Our tour of the Silver mines in Cerro Rico

After a very early start we meet our guide Efra and another 6 tourists to explore the mines in Cerro Rico. At present there are 15,000 miners working in this mountain although he barely has any silver left. They are now also mining for zinc, lead and tin.

The mine is at an altitude of almost 4,500m and I felt really weak already before we entered the mines. Efra kept telling us to chew coca leaves... DISGUSTING! Craig took it very seriously and looked like a lopsided hamster all day! I tried very hard to keep chewing... it made me feel better to an extent that I stopped worrying about altitude sickness while trying very hard not to be sick from the taste of coca leaves! However, I did feel better after a while!

After buying some presents (dynamite sticks, detonators and softdrinks - as you do) for the miners we enter the Catalina mine in a narrow tunnel. After only a few minutes it was pitch black! YUK! We were kitted out with waterproof jackets and trousers and helmets with lamps as well as rubber boots, thank goodness! I cannot remember how many times I banged my head on the low and unpredictable ceiling of those tunnels... Little Ms Clumsy was VERY grateful to have a helmet on!

And the further we climbed in and down the mountain, the hotter it got. It was unbearable! How anybody could spend a day in here is beyond me! I tried very hard to think of nice open spaces, green lawns... golden beaches... DONT PANIC!

Most miners work for 30 years on average, apart from Sundays every single day of the year!!! In the lower levels where it gets really hot they apparently work only in their boxers... still did not make me want to go there!

As the air in heavily contaminated with all sorts of gas and dust they do not eat in the mines. They just chew coca leaves on day. About 1500 leaves every day. Not my idea of fun!!!

It was great to see it and be so close to the miners (although I do not need to go back there in a hurry...). How they can cope without sunlight and incredibly hard physical work in this heat - I have no idea. Everything is manual, they are pushing the little wagons with 2 tons of rock eack, shoveling the rock into big baskets, pulling them up an endless shaft to the upper levels, onto another wagon again, then pushing it out of the tunnel where they then shovel it onto a truck!

Very intersting and quite unforgettable to learn about their hard life (all for an average salary of about 60 Euro a month). But each miners makes what he works for, it is not a state run mine. The miners organise themselves in groups of usually families and they earn whatever they find. There is of course always hope for a lucky strike!

We also got to experience the power of our dynamite sticks after the tour! Wow! VERY LOUD! Craig was happy like a little boy at Christmas to hold his first own bomb - til it went BOOM!