POTOSI - BOLIVIA

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Hola Chicos y chicas,

We are in Potosi, the highest city in the whole wide world....
Altitude sickness: you bet! We are at 4824m above sea level! Say no more. Headaches, stomach cramps, dizziness, temperature, the lot. Your body gets through a lot of sensations. What people do here is chew a lot coca leaves ( yes, the basic raw material that is used for cocaine. And yes, we tried it. It´s perfectly legal, and it doesn´t harm. It´s like you can´t get drunk on eating grapes or drinking grape juice. Even in big quantities.
Potosi is a city that was one of the richest in the whole Americas, due its silver mining exploitations. Cerro Rico produces a lot of silver. I mean thousands of tons of it. It´s a mining city. Miners suffer from bad chest pains, lung cancer and don´t live beyond 45 years old. It´s bad. Ironically, they are the best paid people in town.
For a day trip, we took a tour to the mines in the majestic Cerro Rico. Litterally, you go inside the mines and live through its many tunnels and experience a miners life. It´s mind blowing! There are no health an safety precautions, we put on our miner´s kit and went through one of Cerro Rico´s arteries to discover its silver richness: Silver. And we found it. To do that, our trip started with the miners market where we purchased presents like coca leaves, cigarettes, dynamite and drink for them.
After meeting some of them, we went several meters deep underground through narrow tunnels and ladders to experience explosions in the mine. Not very reassuring when you have vibrations going through your body, the earth is shaking and the tunnels are crumbling slowly. Not mentionning that your whole body suit ( which was provided ) is covered in a glittery silvery mud.
Along the way, we chewed a lot of coca leaves to get us a bit calm as we were totally oblivious of the whole situation.
The detonations were loud and we didn´t seem to mind... It was an experience to remember. We were miners for the day but it just showed how difficult the conditions were for those poor miners who do that on a daily basis. They risk their lives to get a better living than anyone else but they put their lives at risk. Dying young! The thing is, Potosi is a wealthy region, due to its silver mining but it is a corrupted environment where the fat cats are making big bucks on ordinary people... sad!
We loved our trip here. Very memorable. People try to make a good living but they have to pay for it.....
We learnt a lot from life, as we do everyday.... In different circumstances.
Ciao.

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