When the Bull Cried

Giant fourthousanders rise majestically to the skies in the Bolivian Andes. Grey-blue craggy steep faces and white mountain clouds flow into each other. Mining is the sole industry here. People climb down into the stony bowels of the mountains and risk their lives to mine silver and other minerals. The freezing cold, dark mineshafts regularly collapse and bury the workers. They say that the souls of those who die in the shaft must wander for three days, all the time pursued by “el tío”, the mountain god. They fight their fear with alcohol and coca; superstitions abound, hoping every day for the big find and trying to propitiate the spirits with sacrifices. Archaic rituals are meant to appease Mother Earth, but a look into the
people’s exhausted faces makes one suspect that their faith is shaken with every death. When the bull cried offers a poetic look at life on a mystical place.