Potosi - the mines

We weren´t expecting much to occur on the evening of Alexa´s birthday and had planned to have a nice meal and some wine but it turned out the people in our hostel thought it was a great excuse to go out! So, first we went out to dinner to a really cheap local place (60pence for dinner) with the tour guides from the hostel and two Ozzy girls, Sarah and Bonnie, 2 Irish, Maria and James and an Ozzy guy called Droyn. We then went to a bar and drunk some horribly strong Cuba Libre. It was a fun night but apparently if you drink a bit much in the highest city in the world you get the mother of all hangovers. The next day wasn´t so fun.

The day after the hangover we went on a tour to the silver mines. The conditions in the mines are horrendus and there are boys as young as 8 working in them. There isn´t really much silver left now so they are mining other minerals as well but the mountain, called Cerro Rico or Rich Mountain is like a swiss cheese inside. There are tunnels as deep as 1500m underground. We went down to the fourth level which was 150m underground and that was swealtering hot and unbearable for breathing. In the pictures below you can see the particles in the air which the miners breathe in all day. Many of the miners die young of lung disease.
Maria, me and Alexa all dressed and ready:

First we went to the miners market and bought dinamite for 2pounds! Afterwards we went to a refinary, this is me looking at silver:

Then we went into the mines and had to crawl, at some points on our stomachs, to get around. It was yuck, I got myself filthy.

Miners dragging carts of rock around:

This was a miner working down on the fourth level, we gave him dinamite and fizzy drinks:

The group: Maria, Bone, Martin, Me, Nick and James

When we left the mines we were shown how to make up the dinamite and then we lit and exploded it which was surreal - like a cartoon!

It was a strange and sad experience but very interesting to see. The mines were not pleasant and I just can´t imagine having to send your child down them everyday. I´m glad I went and witnessed it though.