Long overnight bus to Potosi from La Paz, not terribly comfortable and arriving us to Potosi at 530 AM. The first hotel we tried didnt answer the door, so frustrated, on we went to the next which was perfectly decent. We got about two hours of sleep there and then up for breakfast. Potosi is a very old colonial town that is loomed over by an enormous mountain, the Cerro Rico, which has been mined since the conquest. The Potosi silver mine essentially bankrolled the Spanish Empore for hundreds of years, with the mountain giving massive amonuts of silver to the spanish, in exchange for the lives of literally millions of miners who have toiled there since the 16th century. 8 million indian and african slaves gve their lives to the mountain, and the conditions today are barely improved. This was the mine where coca chewing miners went for 48 hour shifts from childhood until their early deaths. Obviously someone was getting rich, and it was the spanish and later the mine owners, who helped make Potosi the richest and largest city in the Americas at one time. Dozens of ornate colonial churches and hundreds of colorful buildings make up the city (claimed to be the worlds highest) with winding little streets apparently to keep the freezing altiplano winds at bay.
So we decided to take a look...
We got a guide and waited around a bit for the car to pull up. An ancient minivan with bench seats that were literal backless benches pulled up and we clambered in. It wasnt until the second or third stop that I noticed that the van always stopped on a hill so as to begin with a rolling start. Our guide, Oswaldo, introduced himself to us, cheerfully reminding us that we could remember his name because it was like Lee Harvey Oswald. This should have been a sign...
We headed up the hill toward the mountain to stop at a market to get some gifts for the miners to thank them for showing us around. It seems the main thing the miners want as gits from tourists is booze, cigarettes, coca leaves and dynamite, an excellent combination any way you think about it. I bought myself an extra stick of dynamite from a six year old girl, who very casually took my 10 bolivianos (about a dollar) picked a stick of dynamite from a bag, cut a two foot length of fuse, and dropped them in a bag with a handful of ammonium nitrate (an explosive accelerator).
We drove the rest of the way up to the mine, changed into rubber boots, hardheats with headlamps and allegedly protective outer gear. Our guide explained that miners drank this certain kind of booze which is 96% pure alcohol and smells like industrial cleaning solvent. I politely declined his offer as he tossed a few back, not before spilling out a few drops as an offering to the mountain and goddess Pachamama. In we went. We walked down an olding mining track, stopping occasionally to let the rumbling mining carts piled with 2 tons of tin ore go past (they dont have brakes apparently). Each time we met some miners, they were called Tarzan, the Terrorist, The Killer, or other such fanciful nicknames and our guide Oswaldo would hand out presents from his bag like Santa Claus, then insist on doing a few shots with them. At this rate, he would be plastered by the end of the tour. But in fact, he was already quite plastered only a few minutes into our tour it became apparent.
The miners were friendly enough, talking abuot how long they had worked in the mines (most since mid to early adolescence) how much they made (about 5-10$ a day), and what the work was like. They all appeared exceedingly drunk and glassy eyed, I suppose from the tennis ball sized wads of coca leaves stuffed in their cheeks. My tiny amount of coca leaves had started to make me feel a little off, so I spat them out. We watched as they drilled holes for dynamiting, holding the bits as they turned and sprayed out bits of rock. We watched as they lowered wach other down seemingly bottomless pits on ancient frayed ropes. One even complained to me about getting paid in American dollars, that they had gotten increasingly less valuable since he began working, and all the Europeans laughed at us. Oh, and none of the miners wore ANY protective gear at all.
We wandered deeper into the mine, about mile or two in in where it began to really feel claustrophobic. Our feet were wading through mud and clay, with rocks occasionally falling on our hardhats. The walls could touch my shoulders in many places, and I was constantly bumping my hard hat if I wasnt ducking. Faces and walls were lit by headlamp alone, rendering an eerie lighting effect. The air pressure would change suddenly, or a completely strange odor would waft past and we could only hope it wasnt poisonous. Our guide lead us to some extremely rickety looking and mud caked ladders and instructed us to go on up. All I could think about was the Far Side cartoon abuot the controversial exposure therapy for fear of heights, small places and the dark. The ladders were about 20 feet high each, and barely attached to the mud and rock walls. We climbed about six, and I was first and terrified to look down in the dark at what was below, especially when my headlamp knocked off and I fumbled to reattach it while on a wooden ladder hundred feet above solid ground, which was a mine tunnel floor in the dark. Falling might not have been so bad, given how narrow the mine shafts were I probably would have just gotten wedged in somewhere. The guide then pulled me off the ladder and over to a landing that I had to walk across a two by four over another bottomless pit to get to. I sat and waited while he chatted with some miners and then they left. a few mintues later I saw the group start to climb past me on the ladders again, ¨¨um, are you guys still going up?¨¨ I asked. It seemed that Oswaldo had forgotten about me in the side tunnel. They were. We climbed up another dozen ladders or so, and entered another tunnel where we chatted again and watched out guide do more shots of whatever that stuff was. suddenly, we could feel the mountain move slightly, and the air pressure changed as we listened to the dull thudding sounds of detonating dynamite somehwere else in the mine. Even though it was muffled by the mountain and not so loud, it still felt immensely powerful. Here he had us turn off our headlamps for a moment, and I can definitely say I have never expereinced such absolute deep blackness. We slowly headed down the ladders, descending another few hundred feet but more slowly as one of our group had his headlamp go out.
Ben and I asked the guide about whether we could now help detonate some dynamite, a task that Lonely Planet had assured us was both possible and safe. He told us to wait while he called and attempted to track down some miners for us to drill some holes that needed blasting. He came back without any, but furtively beckoned us to come with him, directing the rest of the group to stay where theye were. They did not much appreciate being literally left in the dark. Oswaldo had us jump over another mining shaft, and then had us prepare our dynamite. We unpeeled the wrapper slightly and jammed the fuse into the mushy stuff inside (which I think means it was actually TNT, but I´m no demolition expert). The stick went in a bag with the ammonium nitrate and we stood waiting for the miners to help us, feeling rather like Wile E Coyote, stick of dynamite in one hand, fuse in the other. But no miners came, now did we put the dynamite into any pre drilled holes. Oswaldo, breath reeking of firewater and coca leaves, just had us set it in a pile of rocks, light the fuse and walk away back over the uncovered shaft and around the corner, warning us not to run as thats how accidents happen and we had a five minute fuse. He began to explain about Tio, the sort of demon protector of the mine, when suddenly the group was literally blasted off our feet by the shockwave of the dynamite that definitely did NOT have a five minute fuse. More like 60 seconds. Ears ringing, Oswaldo hustled us toward Tio´s shrine, where we hastily offered his red diablical statue booze and coca leaves, and we were on our way.Checking with the other tour groups we learned that they got rubber raincoats and face masks, not crappy windbreakers and nothing to protect their mouths. They also did not go up somethingteen ladders in the dark, nor did they light off sticks of dynamite, nor was their guide too drunk to walk straight by the middle of the tour. Well, we got our adventure I suppose. And that dynamite might have been the best dollar I spent in Bolivia.
I got back to the hotel and showered for the first time in days now that we had hot water (I know, cold showers arent bad, but they suck when you are in an unheated hotel in the middle of winter in the mountains. I blew my nose and was horrified at the blackness that came out from just a few hours in the mines. It may seem like a wacky adventure to me now, but it really is astonishing that people live and work in those conditions as mine owners get rich and the rest of us in the west live cheaper lives with inexpensive metals. 10$ a day for one of the highest paying jobs in bolivia, where the miners work and live a hard life starting in childhood only to die at silicosis by about age 35. But I won´t get into politics now.
And don´t worry Olivia and Mom, I promise thats the last dangerous thing we are doing!!
Now to the salt flats, back to civilization on friday.
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