Following a much needed rest day after our Salt Flat excursion, we headed to the bus station to buy tickets for our 3 hours bus trip to Potosi. Bill has a way of finding odd, out of the way destinations that always add an extra layer of adventure to a trip but his oddities usually end up being a highlight. Potosi was added to the list because he found the oldest continually mined silver mine in the world, Cerro Rico. Our bus adventure began with sitting in the small Uyuni bus station listening to ticket hawkers scream as if they were working in Grand Central Station. “Potoseeeeee! Potoseeeee!” shrieking continuously from at least 6 different bus companies. In total, we had about 20 people sitting in the station who had already purchased their bus tickets so I am not sure why the hawkers felt the need to yell over our heads for 30 minutes. After we boarded the bus, the hawkers followed us outside and continued their ear splitting chant until the bus pulled out of the station. With “Potoseeeee!” ringing in our ears, we settled back for a smooth ride to Potosi. As with all buses in South America, the bus stopped to pick up people hitch hiking on the side of the road and at one point, a man climbed onto the bus and stood in the middle of the aisle. He began speaking very passionately in Spanish to everyone on the bus. At first, Bill and I decided he must have been preaching but then came the sales pitch. Even in Spanish, Bill could recognize a snake oil salesman. Whatever he was selling must have been a cure-all because almost everyone on the bus except us bought his magic elixir. The man kept pointing to Cerro Rico in the distance so I am guessing it either protected them from mine disasters or guaranteed them a rich strike. After a hectic run through the Potosi bus station, we checked into our hotel and began wandering the town of Potosi. Cerro Rico had originally been owned by the Spanish and was the richest silver mine in the world. It had been operating for over 500 years. After Bolivia gained independence from Spain, the mining continued. Cerro Rico was taken over by the State in the 1950s and then “given back” in the 1980s. Since that time, small consortiums continue to mine (mostly copper and tin) but no real money is made from the mine. As a result, Potosi was a slowly dying city. Its’ façade was still grand but its’ people had the look of those needing to find new opportunities elsewhere. Our first stop was the Museo de Moneda which was the old mint and had interesting information on the history of the silver mine. It would have been better if the tour had been in English but we managed to piece together enough information. One interesting part was about the ship the “Atocha” and its’ cargo loaded from the Cerro Rico. Anyone who knows Key West’s history will recall the Atocha as the ship that Mel Fisher found off the coast of Florida with one of the largest treasures ever discovered. When the tour concluded around 4pm, we were hungry so we thought we would search for a quick snack before dinner. We searched and searched but were unable to find any place that had appetizer-like snacks. We finally gave up and ate dinner at 4:30pm. After “dinner”, we headed to the nearest corner store to grab some beer only to find that nowhere sold beer! After at least 6 stores turned us away, Bill asked the hotel manager about buying beer and was directed to one store several blocks away that stocked beer. Potosi was an odd city!
Early the next morning, we were picked up by our local guide to head to the mine. He was a miner but on days he gave tours, he “didn’t have to dig in the mine” so he greatly appreciated our visit. I had decided I would not venture into the mine because A) I get a bit claustrophobic and B) I read the book, “Deep Down Dark” about the Chilean mine disaster and I really was not keen on being trapped in a 500 year old mine. Our first stop was the miner’s market where we were encouraged to buy gifts for the miners we would meet on our visit. We could buy coca, liquor, snacks and….dynamite! Bill was determined to buy dynamite so our guide showed us the dynamite stall and sure enough, you could just buy as much as you wanted! Our guide told us the miners really appreciated the coca leaves and energy drinks the most because they needed energy. The coca leaves also helped them time their breaks because they knew when the coca leaves lost their flavor it had been 4 hours. The second stop was the refining facility where the minerals were separated from the mined rock. We were given coveralls, rubber boots and masks. As we entered the facility, our guide said, “Just don’t touch anything because some of the chemicals used are very toxic”. This statement was not very reassuring given the mask we had was a flimsy over-the-counter useless Covid type mask. As we stepped into the facility, we were greeted with vats of boiling sulfuric acid and sodium cyanide. We had to walk on an uneven platform between the vats and for anyone who knows me, balance is not my strength. Doing my best to balance while holding my breath and not touching anything, I managed to make it through the facility without having a tragic incident that would turn me into a Stan Lee Marvel superhero. Now covered in lethal chemicals, we climbed back into the car with our coveralls and boots and headed to the mine. Our guide promised me he would take us in a large corridor in the mine and we would only go in a few hundred feet. I agreed to give it a try so we began our walk into the mine. Every few feet we would be squeezed up against the wall while men with wheelbarrows ran past at top speed heading in and out of the mine. The full wheelbarrows must have weighed a ton and the men had to stoop over and run with the wheelbarrows due to the low clearance. I asked the guide how the Spaniards had “discovered” the mine if the locals had been mining it before the Spaniards invaded. It seemed like they would have kept it a secret. The guide stated, “Some Peruvian showed them where it was.” We are always humored that the Peruvians are always blamed for anything bad that happens in South America. After hunching our way through the shaft, we came upon the “chapel” that was used by the miners. No Catholic icons were allowed inside the mine and no women miners were allowed inside the mine because they were bad luck. The “chapel” was filled with gods from the indigenous religions so we sat next to the large, bull looking creature. He had a cigarette in his mouth and liquor bottles and bags of coca surrounded his base. The liquor was made by the locals and was 96% alcohol. Glad to know beer was controlled so the locals would not develop a drinking problem! We all shared a drink and the guide poured alcohol at the foot of the statue to bless the mine and the miners. Most of the miners died young due to lung disease. They chose to mine because even though the mine was dying, it was a better living than earning the $300 USD a month minimum wage with other jobs in Bolivia. Elsewhere in the mountain were huge deposits of silver but mining those areas would be unsafe due to the number of tunnels that had been dug throughout 500 years. Even though we had not gone very far into the mine, I was glad to be safely back out in the sunshine. Next stop, Sucre. To catch the 4 hour bus to Sucre, we headed to the “new” bus station which was a two floor building much like a mall. If we thought the “Potoseeeee” hawkers were loud, they could not begin to compare to the “Suuuuuccccreeeee” caterwauling echoing through two floors of tiled building. We were the only two passengers on our bus which meant that it took us an hour to get through town as the hawkers stopped every mile to drum up business. At one point, I wanted to ask how much it would cost for them to stop hawking tickets and I would have bought the remaining seats! Finally, we made it to Sucre which was a lovely city. Sucre is the official government capital of Bolivia. Bolivia has two capitols, La Paz and Sucre, so it can get confusing. Sucre was known as the “white city” because of the white rock used to build all the buildings. Sucre was clean, uncrowded and a much welcome respite after La Paz and Potosi. Our hotel was amazing and had a courtyard garden as well as a restaurant with amazing views. We walked down the hill to the main cathedral. We were allowed to wander through the cathedral and museum on our own and we were the only people there so it was very quiet and peaceful. For a quick rest, we went to a small park across from the next cathedral we wanted to tour. When our English tour guide arrived, we went into the crypts and learned that all the Spanish aristocracy was buried in the crypts. When I asked where the common people had been buried, she pointed across the street and said, “There are thousands of them under the park across the street.” “They just built the park on top of the graves?” I asked and she nodded. Have these people never watched Poltergeist? These things never end well! I thought I could finish the trip this week but alas, we just did so many wonderful things in Bolivia! I do not want to shortchange Sucre or Santa Cruz so Bolivia, 2024 will be continued next week!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
|