa, me, Astrid |
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| I was wondering where that missing 'A' had got to... |
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| Viva Cochabamba! |