The only non-Chilean among the 33 men freed from a mine last week returned to his native Bolivia Monday and received a hero's welcome and a $1,000-a-month job at a state company.
Carlos Mamani, 21, was welcomed at El Alto's airport by two ministers and escorted to the presidential palace, where leftist leader Evo Morales had lunch with him and offered him a job at state-run energy company YPFB.
"I'm very grateful. I wasn't expecting anything like this," Mamani told reporters after leaving the presidential palace. Five days ago he was pulled from the San Jose mine in northern Chile as part of a dramatic rescue operation.
The miners were hauled out in a metal capsule barely wider than a man's shoulders and dubbed "Phoenix" after the mythical bird that rose from the ashes.
After resurfacing Wednesday, the miners were showered with job offers and gifts, including free vacations to Jamaica, the Greek isles and Elvis Presley's Graceland mansion, as well as invitations to European soccer matches.
But Mamani, the only non-Chilean among the 33 miners trapped for 69 days half a mile underground, said he decided to come back to Bolivia to work for the state.
"President Morales has offered me a safe job and a home. I'm very proud and I'm coming back to Bolivia," Mamani said.
According to a relative that also met with Morales, Mamani will earn about $1,000 a month -- 10 times the minimum wage in the impoverished Andean country.
Bolivia's consul in Chile, Walker San Miguel, told local media that Mamani returned to his home country because "he could no longer live" in Copiapo, the town where the San Jose mine is, due to harassment by journalists.
Most of Chile's 33 rescued miners have not discussed the worst moments of their ordeal.