Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Potosi
The highest city on earth at 4070 meters and WOW don't you know about it. It is cold here and extremely difficult to walk around without gasping for breath. It really does make a difference 500 meters makes. The city is lovely though, with cobbles streets, great ornate churches and colonial architectural buildings, and when the sun is shining, it is warm in direct sunlight. The days were spent wandering around the city, chilling in cafes, and a visit to the Casa Nacional de la Moneda ( the national mint). This restored building now houses religious art, ancient coins and wooden minting machines. It was once the royal mint and between 1753 - 1773 and controlled the minting of colonial coins.
Walking around this city proves that is was once a very rich city due to the mining of silver. Beautiful buildings and mansions with little balconies, this is now a Unesco World Heritage site.
Unfortunately Col became unwell due to the altitude and then a day later, I did too. It really is an awful feeling and I was actually sick with it, Col just had the headaches. After a day or two we both were feeling a lot better. We spent 5 nights in Potosi before deciding to move onto Sucre. We were sad to leave as we felt better and loved Potosi with its quaint cobbled streets and gorgeous buildings. We had decided not to do the mine tour. After feeling rotten for a few days, there was no way I wanted to go down a dark mine and feel even more claustrophobic and unable to breath. And I thought it might be upsetting, as work is done by hand with basic tools, no safety regulations, breathing in toxic chemicals for the small amount of money they receive for the minerals they manage to extract from the mine. Children work down there too, and I don't think I could handle it, so we gave it a miss. Maybe next time.
We checked out of our hostel and took a cab to the bus station. Within 5 seconds of getting out the cab, we had people shouting at us, Sucre! Sucre! We were bundled on a small bus, a micro, our bags thrown in the back and off we went, all for a mere 15 Bolivianos each. £1.50. We were the only white folks on the bus apart from one other older couple. I loved travelling this way, we had locals with huge bags of stuff on the bus, the front seat next to the driver had 5 people squeezed onto it, classic. I laughed when Col mentioned that the lady in front of us, crossed herself 5 times as the bus started. Fingers crossed we get to the other side ok. Was it going to be a long 3 ½ hour journey I wonder....this is travelling.
- comments