POTOSÌ - Bought Dynamite Legally!

Arrived in Potosí still feeling like absolute shit. Still a bit dodgy from the bad water... that'll teach me not to party so hard!
straight away bought a ticket to Tupiza... and left my bag there. Took a bus up to the silver mnines and thought i could get a tour. Apparently not. After much asking around I had to return back to the town, go through an agency. I took the afternoon tour... we first got kitted out in protective clothing... boots, trousers, jacket and helmet. Then we stoped at the miners market. Bought some 'gifts' for the miners... drink, and dynamite. Then we got driven upto the mines. There were some other groups coming out.. so we watched them blow up their dynamite.. it was so cool! - and used ammonium nitrate to make the explosion about 5 times more powerful!
We then headed into the mines. Shit is was DUSTY. There was crystalised aspestos and arsenic all over the walls and celing.. i can still smell the crap on my hands. It was the most amazing experience going in there. The conditions are appalling, and i cant believe people still work there like that! The average life expectancy for a worker there is 10years... before they die of the aspestos or arsenic. It was so dark and dusty... and we watched the actual workers pushing carts of silver ore.. and shoveling it into buckets, it being taken up 3 floors. there were no stairs, most of the time we had to crawl to get around. This is just amazing how these people do this everyday.. and in todays world, its unbelievable there are no better methods for silver extraction. The worst thing is that 2000 workers are children. (10-16). The reason so many people work there though, is the good wage. They earn about 3000bolivianos per month. and miminum wage here is 360bs. so you can see they do very well for themselves.. because they are all freelance.. only have to pay 6% of the silver they find to the government, from whom they are renting the mine.
After the mine we headed off to the refinery.. unfortunatly it wasnt working.. but we say all the machinery. It is such a shame that bolivia can only make the primary materials- silver, lead, tin and copper... and dnt have smelting factories... because they could be so muc richer if they could do something with the metals after extracting them.
As we lft it started snowing and there was a huge storm brewing. I wasnt planning on hanging around.. went to a hostal and had a shower, then ate some llama, and jumped on the bus to Tupiza.