Now, I've been back in the US for quite some time now, but I've decided that I really need to get back on this blog and write about my adventures before I forget them all.  While my writing I believe is fairly good, I would never make a writer because I have such a hard time getting the motivation to sit down and actually write.  Anyway, here goes the next leg of my adventure.

I left my hostel in Uyuni at 7 in the morning (after thawing myself out) to eat some breakfast and catch a bus to Potosí, only 200 km away, but apparently a 7 hour bus ride (which should have given me an idea of what I was in for).  After getting put on another bus with a different company (because the company I bought the ticket from didn´t sell enough tickets to fill the bus) we set off at about 9:15 in the morning.  The bus was half full of gringos and about half full of Bolivians, mostly in traditional garb going to the extremely remote villages spread across the altiplano that we would encounter on the way.  The roads were absolutely atrocious, but I really rather enjoyed the bus ride.  We wound through barren mountains on tiny, narrow dirt tracks that did some switchbacks up mountainsides that I almost couldn´t believe a bus would make it up, then through scruffy but absolutely beautiful little villages filled with people dressed in traditional clothing, working in the fields and leading llamas.  At one point we stopped in this tiny little village to give the driver a break.  All of the houses were mud huts with straw roofs and the poverty was extreme, but it was the most precious little village set in an extraordinarily scenic valley.  We all got french fries at a little store there while we were waiting for the bus driver to head out again.  After 3 more hours of bumpy dirt road, we finally hit asphalt in the city of Potosí, the highest city in the world.

Potosí, has an almost magical charm to it, and a very dark history, both of which I was to discover in the following three days in this small city perched up at an elevation of 13,500 ft, just below a mountain with an elevation of 15, 827 ft.  After taking a taxi with two Spanish girls through the narrow, winding colonial streets of the city, we arrive at the Koala Den, our fun, cozy little hostel in the center of town.  I found out that I was put in a room on the 3rd floor of the hostel and realize that at that altitude, it takes all of my energy just to walk up those 3 flights of stairs.  By the time I get to my room I am completely out of breath.  But, I am right on the roof with an absolutely amazing view of the city below me and the ominous Cerro Rico above.  After settling in, I spent the afternoon and the following day walking around the city, taking in the sights.  Magical is the first word that comes to me when describing the city.  It looks like the mystical little city in the clouds.  It is full of beautiful colonial buildings, churches and plazas with extremely steep, narrow cobblestone streets (many far too narrow for vehicles and kept as walking streets) and constant views out at the barren mountains below and above the city (the entire city is built on one long, steep hillside).  I spent the day checking out the street markets, visiting the churches, eating salteñas in the plazas and taking in this spectacular city, all the while taking frequent rest stops to catch my breath.  I did feel a sense of the dark history that lies underneath this beautiful facade, and this was to come clear to me on my amazing, but incredible tour of the Potosí silver mines; the source of wealth for this city that was at one point the richest city in the world (the expression vale un potosí is still used in Spanish to mean something that is very valuable) but also the cause of death of 8 million people throughout the last quarter of a millenium.

The second afternoon, after trying to work up my bravery, I piled into the shuttle with a number of my other fellow hostel guests to head up to the mines; an experience that turned out to be one of the most physically and emotionally challenging experiences of my life.  The first stop was at a house in one of the highest neighborhoods of the city, the poorer, more frigid neighborhood where the miners lived, to put on our gear.  Gear consisted of a plastic suit, boots, a headlamp and a handkerchief to cover our mouths and protect us from all of the deadly chemicals that we would be breathing.  After getting suited up we went to the market to buy dynamite and coca leaves as gifts for the miners.  Our guide, a wonderful guy named Oscar, also recommended that we chew coca in order to help us deal with the conditions that we will find in the mine which were: almost no oxygen, extreme heat, explosions, dark, narrow passageways and toxic dust.  We had also been warned by our guidebooks that this tour is only for people in very good health that do not suffer from respiratory problems, asthma, panic attacks or claustrophobia.  We had to sign a release that the tour company was not responsible for our death, that usually more than 50 people die a year in these mines (miners, as far as I know no tourists have died) and that most miners have a life expectancy of 10 years after entering the mines.  Also, more than 8 million people have died in this mountain since people first started mining for silver.  It was with this knowledge that we took shots of 96 proof alcohol, gave an offering of alcohol to Pachamama, strapped on our dynamite, popped in our coca leaves and headed into hell. 

We started walking down a very dark passageway that had tracks for mining carts, which we periodically had to dive out of the way of, and had a high enough ceiling to walk upright (or at least your average Bolivian could walk upright, I had to duck).  After going about a half a kilometer into the mountain down this flat hallway, we began our descent down a steep, narrow passageway that required our squeezing through on our stomachs.  As we got lower, things began to heat up.  One member of our party, a French guy, began to get a splitting headache from the lack of oxygen and the noxious dust that we were breathing.  We go a little further to an area where we see men and boys working.  One of the boys that we saw down there was probably between 8 and 10 years old and, which means that with the conditions in the mines it is unlikely that he will live to be my age, 25.  We finally got to the end of a tunnel where we met a friend of Oscar, Basilio.  He was repeatedly hammering on a spike trying to break away chunks of rock.  He informed us that he was 37 (an old guy) and that he had been working down in the mines since he was 17.  He sometimes works 24 hour days using only coca to survive and for much of the first ten years, he barely made a dollar a day.  Now, he owns his own part of the mine and only earns what he extracts.  That particular week, he actually struck it lucky and made a large sum of money (about $100) but many weeks he goes home with nothing.  It was at this point that the French guy got too sick and had to be taken out.  The guide left two English girls and I down in the end of the tunnel with Basilio while he took the other guy out.  We sat there in the belly of the mountain, feeling slightly panicky and very upset, listening to the incessant hammering.  After about 10 minutes, Oscar comes back for us and takes us further down into the mountain to level 3 (there are 5 levels all together, with level 5 being the deepest).  In level 3 the temperature was almost 100 degrees compared to the 40 degree temperature outside (they say in level 5 the temperature gets as high as 130 degrees and the men work in just loincloths).  Fortunately, level 3 is as deep as we will go.  We meet up with another group of guys down there and help them out shoveling rock into buckets that will be pulled up by a pulley system to be processed.  After working for about 15 minutes it is time to head up.  One of the English girls and I decide to go up the harder way while our guide takes the other English girl up the easier way.  The hard way wasn´t too bad, just steep, but the lack of oxygen really hit me.  I couldn´t breathe and I told my companion to stop while I caught my breath.  I felt as if I was having an asthma attack as I was gasping for air.  Eventually I calmed down a little bit and we continued, shortly encountering our guide.  It was at this point that the English girl I was with made a comment about feeling claustrophobic and wanting to get out.  The other girl started having a panic attack and began crying, saying that she couldn´t breathe.  We had taken off our handkerchiefs and were breathing all of the awful dust, but it was still better than having our extremely small oxygen intake blocked even further by them.  Oscar and the girl´s friend both calmed her down and we began, slowly, going up the last leg back up to level 1 so as not to overexert ourselves.  Once we got back up in the cooler air and a little closer to the exit, we began to feel much better.  The last stop in the mine was a little museum they had set up in a side tunnel.  In the museum was a bunch of memorabilia as well as a statue of "El Tío", the devil.  The miners, who are almost exclusively Catholic, pay their respect to the devil when they are in the mines because they believe that that is his territory down there and that God can´t help them in Cerro Rico.  We poured the devil a shot of our 96 proof alcohol and lit a cigarette, sticking it in his mouth, then headed out of the tunnel.  When we finally saw the true light of day, we almost cried with relief.  We were down in the mine for almost 2 hours (compared to the lifetime full of 12 to 24 hour days that the miners have to spend down there) and those were 2 of the most difficult hours of our lives.  We were so happy to be out and breathing really air (even if it was still weak air at almost 15,000 feet of elevation).

After leaving the mines, we exploded a stick of dynamite (almost killing, and certainly deafening, a dog) then headed down to the processing factory to see how the silver gets chemically extracted from the rock.  Then, we were brought in the van back down to our hostel, ready for a hot shower and a beer.  While the mines were an absolutely terrifying experience, I am still so glad I went on the mines tour and would almost have to say that it was actually one of the highlights of my trip.  We can look at photographs and watch advocacy videos of the horrible working conditions, but actually being down there and experiencing what these men have to deal with every day of their lives is a truly lifechanging experience.  I coughed for almost two weeks after leaving the mines and while I can´t be sure that my cough was related to what I breathed down there, I can imagine that it effected my cough and if just two hours down there effected me for two weeks, I can´t even begin to imagine the damage that it is doing to the miners down there.  Very few miners used masks (although a couple did and I even saw one young boy using a full gas mask) and most just live with their lot in life, accepting the fact that they will die of silicosis after spending just 10 years in the mines.  I also felt good that I had put myself up to the challenge of going down in the mine and had come out just fine.  The following day I went to a museum that talked about the atrocious conditions in the mine when they were first opened up and the reason for those 8 million deaths.  That night, I was struck by a sense of terror and many nightmares about the horrible things that had happened and were continuing to happen in that city and caused by our sense of greed for the silver and iron that comes out of that mountain (now the silver from Cerro Rico is not used for money but is used to make computer chips and microprocessors).  I felt strongly that I did not want to spend another day in Potosí and made plans to head to Sucre the next day.  It was not such a magical city in the clouds, but a frigid, dark, evil place.  The following day I got on a bus and headed down to Sucre at a much lower elevation and a much warmer climate.

Now, looking back more than 3 months, I really feel that Potosí was one of the highlights of my trip.  Now that I have been able to put it into perspective, the city absolutely fascinates me.  It is such a beautiful place that has such an intense history (evil and dark, yes, but also very interesting).  Being in Potosí was one of the rare occasions where this history really hit me and seeing the present day suffering and the contrasts (much of the town is very wealthy and comfortable) that exist there really made an impression on me.  It wasn´t a completely good impression, but it was a place that I have been unable to stop thinking about both in positive and negative ways.  For that reason, it really was one of my favorite cities and definitely a place not to be missed for travelers to Bolivia (whether or not you do the mine tour, however is a different question although if, after my description you feel you can handle it, I would also definitely recommend going on that tour as almost every one I have talked to has said it was a life-changing experience.

More to come on Sucre and other locales in the amazing country of Bolivia...