I´m well again!

Phew! Feel like I´ve been sick more than I´ve been well on this trip! OK, not actually, but it´s not fun. But I found some probiotics that have acidophilus (or however you spell it) as well as a bunch of others and it was like a magic potion! And the last few days I´ve even been feeling hungry!

OK enuf boring info about my health. What have we been up to since our last blog? Sadly Kate has left us, but she hasn´t left South America yet. I think she´ll either be trekking to get to Machu Pichu (on a different trail to ours) or she´ll be in the jungle being eaten by mosquitos. Jordan and I have been travelling together again for a bit, but tonight we parted ways again for the next few days – she wants to do more walking and I most certainly do not! So she´s on a bus to La Paz and I´m here in an internet cafe at 9.30pm and I have to wait until 5 minutes past midnight to catch my train to Oruro. So plenty of time for tapping away I´m even being optimistic and trying to upload some pictures to add to this.  See how we go.

So, first things first. We travelled from Sucre to Potosí which is an old mining town. In Spanish times it was a booming town in more ways than one. The Spaniards mined Cerro Rico – Rich Mountain – until it was no longer profitable. Apparently 45,000 tons of silver were extracted between 1556 and 1783. Dynamite was used to extract the silver, and the indigenous people were used as the miners. There were many accidents and many deaths during this time but from what I understand this was not seen as a problem – there were always more men to work the mines, and African slaves were brought in once the indigenous population diminished.  Many of the deaths were apparently from mercury poisoning as the workers mixed the silver ore and the mercury with their feet.

Miners do it tough

The main cause of death now is silicosis from the dust in their lungs and miners rarely live past 40. There are children as young as 10 working in the mines now, mostly because their fathers have died and they now need to support the family. The miners do it tough, hauling trolley loads of rock and minerals by hand on old wooden tracks that badly need repair. Makes the work even tougher as the trolleys constantly come off the rails.

Cool minerals

The mines are still working but at a much smaller scale, owned by cooperatives of miners now, where they make their money only from the profitable veins they find.  There are a number of minerals that are currently being mined by groups of 2 to 10 men, including tin and zinc. I can´t remember the name of this mineral but I really liked the look of it. Each group or cooperative has their own area of the mountain that they mine, at many different levels where it gets hotter as you get lower. Air is pumped in via big pipes with valves at intervals, as is water to be used when drilling. Most work is done by hand including the dangerous work of making and setting the dynamite. Some miners use drilling machinery, but mostly it´s done by hand as this keeps more miners employed.

El Tio (uncle)

This is El Tio, or Uncle.  Each mine has one of these.  He protects the miners and assists in finding profitable minerals. He does have horns like the devil (or diablo) but he is _never_ called diablo. He has a large penis, where the green is, to assist in the fertility of the mine. On the last Friday of every month each miner comes here, near the entrance to the mine, to give offerings to Tio for continued protection.  Two cigarettes are placed, lit, in his mouth, coca leaves are spread over his head, on his lap and at his feet. Alcohol (¨Bolivian rum¨ at 96% proof!) is also sprinkled around el Tio. I believe that at the time of Carnival in February he is also decorated with the coloured streamers you can see. Once a year an offering of a llama´s blood is also made, and this blood is splattered at the entrance to the mine and around the wall behind el Tio. The llama is then cooked and shared by the miners and their families.

Protector to keep el Tio in the mine

This is another protector in the mines. I can´t remember the name of it – it was not as easy to remember as el Tio. The main purpose of this shrine is to keep el Tio inside the mine. I think it´s connected to the church because once a year it is taken outside, I think at Carnival, because this is the time that the devils create havoc in our world, the world above the mines. Similar offerings are made here.

It´s tough, hot, dangerous work in the mines, but this is the way many families make their livelihoods. A new way of making money by ex-miners is taking tour groups inside the mines, explaining the processes and a bit of the history. Makes for a strange but memorable tourist activity.

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