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South America Photo Catchup #7: Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia

April 28, 2010 Leave a comment

Well, that's it. I think, barring any mental hiccups, that this is the lot. I've finally wrung the last bit of blood from the stone, and these shots are the last new ones that should be coming out of the South America trip. I mean, it's only 3 months since I got back. Ahead of schedule, really. Ahem. Next steps are to do a "Top 20 fave shots" post and then, if I am feeling energetic, the 10 minute video-to-end-all-videos. 

But back to the matter at hand. The shots below go into more depth around the 3-day trip around the Salar de Uyuni, the coloured lakes, and the southern deserts of Bolivia. The original trip report post – with some updated photos – is here. 

Just outside the town of Uyuni is the train graveyard:

Then out on the Uyuni salt lake itself, a look back at the jeep trail crossing the flat, and a bird nesting in a cactus:

In the town of San Juan, the clearly-not-Inca-but-still-creepy burial chambers, and a lovely sunset over the mountains:

From there we pushed down into the coloured lakes – many of them populated by crowds of flamengos and surrounded by llama herds:

Almost to the end, we covered a lot of ground in various deserts, and stopped at the famous "Arbol de Piedra" or Stone Tree:

Finally, we end on the sunrise over the Laguna Salada, with steam rising off the volcanically-heated water…

That should about do it for now!

Categories: Photography, South America, Travel Photography Tags: , , , ,

South America Photo Catchup #6: La Paz, Bolivia

April 23, 2010 Leave a comment

To my deep shame, it’s been a month since my last South America photo post. Workload, and a number of current photo sessions got in the way. I am in danger, nearly 3 months on from getting home, of having forgotten what these pictures are actually of! My work load has slacked off a bit, now, and I have a strong desire to get the last of the South American photos up and blogged before a trip to Istanbul in mid-May, when I know I’ll have a whole new round of photo madness. 

In any case, to the photos. This time the shots are of La Paz, the chaotic, bustling, friendly, eye-opening capital of Bolivia. Perched in a valley gouged out of the Altiplano, La Paz is around 3,600m (11,800ft) and so any effort such as hill-climbing leaves you panting for air. Unfortunately, La Paz is made of hills. 

First some scene-setting shots:

Now some shots around the markets, especially the Witches Market, where one can acquire any manner of non-traditional medicines / unguents, including the all-purpose dried llama fetus.

Next some shots around the Plaza Murillo, the seat of government, where the folk-hero indigenous president Evo Morales presides. Ever since he’s come to power, he’s adopted a populist stance in this majority-indigenous country by welcoming all manner of different indigenous groups to visit him. ‘Most any time you go to the Plaza Murillo there are heaps of indigenous folk in traditional dress waiting their turn to go into the halls of power, mixing with riot police, all under the backdrop of bullet holes scored into walls from a not-too-distant uprising….

Speaking of Mr Morales, his name “EVO” is plastered everywhere in Bolivia, there having just been an election which he won handily. The fact that dire poverty exists in close proximity to his ads is very Bolivian. 

Categories: Photography, South America, Travel Photography Tags: , , , ,

South America Catchup Post #5: The Bolivian Amazon

March 23, 2010 Leave a comment

Between Christmas and New Years 2009 (both spent in La Paz, Bolivia) I spent a few days up in the Amazon Basin in Northern Bolivia. It was a few days of heaven, sleeping in a pretty basic riverside camp, and cruising up and down the river all day taking in the flora and fauna, of which there was a heaping abundance. I wrote a blog entry about the experience at the time, with a few photos for good measure. But I had neither the internet connection nor the computing power to edit and upload many of my photos from the excursion.

Clearly, the time is right to rectify this, and so I've uploaded a small selection of additional shots that I quite fancy. Enjoy!

Categories: Photography, South America, Travel Photography Tags: , , ,

South America Catchup Post #4: Photos from Lake Titicaca

March 22, 2010 Leave a comment

OK, so I already posted a few (3) photos from Titicaca way back in December when I first visited – post here – but I’ve been sitting on a whole heap of shots from the couple days we had out on the lake.

The first set of shots is from a little half day trip we took down the shore to Sawiña and the replica floating reed islands there. It was perhaps not the world’s most authentic tourist experience, but as we had arrived in Copacabana too late in the day to do much else, at least it got us out in a little reed canoe and out into the lake. It turned out to be a beautiful day and even the boatman’s grumpy son couldn’t put us off having a good time.

The second day got us a faster and yet longer boat trip out to the Isla del Sol, where an Aymara tour guide took us on a lung-busting rapid tour across the spine of the island, and no amount of coca leaves could disguise how desperately unfit I felt at altitude. But I still managed to hold my hand steady enough to take the odd landscape or two…

Categories: Photography, South America, Travel Photography Tags: , , ,

Report and photos from our tour of the Salar de Uyuni and Coloured Lakes

January 14, 2010 Leave a comment

[EDIT April 27th, 2010 – I have updated and replaced many of the photos herein since I’ve had access to my proper computer kit. Ahhh, Lightroom….]

Come round my friends and listen to a tale of high adventure, comedy, awe-inspiring scenery, and sunburnt lips. Bear with me as I try to recall the sequence of events some days after the fact and in a different country. 

 
As you will recall, the main players were myself, my old colleague Peter Hahndorf, and an older Australian horse trainer named Ken who I had first encountered in the Pampas in northern Bolivia. We had all made our way down to Uyuni on the ill-fated bus from Potosi, and we had entered Uyuni together, full of hope for the coming days. 
 
 
Uyuni is not a place that inspires hope. It is a dusty, fly-blown, windy, barren, frontier town of the sort that makes you expect everyone to scurry indoors when the regular shootouts between the sherriff and the cowboys take place. In short, it is a shithole. And it is completely, utterly overrun by a daily tide of backpackers, who ooze through the streets, drifting from hotel to tour agency to restaurant, sitting in groups in every available outdoor space, playing guitars, drinking, and swapping stories. 
 
 
So it was that we arrived, part of the great unwashed, and as per usual not having reserved either a hotel for the night or a tour for the next days. We had our hand forced on the hotel front by lack of availability, so we had to settle for a distinctly average place called the Hotel Mozon. Once settled in we went out in search of a tour to reserve. After some dicking about we settled on Oasis Tours as they had come highly recommended both in guidebooks and from fellow travellers. My dream of doing a 4-day tour was dashed on the shores of reality as a 4-day tour would have been greatly more expensive than the 3-day tour, and nobody was really up for it. Ah well. So we agreed to the 3-day tour and agreed to show up the next morning. 
 
Day 1 – Train Cemetery, Salar de Uyuni, San Juan
And so the next morning came and the first little shock was that the hotel had no water. At all. In the taps, in the shower, nothing to fill the toilet tank, nada. Not exactly ideal when you are already facing a few days of ropey or nonexistent plumbing yet to come. I ended up washing face and hands with bottled water. Felt like Glastonbury. Had my next shock when I got to the tour office only to be told that my rucksack was too big and could I please bring a smaller one. Thanks for fucking telling me that now! I had to race up to the market, grab the cheapest day pack I could ($4.50) and start cramming stuff into it, trying not to forget anything along the way. Not what you need at the last minute. 
 
But all news was not bad. To fill the other 3 seats in the Land Cruiser, the tour agency had helpfully recruited 3 20/21-year old Swiss girls (Anneux, Marie, and Virginie), who, if nothing else, would provide a youthful, feminine counterpart to our elderly, gruff and masculine presence. I am not sure how they felt with being lumbered with 3 guys who could have been their uncle, father, and grandfather. But we all seemed to get along so it worked out well in the end. Our guide was a Quechua with a lazy eye named Christian Castro (“soy el hijo de Fidel!” he joked) and we had a Quechuan whose name I never caught, who was our cook (and a fine one at that).
 
We finally got all our gear packed into the Land Cruiser and set off for our first stop just out of town – the Train Cemetery. This contains old rusting heaps of trains from the first era of train transportation in Bolivia, from the late 1800s. There we were allowed to clamber all over them (somewhat risky given all the sharp metal edges and rust) and I tried in vain to get some shots without other people in – which would become a recurring theme along this trip. As a lot of the 3-day trips followed roughly the same itinerary, at many points in this trip you would either arrive to find a dozen or more other Land Cruisers at the same spot, or they would be arriving imminently. 
 
 
 
In any case it was back in the car and up the road for 20km or so, stopping to photograph a herd of llamas, and then onto the Salar de Uyuni itself. But hang on, first the obligatory stop at a town on the edge of the Salar to peruse the market there and visit the poxy salt museum therein. I think we were all fairly keen to get out onto the Salar itself and nobody was particularly in the mood to buy salt llamas, salt cholitas, or salt dioramas.
 
Finally we reached the edge of the Salar and drove onto its shimmering white surface. Thin pools of water here and there betrayed the start of the rainy season. But my fears from weeks ago, that my visit would be too late and that we would be forced to skirt round the edges of the salt lakes as they would have filled in by now, were totally unfounded. The Salar was still totally navigable in mid January, happily. 
 
 
As we drove out onto the blinding salt, we saw a few campesinos here and there harvesting salt from the surface and piling it up for later collection. 
 
 
We stopped the car and got out to take pictures of these salt mounds floating eerily above millimetre-thin pools of water. Instantly I knew the tour was already worth it for me. 
 
 
 
 
We carried on into the Salar, and as we got further into it, we made the obligatory stop at the salt hotel, built out of (you guessed it) blocks of salt. All the furnishings, tables, beds etc were made from blocks of salt. Well I imagine they were, anyway, as you had to pay to go in and look, and that was a ripoff too far for me. I was happy to stay outside and marvel at the signs on every exterior wall reading “please don’t piss here” – I suppose for reasons of structural integrity. 
 
 
We remounted the jeep and sallied forth deep into the Salar. Soon we were far enough away from all reference points that distance became relative and all horizons became mirages, reflecting the faraway islands and mountains in mirror images. 
 
 
Soon we came to the Isla Pescado, which in the proper wet season is an actual island, but in the dry season is a hill jutting abruptly out of the salt bed. Covered with cactii and their attendant bird life, it is a marvellous little interruption in the otherworldly journey through the salt. 
 
 
 
 
While we clambered, breathless at altitude, to the top of the hill, our guide and cook set up a lunch table in proper style (table cloths and proper plates and cups) and we chowed down with smug smiles on our face. 
 
Later we wandered out onto the salt lake for our obligatory “crazy photos” using the forced-perspective possibilities offered by an unbroken white surface stretching for miles in every direction. Much fun was to be had photographing people fighting with toy lizards 1/10th their size, or appearing to spring out of Pringles cans, or standing on each others’ heads. What nobody told us beforehand though was that the surface of the salt was not exactly bone-dry, and a recent rain meant that sitting or lying on the surface left a healthy coating of damp salt on every affected body part.
 
Soon it was time to remount the jeep and head off South again, exiting the Salar, but not before a fun interlude at the southern edge where we sailed through millimetre-thin water, giving us a small taste of what it would have been like in the proper wet season. I wasted no time sticking my head up through the sunroof.
 
 
We left the Salar and joined one of the dirt roads running along the periphery of the lake, occasionally having to dodge trucks or other jeeps coming the other way. After a while we left the Salar entirely and headed south into the foothills, finally coming to a small village called San Juan, where we were to overnight in a very basic alojamiento (basic bed, one light bulb on a wire, 5 Bolivianos to have a shower in a concrete square). It is a testament to our era that the first thing many people did upon entering is enquire after electrical sockets to charge camera batteries and iPhones. I had charged all my gear and spare batteries before leaving, so I was OK for the duration of the trip. 
 
While the cook was preparing our dinner, Snr Castro suggested we go and have a look at “the caverns”, saying something about Inca ruins, and vaguely pointed out the direction for us to walk, pointing at some faraway hills. He neglected to join us, and so of course we set off in a slightly wonky direction, walking through a large herd of llamas and generally getting a bit lost. We did find a big rock, but nothing suggesting caverns. We turned back at a tangent and  eventually came across a rock wall surrounding some oddly shaped volcanic rock formations, almost like eggs standing upright. We climbed over the wall, increasingly sure this had something to do with the “caverns” and the Incas. We were also reasonably sure that this looked like something we should be paying to enter. But we were feeling adventurous and cheeky. And also slightly cynical. The “eggs” were meant to be Inca burial chambers, but the bones inside could not have been more than 50 years old. Inca, my arse. One of the skulls was wearing a hat, for Christ’s sake. 
 
 
Ken was so nonplussed by this that he climbed inside one of the crypts and held up one of the thigh bones for a photo, which everyone else thought was a bit much. But he expunged his guilt, and a possible Inca curse, by being the only one to pay the entry fee on the way out. The rest of us just strode out, unwilling to pay 10 Bolivianos for something which was so clearly a tourist rip-off put into place simply due to San Juan being a stop-off point for the Salar tours. 
 
All was well though, because there was a spectacular sunset to be had on the way back.
 
 
 
 
Afterwards we had our dinner (lasagna, pretty decent except for the everpresent foul Bolivian cheese) and Peter, myself, and the Swiss girls decided to walk into the village as we were convinced we had seen a bar on the way in. However, the town was in utter pitch black darkness, we could quite easily have gotten very lost, and there was nary a person, dog, or bar to be seen anywhere. We found the one open grocery store, bought some beer, and headed back. We were the last ones up at 9:30PM. 
 
Day 2 – The Lagunas
It was up earlyish (7AM) to get a head start on visiting the Lagunas, but first off was a quick stop to get a view of the volcano Ollague, looming in the horizon. The volcanoes and rock formations were to dominate the rest of the trip, and every time we turned a corner a new otherworldly scene would take our breath away. 
 
 
 
We headed ever south, visiting the Laguna Cañapa, Laguna Hedionda, Laguna Chiarcota, and the Laguna Honda. Each lake had a slightly different setting, but all were surrounded by lush mountain scenery, and all contained a unique brew of volcanic minerals that gave each a certain sheen or colour, and attracted all manner of birdlife and other fauna, with thousands of flamengos feeding and frolicking on each lake, and llamas surrounding a couple of the lakes. I took advantage of my waterproof boots and was able to get up close and personal with some of the flamengos, though I am not sure they were that happy about it. This was a spectacular day, and every time we got out of the car there was a fresh intake of breath. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
After lunch at one of the lakes (Honda, I think), we set off into the Desierto de Siloli, where we stopped momentarily to admire the Wolf’s Mouth, a rock formation in the surrounding foothills. We continued on to another cluster of volcanic rocks jutting out of the desert floor, amongst them the famous Arbol de Piedra, or Rock Tree. This is a free standing rock formation with a tiny base and a large top. My guidebook says it is in danger of imminent collapse and should not be touched, let alone climbed upon. However, some prick Argentinean teenagers were doing just that, attempting to climb on it, throwing reasonable sized stones at it, and generally hanging about and spoiling other peoples photos. So I told them to piss off, and felt very smug. The old problem of dozens of jeeps showing up at the same time reared its head again though, and it was very difficult trying to get a shot of the thing without people in the way. I ended up spending more time wandering off by myself in the other rocks. We continued south, through ever more impressive scenery. 
 
 
 
 
 
Our last lake of the day was the biggest and in some ways the most famous – the Laguna Colorado, or Coloured Lake. But before we got there we had to face down the rangers at the park entrance, who were in danger of being overrun by an angry mob of gringos and tour guides, incensed at the recent price hike for the park entrance. Prior to January 1st it had been 30 Bolivianos. However the new year saw a new price – a 5x increase to 150 Bolivianos. There was a tense standoff, when everyone was ejected from the park office while the rangers went into closed conference. A half hour later the chief emerged and said that he had been on the radio with La Paz and that he was authorised – for one day only – to charge 30 Bolivianos again. Applause all round. 
 
We finally got to the lake shore and I must admit to a bit of lake fatigue, as I didn’t find it all that impressive. However there was much fun to be had down on the proper shore, as there were several families of llama grazing, and some young or newborn llamas were cavorting around, generally being cute. Of course, that was until the same dickhead Argentinean teenagers showed up and started hurling rocks in the vicinity of the llamas, scaring them. Once again, I told them to piss off, and once again, I felt smug. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Well, I felt smug until we headed up to our lodging for the night, an alojamiento complex even more basic than the last, with apparently no running water, non-functional toilets, and a big six-bed room for all of us. Fantastic. Ken was in a bad way too, as a wobbly dental bridge was coming loose in his mouth, and he opted out of the rest of the evening. We were sharing our building with one other tour group from Oasis, and then a large, maybe 15-person Japanese tour group down the hall. The Japanese were not holding up well in the altitude (we were generally between 4000m-4500m all day) and several of them looked distinctly ropey. We wondered if they had flown in directly and not had time to acclimatize. We had a dinner of pique macho and 3 bottles of red wine between 5, not to mention the surprise addition of mulled wine from the cook as a little bit of a last night treat. While we were winding down our evening, the Japanese were not getting any better, with one little teenage boy in a really bad way, being massaged by their group medic. I offered them some of my Sorojchi altitude pills (they are bloody life savers) and suggested to the medic that the boy really ought to be taken down to a lower altitude. But the medic simply replied, “No, he has to go up tomorrow”. I must admit this was a surprising response from someone in charge of the group’s health.
 
Day 3 – Hot springs, Salvador Dali, Chilean border, and return to Uyuni
Day 3 started dark and early at 4AM. I had had a bad sleep and was awake anyway, so I was out in the freezing dark helping the cook and the guide stow the gear on the jeep while the others packed and dressed. We were on the road by 4:40 or so and I marvelled at the guide’s ability to pick the right dirt track out of dozens as we crested sand dune after sand dune and made seemingly random turns in the middle of the desert, in pitch darkness. 
 
We came to a set of volcanic steam vents and geysers, and, still in darkness, ventured into the cold to muck around with the geysers a bit. I had seen pictures in the brochure, so I walked right up to the main geyser and stuck my hand into it, which elicited a shock from the Swiss girls, who didn’t know better and were expecting me to come away with a stump where my hand had been. 
 
 
As dawn approached, we made our way to the Aguas Termales, where we were offered the chance to bathe in a hot spring and watch the sun come up. To be brutally honest, the little pool they had set up by the edge of the lake did not look that inviting, and I much preferred to keep shooting pictures of the fumes and gases coming off the lake proper as the sun rose. I had a grand time walking out into the lake, but I broke through the mineral crust into the chemical ooze a couple of times and I am sure that at some point in the future my boots will actually just up and disintegrate. Soon enough the jeep invasion arrived and the hot spring pool was full of cavorting South Americans, some of whom didn’t look terribly bad in bikinis. A quick breakfast in the lodge and then it was back in the jeep and South again, towards the Chilean border. 
 
 
 
 
First off though was a ride through the Desierto Salvador Dali, so named for the strange rock formations found in its valley, then on to the final lake of the trip, the Laguna Verde, where we hopped out for a final photo opp. Once again, there was otherworldly grandeur in every direction, though to a degree we were suffering from awe fatigue. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The time had come for one of us to part ways – Peter was continuing on to Chile via the border crossing at Hito Cajones. This is a pretty amusing little frontier crossing, it being two buildings and two bar gates smack in the middle of a desert pass, with miles of open ground on either side. Not exactly lock tight security, but I guess it would be hard to sneak by without somebody noticing. We left Peter to wait for the bus that would take him into Chile. 
 
We started heading North again, and covered a lot of the same ground, until veering to the East towards the Valle de Rocas, another random volcanic rock formation sprouting out of the desert floor. 
 
It was off then through some mountain passes (encountering a lost motorcyclist along the way) to the Villa Alota for lunch, where we were able to wander off for a bit through the valley-floor oasis of a stream with peat bog around it, upon which yet more llamas were grazing. Randomly, on a rock outcropping above the town was a tail section of a small Bolivian Air Force plane. 
 
 
From lunch onwards was a relatively uneventful trek back through the desert back to Uyuni. The weather was kicking up a bit, and we saw many dust devils, as well as one mini-tornado (a funnel actually coming from the cloud above). 
 
 
 
We stopped at a little shithole town called San Cristobal, I think just so Snr Castro could take a break from driving, and the only positive I got from it was this photo of a little kid who was actually riding along in one of the other tour groups’ jeep. 
 
 
The last stretch of road before Uyuni took a bit longer than it should have, mostly due to the gigantic dust storm and mini-tornado we had to dodge along the way. We were going to drive right into it, but it got a bit hairy, as you can see from this video. 
 
 
Once the worst of it passed, we headed back to Uyuni through the choking dust, and emerged out of the other side to see the leading edge of the storm pointed straight at Uyuni. 
 
 
Once back in town, we tipped the guide and the cook, collected our stuff, and Ken and I said goodbye to the girls. Then it was off to catch the bus to La Paz. 
 
I was truly blown away by everything we saw on this trip – it was an out-of-this-world experience and I cannot recommend a tour of southwest Bolivia highly enough.
 
 
 
 
 
Categories: Photography, South America, Travel Photography Tags: , , , ,

Back from a fantastic tour, now off to La Paz and thence Peru

January 10, 2010 Leave a comment

A quick note while we´re waiting for the overnight bus to La Paz:

We made it back safely from a spellbinding, harrowing, jaw dropping
tour of the salt flats of the Salar de Uyuni, the various coloured
lakes, and the Martian volcanic landscape and desert of Southwestern
Bolivia. A full report with photos will come in the next day or two
when I have a chance to upload photos and put my thoughts down.

We (myself and a new trip buddy, an older Aussie horse trainer named
Ken) are shortly off to La Paz, arriving 7AM or so. I plan to have at
least 1 night back in La Paz so I can have a “down day” to sort out
internet stuff, do laundry, etc, before another overnight bus over
into Peru with a final destination of Cusco, where I hope to sort out
some sort of expedition to Macchu Picchu. I doubt I will do the “full”
Inca Trail (thought of being stuck with strangers for a 5 day hike
does not appeal) but I may do the “jungle trail” which involves
mountain biking, bits of the Inca Trail, and some more varied
activities to suit my total lack of attention span. Anyway that is
another country, and a few days from now. For the time being I need to
try and stay conscious long enough to make it on tonight´s bus, it´s
been a hell of a 3 days and we were up at 4AM today to play with
geysers.

Oh and for everyone who´s emailed or Facebook´d me recently: I will
try to catch up in the next couple of days as well. Cheers y´all!

Categories: Photography, South America, Travel Photography Tags: , ,

In Uyuni, preparing to tour the Salar

January 8, 2010 Leave a comment

We arrived in Uyuni today after a harrowing 7 hour bus journey
involving two tire changes (one to change the original tire, the
second to put the original, knackered tire back on) and many extra
passengers in the aisles, including children and pet dogs, and some
Quechua peasants who hadn´t seen the inside of a shower in a few
weeks. The road was dirt all the way, and had been washed away at
several points. Our bags were on the top of the bus, which was
somewhat concerning as we passed through a hail storm. What was more
concerning is that we were travelling with the same company that had
last night taken a corner at speed and tipped the bus over on its
side, scaring everyone to death, requiring another truck to winch it
upright, and continuing the rest of the journey, at least 2 hours,
with no headlights. Genius.

We arrived in Uyuni, at the edge of the great salt flats, with no
small relief. We had to settle for a random hotel ($7 per night) but
that´s ok as we take off first thing Friday for a 3 day tour of the
salt flats and the coloured lakes. I will therefore probably be out of
all contact (my phone doesnt work in this town either) until at least
Sunday or Monday. But I will in all probability be returning with some
very full, satisfied memory cards from my cameras. Can´t wait!

Categories: South America Tags: , , ,

Visiting the mines of Cerro Rico, Potosi

January 6, 2010 Leave a comment

Today we finally got around to taking the tour of the Cerro Rico mines. Various folks on the road had said that this was simultaneously a horrific and an essential experience to have. Other folks had said that you didn't know Potosi until you knew the mines, so we put all excuses aside and went for it.

I was game for it, but slightly anxious due to my faint knowledge of the 470-year history of the mines and the number of people (estimated at 8 million) who had perished inside the great Cerro Rico mountain during the colonial period of Spanish rule. Today around 25 miners a year die in accidents within these mines (compare that to 45 a year in all of the USA for all mines nationwide). And many more die from post-mine complications such as lung disease.

Our tour began at 8:45AM. We were led from the hostel up to a waiting bus, which whisked us up to the foot of the massive, imposing Cerro Rico, home of all the storied riches of Potosi.

There the tour company had a staging area where we were all to change into "miner's kit" consisting of gum boots, over trousers, jacket, hardhat, and web belt with battery for the headlamp. Then it was off to the miner's market, where our guide, Efraim, proceeded to throw sticks of dynamite at us, hold the sticks over an open flame, hold them in his mouth, and generally try to reassure us that without the requisite detonators and fuses, the dynamite was relatively safe.

So we all bought "gift bags" of dynamite+detonator+fuse together with a 2L bottle of soft drink, to give to the miners we encountered along the way. We were also encouraged to by big bags of coca leaves, at 5 Bolivianos a go, partly to help us through the mines, but partly to give out handfuls to miners as gifts.

Next stop was the processing plants, where the extracted rock from the mines was separated into silver, zinc, lead, and waste product. In a good load the waste product was only 85%, and that wasn't so common these days. The processing plants were mud huts with real Rube Goldberg devices separating out the various minerals through use of different chemical solvents – including several open tanks full to the brim with liquid cyanide, which was splashing out onto the floor every once in a while. We saw the extracted product, which didn't look like much, but I suppose it's enough to keep 120 families, and 5000 miners working in appalling conditions.

Finally it was D-Day, H-Hour, and we made our way slowly up the side of Cerro Rico to the entrance of the Candelaria mine, which has been in use since Conquistador days. Just as we were about to enter the mine, a motorised mine car train shot out of the entrance and missed us by inches. We entered, excited and nervous.

What followed was an incursion into the mines that took us 800m into the mountain and 55m down from the entrance – 4 levels. The passageways varied from spacious near the entrance to downright cramped – on several occasions we were on hands and knees and even then our backs were scraping the ceiling. And the passageways by which you made your descents and ascents were often little more than slanted tunnels, which due to the helmets and headlamps getting in the way, often meant you couldn't really see more than a few feet ahead of you. Dust filled the air, and rubble from those above you cascaded down around you. Soon you were filthy, hands caked in dust and grime, and you wondered if it were worth it to use your precious water for cleanliness rather than thirst. All the while, lungs bursting from the closeness of the air, the dust, and the all-pervading altitude – the entrance to Candelaria being around 4300m up – the highest I had ever been.

But this was all part of the experience, and any self-pity any of us might have indulged in was completely erased by the knowledge – and regular reminders – that generations of Potosians -almost all Quechuas – had spent the majority of their adolescent and adult lives in these very trying conditions.

We met a number of miners, from a 14-year-old boy to a 45-year-old veteran who had been working the mines since age 10. He was definitely at the upper end of the age range of the miners, as most of his contemporaries would have retired by then, either voluntarily or through the onset of lung disease. These were gruff fellows, but became friendly after a gift of dynamite and cola.

Our last stop was to pay a visit to Tio ("Uncle") also known as El Diablo, though in a "Lord of the Underground" sense rather than a Prince of Evil sense. This was a life-sized, clay figure wearing miner's gumboots, with an open mouth in which cigarettes could be placed, and an immense phallus – in this case broken, one hopes not as an omen. Every Friday and on special occasions, offerings of coca leaves, alcohol and other mining necessities are placed on and around the icon. Every mine in Cerro Rico has at least one, if not more of these icons. I offered a few coca leaves, just to be on the safe side. I seem to have made it back, so I guess it can't have hurted.

We have bought our bus tickets to Uyuni tomorrow, as apparently have the entire rest of this hostel. With luck this means we should be able to start a 4-day tour of the Uyuni salt flats and the coloured lakes on Friday, finishing Monday. Then for me it is looking like a large trek up back through Oruro, La Paz, and then onto Peru. My whole planned itinerary has been turned on its arse: rather than 2 weeks in Bolivia and 4 in Peru, it looks to end up the other way round. I'll be lucky to get Cuzco and Macchu Picchu in before I have to head for Lima and my flight back to Buenos Aires.

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First impressions of Potosi

January 5, 2010 Leave a comment

I am interested in the process by which first impressions are made. It is difficult to judge South American towns and cities accurately until you've had some time to get used to them. The experience of arriving at every new South American town or city inevitably involves a journey through the poverty-stricken slums on the outskirts, usually ending at a chaotic bus terminal in only slightly more salubrious surroundings, and the net result of this process is that the visitor has to struggle not to immediately declare: "What a shithole." In some cases that judgement turns out to be accurate. 

Not, I am glad to say, in the case of Potosi. Though it is certainly faded from its silver-mining colonial boomtown days of the 16th and 17th centuries, there is still a mountain of character and charm in its layout, architecture, and pace of life. The pace of life has to be slow, at this altitude nothing happens at speed. 

I bumped into Peter Hahndorf again, my old friend from the Saltmine days, and we're potentially going to be doing a mine tour in the Cerro Rico mountain which looms over this town later today, if we are feeling up to it. I am a little out of sorts, though whether due to the altitude or the llama burger I ate last night is up for debate. 

My netbook hard drive is making funny noises again, certainly glad I have a backup. I am already at 32GB of photos and only halfway through my trip, with several photographic big hitters left in my itinerary (Uyuni salt flats, coloured lakes, Macchu Picchu to name a few). Hope the netbook does the distance!
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Sucre’s Mercado Central

January 4, 2010 1 comment

I had a visit to the Mercado Central this morning to grab a saltena (a kind of an empanada with meat or chicken, gravy and potatoes inside) and to see the market on a working day. I had been there on Saturday but it was a sad affair then, with the odd Quechua farmer selling a handful of raggedy beets. Today was a much more lively affair, as a lot of folks from the outskirts come into town on a Monday to get shopping, bank business etc done, and the market was in full swing. Still can't quite get over the heaps of unrefrigerated beef and chicken being sold, but I guess that's what you get when you're ordering beef at $3 a kilo (!).  

I am off to Potosi shortly, which amongst other things is the highest city of its size in the world at an average of 4000m or 13100ft. The Irazoque family kindly furnished me with some altitude pills, and I think my mate de coca consumption rate will skyrocket there. In Potosi it will definitely be a case of slow and steady wins the race. 
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