Bolivia.

So a little more than two weeks in Bolivia is now over and what a journey it was. After queuing for 2 hours on the Brasilian side of the border to get our passport stamped to only find out that the Bolivian side was closed and we would have to live as illegal aliens in Brasil for one more night, it wasnt the best start to be honest. Santa Cruz was the first stop and though the city doesnt have much to excite, it does prepare you for whats to come. The nice hotel and filling food all for less than a tenner, much less. From there it was on to Cochabamba and what a setting the city has. Circled by the andes on all sides with warm weather and some nice colonial buildings, for me it was the real start of our trip in Bolivia. The Christo on top of the hill doesnt quite rival the one on Corcovado, yet the views from it are stunning nonetheless. It was here that I tried my first taste of the drain water that they sell as juice in Bolivia. I still do not know what was in it or have identified the flavour but Im still here so it cant be bad. The small brain like fruit that floats in the bottom should really have put me off. I have also tried the white coloured juice that they sell and its not much better. One thing that is good though is the milkshakes that the ladies make at their stalls, they are fantastic. Next onto the colonial town of Sucre, meeting up with a girl we had been in Bonito with. Sucre is a beautiful town, lovely small houses and grand colonial styled buildings. It is the place where the Bolivian declaration of Independence was signed and the Jesuit Missionary where this took place is a pretty cool place to visit. There is a number of museums to visit and the town itself is nice to wander around for a couple of days. We also stayed in a cracking Hostel, Gringo Rincon, where Mike who runs the place will do anything for you. A lot of people had been at the hostel for a while learning Spanish. We left Sucre for Potosi, the highest city in the world, with our friend from Bonito, Tamara and her friend Adam. Potosi is famed for its working mines and it was solely for this reason that we went there. In the end only Adam and I went down the mountain into the mine. What an experience that was. Its already difficult to breathe at that altitude, about 4000m above sea level, but once you go into the heat and murky conditions of the mine its not long before you are sucking in every last drop of oxygen. The conditions down there are shocking...the mine is now a cooperative so every miner needs to make their own way. They work the majority of the time in pitch darkness, in the smallest of areas often with nobody within earshot of them. If your at all clostraphobic or scared of the dark this is not the job for you. The age range is vast with the youngest down the mine 14 and the oldest 65...they reckon that you only have 20 years to live after entering the mines. And all this for very little. They used to get from 1 tonne of rock, 40kg of silver ore...now its 1kg. It was certainly an eye opener and if the conditions my Great Grandparents worked in were anything like this then they must have been some right hard b******s. From Potosi it was on to the Salt Flats at uyuni and three of the most incredible days of my time in South America. They were truly unbelievable. The road to La Paz was as hellish as everybody had told us yet for all the stick that Bolivian buses get I would much rather ride on one of them than any Greyhound bus in America or Aus or any Megabus or National Express in the UK, at least in Bolivia you get reclining seats. La Paz was a very pleasant surprise. Not heard a lot of good about the place but for me it had character, history and was nice and warm. The climbs back up the hill to the hostel were a nightmare, just totally out of breath by the time you got back. The Plazas were all surrounded by wonderful buildings and churches and the museums I visited were great even if they were all in Spanish. There is a pretty good food scene and nightlife there as well and we had a good night out with Tamara and tow guys that we had met in Sucre. I also took a trip out to the Tiwanaku ruins on the outskirts of the city. The Tiwanaku were around 1000 years before the Incas and some of the tools they used and pottery they desigend is magnificent, so colourful and well decorated you would think it was of a modern age. The ruins themselves are not that impressive but they are still being excavated so one day they may rival the best. On the Monday we went to watch Bolivia vs Peru in the national stadium. Its the highest international in the world and Bolivia are normally very good at home but the less said about this game the better I think, it was dyer. Our last stop in Bolivia was Copacabana, not the beach in Rio but the launching place to Isla del Sol. It was here that the Inca creation is believed to have began. The island is dotted with cool little Inca and Tiwanaku ruins and is a pretty nice place to spend a couple of days. The second day we trekked the length of the island with our backpacks and it was nearly the end of us. Lake Titicaca is at 3500m and so trekking along the mountains of the island is a pretty gruelling task...roll on Machu Picchu. It was a pretty cool end to a wonderful adventure through this amazing country which so far has produced the friendliest people on the continent. I dont think I have ever seen so many people always smiling and joking with each other. Its wonderfully refreshing.