March 23, 2000
Day 153 Rest Day in Potosi: a mine tour
We get up at about 7:30 and head for the small coffee shop we found yesterday for another “desayuno americano”. Might as well eat good while we can! Patrick calls Oma after breakfast and also gets to speak to her new friend Theo. Oma sounds very good and upbeat. It's so easy to make international calls from a call center. You go into a booth, make the call and then pay.
At nine the tour group assembles at the Koala office. Three Germans with hangovers, (one doesn’t make it far into the mines, the other does nothing but complaining), a kiwi couple, a French girl and a Swiss guy. We walk a block or so and catch a minivan. First, we are taken to a house halfway up the mountain where we get fitted with rubber boots, yellow rain jackets, helmets and miner's lamps with battery packs. Outside the house is the miner's market where we can buy coca leaves, cigarettes, loose dynamite and such as presents for the miners. Patrick buys a stick of dynamite, a detonator and ammonium nitrate to amplify the blast. All our “gifts” go into the backpack of our assistant guide who will distribute them during our tour in the mines.
We climb back into the minivan and drive higher up the mountain to the Candelaria mine, one exploited by a miners cooperative. There we meet Juan our guide. He is an ex-miner and knows the ins and outs. We line up along a muddy narrow gauge railroad that exits the mountain through a 1,50 by 1 m wide portal. A few carts come rolling out, the two pushes clinging to the back, loaded with half a ton of ore. Off we go, after Juan into the bowels of Cerro Rico. We get about fifty meters in through the inches deep mud between the track, I must have been about number five in row, as Juan turns around and hurries us back towards a dugout in the side of the tunnel. We squeeze in just in time before another cart propelled by gravity, comes thundering by. All safe again and we proceed. After about one hundred meters the air changes abruptly. It gets hotter and the air is loaded with dust and arsenic gas. This is not a healthy environment, asbestos crystals are visible on the ceiling. I brought one of Rachel’s scarves and use it as a face mask. Another hundred meters further we have to stoop low and scramble over a pile of rubble into a side tunnel.. There sits a statue of El Tico or the devil. The miners, being good Catholics, believe that the minerals under ground must belong to the devil and to stay safe and do well down here they must form a pact with him. They do that by having weekly booze sessions here in which El Tico shares (96% alcohol) and by yearly sacrificing a llama. Juan also tells us stories about human sacrifices and human embryo’s being brought here for good luck.
We spent about half an hour with El Tico in which Juan tells us about himself. He has worked here for 2 ½ years, got into an accident, hurt his back, and was fortunate to be hired by Koala tours for 30 Bolivianos per tour.
There are two kinds of mines in Cerro Rico, the cooperative ones and the private ones. In the latter miners get a fixed salary of about 10000 Bolivianos ($169) a month and work in circumstances much better. There is light, oxygen and mining engineers. In the cooperative ones (like this one), the cooperation rents the mine from the state. The miners get paid their share of what the cooperation earns. For a miner that is about 15000 Bolivianos per month, but there is no light, oxygen or safety measures. To become a “miner” you must have worked for two years as a “helper” on a fixed, low salary, and then buy yourself in for 2500 Bolivianos. After that you have a right to healthcare and a pension.
Life expectancy for a miner is 45 years.
After all these facts, we head back to the main tunnel and follow the tracks deeper into the mountain, dodging mine carts as we go. Via a narrow claustrophobic tunnel that angles down steeply we slide down to the record level about 15 meters lower. Here we see how bags get winched up vertical shafts, filled with 200 pounds of ore. Descending even further to the third level we see the larger, 2 ton ore carts being pulled and pushed down the track by teams of four men. Extremely hard labor in very bad circumstances. We share our water and hand out gifts in return for pictures and the experience of being here. Miners chew coca leaves almost nonstop. It numbs the senses and makes labor down here possible. Patrick is frustrated to see this, knowing that very little effort and investment could so easily improve conditions here. Installing electricity, drinking water and pumping in fresh air doesn’t take rocket science.
After about 3 hours in “hell” as the miners call it, we resurface at the same place we entered. Patrick says, "I'll never complain about my job again." Juan demonstrates a dynamite explosion, and we say our good bye’s to the miners that surface. The warm shower at our hotel feels good! Patrick's lungs are burning from the gasses he breathed.
We have some lunch (Pizza) and buy a few more supplies for the ride to Sucre. Patrick cleans our chains so they’ll run smoothly on paved road. For dinner we seek again our Chinese restaurant, we are not tired of that food yet!
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