Potosí (Bolivia)

Potosí is the kind of place that a lot of people go through, but not many seem to be raving about it...I was very happy to be getting there because it meant finally leaving Uyuni! After a few complications, our bus finally left, and I was happy enough to be on my way to somewhere other than Uyuni!
I didn't seem to care even when I got woken up by our bus arrival at 1 and I had to get my stuff and walk uphill for about 1km at an altitude of 4070m in the rain!
Things got even better when I found out that my reservation was actually for the one hostel everyone had recommended, which seemed to be full online!
The only problem once I got there was falling back asleep at 2 after all the effort to get there!
The next morning I was up bright and early at 7, and after a great shower I was ready for breakfast and a new beginning!
I signed up for a mine tour, which seems to be the most common thing to do in town, since its past wealth and fame are due to the Cerro Rico and its minerals lying within.
Our two guides were both ex-miners, although one seemed crazier and stranger tha the other one; he had spent 7 years working in a mine, and he kind of reminded me of a soldier coming hone from a war.
Our first stop on the tour was a run-down house where we put on our miner outfits: baggy pants and jacket, rubber boots, a helmet and a belt that held the charger that was connected to the typical miner flashlight on top of our helmet.
Our next stop was the miners' market, where we learned about what they eat and drink, and we bought them some coca leaves and sodas. Then we stopped at another shop where we learned a bit about dynamite, how to set it off, how to make it more powerful, and so on...we also bought some for the miners, because, as our guide kept repeating, ours wasn't just a touristic visit, it was a social one: we were to interact with the miners, learn about their lives, and bring them presents. Since they have to buy their own food and drinks, and even their own dynamite to keep explorin the mine, they were happy to receive a bunch of stuff for free from us!
Our next stops were a "refining plant" for the minerals and a lookout point over the city for some more pictures in our funny outfits...then we finally reached the mine!
While waiting outside taking pictures we witnessed three people from another group who had just walked in come out as they couldn't take it any longer...nice!
As we approached the entrance, there was a mix of excitement and tension in the air! We finally took off and started walking jn, and it wasn't so bad...not too small, and very straight, so that for the first 5-10 minutes you could see the light behind you, and you couldn't get lost!
We had about 50 m or so to get inside the mine, and we knew we were there when all of a sudden we saw plenty of galleries intersectig each other, and that's when we knew we'd better stick together and close to the guides! haha As we got deeper and deeper inside, it looked darker and darker, and felt warmer and warmer...we also realized it had gotten harder to breathe, and we were thanking the pipes of compressed air running throughout the whole place for giving us oxigen! After some more walking, which had gotten trickier especially for the few of us over 1.75m, we had to find refuge in an opening on the side of the path since a cart full of minerals weighing about a ton wss coming down the tracks, being pushed out of the mine by three young guys! They were faster even while pushing the full cart than we were empty-handedly!
Our first real stop was a cave on the side of the path, where we sat down and waited for some miners to join us for a chat and some food and drinks. I talked to a 40 year old man who had been working in there for over 23 years, practically his whole life with the exception of 5 years he spent in Argentina working in construction...once the economic collapse came around, he came back to Potosí, his hometown, where the onlu job opportunities were in mining. He said that a normal day is 8 hour long, but that there have been times where he spent 24, or even 48 hiurs straight, inside the mine! It's kinda like working overtime, the only difference being that they get paid according to the weight of the minerals that they find, so more workinh hours were needed at times to find more minerals! They are organized in a co-op, except that it doesn't really do anything for them...each of them has to pay for their own food and drinks, their own equipment, ther own dynamite, and even, surprise surprise, for their own share of compressed air!!! And it's not cheap at 20$/hour!!! Incredible!
The other hing that struck me the most was that while in the mine they do not eat anything but coca leaves! They said that normal food ferments quickly inside the mine and would damage their stomach! So they eat a lot when they do get out, of course, but they don't even have breakfast before getting in the mine...only coca leaves and sodas!!!
We kept walking some more through mud and water to get to another small cave with a 40-50m deep hole in the middle of it. The young miners that joined us comfortably sat around the whole, their legs dangling in the void, while we carefully and slowly found a place to sit down to chat with them. We gave them some coca leaves, dynamite and sodas and chatted with them. The most desired thing seemed to be foreign cigarettes, although our bags of coca leaves had some "homemade" ones...the two guys kept shouting down the hole to some people working at the bottom of it, and then after a bit they pulled up a boy who came to join us...JD, 13 years old,...he is working in the mine during his summer vacation from school, to join his father and brothers who all work there...I asked him if he preferred that or school, he said the latter, but he also said he is not very good at it! Nevertheless, he said his dream is to become an agricultural engineer!!! When I asked him what he was going to do with the money he would earn from working there, he said he would buy school supplies! Wow! There must be an easy way for people to donate something so simple and basic to us as school supplies!
After some more pictures we started heading back, stopping for the occasional cart coming by, before our last stop, which was the famous "Tio"! It's the mine's God, but since in Quechua the letter D is missing, instead of Dios he's called Tio, uncle! It looks like the devil, and it was supposedly put there at first by the Spanish, who thought that it would scare the miners and think he was supervising their work, since no Spanish ever set foot in the mine. Once the miners realized no one was making sure they were doing their job, and that the devil was not scary at all, they started adoring him! It's a statue of a guy sitting down, and he is covered in cigarettes, the obvious coca leaves, and some trash of course! The ritual includes lighting up a cigarette, putting it in his mouth, and then pour clear 96% alcohol all over his body, and then putting coca leaves on his muscles! The most impressive thing about the statue is his gigantic, disproportionate penis!!! We were explained that it symbolises fertility, of course, and after the guide poured some more alcohol on it (ouch, anyone?!) and drank some himself, he also said that the Tio is supposedly linked to the Pachamama, Mother Earth, who gave him such a gift so that any woman would be too scared to enter the mine, and the Pachamama wouldn't have any infidelity issues!!!
When we finally made it out of the mine the sunlight was blinding, of course, but at least I could stand straight! haha
The last attraction of the day was seeing dynamite explode! The guide set it on fire, and we had about 2 minutes to take silly pictures with it...then he took it somewhere far, and we witnessed the huge blast produced by just one piece of dynamite!!! It was awesome...not too loud to bother your ears, but powerful enough to shake everything, scare all the girls, and even shake our cameras as we were filming it!

Later on in the day, once I was done with the mine tour, I went to check out the city center and pay a visit to the Mint, one of the oldest and probably the richest in South America. Of course having rich mines made the Mint rich and famous back in the day, and many vessels full of coins used to set off for Europe. The ironic thing in all of this is that nowadays the techniques that were once used in Potosí are so outdated that Bolivia has to have its coins made in other countries, especially Chile! We visited several types of old coins, the machinery and tools used to produce them, and a lot of other tools and objects and ornaments used by the rich to show off their wealth. We also visited the furnaces, and the thing that struck me the most is that the best fuel for the furnaces was...llama feces!!! I forgot exactly why, but I'm sure it's also because it's easy to come by!

All in all I had a very good time in Potosí, a very pleasant and relaxed town! The final gem was its new bus terminal, out in the middle of nowhere but oh-so-modern!!! It even has a wi-fi area!!! That was of course one of the only few times I found a bus that was leaving within 10 minutes, when actually I would not have minded waiting while being able to surf the Web!