Bolivia - salt, spanish, rafting, horses and altitude sickness

Hi All, I haven't written a blog post in a while (I think that's how I'm starting all blog posts these days).  But we're in Bolivia, which has been amazing, so I thought I'd update you.

We're in the capital of Bolivia at the moment, in La Paz, waiting for two friends to arrive from London. Unfortunately this town sucks, it's really high altitude, so we've both been getting really sick (I've lost a fair bit of weight, and perhaps not in a good way). Also, it's kind of boring here, with the exception of the food. Which is good, because I'm trying to gain that weight back, hello chocolate cake, cheesecake, chips and junk food all round.

We started Bolivia in Salar Uyuni on a three day tour.  It's famous amoungst backpackers for the amazing perspective photo's you can take as well as the flamingo lakes. We were really lucky and were given starwars figurines to use in our photographs which made it extra fun. Unfortuanately the Salar is high altitude, and it's winter here so it was extra cold and the altitude made things like digesting food properly, sleep and a clear head kind of hard.  The not digesting food bit was my favourite!



<>

It was so cold over night that our driver had to start a fire on and below the engine every morning.

From Uyuni, we then went to a small town called Tupiza which involved taking the single worst overnight buses I've be on - ever. Despite being told it was semi cama (semi bed seats), with heating and a bathroom (not that you ever want to touch those things, they are pretty gross) the windows didn't close, it stank like hairy armpits and I think it was a reject bus in the 1920s... Since it was -25 degrees that night, things got cold! Fortunately Tupiza is really cool. We went on a seven hour horse ride with a really lovely German girl and Isreali guy. Everything hurt afterwards. I'm not quiet sure why all of my back muscles were in such pain, but oh well...

 

After that we headed to a town call Potosi where Mark did a mine tour. He also had his birthday while we were there.  We managed to celebrate with some friends we meet on the road including Susan (an Aussie) and Philipe (an Austrian), and then some friends from home, Luke and Jacinta. Bolivia is really high altitude, and so alcohol kind of blows your socks of here. Perhaps the bottle of wine each with Luke wasn't such a great idea, but we all had fun.



this is actually a good photo of Mark, but he does look kinda stoopid as well



In Sucre (next stop) we went a did spanish classes. I actually did two weeks, while Mark went ahead and meet Luke in La Paz for some hiking (his spanish is a lot better than mine). Sucre was AWESOME. Really beautiful colonial former capital of Bolivia, with a great ex-pat scene that doesn't overwhelm the place. It was really aussie though, which was unexpected. Susan and Philipe were both there, which helped continue the party from Potosi.  Sucre has an amazing food market, so Susan, Philipe Mark and I (and then Jamie, when Mark left) went slightly cooking crazy at our hostel.  We ate like kings!

Philipe cooking dinner

Mark's favourite vegetable stall

From Sucre I headed to La Paz with Susan and Jamie and Philip to go on a six day rafting, tubing and river canyoning adventure with Mark as well as a group of Isrealies who were also on the tour. We had to make our own rafts, camped on beaches by the river sat in inner tube tires floating down the rapids trying (unsuccessfully) to avoid getting ripped to shreads. We hiked through up smaller rivers and on one day saw a little rat like creature. Our guides told us it's a really delicicy and tried to catch it to eat, but it got away, to the joy of some of our group... 

  

We (the Aussies and Austrian) headed back to La Paz, and while Mark and I stayed our friends went back to Sucre to do more study. Now Mark and I are waiting for friends to arrive and we are leaving, quick smart.  Altitude sickness really really sucks!