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Published: January 5th 2010
So I after the jungle I headed straight to Sucre a very pretty colonial town in Bolivia. I spent a couple of days wandering around the town admiring all the white buildings and relaxing in the park and then I went to Potosi - the highest city in the world (4090m)!
Potosi was founded in 1545 after the discovery of silver ore deposits in the mountain Cerro Rico. The main industry here is still mining although the silver is now great depleted and the ore now contains only 2% silver and 10% other minerals. With the mines being the main attraction I went to visit one -they are still working mines and so our first stop was at the miners market to buy gifts for the miners of dynamite, fizzy drinks and coca leaves. Then we headed off to the process factory where we were shown how the minerals were extracted from the ore and after that we went to the mine. In the mine there were times when we had to crawl through the passageways and climb down rickety ladders (made even more dificult by being at high altitude). We went down to the lowest level 4 floors down were
it got quite stuffy and dusty - the miners work for 35 years before the dust gets too much for them. On the lowest level we met a 15 year boy who had been working there since he was 13! Back outside our guide blew up a stick of dynamite for us to watch - as you can see I tryed taking a photo but I jumped quite a bit when it exploded.
After the mine trip I went to find out what happened to the silver that was mined at the Casa Real de la Moneda a museum containing old coins and giving information about the history of the bolivian currency and the minting of the coins. Incidentally bolivian money is no longer minted in Bolivia but is instead made in Chile!
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