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Published: August 21st 2006
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Miner Mike
Down the Mines @ Potosi After our time in and around La Paz we decided to head South for the town of Potosi,
where the main tourist attaction was the local mines.
For $10 you can spend the afternoon down a working mine where the locals work tirelessly mining a combination of silver, zinc and lead. This was quite an experience especially as before entering the mine you are taken to a local miners market where you buy gifts for the miners, which in this case consisted of soft drinks and dynamite!!
It did seem a bit surreal back in the minibus heading for the mine with sticks of dynamite on our laps, we chuckled at the thought of an organised tour in the UK taking the tourists to stock up on exposives, before embarking on their days adventures. It would never happen! Only in Bolivia!!
After a brief wait for the man powered mine carts to appear from the darkness, it was our turn to descend into the maize of tunnels that provided employment for many males of Potosi. Baring in mind this was an actual working mine we were constantly having to wait by the sides of the narrow railed tunnels,
Just Shovelin'
Rachael regretted overspending on Shoes!! while the miners tirelessly pushed their heavy carts of ore to the surface!
In the dusty underground labyrinths we found it hard to believe that in this day and age the poor miners still had to push their carts of ore by hand and furthermore that they still used uncontrolled sticks of dynamite to blast the rockface. We felt the explosions of dynamite from other parts of the mine and tasted the cloads of dust that spread through the tunnels after the explosion!
We spent a total of four hours underground with our excellent guide, who was a miner himself and had picked up his English only from interaction with tourists. We were informed that these poor miners worked as a cooperative and were paid on the quantity and quality of the ore extracted. These men worked ten hours a day sometimes seven days a week with no prospect of holidays and here we were touring South America at our leisure!!! We both agreed we'd never have a reason to moan about the daily grind again!!
After Potosi we headed for the next attraction on the unofficial "Gringo Trail" (the general route that backpackers follow throughout South
America!) to the salt desert of Uyuni, where we embarked on a three day tour of the salt flats and surrounding area by four wheel drive.
First stop out of the town of Uyuni was the rather bizarre graveyard for old steam trains (pictured) that once took goods though Bolivia to Chile. They now stood motionless rusting in the middle of knowhere, acting as a playground for tourists to clamber over and amuse themselves!!
It was then time to move onto the actual salt desert, which pictured could so easily be mistaken for a snowy winter wonderland! We found it strange to think that the bright white mass of salt we were walking on was actually harvested to be sold as table salt both in Bolivia and beyond. Gathering the salt certainly hard work as we watched the locals hack and scrape up the hard surface layers into piles before loading onto their trucks.
Following our wanderings on the salt we continued south towards the Chilean border where we had the pleasure of seeing Flamingos on the nearby lakes before leaving our tour operators four wheel drive and heading over the border into Chile.
After two
Rach on the Rails
Approaching the Salar de Uyuni weeks in Bolivia, entering Chile turned out to be quite a shock. Not only did they have proper toilets, but toilet paper aswell!
On entering Chile at the border town of San Pedro de Atacama there was no rest for us as we jumped straight on a bus for the capital Santiago, where we arrived twenty four hours later. On arriving in Santiago we felt like we could have been in any number of European cities, which after the geographical and cultural diversity of bolivia was almost a dissapointment. Santiago was like a different planet to anywhere in Bolivia!
After a couple of days mooching around the city it was evident that Chile was one of the richer South American countries, which made it even harder to believe that just down the road existed Bolivia where plenty of people still lived below the povety line!
Sadly our South American adventure had come to an end. Our three months was nowhere near enough to fully appreciate this wonderful and diverse continent. We'd seen a lot in a limited time and wished we had more!!
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Jimbob
non-member comment
Donkeys
Got a business propersition, Looks likes there's a demand for donkey's in Bolivia. Get em down those mines....... Saves the back.