The dream is drum

La Paz has stolen my heart and my breath away in one fell swoop and although I wrote that the last blog entry was my last one, it wouldn't be right to leave it without some comment on this incredible city.

When I arrived in South America I was more lost than I have ever been in my life, and I think partly because I didn't take to Quito straight away. But La Paz encompasses everything I had ever dreamed of when I thought of South America and more. The streets are alive with an energy I have felt absent from many places, and everywhere your eyes focus there is something else of interest and something to tell you more secrets about Bolivian culture. Vendors sit at their stalls in bright coloured clothing, selling every type of food and drink and all kinds of random nicknacks and useful bits and pieces. As the exchange rate is so crazy, the cost of everything is ridiculously low, as low as it was in Turkey ten years ago, and often when you think you have just spent hundreds of pounds it turns out you have spent the equivalent of three pounds or less. Needless to remark, I have found myself a leather jacket to replace the stolen one, which I will be picking up tomorrow and that has put a smile on my face.

The people here are lovely, except the usual bunch of men who think fit to make kissing noises at me and the kind of noises you make when you are calling your cat in for its dinner (honestly, this happened to me even when I was in a goddarn cathedral). Today I asked a young indigenous lady (most of La Paz's population is indigenous) for directions and we ended up chatting for a while, just asking each other's names and so on but it was a good moment and one that would not take place in Quito or Lima, as far as I have experienced. I totally indulged in my non-tour freedom today and detached myself from my friends to just wander about and talk to the locals and taste things from the street stalls - such a perfect day. Feeling obliged to do something 'cultural'I went into the Museo de Arte Nationale, which was nothing special except for the building it sits in, which is an old palace of some sort. But the best thing you can do in La Paz is just walk around and soak up the atmosphere and I intend to do exactly the same with my day tomorrow, which happens to be my last day in South America for the time being.

STA have struck again and I officially have nowhere to sleep tomorrow night as they failed to sort that out for me, but luckily I have met some great people on this tour and will not be left without a roof over my head. It is all quite sad now, saying goodbyes again, but there is no doubt in my mind that I will be visiting Australia somewhere in the near future as I have met so many bloody Ozzies lately, it would be rude not to.

So, here goes for my real last words - I will miss South America dearly, with its diversity and its openess and for all its faults and all its good points. Its beautiful landscapes, its atrocious panpipes and reggaeton music, its shouting street vendors, its dirtiness and its friendliness and its strangeness and its poverty and its humbleness, its aggravating machismo culture, its beautiful almuerzos and its fresh fresh fruit, its 'special price for you' and its death-trip buses - I will truly miss it all. When I was sitting in that cathedral today I was contemplating my life the past few months and leaving it all behind and I felt an intense sadness and a complete peacefulness at the same time - so odd to think that in a few days I will be sitting in a very different church on the other side of the world. But here's to England and I can smell the turkey already and see the garish baubles twinkling on the Christmas tree, and despite the fact I have been invited to Buenos Aires for the festive season, I can honestly say I am happy to save that for another time and I wouldn't swap my England and its good plumbing system for the world.