Lima

LIMA YAAAAAY now what the christ do I do. It's such an monstrously sprawling city and wank dull which is why I got out swiftly in the first place upon realising that tinder was even more toady than in England. There are many things to hate but as the sojourn draws to a close I discovered in the last week there are also pleasant surprises.

Hateful things include the urban acne that is casinos whose pu$tules can be found at every turn. If you've got the money go ahead, but sadly most people here don't or if they do it's imaginary, and these smeggy tycoons convince them they can win a washing machine or a jesus-approved spaceship. Which ties in sweetly with the liars. Limans (?) are largely compulsive bearers of untruths, often for no discernable reason. They'll give you the wrong directions to somewhere because they'd rather you end up naked and lost in the wilderness subsisting on algae than admit they don't know.

Floral advertising. Billboards ok but is it really necessary to have pharmaceutical logos flower-arranged into every other patch of grass? And what is it supposed to mean? Is it flammable? Have you got some matches? Lima isn't very good at flora and fauna on the whole. I always think it's a fun idea to go to the zoo and end up leaving them regretful and depressed, and this time was no exception. The wild cats were skeletal or insane or both, and the magnificent black bear (of the Paddington variety) was clearly zonked into another dimension. Bear witness below.

Less sentient than a root vegetable

So I learnt my lesson about funding third world zoos, for which I tried to compensate by taking myself on a date to see the dead and stuffed (and visibly much happier) wildlife at the Natural History Museum, your reliable go-to in any city.

Another 5starsontripadvisor experience was the "magic water park" (sounded excitingly imbecilic) whose vibrant light show with racy folkloric dancing I watched on san pedro cactus bought off witchy ladies in La Paz. Ideal context. It was something like being in a colourful RPG, or completing rainbow road in Jeff Koons' brain. (Edit: And the rest made it back across the Atlantic untouched! Where I can now add some sugar and lemon because the concoction itself tastes like redigested bile.)

Despite being archaically degrading and nauseatingly sleazy it is also quite nice to have suedra (mother-in-law) yelled at my mum by passing opportunists who indiscriminately overlook my boy hair. I've found that Lima can grow to be loved once you get past the incoherent transport "system", permanent risk of mugging, pollution and canny extortion, especially when it unexpectedly throws things at you like a peruvian The Doors tribute band, which is possibly the best thing that has ever happened in eternity and that is an objective fact. This is not the end, you beaut country.

Uyuni

It seemed little could ease the pain of leaving dinosaur park but maybe vast plains of white stuff would do the trick. The trip down to the Salar de Uyuni involved a stop in Oruro for a typical shredded alpaca (wear it! Eat it!) dish called charquekan and the bustliest market you ever did see. I'm a blissful moron at markets, you could scalp me and I wouldn't notice.

SADLY the night bus to uyuni was only 6 hours so they kicked me and some paysanas out onto the street whereupon after much shrieking we were kindly padlocked into the bus company's "office" (i.e. sty) for a slumber party on the concrete floor until release at 7am which turned out to be 8. Naturally.

The salt flats themselves are something else though. Basically residue from an evaporated prehistoric lake, they are a thin crust of icing over a pool of brine and stretch as far as my eye can see (so like 4000 miles) and offer the opportunity for "funny photos" where you use the power of perspective to demonstrate your lack of creative vision. Also it is salty and tastes shit and ruins your clothes. But I nonetheless felt right at home in our salt-block accommodation, Hostal de Sal.

We also visited Fish Island with centuries-old cactii where I barfed in the loo and the crosseyed cleaner listened in and immediately proceeded to try it on with me and shake my hand when I emerged.

Where trains go to die

Apart from the views (I'm a views dweeb ok) and the train cemetery which looks sinister and bleak at first but turns out to be the best unsafe playground in the world, the highlight was probably the geysers (eruptions of hot sulphurous gas shooting from the ground) and hot springs in freezing °C because it was like being at the dawn of time in some primordial utopia. Back in those days. Before these goddamn sapiens, tsch. There was a lot of sweaty driving to get there but it was worth it even when the chauffeur-cum-tour guide (lol) cranked up his dire Bolivian tunes at 5am.

EDIT: ALSO everyone said it'd be cooch-crushingly cold but it wasn't even that cold?? Always take Bolivian advice with a pinch of salt. Ha.

Afterwards it was miraculously back to La Paz against the odds because of protests and road blocks (created by piles of hair?) where, in my scalpable stupor, some knobber tried to nick my life with his sneaky sneaky hand but I was heroically saved by my super friend Will, singlehandedly dispelling the myth of the stupid gringo.

Now is the supposed 27 hour expedition (doubtless longer) back to the Lima endz, city of sanguches. If you can figure out what that means, I'll make you one when I'm back in the UK. With all the love I can mustard. <- clue

Toro Toro

La Paz isn't much to speak of (not that my one night stopover gives me any authority on this) it's like a big armpit with markets and greasy burgers, so I hopped on a bus to Cochabamba where this deaf old man called Felix with egg on his face talked and talked at me the whole 8 hours about the doomed state of humanity and my appetite. When we finally arrived I pootled off asap but discovering I'd missed the last bus to The Land Before Time I resentfully guzzled some icky tripe'n'maize and bunked down in the bus terminal after convincing security I was a vulnerable penniless she-tourist. In the morning Felix was still outside.

A "short" (4hr) arse-slamming minivan ride later I was in Toro Toro which is where dinosaurs roamed 60-65 million years ago. The main square is tragically Jurassic Park'd up with fuzzy sound effects and the bricks on some houses accidentally have fossils on because they only realised this place was cool about 30 years ago. Huge rock formations, cataracts and geological colour gradients, scattered with dino bone fragments and Titanosaurus prints, labyrinthine limestone cave complexes where you struggle through stalactites and mites in the pitch black, and also pre-Inca cave paintings and PROPER majestic condors better than Colca. And my god the views. Unparalleled, had they not been tainted by the Frenchman behind me uttering endless sexist expletives to express his wonder.*

In fact I was the seule non-French human of a total 11. Also the only Spanish speaker, making me a massively incapable translator of Paleozoic and Cretaceous terminology. Worth it though for ten minutes of womb-like darkness and silence in a (so far) under-visited grotto.

Cinderella

I also met my first transvestite peasant lady, and non-hispanophone South Americans. I really need to learn Quechua. I only know "naked vagina" and "this is delicious".

*putain, enculée, so forth.

Copacabana

Nm to say here except I strayed into Bolivs and watched the sun set and rise on the flawless Isla del Sol (same lake, other side, dontcha just hate me) with some 40-something "fumas ganja?" chileans. Seeing farmyard animals herded across a white sandy Windows desktop background beach by a cholo shepherd has never been so confusing.

Suspicious henning around

My lips are now chapped to shredded wheats and I'm glad I'm not travelling as a shouty couple cause I feel so butters and intestinally explosive right now. Seems Bolivia is beating Peru at "modernity" because they've actually grasped the concept of DIVERSIONS for their nationwide road obstructions.

Coming up: DINOSAURS whaaaaa

Puno/Lake Titicaca

Once I had tired of Arequipa (god there's no pleasing some people) I fannied off to Puno and got ensnared by the first Lake Titicaca hawker on arrival at 4.30am. In a coca leaf daze I was taken on a boat to some thatched island in the lake made of reeds that looked like spring onions on steroids. Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world, divided between Peru and Bolivia (Peru claim the Titi side, and Bolivia get stuck with the Caca, obviously). On the floating reed island you can pretend like you're in Venice and go on a £2 viking-esque gondola made of spring onions.
Later it transpired that the people don't actually live on these islands, it's pure tourist farce, the con artistes. Next they'll be wiping our bums for tips and pretending it's ancient tradition.

Woven lies

On the bigger immobile islands I was fed a fuckton of multicoloured potatoes (AS IF I DIDN'T ALREADY HATE THEM, THE STARCHY TASTELESS NUN SHITS) but then dressed up in insane beautiful Amanti peasant lady clothes and morris danced to Huayno music with other idiotic-looking gringos. Actually chullos look quite sexy on men if you'll allow me to be deliriously honest. More walking and climbing and suffocating and a big ole red nose later (sunburn or hypothermia?... I can't even) and I was back in Puno where I'm glad crashed some folky wedding because they gave me beer. Which I had to throw on the ground to "thank" Mother Earth. Next round's on her then.

Puno? Poo-yeah.

Arequipa/Colca

The craic turned out to be more of a crag.

Seeing as I already "did" Machu Picchu (tourist derp) in my unappreciative pubescence I thought I'd give it a miss especially as this time of year it gets as busy as a face giveaway at an Ugly Convention. So I opted instead for Peru's third most touristy thing to do, el Cañon de Colca which slices through the Andes for 100km and is supposedly the world's second deepest. Taking the 3 day trek through the valley is actually fucking divine. There's the cop-out 1-day visit but you don't get to frolic through the toxic plants and wear cactus lipstick and walk until your legs dismantle. I know how bloody pretentious I sound but honestly if you're round this neck of the woods do it, they say it's harder and sweeter than the Inca Trail. Cuzco is old news yo.

Colc.

I do have a problem with all this backpacker brown nosing though (as hypocritical as it is; I am only half gringo though shh) as it's very tourist-centric and thus everything costs an arm and a dick. Not unaffordable, just you get conned like a homeopathist. Less self-pityingly, it changes their culture too - you get KFCs and pizza places popping up and the once strong boulder-shifting Incas with lungs the size of zeppelins are now wheezing sweaty piñatas of glut. STOP THE TOURIST POISON. Actually it's probably just Unilever being shit but I need something to complain about.

Also my bank card got blocked for "suspicious behaviour". Natwest can get rabies and die. It's my fault really for going out to play without their permission.

Ayacucho

I was in Lima ferabit but I'll open that tasty can of worms another day.

First stop was Ayacucho where my spherical little grandparents grew up so I went like some sort of Who Do You Think You Are contestant like it was all acutely emosh. I never actually made it to their village Pomabamba as apparently it's been razed to the ground but I imagine it looked like most of the other rubbly villages you get spangled with Coca Cola advertising and incontinent goats. Instead I took a day trip to Vilcashuaman (almost pronounced like vile crass woman), a former Inca hub of bloody sacrifice, skull-moulding and general solar epiphanies. It was most lovely since no one else was there and I could pull the sals (heehee) in the church belltower which turns out isn't allowed unless a child is borne of a virgin. I also got a free potato. Classic.

The trip was most marked however by the hilarious delays en route. Peru is trying to HAPPEN infrastructure-wise so this means asphalt roadworks and big Japanese steamrollers and characteristic lack of civil planning, putting me literally ON their obstructive, inconvenient path to "modernisation" with many shouty peasant women in a rickety 3-and-a-half wheel banger, the kind often spotted mangled and rusting halfway down the side of a cliff.

Pronto I headed norf to see some pre-Inca village with that museum staple the shrivelled mummy, and a field where many Spaniards killed many brown folk. After munching on a deep-fried guinea pig I got to Quinua (the village not the Waitrose grain) and observed troll-like statues of Jesus and sexually joyous couples.

This place is good, I like this place. But it's time for another vomit spattered bus journey to Arequipa to see what's the craic. (The names'll get less ridiculous I swear. Maybe.)