Fiestas Patrias and a day in the mines

Friday night out with the school crowd was a lot of fun. We had food and drinks at the school with a good turnout of teachers and students and later went to a karaoke bar and then two danceclubs. So I defintely got the full Sucre nightlife experience. Saturday night I hung out in the hostel with some other travelers and Sunday got up early to meet fellow students Duncan and Catherine to visit the Sunday markets in Tarabuco. Tarabuco is about 65 km from Sucre and is known for its market and the traditional dress of the locals. There is also a staue of a Bolivian man standing over the corpse of a Spaniard as he is just about to eat the dead man´s heart. The story is that the Spaniard had raped and killed his wife and children and eating the heart of a defeated foe was supposed to give you their lifepower. Interesting (if morbid) stuff. We had a good time wandering the market (which takes up most of the town) and later hung out at Catherine and Duncan´s hostel and went for a local dinner. Actually Duncan and Catherine´s hostel became my other home for the rest of the week. I had my second week of classes in Sucre which I felt went even better than the first. I am still not fluent, but I think I have definitely improved (thanks Omar!). Monday night a couple of us went to watch a documentary about life in the mines of Potosi. Much more on that later, but if you get a chance to see The Devil´s Miner, I definitely recommend it.

Thursday was Bolivia´s Fiestas Patrias (Independence Day). The festivities actually kicked off Tuesday night with music and parades. Pretty much the majority of the celebration is music and parades but there are tons and tons of them. It is mandatory for all students and many people of differing occupations to participate in the parades. The town was completely covered in flags. The Pesident, Evo, made an appearance (and to everyone´s pleasant surprise there were no riots or major protests) with a pre-recorded speech. The town was full of campesinos and miners who came in to see Evo but I missed most of that due to classes. It was really cool to be in the capital for Independence Day though! Friday was my last day of classes and my last night in Sucre so a group from school met at my second home and then went out for tapas. It was a great end to my time there. I miss Sucre and my friends there already.

Yesterday I headed to Potosi which at 4060 meters (over 13,000 feet) is the highest city in the world. My main reason for visiting was to do a tour of the silver mines. The tour didn´t disappoint. We first went to get geared up in protective clothing, boots, and hard hats with lights on them. Then we split into groups of 8 or less by language (I went with the Spanish group) and headed to the miners market. In the market we bought gifts of dynamite and soda for the miners. In the morning, you gift coca leaves as well since the miners chew it all day, but in the afternoons they have enough. In Potosi anyone can walk into a store and buy dynamite- even kids. From the market we went up to the plant where they separate the silver from the rock and other minerals and watched the machines in action. Then we headed to the mines. I had heard the stories and knew that the excursions into the mines was no picnic, but I wanted to experience it for myself. Tourists are not coddled, we are there facing the same conditions as the miners do every day, albeit for a much shorter duration. Potosi is quite cold in winter so of course it was very cold when we entered on level one. It immediately got completely dark so we needed to use our head lanterns (miner issue). The walkways vary from big enough to walk in comfortably to so small you have to crawl on your hands and knees. To get from level to level, you need to scramble up or down steep grades or shaky ladders in the dark and at time the path ends and you need to traverse wooden boards or rocks to get across. We crawled up to level zero (because the level numbers go up as you descend) and immediately the temperature changed here it was HOT. So hot we were all sweating profusely where we´d been shivering just moments before. We met our first miner who talked to us as he worked and answered our questions. He had his 12 year old son with him. This is not uncommon in the mines. A couple of guys tried to use the big metal hammer and rod the miner used to make a hole in the rock and were far slower. It was a good demonstration of the strength needed to do this for hours on end. We went down to level two and hung out with another miner. The amount of dust in the air in the tunnels made it hard to breathe and our paper masks did little to help (plus it is more of a hinderance when you are panting and sweating). We finished our tour about two and a half hours after we entered the mine on level three. Here we got to see the mine´s Tio who is the local god of the mine (more like a devil). All of the mines have a Tio and the miners leave offerings of coca leaves, alcohol and cigarettes daily when they enter. Also on the way out it got so cold that there were icicles hanging from the walls of the mine. We were all exhausted and filthy. After we left the mine, we got a dynamite demonstration. Our guide put the fuse into the dynamite, lit it, passed it around so we could take pictures, planted it in the ground a little ways away, and ran back so we could watch it explode. I don´t think you get that on any tours in the US... Anyway, it was tough but I´m really glad I did it. The tour really makes you feel for the miners (who earn about 25 cents per kilo of silver they harvest).

OK, this computer is crazily slow so hopefully this will post. More soon!