Bolivia: Potosi

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17/03 to 20/03/13 - Potosi:

The highlight of this stop was to do the Mine Tour at Cerro Rico Mountain. We used the company Big Deal Tours. They used to be miners themselves and are very straightforward. Every company conducting those type of tour sell the fact that they give a pourcentage to the miners but this is not true. Nobody does. We stopped first at a miner shop to buy juice and coca leaves for the miners we will encounter inside the mine, and some dynamite for the end! Our guide Pedro was experienced and funny. We visited a processing room for the minerals and then put some protection clothes, helmet and boots before entering the beast. The walk is around 3 hours going through narrow tunnels, toxic stalactites, up the ladder with a potent smell. It is interesting to visit a working mine but also very scary. Some miners have become very rich, the oldest are around 60y old. They don't tend to live old. 55y old is a good result!

Potosi is otherwise a nice town, like a lot of Bolivian city, busy and hectic around the market and main plazas and the streets are always going up.

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