January 6th, 2006

We came back to La Paz completely exhausted and famished, checked into a hostel with a good shower and decided to give our aching muscles and lungs a little rest. We slept all day and it worked like a charm. By the end of the 5th we were ready to move on and caught a night bus to Potosí — the highest city in the world at 4,090m — where we planned to visit its famous silver mines and get dirty climbing inside narrow shafts.

The night bus was the usual nightmare as was to be expected. I swear, if I had a centavo (Bolivian penny) for every time we’ve been lied to in South America, I could finance our whole round-the-world trip. This time we spent about half an hour looking specifically for a bus with a bathroom (just in case) and even paid more for one, only to find out later that they never heard of such thing. No worries though, there were plenty of bathroom breaks at all hours of the night complete with ruckus in the aisle and shoves from the people residing on the floor of the bus. It hasn’t been all bad though, about five minutes into the bus ride two of the local children have put up a musical show in which the older of the two children was bellowing out some tune in ether Spanish or Quechua, and the other was banging on something. In the end of their performance the children went up and down the aisle asking a fee for their services.

That morning we arrived at the Potosí bus terminal at 5am. Dazed and tired from the bus ride, we sat on a bench in the station and tried to employ our guide book in figuring out what to do. Shurik was reading up on Potos,i but I couldn’t help myself but look around the terminal on its inhabitants. As we were the only foreigners in the vicinity, we got the majority of the stares. People were looking at us as if we were going to pull out a jeep out of our backpack and ride off on it. Also in the terminal, about five feet from each other, stood three women, who all apparently worked for different bus companies, and screamed at the top of their lungs the same exact thing: “Villazon!- Villazon!- Villazon!” If I didn’t know better, I could swear they had a blow-horn somewhere in their mouth. Have I mentioned it was five in the morning? The locals seemed to be unfazed by this very loud display, but we could not stand it for much longer and so we made a quick decision: since entering the mines is permitted only on a guided tour, we would take a cab to a hostel called Koala Den, who also owns Koala Tours, and them to let us squat there the next couple of hours ‘til we can go on the tour. Koala Den turned out to be a cute little place whose owner graciously let us spend some time on the couches in the lobby and even fed us breakfast complete with eggs, bread, butter, jam, and tea for a mere $1. It all worked out pretty well. We got ourselves on the 8am tour, left our backpacks in the hostel, and headed out.

Our first stop was the Miners Market. Juan, our guide, took us to a small store where dynamite and 98% ethyl alcohol (preferred drink of the miner’s) were being sold over the counter along with candy and soda. He briefly explained about the different kinds of dynamite and encouraged us to purchase some gifts for the miners: alcohol, soda, coca leaves, and, of course, some dynamite. We got some dynamite for ourselves as well, and Juan promised we’d have a demonstration with it in the end of the day. We were quite fond of him. Unlike other guides that we met in our travels, it really felt like he was giving it all in his stories and explanations. Later, we learned Juan is a former miner himself. He worked in the mine for three years until a small accident that hurt his back. When he recovered, his family pleaded with him not to come back to this dangerous work, and so he became a tour guide for the mines he knew so well. The work in the shafts is no doubt dangerous, but it’s not only the cave-ins and greedy competitors who significantly lower a miner’s life expectancy. The ventilation system in the mine is virtually inexistent and throughout their entire career the miners breathe in silica dust and toxic fumes like sulfur and arsenic. A miner’s life expectancy today is about forty years, so it is quite understandable why Juan’s wife wanted him out of the mines.

From the market we proceeded to the Cerro Rico Mountain to see the mines themselves. To be completely honest the mines looked exactly like you’d expect them to. Narrow and dusty they swerved on and on, disappearing in the dark. Fixed to their ceiling were several rubber tubes that we were warned not to touch as some carried high voltage electric cables, and the others water and what sounded like compressed air. The air was musty and full of dust; it was hard to breathe, so I took my bandana off my head and put it on my face. Now I looked like a construction worker who is about to rob a train.

All I could think of, going further and further down the shaft, was The Wizard of Oz. I am not sure it is there in the English version, but as a kid I read all the sequels to the first book in Russian, and one of them was about Dorothy’s cousin traveling to Munchkin Land through a cave that kept becoming narrower and narrower as she went further. That is exactly how it felt going down the rocky mine tunnel. It wasn’t as bad for me as it was for some of the others. The majority of people traveling are Europeans, and many Europeans average on 5′8” in height which makes it much more difficult for them to walk the 5′ hallways of the mine. I myself am at most 5′2”, and even I had to bow down or walk with my head tilted to the side. Actually, what I was most thankful for was my helmet. I can’t tell you how many times I would straighten out in a passage, thinking there was some head room, only to ram my head into the ceiling or a support beam after a few steps. Soon, the tunnel became too small even for me, and we were all crawling on all fours. The mine is a labyrinth of about four levels with passages of all shapes and sizes. As we started from the highest (ground) level, we kept going lower and lower were the air became thick with dust and not everybody could handle it. Anna, the second Russian speaking individual we met so far (now living in London), was a bit panicked from the very beginning. From the moment we walked into the tunnel she started asking how much further it was and whether they had an oxygen bottle with them. But when it came time to go down to the next level through a very narrow shaft she simply freaked out and decided to skip on the whole thing all together. Can’t blame her though, looking like a typical Russian should, she must have been one of the tallest people there, and probably a bit claustrophobic to begin with.

Even though Juan has been doing this job for the longest time now, you could see it wasn’t easy for him. He took us through different work areas were we watched men work, learned about the different jobs people have here, and the hierarchy of power in their cooperative. It was quite weird though; some miners were happy to see Juan, shook his hand “hello” and exchanged a few words on the way. Others acted like he didn’t exist, turning away as he would greet them. Nevertheless, Juan graciously gave them gifts from those we bought at the market not expecting even as much as a “thank you”. “They are either angry or jealous,” Juan explained. “Which I guess is pretty much the same thing. You see, for them I’m sort of a traitor who got out of the mine and now has a good job that is not going to kill me in ten years. Around here, mining is a tradition. A miner’s son, when old enough, will come work in the mine the same way his father, and grandfather before him. But now, the world is changing, and there are people like me who search for new opportunities in life and want other, perhaps better, things for their children. Let them be jealous, I don’t mind.” And he handed me a jug of alcohol for the miners sitting near by.

We climbed back up the same way we came down. It’s not like we exactly slid down those shafts the first time, but going up was significantly more difficult since at this altitude there probably was more dust in the air then oxygen. Finally, panting and covered with dirt we emerged one by one at the ground level and walked back through the narrow hallway which this time kept getting wider and higher. On the surface we met Anna. The poor thing could not go anywhere as there was only one van, and she had to wait for all of us to come out. Well, at least she was not going to miss the dynamite demonstration. Juan gathered everybody and had his assistant (Juan #2) show us how it’s done. Juan #2 opened the dynamite stick which turned out to be some sort of green play-dough like substance that he then mashed with his hands and then stuck the end of the fuse in it. He then placed the dynamite in an ammonium nitrate bag that is used to enhance the explosion and lit the fuse. It all looked too easy to be authentic, but never the less we held the “ticking bomb” in our hands, posed for pictures, and handed it back to Juan who ran down to a ditch 100m away and left the dynamite there to do its work. He wasn’t even half way back when the damn thing exploded in a cloud of dust deafening us all for a second. It was not the most impressive thing, but definitely the loudest we heard in Potosí so far.

Tags: market, mines, people
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