Wine wine glorious wine

Ok so we arrived safe in Cafayate, wine country, known for its Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon and white blend Torrontes.

On our first night we met up with two girls, Kate from the UK and Kat from Germany for dinner (they had been on our bus and we got chatting) and then proceeded to spend most of the next few days with them (and a whole host of waifs and stray animals) checking out the numerous bodegas and wineries in the area.

Salta

Ok so I´ll admit it has been a long time since our last post. Shall I blame it on our ipad adaptor breaking and not being able to upload photos - partly; is it down to not staying in hostels over the last two weeks and therefore not having access to a computer - probably; or is it maybe because we have been lazy and enjoying ourselves a bit too much - definately.

So where to start on updating you all. First off happy new year - we hope you all had a great holiday period. We are now in Puerto Madryn, an area in Patagonia on the coast where, very weirdly, the Weslh settled way back when. There are lots of tours to Weslh named towns and villages where you can enjoy Welsh Tea (I have no idea what this is even after living in the country for three years) and Welsh Cakes. All very surreal.

Salar de Uyuni

What better way to finish off our time in Bolivia with a trip to the famous salt plains. We had planned originally to go from Tupiza which everyone had recommended to us - and I believe still it is the better trip. However it was cheaper to go from Uyuni so in the end we went for the cheapscate option.

We still had a fab time though. Heading to Uyuni by public bus from Potosi took about four hours. We had been told Uyuni was a nothing town (a bit of a dump) and were not let down on arrival. Even though we had arrived late in the night we decided to get on a tour the next morning rather than stay in the town.

Bolivia in a nutshell

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!)