Ok so we realise it has been a little while since we last posted. Sorry. This is due mainly to travelling through Bolivia where the WiFi was not great, not to mention the fact that we jumped through a number of cities in the space of a week-and-a-half.
With Mike´s ankle, Bolivia was always going to be somewhat limited to us. Unfortunately we had to miss out the infamous death road in La Paz and we also skipped a trip to the jungle as we didn´t think it was the best way for Mike´s leg to heal.
Instead we headed to the cities, La Paz, Sucre and Potosi. Here is an account of our whirlwind tour.
La Paz
To say La Paz was a bit of a challenge was putting it midly. Set on a hill it made navigating the city with crutches somewhat difficult. We did, however manage to get around a bit and spent lots of time at the witches market. The market, if you haven´t been is a mixture of artesan shops with locals trying to sell tourists the traditional alpaca and lama wares, alongside a few ´witchy stores´- basically made up of thousands of bottles of locally made potions, with a few dead baby lamas chucked in for good measure (apparently it is a good luck charm of sorts!)
As we couldn´t do too much else in La Paz we decided to head to the Cinema for our first ´watching a movie abroad´ experience. First off, it was so cheap. For the equivalent of five pounds between us we got to watch Skyfall followed by Twilight - bargain - topped off with a Mexican dinner and some frozen yogurt. A good evening all-in-all.
On our last day we headed up to the Mirador to take in some views of the city. It is only then when you realise quite how big La Paz is.
Sucre
After La Paz we headed to Sucre, the original capital of Bolivia and still the constitutional capital. Leaving from La Paz bus station was an experience. You definately need your wits about you and don´t be afraid to ask a few times where your bus is. If we hadn´t we wold have almost certainly have missed ours. Anyway we headed off on our first Bolivian night bus (travellers don´t ever use El Dorado if you are in Bolivia). Needless to say Bolivian buses are hit and miss in terms of comfort, cleanliness and safety.
Arriving weary in the city we were pleasantly surprised to find that it was a very pretty, colonial place. With white-washed buildings harking back to the days of the Spanish Empire (Sucre was an important city as it linked the empire to Potosi, a city six hours away rich in silver mines, and the heart of the Spanish empires wealth from the 16th century onwards.)
We were staying at a hostel right next door to the main plaza so had the luxury over the next few days to wander the streets, take in the musuems and churches and just enjoy the ambience (aka people watch). ´
One major attraction in the city is Parque Cretacico, basically a tourist attraction and South America´s answer to Jurassic Park. No in all serious it seems that 65 million years ago Sucre was an attraction for dinosaurs and in 1994 over 6000 tracks were discovered in a nearly vertical mudstone, belonging to over 150 species of dinosaur. We had a very fun day out with picnic in tact learning about the site. I think my nephew Josh would be very proud of me for this trip.
Potosi
After a fab few days in Sucre relaxing we headed onto Potosi to check out the silver mines. Potosi is higher than La Paz and one of the highest cities in the world so as we approached we were a bit apprehensive about altitude sickness. To date we haven´t really suffered from it but we had been told by lots of people that if it would happen it would be in Potosi.
Sure enough it did. Mike was worse than I and as he was on crutches anyway so on our first day there I left him in the hostel to recover while I went off to do a tour of the silver mines which are still very much in operation today.
After gearing up in all the equipment we headed first to the miners market to buy gifts for the minors. We had a choice of fizzy drinks, cigarettes, coca leaves, alcohol and dynamite. Given that I am nervous of enclosed spacious anyway I opted not to take explosives or lighters down the mines with me and purchased a bag of coca leaves and fizzy pop as my gift. Of course I was the only girl in a group of boys so stood no chance of dynamite not being purchased.
Once we had ours gifts we headed down the mines for a two hour tour. It was a fascinating yet shocking experience, meeting miners whilst at work, many of some were as young as 14. It made me think of the UK 150 years ago although our conditions were probably still better. This dangerous work is carried out by children as young as eight years old upto old men past the age of 50. It is one of the best paid jobs in Bolivia so there is no shortage of volunteers but as expected most of the wealth from the mines is exported and the money goes into the pockets of the importers who have the infrastructure to refine the silver.
Sure enough the day was finished off with a dynamite explosion, although to my relief it was controlled and more importantly outside of the mines!
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