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Published: October 13th 2006
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Marc and dynamite
Bolivia ..nothing to add. Nowhere else Well, its that time of the year isn´t it when everyone goes back to school. So i thought i´d keep in the trend and try out school Bolivian style. More about that later, but i´ll fill you in on the other crazy events of the last few days first.
After the uber coincidence of meeting the Claire out in Uyuni we realised not only were we in the same pub but we also ended up taking exactly the same bus sitting only a few seats apart from each other. In some ways it would have been more fun to both randomly walk onto the same bus and have the nonunderstanding stare at each other then. The bus in question was the..umm, how to say, very ´Boivian´bus from Uyuni to Potosi. Having faired well on the supposed Death Train, i thought a mere toddle on a bus would be fine, but..Bolivian buses are without question something else. Like much else in Bolivia (my favourite fact so far is that they possess a navy despite having no coast line to speak of these days..thanks to Chile for that i believe as they grew rather fond of some of Bolivias mineral welth way
Appaling conditions
Photos cant show how grim it is back when and sort of took the land in question which was also Bolivias coast line..dodgy political topic around these parts though so i´ll steer clear) the buses have a ramshackle aura around them. The actual journey took 6 hours but it felt like a lifetime, as it was at night, all the Bolivians were trying to sleep and they took no prisoners when it came to spreading themselves out (i ended up with one olf man in my lap and another stroking my hair..hmm). The roads also were, well not roads. More bumpy and uneven stretches of earth, that were often punctuated with massive potholes and occasional dried up river. Somehow though we made it to Potosi around 2am, thoroughly tired and fed up. At this point the sensible gringos on the bus (claire and her party) decided to head straight to a hotel in a taxi for a well earned rest. Sadly for me my party (the remnants of the Death Train crew) decided it would be cheaper and more fun to stay for the rest of the night on the bus (they let you do this kind of thing in Bolivia). Hence for the remainder of the
The god of the mines
Gifts are showered on this chap to keep away accidents and death. He´s not so good at his job. night i remember little more than grumpy old men snoring, no room to move and stolen 20minute patches of sleep here and there. The morning didn´t come soon enough, and at 6am myself, Joan and Ian finally jumped into a cab and went off to find Claire and her friends at a suprisingly swanky and comfortable hostel in down town Potosi.
So to Potosi. Other than what seems like miles and miles of market streets to explore and get lost around the main attraction is the mine of the town. At one time in the 1500s Potosi was the richest city in the world thanks to the mineral wealth of the surrounding hills. Sadly corruption and endless poor management of the area (and Bolivia in general) means that these days, although still providing lots of employment to the town, the conditions down in the mines are the sort of thing you expect to see on documentaries about the dark ages. Unquestionably and without doubt one of THE worlds worst jobs must be working down in the mines around Potosi. Mostly people have to work for themselves, there´s zero safety, most of the mining is done by hand and with
Mining
Myslef and Claire also answered the request of the miners to help out. I was SO exhausted after only 3 minutes, and these guys to 15 hours per day. No clean air, extremely hot and heavy rocks to shovel. bad. hand pulled carts along disintergarting railway tracks, the earliest start age can be a low as 10, most people work between 10-15 hours per day, the fumes are so noxious down there..well no comparison, its dangerous stuff, occasionally they use live dynamite with no safety procedures to speed up mining, there´s sulfuric acid everywhere, and to cap it all they get paid sometimes as little as Bs50 per day (5 pounds for 15 hours deadly work). Given all this we decided it was certainly something worth seeing, so we went along with one of the many mine tours which operate, put on wellys and overalls and ventured in. As you would have thought given the details above, it was grim. Really grim. Smiles were abound as we headed off in the morning but this was quickly replaced by horror and real pity for the miners and the situation in general. The low point of the trip for me (and there were several) was when I accidentally grabbed hold of a pipe covered in sulfuric acid. boooo. Luckily (and no thanks to any Bolivian safety procedures) i managed to wash it all off very quickly and i escaped with a few
The National Mint
Crazy that the grandness of this place is the same country as the mines. Two tier society, you bet. Sadly money talks and corruption is the interpretuer here. blotches on the skin. Having said all of the above i´m so glad that i did the tour and got to see just how bad it can get for some people. Never again will i moan at having to sit in front of a computer screen back in blighty 9-5.
Phew, after so much gloom i thought id end on a lighter note. After the mine tour and another day in Potosi recovering (mainly spent looking around the old biulding which used to house the national mint - very interesting although a slightly long and tiring tour looking at coins and the like) we (claire, me and our various freinds) headed out on a bus (not quite as bad as the last one, though it did break down half an hour after departing and we had to wait and hour for another bus) to the consitutional capital of Bolivia - Sucre.
And thats where we are now, staying in a delightful old building with a shower which trys electicute you when you shower and has a dog which looks like a sheep. Having done a fair amount of the tourist gringo train of late, i decided it was
Gringo Money
Buys you nice places to stay high time to do something useful. Hence, as mentioned at the top of the blog, i´m back at school. The German Institute of Spannish of all places, in fact. Starting yesterday i´ve booked up with a couple of others to do 3 days very intensive Spannish, at the end of which maybe i might have got half way to understanding Claire...maybe. Its an absoltue hoot and Sucre (very nice and picturesque) is a very pleasnat place to relax for a few days (well, relax come learn).
I suppose reading back ove the blog it seems as if Bolivia is a bit of a drag, but not a bit of it. I LOVE this country. Its all the craziness which makes it so good. Add to that, the people are extremely freindly, theres always something going on (normally civil unrest, but ususally with a smile), the food is insanely cheap and good, the transport is awful (thus making me feel at home), and..well, its fun. Lots of fun.
Soon i think it will be off to the Capital de facto, La Paz. Probably via another event filled bus trip. Joy.
Happy times out here still for Marc and Claire.
marc
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Terry and Mick's bandwagon of joy
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Health and safety stops at Dover
Just realised that health and safety 'god' in the mine looks just like our health and safety officer at work. Bet he doesn't have to do as many risk assessments though