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Dynamite, alcohol, coca and lung disease: A Miners Life

Sunday, May 7th, 2006

Since arriving in Bolivia I´ve covered a lot of ground faster than I normally travel. I met a group of guys waiting for the bus to Potosi and have travelled with them up to now, and I think it´s thanks to them that I haven´t just sat around in a place for too long.

Potosi is the highest city in the world, standing at 4090 metres above sea level, it quite literally takes your breath away climbing it´s steep cobbled streets. It´s set here on this mountain because of the rich mineral deposits hidden inside. In the past it was one of the major sources of silver, which made it a very rich city, but since the Spanish conquerors stole most of that, and there´s very little left to mine, it has declined in it´s status. There is however quite a few other minerals and metals to mine, so the work continues through a cooperative, primarily looking for zinc.

Horny Devil
Before work the miners offer sacrifices of alcohol and coca to this horny devil

The working conditions are what can only be politely described as fucking atrocious, though thankfully a far cry from the slave labour conditions that prevailed under the Spanish. Taking a tour through these mines really helps to put your complaints about working in an office into perspective. If the collapsing tunnels don´t get you, the toxic chemicals in the air will eventually – life expectancy is pretty short down there.

We headed off to the mines armed with coca leaves, dynamite and 96% alcohol. This might sound foolish, and indeed it is, but this is a miners life. We blew some of the dynamite up on the side of the hill outside the mines, that was just for thrills, then the rest along with the coca and alcohol were presents for the miners to sweeten the pill of having tourists wandering around their work place asking questions.

Doozers
I think you can guess which ones aren`t the real miners

All in all it was a pretty life-affirming experience, mainly affirimng that life for us is very good and that it could be a whole lot worse.

We stayed around Potosi for another day and found some kind of festival celebrations going on around the main streets with processions, musicians and many drunken Bolivians. No idea what it was for, but thankfully it seemed to bear no relationship to the festival we´d just missed in a nearby town. Accounts from fellow travellers described it as a brutal fighting festival where people roam drunkenly around the streets having fights with each other. They tape small blades to their knuckles to inflict maximum blood spillage, but the recipients of this violence are very proud to have their faces gashed up and blood spilling onto the streets as this blood is a sacrifice to Pachamama (Mother Earth). Crazy fucking Bolivians!