Apologies again everyone for Octavia´s atrocious spelling and grammar below....mine will probably not be much better. After leaving the abyss, we headed on to Sucre, the judicial capital of Bolivia. Very beautiful in its architecture and surroundings. Unfortunately Occy was unable to witness said beauty, being bedridden from so called ´poisoning´ of the gut. This left me the lone ranger, to wander at will around the parks and read Steinbeck....tragic. Once she was back on two trunks, Octavia and I walked to the top of Sucre, listened to some traditional music from a local band and went in search for a bar, which took us all night. We arrived, had a Cola, and left. Best night eva. We managed to squeeze in a local dance display with native costumes and masks before heading to La Paz, for what promised to be a whale of a time.

La Paz. A city on a cliff face. Quite literally huge. Ocs and I arrived, early morning with icicles hanging out our nose having had a blasty night of freezing to death, no sleep and a packet of cookies at three in the morning for body warmth. We made our way to Loki hostel accompanied by our new friendd from Denmark named Andes and Andes, both blonde, both tall and incredibly loud. We love you kids. We spent our first day getting to know this massive city, hitting the cool markets, going extreme on the alpaca jumpers and came back to a loud hostel, feeling slightly out of our comfort zone being the youngest and hence ended up in ´Dumbo´ for supper, yes it had balloons and  kids party area. Once we´d decided we were utterly sad individuals, we plucked up some courage and actually made some friends. Admittedly the first two were Israeli clingers, not much escape for Cloc and Rose.

But as the nights of fun, frollocking and fleeing wore on, we became incredibly close knit with our dormitory members, who, combined, made up the biggest bunch of misfits on planet earth, all of whom we cherish and are worthy of a mention. First up, we have Devin, correct, spelt with an "i", who swiftly became our guide/ mentor/body guard. At 6 foot five, armed with spectacles and the most horidious display of shiny shirts (dont take it the wrong way Dev, we adore you), Dev was pretty much our life saver in terms of nights out in La Paz. Moving on, we had several Frenchies, Max the mighty, Lew and Anne the party animals and some more Israeli´s on the side who I may have accidentally insulted without realising they were in the room.

With our valid, mighty dormies, we had many a crazy time, thursday night the eve of my 19th.... Ocs and Rose were joined that eve by none other than the almighty Kirsty Landale and Grace Harbage, wanderers from the North and suitably mud coloured from their adventures in central america. An absolute joy to see them! We had a celebratory bangers and mash and then got rather innapropriate on tequila, resulting in another visit to the world renowned "Hard Rock Cafe" and bundling Rosie up in a taxi immobile, being taken into the suburbs by a total creep of a driver "YOU WANT DRINK?" No thanks, we choose life in this instance. Lo and behold we switch taxis to find ourselves with an even bigger moron, who swiftly conned us out of most of our cash (made worse by the fact that Rosie had just thrown up on my leg) and left us abandoned in a deserted street. I hit him in the face, never knew I had such a punch in me and am now considering WWF. So we arrived back at the hostel, having lost my new jumper, my new cap, (stolen by ratman) and the majority of our dignity. Dev was in his element, sat poised at the end of the bed and threatening to tear cap thief to pieces, "does he know I could kill him. I´m a marine for gaaaad sakes." Let´s consider that this guy also has an I love Mom and Dad tattoo posted on his left arm.
Lets just say it was an eventful 19th for me. I awoke, still drunk and deluded with a blurry candle and plate of muesli at the end of my bed which the one and only Oc had so sweetly done for a birthday treat. Anything can be cured by fodder. We had a chilled evening and mentally prepared ourselves for Death Road the next day.......