We arrived into Edinburgh late and missed the train to Barrow, in the lake district in England.  So, we had some curry and a pint and caught the next one.  We arrived into Ulverston, where Sam’s aunt and uncle live at around midnight…it was freezing.  We were supposed to only have 2 days in the UK as our flight in had been delayed so much, and our flight out was with the oh so accommodating Ryan Air.  We decided to pay the massive fees to change it back a bit so we would have some more time to actually see some of the area and some of Sam’s family.

We spent a couple days visiting Sam’s grandma and a few days hiking around different spots in the Lake District.   We met up with some of Sam’s cousins as well.  One of them has a nice farm out in the hills and three golden retrievers, so we took them out for a walk one morning.  There were children around all the time; Emily, one of the grandchildren was with us for the first few days.  She was so sweet, but quite shy at first.  By the second day she was giving me kisses in the car and dancing with me; while Sam was less fortunate…he managed to make her cry every time he tried to play with her.  As did her Uncle James, so perhaps she had a problem with men.  We also had a chance to do some cooking (which was definitely nice to do after so many months without a kitchen–and when you get to make pad Thai…).  I sampled some of the British cuisine…fish and chips and mushy peas…yum yum.

On our last day, we left for Edinburgh on one of the morning trains.  Most of the flights out that day were cancelled; however, there was no word on ours.  We went anyway, and spent the day wandering Edinburgh.  The city was quite historic, with lovely big cobblestone streets.  We saw one of the few sword swallowers in the world–we were supposed to look him up because apparently there is some website that verifies all the legitimate sword swallowers in the world, although I’m not sure what kind of regulatory board they would have for that.  We checked out the castles and all those other wee Scottish things before heading to the airport for our flight to Barcelona.

We set out for Quarteira, a town about 2 hours from Faro, the capital of the Algarve.  We had seen the campsite online, and it looked reasonably well located and with nice enough facilities. It was fantastic though.  It had a pool, waterslide, wifi internet, washing machines, drinking water, a grocery store nearby, and tons of great beaches within walking distance.  We ended up spending a full week there, exploring different areas each day, walking the beach and cooking all our meals on a charcoal pot type thing we bought for 4€.  The food and booze was unreal cheap…we could get a 6 pack of beer for 2€, wine for 2€, meat for next to nothing and a huge amount of brie cheese for 1€.  Our budget was definitely getting back on track. It was perfect, we could pack a lunch everyday, and come back for a swim in the pool and an hour on the waterslide.  There was a wonderful little marina town about 5 km walk away, it was full of million dollar yachts, bmws and English.   It was great for strolling around, and for watching football–Man United had an important game on one day during our camping trip, so we headed down there to watch it with all the other holidayers.  It was a lot of fun.

The beaches were gorgeous along the coast, but the water was not exactly warm.  So chilly in fact, that neither of us got in up to our knees.  Thankfully we had that pool.  In one direction from town there were huge red cliffs jutting up along the beach, with coves and bays that kept going forever.  The other direction was lovely white sandy beaches and harbours.  Everyday the weather was sunny and around 30º celcius…perfect weather really.  At night however, it was quite cold.

We were unprepared for camping really.  We had our little sleeping bags made for very warm temperatures, and two yoga type mats we had picked up for a euro.  The mats provided zero comfort; my hips were so bruised by the end, I couldn’t lean against anything or roll over at all.  We didn’t have pillows, which after 7 nights starts to affect your back a bit.  And it was freezing.  Even with two of us in a 4 x 6 tent, and wearing all our warm clothes to bed, it was freezing.  So, we started to put a ton of coal on the stove before bed, and once it was all white coal, bring it in to the tent to keep us warm while we fell asleep.  A couple hours later we were both tossing and turning due to the cold and hard ground.  Aside from our restless sleeps, the Algarve was perfect.

We spent a full day travelling from Faro, Portugal to Toledo, Spain.  We had to go to Seville, Spain first and then up to Madrid, and then down to Toledo.  It was around 15 hours of buses before we finally arrived at Toledo.  We had two days until our flight to Edinburgh from Madrid, and not being able to afford Madrid, we thought we’d check out one of the nearby towns.  Toledo was a perfect option.

We had planned on staying at the Hostel International;however, by the time we got up there at 11 pm, they were all full.  So, the receptionist there helped us out a bit and found us a place closer to the centro for 20 euro a night for a double room.  We set out to walk there, as it was only supposed to take 15 minutes.  He failed to tell us, however, that the city didn’t really believe in street signs, and that the streets were winding in every which direction in the most confusing manner.  After walking around the area we knew the hostel was (about 5 different streets we just wandered up and down trying to find the hostel), we finally found it.  A large, friendly man showed us our room and said goodnight.  The room was…quaint…but fine.  I took the bloody cross with a crucified Jesus down from above our bed, and we had a great sleep in a comfy bed with pillows and all.

The town is a UNESCO heritage site and full of Christian, Jewish and Muslim buildings.  The three religions coexisted in the town peacefully, and Toledo was once the capital of Spain.  We would get lost in the winding streets in less than two blocks and no map could help you find your way out.  So we’d just keep walking until we would stumble upon something else we recognized.  The town was full of castles, and big walls protecting the city.  And for some reason, all the shops were full of swords, amour and guns…guns everywhere.  Strange.

When we arrived to the Madrid airport to catch our flight, it was still sunny out and we had a couple hours till boarding.  We arrived at the gate for boarding; however, 15 minutes after the flight was supposed to leave, we received the first message that the flight had been delayed (yes, we are aware we are supposed to be flying right now…) and informed that we would receive another message in a few minutes.  About every half hour we had the same message, “we regret to inform you your flight has been delayed…[blah blah]…you will receive another message in a few minutes…”  Finally we found out that that freaking ash cloud had showed up in Madrid just in time for our boarding call, and the airport had cancelled most flights.

After a few hours of waiting at the gate, our flight was confirmed as cancelled and we were asked to go to the EasyJet desk to rebook flights and collect our bags from the carousel. We both immediately wondered where we were going to stay etc…could we afford it…how are we going to get back from UK if we do go.  But the wonderful people of Easy Jet solved almost all our problems.  I ran to the desk and got in line near the front while Sam grabbed the bags.  We were right at the front and only had to wait for 2 and a half hours or so…I can’t imagine the poor people at the back of the line about 200 people back.  EasyJet booked us into a 4 star hotel near the airport for 3 days until our flight to Edinburgh on Tuesday.  All our meals were included at the hotel as buffet meals, and wine was included for lunches and dinners.  Our room has free internet, a bathtub and a king size bed.  Our hotel has been wonderful…and for the first time on our trip, I don’t think Sam has been hungry once…(moreover, the poor people that booked at Ryan Air were stuck in the airport, the employees unwilling to help anyone after hours and closing the desk while people were stuck in Madrid airport with no place to stay and unsure when they would get out…Ryan air is pretty awful…)  We are spending our time checking out some of the stuff we missed the first time in the city, as the public transport system is so easy to get around and get into town.  Hopefully we will be flying out to Edinburgh tomorrow morning, although we are still unsure how we will be getting back…

When I was getting on the plane, I saw two friends I had shared a room with back in Santa Marta. The world of Colombian Backpackers is a small one. They were a super friendly Australian couple staying in one of the hotels on the beach. Mine was in town, but steps to the main beach. The first day I found town to be dirty, sketchy, unwelcoming and the beach was full of drunks. So I went out to visit the Aussies at their place the next day–it was gorgeous. The beach was beautiful, the food was good, and you could charge pina coladas to the room. It was heaven.

So, the next day, I decided to switch hotels to the Cocoplum. I rented a golf cart for the day for us and drove out with my bag strapped on the back. Getting out of town was a wee bit of tricky, but the rental guy showed me how to get out and let me drop him off on a random corner. After checking in, we took the cart around the island to check out a few things. Our first stop was to get the Cuba Libres (pre mixed in cans obviously) and to find a cooler and ice.

Driving around the island was a huge amount of fun. We stopped in at some beaches, and went to a few view points. We also drove up to the lagoon in the middle of the island–as we were driving a woman (although at the time we were unsure of the sex) in overall shorts with an oversized t shirt and a baseball cap yelled out and hopped on the back of the cart with me. Beatrice was going to show us the lagoon for a good price, as our tour guide.

She was an interesting woman…everywhere we drove she and her male friends would yell, “Boss, boss, boss,” at each other. The tour was interesting though. We ate some natural cocoa/chocolate off one of the trees, opened a coconut, saw a crocodile that was in the middle of having lunch, and saw fresh cashew nut fruit. We checked out a few other sites with Beatrice, including a tree she claimed had some sort of power that we hugged…without shoes on. Sounded very Avatar to me. She was an enthusiastic tour guide–constantly taking photos of us that we were “going to LOVE”, although they were possibly the worst photos I’ve ever had taken, haha. We did pay for the enthusiasm though; we really shouldn’t have asked how much she usually charges or any of that…because we ended up paying her far more. Ah well. She was the sweetest teenage boy I’ve ever met.

At one point during our cruise around the island, I was eating some coconut and a man on a motorbike came up right behind us. He was motioning for my coconut, so, I held it out and he grabbed it as he passed by us waving a thank you. The people on the island were so different from mainland Colombia. Everyone knew everyone and they were all happy and content (outside of the town drunks that is…). It made the island that much more pleasant to be there.

We went snorkeling one day–the coral reef was stunning and there were so many fish. The guide gave us buns while we were swimming to feed the fish and at any given moment you might have 30 fish eating out of your hand. They were all so vibrant and unique looking. It was far better than I expected for a snorkelling trip. After, they took us out to an island and sand bar off the coast where sting rays swam. When the boat stopped, you could see at least 20 sting rays swimming around under us. The guide jumped in without hesitation and informed us that as long as we didn’t step on one, they couldn’t hurt us. He must not have heard that the crocodile hunter was killed by one of these deadly, dangerous creatures.

You could actually hold them in your arms–they were huge…and slimy. But they swam around us–seeming to be interested and grazed our legs as they soared past. It definitely freaked me out a bit, but I held one and watched them swim around me for a while. They were extremely calm and smooth creatures. It was a wild experience.

One of the first nights at the Cocoplum, two boats ripped across the bay in front of the hotel, stopping right in front of our beach. It was hard to know what was happening, but the staff began looking really worried and telling everyone to get back. A police boat had stopped a boat apparently involved in some drug trafficking. We walked on the beach to see what was happening. There was some sort of commotion on the boats, and the police fired two shots into one of them–another one jumped off and started swimming to shore, while the other two stayed on the boat. At that point we ran back to safety of the restaurant unsure what to do. Heavily armed police began searching the shore for the one that swam to shore.

We started drinking heavier amounts of rum, unsure what else to do in a situation like that. As one guy said though, at least we know Colombia is working hard to fight the drug trafficking, and are succeeding in catching some of those behind it all.

All in all it was a fantastic few days on the island. I had actually spent an extra day without realizing it; however, when I arrived at the airport after skipping my flight the day before–they just charged me a $30 fee and put me on the one I thought I had been on. No problemo.

The Cooliris thing above shows some of my pics from San Andres. Click the diagonal arrows in the bottom right corner to get it full size and click on the individual photos to view them.

Santa Marta is a quaint town with beautiful churches, plazas, and colonial architecture.  Though it is no where near as clean and developed as Cartagena, it had a lot of charm.  There is not too much to see in Santa Marta itself, but it is a great place to stay for all the day trips nearby and overnight hammock trips.

The hostel I stayed at was full of happy ad friendly travellers.  It was owned by two American guys, so there was a strong emphasis on drinking and fun.  People could really get stuck in that town because of the hostel–in fact most of the staff had been travellers who just stayed to work the bar and had been there for months now.

I spent my first day exploring Santa Marta and hanging out, really doing not a whole lot.  The second day, one of the staff from the hostel organized a tour for whoever wanted to join to see some waterfalls and hike a bit, then go to a surf competition at a beach called Casa Grande.  There were about 10 of us, and we had a difficult time trying to all squeeze on the bus during Semana Santa (Easter Week).  We got there though, and were soon walking through beautiful trails and river beds.  At the waterfall, there are pools of water all the way up, about every 40 feet where you can swim and relax on the rocks.  The smaller waterfalls flow into each pool.  It was a really neat place; even with quite a few people there for Easter it was beautiful.  I’d love to be able to go back when it’s empty…it was so serene.

The surf competition was not too exciting as the waves weren’t big enough to hold much of an event that day.  But we hung out on the beach and watched some of the contestants go out and play on the waves; they were all super talented and some of them had to be under 15.

The next morning, a couple of us went out to Tayrona Park, a National Park about a 40 minute drive from Santa Marta.  After walking through the park for an hour and a half or two hours, you reach Cabo San Juan.  It was such a beautiful walk through the jungle and forest, and everywhere on the walk you are just minutes from some of the most beautiful white sandy bays.  As you come out to Cabo, there are two large bays, both blocked by a coral reef just off shore.  The bays are multiple colours of turquoise with white sand with large boulders dotted about.  In between the bays is a big hut with hammocks strung in a circle connected to the center pole.  You rent out a hammock for the night and can see both of the bays from up there.  If you walk further along, you just find more and more white sandy beaches.  It was a bit busy due to Easter, so we kept walking to the nudist beach, where it was much quieter.  The nasty naked men around didn’t even take away from the beauty of the park–that’s saying something.

The next day was spent on the beach until the boat to Tagana, a fishing village about 7 km from Santa Marta.  The boat was a nice way to come back from the park quickly, but it was definitely a bit rocky, and it was hard to really trust that the boatmen knew what they were doing.  Everyone survived though, haha.  Taganga is another place where a lot of people stay, but it was insanely busy with a pretty crap beach.  It did not look like a nice place to hang out really.

The next day a bunch of us left for Cartagena.  The bus was less than pleasant–I’m not sure if it was car sickness, a hangover, or the parasite I had swimming around in my stomach, but I felt like just shit.  I had to ask the bus to pull over after puking a little in my mouth–lovely.  Thankfully, we went to the pharmacy and found some drugs for me, and two days later I was feeling much better for the first time since Bolivia really.  The parasite can stay with you for years, so I’m glad that I finally went in for some drugs.  Hopefully I will keep it away.

We spent the next day out at the mud volcano just outside Cartagena.  It was so weird, you just float in the mud.  It is 2500 meters deep of just mud.  When you get in some gives you an oddly enjoyable body massage in the mud, then you just hang out like you would in a hot tub, looking like some mud monsters from a scary movie.  After all that, you go down to the lake to rinse off, and women literally just take your swim suit off to give you a good rinse.  It was an interesting experience.  We spent the rest of the day at the beach walking around and watching the windsurfers.

I won’t say too much on my bus ride to Riohacha, the taking off point for the tour.  However, I left my spanish class and ran back to catch the bus to Santa Marta–around 3 or 4 hours, then caught the next bus to Riohacha.  On the bus to Riohacha I was stuck beside this disgustingly smelly Polish man.  He had a cigarette behind one ear, a joint behind the other, a can of heineken and chipped off green toe nail polish.  Needless to say, he was one of the strangest characters I’ve come into contact with on my trip thus far.  He told me he had wanted to ‘manifest himself’ in one of the Colombian novels he was reading; unfortunately he had been reading two at the same time and manifested himself in the other.  He had been involved with a woman who had betrayed him, and now he needed to take revenge.  He explained that that was easy in Colombia though, you could pay someone a few dollars to make your ex dissappear for ever.  He then told me he had decided not to take the morning bus after getting an odd Tarot card reading…he was nice enough to ask if I’d like mine read as well, but I politely declined and told him I wanted to be a bit more surprised by the future.  It was a bizarre bus ride…I finally got my headphones in and was able to ignore him for about the last hour.

We mainly spent our time in 4X4s during the day, with periodic stops at the picturesque white sandy beach.  The first beach at Bahia Honda was completely deserted; there were a few old boats left to rot and a some thatched roofs under which old fishing nets and deteriorated hammocks sat untouched.  After a swim and a beer, we got back in the trucks and went to a small guesthouse in Cabo de la Vela, a beautiful beachside village.  From there we checked out another beach where desert rock cliffs dropped into the beautiful Caribbean Sea and the sand was orange.  We then hiked up a mid sized rocky hill to see the sunset and the lighthouse–although it may have been the worst lighthouse I’ve ever seen.  It was just metal poles with a light on top, surrounded by barbed wire.  We stayed the night in Cabo de la Vela and sat outside watching the stars.

The next day we were back in the jeeps and heading to the most northern point in all of South America–Punto Gallinas.  We stopped in at the most jaw dropping beach, called Taroa, I have ever seen…it was in the middle of the desert with rolling sand dunes all around.  We hiked up to the top of a dune wondering why the truck had dropped us in the middle of nowhere to find the dunes just dropped straight down into the ocean.  It was stunning, just to slide down these desert dunes into the ocean at the bottom.  We just stood there staring for minutes on end at the sand, untouched, no footprints or anything.  Really, just this made the hellish 4X4s well worth it.  We stayed at a small house in Wayuu hammocks–the most comfortable hammock on the planet.  The wind at the top of the cliff rocked us to sleep and the breeze kept us cool.  It was one of the best sleeps I’ve had in a while.

In the morning, two of us took a boat from Bahia Hondita to Bahia Honda.  On the way we saw some flamingos and stopped at a few little islands in the bay.  It was a bit bumpy, but nothing compared to the jeeps, and it took about a third of the time as the jeep–even with all the stops.  So, once we got to the point where the jeep would pick us up, we still had about an hour to relax beachside alone.  Everyone I have spoken to about going all the out to Punto Gallinas has said the same, that it was the most beautiful and interesting scenery.  It was definitely worth the hassle of travelling to the middle of nowhere.

The first two days were holidays and therefore the town was shut down–it was nearly impossible to find food after 4 pm anywhere in the city.  Although, that remains somewhat true on regular working days as well.  By my third day, I had finally sorted out my Spanish and salsa classes for the next 5 days.  After a serious amount of confusion and switching schools, I went with Babel and Crazy Salsa in the center of old town.  No one else was signed up for the week, so I had private lessons all week.  My Spanish teacher was fantastic…she gave me a great base to build on for the next while.  The salsa teacher would definitely not have been in Dirty Dancing Havana Nights–he weighed about 80 pounds, was an inch or two shorter than me and very flamboyant.  He was a great dancer though, and hilarious.

The city itself is gorgeous.  I love the colonial architecture and the plazas all through town.  The beach, Bocagrande, leave a lot to be desired.  It was smelly, dirty, and full of people trying to sell you massages and home made rum.  I didn’t get time to go out to any of the islands this round, but I am going to have another 4 days or so back in Cartagena before flying to Chile, so I will hopefully get a chance then.  I had my last class on Saturday morning and had to run back to catch my bus to Santa Marta, a town east of Cartagena also on the coast.  Off to the desert once again, only this time, the Caribbean is always a few steps away.

Bogota is an interesting city, although a bit run down in some areas.  There are some fantastic art museums, as well as the interesting Police Museum which contains many of Pablo Escobar’s guns, bikes, and all kinds of police photos from police raids and drug busts.  Entrance to the Police Museum was free, and we had an english speaking guide who showed us around and told us all the usual stories–but best of all, you get a free Colombian Police Magazine and 2010 desk calendar at the end of it!  Colombia really is superb.

While I was in Bogota, the annual Theatre Festival was taking place.  We went to the massive opening parade–the streets were blocked off all day and people were lined up hours before the actual parade.  It was an interesting, not like our parades back home, lots of fire blowing with gasoline, body paint, nudity, and stilts.  Very interesting.  But after the parade, the central square in town filled with people around a huge stage set up in the middle.  There was salsa dancing and a couple of bands.  I was shocked at the talent, and the music was unreal–I loved it.

The hostel in Bogota was decent and the food in Colombia is pretty mainstream–chicken, beef, rice and all that.  I love the colonial architecture and the cobblestone streets.  But its definitely the people that have made my stay in Colombia so different thus far.

I arrived to La Paz a day before our tour…needless to say, the city did not deserve an extra day.  Although it was probably good to get used to the altitude as La Paz is between 3500 and 4000 meters above sea level.  The city itself is dirty, rude, and has nearly nothing I found appealing aside from a Catholic Church.  I was happy to meet up with the group my second night after spending two days wandering the streets of such an unfriendly city.  Our group was 10 people including our guide, and everyone was friendly and for the most part made a fine travelling group.  I did find it interesting that aside from one other girl, none of us spoke any spanish–in fact I would put myself in second for Spanish ability, which is really just sad.  But all nice people at least, just some a little more naive than others in the travel scene; one girl had never heard of Machu Picchu…

The first part of our trip involved full days on trains and buses to make our way to Uyuni and then to the salt flats and the desert.  Bolivia’s salt flat is the largest in the world at 120,000 square kilometres.  If you removed up to 120 m depth it would refill itself by the next rain.  Every year the salt flat increases in size; unfortunately, it’s not really used for much, and most countries have their own salt so there is no export market for salt.  We did find quite a few hotels and statues made of salt bricks, held together with a form of cement.   We took all the funny photos on the salt flats standing on bottles and stepping on people, then kept going in our jeeps to the next stop.

The next two days we were in the beautiful Bolivian desert.  There were all kinds of coloured lagoons dotting the desert, with active volcanoes in the distance and sandy mountains with all kinds of colours of sand waving down their faces.  Interesting llama like animals with much less hair roamed around eating what they could; but other than them, we were alone in the desert.  We stayed in small guesthouses in villages with no more than a few guesthouses and a single shop in town.  Luckily we had an avid drinker from the UK and he made sure that there was lots of beer and champagne (more of a cider) for everyone within minutes of arriving.  We split into two rooms our first night and had one of the worst sleeps I’ve ever had.  If you never plan on replacing your bed, buy a foam mattress.  These were spring mattresses that had been extremely well used and now the springs poked through, digging into my backbone, as you struggled to get out of the bed of the mattress.  Moreover, any time anyone moved, the mattresses squeaked and cracked as the springs moved to a new equally painful place on your body.    Our second night was moderately better as our springy mattresses sat on cement blocks instead of beds.  Still no one slept well.

After our second night, we were to visit a couple lagoons on the drive out of the desert and get back to some (if very minimal) civilization.  Unfortunately our car broke down.  Eventually, after a few hours of waiting in the hot and sunny desert, we were sent to the side of the road to wait for a van that was coming to pick us up.  No van came.  We found out shortly that no van was coming.  We would have been able to hitchhike with the numerous tourist vehicles that had gone by in the past hour; however, now they had all passed us, and we were left with few options.  Eventually, one of our two cars arrived to our spot on the main dirt road, towing our broken jeep with a cable made from braided strips of bicycle tires.  We were told we would tow the other car to the police stop and figure things out from there.  Simple except, our driver–who was only just 16–had some trouble timing the gas and braking, resulting in the cable breaking in the middle.  They tried to retie it at half length and we made it maybe another 4 feet.  Finally, they decided to take the good jeep to the police stop with most of us and find a better tow rope, then go back for the rest.

They left the majority of us sitting on the rocky ground in the sun after now more than 6 hours.  Most of us were starting to burn quite badly and there was still no plan.  When our broken jeep finally arrived, still no one knew what we would do.  Another truck was there, apparently waiting for their other car.  We decided we would all cozy up in the one working jeep, and leave once their other car arrived.  After another half hour or so of waiting two of us went up to check things out.  Although our tour guide told us it would only be a couple more minutes, David had the good sense to ask another person, who showed him through the binoculars that the jeep had been broken down for some time.  We explained our frustration to our tour guide and told her we would be leaving without her, in the one working jeep.  And we left.

Just over half way back to the town, the other jeep she was supposed to call at 8 am that morning met us–she had only called it when we finally left the police stop.  She went in the other car that was waiting for the rest of its group and met us at the hotel.  Our ride back was awful–we were so squished in–and they gave us the dead battery that wouldn’t charge, so we couldn’t turn the jeep off and we couldn’t undo or roll up windows, or listen to music, or move at all.  It was possibly the longest day of our trip.

The following day we went to Potosi, a silver mining town.  Potosi was a much nicer feeling town than La Paz.  We went to the mines the next morning.  Our tour stopped at a shop so we could all buy some dynamite and fuses with some explosion powder–the whole explosion device cost about $2 US.  It’s open for anyone to buy anytime.  We were also introduced to the miners choice of drink on Fridays–96% alcohol.  I took a small sip and it had evaporated from my tongue before I had even swallowed; however, within seconds I could feel the intense alcohol burning through my esophogus and stomach.  Inside the mines was interesting to walk around and go through the tunnels.  There was an ad hoc museum type area, with statues dedicated to the 8 million people that have died in the mines.  Yes, 8 million people.  Enough bones to build a bridge to Madrid from Bolivia.  The Spaniards used to force the slaves (from Africa) and indigenous to stay in the mines for 6 months at a time, and sharing one light between 10 people.  Many of the Africans died due to the elevation and were unable to adjust to the conditions.  While many of the indigenous if they survived their first 6 months would go blind when they were finally brought out for the first time as their eyes attempted to adjust to the light once again.  There was one room that was a shrine to the devil, believed to protect the miners.  Every Friday they bring their 96% alcohol into the mines and sprinkle a little on his massive manhood and drink the rest.  After our tour we were able to go outside and blow up our dynamite.  It was a huge explosion.  And so funny that you can just do that there, go blow up dynamite if you want.

We spent the next three days in Sucre, a surprisingly cute colonial town.  Our first night there was spent drinking far too heavily, it seemed that that was somewhat the norm for all the Gringos (white tourists) there.  First time for a lot of people in a while to have access to regular food, cocktails and cold beer.  It was like heaven in Bolivia.  There wasn’t a whole lot to see in Sucre, but we did our best to explore all the areas of it…in fact one night we were given a restaurant recommendation for a place in the middle of nowhere.  We had left the city by the time we arrived at this place, which looked more like someone’s garage than a restaurant.  Everything was green, including the lighting.  And there were only two option, meat with more fat or less fat.  (Unless of course you wanted to eat intestine or udder–YES, COW UDDER..).  All of our meals came with endless fried potatoes, salad, and rice with cheese.  When our steaks came out, it was ridiculous.  They all literally filled a dinner plate, there was no room for anything else on your plate.  I have never been served that much meat in my life–even with Pieter around.  In the end, no one could finish their less than 5 dollar meal, and we packed all our leftovers up.   They filled up over 6 take away boxes, big ones.  The government gives out a pension type payment for seniors on the 15 of every month and they have to wait in line ups outside the bank for sometimes 4 days.  It had been two days now, so we decided to drop it off with all the oldies on our block.  Don’t worry, we cut it into very small pieces so they could eat them, and we asked them to share with everyone.  But our leftovers were able to feed an entire line up that wrapped around the block.

Our last night in Sucre was a lovely gongshow as well, resulting in salsa lessons and shooters.  The rest of the group continued on the next morning to Brazil, while 3 of us returned to wonderful La Paz.  Luckily I only had the one evening in La Paz and was off the next morning to Bogota, Colombia.  Although we ran into a number of walls, many of which I haven’t even bothered to mention here, Bolivia was undoubtedly beautiful.  The desert and the salt flats were stunning, even when you are stranded on the road and getting third degree burns.  (Well, maybe not as pretty).  And being with people that were all equally frustrated at being thrown into such situations just made it that much funnier.  Its nice to be able to laugh off things, and you have to, when every day something is inevitably cancelled because of one thing or another.  Road blocks made the road more interesting though, and almost always lead to more drinking and bonding.  So all in all, a great time.