You have to join a tour to get into the mines of Cerro Rico. When I got to the assembly point I was told that the other tourists that were supposed to join the group didn't show up (heard that they were drunk, LOL) so it left only me in the tour. Even it's only me but the tour still kept on, so I was like a VIP. We got into a small van and went to a place to suit up. We were provided with a helmet with a torchlight, hand gloves, boots, a thin jacket and pants. Then we went to the miners' market. As the 3rd generation miner and an ex-miner, my guide Antonio explained well to me about the history of Cerro Rico and the real miner story of himself on the way to the market.

When we arrived at the miners' market, we bought some water and coca leaf for the miners. Since it's one on one, Antonio told me a lot of extra things about the usage of coca leaf for the miners, like how they could work whole day with just eating coca leaf and how to heal themselves with coca leaf.

We went to see the city of Potosi and Cerro Rico as background at the mirador (lookout point) Then the journey into the mine tunnel started. Since I was the only one, Antonio brought me to his former working place Minas de San Miguel. It's a bit different from the touristic mines as this is still a functioning mine and it requested a bit of climbing up and down. Strongly suggest taking a mask with you as it's a bit dusty down there when the workers operated. We went to 4 different levels and got to meet 3 workers. It's quite shocking getting to know that they worked day and night without much rest. Antonio brought me to the so called "museo" to see some figures of Spaniard and African worker. At the same place also got the biggest "El Tio" in Cerro Rico. Antonio also shown me different types of minerals harvested in the mine.

The journey took around 3 hours. It's really a special experience to see how a mine works from the Spaniard era till present day. And especially from the mouth of an ex-miner telling the difficulties they are facing at the moment. If you want to experience something different, this is it.