The only slavery in the Andean highlands is the fact that the human body is forced to adapt to the environment rather than the other way around. From what I've read and watched, these folks do not leave home in part because lower altitudes and the thicker, wetter air down here make them pretty ill--reverse altitude sickness is just as bad as the kind lowlanders climbing Everest must avoid.
With no technological distractions in much of the altiplano and similar areas, building a well access like that is the kind of thing a whole village would get together on; I can't imagine it taking them long to finish once everyone had their job to do--dig, collect rocks, shore up with rocks, etc. These are people who STILL gather salt by wading into water caustic enough to eat their clothing and shoveling the crystallized excess up into heaps to dry. Or by just sawing through a six-inch-deep salt crust and cutting it into blocks, which are transported by llama.
I watch too many documentaries, don't I?
