La Paz, highest capital city in the world at over 3600m, was for me a fun place; colourful street vendors from the countryside, all-male outdoor debating forums, indigenous and farmers´ rights rallies, slightly disquieting balaclava-clad shoe shiners, and multi-coloured US-style trucks transporting people to all parts of the city for 10p; beautifully ornate Spanish catholic cathedrals and monuments dedicated to independence hero Simon Bolivar.  Evo Morales is also polarising opinion as the first indigenous president of the republic.  His main thrust at the moment seems to be to re-nationalise petroleum, but prising it away from US and European oil giants is not an easy task.  Apparently he´s on the US no-fly list now!  Way to go Evo...

I popped in and out of the capital a few times, and would´ve done more hiking if it hadn´t been for the aforementioned El Misti toenails. As it was I flew, rather than endure an 18hr rough bus ride, over the mountains and down to Rurrenabaque, popular tourist jumping-off point for tours into the jungle and the pampas (a drier version of jungle).  3 days were spent on and around the river, initially just watching crocs, turtles and capybaras (similar to giant guinea pigs), but then getting involved with coca leaf chewing, drinking copious quantities of beer (as you do on a group trip), hunting anacondas, piranha fishing, petting crocodiles and swimming with dolphins (not necessarily in that order). Despite the appearance of the photos, I should confess that I failed miserably at the fishing - no killer instinct, being a semi-vegetarian you see..  Well I was, until I arrived in South America.  Anyone for meat, or is it a salad sir..?

Down to Cochabamba, a bustling confident city and girls with attitude to match.  The huge 156 college parade was quite an eye-opener, with most of the uniforms consisting of short skirts and high boots.  One of the army troupes obviously had a lighter side too, as they had whirling illuminated helicopter lanterns propped on top of their caps.  How can you keep a serious face with that headgear? Up to a great city viewpoint another day, Cristo de la Concordia being the largest concrete Christ figure (2200tonnes and 40m high) in the world... or was it highest at 2800m altitude. mmm...  

I realised about this time that I have to be a bit more vigilant with my luggage - having had nothing stolen in over a year, I had my MP3 player (which was almost empty of songs anyway following my Peruvian debacle) and headphones swipted sometime between La Paz and Cochabamba.  Then a day later the apparently common 'spit on the back of the neck´ trick almost put paid to my camera too, which was fortuitously still sitting in its´ (unzipped) pouch on my belt when I felt down for it and rumbled what was going on.  Getting a bit paranoid now; the Bolivians blame it on the Peruvians who come into the country, but I´m not so sure.  Although as in the rest of the world lots of people criss-cross countries here to earn a bit more money, I´ll never know who it was, but will be more careful in crowds, to be sure.

I visited another tropical village on the Eastern side of the mountains for a couple of days trekking, through coca plantations that George Bush wants destroyed.  Also visited a rescued monkey/big cat reserve staffed by volunteers.  My improving Spanish was good enough to understand the alcoholic owner of the guest house/campsite ramble on about how ridiculous it was that each of the 35-odd volunteers pays 90 dollars for 15 days to look after monkeys, which adds up to xthousand dollars a month, which mainly gets pocketed.  Interesting viewpoint.  Sadder for me to see up to 1000 trucks a day rumbling through the village loaded with huge tree trunks bound for export to Europe, Japan, the States.  In 10 years they´ll probably have no forest left here.

Down via the administrative capital Sucre, I rode on a top-notch rented mountain bike to the seven waterfalls, which were unfortunately in the dry season just trickling pools - didn´t fancy the dive in to some stagnant waste water; and to some fossilised vertical dinosaur tracks, uplifted over the millions of years by earth movements and discovered during mining operations some years ago.  

Then to Potosi: in this land of superlatives, this is the apparently the highest city in the world at 4066m.  The Cerro de Plata (silver hill) has been mined for 450 years; in the 17th century Potosi was the richest and most populous city in the americas.  I squeezed into a mine shaft and helped a couple of mud-covered workers plant explosive charges into the walls.  Millions have died in the mines here, particularly in colonial times when the locals were treated as slaves with no safety precautions and dreadful working conditions. Since 1952 the Bolivian government has taken control of the mines, and since 1985 it has been run as a cooperative.  As prices of silver and copper have fluctuated, so has the workforce, recently prices are up and there´s been a rise from 2000 to 12000 miners here, busily chewing lumps of coca leaves and downing 96% proof alcohol to drown their sorrows or celebrate the discovery of a rich seam.  If the alcohol doesn´t kill them first, many still die of silicosis, through being deep underground and inhaling metallic dust, fumes, asbestos and the rest.

My final few days were spent in Uyuni, gateway to the salt desert Salar de Uyuni.  You won´t be surprised to hear that this is not just any old salt desert - it´s the largest in the world!  I couldn´t face 3 or 4 days of 10hrs a day in a jeep, so just a day trip was enough to see the flat expanse of whiteness and a gorgeous sunset.  Amazing trick photos can also be had with people and or props due to the uniform landscape which distorts distance, perspective and size.  As my camera had packed in again on the way here though, I´ll have to wait to see the results of a 5 dollar disposable one...

My 30 day visa being up, I had to exit south to Argentina.  A shame I didn´t have a few more days as just coming into view at dawn as I trundled along the tracks on the twice weekly train towards the border were amazing multi-coloured rock canyons and lunar landscapes.  I knew I had largely passed them by in darkness.  But well, you can´t have it all!