Even as they advance in years, they still have each other's backs, because they know wildcat mining here can be deadly.  "Some [of my friends] have died," Vargas said. "Some have been crushed by the mountain or fallen down a mineshaft, but what can you do about it?  The desert hillsides here are dotted with modest crosses in memory of some of those miners who died underground. They call the crosses "animitas" or "little spirits."  Each time Vargas passes one of the "little spirits," he waves his hand or toots his truck horn.  "It's just like if you see a stranger out in the desert, you greet him. I always greet the little spirits. You never know when the same could happen to you," he said.  Olivares doesn't speak much. But he grins a lot behind the transparent plastic safety goggles he wears at a rakish angle.  Vargas says Olivares sometimes even wears the eyewear to bed.  Ask Olivares if he's found his fortune and he gives the thumbs up.  Ask him if he trusts his lifelong friend Vargas not to double-cross him when they strike gold, and he laughs and waggles his hand.  "I trust him, more or less," he joked.  In fact, the pair trust one another with their lives.  The Chilean government is struggling to regulate wildcat mining. The tiny mining prospects, small vertical shafts, pockmark remote parts of the northern Atacama desert.  Each is operated by just one or two miners, making the mines tough for officials to find, and even tougher to control.  Vargas calls his mine "la cerquita" -- Spanish for "the near one" -- because it is close to his wooden bungalow in the town of Inca de Oro.  The mine, about 25 meters (80 feet) deep, was dug before either Vargas or Olivares can remember, but had long been abandoned.  Now, with gold prices at sky-high levels, the pair think they can make a profit searching for a forgotten vein.
Two old-timers sit side by side on a desert rock, cutting detonating cord and decanting explosive pink fertilizer into thin tubes of newspaper.They've long forgotten how many sticks of dynamite