May 20 – 21 – Into the depths of hell

By the time we reached Potosí we had gone four days without a shower, and we practically ran for them. Now that isn’t to say there weren’t showers at any of the places we stopped, it was just that there was no hot water to warm us up, and we were already cold enough so we didn’t need a cold shower. Once we were all cleaned, we headed out for a quick walk in the city to stretch our legs. The only problem was that since we didn’t do any walking for the past four days, this short walk, at over 4,000m was a little difficult and some of us were feeling the altitude again.

The next morning I woke up before everyone else and decided to go for a short walk around town to explore some of the buildings as I would not be able to do so in the afternoon (we opted to head to Sucre this afternoon instead of spending another night in Potosí). Potosí is a city filled with a rich mining history, and during the mining boom in the 1670’s it was one of the largest cities in the world, larger the Paris. Since there was lots of money during these boom years, there is a lot of marvelous colonial construction still around in the city, that wouldn’t traditionally be in a city of this size. Of particular interest and importance is the La Casa de la Moneda, the mint, which was a centre of currency production for the Spanish Empire. It was built with walls up to 1m thick and at times served as a jail, mint and military headquarters during Bolivia’s war with Paraguay (as you might imagine, Bolivia lost that war and yet again, more of its territory). Currently this is home to the currency museum, but sadly would not be open while I was in Potosí.

After everyone else had woken up we started on our way to explore the mines and rich mining heritage of the town. The main mountain, and source of all the minerals around Potosí, is Cerro Rico (rich hill in English) and has been mined for over 400 years, all by hand. Because of this constant mining, the mountain measured about 5,200m when the Spaniards arrived, and now measures only 4,700m due to the removal of minerals over the years. Nearly everything has been taken out of the mine including silver and zinc, with all of it removed by hand. Needless to say this is painstaking work and the payment is very low (around $100 for a ton of ore to be shared among the whole cooperative…..or if you have the lovely task of removing the ore from the mine with a wheelbarrow you’re looking at about 7¢ per load removed). There were discussions about automating the mining in order to make it easier on the miners (who’s life expectancy is about 15-20 years upon entering the mine….only 1 accident a day and three fatalities a month) and increase production, but they determined that would leave the mine empty in about 20 years, where if they continue by hand they have about another 200 years of mining left to go.

Our tour of the mines started with a visit to the miner’s market where the miners stop on their way up to the mines every day. Here they are able to purchase everything they might require while down in the mines, from dynamite to cigarettes (a lovely concoction specifically made for the miners including tobacco, coca leaves and an accelerant to help the coco get in the blood stream faster…..and if you want, sodium bicarbonate, a lovely little accelerant that turns the coco leaves into a type of cocaine). Here we purchased a few gifts for the miners, especially dynamite because hey, who doesn’t want to give a stick of dynamite for a gift. One thing the tour guide tried to get us to buy is a bottle of alcohol to give to the miners. As they believe that whatever you put in your body represents what you will get out of the mountain, the miners try to eat as pure as possible, this goes for the alcohol as well. So with no mix at all they drink their special alcohol on Friday night in thanks to the Devil (who owns the mine in their mind and who’s wife is the Pachamama, so no women are allowed to work in the mines in fear of tempting the Devil and making the Pachamama mad) for the minerals they received during the week. Their special brew is a brand called potable alcohol and comes in a lovely plastic jug with an alcohol content of 96%. We thought giving alcohol and dynamite would be a little too much.

Once we finished at the market, we drove up the hill around the mounds of tailings from the mines, where the women of the community are used to check over the rubble to see if there is any useable ore that was missed (they might not be able to work in the mine, but they are able to work on top of the mine). Once we reached our entrance to the mine we dawned overalls, helmets and headlamps to protect ourselves, and our clothes, when we entered the mine (as you can very well imagine, they were all to small for me, except for the left pant leg, which was actually the right length….not sure how that happened). From there we entered through the small opening into the cooperative we were visiting, which actually look like how you would picture the mines in the Lord of the Rings.

After about five minutes of dodging low overhangs, bottomless holes and miners running past, we came to a point where we had two options, the safe, pleasant route, or descend into the depths of hell….we choose hell. The first little bit of this descent was the hardest part of it all where the tunnel got so small you had to crawl, the holes so wide you had to jump, and the twists and turns so sharp that you thought you were in the mines alone. But once we got through all of that it opened up into a massive cavern deep within the mountain that went up at least three levels in the mines (if the hill was cut down the middle it would look like a kid’s pet ant farm). From there the going was pretty easy and we learned all about the life of the miners, and had the opportunity to interact with two of them and help move some ore out by wheelbarrow and help drill a hole from where the miners would set off dynamite (of course the hole was drilled by hammering a metal spike into the wall). At some points during our walk we had to descend by rope, crawl on our hands and knees and constantly watch our step and point out the holes to nowhere. Sadly, we didn’t descend to the lower levels that we were told was where the true excitement happened, but we still got a well rounded view of the mine from where we were standing.

Once back out on the surface, we were treated with a dynamite display. Back at the miner’s market, we purchased a few extra sticks of dynamite to set off in the mines, and when we got to the surface, our guide drove to a location where we would be able to light the dynamite. First though, we had to make the explosions. We started by mashing the stick of dynamite into a ball (it had the consistency of dry playdough) and then stuck the detonator into the ball and placed it in a rather large bag of fertilizer to help make the explosion that much bigger. While I was doing this, our guide asked if anyone could run fast, and it took no time at all before Chris stuck his hand up and volunteered to place and light the dynamite. What he didn’t know was that we were lighting it by the truck, then running with live dynamite burning in his hands, placing it and then running back. We realized the need for speed when the guide asked Chris, as the dynamite was being lit, if he was sure he could run fast. Well off they went to burry the dynamite about 100m away from us while se hung out by the truck waiting for the inevitable explosion. Every video we took of the explosions show a noticeable jump as the shock wave and sound of the explosion hit us, and even though it was a good distance away from us, we were surprised by the amount of power we still felt. We were also glad they didn’t set it off in the mines where we would have undoubtedly lost all our hearing.

After Chris got back to the truck without a scratch on him (he dropped the dynamite and ran leaving the guide to actually burry it a bit in the tailings….not that I wouldn’t do the same) we headed back to the hotel where we collected our things to head to Sucre. As some of the guys we were traveling with were desperate to see the Champion’s League Final that afternoon, we opted to spend a little more money to take a private bus, but when we got to the hotel there was no private bus, but instead four cabs waiting to drive us as fast as they could to Sucre.