HOT DOG CAPITAL OF THE WORLD - POTOSI

After a short ride in a bus from Sucre I arrived in a town called Potosi. At first glance I would say that this was the hotdog captital of the world as everywhere along the streets there were hotdog stands, not one´s were you could get a hotdog to go, but one with packaged hotdogs, rolls and condiments to buy. I thought that this was quite strange and was mind boggled by the number of stalls along the streets....it was never ending. Potosi is also known as the highest town in the world, it is at 4070m above sea level, you know about this as you wander around the streets, and was once Latin America´s largest and wealthiest city due to it´s silver mines that were founded in 1545. Not long after that Potosi was formed and has been a mining town every since. I had people say to me that you would not live in Potosi if it was not for the mines as there is nothing there and you can grow nothing in the soil and it is definately a harsh place. I had decided to go to Potosi a day earlier for the simple fact that I knew the hostel there had a good hot shower and due to the lack of them in Bolivia, I decided it was best for everyone that I get there fast to have a wash. The hostel´s name is Koala Den, a little touch from home, not owned by an Australian but called this for the fact that koala´s chew gum leaves just like the miners chew coca leaves while they work. The rumour about the hot showers was correct and man it was soooo good....hot water and pressure!!!!!!

When I first got there I decided to go for a wander around town and as mentioned earlier was blown away by all the hotdog stands, I really couldn´t work it out and decided that that just must be what they eat in this neck of the woods. As I ventured further down the hill I came across a whole square full of firecrackers and fireworks stalls and people just going nuts for it....so they are quite festive here maybe? But as I got a little closer to the hub I realised that something special was happening on that day/night and to celebrate the locals eat heaps of hotdogs and let off fireworks. Not exactly sure what the fiesta was for but all night I could hear the fireworks going non stop, I was exhausted and didn´t make it past the front door of the hostel. The next day all the hotdogs and fireworks were gone and life was back to normal. The buildings in this town are also quite beautiful and from another era. Lovely terrace like houses in all sorts of colours line stoned streets and the town centre again has many grand buildings from colonial times when the city was more prosperous. I spent a bit of time checking out the city and also romming around the markets talking with the old ladies who sold me my fruit and veges. Also a visit to the museum proved to be interesting for what I could understand, as it was in spanish. I had been organised and got up early and took off to get to the museum. I got a little lost and while I was lost and heading back to where I should I suddenly felt something land all the way up my back. I saw the substance on my shoulder and thought that it was bird poo but as I looked at it a man approached me and told me that this stuff had come from somewhere behind me. Then as nice as he was told me to come with him and he would help me clean it off......by this stage I know it´s not just on my shoulder but all the way up my legs and back and it is not bird poo. Conveniently this man saw it happen and offered to help me clean it off, but miraculously he had none of it on him. Luckily I had read about this scam, where they throw something on you and then offer to help you and then rob you of your valuables as you are distracted. I had also had the experience of having strawberry milk thrown on me in La Paz when I had my big pack and everything else with me. I gave the guy a rather hateful look and just kept walking, as soon as you do this they leave you alone.......BASTARD! but at least I still had all my belongings. So now I was covered in this foul smelling black substance that I thought initially was some kinda shit but realised that it was probably some kinda of grease, not only was it over all my clothes but smeared over my face as well. A good look as you are walking through town and I wondered why all the locals were looking at me weird, until I got home and looked in the mirror. So as a result I missed the english speaking guide at the museum and missed out of half of the information about the area. I´m not really a museum type of girl and this didn´t really convince me to keep going.

That afternoon I went with Katie and Dale to the hot springs that were about 30 minutes out of town. They are perched onto of a hill above 4000m and around 30 degrees. There is a couple of man made pools but also a natural lake. The scenery was amazing and then the fact that we were so high just topped it all off. The lake is also 2000m deep and produces the warm water constantly. The water was beautiful and it was great to be swimming again, which I did for about 2 hours. We were told not to go into the middle of the lake as some strange phenominom (spelling sorry!) could cause you to get pulled under and the rising bubbles stopped you from being able to swim. I thought that it was a bunch of crap so I swam out to the middle just to see how strong this water was, but as expected it was exactly the same as on the edges. We had met some more people up there so we hung out for quite a while in the water giving ourselves mud face and body packs and put off getting out of the water as the wind was freezing. Finally we did and moved down to the smaller man made pool where the water was much warmer. By the time the sun was about to go down we were all pruned and in need of getting dry. Back to the road to get a mini bus back to town and as it turned out this proved harder than we thought. At the end of this road there is more man made pools that are very popular with the locals, so they were all trying to get home at the same time. No point standing on the side of the road as all the buses were over full. We had to catch an empty bus to the end of the road and once we arrived there we were bombarded with people trying to get in. We ended up having 26 people shoved into the minibus for our 30 minute ride back to Potosi. I think that we couldn´t have asked for more friendly Bolivians to fill our bus up with, they just wanted to talk to us all and were so lovely. One of the Germans with us had his birthday on that bus, it turned midnight back in Germany and therefore his birthday on our way home. The people sang him Happy Birthday in the local Quechua language and we all got a kiss goodbye on arriving back in Potosi. One of those really good experiences.

Standing around where the bus dropped us we decided that we needed to grab a beer and then plan to meet for a birthday celebration dinner. This happened but as there were around 15 of us time got away and we spent more time drinking at the hostel than expected and didn´t go out to dinner until late. Of course the restuarant we planned on going to was shut so we decided to head into town to find something. No nice gringo restaurants open just the local meat fry up and chips...of course no one could decide on what to eat. Some of the boys had brought a bottle of the local rum, Singari, and decided that we should just start drinking this. I had brought a glass out with me as I had to finish my wine and because I´m a lady didn´t want to skull it back at the hostel. So this worked out perfectly and we proceeded to take it in turns to drink the rum. At this stage I was planning on a quiet night as I had to go to the mines the next morning and from what I had heard it was an experience in itself without a hangover. The night went on, no restuarant was found and more rum got drunk and we must of looked rather hilarious to the locals. Finally someone decided on a chicken restaurant but as most of the group went in myself, Micala (from Victoria) and Christian (German) deciced that we would take the remainder of the group´s alcohol and sit and drink it to ourselves. This sounded like a great idea and it was making us laugh a lot, Micala and I decided that we had to give Christian a lesson in being dodgy....as he hadn´t heard the word before. As I said it was fun but all thoughts of going to the mines left my head and the rum got me very drunk so when the rest of the group found us it was obvious that we had drunk the rest of the alcohol. The night went of for a while more, I realised that the rum had gone straight to my head and went home as quickly as possibly to find my bed. A very random and funny night out by all and one that I will try to remember forever!

Well the next morning arrived way too fast and when I finally admitted to myself that it was morning I arose to find myself still drunk. I had planned on catching a bus with some of the guys I had met the previous day that night so I didn´t want to miss that, so I knew that I had to get up. Except I didn´t even think to myself, until hours later, that I could of done the afternoon tour!!! Anyway I had asked these people from England to make sure that I was up, which they did, but then I had to ask them to make sure that I didn´t die that day. After a few cups of tea and some eggs I got ready and found myself in a bus on the way to go underground to a mine. First stop was to get some equipment - pants, jacket, gumboots, helmut and light. The boys I was with were given a nip of the local alcohol that the miners drink, don´t know the name of it but it is 96%, and both of them returned from the room with wide eyes. No one could convince me to have any of that! Next stop, in full equipment mind you, was the miners market where we purchased items to give to the miners - drinks, coca leaves, dynamite....we also purchased dynamite for ourselves to blow up after the tour. By this stage the hangover had set in and I was hating myself for drinking all that rum and wondering how the hell I was going to go underground. Anyway after shopping we stood around in the food market while our guides ate breakfast looking like absolute tools decked out in our miners gear.

Next stop was the refinery plant were they separated all the minerals from the rocks that are brought up from the mines. There are many in town and most are owned by foreign companies but they employ locals. Everything is pretty primitive here compared to what we would get in Australia and the conditions that these people work in is unbelievable. These days they mine silver, lead and zinc and I think they are completely raping the earth for these minerals. Once we had visited the plant we were on the way to the actual mine which is situated in Cerro Rico, just out of town. There is around 300 mines operating in the area and the miners work for themselves and then sell their findings to the refinery companies. A little history about the area....millions of labourers were conscripted to work in the mines back when they were discovered - both indiginous people and imported African slaves. Conditions were and still are appalling and as many as eight million people have died from diseases, accidents or contact with toxic chemicals during the three centuries of colonial rule. I was not sure what we were going to experience but people with asthma, lung problems or claustophobia are told that it´s not for them. At the mines we get ready to go in, my hangover is still very present and I am sure that I will throw up at some point. I also have a cold and struggle to breath properly when walking in the street in this town. We enter in and before too long I am again breathing like I have been smoking since birth and wonder how the hell I am going to go once we get to the third level. There is 4 levels to the mine and we are going to go to the third. Inside the mine is mind blowing, and the conditions these people work in is unbelievable. Everything is primitive and safety is a word that seems to not exist. THe tunnels are small and sometimes we are crawling on our hands and knees to get through. To go to the next level we slide down tunnels and find parts held up with dodgy looking wood. We had been given bandanas to wear around our faces to stop the ever present dust from getting into our bodies. Not only are we breathing in dust but a number of other chemicals, the one I remember most is asbestos. We stop to chat with some of the miners and to watch them work, all of them seem a little amused with us but mainly they just want some gifts. All of them chew coca leaves and you can see this by the massive bump in their cheeks. Coca is believed to help them work longer and harder and to make them strong and without the coca none of them would work. They are encouraged to chew the coca so that they can make more money. We did come across a miner who was sweating alot and I thought that he must be working hard. Our guide then told us that a bucket carrying 2 tonne of rocks had fallen on his leg and he was on the way to the surface to go to hospital. None of his friends had helped him, we were on the 2nd level and he had come up from the 4th hobbling all the way by himself with a suspected broken leg.

The first level was were they sent all the rocks to be taken up to the surface, the second they put all the rocks in a big leather bucket and hoisted it up and the third they were pushing the rocks around in large containers that ran on rails. We witnessed all these levels and I was astounded that this is how it all operated. I am sure that the equipment that was used dated back to the start of the last century and you would definately not see this in any first world country. To move the containers along the rails two men ran in front pulling it with ropes and then two were behind pushing the container. When they got to the end they had to empty it by tipping it over and then another 2 men would shovel the contents into the big leather buckets and then it would be hoisted up a level with an electric pulley - this only arrived a couple of years ago before that it was all man power. For the men that work in the mines their life expectancy is reduced by half, so the average age is around 40 years if they start work around 18yo. There is also boys as young as 10 working in the mines, which is illegal but there is no enforcement. Most of the miners will die from some form of lung disease after years of breathing in the dust. There is not extraction system and no kind of work place safety system. They have no idea where they are tunnelling in the mines and there is many cave-ins and they also have a very sketchy way of informing others that they are going to use dynamite. As usual though in these sort of places the people need to believe in something to make it all possible. The miners believe that because they are underground that it is the devil that is under there rather than god. So they worship the devil and make sacrifices to him to stop any accidents and to give them good luck with finding minerals. They call the devil Tio, which also means uncle, and they have statues through out the mines which they will give cigerettes, alcohol and other items. They have a lot of faith in things that they could just make a lot safer and that is the ludicrous thing about it.

To get to the surface our guide sent us on a mission by ourselves, a thing that he had done during the tour and we ended up scaling down mine shafts and climbing through very small holes. This time we ascended up a tunnel and I think at this stage I really wanted to get out of there. My hangover had left when I got into the mines as I was concentrating on breathing properly and had forgotten about feeling sick. On the way up I was at the back of the group so I got very dusted out and had to draw on all my scuba diving experience not to panic and to just keep breathing. The dust and the altitude just killed me and I was so glad to reach the top level. Our guide then made us stop and sit with the Tio statue for a while and all I was thinking about was that first breath of fresh air that I would take....I was so close to saying to him that I´d meet him up there, I had had enough. Finally we made it to the top and I was very close to panicking but again mind over matter and that first breath of fresh air was unbelievable. We had spent about 2 hours underground and that was definately enough for me for a life time. I really can´t believe that people do that for a living 6 days a week. The miners do make a lot more money than other people in Bolivia but no where near as much as miners in Australia. On average they make around $3000 a month....about AUD$500...not a great deal considering they shorten their lives by half. If they get lucky then they can make a lot more but only if they get lucky.

We were covered in mine dust but were very excited as now we got to blow up some dynamite. We learnt how to combine the ingredients together and produce a bomb, yes little terrorists in the making, and then we lit the wicks and took some frantic photos before our guides ran off down the hill with the bombs. The wicks were 4 minutes long so after that time there were numerous explosions. I had heard about this from numerous males and how it was one of the best things that they had done, typical males I thought, but I was suprised at how excited I got about blowing things up. I definately wanted to do it again. Back to town and a much needed shower and some chill time before jumping on a bus towards a town called Tupiza. None of us were looking forward to this trip as the road is not paved and it was no doubt going to be rough ride.....all our concerns were granted and it proved to be one of the worse bus rides yet!!!!!

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