Gracefully Straddling the Bolivia-Peru Border....

...Lake Titicaca that is - one of the worlds highest navigable lakes, perched at an altitude of 3820 metres and the place where according to ancient Incan legends the sun was born.

Our tour of the lake began on the Bolivian side of the straddle, in the town of Copacabana. Here we met Lola. She was a showgirl...OK, we didn´t really, (Any Barry Manilow fans out there?) and it isn´t quite the hottest spot north of Havana either. We did however witness the rather curious "Blessing of the Automobiles". Punters in cars (decorated with flowers, ribbons and vodoo dolls) form an orderly line outside the dazzlingly white cathedral at 2pm every day. A monk dude then emerges from the inner sanctum and proceeds to bless the drivers and their vehicles, the ceremony culminating with a bottle of champagne being rather wastefully emptied over the bonnet.

From Copa we journeyed out into the vast blueness of Lake Titicaca to the Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun). And spent 2 days soaking up the Sol, watching the Sol setting, exploring ancient Incan ruins, eating old trout and laughing at donkey´s heeeee-haaaws.

To complete the tour of the lake we crossed into Peru and took a tour to the Uros Islands - incredible floating islands built entirely of reeds. The inhabitants of these unique islands live in reed houses with reed walls and reed roofs; they sit on reed chairs reading reed books at reed tables; use reed lavvies, and reed lavvie paper; worship in a reed church where a priest reads from a reed bible; they travel in a reed boats using reed oars, eat reeds, drink reeds and sleep reeds. Guess what these Reed Islanders sell to the reed-boat-loads of eager tourists? .....yeah, hotdogs.....OK they really sell handcrafted reed sundries.

Cribbage Update: It's getting tight on Titicaca....Jools 31 Kev 30

Cheaper than Cheap Chips where Chips are Cheaper than Chips

It was no great surprise when instead of being dropped off at the central bus terminal (as heartily promised by a surly ticket saleswoman) we were unceremoniously dumped at 6am in the El Alto district (Lonely Planet kindly describes this area as "a poverty plagued sprawl") some 10k short of La Paz centre. Of course, every cloud has a silver lining and by the time we found our bearings and made our way to the centre, it was fully light and we were able to view the full majesty of the approach to the city. La Paz´1.5 million inhabitants live in a perfect bowl-shaped canyon with their red bricked houses clinging precariously to the steep sides, filling the bowl from rim to rim. First view of the world´s highest capital city (at 3660 metres) is absolutely breathtaking as you peer down into the canyon below.

It also fails to disappoint once you´re fully encompassed in it´s bustling, friendly folds on the canyon floor. La Paz is perhaps our favourite city we´ve visited in the last 11 months - or could that simply be it´s "cheap as chips" nature appealing to our inner Scottishness and Nornirishness. Many an hour was spent trawling the hilly streets searching for the cheapest passable meal. Our best effort was a tasty, filling 3-course Cuban(go figure?) meal for around 50pence.

Two days vanished in a fevered frenzy of shopping; for guitars, padlocks, juggling balls, cocaine, mini saxophones and assorted Bolivian artesania.

To recover from the excessive trauma brought on by 2-days of nonstop shopping, we took a gentle wee spin on the pushbikes, 65 kilometres - and 3600 metres of vertical descent - down the innocuous sounding "Death Road".



Cribbage Update: Jools is proving to be quite elusive and full of excuses whenever I suggest bringing out the old cribbage board. I may have to award myself a default victory or three. Jools 31 Kev 29

Escape to Bolivia

With the announcement on SkySportsChile that the much anticipated big match was to go ahead, we embarked on a specially tailored 4-day conditioning programme, designed to improve our speed, strength and stamina. The rigorous training schedule was conducted in the hot, high and dusty Atacama Desert in the far north of Chile, and predominantly consisted of cycling up and down towering, red-sanded mountains bearing rock-filled sacks, and carrying lumps of unwieldy lead back and forth across raging torrents of dangerous, near-uncrossable white-water.





Nature and the Elements vs World XI

Date: 19th - 21st July
Arena: The 10,582 km² Salar de Uyuni Salt Flats and Surrounding environs.
Attendance: Similar to an East Fife home game.
Ref: Pier Luigi Collina.

The home team lined up in the tried and tested ancient rock formation:
The towering Volcan Licanbur keeping nets; a slightly rocky looking defence; a lake studded midfield; and upfront (forming a typical big man/small man strike partnership) a big spiky cactus and the speedy, elusive and lethal finisher - Señor Cold. Warming the bench; a load of geysers (fuming at being left out of the starting XI) and a handful of llamas, vicuñas and flamingos.


The World XI: Lanky Jim("The Cat" from the Juan Fernandez Archipelago) in goal; a backline comprising of Riverdance extras; big Joaquim (good touch for a big man) and big Mags (good man for a big touch) forming an impenetrable Spanish/Chilean midfield core; Kev and Jools running the flanks; a couple of chubby Bolivian utility players (drivers/cooks/mechanics/tour guides/counsellors)up-front. On the bench,(no anti-English sentiments intended) all the English.


As the teams faced up and prepared to do battle, the atmosphere was .... erm, well.....thin..as it should be at heights of over 4000 metres. With the senses dulled from the minus 20 temperatures and the extreme altitude it was first blood early doors to the Elements- an easy tap in from 2 yards after some good build up play from the cold and a cute one-two with a rocky outcrop.

It was end to end stuff as play ebbed and flowed for much of the remainder of the first half. But in general it was a cold, sloppy affair, characterised by the cactus and his trademark hard tackle. Neither team able to locate any barn doors with their banjos.








Fortified by halftime sausages and cucumbers the World XI hit back in style - determined to make it a game of two halves. A bit of jiggery, pokery, high kickery in defense created a fraction of space for a great high pass up the wing of a flamingo to Jools, who proceeded to dribble;




..rounded a giant chocolate bar,











..turned a rock to stone with a dazzling array of footwork, nutmegged a llama, avoided the dangerous, late challenge from some geysers and showed a remarkably deft touch to lob the active volcano and draw things level. The girl done good.






For a game played out at such dizzying altitudes the World XI did well to escape with a share of the spoils and had to be the happier of the two adversaries. When The Elements central defender was asked for a comment at the end of the game, the interviewer was met by a stony silence.

At the end of the day, after giving 110%, we took an early bath. It´s a funny old game.








Smallprint: The above drivel was inspired by an actual game of football which took place at altitude in a small Bolivian village. The opposition: a group of 10 year olds. The stakes: a bottle of Coke. The winners: the altitude (and the kids of course).

Big Head Hunting in the Navel of the World

Foiled in our brave bid to conquer the south pole - by a combination of time constraints and the severe weather conditions - we hitched a ride 3700km out into the South Pacific Ocean to Rapa Nui (Isla de Pascua(Easter Island)) . Often referred to as Te Pito O Te Henua(the navel of the world) due to it´s complete isolation from the rest of mankind, the island is home to around 3800 people, the vast majority of whom live in the sprawling township of Hanga Roa - where we based ourselves for 5 days.



Ever since I was knee-high to a moai (a big stone head) I´ve been fascinated by Easter Island , it´s rich, mysterious history and it´s remarkable, unique culture. Ever since Jools was knee-high to a Frescian cow, and capable of making a connection between chocolate eggs and Easter, she´s been desperate to visit Easter Island too. It was great to finally fulfill our long held childhood dreams, although Jools was slightly disappointed at the dearth of quality chocolate.

This disappointment was soon forgotten as we spent a magical 5 days exploring the barren volcanic island on foot and bike - seeking out big heads of all shapes, sizes and facial expressions, and mulling over the same questions as thousands of others before us:

Where did the original islanders come from?
How did they arrive at such an unlikely destination?
What inspired them to build the moai?
How did the islanders transport these massive statues from quarry to site?
Is this the place where Kev will complete his comeback and natural order will be resumed in the Cribbage World Tour?

Cribbage Update: No

Spanish Update: The fiercely proud (and also fiercely friendly) locals here don´t like it when you speak Spanish. While "officially" part of Chile, the indigenous islanders most certainly don´t consider themselves Chilean. After 5days of intensive lessons in the language of Rapa Nui we were just about capable of saying hello.

Rapa Nui Update: Iorana

2 Jools in the Bushes is Worth 1 in the Horns

We picked up a French dude called Jools (him famed for adding the French grab-a-stick game to the cake recipe) for an expedition into the beautiful, craggy and icy-cold Torres del Paine National Park, deep in Chilean Patagonia.

I wont spoil the beauty of Torres del Paine (much) by accompanying the pictures with the usual load of tosh (i.e I really can´t be bothered to think up any inappropriate tosh. In fact I´m totally toshed-out and may pass over blog-writing duties to Jools- or maybe you´re not ready for quite that level of tosh?!)

First sighting of the famous Cuernos del Paine (The Horns)

There´s neigh mistaking it - it´s them horns again:


2 Jools in the bushes and one set of horns:

Unidentified Fluffy Objects:


It´s snow joke...

...drastic weather calls for drastic socks-on-hands measures:


Cribbage Update: As the tour reaches the final straight, a late surge from Kev ensures a nailbiting finish to proceedings. Jools 30 Kev 29

Spanish Update: Having had a few weeks for our text-book Spanish to develop and mature, it has grown legs and evolved into a strange sounding brand of Spanglish. We start sentences in Spanish, finish them in English and muddle up all the important verbs and conjugations in the middle. Thankfully "French Jools" is also rather adept in the linguistic art of Spanglish, and the three of us were able to conduct many deep, meaningful and intellectual conversations - here's a brief excerpt from one such verbal spate:
Jools1: Me gustan los arboles en el snow.
Jools2: Si, yo tambien. Me gusta mucha mucha. Ellos son muy bonitos y gnarly.
Kev: Bollockso, a mi, no me gustan los arboles con snow. Yo prefiero cerveza.
Jools1: Buf!
Jools2: Zut alors!
Kev: Och, ah cannae be arsed wi' all this tosh...

Puerto-Montt-to-Puerto-Natales Cake

Ingredients

1 old cargo ship
2 dozen bunk beds

1 cluster of assorted furniture
1 Norn Irish, 1 Scot, 3 English, 1 French, 1 US, 1 Thai, 1 Hong Kongese
1 infamously rough sea-crossing
3 big stodgy meals per day
Gallons of pristine fjords, mountains and forests
A sprinking of seals, whales and dolphins
1 beautiful sunset
1 box of cheap wine
1 pack of cards
1 curious French grab-a-stick game

Cooking Instructions

Take one old cargo ship and add 2 dozen bunk beds and a cluster of assorted furniture. Gently stir in 1 Norn Irish, 1 Scot, 3 English, 1 French, 1 US, 1 Thai and 1 Hong Kongese whilst slowly adding the contents of 1 box of wine, a pack of cards and a curious French grab-a-stick game until thoroughly steamed and pickled - producing an unhealthy excess of bad chat. Stick the bad chat through a sieve, add gallons of pristine fjords, mountains and forests and fold in 1 beautiful sunset to give a contented rosy glow.

Marinade the Northern Irish for 1 day using 3 stodgy meals, and combine with an infamously rough sea-crossing until left with a white lumpy substance which mysteriously (despite none being added) contains diced carrots.

Season with winter, add whales, dolphins and seals to taste, and cook on a low heat (0 degrees or less) for 3 and a half days until thoroughly browned off.

Serve cold, garnished with Chile.