Smell-O-Net

You´ve heard of smell-o-vision, but I wish there was smell-o-net to describe to you the smells I´ve come acoss in the last 24 hours.

So, we left Santa Cruz de la Sierra yesterday, Sunday at 4.30pm and arrived in Sucre at 8.30am this morning, and left there for Potosi at 9.00am. Last night, somewhere in the middle of the Andes, we stopped for a break. We went looking for the "Baños" (toilets), but couldnt find them. Fortunately, or rather unfortunately as we were to find out later, some local girls pointed us in the right direction. They directed us to the back of a really run down house. I cant describe what it looked like. I thought they were having a laugh at the white faced foreigners, but they were right. They led us to the worst smell of my live. There were 4 holes in the ground that were supposed to be toilets, that smelt so bad, it was worse than any kind of crap I´ve smelt before. Way worse that pig crap. And if you wanted to use then, you had to squat over a hole. I´m going to stop describing it, as I´m feeling sick at the thought of it. Instead of puking in the hole, we just took a leak in a nearby hedge and ran away.

The second smell I came across was on the 3 hour bus from Sucre to Potosi, where I am now. The Bolivian women smell really bad, and I mean really bad. Its disgusting. One was sitting behind us, and it was terrible. I had my head half out the window, (while my knees were up around my ears) trying to avoid the smell. Then at any little stop, be it a petrol station or a toll, we were harassed by smelly women coming on board selling us things I certainly didnt want. I was at the window, but Billy was on the aisle, and he got the brunt of fat, smelly Bolivian women pressing against him.

Actually, aside from smells, but on the selling front, the funniest guy got on our bus for 15 minutes today. He got on at the start in Sucre and a few minutes later, began to make a big sell of sweets, costing 10c. I´ve no idea what he was saying, but he was comparing them and showing them off, like someone on a shopping channel would sell something worth $500. It was hilarious. He didnt stop. He could easily have been a salesman from anywhere else in the world. He had it all: loads of energy, cheesy smile, the lot.

We´re now in Potosi, the highest city of its type in the world. It has a population f 120,000 and an elevation of about 4,200 metres - half way to Everest. We arrived here, totally relieved that we got off that bus and went to our hostel. The altitude didnt affect us on the bus, but once we tried putting our bags on our backs, we felt it. Nothing major, just a shortness of breath.

Tomorrow we´re off to do the silver mine, the main reason so many people come here. It starts at 8am and we´ll be back at about 3pm. We´re then either going to get a 7pm bus to Uyuni which takes 7 hours or wait until Tuesday morning and go then. We´ll see how the tour goes. I´ll let you know what the silver mine tour is like, but I´ve heard its meant to be really cool.

Well, thats all. Back to the hostel for some rest before my silver mining tomorrow.