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This morning, our group of six people met our tourguide for our three-day tour of the Salar de Uyuni, we piled into the customary Toyota Land Cruiser 4WD that's used for such tours, and we began our tour with a trip to the "train cemetery" just outside the town of Uyuni. Quirky, although not-so-beautiful, start to a beautiful trip. Big wreckages of trains, piled onto a bunch of tracks. Makes for an interesting 5-minute stop, although not worth much more than that.

This morning, Chris and I left for our tour of the Salar de Uyuni, on a three-day trip with Esmeralda Tours (actually, ended up being Olivos Tours — meh, same diff). But before we left, we went to the immigration office in Uyuni, and we officially exited Bolivia. So, despite the fact that we won't be in Chile until Wednesday, as of today we're technically no longer in Bolivia. Technically, until Wednesday we're not in any country at all.

Since Chris still ain't feeling 100%, and since we haven't got too much of an urgent hurry (we have about 7 visa-free days, out of 30, left in Bolivia), we just relaxed and hung out in Uyuni today, and we'll start a salt flats tour tomorrow. Uyuni's actually quite a pleasant place to chill for a day; although "chill" is definitely what you do there, since it's so daym cold!

Accommodation is all pretty similar in its lack of quality — in particular, in its lack of warmth — here in cold, cold Uyuni. Hotel Avenida is probably above average in this regard, but that's not saying much. The rooms are still bloody freezing at night, and have no heating. When you come to Uyuni, wherever you stay, make sure to bring thermal nightclothes, and a very warm sleeping bag. You'll need it!

After a day spent relaxing yesterday, today Chris and I made the journey, by bus, from Potosí to Uyuni. Was a bit of an exercise, actually finding a bus to take us there; but once we got our tickets, the trip itself went without incident. The road, of course, was unpleasant to say the least; and the number of random "extra" people on the bus was a bit worrying. But hey, this is Bolivia.

For my last full day in Potosí today, I decided to visit the nearby thermal baths of Tarapaya, which are naturally warmed by the waters of the hot springs that come forth in this little area. Found a deal in Potosí, where you can hire a bike for the afternoon, ride down the 25km, nicely-sealed, mainly-downhill road to Tarapaya, relax in the hot springs at your leisure, and then return to Potosí via combi (just whack the bike on the roof). Great ride, and a very nice way to relax and get more clean, after yesterday's filthy and exhausting mine tour.

I really did get absolutely filthy from my tour of the Potosí mines today. They gave us special protective clothing, which we wore over our own, and then gave back to them at the end of the tour. I had a long and thorough hot shower, when I got back to the Koala Den this afternoon. And I took all my clothes to the lavanderia this evening, for an emergency laundry wash (making a special exception to Jaza's law of washing). And even with all that, I still can't get the nauseating smell of the mines off my person, or the taste of the mines out of my mouth. Really, really filthy place.

It's always nice to find a tour agency in a non-English-speaking country, that advertises having services available in English. But when the advertisement for this service is written in dubiously-grammatised English, it does make you just a little apprehensive of the quality of said service. Here's a photo of the sign for a tour agency here in Potosí — the sign reads: "the guide speak English". Is that so? Well, if he does, then I hope it's better than yours! :P

After we finished our tour of the Potosí mines today, we had some fun outside. Our tourguides got three of our packages of dynamite, ammonium nitrate, and fuse; ran about 50m down the road with them; and then ran back before they exploded. One of the packages got stuffed inside a cute little teddy bear. Poor little guy left this world with a big bang. Check out the video here.

Today, I went on the famous tour of the mines of Potosí: the No. 1 thing to do here in Potosí, and the main reason why tourists come to this town at all. The tour was very dark, very cramped, very asphyxiating, and very disturbing. The mountain of Cerro Rico currently has 15,000 miners working in 400 mines, in positively hellish conditions. The mountain has been constantly mined for over 400 years. Experts predicted about 10 years ago that the mountain had about 7 years left, before the whole thing came crashing down, due to its foundations being literally "undermined". And it's still going.