Potosi and Tupiza

Potosi
I arrived on April 10, 2012 to Potosi which claims to be the worlds highest city at over 4,000 meters.  The next day I walked around the city.  Its a nice city and was nice to walk around the artisans shops and of course the food markets. I had a wonderful polenta soup with aji (hot spicy sauce).  And of course stopped to get a fresh carrot juice.  Then I went on a tour of the casa del moneda (house of money, mint).  The museum is a nice museum and has lots of old money and machinery as well as paintings and mummies of children. Too bad I couldnt understand the tour guide. 

Mine tour
Then I went on a tour of the coopertive mines. Its what I expected.  I recommend the tour guide Pablo from the Real Deal Tours.  All the guides and owners were ex miners so they can tell you how it really works.  While I think I would have rather skipped the mine tour it wasnt terrible just long and alot of information I already know from having spent so much time here.  I did like how they showed us the process of separating the silver by chemicals. The guides took us to a cooperative mine which has less regulations but people get to keep the profits.  They said that people can make more money and some have gotten rich although others make between 200Bolivianos and 800Bolivianos.  While at a private mine they make around 600Bolivianos.  700 Bolivianos is about $100USD and I was told that a policeman makes around 800Bolivianos a month.  The guides said they like working in the cooperative mines because all the people are laid back and fun.. they like to joke around and there is potential to make lots of money, they dont have to worry about how they dress or being formal.  They also all speak Quechua.  Which as the guide said is something many people with other jobs would be too embarrassed to speak at work. I had learned that many of the young children in the cities dont want to learn Quechua and only speak Spanish.  Many of them dont wear protective masks because its difficult to breathe even though so many become sick and die from the dust of the mines.  The guide also said they dont eat until after work is finished because they are covered in dirt mud and toxic chemicals being leeched by the earth.  They just chew coca leaves.

April 12, 2012
Walked around Tupiza which is a nice town with a beautiful backdrop.   I went on a horseback riding trip. While the riding itself wasnt exciting the backdrop was pretty.

They bough dynamite

The chemicals used to extract the silver

extracting the silver

They put the sandlike substance out to dry

The silver is exported like this in raw form

ready to go into the mines

the carts are all man powered.. people pushing or pullin the carts

lots of bags of silver to be refined

we had a professional reporter on tour with us

Inside the mines could be really muddz in some areas and really low where I had to crawl as well as dark

Did I mention they are working at over 4,000 meters?

This is tio.. because the natives could not pronounce dio which is  God in  Spanish they called him Tio.  Which means uncle in spanish and is given gifts by the miners to keep him happy so that nothing happens as the mines can be very dangerous. 

This pretty stuff coming from the ceilings is toxic

More toxic chemicals leeching from the tunnels

We came out of the dark, wet, and small tunnels to a beautiful sunset

Then they lit the dynamite

A street in Tupiza has wonderful backdrop of mountains

We had a horse only a few months old come along for our ride so that he could feed from his mother.

The sun was going down on our ride back

Maragua and Sucre Bolivia

Witches market Sucre

Morning bus ride

 Citronella which we used for tea

Devils throat in Maragua

Often clouds in the morning

The geology on this trek changes every few hours

Silica is seen frequently on the hike, harder is some parts and crumbly in others

First view of the crater Maragua with the Andes in the background

Many water balloons for Carvnival

Stars in Icla, I have seen so many shooting stars here

Membrillo, or quince in English, one of the many fruits we ate in Icla.  We had fresh figs, prickly pear cactus, oranges, peaches, grapes, apples and other from the trees.

An owl watching us hike out of the crater.  I have also seen viscachua (like a hare) and a snake on other trips. As well as lots of loros.

A wasp carrying a spider back to its nest

Kantuta is the national flower of Bolivia.  The flower looks likes this and is red, yellow and green.

Quinoa

An adventurous bus ride in the morning to the hike after a night of rain

We watched this dung beetle roll a piece of dung like a clown using its front legs to walk and hind legs to roll the ball and it would often roll over the ball like a clown.

Glad we arrived after this hail storm.  The hail was bigger than a quarter.

My last hike to Maragua

Pink potatos.. papas lisa. They are even pink on the inside when cooked. Yummy

Not sure how this bird was able to fly so graceful with a tear in its wing

dragon fly (Libelula)

Absolutely beautiful after a bit of rain cleared

Icla

The girls found some mud in Icla...

Dinosaur footprints

The patterns of the crater manage to impress me every visit.

Many hikes through corn and other fields.

Enjoyed many a lunch by these waterfalls

Since its rainy season the rivers were muddy but were clearing up by my last hike

So many flowers were in bloom, each hike different flowers were blooming

The Inca trail in Chaunaca

Cave paintings

habas,  fava bean

Dinosaur footprints

Cicada (cigarra)

Plant for stomach aches munya

Went to see the performance 20 year of Cueca at Teatro Mariscal the oldest theatre in Sucre.

Controversial statue in Tarabuco of a soldier of the battle jumbate taking the heart of a spaniard

fossils proving that the area was once under water

In pusilli the mother crushed the wheat for our soup on this stone (batan).  (The peppers are ready to be crushed for llajua - salsa picante)

More quinoa

Pujllay Festival in March, 2012


We were almost hit by the Presidents car because it was going down a really crowded street and we couldnt get out of the way and we couldnt figure out who the person in the car dressed up was until someone told us to move out of the presidents way.

Pujllay which means to play in Quechua

Pukara (fortress) in Pujllay

The flag of Bolivia on the bottom and the whiphala flag of the west of Bolivia

These made a wonderful sound when the stamped their feet as the spurs would clang together

The following are more trek photos.

Sucre and Volunteering

Well my time in Bolivia and Sucre came to an end faster than I would have liked.  But volunteering in Sucre was a highlight.  Though I spent some time volunteering with different organizations my favorite was Condor Trekkers (http://www.condortrekkers.org/).  A nonprofit ecofriendly trekking agency.  The treks were amazing, the guides were awesome and the food was delicious.  

Sucre offers so many volunteer opportunites. It has has lots of orphanages which need help, as well as volunteering with handicapped children and so many others but one of the other organization that I had the most fun with was Inti. Its a magazine for children who work jobs afterschool such as shining shoes or selling bird seed for very little money.  The magazine is sold by the children and they get to keep half of the profits and often their drawings or pictures are in the magazine so it gives them something to be proud of.  I walked around with some of the girls to help them try to sell the magazine.  Although I am not much of a salesperson I found it a really interesting experience to see peoples reactions. The children targeted tourists and I could explain in English to the tourists what the magazine was because the children cannot speak English but the vast majority of people who bought the magazine were locals which surprised me. I actually found it fun trying to explain to many very curious Bolivians why a foreigner was walking around with a local girl, as we received many stares and questions.  Some of the girls were really little and wouldnt even talk to anyone would just hold out the magazine.. One of the girls was so little she spent more time dropping the magazine and I am not sure she could even speak much Spanish.  So I would normally tell the younger ones to speak up and to talk and say hello and have confidence or they just get ignored when they would quietly ask ¨magazine?¨ or just hold up the magazine.  Inti brought the kids out on an excursion to a place in the countryside for Easter and had a picnic played some games and had an Easter egg hunt which is not common in Bolivia.  

    

Sucre

Sucre is the capital of Bolivia. It called the city of crazies because it has the first and only mental institute in the country.