Blogs from Chuquisaca Department, Bolivia, South America - page 13

We arrived in Sucre at 7am and Lisa got chatting to a couple of English girls in the bus terminal to see if they could recommend any hostels, but they’d only just arrived too, so we got into a taxi with a friendly driver who recommended a few places which we went to check out. The first one we looked at was, to say the least, a little stinky as the bathroom was in the room, which is fine in itself, but seeing as there’s no ventilation, en-suite is never going to work. The next stop was Torino, which seemed nice, even though it was right next to an apparently never closing market, right outside our window. The bathrooms were great and pretty new, the best yet actually, and we had a private room. As we ... read more

Her kommer bildene, og jeg glemte visst å nevne togkirkegården vi også var innom i Uyuni. Det og ganske så stilig!... read more

After checking out of our hostel we began the laborious and expensive task of posting home some presents, souvenirs and no longer needed winter clothes. 40 quid for 4kg seemed cheap after DHL quoted us 130 pounds, which I nearly agreed to after doing the currency conversion very wrong and thinking it was 13 pounds! We returned to Mayapata for lunch with a view and spent what was left of our day before another night bus in the museum of Indigenous Art. I had thought it was just going to be a few examples and history of different styles of weaves and some women weaving, but it was so much more! We got an A5 guide book about 30 pages long to guide us around the 13 rooms of exhibitions. I had no idea of the ... read more

Breakfast at "Backpackers Hostel" was as stingy as the reviews had suggested - 2 bread rolls with only enough butter and jam to cover half of one! But we weren't complaining at only 4.50 (pounds) each for our private room! We set off to climb the tower of a church on top of a hill for a good view of the city - but I got distracted by a market and the church closed before we got there. Still got an excellent view though, and some more brilliant purchases at the market to decorate our house in Manchester! No doubt the colours of Bolivia might be a bit colourful for our place in the UK, which I see as an excuse to buy enough to cover the place! In fact I've already planned a trip back ... read more

The road from Uyuni to Potosi was half paved half gravel and wound round hills and mountains heralding spectacular views across wild terrain. The bus stopped occasionally in remote villages to pick up passengers and make the most of the limited space on board. The smooth paved section was a god-send and we were soon approaching Potosi - a historic town with a checkered mining history. Potosi basically bankrolled the Spanish empire thanks to the fruits born from Cerro Rico - Rich Mountain. Silver was discovered here in 1556 and the Spanish wasted no time in exploiting the local indigenous labour force to extract it. The silver from the mountain was crucial to the Spanish Empire and helped them fund their armies and continued expeditions on the continent. The silver was shipped to Spain where much ... read more