Once outside Santa Cruz we faced the realities of travelling in such an underdeveloped country, yet survived a cramped up, windy bus trip over the narrow and bumpy road into "Sucre"; the country´s old official capital. After organising proper repair of Nicole´s backpack, which had been all but ripped open by careless baggage-handlers at Santa Cruz airport, we took the final leg of the journey to Potosi the following day.
Previously one of the most prosperous towns in all of South America, the legendary mining town of 'Potosi' claims arguably the darkest chapter in Spain's colonisation of South America; namely the deplorable cost of human lives working as slaves far underground in the dark, dusty, mountain silver mines of Cerro Rica.At 4070m, Potosi is also the highest town in the world, causing some travellers to experience subtle headaches and breathing issues, yet we visit to experience first-hand, the deplorable mining conditions that extinguished approximately 8 million local natives and African immigrants during the 3 centuries of colonial rule.
Choosing to visit kilometers down into the cold mines themselves, we faced a new, completely unsafe and unrestrained ´Indiana Jones´ style tour, requiring the full use of arms, legs, each other and the occasional rickety wooden ladder to avoid slipping into seemingly bottomless holes on all sides. On we caved, through dark muddy holes with nothing but head-torches and our guide for comfort that we would get out in 1 piece because travel insurance would surely not fit an ambulance down here. Surprisingly, we learned that people from the town still worked the mine, now as free men (and women) as entrepreneurs searching for tin using the most medieval methods and tools that only individuals in such a poor country can buy.
After almost 2 hours I started to feel a little closed in, but before leaving the mines to squint in the afternoon sunlight we paid a visit to the local mountain-god, with whom locals still visited regularly to offer food, coca leaves and cigarettes in exchange for blessings of good health and fortune. Despite a successful campaign introducing Catholicism to many northern Andean communities, ancient Inca-introduced beliefs intrinsically linking mountain spirits with mother earth or "Pachamama", still ran strong here.
This was certainly a crazy experience but I'd recommend it to anyone sure-footed and with comprehensive travel insurance (give and take the ambulance concern). Imagining people spending a decent portion of their lives down here by choice in the 21st century was totally mind blowing.
