One lump or five?

We opted for 5 in Sucre, the original capital of Bolivia, as we were in dire need of a rest. 

We did a fly by visit to Potosi via the bus station, as we didn't think we would find our much needed rest in a town that is known as "the gateway to hell" funnily enough. And the idea of visiting the still active silver mines, were there is a high risk of an explosion trapping you in, not to mention the furnace heat in the mines, plus the added bonus of being exposed to asbestos.... So we carried on another 3 hours to Sucre. Which we found to be similar to Arequipa in it's european feel and a million times nicer than La Paz. Loads of white washed buildings, a leafy plaza (they love a plaza in Bolivia), clean and friendly. And the main thing.. It was warm, well like and English heat anyway, which was a very welcome change.

We hunted round for a decent Hostal and after a few beers, started to relax straight away. We were only going to stay 2 nights, but after a lot of sleeping, beer and cable tv, we realised we hadn't worked out where to go next or how to get there so it took us another 3 days to work that out.

A few pointers to mention. Women dig up the roads, with pickaxes, they haven't invented pneumatic drills here. These are proper traditionally dresses women in full skirts, sandals and bowler hats! Plus on walking home after a few beers one evening about 11 we saw them painting the lines in the road with cotton markers and a fine paintbrush. You can see why it takes so long for them to build roads now.

I have to admit I pretty much don't have anything else to report on Sucre as we did sod all! (apart from eating Chinese and drinking)

So putting our rest behind us, we boarded another dreaded 12 hour bus ride to Samaipata which is a little village 3 hours outside of Santa Cruz, Bolivia's biggest city. Now this has to be the worst bus ride to date by far. Let me describe it to you. 90% of the 12 hours, had no road, so were talking dust track through and round mountains. There was no way to get any sleep because you couldn't stay in your seat. There was no toilet. I get car sick anyway, and after a tiny sip of water to swirl round my dry mouth, I could hear and feel said water sloshing in my belly as we were constantly thrown about the bus. The drivers seemed like they were on a joy ride, so were howling with laughter whilst driving much faster than is safe to over this state of road. The window next to me pulled right across and I even started to daydream the sequence of actions if I needed to be sick or have diaorreah, which involved sticking my face or bum out of the window. Those are the thoughts of someone in desperation, and although disturbing for life, it would had made a bloody good poo story. 

Somehow, even perhaps slightly disappointingly for you and my poo story, I made it through. We reached Samaipata at 5 am where we were met by a Texan bloke and his Bolivian wife and taken to their Hostal where we were shown a sofa to rest in while we waited 6 hours for our room to be ready. After our horrific journey this was pretty nice, and we managed a few hours before we got woken up by the breakfast run. 

Samaipata was the perfect place to recooporate again, and warmer again, so the shorts came out.  The fact our hostel was owned by an American was a massive bonus, you could have breakfast anytime of day and the American pancakes were the best I've ever had, so I had 7 in the 2 days there.
We did pretty much sod all again apart from take a trip up to el fuerte which was a very poor mans Machu picchu but the views were pretty cool, plus the mammoth walk back down the mountain which has made my bum muscles hurt ever since. As with everything in Bolivia you have to pay a tidy sum for the pleasure. However we somehow managed to do a sneaky bypass of the security and go in for free, considering it was a pile of old rocks, im pleased we did!

Next up Santa Cruz, let's see if it's as glamourous as it sounds...