Colombia

Despite all the warnings about how dangerous Colombia is and my family´s desperate pleas for me not to go, all the good that I´d heard from others just compelled me to check it out. After all, it was one of the places on my trip that I´d thought was a must to do. Unfortunately though, given my albeit breif trip to The Galapagos, I was running out of time and not able to see most of what was previously on my itinerary. Given the time constraints I ended up flying from Quito to Cartagena and missing my bus journey through Cali, Medellin and the Zona Cafeteria. I guess though that´s an excuse to come back!

Cartagena was great. On route there I met an interesting young lass from Sydney who was awfully lost what with travelling for the first time on her own. As such, she tagged along with me to my hostel (which was rather dodgy I thought at the time) where we shared a double bed (essentially as strangers) as she didn´t want to sleep in a dorm room. That same night of arriving we met Eddy, another boy from Oz and his Irish entourage of 5 other guys and 2 Argentinians. Prior to going to Chiva with them, the aussie chic and myself went for dinner where we were serenaded by a Colombian and his guitar. From there it was Chiva with the boys. This is essentially an open bus tour (kinda like the buses in Samoa for all that are familiar with these) with booze a live ¨band¨and lots of what appeard to be under aged Colombian kiddies. It was all good fun though and a very lively and interesting start to Colombia. It made me all the more glad I´d not detoured past it.

The following day myself and the boys headed to the mud volcano about 45km out of Cartagena. This is a 1500m plus deep volcano which spews mud instead of lava. Despite it´s depth, given the density, there was no way to sink below your shoulders no matter how hard you tried. And the boys tried. It was like sitting in a pool of cream or perhaps melted chocolate. Very weired but very cool. Once you´ve done your time you then climb out and the ladies in the lagoon wash you off for a small fee. They do a very thorough job as before I knew it they had my bikini top off and they were demanding my bottoms too! Plus it was the first time I´d had someone elses fingers in my ears since I was washed by my mother as a very young child! All this for a small fee of course. I´d have not been able to do my back or hair without their help though so all worth it.

The following day the boys and I then decided to do a boat trip out to Playa Blanca via Islas Rosarias. I thoroughly recommend the trip to Playa Blanca but if you ever do this, I´d recommend skipping Islas Rosarias as unless you want to see the aquarium, there´s nothing to do and no where to swim except between the mangroves. Live and learn. Playa Blanca was exactly what I expected a Caribbean beach to be like: lapping waves, palm trees, white sand and thatched huts with hawkers selling their hippy wares. It´s possible to stay the night on the beach in hammocks but I was booked on a bus to Taganga the following day. I would have definately stayed other wise.

Taganga was also awesome. Fresh juice on the beach every morning for breakfast and the beach no more than a block away from everywhere. I stayed my first night in Baguettes de Maria (the local baguette shop) as the two hostels that were recommended to me were fully booked. The following day though, while booking my dives, I met a lovely Melbournian who took me around to the other hostels until I found one that was in my budget that I liked. After that I did my first two dives which were pretty but not the Galapagos. I fear I´m spoilt for life now. We saw lots of pretty corals and big French Angels, wrasse, butterflies and others. That night at the hostel I met a really nice guy from the UK called John and an Adelaidian called Steph and we decided that the following day we´d bus to Tayrona, the National Park along the coast where you can sleep in hammocks just off the beach and generally chill.

At the entrance to the park there were police looking for ¨drogas y armas¨. Why anyone would take drugs and weapons into a national park is beyond me but oh well. They gave John a real good search. I guess with his longer than usual hair they suspected drogas and they went through his wallet, all the pockets in his clothes and even gave his bits a good jiggle. Kinda funny after the fact but he wasn´t happy at the time. The rest of the Tayrona trip was uneventful. It was a long but pleasant walk through rainforest to the beach (which was unswimmable) and then another long walk to the swimming beaches. Still it was worth it. John stayed another night and Steph and I went back to Taganga where we chilled some more and I did some diving, including a night dive which was awesome. It was the first night dive I´d done in two years and what a site!

Before I knew it it was my birthday and it was one of the nicest ways I could spend it. I had a phone call from my beautiful sister which was great. It´s always nice to be remebered despite being on the other side of the world. After the phone call, the three of us went to the local beach for being too lazy to walk to the nicer beach 20mins away. There we stayed for the next four hours drinking coctails and cooling off in the water from time to time. That night we caught up with the divers and had drinks at the shop. Because Steph was feeling unwell and the divers were gearing up for a big one the following night, John and I walked to the only night club in town which unfortunately was closed, so we chilled on the hammocks on the roof of the hostel. All in all a fabulous day and a great end to my time in Taganga and Colombia.

The Galapagos: So close, so tame

After a not too long flight from Quito to Baltra Airport on the Galapagos, it was an absolute pleasure to land in the heat. The scenery however was not really as expected. Despite seeing multiple documentaries on the islands in the past, I still for some reason didn´t think I´d see a desert type landscape. Everything was all really quite dry and barren which was a fair surprise. After getting over this, I then had to deal with Freddy - or Crooked Freddy as I prefer to call him. He poached me at the airport (BIG MISTAKE) to do a `week long`boat tour of the islands, with the bait being that it included a day diving. He charged me $780USD which to me seemed not too bad given the diving. I´d seen advertised about $600 for the same period of time so figured it was ok. However, the tour didn´t really start until the following afternoon after my dive and I later discovered after talking to people on the really budget boat that we were on that most paid half of what I´d paid...oops. So I wasn´t so happy about that but the moral of the story is: Don´t book tours at the airport. Seems logical when I say it to myself but no matter. It was still a fantastic trip overall.

So after arriving at the Glalapagos, the first thing I did as part of the tour was to go to a piece of private land where tortoises are found out of captivity. There were a load of these and it was possible to get up quite close. From there I went and checked out the lava tunnels which was not hugely interesting until I learn´t how they´re created. (The lava crust forms by cooling with the air and as the inside lava cools also, it shrinks and tunnels are created in the gap between what was the crust and the now cooled lava).

The following day was really the best of day of the entire week on the islands. This was my day diving. I went with a great dive operator (Macarron) and we dived what is supposed to be the most challenging site they have: Gordon Rocks. Fortunately though, the day was quite calm but despite this we were still able to see a couple of large schools of hammerheads, which usually are only seen in strong currents. We also saw lots of Green Sea Turtles, sealions and white tipped reef sharks. All the big stuff with the exception of Manta Rays. All up we did three dives here and saw hammerheads on all of them. Just spectacular! My dive buddy and dive master were also tops (Abraham), as was the other DM (Georgie) and the captain (Harvey).

That night was my first night on the cruise. The boat was ¨The Friendship¨and it really was a floating backpackers only MORE budget if you can believe it. The toiltets often didn´t flush and there wasn´t necessarily always running water (though there was drinking water so no worries there). Like I said, it was a budget tour and this was confirmed with the introduction by our guide: ¨My name is Fabian and I am not a good guide. But this is The Galapagos...so close, so tame¨. Not exactly encouraging but it served to provide giggles throughout the tour as that had to be his favourite line...so close, so tame. All up we had two and a half days on the boat so not too much to bear. We went to 5 islands in total: Rabida (the one with red sand), Sombrero Chino, Bartolome (the one with the panoramic views over Santiago Is), Santiago and North Seymour. We saw loads of animals, in fact everything that I really wanted to see I did see...SeaLIons, Blue Footed BOObies, Frigates, Galapagos Crabs, Marine Iguanas and I think that´s it. We snorkeled most days and again I was able to see White Tipped Reef Sharks, Spotted Eagle Rays, Penguins, Octopus and many, many more. Acutally, the only thing I wanted to see on the islands that I didn´t was the Giant Iguanas. No matter. Probably the best day though was the second last day when we were travelling between Santiago and North Seymour Islands. During the trip we were followed by a flock of Frigate Birds which were so close, so tame, we saw dolphins, a whale, sharks and mantas breaching. Pretty damn cool if you ask me. So despite my being totally ripped off, I did have a good time and did get out of it what I wanted. Can´t really complain about that.

Now I was supposed to leave the day after I finished the tour but the spectacular diving called me once again and I was able to change my flight very easily without any extra costs. As such, an extra days diving was done and what stories. We did three dives again, though this time the sites were Mosquera, North Seymour Point and Daphne Menor. Now if Gordon Rocks was supposed to be the most challenging dive I´d have to say North Seymour gives it a serious run for it´s money. It was definately the most challenging dive I´ve done in my whole diving career and this was something like my 52nd dive. The current was so strong that as soon as we were down we had to take all the air out of our BCDs and hold on to the rocks for dear life. To get about we essentially were dragged by the current moving rock hold by rock hold until we got to where we needed to be. Fortunately we saw what we wanted down there and that was a heap of White Tipped and Galapagos Sharks. Also the usual suspects of turtles and rays. But if that wasn´t exciting enough, I almost died and that´t no lie. While we were down my weight belt slipped off and at the same time my fin came loose. I think what stopped me from shooting straight to the surface was the current going over me. However, because of the current I wasn´t able to pick my belt up though it was essentially right beside me as I´d have shot up and out. To top it all off, the DM wanted to head off and he wasn´t close by that I could let him know. Eventually he looked my way and I indicated a problem. He crawled his way over and it took him a little bit to figure out my issue. It was quite an intimate affair to fix. He had to wrap his legs around mine so that I could hold on to the rocks for the both of us while he used both hands to get the weight belt around me. Clearly after that things went well as I´ve lived to tell the tale but what a time.

That was the end of my time in The Galapagos and I have to say it was shorter than I´d have liked. There were plently more islands I´d have wanted to see and definately plenty more diving I´d wanted to do. Perhaps one day I´ll be back.

Ecuador - Quito

After eventually arriving in Ecuador with my new bus friends Jimmy and Braydon, I checked into my hostel The Secret Garden where I was treated with a ¨special¨coke made especially with rum, and where I proceeded to wait for a bed to become available for me. This didn´t happen until about 11pm and in the interim I decided to go and visit the Basilisk though given my fear of heights I didn´t make it all the way to the top of the belfour. I then had dinner at the hostel which included an open bar (w´hoo) so I quickly forgot about my bedlessness though as metioned, I eventually was shown where to lay my weary yet slightly tipsy head. Despite this being the start of ¨Quito Week¨I think this is actual normal behaviour for this hostel.

The following day the bus buddies and I went to Mitad del Mundo to get that box checked. It was reasonably straight-forward to get to though again was very touristy once there. I had expected nothing less though and took the obligatory photos on the incorrect line as everyone does. (The GPS equator is about 200m away from the monument and line on the ground...oops).

Given that each of us had things we wanted to arrange back in Quito, it was a short day trip out. I managed to arrange last-minute impromtu flights to The Galapagos (YAY!) for the following day and then the three of us met up again for hand-made icecream. Unfortunately after these gustatory delights, we went back to Jimmy´s hotel to find that one of his bags had been stolen. In it was his passport, credit cards, laptop and so on. Ouch. That would have to be my worst nightmare. Needless to say, the rest of the afternoon was spent keeping him company while he called home to cancel cards etc. At least I had my flight to ecological heaven to look forward to for the following day.

Peru - Part Two

We start where we left off earlier: The bus ride to Arequipa. This wasn´t too exciting except that again there were more bus lies. I was once again told I was on a cama and got semi-cama. At least now I had company though was able to sleep for most of the ride. Again we arrived at ridiculous o´clock though the hostel was expecting me at this time. We managed to sleep some on arrival and woke later in the morning to go and explore the town and arrange onward tours and travel.

Arequipa is a really pretty town with a lovely Plaza de Armas (every town in South America seems to have one of these). The plaza is surrounded by gorgeous white buildings with arched fronts. Heading away from the plaza things become a little more bleak but Kelly and I did manage to get to the Monastery which was absolutely gorgeous. It´s like a mini city (I believe this is also referred to as a citadel) and when you´re in it it´s hard to believe that there´s a world outside of it. The buildings remind me a lot of what I imagine the mediterranean would be like with terracottas, whites and blues, and murals in the small squares. If you ever go to Arequipa it´s a real must to see though time is required...it took the both of us about two hours to see it all.

That night we met Frank and Miriam, others from our Peru Treks group, at what is supposed to be Peru´s best pizza joint. The pizza was good but can´t say for sure that it´s the best, particularly as I was sick later that evening! I have to say though, I couldn´t have asked for better company. It was an early evening though in the end as we were being picked up for our Colca Canyon day tour at 2.30 in the morning! Ouch. Fortunately my belly was ok by then. The trip itself was nothing really worth writing about. A lot of driving though we were really lucky and saw loads of Condors. They put on a good show for us, flying close overhead and in front of us. What magnificent birds! On route back to Arequipa, we were supposed to stop at the hot springs though didn´t which was poo. It was apparently too hot. We did stop at a town though where we were able to do the tourist thing and have our photos taken (for a small tip) with tame eagles and llamas. Yay.

On returning to Arequipa, the three of us hot-footed it to the bus station so that we could get to Huacachina, a small lagoon town just outside of Ica, 4.5hrs south of Lima. This was a really nice spot to just chill and have chocolate brownies and the local Hostel International. We also did some (more) sand boarding though the sand boarding here was loads better than the boarding in San Pedro de Atacama. This was because the dunes were much bigger and we did more of them rather than the one run over and over. We started on baby dunes and worked our way to bigger and bigger ones. We also did a bit of dune buggy-ing which was wicked. Loads of adrenaline pumping fun.

Huacachina was my last stop in Peru before taking the never ending bus journey from there to Quito in Ecuador. I left Huacachina at 11am on Thursday morning, taking one of the regular buses to Lima. There were no promises made for this bus so no promises broken. However, I was on a pretty tight schedule as my onward bus from Lima to Quito was due to leave at 5pm and I needed to be there an hour before. The Ica-Lima bus generally takes 4 hours though mine was a little longer given we had a flat. Great. Oh well, I made it on time so no harm done. Little did I know though that this was going to mark a trend for the rest of the journey. We left Lima late and were supposed to arrive in Quito at 2am on Saturday morning. This was not the case due to stopping multiple times so that the bus driver could tinker with a seemingly working motor. One stop was over three hours at the Tumbes bus station where we were effectively locked in with no food or water and we had to pay for the bathroom, no matter how many times we needed it. We eventually arrived in Quito at 2pm (12 HOURS LATE for those too lazy to work out the math) and unfortunately by this time I´d missed getting to the Otovalo markets. But Ecuador is another story for another time...

Peru - Part One.

Well, since I last wrote there´s been a bit going on. First, I did do the floating islands and though they were very touristy, it´s a box ticked. One of many. Each island houses a couple of families and what cracks me up is that if there is a family feud, they just pick up their house (literally) and start a new island. We visited two islands in total, the second even more touristy than the first, with actual shops and a restaurant. En route between the islands, we took a reed boat and were entertained by a local school girl who sang us many songs in many languges. What talent.

Now from Puno I caught a night bus with three Danish girls. This was to be the first of many Peruvian bus lies. We were told is was a cama bus (with bed seats) though it wasn´t. Unfortunately to go down with this, the vegetarian I had for lunch decided to argue with my stomach and all pills and potions were in the luggage compartment. Fortunately, the lady sitting next to me explained that I would feel better if I spat on my hand and rubbed it on my tummy...ah the wonders of cooky ¨medicine.¨ I did feel better for a while or maybe I just fell asleep and forgot about it.

Anyway, we arrived in Cuzco at the pleasant hour of 3.30 in the morning and were kicked off the bus (despite being told when sold the ticket that we´d be able to sleep on it til 6am...another lie). We made it to the hostel and I spent the next three days looking around Cuzco and waiting for my Inca trek to start. During that time I saw the Tambombachay, Pukapukara, Qenqo, Temple de la Luna and Saqsaywaman Inca sites. They were pretty cool. My favourites were Quenqo and Temple de la Luna. We had an impromtu guide that we´d met walking up to the sites so this provided some good information. Other than that, not much was done. Just chilling and acclimatising until the time for my caminar del Inca.

This started at 6am on the 19th of November...ah it seems so long ago now. I was picked up from my hostel and we were taken by bus to a small town for breakfast...you´ll have to excuse me as all the town names currently escape me. They´ll be added later. In total there were 15 tourists, two awesome guides (Rony and Augusto), and 22 equally awesome porters. It was a fantastic group in all and I believe good friends were made. After breakfast we moved on to where the Classic Inca Trek starts and we began our walk. This first day was really quite easy and it was spent chatting and getting to know one another. We saw on the way one ruin and stopped many times for toilet breaks and snacks. When we got to our campsite, the tents were already set up which is the way it should be! and the boys decided to get in on a friendly soccer (football) game. Dinner, as with all the meals was delicious. Generally for breakfast we´d get the usual bread and jam but also either pancakes, scrambled eggs, omlette or what have you. Lunch and dinner was two to three courses - soup followed by mains of meat and pasta and rice with salads, then maybe dessert. It was all really, really tasty and rich in carbs for all the walking we were doing. It was reasonably cold that night but our tents and my sleeping bag managed to keep me warm and toasty all night.

The next morning, we were woken at around 5.30am with a knock on our tents and a hot drink in ¨bed¨...ah, what service!!! The walking started after breakfast and just felt like it didn´t stop. It was definately the toughest day on the trek. We walked maybe 5km and it was pretty much all up hill...1.4km vertical! I was in the slow group of all of us but I wasn´t alone. I was accompanied by Kelly who was sick, Martin who had a sprained ankle and Joel who was suffering badly from the altitude. Personally I blame the altitude but only for the lack of oxygen. Surely it wasn´t my fitness?? Once we got to Dead Womans Pass (altitude approx 4200m, maybe more), we took group photos and then started the steep downhill bit in the rain. It didn´t really let up from then until the morning we arrived at Machu Picchu thank goodness.

Day three was more walking though a lot easier than the previous day. It was Ïnca¨uphill for most of it and then at the end we had the ¨Gringo Killer¨which was downhill steps again. We were finally in the lush forest though few animals were seen. Mostly just birds. The views along the whole trek were pretty special though so not complaining. We ended at the camping village of Winaywayna (check spelling) where we were able to have a cold beer (mmm, beer). This was our last night with the porters so they put on a singing show for us and that´s when we gave our tips. I think they did pretty good but they so deserved it.

Day four, the final day, was an early one. We started at 4am with our usual breakfast though this time sans hot drink in bed. Then we headed down to the checkpoint to start our walk to the ¨Sun¨Gate. Not much sun this morning as when we got there, we were in the midst of cloud and Machu Picchu couldn´t be seen for love or money. Oh well. We rested there for a bit then headed down to the other look out over Machu Picchu. Again cloud. Yippee. It cleared occasionally for us but not for the group photo - curses. After that, it was down to the actual site. It was quite impressive, even given that it was thought that it may have been unfinished. We walked around for a while, took the obligatory hundreds of photos, including llamas getting jiggy with it (heehee) and then headed to Agua Calientes and the hot springs.

We finally arrived back in Cuzco at 9.30 that night, where we had about an hour to get fresh before meeting for the end of tour drinks and pub crawl. All up, four clubs were visited and I got back to my hostel around 4.30am. Others stayed til later and even had a wee nap in McDs. I needed at least a little sleep as I was heading to Arequipa with Kelly and Martin that night.

NB: The company I went with for the Inca Trek was Peru Treks. They were absolutely fantastic and I highly recommend them. Rony and Augusto (our guides) were just great, the porters were awesome and the food couldn´t be faulted. In fact, nothing could be faulted at all, so if you´re planning a trek, I´d seriously consider them.

Potosi to Peru

After Potosi, as promised I went on to Sucre, the legislative capital of Bolivia. The bus ride there contained much excitement. I was seated at the back of the bus, above the rear right wheel. It was getting dark and I noticed flashing orange lights coming from underneath and I thought to myself ¨Yeah! a Bolivian party bus. Go Bolivia!¨ However I was to be mistaken. They weren´t party lights...it was FIRE! I didn´t realise this until the bus had pulled over after multiple cars had flashed their lights at us. The fire was eventually put out by everyone´s drinking water, leaving us with none. Fortunately, the bus trip was only 1.5 hours more.

Sucre itself was a pretty town though I feel that Potosi was perhaps nicer. Sucre is well known for it´s white washed colonial buildings and there were a few of those but mainly centred around the main plaza. The rest was as per the rest of Bolivia. There was a textile museum which was quite interesting. It looked at the history of weaving in Bolivia and the museum raises money to teach locals their traditional techniques to prevent them from dying out. I also went up to a conventy thing which was a steep walk though was well rewarded by the views that greeted me at the top. The convent housed a whole lot of religious art (by Anon), and a cedar that was over 1000 years old. The actual church was beautifully decorated also.

That night I left sucre and my travelling buddy of the last couple of days (Bertram from Germany), heading to La Paz. Everything they say of this night bus is true. It was long, stopped many, many times and was FREEZING!!! A lovely Bolivian man who was sat next to me was kind enough to share his blanket with me. I might have died of exposure otherwise.

La Paz was a city to behold. I stayed at Loki, which I might never do again for reasons which will become apparent. On arrival, I booked my mountain bike tour of The World´s Most Dangerous Road and then wandered into the city for some lunch. It´s a huge city with steep, steep streets which are really slippery with stones that have been walked on for what I imagine would be more than hundreds of years. The markets were interesting but there wasn´t the bartering that I thought there´d be. Oh well. The next morning I woke to do the WMDR which was awesome. I was aprehensive at first because of the well known 400m sheer drops from the edge of the road, the gravel we rode on (instead of asphalt), and the deaths that were constantly being talked about. I eventually loosened up and our group ended up being one of the fastest that our guide Matt had taken, having finished around 1.40pm. I also managed to meet some lovely Perth peeps on the tour, as well as a Noosa boy and a Brazillian living in Sydney. I spent the next two days consequently hanging with them. The following day we did the San Pedro Prison, made famous by Thomas McFadden for his drug smuggling. This was an eye-opener to say the least and that´s about all I´ll say apart from ¨Read the book.¨ That night was just a chilled night chatting in Yelena and Chris´room, up until I went to my own to change into my PJ´s, only to find that people had been smoking in the dorm and that they had left their empty cigarettes in my clothes. NOT HAPPY JAN! Then, when I awoke the next morning and looked in my locked box in reception, the $1300 Bolivianos ($300AUD) that I´d put in there the night before to pay for my room, bus out of La Paz, etc was GONE!!! There was much cursing though surprisingly very few tears. Osgur (the guy who runs the hostel) was kind enough to reimburse me half as he felt given the security of the building, it shouldn´t have happened and he felt partly responsible...damn straight. But live and learn. I spent the afternoon therefore trying to forget about it. I watched the new Bond flic which was partly set in Bolivia so that was cool. The others all left that night and I then bussed on to Copacabana and Lake Titicaca the following morning.

Copacabana was a cute little town though not much to do there. I did a day trip out to Isla del Sol, Isla de la Luna and the ¨floating islands¨they have there. It was nothing too special but I´ve done it now. I also did the climb up the cerro to see the sunset and that was about it for Copacabana. Or so I thought. Due to some farmer turmoil in Peru, the bus we (me and an Irish dude I´d met) had taken to get to Puno to see the real floating islands wasn´t able to cross the border and so we were stuck in Copa for the night. I could think of worse places to be stuck. It was cheap and the company was good. Today though I´ve made it to Peru and am sitting in an internet cafe killing time til my Uros Island tour (aka the floating islands). Until next time...Hasta luego!

My first week in South America

Well here I am in South America or Potosi, Bolivia to be exact. It has been a pretty busy week since I landed in Santiago de Chile. I spent three nights there and have to say that as a city it was really just another city. There were lots of pretty parks which was nice (and cheap!) but after losing my only jumper on the way to my hostel from the airport, I ended up spending most of one of my days trying to find some fleece. Once that was accomplished, I spent an amusing day in Valparaiso (read: Viña del Mar) which is a port two hours to the north of Santiago. This was a really pretty city.

Despite those two days out of Santiago, I decided to cut my time there short by one night and so headed up to San Pedro de Atacama in the North of Chile in the desert. There I did a sandboarding tour combined with a sunset Valley of the Moon tour. The first was really fun - I got sand in all the wrong places! and the second was visually beautiful. That night I also did a stargazing tour just off the edge of the desert which was really interesting though after a 24hr bus ride and sandboarding, by 11.30 (when the tour started) I was already quite tired as you can imagine. The next morning I was picked up by my next tour which was a San Pedro to Uyuni (Bolivia) tour. This was really amazing. There were three of us in total and we saw so much. Geysers, hot pools, multi coloured lagoons (green, red and white), flamingoes to your hearts content, llamas, alpacas, vicunas (all closely related), volcanoes, salt flats and desert islands packed with cacti. You can imagine I have hundreds of photos and it´s going to take me a while to get them up but I will do my best. The highest we got on this tour was 4950m! Fortunately the altitude hasn´t affected me too much. The most I´ve had to deal with has been a headache.

Uyuni was not so spectacular. I stayed there one night and spent most of it in my hostel room which sadly, was not a dorm but a single...I read a lot of my book. Needless to say, one night there post tour was enough and today I caught (the slow) bus to Potosi. I was going to reconsider coming here and skipping it but I´m so glad I didn´t. This city is just beautiful...a photographers delight (not that that´s what I am but you know), especially when arriving at sunset. It´s at 4050m elevation and much of the city is on a mountain side so loads of hills. Tomorrow I think I will visit the Casa Real de Moneda (Royal house of money...a museum that was the original mint). Potosi was originally a silver mining town though that´s much depleted. There are also mine tours but I don´t think I want to do this. There is no more silver apparently and the conditions are really very bad. So anyway, maybe only one day here and on to Sucre for tomorrow night (a city further east).

So that´s all that I´ve been up to so far. A fair bit for one week I think. Like I said, next stop Sucre either tomorrow or the next day, spend one or two nights there and then to La Paz, the capital of Bolivia.