Bolivia, Potosi

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In it's day Potosi was larger and wealthier than London, but sadly it's fallen from grace over the years. As the worlds highest city at 4,824 meters, it's known for mining silver ore in the mountain that overlooks it. Depressingly, experts predict the mountain only has 7 years left to be mined. I recently found out that my Great Gandmother and step-Great Granddad moved from England to work the mines here in the 1930's, so it was interesting for me to see what they came here for. These days miners all work in co-operatives and foreign fuel companies buy direct from them. This way they keep themselves distanced from awful working conditions, the depositing of toxic waste, underage miners, shitty pay and zero investment in a town that will soon collapse. We stopped off at the local market to buy dynamite, fuses, drink, coco leaves and cigarettes for the workers before we entered the mines. On one hand it was a real experience to go 100 meters under ground in a working mine and afterwards blow up some dynamite. On the other hand it was really sad to see guys working in these rudimentary and dangerous mines. [Tom]

I really wanted to go down the mines too, but unfortunately was exploding in other ways as had come down with an awful tummy bug that whacked me out for a few days. Did manage to lock myself out my room in my pyjamas when going to get a bottle of water from the hostel cafe. Not the best day ever! Felt most sorry for myself. [Clare]

Bolivia, Salar de Uyuni

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This 3-day tour across the world's largest salt flat brought about mixed emotions. The anniversary of my brother's death fell in the middle of the trip so I was feeling pretty down. Being in such close quarters with strangers all day and night plus not being able to contact home didn't help. We also got ripped off as had paid to do a longer journey with one company but ended up squished in a jeep with 6 other people on the standard route with the cheapest outfit in town. That was after we were initially herded onto the food wagon and left to struggle under copious quantities of bread. But the scenery was magnificent and so unique it was hard to stay peed off for long. Jewel coloured lakes in pink, green and opal glistened in the high altitude sun. Flamingos and llamas dotted the horizon. Geysers bubbled and spurted mud and steam. Erratic rock formations jutted out from desert landscape. Giant cacti stood to attention. The eerie white expanse of the salt flat stretched as far as the eye could see. And to end it all off, there was a train graveyard to play in. Pretty cool despite the hiccups. [Clare]

Chile, San Pedro de Atacama

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Getting delayed on the bus back home is going to be a breeze after all these long journeys. This time it's 17 hours to San Pedro in the Atacama desert, the highest and driest desert in the world. The town has a cool, chilled out relaxed vibe to it. The main square reminded me of the Alamo with the old quintessential 17th century church overlooking it. We go sandboarding, and it's f*****g great fun!! Very similar to snowboarding in powder snow, although you need a lot more speed to control your board. The only down side is you have to rewax your board and hike back up the dune after every run, no ski lifts in the desert. We also visit the amazing Valley of the Moon and watch the world go pink at sunset. [Tom]

Chile, La Serena

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The quiet, quaint coastal town of La Serena made a nice change after frenetic Valparaiso. Our main reason for this stop was to visit Chile's famous observatories and get a closer glimpse at the night skies. The telescopes didn't disappoint. We looked at Saturn (bizarrely looked exactly like a comic book image), Sirius (the brightest star in the sky), Alpha Centura (closest star to us), lots of constellations, the Orion Nebula (where stars are 'born'), open and closed star clusters, and the moon, which we were able to photograph through the telescope. It was pretty cool, albeit in a slightly geeky way. We also hoped to fit in some surfing but the chilly weather and lack of wetsuits soon put us off. Popped to the beach anyway, which strangely resembled a typical Blighty seaside with donkey rides and a garish lighthouse that didn't work. Bit random. The archeological museum held more surprises - shrunken heads, mummies, Inca pottery and even an Easter Island Moai. Definitely worth the visit. [Clare]

Chile, Valparaiso

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Valparaiso has a split personality. On one hand it's colourfully bohemian with artists on every corner and graffiti on every wall. On the other, there's festering political resentment, abject poverty and some of the worse slums in Chile. We experienced both. On arrival, we walked straight into a non-peaceful student protest against rising bus fares, the army was dealing with it by shooting jets of water at them. We made a hasty get away as soldiers with batons started to storm the crowds. Spent the rest of the day meandering round mellow streets and visiting the quirky home of esteemed Chilean poet and artist, Pablo Neruda (1904 - 1973). This was followed by a great evening drinking with some local film students at a haunt you can imagine Che Guavara visiting as he crossed South America. The next day things went pear-shaped as we got mugged after taking a funicular elevator up to a lookout over the city. An older guy grabbed hold of Tom, jabbed a broken wine bottle at his face and demanded money. He took the equivalent of £20 while his sidekick tried to nick Tom's DSLR camera. Luckily they were disturbed by a passer by and we managed to run away. They gave chase but we were faster and made our getaway, shaken and £20 down but thankfully uninjured and still in possession of our cameras and credit cards. Funnily enough we were glad to be on a bus out of here the next day. [Clare]

Chile, Santiago

I don't have a whole lot to say about Santiago, we slept in the airport for a night before flying to Easter Island and spent a day sorting stuff out before traveling up north. So here's a photo of some men playing chess. [Tom]

Chile, Easter Island Underwater

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Under the sea, with the mowww-eee (that´s how you pronounce Moai by the way). It was lurrrrvvely, with lots of fishies. Anyway, enough of my singing, here´s some underwater pics. Enjoy. [Clare]

Chile, Rapa Nui (Easter Island)

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Easter Island is an amazing place. We'd been looking forward to flying out here for ages and it didn't disappoint. It's one of the most isolated places in the world, 2,237 miles east of Chile (5 hours on a plane) in the middle of the south pacific. It's got huge volcano craters, crystal clear waters, excellent surf, beaches and so much history you're tripping over it. We spent most of our time hiking, mountain biking and hitching our way around the island. It's about 12 miles from end to end and has around 3700 inhabitants, about 50% of which seemed to greet us at the airport as we got off the plane. Rather embarrassingly after waving back to everyone we realised they were greeting a celebrity Chilean couple walking behind us. The island was once inhabited by several ancient tribes, one of these carved huge monolithic stone heads (Moai) inside a volcano crater then dotted them all over the island. No one knows for sure how they managed to do this over 1600 years ago. Another later tribe was the 'Birdman cult' which had an unhealthy obsession with bird eggs. The Moai are representations of their ancestors, built to protect the villages. Ironically, the islanders pulled nearly all of them down during tribal conflict. The population later died out as they'd used up all the island's natural resources building the statues in the first place. We counted about 93 standing statues, 65 fallen statues and 24 being carved. The largest one was 71ft and was still in the process of being carved, but never got finished. There are more but counting gets a bit hard as some are little more than rubble now. Check out the video above of us cruising past 15 standing Moai on a quad bike. [Tom]

Chile, Punta Arenas

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While Tom immersed himself in the wonderful world of the web, I got down and dirty with some of the locals. As they were of the four-legged variety he didn't mind too much. Volunteering at the most southernly dog shelter in the world was great if exceptionally mucky. I got covered in crap, literally as did a lot of shit shovelling ('scuse the French). The 150 odd dogs were gorgeous but did feel bad that no one wanted them. Three abandoned puppies were bought in while I was there, two hadn't even opened their eyes yet. Luckily one of the dogs who had recently lost most her young seemed happy to become their surrogate mum.
Be warned, these pics are all dog orientated - there wasn't much else to see at Punta Arenas. [Clare]