Former Five Valleys teacher Ally Mountain is currently enjoying a mid-life gap year. In her latest dispatch she enjoys the splendours of Bolivia.

DAY 104 - Ushuaia - The End of the World. South America is the land of superlatives.

La Paz - the highest capital city in the world. Potosi - the highest city in the world.

La Paz to Coroico - the 'Worlds Most Dangerous Road.

Today, I am in Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world. Waking up in La Paz, Bolivia, on a cold November morning was another superlative - the most surreal experience of my life.

The assault on the senses begins with the traffic, an endless stream of nose-to-tail cars honking their horns and 'collective conductors hanging out of minibus doors, vying for business.

Street vendors are squashed together in every alley, their stalls a riot of colourful fabrics, fruits and wares.

Everywhere you look there are women dressed in full, pleated skirts and bowler hats, carrying their goods and their babies on their backs wrapped in multi-coloured shawls.

The shoe-shine boys, ashamed of their low status, wear balaclavas under baseball caps.

The smell is a mix of coca leaves, formaldehyde, incense and other unsavoury odours.

Soon, you discover what the formaldehyde is used for - preserving shrivelled llama foetuses sold in the witches market.

Then you turn a corner, only to be rooted to the spot by the stunning vista at the end of a city street, clouds floating beneath snow-capped peaks.

The whole scene is bathed in the strange light of high altitude, lending a dream-like quality to this intriguing city which nestles into the Andes at almost 4000 metres.

Yes, La Paz is a strange and alien place to a country girl from Gloucestershire, especially when she has flown in from the flat lands of Buenos Aires and is suffering from altitude sickness.

Bolivia is an astounding country. Travelling the south west circuit in four days I saw active volcanoes, geysers, deserts of sand, altiplano, coloured lagoons, canyons of red rock and the awesome Salar de Uyuni, a 25,000 square metre salt flat.

There were llamas, vicuas, viscachas and flamingoes. In the words of a young Australian I met there If I see one more unforgettable, fantastic thing today, I think Im going to be sick!

Now, here I am in Patagonia where Ill be trekking across glaciers. And yet, amidst all this awe and wonder, the little things are still the most meaningful. Such as spending five hours digging the bus out of a hole on the Altiplano because the driver had taken a shortcut to avoid a delay at a roadblock!

Or sharing a long night on a bus to Potosi with Chas, Bloggs, Ben and Craig from England. Amazingly, when the lads turned on their stereo, the bowler-hatted Bolivians joined in with a full rendition of Dusty Springfields I dont know what to do with myself.

Later I spent all day looking for a fat beaver on a sun-lounger, wearing shades and drinking a cold Quilmes beer - but I didnt find one. Hasta Luego.