After an 11 hour drive from La Paz to Potosi we were pleased to get to a resturant until we saw the menu. There was a poor English translation (it meant more to read the spanish!) and some of the things on offer were:´Dad´s cream and sausage` and 'Steak of bad beast with attacked vegetables`!

One thing we noticed in Bolivia is that many people drive about without lights on at night and we found out that they do it because they think it saves petrol!!

Potosi is the highest city in the world at 4100m and on our free day there we went to a cooperative mine to see the primitive way they still mine silver and zinc. We went to the miners market first to take the miners presents as there is no fee to go into the mine. They like things like drinks (preferably an alcohol drink which is 96 percent proof!!!), cigarettes, coca leaves and dynamite - yes you can buy it on a market stall complete with detonator, fuse wire and accelerant!!!! In any other country you´d be considered a terrorist walking around with something like that in your bag! Our guide set some off for us (health and safety doesn´t exist over here) but not before letting some people hold it with a smoking fuse - Martin had to be one of those of course! We went into the mine, only to the second level and saw a miner at work. It was hard enough to breathe at only that depth so not sure how the miners manage to work at lower levels. Miners usually die from lung diseases after 10 years working in this mine. The mines are quite empty of miners at the moment as the price for the minerals is low so they go and do other work.

We left Potosi for Uyuni and this meant the end of tarmac roads for the rest of our time in Bolivia. Uyuni is the base for visiting Salar de Uyuni, the 12000 square kilometer salt flats. We stopped first to see how the salt is processed and saw workers out on the flats digging the salt. The reflection from the sun on the white salt is so blinding that you cannot see without sunglasses and workers that go without eventually go blind. The reflective rays also mean you burn more easily and we were advised to put suncream everywhere, even up our noses!! We also went into a hotel made completely from salt blocks, even the furniture is made of salt. We then stopped in the middle of the salar to take some interesting photos. Due to its vast size there is no perspective of distance so for example standing in the distance from a small object makes the small object look big and you look small. (See photos).