La Paz

As requested by Mr John Teale of Luxembourg, I reluctantly carried out a purely Scientific experiment of drinking beer at around 4000m above sea level to measure the effects. In order to verify and comfirm the results I drunk more than one at each meal and on different nights at different locations and various heights. I didn´t drink to excess, but I can confirm that I recorded little difference between drinking at sea level and the dizzy heights of Peru and Bolivia. However, I will endeavor to carry on this level of scientific enquiry as long as I am in Bolivia, moving towards sea level in Argentina, on the plane home and on my return to Luxembourg. I hope you the appreciate the lenghts I am going to for the sake of Science.

One interesting observation I have recorded while travelling at these heights, is that although we have to move very slowly and become quickly out of breath, my digestion system works incredibly quickly especially when I eat salad or that cream cake I had the other night. We did become suspicious when the Chef called over two waitresses to discuss the cake before serving it, but I was too polite to say I´ve changed my mind. So although we are having a great time up here, my bottom is very keen to return to sea level.

As you can see from the pictures I followed another request by Martine to have my hair cut. I wanted to wait until I found the highest hairdresser in the world, but my sideburns were starting to have a life of their own. It is the best haircut I have ever had so I didn´t feel at all bad when the barber obviously charged more than the usual price for a haircut and shave. In fact, due to the care he took in using clean razor blades and sterilising his instruments I gave him a tip of 10 Bolivianos. This brought the price to a total of 60 Bolivianos (6 Euros or 4 Pounds) and we parted company thinking we had both robbed the other.