4,090 metres above sea level

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Loved, loved, loved Sucre! The white city really is beautiful with gorgeous buildings and suspiciously well kept gardens everywhere! The 5 nights we spent there flew by, arriving at the hostel at around 6.30am on Monday only to be told that reception doesn't open until 8 and there "might" be beds for us right away. Luckily we were able to crawl into bed by 9 (oh after climbing a ladder up to the loft where we were sleeping) and have a nap before going out to explore the city a bit. First job; find somewhere for Spanish lessons, yep I had 16 hours of Spanish lessons over 4 days and I think I must have improved a bit (or I at least hope) the good thing so many people are awesome at Spanish and English I tend to get away with it but would love to able to speak the language. Anyway back to less boring things, the only tourist attraction I managed to get to in Sucre and I went for the cheesiest, Parque Cretácico... Dinosaur footprints! Getting there was quite the adventure experiencing my first encounter with road blocks and having to walk through the blockade to get to the park. The actual park itself less of an adventure after watching a 30minute BBC video about the extinction of dinosaurs and wandering around the museum we were able to see the footprints from across the valley and listen to the bilingual guide tell us the same story 3 times over. Salsa lessons were the other major event in Sucre, at the local bar with the campest instructor ever I attempted to learn to salsa and practised my most important phrase "Quiero caipirinha por favor?"
Ok on to the next city and the explanation for the name of this post, Potosi. One of the highest cities in the world and famous for mining silver. The city is larger than I was expecting but there really is only the mines to see, so we set about booking a tour straight away and within a few hours of arriving we were kitted up from head to toe in very attractive "mining gear" and heading to the mines. Having only just discovered that today is a special sacrificing llama day meaning there wouldn't be miners working which was part of the pull of the tour in the first place, was slightly disappointing. But we were advised by our guide to purchase gifts for the miners, who were celebrating llama day by the entrance of the mines, in the form of coca leaves, 98% alcohol and cigarettes. Having handed over our gifts we entered the mines and were immediately faced with a low narrow tunnel that could only be walked through at a crouch! The mines were an awesome experience and I would recommend the tour to anyone, they're definitely worth the trip to Potosi. Although it seems they are maybe the only site here worth visiting and on that note I'm getting the bus in the morning to Uyuni so that's all I've got to say for now 😊

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Photos

The "Eiffel tower" in Sucre