26 de Octubre

Potosi, claiming to be the highest city in the world, was once very rich. Cerro Rico, the mountain sitting beside it, was once full of silver mines (actually there are still workers today but mainly mining just for tin). Sadly most of the miners were African slaves and indigenous people from all over South America. All mines are dangerous, and this one was no different: in fact this one was particularly bad. Of every 10 workers that came to the mine about 7 never returned. During the 300 years the silver mines were working, it is estimated that something near 9,000,000 people died in the mines. Apparently there was so much silver mined here it was said to be enough to build bridge from Bolivia to Spain, however it was also said the bones of the dead miners would make a bridge twice as far.

WARNING: If you are planning to work in a mine, do not come to Potosi! Go to the mines by Blaenau Ffestinaog in Wales, and get a job as a tour guide there.

Our day in Potosi however, was very pleasant. We looked around the city - which has its own mini Statue of Liberty - had ice cream, and more yummy pizza.

27 de Octubre

Today we got a bus from Potosi to Sucre. Bolivia is strange, because it sort of has 2 capital cities. One being La Paz the other one Sucre, but really Sucre is the proper capital (even if we did see the Prime Minister in La Paz!) When we got to Sucre, which is French for sugar, we got on a micro (a micro is a small bus, but not quite a mini-bus) and found a nice hostal. Then we walked around town to find some food, but, oh no! All the shops were shut because it was a Sunday! Luckily Dad found a market and got something to eat there.

28 de Octubre

We didn't really do anything today except walk up the mini Eiffel Tower in the park, and stroll around a part of the beautiful city.

DID YOU KNOW?

Sucre is said to be the prettiest city in all of South America! And I agree!

29th November

BY JACK

We got a collectivo to the cement factory to see some dinosaur footprints. First we saw a film called 'Walking with Dinosaurs' - it was half in Spanish and half in English. Afterwards a guide showed us around and we went in a museum, then we saw some model Dino's and we went to see the REAL dinosaur footprints. We saw footprints of a Triceratops, a T-Rex, a Carnataur, Pteranadon and an Argentinosaurus. The foot prints were on a cliff wall in the quarry of the cement factory, but once it was flat around a watering hole but the earth moved when the Andes were formed and now it is a cliff. A few years ago a great big triangle of the wall fell out but luckily there were more amazing dinosaur footprints under it!

After lunch we went to see the model dinos, and they were life size. Then we went to the shop and I bought a cap and a T shirt and I had an ice cream, then we got on a bus back to Sucre. While I am writing this there is an enormous thunder and lightening storm.

31 de Octubre

Halloween today, so what do you do on Halloween?.... Go on a 10 hour bus to Tupiza of course - the classic way to celebrate it! Half way we stopped at Potosi for an apparent lunch stop (but I can hardly call it a lunch stop, because the bus just stopped by the side of the road by the bus station, with no food shops in sight). All in all the bus wasn't that bad though. When the bus arrived at Tupiza we found a hostal and then we had to eat pizza because there weren't any restaurants serving anything else in all of Tupiza.

1 de Noviembre

After breakfast we went to the train station to get some tickets for tomorrow, did some other things, then got ready for lunch. Later we followed a strange man to....... a horse riding place, where Mum and Dad got cowboy hats (Mum has made me write that she looked like a super cool cowgirl in the hat), Jack and I got helmets and we all got chaps (to protect our legs). While we were getting ready a man got 2 horses ready with bridles blankets and metal frames as saddles then more blankets on the top. He led those ones to us then got another 2 horses ready. Dad gave the horses names: his one, the biggest, a silly name I can't remember, Mum's one he called Truffle, the third biggest that he thought would be mine Star, and the smallest Baby!

When we got on them though I got Baby and Jack got Star. Dad, Mum and I got up by ourselves but Jack needed picking up and putting on his horse! When we started going we found out that my horse was called Lola; Jack's was called Canteria (I'm sure Canteria must mean canter shop!); I think Dad's was Tortilla and we can't remember Mum's horse's name. They all had stallions but I had a mare. Dad kept making Tortilla trot which made Canteria trot so Lola and I trotted too. I think Lola felt the need to always be in front, as most of the time we were. When we got to the end of the trail we dismounted and went for a short walk. Jack's horse was so slow he didn't have to be tied up, instead he just fell asleep in the middle of the path, in fact the only horse that had to be tied up was mine. When we came back we got on again to go back. At first I was in the lead again but the standing still must of tired her out because soon we were at the back.

Dad renamed Mum's horse Bernard but Mum disagreed and called him Lightning, also, Dad named his Thunderbolt then changed it to Classic Horse! Jack then named his horse Cheeter (the animal) but he should of called him Muy Despacio (Spanish for very slow!). Dad felt that at the end he and Classic Horse were starting to get to know each other. Mum now thinks her horse should be called Mouldy because all he did was eat spiky things and poo.

When we got back to the hotel we ate spaghetti sitting on the floor for dinner.

2 de Noviembre

In the morning we walked around town, then went for a walk in the afternoon. The walk was very hot and tiring. We walked along a dry river bed to a place called El Cañon. Near the end we scrambled up beside a dam to find some crispy, flaky, dry mud. It was cool. On the way back we noticed, as it was the day after All Saint's day, everyone was at the cemetery chatting to their dead relatives and leaving them food, flowers and plastic flower garlands and playing on the fun fair - I wonder, were the dead relatives allowed to have a go? When we got back to town we had big ice creams mine had jelly, fruit, 3 flavours of ice cream, chocolate sauce, squirty-cream and a cherry on top!

In the evening we got the night train to Uyuni, and arrived in the middle of the night.

3 de Noviembre

Uyuni is a town on the edge of the world's biggest salt flat! This salt flat was, in dinosuar times, part of the sea but then it dried up: creating the Salar de Uyuni.

4 de Noviembre

We woke up, sat on a bench, then the next thing I knew I was sitting in a Lexus Toyota Land Cruiser, on the way to a train cemetery! The train cemetery is (as you should know from the name) a place for dead steam trains. The trains worked for a mine: transporting

the loot to different places. So when the mine stopped they had all these old steam trains!

"Whatever shall we do with them?"

"I know, let's just dump them in the middle of the desart and leave them to rust!"

And that's exactly what they did! Instead of going all the time the trains that still run now go about 4 times a week, in the night.

At the cemetery we saw: a train line that went all the way to Chile; a falling over train; a swing made from train parts, and loads of (guess what - I bet you'll never believe it!) dead trains! It was cool because we could climb all over the rusty trains. When got back in the car we found out that the girls we were sharing the car with were English and called Lauren and Steff.

The next stop was at an artesan market where we did nothing but go to the toilet, and lick the salt wall of a house. Most of the people who lived in the village collected salt from the flats and that is where we were heading next. The journey to the salar took only about 5 or 10 minutes. When we got there we saw the flats with the small piles of salt. We had fun walking around and jumping on top of the piles. The piles were made by the villagers collecting salt Afterwards we went to an old hotel made from blocks of salt. Outside there were a lot of flags from all over the world. Here we took a funny picture where I was holding Jack and Dad.

We continued our journey for about an hour or so before arriving at an island called Incahuasi (Inca-wa-see). As the salt flat was once the sea the island was once an island in the sea. But now it is a cactus covered island in a sea of salt. Strangely when the car parked it stayed off the island. When we were all out of the car José (pronounced Ho-sey - he is the driver) told us to go back there in 15 minutes ready for lunch. So in that time we went to the toilet.

For lunch we had quinoa (keen-wa - a wheat like, staple food in Bolivia ) and tried a bit of lama meat - it was a bit beefy. The driver kept correcting us: whenever we said lama (the English version) he would correct us and say llama (pronounced yama* - the Spanish version!). We also had omelete, salad and coca cola. It was all yummy. After lunch we walked up a hill. There were loads of massive cacti and some of them were thousands of years old! On the walk we noticed that the rocks were not rocks, but instead they were big, dead, lumps of coral. So before it was an island in the sea it must have been an underwater reef!

When we got down we took more funny pictures then got back in the car. Whilst driving through the Salar we saw lots of hexagons made in the salt. Soon the hexagons faded and we joined a road out of the salt flats, and to the hotel. On the way we saw some Vicuña's. Vicuña's are like Llamas and like deer at the same time. They sort of look like orange Llamas that aren't fluffy.

After a while we arrived at the hotel we were going to stay at. Mum was just about to comment that she was glad that we weren't going to stay there when the car stopped outside the front door! Inside it actually looked very nice. The hotel was made out of salt. From the outside the hotel looked like a tumble-down salt building but from the inside it was lovely. For tea we had soup, but then (oh no!) we got more food although we had already filled up on soup!

*In Spanish, LL is pronounced as a Y sound e.g. llama is pronounced yama.

5 de Noviembre

For breakfast there was: bread, margarine, coffee, tea, hot chocolate, weird stuff to put on bread and cake. Mum and Lauren had coffee and put some supposed milk in it, but the coffee tasted funny. It wasn't until Dad tasted the milk that we found out that it was frothy apple juice! Having eaten breakfast - a no-milk breakfast - we got in the car and set off. First we got to San Juan where the driver had his breakfast. Then we saw the train track that went all the way to Chile, went through Chiguana salt flat, and later arrived at a Cañapa lagoon. This lagoon had lots of flamingoes. We looked at them and took some photos while José made lunch. After we had eaten there was hardly any left for him! José told us to go for a walk round the side of the lake, and he would pick us up, but he took such a long time coming that we started to wonder if he had deserted us because we didn't leave him any food! Luckily he did come along in the end. We were then taken us to another lagoon that (I think) was called Hedionda, with more flamingoes. Here there was a silly sign that had a picture of a flying flamigo with a cross over it! According to the sign flamingoes weren't allowed to fly!

When we left, we went to lagoons: Chiarlota and Honda (but the only cars I could see were Toyota's!) and drove through a lot of desert. We drove on into the desert until we arrived at a place with a lot of rocks so we climbed up them. I didn't really look at the special rock that was supposed to look like a tree, I think was more like a tortoise. The driving went on some more until we got to Laguna Rojo (Spanish for the red lake), with more flamingoes then carried on to the hotel. Here we shared a room with Lauren and Steph, and weren't fooled like last night by the soup followed by spaghetti.

6 de Noviembre

Having been promised pancakes for breakfast we were happy to find them but they weren't sweet. Either way breakfast wasn't the best (the best breakfast is probably the chocolate pancakes that we had in Nicaragua), but then, nothing's good when its eaten at 4 o'clock in the morning. We had got up early so we could see the geysers* which were awesome. There we also saw some bubbling mud that bounced and splashed everywhere. After a bit we went to some hot bathes, drove through the Dali Rock Desart, saw Laguna Blanca (white) and Laguna Verde (green), all before we got to the Bolivian border with Chile at about 10 o'clock. At the imigracion office we said goodbye to Lauren and Steff, who were going back to Uyuni, and got a bus to San Pedro de Atacama. On the way we drove on a road in the middle of the Atacama desert - the driest place on earth.

In San Pedro we found a campsite and walked around town and ate empanadas and icecreams!

*Geysers have boiling lava underneath them that heats up water from underground rivers, therefore turning it into steam. The steam pushes up out of the ground forming geysers.

Caroline Melody Great to hear from you! I had been wondering what you were up to - glad you are still having awesome adventures and seeing amazing sights with the odd bus or train journey between! Horse riding, silver works, salt flats, interesting food, unusual rest places, geysers, llamas, and a variety of different forms of transport. I'll wait to hear the rest! With love Granny

Nov 19, 2013

Tammy What an incredibly informative blog! Still eating a lot of pizza I see (glad to hear it!). Hope you're having fun with grandma and grandpa! Love you all lots xxxxxx

Nov 19, 2013

harry birds Dear jack. Cant wait for you to come home now. See you very very very soon. I bought you a present from America. It's sweets and they are very nice. From harry.

Nov 19, 2013

Grandma That is so exciting. And it is really funny because now I am just next door!

Nov 20, 2013

Wendy Sounds great - yet again! Glad you found something other than pizza to eat & hope you didn't eat too much salt! You'll be ready for a Spanish GCSE by the time you get back - there's a Jose who teaches dance at the Arc! Horse riding sounded like fun; they obviously thought you were the experienced rider ... or maybe just the most sensible.

Nov 20, 2013

Grandad Daddy rode 'osses in Ghana I remember him going off in a gallop even then down at the polo club! All sounds great and expect a book when back avec piccies Josie and Jack!

Nov 23, 2013

Grace and Otis whippet cool. I wish I could ride and lick saltflats instead of going to school! Ofcourse your mum looked awesome in the cow boy hat -who wouldn't ??? you must be getting good at spanish now I hope I can still understand you when you come back! looking forward to seeing you again xxx

Nov 26, 2013