24 Nov - Potosi - Boys and their Dynamite
Woke up in the morning feeling decidedly unwell from the weather but figured we were here for the trip down the mines and not much else. For those who don't know Potosi at one point was the largest silver mine in the world and approx eight million miners and slaves have died since it was discovered. The figure climbs each day and the miners work under atrocious condition with the average life expectancy being around 40 years. Saw kids (and girls) as young as thirteen working in the mines.
The first stop of the day was to the miners market where we picked up some presents for the miners and some special treats for us (more on this later). We tried the local drink that the locals have on Fridays. Our guide chugged a decent slug before passing it around or we would never have tried it given that it was 96% alcohol, not 96 proof, 96%!!! I don't know what the other four percent was but it sure didn't help the flavour.
From there we headed underground, dodging the ore carts as they were pushed out, the average miner makes about US$5 per day, considered a reasonable living in Bolivia and is organised as collectives based on extended family groups. We checked out an underground mueseum and descended through some pretty tight spaces to the lowest levels. Squeezed into the lowest galleries to watch miners prepare areas for blasting, the temperature and the dust was incredibly and we were all exhausted by the time we got out. Along the way we presented gifts of drinks, coca leaves, and dynamite to the miners.
Thats one of the thing I forgot to mention, at the miners market anyone could buy sticks of dynamit, fuse, detonator, and a bag of ammonium nitrate (approx doubles the blast) for just on 1 GBP. Boys being boys we asked the guide if we could buy a few extra for ourselves. So after the mine tour five of us huddled around the guide while he showed us how to prepare the dynamite for blasting!!!! Did I mention we were in the middle of a thunder and lightning storm at the time. We had a 2 minute fuse on the dynamite and before we knew it the guide had lit the fuse for us. We scattered fast but had no idea where to put our live dynamite, he called us back for some photos (check out the photo gallery) by this stage about a minute had gone by (you could feel the fuse burning in your hand) and once he pointed at a spot we dumped the dynamite and ran like hell!!! Trina has some fantastic footage of us running around like headless chickens and then the dynamite going off.
We ran into a couple of crazy Israelies (more on these guys later) doing the same mine tour, Bart and Uriya (Ugi) were feeling pretty crap from the altitude and went to bed while the remaining three went out for dinner.
25 Nov - Potosi - Uyuni - More bloody buses
Bart was feeling better so that afternoon we jumped on yet another bus for the seven hour trip to Uyuni. Pretty cool scenary but Bart drew the short straw and had to share a double seat with a local lady and half her family. The guide book states that the average Bolivian travels with sixteen items of luggage and we think they may be understating things.
Uyuni is a small town from which tours to the salt flats (Salar) depart. There are about 40 companies in town all vying for the same business and it gets quite cut-throat, most of them are pretty shady but it changes so rapidly you just have to take pot luck. We had run into the two Israelies from the mines again and decided to hire a 4WD with the five of us. We drew up a contract for them to sign of all the things we expected them to do ie no more than six people in the jeep, meals, somewhere to sleep etc, and thought we had things pretty covered.
26 Nov - Salar Day 1
Rocked up the next morning to find a fairly beat up jeep waiting for us, and what do you know no cook....go back to the contract and what is the one thing we forgot to mention :-) actually worked out well as the jeep wasnīt as crowded and one person could ride up the front. We also found that they had added an Australian to our group (forgot to put that in the contract too).
The trip kicked off well, except that one of the Israelies couldnīt go 20 minutes without a pit stop....he also turned out to real laugh and at the first stop a box of cervesas and a bottle of rum appeared. We added our bottle of vodka to the mix and soon the 4wd was rocking. That day was mostly desert terrain with some wicked rock formations and dust devils. Today was going to be the longest day and it only got longer when we broke down in the sand about 5 minutes from the hostel. By this stage it was about 9pm and our driver, not the tallest man in the world, had to climb right inside the engine to see what was going on. All we could see was two little feet sticking out the bonnet, whatever he did worked and we finally made to the first campsite which was fairly rudimentary. Basically all six of us in one room with no power. Erez dragged out the guitar and before you know it we had half the hostel parked out in our room until about 3am.
27 Nov - Salar Day 2
Feeling decidely worse for wear we dragged ourselves out of bed for an early sunrise, geysers, a green lagoon, a red lagoon, and a heap of flamingos. Ugi had a great time chasing huge flocks of flamingos so we could get some good photos. Not the most responsible tourism but did I mention Mr Rum had reappeared for the days drive. Got in at a reasonable time and organised another party in the common room. Donīt think we were too popular with the other travellers as we may have made a little bit of noise sort of late into the night.
For Simon and Ruth, we ran into another Gap tour group, the guide was the dude who rescued Roberto from the police on Ille Grande, south america is a small place....
28 Nov - Salar Day 3 - Overnight bus to La Paz
Day 3 of the Salar was always going to be the biggie, especially after last night, we were woken up at 3am by our driver who then disappeared. We found him passed out with his head in a pot of rice, I guess we weren't the only ones having a big one last night....Trina spent the morning drive making sure he stayed awake and on the road!!!
Watching the sun come up over the salt flats is going to be one of the highlights of this trip, the terrain is incredibly rugged and the reflections from the salt are almost icelike. Between us we took hundreds of photos. Because the salt has frozen and refrozen there is this pattern of hexagons all the way to the horizon, apparently in parts the salt is 30-40m deep. Whatever I say will not do it justice and it is definitely one of the more undersold places in South America. Also our choice to do it in the opposite direction to everyone else and finish the last day with sunrise in the salt flats was a great choice.
Once the sun was up we started playing around with various optical effects to create some trick photos which you can see in the photo section on this website.
From there we cruised to an island in the salt covered in cactus, great vistas across the plains but the climb up was fairly stiff. Our driver disappeared again and had to wake him up again. From there we stupidly decided to let Bart have a drive, all was going fine until a Piper Cub (small aircraft) decided to play chicken with us! The rest of the day was fairly uneventful with the odd breakdown and then cruised off to catch the night bus to La Paz. Unfortunately at this stage we had to say good-bye to your new mate Ugi.
29 Nov - La Paz - Shopping, shopping, shopping
Rocked into La Paz in the early hours of the morning and stumbled around until we found a hotel recommended by Erez. Had a bit of a snooze before heading to find the electronic markets, asking all the locals for directions was pretty useless and it took as three hours to find a place four blocks from our hotel. At the same time we checked out a few companies to do the downhill bike ride. For those of you who are not familiar with it, it is a road outside La Paz which has been recognised by some UN body as the worlds most dangerous ride, apparently the regularly lose bus loads of people over the cliff. The road itself is the only way to access a large region and is single lane with drop offs reaching 500m. Luckily only seven cyclists have lost their lives since 1998 which is a little comforting I think!!!
They have changed the road rules for the road so that the driver going down is actually on the edge of the cliff and can easily judge how close to the edge he is, every 50-100m they have a passing bay and downhill traffic has to give way to uphill traffic. Fairly freaky when you watch two full size buses trying to pass each other.
30 Nov - La Paz - The worlds most dangerous road
We decided to go with Gravity biking as they had a good rep and the equipment looked good, being run by kiwis may also have influenced us!! Starting off at the top was good as the first couple of hours is paved giving us a chance to get our confidence up and try out a few speed runs. Hitting the actual death road was pretty freaky as we had descended into the clouds by this stage and visibility was fairly minimal. The guides had whistles and when you heard it you had to head for the nearest passing bay. Trina had a bad moment when she couldnīt reach the passing bay in time and had to stand on the side of the road while a truck passed within centimetres, it was close enough that she had to tilt her bike over the cliff edge to make room for herself.
Once we got out of the cloud it was a lot more fun and we could speed up, part of the fun was passing other vehicles on the way down. At one stage a ute waved me through and then decided to go instead, not fun. The guides were very professional which really added to the experience. Along the way I had not one but two flat tires which were promptly fixed for me.
1 Dec - La Paz - More shopping
Decided we needed a quiet day to recover from the downhill ride, Trina wandered around and replaced some trousers that she had ripped the previous day, not bad for GBP4.00. As usual I couldnīt resist and bought some dodgy DVDīs. That night we went to a restaurant that had been recommended to us. Imagine our shock when we walked in our travel clothes, shorts and sandals to find that it was silver service with a classical pianist...fantastic. We had a three course meal with all the trimmings for around US12 each, this budget travel thing is hard. From there went to a cool upmarket nightclub in lower La Paz.
2 Dec - La Paz - Copacabana - Too much rum
Left early for Copacabana and Lake Titicaca, we have been warned that the general election on Sunday may impact our travel plans. Apparently no one is allowed to drink for a few days before hand and transport can be hard to come by. They literally have beer police wandering around fining restaurant owners if they catch anyone! For lunch the beer had barely reached the table and the police fronted up. While we quickly drank the evidence the owner sweet talked his way out of a fine.
Trina found us a really cool hotel, right on the lake front (Titicaca) with its own garden and outdoor area, a living space with fireplace, and a huge comfy bed, only thing missing was the spa pool, again this budget travel thing is hard. We meet up with some English girls for dinner and ended up back at our place till the wee hours.
3 Dec - Copacabana - Lazy days
Need I say more....
4 Dec - Copacabana - Blessings
Well yet another lazy day of playing grass, drinking under the table and wandering around town. We went to check out the local church where they have a tradition. People buy minitures of cars, houses, and bundles of fake US cash which they then take to the priest to be blessed. The idea being that in the next year they will receive the real thing.....sorry Joe couldnīt find any boats to take in for you.
5 Dec - Copacabana - Election day
Well election day finally arrived and the beer police were out in force. All public transport had ground to a halt and we couldnīt even get a taxi the 10 minutes to the border. Oh well, yet another day of sitting on the lake front, playing grass, and drinking under the table. This could be habit forming.
Well from here we cruise on to Peru and the Inca trail, this has been one of the highlights we have been looking forward to but looks like the weather may finally be catching up to us. Wish us luck on the Inca trail and if we survive will send through the next installment.
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