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Potosi is the highest city in the world. Its a small pretty city.
I was fine for the first day, for some reason i was sick the second. I had nose bleeds, struggled to keep anything down....it was awful.
We went to Potosi to explore the mines. We left the hostal at 9 and drove into the mountains (yes even higher) where we got our clothes and wellys....a very sexy look. On the way to the mines we stopped at acouple of markets where we brought coco leaves and dinamite. Dinamite is sold on the streets for less than 2 pounds. The boys thrt christmas had come early.
One of the miners died 5 months ago and the day we did the tour was "the day of the dead". Our tour guide took us to the miners families house where they were having memorial for him. It was sooooo sad to see his family upset, i felt uncomfortable. They kept bring round shots of alc and some funky tasting drink. Looked like watered down milk and tasted like tangy corn...its rude not to drink it...on top of a dodgy tummy it was noooooooot good.
After the memorial we headed to the mines. The mines started off as a big tunnel with tiny train track going through, it started getting small quickly. It was very hard to breath. You get out of breath really easily at altitude, climbing through tiny mines with no air is not my idea of fun. I got panicky and bailed half way. I was out of breath and everytime i took a deep breath it was 80% dust.
The boys went all the way down and looked shattered when they came back to the surface. They said it got so small they were led down crawling at one point.
Its sad that boys from the age of 9/10 work in the mines. Known to be younger if dad dies while working in the mines. Culture shock.
Before leaving the mountain we blew up 6 sticks of dinamite and donated 4 to the miners. Was fuuuuuuuuuuunnn/scary.
Potosi´s rating is....4. I get far to sick at altitudes
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