Sympathy for the Devil

The Cathedral in Sucre. Closed, obviously.

Now then, now then. After the excitement of the leather faced Kiwi´s departure, you could quite fairly suggest that whatever followed would be something of an anti-climax. And while you would, in some respects, have a point, that fact should in no way detract from the blinding, stultifying, almost-so-bland-it´s-impressive pointlessness of Peru´s capital, Sucre.

Famous primarily for its use in pub quizzes (no, La Paz is not the capital - this place really is), Sucre is as a quaint a city as you could hope to encounter, but utterly devoid of character. We arrived on a Sunday, but all the churches were closed. This was a little bizarre, but when they remained closed on Monday, we started to wonder why. The doors remained bolted on Tuesday, and we were seriously asking ourselves what the hell we were doing here. The honest truth was "not very much at all". We ate good food in the touristy, but lovely, Bar Florin, feasted on  wonderful chocolate from the fabulous Para Ti, and grabbed some great pizza. Our hostel, the Cruz de Popayan, was unremarkable and more than a little dirty. Our trip can best be summed up by my personal highlight - visiting a local tailor to get my backpack fixed. We swapped stories, mainly using Lou´s ever-improving Spanish, laughed, suggested bands he might like, and marvelled as he chopped my rucksack to bits with his bare hands before reassembling it as a surgeon would a leaky aorta. All of which was pretty cool, but not really city highlight stuff. Which was Sucre all over.

Next up was Potosi, the highest city of its size in the world, and largely unremarkable save for the numerous mines housed in the Cerro Rico. Brought to the world's attention (or at least the attention of fans of German documentary the world over) by the wonderful The Devil's Mine, the silver mining industry that once made Potosi one of the richest cities in the world is now a slightly tragic affair. The relatively high pay that miners can earn, along with international demand for silver, ensures that the mines keep operating, but the conditions are truly abominable. Deaths and serious accident are a regular occurrence, while those that don't die in the mines are also certain to never see fifty, their bodies hollowed out by acute lung diseases and their blood riddled with chemicals and toxins.

What makes this ongoing horror show all the more poignant is the presence of a few hundred children, some as young as nine or ten, working in these mines. Forced by grinding poverty to help boost the family income, perhaps the cruellest irony is that many of these youngsters are only there as their fathers have died a miner's death. All of which made the hour we spent walking, climbing and crawling through a working mine all the more special. Having stopped to buy dynamite, drinks an gloves to give as gifts - and yes, you can buy sticks of the stuff in a grocery store here - we entered a world unlike any other. Dodging the hand-pushed carts that rattle, Indiana Jones style, along poorly lit tunnels, the air became gradually more oppressive, the light somehow cloudy and more dangerous.

By the time we stopped at a small shrine to pay our respects to the Tio (Devil) that guards each mine, we were in quite a state. Splattered with the blood of slaughtered animals and littered with offerings of cigarettes, coca leaves and beer, the idol was all the more petrifying because of the obvious fear and respect is commanded in the miners. Though good Catholic folk above ground, they believe that Christ's dominion stops at the door, and here so close to hell they must turn to Tio to keep them safe. And, whether thanks to Tio, good fortune of the Lord himself, we escaped the mine unscathed and better people for having visited.

The miners themselves, working up to twelve hours a day in conditions that boggle the mind, treated the few strange Gringos who paid good money to gasp through their workplace with a bemused courtesy, unfailingly polite even as they risked life and limb to feed their families. We particularly enjoyed handing over the dynamite, fuse and all, and getting thanked warmly in response. Not something you get to do every day.

Many of the miners turn to drink to help them cope with the lives they lead, though they do so mainly at home or in some of the small bars away from the centre, and away from the small number of tourists that pass through Potosi. And so it was that we found ourselves celebrating the 'One Night Only' return of the lovely Choppy in a frankly bizarre Karaoke bar cum pub cum weird sex place just off the main drag. Drinking rum by the bottle and confusing the locals with both our song choices and interpretations thereof, Scott and I rocked out (what would later prove to be the first of many renditions of) the Phil Collins classic Easy Lover. All of which, and getting to bed just before 3am, meant that the seven hour bus trip to Uyuni the next day was pretty horrific. As was Uyuni itself, an unforgiving dust-bowl of a town dropped, as if by the hand of a particularly cruel town planner, slap bang in the middle of a sodding desert. More disturbing than the town itself was the surrounding forest of plastic bags caught on bush scrub that surround the place, a scar of epic proportions stretching as far as the eye can see. Somewhat bizarrely, we also had one of the best pizzas we've eaten outside Italy in the European-run Minute Man pizza, opposite the train station. Choc full of delightful imported goodies, it was a real joy. If you're passing, try and bag a table.

But truth be told, we were not in Uyuni to see the sights; it was, in practice, simply a start point for our three days traversing the Salar de Uyuni, the salt flats that neighbour the town. So, pausing only to eat said pizza and buy an absurd amount of toys (all will be revealed), we took off in a 4X4 into the dusty mid-day sun.

TTFN,

Luke and Louise

(Posted by Luke)