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Rosie and Joe in South America
Sorry the comunication has been non existant in the last few days we have been travelling like nutters trying to get to Uyuni to meet Stefan and Emilio. We spent one day and night in Cochabamba, one day and night in Samaipata, 22 hours in Sucre(Bolivia's capital) and a total of 9 hours in Potosi. In all this time we have climbed inside a 30 meter statue of christ, visited a new volcanic lagoon, seen a rock carved by a pre Inca community 1000bc 200m long and 60m wide, seen the largest collection of dinosaur footprints in the world, been to the source (Cerro Rico- a mine in Potosi) of the most silver in the world, although it no longer mines silver it used to be one of the richest cities in the world (It does also hold the curent record for being the highest city in the world) and a museum deemed the best museum in bolivia, though thats not saying much which is based around the original building from making silver coins, for Bolivia and Spain.
So i'm sure you can imagine that we were relieved to get to uyuni and meet up with Stefan and Emilio at 1:30 in the morning in the freezing cold whether of this wind swept, ghost town. We spent a day together and booked our tour of the salt lakes and these mineral coloured lakes. We splashed out a little and hired the jeep for the 4 of us when they usual fit six in, $100 each for three meals a day and accomodation. But it was worth it we got to play our own music the whole way and had loads of room. Its so good to see them even it is only for 6 days.
The trip was amazing. The salt lakes are the most unbelievable and sureal things that you could imagine. 12000 square kilometers of such highly saturated wter that the sun dries the salt and forms a 7 - 10 meter salt crust, in the middle of which sits an island populated purely by cacti reaching 20 metres high in some cases.
On the second day we visited an eroded rock in the shape of a tree, not very interesting, and a more interesting red lake, turned that colour by the plancton in it. Wildlife was cool, some vicunas ( a rare type of llama) and hundreds of flamingos.
We ended the trip today with a wake up at 5 a trip to some geyzers, these jets of steam tens of metres high form the boiling water below the surface, and on to some natural hot springs, which are lovely when the air is below -10 celcius - not so nice getting out though. The trip ende with a visit to a green lake which wasn't green at all. Apparently the mineral sits on the bed and is only stirred on windy days.
All in all a brilliant experience and so much better for doing it with such good friends that we havent seen in such a long time. We are now in San Pedro, Chile, where the trip ended, and have all met up with jack and are staying here to watch the final. Bad news for Jack though, he's a Tottenham fan, and is going to watch the Arsenal lift the Champions League still felling bitter about the last game of the season.
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