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This room stinks of Piss

No word of a lie...this is the actual graffitti on my current bedroom wall.....got to La Paz at 2pm & have been giggling about this ever since. It's true. That and the pornographic "etchings" next to my bed. Pretty good for 17 Bolivianos per night and we leave tomorrow for Rurrenabaque. My lunch cost more than my bedroom!!!! But we did go to Burger King.....couldn't resist and it was beautiful. Quite sad to leave Copacobana, as it's pretty, warm and unpolluted.....La Paz is smoggy and full of stray dogs. I did wonder why so many dogs, everywhere not just here, and have figuered it's because none of them ever get the snip! Noticed when one waved its balls in my face when I was sat down the other day. Nice. Anyway, back to Copacobana, we went for a scary little pedaloe ride, it kind of creaked but was nice to be on the Lake. Have clocked up a lot of hours on water. Then I made the very insane decision to walk up the hill. Yay, another big clump of rock I thought, I'll walk up that. On my own. Half way up was accosted by a group of Argentinians who wanted to take photos of me. Hello I thought, this is the photo they'll send my parents for the ransom money. However given the misunderstanding of the value of money they'd probably only have asked for a tenner. Then small Bolivian man offered me beer and I thought a wild pig was going to charge at me (turned out to be tied up so it was OK). Then the Argentinians took photos of me with Senor Boliviano. Then we all had to pour beer on the ground. VERY confus-ed at this point. And decided to carry on up to the top of the hill....lungs bursting and everything. Here I met some Norwegians who had actually heard of the Isle of Man, and I learnt to say goodbye in Norwegian. When I got approached by three guys who had a box, some "alcohol potable" and some beer and orange juice...I thought hmm my day is getting weirder..obviously by this point I had twigged that it was a special day, or a special mountain or something. So they wanted me to take a photo of them pouring alcohol into the box, which turned out to be full of money. Which I did and then escaped back down the hill away from aforementioned dog. Got bus this morning to La Paz for about 1.5 gbp which included unexpected crossing of lake. The bus crossed separately on a barge at a very unusual angle (that'll be my bag in the boot weighing it down!). Meals in Bolivia have improved since the first one. Forgot to tell people to boycott that restaurant! Anyway, probably out of email / net access for the next few days....going to jungle and Pampas. Hoping to dump my bag somewhere first...Hammock doesn't fit in bag!!!!

posted by Katie @ 2/19/2004 06:38:00 pm