25/6/09 La Paz to Potosi

We left La Paz early to head for Potosi a town centered around the silver mining industry. Phil called the UK to check our onward flights and got ripped off with the hotel phone charges to the tune of US$14 (10 pounds) for 5 whole minutes!!!! Then the taxi taking us to the truck park was double the price it should have been. The driver said that he was charging extra because of our bags....is that not what a taxi is for??? As we are in Bolivia we were probably moaning about 10 pence as that seems to be the standard bargain price for everything here. We spent the day driving through Bolivia towards our stop in Potosi but unfortunately two lads had a dose of food poisoning so lots of bucket emptying stops happened!! No problem for us but some of the others couldn't cope with the lovely smell and sound of retching!!! We played a great card game for 7 hours, its a partner game with lots of strategy and we loved it...hopefully we will remember it to play back in the UK. At our lunch stop we explored an abandoned village and then Kristy had made Birthday cake for Fiona's ( one of the pasengers) Birthday. It was great to be in the middle of nowhere eating a piece of banana and caramel cake singing Happy Birthday...memorable for Fi and all of us. We arrived in Potosi at around 5pm and there was a floodlit view of the mountain mine over the town. We are taking a tour down the mine tomorrow. We all headed out for dinner to celebrate Fiona's Birthday....she and boyfriend Dan got the best room at the hotel with heater and huge bed...ours is cold and small we might pretend its one of our Birthdays to get a better room somewhere else!! Today is the day Michael Jackson died and so we spent the later evening watching the melodrama unfold on CNN before turning in for the night.

26/6/09 Potosi

We spent this morning on a tour of the silver mines. we were first taken to a small part of Potosi where the miners live and bought gifts for the miners we would see on the tour. They have very little money and all the tourists provide gifts on which they rely. The stalls sold the gifts ready packaged and you could buy drinks and food, coca leaves (chewed by the miners to avoid fatigue and hunger) and DYNAMITE !!! They sold sticks of dynamite and gave it to you in a plastic bag with the fuse and detonator...didn't feel too safe but we got some anyway as we like to live life dangerously!!! After shopping we were taken to get dressed in waterproofs and gumboots, hat and lamp and were taken to the opening of the mine shaft. Some of the miners children were trying to sell bits of minerals to the tourists. We entered the mine and went deeper inwards through very small tunnels held up by bits of wood,we went over some pretty ricketty ladders to other levels and to see the miners bashing away at the stone. The deeper inside we went the more hot and stuffy it became making a few people feel quite claustrophbic..not a nice place to be. It was like going back in time, the conditions were very bad with only a little air pumped in making it smell pretty bad. All the work was done by hand, nothing was automated except the odd winch to lift bags of stone from deep inside the mine. The temperature inside varies from below freezing to 45 degrees and there are all sorts of dangers inside. We saw loads of Asbestos naturally growing all over the walls as well as Silica floating around in the air. The miners often die from silicosis pneumonia after only 10 years in the mine!! Fortunately we were only exposed for about an hour so we've probably only lost a day!! The miners each earn about 5 pounds a day and mostly work in a cooperative unless they find a good seam of silver then they will risk going it alone. On our way out of the mine the guide took us to see the god of the mine and mountain calledUncle George!! The miners give gifts to the god in the same way as South Americansd give gifts to Pachamama. They spray Llama blood around and give gifts of cigarettes and local moonshine. We gave Uncle george a cigarette of Coca and then Phil had a drink of the moonshine and gave some to Uncle George..as the tradition dictates some spillled on his head, limbs and PENIS!!!Uncle Georges not
Phils!! After coming back out of the mine we were taken to see the dynamite exploding. The guide lit the dynamite and as the fuse was burning passed it round the group for photos, then ran with it to detonate at a safe distance.it made a teriffic bang and sent a cloud of dust high in the air...the boys all loved it! We returned to the hotel, had a quick lunch and returned to meet a local guide for a tour of Potosi but were stood up so took ourselves around the town. We had a really lovely meal in a resturant in the town square and then went to another bar for a quick drink. Phil had a slice of chocolate cake and the other lads had Dr Peppers (lager, coke and amaretto) which was as vile as it sounds but they liked it! We then went searching for a lively place and found ourselves ringing the doorbell to get into a closed door with a club inside. Once we went in there was a room to our right with a Karaoke playing but noone seemed to be taking part, everyone was huddled round the tables and Phil decided we might be in the local drugs den or brothel!! We looked to our left and saw through a glass partition a really busy club with a packed dance floor and there was a seating area over it. We bought a bottle of rum and some cokes and headed through to the busier club part only to find a tiny room with loads of mirrors making it all look much busier than it actually was. There were about ten people boogying away to the local tunes all dressed as if they had come straight from the office!!! It was a hilarious sight as they all danced along in lines!!! Once we had watched for a while we decided to give the Karaoke a go with Ruiridh grabbing the mike to sing a Beatles number. We all signed up for a tune but they just never passed us the mike again...not keen on the Gringo singing!! We left the others and headed for bed.