Potosi

About five hours uphill from sucre through beautiful mountains and high plains, on a super sketchy bus that broke down three times on the way, we arrived in Potosi to the fanciest bus terminal ive ever seen. We got at taxi to the old part of town, which is quite beautiful, with colonial architecture, elaborate churches, and narrow cobble stone streets…the major drawback being the but horribly pollution from over congestion of vehicles….mostly buses…which all happen to come from japan, indicated by the Japanese characters still present on them. We walked around town for half the day and copped some new shades, then went on a tour of the minting museum.

The museum was quite amazing, not so much because of its art…but because it was the original building used to make coins from all the silver coming out of cerro rico mountain that were then shipped all over the world for use as different currencies. They had an incredibly elaborate and enormous wooden contraption used to stamp coins that consisted of numerous huge wheels turned by horses that was two stories tall and a bit of a mystery of how it functioned. There was also an amazing room filled with about fifty display cases of all the minerals extracted from Bolivia…literally thousands of varieties…some being very exotic looking. There were also many other rooms with various other machines used for minting coins that spanned few hundred year period and many different levels of technology and lack there of.
Cerro Rico
The most remarkable thing however that I did in potosi was visit the active mines of cerro rico that are very famous for their incredible silver deposits and made potosi at one time the wealthiest and supposedly largest city in the world. The mines are contained in the huge mountain that looms at the outskirts of city…it is referred to as the mountain that eats men, and has claimed an estimated 8,000,000 lives over four hundred year history of its pillage. The life expectancy of the average miner is around 35 to 40 years old…most of them dying from silicosis…a lung disease caused by the excessive dust in the mines. There are currently four hundred operational mines within the mountain with about five thousand miners working around the clock…the number of workers is based on the market value for the minerals at that time…when the prices are high the number of workers will soar to 15,000, and when they are low around 2,000. Each mine connects to the next from the peak all the way down under the city of potosi, making it a miracle that the whole thing hasn’t collapsed in on itself yet…but I expect it soon will. With all that in mind, I somehow I thought it was still a good idea to go check it out, and signed up for a five hour tour.
The tour started with a visit to one of the many miner shops that stock hardhats, shovels, headlamps, rubber boots, 96% alcohol for a dollar per liter, and of course dynamite…which anyone can buy, regardless of age or intention. The guide told us that the weakest dynamite is used mostly for parties and riots and the stronger stuff is usually paired with fertilizer packets to strengthen the blast and comes with a detonator for $3 US…it was highly recommended that we buy dynamite as gifts to the miners, so we all did. From there we went to the miners market where we bought coca leaves...chewed incessantly by the miners in giant wades to lessen fatigue and curb appetite. From the market we picked up the necessary clothing, hardhats, rubber boots, and headlamps for our mission inside the mines. Next we stopped at a processing plant to see how the silver was extracted into a purer form using a series of machines for crushing, washing, and drying based on a foam bath technique where the lighter silver flows out in the suds and the heavier debris is discarded….however we discovered that the entire process is not very efficient as for every 20 tons of minerals carried out of the mine, only about 20 kilos go to use. From here we drove a ways further up the mountain to a number of rock huts used for shelter and storage that overlooked the city of potosi…it was here that we made our entance into hell.
Being in the mines was one of the most extreme and unbearable experiences of my life. It was cold and raining when we reached the mine so there wasn’t much introduction…we just charged right in. The first tunnel was large enough in most places to stand straight with some minimal ducking under the cracking wooded support beams and hissing air tubes that powered the drills. It was super dusty and rank from the beginning with a strange aroma of must, piss, coca leaves, and minerals. We carried on rapidly, quickly losing our breathes before resting near a drilling station. We all had handkerchiefs to try and block the profuse amounts of dust, but with the lack of oxygen from the altitude and from being in the mine, often it was nearly impossible to breathe. When the miners finished drilling we slide past them down a long slippery and narrow tunnel past deep shafts to a “dodgy” ladder with loose rungs hanging on by single nails. The ladder connected us to another larger passage filled with ankle deep water that we blindly stumbled through before reaching another ladder leading further into the mines.
Each level was hotter than the previous, with seemingly less oxygen, and a greater sense of panic. The deepest level we reached there was barely enough room to crawl on our hands and knees. There was a single man hammering a spike into the ceiling which he would then plug with dynamite, explode, gather, smash into smaller bits, and carry to the surface on his back…he started at seven that morning, and would return home around ten that evening…he worked six days a week…and was roughly forty…he had labored this way for the past fifteen years...feeling sorry for the poor guy, we gave him a gift of dynamite and orange soda before crawling off. At this point it had been roughly an hour and we had all had enough…the dust and dangers, ducking and exhaustion got old real fast…we agreed to see a few more sights then get the fuck out. From there we had to climb a near vertical chasm up about two hundred feet up to another level… the heat, altitude, and dust made it pure torture and we were all cursing ourselves for going on the tour.
Eventually we arrived at the “tio,” a shrine dedicated to the demon that rules over the mines and is highly feared and respected by all the miners. Each mine has at least one tio with approximately a thousand shrines in total. The miners pray to the tio which is usually a mud sculpture with a face and horns looking somewhat like the devil. They offer him alcohol, cigarettes, coca leaves, and marijuana and adorn him with various confetti’s and streamers. At certain parts of the year llamas are sacrificed and their blood is splattered over the entrance of the mines so the tio doesn’t drink the blood of the miners. So not only is are the mines like hell to be in, but the god that sees over them is also the devil.
We sat around our tio and offered it whisky, cigarettes, and coca leaves as the guide answered our various questions and educated us on cerro rico. We learned that the miners are very aware of their fate, to most likely die young and poor, and have all made the conscious decision to sacrifice their lives for their families and for wealth. We learned that most miners work for themselves which means that if they don’t find a good vein of minerals they make no money…but if they are lucky they can make thousands and sometimes even millions…like one super miner who now owns ten houses, thirty three cars, and a professional soccer team. Other miners, who aren’t so lucky, like our guides father, mined for thirty years and never found a good vein and died of silicosis very poor. The other option is to work for a large company that pays an hourly wage and has benefits, but never allows for the worker to strike it rich…which I imagine is the only hope that keeps them going.
We found out that nobody owns the mountain and wherever a miner starts to dig, from that point forward is his…the main tunnels are like city streets and each off shoot like the entrance to the miners house. Sometimes however, the miners don’t respect this concept and try to steal from each other…often conflicts are settled in the mines, and thieves are at risk of being blown up by dynamite or thrown down mine shafts to their deaths. Not exactly the kind of place you want to bring your children, however hundreds of children are currently working in the mines, many as young as ten years old. Its tragedy and a horror, and we couldn’t wait to get the fuck out of there, especially after one of us asked “with all these mines isn’t the mountain at risk of caving in on itself” and the guides reply was “were surprised it hasn’t already” as a few explosions rumbled over our heads.
By the time we finally reached the exit from hell, we were all stumbling and exhausted and covered toxic dust. The most amazing thing was the fresh cool air, one thing that ive always pretty much taken for granted, and never again will. We were only in the mine for about two hours, but all felt lucky to still be alive, and were completely amazed by the strength, perseverance, and insanity of the miners who often work double shifts of 24hrs before heading home. We all agreed that we would rather be criminals than work in the mines, because spending a life in jail would be better than spending it in cerro rico. We blew up our remaining dynamite on the hillside outside the mine, laughed at each other’s stained teeth from the coca, made our way backed down the mountain, and were completely fucking mind blown by the whole experience.