Potosi

Wed 17th August

Ughhhh EVERYONE told me that I had been lucky not to be sick yet on my travels BUT that now I was in Bolivia that would change..... Bolivia is a third world country and its just a given that you will get sick if you come here.
And today I did :( Dodgey tummy  ... poor me.
I did manage to crawl on a night bus though that would take me to Potosi, 10 hours south of La Paz.

18th/Aug

Potosi is the highest city in the world at 4090 meters above sea level. It was once also the richest city in the WORLD thanks to its silver mines. Today the mines are still working mines but they are not producing nearly the same amount or same quality of minerals that they once did. It is these mines that make Potosi an interesting stop as you get to go into them......

I arrived into Potosi at 6am and headed straight to a hostel where a lad I knew was staying. I had only intended staying in Potosi for a day and catching a night bus out again but I checked in as I wasn't feeling great.
Headache, fatigue and a dodgy tummy.... BOOM altitude sickness had caught up with me and bitch slapped me across the face! I spent the day on the couch in the tv room with two other victims of the sickness watching movie's.

19th/Aug

Ok so i had to beat the sickness and make myself get up at 8am to do the mine tour. Woke up at 11am EPIC FAIL.... No worries there was another tour at 1 and even though I just wanted to stay in bed I really wanted to go and blow up stuff more ha!

The tour left from the hostel which was perfect. We headed to the office and got changed into our mining gear... overalls, wellies, helmet, mouth cover and light. I looked hot! We then headed to the miners market where we soda, coca leaves and EXPLOSIVES! The soda and coca leaves we would give as gifts to the miners as we passed them in the tunnels. The explosives we would blow up!

We were then taken on a tour of the 'processing plant'. I expected a huge that building but it was basically a shed with a few machines inside. Its here that the minerals are extracted from solid rock and it was pretty cool.

The mines themselves were next. The Bolivians like the Peruvians are extremely superstitious and offer a lot to Apacha Mama. The front entrance to the mine was covered in Llama blood.... this is done every Friday as an offering.

Our guide gave us a few instructions before we went in. This is a working mine so we had be aware of trolleys that might be coming up the tracks, holes in the ground and where we would have to crawl. We were only in the tunnel two minutes when someone shouted TROLLEY and we all had to jump to one side as a massive trolley full of rock was pushed passed us by a miner.

As I said the miners are very superstitious and as well as Apacha Mama they make offerings to Tio, the miners God.... who is in fact the devil. We were taken to Tio and left some coca leaves as an offering..... go figure Iv been  to SA and worshipped the devil!

We walked on a little further and it was here we made our bomb!!! We all had to roll together a small ball of nitroglycerine which felt just like plasticine!
SIDE NOTE: I just Google'd 'bomb making materials' because I couldn't remember the name of what we rolled up and Wiki said that's a no no to search that kinda stuff. So just in case the US government is tracking searches of that nature, Id just like to say IT WAS FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES ONLY!!!!!

Anyway, all our little balls were mashed together as one and our guide stuck in a fuse. Hey presto.... an explosive!! Then he lit it, an we all got to pass it around like it was a cute puppy or something. Now, I was oh yea this is great but after my turn holding it I swiftly made a move towards the other end of the tunnel ha.... The fuse was a 5minute fuse so we all waited at the end of the tunnel for the BOOM....

Now as we were waiting 'TROLLEY' was roared out so we all had to jump to the side, this momentarily made us all forget about this massive bomb we had just made and lit, so when it went off two seconds later we all got the FRIGHT OF OUR LIVES!!!
Ever had anyone jump out from behind a door and scare the shite out of you?? Well multiply that by 1000!! HAHA Jesus I jumped a mile, the noise was unreal BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!! Scary but feckin brilliant!

After all the excitement our guide knew what would calm us down, a ten minute crawl through a tiny tunnel on our bellies. God it was hard. We then had to descend down a ladder into a black hole and it was here we meet our first miners. Our guide handed out some of the soda. The miner we meet were the 'trolley runners' and work down there for up to 10 hours a day.
On we went down and down. At this stage it was starting to get hot. Our next warning was shouted out..... 'mind your eyes, don't touch the walls'.... we were only walking through a tunnel made of CYANIDE!!! I was starting to think I wasn't going to see the light of day again.
On we went down and down, hotter and hotter. Along the way we randomly bumped into miners and handed out the coca leaves and sodas. I also got to hop in a trolley and got a push, it was like being in a more real life version of a roller coaster in Disney Land!

We had been in the mines for what felt like a day but was in fact only about 2 hours. Now I would not consider myself at all claustrophobic but when the guide said 20minutes till the end (meaning light and fresh air!) I swear my  brain felt as if it was racing to get there.
I have no idea how those men hack 8/10 and sometimes even 13 hours at a time down there. Its hot, dark, damp and that tour made me appreciate things a little bit more.

Thankfully I had started to feel a bit better today. A few of us went out for dinner and a few beers. This turned out to be a very important dinner as I meet Todd and Simon two lads who were going the same direction as me. We had all planned to do the Salt Flats next and now we had found  a little group to do them with!! You just NEVER know what direction meeting random people will bring you in. I love it :)

20th

Today was a special day at home, it wasn't my Nans birthday but it was the day that everyone was going to her house in Galway to celebrate her 89th!

I woke up late today and realised that for nearly two weeks now I had never spent a day alone and I was CRAVING one!!! I started the day by trying to find an internet cafe that had a SKYPE connection that I could use to call my nan, but do you think I could find one? No. So I gave up and had to send a txt instead.
 For the rest of the day I did nothing but walk around the market, drank coffee, ate cake, drank juice and sat in the square in the lovely sunshine and read my book. It was bliss!

After a fantastic day of Aideen ha! Myself, Simon, Todd and Rich got on a night bus to Tupiza....     Bolivia's wild wild west!