La Rinconada: the highest settlement on Earth

For a long time I thought that the highest village on earth should be in Tibet. And only a couple of years ago, traveling in Tibet, I read on the Internet that Peru belongs to this issue. The settlement is called La Rinconada. It is located a 4-hour drive from Lake Titicaca at an altitude of 5100 m on the side of a mountain. So that you can better feel the height of the town, I give for comparison the figures of our highest mountains: Elbrus (5642 m), Belukha (4509 m), Klyuchevskaya Sopka (4835 m). Many courageous travelers climb these peaks, overcoming numerous hardships, cold and miner's symptoms. In La Rinconada, people just live. They are born and die, play, walk, go to school, get sick and work from dawn to dusk. Yes, how they work! Basically, the entire male population is involved in the extraction and processing of gold.

Most mines do not follow basic safety rules. In some, a payment method is still practiced, in which the miners work for a month for free, and on the last day of the month they are allowed to work for themselves and take out as much ore as they can. And then how lucky.

The mines are located just below the town near the dead lake polluted to the limit with technical waters.

Miner slums sprawl nearby, into which poor Indians gather from all around to try their luck.

Garbage here, as indeed in the village of La Rinconada, is not taken out. He is simply dumped on the streets and along paths.

Water is poisoned by mercury, which is used to amalgamate gold. Even in the warm season it snows. Frost is cracking at night.

Wives go to these inhuman conditions for husbands miners, trying to control the husbands income and expenses and earn money on their own.

Some, like this woman, for example, collect dirt right on the street next to the processing shops and wash it right there in puddles in the hope of finding a grain of gold, others sell something on the market, deliver food, work in shops, cafes and hotels.

In general, despite the indescribable litter and pollution of La Rinconada, it is an active rapidly developing town.

Minibuses and large buses come here from the surrounding cities every hour from early morning to late at night. In the center there are many hotels, restaurants, cafes, wineglass, grocery and clothing stores.

There are real basement clubs in the style of the 90s with mirrors, cheap color music and mirror balls on the ceiling.

And of course, like a real Klondike, La Rinconada has its own red light district. It begins a little further than the city hall. Nondescript establishments are crowded on both sides, where you can have a bite in the afternoon, warm yourself in the evening and relax with a glass of alcohol, and then, look, and get to know the sweet senorita, who, despite the severity of high-altitude life, manages to look fresh and seductive. Amor, amor ... We can safely complement the classic: all ages are submissive to love at any height.

So, not only the stream of wives after their husbands rushes to La Rinconada, but also many unmarried girls. Those and others, despite different life principles, are often driven by the same motives: to redirect "financial flows" from the pocket of a negligent miner to their own.

Nevertheless, there aren’t enough red light workers, no matter how many people come, so every second establishment has an announcement:

URGENTLY REQUIRED SENIORITIS!

Even in the center of La Rinconada, bags of garbage and just plastic bags, bottles and chocolate wrappers are lying on the streets. Dirt ankle-deep. Plus, it snows from time to time.

The only suitable shoes are rubber boots.

Under these conditions, local fashionistas are especially touched, jumping from stone to stone in hipster skinny jeans and sneakers. In general, it seemed to me that for the majority of the population, the problems of ecology in the city were deeply on the drum. And this is especially sad.

Ore from the mines enters the workshop, where it is crushed.

There are many such workshops on the outskirts of La Rinconada. I did not go down to the mines, as I had already been to the Potosi silver mines, but I went to see the crushing process. Both adults and children work here. Ore is transported in bags in a truck, then poured into a crusher, where it is further processed.

The lucky owners of it go to the precious metals to buy precious metals.

Buyers' offices are decorated in the same style and, more likely, resemble the offices of provincial travel agencies: greasy sofas for clients, on the walls are calendars and posters with Peru sights, golden Feng Shui figures (in this competition, Chinese animals are the last hope in the fight for the client), open door to the street and a desk with papers, a calculator and scales. Walking along the street of buyers, I never saw a single client in numerous offices. True, one reseller, standing on the porch, was just engaged in the extraction of gold using mercury, heating this infernal mixture with a blowtorch in some kind of bowl. At the same time, he did not even have a respirator.

On the day I arrived in La Rinconada, namely January 8, the weather was gray and damp. Every now and then wet snow fell, a cloud crawled over the town, and the mountains, on the slope of which the Peruvian Klondike sheltered, were not visible. I wandered around the streets for half a day, talked with the locals and miners and realized that I couldn’t be here anymore. Too painful was the feeling of this glorious place, killed by people consciously and ruthlessly.

Quarried foothills, dead lakes, mountains of rubbish, and soil and water poisoned by mercury. Probably, the inhabitants of medieval cities treated nature so thoughtlessly, only in those days, fortunately, there was no plastic and industry.

I left without regret and the desire to ever return. The bus went down a broken primer past mines and piles of garbage on which seagulls and vultures fed. At the other lower village, I nevertheless looked back - clouds just dispersed above La Rinconada.

I saw a classic Peruvian picture: snow-capped ridges, valleys, rivers. The idyll could only compare with Sahama Park. I imagined how pleasant it would be to travel around this area before gold was actively mined here. Only rare Indian settlements and fertile nature.

P.S. And yet, even in La Rinconada, you can find positive moments in life. Finally, I want to tell you just about such an interesting event. This is a football game. Real, classic, in a stadium with a green coating, with passions, fans, referees and injuries. The guys fought like animals, often their game began to resemble hard hockey.

Not being a football fan, I would probably pass by without paying attention to the match, if not for one “but”. I think you already understand what’s the matter. The height of the stadium - FIVE THOUSAND HUNDRED METERS!