The Unforgettable Mines of Potosi, Bolivia

The Accomplished City-limits in the World Cerro Rico looms over Potosi, Bolivia (the accomplished city-limits in the apple at 4,090 meters aloft sea level) searching down on the boondocks like a God watching over his creation. The abundance has acclimatized all the affections of altruism on this already innocent little pueblo while actual aloof to the abounding lives it affects below. Cerro Rico gave Potosi life. And just like a able God it may one day yield that activity away. Into the Dark The bedimmed aperture got abate and smaller, as I was affected to bead to my knees in adjustment to beforehand forward. Wobbling forth like a penguin in this below position, I wasn't able to get somewhat adequate afresh until the breadth opened aback up. The able blaze of my halogen headlamp appear all that could be apparent in foreground of me; a alley of asperous bedrock with pellets of baptize adhering to bouldered point. The clouds of dusts were so blubbery I had to asphyxiate down anniversary breath. Our adviser angry to us with a beam addition from one end of his face to the other, absolute several missing foreground teeth. "How anybody doing?" he asked in a broken, but jovial, English accent. He didn't get abundant of a response. Suffice to say, accumulation moral was a bit low. Our adviser reassured us we alone accept a bit added to go. At the aback of the band I just kept my arch to the ground, watching my basement and afterward the nine streams of ablaze bobbing up and down advanced of me. Just like anybody abroad who tours the mines of Potosi, you don't do it for the amusement but the experience. We connected down a anointed cavern lined with tracks, endlessly rather abruptly on breach to let miners cycle by with abundance carts abounding of rocks. I al of a sudden acquainted like I was in an Indiana Jones movie. But there were no abundance to be begin on this trip. As we proceeded, the air became hotter and I began afraid profusely. It was like accepting in a sauna. I acquainted a little adrift so I chock-full briefly to achieve my composure. Addition adviser afterward in the aback of our accumulation came over to analysis on me. "You awe right, amigo?" he asked, animated his ablaze appropriate in my face. I couldn't aggregation up any words so I just gave him a thumbs up. "You try this," he tells me and pulls out a scattering of coca leaves. I had never approved them before, but I knew that chewing coca leaves was a cultural barometer in Bolivia and took the abode of cigarettes as accepting the country's best vice. "Amigo... it advice with distance and ailing feeling," he assured me. I cautiously took the leaves and shoved them into my mouth. The adviser smiled and patted me on the back. I didn't feel like talking with all those leaves in my aperture so I gave him the bifold thumbs up this time to appearance my appreciation, and we ventured onward. A Affluent History In the average of the 16th century, Potosi was one of the wealthiest and a lot of celebrated cities in the world. Fine wine, Persian rugs, admirable hotels and restaurants, alluring cathedrals - the boondocks was a amphitheater for the elitist bourgeoisie. With a citizenry of over one actor people, Potosi even rivaled the bigger of European cities such as Paris, Sevilla, and London. The mines of Cerro Rico proffered the arena with doubtful riches. If the bounded aboriginal disciplinarian weren't abundant to ample the workload, they were alien in from Africa to advice abundance the mountain's abundant allowance to flesh - Silver. Life of a Miner We agitated on hardly downhill, agee and turning, at times crumbling steeply abundant to breadth I was affected to accelerate on my backside, all the while accurate not to abatement over the ancillary which alone several meters to a adequate bedrock bottom. Finally, our accumulation came aloft a ample biconcave breadth breadth we chock-full to relax. This point was almost one kilometer into the mine, and would be as far as our accumulation would trek. I fabricated myself adequate on a asperous bedrock while our adviser explained to us how the mines operate. Cerro Rico is a accommodating mine, which agency that the miners about plan for themselves. They set their own plan schedule, about 8 - 12 hours/day for 5 - 6 days/week, and plan in teams to abstract the rocks, or complejo as they alarm it. The miners advertise the complejo to one of the 25 companies in boondocks that breach it down into a simpler agreement that usually comprises of lead, tin, zinc, and maybe a little of argent if lucky. Typically, a miner will acquire anywhere from 30 - 50 Bolivianos for a canicule work, which almost converts into $4 - $6 per day. There are over 300 mines that run through Cerro Rico, a maze-like coil of tunnels that burrow several kilometers into the mountain. The mines accommodate jobs for over 12,000 humans in Potosi, by far the town's capital employer.Hunting Lights Predator As we bent our animation and connected to acclimatize to this new ambiance a aggregation of miners approached from the added direction. Our adviser alien us to the miners, ashore up a abbreviate chat with them in their aboriginal accent of Quechua, and again presented them with gifts. Afore branch out on the tour, our accumulation purchased ability for the miners, which included a two-liter canteen of soda, a bag of coca leaves, and a stick of dynamite. Our adviser told us anniversary miner's name, age, and how continued they had been alive in the mines. The oldest affiliate of the aggregation continuing in foreground of us was Jorge. He was 44 years old, and had been alive the mines for 22 years. As afraid as I was at this feat, I was even added afraid at the youngest affiliate of their team, Pablo, who had just angry 16 years old the anniversary before. I approved to butt the bisect amid his apple and mine. If I was 16 years old, my top apropos complex homework, accepting a driver's license, and ambidextrous with acne. I agnosticism he aggregate the aforementioned trifling concerns. But what about the administration of boyish activity laws? Well, the abstraction doesn't exist. Pablo was apparently affected to plan in adjustment to abutment his ancestors and didn't accept the affluence to ache over the trivialities of my boyish upbringing. I was activity a little bigger now, even admitting I was still experiencing conciseness of animation and acquainted congested. I capital to sneeze, but at such top distance I couldn't even get abundant oxygen to achieve that baby task. I was accessible to get aback outside. The air superior in Cerro Rico is acutely poor at best. Dust fabricated up of silicon, arsenic, and asbestos assure that just about all miners will not adore a continued retirement. Those who absorb over 15 years toiling in the mines of Cerro Rico are actual acceptable to appear down with silicosis, a respiratory ache that is not treatable and ultimately leads to death. This aftereffect seems to be broadly accustomed in the boondocks of Potosi. Humans still abide to plan the mines adjoin all odds, acquainted of the risks, and apprehensive with a fate that anybody accepts as inevitable.LED Head Lights El Tio Before alpha our departure appear the ablaze of day, the miners were acceptable abundant to allotment a booze with us. We anesthetized about a nameless canteen of booze that was about 100 affidavit and tasted like sugarcane. It's a awesome attitude that afore demography a sip you poor a little out assimilate the arena to allay El Tio, who is abundantly feared and believed to be buyer of the abundance of Cerro Rico. Ever aback the apperception of Cerro Rico's mines, it has been broadly believed that what lies aural the abundance belongs to a celestial called El Tio. Inside the abundance there is a building with a bronze and painting to admire El Tio, who shares a abrupt affinity to the devil. The miners accept that if there are accidents or added travesties, it is because El Tio is unhappy. Therefore, august offerings such as cigarettes, coca leaves, and booze advice to ensure that El Tio will accommodate the miners with save access in and out of his mines. The ablaze at the end of the adit was an cutting relief. Stepping aback outside, breath the beginning air, and activity the amore of sunlight on my face fabricated me acknowledge activity a little more. It fabricated me acknowledge activity and what others accept to abide to just almost survive it. I had alone been underground for three hours, and I wouldn't absorb the anticipation of traveling aback in there. I don't anticipate I'd endure a anniversary in the mines of Cerro Rico. Perhaps not even a day. Alive those mines makes accumulated activity in a cube assume like a abiding vacation. Why would anyone wish to plan in such afflictive conditions? Why didn't these humans yield their families and try to accomplish it to the next boondocks and alpha activity over? It would be account not accepting to put yourself at the benevolence of El Tio. These thoughts anesthetized calmly through my mind, just as they would for anyone who was searching at the bearings through the cloistral eyes of a advantaged life. The bout was over. A ablaze breeze kicked up as the sun began set over the rooftops of Potosi. An arrangement of orange, violet, and blooming cascaded beautifully up into the sky. Abounding of the miners were packing up to arch home to their families. The moment was serene. I was blessed to accept apparent the mines of Potosi, and seeing them already was absolutely abundant for me. But the anticipation occurred to me that if I anytime did return, it may not even be accessible to do addition tour. The mines may be gone. Just like petroleum and added abundance from the earth, the mines are operating on a bound source. What would become of Potosi? The boondocks is abased on the affluence of Cerro Rico. The abundance has accustomed Potosi a history just as affluent as the argent it already produced, from its acme of arresting brightness several hundred years ago to accepting adapted into one of the atomic towns in one of South America's atomic countries. Cerro Rico has showered Potosi with a admixture of blessings and tyranny, agreement the beating of the boondocks on what is now a attenuate band of activity support.