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Published: August 6th 2007
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My first impression of Bolivia when I crossed the border on the 1st of April was...what kind of jungle I got into? Not in a pejorative way but compared with Chile and Argentina, the country just seems like a mess and that is when I really felt that I was in the heart of South America. For the moment I haven't seen one supermarket, you can only see street vendors at every corner and selling random junk. If you need some shampoo you just need to ask one street vendor and they'll point you a hundred metres further at a women with a bowler hat on, chewing coca leafs and with a baby rapped on her back who will solely sell toiletries, nothing else.
On the boarder town of Villazon met 3 aussies and we had to wait 10 hours in that dusty haphazard burg until we got onto the train for Uyuni. The train ride was also 10 hours and was mainly entertained with a magnum of wine and a long visit in the bar wagon. In Uyuni, being Saturday night, we dropped our bags in the hostel and decided to continue what we had already started in the
Getting all the stuff and ready to blow
train. Unfortunately we arrived in a ghost town because of pre-Easter weekend. It looked like every single soul at 12 was already tucked into to bed to get up early for Sunday mass. Eventually we found ourselves in the drabbest disco in South America. All the locals were all passed out on their table and the dj was pretending to be Ricky Martin, singing love songs to the two blond aussie girls that were with us.
After a good long Sunday lie, the next day with one of the aussies called Sam, I went off on a tour and visit what Uyuni is well known for: its salt flat and the Bolivian altiplano. We booked a 3 day tour, and our first day was just crossing the salt flat. With its 10,582 square km it's the world's largest salt flat, and is situated just near the crest of the Andes at 3650 metres high. Driving through it was like driving on a gigantesque white blanket. What made it more impressive was when passing in some flooded parts of that White Sea, looking out at the horizon, you could not tell the difference
between land and the clear blue sky.
That
The group of gringos from the bus
Julia, myself, sam and Lizday was mainly the highlight of our tour. To tell you truth, the rest was pretty much similar to what I saw in the Chilean steppes. I saw some more lagoons filled up with pink flamingos and more hot springs. After those three days touring, Sam and I decided not to try the Uyuni nightlife again and went off to the city of Potosi.
The city lies at the feet of Cerro Rico. A mountain renowned for its silver mines that has been discovered back in 1545 by the conquistadores. On the way to the city, we travelled on one those typical chicken buses packed at its maximum. We were only 5 gringos in the whole bus and were sitting comfortably at the back. Even with my backpack between my legs, some girl who was pretending to sleep on the alley, managed to get into it and knicked my digital camera and my Colo-Colo cap. All of this was happening while I was chatting away with a french girl sitting next to me. That whole thing got me in a
right mood and first thing that I saw in Potosi was the Police station for a statement.
After that
Sam the aussie
ordeal of losing a month worth of pics and my precious cap, we continued with our plan to visit the city of Potosi breathless because of its 4000m high. The main attraction of that place was visiting its corporate mines. Apparently since they first began the extraction of minerals in the Cerro Rico, 8 million people died and unsurprisingly most of them were Indians or African slaves. The tour was really interesting and only cost a couple of quid. The only thing we had to do was buy a few gifts for the miners.
For a pound fifty, I was able to buy a bag of coca leafs, some roll ups, and Guabira a 96% alcohol drink that miners usually sip before going down. It's also a ritual to pore some on the ground for the Pachamama, mother earth, hoping for a good day. However, one thing I really enjoyed was buying dynamite and some kind of nitro-glycerine off the shelf for another quid. Bet you the FARC or Al Qaeda have already done their massive shopping spree.
I even got the chance to light it and give it to some miner to blow out some rocks.
Inside the mine
With the 15 years old miner
was a real maze, with hundreds of tunnels crossing each other, it really felt eerie and not a nice place for claustrophobics. I gave all my stuff bought from the market to one miner who was just fifteen and worked 14h a day. Miners usually pay some cooperative $3000 to be part of it and to have the right to exploit a few square metres. If they're lucky they hit the jackpot and find silver but nowadays you can mostly find zinc.
After spending two hours underground, it was a relief to be back to the surface and as a souvenir we kept a bottle of that evil stuff, Guabira.
Right after our visit, Sam and I got a taxi to our next stop a couple of hours further north to the constitutional capital of Bolivia, Sucre. A city different from the rest, it reflects the Andalusian culture embodied in the architecture of the city's buildings and numerous convents and churches from the 18th and 19th century. We just stayed there
El tio
Each cooporative have their own tio. During the conquistadores, these were used to pray and keep an eye on the miners. The workers still give coca leafs and roll ups to the tio to make sure they have a good day. ...don't look between the legs. a couple of days to relax and I bought a new digital camera.
For all the pics, because my camera got stollen and Sam didn't have
El tio
Each cooporative have their own tio. During the conquistadores, these were used to pray and keep an eye on the miners. The workers still give coca leafs and roll ups to the tio to make sure they have ... one in the salt flat, Julia (the french girl from the bus) was kind enough to send me a few from her camera.
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anonymous
non-member comment
Dear Nic, So nice to hear from you via your journal. I was really sorry about you losing all your pics though. I think your Dad should do some travelling with you now that he is going to soon be a FREE man!! We will miss him a lot here at work. Keep safe. Love from the Wassyhun family ( Jo, Kebret, Azaria and Mamoush).