We arrived in Potosi on Wednesday afternoon after a long bus journey from Uyuni, which in the catalogue of our South American bus journeys, was very uneventful. After checking into the Hotel Libertador, we had a (very) quick orientation walk of the town - there wasn't a lot to see. Potosi is the highest city in the world at a lung-busting 4,060m above sea level and I was struggling to breathe, even just walking up a gentle incline. I left the walk early and nearly collapsed trying to find a cafe for a coca tea. It was also freezing cold but with bright, strong sunshine. We had an evening meal at the aptly named "4060 Restaurant", my beef stroganoff and chips was delicious and with a bottle of wine, my bill came to only Bs140 (~£14).
Potosi lies beneath the Cerro Rico ("rich mountain"), a mountain popularly conceived of as being "made of" silver ore, which has always dominated the city and was the richest single source of silver in the world. Founded in 1546 as a mining town, Potosi soon produced fabulous wealth, funding the expansion of the Spanish empire for two centuries. It became one of the largest cities in the Americas and the world, with a population exceeding 200,000 people, bigger than London and Paris during its time. However, when the silver was largely depleted, the city fell into decline. The mine is still an operating mine though, zinc being the most profitable metal extracted today.
The following day, I would be going on a tour of the working mine, another of Bolivia's weird and wonderful tourist attractions. Working conditions haven't changed much in the mine since it opened in 1546 and there was no way that such a tour would be allowed under Western Health and Safety regulations. My Lonely Planet guidebook had a whole section highlighting the dangers of a mine tour - it should be avoided by anyone suffering from claustrophobia, asthma or other respiratory problems, or by those concerned by exposure to asbestos and silica dust, and one should also be careful of explosions, falling rocks and runaway trolleys! Mules couldn't work in the mines since they'd die too quickly, so they used slave labour instead. The number of Black and Indian slaves who died as a consequence of working in the mines during the Spanish colonial period from 1545 to 1825 is estimated to be over eight million! They died from exposure, brutal labour, mercury poisoning and silicosis pneumonia.
There are about 500 miners still working in the mine. Due to poor worker conditions (lack of protective equipment from the constant inhalation of dust), the miners still have a short life expectancy with most of them contracting silicosis and dying around 45 years of age. Some of them start as young as 14, working in the mine in the morning and going to school in the afternoon. The miners must accept their fate to die young as opposed to initiating any improvements in working conditions. They earn Bs80-150 a day (~US$10-20) depending on the grade of material they recover. Since this is much more money than from other available jobs, it appears that the supply of people willing to work (and die) in the mines will continue.
Our tour started with us changing into overalls, wellies and hard hats with head torches. Then it was off to the miners' market - everyone bought a bag of coca leaves and a bottle of fizzy pop as gifts for the different groups of miners we would meet in the mine. The coca leaves suppressed the miner’s appetite for the day, gave them more energy and helped conquer the difficulties associated with scrabbling about hacking away at the inside of a mountain at 4,300m. The guide also bought a small bottle of the miners' favourite tipple called “alcohol potable”, which was a whopping 96% proof. I tried some and it certainly warmed me up - I know a few mates back home who'd like it! Also, for just £1.50, I bought a stick of dynamite, a fuse and a bag of ammonium nitrate! I wasn't given any instructions on how to handle these materials and what not to do with them. Googling after the tour revealed that the stick of dynamite itself was safe - you could safely drop it or bang it your friend's hard hat without it exploding. However, the detonator charge at the end of the fuse was not - if you banged this on your best friend’s hard hat, he'd be dead (and probably you as well). It would have been better for me (and the rest of the group) if I had this information beforehand. Fortunately, I decided to not play around with my newly bought toys. I was hoping to be able to light the dynamite myself and get a photo of me holding the dynamite with the fuse lit, and also see and hear the explosion (after I put it down of course!), but new regulations meant that explosives couldn't be detonated outside the mine. With miners' gifts, dynamite and 96% proof alcohol in hand, we then travelled to the mine entrance for our exciting mine tour!
Inside the mine entrance, the ground was wet (a mixture of water, dirt and no doubt a lot of miners' piss) and there were old rickety rails running off into the darkness. The temperature was supposed to be over 40 degC in the deeper parts of the mine, however, there were compressed air pipes which meant we didn't suffer these extreme temperatures too much. The tunnels were cramped though and for much of the time we had to crouch down low, at other times, we had to get down on our hands and knees and crawl. From time to time, we were forced to press ourselves against the tunnel walls as a 2 tonne railroad cart full of ore rock hurtled down the railroad track in the darkness. The air was filled with dust generated from the blasting of rocks. Add in the altitude of over 4,100m and it was hell on earth.
One hour of scrambling, crouching, crawling, gasping and pain brought us to the shrine of Tio, the god of the underworld. He was a ten foot high devil sat on a throne looking out into the darkness. The devil’s mouth and lips were black with cigarette tar and a huge pile of coca leaves lay down around his yellow wellies. Incidentally, he also had a huge penis. Each morning, a miner would come by and place a lit cigarette in his mouth as an offering - he'd been smoking for 200 years and still looked pretty good for it. To honor Tio, most of our group had a sip of alcohol potable. Before we drank, the guide poured a little on the ground for Tio and Pachamama (Mother Earth).
At this point, we could either turn back to the mine entrance or continue for another hour deeper into the mine. I eventually opted for the latter, but only because the guide suggested I could light my dynamite deeper in the mine. As it turned out, when we eventually reached a couple of miners drilling a hole for dynamite, I had to hand "my precious" over and didn't even get to see it lit. This was probably a good thing as there'd be no way the group of us could have clambered outside the blast radius by the time the fuse ran down. Thankfully, we took a different route back to the surface involving much less clambering and crouching than on the way down. As we neared the mine entrance after two hours of hell, trudging through the "liquid" on the tunnel floor, I was reminded of the climatic scene of "The Shawshank Redemption" as Andy Dufresne crawled through a tunnel of shit to freedom. I couldn’t begin to imagine what it must be like working day in, day out down there in the 40 degC, polluted, high altitude conditions. Out in open, I sucked in huge gasps of air and was thankful I had survived my taste of hell.
After the tour, myself and Nashy had lunch in a small restaurant (which seemed to be manned solely by children). We had a group evening meal at a steakhouse. Since I'd only had lunch a few hours ago, I stuck to a steak sandwich and chips. This proved to be a good choice as those ordering a steak had brought out to them a wooden platter with half a dead cow on each one. An early night ensued as we had an 8am bus the following morning to our next port of call, Sucre.
Surviving the Potosi mines
Friday, July 01, 2011
Potosi, Bolivia
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