The highest city in the world
Trip Start
Dec 07, 2005
1
25
78
Trip End
Apr 10, 2007
Potosi,
Bolivia
Monday, May 1, 2006
potosi is famous for its silver mines, and yesterday we took the obligatory tour of one of them. we heard that some of the tours were on the hellish side--crawling through tiny spaces between mine shafts and such. we met a (big) chilean fellow at our hostel and a really nice canadian couple and booked a tour that didnīt entail so much crawling and claustrophobia. it was also cheaper.
our tour offered plenty of evidence of the hellish conditions of the mine, even without the narrow spaces (we did have to do a lot of ducking and even a bit of crawling, though)
where the miners are after life
. when we got back to our hostel in the afternoon, people that had gone on the other tour had a horrific time. 4 people left the tour because they couldnīt take it. everyone lasted through our entire tour, though, but i think a couple people were pushing themselves comfort-wise. our tour guide was a plucky bolivian woman named sol. she knew all the miners and when we entered the mineshaft and had to duck most of the time, she was standing at her full height of about 4ī11Ļ and saying, Ļnow you know why iīm bolivian.Ļ our tour group was comprised of daniela, graham and nora (the canadian couple), gearson (our chilean friend), a couple from the uk, and a couple from france.
before the tour began, we hit the minerīs market, where we bought juice, soda, water, hand-rolled cigarrettes, coca leaves, and dynamite as gifts for the miners. then we went to get suited up in rubber boots, rubbery overshirts and overpants, and, of course, our minerīs helmets, complete with lights. we each had a heavy battery pack tied around our waists to power the lights.
then it was into the mine. the shafts were smallish, and sol told us that this mountain has been mined continuously since the mid 1600s. some stats: the volume of silver taken from this moutain (Ļcero ricoĻ or Ļrich hillĻ) is enough to build a bridge of silver from bolivia to spain. it is estimated that about 8 million indigenous bolivians and african slaves died in the mines, enough to build TWO bridges of bones from bolivia to spain. the silver taken from the mountain quadrupled the amount of silver in spain in the 1600s. the bridge stats came from sol (and a tour of the casa de moneda in potosi) adn the quadruple silver fact from a book called Ļthe gringo trailĻ.)
and they are still pulling silver out of the mountain. on our tour, we met up with miners who were working (and graham and i jumped in to fill a couple of bags with rocks and ore) and gave them water, smokes, coca (which they chew for endurance), and dynamite. we walked just over 2 km into the mountain before turning around and walking out. on the way in, we stopped for a break in front of a crude mud statue of Ļtio jorgeĻ (uncle george) to whom the miners make offerings of alcohol and cigarettes and coca leaves. there was no doubt that he was an uncle and not an aunt--fertility obviously plays a part in the psychology of the offerings; the tio keeps pachamama, the earth goddess/the mountain herself satisfied and fecund. itīs a complicated thing, as i read later that the tio, looking like a devil, also represents the white man that worked so many natives to death to make money for europe.
by the time we spotted the small exit of the mine, we were all relieved to be heading back into daylight. the spaniards used to make their slaves work underground for over a month without exiting the mine. there are miners working around the clock on 8 hour shifts today. we met up with the head of one family (there were 14 year old boys carting wheelbarrow loads of ore out) in the middle of his shift, wicking the sweat off himself with a dull hunting knife. when we left, he half-jokingly asked why we were saying goodbye and said he thought we were there to work. hard not to feel voyeuristic in situations like that.
so we went outside and sol, gearson, graham, and i set off two sticks of dynamite we had bought at the minerīs market. sol lit grahamīs stick first, then was having trouble getting the other stick to light in the wind. graham was a bit nervous with the wick burning in his hand, but sol just told him to Ļgo over thereĻ. it wasnīt clear if he should put the dynamite down or throw it. the wick was sizzling away inside a white insulating cover, so we couldnīt see how far along it was. finally, sol got gearsonīs wick lit and moved us over to bury the dynamite. then she told us to run. so we ran, but daniela told me later that sol was still nonchalantly packing dirt around the dynamite and then strolled back towards where the rest of the group was gathered.
the three of us clambered up the slope towards our group, out of breath from the altitude and running in rubber boots and lugging our battery packs. then we waited a full minute or so before the first bang. sol had reached the group perfectly composed.
what a big bang, though. we were about 30 meters away, and could feel the explosion in our chests. and we were showered with pebbles from around the explosion site. that was the end of our mining tour, and we sat in our rubber suits waiting for our minibus to come pick us up on the barren, scarred hillside.
in a storybook ending to our day, we slumped back into our hostel to find out that the hot water wasnīt running--and it didnīt come back on until the next day. thatīs the ryhthm of bolivia, though.
