Thurs 31st Oct - Thurs 7th Nov (Week 5 - 6)

Thurs 31st & Fri 1st - We were a bit extravagant and decided to fly from La Paz to Sucre, instead of the long 14-16hr bus ride !
Sucre is a beautiful city, full of white colonial buildings, tree lined plazas, and warm weather. However, we did struggle with the language barrier more than ever with even the man in the Tourist Information not speaking a word of English !!
We spent a nice day wandering around the city, and on the second day we took a local micro bus to Parque Cretacico - "the world's largest paleontological site". It was accidently discovered in 1984, and has over 5000 dinosaur tracks by 8 different species. It was really interesting, and they also have the world largest sculpture of a titanosaurus which was amazing to be able to see how huge it really was.

Sat 2nd - We caught a bus to Potosi. We were a little worried we weren't going to be able to travel today as its a national holiday as they celebrate "Day of the Dead". But it was all fine, we caught the bus at 10am, and arrived into Potosi just after 1pm. But even though the buses were running, the taxis were not, so we had to bundle into a local micro bus - completely full of locals, with our huge packs, and take the 25min ride into town, and then walk 10mins to our hostel. Great hostel though - Hostal Eucalyptus - with a lovely rooftop terrace with amazing views over the city and to the mines.

Sun 3rd - We spent a couple of hours at the Casa Nacional de la Moneda which is the largest colonial building in Potosi, building in 1750's, and was used to mint the silver coins up until 1950's.
Really interesting seeing how the whole process worked, from extracting the silver, pressing it into flat bars, pressing out the blanks, and then minting them.
In the afternoon we went to the silver mines with Koala Tours and got kitted out in jacket, trousers, wellies, helmet and head torch. First we went to the Miners Market - where they can buy all their tools, drinks, a large bottle of 96% alcohol for $1.50, and dynamite ! We got to touch the silver plasticine -like dynamite, and see the fuse to light it which gives you 4 mins before it explodes. We bought some as a present for the miners - dynamite and fuse for £2 !! Then onto the processing factory where we saw all the rocks from the mountain being crushed, mixed with chemicals, and sifted with water to produce the silver at the end. Very antiquated process and looked like it was the same equipment from 50+ years ago.
Then onto the mines themselves. They made us sign a disclaimer as they are working mines, still get cave-ins, and can still have poisonous gases in the various tunnels. We explored 3 levels for 2 hours, and the lower we went, the hotter, dustier and less oxygen there was. And with Potosi being at 4000m anyway, going into hot, dusty tunnels with fowl smelling gases and little oxygen, it was pretty hard to breathe at some points. The tunnels were incredible - not nice wide, high tunnels, but tiny little crawl holes in some places - crawling along on our hands and knees, and up shafts etc. We were a little disappointed to start with that we went on a Sunday and therefore there were no miners working, but actually it would have been pretty intense had there been hammering, pneumatic drills, and carts running along the tunnels, and even more heat and dust being produced. It was really interesting to see but Brandon said it was probably the most dangerous and nuttiest thing we've done so far !

Mon 4th - We caught a 4hr bus to Uyuni - a small town in the middle of nowhere, on the edge of the Salt Flats. Very American-Western feel to it - grid like roads, dusty and a bit run-down. Strange little place that just seems to be there as the start/end point of the salt flat tours.

Tues 5th - We checked in with Red Planet, and set off on our 3 day tour at 11am with our group of 11 people. Firstly we visited a Train Cemetery - where all the old steam trains that had been imported from the UK were abandoned 30 years ago. I was quite surprised how many there were and we spent a good hour exploring them all.
Then onto a little village to see how they take the salt from the salt flats and process it ready for sale. Then onto the highlight of the day - the amazing never-ending white salt flats with gorgeous blue skies, and dazzling white ground. We spent about an hour messing around taking perspective shots of us running away from plastic dinosaurs, and using other props like beer and wine bottles ! Final stop of the day was an island with thousands of cacti all over it. Wandered around, enjoying the amazing landscape, and admiring the gigantic cacti - some of which were approx 10m tall and nearly 1000 years old ! We stayed in a hotel made of salt - salt bricks, and salt all over the floor ! Novel experience, and luckily wasn't as cold as were had heard it can be !

Wed 6th - Was an early start of 5:45 as we had a full day of driving to get through with quick stops for photos along the way. We stopped at some rail tracks from Uyuni which just disappeared into the horizon in both directions. Then onto some strange rock formations which we explored for a little while with a beautiful backdrop of a smoking volcano ! Next stop was at "Stink Lagoon" - because of all the sulphur, and again amazing backdrop of mountains and volcanoes, with lots of pretty pink flamingos in the lake. Then onto the Red Lagoon which was enormous, and really spectacular with dark red water, and white salt areas, and volcanoes behind. The temperature really dropped here though as we were heading up to 5000m and had to put on 5 layers but were still cold with the strong winds. Final stop at 5pm was at some geysers which were billowing smoke, and all the mud pools were bubbling and spitting away. Tonight we stayed in a more basic hut with dorm rooms, no showers, or running water (even in the sinks and toilets !), and no lights after 10pm. But the best part was the hot springs which we all went into at 9pm to sit in the hot waters and admire the endless stars which are crystal clear here with no light pollution, and being 4400m high !

Thurs 7th - We set off at 8am to visit a strange sandy landscape with rocks dotted around which apparently resembles a Salvador Dali painting. Then onto the Green lagoon which had a picture-perfect reflection of the volcano just behind it. Then the group split up - with 6 of us heading into Chile, and the other 5 heading on the long 8 hours back to Uyuni. The border was very straight-forward as we'd already got our exit stamp in Uyuni before leaving, and then we just had to get the entry stamp once we reached San Pedro de Atacama.
San Pedro is a strange little Oasis of a town - volcanoes and mountains in the background, and endless desert all around - one of most arid and driest places on earth. Most buildings are mud-brick construction, which scared us a bit when we booked into our hostel, but they are fine inside !

After doing some research on the various tours and things to do here, we have now realised we covered most things on our 3-day tour from Uyuni, so there is not much we want to do here. Plus it is painfully expensive compared to Peru and Bolivia, so we are cutting our stay down by 2 days and catching a bus to Salta on Sunday instead.