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Operation Long White Cloud
Sucre and Potosi
After boarding the oldest 737 in the world we flew from La Paz to Sucre. I did my best to ignore the bald tires and faded looking paint and the longest and slowest take off ever and hoped we touched down ok! Everything went to plan thankfully and we arrived without a hitch and made for our hotel. Sucre is a beautiful little colonial city which is the judicial capital of bolivia. Well it was until a week ago when the constitution was amended taking this away. A few casual riots and one or two deaths later and things seem pretty calm. It was hard to picture this as it seemed so peaceful when we walked about. We had a good wander around the heart of the city which as I mentioned is all colonial architecture and very pleasent indeed. The suburbs sprawl away in a shambolic incomplete fashion but that is modern Sucre I guess. Any sort of bank, open space or stream is a rubbish dump complete with dogs, birds and sifty looking people. I swear I saw a tanker unloading it's contents directly into a river on the drive to La Paz from the Peruvian border. Safe to say the guy wasn't pumping fresh, clean water into the river because he felt bad for the fishies. In saying this although local pollution is bad the average Bolivian isn't driving a Range Rover or flying around the world like we are. Otherwise it would appear that pigs have the freedom of unteathered dogs and wander around 'grazing' on what they can find. Yes the bacon tastes weird. After having a look around we went for dinner. as it was our tour leaders birthday we had a few drinks which lead to several then.......uh oh. Being intelligent people we booked a mountainbiking/hiking expedition for the following morning. As I cycled uphill (at altitude) in amongst trucks billowing smoke in the hot sun whilst dry wretching I started to have second thoughts. Laura was powering ahead (but crying inside) after managing on her third attempt to get a bike that wasn't a death trap. we rode out into the country from sucre to check out the seven water falls and in the last art of our ride hammer downhill on a grval road. we cycled as far as a colonial villa ditched our bikes and hiked 30 mins to the falls. the path was goat territory and the falls weren't that nice given the rain the previous evening. oh well. the water was looking murky and the path had been washed away meaning we couldn't walk much further than the first fall. The public tansport in the countryside. Buses are far too nice so trucks take their place. men, women, children, animals and animal feed etc all piled in together. i can just see maeve or christine piling in the back to head to town for a spot of shopping! After returning to the villa we had time to relax in the gardens complete with swimming pool and hammocks. After this we were served a huge bbq lunch before being driven back to town. a productive day considering the massive hangovers being experienced. Safe to say we slept well that night. Next stop was Potosi, a busy but relatively small mining town that was once the largest city in South America due to the silver mine exploited by the spaniards. It is said that enough silver has been taken to build a bridge from Potosi to Spain and still have silver left to carry across it. Apparently 8-9 million native and African slaves died working there in the last 500 years. Not surprising that due to tunnel collapses the mountain is now only 4700m instead of 5200m that it was initially. Therefore the only thing to do was go down the mine for a look. We got kitted out and bought some supplies to give to the miners on our visit and headed off. the gift packs included coc leaves , bickies, dynamite, detonators and other explosives. Coca leaves are chewed as these are the main thing that keep the current miners going in arduous conditions, it gives energy and helps them work massive hours demanded, This aside apparently the standard miner lasts only 15 years before becoming too sick to work. given the booze they drink is 95% alcohol it doesn't surprise me. naturally we tried some of this. Petrol i tell you and best not to smoke while drinking!. We clambered and climbed our way through the mines for around two hours, meeting the miners, helping them carve holes in the walls for the dynamite and set off a stick of dynamite with the help of our guides - so...not your average day at the office then..! All in all very positive experience, makes you grateful for the life you have.- comments