After the fun of Christmas dinner, we all piled into the truck for the drive to Potosi. It was a very subdued trip, with many people not feeling 100%. Some bug has been making its way around. My tummy was a little rumbly but OK. Potosi is the highest city of its size at this elevation, 4060m, but is also famous for a silver mine that was discovered here in 1545, named Cerro Rico (Rich hill). Potasi was at one stage the largest and wealthiest city in Latin America and apparently the silver from the mine underwrote the spanish monarchy for over 200 years. Obviously, the silver didn't last but the mine is still mined for tin, zinc, lead, etc. The mining conditions haven't changed much either in the last few hundred years.

So we arrived into town, tired and glad to be off the truck. Found a lovely little cafe for dinner. Had a 4 course vegetarian set menu for the grand price of about US$5 before curling up in bed to write in my journal and watch TV. Needed to be in bed because it was the warmest place. Outside was cold, but in the rooms it was freezing. I had to wear thermals, PJ's and my fleece to bed with big warm fluffy socks.

In the morning we had the option of going and doing a tour of the mine which included a demonstration of dynamite blowing something up - they took a watermelon but I didn't go. The 7am start wasn't the best motivator and I wasn't feeling the best. Once they returned we jumped back in the truck for the drive to Uyuni. This road was horrid. All dirt that curved around and around and just seemed to go on forever with lots of bumps. 6hrs later we were glad to get off.

In the hotel there is a restaurant with the best pizza in South America (or so we have been told). It was pretty damm good and matched up to my expectations of pizza....

So yesterday, we had a full day trip out to the Salar de Uyuni, which is the largest salt flat in the world, with a surface area of about 12,000sq miles. Our first stop was the Train Cemetery just out of town. Trains that are no longer used have been dumped here and now rust away. Apparently, one of the trains that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid robbed is usually here, but we were told it was in another location at the moment.

Then onto Colchani where salt is processed. Of course, we were expecting a factory but it is done in individual houses. They bring the salt from the salt flats, put it on a shelf inside and underneath they light a fire to burn all the water out. It then gets put in a machine to be crushed and then put individually in bags for export. The bags are approx 1kg each and they do about 3000 a day. They sell 50kgs of salt for $1. How unbelievable is that. All that hard work for hardly nothing.

During the day we also stopped at various places to do 'funny photos'. Because all you see is the white of the salt and the blue sky, there is nothing to confuse your depth perception so you can take these photos that look like you are popping out of a wine bottle or pringle can, being eaten by a dinosaur, sitting on a book, etc.

We headed to Inkawasi Island where we had lunch and then did a walk of the island which is full of cacti and gives you great views of all the surrounding white. We also stopped at a salt hotel which is obviously made all of salt. When we got out of the land cruisers here, it was like being in the north pole, the wind was so ferocious.
We were meant to watch the sunset out here but the weather was not with us and we returned to the hotel for another fantastic pizza. However, we were told there was a small problem with the truck, something to do with the wishbone, axel and chassis so a local bus had been chartered to bring us back to Potosi today while Ewan worked on the truck and followed in the afternoon....hopefully.

So, being on a local bus meant the return trip was much quicker because the driver doesn't care as much about the vehicle or us as Ewan does. So we have the evening here before departing tomorrow morning at 7am. We are driving to the Argentina border where we will be doing a bush camp. We will cross the border the next day and be in a place called Salta for NYE. Steak house, here we come....