little fraught!!

Potosi is where huge deposits of silver were found in the surrounding mountains, and the local population were, and still are, exploited in the mining operations there. They work very long hours in hideous conditions and usually die within ten years of starting work there. The main tourist attraction seems to be tours of the mines to see this. It really wasn’t something which we wanted to do, so we hadn’t planned any time here.

We managed to buy our onward bus tickets but had a few hours to kill before it set off, so we checked out the internet and then went to look for something to eat. The area around the bus station was unattractive to put it kindly. We didn’t know where the city centre was, and had mistakenly packed the lonely planet in my rucksack, which

was checked in already, so were forced to find somewhere around the bus station. We ended up in a horrible greasy spoon type establishment where the best they could come up with was greasy chips, equally greasy fried egg, and relatively ok rice. When we had finished eating we made a hasty retreat as we were getting hassled by a group of very drunk locals.

All that we could do to pass the rest of the time was to shelter in the peace and quiet of the internet café. Well I say peace and quiet, it started off well until some woman next to me started playing a video of the story of Jesus in Spanish very loudly. Then when that had finished some girl next to Hel started playing her favourite Bolivian pop band!! It seemed that all the computers had speakers attached and turned on, and it was the done thing to just play whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted, and loudly of co