Potosí

Why would someone want to pay to go to a place which has been likened to Hell?
I went to Potosí to find out.


At first, I thought that the guide book was over-exaggerating. I skimmed through the page on health and safety and hoped that the mine wouldn´t collapse, there would be no ill-timed explosions and the noxious gases wouldn´t knock me out.


Thankfully, our guide was kind and upbeat and this allayed my worries for a while. He even made us a silver ring out of silver residue!

Everyone in the mines is very laddish and there is a great team spirit. They all have nicknames such a "burro" (donkey) or "apretado" (the one with tight trousers) and everyone pulls their weight.


Our tourguide decided to go with an English nickname, to the amusement of the tourists. 

We bought some gifts for the miners and observed some of their rituals. It is customary to buy coca leaves for a day´s work to stave off hunger and when they drink, they drink heavily. The alcohol they shot is nameless but the percentage is 96! On the last Friday of each money, they worship el Tio (the devil), who looks like this (see below) and then get absolutely wasted.

However, I felt less confident when I entered the third layer of the mines, which is also the deepest. It went from 0 to 40 degrees in under a metre and our guide made us try to work under these sweltering conditions. I only managed five minutes of shovelling, which is 7 hours and 55 minutes shorter than an average miner´s working day. I don´t know how they survive that long without surfacing for air.

We started off with bandanas over our faces but it soon became obvious that it would be better to breathe in a few bad chemicals than suffocate. By the time we reached the third level, our guide had taken off his T-shirt and invited us to take off our jumpsuits. Since there was sulfur dripping from the ceiling I decided this was a bad idea. I already had toxic dust all over me, which iched like hell.

By the time it was time to leave, I was struggling to stay conscious and kept hitting my head to worsen the dizziness. Milka later told me that people start hallucinating when they´ve been mining for a long time because they are so "metido" (shut off). So it's hard to determine the difference between real and psychological hell in such an inferno.

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