Potosi

It was already dark as my bus from Tupiza entered Potosi's bus terminal, a busy place where ticket sellers' loud sales announcements reverberated around the circular hall like monks' chants. The scene outside the bus terminal was even less impressive with busy traffic and vernacular buildings. First impressions of Potosi were not great.

Once the taxi entered the historic part of the city, however, the mood - both mine and the city's - changed. I remember how seeing the columns of Plaza 6 de Agosto being illuminated by lights made me feel happy. Going for a walk in the night, I found areas that were peacefully calm but also areas that were lively with people going out for drinks (or bubble tea) or had a musical parade going through it.  

During the day, I discovered a hardworking city with Andean Baroque architecture and overhanging covered balconies. Potosi's engaging colonial buildings and preserved history makes it more worthy as a two or more days destination rather than a day trip stop.

With respect to the mine tour of Cerro Rico, I did go on it. In the tour was just me and a Belgian tourist. The other tourist - a man probably in his late 20s - had a lot of difficulty breathing and keeping up and decided to quit the tour about a 1/3 way into it, which meant that I was left alone in the dark mine while the guide accompanied the other tourist out (I …

During my four and a half days in Potosí I used only 2 days to actually visit the city. 2 days I was waiting with my girlfriend that her headaches would go away. She was blaming the cold and dry air during the nights at 0°C, I suspected rather the altitude of 4000 m that Potosí has. Anyhow the two non- consecutive days passed by and during the other two days we were able to visit the mint, the St. Theresa monastery, do a touristic bus tour through the city, visit some other churches from the outside or sneak peak into the service and watch a first league football match of Nacional Potosí on a really high level ;).  
 
The last half day I waited in the hostel for my girlfriend who participated in a tour visiting the mines of Cerro Rico which I decided against even though parts of them logically belong to the story of the WHS. Working in a Western European Utility for whole of my working life I didn't dare to visit a workplace of others that surely would be shut down or run completely differently in the hands of my former employer in terms of respect to the workers and their safety. She found the visit interesting however had a really bad guide and knows more about the mines from reading now than from her actual visit which surely shows a tough environment however doesn't obviously display all the malconditions of the working place …

Getting to Potosi had been a dream of mine ever after having visited some of the silver mines of Mexico. Potosi was the largest silver mine of the Spanish empire and its crown jewel. To this day "Vale un Potosi" is a standing expression in Spanish for "worth a fortune".

The Potosi mine was a gruesome place. The high altitude of the mine at 4000m made the already terrible working conditions of a 16th century mine even worse. Similar to other parts of the Americas they tried using African slaves, but they tended to die off too quickly in the high altitude. So the work was mostly done by the local native Americans.

To this day the Potosi mines are a pretty dangerous places for miners. And for visitors. So you should consider if you want to join a tour. I decided against it and spent my time visiting the old town. The most notable structure in town is the royal mint, the casa de la moneda. I would recommend joining a tour to get a feeling for the site and the silver processing.

Personally, I enjoyed the Mexican silver towns better. Potosi is a historically important site and deserves inscription. It just isn't the nicest example of the type of town. And it lacks the quirkiness of my personal highlight, Guanjuato.

Getting There

I came by bus from Uyuni having also ticked off Pulancayo (T). If you …

You have to join a tour to get into the mines of Cerro Rico. When I got to the assembly point I was told that the other tourists that were supposed to join the group didn't show up (heard that they were drunk, LOL) so it left only me in the tour. Even it's only me but the tour still kept on, so I was like a VIP. We got into a small van and went to a place to suit up. We were provided with a helmet with a torchlight, hand gloves, boots, a thin jacket and pants. Then we went to the miners' market. As the 3rd generation miner and an ex-miner, my guide Antonio explained well to me about the history of Cerro Rico and the real miner story of himself on the way to the market.

When we arrived at the miners' market, we bought some water and coca leaf for the miners. Since it's one on one, Antonio told me a lot of extra things about the usage of coca leaf for the miners, like how they could work whole day with just eating coca leaf and how to heal themselves with coca leaf.

We went to see the city of Potosi and Cerro Rico as background at the mirador (lookout point) Then the journey into the mine tunnel started. Since I was the only one, Antonio brought me to his former working place Minas de San Miguel. It's a bit different from the touristic …

The approach to Potosí is magnificent - the road from Sucre already is a fine drive of 2.5 hours mostly on the Altiplano, but the first sight of the Cerro Rico (where all Potosi's riches came from) is truly exciting. There have been reports over the last few years that it is in danger of collapsing totally because of over-mining, but it still seemed to be a very sturdy mountain to me. It completely dominates the compact city beneath it.

As in Sucre, opening hours to the sights of Potosi are fairly limited and unreliable. I had left Sucre early to be able to visit at least its main attraction - La Casa de la Moneda. This former Mint is now set up as a museum, displaying both parts of its former use and miscellaneous exhibitions on art, archeology, and geology. One of its prize pieces is the 18th century La Virgen del Cerro, a work of the Potosi school depicting the whole (partly mythical) story of the Cerro Rico.

I had decided against visiting the interior of one of the mines early on - too claustrophobic for me. So I just wandered about in the fine colonial city center, sat on its main square, visited the bright Santa Teresa Monastery, and even meandered into the outskirts of the city to have a look at one of the former smelters, the Ingenio San Marcos.

Knowing the city's history, it's an impressive place to visit. Though as with …

As a Bolivian I am so proud that Potosi has been declared a World Heritage site. At the height of its splendor it is said to have rivaled London, Paris and Madrid in it's population size. It is also written that for some religious procesion the streets where paved with silver ingots that just poured out of "Cerro Rico" and which later where exported to Spain.

Many of us have forgotten or do not know about the past glory this little city high in the Andes has brought our country. It is truly a world heritage site. It would be wonderful to be able to access more infomation on it, to be able to see the art and read more of the stories about the ostentation the families of the miners lived. Almost like the bubble lived here in the US by the IPO generation :)