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Saturday 7th July
The Overlanders took a city tour which showed us the two extremes of Bolivia - poverty and wealth (corruption). Bullet holes remain as a reminder of recent (2003) troubles, in buildings around the main square. There are multi-million dollar homes on the outskirts of La Paz in a very fashionable district (this is in the poorest country in the world!). Our tour also took in the Lunar Landscape, a natural phenomena caused by the erosion of the clay(?) by rain which very quickly bakes in the sun. Here we found ourselves overlooking the highest golf course in the world at 3.300 metres! La Paz also boasts the highest Olympic swimming pool, velodrome and football stadium in the world! We later visited the "Witches'Market" which sells all sorts of potions - but is famous for selling offerings, including snake skins, birds wings, but mostly Llama foetuses, which are buried in the foundations of your new house to bring good luck! Welcome to Bolivia!
Sunday 8th July
Whist the "young ones" took a gravity assisted bike ride down 3,000 metres on Death Road, we took a trip to the pre-Inca ruins of Tawanaku, 1500 BC to 1200 AD. The archaeologiest have much to do here - it is a large site and a lot is left to the imagination and speculation! Much of the site was dug up by miners in the sixteenth century looking for gold and silver. However, they have protected the largest intact monolyth - 8 metres high, weighing 19 tons, carved out of one piece of stone in AD 500 (photography not permitted!). Coca is not a drug! We have just been educated in the Coca Museum - a very interesting and informative exhibition of the history of coca leaves and their importance to the Andean culture for centuries. We leave for Potosi in the morning - highest city in the world at over 4,000 metres - famous in the past for its gold and silver mines, but currently they mine tin.
Chow for now!
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