Potosi - respiring asbestos in high altitude air is not my idea of fun!

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From Uyuni I took a six hour chicken bus to Potosi, the highest city in the world - great, another cold destination. I wanted to visit the infamous silver mines that the Spanish had ruthlessly exploited 500 years ago enabling Potosi to become one of the richest cities on the planet at the time. A far cry from today - Potosi, heavily reliant on the dwindling mineral mining industry, and one of the poorest cities in South America.

Contrary to many warnings from fellow travellers, ‘be careful in Potosi, I’ve heard it’s really dangerous…’ I was pleasantly surprised. It’s a sleepy city dominated by colonial architecture. The main square is pretty and peaceful…I spent many hours there in the sun, writing my journal. You really get the vibes of a place once powerful, a place where many many atrocities were committed against the indigenous people and black slaves.

The mines tour - don’t underestimate it! You really are visiting the mines that still adopt methods from the bygone times, miners still there in their droves, in atrocious working conditions. They work for themselves, not the government, so if they don’t find mineral ores, they don’t get paid. They work in groups and cover specific areas in the mountain, working as long as 12 hours, 7 days a week. They have to buy their own dynamite - the tours also don’t give you a choice, you have to buy it for them, which is fine. You can also buy some for yourself too! They sell it on the streets!

It was an incredible, albeit terrifying experience crawling through the tunnels going deep into the mountain, tunnels getting dustier, narrower and rockier. It is so eerie. I wore a handkerchief over my face to protect me from the dust, but then that prevents you from being able to breathe properly in the extremely thin high altitude air. Two guys in our group had to back out seeing the tiny tunnel we were to crawl down to reach the third level. I should have done the same. The third level is teeming with asbestos and other nasties, it can’t stress how painful it was to respire - at one point I was panting for my life, handkerchief thrown aside, spitting every two seconds, nose running like a tap. I screamed inwardly, ‘what the f/** do you have to prove? Who are you trying to prove this to, doing this?’ Those sentiments just made me feel worse. Thinking about the thousands of miners who endure these conditions to scrape a living made me feel like a whimp….but it was effective and I got the hell out of there!

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Photos

Potosi
Having a miner's breakfast

Potosi mines
pulling the ires through

Potosi mines
miners at work

Potosi mines
Me after the traumatic ordeal

Potosi mines
We could blow up our own dynamite - 1 minute to detonate!!

Comments

[Asbestos Training]

Handkerchief !!!!!!!
A handkerchief would not have saved you from exposure to asbestos fibres