Potosi - The Cerro Rico - blood raw from having been skinned of silverHaving parked the bike in Oruro I back-tracked by bus to the city of Potosi. This is supposedly the world's highest city at 4000ms and was one of the most important cities in the world during the 16th century, being both the world's richest and most populated at 160,000. This is Bolivia so I can not be certain of facts as they are very few concrete answers in this country but they claim Potosi was bigger than London, Paris or Madrid, which were by all accounts the centres of the universe at this time. When the Spanish arrived in Potosi they could not believe their luck. The Cerro Rico (Rich Mountain) on whose mountainside the city sits would have looked like a mountain of pure silver glistening in the sunlight. The Spanish set about carting as much of the stuff as possible back to Spain, so much that it is said that they could have built a bridge from Potosi to Madrid with pure silver. As the Indios were so resource rich one has to realise that they did not place the same value on its worth. A good trade for an Indio back then would have been an ounce of gold for a pretty bird feather; birds being in short supply at this altitude. Still, the Spanish realised what the mountain was worth and intensively mined it with the help of African slaves. The Indios, unhappy with the degree of forced labour the Spanish were imposing on them, protested. The Spanish decided to solve the problem by inventing a God seeing as the Indios were so superstitious. They instructed the Indios that if they didn't mine the mountain that the God (Dios) would kill them. As the Quechua alphabet did not contain the letter D the God became known as El Tio and assumed devil-like qualities. Thus, for hundreds of years the miners have been worshipping the Devil in that they make offerings to him so that he may be generous to them with the minerals and spare them their lives. Inside every mine is a shrine to El Tio and if the miner suffers misfortune or dies then it is thought that he did not make enough offerings to him. Such has been the intensity of the mining that the Devil has eaten alive 8 million men inside the Cerro Rico.
I find it amazing that the mountain is still standing. It has been intensively mined for almost 500 years and must have an awful lot of veins running through it. The addition of regular explosions of dynamite inside the mountain must put its natural structure at risk, however, for a city that was built on mining what else is there? Thousands of people work the mine but the mountain is not mined exclusively by one corporation or co-operative. Instead there are many co-operatives and the miners can choose to work for a co-op or rent air and machinery from the co-op and work for themselves. The result is that there are lots of mines and the severity of the job depends on what you sign up for .. not that mining is ever easy work.
My date with the Devil started on the wrong foot. Having asked the gringo where the best hostel was I checked in at 7pm. The conversation with the guy at reception went as follows:
"Ah, you are Irish so you like to drink?"
"eh ... well, I do drink"
"Good, so you are coming out with me and some friends later"
"eh ... okay" I said, erasing any thoughts I had of going to watch the 8.30 showing of the movie Armoured.
So I headed out with four Bolivianos for Friday night to the local bar. We tucked into Limonada Caliente, which is good stuff depending on how strong they make it. We lost one guy (my tour guide) to a bunch of average looking Bolivianas (he had no luck) and the other drunkenly to the bar downstairs. Thus, we three remaining moved on to the local rock bar where the gringo doesn't go because there is no sign and so they don't know about it. I was warned that I might be made to feel unwelcome but they obviously don't know how Irish people back home can stare if you look like the wrong sort in a pub. It was in fact me doing the staring; it's hilarious seeing Bolivian guys with mascara, long hair, grizzly beards and surplus army jackets. Six hours later with Juan falling asleep on the couch to the tunes of Pink Floyd we decided to call it quits. I did my best to defend the gringo but I didn't have much of a leg to stand on. They generally have no time for them finding them to look always down their noses at Bolivians. Working with the gringo is a necessary evil. I have no idea why they invited me, a gringo, out at all but I'm always happy to go with the flow and especially if it means talking in Spanish. Thus, it was with a heavy head of Cuba Libre that I arose the next morning for my date with El Tio. Bolivians don't drink at their own pace, every glass is drunk 'seco' (dry) and together. This makes nights a process of elimination. Having Irish blood in such situations is definitely a good thing.
My tour to the mine was a hungover but pretty intimate affair, which is usually a good thing. It would only be Oli and I with our tour-guide Juan. Oli is on his year abroad from university in Nottingham where he studies Spanish and Portuguese and by all accounts has an easy time of things. He is not expected to attend university here, rather just spend a year in a Spanish and Portuguese speaking country to improve his language skills. He will have to produce some small reports but other than that he is free to roam as he pleases. It begs the question as to why one would go to university at all to study languages. Instead of wasting three of my four years in Dublin studying German I could have skipped university altogether and spent a year of my life in Germany, France, Spain and then somewhere else, thereby getting a much better grip on four languages and the culture of the countries. It certainly makes more sense to do it this way than study them remotely from home. Of course, no regrets ... I had a ridiculously good time in college with most of my closest friends coming from that period. Still, I remember little in terms of the academics, which is the fundamental flaw of modern day education.
Anyway, Juan used to work down the mines himself so is on good terms with all the miners. Such familiarity is great on tours as the gringo is included as opposed to having to look on from the outside. As I mentioned above there are two ways of mining this mountain; one to join a big mining co-operative where the risks and demands are higher but the wages more stable and there are half-wages if one was to have an accident and not be able to work the mine any longer. The other alternative is to work it yourself renting equipment and air from the co-operative. Air costs 80 bolli an hour (nine euro) so it is not cheap to work for yourself. Pugslay (33) and his brother (24) work the mine together and by all accounts have a straightforward time of things. They work four hours a day to reduce the risk of silicosis and generally come out of the mine every hour for a breath of fresh air. Silicosis is the biggest killer of miners as once the dust gets into their lungs they are more or less guaranteed to die within the next few years. The result is that a lot of miners die before they are forty leaving a widow and young children struggling to make ends meet. The result is that the eldest boy of the fallen miner may then work the mine to put bread on the table for his mother and siblings. Naturally when working for yourself you determine the level of risk you are comfortable with and Pugslay seems to do alright for himself. The miners that live longer are the ones who work for themselves just slowly chipping away at the mine and selling it on direct to the processing plant. In the bigger mines there is division of labour and so a form of brotherhood exists amongst the different labourers making them more hardcore. The guys at the end of the mine drilling are working for 8 hours or even a double-shift in the midst of a huge amount of dust as they bore through the mountain seeking rich veins. It is suicidal by all accounts. Naturally the bigger the mine the more people there are working and the more traffic there is using the tracks through dark and narrow tunnels. Wagons of minerals are virtually running-away from their drivers and if you can't get out of the way you die or are maimed. This is a third world country so while health and safety is appreciated the economic realities are appreciated more. Nobody wants to die from mining but it happens ... an awful lot.
As for Oli and I, we were having a grand time of things thinking that this mining business wasn't such a big deal after all. We went about 600ms into the mine to the end of the shaft climbing up one level to where Pugslay and his brother had been working all week. We set about preparing the mine for the next week's work. This basically involved lots of joking, getting drunk with the devil on 96% proof alcohol, planting eight sticks of dynamite, legging it and then getting even more smashed while waiting for the explosion and the dust to settle.
If you were us you would think that the reasons miners don't live too long is that they get wasted far too much and chew way too many coca leaves. The coca leaf is of course the raw material for cocaine and if chewed for over forty minutes reduces both fatigue and hunger. Useful if you spend all day down the darkness of a mine-shaft. Processing the coca leaf with chemicals to produce cocaine is illegal but the Bolivians grow lots of coca and it's a traditional and medicinal herb here by all accounts. The US take issue with coca production in their war on drugs and so there is a lot of animosity between Bolivia and the US in terms of coca. The US wishes to stop cultivation in an effort to curb production but the Bolivians supposedly grow more than their pre-agreed acreage with the international community. Being a socialist country there is always going to be animosity with the US.
Alcohol is dirt cheap in Bolivia and can be bought practically pure in tiny, small, medium and large bottles. Thus, if you can't afford beers you just buy the pure alcohol (and mix it). Miners are not rich and are not going to cart bottles of beers into mines so they drink these bottles of alcohol straight for the energy and buzz. We must have done 10 rounds of shots with the miners each time splashing some on the ground as an offering to El Tio to be generous to them with the minerals. In the world of darkness El Tio reigns, above the ground in the world of light the Pachamama (Mother Earth) receives all the worship. This is Bolivia and while the Spanish imported Christianity their beliefs are more pagan or are a diluted version of Christianity which is inclusive of their traditional Indian beliefs.
Having carted a week's mining worth of minerals from the darkness to the world of light we decided to visit the processing plant with the miners. The processing plant receives the raw mineral and crushes it. They then make lots of small samples to send off to the lab to determine the quality of the mineral. The quality determines the pay-out to the miner. This process is relatively straightforward and the miner may get his money later in the evening. Of course, during the crushing process we had to drink beer making offerings to the Pachamama that they would be fortunate in having good quality minerals. A process which should take no more than half an hour ended up being a three hour booze-up. The processing plant is stocked with beers in understanding the 'superstition' of miners.
Oli and I had nothing better to do so we had a great time hanging around drinking with these guys. It was all very macho stuff but at the end of the day Pugslay and his brother were going to clear between 3000 and 4000 bolivianos for their rocks. Split two ways that makes between 165 and 220 euros each for a weeks work. This is not bad money at all in terms of providing for a family in Bolivia. However, one must realise that in a mountain where there are not too many minerals left that it is more or less down to luck (or the generosity of el Tio) as to the quality of the minerals they mine. This week may have been good, hence the celebration, but next week may not be so rewarding.
It was a crazy experience to be sitting deep inside a mountain. It was even crazier to be drinking pure alcohol with the devil. While there is a big difference between how Pugslay and a co-op mines, being a miner is both hard and dangerous work. When walking bent over through the shafts you become uncomfortable due to the heat, the dust, the lack of air and the darkness. Naturally, sitting in a mine for a couple of hours getting smashed is a little bizarre but it's even more crazy that people do this to provide for their families. How can doing something so risky be good for one's family?
Back in the world of light I was left to wander around town hammered. It's always fun being tipsy in the middle of the day when everyone else is sober ... or in the case of Bolivia, more or less sober.
Life is great!
Marco
ps - photos from the Potosi mine are up in the gallery
drunk with the devil. Juan's cheek is stuffed with coca leaves.