After a night in Uyuni we made our way to Potosí, a city with so much history and tragedy. Potosí at 4,090 metres is one of the highest cities in the world and grew enormously back in the old colonial times off the back of the silver mines in the near by Cerro Rica. Back in the 16thcentury, with a population of over 200,000, it was one of the largest cities of the world at that time. Much of the world’s silver at that time came from Potosí, hence its significance to the world’s economy at the time. The silver was shipped over to Europe via Panama from where the ships had to avoid being attacked by pirates on their way to Cadiz, Spain. Recently a number of these old ships have been discovered off the coast of Colombia, Cuba etc. and there is a controversial debate as to who has rightful claims to the Potosí silver contained in these wrecks, not helped by the fact that Bolivia is no longer classified as a maritime nation.
Over the years with the gradual depletion of the silver deposits in Cerro Rico, Potosí’s population declined to about 9,000. Today much of the silver mining has finished as all of the accessible deposits have been mined and much of the remaining mining activity is for the less economic tin deposits. The mines in Cerro Rico still are one of the harshest working environments in the world and frighteningly large numbers of miners over the years have paid the ultimate sacrifice either through death or massively shortened life expectancy. Some of the more ghoulish tourists do a working mine tour, which includes giving coca leaves to the miners, we gave this a miss as it is in pretty bad taste.
Potosí has a wealth of old colonial buildings, including many merchants houses as well as all the churches and grand public buildings, and the city has recovered to a population of about 175,000. While mining is still important, the city also relies on tourism, it is firmly on the gringo trail, and other light industries.
Our first day in Potosí coincided with a massive festival where by every school in the city and its environs paraded down to the main square Plaza 10 de Noviembre. The school children were all very smartly dressed, marching and accompanied by their school bands and flag carriers. Also like teenagers the world over the girls wore high heals and lots of make up, with the boys with gelled hair also both the boys and girls were playing with their mobile phones.
Potosí has one of Bolivia’s best museums, the Casa Real de la Moneda, the old Mint, which tells the story of Potosí’s development, especially the silver mining and the minting of coins. Indeed one of Potosí’s less well known but important contributions to the world is the hall mark of Potosí silver which takes the letters PTSI and overlays them on top of each other to give the dollar sign $ and indeed with the vertical bar down the middle, a theme repeated in other currencies, even the €. The restored rooms where the silver was processed into ingots for pressing into coins also highlighted the awful working conditions, especially as a by-product of silver processing is mercury.
The other big site in Potosí, is the Santa Teresa Convent, which is from the Carmelite sect of the Catholic Church. The very wealthy population would send their second daughters to the Convent, where they would then live in a form of devoted recluse for the rest of their lives. Once the girls crossed the threshold of the convent, they would not leave it until their death. The wealth on display in the convent was very impressive, as the wealthy families when sending their daughters to the convent would pay a substantial dowry either in cash or chattels to cover the costs and more of their daughter’s upkeep. Life in the convent, to modern eyes, was very harsh and centred around ritual and devoted worship.
One of Potosí’s other claims to fame is that it has the world highest commercial brewery, which makes Potosina beer. This is a very passable and drinkable beer.
Date: 07/05/2018 to 09/05/2018