Traces of silver

Holding live dynamite while strangers laugh, clap and take pictures of me was never on my bucket list. Nor was passing along explosives to five British university students.

The scramble to hold the dynamite was like an episode of musical chairs, only with more caution. And yet we all felt giddy. No, we were not planning to blow up ourselves - or anyone else. We - the students and I - were part of a group touring the silver mines of Potosi, a city in southeast Bolivia, the poorest country in South America.

Potosi is a city of superlatives. The city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, sits at more than 4,000 meters above sea level, making it the most elevated city in the world. Several hundred years ago, during the Spanish reign, it was also one of the richest cities in the world - purportedly richer than London and Paris, even.

The pretty and clean Potosi town square is a sharp contrast to the dirty, claustrophobic mines.

Testimony to these riches was the lush plaza at the historic center with its magnificent cathedral. This wealth was all thanks to an enormous deposit of silver from the nearby Cerro Rico Mountain, so enormous that for 300 years it bankrolled the Spanish Empire.

And its history is one of the saddest in the world today.

The Spanish established the city after silver was discovered in 1545. Slaves from Africa and local indigenous people were drafted to extract tons of silver from the mines. Made to work for hours on end in the extremely harsh conditions of the mines without sufficient breaks or food, the slaves revolted and refused to work.

So the wily conquistadores, very much aware of the slaves' belief in gods, invented a god in the shape of a man with horns, not unlike the devil in Western folklore. They told the slaves that this god - the god of mines - would get mad if they stopped working in the mines. The plan worked. The slaves went back to work. Because they spoke the indigenous language of Quechua, the slaves couldn't pronounce the Spanish word dios (God) because the letter "T" doesn't exist in the Quechua alphabet. So they called this god Tio.

Tio still exists in the mines of Cerro Rico today. The god of the mines sits in the depth of the mountain, where miners place offerings of cigarettes, 96 percent alcohol and coca leaves on its lap. Miners also slaughter a llama every now and then to appease Tio, spreading the llama blood around mine entrances.

There is still some silver in Potosi, but most of its deposits are long gone. The drop in the price of silver made matters worse. After the mining heyday was over, the city quickly spiraled into poverty. The current crop of miners in the now poor city extract whatever's left, although it is expected that the mines will be completely depleted of their resources in roughly 30 years - bad news for a city that has always been dependent on silver.

The mine tour is the reason most tourists visit the city. It is not a pleasant tour, but it's an eye opener to the devastating conditions of the mines and especially life for the miners.

A vendor in the miners’ market.

The tour starts at the so-called miners' market. It is a small strip of shops where miners buy their necessities: the aforementioned extremely potent alcohol, soda drinks, cigarettes, helmets, dynamites and coca leaves. We were encouraged to buy presents for the miners. My tour mates and I decided to buy soda, cigarettes, alcohol and coca leaves.

We were then taken to the Cerro Rico mines.

Near the mines is the small processing plant where the silver is separated from other minerals and rubbish. The silver pellets are then taken to Chile for further processing because Bolivia lacks the necessary equipment to treat the silver for commercial use. From Chile, it is sold to other countries, including back to Bolivia, at a much higher price.

A woman pushing a wheelbarrow at the plant shouted at our tour guide, an ex-miner himself, and asked for a present. We gave her soda and alcohol.

A miner makes some DIY dynamite

While some women work in the small processing plant, school-aged boys work alongside men inside the mines. All chew coca leaves incessantly. Coca leaves are a natural remedy for altitude sickness, but for miners especially, they help with fatigue. During the early colonial years, the Vatican banned coca leaves because they were believed to hinder the spread of the Catholic religion in the indigenous community.

But after the Spanish discovered that these leaves had stimulating effects on the miners (the chemical released by masticating the leaves in the mouth suppresses hunger and decreases fatigue), the then king of Spain lobbied the Vatican to lift the ban. The pope agreed, taxing the leaves instead of forbidding them. The miners were again able to chew coca, buying bags of the leaves, and the Spanish made them work for 20 hours a day without rest or food. Demand for the leaves grew so high because of this that at one point it was said that the price exceeded the price of gold.

Although the miners now work for cooperatives and cease to work for ungodly lengths of time, their working conditions are still appalling. The only way to get to the heart of the mines is to crawl through a small and cramped passageway. The deeper you go inside the mountain, the hotter it gets.

The tour only went down as far as "level 2" of the mines (there are four levels overall). Some parts were covered in puddles (the supplied Wellington boots were a godsend), and some parts were so dusty it was hard to breathe. The combination of the lack of fresh air, extreme heat and small shafts made even the sanest person claustrophobic (in fact, after about half an hour, one of the Brits crawled back to our bus crying).

The manual labor was supported only by rudimentary equipment. And let's not forget the deadly gas inside. The average miner is lucky to see his children in secondary school, as the toxic fumes and dusts contribute to silicosis of the lungs, which can eventually kill them long before their 40th birthday (it is estimated that during colonial times 8 million miners died). They were, however, very happy with the gifts we had brought them: more coca leaves and cigarettes.

As interesting as it was to hear the guide's explanation about the minerals on the mine walls, everybody felt relief when he finally said it was time to go up again. The fresh air and sunlight after "just" two hours inside the mine emphasized the unfortunate fate of the miners.

A statue of the god Tio sits deep in the mineshaft, laden with offerings from the miners.

And then there was the dynamite. After taking that bleak look at the mines and miners, to end the tour, our guide constructed dynamite from the items he had bought at the miners' market: explosive material that he deftly rolled in paper into a ball, with a long fuse ("Extra long for tourists!" he joked). This kind of handmade dynamite is the sort used in the mines.

He then lit the fuse and held out the dynamite as he asked for volunteers: "Pictures! Pictures! Come on!!" Cameras clicked, everybody squealed, and there was a moment of chaos as people decided who was going to hold the dynamite first. The dynamite was passed around, and people made funny faces as they posed for cameras with the thing in their hands.

Meanwhile, the fuse kept burning.

The dynamite was handed back to the guide, and he ran to a faraway, empty patch of arid land. He took an awfully long time to find a spot for the dynamite. He finally found a spot, and then hid it under a rock. Someone muttered, "I hope he gets back here in time." Our guide ran back towards us. We did a countdown. After 20 seconds, KABOOM!!

Tours are held in Spanish or English, mostly by ex-miners. Price ranges from 40 to 60 bolivianos (roughly Rp 50,000 to Rp 90,000, respectively) per person, excluding presents for miners. Coveralls, helmets, boots and masks are supplied by the tour agency

Source : The Jakarta Post