Hi there this is Tiahna and Max, we are meant to be writing the blog this week so here we go.

After a great weekend we were eased back into school life with a
trip to elmercado de brujas, or the witch’s market. it was a strange
place, many lama foetus’, toucans beaks and the skin of a very large
kitty cat sadly. Unfortunately disaster struck as Matt had his wallet
stolen from a zipped pocket, so that was a downer on the trip. He took
it very well though. Monday afternoon we had time to do what we wanted,
so everybody did their own thing. In the evening emily took us out for
a supprise supper, it probably was the best meal of the trip so far,
loved it. apparantly the steak was orgasmic, so all enjoyed it hugely.

Tuesday was the last day of lessons, so in our break the school
organised a presentation, there were medals, certificates and even
salteñas. Again the afternoon was off, this time we split into two
groups, one created a poster to give to the school to remember us, and
the others went to go shopping for the goodbye party, which had a neon
theme. We bought neon paint to compliment our outfits however after
half an hour it started to burn our skin. other than that everyone
ejoyed themselves, it was nice to spend our last night with the
teachers. All in all it was great night again.

Wednesday we were able to lie in, which was much needed but every
one still woke up with paint on their clothes and in their hair. We got
our team shirts, which were awesome. Then we took the bus to the
highest city in the world as it is just below 5000ft, Potosi. Our first
meal there was four courses for £3.50.

On Thursday we went to the mine, Tiahna and Jess were a tad worried
about the lack of space, but they handled it well, even when we were
crawling on our bellies. whilst down there the miners worship El
Diablo, their god. They give him coca leaves and other gifts, in return
for good luck. Once out of the mine our guide sol showed us the true
power of dynamite, by blowing up a small section of dirt. After this we
went to a hot spring, where we swam and had a delicious llama bbq. On
the way back we stopped at the mint museum whcih was riveting.

On Friday we left at 6:30 on a 6 hour bus journey to Uyuni. We saw
our first llamas, alpacas and flamingos. The road was being re-built
when we arrived so we had to wait for four hours for a bridge to be
reconstruscted, due to heavy rain. We all had a little stroll around in
the hills by thew bridge. Matt aquired some serious sunburn. Once the
bridge was fixed we crossed and got out of the bus and squashed 10
people into another car, plus all our bags. Once we arrived in Uyuni we
got straight into 2 toyota land cruisers and headed out to our first
accomodation. On the way, the girls car got stuck in a rather large
puddle. That night we were in a rain storm which happened to be the
first rain on the Atacama desert for 30 years.

The next day we set off to La Laguna Colorada, aka, the Red Lake.
There were many flamingoes and Vicunas, which are a type of wild llama.
Next we visited the old geysers; they were hot and smelt like egg. We
the proceeded to our third destination, a hot spring where we bathed
and had lunch, cooked by our amazing chef, Natividad. After this, we
went to el Lago Verde, the green lake. From here we were able to see
Chile, which excited Ciara a lot. On our return journey we passed the
Dali rocks, so named as they look very similar to rocks from one of his
paintings. We then returned to camp, back at the red lake.

We took a walk around the red lake on Sunday and were able to truely
admire its redness. From here we went and saw some giant rocks, one of
which was shapped like a tree and is so-named the tree rock. Here we
spent a bit of time climbing and taking pictures from the highest of
the rocks. We then went on to the black lagoon but did not stay long as
it was freezing, we did try to huddle together like penguins with Gen
and Emily in the centre. Our final stop was the valley of the rocks,
where there were literally thousands and thousands of huge rocks. Here
we climbed again and had a nice sing song across the valley. That night
we stayed in a town just outside Uyuni, it had an internet cafe with no
internet!

Our last day was the highlight of the salt flats trip. We finally
got to go an see the salt flats. We had been told the night before that
the flats were flooded due to the rain so weren´t quite sure what to
expect. When we got there we were amazed by the view. The water on the
flats was so clear that you could not tell where the ground ended and
the sky begun. We did the typical tourist photo taking, which caused
much amusement. After the salt flats we went to the train graveyard it
was quite eary seeing all the rusty, dismembered trains. After
returning to Uyuni, we boarded the night bus to La Paz, only to be
delayed by another flooded river, this time only for 2 hours.