Boliver Hoschke and Kateacabana

It was time to go to a wild country with good friends of ours Kate and Oli, Bolivia was the place and the following happenings.......happened.

We started our togetherness in a place called Copacabana on the sunny shores of lake Titicaca. It's a pretty town in a great location, nestled just on the Bolivian side of the Peruvian border. We stayed a few nights here but left a little disappointed as the place enforces a midnight curfew. We didn't come to Bolivia to be treated like Novacastrians so we left for one of the most bizarre cities on earth, La Paz. Perched at 3800 metres above sea level in a strange natural crater type setting, this place looks as weird as it feels. We were not shy about our intentions and quickly hopped on the good foot and made very good use of our reasonably strong currency (80 cent beers!). Whilst hanging at a local club late on that first night, we all suddenly felt the need to leave immediately as we were all having trouble breathing and using our eyes, someone had released some sort of capsicum spray or similar in the venue and they succeeded in emptying the place in the matter of about 30 seconds! A curious tactic by a rival club owner I suspect.......

Kate and Oli had to make their way south, so we decided to have a look at Bolivia's enormous salt flats and desert on the way through the excellent mode of transport known as Toyota Landcruiser. The salt flats were flatter than they were salty, but saltier than the previous flattest thing I'd ever seen.

I feel this video captures the atmosphere of the trip sufficiently, set the volume to 11......

Salkantay sillyness.

The next chapter of our whacky adventure was the Salkantay Trek, which ultimately brought us to the famous inca ruins of Machu Picchu. This was the only activity in South America which we listed as a 'must do'. Firstly because the ruins are quite spectacular and Gabby was dead keen on seeing them and secondly, I've actually been there before three years ago as a very sick individual. I had a major case of food poisoning, altitude sickness or possibly the terrible affliction known as ruin influenza. Either way I never really took in Machu Picchu as I was rushed straight to the local clinic where Dr Nick put me on the IV drip.

So, in the spirit of redemption we woke at 3:30 in the morning (I didn't know there was a 3:30 in the morning as well) and set off for our first day of what proved to be a very difficult trek. Luckily I got my altitude sickness out of the way on the first day, where I was really struggling to breathe and constantly looking for idealistic 'natural' toilets.

I eventually made it to the first campsite an hour after the group due to extreme sphincter clenching and gnashing of teeth.

The first night was spent at 3800 metres, which I hardly need tell you is a heck of long way up and darn cold (-10c to be exact). We slept diagonally across the tent as the average 2 man tent isn't really built for someone of my......ahem.....proportions.

Upon waking I noticed that I felt much better and we bounded up to the highest point of the trek, 4800 metres, with relative ease compared to the previous days struggle. This is where we witnessed a real life avalanche! It was pretty awesome to see this from a safe distance of around 400 metres. It sounded like a jet airliner flying in close proximity and was truly an awesome sight, but nothing really that great compared to say.....um........ finishing 'Donkey Kong Country' with all your spare kongs intact or hitting a homer in baseball.

Anyway we negotiated the tricky 6 hour (!) descent to our campsite, giving us a total of 10 hours walking for the day. Not really an easy task at this distance above sea level.

The rest of the trek was really quite arbitrary compared to the first 2 days. The highlights really came at our campsites. One evening a small monkey decided that I looked 'treelike' enough to climb all over me for a while. I decided that I really didn't want parasites again, so I devised a cunning plan of distraction and speed to be rid of him with relative ease. King of the jungle my ass!

We spent a night in Aguas Calientes, well half a night, as we suffered another 3:30 am wake up call to be in line to experience the climb up to waynapicchu, which soars over machu picchu, offering an almost aireal view of the ruins. Now, to be one of the lucky ones to experience this you need to be in the first 400 people to machu picchu for the day. Given that there are no buses to the top until 630 am, you need to climb up there from the town yourself after they open the lower gates at 4:30am. We started the ascent in about 200th position and it quickly became clear that it was not an easy walk up the thousands of steep stairs to the top gates, but indeed a RACE! I felt my competitive instincts turn on and Gab accessed her inner mountain goat as well. We stormed up the climb in record time for a Novacastrian, late 20's, pigeon toed husband and wife team for 10th and 11th place out of 400 or so idiots.

The effort was worth it however, we climbed the steep ladders and stairs to the top of what I could only describe as a natural skyscraper. I haven't really been a big fan of heights since I fell off that tightrope as a young boy in Australia's only travelling gypsy circus and patchwork quilting team, but I climbed on despite the view which scared the cheesecake out of me. Once at the top the clouds parted for a spectacular birds eye view of Machu Picchu, which was certainly a highlight of the trip for both Gab and myself.

Later that day our group reassembled for an afternoon/all night drinking enduro which took us back to Cusco and it's dodgy clubs, naturally of course I had no problems securing a podium position in this particular competition. It was a fitting end for a difficult 5 days and I have no intention of using my legs in anger for a couple of weeks.