The last night in Uyuni, i decided to go out and get hugely drunk. Ended up having another very scrummy pizza at minuteman pizza and laso polishing off an entire botl of red wine to myself. We then took ourselves to the llama bar near-by where i was treated to a large number of varoius cocktails. Some i am afraid to say contained the local delicasy of llama sperm. Yes the sperm of a llama.....nothing im too proud of but in my drunken state some of the cocktails; one named llama latino lover contained a shot of the stuff. Needless to say the next day when we had a full days driving along the most awful dirt track i have ever seen in my life, i was lying on the ground moaning and groaning with every lurch of the bus. Luckily others were also in my position so the entire back end of the bus was the hungover, about to be sick end and the others, who had called it a night after the pizza wer happy and sprightly at the front-end of the bus.

Potosi is the highest city in the world at 4100m above sea level (la paz is the highest capital city in the world which is our next stop). Potosi is set on a desolate, windswept plain amid barren mountains. given its remote and inhospitable location its difficult to see at first glance why it was ever built here at all. the answer lies in cerro rico (rich mountain), the conical peak that rises imperiously abive the city to the south, and has the richest source of silver the world has ever seen. At its peak of mining, the city was one of the largest in the world. Now it only holds 200,000 people. thecity actually has a really sad, bloody history. Its fame and fortune in mining was also its downfall.

When the Spanish came, they mined and mined the main mountain and used black slaves to do it. Being a ridiculously high town, it is pretty cold and at the peak of mining, hundreds of black slaves were dying daily simply because their bodies could not adjust to the cold. Other miners did not get paid enough, would strike and then would get massacred by the Spanish. Soon the mountain (which looks red from the outside) was called blood mountain because of theamount of blood shed over it.

Anywho only a few of us chose to do the mining excursion which was nice to get away from the group for a bit. We got picked up in a minibus and taken up the small, narrow cobbled roads to the miners market. Here we bought presents for the miners, as they work really hard, sometimes for 72 hrs at a time and it was their version of a tip. We bought dynamite (potosi is the only place in the world where it is legal for anyone to buy dynamite) to blow up rocks, a pumpkin ( for us to blow up just for fun later) coca leaves because they suppress the appetite and when the miners have to work for ages they dont have the time or money to eat, and 96% alcohol. Yup it is prettystrong stuff. i dipped my litle finger in a cup of it to try it and it burnt my throat!!! This is used to make offerings to Tio (the devil). The alcohol tasted really sweet because it was madefrom sugar cane which was interesting!!

We arrived at the mines and it suddenly hit me that what we were doing what quite mad and dangerous. We were equipt with blue overalls, a head torch and a helmet. Our tour guide then led us in to the dark, dusty, cramped tunnel entrance. Over the entrance there was a cross carved into the rock and a llama corpse. The miners are very supersticious and believe that the minerals in the mine belong to the devil (tio). Because of this they have to sacrifice llamas, pray and offer giftsto tio to keep him happy and provide them with good minerals to mine. The miners do not see the devil as evil, whcih is strange as south america is a strongly catholic-dominant country. When the Spanish came, they pronounced the country catholic, but many of the original faiths continued. The miners beleive that the devil is good and is the providing god. He provides them with the mountain and the minerals. They also beleive that pacha mama (mother earth) is the god of the earth. She is married to Tio and throughout the complex maze of mining tunnels there are statues of Tio and pacha mama where they are scattered with coca leaves, alcohol and they light cigarettes in their mouths every day. No women are allowed to work in the mines, not becuse it is dangerous, but because then Tio may fancy the women and that will offend Pacha mama. THe miners also believe in Jesus, Tio may be the providing god but Jesus is the protecting god. There is a church and cemetary at the top of the mountain. These 3 gods are primarily what the miners believe in; tio, pacha mama and jesus. WE met some minersalong the way, one was a man and his son. His son was 13 and he was learning how to mine, because the life expectancy of the men in the mines is so low, the sons have to learn the trade ayoung age so that they can know what to do when their dads die. morbid but true. The son was hitting a metal pole into a rock, we learnt that they did this until a litle gap had been made and then the dynamite would be placed in and exploded. I had a go and it was honestly like hitting a brick wall. i just was not getting anywhere and it was boring as hell. We then got offered if we would like to hear an explosion in the mine itself. Of course we said yes, and were all crouching, rather terrified in a small area. However it was not as scary as we thought, and wasnt that loud. We continued walking through the maze of tunnels, occasionally meeting dusty-faced men carrying ton wheelbarrows with rocks in it. They had to carry these out a stupidamount of times, i cannot remember quitehow much, but i couldnt even pickup the wheelbarrow with therocks in it and they had to carry that weight in and out hundreds of times daily. The miners choose when they want to work and each part of the mines is owned by a manager. The manager employs people daily (no one really has a fixed job). If people dont wheel out the 60 tons - they dont get employed the next day. If few minerals are found in one day, less people are employed the next week. Miners on average get 50 bolivianos a day. 100 bolivianos is 6.50 GBP. HOwever we were on the top level, the mines go lower and lower into the mines where it can get really really hot during the dayand freezing during the night. The mines are open 24/7 and the life expectacny for men in the mines on the level we were on was 40. The next level down was 30 and the lowest was 20! 20 years old! THis is due to the poor ventelation and conditions. The people who work down here have a higher chance of getting minerals as not as many people work down there and they also get paid more. We continued walking and crouching down the dusty little maz, avoiding massive holes in the ground and trying not to look up atthe supposed 'roof' above our heads, heldup by rotting wood and shovels! We then got the option to do the adventure part ofthe tour. We had to crawfl though black holes in the ground, stagger across planks of wood with endless black pits below us, and climb over rocks!! This bit was pretty scary and a few people didnt do it due to claustrophobia, of course i did it. Shaking for the bit where we had to walk over a wobbly wooden plank!! At the end of it we were grateful to be able to breath clean air and see sunlight. Throughout the tour we had given our gifts to the miners, and they seemed really appreciative. We then decided to name our pumpkin-bob and blow him up. After thinking that the explosion in the mine wasnt that bad, we werent that scared at all about blowingup bob. OH MY DAYS!!! We used 10 times the amount of dynomite thatthey did and when the explosion went off my heart jumped outof my body. we literally felt the shock waves go through us. It was scary as hell but so much fun!