Hello from Chile and welcome to my second attempt at this journal entry! I arrived in San Pedro de Atacama, an hour and a bit from the Bolivian border, at lunch time and I have another three hours to wait for my bus to Copiapo near the beach recommended to me by Mr Jon White! My final night in Cuzco was a big one, first John, Amy and I were interviewed by the nice people from Discovery Channel "Top 5, LatinoAmerica", and then we went for a beer in a strangely english pub. There was a stoke city shirt on the wall which cheered up Andy because he's from Stafford and a big fan, anyway we had a cracking supper, some cocktails and then hit the town. Unfortunately we were tailed by a pink-vest wearing peruvian man who kept trying to take my jumper off, but we managed to lose him in an Israeli club. We partied till four when we lost John, with people from the Inka trail and others we had met in Cuzco, and then i went to bed and fell asleep immediately. Unfortunately, I had to get up four hours later to go paragliding and i felt a little worse for wear to say the least! That said the first five minutes of my flight was brilliant, skimming over trees and catching the wind, and then i was ill and we had a bit of an abrupt landing but no regrets (Apart from perhaps letting John, a bartender, choose the drinks). After the game we watched the end of the liverpool game and then I hung around until my bus left in the evening for La Paz. We then spent an two hours at the border and arrived in La Paz about midday. Unfortunately the first bus for Sucre where Becca was staying was not for hours so I hung around and watched Uefa cup football in the terminal.

The next morning I arrived, tired and a bit battered by my bus odyssey in Sucre, Bolivia's official capital. We spent the first day moving hostel and walking around. In the afternoon we saw that new Hugh Grant film in a cinema where cats kept walking around, all a bit surreal, but good fun! The next day we looked around a couple of museums and I looked around the Casa de la Indepencia which has the declaration of Bolivian independence and a famous portrait of Simon Bolivar. That night we were both pretty shattered but we went to the Joyride cafe to check out this Dutch Night for Queens Day in Holland, it was all a bit wierd so we headed to bed. The next morning we went to Potosi where Becca had been before but she tagged along anyway. We stayed in a hostal called the Koala Den and organised a tour for the next day in the famous mine. The mine used to be 5,100metres above sea level but due to 450years of dynamite and mining it is now at 4,800metres!

The next morning we left early for our tour and our first stop was a house where we were given overalls, wellies and a hard hat with battery powered head torch. Then we were split into groups and given a guide, I got Juan, Becca and the South American Handbook had recommended him, and I was with another 6 guys, a few aussies and americans and me (can't really remember). The next stop was the miners market where we tasted the miner drink (96%proof) and bought them dynamite. It was so random, for a little over a pound you could buy dynamite. The guide counted it carefully because a couple of weeks ago five young brits blew the windows out in a hostel in Uyuni and apparently they're now in jail. Anyway, we bought one each for ourselves and one each for the miners. Then we went to a mineral processing plant which was like one of those science in action videos, with rock separation going on all over the place. Fascinating but i didn't have a clue!

Then came the moment of truth, we drove to the mine, turned on our lamps and walked in. Inside was amazing, it's practically medieval, apart from carts going at pace occasionally, it was pretty quiet. We'd walk past filthy miners and crawl underneath beams and pipes in a long line. To get to the second level involved crawling on all fours through a tiny hole and then sliding down a rock schute. Only in Bolivia. Then our guide set us our second challenge (the first was to make our own way to and down the slide), which involved crawling up on our bellies, it was pretty scary and absolutely roasting in there, the poor miners must really suffer, and because of the silica in the thick dust they don't usually live past 50. When we came out of the mine I felt pretty proud of myself, there was no way i'd have crawled under a mountain last year (or gone paragliding for the matter) and i'd done it and been fine, awesome! Thinking back, this time last year i was in a proper mess about all kinds of things, and this year i'm in South America, it's brilliant. Anyway, we ended the day with a bang, the seven of us rolled our dynamite into a ball, jammed the fuse in, surrounded it with fertiliser and then posed for photos with our lit "bombas". Next thing we knew they were taken from us by the guides and we all stood back to watch a series of big loud explosions. Boys with toys, it was wicked.

We headed back to the hostel for showers to rid us off our dust layer, and then Becca and I went for some food before she left for Tarija and I went to Uyuni. I got there in the middle of the night, at about one, and it was absolutely freezing and dead, the next day was Independence day so people we just taking a long weekend. I found a hostel where an old Bolivian who looked like the witch from Robin Hood finally opened the door after about five minutes in the cold, and i crashed out. The next day I could have started my trek onto the Salar, or salt plains, but I was pretty tired so just relaxed, and I visited a train cemetary in the afternoon. This wierd place was full of rusting old engines and stock but against the desert and the blue blue skies it looked so beautiful. It stands as a monument to the shelf life that everything man-made has. That said someone had written in perfect white paint an Einstein equation on one of the engines, as if to say - not all we do fades. I walked back and relaxed for the rest of the day, no where had Espn so I couldn't watch Chelsea lose! That night I met with some other travellers i'd bumped into in the street, including two Durham girls, and went to this place called Minuteman Pizza, an amazing pizza joint run by an American who married a Bolivian. They even did cookies! We ended up after some wine, sitting around with a mostly Irish tour group singing random songs while a couple of them strummed the guitar. Anyway it was good fun and I headed off to bed at about 12.

The next morning I got up, stamped out of Bolivia, did some e-mailing and then went to my tour agency. I had booked the day before, having been told my the lady that there was an australian couple in their twenties on the tour. I had even advised a girl I had met in Potosi that they were good (they're in the guidebook!) and of course I assumed an english-speaking guide, Wrong! That morning I met Eric and his wife (over fifty and from switzerland) and Ezio and his wife (45 and 37 from Italy) and our guide Octavio (who spoke not a word of English). Ah well! The other member of our team was Allison from Canada (the girl from the hostel in Potosi). We set off at about 11, first to the train graveyard, then to the plains proper via a rubbishy museum. The salt plains themselves are unbelievable. Just miles and miles of white salt, for as far as the eye can see. It's stunning, but does mean you have to wear sunglasses and a lot of suntan lotion! We just sat in awe of it all until lunch when we climbed this island covered in huge cactii, a strange oasis in a sea of salt. Ezio's wife is a geologist and so she told us what Octavio didn't (everything), that it used to be a huge lake then after an ice age it became a salt flat with lots of little volcanic islands still peppering parts of it. Anyway, after lunch we took some crazy photos, playing with the perspective (unfortunately it hadn't rained so we didn't look like we were floating like in Mr Charlie Boyle's fantabulous pictures), which I will upload when i'm at a decent internet cafe. That night we stopped in a basic little hostel and watched the tail-end of a great sunset.

The next morning we got up earlyish and headed out, the terrain was much more rocky but we saw plenty of flamingos in the lagunas, vicunae (1 kilo of vicunae hair is worth 500US$) llamas and a lot of rocks! The lagunas were pretty stunning and the flamingos added some great colour to pictures of the mountains reflected in the water. Then, just before lunch, we had our first puncture, but Octavio rescued it for us. By this point, I should mention, we had picked up his daughter - the cook (no english) and his grandson Daniel (needing some Ritalin, but good fun). Anyway we were back up and running within five minutes, and after a stunnings afternoon's driving we reached hostel (or hovel) number two, where our beds were concrete with matresses on, and my pillow was stuffed with sellotape. We took a walk to see the flamingos whilst dinner was prepared and Octavio tried to repair the spare. Again the view was spectacular.

After a nice supper we all headed to bed, six in one room. I was between the two guys, one snored and the other either had a brilliant or a horrible dream (three times and half an hour a piece), i couldn't tell. Anyway I didn't sleep too well, but not to worry, we were up at four thirty and in the freezing cold car by 5. We drove for almost two hours, past the geysers (it was dark anyway) to a thermal bath where five of us braved the cold and went for a swim whilst the sun rose. It was just stunning, once the cold had left us we could see the sun coming through the myst from the other side of the lake whilst a solitary flamingo pecked around in the ice, and behind us as the sandy hills took on colour the full moon set behind them. Amazing. We then had breakfast whilst I dried my trunks on the wing mirror (they froze), and then used the repaired tyre to replace another puncture. We drove past some amazing volcanoes and onto our final destination, or at least mine, Laguna Verde. Incidentally the thermal bath was at 4800metres above sea level, 10 metres below the peak of Mont Blanc! Laguna Verde turns green (We'd seen a red lake - due to algae - the night before) when it's windy. Today was not windy. Ah well. It was still stunning though, and from there we drove to the border and the Italians joined me in waiting for a bus to San Pedro. When it came we descended almost 2000metres in an hour and a bit on the nicest road i've been on in ages, and here I am. The town is pretty much just for tourists and it's tiny, but basically I don't have time to explore it so I'm heading out tonight for Copiapo and tomorrow morning i'll go from there to the expensive (apparently - guidebook) and amazing (apparently - Jon White) resort of Bahia Inglesa where I think Becca will meet me, but i'm not too sure seeing as I have lost track of where she is! Anyway, till then, let's hope this update works!