Hi there and hello! We apologise yet again for the short spells of silence over recent weeks. We vow to get our acts together and thank you for your continued support! We also seem to have forgotten how to spell, so again excuse the slightly insulting regard for the Queen´s English.

We are enjoying a totally crazy time in Bolivia and are fairly convinced that the cheap way of living, bowler hats and lama curry are for us. So we made our humble way from Uyuni to Potosi, the world´s highest city, to check out the notorious silver mine industry that the region boasts. We received quite a shock as, with oxygen in limited supply, we found ourselves having to make time for countless "little sits" to avoid cardiac arrest when walking to our hostel. We also experienced our first taste of real Bolivian travel, with 80 of us being abandoned by our mug of a bus driver and told to walk through 4km of lorry blockade which the locals had so conveniently arranged for us that day. Heat. Sweat. 20 kg of luggage. We almost had to be spatulared off the cliff face. An adventure none the less. The next day we plunged ourselves into the mines, at 4800 ft for a truly unforgettable experience. For one, our ex miner tour guide was hot, a rarety as a severe case of underbite is prevelant here. It was also truly eye opening for us, as we had no idea as to the extent of activity which still goes on in the mines, the effort involved to extract even a morsel of precious silver. To throw some fun facts of the day out there, the average life expectancy of a Bolivian miner is only 55 years old, the youngest worker in the mines is currently 14, on average only 4kg of silver is discovered in one tonne of rock, it takes 3 hours to drill a 15 inch hole into the rock, and the most frequent cause of death in the mines are caves in, caused by dinamite, as health and safety appeears not to be a top priorty of the Bolivian governement. So Rosie and I enjoyed signing our lives away to a death contract before getting kitted up in bolilersuits, helmets and some very becoming booties. We then were taken to the market to purchase some treats for the miners, as payment for not hacking our limbs off with a pick axe for when we invaded their territory. We were then led into some rather tight wee holes in the dark and damp, whereupon Rosie´s head torch bit the dust and she was left to scramble Golemn like alone. We found her. Phrases such as "avoid the 16 meter cravass to your left please" and "get off the rails, a 6 tonne waggon is approaching at break neck speed" from our guide were common. However, we couldn´t get over how chirpy the miners were and how bleedin hard they have to work. I myself tried to shovel some blasted rock into a bucket with a spade and ripped my trousers open in the process. An embarrassing moment. We were rather pleased to reach the light of day but emerged super chuffed with ourselves. It´s not every day that your hair smells of noxious gas.