POTOSI

Hi Readers, I am very frustrated about not being able to load photos, it is a combination of my inexpertise & old equipment. Some guys on the tour have iphones, & are never off the things. However, let the carrier pigeons continue. I have enjoyed Bolivia, especially riding across the AltiPlano (high plains), the country is very spectacular & largely unspoilt, part central Australia, part wild west, & part moon. We have been above 3000m for 2 weeks, & I will be glad to get a bit lower. I am sick of the dry throat & chapped lips, & the sun doesnt half burn up here.

We did a tour of a mine in Potosi, & I was totally shocked. I think it is the worst palce I have ever been. I just cannot believe that people have to work in such conditions- for about 450 years people have been tunnelling into this huge mountain to remove silver, lead, zinc & sundry other metal bearing ores. One day the whole thing will just collapse on itself, mark my words. Fortunately for me, it was not while I was inside the thing. There is no science involved. The miners keep going on a combination of superstition, religion, luck, alcohol & coca leaves. First stop was a shop to buy gifts for the miners. Coca leaves, dynamite, det cord & detonators, & biscuits. I´m not kiddding! These guys have to provide this stuff for themselves. Plenty of them start at the age of 12 or younger, & dozens die every year. The work is backbreaking manual labour, buckets, ropes, wheelbarrows, then pushing ore carts out into the sunlight, where they load trucks by wheelbarrow, to take the ore out of the country for processing. So someone else makes the money on the back of these poor bastards, it made me sick, & it made me realise what people will do to each other, & to reconsider the achievements of the labour movements in other countries. This is just wrong, but what can I do about it? Apparently it is a big improvement on how the Spanish treated the Indians when it all started, they just locked them in the mine & worked them to death. We also visited the old Mint, which produced coins for all of the Spanish colonies at one time. The machinery, which was basic but effective, was powered by mules, & they suffered the same fate as the Indians. I kind of struggle with the Spanish legacy. They were brutal conquerors who left their religion & their language, while plundering everything else, & only departed when they got kicked out by force of arms by local leaders who were not much better.

On a brighter note, the ride down to Uyuni was eventful (more later), all dirt but again, very spectacular. The 2 pretty cool Italian guys who are normally the front runners, sitting right behind the Ride Leader, dropped back in the field a bit, but eventually got the hang of it. These guys could wear Rodney Dangerfield´s golf outfit & make it look stylish, & are great fun to be with. Uyuni itself is a depressing place, none of the streets are paved, so there is dust everywhere, & it looks pretty run down. Out on the Salar (salt lake) at least it is cleaner. This was quite bizzare, & hard on the eyes without the sunnies. We visited a hotel out on the lake which is built out of salt blocks....interesting, but it isnt going to catch on. We spent nearly a full day out there. Next day we continued on the dirt to the most remote part of our tour, the Chilean border town of Ollague, under the shadow of Mt Ollague, an active volcano. It was a long hard day, with lots of corrugations, sand, potholes, even mud when we detoured around some roadworks. So they are actually working on the road, but it was a shocker! We met a German couple who had driven their car from the US, & like everyone else they met, we were invited to sign their car! I guess it will need a respray anyhow.

The border crossing took quite a while, first, the Bolivian side was closed for siesta, then the Chilean side insisted on searching all the luggage, so that meant unpacking the trailer, then dragging it all into the customs shed, & finally repacking it all. We stayed the night in a pretty basic hotel, but hey, thats part of the fun. When we left this am, it was minus 3 degrees & we headed into another 200km of serious dirt road, the main feature of which was more potholes & a lot of loose sand. But the scenery was majestic. So even though it is hard work, one gets the feeling that the effort brings reward. We arrived in San Pedro de Atacama on the fringes of the Atacama Desert at about 2pm today, & have a chance to regroup for 2 nights. Thats the end of the dirt roads, as far as we have been advised, & hopefully the weather might warm up a bit.