The Most Terrifying Experience of My Life

After visiting several churches, convents, and the Casa de la Moneda (the museum that details the refinement and use of the silver mined in Cerro Rico, the silver mine that fueled the wealth of the Spanish empire in the colonial era,) the next day I decided to go on a tour of one of the cooperative mines that still functions inside Cerro Rico. When I walked into the tour office the guides (all ex-miners) were chatting in Quechua, and it took me a while to realize that their second language is Spanish. Our first stop was to get our protective clothing, which consisted of bright orange rubber pants, a rubber jacket (held shut with well-used Velcro), rubber boots, a bandana for the face, and a hat with an attachment for a lamp. I was one of the four tourists who opted to take the tour in Spanish, because I figured that the guides would give more details in a language they were more comfortable with (and the rest of the people were annoying British and Irish tourists, so I needed to get away).

Our guide Rolando took us to the Miner’s Market to check out the supplies that the miners take inside the mountain – Bolivian dynamite, fertilizer soaked in diesel fuel (to augment the capacity of the dynamite), coca leaves, soda, 96% sugar cane alcohol. After milling around the market and buying “gifts” for the miners, we went to one of the “ingenios” (silver refineries) to see how they grind up the rock and then purify the minerals with a variety of noxious chemicals. Traveling to the mine entrance (4200 meters) in a severely underpowered bus, I was extremely glad that I had opted to be in the smaller, Spanish speaking group - I heard one of the British girls say “I didn’t buy coca for the miners because I just didn’t have enough money…” I pretty much wanted to smack her for being so ignorant of the mining conditions and the poverty.

I wish that I had been able to take better pictures inside the mine, because I don’t think that anything I say can possibly describe the experience (but here I go anyway.) As we went into the entrance, trying to stay out of the way of the workers manually pushing huge mine cars of ore down the rickety tracks, I was thinking to myself “this isn’t so bad, I can handle this, all I have to do is duck down a bit.” Sure, I was hitting my head every 5 minutes on the ceiling, but I was able to breathe and I didn’t feel the least bit claustrophobic (as I had been warned at the beginning). Our guide turned to our group, asked us if we wanted to go on a “small adventure,” and we nodded in consensus. He brought us over to a 2x2’ hole about 5 feet up in the wall, and motioned for our group (made of me and three very tall, very athletic men) to follow him. I went right after him, and when I had stepped into a small, dark hole I started to have panic attacks. My heart was racing, I was having a hard time breathing, and every part of my body was screaming “GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN!” I watched Rolando climb through a hole about was wide as my hips, and I told him “I don’t think I can do this, I’m very afraid.” He looked at me and told me not to worry. At that point I decided that what scares you probably makes you stronger in the end, so I put beside all my fears and started crawling through the incredibly claustrophobic areas.

After about 15 minutes of climbing up and down passageways (at one point I had to shimmy on my back, the ceiling about 3” from my face, and then down a vertical hole), we came to our first group of 5 miners working a small hollow, surrounded by deposits of gold, silver, and lead. We talked to them for a while about their work, their age (one man was 17, looked about 30, and had been working the mine with his dad since he was 14). They had been in the mine for over 24 hours, sleeping, eating, and working. We offered them a few gifts, including the alcohol (which was an awkward experience, certainly meant to bridge the cultural gap, but in reality it had no such effect.) The mixed the alcohol with a bit of soda, and then offered it to our group in a small cup made out of the top of a plastic bottle. We had to offer a little bit to Pachamama, the goddess of the earth, and to the Tio, the evil spirit of the mine, by pouring a tiny bit on the ground. Luckily for me our offerings were quite big, because the stuff we were drinking was quite strong.

As we climbed deeper and deeper into the mine, it became harder to breathe because of the incredible amount of dust in the air. All of the work was done manually, with a hammer and pick, and there were no ventilation systems. When we were on the third level, the heat and feeling of claustrophobia became almost unbearable, and I had to take the bandanna off of my face because I couldn’t bear the feeling of something constricting my breathing, even if it was moderately filtering silicone particles out of my face. After seeing the areas where they lift the ore from the lower levels to the top level to be taken out of the mine, our guide decided to take us back up to the surface. We scurried up a long, nearly vertical shaft for about 20 minutes, and when we finally emerged from the mine, I was thanking the higher ups that I was alive and able to pull air into my lungs. By the end I was glad that I had been chewing on a large wad of coca the entire time, because the combination of altitude and lack of air left me feeling dizzy and exhausted. We were the last group to emerge from the mine, after crawling around for about 2.5 hours (and boy did I feel it in my legs the next day.)

I'm incredibly glad that I went on the tour, but it was the most terrifying and exhilarating experience of my life. Looking back, it's one of those things that you appreciate afterwards, but while it is happening it is horrible. I can't imagine how those miners can work down there, and I now have a tremendous amount of respect for the miners and their way of life. I suppose it also gave me a greater appreciation for the lack of communication that exists between tourists and manual laborers in Bolivia, because in the end our lives are completely different. There is no way I can begin to understand what a miner's life is like.