The high Andes, adventures with altitude.

Potosi is a beautiful town where we spent a nice couple of days. The old colonial architecture is quite beautiful in places.

 This is the old city gate looking out onto the mountain of which caused the towns existence. Apparently an explorer lit a fire on it and molten silver flowed out of it's base.

 One memorable morning was spent visiting the old mint which has been turned into a very good museum showing the whole history of silver in the town as well as allied other bits and pieces including a good geological and archaeological section.

 Before we left we visited this hot springs pool, unfortunately it was warm rather than hot but it did have quite a location. Potosi being the highest town on earth is unsurprisingly rather cool.... Although during the day it does get rather warm, we did hear although I'm not going to guarantee it, that it has the greatest daily temperature range in the world.

We took the 3 hour bus east to the town of Sucre where the people who made the money out of Potosi lived.... This involved a significant descent and consequently a significant raise in temperature. It is still at 2600 m so still much higher than anywhere in the UK and still with a nip in the air, especially after the sun sets.

This is the view from the balcony at our hotel. Another place with padded toilet seats, it seems to be a weird national trait that they must be padded. Does anyone know why???!!

Everywhere in Bolivia has the most beautiful manicured town squares, every blade of grass seems to be combed daily and they really are places where people sit and socialise. Bolivia also has a thriving protest scene. Everyday there was one small protest or demo wandering the streets. Sucre is officially still the capital although only the people who actually live there seem to think it as so. It has the well kept colonial architecture as a back drop to people protesting about what seemed like everything under the sun, all very peacefully apart from the firecrackers.

We had a half day trip on the Dino-bus to see the local cement works.

This is of interest as when they were demolishing the hill they discovered the worlds largest collection of dinosaur footprints.

Se we went to look at a wall! unfortunately you cannot get too close at it is very unstable. They are hoping to stabilise it and inject it with silicone but you can from a distance see the treads climbing the 80 degree slope. The views over the surrounding countryside were also spectacular and we saw our first condor playing on the up drafts.

They were laid 68 million years ago and the rise of the Andes has pushed the flat lake bed up to the angle you see now.

They have made a nice display which has models of various creatures, including this rather surprised proto tortoise!

Back in town we also popped into the museum where we saw the Madonna portrait which you cannot take pictures of. Thankful supplicants hung jewels onto it to the extent that the story is that if they were to be sold it would be able to pay off  Bolivia's national debt. The cathedral altar is surrounded by candelabra that are at least 2 metres tall.

We left Sucre and caught the 16 hour bus to the real capital La Paz. So back up to high altitude and the cold!