Potosi and the Silver Mountain.

We are currently in a city called Potosi, in the centre of Bolivia. The city sits at 4020m and boasts that it is the highest city in the world...it certainly feels it- it´s freezing! I miss Brazil and being hot!! I actually couldn´t sleep the first night we arrived I was too cold...this is NOT what I had in mind for the 8 month trip around South America. But enough complaining... Potosi is actually great and apart from the awful hour before I fall asleep of not being able to feel my feet beacuse I am so cold, we`ve actually loved it here.

It`s been another ´cultured´ few days visiting lovely old churches and cathedrals, and we had a great tour around an old convent where we learnt about the nun´s lives and the whole self flagellation thing- craziness if you ask me. Strangely there were a lot of skulls everywhere too- weird. It was on this tour that we bumped into some Canadian friends we first met in Brazil 4 months ago and haven´t seen since Argentina which was great! We`ve eaten lots of lovely ´saltena´s which are the local speciality, much like the meat filled pastry ´empanadas´ from Argentina but a bit spicier, we`ve sat with the locals in the markets eating several very cheap´unknown´dishes and loved it and we`ve drank lots of yummy fresh juices preapred by the local women-the ´cholitas´.


Potosi has quite an interesting history, which has been part of the highlight of the trip. Just behind the city is a Cerro Rico, a ´rich hill´ full of silver. The city was founded in 1545 and straight away became the largest and the wealthiest city in the Americas due to the silver being extracted from this mountain. The Spanairds learnt of the enormous wealth buried in the mountain of Postosi and immediatly sent thousands of indeginous slaves down to dig and extract so that the silver could be sent to Spain. The work was really dangerous and many many workers died of accidents and silicosis pneumonia. Despite this, in 1572 it was made law that all indiginous men over 8 had to work in shifts of 12 hours, they`d remain underground without seeing the daylight for months, they`d eat, sleep and work in the mines. It´s said that in about 300 years nearly 8 million Bolivianos died from the appalling conditions.

Today, the pure silver has more or less dried up and poverty in the city is quite apparent. However, the mines are still in operation and some 15,000 miners work down there every day extracting the silver ore which only contains 2-10% silver. A ton of ore will give the workers 300 bolivianos. This is about 20GBP. They`ll probably collect a ton twice a week. The conditions are still abismal- underground temperatures vary from below freezing as the altitude is so high, to nearly 46 degree celcius at the fourth and fifth levels of the mines. The hard working miners are exposed to noxious chemicals and gases and will die within 10-15 years of entering the mines. It´s quite a harsh reality to take in.

I was very apprehensive about taking a tour to the mines and actually going down into the mines as I had heard horror stories from other travellers about claustiphobia and not being able to breathe etc. I also wasn´t sure how we´d feel about seing all the harsh working conditions, and worried we were ´exploiting´ the hard workers. However we read up on the tours and found out they are taken by ex minors and the tours themsleves benefit the minors as gifts are brought to them. So we booked a recommended tour for this morning, we had an excellent guide- he is actually still a minor and an expert on the mines, the lives of the minors and the history. It was so interesting, and heart breaking, listening to him telling us about the poor minors, getting up every day walking up to the mountain and spending over 12 hours underground, working so hard to provide for the large familes they all have back in Potosi. We heard how every boy, usually at the age of just 14 will start working in the mines, with their fathers, uncles and cousins, and they will not stop working until their poor health permits them to about 10-15 years later, where they will have contracted silicoysis and will surely die. Our guide was saddened by the fact his sons will probably work there all their lives, although he`d love for them to go to university, sadly its just not reality for the men in Potosi.

The tour started with us all getting the protective gear on- hard hats with lights on, jackets, trousers and hankerchiefs for our mouths. We were first taken to something called an ingenio, which is a smelter used to extract the sliver from the ore. We saw all the machinery at work, and lots of chemicals used in the process of seperation, including open pools of cyanide! We then went to the miners market where all the miners stock up on dynamite, coca leaves (chewing the coca leaves helps with the altitude) and drinks etc. We bought gifts for the miners here- a couple of bags of coca leaves, a massive bottle of coke and some dynamite. It was then on up to the actual mines to meet the miners and see them at work.

It wasn´t the easiest morning I`ve ever had, infact it was pretty horrible being down the mines. We had a drama as soon as we entered the mines as Chris` light didn´t work on his hat so he couldnt see a thing..but they fixed that within 5 mins so he only bumped his head a few times! After walking for about 8 mins I could feel it getting really hot and it was getting harder to breathe, I seriously thought at this point I`d give myself another 5 mins and then get out (there was a support guy at the back who took people out whenever they wanted to leave). We stopped for about 5 mins and I got my breathe back and I felt alright to go on, he warned us we were going further into the mines, down to the 2nd and 3rd level, and that we`d have to crawl for a bit to get there- ahh!! At this point 2 people in our group decided to turn back.

The next half an hour involved a lot of crawling on my hands in mud with my head ducked as low as possible so as not to hit the low ceiling, sliding down steep passageways on my bum, feeling incrediably hot and trying to remember to breathe as much as possible! I made it down to the final level we were to visit and I was quite pleased with myself as I honestly thought I`d not be able to do it. It was such a strange experience, we met the miners working down there and we gave them all our gifts, they were so pleased with them and immediatly stuffed half a bag of coca leaves in their mouths- they love it! The miners work in a group, normally comprised of family members and as far as we could see they were not too unhappy, we heard them joking around and laughing- which was nice to see. I can´t believe they can do that job everyday and spend so long down there- it was a real eye opener.

The climb back up was really tough and I had to stop a few times mid passageway to catch my breath. It felt horrible breathing in the toxic air filled with chemicals, although we are assured being down in the mines for an hour will not do any harm to us. It was amazing to feel it getting colder and the air a bit cleaner as we got closer to the exit, and it felt even better to be out of the mines. Afterwards, our guide gave us a demonstration with the dynamite that miners use to break the volcanic rock, which was quite cool, if a bit terrifying!! He lit it while it was in Chris´ hands which was very scary, luckily he grabbed it in time and ran off a few meters away to place it down and then run away again. It was a huge explosion, bigger than I had expected! Scary stuff!

The whole experience was absolutely crazy, unforgettable and really interesting. I have so much respect for the miners, it´s certainly a job I will NOT be doing when I grow up