As a geology student, I took a field trip to
They had a bar in front and we sat at a large table, all the married students trying to pretend they weren’t interested in the ladies of the night working there. Before long, a North American walked in the bar, unusual because we were so far south of the border. We invited him over for a drink.
He was, it turned out, also a geologist, an employee of a large Mexican mining company. He was overseeing a cinnabar mining operation in the hills outside of town and he invited us to come by for a tour.
We had no difficulty the next day finding the mine and only a little trouble explaining to the professors how we had come by the invitation in the first place. What we found on the beveled mountaintop overlooking the town of
The miners were all native Indians. There was no modern equipment. There was no equipment at all except for pick and shovel and the sacks of ore the miners were bringing out of the mine on their backs. Most were even barefooted and none distracted by our presence.
The miners would come bounding out of the vertical pit with a sack of ore on their back. The large sack had a pocket that wrapped over their heads and we noticed that every miner had muscular necks and calves. When one of us tried to lift one of the filled sacks, we understood why.
“Does anyone want to go down for a look?” the company geologist asked.
Three of us did, including me.
I was the last one to enter the hole in the ground. There were no lights in the pit. I mean none, and soon it was literally pitch dark. I continued descending the ladder, rung after rung, the air in the mine becoming increasingly stale. I won’t even mention the dust in the air.
I didn’t think that I would ever reach the bottom of the ladder but I finally did. I lowered my foot, trying to find the next rung but there was nothing there. Unsure of what to do, I waited.
“The pit keeps going down but you’re at the end of the ladder,” I heard one of the grad students say. “Swing your leg to the left and you’ll feel solid ground, then push over here. Don’t worry, I’ll grab you.”
My heart in my throat, I dangled my foot, trying to connect with something solid.
“Stretch,” the grad student said. “It’s not real close.”
I did, finally touching solid rock with the toe of my shoe. Someone grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the precipice. When my heart quit racing I noticed the faint glow of a light coming through the haze of dust that I was trying hard not to inhale.
“We’re almost there,” the grad student said. “Stay close to me and follow the light.”
The air was very thin, dust almost suffocating, and the darkness as eerie as a sealed grave. I followed the older grad student down a slope to where we found the company geologist and the other grad student. The company man had a carbide lamp, its hazy glow focused on the colorless wall of rock.
“That’s the ore seam,” he said. “We just keep following it until it disappears and then we have to do some blasting to relocate it.”
“How far down are we?” I asked.
“Two-hundred and sixty feet,” he said. “Pretty much straight down.”
The Indian miners weren’t intimidated by the mine or its darkness. Paid by the load, they literally ran down the vertical stairway, filled their sacks and then ran back up. When we finished studying the ore vein, some signal was passed and the Indian miners waited until we climbed out of the pit.
I am not bothered by claustrophobia but I can’t tell you how happy I was to see sunlight and breathe fresh air again. I have been in many mines in my life, all of them dangerous. Mining in the
I survived that trip to