South America Day 25

This morning we were picked up at 9am and taken on a tour of the Cerro Rico cooperative working silver/tin mine. We were all kitted out in protective jackets and trousers, wellies, helmet and torches.  On the way to the mine we stopped at the local miners shops to buy gifts of orange juice, coca leaves or dynamite for the miners.  Yes we could by dynamite!  The miners are officially self employed so have to buy their own equipment, explosives etc.  The juice drink is for energy and coca leaves for chewing, acting as an appetite suppressant - the miners staple diet whilst working.

At the mine we entered the main tunnel, we were constantly being passed by one and a half ton trolleys of ore which were being manually pushed by two men and then emptied into piles outside.  We walked about a kilometre into the mine down various tunnels, stopping on the way at a shrine of the old and new mining God/devil where offerings are made to the mining Gods.  We could see the pulley systems and shafts for moving the ore around and loading the trollies. A couple of miners showed us how they made the holes in the rock for the dynamite. It was a Friday when we visited which means and early finish for most miners and alcohol!  The miners shops sold 96% proof potable alcohol, a miners favourite! We found a group of miners at the end of one tunnel who'd finished work for the day and were relaxing drinking beers.  We stopped and had a good chat with them for a while.  One of them wanted to come and work in English mines!  It was a great tour.  The miners work is manual and extremely physically hard, they work in some very harsh and dangerous conditions.

Back in Potosi we went for lunch at a lovely vegetarian cafe opposite the Casa Nacional de la Moneda, National coin mint museum.  We had a lovely vegetable pie followed by yummy chocolate cake.  After lunch we visited the museum, a fascinating place.  The mint was built over fourteen years from 1759-1773 and has five courtyards and 150 rooms.  Coins were minted in the building from 1773-1951.  The museum shows its history of producing silver coins from manual processes, it still has the original three large wooden silver rolling machines (the only ones still in existence worldwide) which were operated by mules and lots of the original manual mintage tools/coin presses.  Leonardo de Vinci invented a coin press which required two men as the power horses and one man to align the coins in the press for which they had a replica.  One of the smelting rooms had been left as found with black sooty ceilings and a mock up scenario of how the silver was smelted.  After horse power they installed steam operated machines and finally electric machines.  It was a really interesting museum.