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Published: February 3rd 2009
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Ohla todos,
Viva Bolivia!!! Yes, Bolivia is an incredible country. From the amazon, we made our way to Sucre and then Potosi, the highest town in the world - and we could certainly feel it. I was hit with altitude sickness, but managed to plug on to see the town, and most importantly, the mines. We were amazed at how easily we managed to find all that we needed. We simply stopped by the local market and picked up our necessities; coca leaves, cigarettes, pop, and dynamite. Once we had our supplies, we were off. We climbed down into the dark and dingy silver mine, crouching to miss the ceiling as we scuffled town the mucky tunnels, slowly, trying to keep our breath. Suddenly we heard a thundering sound in the distance, and the local guide pulled us aside to let the haulers past. The haulers are the two men who push the rocks, about a ton of them out of the tunnel every day. After they passed on, we ran into the men winching up the rocks with a hand Crank - and we even got to try our hand at it. I must admit, they were
a bit shocked when I offered to try, and surprisingly slow to take the crank back! Of course, I can´t blame them, the first try I had I was very pleased with my success, though, after 5 or 6 I was silently pleading them to take it back before my muscles protested and I collapsed… especially seeing as we were in a suffocating tunnel at altitude! But we tipped the workers with coca leaves and made our way deeper and deeper underground until we found the drillers and shrine to the devil who guards the tunnel (there you find offerings of coca leaves, alcohol (96%) and cigarettes…) and we finally made our way out to ignite our dynamite. We hiked for ages to clear ourselves of anything living, and went to work and rigging it together… only to find the fuse questionable… that´s what you get for being a tourist at the local market! But we had our guide work intensely at it for a good ten minutes and then we lit the fuse, took some quick photos since we had about 3 minutes with the fuse, and ran for the hill. We sat, perches, with our fingers in our
ears and our eyes squinting in anticipation, and…. Nothing! Sadly, the fuse was no good, so we had to settle with the explosions when we were leaving he tunnel - and in truth, with the walls trebling and your whole surroundings thunderously shaking, I can honestly say that I had a close enough experience with dynamite!
Shortly after Potosi, we made our way south to see the salt flats and that was an experience! We joined a tour (the only way to get there) and were off in the morning to see the salt flats. The blue sky contrasting the white land was stunning, and we had a blast with out cameras and playing around with depth perception. Before we knew it we were off to a tiny town in the middle of nowhere for the evening and some beautiful sunrise photos as we made our way to the local national park to see lagoon after lagoon with wildlife, endless rock formations and scenery that kept our tired eyes open. On the final day, we topped the trip with geysers, thermal hot springs and the green lagoon. It certainly made for one of
the most colourful and fun tours. Of course, we challenged that tour with another one, we jumped on some horses for a bit of trekking and then made our way to La Paz for a cycling tour of the most dangerous road in the world… also known as death road. It was 60kms of mostly gut wrenching breaking as we descended into the amazon basin on some of the curviest, sharpest, sheer cliff on either-side terrain I have ever seen… I just wonder how they actually call it a road! And to add to our highlights, we bribed the prison guards and managed a tour of the Bolivian prison to see the anomaly - a self governing prison with women, children, and dogs running around… quite a sight! Of course, only too soon we ran out of time, and prepped ourselves for the endless busing to get back to Rio… at least there was a Light at the end of the tunnel… RIO DE JANIERO!!!
More to come...
Trish xx
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