NB: This was written about a week ago- but internet in Bolivia is almost as bad as in NZ so takes forever to do anything!

Here we are in Potosi, the highest city in the world. It sits at about 4300m above sea level and we thought we’d really feel the altitude but I think, because we’ve been at high altitude for over a month now, our bodies have adapted. That’s not to say we’re not struggling sometimes, but it’s nowhere near as bad as it was when we got to Cusco or climbed the volcano in Chile.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. We’ve been in Sucre for about a week, relaxing and not doing a lot. That’s not to say we didn’t do anything- we went to see the world’s largest collection of dinosaur footprints, which was amazing. We also visited Tarabuco, famous for its textile market (stay tuned for photos of my new alpaca wool jumper. It’s so stylish.) We ate some fantastic meals here too- amazing steaks and super strength red wine, yum yum. However, by the last day in Sucre, we were definitely ready to move on and headed 3 hours up through the mountains to Potosi.

Jaunty safety helmet required to view dangerous dino footprints.

Tarabuco textiles

Potosi is famous for its silver mining- hundreds of years ago, over 80% of all of the silver in the world came from here and men still mine it today in Cerro Ricco. It’s really dangerous and reportedly has horrendous working conditions, but over 20,000 still go everyday to mine. There are tours you can do but with my claustrophobic tendencies, we decided it would be a waste of money for us. Instead, we went to Casa de Moneda (the money house) to learn about Potosi’s rich history of coin production. Interesting fact: Due to the volume of silver from Cerro Ricco, money from Potosi was exported to Spain and then around the world. That’s right, I paid attention.

Cerro Ricco

We were able to snag a visit to the cathedral when it was empty so we got to explore on our own- it was really cool to go up to the bell tower and see out across Potosi- it’s another UNESCO heritage site and as such, the buildings, for the most part, have been preserved so it’s beautiful to look out over.

We’ve managed to score ourselves anther great Airbnb apartment so we could cook- this was great until we realised Potosi doesn’t have the best supermarkets and we kind of had to scramble meals together (resulting in a very grumpy Sam last night.) It’s really polluted here- like a smaller version of La Paz and so to counteract it, we headed away from town, into the mountains to find some Lagunas. It was so beautiful up there and apart from the hundreds of alpacas roaming around, was deserted. It felt so good to be hiking again although we’re both suffering now.

Tomorrow we’re on the move again, 7 hours down the road to Tupiza for (hopefully) just an overnight stay so we can book our Salar de Uyuni trip from there. Then it’s 4 days over salt flats to the steam train graveyard (guess who’s excited about this) followed by an overnight bus to La Paz (unavoidable) and then flying on down to the Amazon for 4 days of adventure in Anaconda Central, yippee! (My mum is not happy about this at all. Helpfully, Dad keeps referencing anaconda films and all the things that could happen during Skype calls. Mum is not taking this well.)  We only have a 30 day visa for Bolivia so we need to be out and back into Peru by the 12th April- extending our visa seems to involve a lot of faffing at the embassy so we want to avoid that if we can.

Although it will be met with howls of derision from those of you with real jobs, Laura and I are pretty exhausted from all this travelling.  We’re 9 months in now (and over half way in our South America trip) and the slog of night buses and changing beds is taking its toll.  So, to try and mitigate it we’ve had a rather relaxing week!

As Laura mentioned we weren’t fans of La Paz, but it did pick up a bit with the cable cars. It’s the only city in the world with cable cars as the primary form of transport (I’m full of fascinating knowledge) and they’ve got to be one of the most beautiful commutes to work anywhere.  Plus, each part of the journey only costs 3 Bolivianos (which is about 30p). We spent about 2 quid total riding the whole line for well over an hour!

Laura is happy we found something in La Paz that was fun

A small section of La Paz

We also found some nice sections of La Paz, the old Colonial bits which were much nicer to walk around and explore.  The apartment we were in was incredible though, and was well stocked with DVDs and we took advantage of having a living room to relax a bit and do some cooking.

Following this we jumped in a cab for about 40 minutes to go and stay in a Teepee! I’m still not sure how Laura found this place but it was very nice.  Quiet and peaceful and with plenty of hammocks around, and a kitchen so that we could cook for ourselves which is always welcome.  We’ve been exceptionally lucky with the weather (seasonally it should be chucking it down, but the El Nino phenomenon means the weather has gone topsy turvy in our favour) which meant we could catch some rays and do some reading.  We also managed a walk to “The Devils Tooth”- great for me as a taxi takes you to the top and then it’s a downhill walk, but Laura wasn’t as keen. The path was quite overgrown, we got lost in places, and there were some parts where the path had split leaving a cavernous gap to be overcome.  We got back safe and sound (if not a little grumpy) though.

The Devil’s tooth

Our teepee, which surprisingly fit a large double bed with space for our bags. Just.

Our next destination was Sucre, which involved another night bus.  We’d splashed out for the Cama seats (“180 recline” my arse) which were relatively nice, however we’d accidentally chosen the seats right next to the stairs which meant I spent the night worrying about people going through our stuff.  We had extra fun as the driver was whipping around corners at incredible speed which at one point sent Laura’s yoga mat torpedoing at the assistant conductors head downstairs. Oblivious Laura slept quite well. I did not.

Fortunately, we had a big treat waiting for us at Sucre.  Our guide book had said that this was the place to splash out as you could do so cheaply and boy, they were right. We went to stay at the number one hotel on Trip Advisor, a luxury place about 40 minutes out of town. It only has 2 rooms and there was no one else staying and we had the place to ourselves! It was built and run by a US/UK couple, Ed and June, who couldn’t have done more to help us out.  June acted as our personal chef and went all out- we got Shepherds Pie on the first night which I was really chuffed by as it’s always the first dish I request when we head back to the UK.  We had a giant room with robes (something me and Laura always love in a posh place,) a huge shower room, a proper bath, and panoramic views of the mountains.  We also had a huge swimming pool and hot tub, along with hammocks to lounge around in.  Best of all they had 2 dogs and a cat who were all really needy which we enjoyed having been so long without pets!

The pet whisperer

We sunk a few of these

3 days really wasn’t enough but Laura couldn’t be persuaded to stay longer (neither could our budget.)  However all is not lost; we’ve come to the best hotel in town now, which is still cheaper than most of our accommodation in Chile was.  It’s a beautiful old Colonial building and we have views across the whole of the town.  We’re about to go down for breakfast so fingers crossed.

Beautiful architecture

The town itself is a Unesco world heritage site and law specifies all the buildings be whitewashed annually (although the flaking paint and graffiti tell another story.)  It is a compact grid system and very pretty, and as usual with these places it’s packed full of nice churches. We’re here during Easter weekend which is a very big deal over here apparently, so hopefully we’ll see some fiestas whilst we’re around. So far though we’ve discovered that most stuff has been closed, and that was just on a Thursday. Today is the bank holiday so I can imagine there’s going to be even less open.  Hopefully that means more relaxing for me although Laura is keen to get running around again.

The plan today is to go and see dinosaur footprints; Sucre has one of the biggest collections of them in the entire world just out of town.  Should be exciting!

View from Cerro Calvario- a punishing walk up at an already high altitude of 3800m.

After a couple of weeks in Peru, we’ve (temporarily) left to zoom on over in Bolivia. First stop was Copacabana- no, not the Copacabana from Barry Manilow fame, but rather a small backpacker hangout 9km over the border. This felt more like SE Asia than anywhere we’ve been so far (apart from actual SE Asia.) Lots of 21 year olds (“oh my god, I was literally so wasted last night. I just have so much love to give when I drink.” Get a grip. Wake up. Stop irritating the rest of us. Noone cares.) There were loads of terrace cafes, average Mexican food, exceptional pizza and good vibes, as well as beautiful coast lines such as this:

Copacabana sits on the other side of Lake Titicaca, which is where we were when we went to the floating islands last week. This lake is so big that it’s shared between Peru and Bolivia. The water was gorgeously clean although very very cold.

The main reason we stopped in Copacabana was to visit Isla del Sol- described by many people we’ve met as a ‘must do.’ Like the Inca trail, it did not disappoint.

We took an incredibly badly organised but cheap boat out to the island, which sits 2.5 hours out into Lake Titicaca. From here, we hiked around 5 hours from north to south via another Inca trail and were treated to views like this pretty much everywhere we looked:

I know, I know, I look so stylish.

In hindsight, we should have stayed over on the island as there were some lovely looking hostals but due to our poor planning, we were unable to cancel our hostal booking back in Copacabanaa (a very very nice little place that was only $25 a night inc breakfast. My, how we’ve changed!) We’ve got to pass back through Copacabana when we go back to Peru so we might come back to the island again and stay.

After a couple of lovely days, it was time to catch the bus to La Paz, the de facto capital of Bolivia. After about an hour on the bus, we were told to get off so that we could cross the lake in a speedboat whilst our bus went on this:

Hhhm, safe.

It wasn’t until we were on the speedboat that I realised all of our luggage was on the bus. I could see this also dawning on other people.

Nothing could have prepared us for La Paz. It’s been about 8 weeks since we were in a busy city and we’d somehow forgotten what they were like. La Paz is BUSY. To me, it’s on a par with Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam although Sam doesn’t think it’s as bad. Luckily, we’re staying in a really nice leafy part, called Sopocachi- a mostly residential area with nice cafes and AN ACTUAL SUPERMARKET (at this point in the trip, we actually miss ParknShop in HK.) We found an amazing Airbnb, which Sam is in love with. It’s a 3 bedroom apartment with so much light, a welcome basket, A WASHING MACHINE (unheard of) and a gorgeous terrace. All this for only $35 a night. Bargain!

Right now, that’s one of my only positive impressions of La Paz. We walked for hours and hours yesterday exploring the city, only to find it was dirty, polluted and crazy busy. Some friends had recommended a walking tour so we joined that in the afternoon and, in fairness, there are some interesting parts such as the witches market (dried Llama foetus anyone?) but overall we just weren’t impressed and actually left the tour early. We didn’t even take any photos- this NEVER happens. Even in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, we took a few (read our post to find out the striking impression it left on us.)

Today we’re going to take a cable car and explore the area we’re staying in- there’s no way I’m going back into the craziness of the centre. Tomorrow it’s (thankfully) out of La Paz into the mountains to stay in a teepee for a couple of days before we head down to Sucre for RELAX time!

Some great news- USA is booked! 6 weeks of adventure to finish our trip in style- NY (with the Dixons in tow to hopefully treat us to some nice meals- hint hint Mum and Dad,) Washington DC to catch up with some lovely people we’ve met over the past few years of travels, New Orleans, Santa Monica and San Fran! Yippee!