Date: 17th to 18th November 2006

The town that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid supposedly met there end being gunned down by the Bolivian army, SWEET.

We left Sucre at 8.30 and only after a 3 hour drive we arrived at Potosi which is famous for its silver and mines, which is why Butch and Sundance came here in the first place, although the town was pulling out a hell of lot more silver back then as there isnt really that much silver left in the hills now.

After arriving in Potosi we had about 30 mins before we left for mine tour which the 3 of us decided to do. We met our guide outside and drove 20 mins to a stop where we picked up our overalls, helmets and torches, we all looked pretty jivy in yellow and orange overalls haha.

On the way to the mine we learnt some pretty interesting facts and some crazy ones from our guide, firstly was that the whole town is solely dependent on the mine and men still work 12 hour days and 7 days a week. Boys as young as 12 work 8 hour shifts before heading to school.  60 men have died in the mine this year alone and if a man dies leaving a wife, she has to take his place in the mine just to earn money herself and if she has a baby she drugs it up with alcohol for the day so it will sleep while she goes off to the mine to do her days work :( very sad.

They have to pull out a certain amount of rock a day which was a crazy amount for 1 person and if they dont make that target they get paid nothing.

When we got to the mine we each bought a pack for the miners which included Coco leaves, biscuits, cigarettes, alcohol(90% proof stuff) and dynamite haha. We held on to these packs and gave out items to miners we met inside who were extremely greatful for them (it literally cost pittence for us to buy the pack and we felt better knowing they got something from us).

The tour was excellent and made you realise how bloody lucky we were, we spent about an hour and a half wandering through tunnels. We saw loads of miners inside including children working away, taking out massive amounts of rock.

We stopped at one place where our guide took Felix and a stick of dynamite around a corner haha, they went up the cave away and felix lit the fuse and they both came running back down, that first bang was bloody unnerving and made us realise just how unsafe the entire mine was. There is no training at all in use of dyanmite and nobody there to inspect the areas for dynamite use-its literally used when ever they bloody want.

We went walking for a little while longer and climbed up some caves which was really quite dangerous, pit holes and shafts everywhere, one part you had to heave yourself up mel felt parts of the mine landing on her as people in front were climbing this was scary. Finally we got on the cave back to entrance when there was bangs echoing through the mountain and the guide then told us that between 5 and 6 o'clock it is literally free dyanmite time where God knows how many sticks are being used constantly 1 after another to blow through rock for the next shift. I think we were all extremely happy to be out after that, I know I bloody was.

On our way to the mine our guide had picked up an old Minnie Mouse toy and she took it to top of mountain, stuffed it with dynamite and lit the fuse haha, was much more fun blowing up dynamite outside the mine, an was funny watching Minnie flying down the mountain :)when it exploded it made a loud bang and made most of us jump, especially becauseit went off few mins before the fuse was supposed to eek. This mine tour was brilliant gave you a adrenaline rushes walking, crawling and climbing through the mine as you knew it wasn't 100% safe and really made you realise how hard these people worked and what they must go through being under there, was sadto see young boys working in there though!

We left the mine and headed back to hotel and after a quick shower and change we headed to a local restaurant with Mike and a few others. Although it took bloody ages the food was great when it came. After meal Me, Matt and Felix watched on as Ness, Mel and Debbie went shopping for silver jewellery, which is so cheap there and was funny watching Matt trying to haggle with shop bloke who was a tight b****** haha.

We finally returned to hotel where Matt and Mel headed for bed but Mike had set up the dvd player and tv for us to watch Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (what better place to watch it) so after watching one of the greatest films ever we finally headed for bed.