Travellers to Bolivia that witness one of the large street protests are sometimes, unsurprisingly,  shocked and always intrigued if they see miners letting off dynamite in the streets as part of the protest.  The miners are a strong political force in Bolivia and they will usually be involved in any large scale protest, descending on La Paz in groups numbering tens of thousands to march through the streets to make their collective voice heard.  Along the way they will detonate small amounts of dynamite in the open streets which explode with a thunderess bang that vibrates through the buildings all around. It is very rare anyone is hurt during this noisy display as the miners are well versed in keeping people away and only use small amounts but to the uninitiated it can be quite alarming. 

Dynamite is freely available to miners and is sold in licensed stores near mining communities. The fact that this freely sold explosive hasn’t been abused very often for malicious activities is quite amazing and a testament to the Bolivian people . Although caution is still exercised by the security authorities as was recently seen when the President cancelled attending an event when miners were detonating their dynamite nearby as was reported by the bbc website HERE