From Uyuni we continued our unintended altitude acclimatisation by heading to Potosi - at 4,090m, it's one of the world's highest cities. It also has a lot of history, having basically supported the Spanish empire for 3 centuries with its silver production. The mine is still operating to an extent and you can do tours there but it sounded pretty gruelling (poisonous gases, extreme temperatures, claustrophobic tunnels, filthy conditions, risk of death...) so we decided against it. Instead we opted for the safer, more convenient tour around the Casa de Moneda, the old mint where the mined silver used to be made into coins, which was also very interesting.

Potosi was also our first taste of a real Bolivian town (Uyuni being more of a stepping stone to the salt flats). We discovered that pretty much everyone who owns a car offers a taxi service - at first we were a bit nervous about getting in a car that was clearly not a taxi despite the Batman-shaped "taxi" sticker in the window but, after a 15 minute wait during which about 100 Bat-cars and precisely 0 actual taxis passed us, we finally succumbed.

We were also introduced to Bolivian food which is way above expectations and much more varied than in Chile/Argentina where the closest you get to spice is salt. We've been hitting the street food pretty hard, taking advantage when we don't have overnight buses planned (see below re facilities). Our current favourite is choripan, literally chorizo + pan (bread) with a bit of salad and spicy sauce thrown in for good measure. Can't get enough - at one place we even made it to caserita/o status which is apparently a kind of seller/customer loyalty relationship where you don't stray to other choripan ladies and she makes sure you get the good stuff. Of course we sampled llama steak too (it's good) but steered clear of another delicacy, anticuchos (grilled cow heart).

In contrast to the food, Bolivian buses can't really compete with their Chilean/Argentinian counterparts. For a start they don't have toilets, or if they do they're inevitably out of order or just locked. We've had eardrum-shatteringly loud music (4 songs on repeat for 3 hours), screaming kids, massively overconfident drivers (sometimes it's a blessing that it's dark and you can't see what's going on), and crazy traffic (in La Paz it took us 2 hours to get from the edge of town to the bus terminal)... Then again, it's so cheap - we paid £1.70 each for the 3 hour journey to Potosi. You can't complain at those prices, especially since taking a bus here is an experience in itself with mountains, valleys, rivers, and often a thunderstorm in the distance adding a bit of dramatic effect. The salt flats tours get a lot of hype (and rightly so) but it's not nearly the end of what Bolivia has to offer - Gerard and I both agree that this is the most stunning place we've visited on the trip so far.

So, back to our route. From Potosi we went on to Sucre. It's a nice town with colonial buildings, cobbled streets and a decent market. For me the highlight was the chocolate though - the best we've had in South America by far! Why Bariloche gets so much attention, I don't know. This did create a temporary blip in my theory that it was fine to eat as much ice cream as I wanted in Argentina because we'd be going hungry when we got further north - but it was worth it. Hilariously, Sucre is also full of Dutch restaurants so we sampled Bolivia's version of bitterballen a couple of times (in my view pretty much on par with the real thing but then I don't rate the real thing too highly...sorry Dutchies!)

While en route to Sucre, we'd read about some dinosaur footprints just out of town so naturally we were super excited and first thing the next day we picked up David and Tia and headed over there. Unfortunately the footprints were a bit of a disappointment - they were discovered on a vertical rock face by a cement company that was quarrying the area and, while the rock face is now somewhat protected, the quarry is still operational so the closest you get to the footprints is about 500m. Also, they're really small! I was expecting human-sized footprints but they're actually not much bigger than human feet. Disillusioned. Anyway, it was quite amusing and we did get treated to an episode of an old BBC dinosaur series which was probably the highlight of the visit. Day 2 we put our lungs to the test walking up the hill to the town's main mirador (viewpoint). Unfortunately when we got there the amazing view was mostly obscured by cloud (did I mention it's rainy season in Bolivia?) but at least we got a decent lunch in the cafe there. Those clouds proceeded to pour on us for the rest of the afternoon and, seeking refuge, we happened across the most amazing cinema ever - it was just a dark room with a sofa, a massive 3D TV and a book of DVDs to choose from. No start times, no other customers - brilliant! You've got to love the entrepreneurship here, everything is a potential business. We even saw men with typewriters and sewing machines set up on little tables in the street offering their services.

Our next stop was supposed to be Cochabamba to organise a tour to the Toratora national park but after a lot of investigation into transport options, we decided it was too much effort and expense - especially since there was a risk that we wouldn't actually be able to get to the park because of the rain (it has a habit of washing roads away). So instead we went straight to La Paz...