So, where were we?
Honestly? I haven't a clue. I'm writing this from Santiago, and from our point of view, the trip has pretty much finished now. Would you beleive that we've actually had complaints for not updating recently? Tsk. Honestly.

Anyway, next stop after Uyuni (quick check of the Tucan website later) was Potosi. At least I'm pretty sure it was. Having left the very pleasant hotel in Uyuni and been waved off by Chris and his family (nice touch), we arrived after some journey or other (probably involving playing cards or something) to Potosi, a mining town in Brazil, once affluent thanks to its silver mines.
These days the mines are used more for Tin, and are still active, however tours were available and we being the good go-anywhere-see-anything tourists that we undoubtably were, took a tour down the mines to see what we could see.
As it happens, we couldn't see that much as - being mines - they were pretty dark and the headlights that we had been equiped with weren't really that bright. Also, they were pretty damn small, Bolivian miners being somewhat shorter in stature than gringo tourists. Thus, much of the trip involved wondering along through very small corridors with our backs bent double.
As I mentioned before, the mine was still fully operational, and while we didn't get the chance to meet any miners at the actual mine face, we were ushered in to meet a few, working here and there in pockets arouynd the shafts. This was both interesting and uncomfortable as we were clearly getting in the way of the guys. Most miners start working very young, opperating under coorperative mining conditions, buying their own equipment and taking their money out of the pot with the others. Given that the mines are full of arsnic as well as the more favourable minerals such as tin and sliver, few of them live beyond their fourties. All pretty galling when your standing around watching them work. On the (slightly) more positive side, all the money from the tour went towards the miners and gifts of coaca leaves and (98%) alcohol were brought for them in our budget - the coaca to chew as a sort of filter (each of the miners had squirrel like cheeks) and the alcohol to be either drunk or used as a sacrifice to the god of the underworld, who had various shrines throughout the mine network, sitting decked in party streamers and decorations, exhibiting a dauntingly large phalus upon which the alchohol was liberally doused over. Surely must smart a bit, that.
All in all, a pretty eye opening experience.

After Potosi, we made our way to a new place on the Tucan itinerary, the small town of Tupiza, famed for once being a hang out of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid. The town was small and dusty with few places to eat or drink and - shockingly - absolutely no Tucan stickers on the windows of any establishment in town whatsoever. Given that we had become used to seeing these things on the doors and windows of pretty much every place that we've stopped to eat or drink since the trip - recomended or not - this felt like a major ommision. Needless to say, rectified now. Our first night in the cheerful youth hostel was spent re-watching the Butch and Sundance movie with plentiful quantities of Chilean wine and peanuts. Pleasant.
Our main reason for staying in Tupiza was to do a full days horse riding, Butch and Sundance style, amongst the bright red rock formations and giant cactuses of the area. We met up fairly early in the morning to discover that a vast array of four legged beasts ranging from nags to stallions were waiting for us outside our hostel.
Now, most of the group did pretty well when it came to choice of steed, but I seemed to be having a pretty bad day all told. My first horse was a vast chap with a problem. He was kind of skitterish amongst the other horses, keen to bolt off on his own if he felt like it, and a randy bugger to boot. Given that my previous experiences of riding horses was a little slim (to put it mildly) our guides suggested (nay, ordered) me off the brute and onto one of their creatures. A moth eaten so-skinny-it's-pelvis-could-knock-over-passers-by animal who clearly should have retired a good few millennia ago. With everyone else off for a gallop and having the time of their lives, my horse ambled along at the back getting a bit bored with everything. When two of our number fell off their own (much faster and sturdier) horses after a reasonably steep inlcline, it looked like I had a pretty sweet deal after all, but when everyone else bolted off into the horizon, I felt like Sancho Panza chasing after some skinny bloke with a windmill fixation.
Perhaps spotting my discontent, my horse was switched for a third time, this time with a slightly more sprightly creature with otherwise similar nag-like atributes. This one was prone occasionally to canter (fun while it lasted), but more keen to mope round the back of the troupe. After our second rest stop, he also developed a rather worrying limp (during the rest stop it should be noted that my first horse attempted to make other little horses in a somewhat snack-off-putting way and probably scared my third horse into staying well back), I expressed concern about the poor creatures leg to the guide, who told me it was fine and proceeded to whack it on the backside with a length of rope.

A generally interesting, sometimes entertaining day, just a bit disapointing from my own point of view, watching whistfully as the others in the group hurtled off out of sight with looks of outright glee on their faces. *sigh*.

- posted by Vince @ 1:14 PM