Where's Grayleen?

Occasionally something will pop out of a travel blog or a guide book that one of us will feel compelled to see or do for absolutely no explicable reason. For me, a trip to see the working mines of Potosí was something I just had to do.

Cerro Rico and the mining community below

Potosí, said to be the highest city in the world at 13,420ft, sits at the base of Cerro Rico or “Rich Mountain”. The Spanish discovered that the mountain contained huge amounts of silver 465 years ago and since then the mines have been in constant operation. During the colonial period, Potosí grew to be one of the largest cities in the entire world. The silver extracted from the mountain quite literally funded the entire Spanish empire for hundreds of years. The downside is that the working conditions in the mines were disastrous. It is said that over 8 million men have died mining the mountain from accidents, exposure to the mercury used to extract pure silver from the rock, or silicosis, a fatal disease of the lungs caused by exposure to the dust.

And this still continues today. Miners, who often start working in the mines by the age of 12, fully expect to die from dust exposure within 15-20 years. These harsh conditions have given rise to a culture unlike anything I’ve encountered before. When above ground, the miners are Catholic, attend church, and worship crucifixes in the numerous churches of Potosí. However, when they are underground, they worship Tio, the devil, who holds dominion over the hot depths of the mountain. Each mine entrance has a statue of Tio and the miners ply him with cocoa leaves and plenty of the 96% (192 proof!) alcohol that they drink. Each year they hold a ceremony where they bathe the outside of the mine with fresh llama blood – Tio demands blood in exchange for the ore and it’s better it be the blood of a llama than of the miners (though apparently when there is an deadly accident in a distant part of the mine, many miners admit to being secretly excited because they believe the blood will provide for better minerals).

Aileen and I took one of the organized tours run by ex-miners into a working mine. After learning about the history, we got suited up in full miner attire, donned our headlamps, and walked into the mouth of the mine. These mines are not for the claustrophobic: the main entrance tunnel was no more than 4 feet tall, 3 feet wide, and the floor was covered in a couple of inches of water. Our guide led us through meandering tunnels, bent 90 degrees at the waist, for two very long hours. As we walked into the depths of the mountain, the temperature rapidly increased. Along the way we stopped (crouching in a tunnel not much wider than I am) and hung out with a miner who was sorting through rocks by hand pulling out the ones with the more valuable minerals. When we left, we gave him a bag of cocoa leaves and a stick of dynamite (both of which we’d purchased on the street before heading into the mine) as a thank you for his time.

Good thing that fuse is really, really long!

I felt more than just a bit of relief when we finally emerged into a bright and crisp sunny day and I was able to stand fully upright.

The tour lived up to my every expectation – these miners live hard, boom and bust lives – but I don’t think I’ll be heading back underground any time soon! You can find a few more pictures here.