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Published: January 8th 2009
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Guide and dynamite
no idea why he was biting it but it didnt look clever to me! Wow, its been so long since Ive written in my blog but I´m back and ready to hopefully fill up a couple of pages with more news..so let me start from our journey since La Paz....
The jungle never happened which was a real shame. We waited and waited for the plane and gave up after 3 days of rain and no sign of us going anywhere. So we decided to head off somewhere else for Christmas and chose Sucre as our destination. This was a 13 hour bus ride on an old public bus with women and children sleeping in the aisles and no toilet!! Oh and did I mention this was Christmas Eve?! SO we managed to witness a Very bad car wreck and get stuck in the mud for a short while, but after about 10 hours the light was coming through the windows and Christmas morning was spent admiring the beautiful mountain views as we twisted and turned towards Sucre.
Xmas day in Sucre was very quiet with not many shops or restaurants open. However the main square had hoards of women and children begging on the streets which was very strange. I had witnessed
Dirty mask
After an hour or two this is how filthy you got...and the miners didnt even use these face masks so you can only imagine what they inhale begging in most places, but this was an insane amount! Our spanish teacher back in Cusco mentioned Xmas day was a sad day and I think she was probably right! However we found a dutch bar that was open and ate and drank the afternoon away as there was nothing else to do, just like any old christmas day really!
The next day was a visit to a dinasour park where the first dinasour footprints were found in South America, a bit gimmicky (is that the right spelling of the word?!) but good fun. Later on we bumped into a dutch couple we met in La Paz and had dinner with them and arranged to travel together for a while leading to New Year.
Our next journey was to Potosi. I wasnt madly keen on going and was determined not to visit the mines being that I wasnt up for confined spaces! However once we were there I felt it had to be done, and I´m very pleased I did it as it was such an experience. We went 4 levels deep and at points we were either shuffling or crawling on the dusty floor to get through
Potosi mines outfit
Me and Emma dressed and ready for the mines...gorgeous eh! and down to meet the few miners working that day (it was sunday so not as busy). I couldnt believe the conditions they worked in and there was one kid who was only 14 years old which apparently is very common...pretty shocking stuff. See pics attached for a better idea of what it was like!
That same evening our guide invited us to his friends wedding which was on day 2 of its celebration. I wasnt quite sure what to expect, but what I experienced was something pretty different to any other wedding I had been to...It was in a large brightly lit hall and as soon as we arrived we greeted the happy couple and then got dragged over to sit on some chairs by some Very drunk rather large women (basically you couldnt say no!). They then came over with a tray of drinks for us Each which apparently I found out afterwards is called The Train. It had 3 shot glasses with coloured liquid inside, one cup of chicha (home brewed wheat beer which I have mentioned before is what gringos should Not drink!) and a silver cup of an unidentified drink, a mix of wine
Holding dynamite
Our guide made up this dynamite to show us how it worked...im holding it already lit hence my look of slight terror! only 1min left to go before it went off! and whisky it tasted like! Basically it was good luck for their marriage and we had to drink all the drinks on the tray. The ladies wouldnt budge till we finished, so several minutes later and with an empty tray and a fuzzy head I was ready to dance. It was great fun and by the end I had about 6 children dancing with me in a circle...when we were eventually told to leave as it was getting a bit messy (as in they were getting messy not us!) the kids were grabbing at my legs wanting me to stay...very very cute! The next day we had a long bus journey but it was all really worth it, I really liked Potosi, it had a good feel to it and was a surprisingly pretty place to stay in.
Next stop was Tupiza where we found ourselves a lovely hotel with a pool, our first treat since travelling. It was a lovely place to visit but we had an incident with horseriding which kind of delayed our plans a bit ( I shall say no more but all is well now thankfully and im not so sure i will get
Potosi mines
The way in.... on a horse again!) So new years eve although quiet was spent watching the most incredible thunderstorm at the top of our hotel which lit up the entire sky and mountains, mixed in with countless fireworks everywhere you looked, and some cheap bubbly that tasted of cider, so something a little different to bring in the new year!
Next stop was Salar de Uyuni, our last stop in Bolivia. This deserves a whole new blog page, simply because it was so incredibly beautiful!
Hasta Luego xx
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