Potosi, Potosi, Potosi

At every bus station in Bolivia, scores of touts stand around chanting the name of their bus’s destination, always in threes and always in quite a high pitched, plaintive voice. In Uyuni (where we finished up the Salar tour), people generally head to either Potosi or La Paz, so you get a kind of song-in-the-round effect as the touts compete for business.

Last time I was here the ride from Uyuni to Potosi took about 8 hours along a bone-shaking dirt road. The road has now been freshly asphalted and the trip now takes half the time!!! Yay!

Potosi is the world’s highest city and was at one time also one of the richest, thanks to Cerro Rico (Rich Hill), which has been pouring out thousands of tons of silver, lead, zinc and tin since the first vein was discovered around 500 years ago. It is said that a bridge of pure silver could have been built between Potosi and Madrid with the amount that the Spaniards extracted (plundered); certainly the architecture of the city hints at far more affluent times.

 

We did a tour of the mines, which I wouldn’t exactly say was enjoyable…but it was definitely interesting, confronting and made us happy as hell that we’re not Bolivian miners.

We bought presents for the miners- coca leaves, cigerettes and…..Ceibo, Bolivian booze with a brain damaging 96% alcohol. As we chatted to some of the miners inside the mines, our guide presented them with the gifts and then invited us to share some Ceibo with them. Christ- the shit is so potent it evaporates on your lips almost before you can get it down you (which is a blessing). Nothing like working in already dangerous conditions when you’re hopped up on metho!! My favourite part was when our guide tried to convince us that Ceibo is actually better for you than other alcohol because it’s PURE!! Right!!