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Published: October 22nd 2006
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Leaving Uyuni we headed right into the heart of Bolivia, Potosì. The 8 hours of bouncing through the night in a dusty bus with my blood thickening and pooling in my legs was not fun and then to have some worldly possessions nicked didn’t help - but its great to give something back 😊 Needless to say, I was high-strung on arrrival, ready to either explode or dissolve, but the comfort of a warm bed averted any serious mental meltdown.
As for the city, Potosì is famous for at least two things. It is one of the highest cities in the world and also the site of the richest Silver mine in the world. The silver mine is the main reason for dropping in, but this old style colonial town with its many narrow cobblestone streets and breathtaking views(when your'e walking around your breath is literally taken away at that altitude) is worth a visit in its own right.
The source of all that Silver at Potosí 'Cerro Rico' has been mined for close to 500 years and in that time a bunch of conquistadors got filthy rich, the Spanish funded a war against England and 8 million Indigenous
A heavy load
Just as we arrived at the entrance these guys hauled out a load of rocks, and it promptly tipped off the tracks - a sign of dodgy conditions to come and African slaves died. It´s chilling to think about the length and depth of exploitation that these people have suffered. Whats more is the fact that many folks still work in the mines today and the conditions are appalling. The mine is a cooperative now so its every man for himself, whatever you can dig up and push out they´ll pay you for.
I got a few statistics off our guide as we went through the mines like the fact that about 30 to 40 miners die every year from accidents, respiratry problems or poisioning from those precious minerals they´re digging up. The starting age is as young as 13, I saw some backend chaps who looked about 15, 16. All the fellows are happy to accept gifts of coca leaves, which when chewed are a stimulant that reduces hunger and fatigue, or the turps-like local booze which is drunk liberally and also given as an offering to the devil of the mountain so that he doesn't unveil his wrath upon the workers. On the way back from our little tour our truck was apprehended by a rowdy group of drunken miners, who had just been celebrating a once-a-month
Mr Mountain Devil
Behold my wrath! Only the guys were willing to drink a turps-like toast to this fellow so he wouldn't crush us in the mine ritual of offering lots of coca leaves and booze to the mountain devil and drinking about as much again. You can guess that the lifestyle of a Potosì miner must not be one of the healthiest on the planet.
Our tour of the cold, damp and dark tunnels included a visit to the shrine of the mountain devil, whose grinning wide-toothed smile was quietly creepy to behold. He was artfully decorated with streamers and the remnants of coca leaves and booze, particularly adorning his rather large member! The story of the Spanish conquistadors and the ruined slaves was told by life-sized mannequins in a mini-museum, inside the mine, so the figures loom out at you from the dark. We passed by a few real life miners, covered in white dust, who let us tourists go on our way, poking around the neverending crevasses and dodgy ceiling supports.
Outside we were treated to a makeshift explosive show of, well, makeshift explosives. These can also be bought at the miner's market for about 10Bols, and consist of a stick of dynamite stuff, a blob of play-dough stuff, and a fuse. Our guide put it all together and blew up some
Miners
Young lads rocks, leaving a little hole in the ground. We heard that someone brought up a goat's head once and ¡kaboom! a lovely pile of animal bits sprayed eveywhere. No thanks!
On a less heavy note, we organised to hire a taxi with our new Israeli friends to a local thermal pool, well actually thermal lake, about an hour from Potosì. It was my brilliant idea to stop at the market and grab some cheap wine and crackers, and whoa did it enrich our visit! The taxi driver thought we were quite mad, floating around on rubber tyres and drinking from a bottle in the middle of a 30 degree lake! In the middle you could feel the bubbles from some sort of underwater volcano, and we theorised that you could probably swim through to Europe or whatever country might be on the other side of the world. The only problem was getting out afterwards, with thoroughly chilly winds at 4000m.
So Potosí was quite a diverse experience for us, and we would recommend it! Now on another nightmare bus to La Paz, with more high-altitude fun to follow...
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