Bolivia

Apologies first of all for not having posted anything for two weeks. As predicted, I haven't been on the bike since leaving Chile, but it has been an obligatory break rather than an optional one. As you may remember, at the time of writing the last post I was about to embark on a three day jeep tour through the Salar de Uyuni and into Bolivia. And embark I did. Unfortunately, our guide (well, I say guide, he was little more than a driver, and other than a lengthy description of the wonders of the area after he'd had a few too many on our first evening, he barely said much) was a little over-zealous when strapping Toops to the roof rack on the second day and bent the rear derailleur hanger. This basically means that the gears don't work as they should, and to try and cycle through Bolivia with limited gears is foolish to say the least, sufficed to say that the words "Shit Creek" and "Wire Canoe" spring to mind.

Of course, it's unfair to blame the guide for it, because I should have either been overseeing or strapped it in myself, but you live and you, painfully and frustratingly, learn. There is a silver lining to all this though, and that is that since the jeep tour I have had to bus around as other lowly backpackers do and have probably met more people in the last two weeks than I have since starting. Around the time I got to Argentina, I had given up hope reconciling the bike experience with the infintely more social travelling experience, so it has been a pleasant surprise to find myself in this situation. Still, I'm very glad of the fact that I can't wait to get to La Paz tomorrow and get Toops fixed so I can get back on the road as soon as possible.

So, there's your update, sorry it's a bit scant on information. Hopefully I will have a chance to upload photos and write a bit more about where I have been when I'm in La Paz this week.