BUS TO POTOSI
Uyuni, the 7 of march. We just finished the tour on
the Uyuni desert and I wanted to get my way direction
La Paz. But there is a but. I meet this guy, Lorenzo
during my Atacama trip. Lorenzo speaks loud Lorenzo
speak also with his hand. Yes, Lorenzo is Italian.
And Lorenzo had to speak about Potosi. Whats there
? Well some mines! There you can just buy dynamite
and do what ever you want with that. Okay lets go
I m convince.
And so we go, leave my spanish friends Marta, Helena
and Raph, my japan sleepering friend Chang and this
crasy Hank who visited so much country.
The bus from Uyuni to Potosi was just great. We had
a night bus, Milan (from the UK) , Lorenzo and me
seat down. The first thing we try to do is to open
the windows. Not because it was hot, no because is
just smells like my socks after a 7 days jungle trip
without washing in the most dirty place of the world.  Some
of this bolivianos stink just like a bagger. You look
in front of you and see a leaving momie seating there
with a lot of clothes and a face full of wrinkle (actualy
there is a lot of this people all arround bolivia...a
face that reflect a hard life, unbelievable sculture
of wrinkles). And this bad odor just come this direction.
Grrrrr. Okay that s traveling. Lets says that the
trip will be a 7 hours trip and that we will sleep.
Should I mention that at the end the bus arrived more
than 2 hours late !
But that was not the baddest thing. I was seating
on the number 24 that is a place at the back of the
bus. The woman who sell the ticket tell us that there
was much more place than in a front. Well I don t
know. I just know that my legs where in the omoplate
of the men sitting in front of me. That this guy had
the baddest ID to put the seat in the lying position
so that my knees where perforing his seat to his hip.
But he didn t care. I couldn t put my legs on the
corridor because there was this girl lying there in
the midle of the bus. Some other where just standing
all the time. Well lets be positiv and say I m a lucky
guy, I have a seat, a stinky one because we had to
close the window because of the dirt coming from this
dirty road without asphalt. But that s okay if there
where not this music. I wanted to sleep. This bus
is a nightbus and with that I understand a bus where
I can just close my eyes and sleep until the we arrived.
But in Bolivia the night bus is just a bus that drive
in the night. And the driver just wanted to listen
to Bolivian Techno music... Should I say it sound
like fucking bad music...But instead of putting the
music in the front, no no, this guy just turn the
sound as lound as it goes, maybie just to hide the
sound of the motor. And we lucky guys had a seat just
close to the box on the back plus this women snoring
like a pig. AHhhh great. We just enjoy the trip: stinky,
lound, clostrophoby, late...well  I
sure I forgot something. But well we arrived at 4
instead of 2 o clock. The we took a taxi and ask to
bring us to the CENTRAL HOTEL, a 20 bolivian pesos.
And this taxi driver bring us there to this hotel
lying CENTRAL in the town (colonial Hotel, see the
picture below). So we get in and payed some 15 US
dollars. But it was a great place. As we wake up the
next day, Lorenzo saw a sign on the door.
- Lorenzo: "GUYS ITS A 4 STAR HOTEL"
That s mean that yesterday we just go into the cheapest
and baddest bus in Bolivia and enter with our backpack
in the best hotel in Potosi. But we realy enjoy this
place. A kind of luxus for few dollars. You couldn
t expect something like that in USA or Europe for
the same price. Clean and beautifull. So clean that
they put a paper sign on the toilets "desinfected".
They should do the same for the bus. Bad boy!
So on the next day we visited the charming city, crowded
with old womens in traditional clothes and young people
going in school with a "costar cravate"
for the boys and japanese style for the girls. I meet
this guy selling some instrument and cd s who was
passioned with bolivian music. I asked some question
about the different instrument and music. I couldn
t expect the answer he gave me. This guy instructed
me everything he knew about the bolivian music, and
catch an instrument and just played it. Then go to
the next type of music, explained me something and
play an other instrument...Great private concert.
I will make an article just about the Bolivian music
soon. The bolivian sound s catch me into a deep deep
world, intense, melancolic. I put one sample an mp3
there...
mp3
- 5.15 minutes - 5 MB (Fred s bolivian
music selection - ca fait rever...)
Back to Potosi. At 14.00 Mylan, Lorenzo, Steve (a
cool US guy) and meet the woman that would bring us
to the mines.
The expedition start at the miner market. Here we
buy some common thing: coca leaves and dynamite. Okay
that s not so common for its Bolivia. We keep the
halft of it and the other half saved as gift for the
miner.
We get on the top of the hill with our guide and prepare
the explosif. Nothing as simple as taking the nitroglicerine
stick, cut it in two parts, insert the mesh into it,
then open the litle plastic with the nitrate of aluminium
?? put it in an bigger plastic bag, close the bag
with the mesh looking out of the it and now...Now
remember the beep beep le coyote cartoon, when you
activate the mesh with fire...Run as fast as you can....(okay
here we have a security of 2 minutes before it explode
and the fact that you just put it on the ground and
not into the earth make it secure.)
And so we run look down the hill and BOOOOOM!!! Okay
lets make one more...eheh thats funny.
That was the introduction to what will become a half
day into the life of a miner. But first a litle of
history!
POTOSI MINES
You have to know that Potosi was the biggest city
in the occident in the 17 century, bigger than Paris
and London with more than 200 000 habitants. Well
at this time it was not Bolivia but "high Peru".
The city of Potosi (4090m) is at the foot of the Cerro
Rico ( Rich mountain with an altitude of 4824m ).
When you get in the city you can see this big red
mountain without vegetation, eated by the miners work.
Potosi is also the higher city in the world, higher
than Llassa in Tibet, and believe that you can feel
it physicaly. First your head is exploding (headache)
and second if you run you will feel like an old man
searching for oxygene. Coca leaves may help for head
problem.
So where did I stop with this city history...??? Okay
how the hell did the spain found this place and get
rich with it? There was this indian guy walking arround
and instead of finding his losted Llama he found this
mountain full of silver. That was about 1545, if the
story is true I don t know but its an nice an short
one. Soon you can imagine that the spanish guys exploited
this mine full with the purest Silver in the world.
Charle V named it Imperial city and all the coin in
the spanish colonie where made in Potosi. Of course
somebody had to extract it. For doing that the spanish
use the MITA system, an Inca tradition that tell everybody
to work for the system. Some Indians so stay sometimes
4 month into the mines shaft and work 12 hours a day.
Hard for me to imagine, I was staying two hours in
this 1.3 m gallery hitting my head into the dirtywalls.
Its funny two visited. But working there for hours
in this altitude, carring heavy stones arround without
seeing a daylight..Arrrrg an nightmare! I have to
thing about the 8 million dead people dying because
of silicose or because they breath some mercure vapor.
That s not a job for me.
 We
visited one of the 300 mines there. First you get
some beautifull yellow clothes and some plastic boots.
Then you take a beautifull blue helmet. On this helmet
there is a light connected to a bottle filled with
Carbonate de Calcium and some water. You take your
lighter to activate the gaz and can enter into this
mine shaft. When the light change color into green
you have to option. Stay until it explose. Or think
about going back as fast as you can to evite the gaz
that will blow you away.
That strange to think you enter in a place where people
are actualy working. It has nothing to do with the
normal tourist tour. Here you get no security. When
you walk there the guide just show you a big black
hole into the floor and tell you to make a big step
to not get in. So you do, but you have to take care
that when you make this big step you also look up
if you get enough space for your head. If not you
just hit the topwall and end inside this gallery down
to the unknow. Irggg ! Remember that your feld of
view isn t more than 2 meters. So you walk and follow
this guide. Sometime you have to go down and walk
with your hands and your knees. Then you meet the
miners who works there, and that s make this experience
authentic. You are not in an secure tour, your are
in a place fulled with dynamite. Hey hey hey....its
amazing. You just go there and see this people working
in real conditions. This miner are 15 to 40 years
old, and work in a 3 to 4 people troup. The first
class one is the most experimented and decided wich
veins will be dynamite or not. With some chance he
get an 1000 to 1200 bolivianos per month (arround
200 dollars). That is more than the midle range pay
of 500 bolivianos.But from this 5000 people working
in the mine the most are second class and third class
miners with no insurance and a 400 to 800 bolivian
pesos per month for a short life because of the health
consequences.
Well after sharing a little time with this guys we
gave some dynnamite as gift that we buyed before and
some coca leaves .The reason why they don t get money
is simple: superstition. Its like going back hundred
of year before. As we get into the mine we saw some
blood on the entrance. 3 times a year a llama will
be killed as an offrand to the devil. And the best
thing is that you can met him. Not the lama but the
devil.  His pseudo name is not Sadam as I was expected
but El Tio (tonton in frensh, oncle in english). Stupid
name for a devil! Sound like a mafiapseudo. Why El
Tio, that must be because of the old croyance where
the Pachamama (mam of the earth) and the Wiracocha
(god of the sky and creator of the univers). So El
Tio , the oncle is the chief of the mines wich is
the inside the earth district.
And
we Milan, Lorenzo and I just visited this devil. He
had a lot of collored stuff arround him, cigarettes
in the mounth and some alcool. The miners just gave
it as an offering, expecting security and prosperity
in return.
As a conclusion, I would say that this experience
was unique. I shared time with people that have one
of the most dangerous job in the world, with no other
hope than to find one day the big vein of Silber or
etain. Can t believe I done that, without any security
and so easely. Having a little feeling of whats going
on under this mountain was incredible. The image of
the dark corridors, the wet floor, the dust on the
air when the miner where perforing. I was thinking
about all the people who complain about there life
and they job. They should move over there and see
what a hard day realy means. We had fun of course
by visiting this place, otherwise you couldn t get
there. But we allways keep in mind that this life
is a sacrifice. Allways keep in mind that you have
the choice of doing what you want in your life. This
people are not so different that some people I know,
working for money and kill they health slowly until
the malady comes. They think they are living better,
hopping for the miracle of getting more money but
in fact they life is short and empty. If you spend
1/3 of your life in work, please do a work that you
enjoy...You r not gone take your money in your tomb!
;-) |
