"Cavar, Cavar, Cavar, Cavar, Ya es Hora de Cerrar!"

     The Chilean economy is very dependent on the mining industry, but most importantly the mining of Chile's most important mineral, cobre (copper).  This past month I had the privilege of visiting the largest subterranean copper mine in the world,  El Teniente, located in the now deserted mining town of Sewell.  Mining at El Teniente was said to have started as early as the 1820's and we toured the city and the mine I was in awe by how much history there truly was.
     Early in the morning, my fellow EAP-ers and I took a bus 55 miles south to Sewell.  We changed buses at the welcome center and geared up, and when I say "gear up" I mean it.  After putting on our heavy duty mining boots, we shuffled to the bus only to find a bright orange mining jacket, gas mask, goggles and helmet with attachable head lamp, waiting for us to fashionably sport them.  As you could imagine I was looking quite chic, haha. Our bus took us about 6 miles into the mine, which is "upside down", not literally, but the main shafts of the mine go upwards not downwards.  The upper levels are mined and push the ore down shafts to the primary crushers, called chancadores, located underground near the main level of the mine.
     Our tour guide, Don Carlos demonstated to us how this process worked, as the large chunks     of ore fall down onto the central cone in the middle, it moves at a rapid pace breaking them up into more moveable pieces.  Later, fine crushing is done by two ball mills. The powdered ore is mixed with water and chemicals and sent to flotation tanks and then later smelted, and ahí esta Cobre!
     Later on our tour we were taken into La Caverna de Cristales, which was preserved from destrcution because of its spectacular nature.  Don Carlos explained to us that people come from all over the world just to enter the caverns because of their known healing powers and transmition of the buena onda, which we do love so much here in Chile. He was even kind enough to bestow us with a parting gift, our own piece of the million year old crystal which has never seen the light of day until now.
     Sewell also has a visiting center in the middle of the town in which people can explore and admire artifacts from the town itself as well many products that were manufactured using copper.  Although my favorite part of this museum was the change in minning fashion. As you can see our mining gear was not nearly as cool as this guy's over here, that is what I call mining of the future.    

     I must say that the two aspects of this trip that I favored the most was number 1, many of the copper and mineral used to produced some of these material obejcts came from the Earth! I just think it is incredible, that the Earth could generate over millions of years such a magnificent stone or even create a mineral that would later be used to produce a 19th century copper diving helmet.
      Number 2, if you lived in Sewell, you worked here, you got married here, raised your family here, everything you could ever need was is in Sewell.  Families upon families worked in these mines, and a sort of generational pride among these miners and their work was formed, and I that is something I can truly appreciate.  There was once an uninterrupted rhythm here, a routine that people followed, a certain way of life and I am so glad I had the chance to discover that , especially because it is such a great part of Chile's history.  

Since I have been here in Chile I have discovered my newfound love for Disney movies in Español, I figured that I would end my mining experience with a song from Blanca Nieves y Los Siete Enanos. I hope you all enjoy!  

Besos y Abrazos! 

Rina :]