Environment & Energy

Amazing pictures show what it's like living in the highest habitable place on earth, 16,000 feet above sea level
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> This place is so awful that it is fascinating.
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> https://www.businessinsider.com/living-in-la-rinconada-the-highest-habitable-place-on-earth-2015-12
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> Free labor for a month ‘hoping’ for a lucky payday.
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> Mercury poisoning.
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> Many good pictures.
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> At a height of over 16,000 feet, it's a place where only the hardest-skinned can carve a living. More than 50,000 people live in the settlement, perched atop Mount Ananea in the Peruvian Andes. It spends much of the year in sub-zero temperatures.
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> WOW! How did they get the materials up there?
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> Unless they have cable cars or helicopters, it all would have to be brought up on foot to build the town and work the mines.
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> Food would be a continuous need.
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> Found it.
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> “and the only way in and out of the town is via icy roads that are rarely accessible by truck.”
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> La Rinconada
> The highest and saddest town in the world.
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> https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/la-rinconada
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> They have electricity so fuel must be brought in as well.
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> https://www.rt.com/op-ed/454486-la-rinconada-hell-mining-peru/
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> Welcome to hell: The Peruvian mining city of La Rinconada
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> A driver refused to take me to La Rinconada, alone. For me, the fewer people involved the better. Even in Afghanistan, I work alone, only with my trusted Pashtun driver. But here it is different: the reputation of La Rinconada is that “you can enter, but you will never manage to leave.” I am told about the new mafia that operates there, and about the totally deteriorating security situation. In the end, I had no choice but to accept a crew of two men: a driver and a person “who is familiar with the situation related to Peruvian mines.”
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> Then, we see it: enormous lakes, yellowish, brownish, with streams coming from their surface. Long blue hoses. Everything is ruined and poisoned. Freddy says that there are some new technologies that could be used to extract gold, but the miners here use mercury, as it is cheaper.