The end of our Oasis overlanding trip...we´re going it alone...

Our last few days of Peru! Seems odd but we´ve been here nearly three weeks now! After the hectic Inca Trail we were met by our last lunch on the road through the amazing scenery to a town called Puno in Peru.

After good (ish) pizza that night, we were ready the next morning for a cyclying tuk-tuk ride to a day on the water on the highest (inhabitable) lake in the world, Lake Titicaca.

This lake borders Peru and Bolivia and is home to many islands, many of which are made out of reeds. A 3 hour boat ride (yes 3 hours, this lake is bigger than you can ever imagine) took us to the island of tanquila where we interacted with the locals and had a great lunch.

In the afternoon we took another boat ride to the island where we were to spend the night with a local family in their house. As you arrive you are given a local hat they the family made to wear whilst in the house as it gets cold at night.

We met the daughter of the family and she led us through the island to her house, a stone brick house with 2 bedrooms for guests and a tiny kitchen and with an outhouse for the toilet!

She then took us to a local football field where we tried to play the locals at 4000mtrs!....on the way, I decided I´d help out in the field for a minute or two...thats all I could manage due to being short of breath!

We spent the evening dressing in traditional clothing, the clothing they still wear today, feeling very feminine and masculine we went to a local party and danced the night away, local style.

We were all exhausted by 10.30 (lol) as we had already been completely thrashed by the locals at football prior to the dance and only had rice, pasta and potatoes (yes no sauce, just rice and pasta) for dinner, so we went to bed. We awoke to the most beautiful sunrise and lake setting. After some pancakes for breakfast we took one last photo with our homestay family and hopped back on the boat to the reed islands, where people live on the lake on islands literally made from reeds.

The people who live on these islands have to move and make a new island every 15 years but was fascinating to see how they live everyday, one reed house even had solar power and had a tv, very advanced compared to what the house was made from!

After 8 hours on the truck, we crossed the Bolivian border into La Paz and geared up for our leaving party.

Bolivia feels like we have stepped into a time machine. Boss haircuts, video players, 20mph buses and leather jackets are the norm here. Terry´s hairdresser gave him a 1-25 choice of hair cut yesterday from Pat Sharp to Jeremy Beadle. He opted for all off of course scaring every Bolivia to death.

Bolivia is painted yellow, brown, red with speckles of green. Its slow in the country, fast in the cities, underdeveloped everywhere and in need of some deodorant. La Paz sits on the top of its altitude at 3900m and stands tall as the nations capital. All of its inhabitants live in the middle of the conquering Andes that surround city life. We entered Bolviai by night and looked upon what appeared to be fireflies nesting in a mountain sized birds nest.

Fancy dress was on the agenda the next day and so alter some well deserved rest, we had an Amazing penultimate night with our fellow Oasis overlanders, dancing the night away and parading the streets of La Paz in our outfits. I was a strawberry so you can imagine the reactions of the local Bolivians. Tel was dressed as an alien and could only drink through a makeshift straw that he borrowed from our friend Becky´s ´water bladder´( a travellers way of carrying 2ltrs of water or so around conveniently).

The following day we explored the many millions and millions of different market stalls as basically La Paz is one big market! Did some Christmas shopping…yes, Christmas shopping….and then spent our last evening chilling with our friends.

The security of the big yellow truck disappeared the following morning. This, however comes with a great sense of the real World as we were on our own! Its hard to really feel a country and fully emerse in the culture from a bus full of 25 other westerners in my opinion but of course, extremely fun at the same time.

Finally we feel anxious, nervious and excited for each turn, there is a pressue to find buses, hostels and the next meal. Nothing planned, everything a new discovery. Truck life is a luxury but i also think it misses out the real South America and Only shows you what someone else thinks you should see.

The 7hr bus ride to a small, non touristic town called Cochabamba (southeast of La Paz), thats turning into more like a 10 hour bus ride gave me time to reflect on our first few days in the poorest country in South America. We have already witnessed protests, fighting, black markets where you can buy anything from tvs to stolen tourist ipods, chocolate covered toilet seats that we soon discovered wasn´t actually chocolate and a whole street selling toilet paper or advocados! Random eh? Not to mention every women breast feeding as she walks and children sleeping in the middle of the streets.

Bolivia, at first, seemed dry and dull, only the women and their beautiful colourful dresses to cheer it up. Top bowler hats and large skirts parade the streets for ingredients or cotton, or sit by thier coke and chocolate stall hoping for a buyer.

We are now still in Cochabamba where we stayed in an extremley smelly hostel last night, i couldnt even go into the bathroom without holding my nose from fear of being sick. So, we moved hostel today and are now going to find some spanish lessons and then do some volunteering. We are also waiting for our lovely friendo Sam to come and visit us, cannot wait to see a friendly face!

Hopefully the next time we blog it´ll be after an awesome time volunteering at an animal sanctuary on the edge of the Amazon and at the foothills of the Andes baby!!! Life is good.