Sucre

After leaving La Paz we went to Sucre. Sucre is a beautiful town. We went to our hotel and dropped off our things and packed up for a three day trip to Potosi and Uyuni. We spent some time in the main plaza downtown just hanging out and walking around. It was so beautiful and all the plants were bright and colorful and all the people looked so happy. Our guide told us she would be back in a half hour. She got back 45minutes later and told us we had another 1/2 hour to do what we wanted. We went and bought chocolates at a very nice store. And walked around more, we waited over an hour for Sandra and when she finally got back she made us rush to eat dinner at a pizza place and rush to get our stuff then run practically across town to get to the bus. Once we were on the bus everyone got really exited and no one stopped talking until we arrived four hours later in Potosi. Potosi used to be one of the richest cities in the world, now it is just a small city in the Andes Mountains that has a lot of Miners and Silver exports.
The coolest thing we did in Potosi was tour the mines. We got to wear big baggy mining clothes and helmets with lights. We split up into two groups, walked a little bit, and bought things to give to the hard working miners. We bought sodas, cigarettes, Coca leaf cigarettes, and Coca leaves. We all got on a bus and ascended the mountain. It was a pretty sketchy road going up and at the end the driver did a 180 turn on the smallest dirt road at the very top. Everyone screamed. We split up again and entered the mountain. we had to wear big rubber boots because there was about 6 inches of muck we had to walk through. When we came to the first miner, he was digging in the ground with bare hands looking at tiny rocks. We talked to him and he told us he had been working since six in the morning. We gave him a soda and moved on. A group of three guys came down the tracks with a cart they had just emptied, we asked them how old they were, one was 30 something, the other was in his 20's and the third one was 16! We all thanked our lucky stars for the life we've been given and how we don't have to work in the mines. Farther along we came across a small path, we took it and found a guy inside a hole using a hammer and pick to collect rocks. He have us some as souvenirs and we moved on. We came across a small what you could call break room for miners where there was a statue of Tio the god of the underworld. All around the statue were Coca leaves and empty bottles of pure alcohol. Our guide explained that on fridays the miners come into this room and drink alcohol and give thanks to Tio. Since the miners have Saturday and Sunday off they celebrate Friday by getting drunk. After that we saw some more miners and gave them our gifts and met up with the other group. We all went across a small plank that was laid across a giant hole in the ground that went on forever and went above our heads into the mountain. After crossing the hole there was a path we took that ended in a small hole which we were supposed to crawl through. Emily, a girl from Indiana, had a panic attack and was crying a little bit and couldn't go through it. I figured I had to try, but in the end it was just too much and I turned around and went back. Four girls exited the cave the way we came in, myself included, but the rest went a different way and ended up in another part coming our of a different place. We regrouped and went back to change into our normal clothes. It was a really fun time touring the mines.