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Tilly's Latino Travels
hey all,
another new experience for me..... buying dynamite from a market stall! Nope, not about to blow up the place, it was a present! Ok, I'll explain..... yesterday we went to a working silver mine in Potosi which was an amazing experience. Having got fully kitted up in luminous protective overalls, helmets and torches we proceeded to the mines. Outside we were first went to buy presents for the miners which consisted of coca leaves, dynamite and crackers. The workers range from 12 years old to about 35 as that is the life expectancy for a miner. They constantly have a bunch of coca leaves in their mouths along with a catalyst to help numb their mouths to make working in the mines easier. They also have 96% alcohol which they drink - (of course we had to try it too, but it evapourated so quickly that barely any got in our mouths let alone our stomachs!)
Actually going in to the mines was an experience - health and safety would have had a field day in there! As we walked along, we were suddenly told - "Hole to the left - watch out" - more like enourmous drop to the left - proceed with extreme caution! Drops were up to 100ft and didn't have any rails to prevent you falling in. Apparently there had only ever been one tourist death and that was a japanese tourist who was taking photos and stepped back a bit far......
We went down small holes and down to 60m below ground in total. As miners explained how they did their job and told us a bit about themselves we then said thankyou with dyanmite and other goodies. I was a little worried when we were all standing in a small alcove and a couple of miners were chipping away with some force at the rock right above the only entrance (and exit) to the alcove - I was just waiting for it all to collapse, but luckily the rock seemed fairly strong. My only other concern (apart from rickety ladders and big drops where you couldn't hear a rock drop to the bottom) was at the end when we were invited to set off the dynamite and blow a part of the mine up! Just after our explosion went off, there started to be other bangs all around us and we were informed that explosion hour had started and it would be good if we all hurried out as fast as possible!
Well, I'm still alive, and we then had a relaxing afternoon at the hot springs to recover with mud face masks and mud fights.
Now we're in a small town which is in the middle of no-where with pretty much nothing here but the salt flats next door which we are visiting tomorrow - views are already spectalar so really looking forward to it. We then have a weeks camping before we reach Santiago and I return - time is flying by! Take care everyone x x x
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