3rd October

After breakfast Lara and I went to the mint museum where we saw a big collection of Bolivian art from the colonial period, plus the development of the coins and machines throughout the colonial period. Starting with handmade mis-shaped coins to giant wooden cogs turned by mules then electrical machines. The silver came from the local mines and they were only given permission to make gold coins by the Spanish leader in the late 1800's***. The mint production stopped in Bolivia in the early 1900's when it became cheaper to have the coins made in Chile and Canada. The museum also had a very large collection of minerals that had been donated from all across the world.

We then walked around the tone looking for the Central market, which was closed. We finally found somewhere to have lunch because everything was shut as all the shop and restaurant owners were at the festival.

We then met the rest of the group who had been on a tour of the mines and met Karem who had organised tickets for us to go watch the festival and turned up in a giant white bear costume! Her friends had a spare costume so she joined in the parade. We watched from 4-8pm but the festival went on each day from 1pm-4am! After I had the cheesiest pizza of all time.