Thanks to everyone who has left me messages, it has been great to hear the news from home and that I am not missing much summer weather. The last time I updated you all was when I was in La PAz and so much has happened in the few days since then!

The rest of the 20th Jan was spent doing a little bit of shopping at the Witches market in La Paz. The market had all the regular items for tourists plus strange medicines and all sorts of concoctions like love potions and dried Llama foetuses. Pretty strange really.

After an early dinner we said goodbye to the girls who were leaving the tour at this point and got aboard a night bus to Uyuni (near the salt flats). The bus ride was 12 hours long and after watching Twilight on the buses tvs (in English I might add) I slept the whole way. This was a great accomplishment as most of the roads in Bolivia are not paved. It was also wet season and we were told prior to boarding the bus to be prepared to be woken up and made to walk sections of the road where it had been flooded by the rain. Thankfully that didnt happen.

21st Jan: Arrived at about 8 am in Uyuni and we all had showers and breakfast at a local hotel before getting into 4x4s to head down to the salt flats. First we stopped at a train cemetery and climbed all over the old rusted out trains. We then headed out towards the salt flats. We reached the salt flats and were immediately blinded by the reflection of the sun off the white salt. It was amazing, I have never seen anything like it. We stopped for pictures and to go see the salt hotel, made completely out of salt. We had a long journey to reach the island in the middle, walked to the top of the island while our cooks were making lunch. Super yummy lunch followed by 2-3 hours of photo taking. Our group got very creative with pringles cans, fruit, and other items as props. We then had a few group photos and then we had to leave because a storm was coming in. I saw some of the best lightning of my life before arriving at our accomodation for the night. A salt hotel. Even the floors were made of salt. No hot showers here and only electricity from 7-10pm.

22nd Jan: Cold shower and back into the 4x4s to head to the desert. We saw beautiful landscapes and found a few rocks to climb (the boys mooned all us girls from the top of a few). We saw the red lake (red from the light reflecting on the huge amounts of plankton in the water). We arrived at our accomodation late and this time there were no showers. Played cards and had a yummy dinner. The cooks even made fries to go in our soup.

23rd Jan: Awake before 4am ro go and see the geisers. These were pretty cool and there was even one that you could jump through. The other ones you could walk right up to and there were no saftey barriers of any sort. (Bolivia is not big on safety). After this we had pancakes for breakfast and then went for a swim in the natural hot springs. After this we were heading to the green lake when our car overheated, so we had to squeeze into the other two cars. The green lake was beautiful and somehow led to a competition of who could chuck a rock into the lake from far away. After this we got back into our car as it was fixed and headed back to Uyuni. We stopped for lunch in a little town and thanked our drivers and cooks. We arrived into Uyuni around 5pm.

Dinner at the best pizza restaurant ever and bed early. Tonight I was lucky enough to have single room (there were three single girls on the tour now and we only do upto twin share). The single room was actually a double and I had the best sleep ever in the first double bed I have slept in in a month or so.

24th Jan: Private bus to Potosí, this trip was an interesting ne, unpaved roads and water pouring across them at points. Saw a few vehicles having to be dug out from the "road". Pretty unadventful bus ride apart from an old drunk trying to board our bus when we stopped for toilets (and by toilets I mean a bush on the side of the road). We arrived in Potosí at 4pm and the rain meant noboday felt like doing much. Potosí (for your interest) was once the biggest city in the world (yes, bigger than london, paris, nw york etc.) this was because of the silver mines in the hillside. The Spanish made great use of this silver and treated the locals as slaves after they invaded the country. For this reason over 1 million people died in the mines. This includes locals and africans bought in to mine too. The mines are still operational today and the average length of a miners life is 10 years after starting in the mines. There are children working in these mines who wont make it to 20. We went for dinner early then a few of us went to see 2012 at the cinema! This was an interesting experience. Was like I would have expected cinemas to be like when my parents were young. Wooden floors and everything. Tickets were NZ$2. and popcorn only NZ$0.50.

25th Jan: While a few people went to the mines (and tried the 96% alcohol the miners drink and the coco cigarettes) the rest of us went by taxi to Sucre. The taxi ride took about 3 hours and we stopped on the way for photos of an old bridge. We arrived in Sucre and had some lunch. It is such a beautiful city with whit buildings everywhere. It feels almost like its a seaside city, except Bolivia has been landlocked since 1884. After lunch a few of us went for a walk around the city. We found a chocolate shop and then walked up a big hill (Recoleta) to see over the city. What a great view. We waited 15 minutes for a tour of a convent only to find the tour guide spoke Spanish only. Another hour or so looking around the sity before it was time for dinner and bed soon after.

Today I got up early to make it to the internet cafe before we go on a tour of the cemetery near by. The free breakfast at the hotel today was amazing, fresh papaya, watermelon, juices, bread, cereal etc. YUM! It is raining today which is a bit worrying because if it gets too stormy our flight to Santa Cruz tomorrow will be cancelled and we will have to take the bus. Excited for Santa Cruz as this starts the hot and humid part of our trip. (dropping from 2700m above sea level to 200 m above sea level).

Hope all is well back home and that summer starts to pick up a bit. Until next time xxx