Crawling around in mud on your hands and knees, carrying a bag full of explosives sounds like a great adventure, doesn’t it?
That is exactly what I got to do in Potosi, Bolivia.
This is the city to visit for a glimpse into the world of old school silver mining.
It’s definitely not something to do if you’re a timid traveller or easily get claustrophobic though.
First, you get dressed up in a head to toe outfit, complete with hard hat and headlamp. But that’s about as far as the safety precautions go.
After that it’s an insane journey into the bowels of a mountain. Carrying dynamite, ammonium nitrate and other explosive materials you enter mine shafts that are sometimes only big enough to squeeze through by sliding down on your stomach, like a seal. One cave-in and you’re quickly trapped inside a mountain!
Handing out sticks of dynamite, as if they were candy, you get to meet miners deep inside the mountain. Each one of them working shifts up to 24 hours long, hoping to strike a nice vein of silver in their part of the mine. They may not even speak Spanish here, some olny speak the local Quechua language.
There are young workers here too. Those ones you can give cookies instead of explosives. It seems kind of odd, but they’re happy with this life. Many miners work for themselves, owning a portion of the mountain. The silver they find is theirs. They’re not ruled by a company, they have freedom.
It’s hard, dangerous work for sure, but with the blessing of El Tio (The Uncle), a miner can make a decent living by working in his mine whenever he wants.
The most intimidating part of the visit is hearing explosives going off in other parts of the mine and having miners tell you stories about how they’ve been trapped or had their legs broken and shoulders dislocated from cave-ins.
As exciting as it sounds, there is a darker side to it as well. For those who need extra cash, they can go deeper down into the mines. Down there, they use jack hammers to cut through the rock, creating clouds of cancer-causing dust. Without any real protection for the dangerous dust particles, workers are only allowed down there for a few weeks or months at a time. Higher pay, but higher risk.
Thankfully, they’re cautious enough to keep that part of the mine off-limits to travellers.