Rark Mussell Around the World: Underground Mines, and Salt Flats

Potosi - Silver Mines

This is definately an only in Bolivia story. Potosi, in the 1600s was one of the richest cities in the world, ahead of London, Paris, Auckland et al. Its riches were founded on the huge silver deposits mined from Cerro de Potosí, the mountain made of silver that dominates the city landscape. The mountain has been mined for over 450 years, naturally meaning the vast wealth of minerals contained in the seams have largely dried up. Howerver, this doesn´t stop over 5000 people a day working the mines to ´make a living´.

Making a living in the mines

The phrase, make a living, is rather ironic when talking about the mines, because I doubt you would find worse working conditions anywhere in the world. The average life expectancy for a miner is about 15 years after entering the mines. The biggest cause of death is silicosis of the lungs, from breathing in silica, asbestos, and arsenic dust from the unventilated mines. Although technically illegal, you also see miners as young as 12 years old working in the mines. Since the mines were opened in the 1500s, it is estimated that somewhere between 3 and 7 million people have lost their lives working the mines. Why do people work in these conditions? In most cases necessity. By working in the mines, and basically sacrificing their lives, the miners can earn $6 to $8 usd per day, about double the normal wage of a non miner in potosi. For a father with 8 kids, and no other skills, it would be impossible otherwise to support his family.

A fortunate worker, having a job in the processing plant, crushing the ore

Why would you visit such a place, and go down into the mines? Its a hard question, many people we bumped into avoided the place, as they didn´t want to have anything to do with the mines, while other people cited it as a highlight of their trip. But a place like this, you really have to see it to understand, and make your own mind up. The miners also enjoy a bit of company during their work, as during their 10 hour shifts they do not come up for any breaks, often work alone, can not eat any food (as it is far to dusty), and survive on chewing cocoa leaves, and drinking soft drinks. We bought large supplies of both, along with several sticks of dynamite to donate to the miners that we visited (yes, in Potosi you can literally buy dynamite from any street vendor).

His job, to hammer in a steel rod 20 inches into solid rock. This will take 6 hours straight, before he will place a stick of dynamite in the hole, scamper 25m around the corner and wait for the explosion.

It wasn´t all cramped, dusty, hot, noisy and scary though. Once we were out of the mines our guide, Effe, the master of disaster who loved to blow things up, produced three of dynamite ´bombs´ to show us. These were dynamite stiks crushed up and surrounded by potassium nitrate to give the explosion an extra kick. They also had one and a half minute fuses on them. He then lit all three and one by one threw them to members of our group. You can see why this is an only in Bolivia story. We were standing there, 50m from the mine enterance, running around, dumbfounded expressions on our faces, holding lit sticks of dynamite. After 30 odd seconds, Effe took all three from us, ran a hundred paces down the road, chucked the bombs down into a pit, and ran back to join us just as the three blasts went off. They were loud.

Overall, it is very hard to pidgeon hole the miners and their lifestyle or to sum it all up in a few words. The miners are very proud people, who are not looking for pity. They are tough but personable and fiercely loyal. Their working conditions are atrocious at best. Though it will probably be a blessing in disguise when in the near future the mines become uneconomic to mine.

Salt Flats

From the ridiculous to the sublime. If I had to single out one highlight so far of the trip, the salt flats of Bolivia would have to be pretty much near the top. Filled with landscapes that make you question your own eyesight (as you can scarcely believe you are seeing), the salt flats are like being in another world entirely. Covering an area of over 10,000 square kilometers, the salt flats are so flat, that the flatness of the salt varies by less than 1m over the entire surface area. This makes for an excellent callibration tool for satalites orbiting the earth, but also makes for some sweet photos.

Piles of Salt, Salt Flats

Salt Flat Midgets; Invasive

Even the 8 hour bus ride to the salt flats treated us to some pretty spectacular scenery.

Scenery

We were actually pretty lucky to get onto the salt flats, as for some reason or other, there always seems to be constant protests, strikes, hijakings or the like around the area. One of the funnier strikes that we just missed was a bus drivers strike, who were striking because they had just been banned from drinking alcohol while driving. Seriously. A mate from NZ who was there three days before us was also hijacked. We managed to get through largely unscathed though, although there was one oh oh moment just as we entered the salt flats, as our jeep was suddenly surrounded by 5 baloclava clad bikers, riding pretty mean black sports motorcycles. Turns out they were just tourists, but it didn´t stop me from checking my pants after they drove off. Before we hit the salt flats we took a quick look around the ´train museum´. Not so much a museum, but simply where a whole pile of trains were abandoned, after the trains servicing the Potosi silver mines were no longer economical to run.

Abandoned Trains

Even when you thought the salt flats couldn´t deliver much more they did. On our first night on the flats, our guide told us there was a museum that had an old mummy in it if we were interested in checking it out. It didn´t sound too exciting, so decided to flag it, and instead head for the hills to check out the sunset. Turns out the museum was an open air one on the hills where I was heading, and there wasn´t so much a mummy there, but 20 odd 2000 year old human skeletons lying where they perished in makeshift caves dotted around the hillside. Apparently they had been only discovered about 10 years ago, and instead of locking them away in a museum, you could walk around and practically touch them if you wanted, all for an enterance fee of $2. One of the craziest sunsets I have experienced.

2000 year old skeleton at sunset.

Sunset at sunset.

After reflecting on an awesome day, the next day did its best to top what we had just seen. At 4,000m altitude we were treated to spectacular turquoise alpine lagoons, surrounded by crystal white salt deposits, orange soil, golden tussock, pink flamingoes, deep blue sky, and all overseen by the 6,000m volcanoes towering above us. The picture at the beginning of this blog is one of my favourites, but I couldn´t narrow it down to just one, so have chucked in a few of my other favourites below.

Lone flamingo

Another ´I´m just going for a walk to watch the sunset´ moment. While listening to the Veils on my ipod at the same time, I was pretty happy

What else can you say.

We couldn´t have a perfect run through the salt flats though. The last day, our transport woes struck again. Our 4 wheel drive, that happened to only run on two wheels got stuck in the soft sand at 5.00am while we were on the way to visit some guysers for sunrise. We had to get out and dig. With the outside temperature at -2degrees, and with about 30knotts of wind to contend with, cold is an understatement. We got to the guysers just after sunrise, but with being so freezing, we spent a combined total of 2minutes outside the car before jumping back in and heading for the hot pools a further hour down the road. They were a welcome relief and am pretty sure is the only reason why I still have all of my toes left.

One of about 3 pictures I managed to take of the guysers before my fingers froze solid.

Back to Chile

The salt flats finished with a bus ride into San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. It was a nice little spot to hang round in for a couple of days. As I have gone on for long enough already, I will finish with a couple of snaps from San Pedro where we hired a couple of mountain bikes and took to the surrounding countryside with relative degrees of success.

Danielle, our Australian travel mate for a week or so; rides successfully

Myself; not so successful. Click on the photo to enlarge

Finally, to all those who commented that I should look at shaving my beard after the last blog, I can announce (although with sincere regret) that I did get a beard trim following the comments. But good news is that it was only a trim, and that it is now growing back to its lushfull bushy self. The Bolivians love it though, and everywhere I go, they seem to paint the walls with my initials.