The mines of Potosi

I grab a filthy wooden beam above me, hauling myself up through the thick dust and murky darkness. My head swims, the altitude makes it very hard to breathe and my shirt sticks to me with sweat. The spot from my headlamp dances over the rocks just centimeters from my face, the odd mineral deposit glints seductively. A sickening crack and a jar as I smash my head on some low hanging pyrite crystals, luckily my helmet takes most of the impact and saves me from concussion.


Emerging from the almost vertical shaft, Ronald my guide urges us quickly onwards. The tunnel is wider here but still not high enough to stand, my group and I slosh forwards, waddling awkwardly in a bent over gait. My wellies slosh through a couple of inches of murky water, slipping occasionally on one of the iron rails. A low rumbling echoes through the tunnel and Ronald becomes more agitated. "Quickly quickly to the next corner!" We squeeze into a hollow and I just barely make it before two wagons and an electric cart trundle past, a dirty miner clings to the back, complete with headlamp and golfball sized wadge of coca leaves in his cheek. According to Ronald the carts don't stop for tourists, so its imperative to get out of the way fast.

This is one of the Potosi silver mines, and if Hell was a real place, this would be it. Forty-five degree heat, thick silica dust and gruelling manual labour combine to ensure that very few of the workers live to over forty years. The health and safety officer here is on permanent vacation, miners shovel ore adjacent to clattering machinery and writhing winch cables. Caveins and runaway mine carts are not uncommon.

The Spanish discovered silver here and founded the city of Potosi in 1546, and it quickly became the richest (and at 4,090m one of the highest) in South America, supplying Europe with silver for hundreds of years, but at a cost. The Spanish forced local indigenous people into slavery to perform the horrific work of hauling the ore through tunnels out of the mountain. Over the centuries, eight million miners have died here from silicosis, overwork or accidents. And while the silver is long gone, thousands of local people still perform backbreaking labour in the dark and heat to extract what little zinc and tin they can from the dead mountain.

Along a dank shaft just barely high enough to crawl through is a small cave. Here works Milton, an eighteen year old whose father died in the mines. He has worked here since he was thirteen and knows no other life, without the aid of modern machinery he spends hours chiselling a hole in the rocks to insert dynamite, hoping to knock loose a few pieces of zinc ore. He explains in Quechua that with nine siblings, he has no choice but to work here to support his family. His salary? Less than 1000 bolivianos ($140) a month.

We continue onwards, and after we emerge from the mountain to brilliant skies and piercing clear air, I realise that I will never have occasion to complain about work again.