Bolivia - Tupiza, Uyuni, Potosi

Bolivia is extreme in many senses of the word. It´s incredibly poor and rugged and beautiful and the first country I´ve visited whos culture lacks clear Western influence. It´s what I wanted to experience during this trip and the degree of poverty at times continues to be unbelievable and the beauty of the culture amazes.

Crossed border at Villazon and paid $135 visa fee (reciprocity at its finest) and was surrounded by markets overtaking streets, offers for $1 home-cooked lunches and wrinkled indigenous faces with blank stares hauling around backpacks made of folded colorful blankets.

Tupiza to Uyuni
Went on a 4 day 4WD tour between Tupiza and Uyuni with Shane (New Zealand) and Ant (UK). Most of the trip took place between 12,000 and 15,000 ft (altiplano region) where chewing on the ounce of coca leafs we bought for 70 cents from a corner store before the trip helped ease altitude sickness (note: coca leafs are legal and aren´t cocaine). Stayed in small adobe walled and straw roofed villages and one night a hotel made completely out of salt. Saw red rock formations (similar to Bryce NP), gysers, lagunas, deserts, more flamingos and llamas than you can count and the salt flats... which are amazing and almost indescribable

Getting schooled in futbol by the girls in the first town where we stayed

Small village hut

Laguna Verde

Flamingos

Salt Flats

Crazy perspectives of the salt flats as I crush Shane (image not altered)

Potosi
Took a night bus to Potosi (7.5 hours, $5). Laughing when our bus showed up and they started throwing bags on the roof and exhausted by the end of the trip. All seats taken and I had a women sleeping against my legs and a woman sleeping against hers, etc. Since no bathroom on bus it stopped halfway and everyone (men and women) used parking lot and road as the restroom.

Potosi Cooperative Mine Tour
Went on tour of famous Potosi Cooperative Mine. Famous for numbers of deaths it´s caused (believed to be over 8 million people in the last few hundred years) and continued unsafe working practices. Before arriving at mine stopped at a corner store in town to buy miners gifts... gifts included coca leafs, 96% alcohol and dynamite (yes they sell dynamite at the local corner store).

Ant, me and Shane before going under. Toured the tunnels and talked to miners for 3 hours about 300 ft underground.

And you think your job sucks: This guy had to take out 60 of these carts per day, each weighing about 1 ton. He works about 13 hours a day and makes 50 Bolivianos for his efforts ($7 USD per day). Most miners start working as teenagers and often die within 10 or 20 years from breathing in the noxious gases and dust.

Sucre
In the "modern" city of Sucre now. Likely will stay a week to study spanish and tour the surrounding area.