Entering Bolivia, you'd be forgiven for thinking you were on a different planet. There really is a world of difference in the 100m that separate the lovely roads of Argentina with the gravel tracks of Bolivia. Having endured a 2 hour wait at the border thanks to Conor "The Fugitive" Hickey, we hopped on a bus to Tupiza. Not much of note here apart from being the spot where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid were killed. Found the handiest hostel of the trip so far, 100 yards from the bus station with a lovely 5 bed room just inside the door. We booked a trip to leave the following day out to the wild west of Bolivia and got tucked into some Pizza. For some unknown reason, about 90% of the restaurants here are Pizzarias. Not much to do, so we were up bright and early the following morning to get on a jeep out of the place.
The tour was good fun. 5 of us, along with our driver Fernando and chef Elle headed off for a very bumpy ride as part of a convoy of about 5 jeeps. Plenty of strange scenery and some very bizarre landscape. We headed up the Andes and got to what I imagine the moon to look like. Bit of a mixed bag of sights really. We were taken to plenty of lagoons to see a lot of flamingos. There's a lot of geotheremal activity here again, so we saw a lot of active volcanoes, geysers and hot springs (our only wash of the trip). We stayed in a hotel made of salt which was a first. We stopped at the famous "rock tree" for a few photos and then spent about an hour playing with our cameras on the Salt Flats (Salar de Uyuni). We met some guys who were cycling from Alaska to Argentina and also met Siobhan, a Glasgow lass who's been hanging around for the past 3 weeks now. Photos are probably the only way to really explain the trip so here ye go....
Arriving in Uyuni we quickly discovered there wasn't much to do (except for the "Extreme Fun Pub" which seemed to be a good place to kill a few hours) so we decided to get an overnight bus to Sucre (after another Pizza). Very bumpy ride, the windows were open the whole night which at 4,000m above sea level was quite cold. We landed in Sucre and fell into the first hostel we could find. We spent 2 nights here. Lovely little city. It's Bolivia's capital but most of the government is now based in La Paz. Typical spanish style spot with a square in the center and narrow streets. The government are pretty strict here about planning permission. All buildings have to be repainted once a year, and neon signs are not allowed. We had a look around La Casa de la Libertad (House of Freedom) which was about all there was to do here really.
Our next stop was Potizi, the worlds highest city. We did a quick visit here, landed at midday and left again at 9pm that day. At 4,200 meters above sea level, you really do feel the altitude. The walk from the bus station to the city was about 30 minutes uphill and was a big struggle. We ended up losing Eddie on the walk somehow, despite being about a foot taller than the locals. The whole town is based on tin and silver mining, and we were there to have a look down the mines. Having got suited up we bought some Coca Leaves which the miners seems addicted to, and some dynamite which the locals would use to blow up the mountain. We headed off to Cerro Rico (Rich Mountain) where we spent about 2 hours underground. It was a very weird experience. Fun to be down there, but the life and work is very tough. These guys spend about 10 hours a day underground, hammering a nail into the rocks, then putting dynamite into the hole and blowing it up. The repeat this process a few times a day. Each hole takes about 3-5 hours to hammer the nail.Very tough life. We headed outside then to play with the dynamite ourselves. After you light the dynamite it takes 80 seconds to blow, so we lit it, passed it around, then put it in a field and boom. We had a look around the process plant then and headed back to the bus station to find Ed and head off to La Paz.
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