Potosi mine tour

Photographer: Tim Malloch
From: Uyuni (Bolivia) to Cochabamba (Bolivia)

Potosi mine tour

Got dressed up again in rather fetching yellow overalls for the Potosi mine tour. Before you go in the mine you can buy dynamite in the miner´s market. Then the guide does a controlled explosion outside the mine. I thought it was going to be quite a feeble bang and was ho humming to myself thinking about bike gears etc when there was a very very big bang. Brilliant. Inside the miners work together in many small mining cooperative in terrible conditions mining by hand and pushing huge trolleys. It all looked very dangerous and unhealthy and reminded me a bit of the Beamish open air Victorian museum. Difficult to believe that people actually work in these conditions today.