As well as being the highest city in the world (4,070m), Potosi is predominantly a mining town - in the past it was the major supply of silver for Spain. The silver is long gone and nowadays they mine Zinc, Lead and Tin.
It is possible to go and visit a touristy part of the mine but, if you speak to the right people, you can go and visit the real working mine. We found an ex-miner called Antonio who spends his days taking people to see his old workplace. First up was to don some safety gear; an orange pair of overalls, the oldest hard-hat in the world, a battery which was leaking acid and an old-skool headlamp. Not only did I look ridiculous, I felt less protected than when I was wearing jeans and a hoodie.
First up we drove to the miner´s market, where the miner´s buy everything they need for a days work. The most important purchase is coca leaves, along with substances to leech out the alkaloids they contain. This makes their shift more bearable by suppressing hunger, shielding the miner from changes in temperature and numbing the body slightly. The next item was "miners whisky" - 96% proof!! I drank a small capful and thought my insides were going to catch fire. The miners also buy various drinks and food to take down with them, but the most interesting item was dynamite!
You can buy big sticks of the stuff from shops in that area and even stalls on the side of the road! It costs 20 Bolivianos for a stick of nitroglycerin, the detonator, a 4 minute fuse and a bag of TNT. According to XE currency converter that weighs in at £1.86. Apparently you could easily take a house down with that. Ridiculous!!!
Anyway, we bought some of the above to give to the miners as gifts and headed over to the mine. I have to say I was shocked at the condition of the outside of the mine - it looked like it had been deserted for years. Everything was rusting and held together with whatever was available. However, this was nothing compared to what I´d see underground....
We headed through a small shaft in the side of the mountain and quickly found that there were few places where it was possible to stand. As we crawled along on our hands and knees through the sludge we approached a wooden ladder. "We´re now on the 3rd floor of the mine, there are two above and 11 below" explained Antonio. "We´re going down as far as level 6". I got onto the creaking wooden ladder to climb down to the next level and found that half of the rungs had snapped off. The others didn´t look like they´d hold out for much longer.
We crawled our way through the small passages in sludge and water, seeing chambers containing deposits of zinc, tin, lead and even a small amount of silver. The further down you go, the hotter it gets, and by the 6th level I was sweating buckets. What little air there was contained so much dust it was hard to breathe. Added to that, we were still over 4,000 meters above sea level so each step felt like a 100 meter sprint.
We eventually reached a long chamber. "Don´t touch the walls" Antonio said, "they are full of asbestos" (!!!). We walked through this chamber and reached a small cave with two decorated statues at the end. Antonio explained that these were effigies of Tio, the devil, to whom the miners pray for safety. He showed us how the miners made offerings to Tio by sprinkling miners´whisky and coca leaves first over the hands, then the feet, then the penis (yes, they had penises) of the statues. We then tipped some whisky on our right index finger, set it alight, swirled it around three times and clenched our fists to put out the flame. It was a rather odd tradition...
Antonio then asked someone to give him a pack of dynamite. He was going to give us a demonstration! I filmed most of it and will attempt to attach below (Bolivian internet permitting). These are the steps he went through:
1 - take the fuse, which is filled with gunpowder, and cut it so that a little powder can be taken out
2 - put this powder in the metal detonator and attach this to the fuse by biting it on
3 - cut 1/3rd of the nitroglycerin stick (this is easily enough to produce a large explosion) and insert the detonator into the end
4 - take a bag, empty half of the TNT balls into it, insert the nitroglycerin and fill the bag with the rest of the TNT balls
5 - wrap it up and seal it.
You now have a nitroglycerin stick, surrounded by balls of TNT with a fuse and detonator attached! Some of us followed Antonio to another chamber where he placed the explosive, lit the fuse and, instead of running, posed with it in his mouth for a while (the crazy fool).
We legged it back to the Tio worship chamber where the others were sitting and counted down the three remaining minutes....BOOOOOM! Even though I had my fingers in my ears, I wasn´t protected from the shock wave that rippled through my body - it really was exhilarating.
We then climbed up to the surface, which was knackering. I had spent just over three hours in the mines and I was surprised I´d made it back up. Although it was an unbelievable experience, I cannot imagine how these guys can be so desperate that they will work in such terrible conditions. I truly hope that one day soon the government delivers on their promise to improve the safety of these mines.
It is a sobering statistic that most miners start work when they are 14, and the majority die before they are 40....
Awesome videos.
ReplyDeleteGlad I didnt have to go down there...
ReplyDeleteI would have never go down there. Thats nuts!! scary.
ReplyDelete