Feb 24-27 Potosi - Riches to Rags, and a tourist attraction my insurance company would never approve of.

Potosi sits at 4,070 metres above sea level, making it the highest city in the world (La Paz is only 3,500 or so once you descend from the dizzying heights of its airport). It's also a UNESCO city of culture. But these aren't the only accolades it's ever held - in the early 17th Century, it is also said to have been the biggest and richest city in the world. Bigger and richer than London, Paris,.....apparently. The source of all this wealth: Cerro Rico (rich mountain). A peculiar red hill that sticks up awkward and alone from the surrounding countryside, replete with huge seams of silver, zinc and lead. Hundreds and thousands of tons of silver has been extracted, and most taken straight down to the 'Casa de la Moneda' to be made into coins, medals and table finery. Over the next two centuries, the cities fortunes declined as silver was found more cheaply elsewhere, but luckily the lavishly decorated buildings still survive in good condition.
And what of the miners? The government mines have long since closed, but around 800 are still working there, alone or in small collectives, searching for whatever is left.
They may as well be playing the lottery - some find a good seam and get rich, others dig for up to a year without taking a dime home to the family.
And no government means no regulation: no-one is checking who is digging where, how much of the inside of the hill has now been carved away and whether the next dynamite blast will bring the whole structure crumbling down.
Which brings be to the 8 million miners that have died since the mines opened. And the 25 who still perish each year.
Our guide told us that yes they were sad when one of their friends was killed, but that each body was an offering to 'El Tio', who in return will protect the other miners, and bring them good fortune.
El Tio is the devil - a statue of him resides in each separate mine in the hill. The miners give regular offerings of coca leaves, cigarettes and alcohol to keep Tio happy, themselves safe, and money in their pockets. Jesus has no place down here- it truly is a hell on earth.
We suit up in a house a mile or so down the hill: jacket, trousers, boots, helmet and lamp, and we had to buy a handkerchief to wrap round our faces to keep the dust out.
All smiles, we head up to the miners market to buy some presents for the miners: Coca leaves to chew to stave off hunger, soft drinks (really? I thought, but it's so hot down there and they never have enough water with them), and...dynamite.
A quick trip to one of the local, crude refining plants (the sludge that is exported is still a large proportion of rubbish), and we're ready to enter the mine.
Level 1: almost big enough for me to stand up, and gets some fresh air from the entrance. We stop to make an offering to Tio (and attempt to mend his broken penis - oops), and give out a bottle of fanta to a work group on their way out.
Level 2: getting warmer and dustier. We back ourselves up against the tunnel walls as a cart passes (they have no brakes), and begin to descend a steep and slippery chute down towards level 3, occasionally stopping to allow someone to pass us on their way up.
Level 3: we've lost two of our group; a mild asthmatic and a very large American, neither of which had taken the warnings in the guidebooks seriously. That's the problem coming from our cotton wool-protected societies: we think that anything we're allowed to do is obviously safe, risk-assessed, and accessible by near 100% of people.
This is Bolivia - no-one's responsible for you but you. You're on your own.
But I kind of like the concept. I think it teaches children to be more independent, conscious of their surroundings and responsible.
But this mine: this is maybe taking it a bit far. Around 800 children work down here, and they have no choice - maybe they are fatherless, maybe their family is just that poor. At least they also go to school. But what's the point of a free education system if you get kicked out when you can't afford the uniform unless you work down the mine 8 hours a day?
Level 4: The air is thick with dust, the temperature is somewhere between 30 and 40, and we crawl on our knees down the rocky passages to a small work group who are making holes in the rock for dynamite.
Most of the accidents in the mine are dynamite related, and mostly preventable: you lay 10 sticks, 8 of them blow, and you go back to see what has happened to the last 2. As Lionel Bart would say: that's your funeral.
Or you blow all your gear, and go back to inspect the results without waiting overnight for the dust to settle. That's your funeral too.
Or maybe you don't make the appropriate warnings to the other work groups around you before lighting the fuse. Maybe a rock fall will be their funeral....
Our guide tells us that most miners die of silicosis simply from breathing in so much dust (life expectancy 35-40), and that most rock falls oddly happen when no-one is in the mine.
We ask the one of the miners what they think of tourists coming down the mine.
'As long as they bring gifts, it's ok'. There was also some unrepeatable sexual comment made in the local language of Quechua, but that can only be expected from men who are locked away in this hell-hole for up to 24 hours at a time...
Ascending back up the rickety ladders ('look out for the second rung; it's a bit dodgy. Oh and the third. And the fourth a little bit too'), and slippery, dusty chute, my natural inclination is to pull down my mask to cool down a little.
Big mistake.
As a climb, I breathe heavily (don't forget the altitude), and inhale so much dust I can taste the ferrous rock in my mouth. Put the mask back up.
One level up, the guide offers us the chance to see another part of the mine, or carry on outside. The decision is unanimous: we'd seen enough.
The mine is a labyrinth, and without calling out for the guide whenever I lost sight of him round a corner, I would have easily taken several wrong turnings and landed myself in serious trouble.
I don't remember the last time the phrase 'seeing the light at the end of the tunnel' had been so apt or welcome. We emerged gasping at the fresh air, legs and backs aching from crouching, throats raw and eyes stinging from the dust. But almost not a word of complaint - we were just in awe of these guys that endured that and more for 8 to 12 to sometimes 24 hours at a time. 6 days a week. Playing roulette with their fortunes and their lives.
Feeling slightly guilty for wasting good gear, we blew up a stick of dynamite on the hill for fun (the photo of me holding the dynamite bomb with the lit fuse is one of my favourites so far), learning how to prepare it to get the best explosion (if I get arrested on re-entry to Britain for attending a bomb-making class, put in a good word for me will you?, and headed back into town to try and shower off the dust.
The debates, still continuing 5 days later, range from health and safety, the possibility of getting rich versus the possibility of getting dead, free will and choice, child labour, voyeurism on our part and whether the tourist draw is contributing to the perpetuation of these medieval conditions.
But the idea that no-one is in charge of the health and safety - I may be cotton wool-wrapped, but that just seems like a disaster waiting to happen.
Hang on: 8 million? Already happening.

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23 Feb Tupiza to Potosi - Hooray for Bolivian buses!

How (almost) every possible thing that could go wrong on a Bolivian bus did, on the same journey...

we arrived at the bus station at 10 for our 10.30 bus, as requested...
bus arrived at 11.30
then I was told that the different companies were combined into one bus, which was overbooked, and I didn't have a seat for the first two hours.
I looked the woman sternly in the eye and asserted in my best spanish: I paid for a seat, I want a seat, and is i don't get a seat, I want some of my money back (except that the work 'back' came out in german, but she got the idea.
I was miraculously found a seat, which unfortunately was at the back, not by the window, as apposed to the booked mid-bus window seat that would have been kinder on my delicate stomach, and I was SURROUNDED by babies of 4 months to 2 years, crawling and mewling and ga-ing for their lives.
Hey ho, I draw my legs up to my chest to brace my stomach against the gravel road, and prepare for 7 hours of the same... but five minutes down the road... we ground ourselves on a steep bridge. Half an hour of precarious plank manoeuvres and we're off again, this time for a good 50 mins before grinding to a halt half way up a hill. (I learnt the word for breakdown: rompio). an hour of tinkering by the drivers proves fruitless, so one of them was dispatched back to town in a hitchhiked pick-up. After THREE hours, a wander off to find a quiet bush, and a visit from an opportunist biscuit-seller, it looks like we're good to go again.
3 minutes, and we stop again. It's decided that this bus (which looked good to us when we got on, but they obviously paid for a new paint job instead of a service) was a lost cause, and to our rescue came a local 40-seater jobbie. Trouble was, there were nearly a hundred of us.
No matter - every man for himself and we all squeezed in. I was standing in the aisle becoming way more familiar than one should with the butt cheeks of the Argentinian behind me. The little overloaded motor panted and sweated up every hill, but at 7pm, 8 1/2 hours after we we meant to leave Tupiza, we arrived at our 'lunch stop'
I noted who was getting off at this stop, did a quick circuit of loo-water shop-cracker shop (I was feeling a little better by that point but wasn't going to risk the local chicken and chips with 5 toilet-less hours left to go was I?), and trotted back to the bus early - I would happily give up 10 mins of leg stretching for 5 hours of a seat. joy of joys, I sat down next to one of the largest Bolivian men there is, a bit cramped but just oh so happy to be sitting down, I put my ear plugs in, turned my brain off and dozed my way to Potosi.
I had been worried by the line on the hostel's website 'if you are arriving after midnight, you MUST inform us or you will be stuck outside until the morning'. Ah well, hopefully there's someone booked in for 2am, or we'll just make a racket until someone lets us in. Thank goodness - that was the only part of the day that went to plan, and all I had to do now was don every piece of clothing I owned (including hat and gloves) before I was warm enough to go to sleep. Stingy buggers - the heating only goes on in winter, but at 4,000 asl its not exactly balmy on summer evenings!

Feb 15-22 The High Andes (Mendoza, Salta and Tupiza, Bolivia)

You come for the towns - you stay for the countryside.

Britain is very VERY small. The Andes, however, are very very big.
Hands down the best mountain range I ever saw.
I now understand all the lurid colours of Andean clothing and crafts; are not a rebellion against the bleakness of their surroundings, but a reflection of their brightness. Each peak is painted in primary tones as if by a small child, this one red, this green, this almost purple. Here, stripes, there splodges. Curves next to jagged crags, scrub with cactus, desert with llamas. In 10 minutes driving, nay, in one panoramic sweep of the eye, you can appreciate the contrasts, but in a whole day's journey cannot see enough. I went up to the mountains in Mendoza, and again in Salta. Every bus journey, now in Bolivia, I press my face up to the window to soak up more, breathing in the landscape in gulps I can't only ascribe to the altitude.

11 - 15 Feb Mendoza - and the grass is greener...

'You are now leaving Patagonia. Please dispose of your empty wallets responsibly and remember to expel all unused fresh air from your lungs on your way out.'

I was looking forward to my return to a warm climate, after nearly a month in the windy, rainy south. My feet were itching to be out in flipflops and I've nearly forgotten what my shorts look like.
However, three hours after arriving, I'm sunburnt, covered in sweat and have sandal blisters on my re-tender feet. And my knee is sore again from having bashed it on an unidentified piece of bus on a nature call in the middle of the night. Also cursing the hostel for not being able to let me in my/any room early, to shower off the 20 hour journey, put away my valuables and actually consider what I do and do not need in my daypack for a hot and sunny city morning. (Walking round a city with all your money, passport , computer and electrical goods= not smart. And heavy. Having no sun cream on you= plain stupid)
Frustrated by the bigness and busy-ness of the city after my small Patagonian towns, I decided to seek solace in the enormous 'Parque San Martin', with the promise of views of both the city and the Andres from the top of Cerro Gloria on the far side.
Instead I find the green laced with roads, rendering it impossible to escape traffic noise, and the small wooded area in which I sit to cool off from the 30 minute walk covered in discarded condoms and wrappers. Nice. The intermittent noises of a soundcheck waft my way - I may go and investigate, but I'm also determined to get to the top of the hill. 45 minute walk, my guidebook suggests.
Hmm - this guidebook is for old people, I bet it's no more than 30.
Maybe - with some shade and proper shoes, and without a full backpack and blazing midday sun.
The park slopes gently uphill, becoming scrubbier, drier and with greater breaks between the shade. After a Lawrence-of-Arabia-esque eternity, I arrive sweating and steaming at the base of the cerro, to be greeted to my delight by a kiosk selling ice-cold 7-up.
15 minutes later, fortified, I began the ascent. It wasn't far but it was steep, and at the top I had to pause in some shade to catch my breath and cool down a little again.
I found myself watching a few crazy runners who had jogged all the way up.... only to realise after a few minutes that it wasn't a crazy few, there were a good 30 or so. And some of them were doing LAPS. I balked at my own shameful state of unhealthiness... then proceeded to open my guidebook to the chapter on how to get the most wine tasting out of my Mendozan wine tour.