On the raz in La Paz

Right guys,
Well I´m slowly catching up with myself. The Bolivian "internet" is making it quite hard to upload photos and obviously there´s mountains to climb, sun to be bathed in and booze to be drunk but I´m getting there.
From the salt flats we arrived into civilisation in a place called Uyuni which is a shithole, to be polite, but there is a cool train graveyard thing, which you can climb all over. Here we are trying to be a boyband, me lying in some sort of rusty ring, and there´s one of Zoe in an engine but it´s sideways, I´ll try and sort that out at some point. Like I said, Uyuni was a bit of a dump so we only stayed one night. There was a dodgy bar where the pint pots were quite realistically shaped like body parts. Luckily for you lot I didn´t have my camera on me.
Made a quick exit from Uyuni to the lovely and lively Potosi. I´m not sure what goes on in Bolivia, but 90% of the population of the towns are out on the streets 90% of the time. Obviously this makes the markets quite cool. Shoes anyone? And here´s Ikram going for it in a Bolivian skirt. (They´re usually worn like this). The main attraction in Potosi however is the silver mine. You can go down it and look around, and it´s supposed to be really shocking and medieval (how could anyone work like this etc) - but it was exactly like I thought a mine would be, maybe I'm missing something. It was great fun though. I loved my boiler suit. Down the mine it's quite scary. Zoe had already decided to sit this one out because the guide book was quite wary. I wouldn't recommend it if you're claustrophobic or suffer from vertigo. Some of the ladders are twenty metres high, only held in with one nail and a rubber band, (which I thought it was hilarious to tell everyone below me) and it's a considerable relief to get to the top. My favourite things about the mine was hearing all the booms from the explosions (although not the subsequent dust), and seeing the Indiana Jones mine trains, which I seem to have lost my photo of.
You are advised to buy the miners presents before you go down. They like coca leaves, bottles of 96% alcohol, marijuana and sticks of dynamite. Luckily you can buy all of these things in the corner shop in Bolivia, which means you can get extra and keep it for yourself. We got our guide to make our dynamite into a bomb. He used an old coke bottle, some rubble and a bit of wire. Steve lit it and held it for a bit with a fizzing fuse, our guide ran off up the hill with it, then vamooshed. It was VERY loud and the whole hill shook, then some villagers started shouting at us. I assumed it was OK because the guide was doing it but clearly not a good idea when people are having their lunch.
The only other thing of note that Potosi contains is a huge selection of cake stalls, where you can buy a whole cream cake for about 50p. So you only have to spend a pound and you get one to eat and one to do whatever you want with.
After Potosi we got a bus over to Sucre which is a really nice town somewhere in, erm, Bolivia. We visited the supreme courts of Justice (Zoe's name badge there says TOURIST) and they let us in the library so obviously we all had a good read about Bolivian law. Sucre has some nice balconies round the square where you can pretend to be Eva Peron having lunch. Although in this photo we look more like the last supper.
Now, Sucre, with its lovely monastery at the top of the hill, is where we finally met up with Peter and Domingo. They are working in an orphanage, which made us feel a tiny bit guilty but not enough to help out. You can read what they've been up to here. It was lovely to see them and as usual with these things it was far too short.
It only really remains then for me to tell you about La Paz. La Paz is the capital of Bolivia and is up at a head-spinning 3600m. I think we were OK though because we'd acclimatised by this point. The overnight bus from Sucre was a bit of a mare because they had oversold the tickets and we had to go on the rubbish one despite having paid for a posh seat. It's an amazing place to arrive though, especially after being in such remote places. You come over the hill at 4000m and climb down into the canyon (not my photo). The suburbs are plastered all over the canyon walls. It's a typical South American city, with flags, markets and beetles etc. And randomly, a news presenter in the square. La Paz has a great musical instruments museum where you can play everything. Here's me playing flashdance on some sort of organ, with Zoe on the tubular bells. I also found some Bolivian trousers I want, second from the left.
We had a great time there, doing lots of eating out and shopping. I didn't really take many pictures because you all know what eating and shopping look like. There are some fabulous views of the Andes. I tell you what though, I wouldn't want to be an electrician there.
So that was that, team bolivia was disbanded. Neils got a flight to New Zealand to start a job, we left Ikram in Sucre to do some charidee work, and we got a bus to lake titicaca (which is where we are now) leaving Steve behind in La Paz with James where they are going to do manly things like climb mountains that require oxygen, and so on.
I can't leave this post without showing you Zoe's proudest moment of the whole trip - being photographed with a certain celebrity outside Burger king. Here.
We're going to Peru tomorrow, very exciting. My next blog will be very inca themed. Children ooof the sun, now your time has just begun (etc)
Bye!
x