Potosi is famous for its mines
Trip Start
Apr 09, 2008
1
19
115
Trip End
Apr 19, 2009
Potosi,
Potosi,
Bolivia
Monday, May 19, 2008
The driver kept asking Matty (the other gringo) questions like How do the girls shag where you come from? are they tight? Stuff like that, and they were laughing at us a lot. It was good natured really but still made me uncomfortable in the non-physical way as well. The views along the way were quite incredible. My first glimpse of the Andes proper. Even the last little road into Potosi was impressive with the mountain the mines are in all lit up. (More of mines later)
We arrived in Potosi quite late but I already knew where to go, a hostel called Koala den had been recommended to me because it had hot showers and heating in the room
City
. In that respect it seems to be unique in Bolivia let alone Potosi! I went on the mine tour the next day, it started off with us getting kitted out with the mining gear (insert photo here, I can actually do photos now because I bought a gismo in La Paz) then we went to the miners market. You have to buy presents for the miners because they don't get any money from the tours.
The guide also showed us where you buy dynamite, no permit is needed, no age limit imposed. We bought some for the miners and some for us to blow up and like my friend said maybe the funniest phrase you will hear is "Can I have three sticks of dynamite and a bottle of pop please?"
The mines themselves are damp and claustrophobic. The air is thin enough at 4500 odd meters add to that sulphur, arsenic and asbestos, the heat and the noise and it is quite an unpleasant experience. The life expectancy of the average miner is 45 but children start work as young as 10.and for them 25 is a more likely target. The retirement age for a miner is when 50% of their lungs is infected with cancer, because they all have lung cancer some more than others our guide said that once they reach that percentage they have about 4 more years to live and not pleasant ones. Some miners are actually quite well off because you see them driving hummers around town. The miner we spoke to (through the guide) probably gets about enough ore to make 20Bs (1.25 pounds) in a 5 hour shift. We helped to load ore into a bucket and after about 10 mins of work I was exhausted and sweating loads. The absolute worst part was the climb back out, parts of the climb can only be done on your belly and there is a horrible feeling of not being able to breathe and almost panic at needing to get out, get air, stand up
Before
. The two thongs I took away from the tour were I am (we are) so lucky to be english and not in a place where this is the only way to make money and feed your children. Also, these people still work like it is 100 years ago. Why hasn't someone changed it, why can't this be stopped. The feeling at the end is guilt because I can leave, in fact I paid to see this and for those men and boys there is no leaving it is their life. By comparison non of us has any right to complain about our job or life.
Outside the mine the guide lit the dynamite we had bought, we all got a picture holding it lit and then the guides sprinted away dropped the stuff and then carried on running, when the blast went off I was so shocked I got a photo of my feet. The blast was like being hit in the chest, and it is hard to imagine that underground. The miner told us that he had to be 5 meters away from the blast, we must have been 300 meters or more.
I spent the next morning buying stupid looking warm clothes for my Uyuni salt flat tour. It is the rules in Bolivia that you must buy and wear stupid looking clothes. I will not describe what I bought because I hope to be able to add a photo soon. I watched the Champions league final, it was quite a good one too, even for me, although I was rooting for Chelsea. The room was full of Man U fans so it seemed only right to go the other way.
Again the bus ride was quite stunning mainly because the roads in the Andes just skirt the mountains, with cliffs at the verge. The scale is the thing, cliffs into valleys with mountains behind. I failed to get a photo of the electricity pylons the sit on top of the mountains with the wires stretching hundreds of meters over the precipices to the next pylon on the next mountain.
Next stop Uyuni, coming soon!
