It´s been a while to say the least. Pressing on from my last bloggy, we pushed through Lake Titicaca in to the slums of Bolivia. Well not that bad, we actually stayed in some 80´s fabricated looking apartments in the centre of the witch market district in La Paz. A strange area of town that stocks a surplus of alpacca and llama fetuses.

Apart from the usual drunken behaviour we visted a club that has the worlds highest oxygen bar. A room filled with nose hoses connected to random fruity flavours. After sinking 15mins of pure oxygen, we were buzz´n for hours. It was perfect prepartation for the following day as we tackled the "worlds most dangerous road". An unpaved cliffside single lane road that lightly hugs the tropical mountains of Bolivia. Starting at 4725m above sea level, we raced our dual suspension mountain bikes in an adrenaline fueled frenzy for testostirone surpremacy. Only halfway down one of our mates stacked and broke his collar bone, which was kinda mild considering the 600m drop only a metre to his left of where he landed.

From La Paz we moved on to Potosi, Bolivia. A city built on the limited wealth from the overshadowing hill of silver mines. A visit to Potosi is not complete without a working mine tour in to the belly of some of the worlds most dangerous mines. Life expectancy is roughly 10-15 years after starting employment in the pits. Prior to reaching the mines, we collected some supplies to help the miners in their job. A pack of coca leaves to drug their senses and a stick of dynamite and fertilizer for the extra "bang". Yep dynamite. I felt like a 15 year old charged on a sugar diet. I bought the dynamite for around US$1.50, which we gave to our driver for a demonstration. With 5mins of fuse we got to hold the lit dynamite before he ran away and blew up some discarded rock pile. I´ll upload the video footage soon.

We walked, hunched and even crawled our way through the mines, watching the locals hard at extracting miniscule amounts of raw silver. The conditions are absolutely terrible, the dust and gases are horrendous, yet the locals work around the clock for a few dollars a day.

Uyuni was the next mark on the map to see the worlds largest salt lake. Lot of salt, that´s about all I can report on there.

We were relieved to leave Bolivia and in to the lowlands of Argentina. After two weeks sleeping, eating and boozing at over 3500m, it was quite refreshing to have a little more oxygen back. Salta, Cafayete then the sexy uni town of Mendoza. In Mendoza, we spent a full day at the local wineries sampling some toxic vino. By 7pm, Riss was passed out. Another girl on our tour vomitted 5 times in the local restaurant - twice on the table, ha!

Anyway, we´ve now crossed the border in to Chile. We´ve got the next few days in Santiago before trucking south to Pucon. In Pucon I´ve booked to hike up Volcan Villarrica. A large snowy mountain that fumes hot steamy larva (strange I know). It´s meant to be a fairly difficult climb so Riss has already pulled out.

So that´s about it for now. Hope everyone´s alright?! Cheers, hatton.