Hell On Earth

Oh man, life is easy in comparison to the miners. The mine tour today was good and bad all at the same time. I would highly recommend it, but I would never do it again. Let me exlain!

We left at 8am this morning and went to the miner´s market to buy some things. We bought gifts for the miners: coca leaves, soft drinks and dynamite. Having met an Australian at breakfast who did the tour yesterday, who recommended getting gloves and a dust mask, I also bought these. And man were they useful.

After that, we got a rickety old bus up to the area where they process the extracted ore. We were shown the processes, but everywhere we went, workers came up with their hats out wanting coca leaves. They make cocaine out of it and all the workers use it. It helps when working long hours and keeps hunger away.

From there, we went to the mine. Before we went inside, we set off 3 of the dynamites and I prepared one of them. I just copied what the guide did, before we set them alight, and posed for photos, before we ran and put them down. Quite an impressive exlosion. I have photos and videos to prove all this too!

We then went into the mine. It started out cold, but it ended up being roasting. It was really difficult to walk around as I had to crouch most of the way. I had to slide down on my ass for a bit too and climb. All in all, very tiring and I was out of breath very easily. Our guide, Pedro, who was very good told us everything we needed to know. There was 8 in our group which was a good size. The group was a mixture of English, Dutch, Belgian, Australian, Canadian and 2 other Irish people.

The work that the miners do day after day for hours on end is back breaking work, putting it mildy. I will never be able to complain about a job ever again. How they do it is beyond me. Pushing massive 2 tonne trolleys or carriages is very tough work. We gave the miners the gifts for which they were very thankful. Billy wasn´t feeling too well, so he stayed at the hostel, having paid for tour, and at the time, he was a lucky man but I´m glad I did it. It was as close to hell on earth as I think I will come.

After that, we climbed and walked a little more and then came back out. I was never so happy to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I was sweating, thirsty, hungry and tired. After that, I just went for food and enquired about getting a bus or jeep to Uyuni tomorrow, but there´s rumours of road blocks. We´ll see.

So the plan is to go to Uyuni tomorrow and start a 2 night/3 day tour of Salar De Uyuni. Hopefully we´ll get there tomorrow, either by bus or jeep. The jeep will cost much more, but we have found 2/3 others to chip in to the jeep, which will cost bout $100 in total. The bus only costs $3.

I gotta go sort out getting out of here tomorrow, so I´m going to love you all and leave you.