Photo & Text: You can take the girl out of the city...The first of many toilet troubles

I forgot to put him in earlier. We found this chap in Colca Canyon. Look at his eyelashes!

I had a funny experience a few nights ago. We had found a little restaurant – a really sweet woman’s front room with three tables in it – and we were waiting for food. We’d ordered a bottle of wine – HURRAHHH – crazy eh? You can’t get a decent drop of anything in Peru unless you are in a five star hotel or restaurant yet more than 4000m up, out in the middle of Lake Titicaca on a near deserted island…..

Anyway, I needed the loo, so I asked for directions. She smiled and showed me through the back door. So I followed where she was pointing and it led me out into the garden. It was pitch black so I went back in to get my torch. Back out in the garden again and no loo to be found. I went back in and tried my best Spanish on her. She said, si, si and ushered me back out into the garden. Now I tell you something: there was no way I wasn’t going to drink that bottle of wine. We’d been deprived for way too long. So I had a choice. Piss on this woman’s lawn in full view of the restaurant window, or sit holding my stomach trying to get myself through a whole bottle of wine and eat some food while desperately needing to pee. The other alternative was to trek the 15 or so mins in the pitch black back to our lodgings and then all the way back up again. Yes, I know, I’m a bloody stupid city girl and I shouldn’t be even writing about this as if it were an event, but it was for me. You see I’m quite scared of the dark, so I dare not turn my torch off either.

My decision made us some good friends. When I came back in a couple on the other table were having a good laugh at my expense. Fred and Zoey, both from London. We spent the rest of the evening with them and arranged to meet them in La Paz for a night of partying.

I mentioned I am scared of the dark. Slowly, slowly as I am forced into situations where I have to walk or wait in the pitch black my fear is being cured. My mum always left the lamp on when I was a child so maybe that’s why, I don’t know. But on Isla Del Sol no one is going to come out of the bushes and hurt you. I walked back to our room to grab my torch earlier – fear didn’t even occur to me. Hurrah, I can now ride vertical mules and handle being scared.