The Drugs Most Definately Work!

"Our bus just nearly drove off the edge of a cliff", Julie told me with an unusually mundane, cool, careless air, her speech a little slurred and her tone devoid of any panic that such an observation should evoke. She very slowly raised her arm and gradually extended her index finger, taking some seconds to do so, moving with the speed of an astronaught in space to point out the window and highlight the area of danger to me. By the time she managed to successfuly point, we were far away from the scene in question. Feeling like every obstacle known to man and nature was against me, I eventually managed to turn my head towards her and with my speech equally as slurred as hers said, "Who cares?", which was shortly followed by "I´m fucked. Am I slurring my words?" I also think I may have called her ´Judy´. The Diazepam we had taken an hour earlier had most definately kicked in.



Ordinarily, I refrain from taking narcotics (of the prescribed kind), however Julie/Judy and I had been travelling non-stop for a full 36 hours without sleeping and were facing another 16 hour bus journey on a night bus designed by the devil for Bolivian midgits. Us, being tall especially by Bolivian standards (i.e. over 4 foot) knew that our knees would be getting intimate with our chins throughout the entire journey making it impossible to sleep. Diazepam, Valium, a sledgehammer to the head, whatever we could get our hands on to knock us out was a necessity.

Julie and I were the only non Bolivians on the bus, however I like to think were we not so pale skinned, tall, blonde, clean and if we´d have been wearing traditional Bolivian clothes that we would have fitted right in. Inside the bus was crazy, jam packed but luckily we had seats, every inch was taken by locals, bags and animals. One woman got onboard with a cat. The local men are known to piss in bottles when on long bus journeys, I´d like to see a cat do that. A man got on the bus, stood beside me and sang a Bolivian song in an unusually high pitched voice for a good 15 minutes. I gave him a big thumbs up when I caught his eye ("eyes" really, he had two).



These people were on our bus. Julie and I ALMOST blended in.

I overcame the noise and smells onboard and even my concern that this was a 16 hour bus journey with no toilet in order to enjoy the scenery. We travelled through an amazing desert backdrop, massive cactai were scattered on either side of us and the setting sun exaggerated the picturesque outline of the mountains against the pinkest sky I have ever seen. We drove under giant red hollowed out rocks as high as buildings, the sides of the bus almost getting scraped as we passed through these narrow passageways. Then, the forked lightning started and the driver decided to leave the semi decent dirt road we were on in favor of the path less travelled, over shrubs and rocks we bounced watching the only chance of a road we had fade into oblivion behind us. The drivers here often tend to off road the busses, I reckon it´s to avoid rainy season landslides or it´s that they are so off their faces on local whiskey that they doen´t know what they´re doing. I think it was at this point that Julie and I popped our happy pills, sat back and enjoyed the ride!

The bus broke down a couple of times in the middle of the night and one of these times I managed to lift my heavy lead Diazepam legs and get out for a stretch, with the encouragement of Julie "You can do it". The huge effort it took was worth it, if only to find out that there was a local man asleep in the luggage compartment underneath the bus, I saw a lady pass him some food, he was dusty but happy.



Me, all drugged up and the broken down bus. Dark photo....I know, but it was night time!

After a long, long journey, we finally arrived in Sucre, Bolivia where we have been for the past two weeks. It´s a relatively pretty, big enough city with most mod cons, so a good place to chill out. Unusually, the locals are all armed with water balloons and giant super soakers so I can´t leave the hostel without being pelted and drenched by them. I´ve been hit a good 20 times already, so am thinking of investing in some balloons myself and getting my own back. ha ha.

It was Julie´s birthday last week, a gang of us gringos hit the town. We ended up in a heaving Latino nightclub full of locals gyrating against eachother and practically having sex on the dancefloor. It was like a scene from ´Dirty Dancing´ only the part of Patrick Swazye was being played by a 4 foot Bolivian man with a size 2 waist and a mushroom haircut.

Bolivian men are uber keen to dance with us gringas even though we are horrible dancers compared to them. The boy child that chose me for his partner was quite literally up to my chest and no more than 16 years old. His eyes met my breasts and we swayed rhythmically together for a moment before he twirled me around and shook his little boy hips skillfully from side to side. Me, being a bad dancer at the best of times gave him my best rigor mortis moves, my body feeling like it was 80 percent cement. He, bendy as rubber made the best of it. This exhibit of me, a giant in comparison dancing with this small but pleasant Bolivian boy child was quite the spectacle. Julie, unknown to me took a video of us dancing but it didn´t come out, ha ha ha, Julie!! Later, my boy child asked Julie to ask me if I would like to go for a drive and some ice - cream with him the following day. I told Julie to tell him, no thank you, surprised that he was old enough to drive, but perhaps I was meant to drive? I may forever wonder what might have been, we may have gone on to marry and have had a beautiful boy child Bolivian baby one day whom with the mix of mine and his fathers genes may have grown up to be as tall as 4 foot 2.



My Bolivian boy child on the left hand side. Bolivians never smile in photos. Weirdos.

I have a real knack, a gift almost for attracting gobshites. I think part of the reason is that whilst most people will turn away from them or tell them to get lost, I actively encourage them and am more then happy to spend my evenings conversing with the mentally deranged and unusual. Perhaps they say the same about me! The night I met the Bolivian boy child dancer I spent the guts of an hour having a conversation with a local guy who had what I can only describe as a more passionate than logical interest in Irish cream. He even whipped some imaginary cream for me in the night club and showed me that he had the defination of the word "cream" in his phone. I congratulated him on both accounts.



Irish Cream guy. I was pissing myself at the ridiculousness of it.

We found a Bolivian Karaoke bar the other night, a real piss hole of a place where Bolivians go to get off their faces, whail and scream ear abusing noise in Spanish into a microphone. The locals, being such goddam awful singers would inspire confidence in even the most timid (little old me) of preformers. So, of course I got up and sang about ten songs with that singing voice of mine, which has only been used twice since 1987 when I made my holy communion and was forced to sing or I would "burn in hell". I mimed in choir class at school for five whole years, hours wasted as I just stood there amongst other girls who were actually singing as I lip synched. Naomi did the same with the recorder, she pretended to blow into it and moved her fingers over it for three years with no sound ever coming out. Her and I should have formed a girl band.

That night at the Karaoke bar, a Bolivian guy with no English came over to me and asked me to take a drink from his glass. "No thank you" I said logically. With that he put the glass down, put his hands together and pleaded with me to take just "un poco" (a little) drink from it. "No thank you" (again). "Por favor, por favor, por favor!!" he asked again, his eyes watering. "Is there Rhynopol in it?" I asked in English. "Yes! Yes!", he told me, a big smile on his face. "I´ll pass, thank you." Yet another kind offer from a Bolivian man I´ve turned down, oh regrets!!!

In other news, last week I got food poisoning and then, with my immune system weakened my old friend, a certain Protestant in a top hat and tails decided to pay me another visit (see my blog entry entitled "Hanging with my parasite in Bolivia" for this to make perfect sense). Now, I´m all about the self inflicted illnesses, hangovers, alcohol poisoning and so on, these are fine as the chances are that you had some fun before the illness struck. But mine, I got mine from lettuce, a "health inflicted illness" almost, the wussiest kind, oh the shame!



But see....lettuce can be scary!

I have a birthday coming up, so the next time I make a blog entry I will be 25 years old, give or take 5 years. I´ve been trying to think of something I´d like to achieve in my 30th year on this planet (Mars) and welcome your comments and suggestions on things I could and should do. So, feel free to make suggestions on this page and bear in mind that I´ve already said no to taking Rhynopol and going for ice-cream with a Bolivian child.

"You say you shot two people? Grand, who am I to judge?!"

Buenos Aires is a blur. After not drinking much in Peru and Bolivia we acted like alcoholics on benders just escaped from rehab. The only touristy thing I did in my two weeks there was get my photograph taken from outside some government building at 8am on my way home from a nightclub. Of course it was Christmas time, which makes my behaviour all the more acceptable. I had so much to celebrate, me being in Buenos Aires (I´ll drink to that), it being Christmas (I´ll drink to that), it being new years (I´ll drink to that), me having a drink in my hand (I´ll drink to that).



Being a tourist!

On Christmas Eve, Naomi and I "popped out for some food", cut to 8 hours later after spending the equivalent of an entire working day in the same restaurant drinking champagne as though our lives depended on it, we eventually fell home at 4am after the following happening at the restaurant....

- We invited two Americans to Christmas dinner
- I made one of them promise to write to me every two weeks for the next year of his life (no idea why, probably no reason)
- I thought I had left the restaurant and was in a different bar
- Naomi got a drink rash
- A French man made a pass at me
- A random man flashed his ´"bits" at us
- We got a photograph of the "bits"

It was an eventful night.

Christmas day we had friends over to the apartment for dinner. They were staying a couple of blocks away and were making half the meal and transporting it over by foot. The meal arrived in installments as did some extra chairs and various bits. The turkey however, walked himself over and arrived nude, which we thought was inappropriate, so we cooked and ate him.

Throughout the meal there was one thing that stood out, shone above all the other dishes...the stuffing. The turkey actually stuffed himself with it and declared it an honour to be filled with such a succulent delight. The onions in it were chopped to perfection, the breadcrumbs just crumby enough, if the stuffing were a man it would have been Brad Pitt. "Who made such an amazing dish, you ask?" Well, I don´t like to brag but.....

New years eve, we went over to our friends apartment for drinks. There was a semi randomer there who after consuming alot of alcohol decided to tell me his secret, which was that he has murdered two people and then asked what I thought of that. I think I said something like "Well, its none of my business, fair enough", but then wondered what he did with people after he shared this nugget with them? Understandably I felt a little uncomfortable around him after this and edged away from him slowly. I wanted to share this information with the others as I thought that if he was now thinking of killing me, perhaps I would have more chance of survival if this became a "mass murder" situation rather than a solitary (and lonely) execution. I told one of the boys about the murder confession and he thought I was over reacting a little and to forget about it. Asking me to once again pose the question which goes round and round my head constantly in bright green flashing letters and to the theme tune of Dallas.... "Am I the only normal one here?!"

The general consensus after that night was that the "murderer" was probably not telling the truth and is in fact perhaps just a deranged liar. If there´s one thing I hate more than murderers it´s liars (and Celine Dion). Speaking of lying, Naomi and I decided to drop little white lies into conversations with randomers for no reason whatsoever. We started it before she left and in her honour, I will endeavour to continue her good work on that front.

In Argentina the steak and red wine are so cheap, who can blame me for becoming a fat alcoholic with a high protein intake? Who? After many many many crazy nights (and days) out in Buenos Aires we decided to leave before our internal organs, which are now dyed red from all the wine (I´ll drink to that) decided to leave without us. Naomi unfortunatly is now gone, banished back to the UK, which leaves me wondering if she ever really existed in the first place, so Julie and I are slowly making our way back towards Bolivia where we will be visions of health and follow a strict detoxing plan (maybe). Unfortunately, however en route we have managed to come across yet another party town and the other night had a lock in at a bar until 8am where we were plied with free booze, proving that yes, indeed ... it pays to flirt with the barman.



Me and the bar man.



What flirting with the bar man gets you.

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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”.

Peru!

PERU!
We got here safe and sound and without any glitches. I managed to resist my urge to lie to the customs officer in Atlanta during the stop over. I always feel instantly guilty of crimes I have only ever dreamt of committing when talking to airport security, especially when entering the States. He asked me twice what job I do back home and I had an overwhelming urge to say “I’m a Doctor”. It was just resting on the tip of my tongue begging to be released, but I restrained myself. I told him I was a Town Planner, which technically is a lie as I am now officially unemployed. Just even saying that small untruth and getting away with it gave me a bit of a buzz. Niamh: 1, America: 0! Whuu huu!

We’ve been to three different places in Peru so far, Lima, Nasca and now Ariquipa (just place names to you). We got an 8 hour bus journey from Lima to Nasca. The route is notorious for hijacking and we’ve heard stories about tourists being stripped of all their clothes and left in the middle of nowhere by South American baddies. I made sure I had matching underwear on that day. If I’m going to end up in some police station filling out a report in my pants I want to make sure I’m at least looking semi respectable.

The bus was surprisingly good as was the road. Money has been poured into both in recent years, I guess to entice hesitant backpackers following bad press over the hijackers. We were shown a video on board, which unashamedly boasted about the extensive comforts of the bus, talk about bigging yourself up. The video showed an attractive lady working for the bus company actually going around and tucking the overnight passengers in, wrapping a nice fluffy blanket over them as she smiled sexily at them and then at the camera. In reality, this might happen just before some rebel with a machete gets on and orders everyone to hand over their valuables, clothes and the fluffy blanket. The tucking in seems little compensation then I bet. The video went on to brag about the fabulous toilet on board. However, it was heavily emphasised that it was to be used for “urination purposes only”. This was repeated a couple of times, the second time in a more stern voice “I repeat urination purposes only”. If passengers needed to do anything other than urinate, they had to alert the driver at the earliest possibility so he could stop the bus. That wouldn’t be at all embarrassing, no.

We drove through the desert and passed by some amazing landscape before we arrived at our destination, Nasca, a spit and sawdust town in the middle of nowhere but with a simple charm. The next day from there we got a small 6 seater plane over the Nasca lines, which are drawings and lines etched into the desert terrain by ancient Incas for unknown reasons (read my theory on the lines also on this blog). It was very cool but the plane kept being turned on its side so we could get a better look at the images. It was impossible not to feel sick, the guy sitting in front of me puked into a bag. I was down wind of this, which was a treat. He apologised and I said it was okay, but I didn’t mean it and if I had a hit list, he would now be on it.

We had a very challenging day earlier this week (I have no idea what day it is anymore). We got up at 4am to be driven 40 minutes into the desert in order to climb the highest sand dune in the world (how this is decided upon I have no clue, but after climbing it I believe it!), we were then going to surf down it. They tend to let you do anything here without warning of whether it’s hard or dangerous, as long as you pay for it you can do whatever you want. I plan to test this theory out at some stage perhaps by attempting to preform surgery on someone. They told us the trek would be two and a half hours; it took us seven and a half, in the desert, in belting heat, on sand, whilst carrying day packs and a surfboard each. We were lead by our guide Juan Carlo who looked 12 and had terrible English. I asked him how long the trek would take (in English); he looked at me with a horrified expression and said “no”. I placed all my trust in him, good one.

We climbed rocky terrain at first, practically clambering up on our hands and knees. Naomi got scratched by a cactus “hopefully hallucigenic” she said, but unfortunately not. Cut to an hour and some coco leaves later, it was really tough and the leaves weren’t helping. Julie was struggling and kept having to stop and said things like “my body is shit, I’m dying”. In contrast, Naomi was like a mountain goat almost skipping over the rocky landscape, no problem to her. Also, throughout the day Julie and I got through two and a half litres of water each, Naomi just had a few sips of the tiny bottle she brought. Part mountain goat, part camel, I hate her.

The terrain finally changed from rock to sand and eventually (after hours) we made it to a smallish dune, which we were meant to practice surfing on and then walk back up. Me and Naomi weren’t up for the walking back up it part and told our guide, “screw this, lets just go straight to the big dune”. The big one was massive, 2000 metres in height and only slightly less inclined than a free fall. We did a few “It’s been nice knowing you” to each other when were at the summit and looking at what we had to surf down. Juan Carlo took off at speed and went tumbling down it head first, no idea what he was doing, his surfing was almost as impressive as his English. I started off on my ass, creating a massive sand avalanche behind me that chased me a quarter of the way down the dune and filled up my knickers with so much sand that my trousers started falling down. A couple of times I managed to get up on the board for a few seconds before falling on my arse at high speed. I have two perfectly symetrical bruises on both cheeks and I am proud of them, bruising not caused by drunken activities for a change.

Julie lagged exhausted far far behind and became nothing more than a speck on the horizon. She said after that she is never doing anything again that the guide book calls the “highest, longest or deepest in the world” of things. It says that about practically everything! Ha ha. As tough as it was the scenery was amazing and although Julie and I were aching after it (Naomi, the half mountain goat, half camel was fine of course) it was a cool thing to have done and a satisfying challenge (although Julie would disagree). We got back to the hostel and fell asleep and I dreamt of climbing over never ending sand dunes. One of them had Naomi sliding down it, panic etched on her face, with her hand out trying to reach me screaming “I’m engaged, help”. I’m sure this tells me something!

Photo of big dune below, the avalance I created can be seen if you look closely.

Quote of the week:
Naomi standing on the largest sand dune in the world, in the desert after hiking hours to get to it and she says whilst emptying sand out of her shoe....... “There is fucking sand everywhere“

Things I had forgotten about backpacking:

Drying yourself with your t-shirt because your travel towel is buried so far down inside your back pack that it’s gone past the point of no return.

Balancing on one leg whilst trying to put clothes on in hostel shower cubicles without getting them wet.

Eating loads and loads of eggs.

Conversations with travel companions about their toilet movements. “Did you go? How was it?” being a regular question.

How much I hate Irish skin but how much I like being Irish.

Regretting how much money I spent on booze recently at home considering how far it could get me over here. But then admitting to self that wouldn’t have done it any other way and the craic was worth it.

Ordering something from the menu but getting a surprise.

The date and time meaning nothing.

No matter how many people are in the room, the insects will bite me and only me.