I wanted to call this blog "Breathless in Bolivia" (addicted to aliteration as I am, as I'm sure you're aware), but the fact is....I haven't been. To my surprise I have barely noticed the fact that I've been pedalling at between 3 and 4km above sea level for the past few weeks. I guess cycling up from the coast helped with acclimatisation, but maybe two years of training have also had some effect. The only time that I notice the effects of the lack of oxygen is when I try to do two thing at once i.e. cycle and sing (much to the relief of the llamas and locals, I'm sure) or carry all my stuff upstairs and talk at the same time. Two young lads I met the other evening nearly killed me by quizzing me about life in England as we all pedalled up the longest and steepest hill I've seen for days. As I cycled into La Paz I cruised down the 1000m from the suburb of El Alto into the city centre feeling sorry for all those poor souls heading north ,who would have to climb out this way......until I discovered that all roads out of La Paz go through El Alto! I remember walking up this hill with Zeb in 2001 and nearly expiring, but this time I cruised it!

In La Paz I stayed at another of the Casa Ciclistas and had a great few days swapping stories with other cyclists and making myself at home doing a bit of cleaning. I got so carried away I went and bought a mop and even found myself scrubbing the kitchen walls. Cleaning wasn't one of the things I thought I'd miss when I left home! Some of the cyclists I meet are gluttons for punishment.....Jason, from Sheffield is cycling round S America with not one,but TWO didgeridoos tied to his trailer and Carole and Cedric, a French couple cyling with their 3 year old daughter Tessa, have bought her a child's bike (which weighs more than mine!) and have strapped that to the back of Cedric's....as if they didn't have enough luggage to start with!

Two exciting things happened in La Paz. After 9 months of eager anticipation I became an Aunty again when my sister Kathryn and her partner Charlie produced a new niece for me. Poppy Caitlin Morrish was born on 16th April and is absolutely gorgeous (of course!). I just can't wait to get home and meet her now.

The second exciting event (though infinitely less important -and probably less long lasting) was that I stood on 1/2 dozen sets of scales and even by the most conservative estimates discovered that I've lost 4 stone since I left home. No wonder I'm looking like a scarecrow! In celebration I bought some new trousers and had a coffee and huge piece of cake! It's a shame I'm the only woman in the world who hates shopping, as I'm going to have a lot of it to do when I get home!

Whilst in La Paz I treated Norma to some much-needed new tyres so we both set out southwards feeling rejuvenated. Once you escape the dust and drudgery of the outskirts of the city we were crusing across some vast open spaces. Despite the distances the scenery seemd to change round every corner. One minute it was pale yellow grass and herds of llamas identified by bright tufts of multi-coloured wool in their ears. Next it was deep valleys filled with lilac lupins, then in was mile upon mile of short tufts of pampas grass and finally craggy valleys of red rock and towering cacti. But the most impressive thing was the silence. Considering we were on  the main road across the country there was remarkably little traffic and at times it was so quiet you could hear the clouds scudding across the sky and the llamas munching on the grass. Even in the villages there was a resounding silence. Unlike in Mexico, where every house is booming with the latest pop hits, silence reigns supreme in Bolivian villages. No children laughing or adults shouting to one another. It was quite eerie.

It was great to be camping again. Most nights I tuck myself off the road behind some sort of shelter, but one night there was literally nothing to hide behind, so I pulled into a tiny village of adobe houses with thatch rooves and asked the first pepole I saw if I could camp behind their house. They were more than happy and the whole family came out and lined up neatly to watch me perform my magic trick of producing an entire campsite from 4 smallish bags. They watched me cook and eat my dinner and asked endless questions,but sadly, wouldn't let me take their photo.

It's much colder on the Altiplano, especially at night and I have had to resurrect my thermals. My best buy of late has been my new alpaca bed socks. Toasty and warm, if not very sexy. Gave an old shepherd quite a fright the other morning when I leapt out of my tent dressed in thermals, bed socks, flip flops and wooly hat. He was keen to chat and ask all about me and my trip.....I was just desperate for the loo, but there were no bushes to hand and I was surounded by hundreds of sheep and llamas! Cacti are all very well, but as a rule are not very easy to hide behind and you have to make very sure you don't stick your rear end out too far.......Ouch!

I've met some lovely characters on the road. Some of the little old ladies tending their flocks are so tiny I can hardly see them over their sheep, let alone their llamas! They have faces like wrinkled old apples and those ubiquitous layers of skirts. One young lad cycled alongside me until we got to the start of a long descent. I soon realised why he stopped. In lieu of brakes he had to apply his left sandal to his rear wheel to stop his bike - not a good idea on a steep downhill! Another guy passed me on a motorbike with a wheelbarrow strapped to the back. He was going really slowly and I wondered why til I saw that he had a piece of brushwood strapped to his right shoe and was "sweeping" the hard shoulder as he went. An ingenious,but remarkably ineffective, way of road sweeping!

My biggest disappointment of the trip so far occurred in Bolivia. I had come to the country expressly to cycle across the Salar de Uyuni - the world's biggest salt flats. During our winter months the salar are flooded, but they are normally dry enough to allow a crossing by early April. The blinding whiteness is supposed to be a spectacular sight. Unfortunately, this year the northerly wind has persisted later than usual so the flats have not dried out. Rather than take a 400km detour on dirt roads just to cycle out onto the edge of them I headed straight for Potosi, taking comfort from the fact that at least the North wind was in my favour.

La Paz might be the highest capital in the world, but Potosi is the highest city....and it felt like it! After a long climb into the city the road then climbed vertically to the centre on hideously cobbled roads - and all this at more than 4km above sea level. I had a couple of rest days there to explore the city and learn about its silver mining history. A trip to the Silver Mines is not to be undertaken lightly! It involves donning protective clothin and headlamps, buying dynamite, alcohol and coca leaves as gifts for the miners and then literally scrambling along on your hands and knees through cramped, dusty and swelteringly hot tunnels. You meet real live miners, who still dig the ore by hand and shovel it into sacks to be transported to the surface. The practices were mediaeval - as were the health and safety standards! We found ourselves marching along between two fully loaded carts full of ore, neither of which were furnished with brakes! After 2 hours underground I was happy not to volunteer to become Bolivia's first female miner!

Two other oddities about Potosi....my hotel room, despite being freezing at night, had carpet on the walls rather than the floor! At least most of the showers are hot here. The second oddity was a "House speciality" I tried at a small restaurant. A delicious lasagne, but it has sultanas in it!

Well, there is probably so much more I could say about Bolivia, but the young lad playing video games next to me is making terrible smells (the joys of internet cafes! It took me 5 machines and two cafes just to find a USB port that worked!), so I will continue at a later date. I am now in the Quebrada de Humahuaca - a spectacular valley in Argentina and have so much more to tell, but you'll have to wait til next time........