Bodgy birthdays and preemptive posting.

Well, Fiona may soon be back in Bolivia from her jaunt smelling the bitter-sweet odour of lefty poolitical action. Soon may mean May 2. Soon may mean two weeks earlier than that, at around April 16, which is only six days away from now and "back in Bolivia" means La Paz where I'll meet her.

When this happens, then what happens? I hear you ask. Well, the reason that I don't just follow up with a straight answer is because there is none.

Fiona is incommunicado (I've never heard a Latin Americano say that word, but my old host head of the family, Gonzalo just coincidentally walked in here and asked how Fiona was, and I showed him "Fiona is incommunicado" and he seemed to understand, so it's probably a Spanish word... yep.). So, Fiona is incommunicado and when she finally calls me or writes to me she'll hopefully make clearer the question on everyone's lips - when am I leaving? (Well, the question on everyone's lips except mine is "When are YOU leaving?")

When she gets back to La Paz I meet her, then we go to Macchu Pichu (which is only just nowdays not being a surpise to me - I had dismissed the place as purely a tourist trap, but I've come to realise, having made close connections with indigenous culture that it is a place I'd actually like to visit!) That is, we go to Macchu Pichu if I have my ... passport and visa, which I've not seen for over 9 months now (actually I did see a glimpse of my passport in a folder in La Paz immigration but only for a beautiful, sacred second...)

Then we come back to (oops, nearly wrote "Australia"... that would have been a balls up, wouldn't it! You can tell where my mind is...) back to Cochabamba for some time (undefined, due to a general confusion of where I want to be) and then travel around Bolivia, Argentina, Chile.

There's a point to get across here and it's this: don't write to my Uyuni address anymore. Nor to my Potosi address. In fact, as of today, I count myself also as snail mail incommunicado. I could catch some mail on my way back through after Macchu Pichu, I could have it forwarded to Correos in other cities... but the quality of the mail I've got so far renders me to dismiss these ideas as too risky.

Thank you all so much who gave me some of my greatest pleasures in real time mail from home and abroad.

And now, a picture or two for those who don't read the entries...

"Happy Birthday to yoooooooouuuu!!!" Mauro's birthday on Saturday included a surprise party that turned out strangely: I organised for he and I to arrive at my place after some drinks at the restaurant down the road while everyone else got to the house. As it turned out only four other people were present, one was my housemate (below far right), the other was Cinthya (below left), and Gustavo and Sandy (below right and centre respectively) were with us for the drinks! Felt a bit stupid when we all walked up the stairs together, got into the house and then said "surprise"...

I posted a picture a while ago in January where I'd fallen victim to the "take a bite out of your birthday cake" tradition, only to be pushed in head first. They told me it was only for stupid gringos to fall for, but even though Mauro saw it coming he was compliant anyway. And I can't let it not be said that Mauro ended the night in the back of his work (the Tirana Hotel) in an arm chair throwing up into a cardboard box. I had to almost carry him home, then the next day I made up some things that he did that didn't actually happen. Whee.