Boom!

Our transport from La Paz was a night bus to Potosi - the bus was actually quite comformtable and I slept for quite a bit of the trip (8.30pm to 5.30am). Our hotel in Potosi is pretty crap and I´m a bit suspicious of the sheets so have using sleep sheet (thanks Penny!).

Potosi used to be one of the riches towns in South America and much of the spanish empire was funded from the silver mines here. It´s a very pretty little town and we had a wander around the streets and some of the markets after a bit of a kip and breakfast at the hotel.

We went for a tour of the silver mines yesterday afternoon. I´ve been down a coal mine on the west coast and had envisaged a similar sort of thing. We were dressed up in gumboots, leggings, top, helmet and light (Debbie had a sexy pink pair of leggings, I was in a yellow and red ensemble). All quite familiar so far.

Next we stop off at a shop to buy supplies for the miners we were going to see - you know, the usual: biscuits, cigarettes, cacao leaves, dynamite. On the west coast it was Playboy magazines so I had my first inkling that things might be a bit different.

I had to bend over just about double to get into the mine and things did not improve much from there. It was often low, narrow and you had to watch out for ´hole on the left!´. I felt quite uncomfortable in a number of places - as did many of our group. The tunnels we were in were built in the 16th century so that´s why they´re so low. Also, the people are quite short over here.

On meeting our first miner (at 60, a miracle man as most miners die by about 45) most of us had a go at using the hammer and chisel to make a dynamite hole. Then, out of the blue, our miner disappears and we´re told we need to move back down the tunnel as he´s going to let off some dynamite. All of our lights are off, we´re huddled in the dark (well, apart from the lights from everyone´s camera´s) and then BOOM followed by nervous laughter from all of us.

I´d had enough by then and would have been quite happy to leave, but we had to go through all of these other tunnels, meet other miners and go and visit the devil. This is a statue underground with a very large red topped penis. If you touch his penis you can make a wish. I declined. The devil is how the spanish convinced the native people to continue mining. They told them that the devil would take their spirit if they refused to work. Eight million people died in the mines. There is still about one death a day, but now it is a cooperative (if I understood the guide correctly) so they are responsible for their own safety. They use oranges as a guide to bad gases. They put half an orange out and check it every 10 minutes. If the orange goes rotten, it´s time to hot foot it out of there quick smart.

When we were finally outside, our guide lights up a dynamite stick and then calmly walks maybe 200 metres away from us, puts it down and then runs back to us. There was actually plenty of time - it was about a minute and a half before we got our second boom. It gave me such a fright that I pushed the stop button on the video recorder of my camera - still go the explosion though.

The tour was interesting, but I was a bit unimpressed. There was very little information given, the safety information was non-existent and I felt that they were making a tourist attraction out of the poor working conditions (that damn Janet has got to me).

We had a lovely dinner out and I had Bolivian food (well, kind of) for the first time. Llama, chicken and bacon skewers with chips and veges. Mostly I´ve eaten Italian and Asian food in Bolivia. There are some quite interestly food on the side of the road, but I´m not prepared to get sick again.