Pretty Potosí

Last Friday, I arrived in a quiet but pleasant town called Potosí. Wasn´t planning to stay long, but this mine tour I wanted to do wasn´t running till Monday, so I found myself in the well-rehearsed position of having nothing to do in a small town for a weekend. I ate well, did a lot of walking, saw the longest market street in the universe and checked out some local pubs. Definitely not a bad town to look at.

The entry to my hotelThe church at the end of my blockSome neighborhood boys playing in an alleyMe in my lonely room

Needless to say, after a few days of relaxing I was ready for a little excitement. In Potosí, mining is still a large part of their economy, with about 15,000 people still working the mines in the surrounding mountains. They´ve been at it since the 1500´s and at the current moment are enjoying some of the highest mineral prices in a long time. The specific mine we visited was in the mountain Cerro Ricco, which means something like Super Valuable Hill, according to this guy sitting next to me. Preparation included suiting up in a very worn-in mine-suit, visiting one of the refinery plants, and also picking up some goods at the Miner´s Market.

The refinery plant

Cerro Ricco, or as I like to call it - Bling Mountain!

We got coca leaves and soda for the miners, tried some of the traditional mining drink - 192 proof throat skinner - and picked up some dynamite for later. Our guide gave us a little background info, including the fact that the whole mountain was supposedly four years overdue for a massive collapse. Delightful! With that breath of confidence, we were ready to walk into some narrow dusty tunnels.

Multiple groups waiting to enter

Right off the bat, about 100 meters in, a couple of miners were riding a full cart (cart? what do you call those things?) of gravel out and derailed right in front of me, nearly losing their load and taking the bottom half of my body with it.

Straight outta Donkey Kong

Our group was comprised of all guys; young, eager, and perhaps a bit foolhardy, so our guide said we could have extra fun. His idea of fun was sending us on "challenges" where he´d give us directions and we´d have to crawl thru tiny spaces, climb wooden barriers and slide down mine chutes to meet him in another hot, cramped and dusty hole in the ground. We did all this, met some miners at work, and discussed the lack of oxygen - all taking about two hours. With our mouths sufficiently coated with dirt and various minerals and our shirts soaked through with sweat, we emerged from our personal hell into the bright cool outside. It was actually quite interesting, and I´ll admit a bit fun, to see how these people work and I now have a much greater appreciation of the everyday toil of miners around the world.

Me, England, and Ireland

At last, the grand finale - DYNO-MIIITE!!! We took out the dynamite we bought at the market, unraveled it (who knew dynamite was a green playdoh-like substance?), and prepared them in balls with their fuses, wrapped em paper, surrounded them with calcium somethinerother to make the explosion bigger, and wrapped it all again in a plastic bag. With short notice, the guide lit one guy´s fuse, and he used his fuse to one by one light all of ours, Fourth of July sparkle stick-style. We now had three minutes.

With the fuse lit

The guides took all the lit bundles and ran off into the hills screaming "BOMBA!!". They laid all of them out at a safe distance and ran back to the group. Everyone waited anxiously, and just as someone started to say, "Well where the heck -"

BOOM!!!!!!!!!

It wasn´t so visually spectacular as it was aural. The booms made it feel like, just for a second, your whole body was flattened in space before you bounced back to full form. We waited out seven of these massive charges and happily piled into the van to go back the Potosí. I absent-mindedly rubbed my eyes and felt the sweet burn of nitroglycerin as we returned. Coooool duuude