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Playing the ‘Green Lottery’: Life Inside Colombia’s Emerald Mines
For many of the men who hunt for the country’s prized gems, the mines are like casinos in the middle of the Andes: One stone could change it all.
At the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, with travel restrictions in place worldwide,
The New York Times launched a new series The World Through a Lens in which photojournalists help transport you, virtually, to compelling new places. Here, Juan Pablo Ramirez
shares a collection of images from the Colombian state of Boyacá.
I was half a mile into the mine shaft, and my heart was racing. Hunched underneath the low ceiling and hardly able to see, I was following along by listening to the splashes of the men’s steps in front of me. The water, dripping from above, was up to my ankles. Then we stopped. We’d come to a dead end, one of the miners said. In order for us to proceed, they needed to set off some dynamite.