Hostal Maria Victoria Potosi

... same time! Also there are no stop/go people with radios
like in Peru/Ecuador so it is all a bit mad. We got through many
sections like this some with Ness walking and a few front end slide
"moments". We got through it and then it is back to the unpaved road
(all the way to Uyuni said a French couple in a motorhome). This was OK
in sections but some shallow and some deeper sand in other parts -
enough to get the front end waggling ...

... side. We bought pasta, rice, potatoes, turnips, carrots, onions, garlic, apples, oranges, butter, sugar, salt, oregano, oil, tomatoes, peas, oatmeal, yougurt, and bread. Previously we had bought some juice, canned fruit, and chocolate. It was rather fun. It ended up working out to about $30 US for all that. Expensive life we´re living.
Then Felipe drove with us to our new home, Peregira Pampa. It was way up in the Andes, in the middle of nowhere ...

... trance, sat on a street corner and banging a drum repeatedly to one monotonous beat. I`ll call him Grandpa Street Drum. Nearby was a beggar who sat in the street mumbling irately to himself while attempting, and often succeeding, to touch every passer-by possible with his grubby hands. This was a rather poor method of encouraging donations. He flapped his cloth cap miserably at me and hit my knee, the cretin. I`ll call him Grandpa Grabby Hands. Anyway, I needed to get the lens of my camera ...

Did not feel good this morning, owing to the erroneously-drunk combo of red wine and 7% Bolivian beer. Nicki had a shower - it was cold. I asked the guy at reception about this, and he demonstrated the special, esoteric, counter-intuitive Jedi technique that one must use to summon the hot water, which consisted of twisting the cold tap about two millimetres anti-clockwise, and leaving the hot tap completely. My shower was thus ...

Today, not much happened, as it was mostly taken up by travelling. At 10am we had to catch our bus to Sucre. I got up a a bit earlier than the girls, and while they sorted their stuff, I went to have breakfast at the restaurant ín which we had found refuge from the deathly cold on our arrival in town three days previously. My muesli with yoghurt and fruit was lovely. We met back up at the bus station – I say station, it´s just a street ...

... Wanneer je de site voor het eerst aanschouwt sta je werkelijk sprakeloos met een ingenieus labyrinth aan je voeten en de indrukwekkende besneeuwde Andes overal rond je. El Che had het bij het rechte eind toen hij zich afvroeg hoe het mogelijk was dat een volk dat tot iets dergelijks in staat was, zich kon laten uitroeien door de Spanjolen.
In de buurt van Machu Picchu heb je de vroegere Incahoofdstad die de eerste dag een grote indruk maakt ...

... on our altitude tablets for the last day, so hopefully we´ll be ok. They´re weird things man! Makes our fingers and toes tingle constantly, would love to to know whats in them!

Going back to Sucre, we decided to bust out and get a hotel for the night. 4 star, triple room, with buffet breakfast, massive double beds, jacuzi, room service... for a total of $30 each. LOVE IT! Thought we´d splash out for the ...