Life in the Altiplano

Bolivian bus travel is quite an experience after the comfortable bus rides in Argentina. In Argentina you pay 10 times more but buses are mostly new and comfortable and they serve wine and food on board and always have toilets. This is not how it is in Bolivia. Buses are old, the wind blows through the walls, windows don´t stay shut, buses are packed with people and sometimes people just sit on the floor. Sometimes the bus stops for an hour without an explanation at the most random little village. Sometimes someone yells “baños” and people run out and pee next to the bus and jump back in. We took a bus from Uyuni to Tupiza (travel time officially 6 hours, real travel time 8 hours) starting at 6 am. All the locals had huge blankets and warm clothes with them, and within the first minutes we knew why… A lesson learned: always take the buses during the day from now on. It is freezing.

We arrived in Tupiza in the afternoon. We were happy to sleep in a warm place for a change and just relax for a few days. Tupiza was the perfect place for that. It is a small town with amazing quebradas around it. People are friendly, food is good (even if every restaurant has exactly the same menu) and it is very safe. A river runs through the city, but in the dry season most of the water is hiding somewhere else and the dry river is used for different purposes: dumping rubbish, moving donkeys and horses around the city, some even drive trucks down there. You can easily spend a few hours just exploring the markets filled with textiles, shoes, spices, electronics, and whatever you might need. Besides watching local people living their lives, there is not that much to do in Tupiza. Which is a good thing.

After a few days relaxing we decided to do horse riding for 3 hours, which is a cheap and fun way to spend the day. Horse riding seems to be the safest and the most comfortable way to explore the surroundings of almost any town in Bolivia. Our guide was a boy surely no more than 13 years old, but the horses knew the route through the valleys already so it was easy enough for us even without any experience with these creatures.

From Tupiza we took a bus to Potosi, one of the highest citiest in the world at the elevation of 4,090m. It is historically an important city, because of the silver mines (also known as the most dangerous mine in the world) that brought wealth to the people and made it one of the biggest cities of 1600's. Even if the silver is gone a long ago, the mines are still working, now digging up other, less valuable minerals. Because of asbestos and all the other nasty stuff the miners breathe, they are likely to die 10-15 years after entering the mines. Over 8 million slaves and workers have died in the mines. Toxic gases, their devil Tio who lives in the mountain, high risk of getting silicosis and big explosions are still not enough to scare away the workers hoping to hit a rich vein of minerals. Average pay for all this is about $10 a week. Also young children, whose parents cannot afford school, work there. The children start their day the same as older miners: chewing coca leaves, that reduces appetite, helps to concentrate and helps working in the altitude.

You can do tours into the mines, but it is dangerous and quite sad. We thought it would be interesting to visit, but mentally bit too much for us, we decided not to, even if the miners are usually happy to get visitors. Later on we saw a documentary about the miners, and we were happy with our decision.

Instead of doing any tours, we spent days just walking around Potosi (enough excercise in these altitudes!), visiting a museum, enjoying good food and planning ahead. Soon we had enough of freezing cold nighs and constantly having trouble to breathe, so it was time to move on again, this time towards lower grounds to Sucre.