Real Potosí

After a few long us journeys around Bolivia visiting some friends in Cochabamba and enjoying the altiplano, we arrived in Potosí. Potosí is famous for its mineral wealth, and especially the silver mines on the hill ´Cerro Rico´outside the city. These were discovered by the delighted conquistadores in the 16th century, who immediately put anyone disposable down them. The Spanish still use the expession ´¡Es un Potosí!´ for being aghast at something´s wealth.

The mines have been worked continously and dangerously since before the Spanish arrived. Some estimates predict a large cave in quite soon as there is little control of the rats´ nest of workings. Naturally we had to have a look ourselves, and here we are ready to go down the pit.


Beforehand we were allowed to purchse large quantities of dynamite, fuses and Ammonium Nitrate (adds more power to the explosion) from the local market. Potosí is a good place to buy such goods and anyone from speaking age upwards can get hold of as many sticks of dynamite as they can count up to. Most of the dynamite went to the local miners we visited, but some was ignited for fun outside the pithead. If I had realised just how powerful it was, I might not have held it while our guide lit the fuse.



Two hours down the pit was more than enough for both of us, as the air gets more rancid, hotter and dustier the lower down you get. The miners work 8 hours a day, 6 days a week. The death rate in Cerro Rico is aout 40 miners a year, however many more die from asbestosis and lung diseases afterwards. Thousands of miners work in the hundreds of mines on the hill. Some of the tunnels are pretty tight and we crawled around avoiding loaded trolleys and miners doing real work such as pushing and tipping 1 tonne trolleys, shovelling rock into buckets and hammering blasting holes. We managed to avoid falling down the shafts we saw, which have been worked by electric winches, rather than manpower, for the last 5 years.



I will save the pictures from the processing plants for my mineral process engineering friends to get excited about later. There was no need for health and safety in the plant, and any waste (arsenic/hydrochloric acid...) was easily disposed of in the local river.

At the end of a hard day´s mining, Potosinos go to watch the local football team. Real Potosí have proudly dug their way to the bottom of the Bolivian national league. We caught the action in the Copa Libertadores, which is for clubs from all over Latin America. Potosí started well by putting 2 goals past San Lorenzo from Argentina, and everyone was happy at half time. We presumed that 90 minutes at 4200m would be very hard for any visiting team, and looked forward to more of the same.
Cerro Rico illuminated behind the packed stands

However the referee thought differently and sent off a Potosino shortly after half time. Despite a determined stray dog trying to waste time by running round the pitch for 5 minutes, San Lorenzo got two goals back. Late on, the referee awarded a dubious penalty to San Lorenzo, and it was all over. I doubt the referee slept well that night as he was escorted from the pitch by riot police and might have been dynamited later that night. Even the abuse coming from the Family Stand was a good education for our Spanish.