July 17, 2003
Photos -- Slow Boat Through Bolivia
Location: Potosí, Bolivia
Miles from home: Strangely, only 100 miles more than last time
Days on the Road: 217
At long last, a new posting. Sorry for the 6 week lapse, but sometimes life happens. The following is a selection from my almost two month so far in Bolivia.
I'm currently in Potosí, the self-proclaimed highest city in the world at 4000 meters (13,100 ft.) Both El Cab and I are doing fine, but the altitude tires us both out. Tomorrow, it's off to Uyuni, then back up through La Paz and into Peru with a few weeks.
More to come...sooner or later.
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Jesuit Missions. My first real stop in Bolivia was in Concepción, home to one of the most beautifully restored Jesuit Missions in all of the Americas. It was an unexpected sight after 300 miles of pure dust and sand on the way in from Brazil.
In addition to the churches themselves, each mission had an artisan workshop associated with it where all the handcarved adornments of the churches were made.
I also stopped in San Javier on the way in from Brazil to have lunch in the market - that would be the wood slat structure behind the kid on the bike.
This "multi-purpose" bridge was a little less nerve-wracking than riding behind 18 wheelers on dusty roads at 10 mph trying to pass through a complete white out of dust and sand. I can now say I know how to ride my bike right up onto a sandy beach at 50 mph, since that is what a lot of the sudden changes in road conditions are like in Bolivia.
El Fuerte is one of the largest ruins in the Americas carved completely out of solid rock. Some hippies from Sodona, AZ insist to this day that the two large parallel lines carved at the top are a pre-historic UFO landing strip.
This family in a dusty truck stop on the road from Santa Cruz to Sucre took me in as one of their own, feeding me and teaching me how to be a shark in the local card games. ¡Muchisimas Gracias por todo!
Sucre -- Home for a Spell
Although I didn't plan to stay so long, I ended up in Sucre for close to a month -- over 6 weeks, if you include the 3 weeks I left my bike there to visit with Zelie. Sucre just sucked me in, and soon I found myself engulfed in Spansih classes, teaching English, and generally letting six months of almost daily stop-and-go travel slowly drain out of me.
My first weekend in Sucre just happened to be the annual Gran Prix of sorts. Suped up Corollas and Civics raced all day around a 20 mile dirt and asphalt track in the surrounding hills. I only saw one car nearly roll over right in the middle of town rounding a corner of the plaza.
In Tarabuco a small town one hour east of Sucre, the locals still wear traditional dress, which includes a woven poncho or manta, and a head piece of leather modeled after the helmets the Conquisatdors adorned when they first came through the area over 400 years ago. Some styles never go out of fashion, I suppose.
A Tarabucan Man.
Bolivia's altiplano, or highlands, is known for it's incredible tradition of weaving. Each piece about 4X4 ft. square takes one to two months to weave using traditonal painstaking techniques.
If you've wondered what kept me in Sucre so long, the incredible architechture had something to do with it.
I stayed half a block from el Arco, a well known landmark two blocks from the main plaza.
Many an afternoon was passed relaxing on the plaza watching the world go by.
Another thing that kept me in town so long was good friends like Jorge. On my first night in town I met Jorge from Austria, who had also just arrived from La Paz. Within a few days the local girls took to calling him Coco. I think it kinda suits him, no?
Coco was quite a mover and shaker on the dance floor, I must say. Especially with Orría and Izaskun, two friends from España who introduced themselves by saying, "Hey, are you sitting at this big table all alone? Would you mind moving so we can sit here... uh, or you could sit with us if you want." I responded by saying, "Sure. I'm Eduardo, and I have Malaria." And so, a friendship was born.
The Gang at 4AM. With Coco and I both leaving town the same day, we partied down our last night with the whole crew until the little hours of the morning one last time in our favorite watering hole, the Dutch-owned Joyride Cafe. More than a mere cafe, the Joyride has a nasty habit of keeping its patrons until way too late while tray after tray of tequila shots appears out of no where. More than a mere bar owner, Gert was never far from the fun. Thanks for the memories, everyone!
Potosí -- Into the Mouth of Hell
During the 16th to 19th centuries, Potosí, Bolivia was one of the world's most lucrative sources of silver. Over 300 years of Spanish rule and unrelenting production, over 8 million indigenous and african slaves died in the dark mines of Cerro Rico (rich mountain) and its associated smelting plants, according to Uruguayan author, Eduardo Galieano. Today, the city ofers tours of the mines, 420 of which still produce low grade zinc and tin, with over 6,000 miners still using the same production methods introduced by the Spanish 450 years ago.
All of the following photos were taken hand-held without a flash.
There are 420 families living on the Cerro Rico, one for each active mine. This woman has been living on the mountain hand-sorting different types of ore and guarding her shaft for over 40 years.
The mine tour was no walk in the park. We suited up in rain gear, donned helmets and gas lanterns, and had a pep talk from our guide, Jaime, an ex-miner, before heading in. Two hours and two kilometers of crouching, crawling and climbing later, we surfaced a quater mile away at the entrance to another shaft.
The miners still use colonial mining techniques, which basicaly means they use sledges and long steel bars to hammer holes into solid rock before placing a stick of dynamite to move one cubic yard of rock at a time. Each 24" hole takes 2-3 hours to pound out. There are absolutely no drills or other machines used in the mines. They would use animals to haul the ore out, but employing young boys with wheel barrows is cheaper.
Hands. It's all done by hand.
Our guide Jaime lights a cigarette from his headlamp to offer up to "El Tio" -- the antichrist idol that resides inside every mine. Miners offer coca leaves, cigarettes and alcohol to the lord of the underworld in hopes he will provide them with high grade ore and protect them from tragedy.
We all sat petrified watching a miner prepare a load of dynamite in a hole he had just finished. After he lit the fuse we hightailed it down the shaft to a "safe location." Even from a hundred yards and two turns in the shaft away, the shockwave of the blast hit me in the chest like a hammer.
After a dynamite blast, each miner rests for an hour allowing the toxic fumes and dust to settle before removing his ore. No one eats in the mine, they just chew coca leaves. The huge wads of coca distort the miners' faces and leave a green slimey residue on their lips and teeth. Coca, from which cocaine is derived, numbs the miners' bodies and staves off hunger.
This 15 year old boy was one of the wheel barrow runners we encountered. He, like the rest of the miners, works 10 hours a day and makes less than $1.50. I was told there are even younger boys working in the mines, but the older miners hide them when they hear tourists coming. The small boys are used to get into crevices the men cannot.
Although today's miners have the good fortune of being able to come out of the mine a few times a day to relax and chew more coca, slave and indigenous miners in the 16th and 17th Centuries were often made to stay inside the mines for 4 months at a time. Four months!
A portrait of the mighty Cerro Rico which looms over Potosí in the afternoon light. It is said that over 300 years of mining, enough silver was extracted from this one mountain to build a bridge of solid silver from Potosí to Spain. It's also said that enough miners died in the process to build a second bridge to Spain out of their bones.
In 1849 (or so) Bolivia finally received it's independence from Spain. A mask was installed in the entryway to the enormous silver mint in the middle of town. It is said the mask wears an ironic smile bidding the Spanish farewell and good riddance at the same time. Over 400 years, the vast majority of Spain's silver coins were made here. Ironically, today Bolivia's one and two Boliviano coins are fabricated in Spain. Outside a meager tourism industry, the mines remain Potosí's main source of income.
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