Eden and Josh

July 16th was Josh's and my 6th wedding anniversary! We hopped a bus from Uyuni to Potosi and celebrated at a posh Bolivian restaurant. Potosi is the highest city in the world at 4060m altitude. Because of the altitude, it is very cold, there is amost no vegetation and no hope of any kind of agriculture. Why do people live here, you may ask? FOR THE SILVER!

During the colonial times, Potosi used to be the richest city in South America. The mountains were filled with pure silver. The Spanish used millions of Bolivians and black and indian slaves to mine the silver. It is estimated that over 8 milions workers died in the horrific working conditions. These silver mines bank-rolled Spain for hundreds of years.

Today, most of the pure silver is gone but there is still a lot of composite - silver, lead and zinc alloys. The mines are co-operative mines which means the miners work for themselves rather than an outside company. They haul out tons of rock themselves and sell it to refineries that separate the minerals and pay the miners based on how much of each mineral the rocks contained.

Josh and I took a tour of one of the biggest mines. The working conditions were shocking! The men and boys work in this mine where the temperatures are sweltering and there is almost no air to breathe. What air there is, is so full of dust that most of the miners die a very early death from lung problems. We wore bandanas over our mouths but even still, after less than 2 hours in the mine, we were completely hoarse.

Because these mines are co-operatives, the miners must buy all their own supplies, such as dynamite and shovels, and decide where to blast and tunnel. These tunnels are not built or approved by engineers so the younger miners depend on the experience of the oldest men to prevent cave-ins and to find the mineral veins.

The working conditions were appaling, however, most men in this city are miners because there are few other jobs and mining tends to pay a little better than other jobs. One miner told us that most of them have 6 plus kids and even working in the mine does not earn them enough to support their families, so many boys have to work as well. The miners also feel abandoned by the government who refuses to build them a smelting plant. As a result, they must sell their silver powder at a very low price to Chile where it is smelted into a useable product which Bolivia must then buy back at a very high price.

Potosi is a very nice city but unfortunately its hay-day is over and as the mountains run out of silver, I'm sure it will eventually become a ghost town.

After La Paz, Josh and I headed straight for Uyuni with a brief stop in the small city of Oruro. Uyuni itself is a cold and dusty town but it is famous for the Salar near-by. The Salar is the largest salt flat in the world at almost 11000km2.

We checked out lots of agencies offering trips and most seemed pretty similar. We chose one almost at random and set out for our 3-day jeep trip the next morning with 2 men from Germany and a French couple.

The trip was beautiful and the scenery was stunning, however, we witnessed a horrific jeep accident on the Salar that prevents me from raving about the experience. Another jeep of tourists that we were following flipped. Three of the passengers died quite soon after the accident. The other 4 were bady injured and we (other tourists stopped to help) tried to take care of them until the ambulance came. After 3 hours the ambulance/police still hadn't shown up so the injured had to be transported back to town in jeeps. One woman died later. It was a terrible tragedy and one that could have been prevented if the jeeps had only had seat belts. The lack of an emergency respose was also shocking and makes us both sick with regret for the 4 lost lives.

This past week, Cusco has been humming! June 23rd was Cusco Day and the 24th was the Inti Raymi festival. Even the week+ leading up to these holidays has been a flurry of activity. There have been parades and traditional dance competitions almost everyday. The parade on Cusco Day lasted from 10am until about midnight.

Inti Raymi is the second biggest festival in Latin America -second only to Carnival in Rio de Janiero. It is an old Quechuan (Inca) celebration of the equinox. Hundreds of thousands of tourists descend on Cusco from all over Peru and the world. The ceremonies start at the sun temple in Cusco which also has a cathedral perched on top by the Spanish colonials. The prosession them moves to the Plaza de Armas (main square) in Cusco which is where Josh and I waited a few hours so we could have a good view. Many dancers, male and female, dressed in traditional costumes, danced and sang around the square. Some were carrying offerings of corn, potatoes and coca leaves, some incan deities and others carried mummies of former incas. Eventually the man acting as the king (the inca) was carried into the square on a large throne. He was preceded by men sweeping the way with bundles of hay and women dropping flower petals. The Inca made a speech in the Quechua language and then eventually the whole procession left and headed towards Sacsayhuaman (pronounced sexy woman) which are incan ruins up on a hill in Cusco. The crowd followed. Thousands and thousands of people (including Josh and I) then watched another ceremony for their sun god. It was very interesting but not easy to follow since it was in Quechua and because of the huge crowds. They also had a mock llama sacrifice. Apparently, they used to kill the llama in a very slow and brutal way, so they don't do it for real anymore.

The whole week has been very interesting and we have culture pouring out of our ears! Tomorrow we head out on a 5 day hike around the highest mountain in southern Peru, Ausangate, so it will be a nice change.

Photos at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=53235&l=1411f&id=553935978
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=52920&l=8fddb&id=553935978
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=54567&l=6f37f&id=553935978

for those not on facebook.

Besides Machu Picchu, there are countless Inka ruins in Peru and beyond. Quite a few are close to Cusco, in the Sacred Valley. There are tourist buses that can take you to all of these in one day, but we wanted to take a bit more time and spend less money by taking the local transport.

The first town we visited in the Sacred Valley was Ollantaytambo. There is a large Inka fortress there that was really impressive! They quarried all the stone from a mountain about 6 km away and then had to drag the massive stones -some the size of trucks- up another mountain for construction. There are abandoned stones all the way along. They even had to cross a river and used the huge stones to divert the flow of water so they could cross. SO MUCH WORK! The town itself was very interesting too and is one of the best examples of inka city planning and architecture.

The next day we boarded an even more crowded bus than the day before to head to the town of Pisac. Pisac has many inka ruins high in the mountains, inka baths and also an inka cemetery, which has been completely plundered of course, so we could only view it from a distance. It looked like a honey comb on the side of the mountain. I have no idea how they dug those holes and dragged the dead bodies up such a steep cliff.

Pisac is also famous for its huge Sunday market. There were hundreds of stalls selling fresh produce and handicrafts. We wanted to buy a lot but we have no room in our bags for souvenirs so we just bought freshly squeezed orange juice from an old lady and some other fruit.

The bus on the way back to Cuzco was so packed we could barely breathe...but considering the smells coming from everyone who had spent the day in the hot market, we were happy to hold our breath!

After spending some time in the desert we headed up to the Chilean border town of Arica to catch the train into Peru. Arriving in Tacna, we immediately caught a bus up to Arequipa. We stayed two days there and were stuck in town while Nathan and Trish were in Cusco because of a two day road blockade. The blockade closed down the border between Peru and Bolivia and also with Chile to protest the rising prices of staples such as tomatoes and chicken. It also coincided with the EU/South America economic summit held in Lima.

So we met up with the McFriesens on the 16th and then headed on a four day Inka Jungle Trek to Machu Picchu the following day. The trek itself was fun, hot, and smelly. The first day we biked downhill for four hours or so on a very dusty and bumpy road. The second day we hiked along a section of an Inka trail linking Machu Picchu with Vilacabamba (the final Inka stronghold, where the last Inka king was killed), relaxed at a lady´s house where she had a refridgerator (in the middle of nowhere) pet monkey and anteater-like creature, crossed the river in a flying fox, and had a much deserved soak in a hot spring. The third day we walked to Agua Calientes and then hiked up a neighboring mountain to view Machu Picchu from above. The fourth day we woke at 4am to begin hiking at 4:30 to get to Machu Picchu for sunrise. We spent the day exploring the ruins and spent a couple hours climbing Wayna Picchu, the mountain seen behind the ruins in the postcard pictures of the site. Headed back to Cusco that night on train.

The following day was Corpus Christi, the second largest festival in Cusco, and the streets were filled with dancers, bands, folklore creatures, and floats of Jesus, Mary, and saints. The colours, sounds and smells were a sensory overload.