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Published: June 15th 2008
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Potosi is an exhausting place to be - the altitude makes any form of exercise hugely tiring, and the intense heat in the sun followed by the bitter cold at night makes it impossible to acclimatize. The one significant thing we did in Potosi was visit the mines in Cerro Rico - the only reason Potosi was created, exists and when the mines are exhausted, Potosi will be a ghost town. Because of this the mines are hated and loved in the town - it’s the reason for its existed but condemns the majority of the population to a life of hardwork, miserable conditions, short life expectancy and, at times, unreliable income. A chart in the museum showed the reasons people chose to work in the mines - out of 4 choices of options 1. they enjoy it, 2. tradition, 3. lack of other work, 4. no response a staggering 90% responded that it was because there was no other choice of work. And in the mines you can see why. The tunnels are narrow, dusty; with health and safety non-existent there are regular cave ins. At over 4000 m oxygen is scare anyway, in an unventilated tunnel, think with silicon
dust, breathing is almost impossible. It is hot, dark. The miners work 10 -12 hour shifts usually, with no breaks and no food - only coca leaves to clear their breathing passages and keep them going. On Fridays they will usually work 20 hour shifts. The work is back breaking - pulling 2 tonne wagons through winding narrow tunnels, most the work is still done by hand. The miners work in cooperatives of 20 - 50 people, so they can dictate the number of hours and days that they work, but with payment being by the kilo, the more successful hours the better. Children as young as 10 work in the mines as runners to help support families. Life expectancy is 15 years - if a cave in doesn’t kill you, the silicon dust will freeze your lungs. A bizarre tourist attraction, it is like walking into the work of DH Lawrence.
With all this, unsurprisingly the miners and the town are very superstitious. The “god” of the mines is El Tio, or the Diablo (the devil), and you can see why. Some 17th Century Spaniard described the mines as the “mouth of hell”. For three weeks at the
end of may they sacrifice llamas and smother the mine entrance and the houses in which the miners change as an offering to El Tio and Pachamama (effectively mother earth) in the hope that the blood will satisfy these gods so they wont take the blood of the miners. In line with this they believe that if a miner dies, at the place he died in the mine you will find good minerals, for El Tio has taken blood for the success.
Potosi is filled with beautiful colonial cathedrals, but has a huge indigenous population. When talking to some Bolivians we enjoyed a few drinks with, I asked one whether he was Catholic. Our conversation was in Spanglish as it were, but he very strongly emphasized the Catholism was “bullshit”. He explained that for him, and for many in the city, these beautiful churches represented nothing but colonialism, repression and cruelty for it was the indigenous peoples who were used as slaves to build these fantastic buildings.
Our guide said that you do not understand Potosi until you have seen the mines, and I believe he is right. Heavy drinkers, extreme lifestyles, strong men that one can only
respect for the lifestyle they have no choice to partake in - the hatred of Catholism sits just right in this picture. For as I´ve said, the discovery of the natural wealth in the Cerro Rico seems to be the curse of Potosi, and it was, of course, the Spanish who first created the silver mines here.
From Potosi we went to Sucre - beautiful city and judicial and honory capital of Bolivia. My guidebook described it as a beautiful colonial city, that aspired to its past as capital of Bolivia, with the feeling of a provincial nostalgic backwater. Now being in La Paz for a few days, I think this a fair description, or at least comparison. Named after Antonio Sucre who founded the city, it is sunny, relaxed, pleasant with a great market, beautiful views of the city, churches, parks etc etc. It is a place travelers are known to get “stuck in”, and we sort of did. We intended to spend a week there, learning Spanish - this we did to extent. We lasted 6 days before my itchy feet had enough, and we had two and three Spanish lessons each. We met two lovely (independent)
Australians, re met up with the French three we took the Salar tour with, and an Israeli who had been in our hostel in Potosi. And we ate, and drank, and chilled - so easy to sit in the sun in the plaza, chatting to the Bolivian children trying to sell you “chicle”, have a beer at the mirador café overlooking the city, have lunch at the market, browse the stalls - the atmosphere is so slow and chilled you feel yourself stopping. It was good to have a quiet week, but leaves little to report.
An interesting example of the atmosphere in Sucre are the recent riots. Over the last week in Sucre there have been several demonstrations in Sucre, some of which involving a level of violence. The issue is more complex, but essentially revolves around cities like Sucre and Santa Cruz wanting autonomy from La Paz. In Sucre and Potosi tomorrow there will be a referendum concerning this issue. Last Thursday there was a demonstration in the city. Everything was closed - no transport was allowed in the city. But the atmosphere was bizarre - really quiet apart from 100s of children on bikes exploiting the
empty roads, but there was no noise, sign or anything of the demonstration. We were not particularly hunting it out, for obvious reasons, but those who did found the same. In the evening, everything was back to normal. It was very strange. Still, as a tourist, one can receive a very limited impression of places and events. Martin, fellow traveller, asked his Spanish teacher for more details of the demonstrations, and was told that none of the city dwellers would want to speak to tourists about the events, and therefore it is more than possible that we were ignorant of tensions that would be more apparent to locals.
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MikeHK
Happy Feet!
Hey you two!
Well, I am VERY jealous of you being in Bolivia, even though I know I would be even more exhausted being there myself!!!! Hope you are still travelling happy. Take Care. Sarahxxx