The jungle plans have gone out the window a bit, the people I was supposed to go to the jungle with have decided not to go any more, they want to go and do the salt flats in Uyuni in southern Bolivia instead. I don't really have the time and money to go back down to do the salt flats and then go up into Peru and do the jungle.
Due to this unforeseen circumstance I have now cjhanged my plans once again and am now going to go to lake Titicaca. It looks good and is on my way into Peru, apparently the jungle in Peru is much better, plus I will hopefully be going to do the Inca trail at Macchu Picchu.
I have pretty much wasted my whole time in La Paz, I haven't really done anything exciting and don't plan to either, I need to get out as soon as I can. I have spent most my time at the hostel, at the bar or around the pool table, not making the most of my time at all.

Instead of leaving La Paz and heading to Peru I met a couple of bloke who were going to head into the Amazon at the weekend, they said I could tag along as I would have loved to do that I jumped at the chance and extended my stay in La Paz, I have now been here for two weeks and have done pretty much nothing, no touristy things at all yet?

Manchester United were playing their second leg game at home against Bayern Munich, I will definitely be supporting Munich as I can't stand Man U. In the last game, Wayne Rooney, the Man U striker had been injured due to breaking a small bone in his foot. We were all unsure if he would play at all but saw him training before the game. When it kicked off, he was not his usual form and was pretty much a worthless player on the pitch, when he got the ball he passed it straight away and nobody even made an effort to pass to him. Somehow Man U scored a goal after two minutes again, this time it was Gibson, then another by Nani, then another by Nani. Munich scored before the end of the first half to bring the score to 3-1, but it was only 4-3 on aggregate so all Munich needed to do was score one more and they would go through on away goals. They scored, the game went on, Man U were pushing on, got a player sent off, from then on Munich dominated and won even though the score was 3-2 and 4-4 on aggregate they won because of the away goal rule. Yessssss!!!!

The next afternoon, one of the people I met wanted to go to get a tattoo so I tagged along to watch. When we got there he had no idea what he wanted so looked through several books with designs on, still couldn't make his mind up. Eventually he found a simple lizard and got that on his wrist, it actually looked really good. I saw a girl who was with her boyfriend getting a tattoo of an Inca sun on his leg. She had a llama tattooed on her ankle, that I thought looked amazing, I took a photo because I was speaking to somebody at the hostel not long before because he wanted to get a llama tattoo also. I showed him the picture but he just said that he wanted the outline and the ears to be tipped in some florescent colour like the real llamas are, the markings the farmers put on them, it does actually sound like quite a good tattoo. We'll see if he actually goes ahead and gets it.

Once again, the night ended in a vast consumption of alcohol, but I didn't feel like going out and just went to bed after the bar closed.

That night we went to a restaurant called 'La Comedie', it was a French restaurant and was tipped to be one of the best in La Paz. The choice on the menu was immensely difficult, what to go for, lamb, llama or duck, or about another twenty odd different meats. I chose the lamb because I couldn't resist the description, 'whole de-boned leg of lamb'. There was about six of us in total, four had chosen the lamb, one went for stuffed trout, another went for roast duck breast. When they came out, the lamb dished were fucking huge, it was just meat, meat and more meat. To be brutally honest, the duck probably tasted the best but value for money wise definitely the lamb. In total the meal came to about $110 Bolivianos which is roughly £11, so cheap when you consider that in England the de-boned leg of lamb costs around £7 on its own, we also had a glass of very good Chilean Pinot Noir to go with the lamb. The meal was a success, I was very satisfied with it, good food, good wine and great company. After the meal we got the waiter to call us a cab but as there was six of us it was a bit of a pickle to get in, I rode in the boot of the car, it was an estate (station wagon) so there was plenty of space but I have now ridden in quite a few strange places.

The next day for some reason I felt unbelievably revived, it was probably the best I had felt the whole time I had been away. I felt so alive, like I could climb a mountain or something like that. It was the second leg of Arsenal vs Barcelona in Barcelona, as most of Arsenals players are injured I didn't think too much of it, I was quietly optimistic but had very strong doubts about it, had to wait and see how we did in the first ten minutes or so. Somehow we scored near the beginning but unfortunately Barcelona managed to score, well not them but Messi on his own, the game went from bad to worse and Messi managed to score four goals the whole game, they won 4-1. I wasn't happy but to be fair they were much better and would probably go on to win the Champions League.

After the pool tournament we all went out, we all went to a really shitty club, then on to another club which was just as shit but we stayed for a while any way. I decided to call it a night at about 5 in the morning because I had already pulled three all nighters since being in La Paz and knew exactly what it felt like the next day, so I went to bed and got a good nights sleep.

The pool tournament was quite well organised, it started at just gone 18.00 which was when it was actually supposed to start. The reason we had it was because everything had been shut down in La Paz due to the election weekend, it was technically a 'booze free' weekend.
Unlucky for me and my partner, we were the first up, we had more pressure and the rules had not yet been fully established. Due to the rules not being drawn up yet, we were cheated out of our first game, firstly by for some reason not being allowed to take two shots for a foul, then the other team committing a professional foul, which usually mean automatic loss by default... not in their case, they went on to win as we had got very drunk by this point and were both suffering from a severe lack of concentration. Any way, we lost our first game, the first game and were both humiliated and pissed off at the fact we had been cheated out of it.
The tournament went on, we had our second game about an hour later, we lost that one again because when I got to the black I accidentally left it over the pocket making for a very easy pot for our opponents. The tournament went on for another four hours or so, eventually a winner was decided, a couple of wild cards, some drunk Kiwi's managed to pull off a victory in a very drunken and badly played final, the game went on for nearly forty minutes. Very long in pool standards but not quite as long as a game I played the day before against a couple of Israeli's that went on for about an hour, no word of a lie of exaggerating in any way, it actually did last for nearly an hour. My partner and myself were very drunk, it was late and dark and the Israeli's were just crap.

When we went to the cinema we thought that it was just us, a group of about five or six, after the film we noticed that quite literally our whole hostel had gone to see it. During the day I was speaking to the barmaid about it and then it was only going to be about five or six of us going. Little did we know that everybody had decided that they wanted to go and see it too.

To be really honest I have completely wasted my time in La Paz, I haven't got up to doing anything exciting during the day, I had a walk around the city, went to the cinema to see Alice in Wonderland in 3D at the multi cine at the edge of the city. The film was actually quite good, I don't know if I would see it again but I would definitely recommend it and especially in 3D, it was an experience. Other than that I have done nothing. There was a pool tournament organised by the French man Nicolas (Jesus). Other than that it has been drinking, clubbing and playing pool all day.

The immodium worked wonders, I no longer had a bad stomach and still to this day, about three days days after taking it I haven't had many more problems.

For some reason I don't know why, I have had a really bad stomach the whole time I have been in Bolivia. I have had the shits so bad that every time I eat whatever I eat comes out of my arse quicker than it goes in my mouth. I have no idea what it was or why? I have tried many things, not drinking alcohol, not eating meat and so forth. Nothing has worked at all, I have resorted to taking immodium again, this time without the feel that I may be developing kidney failure like the last time I took this stuff in Barcelona a few years ago. So far so good but I don't know how long it will last...

After the game I went to bed, and somehow I slept for sixteen hours, from 17.00 to 09.00. I didn't even feel awake when I woke up, I felt very drained. I met up with some people from my old hostel ended up going out for drinks with them. From about 11.00 till maybe 16.00 we were on it, I couldn't be bothered any more so went back to my hostel, played some pool and ate some food, took it easy the rest of the day and had a chat with some English boys till gone midnight when I hit the sack and got a long nights sleep.
This time when I woke up I felt good.

The Arsenal game has to be one of the most nerve racking games I have watched, made all the worse by not sleeping, the first ten minutes or so Barcelona were all over us, they were just taking shot after shot after shot. Almunia, who I despise so much had an amazing first half, unfortunately the second half didn't start so well, Almunia the muppet made a few bad decisions, I can't blame him fully but I will any way because he is such disaster. Arsene Wenger made a few changes, had to take Arshavin off as he was injured, had to take Gallas off as he was injured, then put Walcott on, what a good decision, within no time he scored a corker. Made the score 1-2. Near the end Cesc was brought down in the area, Puyol one of the Barcelona defenders was sent off, Cesc powered home the penalty bringing us level, the game ended 2-2 which was a great result considering the form of Barcelona at the moment.

The next night was just as bad, I didn't drink as much but went out to a bar/club until about 07.00 when I got back to the hostel, it was really early, the sun had just started to shine, the day was nice and clear but I was bloody tired, I hadn't slept properly the night before, I got in around five, went to bed but only managed to roll around a bit till nine. I got up and got on with the day like normal if not very tired, I didn't want to go out but ended up going anyway. When I got in I tried to sleep, had no luck at all so just went and had some breakfast, and played winner stays on on the pool table. I managed to stay on for about seven games with no sleep, very good result if you ask me. I tried to sleep again but no luck. I just had some lunch and waited for the Arsenal game to begin.