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Tolar Grande, a windswept settlement perched at 11,500 feet above sea level in northern Argentina, once received little more than a trickle of visitors. Then, in the late 2010s, hostels in the lithium-rich town began filling up with workers at mining companies, while the handful of small eateries shifted from serving the occasional tourist to feeding miners.
“Mining absorbed almost everyone,” Marta Ríos, who runs the civil registry in Tolar Grande, home to around 300 people, told Rest…
