Leaving La Paz

When I first arrived in La Paz I actually can say that I hated it. I called it "a wretched god forsaken hell hole". Now that we are leaving tomorrow, I am almost in love with the place. Thats an exageration but you know what I mean...

La Paz contains the rankest smells my nostrils have ever encountered. In one block, you can get whiff of piss, barbecued off meat, shoe polish, diesel, dog shit, ciggies and more piss. Near the bus station is especially wrong. A simple task like going to get a bus ticket leaves you dry reaching and covering your mouth with your sleeve. Truly foul.

Doesnt help that I have spent my time in the city being sick with tonsilitis. After three days of being delerious in my bunk, sweating the house down and listening to my Ipod not knowing if it was day or night, the Doc came to visit me and told me in a Spanglish that I had pustules on my tonsils. Yummy! So he gave me some drugs and I am almost completely fixed.

But when I eventually got out of bed and started talking to people in the hostel, I realised I was surrounded by other sick travellers. Most had stomach bugs from the food - the usual complaint of vomitting and diaroeah (how do you spell that word?!?!) One guy had an intestinal parasite that he caught in the jungle. Get this. The parasite lays eggs which get into food, you eat the food and the eggs get into your throat which gives you a sore throat. Then a couple of days later the lavae lodge in your lungs so you get a chest infection. And THEN, the little sucker is born in your stomach, eats all your food and gives you horrendous vomitting, diaraoahe (thats obviously wrong spelling) and stomach cramps. This poor guy had his little friend for over ten days!!! I am not joking!!!

Anyway, I have missed out on seeing Bolivia and I cant say that I would be back in a hurry. But today when I was cruising around the Witches Markets, I thought how much I really dig the place. The Witches Markets are especially cool. Its just one street with a lot of old ladies (witches?) selling weird stuff like dried llama foetuses, coca leaves, amulets, potions, candles and other stuff that we travellers would have no idea about. But if I lived here I would make friends with a witch and get her to teach me everything I know.

Tomorrow we get back into our backpacks and onto the bus for 24 hours to go to Lima. After one night of sleep and passionfruit pisco sours we will be in Mexico. To think we are already leaving South America after three months is hard to contemplate. But I have already decided to come back, with my goal being to get back to Argentina. I left my heart in Buenos Aires and need to go get it.

I am more homesick for BA than for Sydney, hands down. I miss everything about it. I miss drinking mate with Santi and Maxi, medialunas for breakfast, dulce de leche, Quilmes beer, San Telmo, Plaza de Mayor, football, the flag and just cruising around the city. I miss empanadas, old waiters in bow ties, the carteneros hard at work, the architecture, the kids, tango music, the list goes on and on...

So the next part of my journey will involve Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, hopefully the rest of Central America and a series of bus rides from hell to take me from the top of South America back to Buenos Aires. Things could change of course, but for now, thats the plan... and I really need to go back to study Spanish. I am getting better at Spanish all the time but feel like I am getting dumber and dumber by the day!!!