Mines and Mountains

On our vacation Tim and I and Tim’s parents (Peter and Trish), were able to spend three days in the World Heritage Listed Bolivian town of Potosi. We had travelled through Potosi on our way to Sucre, back at Easter and were not that impressed with the brown, barren landscape. However, we were told that Potosi was very important to the history of Bolivia, so we thought we should stop off for a couple of days.

Potosi sits at the base of a large mountain, Cerro Rico. Due to all the mining that has occurred on and in the mountain over the past 400 years, it is a mixture of browns, greys, oranges and yellows and it towers above the colonial city settled at its feet.

Cerro Rico, Potosi

The modern day population of Potosi is about 200,000, but at the height of the Spanish Empire, it was one of the largest cities in the world. When the Spanish Conquistadors first arrived in Potosi they found gold and silver in the mountain and it has been mined continually ever since. Originally the Spanish wanted gold, but Cerro Rico turned out to have many more silver deposits – and the Spanish decided to mint their coins, using Potosi silver, in Potosi.

We were able to go on a tour of the Casa de Moneda (house of money) in Potosi, which was the Spanish mint. It is a World Heritage listed site filled with artifacts, famous colonial artworks and other objects of significance from around Bolivia. I was even able to mint my own coin – using the impressive hammer and minting machine you can see below.

Minting a coin at La Casa de Moneda

We also had a really interesting morning visiting a convent built in the 1600s into which the wealthiest Spanish parents would send their daughters at the age of 15, never to see the outside world again. There were no windows facing outwards and girls could only speak to their parents once a month for an hour, through a wooden screen. No physical touch was ever allowed.  The nuns would spend most of their day in silence, but were allowed twice a day, for half an hour, to go to a room in which they were allowed to talk to each other. Tim and I wondered if they would really have much to say…

Inside the convent

However, the place that left the strongest impression on us both was definitely our tour of one of the working mines in Cerro Rico. People had recommended we go in the mines for an ‘unforgettable experience’ and were also told it was very important for understanding Bolivia’s history. This trip however, was definitely not pleasant.

I first became worried about our excursion as I read the Lonely Planet, which dedicates a whole page of their ‘South America on a shoe-string’ edition to warning people of the dangers of going into the mines in Potosi. Noxious gasses, runaway mining carts, cave-ins and explosions were all mentioned in this warning…which made me slightly worried, but made Tim want to go even more. So Tim, Trish and I booked with Koala tours (founded by Australians) comforted by the fact that no one had died on one of their tours…yet. Peter, maybe not unwisely, settled in for a good morning of the British Open Golf on ESPN.

The first part of the tour was great. We bought sticks of dynamite and coca to give to the miners and went to a silver processing plant. We dressed up in miners gear and then headed for the mines.

Us in our mining get-up

Tim with a stick of dynamite

For those of you who know me, you might remember me going on caving camps during my school days, and would know that I am used to crawling through dirty little holes, far, far underground. What I wasn’t prepared for in the mines was the heat and the fumes. The tour underground went for one and a half hours. We saw the statue of ‘Tio’ or, the god of the underworld (the devil), which the miners leave offerings to on their way into the mines in exchange for protection. We also met a 15 yr old boy, who had been working in the mines for 3 years already. His job was to chip away, making holes for sticks of dynamite, by himself for about 10 hrs a day. His salary, on average, is $120 a month. Boys like him usually work if they have no father to provide for their family. Most miners die within 10-15 years of starting work in the mines, due to the fumes to which they are constantly exposed. Many live their lives only seeing a couple of hours of sunlight a day.

Inside a chamber in the mines

Sometimes we would be walking down a tunnel, when we would hear the rumble of a mining cart, heading towards us down the slim passageway. We had been warned about these and told they could not be stopped. We had to run to the edges and press our bodies against the sides of the walls to avoid being crushed by the oncoming cart filled with rubble. One barely missed Tim’s foot. We crawled, coughed, breathed in dust and fumes and were very ready to get out of that mine by the end of the tour.

A miner at work

The amazing reality is that 8 million people have died in the mines of Cerro Rico since the Spanish started mining about 400 years ago. Locals were forced into slavery in the mines and the Spanish supplemented this labour with African slaves brought to Bolivia for the sole purpose of digging out more silver. Millions of slaves died in the process. To go into Cerro Ricco is to go to a place which plays a key role in the history and mind-set of this country. Some people in the government are moving to close the mines, as the mountain becomes less and less stable – yet many people in Bolivia do not want to lose this working part of Bolivia’s history. Would I do the tour again? No. But it was definitely one of the most memorable days on our travels.

Liz



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