Let's find something really dangerous to do... again.

I have been learning quite a bit about myself in the last while. I've learned that I should never believe anything I say. When I start a sentence with the words 'I'd never do...' I usually end up doing that very thing within a week of swearing I'd never do it, or sometimes even within the hour. I said I would never do a bungee jump and then two hours later I was signed up to do one. It's like when I was doing the death road cycle and I saw a rock on the path, my brain said 'cycle away from it' but my body directed the bike towards it and I always ended up cycling over it and nearly falling off the bike. Its pretty much the same effect with my morals too, I think I have them but I don't. I'm not complaining though, people with no morals have the most fun!

Another thing I am realising is that the more dangerous the activity, the more craic it is. Luckily Naomi has the same view point and the things we are seeking out to do are getting more and more riskey to the point that we had the following discussion over dinner the other day.

Naomi - 'What extreme things can we do here?'

Niamh - 'We can do the zip lines' (high ropes located a few hundred feet or so over the jungle, which you speed down when attached to a harness)

Naomi - 'Hmm, I'm afraid they won't be dangerous enough. Maybe we can do them without the safety harness?'

We did the bungee jump in Argentina and got picked up by two woman working for the activity company driving a massive old American car. The women looked like they were straight from some Latino gang with long greasy hair and wearing basketball tops. They drove around the back street ghettos making various stops without telling us anything. They then stopped off at a high rise building and picked up a young boy who joined us for the rest of the trip. They also stopped off at a garage to service the car whilst Naomi and I waited. All this time I was shitting myself over the thought of jumping off a bridge. We arrived at the place of the bungee jump, it looked so unofficial, like the rope had been sitting there for months unused. I happily saw this as an excuse not to do it and suddenly got brave and said 'I'm totally up for doing one, but I'm just not sure this particular one is safe'. Against my better judgement, I did it and it was fun! We got back into the car for the journey home with the Latino gang ladies, they put on the Bad Boys song from Cops and we cruised around the hood again, dropping the boy off where we had picked him up again with no explanation as to who he was.



The view from the back seat of the car with our three Latino friends in the front.

We got an 8 hour bus to a place called Tulpiza so that we could go horse treking. The bus was insane, full of locals (they stink) and it off roaded for most of the journey so there was literally no road, no track, nothing. We bounced over shrubs and rocks and dust came through the windows. Screw signing up for extreme sports, just getting a bus in Bolivia is white knuckle all the way. Naomi and I booked into a two day tour in a place that looks just like the wild wild west. It was great. We had wanted to do some proper ranching where you actually get to castrate cows, shoot and lassoo things, but we haven't been lucky enough to find anyone that will let us do that yet....some day. We rocked up to the stables and met our guide, a 14 year old local boy. Parts of Argentina, like Bolivia are run by children. I think people must die at an average age of about 16, because everywhere we go, restaurants, ticket offices, tours and activities are all run by kids.

The trek was great, the scenery was amazing but my horse was an asshole. I hated him, lazy ass mother fucker. A horse that doesnt want to move. He also hated all the other horses and kicked and bit them whenever they passed by. I liked when he did this to Naomi's horse though. Our guides horse was like a cartoon character. He was tiny and trotted rather than cantered or galloped, his short legs stretching far in front of him and his head held high, it was the weirdest looking animal I've ever seen.

We are now in Buenos Aries, Argentina. It's nice to be in a city for a while after the dirt roads and smelly locals of Bolivia. We didn't receive the warmest of welcomes here though, as we were letting ourselves into the apartment we are renting for a week, a cyclist passed by and shouted 'Bitches' at us, and then 'Fuck you'. Nice.

We headed out on the piss the other night. We are finding it very easy to get talking to Argentian men. All you have to do is sit still and within seconds they come over. I got chatted up by a cute enough looking one, cute until he opened his mouth. He spat all over my face when he spoke and just kept saying 'I'm a lawyer' over and over. I wiped my face, bid him farewell and left not too soon after that.

We tried to find a gym in Salta. We eventually got to one but it was closing so we asked if we could just have a look around. Next thing I see Naomi headed for a door with 'Sauna' written over it. Seconds later she runs out grinning and saying 'Oh my God, oh my God'. 'Did you see something?' I asked her. 'YES', she said as she legged it out of the gym. She saw about 30 naked men, sitting on plastic chairs all faced in her direction. She said she focused on one in particular 'very hairy', got the shock of her life and then ran out.

Still need to work on my Spanish. We asked the man who works on reception at the apartment block e are renting if he could organise a cleaner for us before we have to leave. He has no English so it was pigeon Spanish and charades all the way. A few hours later our land lady phoned and wanted to know why we had asked the man on reception to get his wife to sit with us for a couple of hours. Lost in translation yet again, love it!

Hanging out with my parasite in Bolivia.....

Biggest disappointment of the trip so far....I was booked to do a tour to go see the salt planes, a really amazing thing to do here in Bolivia, but couldnt face getting on the 15 hour overnight bus as I got really sick. I woke up having contractions. Recognising the symptoms as a stomach parasite (everyone gets them here), I knew I was going to be in a bad way until my parasite, a man in a top hat and tails tap dancing on my insides decided to stop. I bid a very weak farewell to my travel companions as they went to get the bus and I staggered to my new room, a sick haven all to myself so that I didnt have to share a dorm and subject strangers to my exercosim type behaviour as the parasite (a protestant) gave me his best moves. I spent that night writhing around in my own skin, unable to be comfortable in any position, my body buckling from the stomach up and levitating off the bed sometimes as much as three feet. My head even did a full 360 degree turn, it was madness.

Some of the above is exaggerated. I will leave it up to you to work out which part or parts (if any at all).

My Parasite...Bastard.

I need to work on my Spanish. I went into a shop the other day and asked where the nearest ATM was, the man behind the counter took out a stanley knife and pointed at it. Either I had just walked into a killers lair or I need to get out that phrase book.

Naomi and I actually paid good money to cycle down ´The Worlds Most Dangerous Road´. It is really ´The Worlds Most Dangerous Road´ and not just a tourist gimmick. There have been over 300 tourists killed on it in recent years, they have simply cycled off the edge to a 600 metre drop, enough to kill even the bounciest of people. None of the companies have been closed down and the most recent victim went with a company that is still open and recommended by the top guide books. I was a little nervous about signing up, mainly because I have learned after my sandboarding experience that the danger level of activites is greatly underestimated here. I asked the lady in the tour office if there had been any recent accidents on the tour. "No accidents," she told me with a smile. Here we go I thought, the Latino freedom of lying. "Deaths," she continued with a smile and slid a flat hand accross the air helpfully to illustrate as best as she could what a cyclist might look like soaring off the edge of a cliff.

True to form and as I was afraid of, Naomi and I were in the fast group (two of the only three females in it, we should have been born boys) and sped our way down the mountain as fast as we could without killing ourselves. It was pretty crazy though. In any other part of the world this road would be closed down, it certaintly wouldnt be a tourist attraction but I have to admit that it was FUN!

Death Road.

So, having spent the last few days on my own, I am now entirely sick of my own company. I don´t know how you people put up with me, even the parasite left after a brief argument, which I won´t go into. So, I´m now in the desert waiting to meet up with the others. The biggest news I have for them is that I think I was in the craziest toilet yet. On the night bus on the way here the toilet had a large window with no curtain and was all lit up. I went to use it when the bus was stopped at a traffic light, the street outside was full of locals selling stuff and looking in at me. I was totally exposed, it was like some weird Amsterdam window show for them. I couldn´t do it. That last sentence is a lie (I really needed to go).

I am now in the middle of nowhere, but in true typical backpacking style I have already seen three people I recognise, all doing the gringo trail like me. One of them in particular was someone I was hoping to avoid. I was in a bar in La Paz last week, everyone was hammered and he came over to ask me to smack him as hard as I could on the arse....jeans on. Of course I obliged, again and again and again. I´m not sure what either of us got out of it, but it was making Julie laugh, so I kept doing it. The guy smiled, perhaps a little too much and walked away. I ended up sitting next to him in an internet cafe this morning some 15 hours drive away from where I smacked him. I pretended not to see him of course.

I went for lunch earlier. The waitress was an 8 year old girl. I asked for lunch and was told no lunch only breakfast. I asked for coffee and was told no coffee, only tea. Asked for tea and was told they had no milk, also had no bread, no butter, no eggs. I basically had jam and water for lunch. I sat there and drank my water out of their "Worlds Best Grandma" mug and smiled feeling worthy of a mug I have not yet earned. Crazy, yes I know. I think the last few days alone have proved that solitude breeds the crazy in me.

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Our breasts are big in Peru:

So far we have found the locals to be really friendly and nice. The men are sleazy but in a non threatening way. We literally can’t walk two steps without getting wolf whistled at, beeped at, kissing noises made at us or a “hola”. We’ve also been called “princesses” from across the street and “first class”. So, it’s now official, I am a first class princess, glad to finally have it confirmed. Lima was especially funny, men were nearly breaking their necks hanging out of cars, buses and off motorbikes to look at us and by ‘us’ I mean our breasts. Our boobs are big in South America, literally. Julie was followed down the street the other day by a local man who felt her arse as he walked by, the same man did it again fifteen minutes later. This made me laugh ALOT! Ha ha.

We’re pretty tired from all the activities we’ve been doing lately. In Ariquipa Naomi and I booked to go white water rafting, I went along but didn’t get on the raft in the end as had some toilet issues. Wearing a wet suit, stuck on a raft and worrying about having irregular toiletry activites is not my idea of a good time. Naomi had a little admirer, a Chilian man who worked for the rafting company, he kindly helped her put on her wet suit and also helped her take it off afterwards. He got into his wet suit in front of us so we both saw him naked, which we enjoyed.

We are still struggling with Spanish, annoyingly my plan for fluency to just leak effortlessly into my brain has not happened as I’d hoped. We did a couple of Spanish lessons whilst in Cusco, our teacher was a Peruvian lady in her mid fifties called Beni. I think it was the first time I’ve been in a class with Naomi where one of us wasn’t sitting at the bold table. Beni was impressed with our eagerness to learn and gave us a big “MUY BIEN” whenever we got anything right. Her patience was admirable as we, like remedial students slowly spelt out our names in the Spanish alphabet, getting it wrong time and time again. “A’s” incorrectly became “e’s” and “i’s” became “y’s”, my head spinning from having to use my usually dormant brain. When Naomi finally spelt her name right I looked at her with envy as Beni gave her a big “MUY BIEN.” I wanted Beni to think I was smart and confidently spelt my own name aloud, getting it wrong just the once, I beamed at Naomi as I got the “MUY BIEN” I had been craving. When Naomi managed a full sentence during a roll play where I was the taxi driver I was genuinely proud and gave her a big round of applause. Julie joined the class on day two (she missed day one due to the shits), Naomi was now utterly confident in her own abilities and at this stage was very good at spelling her own name. I caught her whispering answers to Julie on a few occasions, luckily for her Beni was too nice to have a bold chair or she would have relived her time in secondary school.

Julie was in a bad way, her visits to the toilet were at an all time high. She hadn’t eaten in days and we were booked into do the Inca trail, a four day trek to Manchu Picchu in a few days so decided to call her a doctor. A young Peruvian doctor arrived at our hostel bedroom adorning a white coat and stetchoscope around his neck, looking quite the part. He inspected her in a very professional manner and diagnosed a gastric infection, ouch. Never one to miss an opportunity Naomi asked if he wouldn’t mind us taking a photo of him. Upon her request, his face lit up and he nodded enthaustically. Hilariously, he then took out his own camera and passed it to Naomi for her to capture the moment for himself. Julie, weak from the parasite in her stomach and not eating, sat on the edge of the bed with the doctor, posing for a photo as he gave a big thumbs up and grinned. Before he left he gave all three of us kisses and bounced happily out the door. What he will do with that photo, who knows!





We had another admirer, a man who worked in the hostel and was from the Jungle. He had black curly waist length hair (nice) and every time he saw us, insisted on giving us open mouthed kisses (his mouth was open, ours not) on the edge of our lips leaving a sliver of spit across them. I became an expert at dodging the kisses after a while; my tactic was to suddenly become interested in reading whatever was near so I looked like I was in a trance like state not to be interrupted. He also once followed us down the road and into a pub, pretending it was a coincidence to see us there and that he was waiting for his friend (surprisingly the imaginary friend didn’t turn up). Sure enough, in he went for the kiss, again I managed to dodge it, suddenly interested in studying the menu in front of me, Julie also intensely read the menu and missed getting slimed on but Naomi was not so lucky.

The highlight of my trip so far has been the four day Inca trail trek to Manchu Picchu. We did a group trek with 11 of us tourists in total and 2 tour guides, Bruno and Roy, both Peruvian and clearly not their real names, but who cares? Bruno was the sensible one with vast local knowledge and Roy was the perv fond of calling us “baby” and wolf whistling whenever we were near. Julie was still recovering from her illness so walked behind the rest of the group during the trek, taking it at her own pace. Roy, a perv never to miss an opportunity recognised her weakness as a blessing and lagged behind with her. When she finally caught up with us (hours later) she told us that he had tried to hold her hand, had picked her flowers along the route, tried to snog her and my favourite, had actually walked behind her for a good while, watching her and wolf whistling at her backside. “That’s very unique” Naomi commented on his picking up technique when Julie later told us the story. It became a running joke in the camp and Julie’s morning pancakes came out with chocolate syrup love hearts drawn on them, as did Roys. Even the chef was in on it. Naomi didn’t help, telling Roy in Julie’s absence that she had come back from the trek and told us that he was her favourite guide, that she said he took great care of her and that she would like to salsa dance with him on the last night. He was delighted.

The trek itself was hard work, but great. We got up most mornings at about 4am and were walking by 5am. After the 4 days, we were knackered but still went out on the piss when we got back to the town. We hadn’t slept in 24 hours so were wrecked but persevered. Julie stayed in bed as was still recovering from her illness (she’s lost about a stone, so jealous), so Naomi and I took to the local nightlife scene. We found some local hovel and hit the dance floor; I did my shuffling from side to side whilst rhythmically punching the air in aerobics class type move. I did this over and over, occasionally looking down at my feet for some variation of the move. It’s my worst nightmare to somehow have to watch myself dancing without the music and without the blinking lights. I don’t think I would ever go out again.

Cut to a few hours later, I was sitting at the bar drinking a cocktail (my sixth) surrounded by two local Peruvian men, as tall as my elbow making shapes out of paper in order to win my affections. I was a little confused at this strange exhibition of an ‘origami off’. I looked across at Naomi who was surrounded by at least 5 guys (some hot) all hoping for their chance with her and then back at my two Peruvian weirdos stood in front of me intensely concentrating on folding shapes into their paper dinosaur and paper rose and wondered where it all went wrong. An Irish guy came over to me then to tell me how hot my friend was (happens all the time) before noticing this exhibit before me. “Nothing unusual happening here” I told him as I shrugged by shoulders whilst one of the men trotted his dinosaur over the air in front of my face like a child would do with a toy. “Muy bien” I told him. I have to admit that the rose beat the dinosaur hands down but even if these men had the ability to literally turn water into Jack Daniels and I was not happily married (as I told them), I would not be interested. Full marks for originality though.



Me and the dinosaur man.


The Rose.

We’ve been generally lucky with the standard of accommodation so far, usually getting a private room for just the three of us. Only bad place so far was in Cusco where I was drifting off to sleep when I heard a loud gnawing sound. “That’s a fucking rat” Naomi said but she was wrong, it was numerous fucking rats. We told reception and a round Peruvian man as wide as he was tall and with no English came up to have a look.

“There are ratas in the room” I told him as I made a rat face and clawed the wall beside me (Beni would not have been proud of my attempts, no “MUY BIEN” here).

He found where the noise was coming from and said “no problem”.

“There is a problem” I told him “there are ratas!”

“No problem”

He shook his head when I asked if there was another room available. So, with “no problem” and no other rooms we had to try and sleep with the rats running all over the room. I turned off the light and lay there, eyes wide open waiting for the sound to start again. Sure enough within minutes I heard a loud gnawing noise from under my bed. I jumped up, turned on the light and stood on my bed. Naomi did the same. We got our walking sticks (from trekking) and began randomly stabbing the heaps of clothes on the floor with them and saying “Where are you fuckers?” which surprisingly didn’t make any difference. I didn’t get the “We’re under your backpack” answer that I wanted. I ended up hopping into bed with Julie over the other side of the room, which may have looked odd to anyone that was not us as there were two spare, empty beds, but I had a false sense of security then and managed to get some sleep. No doubt some other backpackers were shown to that very room after we left because why not? There was “no problem” after all, right?

We are now in Bolivia. We got a night bus here from Cusco. I was sitting beside a young (not unattractive man). Naomi saw him, gave me a grin and a nod as if to say “go for it”. There is something quite unsettling about sleeping next to a strange man on a bus and waking up almost face to face, him asleep with his mouth wide open, snoring and breathing heavily into your face. He also had his elbow jammed into my side, causing me great discomfort. However, in true Irish fashion, I didn’t ask him to move it but instead quietly hated him in my mind. That’ll learn him.

Quote of the week....
Pissed, playing draughts with Naomi (also pissed) and she says: “This is very like a game of draughts”.