Hola from Bolivia!! Soooo we´ve been pretty busy since our last little update having lots and lots of fun and seeing some pretty cool things. So from where Vicki left you all in Argentina we hopped on a bus in the middle of the night headed for the Bolivia border. After a horrible bus journey with fat smelly locals, an orchestra of snoring and very little sleep we arrived to a FREEZING La Quica. In typical Brits abroad style we hoped off the bus at 5am in shorts and t-shirts and our breath was literally taken away when the icey air hit us – no joke it was arctic, so pretty speedy we layered up with almost every item of clothing we had!

The border crossing itself went really smoothly and pretty quickly, and before we knew it we were in Bolivia. The change in culture was pretty dramatic seeing as we had literally just walked across a bridge from country to country. Bolivia has a much more rugged feel to it and is much more traditional than Argentina – with lots of the women wearing traditional dress – bowler hats, tights and sandals (a classic combo – one we´ll both be rocking out when we´re back home!!) and two long black plaits down their backs with different things dangling off.

We had been told that change (coins) were hard to come by in Bolivia and this was soon evident when I tried to by a bread roll with a note, and instead of giving me change, I walked away with 5 loaves! And when they don't have change in the supermarket they give you sweets and in the pharmacy, aspirin – very interesting – I might try it at the Beefy! Anyway after an incredibly bumpy bus journey through the dessert, picking up locals from mud huts we arrived in Tupiza, a very sleepy and traditional town in every way except for their only choice of restaurant – Italian, all with exactly the same menu and decor! We soon discovered there wasn´t much to Tupiza so we browsed the market and tried all and every street snack in sight – and they are GOOD, as long as you don´t mind the occasional black hair!!

From Tupiza we jumped on a four day tour to the Salt Flats with our non English speaking guide Alberto – an absolute legend and expert car mechanic - he could work for F1 with his single handed tyre changing skills! The tour was amazing we saw stinky geysers, crazy rock and lava formations, green, red, blue, white lagoons, ghost towns, hundreds of flamingos, llamas and picunas, ostriches, loads of amazing mountains, active volcano's and of course the salt flats themselves. We stopped in various small mud hut villages literally in the middle of nowhere and although told to walk around we felt that was a tad intrusive so instead we hung around the jeep and chatted (in our best Spanish) to the various local children that approached. One girl took a massive interest in my bracelets and where they came from (Pips and Fi you both got a mention!) and another asked us to play marbles, a game I soon found out I didn´t know the rules to turns out its pretty simple! We had been warned the accommodation was simple and simple it was – no electricity, so the head torch came in very handy (thanks Mum!), very little water and what there was was cold so no showers and the beds where literally made from grey stones. Needless to say we didn't have the best nights sleep – it was FREEZING!! AND we had to get up at 4am much to Vickis disbelief. However that was easily outweighed by the amazing scenery and fantastic food that our chef managed to make with such limited ingredients and equipment – three meals a day and three course dinners with the most amazing soup I´ve ever had!

The last night of the tour was spent in a hotel made from salt – it was sooo cool and it had hot showers so we were in heaven until we found out about another 4am start, but it was worth it when we saw the sun rise on the salt flats before taking literally hundreds of stupid perspective pictures.

The tour ended in the small town of Uyuni which we had just enough time to look around before we jumped on our bus to Potosi, the highest city in the World at over 4000m abs. Another great bus journey, packed with locals standing in the aisles, leaning on our seats, eating smelly stew out of bags and resting their heads, belly's, bums, boobs and whatever else they fancied on me and my arm rest – not a fun experience on the 7 hour bumpy bus journey! Most people head to Potosi to visit the silver mines, but we had spoken to alot of people who had done it and said it was physically and emotionally draining due to the horrendous working conditions and most of the time you´re crawling on your hands and knees – not good for claustrophobia!

We have been in Sucre for the last couple of days but leave tonight for La Paz – can´t wait to hit a big city again. Sucre is lovely place but there isn't a huge amount to do here, although today we did go see hundreds of real dinosaur footprints which was quite cool, and our guide was hysterical!

Got to dash and move out of the sun as its burning my side – hope all is good at home and everyone is getting excited about the build up to Christmas – we saw out first proper Christmas tree in a shop window today, its hard to remember its November when its so hot out here, hehe, sorry!!

Lots of love to everyone, Ness and Vix xxx