Day 8 Potosi

Here's some pics of the courtyard of the Victoria Hostel.  For 90 Bs, it wasn't a bad price, I'd say.

Jo and I hit the road early since we wanted to grab breakfast before our mining tour.  Let's just say that the people of Potosi don't seem to like to get up early, because there was nothing open.  Try as we might, we couldn't find a restaurant that would serve us.  We were both getting really discouraged.  We found a few cute dogs...

...but no food.  At one point, as we were walking around feeling hungry and dejected, a car drove by and splashed us with gutter water.  Really.  Like in the movies.  Wah, wah, waaaahhhhhhh.

We eventually  found a place next the tour company (actually, our guide found it for us,) and got us some egg sandwiches and cokes.  The breakfast of champions, methinks.  While we ate, the sweet cafe owner gave us a heads up that the busses were no longer running due to a strike against the gasoline prices, which had been raised overnight.  More on that later, though...

After getting fueled up, we were ready for our tour!  We were heading to the silver mines in the surrounding hills, the foundation of Potosi's economy.  As soon as I learned that we would be able to check out the inner-workings of a mine, I knew that I wanted in.  Jo had been before when he was younger, but he was just as anxious as I was to check it out.  After suiting up, we were off.  The following is a photo tour of our day:

After getting suited up in appropriate gear, we were taken to a market where the miners buy all their supplies.  We saw all kinds of stuff: chemicals, lanterns, face masks, helmets.  And, yes.  Dynamite.

This was just one of several little shops that sold the miners their goods.

Random street shot.  Just cuz.

The next stop was to buy some gifts for the miners.  Our guide suggested we buy coca leaves and pop, so we did.  The pop is because it gets so hot and sweaty down in the mines, and the coca leaves help stave off hunger, thirst, and weariness.

Jo, being a perfect gentleman and tipping his hat to a lady.

I preferred playing around with coca leaves to actually eating them.  They taste terrible; very bitter and strong.  It's an acquired taste, I hear.

Before heading to the mines, we made a stop to check out the processing facility.




This was where the silver and minerals are extracted.

Check out the mineral deposits.

This was some heavy duty machinery.

These pipes let water drip out, and each drip contained a minute amount of silver, which is captured and refined.

Safety first!

After the processing plant, we headed up toward the mine, in the heart of this mountain.

You can see the tailings all over the mountainside.

A view from Potosi on our way up.

We got to the mine after twenty or thirty minutes.  This is a puddle of water on the ground.  I don't know what minerals made it this color, but it was alarming to see bright orange water.

These are the little places where miners can keep their supplies and maybe take a quick nap.

And this is a sign identifying which entrance we were at.  Not only are there multiple parts of the mine under the mountain, but they are owned by different parties.  We learned that there is a certain amount of tension between union and private workers.  The part of the mine we were about to visit had been claimed by union workers.

Into the heart of darkness.

The flash on the camera makes it look like there was light, but actually it was pitch black down in the mines.  No electrical lighting at all; without a headlamp, you'd be in real trouble.  We could feel it getting colder as we moved down, and the pipes along the wall made a constant hissing sound as air escaped them.  The ground was wet and muddy.

It was nice to be able to stand up straight.  There were a lot of spots where it was required to stoop in order to clear the ceiling, and walking hunched over got awfully tedious.  I can't imagine doing it for hours, days, and years on end.

The obligatory Blair Witch shot.  It was spooky down there.

The camera picked up the particles flying around in the air.  It was extremely dusty.

We were soon reminded that this was a working mine.  This crew is pushing/pulling rocks to be sent up to the surface.  A backbreaking and exhausting job.

Some strange mineral buildup on the walls.  The camera didn't do a good job of capturing just how beautiful some of the formations were.

Watching the miners work was a humbling experience.  For us, this was just a short taste of what their life was like.  For them, this was the only way to keep themselves and their families fed.

Here, Jo is climbing down this hole to observe a new shaft being constructed.  It's done the hard way; with dynamite.  Many men are harmed or even killed in this dangerous line of work.  There was, however, one safeguard against injury that the miners relied on...

We got on our hands and knees to see...

And here he is, El Tio.  He is the guardian of the mines, and both brings luck and prevents harm to the miners.

The miners offer him cigarettes to keep him happy.

As well as things like coca leaves and llama fetuses.

The pictures made our mine tour seem brief, when really we were in the mines for about six hours.

Afterwards, there was a little dynamite demonstration.

Soon after this pic was taken, our crazy guide ran off into the field and let the dynamite explode, well away from the group paying guests.

We were in there.  This one's for you, Erin.

We made it back safe and sound, and humbled, from our mine tour.  Even the six hours we spend in the mine made us famished.  Both of us acknowledged the hard life the miners lived, and were thankful we didn't have to make such choices at home in Colorado.  We really are spoiled.

We returned to the Koala Cafe because I really wanted to try the soup Jo had suggested.  I ordered the sopa de quinoa, and it was just as good as Jo had promised.  Better, actually.  We also ordered the sopa de mani, which was just as good as I had remembered it.  Delicious.  I want to try to make both of these dishes back home.

As we sipped our soup, Jo and I tried to formulate a plan.  The situation was this:  the president of Bolivia, Evo, had decided it would be a good idea to increase gas prices by 60%, and diesel prices by 70%, overnight.  Apparently the government was no longer able to subsidize the prices, so they just jacked up the prices and hoped that people wouldn't complain.  I know.  RIGHT?!? 

Obviously, it didn't go down as smooth as the government had hoped, and there ended up being a massive country-wide strike.  This meant no busses for Chelsea and Jo.  Jo went down to chat with a policewoman in the park, who suggested that we head over to Chile to wait things out, since she thought things were only going to get worse.  We had a lot of thinking to do, so we headed back to the hostel to get our things together and see if we couldn't get some more info.  A couple of Spanish backpackers who we had met on the mine tour was at the hostel, and we ended up teaming up with them to figure out what to do.  After Jo called Ricky and I looked online, we popped a squat on some stairs and thought long and hard about what to do.  There was a lot to consider. 1.) The entrance visa for Americans into Chile was around $100. 2.)  Our new friends had found some people who were organizing a private bus to Uyuni for 400bs.  3.) We had found a person with a private car who would take us back to Sucre for 70bs apiece.  We were really undecided because we had no idea how long the strike was going to last, but ultimately we decided that it would be a bad idea to travel to the small town of Uyuni, where we could potentially get stranded, and decided to head to the bigger town of Sucre instead.  So, after bidding farewell to our new friends, we parted ways.

Raquel, Dani, myself and Jo.

This was the private car we had found.  What are you going to do?

Our driver's name was Harry, and Jo got a real kick out of the Harry Potter sticker on the back.

Really, though, what are you going to do?  These things happen.  Actually, I was a lot more upset than this picture lets on.  What killed me was that we were saying goodbye to the Uyuni Salt Flats, since we were not going to have time to come back to see them.  I had really wanted to check them out and was frustrated that the government had made such a foolish move.

We tried to put on our brave faces, even though we were tired and frustrated.  We drove the two hours to Sucre and got a room at the Casa de Huesped hostel, where we went to bed hoping for a better morning.