Equipo Williams

Today we went to the mines in Potosi. Potosi is a city in Bolivia and is located at twelve thousand feet above sea level. It is famous for its mountains that contain high amounts of silver, tin, lead, and zinc, to name a few. It’s also famous for being a big silver producer for the Spaniards in the sixteenth century. Back then, they used natives as slaves in the mines and transported the precious silver out by llama train to the Pacific coast. In fact, you can still see some tunnels from way back then today.

We went on a tour to the mines this morning. At eight o’clock, an astounding little red bus thing pulled up outside our hotel. We got in to find our tour guide and the driver, Wilson and Grover, ready to take us to adventure. It was just us on the tour so it was much more exciting than going with a big group. First we went to the miners market, where the miners shop for food and equipment.

We were encouraged to get a gift for the miners and since we could, we bought dynamite fuses and what Wilson suggested, juice and coca leaves. The miners chew the coca leaves for energy and to stay awake. They generally chew about fifty per day, but some can chew up to twice that. They also smoke cigarettes (blech) and drink straight up alcohol (double blech). This means that with these habits and the fumes they inhale in the mine, the miners generally only live up to fifty eight to sixty eight years at best.

They also start working young. Our tour guide told us that he started working in the mine when he was eight because his dad died. There were people from eighteen years old to maybe fifty years old (at least with gray-white hair) working in the mine we visited. Back to the story, after the market, we went to get our mining gear. We needed clothes to wear over our own to keep the dust off of us, huge rain boots, and of course, the helmet and light contraption. 

After we got all of this on, we headed to a refinery. This is where they take the mined up rocks and minerals and separate them into “trash” (the plain old rocks) and all of the minerals they can sell. This process involves smashing up the rock, mixing it with chemicals to create a chemical reaction. The reason they create this chemical reaction is because all the minerals float to the top where they can use a paddle that sort of looks like a water wheel to take the top mineral-ly layer off. It was super loud and we didn’t spend much time there, but Wilson did show us the sparkly mineral rock they get from the process. 

After the refinery, we went to the actual mine. This involved a very narrow, steep, and bumpy road that was terrifying to ride on, especially in a bus that was probably thirty years old. Once we got to the mine, we took some pictures of the city from the mountain and then headed for the mine. Just as we were about to go in, a wheelbarrow and a miner came powerwalking out and we had to move to get out of the way. Once he had dumped his rocks into the big pile and went inside, we followed. 

We walked for a little while and soon got to a statue of the mineral god. His name is El Tio, because he was called in Spanish a Dios meaning god, but the Potosi-ans couldn’t pronounce that, so it became El Tio.  Inside the mine, miners stop worshiping the Catholic god and start worshiping him, as well as other minor Bolivian gods, such as Pachamama, goddess of the earth. But for the most part El Tio. For example, whenever a miner has a cigarette, coca, or some alcohol, they always give El Tio some first by sprinkling it on him if its alcohol, placing it in his hands if its coca leaves, or putting it in his mouth if its a cigarette. The adults drank some of the alcohol there and Wilson showed us how he could test if it was pure alcohol by pouring it on his finger and then lighting it on fire. 

After finishing at that section of the mine, we kept walking in towards the center of the mountain. We saw many workers trucking rocks and heard from them that they had started at two or three in the morning and wouldn’t be done until four o’clock and they had trucked fifty more wheelbarrows (weighing about two to three hundred kilos) outside. It was backbreaking work because they had to stoop really low not to hit the ceiling, so we gave them all the gifts of the juice and the coca. 

We eventually got to a section where a guy (there are no girls allowed to work in the mines) was scooping up rocks. He looked really tired and was on a level below us, so we manually winched him down some dynamite and fuses, and winched up a basket of rocks to give to a wheelbarrow guy. After that we asked to almost the end of the safe part of the mine and across a very rickety Indiana Jones type bridge that was really a couple of muddy wet planks over a large pit of mineral (as in full of minerals and a ghastly orange color) water. We met the last guy who was working in dynamite fumes from when he had blown the day before and was now clearing out the rubble. We gave him some peach juice and started to head back because going further wouldn’t be safe.  

We went back and finally hit daylight after only a couple helmet hits on the ceiling. It was a really fun tour and I am so glad we did it because it was super fun but also very informative about mining and the lives of miners. I was especially intrigued (not happy) about how they had to work such long hours in such harsh conditions underground. I honestly don’t blame them for smoking and drinking. It was a bit sad, but it definitely made me be more grateful for the silver, zinc, and all of the other metals that we have that might come from this mine. I enjoyed going here and would definitely recommend (ahem, baba) going to a mine and I will hopefully go to more in the near future.