 |
| A mouthful of coca leaves and sweltering heat is fine for a few hours, but does not an easy life make. |
Part I: The Heavens
Auspicious beginnings is what one would expect from a city unmatched in either number of churches per capita or pure architectural cleanliness and beauty of those churches. It is a city of extremes: geography, culture, climate and religion. Unfortunately, the extremities applied in Potosi are not just pillars of its earthly piety, but there is a palpable sense that the city itself is reaching towards the heavens. At over 4000+ meters--give or take, 13000 feet--it is considered the highest city in the world. (1)
Altitude sickness reportedly affects up to 25% of people not accustomed to venturing up to such extreme heights. For our little half-pack, it was 50%.
Altitude sickness, for those happily at sea-level, traverses the spectrum from mild headaches caused by less oxygen in the air and resulting dehydration to potentially fatal pulmonary or cerebral edemas. The laundry list of symptoms make a nyquil commercial seem incredibly tame.
This is the condition I found Beth in at 330am when she failed to make it back from the bathroom. I got worried, checked on her and felt as if I'd just walked into a lifetime afterschool special. After asking if she was ok and getting the slow drawled response: "I'mmmmm sick", I asked her to open the door. Ten seconds later the door swings open to what should have been a cloud of reefer, at least based upon her condition. Her eyes were glazed and almost rolling back into her head, her body nearly flaccid and everything she did was in slow-motion. After making sure she was alive I ran to the room to get some water only to return to bedlam, or more accurately, bed-floor. She was sprawled, like a stoned snow angel or a dog on a tile floor in summertime, across the bathroom floor. This from the girl who gets angry if I set our backpack on a hostel floor.
After force feeding her water, reading the lonely planet guide about cerebral edema and putting a much more cognizant Beth to bed, we realized that she would be fine after a few days, as her symptoms were mild and short-lived. However, her next few days were to be confined to rest, relaxation, Spanish telenovelas, top raman and lots of cocai...coca tea.
An acclimatizing and two days later we were ready to celebrate the worlds favorite holiday, The Fourth of July. Bolivia isn't a bastion of American touchy-feeley sentiment, so our hopes for a firework-filled day rested in our sometimes-capable hands. We wandered the streets and found a party store, piñatas and all, which even had fireworks. Unfortunately they were industrial strength and I figured it'd be best to maintain my independence during Independence day--no need to find myself in Bolivian jail for accidentally setting fire to one of the plethora of churches. Our fallback option was to find a US flag car air freshener, which have an oddly ubiquitous presense in Bolivian taxis, and hang it up to everyones disdain. Also a failure. We settled with a "tener" of Potosina and listening to Lee Greenwood on the iTouch. Not exactly a summer 'que with budweiser, baseball and the weekly standard, but plenty patriotic in heart, effort and mind.
* * *
Part II: The Descent
Yin and yang. Cathedrals galore. Mines-a-more. Heavenly hands. Devilish soles. As high as Potosi reaches towards the heavens, its journey towards the depths of hell is even more astounding.
I've panned gold before. Outdoors, a spry, fresh-faced 8-year old sloshing what I now think of as a camping plate through a quaint little river in the great outdoors of Tahoe. It was fun. I no longer have any preconceived notions, however small they might have been, towards the gilded and slightly glorified nature of precious metals, in particular how they are extracted from this earth.
With Beth still reeling from the altitude and unsure about her role in a tour of a working mine, I set out to visit the depths of the mine overlooking and underwriting the city of Potosi. (2)
I met the guide, by the uniquely Latin name of Freddy, and the two other members of my mine party at 8:50am so we could share in a bit of the ritualistic coca tea beforehand. The entrance of the mine is at about 4300 meters and the tea is supposed to help with the altitude. We summarily departed, by microbus--essentially Bolivias version of public transportation--to a back-alley shack containing the necessities required for mining: water-proof boots, plastic-y pants/jacket, helmet and a lantern attachment with an enormous generator of car battery likeness. The only notable, and apparently western, apparatus missing was an air filter. (3) Decked out in our miners garb we departed with the rest of Potosi, on our second micro of the day, towards the mine luming over the city.
Our first, of many, eye opening encounters was not seeing a 12-year old boy working the dust-laden mines, as we'd heard tell of, but rather a 65-year old widow staked out in front of the mines. (4) Apparently if the husband dies the widow receives a small stipund, but nowhere near enough to live. So, often times the woman will suppliment this meager income by helping to sort through smaller piles of rocks to make sure nothing of value has leaked through the cracks. The job pays little, leaves her exposed to the sun all day (excepting a tiny little hovel made of rock, equivalent to a kid-designed fortress), and though she was at the time sitting, I have no doubt it is a physically strenous job, not toil that somebody of 65 years of age is meant to be doing to their body. For this reason it is clear that these womens circumstances have forced them into their position: an incredible hard and, no doubt thankless, job, at the age of a grandmother.
 |
| The old woman can be seen on the right with Freddy divvying out coca leaves. |
From there we entered the mine. In terms of climate it was at times hot, at other times cold, but always humid. I have to admit that from what we saw, the conditions were not as bad as my imagination had created. There were no giant boulders careening towards us, no pitfalls to the depths of hell and no dead parrots warning us of immenent doom, though perhaps this last would be a useful, if ominous, addition.
This is not to insight luxuriousness, because it was in fact miserable. At times the dust was so thick I couldn't see my own feet, which is incredibly fear-inducing as there are holes up to 80m deep, not to mention the havoc this wreakes on peoples respiratory systems. And altough we did not encounter any 12-year old kids we did meet a 16 and 17-year old tandem clearing rock into mine-carts in a fog of dust with only coca leaves as a barrier to entry from the poisonous particles. We were told that, because it was during a school break, we would find many younger people at work here. Instead of getting summer jobs at Burger King or some religious based campground, kids come to the mines. It makes flipping patties and gaining a third-degree acne case seem like winning your first scratcher.
 |
| The miners filling up the mine car to be pushed out for mineral extraction. |
We spent a total of about 2 1/2 hours inside of the mine. Much of this was spent walking through relatively flat ground, watching human-powered winches lift minerals from the 100m deepths of the mine, and even helping push a dislodged mine-cart. A prerequisite to entrance, enforced by the guide, is the purchase of a bundle of gifts for the miners. Our noble Frenchman bought all the sinful gifts: cigarettes, 96% "potable" alcohol and coca leaves. That being accounted for, the English girl and I purchased copious amounts of Cola products, which apparently the miners love because of the overwhelming heat of the mines. When not walking, we were watching the day-to-day task of the miners and divvying out Colas, which seem simple enough gifts, but were all received with great thanks. A small gesture, on both sides, but one that made the experience feel much less divided and unfair, given that both inherently existed.
 |
| Stifling dust combined with water and a hydrolic drill make for messy work. |
Considering we were privvy to experiencing an actual working mine, the experience felt genuinely safe, which is a testament either to our tour guide's choice of viewing or of the safety standards set forth by this particular collective, as opposed to government sponsored.(5) The one part of the tour, nearing the end, which put the old sphincter on orange alert, was the 80m decent to the "new" tunnel. Two shafts about 40m deep, with approximately five 20 foot ladders had to be descended. These ladders are not Sears lifetime insured ladders, they are janky, dilipadated pieces of pre-Colombian wood. You descend one ladder to a platform which has a hole adjacent to the next ladder descending further down to another platform.. The entire time you are in a 5 foot diameter shaft, stepping upon jiggling footholds that feel as though they should have snapped in half ninety steps ago and you are just waiting to start tumbling and tumbling and tumbling. At the bottom we saw drillers, dust and dynamite, which didn't ease my worries of ascending, especially after Freddy looked at his watch warning us we had to hurry because the dynamite gets setoff everyday before lunch at 12:30, 5 minutes from when we started climbing.
 |
| What goes down must come up. |
I made it without falling, which ironically enough gave me a chance to meet what some might call my maker, Uncle Tio, also know as The Devil. In an effort to reap more silver and zinc out of the mines, and in what makes perfectly logical sense to me, the miners, who appear to be god-fearing people above ground, give alms to the devil below it. The cigarettes, alcohol and coca leaves, which at first I believed to be for the miners, were actually for who they call Uncle Tio. A little alter of a devil sits in one of the tunnels and every miner, tourist and guide comes to pay respect to the holder of the underworld and by extension, the precious metals. So, this is how I came to meet the devil. Freddy lighted a smoke, put it in the altars mouth, quite a hilarious sight I must admit, especially considering the cigarette stayed alight through its quick burning life. Then he dumped coca leaves over the devil and poured a little booze ontop, in some fanciful bruja-like concotion of sin. Next, we passed the 96% booze around like a game of chug-and-pass, took a few photos and headed back to the world of sunshine and meadows, thus ending our foray as miners and, hopefully, cutting our short-lived chord to the devil.
 |
| The devil and his domain of coca leaves, booze and a half-smoked cigarette. |
A few notes not covered above, or below:
- Pachamama, or mother earth, also oversees the mine. Women, outside of tourist, are not supposed to enter the mine. It's not some antiquated sexist argument, but rather a belief that Pachamama is a jealous overseer and thus will take her seething anger out upon the miners for betraying her.
- The gov't gives money to those suffering from lung silicosis, but only after 80% lung compacity is gone. And, according to Freddy it is a meager sum, not nearly enough to live.
- likewise, these same miners can't live in Potosi any longer because there lungs are unable to cope with the decreased oxygen at altitude. They are forced to move to sucre/cochambamba, or some alternate city at lower altitude.
- Though we did not encounter any kids as young as 12 in the mines, it does happen, in particular in the less regulated collective mines.
- Freddy claimed as many as 8-10-12-15 deaths a year occur, but his disclaimer was that many were alcohol related. This is unconfirmed, as is most of what Freddy said.
- Miners can't eat inside the mines, though Im unclear as to why. So lunch, generally taken inside the mine, consist of coca leaves and Cola products.
- Once a year, during the month of June, Llama sacrifices are held. Either for Pachamama, the devil, or both, they are killed, eaten and bring good mining. We just missed these Friday night bashes, or rather, I did, as I'm sure Beth would dissapprove of such "senseless" slaughtering.
(1) Though I know not the definition of city, I would guess it is a quantifiable number of citizens. I would also guess there are plenty of smaller towns well above this altitudal threshold, but maybe not towns that brew their own beer, which is my own personal reqirement for city status: a brewery, or in Spanish: fabrica de cerveza.
(2) Freddie, the mine guide, claims that within 60 years the mine will be thoroughly decipated of anything worth value on the open market. When I asked, in incredibly broken Spanish, what next for Potosi, he said "tourism". An ominous answer for the future of a surprisingly gorgeous, not to mention fairly modernized, town--tourism already a considerable and thriving part of the economy. I can't imagine an influx so great after the mine (arguably it's second biggest tourist draw outside of being the highest city in the world) closes to counterbalance the loss of jobs for most of the towns general populace workforce.
 |
| Me and Freddy, BFF. |
(3) The only miners in possesion of air filters were the driller/dynamiters. Freddy claimed it was optional for regular miners, but as the chewing of coca leaves served the same purposes, everyone simply opted for them as their preventative health maintenance of choice. Sounds a bit like the old tried and true "pull-out" method to me. Fitting for a Catholic country, even.
(4) I say mines because it is one mountain, but there are numerous different groups with their own distinct inroads into the mountain. The two main types of groups are the government sponsored and the collective. Each have their own cells, probably numbering (and this is a somewhat dubious number) close to 50 groups for each type, all with their own separate mines within the mountain.
(5) the major difference between collective and government sponsored mines is the ways in which the miners are compensated. In the government mines the regular miners are paid per day, according to Freddy. In collectives there is a percentage distribution based upon the load found. The boss gets the predominant amount, 50% or so, in part because he also supplies the miners with all the tools, instruments and dynamite needed. The equivalent of the Forman, his underlings, like veterans, then split up the rest, with the Forman getting a higher percent. The younger group, the more unexperienced and the temporary workers, get a per-cart-load-extracted-from-the-mine rate, regardless of what they find. 7 Bolivianos, or $1 US, per cart-load. Freddy claimed they could do about 10 loads a day, or $10 US. In money terms, he claimed on a good month the veteran miners could make 3000 Bolivianos or more, but the next might be less than a 1000, or theoretically nothing, if they found nothing. As a bit of an aside, the workers in government mines had set work hours, while collectives generally worked 5 days a week, but sometimes worked more--and were paid a higher proportion of the find as a result--because their pay is contingent upon what they uncover.
Meat Meter: On hiatus for too long in expensive Brazil and chicken-lickin' dominated Bolivia, its slowly making a comeback. In Potosi I devoured my first llama burger, no doubt a touristic schtick, but tasty and very similar to a hamburger. Apparently it also contains, or decontains, half the fat. My first, and hopefully last, accidentally healthy meal. Cheers to llamas, the mangy spitters, but oh so tasty.
