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I arrived in Potosi early in the evening, and headed straight to the hostel (which I´d chosen purely because the guidebook said it was warm, and after the subzero Uyuni temperatures that was all I wanted!) The hostel was just as cosy as promised, with a huge book exchanged and DVD selection- a perfect place to curl up in the cold evenings at such high altitudes! The following day I headed out with a couple of people I´d met in the hostel to the silver mines, which give Potosi its fame. The mines meant that it used to be the biggest and richest city in South America, and although there is little silver left they still mine other metals there. It´s famous for its awful working practices- most miners die within ten years of going to work there, but they have great status in the community, can earn fairly well and seem pretty cheerful. Anyway, that Saturday they were holding ritual llama sacrafices (they only have these once a year, so I was pretty lucky (or unlucky?) to be there then). They slaughter the llamas, then throw the blood over the entrance to the mines as a sacrafice to Pachamama (Mother Earth) and Tio (literally ´Uncle´ the mine devil, although they don´t strictly see devils as bad- they belive both Gods and Devils have good and bad sides). The ´logic´is that that Pachamama and Tio will accept the llamas´ blood in place of the blood of the miners, and so they should be safe. We took gifts of beer, alcohol(a 96% spirit that the miners drink) and coca leaves with us. By the time we arrived two llamas had already been killed, the smell was awful and the mine entrance was glistening with blood. A couple of hours later, we´d seen several more sacrafices, and drunk a few beers with the locals (making sure to spill some every time as a sacrafice- the beer is so disgusting that the ´sacrafice´is a good way to avoid having to drink too much of it!) Anyway, by one o´clock we were had all pretty much had enough- watching five llamas have their throats cut is more than enough for one day. The smell was gettingç pretty bad- especially as they were digging a pit to bury the parts of the llama that they couldn´t barbeque or throw, and as they use the same pit every year we also had the smells from the previous years´ llamas. So we headed back to the city for the lunch, where the boys all opted for llama steak burgers. The following day was Sunday, so we weren´t able to go to the mines as planned. Instead, after a lazy morning wandering around the city, four girls from the hostel and I headed up to the hot springs outside of town. The location was amazing, surrounded by the most colourful mountains I´ve ever seen- streaks of different minerals making them look red, orange, purple, green, white and blue. The hot springs were nice, although not exactly ´hot´ enough. But they were a fun way to spend the afternoon, and we headed back to town to pick up some salteñas (a sort of traditional pasty that they sell in the streets) and popcorn (not so traditional) and spent the evening watching DVDs in the hostel. Monday was my last day in Potosi, and I went on a trip to the silver mines with the hostel. I was quite nervous about going- the mines are notoriously unsafe, and I knew I was going to have to crawl through some pretty small tunnels. When we arrived we changed into overalls and wellingtons, and set off to the miners´market, to buy gifts for the miners. Fizzy drinks, cigarettes, coca leaves, alcohol and dynamite (Bolivian dynamite, the best apparently. Peruvian is the worst, only good "if you maybe want to kill a few people, or have a party", our guide told us cheerfully). Armed with our gifts we set off for the mines. At the start they weren´t too bad- I could walk pretty much normally, although the poor guy in front of me was bent almost double right from the start. As we descended lower, however, it became hotter, and dustier, and the tunnels became smaller and smaller. By the third level we were crawling on our hands and knees, often just sitting and sliding down the steeper tunnels. The only really scary bit came when we went to visit one family of miners, in a section that they owned. We had to follow a very narrow tunnel that sloped down, then up, meaning we had to change from being feet first, to head first in a tiny gap. But no one got stuck, and we sat with the family for a while watching them work and gave them our gifts. Then we headed to a statue of Tio, the Devil, and poured alcohol at his feet, and left him a pack of cigarettes (in addition to the various other gifts that were scattered around him). Our guide told us that the miners only really drink the 6% alcohol on Friday afternoons, to celebrate the end of the week. If they have had a good week, they have to drink more to thank Tio and Pachamama for it. If they´ve had a bad week, it means they haven´t offered enough sacrafices, so they have to drink more to make up for it. So basically, they win either way! After this, we headed back up the tunnel we´d just slid down (which was a lot more effort!) and, with much relief, out into the fresh air. There, the guides made "bombas" out of the dynamite we had left, making us pose with them after the fuses had been lit (which they found hillarious and we did not), before running off and throwing them down the hill before they exploded. We headed back to the town in the early afternoon, and went off for a Bolivian set lunch (a starter, a soup, a main and a pudding for the equivilent of about 1.75- it´s no wonder the people here are fat!) then back to the hostel to wait for the bus to La Paz.
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