Mining tour

A visit to Potosí cannot be mentioned without a visit to one of the cooperative mines. It is a kind of poverty tourism that many tourists are eager to embrace. It's a shocking experience as the methods of working haven't changed much since the colonial times. Working conditions are terrible: most miners die of silicosis in their forties. Still, many people don't have another choice and around 10,000 people work in the mines. A tour starts with a visit to the miners' market to buy gifts for the miners like coca leaves, drinks, cigarettes or dynamite. You will then visit an ore refinery plant where the miners sell whatever deposits they manage to collect. Then you head to the mines, where a typical visit will have you walking and crawling through it for about 2~3 hr. You can talk, take photographs and share your gifts with the miners.
Taking a tour of one of the cooperative mines is still a good way to get a sense of the social price paid for the mineral wealth of the few. The dust is supposed to contain silicon that leads to silicosis (wear a disposable mask!) among the miners. Water dropping from the walls and ceiling is said to contain arsenic and cyanide. You can see asbestos fibers in the rock walls. Many of the mine props are snapped and in 2003 there was a minor ceiling cave-in that forced visitors to wait a bit before being able to exit the mine. One very interesting aspect of the mine was the little side chamber near the entrance to the mine that contained a statue of "El Tio," a diabolic figure that the miners make offerings to. They say that God may rule aboveground, but that El Tio is in charge down below.
Btw. they don't do explosions just for tourists, but for the sake of the mine. People with claustrophobic tendencies, be wary, Silver Mine Tours takes you deep into the guts of this rabbit warren of a mine. It seems the safety aspect is very low, actually totally missing.