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Thursday 15 April
Sucre – Potosí

When you’re in a new town, you don’t know where everything is, or how to get what you want. However as a traveller there’s an easy way around this. You just as at reception at the hostel. Easy. So I needed to buy some sunglasses before I went to the salt flats, as without them I’d probably be blinded by the sun.

So I asked at the reception where I was staying about sunglasses, given the unsuccessful attempt yesterday. The people at the place I was staying were a bit grumpy and didn’t have the best English (not that my Spanish is great obviously) but through a use of basic language and hand gestures they told me where to go. So I went to a small knick-knack market and found a pair for 25 Bolivianos, or something less than £2.50. Cheaper than the $5 pair that I lost in Rio. And significantly less than the 350 Bolivianos from yesterday!

Also when I was walking around town I kept on hearing what sounded like gunshots. It turned out that it was a procession of some sort, with people letting off small amounts of gunpowder from bamboo tubes, just to add to the festivities. This all cumulated in the main square where people paraded around with banners, marching bands and people intermittently shouting slogans like Viva Sucre! and other Viva-type things.

I caught a bus at midday to Potosí with Jan the Czech who was also staying at the hostel with me. We worked our way through the Andes and I took some pictures of the landscape, although it wasn’t as beautiful as Patagonia. I checked into my hostel which was pretty nice though strangely empty. I wanted to charge my camera battery to make sure it didn’t run out while I was on the salt flats. But when I went to look for the charger I couldn’t find it. I had no idea where it went. I didn’t leave it anywhere that I could remember, and I don’t think I lent it to anyone and forgot to ask for it back. It’s unlikely that anyone would have stolen it, since I have plenty more valuable possessions that would be more appealing to a potential thief. It must have been left behind somewhere or fallen out.

So once again I asked at reception where I could find a shop selling camera accessories. The people here were even more grumpy and had even less English than the people in Sucre, but they seemed to be able to suggest somewhere. So I went along and much to my surprise, within about 10 minutes I had found what I was looking for. And it wasn’t too expensive. Result!

I didn’t do too much in the afternoon. In the evening I had made arrangements to meet up with Jan in a bar in Potosí and when I arrived there, it turned out Jarrod was there already. So I hung out with him and shortly afterwards Jan turned up too. We had a fairly quiet night in the pub and that was it.

Potosí was very cold. Unsurprising as by some measures it’s the highest city in the world at 4,100 metres. It is also by some measures the poorest city in the world, which, given that it was the richest city in the world 300 years ago is pretty bad luck. The town is dominated by the Cerro Rico (rich mountain) – a conical peak that contained around 60,000 tons of silver at one stage. The mines still operate in terrible conditions and you can take a tour, but I didn’t fancy it. Potosí was only a stopover on my journey to Uyuni.

Once in bed under the pleasingly thick covers I found it hard to sleep as the room next door had the TV on loud and the ventilation system in the hotel - essentially glassless windows in the bathrooms - meant I could hear it well. I went and knocked on the door and asked them to turn it down. Thankfully they did. I think they may have been using it to mask the sound of sex, I’m not sure. Either way I fell asleep soon enough.