Framedlight

Hettie and I had our sandwiches in the shadow of the mine workings and then walked to the further set of stone circles where I took a few pictures. After that we went back to the car and I drove into the village of Minions to find a cup of coffee. Only one place was open, a small general store which was selling a very limited range of goods. I had coffee on the grass outside the shop and then we drove back to the car park and waited till the start of sunset. I took some shots of the sun going down behind the mine workings. Then it was homeward bound again.

After a good night we loaded up the van and drove across the mountain road to Aberystwyth.On the way we passed an abandoned mine under the mountain which was extremely photogenic. I processed the pictures using Arkham, one of the grunge presets in Perfect Photo Suite 7 Effects. Once in Aberystwyth we had a look around the town then went across to the harbour for the maiden voyage of the new kayak which I have christened Abba, after the town and the group which Alan detests. (Also with a passing nod to Young Frankenstein where the stolen brain is from a pot marked AB Normal). The pier has also been processed using Perfect Photo. We stayed the night in a little site away from the town called Pantamawr Farm. On the jetty Aberystwyth Lunch on the headland Paddle surfer offshore

The 4th May was a Saturday. We had wanted to do a tour of one of the mines in the afternoon as then we could look in to some of the churches in the morning (they are all shut Saturday afternoon), but we were told that there was a football match on in the afternoon and no one would be working down there. Mining is so central to Potosi that mine tours are on the tourist agenda. I felt first of all that it was exploitative as the conditions in Cerro Rico are renowned but I felt more comfortable with it as time went on. Cerro Rico has been tunnelled for silver since the 16th century and the way things are done has not altered much since then. It is such a dangerous operation that every mine (and there are 5,000 entrances on the mountain, not all in use) has its resident Tio, or statue of the devil who has to be appeased for the miner to be kept safe. Above ground, the miners are Roman Catholic, below ground darker forces come in to play. Most miners can only expect to work for 20 yea...