Doc in Bolivia

18 - 21 August, 2006 - Copacabana and La Paz

Only minutes after crossing the Peru-Bolivian border, the explosive diarrhoea began. It was luckily on a stopover in Copacabana amid a 19 hour bus trip between Cuzco and La Paz. So Marko and I were able to pitch camp for a night while I played 'cop it' with the toilet bowl. Copacabana is on the banks of the magnificent Lake Titicaca and our hostel, which only cost us 10 Bolivianos (about $2 AU) for a night, had a balcony which looked out over the crystal blue waters, 3800 metres above sea level.

La Paz, the highest capital in the world at 3660m, was another world. It's hard to find the words to explain it. The poverty was tremendous and obvious. Driving into the city we climbed over a crest amongst poorly kept roads and traffic jams, to reveal the massive city of La Paz hundreds of metres below in a deathly valley.

To give you an idea of how cheap things were... 8 Bolivianos is about $US1. We got a room for 10B's, a litre of petrol is 3B's, we got a 3 course meal for 10B's, a litre of beer would be about 10B's and we bought 25 DVD's for about 200B's (including 4 series of the original He-Man cartoons!)

HIGHLIGHT: The markets which were everywhere and you could buy just about anything. Our hostel was situated right in the middle of the witches market. I think it was called this because of some of the things they sold there, like the mummified crias and alpaca foetuses.