---

---

On the 1st of June 2005 we caught a bus from Uyuni (Bolivia) to Potosi (still in Bolivia), the highest city in the world (4100m or 13500ft) and a UNESCO World Heritage City. By this time the campesinos (farmers and rural workers) had mobilised and had set up road blocks around most of the country. There had already been trouble in La Paz, the capital, and now it was spreading to the provinces. The protest's main goals were the nationalization of the gas and oil extraction industries in Bolivia, and the increased participation of Bolivia's indigenous majority in the political life of the country. Some have called this the Second Bolivian Gas War, the first one being in 2003 when 80 protesters were killed and the President resigned. There were also serious protests in Cochabamba in 2000 when a British Water company was brought in to privatise the local water supply, they were ultimately chased out of the country after the price of water went up. To this day the people of Cochabamba don't have clean water to drink (now there's a moral dilemma!). It's the great privatisation/nationalisation, socialist/capitalist debate!

Now I'm nearly always in favour of workers rights to protest, but on this occasion it was a tad inconvenient! Half way to Potosi we suddenly stopped, by some bizarre coincidence we had got a punctured tyre at the same time as arriving at our first road block! We all piled out of the bus to find ourselves in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by mountains and inquisitive llamas. An hour later and the wheel had been changed and the driver had negotiated for the passengers to swap buses with another group at the other side of the roadblock. However, it did involve us having to walk over a mountain to get round the roadblock! Not an easy task at high altitude.

In the new bus we sped on towards Potosi, until that is, we hit another road block on the outskirts of the city. So it was out of the bus and across another mountain to get to another bus which would take us into the city centre!

The city was founded in 1545, following the discovery of silver in the nearby mountain. This turned Potosi into Latin America's wealthiest and largest city. However it was at a huge cost as it is estimated that 9 million people died working in the mines over the next 300 years. The Spanish who used the silver to mint coins for their empire grew rich.

It's staggering the way the rich and powerful use and abuse the poor and the weak for their own purposes. We were told an interesting modern-day story by the guide at the old Royal Mint museum, Casa Real de la Moneda, in Potosi (well worth a visit by the way) about a sunken Bolivian ship full of millions of silver coins which sunk on its way to Spain probably in the 1700's. Various attempts to find it were to no avail until recently an American expedition located it and recovered all the silver coins. Both Bolivia and Spain declared that the siver was theirs and that at least some of it should be returned to them. The Americans graciously gave Bolivia two silver coins (yes 2!) which are now displayed in the museum! The tour guide was not best pleased I can tell you. I'm not sure who she was most annoyed with, the Americans or the Spanish!

From Potosi we wanted to travel by bus to Sucre, another nice city with lots of old colonial architecture. However, the whole of Potosi was blockaded and after about 4 days we really needed to escape! We met up with another British couple in the same predicament, Jamie and Anna. We had heard rumours that the blockade might be lifted at the weekend so we set off in a taxi hoping for the best. But alas, after about an hour's drive we hit (not literally!) a huge road block. We got out thinking we could walk through the road block and catch a bus at the other side, but this was no small road block! We asked a couple of kids where the end of the road block was and they ominously pointed to a huge mountain miles in the distance! We thought they must have been kidding, but they were in fact right! Fortunately, the boys had bikes and for a hefty fee they transported our back packs the rest of the way.

Tired and somewhat anxious we made it to the end of the road block where fortunately there was a bus waiting to take us on to Sucre. Information was scarce and we didn't know if there were any other road blocks. There was indeed one other but it was small and the bus driver bribed them with 4 litres of local bevy. We arrived in Sucre as the sun set on its majestic plazas.






(If you wish to purchase any of the photos shown please click here)

---