Potosi and Salar de Uyuni

Our plan was to move south from Sucre and that's just what we did - Potosi and the famous Bolivian Salt Flats were next on our list. With the thought of a three day, two night jeep tour around the Salt Flats ahead, Potosi was a nice place to chill out.



Claimed to be the highest city in the world - it sits at 4090m above sea level - Potosi is well known for its silver mining history and also, I have since learned, the exploitative nature of the industry. Apparently there are still 7,000 workers who mine the 120 operative mines in which pulleys were only introduced a few years ago (the bonus being miners now no longer haul rock loads on their backs). The mines were the subject of a 2005 documentary film called 'The Devil's Miner' which follows a 14 year old boy and his 12 year old brother who work there. I'm yet to see it. Many tourists take part in mine tours in Potosi. I guess one perspective is that such a tour would open your eyes to the type of labour and conditions in the mine, but I wasn't keen to partake. Not only had I heard that, surprise surprise, it's a real struggle to breath down there, as well as claustrophobic, but I didn't particularly want to make a spectacle of the men and children who work there every day. In saying that, I met people who got a lot out of the tour, so each to their own.

After one night in Potosi we continued south to Uyuni where we booked for the jeep tour of the Salt Flats, leaving the following day. The tour was great. We saw the flats on the fist day - so vast and...flat. Of course we had to take the corny tourist pics (including this one of us girls with our NZ friend Cliff). The next day we headed into the National Park and saw plenty of flamingos, lagoons, Illamas and mountains. On the third and final day, after waking at 4.30am, we saw a wonderful sunrise on the way to some geysers - Mel and Cliff even had a dip in some hot springs. We then said goodbye to Cliff at the Chilean border and turned around for the long trip back to Uyuni where we'd booked a night bus to Tupiza. Little did we know the night would be eventful...