The Ups and Downs of Bolivia

Up

Other than a good dinner from excellent Llama meat and tasty Quinoa puree, Uyuni didn't offer much to keep us there so we left the same night – to go to the highest city in the world: Potosi. At 4070 m above sea level, this Unesco World Heritage City owes its former splendor and current fame to the silver that was first discovered in the Cerro Rico in the 16^th century. The city was once the largest and wealthiest city of South America and beautiful architecture, grand plazas and monuments still bare witness of that time. It is long over, though, as the silver has been depleted years ago. Nonetheless 50.000 men and young boys (mostly indigenous, very poor people from the countryside) still work in the mines today - under horrible conditions. Over the years, more than 8 million men died in the mines – the Cerro Rico is locally known as 'the mountain that eats men'.

We got to Potosi at night and caught our first real glimpse of the city the next morning – when we woke up to sunshine, mild temperatures and the old city center directly in front of the hostel. A beautiful, ornate cathedral, narrow alleyways lined with colonial houses and tree shaded plazas with springs and monuments awaited. The highlight were the people that filled the streets and places in a loud, colorful and chaotic tangle. Heavy women with beautiful faces, long black braided pony tails, colorful layers of clothes and bowler hats lined the streets to sell their fare. Teenagers in school uniform were talking about the latest music and fashion trends. Shoeshine boys (and men) offered there services to newspaper reading business people. And amidst this beautiful mix of age, culture and social stand sat three Europeans (we're still with Stephan from the Uyuni-Tour), enjoying an ice cream while leisurely people-watching. We found the beautiful side of Potosi right away – and we loved it! Even more so, of course, when we stumbled upon a great family run restaurant with local food for very little money. Great soups (with lots of fat against the cold), incredibly tasty potato-meat-salsa-rice-mixtures of every sort (with even more fat against the cold) and fresh fruit for less than two dollars are the standard lunch menu (almuerzo) in Bolivia and we soon became great fans!

Down

We got the chance to watch an incredibly touching documentary about the Potosi mines before going there. It is called 'The devil's miners' – if you ever get the chance to watch it, do so! It doesn't only tell you much about the Potosi mines but also about the harsh reality of every day life of most Bolivian people. The movie prepared us for our tour to the mines and left us very sensitive towards the miners' beliefs, rituals and lifestyle. The tour to the mines started at the miners' market, a little ways up the mountain from the city center. Very cheap fare is on sale here and only the poor buy their food, clothes and, sadly, medicine here. We bought gifts for the miners: Coca leaves that they chew on to gather strenght for their long shifts in the mines during which they neither eat nor rest, beer and schnaps that they drink to make their work more bearable and dynamite that they need for their daily work. Potosi is the only place in the world where everyone can simply buy dynamite and everything else needed to let it explode on a free market. The storage and handling of the explosives, coupled with the enjoyment of large amounts of alcohol is scary enough...From the market we went up the mountain to the working mine that we took a tour of. We met miners and drank with them while they made rude jokes about gringos in general and women in particular – and then we entered their hell. Inside the mines, the temperature was high, the air was thick with poisonous gases and dust and the low, narrow and steep shafts and rusty ladders made us crawl and climb (definitely a no-go-zone for all claustrophobes!). Somewhere in the darkness our guide gave us a couple of demonstration blasts from the dynamite we had brought. The explosions came from deep down below, as he threw the self made bombs into a deep shaft, but they were still incredibly loud, dusty and the shock wave hit us without warning in the dark. At the end of the tour, during which we learned a lot about the working methods and beliefs of the miners, we went to el Tio. The miners are mostly very religious men that worship a christian God above ground, but as soon as they enter the mines, God cannot reach them any more. In the hell of the mountain, they pray to the devil, el Tio. Every mine has a Tio-statue where the miners go to bring sacrifices - from coca leaves over cigarettes to Llama-blood - and bid for safe and successful work. The Tio actually came from the Spanish. They wanted the indigenous people to work in the mines, so when the local people refused to work there, the Spanish had to come up with an idea to make them keep going down into the mountain. They made use of the superstition of the locals and brought a statue of a horrible looking devil to them and told them that this was the god (el dio) of the mountain who would punish everyone who left the mines. The locals didn't have the consonant 'd' in their language, so 'el dio' became 'el tio' and nowadays it is long forgotten that it means 'God' but it is simply the devil of the Cerro Rico, the mountain that eats men.

The tour down into the dark mines was shocking and rewarding at the same time, as we learned a lot about poverty and what it makes people do. We won't soon forget how privileged we really are.

And up again

After our time in the highest city in the world, our next stop naturally took us back down, but only in altitude. We went to the old capital (and still the judicial capital) of Bolivia, the 'white city' of Sucre. The Unesco World Heritage city dazzles with beautiful whitewashed colonial buildings, flowery plazas, cafes and hip bars galore and chaotic markets for great local food – so no one can really argue that this was another Bolivian 'Up'.

In addition to that, the beautiful landscape around Sucre has a lot to offer to fans of outdoor activities – and we chose rock-climbing. So yes, it went up and up and up. It was our first time climbing and it went really well. We had a lot of fun with our guide and almost made it up every wall and way she proposed to us. Where one of us failed, the other was able to make it – so it was a very successful and proud day.

In Sucre, not only we went up a wall, though. Millions of years ago, hundreds of different species of dinosaurs roamed the region around Sucre, that, back then, was located at the shore of an ancient lake. The footsteps they left were conserved and, when the landscape changed and the Andes began to form, they were pushed upwards. When a cement-factory found the biggest amount of dinosaur steps that has ever been found in the whole world by accident, they found them on a vertical wall. 

Today, a small theme park with a museum and movie-room for introductory films about the dinosaurs and their distinction is formed around the steps, that cover a huge wall. The longest dinosaur trail ever found is located here. You can see steps of 1m diameter from giant herbivores and interpret the speed of the three-toed carnivores, that were on the hunt along the shoreline. It's a fascinating sight! And once you're finished with the dinosaur steps, you take a look back into the direction you came from (Sucre) and see the city in its photogenic surroundings – rolling mountainsides and valleys, colorful vegetation and moon-landscapes and beautiful Sucre in the middle of it all. What a great view!