Oruro
Huddled on the bleak Altiplano some 230km south of La Paz, ORURO was Bolivia’s economic powerhouse for much of the twentieth century, centre of the country’s richest tin-mining region. Mines established in the nearby mountains in the late nineteenth century turned Oruro into a thriving industrial city. After the fall of world tin prices in 1985, however, Oruro’s fortunes plummeted, and though it’s still the biggest city in the Altiplano after La Paz and El Alto, years of economic decline have turned it into a shadow of its former self.
Situated 3709m above sea level and swept by bitter Altiplano winds, Oruro is a cold and rather sombre place. This dour demeanour is deceptive, however, as every year Oruro explodes into life when it celebrates its Carnaval. At other times, however, there’s little reason to stop here, though given its importance as a transport hub you’re almost certain to pass through at some stage.
Although a few buildings dating from Oruro’s heyday still survive, the city is dominated by the unappealing, functional architecture you’d expect to find in a mining town at the wrong end of half a century of decline. Architecture aside, the Museo Antropológico Eduardo López Rivas is one of Bolivia’s better provincial museums. The Santuario del Socavón, focus of the Carnaval, which sits on top of an abandoned mineshaft now occupied by the Museo Etnográfico Minero, is also worth checking out.
Brief history
Originally named the Villa Imperial de Don Felipe de Austria in honour of the reigning Spanish king, Felipe III, Oruro was founded on November 1, 1606, a decade after the discovery of rich silver deposits in the nearby Cerro Pie de Gallo. Though its mines never rivalled Potosí’s, Oruro grew quickly, and by the 1670s was the second biggest city in Alto Peru, with a population of about eighty thousand.
It was the biggest Spanish city to be captured during the Great Rebellion of 1780–81, when the city’s mestizos and criollos joined the indigenous uprising led by Tupac Amaru, massacring the Spanish-born population. This multi-class alliance did not last long: the rebel army raised from the ayllus of the surrounding Altiplano soon turned on the criollo instigators of the uprising, looting and burning their houses and killing their leader, Sebastián Pagador, before meeting the same fate themselves at the hands of the royalist army when it eventually retook the city.
Oruro changed hands several times during the Independence War (1809–24), and its economy was severely disrupted. The city gradually recovered as silver production grew again, aided by foreign capital, improved industrial technology and the completion of a railway linking Oruro with the Pacific coast in 1892. The railway meant Oruro was perfectly placed to exploit the growing world demand for tin, which was found in great abundance in the surrounding mountains.
The three Bolivian mining entrepreneurs who controlled most of the mines of Oruro – Aramayo, Hochschild and Patiño – soon came to dominate the national political scene, but their treatment of the miners sowed the seeds of their downfall. The radical FSTMB mineworkers’ union that emerged from Oruro’s mining camps played a key role in the 1952 revolution that led to the nationalization of the mines. However, when the price of tin crashed in 1985, the mining industry collapsed; with it went the power of the miners’ union and Oruro’s economic fortunes. Most of the mines were closed and thousands lost their jobs; although some (gold and tin) mines have opened since, Oruro has never really recovered.
Dancing with the Devil: the Oruro Carnaval
A moveable feast celebrated in late February or early March, the Oruro Carnaval is Bolivia’s most spectacular fiesta. During the week-long party thousands of costumed dancers parade through Oruro in a vibrant and bizarre celebration of the sacred and profane that combines Christian beliefs with Andean folklore – as well as heavy drinking and chaotic water-fighting.
On the first Sunday of November the Santuario del Socavón church hosts a special Mass, and rehearsals are then held every subsequent Sunday until Carnaval itself. The Carnaval’s main event is the Entrada on the Saturday before Ash Wednesday, a massive procession of costumed dancers accompanied by brass bands. The parade is led by floats festooned with offerings for the Virgen del Socavón, in whose honour the Carnaval is held. Behind them comes the Carnaval’s central feature, the Diablada (Dance of the Devils), led by two dancers representing Lucifer and St Michael, followed by hundreds of devil dan`cers, and massed brass bands.
On one hand, the Diablada is a morality play in which the Archangel Michael triumphs over the Devil of Christian belief. But the dance is also a celebration of the devil as an incarnation of Huari, the pre-Columbian god of the underworld – closely related to El Tío ––who owns the mineral wealth of the mines and is a jealous patron of the miners dancing in his honour.
Behind the Diablada follows a bewildering variety of other costumed dance troupes, each with its own folk history and mythology. The procession continues well into Sunday morning, and dancing and drinking takes place for much of the following week. On Ash Wednesday, townsfolk visit a series of rocks on the outskirts of Oruro to make offerings to what are claimed to be the petrified remains of the fearsome beasts defeated by the Virgin to save the town. Finally, on Thursday, the troupes conduct their despedida fiestas, saying their farewells until the following year.
The King of Tin: Simón Patiño
Few individuals played a greater role in shaping modern Bolivia than tin baron Simón Patiño, who rose from humble mestizo origins to become one of the world’s richest men, popularly known as the “Rockefeller of the Andes” and the “King of Tin”. Born in 1860 to a poor family in the Cochabamba valley, Patiño moved to Oruro in 1894 to work in a mining supply store. A year later he bought his first share in the nearby La Salvadora mine, and in 1897 bought out his partner to control what turned out to be one of the biggest deposits of high-grade tin in the world. Legend has it that at first he and his wife Albina dug out the precious ore with their own hands, carried it downhill in wheelbarrows and then across country by llama train. But in 1900 Patiño struck one of the richest veins of ore ever found in Bolivia, which was to make his fortune.
By 1905, La Salvadora was the country’s most productive mine, operated by foreign technicians with high-tech equipment. Patiño used the wealth it generated to buy up the surrounding mines and link them to the main railway line to the coast. Within fifteen years he controlled about half of Bolivia’s tin output, was the country’s most important private banker, and enjoyed an income far greater than the government, which he effectively controlled. This wealth came at the expense of the thousands of miners he employed. However, these miners suffered low pay, appalling working conditions and severe oppression.
Patiño also expanded his empire internationally, buying up mining interests and foundries in Asia, Africa, Germany, the USA and Britain. This corporation controlled the entire production process for about a quarter of the world’s tin and played an important role in setting international prices. Rumoured to have Nazi sympathies, he was said to have helped finance Franco’s victory in the Spanish Civil War. By the early 1920s his fortune was estimated at $100 million, making him one of the five richest men in the world. Despite this, Patiño never really overcame the prejudices of Bolivia’s white elite, and from 1924 onwards lived permanently abroad. In 1925 he moved his corporate base to the USA, but spent most of his time in London, Paris and the French Riviera. He died in Buenos Aires in 1947 and thus never lived to see the nationalization of his Bolivian mine holdings.
Parque Nacional Sajama
Southwest of La Paz, the road to Chile passes through some of the Altiplano’s starkest scenery, a desert plain virtually devoid of vegetation presided over by the perfect snowcapped cone of Volcán Sajama. At 6542m, Sajama is Bolivia’s highest mountain, and the first in a chain of icebound volcanic peaks known as the Cordillera Occidental that straddle the Chilean border and mark the edge of the Altiplano – although Sajama stands alone, separated from the rest of the range. Sajama is also the centre of Bolivia’s oldest national park, the PARQUE NACIONAL SAJAMA, established in 1939 to protect the local population of vicuñas, a wild relative of the llama that had been hunted to the verge of extinction for its wool. The animals have since made a dramatic recovery, and large herds can be found grazing 25km or so north of the village at the area known as Patoca.
The park covers roughly one thousand square kilometres, encompassing the entire mountain and a large area of the surrounding desert, where pumas, Andean deer and rheas are also found – though rarely seen. Sajama’s slopes also support the world’s highest forest, a patch of queñua trees that survive up to 5200m. The records don’t stop there: in 2001 the highest football match in the world was played in the crater at the top of Sajama.
Most visitors are climbers, drawn by the chance to ascend a peak of over 6000m that requires relatively little technical expertise. However, the mountain’s lower slopes make for excellent hiking, and there are bubbling geysers and hot springs to be explored in the plain below. West of the park on the Chilean border, the two volcanic peaks of Parinacota (6132m) and Pomerata (6222m) provide a stunning backdrop. Known as the payachatas (“twins”), and considered the female consorts of Sajama, these mountains can also be scaled.
Potosí
On a desolate, windswept plain amid barren mountains at almost 4100m above sea level, POTOSÍ is the highest city in the world, and at once the most fascinating and tragic place in Bolivia. It owes its existence to Cerro Rico (Rich Mountain), which rises imperiously above the city to the south. Cerro Rico was the richest source of silver the world had ever seen: its mines turned Potosí into the richest jewel in the Spanish emperors’ crown, and one of the world’s wealthiest and largest cities. In the early seventeenth century its population was 160,000, far bigger than contemporary Madrid, and equal in size to London. The expression “eso vale un Potosí” (“this is worth a Potosí”) was used in colloquial Spanish to describe anything priceless. However, this wealth was achieved at the expense of the lives of millions of indigenous forced labourers and African slaves.
Today, Potosí, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is a treasure-trove of colonial art and architecture; it has more than two thousand colonial buildings, many of which have been restored. Hundreds of town houses and mansions remain, complete with red-tiled roofs and decorative balconies. Even more striking are the 25 or so churches: the most exuberant of these is San Lorenzo de Carangas. The city’s most outstanding monument, however, is the Casa Real de la Moneda, the colonial royal mint, which has some stunning pieces of colonial religious art. Potosí’s tragic history weighs heavily though, and is evident in the sense of sadness that seems to haunt its narrow streets and the appalling conditions still endured by miners at Cerro Rico.
A brief history of silver in Potosí
Legend has it the Incas were on the point of mining Cerro Rico in 1462 when a supernatural voice warned them that the gods were saving the silver for others who would come from afar. Inca Huayna Capac subsequently declared the mountain sacrosanct, naming it Ppotojsi (Quechua for “thunder” or “burst”). The silver was apparently rediscovered in 1545 by llama herder Diego Huallpa. Caught out after dark on Cerro Rico, he started a fire to keep warm, only to see a trickle of molten silver run out from the blaze. News of this reached the Spaniards, and a silver rush was soon under way. Over the next twenty years Potosí became the richest single source of silver in the world.
This growth was based on the extraction of surface deposits with high ore contents, which were easily processed. As these ran out and shaft mining developed, the purity of the ore declined and production costs rose. Labour also became increasingly scarce, thanks to the appalling conditions in the mines. This crisis was overcome by Viceroy Francisco de Toledo, who arrived in Potosí in 1572 and orchestrated the construction of a massive system of dams, artificial lakes and aqueducts to power the water wheels that crushed the ore for processing. Toledo also introduced the newly discovered amalgam process for refining silver using mercury, established the first royal mint and regulated property rights. Most importantly, he tackled the labour shortage by adapting the Inca system of mandatory labour service, the mita. This provided an annual workforce of about 13,500 mitayos at almost no cost to the mine owners.
These reforms greatly boosted silver production, and Potosí boomed for almost a century. By the beginning of the seventeenth century Potosí’s population was 160,000 and the city boasted dozens of magnificent churches, as well as theatres, gambling-houses, brothels and dancehalls. The silver also had a global impact, funding Spain’s wars and fuelling economic growth throughout Europe.
The human cost
For the indigenous workers and imported African slaves who produced this wealth, however, the consequences were catastrophic. Staying deep underground for up to a week at a time and forced to meet ever more outrageous quotas, they died at a terrible rate; outside, the highly toxic mercury used in processing the silver posed an equal threat to workers in the large foundries. One sixteenth-century writer described the mines as a ravening beast that swallowed men alive. Estimates of the total number who died over three centuries of colonial mining in Potosí run as high as nine million, making the mines a central factor in the demographic collapse that swept the Andes under Spanish rule.
The end of the boom
From about 1650, silver production – and Potosí – entered a century-long decline, though the city remained rich enough to be hotly disputed during the Independence War. However, by the time independence was won in 1825, Potosí’s population was just nine thousand. From the end of the nineteenth century the city came to increasingly rely on tin mining – another metal found in abundance in Cerro Rico, but previously ignored. However, when the price of tin collapsed in 1985, the state-owned mines closed down or were privatized. Though cooperative miners continue to scrape a living by working Cerro Rico’s tired old veins for tin and other metals, Potosí never recovered from the decline of silver production, much less the tin crash.
Casa Real de la Moneda
The unmissable Casa Real de la Moneda (Royal Mint) is one of South America’s most outstanding examples of colonial civil architecture and home to Bolivia’s best museum. The vast, eclectic collection includes the original machinery used in the minting process; some of Bolivia’s finest colonial religious art; militaria; archeological artefacts; and a huge collection of coins. Visits are by guided tour only: these start soon after the morning and afternoon opening times and are conducted in Spanish, English or French depending on demand. It can be very cold inside the complex, so wear something warm.
Constructed between 1759 and 1773 for over a million pesos de oro to replace the earlier royal mint, La Moneda is a formidable construction, built as part of a concerted effort by the Spanish crown to reform the economic and financial machinery of the empire in order to increase its revenues. Along with Lima and Mexico City, Potosí was one of only three cities in Spanish America authorized to produce coins. Occupying an entire city block, La Moneda is enclosed by 1m-thick stone walls with only a few barred windows, giving it the appearance of a fortress. Inside is a two-storey complex of about two hundred rooms off five internal courtyards. As well as housing all the heavy machinery needed to produce coins La Moneda also housed troops, workers, slaves and senior royal officials, who were responsible for ensuring that the Spanish crown received its ten-percent cut of all silver produced in Cerro Rico’s mines. A vital nerve centre of Spanish imperial power, it also served as a prison, treasury, and stronghold in times of strife.
Double meanings: the churches of Potosí
With beautifully carved porticos and interiors dripping with gold leaf, Potosí’s churches are amongst the finest examples of the mestizo-Baroque style, in which Christian European and pre-Christian Andean symbolism are combined. The churches were built partly as a straightforward expression of religious faith, but gratitude for the wealth of Potosí also played a role: whereas Catholic churches almost always face west, those of Potosí look south towards Cerro Rico. They were also part of a determined effort to convert the indigenous population: with hundreds of thousands of indigenous people from different ethnic groups spending time in the city as workers under the mita system, Potosí offered a perfect opportunity for inculcating the Catholic faith. As well as the many churches and convents built for their own use, the Spaniards built fourteen parish churches for exclusive use by the indigenous mitayos.
In time, Christianity gained widespread acceptance amongst the indigenous population, at least on the surface. But as responsibility for building and decorating Potosí’s churches passed to indigenous and mestizo craftsmen and artists, a very distinct religious vision began to emerge. From the second half of the sixteenth century the religious art and architecture of Potosí began to incorporate more and more indigenous religious motifs in a style that became known as mestizo-Baroque. The sun, moon and stars – central objects in traditional Andean religion – appear alongside images of Christ and the saints, with the Virgin Mary represented in triangular form like a mountain, clearly conflated with the Andean earth goddess Pachamama.
These developments did not pass unnoticed by the Spanish authorities, but allowing a little Andean religious imagery into the decoration of churches may have seemed a small price to pay for getting the indigenous population to accept Christianity, albeit superficially.
Despite their beauty, however, these churches were the product of slave labour, and they could scarcely conceal the contradiction between the avowed Christian beliefs of the Spanish mine owners who funded them and the brutal reality of the mining regime these same men controlled. It was said that though God ruled in Potosí’s 34 churches, the Devil laughed in his six thousand mines.
