All Mine

After two weeks I decided to leave Sucre. It was a little less interesting than I had hoped - the most European of Bolivian towns wasn´t Bolivian enough to excite, I guess. The irritating Brummie couple sharing my homestay didn´t help either. So much for immersion in the language and culture.

The sad bit was that I had to leave the kids at the orphanage. They seemed to look forward to me coming, and I hope I was able to make a small difference. In the end though, as a witty Dutch friend pointed out, the only difference I definitely made was that I didn´t stay as long as the other volunteers.

Moving north, I passed briefly through the world´s highest city, Potosi. Two hundred years ago, it was one of the richest in the world, but the Silver in the imposing peak that towers over the city has long since run out. A huge co-operative mining operation remains, however, because, at least for the next few years, there´s still rubble in there worth something.

I took a tour of the mines with four other European guys, led by a supposed former miner. We spent just three hours underground, but the conditions were so disgusting that we emerged into the light physically and mentally shot.

Most passages are only small enought to crawl on your stomach, which disturbed large amounts of dust into the air making it hard to breath. The dust contained asbestos, arsenic and other toxic minerals, and the smell was ubearable. Together with the stifling heat and altitude, it created a hellish atmosphere.

We had bought gifts for the miners - large amounts of Coca leaves, as well as dynamite and fizzy drinks. By the time we bumped into a group shovelling rubble into a large container, most of the Coca was gone - chewed by us in a desperate attempt to fight the effects of the altitude. Some of the miners were drunk - celebrating the end of another torturous week - while others were covered in sweat from the shovelling and lifting. One told me that he had been working down there for 10 years. He was 22 years old.

The miners are completely self-employed. If you fancy a spot of digging, you just organise yourself into groups, buy some dynamite, a helmet, a torch and a large breakfast and head underground. As a group, you sell the rubble you collect to local companies, the price depending on the quality of the rock. If you work hard, you can earn around five pounds per (very long) day, not bad for Bolivia.

Of the 15,000 miners in the hill, around 30 die from accidents each year - hardly surprising since there´s no rules about where or when you dig or blow up dinamite, little communication between the groups and certainly no engineers. The survivors rarely live beyond 50, poisoned by constant exposure to toxic fumes.

Hours are long: a group we met had started at 8.00 that morning and were to work without a break until 7pm, when their wives would meet them at the entrance of the mine with dinner prepared. After an hour they were to start again and work through until the morning. Arguably, Goldman Sachs has a healthier work-life balance, and the ceilings are undoubtedly higher.

I was curious about the psychology behind this self-imposed life-sentence (the mines, not Investment Banking). Asking around, there seemed to be a feeling that miner is like a religion or race. One very dusty worker told me that he knew how to light dynamite before he could walk. His friend added that he was born in the mine and would be happy to die there.


After a (possibly life-saving) shower, longer than Steve´s average, I jumped on a bus an headed to La Paz. From there I flew in a 12 seater plane from the Bolivian capital at 4200m over some mountains and down a very long way to Rurrenabaque, a small town in the tropical lowlands at height 100m. We landed in what appeared to be someone´s garden. The stifling heat and humidity was immediately obvious a real contrast from the fresh days and cold nights at altitude.

The purpose of all this was to do a three day tour of the nearby pampus wetlands - reputedly a great opportunity to witness unique wildlife. Essentially we took a boat a very long way up a river, slept in a jungle lodge (sometimes in hammocs) and took the same boat on day trips to try and find particular delights from the animal kingdom.

On the plus side, we saw (and fed, and sometimes touched) loads of types of monkeys, alligators, capybaras (guinea pig meets hippo), eagles, sloths, large ostrich-like flying bird things, fat crawling grey things (mouse meets cow) and (despite the river looking dirtier than the Oxford Canal) swam with pink river dolphins. We also sank a few beers at the river-side bar (a naturally occuring natural phenomenon dotted throughout the amazon) before floating down the river at night, gazing at stunningly bright starts and listening to the cacophony of frogs and monkeys lining the river bank.

On the down side, our most frequent animal companion was the mosquito (they never advertise ´swimming with mosquitos´), closely followed by humans, which could regularly be seen coming in the other direction in a similar sort of boat to ours. Still, it was wild-enough for now, and I´ll seek out a similar, less touristy excursion elsewhere.

I plan to spend a few days in La Paz now, before heading north towards Lake Titicaca and Peru. I hope you are all well - please keep me updated with stories and gossip.

Kate Middleton