After all the excitment and exhertion of the Salt Flats we headed North with Jim and Si, to Sucre, the judicial capital of Bolivia. The rest of the group had decided to travel the night before, despite being warned of the potentially slow, bone rattling journey. After meeting up with them again in Sucre our decision to wait an extra day paid off massively as we learnt four of them had to stand on the night bus as it was overbooked.

Sucre proved to be a very beautiful, relaxed, European style city with little to do but wander the streets filled with impressvie colonial buildings, eat good food, sit in the many plazas and obviously have a few drinks in the evening.

One such evening turned into more than just a few drinks and unfortunately some of us (notably Liz) were really feeling it the next day when we headed off to Potosi, the world´s highest city, famous for its silver mines. What started off as a hangover for Liz soon turned into altitude sickness and she was left bedridden for much of our stay, as Jim, Si and myself headed off for a day trip to the mines.

First stop was base camp to get dressed into full miners´ attire. Following this we had a couple of quick stops, first at the refinery to see the end product and then the miners´ market to pick up some dynamite, coca leaves and other gifts for the miners.

Despite being a Saturday, meaning many of the miners were either playing football or getting drunk, it was still an eye opening experience, and one I will not forget in a while as we walked, crawled, scrambled and climbed through the pitch black, dusty mines, witnessed a few miners en route working in incredibly dire conditions, spending hours creating small holes which to plant dynamite in. We spent just over an hour and a half in the mines but that was long enough and we were all pleased to get out a breath some fresh air and see daylight again. We finished the tour in style lighting a few sticks of dynamite before heading back to the hostel to check on Liz and catch the night bus on to La Paz.