Esther's Adventure

So its back to Potosi. Which has some mines that we want to see. We're now all acclimatised with the altitude so don't feel so out of breath as before. We spend a little extra cash getting a better bus, which we're all glad about. We're booked into the Kola Den which is where we tried to get in last time, but couldn't. We have a six bed dorm room to ourselves, lovely. Potosi is very hustle bustle and is full of school kids and things happening, I like it. It's cold but the sun is shining and eveything looks crisp.

We haven't cooked so far in Bolivia. Theres no point. It's mega cheap and with six of us its just a faff to cook anything decent, kitchen tranklements are crap. I'm surviving on empanadas for breakfast, which are like Cornish pastie things baked or fried, with meat (questionable?) or cheese, there's a variation in each country (I've mentioned them before). They generally spill their contents over you, and wreck your clean jeans or dribble on your gortex shoes. Lunch is either brunch or burger or sanger or big pack of giant cheesy wotsits and oreo cookies and Coke. Then dinner a hotch potch of what we dream about eating, like Chinese! mmm, but just not quite right in Bolivia (dirty dirty Chinese). Oh my god my diet is shite. I long for Brazilian acai and fruit juices. I long for Thiagos flat and Thiago. Oh hell I long for my friends and my family and a big bag of spinach with poached salmon and salsa verde.

Speaking of clean clothes...not that anything is really clean, it's decided that after the salt flats everything desperately needs to go to the laundry. My whole backpack is filthy so I take it to be washed. This results in Vikki and I waring a ridiculous outfit for the day (only clean cloths we have)... we look like Armenian refugees. Then we go to collect the 'clean clothes', I swear mine aren't that much cleaner. Cold water wash with no powder I assume. My socks pack flat again so thats the main thing sorted.

We book the mine tour the following day. The mine tour is possibly the most depressing day out Ive ever encountered. So upsetting. We pile into a mini bus from the hostel which takes us to the mining part of Potosi and for us to be dressed in our mining outfits. A waterproof rubberish suit, hard hat and head torch. We're also made to buy some bandannas to go over our mouths. Then off to the mining shop to get some dynamite. We also buy a bag of coca leaves which we stuff into out cheeks (you chew the leaves with some catalyst, in our case quinoa ash)...we look like chip monks. After a while my cheek and teeth go a bit numb! Ha it works. Um it tastes fowl though and I have green teeth and fowl juice in my mouth, sexy. We get back on the bus and head to the mine entrance. The mine is situated in the mountain that overlooks Potosi. Apparently the mountain is like a giant Swiss cheese it has so many tunnels and holes in it. It used to deliver silver back in the days of the conquistadors. It's actually very important historically. The silver from Potosi made Europe wealthy. Now there is no silver left, but they still mine tin and other minerals from the mine. I feel like Ive stepped back in to the dark ages. Those scenes from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. We walk into the mine tunnel and I'm immediately overcome by the shit in the air (arsenic, asbestos?), which the head torch highlights. The bandannas are really going to help us, not breathe this shit in (?). I spend then next two hours crawling on hands and knees in dirty, dark, stinky tunnels. I see young men lugging ten ton broken waggons on fucked rails, it's horrible and I wow never to moan about work again. It's crazy that they work in conditions like this. I hate it and an immensely glad to get the fuck out of there. Once back in the fresh air, we play with the dynamite and make bombs. Bolivia hey, health and safety...

We meet a juggler and his girlfriend on the tour, and its with them we head out later that evening, for a dirty Chinese. Us girls also head off for a wander round the markets. Its the end of the day so we miss most of the hustle and bustle. But I still manage to find disgusting goose necks and lungs? Also a cow face, which has had its skin taken off, but the eyes and wet black nose remain intact. I tried taking a photo but was threatened by a fierce Boliviano woman. Then in a skip outside the market on the way to the Chinese, cow horns with skully, brainy bits still attached thrown in and in a pile. YUK! I think cheese empanadas from now on. God who'd eat meat?! Thers no neat vaccum packed stuff in Bolivia.

We're all rather knackered from all the activities we've been up to so its decided to have a DVD day at the hostel. We watch Rainman which is so brilliant, Id forgotten. Then later on in the evening we watch The Pianist. Only the resident night watchman behind reception, who we've named trench foot, his feet smell like poo (honestly). Hes a moody git and reeks of booze as well, revolting. So when he keeps trying to shut down our film watching, which is peaceful and disturbing no one. We block the door so he cant get in! Such bad behavior! but reasonable under the circumstances. The next day we head to La Paz, we're all very excited...

Hair report: mostly flat with fly away tendencies, smidgen oily on top.

Our phrases:
There's no 'I' in team amigo.
You never see an old man eating a twix.
You can never have enough hats.
Theres no town like your own, but when in Rome...

Tommy's lost pillow, it falls off the top bunk onto me every night.
What this old thing?!
The hair ball in the shower, preposterously large.

xxxx