Potosi

This is Gregory, remember me?? Gregory, I am finally writing the blog!!

Potosí - 4100m above sea level , highest city in the World. Potosi is a wonderful and a tragic place in Bolivia.

Potosi is a living museum of Spanish colonial architecture, everywhere you look. It is difficult to understand at first why anyone would want to build such beautiful things here (remote, inhospitable location). So high up, sea level dwellers usually suffer the effects of altitude sickness, which includes headaches, shortness of breath and of course death if symptoms are not treated (usually a fast exit down to a more comfortable level). Gringo smokers need not apply for a job up here...

The tragedy of Potosi is also its fame and wealth, one name, Cerro Rico ( Rich Mountain) which we visited today for half a day underground with the miners.

A brief history is basically that the Spanish empire and most of Europe’s wealth was built on this mountain. Since the 15th century Silver, Tin, Zinc and other metals and minerals have been taken from this mountain. 8-9 million miners have died here since then, in the bad old days 90-100 miners a day would die bringing silver etc to the surface, mainly indigenous peoples and African slaves, the latter due to the altitude sickness and the 20 hours daily shifts, in a dusty, poisonous gas environment that is also why Cerro Rico was also called “the mountain that eats men”. The modern tragedy is the fact that there are some as young as 10-year-old children working in the mines, supporting their families. An interesting fact is that all the mines have a effigy figure call “el Tio” which they all worship every week on Friday by bringing presents of cigarettes and Coca leaves and llama foetus carcass, in order to make the mines give a good yield and save their lives. What is quite clear is that the Bolivian miners have no problems going to church on Sundays ( those that can) but in the mines they worship the El Tio –the devil, because they were taught 500 years ago by the Spanish that god is in heaven and the devil lives underground, where they work.

I mentioned earlier that Flavia and I spent the half a day in the mines. Just to describe the sequence of events. We were picked up in a mini bus that we had to several times get out of so it could go uphill (a small group of 8 gringos and 3 guides). They took us to the miners market to buy presents for the miners. The presents were bottles of coke, dynamite, fuses, ignitors, ammonium nitrate (bigger bang), and bags of coca leaves with all the bits that help to masticate them. Fully loaded up we then headed for a shack near the mines to get into our miners gear with our guide Jaime. Fully equipped with presents and geared up we entered the mines. The ordered chaos of the place is best experienced than described, in the beginning you were running to get out of the way of groups of four men running towards you with 1-2.5 tons of ore in a mining wagon, you learned pretty quickly to get off the tracks and stand clear when they were coming down the line. I banged my head about 10 times on the low ceilings, saved from fractures by the helmet I wore. It was a lot easier for the gringos to get out of the way when they were carrying their load trolley up hill , because of the strain on their bodies. Also they were glad to see the gringos in the tunnel, because they would scream for sweet drinks or coca leaves which we happily gave them as they passed. This is unfortunately all what the miners get out of the tourists, the cost of the tours is not shared or passed to them, which is really crap. But at least they get some drink and coca leaves for free, which are very very essential for working down there. These guys run from 2000m within the mine to the exit with 1-2.5 tonnes of ore 15 to 20 to 30 times a day. I think we got to about 2500 meters in the 4 hours we were there and it was exhausting. After the first hour 1000m into the mountain two girls of our party were overcome with events and had to be taken back to the surface, while the rest of us waited for the return of the guide watching the miners go by still running and moving tonnes like toys.

One very important point: coca leaves are VITAL to the miners and the people, without the coca no human being could ever work in the mines, in fact we just cannot conceive how they can do it, even with their mouth full of coca. The USA and Mr Bush should try a few hours in the mine themselves before trying to dictate what Bolivia should and should not do with their coca crops....

Potosi

Cerro Rico

El Tio. Note the fallic thing, this is about the fertility that he is meant to bring with extracting the minerals

Gregory passing through the narrowest tunnel we passed

The very civilised tunnel from the colonial era near the entrance, this is NOT what the inferno looks like a few more hundred meters into the mine...

This is a bit more like it...

Outside the mines, this is where the trolleys are emptied out