Bolivia

Bit of a gap between the last update...the technology in Bolivia is about twenty years behind so it was pretty difficult to upload anything without waiting hours...

Over the last four weeks we've left Argentina after horseriding around the Mendoza wine region in the west and Snowboarding just south of there in a Ski Resort called Las Leñas owned by a Malaysian family...very random!!

We flew to Chile and spent a few days in Iquique which wasn't that flash but then ventured to the Atacama dessert to the town of  San Pedro which was great fun.

Bit of a tourist town but the food was great and we tried our hand at Sandboarding (which we were terrible at, Craig blames the boards!!!) and went on a cool bikeride out to some ruins.

From San Pedro we booked a three day 4wd trip acrosss the Bolivian border. It was truly amazing but the coldest i have ever felt in my life!!!

It's hard to describe what we saw so i'll just get the photo's uploaded..basically beautiful lagoons, lakes etc etc  Luckily we had two English girls who were fluent in Spanish in our car as our driver couldn´t speak a word of English..nice bloke though.

We were also lucky that our car didn't break down, we heard numerous stories from other groups we crossed of flat tyres and gear sticks breaking off...believe me this is a place you don't want to break down at !!!

We arrived after three days in Uyuni which was the dirtiest place i have ever seen. Rubbish everywhere!! So just one night there and then we got a scary bus ride to the mining town of Potosi (apparently the highest City in the world at 4080m..interesting little statistic i'm sure you want to know!!). That bus ride was a real eye opener...we stopped off at a little village and there were Llama, pigs and dogs all wondering along the road, the toilets were another thing....i'll leave that to your imagination.

We arrived in Potosi and were plesantly suprised afte hearing bad reports, it was a cool colonial town with pretty churches, Plaza's and some good restaurants. There were markets which were good to have a look round and Craig even ate some of the local food..we 'think' it was pork but it was being cooked in a wheel barrow on the side of the road. It didn't really seem that appealing to me so i passed on that snack!

Next day we went on a mine tour which was a real eye opener, no longer will i feel sorry for myself if i feel i'm working a long day. These dudes work six days a week without seeing sunlight, its dusty they have no breathing equipment (i actually lost my voice after just 2 hours in there due to the dust) and no saftey procedures to follow. They mine without knowing what they will get paid, the private companies  decide what quality and the price once it is delivered to them...no regulation so basically these guys risk there lives for little money.

We then headed to Sucre which was a cool town a few hours away...

Sorry for the long blog will fill you in with La Paz and the Death road soon.....