Real Price of Gold

LIKE MANY OF his Inca forefathers, Juan Apaza is had by gold. Coming down right into an icy passage 17,000 feet up in the Peruvian Andes, the 44-year-old miner stuffs a wad of coca fallen leaves right into his mouth to support himself for the unavoidable appetite and tiredness. For thirty days monthly Apaza toils, without pay, deep within this mine dug down under a glacier over the world's greatest community, La Rinconada. For thirty days he deals with the risks that have eliminated a lot of his other miners—explosives, harmful gases, passage collapses—to essence the gold that the globe needs. Apaza does all this, without pay, to ensure that he could make it to today, the 31st day, when he and his other miners are provided a solitary move, 4 hrs or perhaps a bit much a lot extra, to transport out and maintain as a lot shake as their tired shoulders could birth. Under the old lotto system that still dominates in the high Andes, referred to as the cachorreo, this is what passes for a...