dynamite!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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We got the overnight bus from Topzia 2 Potosi and arrived in potosi at 5 am to a bus station with the method of selling bus tickets is by just many vendors shouting out the destinations very loudly, not exactly great at 5am!!!!

Potosi is the highest city in the world around about 4100 meters. Because it is so high you get out of breath really easy and feel very unfit. For example when we went to the local nightclub, after every dance everyone was out of breath and had to sit down!!!

The reason for visiting potosi is to go down the mine called cero rico.(well wait for it,that is what I first thought)
The hill/mountain is the mine of Cerro Rico which has been mined for like 500 years.rising above Potosi. It has been mined continuously for something like 500 years. Way back in the day, it was full of silver, and Potosi was supposedly the richest city in the Americas. Now, most of the silver is gone and they pretty much just mine tin and other cheap metals, most of which is mixed with waste rock. There are 12,000 miners working in Cerro Rico, in about 320 different cooperative mines. And each cooperative mine consists of various groups of about 10-40 people. Each group is usually a family, and essentially they are freelance miners.

The day started with us gettting kitted out in our outfits (see www.ringo.com) and setting of to the minors market to buy presents for the minors and ourselves!!! Our guide instructed us to buy fizzy juice,cigarettes, coca leaves and Dynamite, Detonators, and Ammonium Nitrate. We bought them a full completo for the explosion for about 2 pounds!!!!!! Our guide insisted we try the 96% alcohol that the miners drink!!!! yuk!!!! We also bought some coca leaves for ourselves to try, face masks and the best bit a few completo s so we could blew some stuff up!!!

we then walked up to the food market and looked around for items to blow up, we found a very large water melon but NIkki found a goats head!!!! Our guide confirmed that in his years of guiding that no one had ever blown up a goats head!!!!!!!! great news!!!!! So off we went to the mine, the conditions are very bad, very cramped,dusty, sweaty, dirty and as it is a third world mine, very dangerous. NO modern equipment, we had to jump out of the way of trolleys being pulled along by four miners!!! All with big lumps in the side of their mouths from chewing coca leaves!!!! They were all very glad of our presents and we were all very happy to have seen what goes on down the mine but very happy to get out and breathe normally again!!!

This is the best bit, we got our goats head and our watermelon, our guide took our dynamite and unravelled it from the paper, put the dynamite, ammonium nitrate and inserted the detonator all into the goats head, then walked away from us and left the goats head and we waited a few minutes for the explosion. And it was the biggest explosion ever ever, it was so loud, deafening and we saw the goats head jump and land a good bit away!!!!!!! We blew up our watermelon but the goats head was the best!!!! ha ha ha
A close inspection of the resulting crater revealed a dent in the Earth's surface almost half a meter deep!!!! This was no firwork this was a great explosion!!! Only in south america!!! can u imagine being allowed to do this back home!!! Even children are allowed to buy the dynamite (which is not good) but yes dynamite is totally legal to purchase in Boliva!!!!!

Blowing up goats heads, fantastic, we loved it, especially when loads of others on the tour, were disgusted at us picking a goats head and not just fruit!!!! We loved it and me, nikki. dave, bo, max, mick and lockie all went straight to the pub to celebrate a sucessful days blowing up goats heads!!!!

I can safely say one day of blowing stuff up was fine for me and this is not something I plan to continue doing!!!!

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Comments

[Sandra Beanz!!!]

The Goat!
Hey Loser, This is the first blog i've had a chance to read in ages and i'm just can't stop laughing! I'm meant to be concentrating on looking busy at my desk not giggling away. God I really miss ye maddo's around the place. Go Nickki for blowing up the Goats Head. Ha ha only thing i could think of was is the Goats Head not the name of the pub that we ate in that time! Anyway boring blog from the beanz (don't ever get called that anymore!) Check out your personal mails for a flat update! Keep on laughing, Sandra