the devil's miner

Thanks to MABB (one of my favorite blogs) for introducing this movie, The Devil's Miner (2005 production)

Film Synopsis (taken from the movie website) :
The Devil's Miner is the story of 14 year-old Basilio vargas and his 12 year-old brother Bernardino, as they work in the Bolivian silver mines of Cerro Rico, which date back to the 16th century. Through the children eyes, we encounter the world of devout Catholic miners who sever their ties with God upon entering the mountain. It is an ancient belief that the devil, as represented by hundreds of statues constructed in the tunnels, determines the fate of all who work within the mines.

In our trip, Edu, Javier, David, Juan, Kathe, and Paola visited/entered the silver mines of Cerro Rico, Potosi and crawled through the tunnels meanwhile I was in my hotel room sleeping :-) I hope one of you guys can share the experience.

about Potosi's silver mine quote from www.common-place.org
The native peoples apparently mined its silver from time to time, but not in any extensive way. Then, in the 1540s, as Spanish colonizers pushed south following their conquest of the Inca, everything about Potosi changed. A three-hundred-foot outcropping of silver ore, high on the mountain's western slope, suggested what lay underneath; by 1545 Spanish miners, and some Indians too, had begun tearing it away.

From then on, for half a century, the boom around the cerro rico(rich hill) developed fantastically. In 1547 Potosi's population was about 14,000, in 1571 perhaps 40,000, by 1600 at least 150,000. This raised it to the demographic level of the chief capitals of Europe and Asia (London, Amsterdam, Canton, Tokyo), and made it by far the largest human community in the Western Hemisphere.