and its down to the last three.....

Hola,

Well here come my last few emails my friends as i write down for you lovely people the last few scraps of my adventures, that this time take place in that far far away place called.....BOLIVIA

yes yes i know, i have been here (well 'there' as i am writing this sitting in the comfort of my living room back in UK), in total for about seven months and the fact that i have spent pretty much all of my time in La Paz is rather pathetic, but now that has been rectified.

enclosed below is PART UNO of my adventures, which i have kindly split into two parts for your tentative viewing.

please enjoy (and not comment about the spelling mistakes coz that’s rude!)

I took the train from Oruro, which is a pointless little place a few hours bumpy bus journey outside La Paz, to Uyuni, the general starting place of the Salar de Uyuni Tour.

This - even with my mastery of the English language i could not possibly justify in words. So i will take the easy route and tell you simply to come and visit me and i'll show you the pics!

.....oh i cant leave it simply at that. Basically the Salar de Uyuni covers an area of 4,680 square miles (12,121 sq km), and is the world’s largest salt desert up at 11,970ft (3,650m) and filled with an estimated 10 billion tons of salt. (that’s an estimated 100,000,000 billion sachets of Burger King salt!!) (or did i just make that stat up...)

This is in my opinion one of the most spectacular things i have seen in the whole of South America so far. Simply amazing!

It is a surreal landscape combining miles and miles of salt, basically just a big white sheet as far as you can see, wind-eroded rock formations, and wandering llamas all in a completely unspoilt region. In the middle of it all is the Isla de Pescadores (Island of fish, although i didn’t see any. We had Llama for lunch!), a island that appeared as a mountain out of the white nothingness of continuous salt, covered in towering stands of cactus (or is that 'Cacti!?)

Anywho, Laguna Colorada and Laguna Verde are other things that are a must - amazing - see. One a fiery-red and the other a deep blue-green, these lakes are covered by pink flamingos and surrounded by volcanoes, one which is still smoking!

Nearby a place called 'Sol de Mañana' reeks with the smell of sulphurous gases from the geysers, fumaroles and bubbling mud pools, but is a good place to take some amazing sunrise pictures through all the steam from these natural weird things.

Basically everything was amazing about this place. Not many places on earth could i have seen sooo many different landscapes in only three short days, and soo many wonderful ones like i did! I really have to do some convincing to some of you to go there and experience it for yourselves.

SIMPLY AMAZING (not as good as Liverpool winning the champions league, but it'll pass as my second best moment on this trip)

From there i went exhausted (and cold and its bloomin freezin at night) to Sucre, the constitutional capital of Bolivia (Bolivia is one of the few countries that has two capital cities - Sucre is home to the judicial branch of the government (making it the constitutional capital), while the president and congress are stationed in La Paz (the administrative capital).) (and yes, i copied and pasted that from another website as i did not actually know all that...)

Sucre is as colonial as i saw in South America. Pretty little while buildings, grand white churches, big squares in the middle of town, by which i mean plazas, not literal squares just dotted about the place. The squares that have palm trees and grand looking fountains in the middle of them.

nice little place, but to be honest i only stayed there one night as i was in a rush to get to La Paz, as three days later i was off....to THE JUNGLE....


to be continued..........probably after a cup of tea




matt