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Published: March 24th 2011
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We should have seen it coming from the beginning. The journey from Salta to Potosi, Bolivia took 25 hours and began with us getting locked inside our hostel. It was just after 6:20am when we first tried to open the front door; after ten minutes of pulling, banging and frantically searching for another exit we were saved by a sleepy Argentinian finally letting us out.
The next 7 and a half hours were good; the journey from Salta to La Quiaca, on the border with Bolivia, was a fantastic drive. The bus was great, the towns we passed were picturesque and the multicoloured landscape was breathtaking. So despite the early drama at the hostel we arrived at the border in good spirits.
Oh dear. It took us 2 hours just to get out of Argentina and another hour to get in to Bolivia, despite the immigration offices being all of 25 metres apart; we're pretty sure this could have been achieved much quicker but we heard from a Bolivian policeman (with hand on gun!) that 'Bolivians go first.' Right you are chief, we'll just wait.
Villazon, the Bolivian border town, didn't feel so different from La Quiaca -
Market
The market where we bought gifts for the miners. except for the huge baskets of coca leaves for sale in the street. The real difference hit us when we boarded the bus to Potosi. From fully reclining seats, DVD's, snacks, on-board toilet and paved highway in Argentina we were now given...er...none of the above! Instead we got the back seat of the world's most uncomfortable bus, blaring Bolivian music and pitch black darkness. For ten hours. We'll put it down as an experience (although unbelieveably it wouldn't be our worst Bolivian bus journey!).
We arrived in Potosi at 6:30am absolutely exhausted. We made it to our hostel, found some breakfast and took advantage of their 'cinema room' (the only good thing about a generally bad hostel!) and watched a DVD. Our first day in Bolivia and all we could do was watch 'Ocean's Eleven' and take an afternoon nap!
Potosi is the highest city of it's size in the world - as good as 4000m above sea level. While sitting around it's not so noticeable; as soon as you take a walk it's very clear there's not much oxygen around. It is a city of narrow streets and numerous vehicles, so the pollution levels are quite high.
Us with our gifts...
...including dynamite! And Potosi's only real attraction is the working mine nearby. So our lungs were never going to enjoy the next few days!
The next day we took the obligatory tour of the mine. We got suitably dressed for the occasion and headed to a local market where the tour leaders gave us all 96%abv 'whisky boliviano' (we chickened out - whisky is all well and good, but not 96% at 9:30am!) and said we should buy gifts for the miners. What are suitable gifts for Bolivian miners you ask? Well in this market they sold all the normal things: juice, cigarettes, coca leaves, dynamite...DYNAMITE?!?! Right, I'll have one stick of dynamite please...and some peanut m&m's.
With our gifts we set off for the mine. Due to Carnaval sweeping across the continent there were only a couple miners actually working, but we got to stop and chat to them which was pretty fascinating. One guy we spoke to was 63 and had been working in the mines since he was 17. All his friends his age were dead, from either cave-ins or disease, yet he seemed strong.
We then delved deeper in to the mine and to the
(completely mental) tour leader's party piece - making use of the dynamite! They seemed very relaxed about handing around lit fuses so we could get photos (the fuses had 2 minutes apparently) before telling everyone to run in the other direction. They then told everyone to turn their headlamps off for the explosions. Anticipation. Maybe even a bit of fear. And BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM! Dynamite in pitch black and underground - fun, a bit scary and something you could never do in England!
We returned back to the hostel with intention of heading in to the town to enjoy the carnival celebrations. We managed to catch some of the parade and spectacle; however, carnival in Bolivia basically translates as 'huge water fight'. Everybody walks around with bags of water balloons, huge supersoakers and cans of foam. Now this is all well and good when you get wet a couple of times. But when you're drenched at 4000m and the sun goes in it begins to get pretty cold, so we gave up walking around the city and went back to the hostel.
No worries, the next day would be better. Umm...nope, eveybody still had water fight fever.
We managed to dodge most missiles while seeing some of Potosi's hidden colonial buildings, but unfortunately we couldn't look around any as they were shut for carnival.
As we were a little bit fed up of Potosi (well, fed up of being cold and wet!) the next day we headed for the centre of Bolivian carnival, Oruro. Oruro is an unremarkable old mining town 5 hours north of Potosi (on another awful bus!) which becomes remarkable once a year when carnival occurs.
For an authentic South American carnival experience there is perhaps no better place than Oruro. The allegorical parades feature an impressive and bizarre array of costumes that bring the whole country to a standstill so they can watch and enjoy. The masks in particular were so detailed and grotesque, incredible given there were so many on show. Everybody was smiling, everybody was taking part...and a lot of people had water balloons! It was a great experience, a chance to see how seriously Bolivians take their carnival celebrations and just what it means to them.
We only had one night in Oruro before heading to Uyuni to see the salt flats, Bolivia's great wonder and another
completely different aspect of this wonderfully strange and diverse country...
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