We have read and heard so much about the Mine tour that we were really fearing for the worst when we went down there to see the men at work. However, it turned out not to be as bad as we had first thought.

These are meant to be the worst working conditions in the world and according to the Lonely planet, you are not meant to be able to survive more than 15yrs working in the mines.

We started off by getting ourselves kitted out with hard hats and a very attractive brown suit. Then we set off down the tunnels with our very short (4ft 11) bolivian guide, later, we discovered it was very useful to be short in the mines! As we entered we found ourselves ducking immediately and it quickly became pitch black. We walked for about thirty minutes through the mines until we came to a set of steps, which we had to squeese through. As soon as you went down a level you found the temperature go up and the air quality go down.

Within a few minutes we met our first miners. These guys were working in pairs; one tearing the silver and zinc from the walls of the mine and the other trying to determine what kind of rock they were. The latter had been working since 5am, on his hands and knees for eight hours a day, seperating the different elements. We found out that he had been working 32 years in the mines, which was a little bit encouraging; this was largely due to the use of coca, which acts as a sort of barrier to the fumes and helps to stave off hunger as they don´t eat when they are in the mine.

We crawled and ducked our way to the next set of miners and found them at what seemed to be the center of all the hard work. I had a go at helping them trying to shift all the crappy bits of zinc onto a big coldron that was hauled up 70 meters to outside the mine. As this was going on, a group of four miners brought in what looked to be a very heavy bucket of rocks on wheels, which had to be shipped out of the mine. It was a constant circle and one that lasted for 8-10 hours. We found out that these guys were not meant to last beyond 15yrs as they get exposed to the most amount of rock dust.

The mines are extremly bad working conditions, but it was not quite as much as a shock to us as we have seen so many people suffering in these countries. At the end of the mine tour we got to see some Dynamite blown up, which was ultimately touristy but awesome at the same time!