Bolivia (Potosi region)

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I decide to catch a coach from Santa Cruz west to Sucre. The coach is not of the good standard experienced in Brazil and Argentina. However, it´s so cheap (anything in Bolivia is ridiculously cheap e.g. a 10 or 15 minute cab will cost you around 50p!) so I´m willing to accept the consequences....although I have no choice as there doesn´t appear to be any alternatives apart from flying which Im apprehenmsive of to avoid altitude sickness (i.e. a gradullaly ascending coach is much better to avoid the sickness). However, the coach journey is terrible and far wose than the so called death train. The journey lasts a gruelling 19 hours, consisting of winding dirt tracks...around only 20% of the journey includes tar roads, the remainder seemed to consist of dry river beds. As such, I get no sleep at all and I can´t even chat to anyone as I´m the only westerner on the coach with only basic Spanish to get me by.

Sucre is a pleasant city with a rich colonial heritage, evident in its buildings, streetscapes and numerous churches. It was founded in 1538 and was Unesco declared a Cultural Heritage site in 1991 by Unesco. It remains the judicial capital of Bolivia whilst La Paz is the governmental capital. Bolivia is the poorest nation in South America. This is apparent from the number of people sleeping rough, it is a particularly sad sight to see the amount of elderly sleeping rough and begging, this being something I´d not seen through Africa where Aids appears to have taken its maturity. Despite this, the country does feel safe and there is a strong sense of an indegenous popultation; the majority of the women adorning the strange clothing of wide frilled skirts, platted hair and bowler hats! I stay at a really nicew hostel called Residencial Bolivar, which is a soothing relief after the coach journey and even comes with it´s own resident toucan. This is entertaining at first but I later read up that it is a Toco Toucan, an endangered species, which is saddening as you can buy them for $US80.

I only stay one night in Sucre as it offers little of interest so I catch a bus to Potosi, around 3 hours from Sucre, albeit much elevated. I am looking forward to my arrival, particularly as Lonely Planet´s first words on the place state: ´Potosi shocks. A visit to the world´s highest city (4060m) reveals a former and current splendour and past and present horror, tied to its one precious metal - silver´. Hence, I head for a visit into the silver mines - the mines being contained in one mountains which looms over the inhospitable city (i.e. a very cold, windy, dry moon like landscape). The tour of the mines is an unforgetable experience for a number of reasons, particularly as you are guided into the depths of the mines aside the workers; this isn´t a normal tourist experience. You are guided into the shafts - crawling in places - and struggling to breath in the dense, dust ridden air soured with warm sulphur at a peak of around 4,600m. In all, we spend around 2.5 hours in the mines, which is plentiful as you leave coughing and spluttering the dust and other elements that are clinging to your airways. It is in this context that you are amazed at how some workers have spent 25 years working in such horrendours conditions, with no breathing equipment and little in the way of safety measures (i.e. broken wooden splints, shafts falling in, small trains hurtling by with only a fractions of passing space, sparking electrics etc). Most saddeing of all is that our guide advises that there has been pressure for mining to halt as they are not sure how much more mining the mountain can take before it implodes on itself; unfortunately, the mine is the major source of employment (tourism appears to be the only other source of income) and we are told that around 10,000(!) miners are working in the mountain. Often this inlcudes families working close to each other; the most distressing sight being a 13 year old boy working with his father.

Other places visited includes the local markets from where we observed the locals going about their everyday business without masses of tourists being around (the most ´ínteresting´sight being Llama featus, which are used for some type of local rituals (but are also apparently banned despite their prevalence). We also visit the Santa Theresa Convent and have a lengthy tour of its many rooms and artefacts. At its peak the convent only housed 21 nuns and now only has 6 nuns, some sworn to silence. It is also apparently the site of the oldest apple tree in South America at over 300 years old.

From Potosi, we head to Uyuni, the scene of the world´s largest dry salt lake. The journey to Uyuni is eventful, particulalrly when we have sight of people jumping out of a bus teetering over the edge of a road towards a revine (there appeared to be no emergnecy exit so people had to jump out through through the main passenger door towards the revine and hope they didn´t keep rolling!) Obviously, there was some distressed passengers but nobody appeared to have come to any physical harm. After hanging around for an hour, we take some of the passengers to Uyuni and sadly leave some behind in darkening surrounds (i.e. once the sun goes down, the climate becomes very cold).

A tour is recommended as the best way to oberve the sights around Uyuni so book onto a 4 day option with a 4x4. This begins with a visit to the Train Cemetery; scene of numerous rusting steam locomotives which date from the late 1800s when the Bolivian railway system was being built. It´s a surreal sight set in a bleak landscape where sadly the only other predominant sight is that of plastic bags blown from a refuse tip and caught up in the scattered bushes.

We then stay at a remote hostel at Mayo located at the foot of Tunupa Volcano and overlooking the vast salt lake; almost appearing like an endless snowscape. We hike the Volcano the following day after freezing nights sleep (and thinking the gale force winds might take the roof off the hostel!). During the hike we stop of at a cave and are confronted with several human skeletons who were only discovered around 15 years ago (such is the remoteness of our location!) Owing to time constraints and the severely windy conditions we only ascend to 4700m(!) but from where we obtain amazing views of the chasm of the volcano.

The following day we head out at dawn across the Salar de Uyuni and into moonlike conditions and see no other vehilces for hours. This does lead to some concern as we hit some very inhospitable driving conditions which requires us to completely stop three times in the midst of sand storms. We take refuse in a place called San Juan which is bereft of any modernity but at least it has shelter. A couple of other 4x4s join as at the hostel who advise that they had to turn back as conditions were so bad - one having to dig themselves out of the sand and another seeing a 4x4s windescreen blown out by the wind! Our guide / driver advises that it has only been this bad twice in 17 years!

We are greeted the following day with bright skies and no wind so we head off further into the desert which affords great scenes of barren landscapes but yet is still home to many forms of birds, rodents and even a tame mountain fox. We then reach a region containing numerous picturesque multi coloured lagoons, from where the only wildlife appears to be Llamas wandering around the lagoons mystified by our presence beneath the looming hills and volcanoes. We stay the night at an extremly remote accommodation where night temperatures fall to minus 15 degrees and where we have no heat or hot water. Its a long nights sleep, particualrly when we are told by a guide that a backpacker had died of altitude sickness the previous week.

The following morning is greeted with a trip to a natural hot spring from where we have a long derserving free soak overlooking another vast lake mutlicoloured by the sulphurs and other volcanic influences. From there we drop off one of our travelling coleaugues at the almost deserted Bolivian / Peruvain border post and then return to Uyuni...only to be told that the town is day 3 of 7 into a blackout! Despite this we manage to find a hostel with a genertaor and have a decent nights sleep before catching a coach the following day to La Paz, which will form the beginning of my next blog.

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