Green saliva
Located at 4060 meters altitude, Potosi is supposed to be the highest town in the world. There are advantages and disadvantages with this, especially for an ambitious fotografer like me. The air is clean and dry, so that colors are bright and crisp and the sky produces the bluest blue ever. The bad part is, that it is hard to breath. Really hard! Take a stairway up, only twenty stairs, and the heart is pumping like after a 100meter sprint and you feel dizzy and the hands are shaking. Over hundreds and thousands of years, the locals have found ways to avoid altitude-sickness.
The first one is to take it easy, tranquilo, don´t rush it. The second is not to eat too much. It is true, a small burger and my stomach is full for the day. The third trick is to chew coca leaves. Yes, these are the same leaves, that cocaine is made off. The amount of substance in a mouthfull of coca leafes is about as much as babypee in a public swimming pool. Of no importance. You don´t get addicted. But it is enough to give you some energy, to make you less hungry and not to feel dizzy from the altitude. Perfect! You take some dried coca leafes in your mouth, chew them a little, so they get well mixed with your saliva and then put them in your cheek and just let them sit there. Spit out the ball and refill every halfhour. You could also drink "Mate de coca", coca tea, but you would have to drink liters and liters to have the same effect. So the locals all have a small plastic bag with dried coca leafes in their pockets and green saliva and a blown up cheek to one side. Not very pretty, but functional! You can get the leafes on every corner, one bag is five Bolivianos, and that´s cheap.
One highlight in Potosí is to visit the Mines. Potosí is the town, where the silver, that produced the wealth of middle-age Spain and in the end all of Europe came from. Silver, Plata, is not being mined in Potosí anymore, but there are lots of other minerals, that the workers dig out. And that is still being done the same way it has been threehundred years ago. We, Nadège, Dougal, Stefan and our guide Wilson visited the mines one afternoon. What a scary experience!
We meet at the office of the tour-agency. We take a bus up the mountain at the back of Potosí. We get off and go to a store to buy presents for the miners: Cocaleafes, Cola and very strong cigarettes. We move on to another small room and put on working-overalls, helmets and rubberboots. The helmets get small electrical headtorches run by a strong battery, that is hooked on the belt on top, and we take another bus to the entrance of the mines.
We stand in front of the mountain and I am looking for an entrance-hall or something that looks like an official entrance. There is none. Only a small black hole in the mountain, where some small tracks run out of can be seen in the back. "This is it?" I am asking myself? That can´t be it, but it is! We take a quick picture and then we move into the mine.
TIO, the first
It is pitch dark in the beginning, the air is cool but not humid. There is no air-conditioning or something, just some hoses run in, that give off scary hissing sounds. Something is rushig through, pressured air or water, we don´t know.
After 200 meters, we stop at a small cave. We meet the TIO, the first TIO. Tio comes from "Dio", that means "god". It is the god of the miners. He is made out of mud and decorated with flowers, colorful papers, cow-horns on top and marbels for eyes. "This is a combination of man, woman and animal" explains Wilson. We give him some offerings: 96% strong alcohol, that is being poured over the eyes, to keep focused and to calm the nerves, over the shoulders and arms to be physically strong and over the big penis and on the floor for frutility. We also scatter some cocaleafes on the TIO and put a lit cigarette in his mouth to gain his friendship and guidance. Everyone has a sip of the very strong alcohol to cool our nerves. It feels good, to have offered to the TIO, at this point, you can eather say "No, I cannot do it, I am going back out", or you just have to trust the guidance of the TIO and start the adventure. That is what we do, and with mumbling a little prayer, am hoping I have offered the TIO enough.
For a good one- or twohundred meters, it goes straight ahead into the mountain. The only light comes
from our small individual headtorches. Wilson seems to know his way around. He has been a miner himself for eight years, but then he decided to change to become a tourguide. He is leading us right or left, we have to crawl through small hallways, always walking through muddy water, luckily we are in rubberboots. It is dark an narrow. The air is cool but dry and sometimes dusty. Sometimes we reach holes in the ground, that we jump over, try to slip by, walk over on a shaking plank or crawl down on our hands and knees. We cannot imagine working here. I am trying not to think about the thousands of tons of weight above us, and the tunnels not being secured at all, but to focuse on the way in front of me, and not to bump my head.
TIO, the second
We crawl through tunnels for about one and a half hour, when we reach another cave at the end of one
tunnel, where we are greeted by another TIO. He is about the same size as the TIO, mansize, decorated as before and painted all in red. We proceed as before, offering alcohol, cocaleafes and cigarettes. I find myself thinking, that "if this is the TIO, we must be about halfway through the tour, that means, we can get out soon, great!", but the tour continues.
Even further down, we meet a worker. He has the appearence of a young man first, but after telling us his age, 52, and looking at his face, we get a feeling for the kind of life this man is living. He has been working in the mines for 25 years, he tells us, and knows not much else. "Australia", he asks us, after Dougal tells him where he´s from "is that a part of Europe?". "No." After putting the four beams of our headtorches on his face, we see his age. He is forcing a two meters long metal pole into the wall with just a hammer and his bare hands, there will be dynamite put in later, he is working in this cave all by himself without any kind of securityequipment and the only light coming from his small headtorch. Unbelievable. For the small interview, we pay with a bottle of Coca Cola.
After walking and crawling through more tunnels, taking turns right and left, trying to take pictures in the dark, we take another break in a small cave with a catholic madonna. Far down below us, we here the deep bangs of dynamite explosions. The walls around us are slightly shaking at each explosion.
On our way back up, we meet a lively group of workers, that are pushing out a lore with their bare
hands on the small railtracks. They are laughing, chewing coca and smoking the immensely strong pure
tobacco cigarettes. This is the life these people live and they have accepted their faiths.
Finally, we are in the main tunnel, the one that led us in in the beginning. I am so happy to see the light of outside at the end of the tunnel. The air is getting better, fresh air is rushing in and we are back out, in the sunlight. What a difference! Three hours in the mines where about as much as I can take. And some people are spending their lifes down here. Unimaginable!
Wilson tells us, that in one year, about 25 miners die of accidents, but mostly of illnesses. They have asthma, gout and at the age of 50 turn blind because of the bad light. Only rarely reaches a miner an age above 60. I now understand why.
What an experience! From now on, I promise to myself and to the TIO, I will enjoy my life in sunshine double. And I think, here in the mines, I have become addicted to chewing cocaleafes.
Best to you all,
Stefan