Minor Miners, Saltese

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I guess we've been neglecting our blog responsibilities, so now we have two cities to write about: Potosi, Bolivia and Salta, Argentina. First, Potosi: It was one of our favourite cities in Bolivia. Also, it is the highest city in the world at 4090 m ASL, so in your face all you sea level-dwellers.

We enjoyed Potosi for two reasons:
1) Its physical beauty. It has some of the finest colonial buildings that we have seen. For instance, our hostel -- Hostal Carlos V -- was in a great colonial building. (Never mind that the hardwood floors were covered by newspaper, and one time when I was having a shower, green algae began seeping out of the shower head. But then again, maybe the algae is related to the building's "history"...)

2) The historical context. Potosi was founded as a Spanish mining town, and once supplied much of the silver for Spanish and South American coins. Indigenous and black slaves once worked the silver mines -- sometimes working for six months or more without surfacing. The history gives Potosi a hardcore quality.

When we were there, we did a few interesting things. We went to the museum, which is packed with interesting relics from the colonial days. It is nearly as good as the Royal BC Museum! There was a coin that was recovered from a shipwreck off of Florida. There was a huge, two story machine (powered by mules) that was used to flatten the silver. It's so good because the building the museum is housed in was once silver refinery, so they have lots of old junk left over from that.

I took a tour the mines, which are still active. That was probably one of the highlights of the trip so far. The mountain ("Rich Mountain") has been mined for some 500 years, but it still produces good ore. Since the crash in silver prices, practices have become pretty crude. For instance, there is no longer any centralized body to oversee the mines, and occasionally separate mine shafts will meet, resulting in cave-ins. Yipes! Trust me, that is not a good thought to think when you are inside the mine.

My tour was pretty freaking cool (note: Andes Salt Tours). We went down for three or so hours and got to see all of the activities in the mine. Naturally, we got to partake in each activity, for the "experience". Well, me and one American guy got to, since we were the only ones to ever volunteer. I got to drill the rock in preparation for the dynamite (very hard!) and I got to shovel ore into a cart. But the craziest thing I did was when the American and I climbed down, by rope, into a 10 m hole that took us to a tiny, unventilated sub-shaft. Down there, I had the "opportunity" to lug several 50 kg bags of ore into a wheelbarrow (this was very hard since the shaft was 1 m high and the barrow was 0.7 m high). Afterwards, I spent several minutes huffing and puffing. I was alone in a wholly dark, extremely small tunnel that had very little oxygen. Then, after, I had to climb the 10 vertical metres out. Good times. Overall, the mines are a recommended experience for anyone who thinks that their job sucks.

Oh and did I mention the dynamite? We bought gifts for the minors at the miner's market, including dynamite. I bought a stick of dynamite, a detonator, and a bag of ammonium nitrate for 15 Bolivianos, or $2... If I could only get a few sticks home for Hallowe'en!!! Anyhow, before entering the mine we blew up a stick just for fun (including ammonium nitrate). I got to light the fuse.

After a few days in Potosi (colonial buildings, historical craziness, blah, blah, blah) we took the overnight bus to Salta in Argentina. Crossing the border it really was like a different world: trees, cleanliness, and not much adobe, only, the prices were the same! Remember $1.20 for a 620 ml beer? Well, try $0.80 for a 1 L beer in Argentina.

In Salta, we hung out for a few days. On the first night, Kathleen went out to the clubs, which were apparently quite hopping and "grabby" (I was sleeping after the overnight bus ride like a sane person). The hostel was great (note: Terra Occulta), and had foosbal although there were no worthy opponents. We went shopping a few times -- there a lot of cheap shoes. Kathleen got one pair, and I nearly got a sweet pair of velcro moccasins. While shopping, we ate a lot cones of fries with mayonnaise and ketchup, which is some kind of native delicacy.

On our last day we went horseback riding. Man, is that fun! My horse was a bit undersized -- look at the photo, that is NOT a pony -- but still managed to gallop a few times. After the ride, we had a BBQ. There was lots of excellent wine, and five courses of meat (sausage followed by four types of steak -- and I was expected to have two of each type).

Now we're in Buenos Aires. We took a bus for 21 hours to get here, which wasn't too fun. But, Buenos Aires is great -- real Euro, and lots of fashion mullets and rat-tails. More about that next blog.

18 days,
Mike

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