Every morning, shepherd Esteban Taipe spies from his stone hut to see if any visitors arrive at the abandoned town in the Peruvian Andes that arose next to what was
the largest deposit of mercury in the Western Hemisphere
and fueled mining from Mexico to Bolivia four centuries ago.
The "mine of death",
known for the number of indigenous miners who died from mercury poisoning, is located in the Quechua community of Santa Barbara and was the main deposit of that mineral in the Americas until the discovery of another in California. in the XIX century.
"I would like there to be another image of the site, of the church, of the fields, that it is restored," said Taipe, who when he sees a car arrive at the ghost town, he leaves his alpacas in the corral, puts on a hat and
walks a kilometer
with a backpack on his shoulder to welcome visitors.
A scarecrow dressed as a miner is found near the ghost town of Santa Barbara (AP /Franklin Briceño).
Taipe, 72, has become an improvised guide to the city of almost 200 adobe and stone structures, a baroque church, closed sinkholes and mining facilities from a camp that
stopped operating 45 years ago.
Santa Bárbara is located in Huancavelica, the only region of Peru that does not have an air connection with the capital or with other regions.
The government seeks to turn the mining complex into its main attraction to boost tourism in one of the least visited areas of the country.
Alpaca herder Esteban Taipe walks towards the ghost town of Santa Bárbara (AP /Franklin Briceño).
That is why it has nominated the mining complex as World Heritage before the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and seeks to place it at a level of interest similar to that of other emblematic mercury mines such as Almadén since 2012. , in Spain, and Idrija, in Slovenia.
According to UNESCO, the production of mercury in Huancavelica was the largest in the Western Hemisphere and ranks fourth in the world after Almadén, Idrija and Monte Amiata, in Italy.
The grave of thousands of indigenous people
For indigenous people in the 17th and 18th centuries, work in Santa Barbara and other mines
was mandatory
.
In the silver mines of Potosí, in Bolivia, where the Peruvian mercury reached, they were beaten and flogged if the Spanish supervisors considered their performance to be poor.
The population of the Andes was devastated mainly by mining work, according to experts.
For example, the province of Chumbivilcas (445 kilometers from Santa Bárbara), whose people were forced to extract mercury, decreased by
more than 11,000 inhabitants
between the 16th and 19th centuries.
The Lima chronicler Buenaventura de Salinas y Córdova wrote in 1630 that hundreds arrived in Santa Bárbara "chained like criminals," sometimes followed by their relatives, to whom
they said goodbye with songs
before entering the deadly sinkholes.
Men and women dance in the ghost town of Santa Bárbara, Peru (AP /Franklin Briceño).
In his book "Memorial of the Stories of the New World, Peru" he tells the story of a man who, after surviving mining work, returns home and finds his
wife dead
and his two children in the care of an aunt. When the head of His village demands that he return to the mine,
before committing suicide he hangs his children
to free them from "the work that he had to do."
Others suffered from "quicksilver," the old name for mercury poisoning that manifested itself with tremors, sores on the lips, salivation and difficulty speaking.
"Many people suffered," summarized Taipe, who despite not having completed primary school, affirms that he learned the history of Santa Barbara from the occasional guides who have arrived accompanying foreign visitors coming from Cusco, the capital of the Inca empire.
a ghost town
Santa Barbara began to decline in production between the 18th and 19th centuries, but the discovery of another mercury mine called New Idria in 1854 in California, during the gold rush in that part of the United States, accelerated its decline.
In the 20th century, a Peruvian mining company continued to exploit the area open pit and built a concentrator plant, a hydroelectric plant and a cable rail system to transport the mineral, but
everything stopped working in the mid-1970s.
The metallurgical complex and the offices of the mining plant, still standing, give the impression that time has stopped.
Accounting notebooks and production sheets covered in dust are scattered on the floor.
Commercial papers litter the floor of an abandoned office of the mine that closed (AP /Franklin Briceño).
The armed conflict between 1980 and 2000 between the security forces and the terrorist group Sendero Luminoso ended up turning Santa Bárbara into
a ghost town.
Due to the disappearances and abuses on both sides, the peasants who lived near the colonial town abandoned it.
It is estimated that at least a hundred members of the current 280 square kilometer community
were murdered
during that violent period.
In 1995, Taipe and his wife came to live in a cabin located one kilometer from the abandoned city.
Years later the pastor became a Christian and since then he has been in charge of being the guardian of the colonial church, which had been looted during the armed conflict.
Alpaca herder Esteban Taipe checks a grave in the cemetery of the ghost town of Santa Bárbara (AP Photo/Franklin Briceño).
Only one day a year does the town come back to life
: every December 4, when the Catholic community members celebrate the feast of Saint Barbara, protector of the miners.
A band plays Andean music while the youngest chase a bull in the plaza in front of the church and others dance and drink beer.
But when the darkness of the night forces them to leave, the town is silent again for another year.
AP Agency.
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