From mines to mints

Truck full of miners going to work
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We travelled by bus from Uyuni to "UNESCO World Heritage" Potosi, arriving some time in the afternoon. Having checked into our hotel & freshened up we headed off to explore the city. At an altitude of around 4000 metres, Potosi is the highest city (of its size!) in the world. The foundation of the city was prompted by the discovery of ore in the silver-rich mountain known as Cerro Rico ("Rich Mountain") - beneath which the city now lies. The mountain's minerals were exploited by the Spanish for three centuries, during which time thousands of Bolivians and Africans were forced to work the mines for months at a time - extracting silver they never saw again.

Miners working at the co-operative we visited
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We spent much of our first afternoon in Potosi just chilling out - drinking coffee, eating cake & shopping. In the evening we went out for dinner to a restaurant/bar whose walls are covered in graffiti belonging to various travellers & locals alike. The guys from my last tour had emailed me to tell me that they'd left a message for me in the bar. Cool! Or so I thought... As we walked into the bar I could see one room covered from ceiling to floor in graffiti. Even the tables & chairs had been attacked. Anyway, some of us set to task to seek out my message. Not sure if we were successful or not as the only scrawl I could see that was vaguely related to me (& evidently written after much alcohol consumption) said something along the lines of "Sam Sammy Sam Sam Sama Samm Sam Sammie" or some such nonsense like that! Well, bless whoever wrote that for trying, anyway :o)

Outside one of the entrances into Cerro Rico
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After dinner, Nel & I went on an exploration of Potosi night life. Failing to find any, we went off in search of coffee & cake instead! We found a great cafe/bar (called 4060 or something like that) & had yummy cake :o)  (I'm going to end up looking like a cheesecake if I'm not careful!).

The following morning we set off on a mine tour. As most of the silver is gone now, the miners are extracting zinc, tin & lead. There are a number of large co-operatives that work the mines at the same time, & we were off to visit just one of these. En route to the mountain we stopped off to get kitted out in gorgeous overalls & hats with torches, then at a 'shop' to buy some gifts for the miners. These included savoury biscuits, cigarettes, cocoa leaves & dynamite.

Wheeling mined rocks outside
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Our guide told us that most miners only live for 10 more years after commencing working in the mines. Mind you, considering they spend all day smoking, chewing on cocoa leaves & drinking 96% proof alcohol, this isn't really all that surprising! We got to try a bit of the alcohol &, especially considering it was early in the morning, it was a bit of a shock to the system. Jokes aside, mining here is hard and dangerous. The miners are exposed to cave-ins, explosions-a-plenty, carbon monoxide and naturally-occurring asbestos. They work up to 12-hour shifts - sometimes without food or sunlight. So, why so popular? Because there is more money to be made mining than doing a 'safer' job e.g. teaching or driving.

One of our 'gifts' for the miners - a bag full of cocoa leaves
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And so, we followed our guide into the mountainside, through a small 'doorway' which we'd already seen a number of miners using - to transport mined rocks from inside of the mountain to piles outside using wheelbarrows. The tunnels inside the mountain aren't much bigger than a wheelbarrow's width in most places & it was down these we had to venture in order to check out the goings on inside the mine. We met a number of miners & handed over our gifts, & got to witness the transport of rocks from level to level via a very basic winch system, as well as other equally crude techniques - most notably the VERY haphazard blasting of rock faces. Since a number of different co-operatives work inside the mine at the same time (each one on a different level), as we were wandering around we could feel the ground shaking as a result of explosions going on above us, below us & beside us!

Winching up baskets full of rock from level below
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Part way through our visit we entered a kind of 'cave' in which we saw a mining god (devil), covered in streamers & with a cigarette in his mouth. Something or other to do with the protection of the miners as they work. A very valuable & much-needed god indeed! This was where the dynamite was also prepared for our very own rock blast :o)  Sadly I didn't actually get to personally blow up any of the internal walls, but Nel assisted our guide in doing so... one stick of dynamite was hammered into the rock face round the corner from the cave & then lit, & then we just sat & waited. It was only because our guide covered her ears up that we figured it was going to be quite a loud bang & so we followed suit. Thank God! It was a very impressive explosion that would have, quite literally, been deafening had we not have covered our ears. Really cool, though :o) & pretty much the end of our mine tour.

Mining God (devil)
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Having got cleaned up back at the hotel we headed into town for the afternoon - planning on taking a tour of the mint - la Casa Real de la Moneda - which Fredy (our tour guide) had recommended to us. The old mint was used for 200 years to make silver coins to be shipped over to Spain. Unfortunately, it was closed for lunch at the time we arrived, so we went off to have some lunch instead! More coffee & cake - yummy :o)  (I'm going to end up looking like a cheesecake if I'm not careful!!!). After lunch & a bit of a potter around the centre - few back streets & churches etc. - we headed back to the mint to join what turned out to be the most dull tour of our entire lives...

Preparing our dynamite stick
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The whole first hour was taken up perusing religious paintings (which has what to do with coin minting, exactly?!). It was also freezing cold. Brrrrrrrrrr. Phil & Mon tried to escape half way through but were blocked by one of the museum guards (ha ha ha!), & then Nel & I tried to make a break for it right near the end - to go & buy a coin to manually mint - & were also ticked off by the Mint lady - the naughty so & sos that we are!

We did learn that they used to mint coins using mules to "power" the silver-thinning machines which produced sheets of silver from which coins were cut using scissors, before being stamped. Well I never!! Finally the tour came to an end & we got to mint our coin (not worth the 3-hour wait!), & then it was a race back to the hotel to find Fredy & torture him for sending us to the dullest museum on earth! We did eventually ask him why he'd recommended the mint & he said he'd heard it was a good place to go. So we asked if he'd ever actually been himself. The reply "god no, & I don't think I'll be going now"!!!

Holding the prepped stick of dynamite
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That evening we went out for a really lovely dinner, to the cafe that Nel & I had found whilst wandering the streets the previous evening. Mexican. Yummy.