Visiting the Mines

So Potosí. Location of Cerro Rico (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerro_Rico). The hill that supplied the silver that revolutionized commerce. With more silver in circulation, more people were able to participate in the money marketplace (http://www.amazon.com/Indian-Givers-Indians-Americas-Transformed/dp/0449904962/sr=1-1/qid=1166301919/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-3199113-4442320?ie=UTF8&s=books). You can see how torn up the mountain is. It glows red.

In this direction you can see the ageless slag pile (on the left.)

In another direction is another mineral-rich mountain that is protected under national park status.

The city itself is a nice collection of colonial architecture and, along Bolivian standards, very pleasant... and inexpensive.

Here is the lunch menu scribbled on a board outside a restaurant (mentioned in a previous entry.)

At night the mountain is lit up like a Christmas tree.

During colonization, the silver was extracted from the crushed ore dug from the mountain by dry-mixing it with mercury (a liquid) using the feet of thousands of indigenous. Mercury poisoning killed most of the mine workers then.

The mine is still being worked today and the equipment used is a lot like what I see when I visit long forgotten mines in the Rockies of the States. 14,000 miners work the mountain today (mineral prices are up) for minerals besides silver (though there is an occasional lucky strike.)

The tour into the mines begins with a visit to the miners market. There we bought bags of coca leaves and bottles of orange soda as gifts for the miners we would meet later. The coca leaves are chewed to combat altitude and fatigue. We also bought a couple of sticks of dynamite, a bag of ammonium nitrate, and a fuse for some fun later.

We put on rubber boots, rain slickers for the dust, hard hat and lantern.

Then headed to the mine.

The ore is hauled out in wheelbarrows.

Or pushed out in antiquated carts on disintegrating rail.

Cart maintanance here. They are taking the wheels apart to add grease.

If they think the ore is valuable enough, they will use an electric locomotive to haul it.

Here is where the ore is shoveled (with shovels - no machinery) into the trucks which haul it to the extraction process down in the valley.

This process goes on 24-7. Nearing the Holidays as we are, many miners are working 16 hour shifts to win vacation time and extra finances.

The mountain is a swiss-cheese of mine shafts. We would take a shaft that went all the way through the mountain. There were miners working everywhere.

Here a miner is using a hammer and chisel to prepare a hole for dynamite.

Working in these conditions, the miners are plenty religious. Here is one rendition of the miners God ¨Tio¨ deep in the mountain. Sacrifices of coca leaves are given to encourage safety of the miners, discoveries of rich seams of ore, and high mineral prices on the world market. This is a very hard life!

The miners are very aware of global politics and the value of the resources that Bolivia has. They know that Bolivia is leaking wealth by the bucketloads.

After a couple of hours wandering through tunnels we arrived at the other side of the mountain (my companions on this trip were a couple from Spain/Colombia.)

Our guide, 30 years of experience working in the mine, prepared the dynamite (it had the consistency of play-dough) and ammonium sulfate for a demonstration. (He speaks Spanish, Quechua, and English.)

He lights the fuse and then moseys down to a flat area below.

Once there, he buries the ¨bomb¨ in a small hole.

Then we wait.

and wait...

It was an impressive explosion. Miner music (no pun intended.)

Then back into the mine to get back to the other side.

It was an incredible tour. I would visit a modernized mine in Chile a couple of weeks later. It was stark contrast.