Bolivia - Potosi, Sucre & La Paz

8 October

After another fun, exciting evening on a bus on unpaved roads, we arrived in Potosi at about 1am and managed to persuade a hostel to open its doors for us to get a bit of sleep and a shower.

Cerro Rico

Potosi was once the biggest city in the western hemisphere due to the vast amounts of silver that were mined from the Cerro Rico (rich hill). The sheer amounts of wealth being dug out of the mountain funded the Spanish royalty for a couple of hundred years. Nowadays the mines are still in operation but mainly for tin and other less valuable minerals. The mines are horribly dangerous, with a certainty that after 10-15 years of working in them your lung function will be depleted by half and you'll have silicosis. However, there's not much other work around so plenty of people still work there. There are tours of the mines for tourists, but Kerstin felt too sad about the whole situation and I felt far to scaredy with claustrophobia so we decided not to do the tour so we spent the day walking around town. Lots of churches and an arch and a lovely veggie restaurant for lunch, then to an amazing Mint which takes up a whole city block and to a convent.

Random parade through the streets in Potosi

The Mint was really interesting. Silver from the mine went through final processing at the mint before being sent out. One of the weirdest things was some mummified babies. We were told by the guide that they were the babies of Spanish nobility, but we were told later by a bunch of other people that they were the offspring of nuns and priests that were killed at birth as they were thought to be devil's children. The convent was also pretty interesting. Girls were sent in at about the age of 15 and depending on how much their parents donated they had different roles and status. The girls were never allowed out again and never allowed to see anyone from outside again (other than presumably priests!) though they could talk through a screen to their parents once a year. There were lots of self flagellation devices and other horrors in the place including these noise making things that meant the nuns didn't sleep during holy week.

Not quite sure what's going on here!

We wandered around a little more the next day then got the bus at lunchtime up to Sucre, the constitutional capital of Bolivia. Every time I travel here I'm reminded that I wish people would just wash a little more.  I understand that it's bloody cold, and people are poor and it's hard to wash very thick clothes and blankets, but it's pretty miserable on the buses as a result.

Sucre

We spent a couple of days wandering round beautiful Sucre and eating food at the various, very gringo, but completely spot-on, restaurants. There's an amazing cathedral museum full of jewelled stuff including a painting worth millions as people have stuck jewels and watches and stuff all over it, a great textile museum with women weaving (it takes bloody forever), a park with a mini Eiffel Tower. We managed to catch a screening of a german documentary called the Devil's Miner which follows a 14 year old boy working in the Potosi mine which made up for us deciding not go go in ourselves.

The main square in Sucre - manicured

I decided to stay in Sucre as it's so lovely and Kerstin headed off to La Paz (a couple of days later than planned as she got sick - Bolivia has great food poisoning!). I booked myself some Spanish classes and ended up staying another 2 1/2 weeks!

The Mirador, Sucre

I spent my time at class, doing copious amounts of homework, hanging out with some really lovely people (Claire even used to work on Neighbours - how exciting!), eating chocolate cake and generally having a lovely time. My computer completely died during a windows update and there was a mildly farcical time where I stopped by the computer shop at least twice a day for a week as they promised it would be ready "this afternoon" or "tomorrow morning". They managed to restore my photos and journal but not my movies or music which was a bit disappointing. Plus the machine runs quite slowly now which makes me think some of the more important parts may have been swapped out......

La Recoleta Monastery, Sucre

At my hostel a creepy Algerian guy was caught taking photos under the shower door of a Canadian girl which was quite nasty. She caught him and broke his memory card and punched him in the face and then we got a bunch of guys to escort him out of the hostel which was quite satisfying.

Also managed in this time (pretty good wifi at Spanish school) to figure out that flying from BA up to Bogota to get my flight home was going to cost $600 but I could get a flight from BA to London for just $755 so booked that option.

Picture for dad -
at the musical museum

After booking the flight I only had 1 month left so figured I'd better get moving and booked yet another night bus up to La Paz. The bus was surprisingly good, cama (which means the seat reclines almost horizontally and there are only 3 seats to a row so you've got plenty room) and I arrived at about 7am, in time to get down to the hostel and straight out again to most of the La Paz museums (it was Sunday and they all close at lunchtime). I put the fear in the police standing guard at the Gold Museum when I went out to tell them there was a ton of broken glass on the floor of the gold vault. I did tell them the glass was from a light, but clearly the message didn't get across as two of them went into minor panic mode!

La Paz

One day I'll have a house like this!

Random parade

Child dressed as a cabbage?

In the evening the hostel ran a tour to see Cholitas wrestling. Cholitas are women who live in town but wear the traditional dress of heavily pleated skirt and petticoats, blouse, shawl and top hat. Cholita's wrestling is quite another thing and it was quite a mad night out.

In the morning I went out to the Tiwanaku archaelogical site, the only such site in Bolivia (I think). The site consists of heavily "reconstructed" temples (I hate that kind of archaeology) on what would have been an island in Lake Titicaca (which is now miles away). There were some really cool carvings and it was quite an interesting place. It was really high up though and the sun was really strong and it was quite a tiring day.

Statue at Tiwanaku

Pyramid at Tiwanaku

One of the sun gates at Tiwanaku

The following day I spent on the internet (you've no idea how long all this bloody blog business takes!), sorting out a bus ticket and took a wee visit to the Coca museum which was mildly interesting.

And, for my sins, I then got a bus at 545am to Arica in Chile, followed by yet another night bus down to San Pedro de Atacama......