Hola!!

Just a quick report on Bolivia so far! In La Paz we said goodbye to 4 people in the group and welcomed 4 newcomers, and also met our new group leader, Jorge, and trainee guide, Jose. We visited the witch markets where there were millions of potions and things like llama foetuses, and also found the black market- we were expecting something really dodgy but when we enquired how to get there we were told by one of the locals that we were already in it!

We ended up having an extra day in La Paz because of civilian unrest so on our 2nd day me, Rick, Grant and Jo thought we´d do something productive and got a day trip up into the snowy mountains. The alternative was mountain biking on Death Row so we took this as the safer option...however driving up to the summit, it soon began to snow really heavily and the road got so slippy it couldn´t get up part of the road without slipping all the way back. So we turned back and headed to the base camp, and as it was so snowy walked the final bit to the lodge where we had some hot chocolate. When we came out the bus had gone, it was snowing that much all our footprints had disappeared! Luckily we descended for about half a mile and the bus was there waiting for us. Death Row sounded like a breeze compared to our day, haha!

The next day after the most bumpiest night bus ever (my shoes somehow ended up at the back of the bus, haha) we got to Uyuni and went to the salt lakes in jeeps. We had lunch at a hotel that was made out of salt! After this we went wayyy into the Atacama desert, where it can reach about -30 degrees at night and spent the night in a lodge WITH NO HEATING!! I´d even invested in some beautiful thermals in La Paz however these still let me down! The next morning we went to see some geysers and lava pools in the desert, it was that cold it was tempting to jump in...the stench of egg however made this slightly less tempting.

Next stop was Potosi, where we went to see a mine. We had to dress up in mine clothes and wear a torch. It was pretty sad seeing how the miners worked and how little they see daylight. They demonstrated how they blow up DYNAMITE by drilling a hole into the mine and then setting it off..we had to escape through a tunnel and absail down a small bit to get far enough away before it blew up (wasn´t as scary as it sounds)!

I´m now in Sucre which is brilliant. We´ve finally come down slightly from an altitude of about 4000m, so it´s a lot warmer and we don´t get out of breath from just walking down the stairs! We had a night out with Jorge on wednesday which was hillarious and we´re off out again tonight before we fly to Santa Cruz tomorrow at noon. Today we all went horse riding, which was fun although Sul was having a baby because her horse didn´t take to kindly to Rick´s so they had to keep their distance! In the little villiage where we ended up a really cute old woman greeted us with a load of well earned chichas (corn beer) and cheese!

Hope everyone is bueno!! xxxx