Kerry from Derry

Back on the bus then after waiting nearly an hour for the taxi and making it by the skin of our teeth we were on our way to Potosi - and what a journey it was......as many people as possible crammed in and with the oblligatory chicken stuck in behind my legs to make room for yet more people! At least it kept my legs warm I suppose....

After approx 6 hours we arrived in the town of Uyuni - the northern starting point for those doing tours of the Salt Flats and surrounding areas. The town itself wasn't that exciting and the service in the restaurant was possibly the worst I have ever come across but apart from that it was all good - oh yeah and the hotel had no water which made for an interesting toilet situation! Anyway I digress - on to the Salar de Uyuni. After sussing out a couple of agencies we settled on a 2 night 3 day adventure which cost the princely sum of $65 per person - bargain! Inclusive of all meals and accomodation and of course our 4 wheel drive and our guide - glad that I spoke and understood enough spanish by then to understand most of what was said!

About a 20 minute drive from the town we came to the start of the Salt Flats (12,000 square kms in total) and that was all you could see for miles - an ocean of salt. We were also lucky to be there when they were covered in water which gave the most impressive mirror like quality you could ever imagine - absolutely stunning. Made for many an impressive photo I can tell you - as well as some rather entertaining ones too. Amazing what you can do with a bit of imagination and a camera - I promise one day to actually get some posted.....

In the middle of this ocean of salt you come across Pescada Island which is covered in cacti and soaring rocks - a good place to stop off and contemplate all that beauty that surrounds it.

Towards the end of the first day you come off the salt and hit the 'road' again and make your way through mountainous terrain and bone crushing passes before finally reaching the accommodation for the night. Tomorrow would bring the Colrado Desert and on through to the Laguna Colorado and Lago Verde and an amazing amount of flamingos.

As promised there were flamingos and a pretty impressive sight it was. We stopped at a couple of lakes and then that was that - there are only so many flamingos you can look at! As well as the birdies of course are the lakes. For me they were probably even better - the various mineral deposits had left steaming red and green masses of water which only the hardy aforementioned bird can survive in (they eat the algae). We also stopped of at the tree in the desert - a wierd rock formation that strangely enough resembles a tree! Then again we headed off to lay our heads down for the evening. Tonight we were to be entertained by no less than 4 groups of youngsters who went from hostel to hostels 'entertaining' us backpackers - whilst very sweet (although obviously they expected us to give them money for their trouble) I can't say it was of the highest standard.......the elbowing and occasional sniggers when someone got something wrong made that all the more apparent! Dinner was once again cooked up by our guide and left us with full bellies and not a sign of a stomach upset in sight. Tonight was to be an early start as we were hitting the road the next morning at 5.30 - what's that all about??? Well the reason being of course that we get up to watch the sun rise over the thermal grounds of Sol de Manana - full of geysers and bubbling mud pools and not a fence in sight! Health and Safety would have a field day! But very beautiful it was and an excellent spot to watch the sun come up - after this it was a quick half hour trip down the road to the thermal baths for a quick dip before breakfast. All in all very beautiful.

That then was that - after dropping one of our german companions off on the border we began the long arduos trek back to Uyuni and with a sore bum but may happy memories we arrived back to our hotel some 8 or so hours later. Not bad for $65 all in.

Leaving behind the colonial granduer of Sucre then and moving on to Potosi which was a mere 2 hour taxi ride away and at 30Bs each not a bad bargain either.....although leaving behind my travel towel on the back window meant it cost significantly more!

So the 5 of us who had been hanging out together in Sucre made it on to Potosi - me, Hayley, Caroline, Gemma and Veronico with the intentions of doing the trip into the mines and that's just what 4 of us did, with Veronico who had been before assuring us that it really wasn't that bad.......yeah right! If suffocating dust and holes in the floor dropping 2 or 3 levels without any kind of safety at all is your idea of easy then so be it!

A little bit more about the city and the mines then.....Potosí is the capital of the department of Potosí in Bolivia. It is at an altitude of 3967 meters and is claimed to be the highest city in the world. It lies beneath the Cerro Rico ("Rich mountain"), a mountain of silver ore and was one of the places plundered most by the spanish, so much so that it is said that the wealth generated here was what drove the industrial revolution in Europe. Its rumoured that a million souls have perished there over the last 300 years - beginning with the natives and then added to by African slaves brought over to work the mines. Why then would you want to go in and see for yourself then? For me a large part of it was actually seeing in person what these men and boys do every day of their lives to support their families, and what is it that decreases their average life expectancy to only 40 years old?

Starting the day early we went to be kitted out with protective trousers and a jacket (to keep most of the dust out...), a hard hat and a torch powered by a battery belt. That was that then! Then off to the miners markets to buy some supplies to take as gifts to the miners - this was an actual working mine that we were going down and the gifts were a way of saying thanks for letting us interrupt your work as we make our way past you. The gifts consisted of soft drinks, chocolate, coca leaves, hydroglycerin and dynamite - yes you read that correctly....dynamite. Enough to start a small war.

After that shopping trip time to make it into the mines, our group consisted of 8 people, 1 guide and 1 helper who's purpose was to take anyone out should they be overcome by dust, claustrophobia or sheer panic and fear. Going in the first hundred yards what strikes you is the dust and that's at ground level where the air is cleanest, then its the darkness. The further in you go the lower the ceiling becomes and the tighter the shafts so you spend your time either permantly hunched over or crawling on your hands and knees. Running through the middle are the tracks on which the carts are pushed manually by 1 or 2 miners to take the 'completo' out - that is the raw material blown or picked from the walls and loaded onto the carts after being hauled up through openings in the floor from up to 4 levels below. At the first level and half an hour in we had our first person give up and be led out - a strapping man from Sweden who just couldn't take any more. After that we descended through holes in the ground to the 2nd, 3rd and then the 4th levels all the while hacking away and stopping to rest every 5 minutes or so as it was so difficult to breathe through the choking dust, it felt like alking through treacle. Added to this was the attempts at avoiding the cables running along the walls as they were carrying live electricity and then you're having fun!

Mining is hereditary amongst the men of families. Father take their sons into the mines when they are as young as eight years old to be errand runners. Miners have a very short life expectancy with silicosis being the usual cause of death but having a lot of help from accidents, and the hard living that accompanies the lifestyle outside the mines.

How these men and boys, some as young as 12 years old can do this every day is unbelievable and somewhat heartbreaking - everywhere you look are the blank stares of the miners as they chew their coca leaves (believed to make a person immune to thirst, hunger and physical pain) and occasionally groups sitting down resting sharing the local brew of 98% alcohol - anything that takes the edge of the harshness.

The guides were excellent and most informative of what was happening, the history of the area, mining, and descibing the every day life of a miner and his family, being ex-miners themselves they were clearly knowledgable. Our guide at the age of 25 had already spent 11 years working down the mines with a further year as a guide. Whilst Bolivia lacks the infrastructure and clear directives from government this will continue as long as there are mines to mine and the country's wealth will continue to be eroded. Sad but true. I definitely recommend this as a way to see how the people here truly live - a very effective eye opener for all.

Now onto the fun part! That evening we were accompanied out on the town by Pedro, one of the guides who wanted an opportunity to improve his english in a social situation......so off we trotted to the Devils Bar, frequented by the miners and friends although on this particular night we were pretty much the only ones there. The drink of choice was a fairly potent Bolivian concoction served hot - no idea what the name is but not bad all the same! That of course led to calls to find another karaoke bar and continue our tour of the top singing spots in Bolivia - that brought us to the american bar....oh dear....but away we went and karaokied the night away with Pedro whispering in my ear that he really liked me and he wanted me to stay with him! So whilst Lady in Red was being crooned by the other 3 laughing their heads off at my utter dismay I had to let him down gently and let him know that there was no future for us together (bearing in mind that we had met only 4 hrs before and that I didn't have the intention of staying in Potosi!). Shortly after it was time to head for the hills and say goodnight - have to say it was a pretty amusing trip home with me being the cause of most of the piss taking! Bitches! Time to hit the road again the next morning - next destination was to be Uyuni and the Salt Flats.

Leaving behind the craziness of La Paz I jumped on a bus with Hayley who I had met in Copacabana for a 12 hour night journey to Sucre and was pleasantly surprised at how bad the roads weren't! Sure there were a few bumps here and there but I managed to sleep through most of them with a shockingly flat reclining seat - not bad eh? (This was to be the last of such luxury......)

Arrived in Sucre at 7 in the morning after waking around 5 and being treated to a beautiful sunrise and a very thorough drugs check by the local gendarme. Found somewhere to stay, dumped the bags and went in search of some breakfast - very nice it was too! Had a wander around town to get our bearings, found an optician's and ordered some ridiculously cheap prescription sunglasses, sat sunworshipping in the main plaza and bumped into a lady I had met 3 months previously in Rosario.....small world eh? Busy morning! That afternoon back to the hostel to clean up and have a little siesta...when in Rome as they say. That evening it was out to dinner with people we met whilst enjoying the local brew out on the patio - Caroline and Niamh, Sean and norweigian guy who's name I can never remember but has the thickest Manc accent I've ever heard and Veronico from Argentina. These turned out to be the dining and general frivolity companions for the next few nights as we all kicked back and relaxed.

In terms of things to do - there is a place just outside of the city which has visible dinosaur footprints which were uncovered by the local concrete factory approx 10 years ago and are known to be millions of years old - whilst now you can only view them from a platform as they are attempting to protect them until such time as they get silicon or something similar, until a couple of years ago they actually let people go right up to them and touch, etc. Fair enough that its limited but I was a little disappointed at how far away it was. There is also hiking and horseriding as far as the eye can see, but as a place to just hang out, take it easy, shoot the breeze with the locals and all that its great. The karaoke bars are also good - particularly when we had finished with them! I don't think the people will ever forget my magnificent attempt at singing Shakira in spanish - I however am attempting to forget it everyday!

Next stop Potosi and its famous mines.

I arrived in La Paz slap bang in the middle of carnival so you can imagine the chaos....although thankfully the parades were not due to start until the next day. For the time being the mission was to avoid being waterbombed and foam sprayed to death - can safely say the mission was not accomplished! Ah well what to do - as they say if you can't beat them join them, that was to be the case for the next 3 days and can honestly say if it had of lasted another day I may well have lost the will to live and thrown myself under a donkey or something equally dangerous. And if I ever have to listen to that song again.....I swear it sounded like the same song be played over and over on a loop for 3 solid days, braincrushingly nauseating!

Well they say that Bolivia is one of the most unstable countries in South America and that there is always the chance of getting caught up in a demonstration or a general strike or a good old fashioned riot - this is what I came for....living on the edge and all that. Well there was no strikes or riots but demonstrations a plenty. As soon as we checked into our hostel and were checking out the view from the window a few hundred people gathered outside on the street and proceeded to block all traffic and generally cause disruption whilst singing the odd battlecry - no idea what it was all about but interesting to watch democracy in process. One unfortunate driver tried to surreptiously back up and then drive around the protestors on the pavement but was quickly spotted and angrily berated for such a foolish attempt - he was going nowhere fast. The police then rocked up and tried to reason with the people but they weren't having any of it- in fact the police seemed to know several people in the crowd well with hugs and kisses all around, although one lady didn't seem too happy to see them and after arguing passionately with one of the gentlemen in uniform finished off by flashing her boobs at him then being pulled away by her friends - a rather amusing little skit I wouldn't have believed unless I had seen for myself!

On the subject of demonstrations 3 weeks prior to my arrival in La Paz there were reports of rioting and violence in La Paz between the police and the miners from a nearby district - whilst peace had resumed by the time I got there there was still a large prescence of miners and their families camping and protesting outside the main cathedral - with 5 men chained to crosses in front trying to highlight their plight and accompaned by banners whose translation said "5 months work and no pay to feed our children". Makes you think doesn't it?

La Paz itself is probably the closest to what I imagined a south american city to be - vibrant, chaotically busy and full of life. It is not what I had been led to believe, in other words, dirty, dangerous and unwelcoming. In fact alongside Buenos Aires its up there as one of my favourites. The nightlife is good, the shopping is great, the people generally are friendly, the streets are easy to explore, the food is....well average, but at least it didn't kill my stomach like Peru did and its easy to get there and away. There are museums and places of interest aplenty and several excellent lookouts for views over the city. Like most capital cities or at least it seemed that way to me, La Paz is situated in a huge valley with snow capped peaks all around hence some stunning views - at over 4000m above sea level it is also the highest capital city in the world so makes it easy to take it slowly as you're walking up and down the many streets - in otherwords its impossible to do anything else as the air is so much thinner, you can physically feel your heart beating in your throat if you try and go anywhere near normal pace. La Paz is also where people come to ride down the 'most dangerous road in the world' where basically you hop on a mountain bike and hurl yourself down a winding road from 4500m to sea level or thereabouts and try not to come a cropper of the cliff lined edge. Not for me though - most companies were not operating due to it being wet season and those that were were commonly known not to be safe operators so thought I would give it a miss. Maybe next time.... After 4 nights and feeling all carnivalled out my next destination was to be Sucre, the white city - the second capital of Bolivia and renowned for being beautiful. Adios La Paz!

Leaving behind Puno and onto Copacabana - my first stop in Bolivia. Not a bad stop at that either, after the easiest border crossing I have yet experienced and the usual hilarious bus journey (complete with livestock and ferry crossing) I arrived in Copacabana.

By this stage I had picked up an aussie guy, Mike, and an English guy, Mark and we all booked into a hotel and had ourselves a threesome - room that is, nothing else! You would not believe how cheap this place is, we paid 20 Bolivianos each for the room with an ensuite - that's about 1.25 in pounds! Eating dinner was more expensive.

After a quick wander around and a coffee stop we went about the business of the day which was to arrange a trip out to Isla Del Sol (island of the sun) the next day - that cost the same as the accommodation and I think we were ripped off...."I think I'm going to like it here" as the song goes. That done what else to do but meander around the town taking in the markets and the famous cathedral where outside you can buy all manner of miniature items including cars and houses - why? Well basically you pray to the Virgin and then the idea is that she delivers what you have prayed for in the coming year - easy eh???? If only I had known....

Isla del Sol then - perhaps one of the most tranquill relaxing chilled places I have ever been. No traffic at all, not many people, friendly locals, spectacular views and surrounded by history (and a surprising amount of donkeys.....). Anything else I say won't do it justice so I'm not saying any more! Just GO!

Next stop La Paz - highest city in the world.