Bolivian mine

Hey there,
I know it has been ages since we last wrote. It is almost the end of April, which means I only have few months left on this wonderful trip of a lifetime. Anyway, in this blog I would like to write about our experience in Bolivia, which we both agreed was the most beautiful country we had driven through mile for mile.






The first day was the hardest, since it took about 5 hours to crossed the boarder. After long hours of waiting in the never-ending, chaotic lines to get my passport stamped, we made it through. I think we were about 4.500 meters above sea level, and at first it was difficult to adjust. However, as we were waiting in these lines, I noticed tons of people moving enormous bags of heavy cement on their backs. They were given few cents to bring the bags from the Argentina border into Bolivian, so they were running so quickly to move as many bags as possible. It sure made waiting in line in the heat for five hours with a horrible headache look like a piece of cake.



Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in the South America. The change from Argentina was sooo visible. But to me, it did not look poorer, it looked more indigenous, more traditional which of course meant less industrialized, less cosmopolitan. All women wear their famous skirts, hats and their hair is done into two very thick braided ponytails.



Roberto, one of a many great people we met told us a story about the creation of Bolivia. He said that when God created the world, he gave everything to Bolivia. He gave to Bolivia, enormous stocks of gold, copper, silver and other minerals. Chile came to him and complained. "God, how come you are giving everything to Bolivia. Bolivia has much more beautiful shore line than we do, plus it is full of copper". Brazil complained as well, about Bolivia having tons of rubber plantations and them not having any. Also Peru said to God, about Bolivia having enormous stock of Lithium, gold and silver in Cero Rico and them not having any. God smiled and said, "don't worry my loved ones, I have not distributed the governments yet."


Since Bolivia declared independence ( 180 years ago) it has had 190 governments. When we took a 4 day trip to the Salar Desert of Uyuni ( which Todd said he will write about) our driver Mario, told us about the times when Chile took the entire shore with copper mines from them. This eliminated all access Bolivia had to the ocean. Mario, told us that the Chilean army came to Bolivia during the carnival. When Bolivian president was informed about Chile declaring war on Bolivia, his reaction was to celebrate the carnival for few more days and deal with the Chileans later. By the time the carnival was over, the Chilean army was so far in Bolivia that Bolivia had no more military options. Mario said that ever since he grew up his community was motivating children to study hard so they can get the ocean back. Their relationships with Chile is a difficult one, since Chile charges them enormous amounts of taxes for porting fees. Chile is one of the most developed countries in SA thanks to copper that was taken from Bolivia.
Anyway, Bolivians are very resilient and a good hearted people.


Now, I would like to write about my experience in the silver mine Cerro Rico.
There was a time when the town of Potosi was one of the richest towns in the world. Never ending supplies of gold, silver and other minerals were brought to Europe and kept the Spanish empire going for 200 hundred YEARS!!!! Sadly enough very little money from Cerro Rico stayed in Bolivia. What remained from Potosi today was a sadness lingering in the air. The dirt roads through the town were full of garbage and some of the fancy buildings built back then, are falling apart today. At first the sound of what I thought was a constant, very loud gun fire made me a little uncomfortable. I learned later, that it was the sound of dynamite in Cerro Rico that one can hear even at night.

The tour of the mine started by stopping at the miners market to buy presents for the miners. Our guides told us to buy a bag of coca leaves, a bottle of 99% alcohol, pop, and hand made dynamite. The dynamites were sold for around $ 2 US dollars and bag of coca leaves for less then a $ 1 US dollars. Our guide told us to buy a bag of coca leaves for ourselves as well. According to her “ with coca you don’t feel no hunger, no tired, no altitude sick, no nothing.” I was already having a hard time breathing as we were about 4,300 meters above the sea level. So I figured I did not need to have my mouth full of leaves anyway. After the market we went to change into the yellow overalls, and huge rubber boots.


By the time we were reached Cerro Rico we were about 4, 500 meters above the sea level. We entered the mine through a little hole. Even though I was told that the tour would last about two hours, we spent about 4 hours underground and went about 3.5 kilometers in. There were areas where you could walk somewhat straight, but most of the time you have to climb on your knees or crawl on your belly. As we were going deeper in the temperatures reached about 42 degree Celsius or about 100 F. There was dust everywhere, the only light there was the small one on my helmet.


Since the Cerro Rico was opened, 8 000 000 people had died inside of it. Even without knowing the facts, the energy of Cerro Rico seemed somewhat spooky and haunted. At the time of slavery and the mine’s biggest glory, the workers (slaves) had to stay inside for 6 months straight and work 20 hours shifts. When they were allowed outside their eyes had a very hard time adjusting to the light and left them blind for several days.

Today the workers start working as early as 6:oo AM. Once they enter the mine they do not eat again until about 7 :00 Pm at night. This is because they do not want to eat inside the mine ( very dusty) as they believe it is not good for their stomach. The workers also do not want to waste any time eating since they are often paid by the amount of work they do. Lastly, there are no bathrooms inside. “The good miner eats a good breakfast and a good dinner. During the day he chews coca, four hours in one cheek and four hours in the other.” Our guide told us. The workers do not wear any face masks, ironically only tourists wear them. This is because the miners find it even harder to breath with masks. The life expectancy of the miner is mid 40’s, the most common cause of death is a lung disease from breathing particles of dust.

The workers of Cerro Rico worship their own god ‘Tio” (the devil) when they are underground. Tio is human size scary figure, that was created by Spanish supposedly in order to scare the slaves. As they were told by the Spanish that if they will not work hard the ‘underground God’ or the devil will punish them. According to our guide, the Bolivians speaking Quechua could not pronounce the letter D and started to call the devil like statue TIO instead of dio.

The workers believe that mine is a “hell’ since it is dark, hot and dangerous so they need to pray to another God when they are underground. Every morning the workers come to Tio and worship him. They ask him to give them good minerals. They gave him cigarets, coca leaves, and alcohol in return. The workers give Tio only pure alcohol, so he gives them pure minerals. ‘because if you give Tio mixed alcohol he will give you a weak mineral vein.’ Basically, the worker’s agenda is to be friendly with Tio, to give them as much coca as they can so he won’t get angry with them and start causing explosions. The workers seem to have an enormous respect for Tio, and believe that since he is the underground God, he is the only one who can protect them inside the mine. When outside, they are Christians, and attend the regular church.
There are few women working outside of the mine but none ever inside of the mine. The workers also believe that if there are women working inside Tio might became jealous and might cause some explosions in the mines.


As we were meeting the miners along our tour each of us would hand them a present. I was the only one to have some coca leaves left so out guide asked me to give them to Tio. Not sure what that meant but I sure gave the devil lots of coca leaves.


Today the mine is owned by independent miners. When I think about it I picture the inside of Cerro Rico as an enormous piece of Swiss cheese. Each hole has an owner (a manager) who usually hires 3 to 5 helpers each day according to the need. The owners of these ‘holes’ create a co-op and make decisions together (i.e. pay for the oxygen lines, etc). every Saturday the companies buying minerals come to Cerro Rico and the miners ‘owners of one hole’ try to sell them their minerals. There is always a lot of negotiation going on, as the prices vary because of the quality of the minerals as well as the market price. The helpers of the managers are sometimes as young as 10 years old and earn around $6. US dollars per 12 hour shift. The manager often works longer hours if he wants to earn more money and get more minerals.


The mine is 100% hand operated, there are no machines and everything is done by manpower. When I was inside, I had a hard time walking (crawling) those narrow walkways often full of water (or urine?) since the dust in the air was so overwhelming. However the workers were pushing wagons that weighed about 1 ton in front of them. At times, mostly when going up hill they were so exhausted that they were not able to hold the wagon anymore, and we (the tour) had to help them to hold it otherwise it would just roll over us.

It seemed to me that there were not many minerals left in Cerro Rico, however it seems that every miner, has a lot of hope in finding a good vein. I was little surprised to learn that there is another mountain behind Cerro Rio that has been untouched so far. Since the inhabitants of Potosi believe that unless Cerro Rico is completely collapsed they want to protect the other mountain for the next generation. So they have some work left for future generations. Since without the miners, the town of Potosi would have to be crossed off the map.

I am not sure, if my description of the mine experience did justice in explaining how hard these guys have to work. I can for sure say that our guide was trying to simulate the experience of the miners, she was constantly rushing us to walk, crawl faster. I was exhausted, hot and trying to grab for the little bit of oxygen left in that dusty air. It was definitely one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. Definitely hard enough that I promised myself never to complain again.




There is a movie called the Devil’s Miners if you interested in learning more about the lives of the miners.

love, kristina