Potosi and it's mine

So we got the bus to Potosi with no problems at all, it left on time and even arrived pretty much on time too, and was a very comfortable journey (so much for all the mad stories of atrocious bus journeys in Bolivia, so far we've had no problems at all, but it's still early days I suppose). We then started walking to what we thought was the centre of the town, but it turned out we'd both misread the guidebook and were walking in completely the wrong direction (down the hill instead of up the hill). Anyway, a quick taxi ride and after the usual checking of a couple of places we got settled in the nice Residencia Fercal near enough to the main plaza.

We only stayed in Potosi for two nights, but it turned out to have one of the best museums of the trip so far and also one of the most amazing experiences of my entire life. Both are directly related to the discovery of huge amounts of silver, basically a whole mountain of the stuff, by the indigenous people many hundreds of years ago - the museum was the Spanish colonial mint used to generate silver coins when they exploited the silver reserves, and the experience was a tour of the mine itself.

The original indigenous people discovered the silver, but of course it took the Spanish colonialists to fully exploit it. Apparently the resulting silver funded much of the Spanish colonial expansion and resulted in Potosi becoming the most important city in the world at the time (having a much larger population than Paris or London). Anyway, the tour of the mint was rather rushed unfortunately as you have to follow a guide and he was fairly bootin' it about (although his English and his explanations were great, he had a very strong accent and so you really had to concentrate to follow him).

But by far the most impressive feature (apart from the huge building itself) was the 17th century machines used to roll the silver ingots into .5mm sheets of silver. The machines, three of them, are huge and were each driven by four mules. Basically they are huge but intricate rolling machines used to progressively squish the ingots down into sheets, but they are fanastically preserved and each machine extends over two floors of the building. It was an incredible demonstration of the technical capabilities of the time, and brilliant that they are so well perserved.

But the highlight of Potosi, and certainly one of the highlights of the whole trip for me, was a tour of the mine itself that morning. The mine, which is basically a mountain, is right on the outskirts of the town, as the town was built around the mountain in the first place. So it was a quick drive to get geared up (miners helmets with lamps, overalls and wellies), and another quick stop at a small miners market to buy bits and pieces as gifts for the working miners (such as lots of fizzy drinks, gloves, dynamite (which anyone can purchase whenever they like (a small stick costs about 1 euro)), coca leaves, cigarettes (ironically enough, obviously respiratory problems kill just about all the miners at a very young age), etc).

The mine is no longer being mined by big corporations or anything, as I suppose all the richest veins are long gone (as it's been mined for hundreds of years now), and so it's actually a cooperative of individual miners basically working for themselves. I think it's only in recent years, with mineral resources becoming very valuable again, that the small amounts of silver, tin or lead these individual miners can get out have become economically viable. Anyway, whatever ore these miners can get they sell directly to 26 private corporations based around the town.

So we arrive at the base of the mountain and there are about 10 lads quitely working away at various piles of rock, rubble and ore. It all looks quite innocuous really, and not at all what I imagined a working mine to look like (but again I suppose that's because it's not really a big commerical operation). So then we stroll over to a very small entrance, basically just a doorway into the mountain with narrow rail tracks leading into the darkness. We all switch on the lamps on our helmets and start walking into the small tunnel.

As we walk along we hear an approaching trolley car being pushed by two miners that's full of rubble and ore. We all stop walking, stand up against the side of the tunnel and let the miners push their trolley past us. This happens quite a few times during our tour and we get quite used to it very quickly - it's the only means used to get the ore out of the mine.

At the start of our walk the air is quite fresh and the tunnel big enough to walk along comfortably enough. But as we get deeper and deeper into the system of tunnels it gets hotter, a lot dustier and a lot more cramped.

Eventually we meet a gang of miners preparing a section of tunnel for blasting. Basically they use water and compressed-air drilling equipment to make small deep holes in the bare rock, then place sticks of dynamite in each hole and twice a day (at 12pm and 5pm) they blast out sections of rock. They then load the rubble into the trolley cars and push the trolleys out the mountain.

Only the mountain has just the one entrance, but many, many levels. So a huge series of shafts have been created to link the different levels, and ore is shoveled down these shafts to trolley cars on the main level and then pushed out the entrance. So after leaving the blasting lads we head up a couple of these levels and meet a couple of lads that are in the process of drilling those dynamite holes. When I say we went up a level I mean we literally had to clamber up rickety wooden ladders, cross gaping holes along planks, pull ourselves up hanging ropes and crawl through very tight spaces. After all that we put pieces of toilet paper in our ears then approach right up to the working miners.

I literally couldn't believe I was standing only three feet behind a miner with a huge drill making an incredible din, forcing dust and dirt everywhere around me, but actually working a seam of ore. There must to be very few places on earth where you can have such accessibility to working miners, and I guess it's only allowed here because no corporation owns the mine.

So after we all managed to get up close and personal to the working miners we backtracked and clambered down more mad rickety ladders for a few levels (each level has about 20 metres vertical separation and the shafts are just very deep human-width holes). Here we come across another pair of miners drilling dynamite holes, although this time without the aid of water (water access being too difficult for this section of mine). The difference here was the shear density of dust being generated by the drilling, as usually the water keeps that down. So again after we all get up close to see the action (or what little you could see through the dust), we backtrack and start to head out of the mine.

On our way out we have to take a bit of a detour as we hear a bit of a rock fall up ahead, which was a tad worrisome being at this stage deep inside the mine. But our guide, who used to work in the mine himself for many years and so knew many of the miners well, seemed quite relaxed about it all, so I was quite relaxed about it too really (a bit like hitting heavy turbulence in a plane, but when the air crew are all relaxed about it you know it's nothing to worry about).

Near the exit we stop again at a ritual altar set into a tunnel where the miners gather for certain occasions. The altar is actually dedicated to the devil as the miners think they'll get better protection from him than anyone else, and the guide tells us a few miner stories (about 10-14 die each year apparently, but mostly through accidents caused by being drunk!).

So all in all we must have spent over two hours in the mine itself, and it was certainly one of the most eye opening experiences of my life. The conditions were incredible, and mostly unchanged for centuries, and so these poor young lads working there today are in much the same position as guys working there hundreds of years ago.

But it was great to see how smiley and friendly all the miners were. It was genuinely touching to see the obvious affection our guide had for the young guys as he handed out bottles of lemonade or whatever as they passed pushing their trolleys, or left bags of coca leaves for drilling miners as we moved through - and every time the miner would beam a big smile and a 'Gracias!' at us tourists, since we'd paid for their small treats.

So once out in the open air again we had a quick blasting demonstration from our guide (Eddie, or as he said himself 'Eddie Silver, no Eddie Mercury!'). He unrolled a stick of dynamite packed in paper, which he passed around to each of us (it just feels like plasticine), fed the fuse into the detonator, the detonator into the dynamite, then squished the dynamite into an old coke bottle, half filled the bottle with ammonia (which gives a more powerful blast), and then topped it up with sand and pebbles. He then lit the 4-minute fuse, and then a few of the tour group got to pose for photos holding the lit bomb, Sarah included! He then ran up the mountain a wee bit and threw the 'bomb' behind a small rise. A minute later it goes off with a loud booming blast and a cloud of smoke - demonstration over.

So quite a tour I have to say, and something I won't soon forget. There were 12 people on our tour, including a Belgian family with two kids (major kudos to those parents!), one aged 12 and the other maybe 14, and I couldn't help but think what an amazing experience it must have been for those kids. Just imagine those two young lads going back to school in Europe and trying to explain to their friends the experience of being 3 feet from a working miner deep inside an ancient silver mine in Bolivia - somehow I think their friends just won't 'get it' (nor for that matter will anybody reading this blog I suppose - if ever there is an experience that really HAS to be experienced first hand then that mine tour really does have to be a contender! If anyone ever asks me why I travel, or what I get out of it, maybe I'll just point them to this blog entry...).