So the four of us arrived in Potosi,(the highest city in the world and home of the silver mines) and headed straight for bed after our long and bumpy 10 hour journey. We woke up and for some reason unknown to me and helen, booked a tour that takes you down the famed silver mines....sounds like fun! Grainne, Melissa, me and Helen were picked up from the hostel and taken to the Potosi mining fashion houses, where we were kitted out with a very attractive set of clothing, hard hat and flashlight. By this point we were all still smiling as the outfits were amusing us greatly and our tour guide was keeping us laughing with his jokes and mockery of the lads in our group....needless to say the smiles did not stay up for long! After the outfit change we headed off to the miners market to buy gifts of cigarettes, orange juice and dynamite for the workers that we were going to meet down the mine. Our guide found it very amusing, when explaining about the different types of dynamite, to drop one on the floor and dive down screaming....having never seen dynamite before our entire group aged about 50 years and I was beginning to think that the ten pounds for this tour was money not well spent! After the market we headed to the Silver mines with the tour guide explaining that the miners who work here are self employed and many stay down the mines for days on end to earn enough money to live. We started walking into the mine, beginning to crouch and had only walked about 5 minutes before Helen turned around in tears and had to be led out of the mine by another guide....the tour guide remarked that it was one chica down, how many more to go?! The answer is one more...me!! We carried on down the mine, stopping after about ten minutes where the guide informed us that we would now be crawling on our bellies down to level number 2! No thankyou.

Cue Katy's moment to leave the building! Meanwhile outside i was waiting patiently chatting away to another man who had faired even worse than me and barely even got into the mine before leaving again. Expecting to be in for the long haul i'd settled down for a laze in the sun when lo and behold who comes wandering out but Katy! Melissa and Grainne were much hardier though and headed down to the 4th floor where miners were going about exploding dynamite (all in a days work) and they got involved in shoveling rock with no air to breathe and in the searing heat! They made it out alive though and we were all reunited at the top and had the chance to blow up dynamite - the things you do in South America! We then headed back to the hostel where we booked our onward trip for our next adventure - horse riding in Topeza - The Wild Wild West of Bolivia. This bus journey turned out to be one of the more interesting ones when we were all hearded on like sheep with about 300 Bolivians who piled on with children, animals and who only knows what else! The aisle was full of children and people when a family comes on with a lady with a baby strapped to her back. Being the nice person she is Katy got up and offered said women her seat and that settled down for the night on the bus aisle with the womans husband alongside her (along with half the rest of Bolivia). All was well until the point where the man started falling asleep ontop of Katy and the lady turned a bit green! About an hour before we were due to pull into the station the worst happened as the lady threw up all over the floor... and Katy. Me and Grainne swiftly pulled her off the floor and the rest of the journey was spent with the three of us sharing a 2 seat with the window broken and a force 10 gale blowing at as - fun fun fun!!!

We eventually arrived in Topeza in the middle of the night and fell straight into bed. The next day we booked our horse trek and then bumped into a man we had met previously in Potosi. It turned out that he was going to be in for a lot of laughs that afternoon as he was to be on our horse trek with us. We all turned up later that afternoon to be met by our guide (who looked like he was about 12 years old) and three horses (only one o which looked like it would be able to hack any kind of trek - I wangled this one!) after a few false starts we were eventually allmounted on our horses and off they went, and i do mean this quite literally - they went of there own accord along the track with absolutely no guidance which was only a good thing since Katy did not have one clue how to steer. My horse was particularly partial to a few thorns which it munched from the middle of the tree meaning that i was also in the tree - not the nicest feeling let me tell you! At one point the horses got it into their heads to gallop which led to me screaming 'Make it stop' which of course our spanish guide did not understand and which had to be translated by Mark who obviously found this the funniest thing in the world. This was of course until an hour later when we dismounted and the top of the funniness scale was topped by Katy trying to get down from the horse. In the end she demanded that everyone turn and face the cliff while she all but threw herself from its back - again Mark laughed himself to the point of crying and was utterly disbelieving of the whole thing!

After the other group arriving (and also complaining that there horses did not do as they were told) it was time for us to get back on the horses (our guide found us a little step to avoid the performance that had been getting off!) and head back. For some reason at this stage Mark swapped his nice placid (if not slightly slow) horse for the guides massive slightly demented thing - not a good move let me tell you. He managed (just about) to get on the thing before it started bucking and trying to get him of its back. At this point i would most certainly have jumped down and ran away screaming but oh no he carries on (bearing in mind he had only been on a horse once before in his life) and gets galloped around the dessert with a few intermittent bucks or side steps just to make it more interesting! Eventually the guide apparently realised that one of his tourists was about to meet their death and he (attempted) to swap back. Leaving the crazy horse safe in Marks hands he set to work doing something with the other, oblivious to the fact that Mark was having a few ...problems shall we say. At the point when it came towards me and my nice obedient thing and reared towards me (and him) he let go leaving the horse galloping off into the distance with the poor young guide charging after it. After a few minutes he did miraculously return with the demon horse and also Katy who had failed to understand that she was in fact the one in chrge and had let her horse wander merrily in the hunt for food! After this little set back we did eventually manage to get back on our way but it was a good job the horses knew where they going since our guide was currently riding bare back half a mile behind trying to convince the demon that really it DID want him on its back! Miraculously we all made it back in one piece and after saying goodbye to the guide and the horses (and thanking god we were still alive) we arranged to meet up a few hours later for dinner and drinks.

On our way to meeting Mark we also ran into the girls so the 6 of us went for food and drinks (Grainne pouring a glass of water all down Mark) before we all headed to bed to be up nice an early - the girls for a 2 day horse trek and us to get a bus to Uyuni.

Next day we bid farewell to the girls and caught the worlds most bumpiest bus for about 15 hours through an unbelievably boring dessert. By the time we arrived in Uyuni both of us were more than a little bit grumpy and not at all in the mood to be told by a hostel that we would have to pay $40 U.S to stay there - we were in Bolivia i tell you! After being laughed at by some builders we did evetnually manage to find another hostel that was more like a prison (you were only allowed 1 shower per day and had to request a key when you wanted it!) but it at least had a bed. After checking in we went and booked our tour from a lovely man who then showed us to a restaurant for dinner - not good let me tell you! then it was an early night ready for our trip the next morning.

Like the good girls we are we arrive in time the next morning only o have to wait for a whole hour for the rest of the group to arrive. A group that turned out to be a middle aged Argetinian couple who spoke less English than we spoke spanish - fun fun fun! The man was ill from the altitude (more likely too much alcohol from the night before) and so before we went anywhere we had to go buy coca leaves to stop him being sick on the journey! Fist stop was the train cemetry where i got stuck in the top of a rusty train while the couple refused to get out of the car. Next stop - lunch... once again the man didn't leave the car but the wife did attmept to have a conversation with us over lunch. Then it was on to the salt flats where me and Katy were more than a bit eager to take photos but, once again he couple did not leave the car! Katy and i hopped out though and began taking some decidedley dodgy photos before meeting George and Alex (two lovely Australian girls we had met in La Paz) who helped us out. We had also brought along a little plastic pig which posed much amusement for 2 Irish couples as they witnessed us trying to get photos of us sitting on top of it. After having a good laugh at us they had a go themselves and took some more pictures of us before we were beckoned back into the doom and gloom car with the old couple who then argued extensivey with the driver about wanting to see flamingos leading to us having to change our plans for the next day. Eventually we arrived at a hostel made enturely of salt which was to be our home for the night. Luckily there were a few other groups there as well who were absolutely lovely so we spent the night chatting to them before wrapping up warm agianst the cold and heading to bed for our 5 am start. A 5am start that we were were up and ready for but once again had to wait for the couple - for an hour missing the sun set - the whole reason for the early morning rising! To get our own back me and Katy stomped off to take more pictures while they had breakfast and we made them wait. We then headed up a mountain to go and see some mummies hidden in the mountainside which left me feeling rather queasy and convinced i'd been cursed! After this we went to see the flamingos before the car tyre blew out and had to be replaced. Then it was time for another lunch before heading back to some kind of civilisation! Despite the tour group though the salt flats were amazing so in the end it was all worth it! After getting back into Uyuni and begin refused a shower by the grumpy lady who ran the hostel we gave up and went to sit in a bar and have a drink! While we were there we met back up with the Irish couple from the salt flats the previous day (Elma and Niall) and had a few drinks and were suprised by Melissa, Dayna and Emma all walking through the door! Unfortunatley we had to catch our bus to the border so goodbyes were said and arrangements made to meet up again in various places before we headed for ARGENTINA!!!