I arrived at the highest city in the world expecting to freeze my nuts off..... thankfully it was a lovely sunny day, with the only real reminder how high I was was from the constant loud wheezing of Jude next to me. She quietened down after a few hours after consuming proper hot chocolate. Pipping hot milk with a big lump of real chocolate dumped in it (see below). Potosi´s other claim to fame was that it had a huge mountain full of silver, which was Spain´s largest money making facility for over 200 years. Now its only used to get minerals out as they´ve nabbed it all. We spent time in Bolivia´s main museum, which explained how Bolivia has lost out in every single episode of their history. From Spain stealing their silver, to Chile taking their coastline, Paraguay taking their forest, and Brazil nabbing their Natural Gas. Not surprisingly they are now the poorest nation in South America, and makes you feel very sorry for them.
Yum, yum, and yum once more!
The scary figurehead from over 300 years ago which is now part of the museum which is where they processed the silver (they dont know who its of, or why the crazy smile!?)
Overlooking the town south side
The mountain of silver no more. Its possible to visit it and see the horrendous conditions that the miners work in (life expectancy is 10 years!) but the idea, and comments from people who did it was too depressing to go.
No comments:
Post a Comment