The Hygiene Chronicles!

YEEEHAA!!! Just got news that Mo has landed safely in Ghana, cleared customs, no damage and is already parked at the house waiting for us, HUGE THANKS TO ED, GUY AND ANDY FOR SORTING THAT OUT!!!!!

We are travelling South by train (with all the locals as we got the last two cattle class tickets as everything else was sold out, lucky us!) to Uyuni, the salt plains in Bolivia and I cant believe that we are almost one month down in our trip. We finally spent some time yesterday trying to choose the rest of our route before Christmas in Ile Grande, Brasil.

We are generally living at around 3800 MASL which means there is no extra exercise or exertion as you loose your breath walking up a flight of stairs, looking forward to some normal heights so we can breath again...

We did Death Road yesterday out of La Paz, it was AWESOME!!! 63km downhill on a dirt track, starting at an altitude of 4700m and finishing at 1000m (MASL). Clauds was fantastic and whipped over half of the teams ass in getting down, luckily you don’t have to look over the edge too much as you are pretty much focussed on the track ahead of you so we had no height issues. It is definitely the way mountain biking should be done... the tour company “Overdose” is very jacked which unfortunately means that they do quite a few stops on the way down to check everyone is alright and keeping together. The vegetation was amazing, starting high up  above the clouds with no vegetation and finishing at the start of the Amazon basin.

I had a bit of a wobbly in La Paz (which is just another typical 3^rd world city, too many indigenous) with the cleanliness of our hotel. Showering in luke warm water with my flip flops on and refusing to walk around the room without shoes is not my kind of establishment. When leaving this morning I found an old ear bud under my bed and it was time to get out, on the bright side they only charged us the equivalent of R 120.00 per eve for the both of us including a terrible breakfast. While discussing hygiene I better explain what occurs while heading to the head to have a session (dump); firstly on entering a general abode check the floor as you are probably going to slip (shoes are essential even in your hotel), you then need to establish whether your throne has a toilet seat or not (I can't fathom what these people do with toilet seats but it seems to be quite the rage to steal them). Ok so you have now established your view for the next few minutes, you get ready to make a “crows nest” (putting loo paper around the dirty toilet seat so you don’t actually have naked skin touching it), but ALAS!! there is no toilet paper so off you run to go and find some crummy single ply that will do the job, FYI never blow your nose with the toilet paper over here, it all ends up decorating your chin and shirt. Right, the urge is now getting desperate and you make it back to your “happy place”, perch on the end of the seat and try to have a moment in peace. During your session you look around for some reading material and what do you find on the dirty wall in front of you? something in bloody Spanish with a terrible translation explaining that you need to place ALL toilet paper into the bin next to you, and you wonder do they really mean ALL the toilet paper?? so you kind of stare over at the overflowing bin next to you and realise that the smudge marks on the paper is not from the ladies wiping off their mascara but something oh so much more vulgar. Your moment of peace and glory is shattered and your sphincter valve freaks out and shuts down before you could 100% complete the daily chore... so you get up, add some more stench to the dustbin, flush if there is any water and hope like hell that you can sterilise your hands on the way out before having to manoeuvre around the germ infected door knob ... SESSION OVER!!!