All change.

What a few weeks it has been

After Sucre, where I met a sweet guy from Leeds to hang out with a week or so, met the loveliest man Omar ¿say no moreª? who ran both the hostel and the Spanish school next door. Highly recommend the Travellers Guesthouse and Bolivian Spanish school there, really nice and chilled and homely, the complete antithesis to Loki and all it brings with itª

FYI, a superscript A is an exclamation mark, a c with a circumflex is an apostrophe, and my brackets are question marks. Of course…

Anyway, after a week hanging in Sucre, I decided to head down to Potosi, to check out the mine tour. I was geared up for something pretty traumatic, having heard so much about the way the mines are run, the conditions under which they work, and the potential for my freaking out due to clautrophobia, but I figured this trip is about new experiences and facing fears, so thought, sod it.

As it happened, I was building it up in my head, as usual. Donçt et me wrong, it was possibly the weirdest, most out=of=comfort zone thing Içve ever really done, but not to the extent I expected. I had watched a film called the Devilçs Miner the night before, which was due to give me some insight into the experience. It was positioned as a documentary, but I found out afterwards it was just a film. So that tainted my expectations somewhat. I had also heard that this particular mine was reserved for the tours, and that most working mines have far superior, more modern conditions than we were witnessing. But Içve learned that everything = ESPECIALLY in Bolivia = is to be taken with a certain amount of salt ¿pardon the pun, for when I start talking about Uyuniª? and it certainly didnçt take away from the tripp, more that it helped me appease my guilt about exploiting levels of poverty and danger to see something really cool.

Uyuni was next, and Içm GUTTED I cançt post photos from my camera on this computer as it was one of the most dazzling things Içve ever seen. We were really lucky as, being wet season, the entire salt flat became a giant mirror, and my group ¿had a cool bunch? spent a couple of hours larking about on the salt, taking the usual cliched photos of people jumping ¿or attempting toª?, doing yoga, running about etc. AWESOME trip.

Next stop = which was my birthday, incidentally, and I have to keep saying it out loud that yes, I am 36 now. Jesus when did that all happen+++ = was San Pedro de Atacama, in Chile. ONly stayed a couple of days but went sandboarding in the desert. Amazing funª And met three cool Aussies who adopted me for a few days, and theyçve all just left for BA.

Then thought Içd join them in Mendoza, where we visited three wineries = cançt remember the names right now = and had a briliant tour with guide on the region, had a spectacular lunch, with pairings, and has inspired me to become more knowledgable on wines when I get home. AM now being glared at for being on here too long, so will sign off and pick up later.

Habla pronto…