Up at 7am we grabbed breakfast at the hostel and headed to the office of the company we booked the mine touur with - Yvonne had opted out and one of the Austrian boys Robert had decided to book with another company.

We all jumped in a minivan and headed to the tour depot where we were all given waterproof trousers, jackets, wellies and a hard hat with a head torch. We also bought scarves to put over our mouths. We then headed to the miners market with our guide (who used to be a miner) where we bought the miners sticks of dynamite, coca leaves and a bottle of fizzy drink. We were discouraged from buyi8ng the miners alcohol (which is 96% pure alcohol) and cigarettes as we were told they had just had a miners carnaval at the weekend and had been drinking lots for days!

We were then driven to visit a mineral refinery (no health and safety in this place at all as you´ll see from the pics!) Here we saw then seperating the minerals from the stone.

Today, thousands continue to work in spine-chilling conditins to extract minerals. To protect them they worship their devil, known as Tio.

Next we drove to the Cerro Rico mountain and the guide demonstrated a dynamite explosion.. It was crazy he lit it then started handing it around for people to have their picture taken, i ran a mile but not surprisingly Joe had his picture taken! The guide then legged it down the mountain and burried it and made it back up just before it exploded (it was very loud!)

The Cerro Rico is the reason for Potosí's historical importance, since it was the major supply of silver for Spain during the period of the New World Spanish Empire. This silver was taken by llama and mule train to the Spanish Main from where it was then taken to Spain on the Spanish treasure fleets. Cerro de Potosí's peak is 4,824 metres (15,827 ft) above sea level.

We then got to the entrance of the mine, there was 2 young boys about 14/15 loading up a trolley ready to push through the mine the trolleys weigh 1 tonne empty and up to 2 tonnes full. It was so dark in the mine but me and Vicky decided to go for it. We stayed near the back and headed in, within 2 minutes of being in one Austrian boy Floren decided to leave, this freaked Vicky and I out a little bit. It was very wet at the beginning of the mine and we had to stand to the left as a trolley was coming past, we went deeper into the mine it was quite cold to begin with it got small in some sections and most people had to duck (there is an advantage to being short!) We went about an hour into the mine where we saw men digging out rock and then saw the miners devil Tio. Here it got very hot and me and Vicky started to freak out a bit and asked to leave, so our guide took us back out the mine it took about 45mins to walk back out. The boys carried on a little further and went to visit a bigger Tio. Every Friday the miners have a ritual around Tio where they given him coca leaves, alcohol etc.

In 1672, a mint was established to coin silver and water reservoirs were built to fulfill the growing population's needs. At that time more than eighty-six churches were built and the city's population increased to nearly 200,000, making it one of the largest and wealthiest cities in the world.

After 1800, the silver mines were depleted, making tin the main product. This eventually led to a slow economic decline. Nevertheless, the mountain continues to be mined for silver to this day. Due to poor worker conditions (lack of protective equipment from the constant inhalation of dust), the miners still have a short life expectancy with most of them contracting silicosis and dying around 40 years of age. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of Indians died under the harsh working conditions.

After the mine tour we were driven back to the depot to get changed and were then driven back to Potosi where the tour company provided a 4 course lunch (salad, soup, llama and chips (Yuk!) and a fruit salad) We then headed back to the hostel for the evening and arranged taxi´s to Sucre for the following day (3.5hours) we though taxi´s would be quicker and safer than the bus and only cost us about 4pound each!