Rock climbing in Sucre

Oddly enough, 4 out of our 5 wolf pack (me being the odd one out) were keen climbers. The hostel had a few flyers advertising rock climbing so we thought it might be a good way to spend the day after nearly a full day indoors the previous day.

We went to the tour company and paid for our experience then headed up the road to collect our shoes and helmets. It became clear at that point that instead of 3 of climbing at once like we had been promised, there was going to be only 1 climbing at a time while the rest of us would have to sit around and wait. As this was quite a significant change we were not too happy and tried to get a discount. The instructor said it was out of his hands and would have to go back down to the office to ask them. We did just that and after about half an hour of Fred arguing with them (and the poor girl nearly being in tears) we managed to get them to agree to collect an extra rope along the way and we could belay someone as well as the instructor. They were pretty reluctant to agree to this due to safety restrictions - who knew you'd ever have to worry about that in Bolivia? Given Jimmy belays for a job, it really wasn't an issue though.

The only perk of having wasted about an hour trying to get it all sorted was we at least got to see more of the celebrations going on as the Independence Day festivities were continuing on. As you can see, part of their traditional dress is the bowler hat which dates back to the 1920s when British railway workers introduced them to Bolivia.

After a half out drive or so and a big hike up a hill, we were finally at our climbing destination. The gum trees and dry ground reminded me so much of being in Australia. It was an impressive view over Sucre from our vantage point too.

I was pretty nervous about climbing as I think the last time I had done it was at OPC 15 years ago. I remembered loving it but looking up at the height of the wall I couldn't help but be a bit scared of how I would go. It turned out that I didn't need to feel nervous as I loved it as soon as I was hauling myself up the rock face. 

The five of us had a blast and we were pretty chuffed that there wasn't one fall between us all despite the hangovers! I'm definitely keen to get more into rock climbing in the future.

We headed back down into the city for our free beer then headed around the place in search of a non gringo food joint. We have found this to be harder than it sounds as we always seem to be eating at the wrong times and so the restaurants are either closed for siesta or closed for the night. This time it was closed for siesta so we had to make do with a place right on the plaza which of course is boring, overpriced gringo food. It filled that gap though and before long the wolf pack was saying their farewells and we split off into 3 in order to head our different ways.

Dmitry, Jimmy & I were pretty excited to get on our bus and see what a step up cama is to semi cama. Well worth the extra $5 or so when you're doing a 12 hour bus ride. Next stop, La Paz.

Sucre

We immediately noticed a big change between Potosi and Sucre. The streets were cleaner, the people happier, warmer weather and the white washed houses with terrecotta roofs everywhere have the city a very Spanish feel, thanks to the Spanish royalty & wealthy families favoring Sucre over Potosi during its silver boom. 

We arrived about 9pm and checked into our hostel then headed out for some dinner. The place we had been recommended was closed so we tried our luck at the one next door. On appearance it looked pretty basic and the salad bar quite sad but as it was already about 10:30 we figured we didn't have a whole lot of choice. Upon examining the menu it was clear it was a steak house and having had more steak in the last week than I've had in the last 5 years, I decided to opt for the salad bar only. Unfortunately for me, this turned out to be the best steaks on the trip thus far, but at least Jimmy's portion was the size of half of his plate so I still got to try some. A far cry from the first grey steak we had eaten in La Serena!

The next day we just wandered about enjoying the festivities as it happened to be Sucre's Independence Day, celebrating their first cry for freedom against Spanish rule over 200 years ago. The celebrations included marching bands, people in traditional dress and food stalls all over the streets. It was fun to be caught up amongst the festivities but Jimmy & Dmitry had other things on their mind.. Finding a pub that was broadcasting the champions league final (football). We managed to find one that had a decent looking menu, wifi and a number of TVs so everyone was happy and we settled in for an afternoon of beer drinking & football watching (or photo uploading in my case).

Once the game had finished it was almost sunset so Irina suggested hiking up to the top of the hill and catching the last of the sun's rays from the square up there. It was good to stretch the legs after so many beers, but man the altitude gets you every time! The view was well worst it though.

After the last of the sun slipped behind the hills, the five of us piled into a cab to go and secure our bus tickets for our trip to La Paz and Coachabamba as we had heard rumors they sell out fast. Jimmy, Dmitry and I managed to not only get a ticket but full Cama seats which was exciting as we had only had semi cama before.

Back to the hostel we went in order to have some more drinks (I wanted to get rid of the pisco I had been lugging around in my pack for about a week). Somehow we ended up still drinking at the hostel at 12:30am with no dinner, and a whole lot of extra booze in us. Turns out, circle of death can be quite hilarious with a Frenchman, French woman, a German, an Argentinian, a Russian/Canadian and 2 kiwis... 

Going to bed I couldn't help but feel like our choice of activity for the following day - rock climbing, might not be ideal with a hangover!

Potosi

We arrived in Potosi at about 10:30pm without having a hostel so the five us trapsed through the streets with our packs in search of one that Irina had noted as being ok. After an initial promise of 5 blocks from the bus station, it turned into about 45mins of walking around asking different people directions until we finally managed to find it. Thankfully they had rooms available (and even better, a private room for us) so we all collapsed into bed ready for our mine tour the next day.

Potosi hadn't been on our list of places to visit and upon waking up the next day we weren't surprised it hadn't been recommended to us. The others had all heard that the mining tour there was a must do, just for a memorable experience (not an enjoyable one). I was a bit hesitant after reading Lonely Planet's write up but after reading some more reviews on Trip Advisor we decided to take the plunge and do the tourist thing of visiting Cerro Rico ("rich hill") to see for ourselves the shocking conditions the miners of Potosi work in to get their share of silver. 

After the standard hostel jam and bread breakfast, our tour operator collected us by foot and we set off to her office. We then paid the equivalent of a few dollars for the tour, and we set off with our guide (the first ever female mine tour guide) to the miners markets where we purchased the miners gifts of juice and coca leaves. Next stop was the equipment fitting where we were given protective clothing, masks, helmets, gumboots and headlamps. It was freezing that day as they had had their first snow of the season on the mountain but they encouraged us to not wear too much under the protective clothing due to the high temperatures underground.

Upon entering the mines our smiles were very quickly wiped from our faces as we began to see the conditions of them. While the tunnels etc might not be that different to another mine, the shocking part was how everything was manual labour (apart from dynamite to blow up new passages). These guys would be lugging 40kg bags of rock on their backs up tiny ladders and we were huffing and puffing up them just carrying ourselves. Some of the trolleys would have 4 or 5 bags in them so that's 200kg that they are pushing for kilometers along rickety rails. Back breaking work to say the least - and then there are the fumes. After only 100m or so into the mines we were all coughing and spluttering with our masks on, while we saw only 2 guys in the whole mine wearing any kind of mask. Needless to say, the most deaths are caused by respiratory problems. 

There were many times when I wanted to run right outta there as I struggled for breath and crawled along narrow passageways. And then here were all these guys (some as young as 13) who were working in there for hours, days and years on end. They did however have two distractions down there. Girly photos and their god - the devil, who they pay their respects to every Friday night.

After about 2.5 hours underground I was very ready to get outside and get some fresh air. It was without a doubt the most sobering, depressing experience I've had, but one I will never forget. The saddest thing is, the miners are the best paid in the city of Potosi and they make about $10-$20 a day at most. And it's likely to eventually kill them. We did ask our guide why they don't open cast mine it and she said it was because they wanted to preserve the mountain. The scary part is though that they don't have any geologists coming in to check the state of the mines so there is no way to know how long until the whole thing just collapses in on itself as there are no regulations either, just individual miners who work for themselves all creating a network of tunnels inside the mountain. Someone likened it to Swiss cheese.

Having done the depressing tourist thing we were ready for something to lift our spirits (lucky for us). We wandered about enjoying the colonial buildings and found ourselves a warm spot for a huge lunch.

That is one enormous piece of steak under there... 

After a bit more wandering and a look around a museum where we saw this gem of a photo. Lost in translation perhaps? 

Finally we headed off to our bus to Sucre with the others. Not surprisingly we weren't too sad to say goodbye to Potosi, even if it is somewhere we will never forget.

Atacama to Uyuni - day tres

Our last day of the tour called for an early wake up call so we could head off to Isla de Pescado to watch the sunrise. Of course it had to be cloudy on the one day we were up in time to see the sunrise though! It was still impressive however as it was a pile of coral (that used to be under the sea) with huge cacti all over it, sitting in the middle of a salt flat that stretches as far as the eye can see. 

Even despite the clouds there were still some pretty incredible colours that we got to enjoy as our feet and legs turned numb (squats work a treat to warm you up again!).

Next up was the moment we had all been waiting for... Cheesy perspective photos on the salt flats! We had a wee practice run by the island before our driver would drive us into the middle of the salt flats to do the real thing. Some practice shots below.

 

Getting a good a shot is a lot harder than you would think but after 1.5 hours out there we managed to get some shots we were pretty happy with. Everyone was having a great time as the sun was out and so it was actually warm enough for us to strip down to one layer instead of the usual 5 we had become accustomed to needing.

Next up was one last photo op by the salt museum (we peeked in the windows and weren't very enticed). Fred decided we should create a human sign and his first idea was less than tasteful but thankfully Uyuni was suggested. We were pretty happy with the result! 

After leaving the salt flats we stopped off at some heavily overpriced I'm sure, markets where I got some warm socks as my feet had been ice blocks for days. 

We then got to enjoy a fabulous lunch of cold chicken schnitzels and pasta (I obviously skipped the chicken). Again, welcome to Boliva. People really weren't kidding when they said the food was shocking here. 

Last stop on our tour was the train graveyard. Our guide told us the trains had been decommissioned in Uyuni when diesel engines were introduced. 

We had been told that Uyuni was not the kind of place you want to stick around in and after arriving there is became pretty clear that they were right. After only being there a short amount of time we saw a young girl walk infront of us and then pop a squat in the gutter to go toilet. 

We managed to book ourselves onto a bus that left at 7pm that night to Potosi with the rest of the jeep wolf pack (apart from Khalid who had met a friend and was staying on in Uyuni). That meant we had a few hours to kill so we wandered the markets of depressing stall after stall, selling a whole lot of junk, or food that made me gag from the smell of it (not dissimilar to tinned dog food). It's so sad to see what people are trying to sell for a living. But also fascinating as they would be selling new fancy new cellphones next to reallllly old TVs. Somehow the flat screen phenomen hasn't caught on here, but the smartphone one certainly has.

We also ventured into a museum to check out some Bolivian mummies who had been preserved in the traditional burial squatting stance (this was practiced until Spanish invaded and introduced the lying down position). We also got to enjoy some lovely cone shaped skulls that had been all the rage - they would bind children's heads in order to change the shape of the skull to give them higher social status. Unsurprisingly this lead to blindness, deafness, and often an early death. Thankfully that's no longer the rage, instead the kids are after a pair of Nike shoes in order to gain themselves higher social status. 

We then had a real Bolivian restaurant experience with there only being one woman manning both the restaurant (which was empty but filled completely as we awaited our meals) and cooking the food. It was a tad stressful as we were on a tight schedule to make our bus but thankfully managed to make it with a few minutes to spare. 

Next stop, the mining city of Potosi.