From Sucre we headed to Potosi...the true heart of Bolivian history. Potosi was founded in the 16th century after the discovery of silver in the nearby Cerro Rico (photo above). At one point in its history it was among the largest cities in the world (160,000), but it has experienced a number of tragic booms and busts and now is a relatively "small" city of about 150,000. We found it to be a weird, although charming, mix of a rough and tumble mining town and a picturesque Spanish colonial town. We enjoyed it so much that we ended up staying much longer than we anticipated. Potosi also claims to be one of the highest cities in the world. At 4060 meters (13,200 ft) we were practically on the summit of Mt. Rainer. It makes it a wee hard to breath at times, but you adjust fairly quickly.
While in Potosi we went on a tour of one of the mines. The mining history in Bolivia is rather dismal at best. In its "heyday" the Spanish used the indigenous people for what amounted to slave labor. They (the workers) would stay in the mines without seeing daylight for up to 4 months at a time, working 12 hour rotating shifts. They estimate that millions have died from working in the mines over the course of the past 400 + years. Most of the functioning mines today are run by mining cooperatives. Conditions are pretty much the same as they were 200 years ago. This is partly due to economics, but it is also a conscious choice by the workers themselves to not change....same age-old problem that improved technology often means less jobs. Thus many cooperatives spend little money in trying to improve the working conditions. They just introduced the electric wench in some of the mines about 8 years ago, if that gives you any idea of where they are technology wise. Our guide explained that about 50 men could take out 120 tons of ore in a week. Compare that to the open pit gold mine in Nevada where my brother used to work...they extracted 120 tons in two shovel fulls (about 5 minutes).
We were warned that the tour was not for the faint of heart. There were some pretty tight spots, but nothing that made us feel too claustrophobic. The fact that you were breathing asbestos and arsenic was of greater concern to us. In places the asbestos literally covered the walls of the tunnel. Most miners only make it 10 to 15 years before they die or "retire" from silicosis pneumonia. Above is a picture of of us sitting inside one of the shafts...the small hole to my left is what we had to crawl through to get to the next level. We also got to blow up some dynamite at the end of the tour and see one of the refining plants...even that felt like 19th century technology...with all the waste going directly into the "Rio Negro"...black river.
3 comments:
Remind me again, WHY were you down there??!!
Oh dear! mom
Got a gold mining boom of sorts going on here in the west again. With gold close to $1000/oz (troy), people are restaknig old claims & filing new ones. When we camped on the NF John Day we saw several new claims posted.
Are all the mines coop? I understand some lg British & American outfits are down there. ART
My mining history is somewhat sketchy, but is my understanding that the majority of mines in Bolivia are now owned by cooperatives...even the government has pulled out. In the 1950`s they nationalized a number of mines, but didn`t have much success and thus have turned them back to private hands and/or cooperatives. Amazingly enough, most of the mines in Bolivia have been owned by Bolivians throughout history (with the execption of the Spanish of course). But they (Bolivians) only own the mines. The vast majority of the refineries are owned by foreign companies (Candian, US, and European companies)...thus in many ways they (Bolivians) just provide the labor.
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