Cerro de Pasco, Peru: The Plateau Above the World

By Cliff Potts
Bay Bay City, Leyte, Philippines — August 20, 2026

This is a serialized installment from the autobiography of Cliff Potts.

Above the Tree Line

Cerro de Pasco sits more than 14,000 feet above sea level — a mining city carved into an Andean plateau where the air is thin and the sky feels close.

We were above the tree line. No forests. No tall shade trees. Just low alpine growth, moss, mud, stone, and gullies cut by runoff. The land did not sit flat; it rose and dipped in shallow bowls and soft ridges that concealed deeper cuts in the earth.

From our back gate, one direction led across open ground to a small red schoolhouse. The other direction sloped down through mossy gullies toward the town itself, separated from the Company compound by a fence that marked more than property.

Two Worlds

The compound functioned as an American enclave — structured housing, English-speaking management, a clubhouse at the center. Beyond the fence were Peruvian families whose lives were not tied to corporate schedules.

Even as a child, I sensed the separation.

Two worlds sharing one mountain.

Thin Air

The plateau was shaped by uplift and erosion, not ice sheets. The Andes rose because tectonic plates collided and refused to settle. Wind and water completed the work.

At nine years old, geology did not matter. Breath did.

The air was so thin that running any distance felt like borrowing oxygen from someone else. Every sprint ended sooner than expected.

And yet, for six months, that high, exposed plateau was home.

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