Mountain Gods and Devils Miners

We are now in Cuzco about to do a 5 day trek to Machu Picchu via Salkantay. I haven´t been well for the last 2 weeks and Nick just got it too, but after a visit to the doctor and some antibiotics I´m finally feeling better and looking forward to doing a bit more than just sleeping and watching TV in our hostel room.

Since the last blog we have travelled through Bolivia and Peru. It has been very interesting, culturally speaking. Everywhere I look here I see evidence of the old traditions and customs from Inca and Pre-Inca times blended with the traditions and customs from Spanish colonial times.

The bus rides through Bolivia have been much more like African standard. We took a bus from Uyuni to Potosi, and while on the bus I noticed a poor boy sitting opposite us that obviously experiences a bit of motion sickness from time to time. I looked over to see he had vomited into his mothers bag and all over her knitting (while she was sleeping). Somehow I don´t think that jumper will be completed. Luckily it didn´t smell or I would have added to the knitting myself. We drove through some very remote villages in Bolivia. Now the poorest country in South America. At times we would drop passengers off in the middle of nowhere and I would wonder where their house was. It makes me sad to think that not everyone here in those villages will have access to proper health care and education, but they can always get a Coke!

Potosi was an interesting place to visit. It was once the richest city in Latin America, fuelled by the Silver mines for the Spanish Colonialists. The Spaniards would force the native populations as well as some African slaves to mine the silver in the most horrible conditions, working for most of the available 24 hours a day with little sleep and not much to eat. The sad thing is that not much has changed since those times. The big difference is there is no longer any slave labour. We visited one of the mines and the conditions were appalling. It´s not far off Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It´s hot, dusty and very dangerous. The mountain is like swiss cheese and I was too scared to go too far in. The miners still do much of the digging by hand, with a little help from some dynamite, supplied by the tourists that visit everyday. We bought them some dynamite, soft drink and coca leaves. The don´t actually eat anything while on shift, so they chew on coca leaves to help fight hunger and altitude sickness at 4060m above sea level. Potosi is the highest city in the world. In colonial times the slaves would chew on the coca leaves to help them survive in the conditions of the mine. At one point the Catholic Church banned the use of the leaves saying it prevented their path to Christianity, but when they realised that it affected productivity in the mines they changed their minds. The miners are very superstitious and believe that they must make offerings to Tio (the Devil). They believe that God can´t protect them under the ground and must keep Tio happy by giving offerings of coca leaves and cigarette´s to the statue of the devil in the mines. Children still work in these mines who are too poor to go to school. We were fortunate enough to see the movie Devil´s Miner about one poor boy who worked in the mines to support his family. I highly recommend it. So the next time you buy a silver bracelet girls, I hope you think of the poor miners who dug it up for you.

We also visited Sucre, a beautiful old colonial city. At the time we visited they were busy giving the whole city a fresh coat of paint and a clean up as they were about to celebrate their bicentenary of the fight for Independence. The president Evo Morales (the first indigenous president of Bolivia) and the Prince of Spain would be visiting for the occasion. We kept bumping into Evo while in Bolivia, he was at a parade in Potosi while we were there, then we drove past in a bus while he was about to board his plane back to La Paz, then when we were in La Paz, we stayed in a hostel right near his residence and witnessed another parade which he attended.

We visited the Museum Casa de la Independence in Sucre, where their declaration of Independence was actually signed. We learnt about the struggle for Independence by Simon Bolivar and General Sucre, 2 Venezuelan freedom fighters. Bolivia has had a very tumultuous time in their political history since their Independence. They have had a stack of leaders. Some democratically elected, some dictators. One dictator curiously ended up being democratically voted in years after his dictatorship. One women tried to restore democracy only to be ousted by a relative dictator of hers. One noble leader ensured that everyone could vote and changed the Constitution to include women and the poor.

We also visited an archaeological site just outside of Sucre that had uncovered dinosaur footprints in an old riverbed 68 million years old! You could clearly see them on the mud wall. Unfortunately though the site is eroding very fast, a section of the wall actually collapsed the night before we visited and the scientists don´t expect it to last any longer than 6 more months, unless they get enough money to preserve the site.

We travelled to La Paz, then onto Copacabana on Lake Titicaca where we visited Isla del Sol at Easter time. There were hundreds of South American tourists in this town at Easter.

From here we travelled to Puno on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca. We visited the Pre-Inca funeral site of Sillistani where we could see how they used to create tombs for their dead.

We then spent a lot of time in Arequipa while I tried to rest and get over this flu thing I had. While we were there we saw a museum that houses Juanita, a mummy that was discovered on top of a nearby volcano. We learnt a lot about the Inca traditions of sacificing children to their mountain Gods. The Inca´s believed that their God´s were the mountains and volcanoes that surrounded them in the Andes. When the Volcanoes erupted they believed this meant that their God´s were angry and therefore a child needed to be sacrificed to the God´s. Unlike the Mayan Culture, the Inca´s chose their children from elite families and they had to be very beautiful. It was considered an honor to be selected. These children were selected by the religious men of the Incas and were brought up in Cuzco (the Inca Capital) until it was time to die in the mountains. The children were walked to the various mountains over many months until they reached the top where they would hold special ceremonies. By that time they must have been very tired, cold and scared, but they believed they were going to live amongst the God´s. The child was wrapped in some beautiful woven cloth placed in a tomb or pot and the religious men would kill them by a strong whack over the head. They would leave things that they thought the child would need in the afterlife, like coca leaves and pots etc.

We also visited the Santa Catalina Convent in Arequipa. It was like a city within a city with small cells everywhere that the women lived in. Nick liked to call them apartments, but they were more like cells. When this convent was in full swing the women were only allowed to wash 7 times a year and would often wear barded wire underwear!! I don´t understand why? Sometimes to make money they would sell off the odd child slave, as you do. Luckily now-a-days they live off the money generated by tourists.

We also visited Colca Canyon, one of the deepest canyons in the world.

That´s about it for now. I hope everyone is well.

Links to Some South America Photos

We have posted some photos from South America now, for those not on facebook, you can see them on the links below.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=101758&id=521468297&l=2329a6280b

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=101399&id=548657385&l=a144f6f4ee

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=101258&id=548657385&l=f32200d46a

Cheers

Bec