Cerritos College

Cerritos College Prof Explores Deserts, Silver Mines and Salt Plains

Geography Professor Robert Kreger Experiences South America While on Sabbatical

In his more than 14 years at Cerritos College, geography professor Bob Kreger has nearly perfected his ability to put his students’ “mind’s eyes” in the midst of a certain geographic location through his descriptive storytelling.

He’s been able to teach this way because he’s actually been to the many places he describes to his students, and after spending nearly six weeks in South America this winter during his sabbatical, Kreger’s catalog of expertise on geographical locale has just been expanded.

Geography—the study of the concept of “place”—is a discipline within Cerritos College’s Earth Science Department. As one of only two full-time geography professors at the campus, Kreger’s experiences at the college have certainly been varied. But nothing could have prepared him for the adventures he encountered when he stepped off a plane in Quito, Ecuador in mid-December, 2005.

“I had taught about the geography of South America for most of my career at Cerritos College,” he explained, and had developed “a healthy geographic curiosity” about the region. Since he and his wife had connections in La Paz, Kreger was elated when his proposal for a sabbatical spent traveling and photographing several countries in South America was accepted.

“The first thing I did was spend nearly four days in Ecuador visiting Quito, the capital, several smaller towns nearby and the equator,” Kreger explained. “La Paz was our primary base of operations. Our friends in the area were very hospitable; they even quarreled a little over who would get to house the American guests.”

Later, Kreger traveled to Arica, Chile. “Arica is an interesting city,” he said. “There’s a duty-free zone, where visitors can buy a variety of products—both legal and illegal. It’s also a bustling coastal city and a popular destination for travel.”

Kreger said the physical landscape of Arica includes several striking dichotomies. For example, along with the region’s vast stretches of desert, there are hundreds of acres of olive and mango trees watered from deep wells and irrigation ditches the Chilean government learned to develop through a scientific exchange program with Egypt.

Kreger next spent a few days in Peru, where he visited Lake Titicaca, the highest fresh water lake on Earth. His relatively brief tour of Peru also included visits to the Incan city of Macchu Pichu, the Spanish colonial city of Cuzco and more of the Andes Mountains, all of which Kreger said, “were interesting and beautiful.”

Back in Boliva, Kreger spent time in both Santa Cruz and La Paz. While La Paz is the political center of the country, Santa Cruz remains the economic nucleus of the country.

“There’s a bit of competition between La Paz and Santa Cruz,” Kreger said. “Bolivia as a whole is divided into nine different states called “departments.” These departments don’t readily share their resources, so there is a marked contrast between Bolivia’s geographic regions."

Kreger also enjoyed a three-day stay in San Borja, an outpost on the fringes of the Amazon Jungle. The area, due to its proximity to the jungle, is hot and humid—quite the opposite of La Paz. While in San Borja, Kreger visited the village of Carra Carra where he met a few Chimani Indians, whose culture he said remained virtually uninfluenced by Western Culture until very recently.

“The situation with the Chimani is very similar to the way it was with the U.S. and Alaska (in regard to the way the U.S. interacted with the indigenous peoples of Alaska),” he said. “In 1952, Bolivian land reforms gave vast areas of land back to the Indians, which they now control for their benefit.”

Kreger’s visit to Carra Carra was made possible with the aid of a local building contractor, Manfred, whose company is building a new road to the Chimani village with funding from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Kreger said many of the locals were interested in meeting a white man—apparently a rare experience for them since they live in such an isolated area.

Kreger visited the Salar de Uyuni, a 12,000-square-kilometer plain of salt that stretches flat, or “plano,” as far as the eye can see. Hundreds of centuries ago, it existed as an inland ocean. Then the ocean had several islands, which are now isolated rock formations used by the tour drivers as landmarks. Kreger said the salt bed is incredibly hard—like solid rock. He described it as one of the most unique places he had ever seen.

One of Kreger’s favorite excursions in Boliva was his tour of Cerro Rico, the single largest deposit of silver found in the world. It is located just outside the city of Potosi. “I was told by my guide that there remains as much silver inside the mines of Cerro Rico as has ever been removed,” Kreger said. “That’s a lot of silver; enough to build a bridge of solid silver from New York to Madrid, Spain.”

“Extensive mining of the silver began when the Spanish arrived,” he continued. “Of the 450 mines found at Cerro Rico, 125 remain actively worked by nearly 10,000 miners that are organized privately and work as cooperatives.”

Kreger and 10 other visitors toured a few of the active mines together on one of his last days in Potosi. “The only drawback of the tour,” he said, “was that we weren’t really told what to expect. First we were told to change into rubber outfits and boots. Then we had lighted helmets and battery packs strapped onto us.”

“Then,” Kreger said, growing animated, “we were told we could buy soda, grain alcohol, coca leaves, and detonation cord or dynamite as gifts for the miners.”  Kreger laughs. “Let’s just say we were heavily encouraged to buy gifts for the miners. It was expected of us as visitors.”

“Finally,” he continued, “we spent most of the tour basically crawling on our hands and knees through the mines. During the five-hour tour we crawled down to a depth of 450 meters below the earth’s surface. It was a bit spooky, but we still had to crawl out eventually.”

Kreger said it was fortunate that he toured the mine on a Friday; normally, the workers labor heavily during the week, scratching out ore by hand and pushing it out of the mine in a cart. But on Fridays, they relax a bit more. “As we walked through the mines, the workers were approachable and friendly,” he said.

One of the most meaningful experiences of Kreger’s adventure at Cerro Rico was when he, the 10 other tourists, the tour guides and a few of the miners sat in a circle deep in the mines sucking on coca leaves and drinking grain alcohol. This is an important symbolic ritual for the miners on Fridays when they pay tribute to “El Tio” (the protector of the miners) and to “Paccha Mamma” (Mother Earth).

“Everyone was telling stories and laughing there in the mine deep underground,” he said, recalling the party-like atmosphere. “This was the custom for the local workers—everyone sat around and sipped out of the same jug. It was a bonding moment for all of us, and I got to see a side of the culture I never would have seen otherwise.”

Kreger departed South America and arrived back in the U.S. on January 19. He said he looks forward to creating a web site featuring trip photos and explanatory text. He took more than 800 digital photos while on the trip and said he’ll be using many of these photos in class as he lectures about what his experiences taught him.

Looking back on his adventure, Kreger said he's sorry he couldn’t have had more time to see more of the other regions of South America.

“But I did get to experience most of the major climates and visit both large and small “places” in Ecuador, Chile, Peru and Bolivia,” he said, smiling.

“That clearly made it all worthwhile.”

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KH

The Campus Connection Online, March 14, 2005