Surfing Bolivia

At the end of the salar tour we looked at the dates and knew we´d not have time to make the Carnaval at Oruro and see the city of Potosi. Not big fans of backtracking we mentioned it to our friendly jeep driver, it turned out he was driving to Potosi the next day to service his jeep so could bring us and our bikes, keeping the possibility of making Carnaval and seeing the mines of Potosi alive.
Only our tour company didn´t agree with his hospitality so after a quick whisper outside the office on the qt with the driver I arranged to meet at 6am on the outskirts of town the next day, covertly loading the bikes and getting out of town before sunrise.

We arrived in Potosi after a few interesting food stops in small roadside villages. Two old ladies cooked us deep fried goat cheese and big mugs of coffee for 25 cents in one stop, very tasty even if we did have to ignore the dirt of the place. The driver stopped for lunch in another village where the meal of the day sat bubbling amid the flies, I just had a coke as the place was filthy, later on their dog even had a taste of the pot so I was glad not to be mid way through lunch watching him.
I just had a coke and chatted the locals as usual they were entertained by the height of the big gringo.

Potosi
As we drove into Potosi we passed the ramshackle mines an villages set against the hill of Potosi, famed for the amount of silver the Spanish extracted from it in the 1400´s.
The mining end of town looked very rough but the buildings in the middle of town were striking, clearly remnants of a wealthier past. Windy, narrow streets and old buildings made walking round town interesting and once we´d settled into our hostel we had a stroll around, getting a cheap meal in the mercado central where you could get anything from shoe and watch repairs to your weekly shopping.
Next day we did a tour of the mines with an ex miner. The interior of the mine was a mess, lots of tunnels had no beams to prop the roofs up. Wobbly timber ladders connected different levels, ore was pushed out by men using hand carts and the dust in the air near the drilling areas was filthy. That and the fact that the mine was at 4000 metres plus made breathing difficult, combined with the claustrophobic tunnels it was a hellish spot and it was no wonder the miners had a statue of the devil near the mine entrance. Give me a cubicle, swivel chair and a pc any day over this! In one section the lads descended to watch two miners drilling through a hole no bigger than a metre wide into a tight space where they were following the ore body. The two miners began to panic when their drill got stuck, one of them pulling at the revolving bit with his gloved hands. I stayed on top as my lungs wouldn´t appreciate the dust of the drilling and I´d need them in good shape for the next leg over the 5000 m passes. Just for a laugh I switched my head torch off, not a speck of light to be seen in the dark tunnels, just the sound of drilling travelling through the rock, very eeerie. Later on the surface our guide exploded some dynamite and fuses we´d bought for a euro at the miner´s market. In Bolivia mining is so unregulated anyone can buy dynamite, no paper work needed! I saw one guy loading the back of his jeep with bags of the stuff and days later as we cycled through valleys we´d hear the bang and see the cloud of dust rising in the distance from small mines.

A the hostel we met Emily´s cousin Neal Cromen again, a good man to meet for a few beers and a bit of craic. We also met the jovial Oliver, an English cyclist Dave and Tom had met down south, all of us bought a load of beer and rum and had a good seisiun at the hostel, the lads even bought a birthday cake for me with the excessive 29 candles.

Surfing Bolivia
Normally Bolivia isn´t a country associated with surfing. Mostly because it has no coastline, thanks to Chile annexing that part of the country in the War of the Pacific. We didn´t need water, we´d invented a new kind of surfing, truck surfing. When you´re pedalling up a hill with 45kgs of baggage at 3500m, the air is thin, so cycling is slow bloody hard work. Thing is though that lorries are quite slow too, so on the leg from Potosi to Oruro when the asphalt road was good and wide and slow trucks were passing the four of us would pedal slowly like highwaymen lying in wait, then when the truck was passing we´d speed up and grab on to the back of the truck and truck surf up a stretch of hill. Thing was, like catching a surfing wave you had to time your sprint well, at altitude you only had a short distance of sprint before you were left out of breath, sprint too slow or too late and you´d be left seeing stars and worse off than if you hadn´t bothered. Catching a lift up was great fun though, most truck drivers would even wave and give us a friendly beep, we even met one of the trucks a day later going the opposite way and got the full lights and air horn salute.

Carnaval
After 2 hard days slog over some high passes we put in a big day of 120km to reach Oruro wrecked tired but just in time for Carnaval. Being friday night we didn´t have much choice in accomodation at the last minute and ended up getting two singles rooms for the 4 of us with two of us sleeing on our camping mats. Next day carnaval began at 8 am with bands and dancers parading down the streets till 4am that night. The streets were lined with makeshift stands, rather than pay for them we wandered the crowds till we found a gap and could see for free, chatting to the locals and becoming prime targets for the locals who were throwing water balloons goodo and using cans of spray foam at close range. It wasn´t long before we got armed with a few plastic bags of water balloons and gave as good as we got, and the locals were in such good form they didn´t mind standing beside such prime targets and getting caught in the cross fire. The sun was out so we´d dry off easily and didn´t bother buying plastic capes most gringos wore. The water fights were great fun, thought the kids with massive water pistols did out gun us a few times we´d still manage to duck into the crowd. God help the gringo that ran out of water balloons as they´d show no mercy.
Later that night we managed to sneak into the main square and got invited into the vip section of the stands by some young Bolivians. It was great fun drinking beer and having a laugh with the Bolivians as the best bands paraded past.
One day of carnaval was enough for us really, next day the place reeked of urine, the streets had loads of excrement on them and by the afternoon of the second day a lot of the locals were wasted. We were hungover and Dave was sick with a stomach bug he´d caught from street food the day before. We stayed an extra day to recover then leaving Dave to catch a bus to La Paz Tom Paul and I cycled out the boringly flat road to La Paz. We made la Paz in 3 days, all of us feeling a bit tired and only doing about 80km a day average.

La Paz
La Paz was synonymous with excess. Lots of gringo tourists over indulging, not a whole pile to see in the city and more of a rest stop for us cyclists.
Saying that the wild rover hostel was good craic, the bar was hopping for the Ireland vs England rugby match with faces painted, flags and bunting in both colours, the whole works. It was great to see Ireland win, even if we hadn´t insisted on our bet that the losing team carry the winners tent´s on their bike to Cuzco, the two English lads would have been getting a rough deal with our monster tent!