Alice Newitt

Day 14: Sucre to Potosi, in which I spend yet more time on a bus and confront the harrowing reality of the continent’s colonial history

Began the day by boarding what I thought was the minibus to the bus station, only to find that it was instead the bus to Potosi. This was probably the most pleasant surprise I’d had on the trip since the miracle of the flight to Peru.

With two seats to myself at the back of the bus with a fine view of the locked toilet on one side and the black smoke being pumped out of the bus on the other, I was able to sit back and bask in sweet solitude as up ahead of me the rest of the group dozed and out through the windows I could watch the changing landscapes of this sparsely populated region of Bolivia.

At around halfway through the journey, we stopped at the end of the world to buy water and use the facilities. Or rather, the rest of the group did, I was too afraid that the bus would leave without me if I got off.

During the remainder of the ride some of the other group members provided some entertainment by bickering over whether the windows should be opened or closed. As we rolled into Potosi, we pulled over to take some snaps of the view, and as we were doing so a woman appeared from nowhere and invited us to climb to the top of a tower that even Google Lens can’t give me the name of. Afterwards, we reboarded the bus, along with the woman who’d appeared from nowhere, and continued our journey to the hotel after making a small detour to drop our new friend off at her home.

After arriving, we were presented with an opportunity to go on a tour of one of the mines. Although the rest of the group signed up, I declined. As the mines are still being used, I disagreed with the voyeuristic nature of the opportunity, and would have felt uncomfortable gawping at men – and sometimes children – working in such appalling conditions. However, it would be disingenuous to claim that that was the only reason that I declined. The truth was I already finding it an effort to breath at the 4000m altitude that we were now at, and feared that the dusty, poorly ventilated mines would finish me off – a dreadful sentiment considering how many have little choice but to work in those conditions and face a life expectancy of forty. Even worse, I also factored in the fact that I didn’t think my insurance provider who think much of me injuring myself in one of the most dangerous mines in the world. So I stayed at the hotel and focused on my breathing, and I was glad that the others went in order to give some work to the miners. On the way there, they bought some gifts for the miners and ran over a dog. You can find videos of similar tours on YouTube. The guide that had accompanied for the past two weeks declined to join the mine tour, saying it found it too heart-breaking to see his people work in such conditions, which I think says it all. It is horrendous to think of the things that the silver from these mines have built, and how little the people who mined it have been left with.