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Published: December 9th 2005
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18th November 2005 - We flew from Santa Cruz to Sucre (the official capital of Bolivia) arriving at about 11.20am. Sucre is a very pretty town which is full of white washed colonial buildings with a pleasant leafy plaza. Although it is officially the capital it only has a population of 225,000 and La Paz has taken most of the power away from it other than that of the supreme court.
We got a taxi from the airport to the town centre and jumped straight onto the Dino Truck with all of our baggage. The Dino Truck took us to Cal Orcko and the Fancesa cement quarry. Apparently in 1994 when the ground was being cleared an employee uncovered an almost vertical mudstone face with hundreds of dinosour footprints preserved in it. The site was quite impressive with some of the footprints being about 80cm in diameter. There were big prints of the tyrannosauri rex and other smaller 3 pointed prints of smaller dinosaurs. The wall is vertical because it was pushed upwards when two tectonic plates colided millions of years ago.
The wall is naturally eroding through ground movement and wind damage and this is further excellerated by
the on going quarring on the site, the only positive to this is that everytime a layer falls off and some footprints are lost forever more footprints are uncovered. Some of the footprints we saw there had appeared over the last week or two. Due to the type of rock the wall is made of, taking plaster casts of the prints is an impossible task as the wall just falls to bits as you touch it. All the time we were there you could hear the constant falling of pieces of rock off the wall.
There are plans to cover the wall in plastic and preserve what is there now (seems a pretty big task to me) but like anything else this is going to cost money, money Bolivia doesn't have, 8 million euros to be exact. With an entrance fee to the Park of only 30 Boliviano's per person (just over 2 quid) it's going to take a while to save up. But there was talk of some European countries coming and helping out with the cost.
Just before we left the quarry we both enrolled to do some modelling for the Dino truck sister company the
Fireworks!!!!
and it's not even bon fire night Miners truck (obviously taken back by our good looks they knew we were to be the new face of the miners) so we are now on posters covering Potosi and Surce centres, next stop Pepsi!
We left the quarry and headed back to town for lunch afterwhich we got a sharted taxi for the three and a half hour journey to Potosi. I already had a headache coming on with the altitude as we had flown from Santa Cruz which is a low lying town at 437m to Sucre at 2790m above sea level. The journey to Potosi was through some barren scenery and towering mountians of the altiplano of Bolivia. By the time we arrived in Potosi at a height of 4090m above sea level (the highest city in the world) I felt decidely unwell. I felt dizzy, sick and my head felt like it was going to explode. Therefore after sorting out a mines tour for the next day, booking our bus tickets to Uyuni and having a cup of coca tea for the altitude sickness I retired to bed and Andrew went out in a fruitless mission to find an evening meal and had to settle
Mini Miner
Sue prepared for a hard days slog in the mines. for a snicker that had previously melted and reset on at least two occasions!
Potosi is the highest city of its size in the world and you can feel how thin the air is when you are walking around. Potosi was founded in 1545 by the spanish, a year after silver was found in Cerro Rico the mountains behind Potosi and since then has had a tragic past of expolitation. The work in the mines was dangerous and many of the workers died of accidents and silicosis pneumonia because of this the Spanish imported millions of African slaves to supplement the labour force.
In order to increase productivity in 1572 an order was made which required all Indian and black slaves over the age of 18 to work in 12 hour shifts and to remain underground for four months, eating, sleeping and working in the mines. The work in the smelting mills was also dangerous as it involved the use of mercury. As such heavy losses were incurred and it has been estimated that over the three centuries of colonial rule from 1545 to 1825 that over eight million Africans and Indians lost their lives due to the
work in the mines.
The mines in Potosi are now run by cooperatives and the main minerals of interest are now Zinc and Tin although silver is still mined on a small scale. As they are run by cooperatives they buy their own tools and equipment and any investment comes from their rather small profits. Therefore the work in the mines is still very out dated and it is a very physical job with teams of men pushing trolleys weighing upto two tonnes uphill!
The day after we arrived I felt much better and we went on a tour of the cooperative mines in Potosi. The first stop was to buy gifts for the miners which included soft drinks, Coca leaves and Dynamite! We then went and got kitted out into our protective suits, hard hat, wellington boots and light and face mask.
In the entrance to the mines they have a satue of the devil (Tata Ka´chu) as they believe that God is in the sky and the devil underground so the devil is the god of the underworld. Offerings are left daily in the form of alcohol, cigarettes and coca leaves. The guide was very
A team of miners
Pushing a 2 ton trolley back to the top of the mines thankful for the tourists and he thanked Pacha Mama for the tourists, as he now makes tours into the mines and doesnt work in them anymore, which has extended his life expectancy and improved the quality of his life. The work here is the hardest and with the worst conditions I've ever come across and with the price of tin so low (set by the international market) that no to little money is reinvested in saftery equipment and is now in a worst state than 30 years ago when the mines were nationalized.
The mines start off fairly cold with high and wide ceilings but as you get further and further in the old spanish stone supports disappear and are replaced with the more modern method of wooden beams. As we enterd deeper into the mines the ceilings got lower and lower, and the temperatures began to rise to levels that can ony be described as unbearable and that was with us walking along, no two ton trolley to push uphill or tons of minerals to shovel into baskets.
When a miner loses 50% of his lung capacity to silicosis he may retire collecting a pension of about
In the mines
this was one of the more spacious tunnels $14.50 a month or he may want to carry on working until death when a widow or child may collect the pension.
After the mine tour we went to the Royal Mint, the museum holds a great display of original machinery used in the minting and smelting process as well as a large collection of Religious art. In 1672 a mint was established in Potosi which made coins for Spain, now rather ironically Bolivia has no Mint and Bolivian coins are made in Spain!
The museum still has its orginal mint that made the rather rough coins which wha basically an anvil and hammer and coins were hammered out with over two thousand coins made this way everyday. As the Spanish demanded better quality and higher speed production a more modern mint was built powered by two donkeys and huge wheel system. The museum also has a rather large collection of religious art and as well as the 1st loco-motives used in Bolivia.
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ronna
non-member comment
good to hear from you guys again - please note your devil photo has a rather phalic shaped offering between his legs - hehehe - it looks like a willy. hope you're both feeling well and taking good care of each other - can't wait to hear more. luv pooh face XXX