Following a fantastic tour through the Salar de Uyuni, I decided the time was right to head west through the Bolivian highlands to see what I could see. Dave was headed the same way, so we decided to pool our efforts and save some dough at the same time. Potosi, formerly the richest city in the world, was the next stopping point. One simple bus ride away.

The trip from Uyuni is meant to be gorgeous so we elected to wait one night and catch a morning bus the following day. When we arrived at the office the following day, though, we were informed that blockades by angry miners were preventing buses from passing. The company told us, though, that we would be able to travel that evening. We were aware that travel through Bolivia could involve such delays and bought our ticket for the night bus. Regrettably, that left us with a day to spend in the tourist wasteland of Uyuni. Minutes of boredom stretched to hours and we whiled away the time reading tourist books on Boliva in the tourist office. Around an hour and a half before our bus left (by my watch) we headed over to a pizzeria to grab a bite to eat. We ordered and noticed it was a bit later than we thought, but weren´t too worried. As the time dragged on and our pizza didn´t arrive, the time started shrinking. When the food came we had 20 minutes. When we finished, we had 10. When we arrived at the bus company office, we had -2. The bus was gone. Typically, this would be considered a royal pain in the butt. In this instance, though, it was a bit more as we noticed that our backpacks and Dave´s surfboards, which we´d left in the office for the day, were gone. They´d been loaded on the bus without us. So this was being up a creek without a paddle. To make matters worse, we´d spent basically all of our money on our tickets and food. We were broke and stranded in the Bolivian desert in the middle of the night..

The bus company had little sympathy, but did manage to track down one last bus headed to Potosi for the night. She assured us we could hop this bus and that our gear would be safe and sound in the Potosi office the following day. We scraped together every scrap of money we had (it might have been enough for a cheap hotel room) and handed it over for entrance to the bus which we´d managed to chase down on its way out of town. Frantically chasing buses and begging entrance is not the best bargaining position, and we quickly realized we´d been duped. Not only was the bus full (i.e. no seats) the aisle was full as well. They had trouble closing the door around us. Only seven hours to go before we arrived in Potosi at 2 AM with literally no money (I think between us we had 70 cents, which is the US equivalent of 9 cents, no joking).

After 30 minutes, we squeezed enough room to sit down. After an hour and a half, I couldn´t feel anything below the waste. After two hours, we stopped for dinner, and everyone in the aisles (except Dave and I) got off. While this was still a terrible situation (i.e. sitting in a bus aisle with no idea where my stuff is and no money to track it down whilst bumping along unpaved roads in the middle of the night) at least I had room to stretch my legs. Its the little comforts that count when you travel. After a while, I got really bold and laid down for some sleep. There are certain levels of disgusting, and lying in a Bolivian bus aisle is right up there with uncleaned public toilets. Dirt and garbage kept falling in my face and beard, but I didn´t know if it was being dropped by people in the seats or falling naturally from the ceiling. I don´t think I want to know. We arrived tired and broke, but in one piece.

Luckily, at the dinner stop we had befriended two other travelers who were headed to Potosi as well. By the strangest stroke of luck, Dave and I had thought ahead to reserve a room in a hostel in Potosi while we were still in Uyuni. Neither of us had reserved a room for our entire trip, but by good luck had decided to to do so this time. We convinced these other two fellows to check out our hostel to see if there was room. Why was this fortunate? They picked up the taxi fare. Hot diggity.

We managed to get in the hostel, got a double room instead of the dormitory beds we´d reserved (a misunderstanding had us thinking the cost was the same), and slept. The following day we had a hell of a time tracking down our bags, as the office we were supposed to visit didn´t exist and we chased all over town just to arrive back where we started. Coincidentally, also the place where our gear was. Relief, thy name is backpack. We headed back to the hostel without a care in the world.

Potosi is one of two cities in southern Bolivia reknowned for their history and architecture. Sucre, my next stop, is the other. At one time, Potosi was the richest city in the world thanks to the mountain located directly behind it, Cerro Rico, Rich Mountain. From here, the Spanish extracted piles and piles of silver and tin. Mining has been taking place in the mountain for over 400 years and continues today, for a variety of minerals. Potosi is no longer one of the richest cities in the world and due to drops in mineral prices, is really not even close.

They have shifted somewhat to tourism, and are exploiting their mines for this purpose. The true highlight of the city is to take a mine tour. Neither the agencies nor anyone who has been on a tour sugar coats the experience. It is not a trip to a tourist site, but a visit to a working mine on a working day. My hostel ran a tour group that was supposed to be very good, so away I went.

The mines are made for Bolivian miners and are very small and not meant for anyone claustrophobic (nor anyone over 5´6" for that matter). We were given high fashion tourist outfits to make us look even more touristy and piled into the van for the trip.

Stop one was the miners market where we could buy gifts for the miners in exchange for taking time out of their workday to talk and take some photos. The gifts included soft drinks, coca leaves, alcohol (a 96% strength swill that could melt rock), and dynamite. We bought a little of each. In the states, this would have put me on about six different terrorist and drug enforcement watch lists, but here, seven year old kids could buy the same stuff.

We entered the mines, and it was a shocking, shocking world. I spent the full three hours bent over, with bent legs, crawling at times on my hands and knees, and scratching and clawing my way up and down steep descents between mine levels. We were all given headlamps to show the way luckily as there was no light source piped into the mines. We stopped at one point to catch our breath and discuss mining work when a miner came sprinting down the tunnel. Anyone running does not inspire confidence. Our guide chatted with him a bit (most of the miners speak in Quechua, a native language as opposed to spanish) and he took off running again. He had just lit four sticks of dynamite and was headed below to help with digging through the loot. Sure enough, four explosions rolled through the tunnels after him. The shockwaves were impressive as they hit us. We spent a few more hours walking around and visiting with miners. It was an unbelievable work environment.

When we came out, we still had one stick of dynamite which had not been given away, so one of our guides made us a nice little bomb. Just to scare the gringos, he lit it and chased around to everyone trying to get them to hold it. Guess who got stuck with it?

To be fair, I do sort of have a Ted Kaczinsky look to me. Luckily he took it off my hands before it took my hands off, and scrambled off to bury it in a premade hole. That explosion was pretty good too. Before we all departed, we werew invited to come back the following day for a fiesta. By pure luck, we had arrived on the weekend of the miners ritual where they ask for safety from the spirits of the mine. Can´t pass that up.

The following morning we went out, bought some beers, and headed to the party. This party wasn´t exactly like most other parties I´d been to, and to be fair there probably aren´t a whole lot like it left in South America. All the miners (and a couple of tourists) gather around and drink lots of alcohol (including the 96% stuff...yikes) while they light off dynamite. Then, they bring in some llamas they´ve bought, feed them coca leaves and alcohol, and cut their throats. This is a bit gruesome. The ritual is a sacrifice to mother earth and "Uncle Tio" (a demon-like fellow with a taste for alcohol and cigarrettes) to provide safety to the miners. While the slaughter is bad, they also collect some of the llama blood and fling it over the entrance to the mine, the entrance to every doorway around the mine, on the miners, and of course smear it on the faces of tourists. When this is done, they light the grill. All is eaten except the head and organs which are buried near the entrance of the mine. Now this is a party.

I was feeling a bit off as we headed up the hill and was concerned that the coca leaves and alcohol I´d had the day before were having a bad effect on me (though the 4000 meters of elevation certainly weren´t helping). As the party got underway, I drank some more, uneasily. I got a good viewing of the slaughter itself, but didn´t grab photos as my camera batteries died. Luckily I avoided most of the blood. We were sitting around getting sloshed and waiting for the grill when I realized that I was feeling more than a little off. I stumbled around the side of the building and did my best Exorcist impersonation. Man oh man can I ever projectile vomit. It´s not recommended with a full beard and mustache, though. I was picking out chunks for a while. After a bit of hurling, I returned to the party long enough to let them know I wasn´t feeling up for barbecue. Instead, I headed down the hill to wait for a bus to Sucre. So long Potosi, thanks for the memories.