Visiting the Mines of Cerro Rico

Hello Hello!

Mil desculpas for this late post (also, I'll edit this and add the photos as soon as wifi allows). Our tour of Potosí actually happened before the wild market action, but Megan proved to be more on her blog game than I. So here it goes, the post on “shocking” (Lonely Planet quote) Potosí, the highest city in the world.

Old colonial streets of Potosí at sunset.

Potosí was founded in 1545 when Spanish colonists discovered ore in Cerro Rico or ‘Rich Hill’. Nearly three centuries of imported African slaves and exploitation of indigenous peoples resulted in the famed silver paved streets of Potosí and an estimated 8,000,000 miners worked to premature deaths. In the 1800s, when Alto Peru became Bolivia, the Bolivian government took over mining operations. However, the cost of upholding regulations coupled with the dwindling silver reserves made the meager profits of the business unappealing for the government. This led to the current management system of the mine: a cooperative.

Previously, the word cooperative made me think of large health food stores or Oaxacan artisans agreeing to price minimums on their wares in order to prevent them from undercutting their livelihoods, but what we saw on our tour of the mine and the associated production (selling coca leaves, refining minerals, etc.) shed a different light on the word, one that condemned a city to de facto slavery. The Potosí Mining Cooperative ensures that in exchange for a 12% tax the miners are given free license to mine the mountain. The miners work independently, usually choosing to collaborate within a familia of 3-7 other miners. This freedom seemed to result in one unadorned dogma: more work = more money.

The road miners bus up every day to Cerro Rico.

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Our tour began at El Mercado de los Mineros, where miners purchase their own helmets, flashlights, rubber boots, coca leaves, and also various sizes of dynamite and lengths of fuses. Our enthused tour guide, Efraín, pointed openly to young and old men alike exclaiming, “Real life miners!”

Then we pulled on our very own miner attire: a thin protective layer over our shirts and pants, clomping rubber boots, and hard helmets with headlamps strapped to the top. Donning these goofy-seeming costumes we followed Efraín, marching up the street to the mineral refinery.

Complejo powder being churned in chemicals... the

disks rotate and have bottle caps attached to them to

aggravate the liquid.

When we arrived 15 minutes later, I thought we were at a viewpoint. It was an easy mistake to make because we were standing in a rubble pile that vaguely resembling an unfinished brick building and the missing sections of wall permitted a scenic panorama of the city below. But, no, the piles of baseball-sized rocks beneath the ramshackle walls were complejos—mined rock with about 12-13% sellable mineral content and 85+% basura. From there, the piles of complejos are crushed, grinded, pulverized, and then floated in various churning vats of open chemicals (including cyanide) until the ore is sufficiently separated and can be scraped from its toxic bath and exported (then manufactured and inexorably arrive back on Bolivian shelves to be bought as a finished product at quadruple the price).

Roof of the refinery... egg cartons.

Waste pool outside... keep in mind this factory

sits above a town with a population of 240,000

The nervously anticipated finale of our tour was a journey into the mine, and as a living horror and unforgettable experience, it did not disappoint. Outside the entrance a few pictures were shot, but before the ‘this-is-it’ mentality sunk in, we entered. Our headlights dimly lit the claustrophobia-inducing passageway as we trudged through ankle deep mud puddles, passed leaking odorous pipes (oxygen we were assured), and ducked beneath (or slammed into) uneven rock ceilings and protruding wooden support beams. It was hard to see, hard to breathe, hard to move, and hardest to image a lifetime of it.

Megan posing with Oscar, the 20 year old on his 5th year in the mines.

The highly virile El Tío

At his feet are (empty) bottles of 98% alcohol, coca leaves, and cigarettes...

 offerings given to the guardian of the mines before the miners drink/chew/smoke

Oxidized minerals on the tunnel ceiling

We moved out of the way as these two men

pushed 4 tons of complejos through the tunnel

FREEDOM!!

After 2 km of crouched walking we emerged, with slightly hysterical relief coursing through us as we gulped fresh air and felt the surging gratitude of having seen that lifestyle instead of having to live it. We removed our miner attire and settled at an Australian-owned cafe (while mining rights have been given to the people, the money and property of Potosí still remains in the hands of foreigners and elite Bolivians). There, we considered our outrage at the draconian livelihood, the pity we felt for this city whose poisonous economic lifeblood was clouding the citizen’s perception of choice, and the sanguine facade of pride Efraín projected onto the shame-stricken and exhausted faces of the miners. 

Seasick on a Chilean ferry, caught in a snowstorm 10 miles from camp in Patagonia, 45-hour bus rides across Argentina, fever stricken and sleeping on a chicken poo-covered styrofoam mat... discomforts of travel that make for grumpy hours and hilarious post-travel recountings. 10, 12, 14-hour days blasting holes inside a mountain where day and nighttime are indistinguishable, where 13-year olds work besides their 60-year-old mining padres, and where your uncle works, your neighbor, your brother, and eventually your sons, where you know no other options. These stories, the everyday ones of 10,000 Potosians, aren’t dinnertime topics or four-line responses you learn to spew when you are asked, “How was your trip?” They are the stories that steal slivers of our young, bright souls. But with enough small pieces from travelers, from Bolivians, from politicians, from people the cavernous space for positive change becomes illuminated. And from there the next generation of would-be miners can see a new path.

We got to see one of the weekly cooperative meetings 

Our discussion concluded with an analysis of Efraín. A detail I neglected to mention: he used to be a miner. For 5 years he worked underground, until at 18 he had grasped enough English to become a tour guide in the mines. A middle school drop out, he learned English from tourists visiting his jobsite. He told us guiding doesn’t pay as well as mining, but he’s learned a lot from foreigners about other options, alternative lifestyles. In the pits of hell (sorry about the drama, but it really was horrible), he spouts doctrines of Bolivian heritage and pride. But his life choices, teaching his younger brother English, partnering with other ex-miners to display the subterranean horrors/norms, and having his own child stay in school despite the comparatively lucrative pull of the mine exemplifies the “new path” of Potosian citizens. Veering from the histories of their fathers, and grandfathers, and great-grandfathers to create a new standard for happiness and success.

Best way to unwind... natural hot spring.

LOVING LIFE!

more soon :)