Withering Heights

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At 4100m, Potosi is the world´s heighest town. An abundance of minerals meant that for a while it was also the worldñs richest. However, the gold and silver have now been largely depleted, and the miners now work 20 hour days for an average wage of 700 bolivianos per month (just under 50 pounds). Tours into the mines are run by a miners co'operative, with a percentage of the ticket price going directly to the miners and the option of buying presents and equipment for them before the tour commences. It seemed like something that had to be done, and arriving on Saturday we booked our tour for monday morning. Saturday afternoon brought the England v France semi-final (a game I was still shocked that we were playing) and at 4pm I set off around the town to find somewhere for the 5pm kick off. I managed to find out that not only was no-one showing the game, but that it had actually started at 3pm. I ended up sat in an internet cafe reading an almost live text feed of the match, and staring at the unchanging 9-8 scoreline. Eventually, with 10 minutes to go, I got disheartened, gave the computer over to Margrethe and got a beer. Minutes later, she called over to me "england have scored!" "england have what?!" The rest, I´m sure, is history, and suddenly my post-match beer became a much happier event. Within half an hour of each other, Dave, Ari and Mic had arrived, all of whom I had met at various stages before, and the night turned out to be very good indeed.

Our plans to cisit the hot springs the following day proved abortive when we didn´t surface until midday, and instead spent another day wandering round Potosi. It is a beautiful little town, with narrow, cobbled streets and elaborately decorative buildings - mostly religious. It feels like a German village except that when you letyour gaze stray above the buildings you are surrounded by mountains, and the devastation the mining has had on the surrounding area is clearly visible. At lunchtime, full of confidence, myself and Margrethe strolled into a cafe advertising almuerzo (set lunch) for the ridiculous price of 5 bolivianos (less than 50p). Our spanish still leaves a lot to be desired but we managed to understand the waiter when he informed us that there was no more almuerzo, and instead some kind of dish containing vaca (cow). We ordered 2, oblivious to the strange looks we were receiving - looks that started to make more sense when we were confronted with a plate containing a cow´s hoof, and some intestinal meat. I managed to choke down the rice and potatoes accompanying it, and we headed immediately to the market to fill up on snacks.

Monday brought our tour of the mines. We were in a group with Dave, Ari, Jim and Kira (who Dave knew from the salt flats tour) and another british couple. Our guide, Pedro, had been a miner for 5 years before becoming a tour guide and was, in a word, crazy. First stop was the miners market, where we bought coca leaves, soft drinks, and, at Pedro´s insistence, bombs (1 pound for a stick on dynamite, a fuse, and a bag of something which looked like quinoa but allegedly made the explosion much stronger - where else in the world?). The next stop was the processing plant where Pedro explained how minerals are seperated out from the rocks and prom each other - he also painted us all with silver.

From there it was into the mines themselves. Most of us had bought facemasks to go underneath our bandanas - a recommendation from people who had made the trip before, but it was clear after 5 minutes that they were not going to be of any use. The mine was incredibly dusty, wet underfoot, never more than 5 feet high and a lot less in places. I couldn´t stand up, couldn´t breathe, and as breathing through the facemask steamed up my glasses, spent most of the time being unable to see. Pedro told us that in the co-operative mines, miners can choose their working hours. However, with wives and children to support, most put in incredibly long days in these conditions.
We descended to the 3rd level, 60m underground where most of the mining is done. Pedro took us up to one tiny area where a miner was hauling up huge sacks of ore from the mining and emptying it around himself - when he ran out of room to manuver he would shovel it down a nearby chute. We stayed there for a while, and the boys helped him with this excruciating task.
Finally, we made our way back up to the first level, through an almost vertical squeeze, and headed for the exit. With 10 mintes to go, I finally stopped being able to hold it together and emerged into the daylight a shaking, sobbing mess (good for lots of hugs from the rest of the group). Thankfully, I´d managed to recover slightly by the time the guides let off the remaining sticks of dynamite, about 20 yards away from us (as I said - where else in the world?)

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