So Potosi summed up in three words ... not.enough.oxygen!! :-)!

This is the highest city in the world at over 4km in the mountains.

The taxi from Sucre took approximately 3 hours and our driver was careful and friendly, although he did play the same four Bolivian songs on repeat for the whole four hours! I was humming along by the end. The scenery on the trip was pretty amazing arid dry mountains littered with cactuses and lamas.

Once we arrived in Potosi we started to walk up to our hotel only to find a parade was happening. This seems to have become a trend for when Esben and I arrive in places. In Santa Cruz there was the national holiday with people from all over Bolivia, in Sucre there was the rally race and now a parade in Potosi!! It seems we are liked ;-)! We stood and watched for a while and I got some great pictures. We assume the parade was something to do with an ancient tribe with white hair and white beards who claimed they would one day return and seize Potosi (you'll see why we made this assumption from the photos).

We checked into our hotel which had a 1970's feel with very brown bed spreads, brown floor, brown chairs and table and .... Light green patterned curtains. It smelt a bit funky but other than that it was fine. In the afternoon we took a walk around town and managed to find one of the famous Sulteñas for lunch. These are delicious Bolivian pastries that I can only compare to a Cornish Pasty in shape. We had ones filled with chicken, olives, vegetables and spices and at 60p each they were excellent value! We were starting to feel the effects of the thin air by this point, you couldn't really catch your breath and we walked everywhere at about 1mph. We decided the late afternoon would be best spent scouting out the bus station to buy our tickets to Tupiza for Friday.

In the evening we wandered down the road to the pizza place loved by the locals and shared a delicious pizza before heading to bed for what was to be a pretty poor nights sleep. We both found the air caused us to breathe more rapidly and therefore dried out our mouths, noses and throats and altitude sickness causes insomnia so Esben spent most of the night awake whilst I kept waking up thinking someone had buried my head in the desert. Not really very pleasant.

We had an early start the next day to visit the Potosi working mine. Esben had done a lot of research on the best tour company and we settled for a slightly more expensive company run by ex miners to ensure one our safety and two that we experienced the mine with true experts. Potosi has been a mine since 1545 and ever since then the Bolivians, first as slaves, then workers for the government, before finally working as independent cooperatives, have been mining minerals including silver and aluminium by hand. The mines sit in a large mountain that looms over Potosi known as the 'silver mountain' in Bolivian.

We met Pedro (our guide...sadly not you dad, I had hoped) and the other 5 members of our tour group at 8.30 and first we were taken to the miners market where we could buy presents to give to the miners when we passed through the mine. Gift options included coca leaves, cigarettes, dynamite, colouring books for their kids, fizzy drinks and a drink that was 96% alcohol! I took a small sip and nearly choked to death as it burnt my insides. I imagine it's what drinking liquid paraffin tastes like. Pedro said he and his brother had shared a bottle the other day and he couldn't remember anything about the night, he said it was perfect because it was cheap and he only needed half a bottle rather than 20 bottles of beer. I admire his stamina!

Pedro was a miner for 8 years from the age of 10 to 18. He came from a family of miners and his father had mined for 40 years before passing away from the effects of working in the mining environment. It seems most of his male family members had died of 'minors disease' as he called it and what age they died seemed to depend on the amount of alcohol and cigarettes they consumed alongside the dust and poisonous gas inhalation.

Esben and I bought some fizzy drinks, coca leaves and colouring books for the miners. Next we were off to get our mining uniform on ... I'll leave you to enjoy the pictures! We were then taken to one of the plants that extracts the minerals from the rock in the first part of the purification process. This involved a lot of very big loud grinding and rinsing machines, some very strong chemicals and not a whole lot of health and safety! We walked across wooden planks covering the water (or chemical) covered floor and had a quick look round.

Next we were on out way to the mine! Another guide joined Pedro so there were 2 guides for 7 people. We climbed about a third of the way up the mountain in our rickety minibus before getting out and entering the mine through a small doorway. Not long after I got in I really wanted to get out again. It was pitch black except for our headlamps, Pedro walked pretty fast though the mine which had a railway along the floor covered in deep puddles where the rock is pushed in trolleys out of the mine by miners.

The ceiling was very low in places and poor Esben was bent double for most of the two hours! The height of the ceiling would depend on the mine we were in and some were clearly inhabited by dwarfs. We met a few miners along the way banging at the rock, making holes for dynamite or pushing the rock trolleys. My least favourite part of the tour had to be when we had to climb up three consecutive ladders up to another higher mine. Needless to say I nearly had a heart attack but there wasn't much choice but to get on with it and I got up there. During this period I think I was breathing about 400x my normal speed so it was a good oxygen hit if nothing else! We stopped at the top of the ladders to look at the statue of a devil god the minors worship and give gifts to. He is in an interesting position as you will see from the pictures... he is clutching his rather large man parts apparently to show only men work in the mine. He also has an open mouth for endless cigarettes and and open hand to receive copious amounts of coca leaves.

I can't imagine working in the mines, 2 hours of dust, gas smells, crouching down and pitch black were more than enough for me. I was quite pleased I managed to not panic as I had been slightly worried before, especially when I asked Pedro if it was safe and he said 'sort of' :-O!!

After this experience, combined with the lack of oxygen, we were nackered and spent the afternoon relaxing at the hotel before heading our for a quick bite to eat before bed. Today we had another early start to catch the bus to Tupiza.

Alice
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