El Dorado, Bolivia

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Potosi

Had a lot of trouble trying to find the hostal we wanted (La Casona), no-one seemed to have heard of it. In the end got dropped off in the main plaza and I went searching whilst Jill looked after the bags. Eventually found the hostal about 2 mins away from the Plaza. Great place, large room with two heaters, TV and a balcony ($20 US/ night).

Checked out the mine tours and eventually decided to go with the one from the Hostal (80 Bs for English), slightly more expensive than some of the others but well recommended.

Only 3 of us on the tour, An Aussie, Kiwi and Canadian. The guide could walk upright through the mine but the rest of us were bent almost double which made breathing even more difficult. The age of the mine meant that there was a good representation of sulphates present but I didn´t bother collecting any as they would hve altered by the time I got home.

Needed the the coca leaves to get through the tour with a long walk underground before having to climb some basic wooden ladders and then we hit an area where we needed to climb up 12m or so of near vertical shaft with the help of a knotted rope. That just about did me in and I rested after that, not travelling the last few metres up to where the drilling was taking place.

We then went back down the way we had come and waited for the blasts from the drillface and then went to another area to see the bags of ore being raised by windlass. I helped bring up one bag and needed a quick jolt of the pure(?) alcohol the miners were drinking. It was a good trip and I managed to pick up a few pieces of potential material. It was my intention to stay another day and look over the tailings but the following day (Fri) was to be a day of rest before a big Llama sacrifice(200+) in the mines on the Sat. We would have liked to stay for this but the option was to leave on Fri or we would have to wait for Monday.

Interesting market at the bus stop with fresh meat and pelts on sale and on the way out of town you could see the large tailings (modern) dumps hard up against some of the houses.

Next stop, Uyuni

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