My wife, Lori, and I ended up in Potosí during the last part of our Bolivian vacation. After considering various activities around the city, we selected the “mine tour” option. The city is over 200 miles south of La Paz, the capital city. At 13,400 feet of elevation, it’s one of the world’s highest cities. And as we found out, it’s dominated by a large mountain called Cerro Rico, which has been mined for silver regularly since Spanish rule.
We arrived knowing little about the city. We were on a side trip from La Paz and were more interested in visiting the nearby city of Sucre, the country’s colonial capital and educational center. Potosi’, or Potosi for short, was conveniently situated on the train/bus loop we took, so we opted to spend a couple of days there en route. Since most things in the immediate area seemed to revolve around the mine, choosing to delve deeper into that local industry made perfect sense.
While out on the town the evening before the day in question, a nice young local man somehow picked us out of the crowd. He offered to take us up and into the mountain (Cerro Rico), where we would be able to experience things on the inside from his unique and personal miner’s perspective. We probably didn’t assess the risks adequately before making the deal. But we felt good about him and were confident of his intentions. And we liked the idea that he’d pick us up in his car the following morning at 8:00 and get us back to the hotel by 5:00. If all else failed, we felt like it would at least make for an enjoyable and educational experience. So, we hired him to be our guide for the day.
As scheduled, we were standing outside our hotel the following morning when Juan- the man/guide in question- showed up. As Lori and I got into his old minivan, we greeted each other. He soon explained that we’d be making a few stops in town for supplies, then be up to the mine and headed inside by mid-morning.
He spoke no English, but I spoke a little Spanish. And so, I translated for Lori as he drove and talked. He wasted little time with small talk and immediately explained how the mine dominated the area and had done so for generations. He said that currently, the mountain was owned and controlled by three different entities. First, a prominent commercial company held the top third and was doing surface mining up there. He knew little about that operation other than that the company was based in the U.S. Then, there was a large section in the middle of the mountain, run by the state government, where miners wore uniforms. In addition to their orange uniforms/coveralls, miners received weekly paychecks and a pension once they grew too old or sick to continue mining.
Finally, there was the bottom of the mountain, where we were going. The men working in that part were essentially working for themselves and hoped to strike it rich, but they only made money by what they took from the mine. It was run as a local co-op and was known as the “Collectivo.” Most people working in the co-op mine spent their days engaged in the tedium of earning enough money to care for the people who depended on them. Some days, each Collectivo miner made only pennies, but there were times when it was more, and always, there were hopes of hitting the big one. He told the story, which I kept swearing I’d heard before, about Guillermo Maranche. Some years earlier, he related, Guillermo had found a massive nugget of an unknown precious metal. And he was now living the life of royalty, driving a Suburban and living in La Paz. After pondering the tale, I realized I was probably confusing it with one from the California Gold Rush (without the Suburban or La Paz factoids).
Nonetheless, in the co-op part of the mine, no entity paid for any mining-related expenses, and there was undoubtedly no long-term plan, safety net, or fallback position for old age or for dealing with the possibility of Silicosis. Or, at least, I should say, there wasn’t a workable hierarchy in place that effectively addressed such things. To that end, Juan told us that whatever we could do to lower any miner’s costs or help them work more efficiently would be appreciated. So, we agreed to do our part by providing the miners with the necessary mining supplies in exchange for the opportunity to see the operation up close.
We drove only a few blocks from our hotel before our guide pulled the minivan over to the curb in front of a small store. Juan said he’d be right back as he hopped out and headed in through the front door. Then, almost simultaneously, he popped right back out with a plastic bag full of something.
“Coca,” he said as he got back into driving position and cranked up the car. “The miners can work faster and longer if they chew Coca leaves,” he said.
Coca tea and Coca leaves are widely and legally available all over Bolivia. I’d had plenty of the tea and had put a few leaves in my mouth in the past. But I’d never really experienced any unusual feelings or urges, such as laboring harder, so I wasn’t sure what the hype was about.
But then, he reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a small clump of something else, and said, “goma” (gum). I immediately realized it was the secret ingredient in the process, and I’d never even heard of it before.
He explained that a person puts a wad of leaves into their mouth along with a small piece of activator or gum, then chews on it, which causes it to do its thing. He continued his explanation, saying that the Spaniards encouraged local miners to chew coca while working in the old days. That was because it acted as an appetite suppressant (so the bosses didn’t have to worry about providing lunch) and, at the same time, made the laborers work harder and faster. In the Spanish mine owner’s view, it made the workers more productive and reduced costs. And now, that tradition continues in the Collectivo part of the mine (and probably elsewhere) as each person does whatever they can to get more work and production out of their day.
We made a few turns on various streets, and I noted we were still headed toward the mountain, which loomed large directly in the distant front. We finally seemed to be making good progress toward the mountain when Juan decelerated, whipped over to the curb, and stopped again. He got out and walked over to a young woman at a sidewalk booth who was selling sticks of something that came out of wooden boxes. I watched as he picked out six of whatever they were and handed her some Bolivianos. She sacked them up, gave him the bag, and he walked back to the car, got in, and we drove away.
Once settled into the driver’s seat, he turned and set the mystery bag on the back floorboard next to Lori. And then casually said, “Dynamite, we use a lot of it up there.”
I probably should’ve been concerned about having it in the car. But I realized I didn’t know much about the explosive’s stability, and driving around with it in his car seemed to be something he did all the time. So, I said and did nothing except remark about the cost of wine in the stores. But then, for some reason, as we drove on toward the mountain, the whole idea of car safety inspections came to mind, and I began wondering about the one for his car.
I was careful not to distract him while he drove on through the outskirts of the city. Once out of town, we went up a dirt road onto the mountain’s lower slopes. He stopped in the middle of a big, rustic parking lot where most of the paths appeared to lead to the same black hole of a mine entrance. He parked next to an old, banged-up Chevy pickup. Lori and I grabbed our daypacks as we got out, he loaded the Coca and dynamite into an old grocery bag, and the three of us walked toward the hole.
He stopped about 20 or 30 feet outside the entrance and said he wanted to show us something. We’d become a bit overwhelmed by all we saw by that point. There was already a lot going on that defied any reasonable explanation our Central Texas/Colorado minds could conjure up.
As we prepared for whatever he was planning to show us, he mentioned that a few others would be joining. And within only minutes, two apparent American men got out of a car down below and began walking our way.
“There,” he motioned. “There, they are.”
While Juan and I watched them walk toward us, Lori began exploring the nearby dirt and rock piles that appeared to be mine tailings. The whole landscape had an almost eerie lunar quality. Then, suddenly, I saw Lori walk out onto an undercut ledge. Juan saw it almost simultaneously, and we both yelled, stopping her dead in her tracks and sending her into a fast retreat. At that point, Lori and I realized the area wasn’t a good place for wandering or exploring. It was just as well that none of us tourists recognized that the landscape surrounding the entrance was part of an enormous sinkhole. At that point, we didn’t need any more concerns. Especially considering that we hadn’t even gone inside the mine yet.
Then, Juan returned to what he wanted to show us and performed a dynamite explosion demonstration in the middle of the sinkhole surface. After the dust settled and our adrenaline calmed, it finally became time to enter the innards of the mountain. Even considering all that had already happened, we were still amazingly full of excitement and wonder about what else the tour guide had in store.
After a short discussion about lama sacrifices and the blood painted on the rock above the entrance, we headed in. The mine opening quickly squeezed into a shaft about four feet wide and less than six feet tall. Obviously, it was built for the local indigenous miners, who are typically relatively short. Still, we made it work by moving in a perpetually bent-over position. A timber framework, likely installed during the Spanish era, somehow supported the tunnel. Though old, most of the hand-hewn beams looked solid enough, although they caused me to speculate about cave-ins as I calculated how long they’d been there. And related to that, I started wondering what wood rot looked like from the inside. Another of the men in our group was on the large side. As he traveled through the shaft in front of us, he kept coming very close to banging into the beams. And that only added to my growing concerns about stability, as I began to wonder about things like redundancy.
Thankfully, each of us was wearing a helmet with a light. The light helped significantly as we entered a big “room” where we had to step across a giant, seemingly bottomless dark chasm. Jackhammers worked close by. Once above the pile of rock debris they created, we came to an opening into a smaller room. Nearby, two men banged away at the solid rock with an antique-looking air hammer. We stopped, watched them work, and they gave us a few insights into their day’s toils. Then, Juan gave them an offering of Coca leaves and a couple of sticks of dynamite, and we moved on, each of us shaking our heads in agreement about something unknown.
After crossing over another hole, this second one a bit less tricky, we came into an even larger room with shafts that headed off in various directions. The ceiling was perhaps 30 feet tall, and we heard muted machine sounds and voices coming in from what seemed to be all directions. The temperature was cool, and it was especially humid, making the air feel even chillier than it was. Miners moved in and out, back and forth, and paid us little heed as they intently focused on their mining tasks.
We walked across the room, and just as we came to a “rustic” mine ladder, which I realized we were going to ascend, we passed a man lighting a candle and a cigarette. And for some reason, I noticed he was wearing a bright purple nylon heavy coat. We climbed the ladder, as anticipated, and upon reaching the top, stepped into yet another shaft and then entered a side room. When we were all in the room, Juan directed us to find a spot, sit, and get comfortable. He told us that anywhere on the far side of the El Tío idol (made from local clay/dirt) would be okay.
Once we were all situated, our guide explained that we were now in the world of El Tío, where certain things were done to appease him. To that end, he poured grain alcohol on the statue’s head and stuck cigarettes in its mouth. Then, as he lit them, he explained that the miners set off their dynamite charges each day at noon, a convenient time for them to eat lunch and change out their Coca-wads. Just as he was beginning to expand his thought, a pronounced smell of burning plastic and some distant yelling infiltrated our space. He immediately stood up and just ran out of the room. Significantly, he’d picked up an assistant along the way. That young man did, at least, stay with us, but had no answers as to what was going on. Then, after a few silent moments, Juan reappeared. He begged our pardon in Spanish, but quickly began speaking to the other man in Quechua, or some language I didn’t understand.
I wanted to translate something, but had nothing to offer. But then, Juan uttered some straightforward Spanish. It was a word I understood, “Vamanos,” he commanded.
Both guides motioned us to the door and told us to move quickly. Still not exactly sure what was going on, we began to follow Juan as he quickly backtracked his way toward the entrance. The smell and confusion seemed to grow by the minute. Near the bottom of the ladder, the purple coat sat on the ground in flames. Thankfully, the miner was not attached. Our two other group members were trying to keep their hysteria in check as we crossed the bottomless hole and picked our way down through the boulders. But they began screaming when the dynamite explosions started going off behind us.
I wondered if it was lunchtime, but I didn’t have time to check my watch, as Juan kept urging us to hurry. We crossed the second hole faster than we had on the way in. We managed to enter the homestretch ahead of the dust cloud that was suddenly racing us to the exit. Our cohorts continued screaming and babbling. Once back outside and into the daylight, the two began to breathe more normally. They were soon walking down to the parking area to their waiting shuttle. We all had little to say to each other besides goodbye. I could tell they were ready to return to their hotel, so I just left it at that.
Juan didn’t talk about whatever it was that happened in the mine while driving us back to the hotel. But he did invite us to a lama feast and sacrifice that some friends were having later that day. He had a plan– we could go back to the hotel, clean up, and he would pick us up at 6:00 and get us back by 9:00 pm. We thanked him but declined. Part of me was curious to know what lama meat tasted like, but another just needed some time to absorb the current set of events.
The Bolivian mine excursion “brought home” a fundamental lesson. Sure, during those few days in Potosí, I learned and experienced a lot of quasi-useful things, such as how the coca-chewing process works, what dynamite sounds like when it explodes, and how to appease El Tío. But the real-life lesson I learned is just how vast and complex the world is. I recognized that nature and everything in it were simply beyond my comprehension. I realized I would never get a handle on what was happening in every part of the world at any given moment. Shoot, I’d never even thought about any mine before, much less Cerro Rico! Initially, the realization made me feel small, as if I were just an insignificant piece of a big, complicated puzzle. “Better to just enjoy my moments and not worry about affecting what I considered positive change,” I concluded.
I absorbed the situation during our return to La Paz. As we drove, I looked out the bus window and saw families, villages, mountain ranges, rocks, farms, rivers, lamas, dust, trails– a whole wide world of infinite possibilities. The expanse and scope of it all were no longer overwhelming. In fact, it was comforting, and with my new outlook, I excitedly looked forward to the long list of opportunities that awaited.
