Potholing in Potosi

We are no longer going solo. We´ve joined up with a tour for the next 5 weeks. We´re on a big orange truck with a driver and 6 other people, 4 brits, one Aussie and a Canadian. We booked it before we left home as we thought it would be a change and it means we´ll definitely be in Rio for Carnival.

Our first stop is Potosi. It used to be the worlds biggest Silver mine back in the days when England and Spain both thought they ruled the world. It´s still a working mine, and they still use 16th century methods. All the rocks are blown up by sticks of dinamite, then winched up in bags by hand before they´re shovelled into wheel barrows and wheeled out. The mine is at around 5000m, and the primitive working conditions are barbaric at that height with so little air. The miners all chew coca leaves and drink 95% alcohol to get them through the day. Most don´t survive more than 10 years in the mines.

It´s a real Bolivian style tour, they give you a safety helmet, light and overalls, but then they just take you round the mine as it´s being worked, not some risk assesed visitors´ centre. I fell down a hole (not a shaft thankfully). There are wheels barrows weaving past you all the time, dynamite blasts going off, you have to crawl through tunnels, they winch you down shafts, I´m exhausted after a 3 hour tour. It was an amazing experience, but I don´t envy the men working down there.

Gav didn´t come because of his old problem with heights and he´s claustrophobic too I´ve just found out. He´s at the hot springs having a soak.

Gav here, I had to check the spelling before we published, the hot springs were in fact a hot lake about 100m across. I swam across it a couple of times and then got out to sunbathe. As I was talking to a local guide I asked her how deep it was in the middle, she told me they didn´t know as it´s too dangerous to swim in the centre and some people have died trying it. That´s why I´m not allowed out on my own!