Hello people! The most important thing is that Rossio is well again and in good health. In a department of travelling adventures we managed great nothing so I'll try to spice up this entry with a bit of local knowledge and it shouldn't be as long as last time (trans. rem.: thank you!! :D)...

The day after our horse riding adventure was fully spent on resting and following advices Mort found on the web we started to fill our patient with "red" meat, salads and other comestibles rich with iron, vitamins, minerals and folacin. Rossio was much better by evening so we went and booked a 4x4 with a driver (and as we found out in the morning Freddie from our travel agency provided a medic as well :) for our next day's exploration of close-by mines and its workforce. The main objective was a photo-shoot of miners and we prepared for this task accordingly. After some rigorous research we found out that miners run on three types of fuel and with our list we burst into the market for some shopping. The top of our list was Coca, followed by cigarettes and alcohol. Just to make sure I bought some sweets and a bottle of cognac for negotiation process with the miner's boss...o:)

Horny to use the precious light of late afternoon we arrived on the place but luck turned away from us once again. We missed shift change by an hour (D'OH!!!). Luckily the main engineer was kind and delighted by a small bottle of cognac he told us we can come tomorrow around 7am and that he will announce our presence to the morning shift. So we got up at 6am this morning and full of energy jumped into our jeep. We had only 20 minutes to do the photo-shoot but we still managed to persuade, shoot and endow the magnificent 13 (great thanks to Rossio because she was a star of the day, couldn't have done it without her). Considering the emotional (and monetary) investment as well as time spent on preparations these 13 pictures are very expensive, but job done and we can move on...q;)

Got to quote Mort's spot on remark "Such a shithole and we are staying here the longest!", but that's life. Humans deem, life does. The plus is that in those five (!!!) days we've discovered plenty of ways how local life goes and we adapted to this life style rather easily (it's like the time is standstill so everybody has got loads of it). Here you se an old guy with freshly made orange juice (yummy), over there a yawning dog, nearby grandpa with grandma on a rack of his bike... And each day like out of a copy machine. Sun high up and clear blue sky without a single tiny cloud... Well, all has to end and in few hours we should be boarding a night bus and in the morning we will be greeted by central Bolivia, a town called Potosi. It's a place where Rossio wants to spend a day lying in mud (thermal spa) and the evening shall see us travelling further north-east to Sucre and eventually Rossio's hometown Santa Cruz.

Now few observed local "deviations":

- For past 5 days we've been dancing in the rain (ehm, shower :) Not that washing our bodies from frozen dust was such an indulging experience. It was an electric water heater attached to top of the shower which lacked wire isolation. So when you tried to adjust the water flow or raised your arm up to flush the bricks of dust from your armpits, a quiet but fair zzzzzt changed your mind instantly...:)
- Paper napkins in pubs/restaurants must be a great source of income otherwise I don't understand why they would cut one European into 16 local ones. When put in use it means you'll wipe your bottom lip (if you're lucky) and you can forget about blowing your nose into it!
- We also discovered second national sport. In a close tow behind barricade building is bending of reality (not faster than light travel, more like lying, although bending of time and space is common as well). I'm not talking about one-off experience but a kind of behavioral pattern that shows after several weeks of observation. Starting with little relative terms like "near" or "comfortable" and ending with "The bus tickets are refundable if you don't like the bus" and when you try to refund it "Nope, we don't refund tickets"
After moaning here's our Bolivian all-star team ;)

1. Salteña - our most favorite breakfast. The best ones are made by uncle Filipo in Tupiza. His shop is called Super Salteñas and it delivers what it says. Salteña is a pastry slightly resembling a porkpie, but inside it's filled with tomato and pepper sauce, peas, meat, onion, egg and other great bits. Different town means different Salteña but trust us, Fillipo has got the bestestestest!
2. Fresh orange juice - it's quite cheap and it's everywhere. The best is from an uncle with a cart full of oranges. He's got kind of lathe-vice device that he uses to peel the orange, then he inserts it into arm-press which detaches the sweet pick-me-up liquid from the rest of the world and finally pours it into a cup
3. Pique Macho - cheap and tasty main dish. Compound of a spicy sauce, meat, sausage, egg, peppers and onions, all sitting on a base of fries or wedgies, it's filling and highly satisfying meal.
4. Popcorn - no need to explain. Even after 4 weeks of stuffing my face with it I still love it o:)
5. Cream soups - if you're not ultra hungry but you want to have something nice in your belly, this is your choice

- translated by Mort.