Day 30

Wednesday 1^st December 2010

Today we leave Sucre after breakfast. Natalie has left us due her family bereavement and is heading home so now we are a group of 5. This works out in our favour as we can get taxis to Potosi shaving an hour off the journey.

We arrive in Potosi in time for lunch and head out to Café Fogon with the group. We puff and pant our way there as yet again we are at altitude (4100m). The highlight of this trip is the translation of the menu eg: Sandwich de Atun ‘3 pieces of bread mold, tuna, mustard mayonnaise and bad celery’ mmmm I think I’ll have that!

After lunch we head back to the hotel and meet up with another Gap Adventures group. They are following the same schedule as us for the next 4 days and so our tour leaders have decided to join forces and we’ll be travelling together. The bonus of this is that we have enough (now 14 of us plus 2 leaders) to get a private bus to Uyuni in the morning. Winner!

Potosi is a small city with little to offer the tourist – except the standard central plaza and cathedral that every South American city boasts. However, the big industry in Potosi is mining. All kinds of minerals are mined – silver, zinc etc. Tours of the mines are offered to tourists so that is where we are headed.

We are all packed into a juddery bus that slowly winds its way upwards through the narrow cobbled streets of Potosi. I honestly think we could have walked there faster. We stopped to be decked out in our protective clothing – some very fetching beige pyjamas, wellington boots (that for some reason we also have to put plastic food bags on our feet inside them?!), hard hats and miners lamps.

We also stop at a store to buy gifts for the miners - £3 for a bag of dynamite, amyl nitrate explosive, a fuse, biscuits, and coca leaves. Armed with our bags of drugs and explosives we continue winding up the mountain towards the mine – hoping we don’t meet any sniffer dogs along the way!!!

There are 20 000 miners working at this mine. It is vast. All the miners are self employed. They have to buy their own tools and explosives and determine their own shift patterns, they are paid only for the quantity they extract from the mine. Some of them choose to work 12 or 24 hour shifts. They don’t eat but exist of the cocoa leaves which are a stimulant and a 96% proof alcoholic drink that is absolutely foul! Legally men can work down the mines from the age of 12. Conditions down the mine are fairly appalling. They have no dust masks of protective equipment except for a hard hat and a lamp and consequently the life expectancy of the miners is low.

We head into the mine down a narrow tunnel with tracks leading the way that the mining carts are run along to remove the rocks containing the metals, like you saw in ‘The Temple of Doom’ Indiana Jones fans.

It is muddy under foot, sometimes we are wading through muddy puddles and stooping low to avoid over head support beams.

The Incas were the first to discover the riches of the mountain but following some deaths in the mines early on the Inca King declared that mother earth did not want them to mine here, it was left until the Spanish arrived who just filled their boots with silver.

This has been a working mine since 1545. It has been staffed by indigenous people and even African slaves who were brought in by the Spanish. The mountain used to stand at a height of 5100m above sea level but now is just 4700m – the mountain is actually sinking with the extent of mining. However, experts estimate that only 40% of the reserves here have been extracted and so mining will continue on this site for many years to come.

We are shown one of the seams of zinc and silver, when the miners find the seams they follow them, whether that be up or down, left or right, a seam means riches.

On our journey deeper underground we meet various miners who are happy to take a break from work, have a chat and show us what they are doing. They are even happier to accept the goody bags we have brought them! There are a couple winching up rocks from further underground and we come across 3 guys pushing a fully laden cart out of the mine. They are eager for us tourists to have a go at the manual labour!

Weirdly we are then shown the ‘museum’ that has been set up underground. There are a number of mannequins depicting mining scenes through the years. Finally we are introduced to the devil who is nicknamed ‘Uncle George’! As the miners are underground they believe that this world belongs to the devil. Therefore they have a reincarnation of the devil. They give him coca leaves, and cigarettes, they also drip the 96% proof alcoholic drink onto him. They ask him to keep them safe while they are underground and to bless them finding the best seams of metals. We are encouraged to make similar offerings to Uncle George by our guide who then leaves us alone with him and the parting shot ‘Come, take pictures, you may touch the devil’s penis if you like!’. For the record the Devil’s penis was a cold lump of rock, and yes I did touch it!

We made our way back out of the mine, blinking back in the bright sunlight.

We had the exciting opportunity to make a bomb – well, we tried out the explosive on a deserted pile of rocks which was pretty cool!

From there it was back to the hotel and a quick shower and change in time for dinner. The rest of our group didn’t fancy it so we joined the other guys and headed to a place called 4060m (their altitude) for really good pizza and ice cream.

We sat with Rob (Sweden), Ian (Scotland) and Jess and Naomi (Oz) for dinner. The new guys seem like a lot of fun and I think the next few days will be good.