DOWN INTO THE DEPTHS OF MORDOR

Forget scaling mountains, rafting river rapids or long-distance cycling trips; descending into the Mountain that Eats Men on Bolivia's Altiplano was a physically demanding challenge I'll never forget.

It wasn't until the seemingly fit and healthy Frenchmen in our party passed out, stone cold unconscious, that the mild panic that had been simmering surreptitiously below my stoic and impassive demeanour threatened to leap forth, breaking the surface of my worked-at placidity like some angered great white shark coming up from the depths. His girlfriend started crying out for help and the faces of the others in the group were blanched, the colour having drained from them like pink sand through an egg-timer.

Cerro Rico (The Rich Hill) lies just outside the highest city in the world, Potosí, renowned for its silver as well as its 4000m plus altitude. The precious metals extracted from this mountain since the city's founding in 1545 bankrolled the European renaissance and underwrote the Spanish economy - and its monarchs extravagance - for over two centuries. During colonial rule as many as eight million people died from the appalling conditions and with an estimated 12,000 - 15,000 miners still working the mines today, the slow and painful death from silicosis pneumonia brought on from a cocktail of noxious chemicals and gases continues. A new miner, sometimes as young as 11 years old, will be lucky to live more than 10 years after entering this place.

With this eery and macabre stage set it was my turn to step, albeit briefly, into a barely-living history; a ghost world that would push me both physically and mentally to my limits.

At day break our small group was on the move, a grey, leaden sky hung heavily over the desolation of the Bolivian Altiplano that seemed to stretch indefinitely until it simply fell off the map, a 4000m-high island surrounded by an ocean of land. To be marooned here was a tough life indeed and this feeling of isolation was no more real than here and now, standing at the foot of Cerro Rico. The bustling miners' market provided a brief respite before the surreal experience that was to follow and we busied ourselves buying gifts for the miners. My shopping list was an unusual one; sticks of dynamite, fuse lines, cigarettes, 96 proof alcohol and some bags of coca leaves. After a short stop at a processing plant where belts and cogs cracked and clanked threatening to severe an arm at any moment, we climbed a steep track to the mine entrance.

As the daylight behind me shrunk to a distant star, my pupils dilated into black holes and I struggled to absorb an unfamiliar world. It was hard to breath. I could have been floating in space. Out of the gloom came a couple of bouncing yellow lights and the sound of metal on metal. The miners passed us without a glance, pushing a truck full of stone, dirty cheeks bulging from thick wads of coca leaves to numb the pain. We pressed ourselves to the uneven walls, just managing to escape being hit.

The shaft we were walking down was becoming narrower and lower as we passed other workers, drenched in sweat. We took a side passage which linked to a very small downward shaft to a lower level. Bent double we passed a rabbit warren of tunnels as well as half-repaired cave-ins held up by old wooden beams until we reached a small cave and the end of the line, or so I thought. Our guide scuffled off into a small hole in the corner no bigger than a basketball. A few of us followed and it was shortly after that that the Frenchman fainted.

When he came to and the panic in me had settled, I was aware of where we were. A single figure lay, his wet back pressed against the hot rock, hammering a metal chisel into the hard wall repeatedly and forcefully. Our guide explained that he would need to work at this for three hours before making a hole big enough to take a stick of dynamite which he would then blow up, exposing more rock allowing him to continue his hunt for silver.

The miner took a break with us and I handed him the gifts I’d picked up at the market. After taking a swig of the near-pure alcohol, he passed the bottle back and gestured for me to try some. It burnt as it went down, like drinking bleach I imagine. Tipsy and disorientated we made the return journey back towards the entrance. Breaking free of the darkness, reborn into the light, I was shattered and relieved.

As the battered minibus made its descent back to the city I stared out of the scratched window, forever changed. Cerro Rico, disappearing from view into a low mist, seemed suddenly not to exist, fading from time itself its memories indelibly printed upon my being.