I am almost halfway through my time in South America. The few of you reading this are probably used to the format now. So… enjoy.

Hola a todos,

For the first time in my travels, I’m sat at a table tapping away with a cup of true English (breakfast/builders) tea alongside me. I have arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina – my home for the next two months – and it’s like having flown back to Europe without the ten-hour trawl across the Atlantic.

That’s not to say that it’s a completely European city. It’s just got very strong hints of the Italian and Spanish immigrants that make up a not too insignificant minority of the population. Walking down the street, I’ve noticed the large 19th and 20th century buildings that are so familiar in London, and it certainly feels very different from the sprawling mountainside-based cities of La Paz, Bogotá, Medellin, Cusco and everywhere I have visited.

But before I get too bogged down in how much I already like Buenos Aires and the people I have met, I’m yet to mention my experience in the Amazon Rainforest.

Rurrenabaque

I wrote the last blog in a hammock in 30 degree heat. I was on my way to sleep. I’d just arrived back in the town of Rurrenabaque after a three-day, two-night tour of the Pampas, the tropical lowlands of Bolivia with rivers, wetlands, trees, animals and birds.

While the tour was fantastic, I had an irresistible urge to see more and, in particular, the Jungle (La Selva, en español). I booked a two-day, one-night tour. And two nights later, I was still in the jungle.

My start to jungle life was a little rushed after my alarm failed and I woke up five minutes after the pick-up time. It was fine because we are all living on South American time which operates on the rule of ‘-ish’.

We took a three-hour boat ride, only interrupted by a brief stop to crack sugarcane and take the juice out of it, in a dug-out engine-powered canoe.

Over the day, we hiked 7km from the eco-lodge of the tour company to a small camping site for the night (wearing ponchos and boots). Living by candlelight and iPhone torch only, we were in bed by 8:30pm with nothing to do but sleep in the deep black of the jungle, to the soundtrack of endless chirping and calling.

The next day, we built rafts with the overwhelming help of the Bolivian guides. We paddled them down river, occasionally lurched forward by a fast-running stream but generally going at a very tranquil pace until we reached the eco-lodge once more.

We ate there and I decided to stay another night. ‘El capitán’ of the lodge attempted to radio the tour office to explain, but was greeted only be half an hour or fuzzed crackling.

That afternoon, we hiked once more, through a larger section of the jungle with older and grander trees. We saw a total of one animal, but it felt truly like the Amazon rainforest for the first time and in the evening we did something similar post-dinner, trying to flash up the reflecting eyes of a jaguar or some other animal. We failed.

On Friday, I woke up at 6AM to find the ground had been thunderously attacked by rain during the night. We headed down to the river and took a boat back to Rurrenabaque with the sun rising and penetrating what had been a deep mist early in the journey.

I returned to the tour office to meet the guide who had taken me round the Pampas and was greeted by a laughing smile from the owners after I had continually extended my time there. Then they took me to the airport where I waited in a waiting room the size of my bedroom before taking a small plane back to La Paz.

La Paz

Once in La Paz, I jumped in a colectivo (a small minibus taxi that leaves whenever it’s full) and got off near (ish) my hostel. There, I was put in a fully British room comprised of a Londoner, a dirty Leeds fan, two Belfast girls and a Toronto-born, Twickenham-living Brit.

We chatted until I realised I had a 4AM wake-up for a flight to Buenos Aires the next day and slept.

Buenos Aires

To get to Buenos Aires, I flew to Santa Cruz (still in Bolivia) and then onwards to Buenos Aires. When I arrived, I was picked up by a very friendly porteño (name for the people of Buenos Aires) who was extremely interested in England’s societal issues in contrast to South America’s. I told him what I could.

Since arriving, I’ve visited a couple of sites, including the city’s amazing cemetery where rich families pay extraordinary amounts for grave-buildings rather than gravestones. It’s a city in itself that you can get lost in.

I’m staying in an accommodation made up of a few Argentinian university students, many other volunteers from the US, Canada, Australia and the Netherlands and a small selection of random travellers. It’s perfect.

Buenos Aires is immediately more familiar than any other city I’ve visited so far. The tall buildings that fill the sides of streets could easily be found in London, the large screens that surround the Obelisco (massive pointy thing in the centre of the city) are like Piccadilly Circus or Times Square. The statues, the banks, the culture of not saying hello to anyone in the street, it feels much more like home. And yet still you find yourself walking underneath a palm tree, listening to salsa and seeing the Latin culture that makes it different in a good way.

I already feel like I’ve been in Buenos Aires for a week or two, but it’s only been three days and I am writing this immediately before going to coach football for the first time here, working with a charity called United Through Sport.

You know the drill by now. I’m in South America. Doing lots of football-related stuff while occasionally seeing something else.

Hola a Todos,

Well, this last week has seen much less football related things than normal. No matches. No coaching. Lots of tourism and lots of relaxing.

Last week’s post was written on a bus caught in a thunderstorm as I returned to La Paz for one night.

La Paz

I tracked the minute hand on my watch as it worryingly crept towards 11PM. My phone’s Bolivian SIM card had stopped working while in transit from Uyuni to La Paz and so I had no data and thus no hostel in La Paz. I knew of one very close to the bus terminal but also that it closed for new guests at 11PM

My bus arrived at 10:45PM after winding down the road from El Alto district where I have previously visited the enormous flea market. My hostel, or the one I wanted, was called The Rooftop Hostel. So I knew the building had to be reasonably large. Unfortunately, there were eight or nine small skyscrapers around the bus terminal, but I did eventually, and somewhat frantically, find the rooftop and was taken to a room more fitting of a hotel.

I am beginning to learn that almost everything you worry about ends up being fine, particularly when it comes to time in South America. The Bolivians have a saying: ‘everything is possible, nothing is certain’.

La Paz was the same as I remembered it: bustling, busy and ugly in many parts. The following morning, I went out to search for contraband waterproof trousers, hoping for a bargain. I had to settle for some fake Adidas tracksuits. I needed them for a trip to the Amazon Rainforest.

I quickly rushed back to my hostel, left my big suitcase there with the constantly reiterated promise that I would return and stay another night in future, and took a taxi to La Paz Airport.

Here, I attempted to buy a new SIM card for my phone, only to be told that I couldn’t be sold one from one of the country’s biggest companies because the person in charge of SIM cards was on their lunch break for the next two hours. That there were six other employees in the phone shop room didn’t seem to matter. You win some, you lose some.

I eventually boarded another tiny plane. It had two engines and no propellers which was comforting after some of the stories I had heard. It wasn’t going very far, though. We took off and almost immediately began our descent into Rurrenabaque, the town most well equipped to deal with Jungle tourists.

Rurrenabaque

It is a small town, but it’s got everything you need in large quantities. Our descent into the airport was a little strange and amazing. You fly over the Andes north of La Paz and the mountains slowly decrease in side as you get further north (from a 5000m to 2000m). Then they stop and the jungle appears, cut open by murky brown rivers. Over these rivers, the 20-seater plane flys and then suddenly drops onto a small piece of tarmac with jungle all around.

Only one plane is ever at Rurrenabaque airport, leaving or arriving. When you disembark, you board a bus and within two minutes of landing, you’re winding through the jungle en route to the terminal. The terminal is equally tiny in this airport of petite planes, small runways and tiny terminals surrounded by enormous jungle.

I was herded towards a shared taxi where the driver (Boris) stopped to show us an alligator in the river on our left before dropping us all over the town. As I entered my hostel, he gave me a business card and said he worked for a tour company where I could get 5% off just for knowing him. A sucker for a bargain, I would take him up on that offer, but it was also because that company are known as the best in town.

My hostel was fantastic, with a swimming pool overlooking the Beni River and tacos for dinner.

After dumping bags, I found Boris’ tour company and booked myself onto a three-day, two-night tour of the Pampas. The Pampas is one of the world’s largest protected areas and is made up of many rivers and tropical wetland areas. Dolphins, alligators, monkeys, hundreds of bird species and much more.

We left at 8AM the next morning on the bumpiest and dustiest road I have experienced. How the driver knew what was ahead of him, I do not know.

After three hours or so, we left the car and boarded a dug-out canoe instead. Powered by an engine, a guide called Sandro took us towards the ‘ecolodge’ we were to stay in. After 30 seconds, four pink river dolphins, unique to the River Yacuma, popped the heads above the water and snorted a spray of water upwards.

The next few days were pretty special, with trips up and down river to meet monkeys, swim with dolphins (who have surprisingly soft skin) and spot cayman (alligator-like creatures) at all times of day and night.

There were a few species of monkey but the only ones who were brave enough to come down to boat level were these small yellow ones. So curious and playful, they used me as climbing frame while they fought at the front of our boat and took fruit out of my hand before looking up at me for a smile and scurrying off back into the tree. They are so like humans and remain the best animal.

On the last night, we went piranha fishing up river, having to get out and push the boat through a particularly shallow area. At the other end of the area were these astonishingly large and strong lilypads.

My attempt at fishing began poorly, though I eventually got into the rhythm and plucked four piranhas out of the river which we then ate for dinner. They didn’t have huge amounts of meat on them, but they were tasty and it was satisfying to have beaten a (very small) piranha. Their teeth are ridiculously sharp and even once they’re dead they continue to chomp down if anything enters their mouth.

With bites aplenty, I left the Pampas on Monday afternoon and returned to Rurrenabaque. I’d come to Bolivia partly to see the Jungle and although the Pampas was brilliant, I felt like I hadn’t seen the Jungle. So, forgetting finances for a moment, I booked myself onto another tour, this time to Madidi National Park, the nearest area of ‘proper’ Jungle.

The guide asked me whether I’d like to do it immediately, starting in the morning. I said no, Manchester United are playing. Perhaps I would have been better off going into the Jungle away, but that’s not how football works.

On Tuesday, I woke up with nothing to do except wait for the football. It’s not as if I am in a hub of adventure and activities. But I didn’t want to do anything else. I got a Bolivian haircut, which took five minutes and cost me just over one pound.

Then I made my way to a bar, an hour and a half too early, and enjoyed a 1PM beer as the only person in the bar on a Tuesday afternoon. Eventually I was joined by some Dutch Ajax fans and some Bolivian Barcelona fans. No United fans reared their heads.

We conceded early and the whole experience was painful from there on, apart from a nice pizza which softened the blow.

As I walked out after the game into the 30 degree sun and 80% of humidity, I bumped into a trio of Israelis who I had met very briefly before. They were off to play football, so I joined them about half an hour later for a five-a-side game. I managed to improve my bad mood that had been caused by the football by playing more… football.

Now, I’m sitting in a hammock drinking litres and litres of water to recover and at 8AM tomorrow morning, I head into the Amazon. After that, it’s back to La Paz and then to Buenos Aires, Argentina. I’m beginning to fall asleep in the evening heat though…

I’m in South America. Coaching, playing, watching and writing about football. And seeing some other stuff, of course.

Every week, I’ll provide an update on what I’ve been doing, where I’ve gone and various other things. I’ve been writing online since I was 13, but still hate using personal pronouns like ‘I’, so this a bit of a new experience for me.

Hola a todos,

It’s April, and April in Bolivia is a synonym for rain. Thankfully, for the past four days, it has been beautifully dry. Now, as my bus traverses the road from Oruro to La Paz, a thunderstorm has brewed overhead and the occasional flash of lighting illuminates the otherwise dark top deck of the bus through steamed windows.

This journey is another long and arduous one, but it is off the back of one of the most amazing experiences I’ll ever have and the highlight of South America so far. After a few days in La Paz, Bolivia’s administrative capital, I travelled South for a four-day tour of the Salar de Uyuni and area surrounding Tupiza. It was a mixture of canyons, volcanoes, mountains, salt flats, enormous rock formations and intense sunrises, sunsets and night skies.

La Paz

I arrived in La Paz off the back of food poisoning but quickly recovered and enjoyed what is another of South America’s incessantly sprawling cities with equally evergreen traffic and colour.

On my first full day in the city, I ascended one of the many, many cable cars that climb up the mountain side. My destination was one of the world’s largest flea markets in the city of El Alto, now considered a separate entity from La Paz but without a noticeable border.

Overlooking the city, the market is a labyrinth of every possible item. My favourites, which I would have bought if I was a resident, were the second-hand fried chicken shop equipment and barber shop chair. But what I actually bought was a small bag and a lock, although the various fake/contraband designer coats were tempting.

Just about managing not to lose myself in the market, I made my way back down into La Paz for a city walking tour. Like all the walking tours I’ve done in South America so far, and previously in Europe, it was fantastic. There were some more markets on show, not quite as big but equally large in character, and plenty of new information of Bolivia politically as a country.

They currently have a President who was adored in his first two terms as the first indigenous man to fill the role, but is now attempting to install himself as a dictator by avoiding the rules of the constitution to seek a third term in office. His argument is that because he renamed the country in his first term (from the Republic of Bolivia to the Pluri-national state of Bolivia) and slightly altered the constituent, he has actually only been President of the current country for one term. He’s also said that eating too much chicken will turn you gay…

From a chicken fryer to gay chickens, it was an interesting first morning. In the evening I went to watch some football. Obviously. The people of Bolivia are not quite as friendly as in Colombia and the food is not quite as good, but the scenery and nature is on a whole new level.

Copacabana and Lake Titicaca

The next day, I woke up early for a 6AM bus to Lake Titicaca, the highest lake in the world at almost 4000m and the 18th largest in the world. Having seen it over two days, I’m astonished to know that there can possibly be any lake bigger.

On my first day in Copacabana, the most touristy town on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca (it stretches into Southern Peru), I took a boat to Isla del Sol, the place where the Incas believed that the Sun was born. The views were pretty amazing.

I returned to Copacabana in the evening, in time to watch the Sun set over the bay and I can now understand why, without any knowledge of science, the indigenous people of Bolivia would genuinely believe the Sun was born in this place.

After the Sun had gone down, I ate fresh trout in a small kiosk by the lake for £3.

On Saturday morning, I jumped into a small micro taxi which waits on a corner of a street until its full before heading to its destination. The place in question was Yampupata, a small fishing village on the tip of the island where Copacabana is. Sitting with a group of plump Bolivian ladies in traditional dress, I felt slightly out of place and was the only person left on the bus when we arrived at Yampupata.

The views off the bus were pretty good, but they were even better when I got off and walked the 18km or so back to Copacabana in time for lunch in a tiny indoor market where once again, I was stared at closely for being white.

I got a bus back to La Paz that evening, watching a film en route, and went out to taste the Bolivian nightlife, although I spent most of the time with a group of Germans, Dutch and Irish.

Tupiza

Having woken up at 11AM, I realised I had an hour to get out of bed and check out of my hostel as well as planning the next two weeks of my life. So, in between sips of water, I decided to head south straight away so that my schedule would allow me to watch the second leg of Manchester United against Barcelona.

At 3PM, I got on a bus to Tupiza, the town where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was filmed. I arrived at 4:30AM and sat in a (literally) freezing tiny bus terminal for a couple of hours, passing the time by briefly talking to an Bolivian man who was floating happily as chewed away at his coca leaves.

When the clock hit 7AM and the sun had risen, I walked over to a tour office in Tupiza and paid for a four-day tour of the Salar de Uyuni. Most people do a three-day tour from the town of Uyuni itself, but thankfully I had been advised to go to Tupiza for a tour which included more, was better quality and saw things at quieter times to the Uyuni crowd. It was the perfect advice.

We set off in a 4×4 Land Cruiser at 7:30AM and at 8AM I had my last bit of phone signal for four days, one of which would see United host Barcelona in the Champions League. I wouldn’t be able to watch the game in the middle of the desert, but, although painful, it was a worthwhile sacrifice.

With a group of four others plus the driver, the amount we did on each day was ridiculous. We’d wake at 7AM on the first three days and drive 300km over the course of 12 hours or so, stopping to see enormous rock formations, lakes tinted red with salmon-coloured flamingos poised in the sun kissed water, volcanoes spewing white smoke or to climb rocks or old rusting British trains from the 1850s.

The sheer variety of nature in one location was ridiculous. Every stop was worth a hundred photos, and we all took nearly that many each time. Every sky at night was free of light from below and so the milky way stretched right across the blackness.

On the final day, we left our accommodation at 5AM to watch the sun rise above the salt flats themselves. We had only arrived the evening before to watch sunset, which was spectacular with the redness reflected in the thin layer of water that covers the salt.

Sunrise was just as good, though my eyes were a little weary having also walked a mile or so to the salt flats the previous night with a couple of others from my group to see the stars and moon reflected, stretching from horizon to horizon.

But Thursday was the day for the salt flats, with sunrise, then a small stop for breakfast before finding an area without the thin water layer. The areas with just the salt allow you to take pictures that distort normal perspective. Not only that, but the sheer size of it is breathtaking. It’s 12,000km squared overall and contains more than 50% of the world’s salt. It’s also near impossible to convince yourself that it is salt and not snow. You can pick it up, make it into a ball and it crunches underneath your feet, and yet, when you have a small lick of your finger, you recoil because it is indeed salt.

Back to La Paz

After finishing the tour in Uyuni and saying goodbye to the good group and driver I had, I hopped on a bus to Oruro, another small mining town that used to be exploited by the British and others. There, I changed for a bus to La Paz and now I’m halfway there.

After one night in La Paz, I’ll head north to Rurrenabaque, the town next to the Amazon Rainforest. And there it’ll be time for another few days of isolation though instead of freezing morning and evening temperatures at an altitude of 5000m, it’ll be the humidity of the Amazon. And after, I’ll go back to La Paz to watch United secure another memorable comeback at the Nou Camp. Possibly.