Advertisement
Published: January 29th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Going back to Bolivia was quite exciting and after a couple of months of relatively easy travel it was going to be quite a shock!
We crossed the border and instantly everything was different - but in a good way. This is South America and Bolivia is unique. We spent the day waiting for our overnight bus to Potosi. Only a couple of hundred kilometres but it was going to take us about 8 hours. The roads were exactly as they had been 8 years ago - terrible.
The bus journey wasn't the worst but certainly not comfortable. We arrived in the dead of night to a deserted Potosi. It was absolutely freezing and we really struggled to find anywhere to stay. We eventually settled on a hotel but were given the most awful room you could imagine. To make matters worse when it got light we were also in the middle of a building site. We managed to change rooms and then set off to explore the city.
Potosi is one of the highest cities in the world - above 4500mtres. We felt the altitude immediately. Also Potosi is built on a hill so walking is hard
work - and we had walked most of the day. We stumbled upon a great roof top cafe - on top of the tower of an old church. We ate some lunch, had a couple of beers and looked out over the city and up to the silver mountain where we were planning to go tomorrow.
After a hostel move to somewhere much cheaper and a little better our plan for the next day was to visit the infamous silver mines.
Potosi was once one of the richest cities in the world and the Sapinish literally built and funded their empire on the silver that came from Potosi. There is not much left there now but local cooperatives still mine it in the hope of getting something. The conditions have changed little from when the Spainish first arrived 450 years ago and when we went in it was pretty shocking.
Before going into the mine you stop at the market to buy the miners gifts. These range from Dynamite to sweets (most miners are children), alcohol and ofcourse cigarettes. We stocked up on bags of goodies and then headed further up the mountain. Prior to going underground
our guide (an ex miner) showed us the TNT bomb used to help the miners. We all got to hold the bomb and I had to run down the hill to place it before it exploded!
If do not like confined spaces then this tour is not for you. The mines have no lights - just the one on your helmet, are hot, wet and the air is full of dust. We spent about 2-3 hours down there and by the end all of us were keen to get out. The miners do shifts of 12 hours without seeing daylight! We looked all around, met loats of miners, pushed wheel barrows of rocks (hard work) and just took it all in. There is no health and safetey here and people die too often, either from cave ins or lung diseases from years of foul air. It was a real experience and something I will never forget but a real eye opener and probably one of the worst and most dengerous jobs in the world.
That night we ate lama steaks with some new friends and decided to head back to Uyuni the following day to see the Salt
pans again.
Departing the next morning we saw all kinds of things at the bus stop. People buying donkey milk straight from the udder and dowing it like a shot - the owner had to keep the baby donkey away from the mother so she could sell the milk!
The bus journey to Uyuni was short in distance but long in time. We had a guy sitting in the aisle next to us who was sick all over Sally's bag. She then put it on the overhead shelf only for it to fall off and hit her on thehead when we went around a corner! The scenery was amazing though so that made up for it!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.055s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 11; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0285s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb