Journey to the Heart of South America – Bolivia-ya-ya-ya:Coral had about 2 minutes to get to the gate to catch the flight to Madrid and had to make a quick decision to throw away Jonjon’s kind gift of cheese first out of fear of being fined or arrested once we reached Miami. Needless to say this did not greatly please Matt who is suffering from Cathedral City deprivation. Luckily we were easily distracted by several plastic fish displays, a lifesize model of a giraffe and a sauce bottle labelled Chillie Willy for it to really register that we had to wait 10 hours at miami airport!
But when we did actually get on the plane, finally, we were granted with the emergency seats, extra leg room, yes! However the flight attendant also asked if the passenger next to you died would you be comfortable pulling off the emergency doors in a disaster! A little bit daunting to say the least! Well Coral´s bag did not arrive in La Paz with Alice´s. Due to her stupidity while packing, she had to borrow a pair of Alice´s pants although she had packed a pair of 3 inch heels in her hand luggage! Dangerous weapon? Maybe, but American Airlines, didn’t seem to mind.
After suffering all that flying and headaches from the altitude in La Paz we can safely say we were a bit apprehensive about a 22 hour bus ride through the mountains. But we were soon greeted with the most amazing views of the mountains, and literally driving through the clouds! so luckily, us being easily amused and cameras in hand the ride actually turned out to be quite entertaining. that said until we reached the first toilet stop. Well Coral thought that the toilets at Download Festival were the worst in the world but quickly changed her mind when she had to wee in a hole surrounded by other women watching!!! So apart from the toilets and the gang of machette and axe weilding roadworkers that hopped on at one point (but were actually quite friendly), the ride wasn´t nearly as bad as we thought it would be!
While walking around Rurrenabaque in the search of dogs to feed out left over banana bread to, we came across a dog which Matt recognised (and the dog recognised Matt) who had lived at one of the animal sanctuaries. So we promptly made a big fuss of her and fed her our banana bread (just before it started to poor with rain)!
Fortunately the sun has returned now (typical, now that we’re in an internet cafe!) and all is set to enter Jacj Cuisi early tomorrow morning to start on our hardcore construction-ing for the next week.Wish us luck and we’ll be in contact again once Murray is Wimbledon champion (lets hope that doesn’t take him another 70 odd years!)
Ambue Ari summer group 09.