Blogs from Potosi, Potosí Department, Bolivia, South America - page 34

Now that I've sobered up let me give you a few useful facts about where I am. Potosi is located in the southern part of Bolivia, still high in the Andes (at 13k feet, still twice as high as Denver). It was founded in 1546, directly after they found silver in them thar hills. By the early 1600s it was the greatest silver producer in the world and had a population that topped many European cities of the time including London and Paris, at 160,000. The mountain from which they dug up this silver "Cerro Rico" Rich Mountain, certainly was, culturally, architecturally, and actually. It was a magnet for all those things riches brings. It was the ‘sweetheart’ of colonialist Spain, whose ‘leaders’ used the Bolivians and the silver to make themselves enormously rich. Once the ... read more

We are putting together a web page to be able to show you some of the movies we are taking along the way. It's still "under construccion" but we thought you might like a sneak preview... To see some funny movies related to this blog, click here (sorry mum!) POTOSI Arriving in Potosí, the first thing you notice is how cool it is, even at mid-day. The second thing you quickly notice is how easily you become short of breath, just walking at an easy pace around town feels like you're jogging around. Both of these effects are of course caused by Potosí's high altitude. At 3,967m (13,000 feet) above sea level, it is the second highest city in the world. At such altitude, there is only around 58% of the oxygen that you would have ... read more

From Uyuni we took a fairly tame bus ride to Potosi. We received word from a few that this bus ride was, if possible, worst than the Oruro to Uyuni night bus (see a few entries ago), however the road was paved and the geological features (syclines, antclines, thrust fault features, heavily oxidized soils (red) constrasted against those that were not) were simply fantastic! Grant was fairly excited to visit Potosi and Cerro Ricco, which makes a back drop to the city, after seeing the film ´The Devils Miner´ at the 2005 VIFF. Potosi has been a city of silver mining for almost 500 years and like most mining towns has gone from boom to bust, and there are hints that it may be heading back towards boom. Sadly, as there is little to no regulation, ... read more

From my last entry we were actually delayed leaving La Paz. We boarded our bus and packed up at 8am, only to hear that there was a protest from locals in a town called Ureros, which was 4 hours away, and the main road to our next desination of Potosi. They had closed the road because of this protest, which are apparently quite common. So we spent an extra day in La Paz, which was fine by me, so me and a couple of lads found an English bar and had a great breakfast and an English cuppa, and we watched football, Man Utd v Blackburn on tv. Then just went shopping again, its very very cheap here, and then had a good night out, ending a great day. Te next morning we were up and ... read more

The bus to Potosi from Uyuni was a nightmare. No toilets and I had stocked up on water expecting them - I was very grateful for the first stop after 3.5 hours. The driver was driving like a madman, swerving around llamas which were in the road - llamas are all over the Andes - farmed like cattle in the UK but without the boundries of fields. We had bought a newspaper the previous day and there was a story about a drunken bus driver who had crashed his bus killing 6 of the passengers and injuring many more. Apparently this is not uncommon in Bolivia. This story fresh in our minds and the steep mountain roads did not calm our nerves. We safely arrived at Potosi at 4pm and kissed Pachamama. Pachamama is mother earth ... read more