Chile's rescued miners mum on nightmare experience

Chile's 33 miners began their first weekend above ground since a rescue that gripped the world, but were keeping silent on many of the hellish details of their 69-day ordeal trapped deep in the earth.

"We are not going to talk about that," said 63-year-old Mario Gomez, the oldest of the workers stuck for more than two months in a northern Chilean copper and gold mine, when asked by reporters about the nightmare experience.

"That's reserved," was the answer to the same question from Ariel Ticona, 29, as he left the hospital where he and the rest of the rescued workers were cared for until most were discharged on Friday.

The miners have became global media stars since their widely watched rescue on Wednesday. Book and movie deals are expected, which could help account for their reluctance to reveal too much about the experience.

They have also been showered with job offers and gifts, including invitations to visit the Greek isles and Graceland as well as attend European soccer matches.

But they are not saying much so far about what it was really like after the August 5 cave-in that left them huddled together in a humid cavern 2,050 feet (625 metres) underground.

Reporters will have another try at extracting information from the 33 on Sunday when many of them plan to return to the mine for a ceremony marking their ordeal.

Ticona's third child, "Esperanza", or Hope, was born while he was trapped below. He and others released from the hospital were showered with confetti as they arrived home on Thursday and Friday to jubilant cheers of family and friends.

When the mine caved in, the men were believed to have died in yet another of Latin America's litany of mining accidents.

Rescuers found them 2 1/2 weeks later with a bore hole the width of a grapefruit.

That tiny hole became an umbilical cord used to pass down hydration gels, water and food to keep them alive until a bigger shaft could be bored to bring them up.

In a complex but flawless operation under Chile's Atacama desert, the miners were hauled out one by one in a metal capsule little wider than a man's shoulders and dubbed "Phoenix" after the mythical bird that rose from the ashes.

The men burned tires in the first days after the mine collapse, hoping the smoke would reach the surface and alert rescuers, and set off explosives in an effort to be heard.

When their reserves of bottled water dwindled to 10 litres, they began drinking from metal drums of water tainted with motor oil.

"The good thing about being free is that when you have a bad dream you wake up and realise it was a dream," rescued miner Victor Segovia said. "But inside (the mine), we would wake up in the nightmare."