Bienvenido a Bolivia

I arrived in Bolivia an hour late. My suitcase was stripped and searched, even though I hadn´t set off the alarm. Then, the police didn´t believe that my passport photo was me. I had to argue with them for five minutes in my angriest Spanish before they gave it back. I think they wanted a bribe but I hadn´t got any Bolvianos yet so there was no way I´d let them bully me.

As usual, I got chatting to my fellow passangers on the plane to alleviate the boredom of the journey. I took an immigration form for the guy sitting next to me when he was sleeping and lent him a pen. So when he woke up, he was very friendly to me and taught me a load of useless vocab like papada (a roll of flab on your cheek) and chaman (a mountain guide.) He was a tennis trainer (now retired) and knew a lot of musicians. He gave me his email and offered to introduce me to his friends who run a ´casa folklorica´ (free classical guitar workshops). These are apparently better than expensive conservetoires.

My guidebook had warned me about altitude sickness and another passanger from Santa Cruz told me her horror stories about being in bed and vomiting for a week in reaction to La Paz. Fortunately, all I got was a slight headache and I was able to walk and go uphill fine without becoming breathless.

My flatmates introduced themselves and took me to the witches´market, which sells anything from scarves to charangos (similar to guitars) to llama foetuses.

It was a magical place full of colour and old retired people dancing in the street to a battered radio. I bought a purple scarf and bag and the women were delighted to talk to us and sell us their wares. Others glared at the gringos indifferently.

The witches´market is quite high and we hadn´t acclimatized so we took a break in a Lebanese cafe where Des bought a shisha pipe. Me and Naomi stuck to lemonade, which cost about 10p each and was freshly squeezed.

Back at the flat, Harry decided to cook a meal for ten people. This was ambitious considering that he´d never used some of the ingredients he bought at the market before (some green vegetables that looked like peppers but weren´t) and baring in mind how weak our oven was. Everyone was in the kitchen stirring something or stuffing peppers or grinding cinnamon with the back of a knife for desert (Des) and five hours later, the banquet was prepared.

Silence ensued. The food was good and we were too hungry and impatient to concentrate on anything else. After dinner, Joules (a French tour guide who works nearby) got out his guitar and played a few songs in French. Rodrigo followed this with an upbeat Spanish tune. Danny changed the atmosphere completely by playing some really haunting and romantic tunes and his voice was rough but melodious.

Suddenly, Helena remembered I played guitar. This was a difficult act to follow but I played them Romance Antonio followed by Malagueña behind the back of my head. Which went down well, thankfully. I wanted to remember the night and took a photo of all of my Bolivian ´familia´.

(Back row: Toni, Harry, Joules, me. Front row: Des, Naomi, Sharroll, Carro, Danny, Rodrigo, Helena)

A little red wine goes a long way with altitude and I soon felt sleepy. I said my goodnights and Des told me he was disappòinted "Ellie, how can you go to bed so early? The night is but a foetus!"