The flight to La Paz was late but otherwise uneventful and I was picked up at the airport by Jesus and we journeyed to La Senda Verde via the new road that replaced Death Road. The scenery went from bleak mountains to lush jungle with many twists and turns and commentary from Jesus. Arriving at La Senda Verde was not very organised - Vicky the owner - gave me a brief introduction, I was shown to my room near quarantine and left to myself for the next few hours b...

I arrived in Sucre at my next hostel, Casa Verde after a fast but quite careful ride in a shared taxi from Potosi with Kira from my hostel. Casa Verde was gorgeous - as I was shown across a central court yard I went past the swimming pool (!) and into my room which was like a hotel or nice guest house with a sofa bed to sit on and tables to put things on! I had a quick stroll around and went for an early meal at the very quiet Red Lion pub. I will admit I was...

The main thing to do in Potosi is go down a silver mine - however it is very unsafe and you get to see people working in terrible conditions so I decided to explore the UNESCO heritage city for the morning instead. After taking pphotos from the hostal roof terrace I headed to the cathedral and went on a tour in Spanish - I was delighted to find I could understand 90% of what was said -Bolivian Spanish is so much cleared than Chilean or Argentinian. The view from...

After picking up our fellow travellers two things became obvious - I had been combined with another company - Estrellas de Sur and that I was the only native English speaker. After the border crossing - the easiest so far - we had breakfast and divided into to cars. I was with 4 Frenchies - Anihi, David, Sophie and Julie - all lovely people but I was doomed to listen to a lot of French for the next three days. Luckily Anihi was French/Chilean so acted as translat...

After an overnight bus trip where I actually slept thanks to upgrading to premium - a seat that nearly fully reclined! - I arrived in the desert town of San Pedro de Atacama. I had imagined that this small town would just be a stop off for the trip across to Bolivia but it was actually a charming small frontier town. The main streets are mainly filled with tourist activities but somehow the town still manages to retain its character. I was staying in Hostel Rura...