Potosi - Week 34

4th & 5th May

With 112,000 people living at 4070m asl Potosi is the worlds highest city, and boy does it feel like it. Altitude sickness is a weird feeling, hard to describe. You have a really heavy feeling head, not quite a headache but still really tiring. There is no way to avoid it other than go down a few hundred metres and try again a few days later, or chomp on copious amounts of coca leaves. Still a little discomfort and fatigue is definitely worth it as Potosi is fascinating.

The bus from Uyuni took about 5 hours and came down through again more stunning scenery of deep andean valleys and little farms. We looked around for a hostel with heating as we knew we would need it from our salt flat experiences. Being the tight-arsed backpacker we are we couldn´t bring ourself to pay 3 times the amount (about $30) a night so we settled into a perfectly pleasent but cold room in Hostel de Compania de Jesus. The main reason for visiting Potosi (also the only reason for Posoti´s exsistence) is to go into the mines!

So time for some background. Potosi was founded by the Spanish in 1545 after they discovered the Indian mine workings in Cerro Rico, meaning Rich Hill - a bit of a clue to the Spanish! They started to extract immense amounts of silver ore from the mountain, and by the early 17th century Potosi was the largest city in both North & South America! According to official records, 45,000 tons of pure silver were mined from Cerro Rico from 1556 to 1783. The hill below basically bankrolled the Spanish for over 300 years!!

Cerro Rico

This massive quantity of silver has a very dark side though. The Spanish practically enslaved the local Indians. They decreed that the Indians must spend 4 months of each year down the mines. They worked 10 hour days, sleeping and eating down the mines not coming out until 4 months had passed. This brutal treatment had its toll on the Indians, thousands died, so the Spanish brought thousands more slaves from Africa to suppliment there numbers. In all it is thought that 8 MILLION people have died either in the mines or from the mercury fumes used to extract the silver from the ore.

With so many workers/slaves in the city the Spanish were massively out-numbered. To control the Indians and Africans they used their old favourite, Catholicism. There are no less than 80 churches in Potosi. Many are very beautiful with ornate carved facades.

We booked our tour with Koala as they give 15% of the ticket price to the miners cooperative. First we suited up which involved James turning into the front man for the Village People.

"...They have everything for you men to enjoy, You can hang out with all the boys

It's fun to stay at the y-m-c-a..."

Then off to the Miners Market to buy dynamite. Yep thats right, it´s not illegal to buy dynamite in Bolivia. The miners since 1980 worked in self-employed cooperative groups, renting parts of the hill from the Government. They have to buy all their equipment themselves and so we brought dynamite and bottles of pop for them as presents. Also a little dynamite for oursleves to blow up later!! Into the mine. The mine we went into was called Canderlaria, one of the oldest and the safest for tourists to wander around. There are 8 levels, we visited the top three which parts of were originally dug in the 1550´s.

The two lads sitting to the left of the entrance were 13.

from the museam...

The mine was horrific. The tunnels were very small, with scraps of timber propping the roof. It was very dusty even with the little dust masks we brought with us. Even though we were under ground we were still at very high altitude, and so it was hard to breath. The entrance to the mine was around 5500m. The first part we visited was the top winch. The ore comes from 6 to 8 levels below the entrance/exit, so maybe 200m below. The face/seam is blasted with dynamite, hand shoveled into trucks on rails and towed to the winch. It is then tipped out and hand shoveled into rubber baskets and winched to the next level. This happen three times before the ore gets outside - practically all by hand!!

A team of miners pulling and pushing the 2500kg trucks full of ore to the next winch area.

Two miners shovelling the ore into the baskets. The smaller miner is 52 years old and has been woking down this mine for over 30 years.

This miner works 12 hour shift emptying the 250kg rubber baskets into a hopper.

At the picture above, we were all sitting around a shaft, apparently safe in a tiny little area when the earth started to move beneath Katie's bum and she nearly fell through. Very, very scary and didn't quite feel safe after that!! It was such a relief to finally leave the mine and breath fresh air. We were only in there for 2 hours. Often the miners work 18 hours shift, the longer you work the more money you get paid. In the whole hill there are 15,000 miners and 25 die each year. It is a very dangerous job, but it is possible for the miner (at the current rates for zinc & silver) to earn more than the lawers, architects and teachers in the city. Having said that the life expectancy of the average miner is only 45!

A very dusty James & Katie ready to leave the mine.

Back outside it was time for the crazy part. The guides showed us how to make the dynamite bombs. Unwrap the stick of dynamite, roll it into a ball, stick the detonator/fuse into the ball, pour nitro-glycerine into a carrier bag, chuck the dynamite in, tie the bag and Bob´s your three fingered uncle!!

With ringing ears we headed to the processing plant to see how they split the ore into silver and zinc. Basically they grind the ore to a fine powder and add crazyily dangerous and toxic chemicals to it.

Silver paste.

The other side of Potosi was the mint. Here they turned all the silver into coins and shipped it off to Spain. It was these coins along with gold and other precious stones that our Sir Francis Drake and Henry Morgan spent most of their time trying to plunder.

and so all that misery and death just to make these...

In the evening we had delicious 'submarine' hot chocolates and churros at a nice little caff on the square and had an early night ready for the bus to Sucre in the morning.