Bolivia, Tarabuco

Tarabuco, a small village several hours from Sucre, is famous for it's Sunday open air market which apparently boasts the highest quality tapestries in the whole of Bolivia. So we took a 3hr bus journey to see what all the fuss was about and we weren't disappointed. Instead of shopping however, we spent the day people watching and soaking up the atmosphere. The market sold everything you can imagine from beautiful tapestries to bags of coco leaves and took over the entire village, filling every street corner with improvised stalls.

The locals weren't too keen on being photographed and we had been warned to be careful with our cameras, so the older the better.

Almost all the people in the village were wearing black rubber sandals like the ones below, which are carved out of tyres. They dedicated several streets to footwear stalls, nearly all of them offering the number one footwear brand in Tarabuco...MICHELIN.

Bolivia, Sucre

After the trauma of the mine, we decided to get the hell out of Potosí and make our way to the lovely colonial town, Sucre. It was here that Simon Bolivar signed the country´s independence from Spain, giving birth to the republic of Bolivia and turning him into a national hero.

Walking through the beautiful cobbled streets it's easy to understand why this town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site with it's perfectly preserved colonial architecture. However, contrasting sharply with the rest of what we have seen of Bolivia, this place was congested with fancy new jeeps and shiny pick up trucks. Clearly no shortage of money in this town! Keeping with the opulent feel of Sucre we opted for a hostal a tiny bit over budget and we enjoyed every single minute of it, so much so, that we stayed three nights. Something we may regret later.

A milder version of public transport in La Paz, but just as dangerous.

Despite it's proud display of wealth, the women below, in true Bolivian style make their presence known.

The most revered man in Bolivia.

The wonderful juice man and his amazing machine. Thirty cents and you have a large glass of pure orange juice in a few seconds. Bruno reckons when we get back, he will make one for me to stand in Cascais to pay off the trip, actually, not such a bad idea.

The White House

Bruno and his fascination with beer.

Sucre was full of bohemian bars and restaurants. The one below even had a living room style cinema, full of comfy sofas with a bar showing international films. We missed The Devil's miner, a film about the Potosí mine, where we had just come from. Instead, we watched 'Cidade de Deus' (City of God) a powerful and shocking Brazilian film that I recommend everyone to watch.

Our hostel courtyard, now you know why we stayed so long.

Bolivia, Potosí

We reluctantly left La Paz on an overnight bus to visit the famous silver mines in Potosí. This overnight bus was meant to be a comfortable double decker coach with bed like seats, all was going well and everything was legal until we drove out of the La Paz bus station. As soon as we entered into the suburbs of La Paz the bus driver stopped and filled up the bus with many locals to make a few extra pounds on the side. Just so you know there were no available seats left. So where did all these people go? Yes they huddled together in the aisle, some lay down on the floor without blankets and others gathered in groups to talk all night. Bruno had this 4 year old boy at his feet. Oh we were also forced to watch dubbed Bud Spencer videos at a deafening level until 1 in the morning. It was hilarious the madness of it all. Oh I forgot to mention that the toilet was out of order for the 9 hour journey. The drive itself was also pretty daunting, at least the last 5 hours where spent speeding and overtaking on very precarious mountain narrow roads.

Needless to say we arrived into Potosí absolutely exhausted. Six in the morning we arrived to our hostel in Potosi and before we knew it we had signed up to the 9 o’clock mine tour.

Map of Cerro Rico mine, dated 1530. The Spanish arrived stripping the mine of all its Silver to fund the Spanish Empire. Through forced labour, millions of indigenous people and African slaves died here, mostly within 6 months due to the harsh conditions and toxic gases. Today it is a rather bleak and depressing town, were 15,000 men daily enter the mines to try and scrape a living searching for pure silver and Zinc. They don't work for any company but for themselves as part of a Co-operative. It all sounds very idyllic (as idyllic as working in a mine can be) but apparently there is huge rivalry and competition between co-operatives. Our guide told us that last year 32 men died in one month. As he put it, people die due to accidents in mines they are never murdered!! So as you see it is all a bit sinister this dark mining world.

Bruno smiling and myself smiling nervously before we head down the mines.

I was thinking why do I need to wear all this gear as I had myself convinced I wasn't going down. But before I knew it, we both were dressed in 2 minutes and hurried off down into hell.

~

The mine tour began with a trip to the miners market. Here we had to buy essential goods for the miners. The first and most important was the above. A drinkable alcohol called Ceibo 96º, more like methylated spirits and not very drinkable at all according to Bruno. The second essential purchase was a large bag of coco leaves which they chew constantly. They munch on so many of these leaves all day long until they accumulate into a huge ball behind their cheeks, apparently giving them strength and taking away the hunger. Lastly a few sticks of dynamite and some nicotine free cigarettes were purchased, what a mix.

Their lunch box below, cigarettes, alcohol, coco leaves & sweet potato mixed with ashes to create this chewy bar of black stuff. Very healthy.

Elections in December, everywhere we went in Bolivia, the people were marching and waving the Morales flag. For all of you who don't know Evo Morales is the first indigenous president of Bolivia and the people seem to love him. Everywhere throughout the country you can see that changes are taking place. We saw many billboard signs throughout our overland journey across Bolivia, announcing government infrastructure and development plans, such as new roads, schools, hospitals and ambulances. According to our guide Morales introduced a pension scheme called 'Bono Dignidad' and maternity support. What can we say, Portugal and Ireland need a Morales.

You go girls!

Handsome Bruno! Men in uniform, the less said the better.

Cerro Rico, the mine from hell.

Should I stay or should I go...

Our first briefing 190 metres under.

These men speed by pushing tons of material. You better get out of their way quick as they wait for nobody.

Struggling to breath, mask on or mask off.

Health and safety is a big issue (Not) as you can see below.

Men can start working in the mine when they are 16 years old and according to our guide any man who decides to work for 15 years, will not survive to celebrate his 40th birthday.

Meet El Tio Benito, one of the many devil clay statues the miners make and worship. Very strange, they offer him gifts such as coco leaves, cigarettes and alcohol to keep him satisfied. In return he will supposedly reward the miners by directing them to the best silver deposits....if only!!!

Arsenic ceiling

Bruno only managed to take photos of the most tame tunnels. I don't blame him as my camera was put safely away upon entering the mine. The reality was a lot worse, we climbed down 190 metres through tunnels no bigger than our bodies for more than an hour. We really had to control our minds, as there could have been many Freak Out Moments.....

These two men just came up 20 metres from where they had placed 5 dynamite sticks which exploded shortly after. The blasts echoed through and we felt the mountain move.

Bruno leaving the mine, on our way to blow some dynamite.

Bang! Honestly this made us all jump.

After the mine tour, we were supposed to explore the town and take more photos of the many colonial buildings. Due to exhaustion and a bit of trauma, we headed for a siesta at six in the evening and woke up the next morning, sleeping straight through without even eating dinner.

A beer for the road, off to Sucre.