All Mine
Going Underground in the World’s Highest City
Felix Hill, April 2007
After two weeks I decided to leave Sucre. It was a little less
interesting than I had hoped — the most European of Bolivian towns
wasn’t Bolivian enough to excite, I guess. The irritating Brummie
couple sharing my homestay didn’t help either. So much for immersion
in the language and culture.
The sad bit was that I had to leave the kids at the orphanage after
only a week. They seemed to look forward to me coming, and I hope I
was able to make a small difference. In the end though, as a witty
Dutch friend pointed out, the only difference I definitely made was
that I didn’t stay as long as the other volunteers.
Moving north, I passed briefly through the world´s highest city,
Potosi. Two hundred years ago, it was one of the richest in the world,
but the silver in the imposing peak that towers over the city has long
since run out. A huge co-operative mining operation remains, however,
because, at least for the next few years, there´s still rubble in
there worth something.
I took a tour of the mines with four other European guys, led by a
supposed former miner. We spent just three hours underground, but the
conditions were so disgusting that we emerged into the light
physically and mentally shot.
Most passages were only small enought to crawl on your stomach, which
disturbed large amounts of dust into the air and made it hard to
breathe. The dust contained asbestos, arsenic and other toxic
minerals, and the smell was ubearable. Together with the stifling heat
and altitude, it created a hellish atmosphere.
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We had bought gifts for the miners — large amounts of Coca leaves, as
well as dynamite and fizzy drinks. By the time we bumped into a group
shovelling rubble into a large container, most of the Coca was gone -
chewed by us in a desperate attempt to fight the effects of the
altitude. Some of the miners were drunk — celebrating the end of
another torturous week — while others were covered in sweat from the
shovelling and lifting. One told me that he had been working down
there for 10 years. He was 22 years old.
The miners are completely self-employed. If you fancy a spot of
digging, you just organise yourself into groups, buy some dynamite, a
helmet, a torch and a large breakfast and head underground. As a
group, you sell the rubble you collect to local companies, the price
depending on the quality of the rock. If you work hard, you can earn
around five pounds per (very long) day. Not bad for Bolivia.
Of the 15,000 miners in the hill, around 30 die from accidents each
year — hardly surprising since there´s no rules about where or when
you dig or blow up dinamite, little communication between the groups
and certainly no engineers. The survivors rarely live beyond 50,
poisoned by constant exposure to toxic fumes.
Hours are long: a group we met had started at 8.00 that morning and
were to work without a break until 7pm, when their wives would meet
them at the entrance of the mine with dinner prepared. After an hour
they were to start again and work through until the morning. Arguably,
Goldman Sachs has a healthier work-life balance, and the ceilings are
undoubtedly higher.
I was curious about the psychology behind this self-imposed
life-sentence (the mines, not Investment Banking). Asking around,
there seemed to be a feeling that miner is like a religion or race.
One very dusty worker told me that he knew how to light dynamite
before he could walk. His friend added that he was born in the mine
and would be happy to die there.
After a (possibly life-saving) shower, (longer than Steve´s average) I
jumped on a bus an headed to La Paz. From there I flew in a 12 seater
plane from the Bolivian capital at 4200m over some mountains and down
a very long way to Rurrenabaque, a small town in the tropical lowlands
at height 100m. We landed in what appeared to be someone´s garden. The
stifling heat and humidity was immediately obvious — a real contrast
from the fresh days and cold nights at altitude.
The purpose of all this was to do a three day tour of the nearby
pampus wetlands — reputedly a great opportunity to witness wildlife.
Essentially we took a boat a very long way up a river, slept in a
jungle lodge (sometimes in hammocs) and took the same boat on day
trips to try and find particular delights from the animal kingdom.
On the plus side, we saw (and fed, and sometimes touched) loads of
types of monkeys, alligators, capybaras (guinea pig meets hippo),
eagles, sloths, large ostrich-like flying bird things, other large
grey crawling things (mouse meets deer) and (despite the river looking
dirtier than the Oxford Canal) swam with pink river dolphins. We also
sank a few beers at the river-side bar (a naturally occuring natural
phenomenon dotted throughout the amazon) before floating down the
river at night, gazing at stunningly bright starts and listening to
the cacophony of frogs and monkeys lining the river bank.
On the down side, our most frequent animal companion was the mosquito
(they never advertise ´swimming with mosquitos´), closely followed by
humans, which could regularly be seen coming in the other direction in
a similar sort of boat to ours. Still, it was wild-enough for now, and
I´ll seek out a similar, less touristy excursion elsewhere
