Sucre, Potosi, Tupiza and Uyuni...

Well well well my lovelies,

So much has happened since my last blog! Makes a change from La Paz when we only drank, work and slept...

Ok, so we had a great time in Sucre (Joyride Cafe was brilliant - good food, good breakfasts, great films at night - Sex, Shame and Tears (Mexican) and Imagining Argentina). We loved the city - it was very pretty, although we weren´t too convinced about the water bombs...

We left on a day bus (unfortunately) and journeyed to Potosi. We checked into a lovely hostel, the Koala Den, and had a relaxed night. We went down the mines the next morning. We were there on a Sunday - unfortunately the miners weren´t working - but we did spot a rogue worker amongst the rocks. It was actually quite good that we were there when the miners weren´t, as we felt it might be safer, and easier on the ears...

They call the entrance the ´mouth of hell´ due to the number of people who have died there. 90% of people work there because they have no other option of work. Approximately 8 million people have been killed by the ´mountain that eats miners´... Most of the accidents underground are cave ins, and 40 is the average life expectancy of a miner there. Life is hard. We walked, crawled, climbed and slithered down onto the 4th floor, inhaling horrible dust and gases as we went. Potosi has a strange legal loophole, in that anyone can buy dynamite there. Even children and Gringos. The workers have to buy their own dynamite, and when there are fights, they often use it against each other. We managed to survive the mine, and saw how the minerals are extracted. Afterwards we had the fun part - mixing the various dynamite parts, to make an explosive. We then lit the fuse and took pictures. Seriously. We had about 2 minutes to do this before our guide had to run down a hill, drop the bomb in a hole, and run back before it exploded. Pretty impressive stuff! Pictures to follow when get to Chile...

We were very dusty and had a lovely meal afterwards with the people on our trip. Really good fun. We were then booked on the 8.30pm bus to Tupiza. We arranged a taxi and everything was going to plan. Until we asked for our passports, cash, credit cards etc from the hotel safe (our room wasn´t secure) . The incompetent idiots had lost them all. We were getting increasingly agitated (well I was anyway), giving them the choice of either finding them pronto or we would call the police. Eventually they found them (they hadn´t looked in the 2nd box...) at 8.15pm. We jumped into a taxi outside which unfortunately turned out to be the slowest I´ve been in. And it was falling apart. We arrived at the station at 8.30pm exactly - I jumped out to find the bus company to tell them we were coming (there are procedures here of dropping off bags and paying the bus terminal tax) - when I saw our bus pulling out of the station. It is the only bus I know of in Bolivia that left on time. I managed to stop it, hijack one of the workers on it and asked him to help us - H and J were still getting stuff out of the taxi. J had managed to jam H´s strap of her bag in the taxi lock when she previously shut the boot, and now H´s bag was trapped inside the taxi. One pair of scissors later, and a lot of rain later, we eventually got on the bus, with our bags, dripping wet with the rain at 8.45pm. Thank goodness for kind Bolivianos, as there were no more buses to Tupiza that day.

A very horrible cold and wet journey to Tupiza. None of us slept well or at all on the journey, and we arrived at 4am. Managed to find a hostel that would let us in (after a failed attempt) and thankfully fell asleep.

Got up bright and early a few hours later (it felt horrible!) and decided to go horseriding for 5 hours. Tupiza itself isn´t a wonderfully pretty place - no outstanding architecture apart from a peach church (believe me, it is very strange), but the countryside is beautiful. It is where they filmed Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. We were walking, cantering and galloping through canyons, along railway lines, through dried up river beds... - they don´t do trotting here. The sun was shining - we all got very sunburnt arms and backs - and it was a perfect day. We managed to dodge all the cactuses and return unhurt, apart from our poor buttocks... again photos to follow when have a better internet connection! It was a brilliant day, and H and J certainly loved being back on a horse again. I will let the aches subside before I give you my answer!

So siesta, then supper, then siesta... Got up relatively early this morning to catch another bus - 7 hours - to Uyuni. Been travelling quite a lot recently! It is the bumpiest ride I have ever been on. We went through stunning desert scenery and mountains, dodgying the llamas... I did think though that it is a great thing we have skin, otherwise I would be worried my insides would have been shaken out of me..!

We arrived at Uyuni this afternoon and it is lovely. Has everything you need - an ATM (one up on Tupiza), internet cafes, albeit slow, good restaurants and shops that sell everything a girl needs.

We have booked our salt flat tour for tomorrow (abandoning the idea of the museum of mummified people to save a day in Uyuni)... so we leave at 10am - very civilised. We then travel through the salt lakes, past red and green lakes, stay at nice places and end up at San Pedro de Atacama... in northern Chile. Will probably be quite a culture shock after Bolivia... really going to miss this country. It is so cheap, and the people are very friendly. Still desperately missing La Paz, but keep on reminding myself that our friends there have left anyway or are about to leave, so it would not be the same. Suppose the idea of travelling is to travel anyway!

So tomorrow we leave, and will be out of contact until Friday afternoon, evening or Saturday. Hope that everyone is ok in the UK - we are very sore after getting sunburnt! Stocked up on factor 50 suncream... life is hard here!

Lots of love from us all, will write again soon from Chile
Al xxxxxxx