the world's largest underground silver mine below the world’s highest city in Boliva -
Although hard to believe now, Potosi was one of the world’s largest and most affluent cities in the 16th Century, brimming with fabulous architecture, gambling halls and theatres, rivaling London and Paris.
Such wealth and boom years were fed by the world’s biggest source of silver lurking within Cerro Rico.
At one time there were as many as 615 registered silver mines and predictably the Spanish colonial rulers filled their boots well.
Then Mexico discovered silver sources to rival Bolivia’s in the late 1600’s and, as Potosi silver became more expensive to extract, the boom was reduced to a quiet thud.
Typhoid brought the city completely to its knees and Potosi, aside from being the world’s highest city, lost its worldly status.
Let the pictures talk - still breathless, with the metallic taste in our mouths and yes, a little faint of heart after all, we descended yet further into the dusty, dirty, dark shafts. Our group crowded into alcoves where dark men, often a feeble flame on their helmets their only illumination, squinted at us, glad for a change from the monotonous rock face. They were happier still to accept the fizzy drinks we’d brought for them. The miners crouched like animals in the gloom, their lungs full of cyanide, asbestos and death, yet eternally optimistic about what their protracted rape of the mountain might produce.
FMNJ - 888 - mission ? - - to help the Miners to Safety -
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