What does Bob Geldof, The Wombles and a large Triangle have in common?

WHEN i first ventured to come out to Bolivia, a few years ago now, a couple of my mates asked in all seriousness,

"Wot youz gawin air for? Itz cowld izn't it?" (Ed - i didn’t think you had mates from Stevenage. you always tell me you "don't socialize with those kind of people.")

Bolivia, it seems is lucky enough to share the first and last letters of its name with other countries which inspire memories of War, Railways, Triangles, Wombles and Bob Geldof; Bosnia, Burma, Bermuda, Bulgaria, Botswana are all close but not quite yet a puff of that ever illusive cigar.

Bolivia is one of, if not THE most attacked and pillaged countries in the whole of South America. With wars fought and lost with every country around it, this poor little abandoned puppy of a country now finds itself landlocked and riddled with internal disputes.

"So why are you there?" i hear you cry after the usual five minute delay through Skype.

In short, my mrs is Bolivian. In long, this country really does have everything for a journalist (trying his best to stay away from the UK and all that responsibility malarkey) would want to write about.

* The highest navigable lake in the world ('navigable' being something to do with big boats)

* The highest capital in the world (the 'capital' of La Paz being only the judicial capital with the constitutional capital being a bit lower down in Sucre)

* The World's Most Dangerous Road (which thousands of people cycle down each year and find out that to their ultimate surprise they aren’t dead....although there is still the drive back up to get through i guess)

* A large chunk of the Amazon rainforest for that Anaconda Big Spider fix you always wanted

* A literal sea of salt which is so vast you can actually see the curvature of the earth (and also take funny photos of people standing on the palm of your hand)

* A crap load of other stuff i am sure i'll get round to in future blogs

For the moment, and the foreseeable year and a bit that i am here, Bolivia is my home.
The weather, well it doesn’t change that much. At the moment it’s really nice and sunny in the morning, then in the afternoons it might rain a bit. In six months time it’s probably going to be really nice and sunny in the morning, then in the afternoons it might rain a bit less.

The altitude isn’t so great, but from up here in the clouds i can be sure to be smugly looking down on the majority of you in the real world, working away hard and reading travel blogs from people far far away.