Mining and dining

April 14, 2020

Mining and dining

Next stop on our travels was Potosí in Bolivia, a town renowned for its silver mines. With the exception of touring the silver mines, there’s very little to do in Potosí, but it was fun to have the chance to do something a little different. The silver mines tour was around 100 Bolivianos, which is equivalent to about £12, and turned out to be really interesting. Before going into the mines, we bought some small gift bags of coca leaves and little bottles of 80% alcohol for the miners.

Mining outfits

We put on our mining outfits, helmets and all, and headed into the mines. The first thing you see when you enter the mines is a recreation of the mining god, which essentially looked like a giant pink rabbit with streamers for hair and its penis sticking out from under a pile of coca leaves. See the picture below for reference, as it’s definitely something that needs to be seen to be understood. The miners splash alcohol on the statue’s penis and head, scatter some coca leaves on it and then light a cigarette and place it in its mouth, before asking for the god’s protection for their day in the mines. On the tour we got the opportunity to see miners at work and we gave them the gift bags we had brought for them. Other than the narrow and slightly claustrophobic tunnels, it was a really interesting experience, and it was nice to see another side to Bolivia.

The mining god statue

After Potosí, we headed onwards to Sucre, known as Bolivia’s ‘white city’. The city is beautiful, though there isn’t a huge variety of things to do, with the city’s main attraction being the abundance of Spanish courses available, but we enjoyed having a couple of nights to relax here. We did a free walking tour on our first day which took us through colourful markets, into traditional textile shops, and up to the beautiful Recoleta viewpoint. On our final day we volunteered with some children at a day care centre, and then headed to the Templo San Felipe Neri viewpoint which cost around £1 to enter and had a lovely view of the city centre.

Colourful markets

The rest of our time was spent eating and drinking. Joyride Bar is a great option if you’re missing European-style food, which we were – they even had bitterballen, one of my favourite Dutch foods! Another good spot for food was Condor Cafe, which was a vegetarian cafe that had a three course menu del día for around £3, and also served the best falafel sandwich I’ve eaten. Our final meal was at Florín, a Mexican restaurant owned by a Dutch guy, where the food was absolutely incredible, one of the best Mexican meals of the trip (impressive considering how many Mexican meals we had!).