Playing with Dynamite

Potosi is the highest city in the world at 4100m. So, it is not a wonder that the altitude has a severe effect. Constant shortness of breath, headaches, loss of appetite and a general feeling of being unwell sums it up pretty good! Yes we have been higher up, in fact at over 5000m on the 4x4 tour from Uyuni, but that was mostly from the inside of a car. When you actually have to do some type of exercise, well it makes a simple walk up the street seem like a marathon ... exhausted in 2-3 minutes and seriously puffing!!!

The city is remote and situated in inhospitable lands but was established to mine Cerro Rico - Rich Mountain, the worlds richest source of silver ever discovered. In its heyday the city was so famous for its riches there was a saying "eso vale un Potosi" -
that is worth a Potosi, used to descibe anything priceless!

It has been said you could build a bridge from Potosi to Spain with the amount of silver that has be mined from the mountain, it has also been said that you could build two such bridges with the bones of the miners who have died mining it. It is estimated that over 6 million indiginous indians died in the mine during the 400years it was commercially mined by the spanish!!


I went on a tour of the mine, Kim on the other hand was not keen because of the small clostrophobic tunnels she would have to crawl through.

Although it is no longer commercially viable, many indian miners still eek out a marginal existance finding other trace minerals. Lucky to make 100BS ($15) a week for about 75hr work. So, knowing this the first stop on the tour was the Miners Market, so we could we buy presents for them invaluable to their mining cause. What were these items? A big bag of Coca Leaves, necessary to ward off hunger (they don't eat in the mine) and give extra energy to survive those 15hr days. 200 or more leaves are chewed at a time with a bit of ash to release the base cocaine from them. Home Made Cigarrettes with no filters and made a mixture of herbs and tabacco (I thought we were helping these guys not giving them cancer). Pure Alchohol well 96% anyway, for their ritual appesment of the god of the underworld "El Tio" - The Uncle to afraid or bad luck to call him the Devil. Oh yeah the booze is for the friday afternoon piss up in the mine too (Glad I'm not doing my tour then, the thought of being underground with Pissed, Coked up Miners with Dynamite is not so comforting).

Speaking of Dynamite the next stop is the explosives shop. To my discomfort, it is run by a 12yo girl!!! Our guide tells us that Semtex and Dynamite are harmless without a detonator and demonstrates this by throwing a stick of each at our feet!!! Don't worry about drunk miners the immediate threat our suicidal guide. She then stick a detonator in the stick of Dynamite with a 5 minuite fuse ... "Now it's dangerous" She says. Ok we get the picture... do you mind removing the detonator. To my relief she does just that and then produces a bag of nitrate grainuals, explaining that you use this with the dynamite or semtex to get a really big powerful blast. So, now it's time do by the miners another present. This is one of the few places in the world where you need no explosives licience to purchase this stuff. I buy a stick of dynamite, semtex, a bag of nitrate a couple of detonators and a long fuse. I pay the 12yo the princely sum of US$4 and toter off with my new toys... lucky I'm not a would be terrorist!!

All stocked up, we head for Cerro Rico. While we are putting on our overalls, helmets and acetelyne head lamps. Our tour bus driver decides to show us how to prepare an explosive. He takes half a bag of nitrate, packs half a stick of dynamite into it, pushes a detonator into the dynamite with a foot of fuse. You can see he's handelling the bomb with great care now so I decide to look on from the back of the group. They all have the same idea and take a step back, I find myself in the front line again - doh!!. Thankfully he takes it about 40 meters away, places it on the ground, fiddles about and walks casually back. "2 minutes",
he tells us. About 4 seconds later there is a huge explosion and dust flys into the air. I hope the miners are better at estimating how much is 2 minutes!!!
Now down into the mine. After about half an hour of crawling and scurrying along we are told not to touch the walls, they contain asbestos - Oh that's just great! We get down into shaft and find a 59yo whos been mining here for about 45 years. He's using a big metal chisil and banging it with an 8 pound hammer. He show us how to turn the chisil in the hole between blows and then gives us ago. After about two minuites I decide that not only is this hard work but it's bloody boring too. The miner asks me if I want to be his apprentise. Thanks but no thanks! We give hime a bag of each of the goodies, Coca and explosives, and wish him the best of luck. Next we meet a miner with his 5 yo son helping him out. Yes, the kid is working, collecting the bits of rock his old man is chipping off. Both of them have a mouth full Coca, the kid even has a bag of the stuff attached to his belt. Good enough for a 5yo, I think, good enough for me. I shove a handful of leaves in my mouth with some ash and start chewing. Within minutes my mouth is numb, and I'm not sure but I could be dribbling!! Next we see a statue of El Tio and put a lighted cigarrette in his mouth as an offering to get us out of the mine safely. Lastly, we meet a miner and his two apprentises, 16 and 18 years old. They are lugging bags of rock from the work face, I lift one up ... it must be atleast 50kg. We give them the bags of goodies at the start preparing an explosive for us and pack it down in a hole 6ft deep and a diameter of about 3-4cm. Time to go the guide tells us, and we have to negotiate going down a rickety ladder. When half of us are down the miner yells out to the guide "Are we ready", "Not yet" is the reply, "To late" he says "I've lit it". So very quickly now we go down the ladder and scurry up a tunnel. It crosses my mind that this is not a clever spot to be, as I guessimate we are directly under the blast. "Your right, but it's not a problem" the guide tells me. We hear the explosion a few seconds later and thankfully shes right and we leave the mine in one piece!!

Hungover at 4000m

Almost pennyless we arrive in Uyuni after 10pm. We checked into the closest hotel, I
think along with every other gringo from the train. Only single rooms
left, no bother so for 25Bs equi US$3.50pn we got a cosy room and really
comfy single bed, well as comfy as a single bed for two is!!!



The next morning after a cheap and cheerful breakfast,(still watching our
pennies) we walked to the main plaza to check out the tour agencies to
see who accpeted VISA. As soon as we walked into the plaza two Aussies
Andy and Carissa from Sydney asked if we wanted to go on tour with them
leaving that day and buying out the other two seats so we had more
room. Sounded great to us, so we settled with Juilet Tours, we paid by VISA
and Andy paying us cash, sweet. We were no longer penniless!



Our tour was brilliant, our driver Speedy (Rudy) and his wife Martiza
the cook, kept us safely on track with no breakdowns and
with full tummies everyday. Plus Andy and Carissa were great travel
companions and the conversations never ran dry!



The scenery on the tour was stunning and each day was very diverse. The Salar de
Uyuni (salt flats) are the biggest in the world and beacause of the wet
season they had about 10cm of water on them so they looked like one
giant mirror and made the horizon impossible to distinguish.
It made the surrounding mountains look like floating islands in the sky, atotally surreal experience!



In the middle of the salt flats was the Isla de Pescardo (Island of the Fish), which was a small rocky
island that supported loads of cactus life up to 10m high, over 100 years
old and with prickles so hard you could break them off and us them as
tooth picks!...very bizarre! We also stopped at the Salt Hotel which of
course it made completely of salt, including the picnic tables out the
front.



Next stop was the village of Chiguana where they extracted, dried, refined and packed the salt pretty much in their own homes. Pretty exciting stuff, is salt!!!



More driving through ancient lava fields, over eroded red rock and past unusual shaped rocks we
made it to our hotel in the middle of nowhere for our first night. Being the only guests we made ourselves completely at home and enjoyed a lovely dinner washed down with a few cold beers.



Next day we drove through landscape dotted with blue and white lakes, that supported
colonies of flamingoes. Beautiful brids especially when they take off and
their wing span reveils another brighter shade of pink! That night we
stayed at 4600m above sea level at a very dodgy hotel along with every
other tour group..in total about 60 people. We (Me, Kim, Andy and
Carissa) had our own room but two toilets were shared between everyone.
With no running water and only a bucket and a drum of water to flush
the toilet and wash hands in it wasnt long before everyone was going in
nature! This was made worse by alot of people getting the runs from altitude sickness.
Not a good night for them. However I was not affected and managed to devour 1.5 litres of red wine and a few beers.
It was all grand until 4.30am when some of what I drank wanted a second viewing!

Also was a wakeup call for us as we had to leave at 5am to get to the
geysers and boiling mud.

At the geysers we were even higher at 5000m and it was
well below freezing. The sun was just coming up so Carissa and Kim only managed to hop
out of the 4WD for a minute to take photos next to the geyser and
then back in the car and under our sleeping bags, leaving us boys to
brave the cold and take photos!


Ate breakfast at the nearby thermal pools, which looked inviting until there was about 30 people in
there with one Japanese guy going commando so he secured quiet a bit of
person space very quickly! We on the other hand dipped our toes! After
breakfast we entered the Reserva Ecuardo Avaroa (National park) which
is home to two lakes; Laguna Colorado which is red but changes intensity during the day due to the natural pigments of the algae that live in the water, bizarre huh! Add to this the sight of loads of
beautiful flamingoes who live on the lake feeding off the algae and then on
the lakes shores there are large white deposits of ice and borax (mineral
used in paints and glass production), its stunning site to see. The
second lake Laguna Verde (Verde in spanish means green) is (surprisingly) a green lake
that contains a large portion of arsenic and other minerals so the
lakes changes to many differnt shades of green, from emerald to turqiouse.
Its backdrop is Volcan Licarcabur 5868m which is an amazing assortment
of colours, orange, brown, red and green. Really pretty. The lake is
practically on the Chilean border, so it was time to say goodbye to
Andy and Carrisa as they were continuing to San Pedro de Atacama, a well
known backpackers party heaven and jumping off point for tours of the
Atacama Desert. A sad goodbye, but promised to catch up when we
get back to Oz.


Now we each had a whole seat to oursleves it
was time to chill out as we retraced part of our journey then changed
route for our final night in a quaint village (dont know it name) that
was designed by an American artist. At the entrance of the village we
drove through the Pueta del Luna (Gate of the Moon) and when we left we drove
through the Pueta del Sol (Gate of the Sun) which are the two gods the locals pray
to for rain and good crops. All the houses in the village were mud
brick, some painted, some in their naural state, with straw thatched roofs
and with every backyard containing a large wood oven for cooking their own bread.
They looked like little igloos! The two plazas were beautifully laid
out with slate paths and made trees of steel and seat of local rocks,
very effective! The children again were gorgeous and several little
girls around 2 kept on saying "ciao, ciao" and opening and closing both their
hands as that is how they are taught to wave..so cute!!!!