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Published: October 7th 2009
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all geared up
and ready to go Fortunately, the overnight bus was OK. We arrived about 630am in the morning to Potosi @ 4100m above sea level. Unfortuantely Lydia felt a bit sick... perhaps due to the altitude 😞
That morning, we had some Salteñas for breakfast and rested. At about 130pm we went on a tour to see the Mines. The mines were very interesting to see but we would never do it again. The working conditions and the air quality were terrible!
Before heading to the mines, they gave us clothing to wear on top, a helmet with a headlamp, and rubber boots. We also opted for the bandana´s so that we could minimize the amount of dust we would breathe in. So we were ready in our gear! They took us to the miners market so that we could buy gifts for the miners. Our group collectively bought coca leaves, coca cola, dynamite, and alcohol (96%!). They take a small sip of the alcohol and dilute it after but that´s still 40-50%. We went on a friday which the miners celebrate at the end of the day for the weekend so they were pretty happy with the alcohol. We went down 4 floors
working hard
putting the tourists to work in the mine and met a few miners along the way where we would chat with them and give them gifts. Luckily we had an English speaking guide so he was able to translate for us. The miner´s life is really interesting... not pleasant whatsoever. We stopped bargaining hard for our jewellery after that. Being in the mines for 1.5 hours felt like we had 2 years taken off our life. Lydia even lost her voice a bit from our tour in the mines. There was just so much dust. I can´t even imagine how it would be like working in those conditions for years.
Well after the mines, we felt like crap so we decided to take it easy when we get to Sucre (we heard good things about it so we decided to rest in Sucre instead). We took a 2 hour taxi ride with 2 other people from our hostel to Sucre the next afternoon. It would have been the same price as the bus so it worked out.
We were also happy to go to Sucre because it´s at a lower altitude and it was warmer. woohoo! We stayed there for a few days
dynamite!
our group getting ready to blow stuff up just walking around the city, eating their delicious chocolates, buying jewellery, and of resting. We went for drinks with some people from the mine tour and guess what we found out...they celebrate Oktoberfest in Sucre, Bolivia! haha. Well it´s an excuse for people to drink so why not right? The only site seeing we did was the original dinosaur tracks 5km outside of Sucre. That was a relaxing and interesting tour. The tracks on the ¨ground¨ were actually vertical like a wall... not flat or horizontal due to a combination of natural factors. Again... interesting.
We´re in Uyuni right now. We were hoping to leave to see the salt flats right away since there´s nothing to do in the city of Uyuni but we were a bit unlucky. There is a road block today so no tours could leave... hopefully we can leave tomorrow so we can finally get to Chile and Argentina. Yay for lower altitudes.
- Myra
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