• South America
• West Africa
• R.T.W.
• Bike
• Central America
• Home

Bolivia

The Bolivian border post turned out to be built like a cowboy fort, with a walk way along the top and a small wall for guards to hide behind. The troops manning this establishment were a mixture of regular army and conscripts. You could tell the difference, the conscripts didn't have boots, just sandals made from old car tyres. Needless to say, the only person at the camp who spoke any English was their officer, who took the opportunity to practise it on us.

First the Spanish speaking NCOs had us stand around for an age, while they set up a desk and chair - out in the open under the hot sun and clear blue skies - for their officer to sit at. Then, one at a time, we were invited to go forwards and receive our , stamped, passport back from him.

There was a clear class system going on in this part of the world, based upon parentage. Those, like the officer, who were clearly of old Spanish stock were at the top of the pile, while at the bottom were the indigenous Indians, and part way between, the half breeds.

Salt

Having gained the necessary stamps in our passports, we headed out over our first true salt flat. White salt as far as the eye could see. Unfortunately the first 100 meters was very wet, looking rather like slushy snow. So as not to get stuck in this, all 23 passengers got off the truck to lighten it, and walked the first 150 meters. The truck, with Boomer our trip leader at the wheel, charged at the soggy salt, engine note getting lower and lower as it fought against the slushy salty resistance, just before stalling Boomer did a swift gear change, without letting the truck grind to stop in the slush, and made the solid salt. We all then got back on, much relieved that we weren't going to have to dig ourselves out of that sloppy salty mud.

The rest of the trip across the salt was swift. The surface, after the first hundred meters or so, was hard and smooth, so we drove across at full speed, following the jeep that we had met the day before. At the other side we came across salt workers. These poor souls scrapped the surface of the salt flats, bagged it in huge sacks and sold it onto distributors. They did this day in and day out under pale blue skies, blistering sun and caustic salt.

Silver

High up in the Bolivian alto-plano, nestled in a valley (but still at 12000 ft/3600 metres ASL), is the small town of Pottosi. The Spanish established this town back in 15 hundreds, as it is next door to a mountain full of silver. They used slave labour - indigenous Andean Indian people - to mine this precious metal. It's estimated that some 8 million slaves died before the abolition of this barbaric practise. The Spanish did try importing black African slaves to do their mining, but found that they died too quickly because of the altitude.

We got the chance to go down one of the silver mines, run by a local co-operative, that had a lot the original workings still open.

Raining pumpkin

On our way up the mountain in the truck to the mine entrance, we stopped at a roadside market to buy gifts for the miners we were about to visit. At stalls we bought (in much the same way you'd buy carrots and potatoes) a couple of bags of coca leaves (from the same plant that cocaine comes), half a dozen sticks of dynamite and some fuses. We then completed our short trip to the mine entrance (4060m - 13,500ft above sea level) and parked up on some waste ground nearby. Here our two guides (they had been miners, but had taught themselves English and German, and became tourist guides. Which probably extended their life expectancy by a number of decades) offered to show us what dynamite was like when it exploded. Then one of us had the idea of getting rid of a pumpkin, that one of the cook groups had bought, but never got around to using. So a small hole was cut into the pumpkin, a stick of dynamite pushed in and, after placing this vegetable bomb some 30 metres from us, lit. Nothing happend for what seemed like minutes, all that could be seen was a small cloud of smoke drifting from the pumpkin. Then, where there had been pumpkin there was only a yellow mist. The sound and shock wave hit us at the same time, I felt more than heard the explosion. Then chunks of pumpkin started raining down on our heads.

Meet the devil

Hard hats were issued, as well as one acetylene lamp between two, and we made our way to the mine entrance. This was a door about 6 feet by 3 in the side of the mountain, and the only way in or out of the mine. The walls of the entrance tunnel were dry hard stone, and the roof was held up with very old and often cracked wooden beams. As we trudged into the mine in one long line, I had to bend slightly to stop myself banging my head on the beams (I'm 6 foot 4 inches or 194cm tall). After 3 or 400 metres the tunnel broadened into a small cavern with a further five tunnels leading off it. Here we stopped to catch our breath (what with the altitude and the entrance giving the only ventelation, there was very little to breath), and be introduced the the devil. The miners were, above ground, devote catholics, but under ground they made offerings to the devil. A small effigy of him had been built for these offerings. We added to the offering pile of coca leaves with some of our own, gave him a cigarette (his lips were pursed for this), and drizzled some local moonshine on his head. Suitably appeased, the devil left us alone during our tour.

We were then given the chance to try out coca-leaves. The miners use them to stave of hunger and cope with fatigue. I tried a single leaf. It tasted vaguely like dry tea leaves and numbed the side of my mouth like a dentist's injection.

Splitting into two groups we went down to the next level of the mine (the mine had 4 levels, each some 15 metres below the one above). Our route was down a 45° scree slope, where the roof was no more that 5 feet above the loose rock beneath our feet. Being one of the first to descend, I had to dodge falling rocks, kicked up from the loose surface underfoot, by those behind / above me.

Once down to level 2 we stopped again to catch our breaths, the air was even worse down here. Then it was off to see mining at first hand. The tunnels we walked through were dry, with rock walls and ceilings, no wooden props needed. The miner and his assistant (they worked in pairs, for themselves, but paid a small amount into the co-operative as a contingency fund, for use when times were hard) were boring holes into the rock face by hand. The miner held a 4 foot by 1 inch diameter steel spike, which the young assistant hit repeatedly with a sledge hammer. After each blow the miner would rotate the spike by hand and the assistant would hit it again. Once a hole of the correct depth had been bored, a charge of dynamite would be pushed into the hole and the rock face blown out.

It was about this time that I started to get very worried about myself. I could hardly breath, I had pins and needles down the backs of both arms and hands, and was feeling very faint. All I could think of was "what a silly place for me to die". Or worse still, faint and have to be carried back to the surface! After a question and answer session with the miners - which seemed to go on forever - I thought we'd be going back to the surface. "Now", our guide said "we go down to level 3 of the mine." I chickened out and said that I couldn't go on any further. "Oh," he replied "you can't get back to the surface from here!" Then after an eternity, "let me show you the way up," he continued. He took me to a tunnel, cut into a wall, that was sloping upwards, with steps cut into the floor. "You go up here," he said "until you get to the tunnel with railway tracks on the ground. Follow the tracks to the left and this will take you to the devil, where we split into two groups. Then ask the devil!" And he left.

I had had to give my acetylene lamp to my partner, so the only light I had was my mini-maglight torch. Happy to be going towards freedom I ran up the steps. Well, at least I ran up the first four or five steps, before stopping, gasping for breath. Then the next three or four steps and another rest, then another two or three and another rest. I then started to think that my torch light was getting dim. Worried that the batteries were failing, I turned the torch off at each rest break, slumped against the tunnel wall gasping for breath in total darkness. After another five or six rest breaks I got to the railway tracks (the miners use hand pushed carts to haul the ore) and turned left. Following the tracks for a couple of hundred metres I found the devil.

By this time I was sweating profusely (from effort, the heat, and fear) so it was easy to decide which of the 5 other tunnels was the way out - I could feel the draught of cool air on my body coming from the entrance. It was then a matter of walking the 3 or 400 metres to the surface, but as the tunnel took a turn some 15 metres from the entrance, I didn't see the light at the end of the tunnel til I was nearly there. Stepping into the (strangely green) daylight I felt very relieved. A miner at the surface took my hard hat (which I had quite forgotten I was wearing) and then offered me a lump of silver ore for a dollar (which I still have). Back in the truck, I took a swig of whisky to calm my nerves.

The others, back in the mine, not only went down to level 3 but level 4 as well, helped by chewing coca leaves and the simple fact that they were a lot fitter than I. Getting down to the bottom level (level 4) required them to climb a vertical shaft by rope and swing into a tunnel part way down the shaft.

A day later saw us driving to La Paz, our next stop. After many kilometers of flat featureless alto plano, we descended into the bowl that is Las Paz.

Like all major cities we visited on this trip, La Paz offered a good selection of bars and restaraunts. While I really enjoy bush camping, I also really like being able to go to a good restaraunt or bar, and buy good food and ice cold beer. As well as these more mundane things, La Paz also had witchcraft supplies on offer. I resisted the urge to buy a mummified llama foetus (reputed to ward off bad spirits).

While in La Paz a group of use took the opportunity to visit that cultural high point in any city, a football match. We saw Bolivia, in light blue strip, loose to Strongest, in yellow and black stripes, by three goals to one in a very bad tempered game. After the match we met up with others in our group to drink (rather unpleasant) gin and tonics in the penthouse bar at the El Presidente hotel. This offered stunning views of La Paz at night.

From La Paz we headed out for Puno and Peru.