Potosi

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Well, yes, time for more news. Potosi was very eventful. Definately an experience, but have to say we were very pleased to get back to sucre on saturday evening! We left on friday (10 of us) after my afternoon spanish lesson at 4.30, taking a 3 hour taxi drive, in what might be termed a death car with a soundtrack of bolivian salsa music (oh, forgot to say i did salsa lessons last week which were so much fun, latin american men put english men to shame in the dancing stakes im afraid, although they are all about 4 ft tall!). anyway, the scenery was beautiful on the drive, we watched the sun go down over the mountains, and the stars come up. when we arrived in potosi, it was slightly scary. there had been student riots all day and the streets were filled with police with riot gear etc, there were booms of dynamite going off and tear gas everywhere. we spent about 1 minute outside moving from taxi to hostel, and it was not very nice. If youve ever been tear gassed you will know why! the air burnt, your nose and throat feel like they are on fire. inside the hostel it was better but still stank of it. but the riots had moved off, our hostel was out of the centre so it was ok. all very safe so dont worry! the bolivians seem to riot or protest about everything, mostly peaceful. almost every day in sucre there have been street protests, where 100s of indigenous men and women march the streets, and most of the time no one seems to know why. mostly because they can i think. which is cool. our spanish lessons are often interrupted by the chanting outside in the street. it is never violent in sucre, or ive never experienced it to be. i actually feel, and everyone says, that sucre is one of the safest places. Only very occasionally do the riots get violent in bolivia now, as we saw in potosi.
Potosi is not the nicest of places. It is the highest city in the world to begin with, a hefty 4070 m, higher than la paz. over the city looms the mountain Cerro Rico or el tio or diablo as the locals call it. it is very eery. Once potosi rivalled london, paris and madrid as the most fashionable city. The mountain behind the city is filled with gold, silver and numerous other minerals, and the mining of it funded the spanish conquest, it was how they paid for armies, jewels, castles etc, at the cost of the lives of thousands of bolivian and african slaves who would spend up to 6 months inside the mountain, never leaving. now, not much has changed. the mountain is still being mined, although the miners have to go deeper into the mountain to find new supplies of minerals. but the city is run down, and it is had to imagine thousands of fashionable westerners flocking to its streets. It seems to be only one colour, browny orange.
potosi is also one of the only places where you can buy dynamite in the street, alongside soft drinks and coca leaves (and rest assured, yes we bought some, and yes we blew stuff up. awesome!) Anyway, after the riots had moved off on friday night, we went out and found a crazy local discoteque, where the ceiling was covered in silver foil and palm trees. after a heavy night of drinking, we were up at 7 the next morning, to make our way into the mines. First we went to a kind of factory, where the minerals are extracted. after we were told it was probably the most dangerous place to go, because of the chemicals they use. it stunk, and after we all found holes in our clothes from the acid. after that we were taken to the miners shops, where we bought our dynamite and coca leaves and fizzy drinks, to give as presents to the miners. then we put on our protective suits and hard hats, and ventured into the mine.
We were taken into a dark tunnel, and to begin with it was ok, dark, hard to breathe and exceptionally hot. but the tunnel was quite big and we could walk upright. We walked occasionally banging our heads for about 15 mins, via a dark little museum in the tunnel which showed the statues of devils to which the miners give coca leaves etc for good luck. It was getting steadily difficult to breathe, my throat was burning and head pounding. and we were only on level one. the mine has 6 levels, all of which are worked, and as you descend it gets hotter and there is less air. So, moving down the the 2nd level the tunnel got smaller and started going down. we had to crawl, slither, crouch, stumble, scramble down a tiny passage way, not being able to stand up, descending some of the time down an almost vertical slope, hanging on to whatever the hell you can, trying to avoid the dust and stones that are coming down the tunnel from the person above you. It took about an hour and a half to get down to level three, i think about 400m down, and by that time we could barely breathe. We were sweating so much, our heads were pounding, we felt sick, and our legs were shaking. Oh, and i forgot to say, since the mines are still in use, occasionally you come across the odd miner. we saw about 5 on our way down. As you were stumbling through these dark tunnels, you would hear a shout and see a light, and have to run for your life to the nearest gap and squeeze yourself in to avoid these miners running along at 100miles per hour pushing 10 ton carts full of rock. We spoke to some of them, the ones who werent going to squash us to death, they work at least 10 hour shifts in the mine, pushing these back breaking carts, winching stone up to the next level, or blowing holes with dynamite (the walls continuously rumbled with the sound of distant explosions deep in the mountain). It was almost unbearable to be at level three for 5 mins, they work for 10 hours chewing coca to keep them going, going much deeper into the mine than we did. It is pretty unimaginable. Their life expectancy is about 40. And there are a lot of child workers, we saw two boys pushing a cart, and they cant have been more than ten years old.
After reaching level three, we turned round to make our way back up. it was a horrible feeling knowing that we were about an hour and a half away from the light, and from air. A few of our group were in a pretty awful state, close to fainting, but there wasnt anything to be done other than keep going. The worst bit for me was the climb back up, climbing at that altitude is pretty hard anyway, but add darkness, a tunnel about half a metre wide and high that you have to slither up, not lifting your head because you will bang it on the ceiling, the stink of dust and metal that burns your throat when you breathe, 100 degrees heat,next to no air, it becomes unimaginably horrible. At points I thought I cant do this, Im going to faint, I cant breathe, but we did do it, because there was no other way. And it was an experience I will never forget. When we got out into the light, and looked back at the mountain, it was pretty eery to think about the people that are working inside the rock, about the children that are working for 10 hours straight. The worst feeling was the heat and not being able to breathe. And the thought that if you fainted there was no way out. The stuff of nightmares.
Anyway (!) after that we blew up our dynamite, yippee! Big explosions, again very weird carrying around sticks of dynamite in plastic bags that say feliz navidad (happy holidays)
on them! After being in the mine we stunk, were wet with sweat, covered in dust, our throats stung and our noses were bleeding. God knows what we ingested, and we were only in there for 3 hours.
So, as I said at the begining, we were very pleased to get back down to sucre to have a hot shower and a big fat pizza!
Otherwise all is fine here. Am still having a fab time, might be going paragliding on the weekend. On friday it is a big party in Sucre, the city´s day of independance, people have been getting ready for weeks painting the houses bright white, cleaning the streets etc. Evo Morales is even planning to turn up. Should be very interesting, as most of the people I talk to dont like him. I am planning to volunteer to help take disabled children around the central square in the morning. It will be nice to do something and feel a part of it. And in the run up to friday there are muchos fiestas, so its going to be a good week! I think thats all the news, spanish progressing slowly. But perhaps faster than I think, because I managed to tell and understand ghost stories with my ´brother´in my host family. And I went to see apocalyto at the cimena in spanish and understood about half of it, plus learning some cool new words. Like forest, spirit (aula), and fear (muerdo)...i think!

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Photos

The mines
Thats cool, down the hole? No worries.

Lets make some bombs!
dynamite? dangerous? never.

Sunset
In the taxi on our grateful return to sucre