Potosi is the antithesis of Sucre. The major attraction is the old silver mine, Cerro Rico, where Bolivians still work in very dangerous conditions for pitiful wages.
Tortuga Travels: Week Five: Potosi, Bolivia
Potosi, Bolivia
It’s not every day that gunfire sends the proprietor of the internet cafe bounding across the room to slam the doors. But I can now say with assurance that it’s at least some days.
Such is life in Potosi, where Carrie and I have discovered a new flavor of protestor: the minero. Like the cocoleros in Cochabamba, the students in Sucre, the campesinos outside Potosi and the Movimiento Sin Tierra everywhere, the Potosi mineros want their voices heard… and will march through the streets firing guns to make it so.
Looming over Potosi’s horizon and history is Cerro Rico, the rich mountain, which brought silver, Spaniards and slaves to Bolivia. The mountain’s minerals were exploited by the Spanish crown for three centuries; thousands of Bolivians and Africans were forced to work the dangerous mines for months at a time extracting silver they would never see again.
Today mining continues, although most of the silver is gone. Large mining cooperatives extract zinc, tin and lead, often using the same hazardous and tedious methods as in colonial times. Carrie and I took a tour of the muddy, dark and very cold Candelaria mine, where all the work is manual: chipping into the rock, packing and setting off dynamite, shoveling tons of rubble into bags and carts, and carrying it to the surface. As Carrie observed, the people that support the world economy are not paid according to their labor.
Our 21 year old tour guide, Pedro, escorted our international group of seven through the mines where he worked for five years. It’s dangerous, he explained – if you survive the cave-ins, explosions and carbon monoxide pockets, lung silicosis from natural asbestos will inevitably take you down after about 10 years – but the salary is good: around 700 bolivianos ($100) a month. It’s easier to support the typical 8 to 10 children on this than on the 500 bolivianos that a teacher or driver earns.
We crawled, climbed and coughed our way though the winding caverns where 12 hour shifts without sunlight or sustenance are the norm.
“Where are the explosions?” asked the annoying Danish guy. “When can I come to see explosions?”
“You should come to my country,” replied the Israeli flatly. “Denmark must be boring.”
Potosi is the antithesis of Sucre. Everywhere are piles of debris, buildings crumble, the city is covered with a layer of brown dust. Each morning crowds of weary workers fill the sidewalks waiting for the vans to the mines. In a bizarre daily rhythm these masses are suddenly replaced at noontime by a flood of schoolchildren wearing bright white smocks, heading home for siesta.
There is a market here, but it’s of the assorted-meats-on-hooks variety, and there is a pedestrian mall, but it’s of the rob-the-tourists variety. As we walked there one afternoon, Carrie was twice assaulted with ice cream condiments in a tragically transparent attempt to slow us down and slice our bags. We escaped with bags intact, but Carrie looked a little more like a hot fudge sundae than I’m used to.
The big tourist attraction in Potosi besides the mine tour is Casa Real de la Moneda, the old mint, where for 200 years silver coins were made to be shipped to Spain. These days Bolivia pays Spain to make its coins, so the mint has been turned into an impressive museum that can only be entered as part of a three hour tour. There are fine collections of everything from coin making equipment to modern painting to antique furniture, but the tour visits only an arbitrary set of rooms on any given day. The others remain locked.
Potosi doesn’t have the nightlife of Sucre either – which we learned on our outing with Pedro the mine guide and his cousin, Pedro. Over a pitcher of Cuba Libre in an empty disco, the Pedros talked about their work and their plans. Both had recently finished army service – a mandatory five months for every Bolivian man – when they were required to cut down coca fields in the north. They didn’t agree with the coca destruction, so they left the roots intact against orders. Although the farmers knew that the soldiers were following the orders of required service, they often reacted violently – two of the Pedros friends were shot.
Both Pedros prefer their current work as guides to the army and the mines. They especially like the Japanese tourists, Pedro #1 explained, because “You say the tour costs 70 and they give you $70 US.”
“We still could get sick though, because we’re in the mines,” said Pedro #2, “but there aren’t any other options.” When we asked if their children would work in the mines, both immediately said no.
This was a little heavy for the increasingly inebriated Pedros, so we spent the rest of the night dancing. In two lines of two.
The minero roadblock trapped us in Potosi and scrapped our plans for hiking in Tupiza (where another unrelated roadblock was also in effect) so Sarrie and I undertook a pre-schoolesque schedule of art time, music time, nap time and snack time.
“Hay buses?” we would ask hopefully each time we passed the travel agent.
“Nada,” came the gruff reply. The hostels unchanging collection of stranded tourists milled around aimlessly.
Finally on Friday we awoke to the sounds of packing. People seemed to be on the move. We hurried to assemble our bags and rushed to the bus station… you never know how long the travel window will stay open. A full bus delivered us to Uyuni where I set up my jeep tour of the Salar, Bolivia’s version of the outback.
It had been a long day of bus station crowds, assorted waiting and unpaved roads. But, as Carrie and I now yell at each other whenever a little Bolivian inconvenience causes the beginning of a complaint: at least you don’t work in the mines…