Dried llama foetuses for all

Am not sure how I´d get one through customs, but they´re the must have item from Bolivia, surely.

Ah, yes, we´re in Bolivia. Copacabana (the lesser known one) was awfully nice, very sunny and now Ben´s nose is even more scaly and peeling than it used to be. We took a boat out to the Island of the Sun and decided to walk from the south end to the north. As the island is only 9.5 kms, this sounded like a bit of a doddle. Stupid high altitude. Was utterly exhausted by sunset when I stumbled into the little village. I think we saw some ruins. Probably have some photos somewhere to inflict upon uninterested parties in the coming months. The next day we took a private boat to the little Island of the Moon. Nice. Small. Might have liked it more if my stupid eye infection hadn´t been fiddling with my vision, making things a little blurry. Took some more photos. Was quite firm with all the ladies trying to sell me trinkets.

Back to Copacobana and Ben and I bond with the small child that seemed to belong to the hostel. She wouldn´t tell us her name but was more than willing to engage in a rather strange game of cards. I was playing snap. Not entirely sure what she was playing but I´m pretty sure that we both thought we were winning. Was a beautiful day so out came the jandals and we sat on the lakefront and watched the swan pedal boats, meaning to get one ourselves the next day. (I suspect we were all thinking the same thing: swan pedal boat wars.) Beer was drunk, I sampled some more exceptionally bad red wine, we ate rather a lot and then Ben and Kruse decided to make their way through quite a bit of the cocktail list. I declined, thinking that I ought to let whatever drugs I´d been given this time for the eye have some sober time so that maybe they´d actually fix it. Consequently, I was woken at 1am by giggling men claiming that a 17-year-old boy had been giving Kruse the glad eye. Well, Ben claimed it was so and he never tells lies.

We decide to go to La Paz the next day, on a local bus (no toilet). Kruse, for the first time ever, I think, is hungover enough to need to throw up. So he does. Out the window. In his defence, it was a very bumpy road. I think we have truly impressed upon the locals how important the need is for tourism.

Got to La Paz yesterday. It has public toilets all over the place and for that reason alone will always have a special place in my heart. It also has a witches market, with the dried llama foetuses and all manner of bits and pieces. And still more of the woolly llama hats with earflaps. And the world´s BIGGEST avocados. Had one for breakfast. I like Bolivia.

We´ve just realised that we´re running out of time as Kruse and Ben´s plans for world domination, as well other things, meant they were going to be either on a boat looking at blue boobies or in the jungle at about the same time that the world cup was on, so there´s been a reshuffle of plans. Sadly this means we will probably not be getting to the Nascar lines, damn it, and getting though the salt flats and back to Lima in time for them to fly to Ecuador is going to be squashy. I shall be abandoning them in about ten days, to go and rampage it up in Florida. As I just earned Ben´s disgust by buying white chocolate, I don´t think that I shall be missed. (I bought it on purpose, so he wouldn´t eat it.)

And the best part of today was getting a new watch. It´s a Barbie watch and cost about $1.40. Have high hopes that this watch will last longer than the last cheap watch (24 hours).