skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Potosí, the highest city in the World
I´ve been in the Bolivian desert for a while (where internet cafes are hard to come by), so I have to do a little catching up. After I left Sucre (in a huff, although the ATM card fraud seems to be sorting itself out), I headed off to Potosí, who´s claim to fame is being the highest city in the world. It is also a major mining town. In fact, that is about all there is in Potosí. So, I did a mine tour. Wow. I´ve been in mines before, but this one was a challenge. The conditions were horrendous. Ventilation was nearly nonexistant once you left the primary level shaft. Fluffy white asbestous lined most of the ceilings, and the silica dust was overpowering. Most of the miners don´t wear any sort of breathing protection, they just chew coca leaves to ignore the dust and irritations. They find it hard to ignore the silicosis of the lung that inevitably occurs around age 45 (most start working between the ages of 11 and 14, there are no other jobs in Potosí). The miners
get to set their own schedules, but since they work on commission only, most work 7 days a week, 12 hours a day (or more). On Friday afternoons they drink Ceibo, which is pure 96% alcohol (ouch, it hurts to drink). Crawling around in the shafts (at times we had to army crawl to make it through) was as much of a mental challenge as a physical challenge. The clausterphobia (and I´m not clausterphobic) was hard to control. The air is hot and dusty, and breathing hard makes a small panic set in. To say the least, I was very happy to see daylight again. Very happy.
As much as I hate Bolivia (see next post, and previous post), I do love the fact that anybody can go to the miner´s market and buy explosives...for under $3. The first stop on the tour was a small shop where you bought one "completo" (a stick of nitroglycerine and a packet of ammonium nitrate, along with a detonater), all wrapped up in a shopping bag. Of our group of 8 people, 6 bought the dynamite. After the tour, we got to blow it up. It was awesome. Our tour guide let us combine the 6 into 3 big explosives. He taught us how to assemble them, then asked for volunteers to place the explosives (ME ME ME ME ME ME!!!), I got picked, maybe because I was the only girl. Either way, it was really cool. That picture over there is me holding the lit explosive. The fuse lasts for 3 minutes, so after about one minute of playing hot potato with three lit bombs and a bunch of cameras, the three of us who volunteered to place the explosives and the guide took off running. We were sprinting down and across a hill (loose dirt, borrowed boots, and 4200m elevation, running was a challenge). The guide kicked off small flats in the hill for us to place the bombs (the other guys got to place theirs first, I was running around behind them freaking out because I could feel the fuse getting shorter in my hand). Finally it was my turn to put down the dynamite and RUUUUNNNN!!!! Sprinted back to the group, and maybe 15 seconds later BOOM! BOOM!! BOOM!! ...It was really cool.
I´ve been in the Bolivian desert for a while (where internet cafes are hard to come by), so I have to do a little catching up. After I left Sucre (in a huff, although the ATM card fraud seems to be sorting itself out), I headed off to Potosí, who´s claim to fame is being the highest city in the world. It is also a major mining town. In fact, that is about all there is in Potosí. So, I did a mine tour. Wow. I´ve been in mines before, but this one was a challenge. The conditions were horrendous. Ventilation was nearly nonexistant once you left the primary level shaft. Fluffy white asbestous lined most of the ceilings, and the silica dust was overpowering. Most of the miners don´t wear any sort of breathing protection, they just chew coca leaves to ignore the dust and irritations. They find it hard to ignore the silicosis of the lung that inevitably occurs around age 45 (most start working between the ages of 11 and 14, there are no other jobs in Potosí). The miners
get to set their own schedules, but since they work on commission only, most work 7 days a week, 12 hours a day (or more). On Friday afternoons they drink Ceibo, which is pure 96% alcohol (ouch, it hurts to drink). Crawling around in the shafts (at times we had to army crawl to make it through) was as much of a mental challenge as a physical challenge. The clausterphobia (and I´m not clausterphobic) was hard to control. The air is hot and dusty, and breathing hard makes a small panic set in. To say the least, I was very happy to see daylight again. Very happy.
As much as I hate Bolivia (see next post, and previous post), I do love the fact that anybody can go to the miner´s market and buy explosives...for under $3. The first stop on the tour was a small shop where you bought one "completo" (a stick of nitroglycerine and a packet of ammonium nitrate, along with a detonater), all wrapped up in a shopping bag. Of our group of 8 people, 6 bought the dynamite. After the tour, we got to blow it up. It was awesome. Our tour guide let us combine the 6 into 3 big explosives. He taught us how to assemble them, then asked for volunteers to place the explosives (ME ME ME ME ME ME!!!), I got picked, maybe because I was the only girl. Either way, it was really cool. That picture over there is me holding the lit explosive. The fuse lasts for 3 minutes, so after about one minute of playing hot potato with three lit bombs and a bunch of cameras, the three of us who volunteered to place the explosives and the guide took off running. We were sprinting down and across a hill (loose dirt, borrowed boots, and 4200m elevation, running was a challenge). The guide kicked off small flats in the hill for us to place the bombs (the other guys got to place theirs first, I was running around behind them freaking out because I could feel the fuse getting shorter in my hand). Finally it was my turn to put down the dynamite and RUUUUNNNN!!!! Sprinted back to the group, and maybe 15 seconds later BOOM! BOOM!! BOOM!! ...It was really cool.
1 comment:
Sounds completely horrible in a kind of awesome way.
Post a Comment