We pretty much left Uyuni as soon as we arrived (after a short stop at Minute Man Pizza - highly recommended!), and caught a 7 hour bus to Potosi. The Bolivian bus timetables lack common sense and we were forced to arrive at 1.30am and attempt to find our hostel. Thankfully it all went smoothly.
In a few sentences, Potosi used to be one of the wealthiest cities in the Americas some hundreds of years ago due to a mining boom of, among other things, silver. Long story short, the Spanish rolled through, pilfered the resources and eradicated a few million slaves in the process. Now the mining has crashed and the locals are left looking for trace elements of silver (roughly 3%). Even walking around the city there are a number of hints as to the cities affluent history. It was this mining history that drew us to Potosi for a few days.
The morning after arriving we booked in for a half day mine tour (total cost BS100) The first part of the tour involves going to the miners market to buy gifts for the miners (soft drink, coca leaves and dynamite). We then had a quick tour of the refinery plant before heading up to the mines. The mines were very tedious at times and breathing was difficult. During the 1.5-2 hours we learnt about the history of the mines and engaged with the few miners that were working on the Saturday. The final part of our tour involved blowing up the surplus dynamite. The dynamite is rigged with a 1-minute fuse allowing adequate time for photos, the guides playing football with the dynamite, and disposing of it in the vacant land before it exploded.
[PHOTOS PENDING]
Our next day was spent doing administrative tasks (laundry etc) before we set off for the Bolivian capital - La Paz.
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