Christi and I take our first non-tourist bus in Bolivia today. And once we’re aboard it trawls around Sucre until it’s full to bursting before heading south. It’s 3 hours to Potosi across the Altiplano and our traveling companions are largely indigenous Aymara. Indeed much of what we see along the way are Aymara herders grazing sheep, llama, pigs, goats, donkeys – just about every domesticated animal – on the plains. A favorite pasture grass is the evocatively named Peruvian feather grass.
Potosi and Sucre are two very different cities. While Sucre is cultured and confident, offering a comfortable lifestyle, Potosi is working class and gritty, where life seems to be lived on the edge. Potosi is a shock after laid-back Sucre. Potosi’s modern-day claim to fame is that it’s the highest city in the world at 4,090m (13,420 feet), but this fact hides a tragic past. In the mid-16th century, the richest silver deposits in the world were discovered in the mountain (Cerro Rico – ‘rich mountain’) that dominates the Potosi skyline and colonial masters Spain were quick to exploit the vast wealth on offer. And for 200 years, the silver produced at the Cerro Rico mine and minted in Potosi maintained the Spanish economy and the Spanish empire. The exploitation occurred on a massive scale: indigenous Indians were conscripted to work in the mines while African slaves were imported in their millions. During this time, Potosi was a larger city than either London or Paris, but it was typically a one-way ticket: 8 million people lost their lives over 450 years either from mining accidents or the toxic environment that pervaded the mines (the walls and ceilings are encrusted with sulfur, arsenic, and asbestos). Silicosis was (and remains) rampant with many miners dying of the disease before the age of 55. (Fast fact, one particular form of silicosis is Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, which – at 45 letters in length – has the distinction of being the longest word in the Merriam Webster Dictionary. As an even greater aside, it’s not only miners who suffer from silicosis. People engaged in pottery making can have similar symptoms – and here the disease is known as Potter’s rot. Not a lot of people know that!). Despite this harrowing fate, many children have no choice but to join the 5,000 remaining miners who eke out a living extracting the dwindling silver ore deposits from Cerro Rico. And tomorrow, for a little while, Christi and I will join them.
Before that though, we can’t resist a visit to the central market, watching the locals going about their daily lives. Today, however, the locals don’t seem pleased to see us or our cameras. One stall holder becomes especially animated and I think the gist of his argument is that we should leave – immediately. Before beating a hasty retreat, I take a few snaps of some partly butchered animal carcasses that seem destined to be someone’s dinner tonight.
Blog post by Roderick Phillips, author of Weary Heart – a gut-wrenching tale of love and test tubes.
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