Inside the Cerro Rico Mine

We were up before the sun, bumping through the empty streets of Potosi, which seemed much bleaker without people in them. Looming over us and the city: the scarred pink hulk of the fabled Cerro Rico, or "Rich Mountain," the source of Potosi's silver. Julio Cesar, the 15-year-old boy who would take us into the mine, lives with his family on the top floor of a very simple two-story building on the edge of the poorest section of Potosi. The walls of the house are made of large red clay bricks,...Full Story