So, I arrived in Potosi, the highest city in the world, in the afternoon and the altitude was fairly evident. Walking anywhere renders you out of breath very easily! I felt very unfit. Had a bit of a headache from it too but all is well now. Arrived at the Koala Den and checked into a dorm which appeared to be a boy's dorm, hee hee! Went out for a stroll and to find some food which was a little confusing since none of the streets had names on them! Interesting in the dark! Managed to find my way back to the hostel where I met Kiwi Matt and German Roland. Went up the stairs to the roof - blimey that was hard work! - to look at the twinkling lights of the city surrounded by menacing looking mountains.

Early to bed but unfortunately didn't sleep too well, I guess I can blame that on the altitude too - 4070m is pretty high! Was a little nervous about doing the mines tour with claustrophobia etc but had to do it really since I was there! So I went along with Roland and it turned out that there was just the two of us plus our non english speaking, ex-miner guide, Wilson. Luckily Roland speaks fluent spanish so he did lots of translating for me. Once decked in our attractive gear, we headed over to the miners market to buy some fruit and coca leaves for the miners and some dynamite so we could blow some sh*t up!! Once Wilson had lit the fuse, he thought he'd drape it over me etc before running off to put it somewhere to blow. It was a surprisingly loud bang considering we'd only used a third of the stick of dynamite!

Before going in, we had a good intake of coca leaves. You're supposed to chew and then hold it in the side of your mouth. Tasted like a leaf really but apparently it gives you energy. All the miners had great wads in their cheeks. Then headtorches on and into the mines. They weren't as small as I had expected but very dusty. We met lots of miners on the way round so lots of holas and ciaos! There was some scrambling up and down things and a bit of crawling but totally disorientating! Horrendous place for them to work and some of the miners are so young. They're pretty much sentenced to death in 10 years as soon as they set foot in the mines from gas poisoning. But they can earn quite a bit of money from it. We went and saw the statue of the devil Teo who rules over the mines. The miners bring him offerings and throw 96% alcohol on him and then drink some themselves - it didn't taste too great! His large willy represents fertility in the mines.

Wilson then took us to a miners bar where we drank rather a lot of beer and I managed to follow the conversation most of the time - thank god for french! - and Roland translated the other bits. We then went to a bolivian restaurant for lunch and as you can see from the photo, it was huge! With Llama steak, sausages, fried banana, potatotes, fried eggs and onions. It tasted amazing!! More beer with this and then a low in alcohol local drink called Chicha which was delicious.

After a shower back at the hostel to wash away all the dust, I had a wander in town, then to the bus station to catch the night bus to La Paz. Arrived here at 6am so a bit tired., but just bumped into those darned irish again, off to Cococabana. Luckily the bus had heating though so i slept ok. I'm starving now so think I might go and find some brekkie....... x