Potosi

We weren't sure that we would make it to Potosi, as there had been miners' strikes which blockaded the roads in and out of Potosi for nearly three weeks, cutting off all supplies including food. However the blockades cleared a couple of days before we got to Uyuni.

Buses in Bolivia are cheap, at around NZ$1 per hour of journey. We caught a $4 bus from Uyuni to Potosi, expecting the worst but finding it actually quite alright. Probably the coolest bus in town as we had cumbia music cranking over the loud speakers for two thirds of the journey.

Potosi is the highest city in the world at around 4090 m above sea level. It is also home to the highest-brewed beer in the world, Potosina, which at that altitude tastes a lot like air.

Our hostel had a rooftop mirador (viewpoint), so we made the most of the sunset on our first night. The views of Cerro Rico (the rich hill/the mountain that eats men) and the rest of the city were a good way to wind down from the day's cumbia beats. 

Our first day we took pretty slowly, as we had just recovered from our touch of illness in Uyuni, and it pays to go slowly at altitude. After running (walking) a few errands in the morning we wandered through the town and went to the Casa Nacional de la Moneda.

Potosi is a mining city, and at its peak it was both the largest and richest city in the world with all of the silver that was coming out of Cerro Rico. The Casa Nacional de la Moneda is the mint where all of the silver was pressed into bars and coins for export by the Spanish empire. The Spanish used millions of African and Indigenous South American slaves to mine Cerro Rico and to press and transport the silver. It is estimated that since the commencement of mining in Cerro Rico in the 16th century, over eight million slaves and workers have died in Potosi due to mine collapses, silicosis and other respiratory illnesses, mining accidents, mercury poisoning, and just generally terrible working conditions. While the mint is no longer active, the mining continues with conditions largely unchanged from 300 years ago.

The museum has a large amount of original wooden machinery, which is in amazing condition due to the dry and cold climate of Potosi. We were too stingy to pay the extra to take photos in the museum, so only a couple of shots from the outside:

We followed the visit with some top notch street food in the form of a cheeseburger combo. At around $1.20 it was amazing value, and we loved the way they stack the chips on top of the burger, then pile on three different sauces. Choice.

We visited the local markets the next morning, which weren't particularly impressive, but we bought a thermos so that we can have hot coffee on the road, 24/7.

We then took a mine tour in Cerro Rico. The tours are somewhat controversial, as the working conditions are atrocious, although the consensus seems to be that the miners enjoy tourists entering the mines as they bring gifts. Ahead of time we were pretty terrified of the tours as you are crawling around in working mines, kilometres deep into the slowly collapsing mountain, with little oxygen, plenty of noxious gases and dust, at over 4300 m above sea level.

Around 15,000 miners still work inside Cerro Rico. Although most of the silver has gone, they extract other metals such as tin and zinc. The mountain itself has almost given up too, having sunk around 300 m since mining began.

Not sure why they gave us a gun to pose with:

First stop was a visit to the miners' market to buy gifts. We bought some dynamite, ammonium nitrate, fuses, coca leaves, and juice for the miners and were then on our way.

Followed by a quick visit to the refinery:

And then entering the mine itself:

The cold weather quickly disappeared as we got further into the mine, with the temperatures rapidly rising to around 30 degrees, and the air becoming thick with dust. There is no lighting in the mine except for our head torches. No gas detectors except for acetylene lamps. The tunnels become narrower and lower, and at some points we were scrambling on our hands and knees and climbing up vertical shafts.

The miners believe that the devil, El Tio, will mind them while they are underground, and as such there are shrines to El Tio in each of the mines. They sacrifice alcohol, coca leaves and baby llamas, amongst other items, when entering the mines to ensure their protection.

We spent around an hour and a half inside two cooperative mines, travelling kilometres into the hill. It was a relief to get some fresh air on the outside:

Overall it was a pretty harrowing experience, and at no point did it make us want to become miners. It is pretty astounding that such working conditions still exist and the life expectancy for a Potosi miner is around 45. The trouble for the locals is there is no alternative industry in Potosi, and the money is better in the mines than on the outside. So for the foreseeable future the mining will continue in the same manner.