The bus trip from Uyuni to Potosi was really bumpy. Fortunately it only took about 5 hours :-/ Even though the bus was pretty old and dirty, it was better than what we were expecting. We arrived in Potosi (highest city in the world) in the early afternoon and the four of us (us two, Ferentia and Michelle) immediately got a taxi for the 3hr drive to Sucre. Our taxi driver was a bit of a maniac on the steep mountain roads, so we were grateful to safely arrive outside the bus terminal in Sucre in the late afternoon on Saturday 24 March. From there we caught separate taxis to our respective accomodation. We stayed in a place called Forastero Hostel - on the edge of the old city (a UNESCO world heritage site.) We grabbed a quick shower and walked down the road to the nearby shopping center where we ate supper in the food court.

Sunday morning we were up quite early and enjoyed a great breakfast of eggs and breads. We walked to the main plaza to catch a bus to the village of Turrubacu, about 2 hours away, where they have a big local market on Sundays. The village is out in the hills and quite rural - many of the people there don't even speak Spanish, just Quechua - an indigenous language. We bought most of our tourist things there as it was cheaper than buying in the cities. We were also able to enjoy an art exhibition by some local artists, as well as some traditional food and a dance show - a full cultural experience! After lunch we headed back to Sucre. We walked around the town a bit looking for supper ingredients, stopping for some delicious ice-cream on the way :-) After supper we met some friends from our salt-flats tour, who were also in Sucre, for drinks. One of us got knocked for a six by a vicious caipirinha ;-) Caught a taxi back to hostel and went to sleep.

Monday we slept in a bit before having a rather plain breakfast of bread and jam and coffee. We had decided to get a night bus to Samaipata, which our hostel owner kindly agreed to arrange tickets for. We wandered around town a bit before having a small 'second breakfast' at this cool little place on the main plaza. We did some more exploring of the town - many of the places were closed though?! - before having some local hamburgers for lunch. We stopped at the supermarket to get some food for the bus, before heading back to wait for our taxi to the bus station. Halfway to the station we realised we had left the laptop charging back at the hostel!! But we were able to go back to get it and still made it on time. We checked our bag in and climbed abourd a pretty dodgy bus, the big off-road tyres a sign of things to come :-/