Before I start it's worth giving you a bit of context to this mine 'tour'. It's in Potosi which is in the highest city in the world. Miners as young as 14 work there if they're deemed 'strong' and from their start date they have a life expectancy of a further 15 years due to the conditions they work in.
This is a dangerous, working mine. A maze of cramped tunnels requiring some agility just to get to around. It's dark, dusty and smelly. There's nowhere else in the world that would have EVER let tourist go into this mine...only in Bolivia!!!
We started the day in a minibus with our guide Chaski, an ex miner aged 28 but looked closer to 40! The tour consisted of 4 English and 2 Brazilians. Chaski took us first to the miners market, an area where the miners go for supplies and we could buy gifts for them.
At the Market the gifts on offer were coca leaves, 98% alcohol, cognac, dynamite and orange squash. We were encouraged to buy a bit of everything which cost about £3. Our guide explained that mother earth 'Pachamama' is really the only God they care about (there's Catholicism from the Spanish too but was enforced). Therefore everything they use or consume in the mine has to be pure I.e pure alcohol, coca leaves, no food equals good quality minerals for them.
So with our plastic bag of goodies (and slight nervousness about carrying dynamite) we got kitted out in overalls, wellies and head lamps and headed to the entrance to the mine.
Walking crouched over along a rail track heading deep into the mountain, the combination of the air thinning, the dust, the air rushing in the overhead pipes (sounded suspiciously like a gas leak) made us all quite nervous and little on edge. We sat down in a small cave where a shrine of the mountain devil (part of Pachamama) resides. We had to give it an offering of coca leaves, alcohol (also having a swig ourselves) and a couple of cigarettes whilst asking it to protect us in the mine.
Armed with a taste of 98% alcohol running through our veins, we continued deeper and all felt much better. Taking on a Krypton Factor style assault course for the next 20 minutes we eventually ended up in a tiny cave with a huge amount of dust and three equally dusty miners.
The miners were boring holes ready for the insertion of dynamite. We stayed briefly in this inhospitable environment and then made our way '1 floor' down where it was less dusty.
Between us we'd bought about 5 bottles of alcohol, cigarettes and coca leaves. The miners shortly followed to join us in our cave. They started mixing the alcohol with orange juice then we were required to take a shot of the very potent liquid, pour a bit on the ground for mother earth and then knock back the rest. As you can imagine we all got pretty merry very quickly and it was only 11am!!
Suddenly out of nowhere there was a huge boom, feeling the force of the explosion right through your body...then another . The dynamite from the dusty upstairs cave was going off. We were all quite jumpy when our guide explained that we were quite safe in our cave - i'm glad he was so confident!!
After the explosions we made our way out of the cave and down the tunnel towards the light, it didn't seem anywhere near as dark and daunting as when we came in. The question is had we grown more confident or had the 98% alcohol given us more Dutch courage than we realised?!?
-- Posted from Miranda's iPhone
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
Top Gear Special / Road to Mendoza
Top Gear is one constant I've sustained in my life since leaving the UK (thanks Piratebay), and happily learnt they were doing a SA special featuring Bolivia (thanks Dad for the reminder). Anyway we managed to watch it this morning and were amazed by just how similar their route was! It's nice that those of you who caught it got an (overly dramatic) overview of the Death Road and Bolivia as a whole, one thing they couldn't skew was just how desolate the Atacama really is... miles and miles of nothing!
Anyway, we're all packed up now, my iPhone is loaded with some new songs in anticipation of the 17hr journey to Mendoza, which thankfully is on asphalt!
See you on the other side, dazed, confused and hopefully with a glass of wine!
Emily, we'd both like to wish you a very happy belated birthday, it completely slipped me... which seems to be happening a lot lately, speaking of which, does anybody have a pair of North Face shoes lying around?
Speak soon, ciao!!
Anyway, we're all packed up now, my iPhone is loaded with some new songs in anticipation of the 17hr journey to Mendoza, which thankfully is on asphalt!
See you on the other side, dazed, confused and hopefully with a glass of wine!
Emily, we'd both like to wish you a very happy belated birthday, it completely slipped me... which seems to be happening a lot lately, speaking of which, does anybody have a pair of North Face shoes lying around?
Speak soon, ciao!!
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Part 2...extreme bike ride and more extreme curry.
So the last proper installment took us to the Death Road, which James briefly mentioned. There's an awful lot of hype about this bike ride; most of the companies have had a very serious injury or a fatality, YouTube has it's fair share of footage to put anyone off and hostel gossip means everyone's heard of 'someone last week who broke their arm/leg/head'.
The day began at 6.30am where Madness (our tour company) fed and watered us and then kitted us head to toe in safety equipment. The eight of us (4 English, 1 Irish, 2 Spanish and 1 German) all piled into a minibus and started the 1hour drive to the start of the biking. Everyone was in good spirits apart from the Spanish girl who seemed a bit quiet but no one thought anything of it.
We got on our bikes and set off downhill in clear conditions with Tarmac beneath our tyres. We were travelling downhill as fast as our bikes would take us (annoyingly James seemed to be able to propel his bike that bit faster than mine, regardless of how many aerodynamic shapes I attempted to make with my torso!!). Great views, wind in our hair, this was a breeze.
After about 30 minutes we came to a tunnel with a gravel track running parallel. It became clear rather quickly that this was the end of the good road, the good weather (mist, zero visibility, light rain) and the easy ride. We set off again this time with me directly behind the guide (the weird body shapes were obviously working) when literally out of nowhere there was an enormous lorry heading straight for us emerging from the mist a couple of metres in front of the bikes. Now I know what you're thinking, if I was that lorry driver with zero visibility, going uphill on the death road on a blind bend, I wouldn't bother to stick my lights on either!!!! Myself and the guide reacted quickly with her forking to the right and me to the left, narrowly missing both of us. Luckily the only injury was to our nerves which were a bit rattled.
The zero visibility made the road itself feel more unsafe however it did mean we couldn't see any of the big drops so actually felt quite tame at the top. As we dropped in altitude the mist cleared and we got our first glimpse of what all the fuss is about...spectacular views experienced on great quality mountain bikes on such a fun road.
The road itself is 64km of mainly downhill with a couple of kms uphill. Everyone tackled the uphill with relative ease apart from the Spanish girl who'd got off her bike and pushed it up the modest hill-odd we thought!
The final stretch involved some fun twists and turns in the gravel track, cycling under a waterfall and generally everyone feeling more confident on their bikes. The Spanish couple had been lagging behind the whole way, when suddenly out of nowhere the Spanish man came storming past everyone (including the guide) at a crazy pace. Reading between the lines one can only assume that she really didn't want to come mountain biking, was riding painfully slowly and probably moaning so for the final few minutes he had a blowout and left her at the back of the pack. See if you can spot her happy face on our photos!
The death road overall felt very safe, the guide said 'you're safe if you stay in your comfort zone. As soon as you go faster than you're comfortable with, it gets dangerous' and she was absolutely right.
It was a fantastic experience which flew by so quickly and most of us would have liked a bit longer on the bikes. We did the ride and we now have the t shirts to say we survived which will be worn with pride back home.
After our achievements of the day we thought it fitting to celebrate with the highest curry in the world. It's not everyday you can have a korma at extreme altitude. The food was lovely but 2/5 of us found the eating experience a bit too extreme and were in the loo within 10 minutes of leaving...good times!
-- Posted from Miranda's iPhone
The day began at 6.30am where Madness (our tour company) fed and watered us and then kitted us head to toe in safety equipment. The eight of us (4 English, 1 Irish, 2 Spanish and 1 German) all piled into a minibus and started the 1hour drive to the start of the biking. Everyone was in good spirits apart from the Spanish girl who seemed a bit quiet but no one thought anything of it.
We got on our bikes and set off downhill in clear conditions with Tarmac beneath our tyres. We were travelling downhill as fast as our bikes would take us (annoyingly James seemed to be able to propel his bike that bit faster than mine, regardless of how many aerodynamic shapes I attempted to make with my torso!!). Great views, wind in our hair, this was a breeze.
After about 30 minutes we came to a tunnel with a gravel track running parallel. It became clear rather quickly that this was the end of the good road, the good weather (mist, zero visibility, light rain) and the easy ride. We set off again this time with me directly behind the guide (the weird body shapes were obviously working) when literally out of nowhere there was an enormous lorry heading straight for us emerging from the mist a couple of metres in front of the bikes. Now I know what you're thinking, if I was that lorry driver with zero visibility, going uphill on the death road on a blind bend, I wouldn't bother to stick my lights on either!!!! Myself and the guide reacted quickly with her forking to the right and me to the left, narrowly missing both of us. Luckily the only injury was to our nerves which were a bit rattled.
The zero visibility made the road itself feel more unsafe however it did mean we couldn't see any of the big drops so actually felt quite tame at the top. As we dropped in altitude the mist cleared and we got our first glimpse of what all the fuss is about...spectacular views experienced on great quality mountain bikes on such a fun road.
The road itself is 64km of mainly downhill with a couple of kms uphill. Everyone tackled the uphill with relative ease apart from the Spanish girl who'd got off her bike and pushed it up the modest hill-odd we thought!
The final stretch involved some fun twists and turns in the gravel track, cycling under a waterfall and generally everyone feeling more confident on their bikes. The Spanish couple had been lagging behind the whole way, when suddenly out of nowhere the Spanish man came storming past everyone (including the guide) at a crazy pace. Reading between the lines one can only assume that she really didn't want to come mountain biking, was riding painfully slowly and probably moaning so for the final few minutes he had a blowout and left her at the back of the pack. See if you can spot her happy face on our photos!
The death road overall felt very safe, the guide said 'you're safe if you stay in your comfort zone. As soon as you go faster than you're comfortable with, it gets dangerous' and she was absolutely right.
It was a fantastic experience which flew by so quickly and most of us would have liked a bit longer on the bikes. We did the ride and we now have the t shirts to say we survived which will be worn with pride back home.
After our achievements of the day we thought it fitting to celebrate with the highest curry in the world. It's not everyday you can have a korma at extreme altitude. The food was lovely but 2/5 of us found the eating experience a bit too extreme and were in the loo within 10 minutes of leaving...good times!
-- Posted from Miranda's iPhone
Friday, December 25, 2009
Merry Christmas to you all!
We'd like to wish everybody a fantastic Christmas day, and a wonderful festive season. Thanks to those that have already sent their regards, I was hoping to make this post yesterday, but the internet in the Hotel went down - probably due to me downloading Christmas films on their connection :o)
Today we have a real array of things to watch, Home Alone, Elf, Bad Santa, then to add some depth in case we get bored we also have Spirited Away (Miranda hates animation... hoping it will change her mind), and Requiem for a Dream. Other things on the agenda are a Jaccuzi bath, an perhaps a swim... and obviously Skyping everyone that's online!
We're just going to have breakfast, but if you can make yourselves known online, whether it's to talk, or just so we can watch you eat a traditional English Christmas dinner, we really don't care!
Today we have a real array of things to watch, Home Alone, Elf, Bad Santa, then to add some depth in case we get bored we also have Spirited Away (Miranda hates animation... hoping it will change her mind), and Requiem for a Dream. Other things on the agenda are a Jaccuzi bath, an perhaps a swim... and obviously Skyping everyone that's online!
We're just going to have breakfast, but if you can make yourselves known online, whether it's to talk, or just so we can watch you eat a traditional English Christmas dinner, we really don't care!
Happy Christmas!
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Pictures
All of our photos are now completely up to date again, you can view them here as always. They include the tour of the mines in Potosi, the Salt plains of Bolivia and other bits & bobs!
Thanks for looking :o)
Thanks for looking :o)
Small site change
It's come to our attention that a number of people (including ourselves) have been at times having difficulties posting comments, instead receiving "Your request could not be processed. Please try again.". Unfortunately after some brief research it seems the problem has no real solution.
The work around is that now when clicking to post a comment, you'll have a seperate box appear in which to type it and post. This will avoid the issue, but presents another for those with pop-up blockers enabled.
For those experiencing difficulty, please visit the following link HERE
Let us know if you're finding it better or worse than before!
The work around is that now when clicking to post a comment, you'll have a seperate box appear in which to type it and post. This will avoid the issue, but presents another for those with pop-up blockers enabled.
For those experiencing difficulty, please visit the following link HERE
Let us know if you're finding it better or worse than before!
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
A recap of the last week! Part 1
So in the last week or so we headed from Cusco to Puno, which is a smallish place on the Peruvian shore of Lake Titicaca. I personally was expecting more of the place, for me it lacked any real "let's stay another night" factor, within 20 minutes of arriving at the hostel we'd booked a day trip to two islands on Lake Titicaca (TT), and booked our bus tickets to Copacabana, Bolivia.
The next morning we were up at 6am to eat our pancake breakfast, and be ready for our 6:45 pick-up, after a typically poor shower and a quick feed we were on our way. A short while later we arrived at the dock and clambered aboard our boat, which for now we'll call the world's slowest boat... Apparently at 3,800m combustion engines don't tend to work too well, therefore everything runs at a snails pace.
Our first stop was the Unos islands of TT, which are unique in that they are made of reeds. The theory behind it is that they harvest the reeds from the edges of the lake, and form a base by lashing together the roots of the reeds (they are wooden like), and upon which they lay over the reed itself, which then dries out in the sun creating something similae to hay. Over time they expand these structures which then the locals (people live on them) build their reed houses and furniture. It's a very interesting concept, which originally came about when the Spanish (them again) were invading the native indigenous population, many fled to the lake to hide from the Spanish (it's huge), and their legacy was born. Today they rely on tourism to survive, where previously they were proficient fishermen. Sadly after the intriduction of some Trout into TT, they majority of the smaller fish died a parasite infested death, leaving the fish population dwindling. Now they eat a lot of birds (ducks, moor hens) in addition to any fish they can catch. As an experience it was pretty interesting, but the hard sell of the souvenirs (which the women make themselves) was too obvious, and pressured.
Next up was a 2.5hr boat ride for lunch at Taquile island, which is a normal and much larger island. About this time I left the cramped cabin and headed outside, where I fell asleep in the sun for a while... wonderful. We arrived at Taquile, trekked up its steep geography for 20 minutes to the main town/plaza and had some typical food (fried trout, rice, chips), took a few photos (us with 3 guys chewing Coca) and then a (not so) fantastic 3hr boring boat ride home, on many occasions where I nearly jumped overboard in favour of taking the alternative transport back to Puno, which I estimated would shave an hour off, front-crawl!
Instead I opted for a sleep outside again, which was cheifly responsible for the widespread burning of precisely half of my face and neck... hey, it's the first time I've managed to lose my respect for the sun, especially at altitude! I attribute much of the blame on Miranda for not being caring and waking me up, she has little knowledge of this.
In a rather large nutshell, in which I've tried (probably in vain) to make it sound excting, really it wasn't that great... thankfully it was cheap! Another experience, none the less, but speaking for both of us, TT is just another lake... once which lacks the beauty and landscape of the good ol' Lake District in England.
The following day we took a bus to Copacabana in Bolivia, where we were planning to get a bus to La Paz. What we hadn't considered was that this place didn't even have an ATM. We had about £1 worth of Peruvian Neuvo Soles, which we couldn't even change at the street cambios (scoundrels). Cue some new old friends, Ricky and Claire who we met whilst watching them tuck into Guinea Pig and Llama respectively whilst in a bar in Cusco. Luckily we managed to buy 4 tickets to La Paz, with literally every joint penny we had... Thank our lucky stars!
We arrived in La Paz and located our Hostel/Hotel for our 3 days in La Paz, Cruz de los Andes which was actually a really nice place, aside from the 4 large flights of stairs, which at around 4,000m certainly challenges the old cardio! La Paz itself seemed to be everything we hadn't heard about it, it felt safe, the local population weren't all off their face's on cocaine, and it seemed like a pretty busy, industrious place. Coming to La Paz, we had one true goal... to embark on the Death Road, which we'd read and heard so much about, after literally a day of researching the myriad of companies offering a thrilling ride, we settled on Madness Downhill, who had fantastic bikes, Rocky Mountain RMX downhill bikes.
Much more to follow in part 2, but I'll give my soon to be sunburnt fingers a rest... it's 11am in San Pedro, it's 30 degrees, and it's breakfast time!
Hope you're all OK, it's nice to be in touch with the world again after Bolivia!
The next morning we were up at 6am to eat our pancake breakfast, and be ready for our 6:45 pick-up, after a typically poor shower and a quick feed we were on our way. A short while later we arrived at the dock and clambered aboard our boat, which for now we'll call the world's slowest boat... Apparently at 3,800m combustion engines don't tend to work too well, therefore everything runs at a snails pace.
Our first stop was the Unos islands of TT, which are unique in that they are made of reeds. The theory behind it is that they harvest the reeds from the edges of the lake, and form a base by lashing together the roots of the reeds (they are wooden like), and upon which they lay over the reed itself, which then dries out in the sun creating something similae to hay. Over time they expand these structures which then the locals (people live on them) build their reed houses and furniture. It's a very interesting concept, which originally came about when the Spanish (them again) were invading the native indigenous population, many fled to the lake to hide from the Spanish (it's huge), and their legacy was born. Today they rely on tourism to survive, where previously they were proficient fishermen. Sadly after the intriduction of some Trout into TT, they majority of the smaller fish died a parasite infested death, leaving the fish population dwindling. Now they eat a lot of birds (ducks, moor hens) in addition to any fish they can catch. As an experience it was pretty interesting, but the hard sell of the souvenirs (which the women make themselves) was too obvious, and pressured.
Next up was a 2.5hr boat ride for lunch at Taquile island, which is a normal and much larger island. About this time I left the cramped cabin and headed outside, where I fell asleep in the sun for a while... wonderful. We arrived at Taquile, trekked up its steep geography for 20 minutes to the main town/plaza and had some typical food (fried trout, rice, chips), took a few photos (us with 3 guys chewing Coca) and then a (not so) fantastic 3hr boring boat ride home, on many occasions where I nearly jumped overboard in favour of taking the alternative transport back to Puno, which I estimated would shave an hour off, front-crawl!
Instead I opted for a sleep outside again, which was cheifly responsible for the widespread burning of precisely half of my face and neck... hey, it's the first time I've managed to lose my respect for the sun, especially at altitude! I attribute much of the blame on Miranda for not being caring and waking me up, she has little knowledge of this.
In a rather large nutshell, in which I've tried (probably in vain) to make it sound excting, really it wasn't that great... thankfully it was cheap! Another experience, none the less, but speaking for both of us, TT is just another lake... once which lacks the beauty and landscape of the good ol' Lake District in England.
The following day we took a bus to Copacabana in Bolivia, where we were planning to get a bus to La Paz. What we hadn't considered was that this place didn't even have an ATM. We had about £1 worth of Peruvian Neuvo Soles, which we couldn't even change at the street cambios (scoundrels). Cue some new old friends, Ricky and Claire who we met whilst watching them tuck into Guinea Pig and Llama respectively whilst in a bar in Cusco. Luckily we managed to buy 4 tickets to La Paz, with literally every joint penny we had... Thank our lucky stars!
We arrived in La Paz and located our Hostel/Hotel for our 3 days in La Paz, Cruz de los Andes which was actually a really nice place, aside from the 4 large flights of stairs, which at around 4,000m certainly challenges the old cardio! La Paz itself seemed to be everything we hadn't heard about it, it felt safe, the local population weren't all off their face's on cocaine, and it seemed like a pretty busy, industrious place. Coming to La Paz, we had one true goal... to embark on the Death Road, which we'd read and heard so much about, after literally a day of researching the myriad of companies offering a thrilling ride, we settled on Madness Downhill, who had fantastic bikes, Rocky Mountain RMX downhill bikes.
Much more to follow in part 2, but I'll give my soon to be sunburnt fingers a rest... it's 11am in San Pedro, it's 30 degrees, and it's breakfast time!
Hope you're all OK, it's nice to be in touch with the world again after Bolivia!
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