We left our hostel before 7 AM. Had a taxi drive us to the bus station in the other end of town and then the fun started. We booked tickets with the local bus and could see it was only the rear end of the bus that was full. There was about 16 empty seats in the front and the explanation came after 5 minutes of driving when the bus driver stopped in front of the local football stadium and a group of "FC Sucre" officials got on the bus and took the seats.
Not the young football players. No this was the +50 segment and they were in a very good mood this early in the morning primarily resulting in them talking rather loudly and laughing a lot. Much to the dismay of the other local passengers who kept telling them to shut up with little effect. The bus pulled over and the bus driver and his wife also had a word or two with the loud group of football aficionados - no effect what so ever. But after an hour of talking and laughing they ran out of energy. Guess this is what happens when you turn 50 :-)
We enjoyed the football circus, the outside scenery, and the three hour bus drive to Potosi. Arriving in Potosi we realised how big the bus terminal was and how far from the city centre is was. We got a taxi who obviously had no idea about where our hostel was placed. Then we got dropped of where Google maps indicated our hostel for the day was supposed to be - and walked a couple of times around the block only to find out that there was no hostel. A nice lady got us in the right direction and we found the hostel a few blocks away. We had a room booked for today since it was nice to have our stuff in a room while we go explore the town and for getting a shower before the night bus to La Paz. It turned out that the hostel was right next to the city centre and before heading out Mikkel booked a trip to the silver mines - starting at 2 PM. So we had a couple of hours to walk around and find some lunch.
Potosi is a nice town at the city centre. Being a UNESCO city there are a lot of pretty building dating back to the time when the Spanish were running the town as a silver mining and mint town.
Mikkel got picked up at 2 PM, walked to the office and met the rest of the group of would be miners. People from Belgium, Brazil and Spain. We all got our boots, yellow clothes, hard had and head lamp before being crammed into a mini bus and taken up towards the mountain. On the way we stopped at a street with small shops each selling equipment to the miners. Our guide went through the different shopping opportunities like candy, coca leaves, 96% sugar cane alcohol, dynamite stick, detonators and other useful stuff. The idea is you buy a small bag of this for the miners and hand it out when you meet them inside the mine.
Mikkel bought the most obvious package - a bag of coca leaves, a bottle of 96% sugar cane alcohol, one dynamite stick and one detonator. 40 Bolivianos - 5 USD. They must have awesome new year evenings in this town. Though they might be short.
Driving further up the mountain it was quickly evident how the mining has been going on here for more that 400 years. The town now being below and enormous waste land of dug out mining deposits. We stopped, found an entrance to a mine and started walking while our guide explained how this particular mine did date back more than two hundred years. Mostly bent over trying not to hit our heads on the ceiling of the beams supporting it. This looked medieval. Broken beams, the tunnel sometimes being as low as 1,5 metres, walking in pools of water, no ventilation and only our head torches lighting the place. We continued into the mine for about 30 minutes before taking a side tunnel. At a small cavern our guide stopped and there he was - El Tio. The mining devil. A red, human size statue in red, sitting there covered in coca leaves, smoking a cigarette or two.
The miners would offer lit cigarettes and alcohol to El Tio to have a longer life, no accidents and maintain their fertility. Probably something they were guaranteed not to have any of in the end no matter how many coca leave, cigarettes or bottles of alcohol they poured over the statue. At the feet of the statue there was the remains of a llama fetus - also a part of the miners superstitious life.
Our guide went through some of the other practical rituals practised by the miners such as pouring alcohol on the ground and putting it on fire to check for oxygen. The fire would burn and you were ok, no fire and you had to run.
We continued in the tunnel, saying goodbye to El Tio and at the end crawling on all four before coming into a larger tunnel. Then we headed to an area where there was an ore of different minerals such as zinc, lead, copper and a bit of silver. Our guide took us through the different deposits and how to spot them. We saw the mining carts, tried to pull them on the tracks just to see how much effort was needed to move 1000 kilos of material which is what the human haulers drag out of the mine 20 times a day for a pay of less than 100 Bolivianos. In an altitude above 4000 metres. 12-14 hours of work each day.
On the way out we met a couple of young boys - miners who got our gift-bags. We headed out the mining tunnel and were pretty happy to see daylight again. Then back to town and undress from our mining gear.
Malene didn't fancy going into the mines so she spent the afternoon doing a guided trip of The National Mint in Potosi - Casa National de Moneda - the largest mint during the colonial period. A place of similar brutality, where people worked as slaves melting silver ore for the Spanish and casting silver bars and coins for the Spanish empire. In the same process being exposed to critical levels of lead and effectively being poisoned to death. The museum gave a really good overview of how the silver was being processed, how humans and animals worked together and how the mint technologies were developed and refined. Including the curious story of the $-sign which some say originates from the combination of the letter P, T, S and I - effectively Potosi - on top of each other.
We met at the hostel before dinner and shared highlights from our trips. After dinner we went back to the hostel, got our stuff, headed for the bus station and got the night bus to La Paz. Leaving Potosi was with mixed feelings. On one hand this is one of the cities which has an incredible rich history especially in relation to the Spanish occupation of South America. On the other hand it is also the tale of human abuse beyond understanding some claiming that as many as eight million people have perished as a direct result of working in the mines or handling the ore outside the mine. It is also an ongoing disaster given the conditions the miners still work under, life expectancy around 40 years, massive consumption of alcohol and coca leaves. The list of diseases that cause miners to die way to early include stone lungs, various types of cancers and progressive massive fibrosis not to mention poisoning from lead and other minerals that are found in the air as dust or dissolved in the drinking water. Not to mention the people are being crippled and crushed on a daily basis in the mines due to lack of sufficient education, protection and equipment.
And then of course a town defined by a mountain that is now so hollowed out that the collapse of the top part of the mine is a question of a few years. The top few hundred meters of the mountain already missing. The Bolivian government being corrupt turning the blind eye towards the problems and pretending to do something while doing nothing. In some way similar to us visiting the Darvaza crater in the spring in Turkmenistan. How can you have an environmental disaster and call it an attraction? On the other hand visiting the mines supports the community and as long as there are minerals in the mountain somebody will mine it.
We were on our way North, towards La Paz and hopefully being there early in the morning, trying to hold on to something with the bus going down twisted mountain roads - fast. The lights from Cerro Rico disappearing in the horizon.
Not the young football players. No this was the +50 segment and they were in a very good mood this early in the morning primarily resulting in them talking rather loudly and laughing a lot. Much to the dismay of the other local passengers who kept telling them to shut up with little effect. The bus pulled over and the bus driver and his wife also had a word or two with the loud group of football aficionados - no effect what so ever. But after an hour of talking and laughing they ran out of energy. Guess this is what happens when you turn 50 :-)
We enjoyed the football circus, the outside scenery, and the three hour bus drive to Potosi. Arriving in Potosi we realised how big the bus terminal was and how far from the city centre is was. We got a taxi who obviously had no idea about where our hostel was placed. Then we got dropped of where Google maps indicated our hostel for the day was supposed to be - and walked a couple of times around the block only to find out that there was no hostel. A nice lady got us in the right direction and we found the hostel a few blocks away. We had a room booked for today since it was nice to have our stuff in a room while we go explore the town and for getting a shower before the night bus to La Paz. It turned out that the hostel was right next to the city centre and before heading out Mikkel booked a trip to the silver mines - starting at 2 PM. So we had a couple of hours to walk around and find some lunch.
Potosi is a nice town at the city centre. Being a UNESCO city there are a lot of pretty building dating back to the time when the Spanish were running the town as a silver mining and mint town.
Mikkel got picked up at 2 PM, walked to the office and met the rest of the group of would be miners. People from Belgium, Brazil and Spain. We all got our boots, yellow clothes, hard had and head lamp before being crammed into a mini bus and taken up towards the mountain. On the way we stopped at a street with small shops each selling equipment to the miners. Our guide went through the different shopping opportunities like candy, coca leaves, 96% sugar cane alcohol, dynamite stick, detonators and other useful stuff. The idea is you buy a small bag of this for the miners and hand it out when you meet them inside the mine.
Mikkel bought the most obvious package - a bag of coca leaves, a bottle of 96% sugar cane alcohol, one dynamite stick and one detonator. 40 Bolivianos - 5 USD. They must have awesome new year evenings in this town. Though they might be short.
Driving further up the mountain it was quickly evident how the mining has been going on here for more that 400 years. The town now being below and enormous waste land of dug out mining deposits. We stopped, found an entrance to a mine and started walking while our guide explained how this particular mine did date back more than two hundred years. Mostly bent over trying not to hit our heads on the ceiling of the beams supporting it. This looked medieval. Broken beams, the tunnel sometimes being as low as 1,5 metres, walking in pools of water, no ventilation and only our head torches lighting the place. We continued into the mine for about 30 minutes before taking a side tunnel. At a small cavern our guide stopped and there he was - El Tio. The mining devil. A red, human size statue in red, sitting there covered in coca leaves, smoking a cigarette or two.
The miners would offer lit cigarettes and alcohol to El Tio to have a longer life, no accidents and maintain their fertility. Probably something they were guaranteed not to have any of in the end no matter how many coca leave, cigarettes or bottles of alcohol they poured over the statue. At the feet of the statue there was the remains of a llama fetus - also a part of the miners superstitious life.
Our guide went through some of the other practical rituals practised by the miners such as pouring alcohol on the ground and putting it on fire to check for oxygen. The fire would burn and you were ok, no fire and you had to run.
We continued in the tunnel, saying goodbye to El Tio and at the end crawling on all four before coming into a larger tunnel. Then we headed to an area where there was an ore of different minerals such as zinc, lead, copper and a bit of silver. Our guide took us through the different deposits and how to spot them. We saw the mining carts, tried to pull them on the tracks just to see how much effort was needed to move 1000 kilos of material which is what the human haulers drag out of the mine 20 times a day for a pay of less than 100 Bolivianos. In an altitude above 4000 metres. 12-14 hours of work each day.
On the way out we met a couple of young boys - miners who got our gift-bags. We headed out the mining tunnel and were pretty happy to see daylight again. Then back to town and undress from our mining gear.
Malene didn't fancy going into the mines so she spent the afternoon doing a guided trip of The National Mint in Potosi - Casa National de Moneda - the largest mint during the colonial period. A place of similar brutality, where people worked as slaves melting silver ore for the Spanish and casting silver bars and coins for the Spanish empire. In the same process being exposed to critical levels of lead and effectively being poisoned to death. The museum gave a really good overview of how the silver was being processed, how humans and animals worked together and how the mint technologies were developed and refined. Including the curious story of the $-sign which some say originates from the combination of the letter P, T, S and I - effectively Potosi - on top of each other.
We met at the hostel before dinner and shared highlights from our trips. After dinner we went back to the hostel, got our stuff, headed for the bus station and got the night bus to La Paz. Leaving Potosi was with mixed feelings. On one hand this is one of the cities which has an incredible rich history especially in relation to the Spanish occupation of South America. On the other hand it is also the tale of human abuse beyond understanding some claiming that as many as eight million people have perished as a direct result of working in the mines or handling the ore outside the mine. It is also an ongoing disaster given the conditions the miners still work under, life expectancy around 40 years, massive consumption of alcohol and coca leaves. The list of diseases that cause miners to die way to early include stone lungs, various types of cancers and progressive massive fibrosis not to mention poisoning from lead and other minerals that are found in the air as dust or dissolved in the drinking water. Not to mention the people are being crippled and crushed on a daily basis in the mines due to lack of sufficient education, protection and equipment.
And then of course a town defined by a mountain that is now so hollowed out that the collapse of the top part of the mine is a question of a few years. The top few hundred meters of the mountain already missing. The Bolivian government being corrupt turning the blind eye towards the problems and pretending to do something while doing nothing. In some way similar to us visiting the Darvaza crater in the spring in Turkmenistan. How can you have an environmental disaster and call it an attraction? On the other hand visiting the mines supports the community and as long as there are minerals in the mountain somebody will mine it.
We were on our way North, towards La Paz and hopefully being there early in the morning, trying to hold on to something with the bus going down twisted mountain roads - fast. The lights from Cerro Rico disappearing in the horizon.
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| 6:30 morning pick up |
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| Bus drivers wife trying to get the football team to shut up |
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| Giant bus station in Potosi |
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| Hostel room for the day |
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| Potosi mint |
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| Main square in Potosi |
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| Malene visiting the Mint museum |
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| Start of Mining tour for Mikkel |
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| All dressed up for the mine |
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| Shopping for the miners |
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| Dynamite and detonator |
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| Ready to enter the mountain |
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| Dark tunnels |
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| Main the head |
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| Seems safe |
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| El Tio |
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| Checking for oxygen |
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| Minerals in the rocks |
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| Mineral deposit |
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| Full carts (and low hanging pipes for compressed air) |
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| Heading back towards daylight |
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| Potosi mine deposits |
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| Leaving the hostel |
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| Ready for a long night on the bus |
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