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Woke up wheezing in the World's Highest City at a whopping 4060 metres above sea level....which was really odd to think that you guys are over 4 km below us!
Potosi is an interesting colonial town, perched on the edge of a mountain, and it really gave us our first taste of being at altitude.All the cobbled streets are on steep hills and you gasp at the slightest effort, well we did anyway. Even standing up too quickly makes you feel whoozy and dizzy!
So the last thing you really want to do is head a hundred feet down on your hands and feet into a hot and horribly dusty silver mine. But, its the 'highlight' of the town and gives you a real chance to see how the Bolivian people live and what they have to do to put food on the table.
So, being the good backpackers that we are we signed up....totally ignoring the recent advisory message from the World Health Organisation about the dangerous conditions! And after signing a dodgy injury and death waiver we were ready to do Arthur Scargill proud.
Got donned up in our protective clothing, head torches, boots and the not so protective cloth bandana and marched off to the Miners Market to buy gifts for the some 500,000 miners. After scoring bottes of fizzy pop, bags of coca leaves and real life sticks of dynamite.....we headed into the mineshaft.
The first hundred meters was pretty much walking upright bumping our helmets on dodgy looking makeshift posts on the way and jumping aside to avoid the mine carts before we checked out a funny little museum in the mine.So far so good.
Further along we sat while our guide enlightened us about life in the mines and about the 30 odd miners a year who die in accidents and that the last time a load of silver ore was found two rival groups of miners started throwning TNT at each other to take control of it. As you do.
Then it got nastier, down on our hands and knees with no air, just mouthfuls of dust, climbing vertical down a hot, tiny tunnel with no lights and the sounds of explosions all around.Three of our group turned back in the tunnel, Debs burst into tears, but we stubbornly carried on until finally we reached level three, where there was a little more room to stand.
We chatted briefly to the miners while we helped in a very lame way to shovel rocks into buckets and push the mine cart, it was totally exhausting...On the way back out you really feel the claustropobia, as you scamble back up the tiny holes. We were coughing and spluttering and utterly shattered when we came out into daylight and we had only been in there for less than two hours. The miners here work 12 to 24 hour shifts often seven days a week.
It was shocking stuff, but a totally memorable experience. And Debs was even handed a real piece of silver as a reward for her bravery on her birthday!! I was handed a piece of lit dynamite....
After one of the best showers we've ever had we chilled out in the koala cafe eating tasty llama in various forms and a rabbit cum squirrely thing before getting ready for the off.
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