Humm bit of a strange blog to write this one and we're not quite sure how to approach it.

We're in the highest city in the world - Potosi in Bolivia. History buffs out there may know it as the economic heart of the Spanish empire - due to the phenomenal amount of silver that was found in its mountains. I won't go into it here but "Wikipedia" the town it's a fascinating read.

Anyway this city was founded on mining and the mining still goes on today, and one of the main tourist - erm - "attractions" is to take a trip down the mine. So this is what we did and to be honest it was pretty horrific. See these are no regular mines with electricity and ventilation and miners sons who get accepted to the Royal Ballet School. No this is horrible crawling along in sludge and crap mining; choke on the dust, minerals and asbestosis kind of mining. And the kind of mine where children as young as 10 chip away at the rock and people die before they are 45 with blood in their lungs - not nice. So as a "thing to do on holiday" it was a weird, horrible and voyeuristic experience but absolutely fascinating and interesting to see. To see people literally digging out an existence here was pretty shocking stuff, as all the miners men and boys chip away dreaming of that one big find that will make them hundreds, whilst knowing deep down that they are probably going to die sooner rather than later.

Our two hour trip into the mine was definitely interesting but I'm not quite sure how I feel about treating one person's horrific life as another person's entertainment and holiday activity. One argument is that our visiting the mine was in some way contributing to its continued existence, another is that our guides are much happier showing tourists round than mining themselves, and every hostel restaurant and cafe that opens to cater for tourists provides alternative jobs for would be miners. Oh I don't know, the ethical dilemma of being a tourist it's a tricky one. Discuss.

Amway sorry if that's a bit of a morbid blog - we might remove it in a couple of days - and we'll try and fit more childish gags into the next one