Morro de Sao Paulo

So the island hopping begins in this beautiful place with sandy streets and absoloutly no cars. Our first night here, there was a free beach party with cocktail and crepe stands lining the beach. The music was a kind of brazillian hip-hop to which all the locals shook their stuff like crazy.

Most of our days were lazy beach days, but occassionally we would walk up an down the beach selling jewellery we made. There is a really cool chill out area we went to one evening to watch the sunset, it has the best view and is covered in bean bags and hammocks. We went horse riding on our second to last day and I galloped for my first time- woop wooo! On this island its really easy to get to know people, one night our friend said that we could have a free drink each just for sitting in the outside bar- excellent!

We managed to arrange staying with a local so really felt like we were part of a family and even got in free to an open air club party. It was really nice to take it in turns cooking and all share meals, staying at a locals is such a different experience to in a hostel filled eith tourists. The last day me, Leggra and our spanish friend all went to the fourth beach (the most beautiful) and our friend tried to give us and some little kids a capoira class. Later we watched him at his actual caporira class- they begin by playing traditional music (everyone joins in) and then have a gruelling work out, before making a capoira circle and taking it in turns to fight. That night, our spanish friend came over and she cooked us all a spanish tortilla which we had with vino tinto before heading out to another beach party. The beach party was the perfect way to say goodbye to the island, we stayed up till sunrise which we watched sat on the second beach.

Salvador

Salvador is a beautifully vibrant city with music constantly playing. Groups of people will gather on the street playing drums to which two people perform capoeira- a type of martial arts dance. We stayed in a really cool hostel just outside the pelorinho (the cool place to be) and most days caught a bus to Barra the closest beach, soaked up the sun and drank from coco nuts .

We got some advice on jewellery making from an artesan who took us shopping for wire, beads and thread and taught us how to make different things. Our shopping trip lasted 8 hours and then we sat in our friends workshop for a few more hours getting creative. Back at the hostel we sold a few braclets and a necklace too.

Tuesday night is the big night in Salvador- the streets thrive with people and all over the pelorinho there are live samba bands which hundreds of people gether to watch and dance. Muito Bem! We also for some reason ended up spending some of the night outside our artesan friend´s shop playing chequers and eating fried fish.

El Pantanal

A 16 hour train ride and several buses later we arrived in Corumba and from there booked our trip to the Pantanal, Brazil´s grass lands. As we´d spent a while faffing around, we missed the bus and had to be driven by the boss instead, which actually ended up being a much more comfy mode of transport. When we got to the lodge we were showed to our hammocks where we were to sleep for the next 3 nights- they were so cosy.

That night 17 of us were loaded into the jungle truck, we sat on the roof and off we went for our night time safari. I held up my torch and saw all of the aligators glowing red eyes as we passed the rivers. We even saw a pair of tocans snuggling in a tree together. After a few minutes of driving the truck stopped and the guide signaled for us to climb down as it was time for the nights walk. We scrambled under some wire and suddenly were surrounded by aligators resting by the waters edge- humans apparently don´t bother them. The guide found an aligator (reasonably sized) and grabbed it before picking it up in order to show us different parts of its body including its stomach and jaws! So it wouldn´t attack when the guide placed the aligator back on the ground, he rubbed its tummy with a plant and bit by bit the aligator went into a trance and just fell asleep.

The next day we got into canoes and had a boat trip to this beautiful little town, went swimming in the river, did a bit of fishing (I caught a pirahna- YAY) and had lunch. Though it was fun lazing in the sun, there were problems with our transport back to the lodge so we didn´t get back for dinner until 10pm.

Day 3 day was by far the best!! Of course the 2hour jungle walk in the morning in the rain, didn´t leave me in the best mood as i got swarmed by visicous mossies and cut up by brambles, however after lunch it brightened up and we went horse riding for 2 and a half hours!

The next morning we had an unsuccsesful time trying to fish for pirahnas so chilled in the hammocks mostly and got henna tattoos from an artist working at the camp. Soon after lunch we reaturned to civilisation and are now staying in Campo Grande.

Sucre

Sucre is also known as La Cuidad Blanca due to its beautiful wash white buildings. It´s so much cleaner than the rest of Bolivia and seems alot richer too. Our hostel was right opposite el mercado central where we ate practically all of our meals (so yummy and cheap) - for breakfast we usually had a big fruit salad with yoghurt, nuts, cream and coconut and a strong black coffee. The market was such a big bustley place- people literally yell at you as you pass, almost pleading that you eat at their stall.

On New Years we met some locals who took us to Sucre´s mirador which is stunning. From there, there´s a walk up to the mountains passing seven catholic statues- we were sat in the mountains till sunset, watching the beautiful view and looking at one of the locals artesan work. To celebrate new year, we went to a local hangout where there was free champagne at midnight and then on to a street party.

We spent another day relaxing in the mirador with strawberry milkshake, chatting to yet another artesan when we met some people who said they would take us to a nearby town Yotala where there was a typical bar selling Chicha (a corn beer) and another mirador up in the mountains. After that we arranged to meet the next day and together drove to the seven waterfalls, only 30minutes from the city. We bought a packed lunch and sat on the rocks and swam in the waterfalls- we only climbed to the third waterfall, but all of the ones that we passed were gorgeous and wonderfully secluded.

The Salt Flats

We reaturned to La Paz to celebrate christmas in style- good food, good drink, good people and a jacuzzi! Then boxing day evening we got on yet another 12 hour night bus heading for Uyuni a little town at the bottom of Bolivia offering salt flat tours. Infact as soon as we groggily got off the bus at 7am we were approached by several companys and ended up leaving on our 3 day trek only 3 1/2 hours later. 6 of us clambered into a 4x4 and drove over the bright white salt flats, which were incredibly beautiful. We made several stops, one of which was in a small village where artesans made mini llamas, pots and keyrings from salt, and another was at the salt hotel where literally everything was made from salt- the walls, beds, floor, roof ect.. We ate lunch here on a table and chairs made entirely of salt. Before arriving at our salt hostel further on, we visited Isla del Pescado, a rocky island filled with cacti, bang in the middle of the irredesently white salt flats.

The next day we left at 6am and this time drove through different terrain. The roads were dusty and desolate and all around us were mountains, one with seven different colours. We passed lots of becoñas and llamas on our trip and stopped at Dali´s desert, the place that inspired him to paint the melted clocks. On this day we also saw five lagoons, the most beautiful was pink with 20,000 flamingos.

Day 3 called for an even ealier start... we left at 5am. The most amazing thing we saw was just before breakfast- geyseres... holes in the ground filled with steam and bubbling water of 90 degrees, ocassionally bursts of this water would shoot up into the air. A little further along the road were the natural hot springs. Here is where we ate pancakes, yoghurt with cereal and drank black coffee for breakfast, then changed into bikinis and jumped into the hot spring. Unfortunately the next thing we had to do was drop my friend at the chilean boarder, where we said goodbye (we´re meeting up again soon) after 2 1/2 months of travelling together.

We spent the night in Uyuni on our reaturn- it´s possibly the bleakest town I´ve been to on my trip and was glad to leave it the next day at 10am. The road from Uyuni to Sucre is really bumpy, I was thrown out of my seat most of the time and to top it off the wheel of the bus fell off- it´s all part of the experience though!

Las Pampas

From La Paz it was an epic 20 hour bus journey to Rurrenabaque where we got a 3 hour jeep ride down a dirt track to Santa Rosa where we began our stay in Las Pampas... well worth all the effort though. Once we met our guide in Santa Rosa, we got into a wooden canoe with a little motor and slowly made our way up the river, through the amazon. We saw many aligators lying on the side of the banks, as well as turtles resting on logs, brightly coloured birds and a family of capibaras. The guide pulled up by a tree where a group of squirrel monkeys were playing- he held a bannana above our heads and all the monkeys jumped onto our heads and crawled over our backs, then he let us feed the monkeys.

Once we arrived at the lodge where we were staying, we shoved our stuff in the room before getting back in the boat to view the sunset futher up the river. After sunset went aligator watching- if you shine a torch at aligators in the dark... their eyes glow red- very cool! We stopped at the edge of the river at one point and the guide wandered off only to reaturn, moments later, with a baby aligator that he let each of us hold. Back at the lodge we were fed really well with yummy, healthy food.

The next day a breakfast of pancakes, fruit and pastries awaited us before we pulled on some wellies to go anaconder hunting in the swampy part. We trekked for ages and the guide told me that due to the overcast sky, it was a 70% chance that we wouldn´t find a snake... but we did and I got to hold an anaconder. We reaturned late for lunch and then chilled in hammocks until pirana fishing. My first ever time fishing was in the amazon and I caught 14 fish... 3 of which were piranas- I felt pretty proud! We then motored to another great view point for another beautiful sunset and got back to have our piranas with dinner- if not a little boney, they were delicious. We spent the evening lazying in hammocks, overlooking the water and chatting to our guide.

The last day was great- we found a spot in the river to go swimming where pink dolphins popped their heads up every now and then. I was terriffied that an aligator would come and rip me limb from limb, but swimming in the amazon was incredible. Following an early lnunch, we made a quick get away, motoring back up the river to Santa Rosa. We managed to get a night bus back to La Paz (another hellish 20 hours) and arrived in time for christmas eve in the lively city.

La Paz

La Paz is a massive city and arriving in it can be daunting, however once me and Allegra arrived, ate and had a black coffee at the market place, we did manage to navigate our way across it to meet our two friends where we found them sat in a hot tub in their (much nicer than our) hostel. And this is where we learned that the amazing DJ Tiesto was playing in town that night. Very excited we ran to the reception to get tickets... only to find out they´d all been sold, leaving us no choice but to jump in a taxi and run to the gig to get tickets from a tout, which we did with sucess. The guys we bought the tickets from ended up being really fun, we queued with them, they bought us drinks and we all danced together during the concert. The concert itself was incredible! It was jam packed and Tiesto played just about every great song that I know, we had such a fun evening.

The next morning (or should I say afternoon as that is when I lazily woke up) I went to the market for a delicious fruit salad topped with honey, yoghurt and popcorn. Then me and my friends spent the day wandering around the witches market where they sell all sorts of things from alpaka jumpers to incense sticks, lucky charms, guitars and bongo drums. We even found a coco museam there, describing the impotance of the coco leaf in Bolivia's culture. That night we went to a bar that played a mixture of latin american and american chart music, followed by a much less local feeling bar which we didn´t leave till 6am.

Next day we explored the city by visiting various plazas and going to the mirador where there´s a fabulous view of La Paz. We then came across a little christmas market, which sold christmas decorations, cards, gifts, toffee apples and chocolate. We had another market meal for dinner (I love this as it´s so bussely and has such a local feel) then went out to an urban music bar with funky murals over the walls and live music- a really cool afro-bolivian band played as well people rapping.

On our last day in La Paz (as for the moment) me and my friend got our fortunes read by a witch doctor who uses coco leaves and looks at the way they fall on his cloth. Apparently I´m going to be lucky in love and work... but won´t reaturn to South America...we´ll see.