The mining section of La Rinconada with Mount Ananea in the background.
The majority of residents live in small tin shacks along unpaved roads. Given the extreme elevation, daytime temperatures rarely exceed 40 degrees fahrenheit year-round, with nighttime temperatures regularly in the teens.
The entrance to the mines cuts through a shrinking glacier.
Workers returning home from their shift in the mine. The miners work long shifts deep inside the mountain where oxygen is scarce.
Miners hauling gold ore to La Rinconada to be crushed.
Most residents chew coca leaves which help suppress hunger, and alleviate exhaustion and altitude sickness. The consumption of coca has been widespread in Andean cultures for centuries.
Mercury is used frequently in La Rinconada to break the gold from the gold ore.
Many residents suffer from mercury poisoning, which attacks the nervous, digestive, and immune system. The entire city is reported to be contaminated with high levels of mercury and cyanide.
For many miners, striking gold is unpredictable. Some only find a few cents worth in a single day of work.
A woman forging metal spikes that are used to prop up the tunnels inside the mines.
Woman are not allowed to work in the gold mines of La Rinconada. "They say that if women enter they won’t be able to find gold," says Maria, a woman who has worked in La Rinconada for over nine years. "They [the men] say the work inside the tunnels is difficult, especially with the gases and everything else that comes out. Men are different you know. But if we were allowed to enter, we would". Local superstition claims that women who enter the mines will anger Pachamama, an ancient Andean goddess who resides over the mountains and causes earthquakes.
"It’s pretty difficult to to live here," says Maria. "Everybody thinks gold is easy to find, that living in La Rinconada is easy and rosy, but it’s not."
"Sometimes when people are lucky they find a lot of gold," says Maria. "But you need to know how to value the work and take advantage of it. Most of the men go to bars with girls to drink. They don’t know how to take advantage of what they are earning."
Sewage, cyanide and mercury run through the muddy pedestrian streets.
One of the local restaurants serving hot quinoa soup for the hungry miners.
Playing on the highest soccer pitch in the world, the miners of La Rinconada have put together a rag tag team.
"I came to better my life. In our homeland, there is no work. We live with a lot of contamination because of the mine and the trash. It’s how we live, there is no community here."
Peru is the fifth largest producer of gold in the world, and gold makes up roughly 6% of Peru's economy. Ever since the Incan and the early Spanish Empires, Peru has had a contentious relationship with gold. As Peru’s economy grows, and its citizens rely on jobs created by the gold mining industry, the country will be blessed and cursed for the foreseeable future.
