The Cerro Rico Silver Mine, Salar de Uyuni, and the Death Train

So, I left Sucre on the Monday after the first two days of Carnaval. I left at 8 AM and got a bus to Potosi, where I was hoping to get a bus from there to Uyuni where I planned on doing a three day tour of the salar (the world´s largest salt flat, basically a huge desert that has salt instead of sand). Once in Potosi, I found out I had missed the last bus to Uyuni and wouldn´t be able to get a bus until Wednesday. This was due to the fact that on Tuesday there was absolutely no public transportation in the entire country because, supposedly, everyone is drunk after Carnaval. I had planned to meet Ed, a good friend of mine that I met a few weeks before in Sucre that night in Uyuni, so I didn´t know what I would do. Luckily, I got an email from him saying that he was also coming to Potosi that day and didn´t think he would be able to get a bus to Uyuni until Wednesday. So I met Ed that night and we spent the next day in the main square engaging in a water fight that lasted the entire day. We were in the square, throwing water balloons and dumping buckets of water on people in the back of pickup trucks for five or six hours. It was so much fun.
I forgot to mention that before Carnaval I came to Potosi for a day (it isn´t far from Sucre) to do a tour of the Cerro Rico Silver mine in Potosi. It was an incredible experience. We spent about two hours in the mine, trudging through mud, climbing up and down ladders that would´ve sent my Mom into shock, talking the the miners, giving them gifts of soda and coca leaves, and learning about the mining process. I was not absolutely horrified by the working conditions, but they were bad. Many of the workers work up to 2 km into the mountain, so they do not get to leave the whole work day. We were there in the morning towards the beginning of the shift, and I saw several guys covered in head to toe with thick mud. Our guide also informed us that kids as young as 14 worked in the mines, full time. To make things worse, these guys make only 2000 bolivianos a month, about 265 USD. Allthought this isn´t a bad salary by Bolivian standards, it is by no means adequate for the job they are working. At one point, we all tried the alcohol that the workers drink throughout the day. This stuff makes vodka taste like grape juice. 96% sugar cane alcohol that left my throat burning for a good ten minutes, even though I had a sip that probably wasn´t more than a sixth of a shot. The miners drink this horrible substance straight, based on the superstition that drinking pure alcohol with bring them finds of pure silver. In my opinion, it just brings them a drunkenness that happens to be involved in and a huge cause of the leading cause of death in the mines (miners falling down open shafts). All in all, I consider this tour of the mine a very valuable experience. I saw, once again in Bolivia, how hard the lives of so many people are, especially in comparison to mine.
So, on Wednesday Ed and I caught a bus to Uyuni and arrived there around 7 PM. We didn´t do much that night besides checking out a few tourist agencies to get info on tours of the salar. The next morning, we booked a three day tour for 65 USD, all inclusive. An incredible price, if you ask me. Even better if you look at all the places we visited. We left at 11 in the morning, and I was in utter amazement for the next three days. Never before in my life have I seen so many incredible places that are all so different in such a short period of time. We were taken to places that were so cool I wanted to stay for the whole day, but nope, we would be hurried off to yet another place that blew my mind. Our first stop was the salar itself. As I mentioned earlier, Salar de Uyuni is the largest salt flat in the world, but because there was tons of rain in the past few weeks, it was flooded. At first I was very dissapointed to hear this because we wouldn´t be able to visit one or two sites, but once we got out onto the salar my dissapointment dissolved. It was unreal. The surface of the water reflected everything. Clouds, the blue sky, cars, the mountains, people, etc. It was great. Then we were off the the train graveyard, where we were able to walk around and on several ´dead´ trains that were in use in the 1880s. The next day, our first stop was a valley near a volcano filled with volcanic rock! It was awesome! All sorts of rocks with crazy shapes and the lava tracks were clearly visible. We visited several lagoons, the most incredible of which was called Laguna Colorada. It was mainly a deep red with some blue and white along the sides. Not only was the color very bizarre, the lake was full of flamingos.
The third and final day began nice and early at 4 30 AM. We got to an area with tons of geysers right at sunset. It was, once again, a spot that instantly found its place among the coolest landscapes I´ve ever seen. After the geysers, we drove to some hot springs that are, hands down, the best hot springs I´ve every seen. Not only was the water perfect, especially after bearing the freezing temperature at the geysers, they were right next to a beautiful lagoon and we were there right after sunrise. After a good chunk of time in the springs, we had a great breakfast before moving on. Our next and final spot was Laguna Verde. When we first arrived, it was quite impressive, with a massive volcano on one side, but not that green. Our guides had explained that the colors of all these lagoons are really brought out when there is lots of wind, because the chemicals causing the crazy colors get mixed up. After half an hour and a lot of wind, Laguna Verde was very green indeed. All in all, I absolutely loved this tour and was very glad it worked out for Ed and I to do it together.
After Uyuni, I went back to Sucre and ended up staying for another week. It was great. All in all, I was in Sucre for four weeks and really enjoyed myself. After my extra week, I took an overnight bus to Santa Cruz, a big city that is quite weathly, very hot, and very big. Straight away, I didn´t like it and resolved to leave the next day. I bought my ticket on the infamous ´Death Train´ that would take me to Quijarro, a small town on the border with Brazil, for the next day. I strolled around the city, visiting the central plaza and a small park with an excuse for a lagoon. The next day I visited the city´s zoo, which was actually really cool. It had a large variety of animals from Central and South America that included pumas, jaguars, all sorts of birds, capibores, monkies, and a MASSIVE tapir. Later that day I boarded the Death Train at 4:30. The ride was mostly uneventful, except for one point when I was awoken from my sleep by a loud slamming noise. I looked out the window and saw that we were stopped on the tracks that were running through a swamp. The next five minutes we sat there without moving and I was very nervous. I arrived in Quijarro the next morning, Feb. 21st, and crossed into Brazil without any problems. Back in Brazil! Muito bom!