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!)

Hello Bolivia

We arrived in Bolivia  last Saturday and spent the last few days relaxing in Copacabana, a border town with not a lot going on.

It does however have the most amazing hotel, Las Olas, with beautiful views over Lake Titicaca so it seemed like a good stopover for some rest and recuperation after our multiple hikes and Mike´s ankle incident.

Colca Canyon

What better way to follow Machu Picchu then with another three day hike down Colca Canyon, thought to be the second deepest Canyon in the world?

So of course that is what we just did. Mike, I, Neil (yes still from Salkantay trip) and some new friends Anne (from France) and Gwenn (from Holland) booked up for Colca.We thought it would be a breeze as the tour operator described it - breakfast, a few hours of hiking, lunch, afternoon off before starting again the next day. It proved to be a bit more of an adventure than that.