Click on a photo to enlarge it.
Saturday, 13.04.2002: Uyuni - Potosi
We left Uyuni at around 8am. Neither Prue nor Darrell had fully recovered from last night. It was a beautiful drive through the mountains. We passed a couple of villages and had to take a detour because a low bridge stopped us from getting through, so we had a bit of an adventure finding a different route. We left a note for the Bukima truck on one of the road signs. Myles wasn´t feeling well - we were not surprised as Tim tortured us all playing his little guitar which he had bought in Uyuni for approx. 50US$.
Unfortunately on the way along narrow, windy, dirt roads we saw an open backed truck that had been full of standing people that had gone off the side of the road and overturned. Fortunately the ambulance was already on the way when we got to it. But there were quite a few with broken bones etc. It could have been far worse. After that we drove very carefully!
We arrived unexpectedly early in Potosi at about 4-30pm. After checking into the nice hotel we had a wander around the beautiful town. Potosi is famous for mining silver. The town is right next to the massive mountain Cerro Rico, which has been reduced in height by 400m over the last 400 years. Millions of people died here during the last 4 centuries. The silver, which was produced from this mountain alone is enough to build a silver bridge from South America across the Atlantic to Spain!
The people here mainly all work in the mines either on their own or for a mining company. A lot of them die at early age due to blood poisoning and lung infections from inhaling lead or by accidents in the mining tunnels. Most of them "only" work for 10 years in the mines "surviving" on coca leaves and alcohol. A lot of them don´t get a pension and live on poverty afterwards.
Sunday, 14.04.2002: Potosi
Half the group joined for a walk through the town. It´s pretty dangerous here to be on your own. We got warned many times to watch our belongings and not to give money or passports to people saying they are the police! We got invited to go up a little tower to get a look from above onto Potosi. Potosi has lots of lovely old colonial buildings and churches.
Helen and a few others went on a mine tour (too claustrophobic for Kirsten). They were in the mine for 3.5 hours, walking through knee deep water at times, banging heads on low beams and pipes, climbing up and down ladders, crawling on knees over rocks and crawling on bellies through very small holes. Fortunately they'd been supplied with wellies, jackets, trousers, and helmets and masks!
Before the mine they'd stopped and bought dynamite each, along with bags of nitrate and fuses. Helen videoed whilst some of the others had to roll the dynamite up, stick it in the bag of nitrate and then attach the fuse. Before being told what to do with the bombs, the fuses were all lit by the guide and then there was absolute mayhem as they didn't know where to run and put their "bombs". The first place they'd put their bombs on the floor was too close so they had to pick them up, and run further down the hill and then run all the way back to watch the explosions. Pure chaos!!! And the explosions were VERY loud!
Helen´s excellent mining tour video
Tim - one of the 20 year old lads from our truck decided to bring his bomb kit back with him! Typical. God knows what he was thinking of. There was certainly no way Prue would have let him on the truck with it. We found out the next day that he'd chopped up the dynamite and scattered it somewhere in Potosi!!
MEN!!! or should we say BOYS!!!
We had a late lunch in a small Chinese restaurant and joined the locals watching the local Potosi football team beating La Paz! Great fun!
Monday, 15.04.2002: Potosi - bush camp just outside Poopo
We left Potosi (and the dynamite) at 8am and got stuck because they were blasting the roads to get rid of rocks that were threatening to slide and close the road.
Blasting zone
So at 10 am, during the 3 hour wait, the drinking table got set up and the Grant´s birthday party began! By the time we got driving again the truck were merrily singing and carried on all afternoon!
At 5pm we pulled up just outside a dodgy little town at some thermal springs with the other truck. When Prue said we were camping here all wanted to move on - if the other Kumuka truck stay, we´re leaving, if they leave we stay! After several votes we got agreement to move on, only to be followed by the other truck!
We bush camped that night and had camp fire songs plus of course a birthday cake! Prue gave us a really funny Jimmy Hendrix performance on the guitar.
