Silver Potosi... highest city in the world... once the thriving silver capital with more people than London or Paris...
It was dusty and we stayed at Hotel Jerusalem... an interesting place. This is were most of first experienced bathroom space economy. They place the toilet in the shower... which is all well and good, until you want to use the toilet again... so you need to dry it. Which is easy enough, it´s just hard to keep the toilet paper dry! Our bathroom door didn´t shut either, but we were warm and safe and did manage to get clean. They even did laundry. I shared a room with a girl called Sue, a lone traveller from England who joined us in La Paz. She was very sick with a slight dose of Salmonella and a bad throat infection, but with my wonderfully reassuring company she improved. Really!
Potosi is very different to Sucre. Sucre is a city that you can just wander around and feel ok... and not even I got lost. But Potosi... confusing, dusty and the people were more on edge. By the way, I forgot to mention that one of the great attractions in Sucre is the wonderful cemetry. I visited twice. Be warned though that it closes for lunch...
People still mine silver here, but the mine is run by a co-op. So when they are about to dynamite in the mine... they just knock on the wall as a warning. Great safety precautions. Not far from the mine, you can by all you need... dynamite, some chemical catalysts... coca leaves and metho (the miners sip this). Before our little mine tour we all bought some of these things for the miners. The tour was dark... wet... and very cold. We learnt of how the miners believe in the devil... they say that out in the sun the devil is bad but in the devil´s world under the ground, it is good. So they leave offerings at various statues below ground. An interesting experience but I was glad to leave the mines behind... and Potosi for that matter.
I also visted the second mint... Potosi used to produce many of the coins for Spain and it was interesting to see how these were made. Now, ironically, Bolivia´s coins are made mostly in Spain... though the more tricky ones are made in Canada.
In Potosi we celebrated Charm´s birthday... she turned 23. We went to a restaurant and had the traditional Bolivian wait for food (usually 2 hours) while we all shivered... and then went on to a hip lounge to celebrate. We set off some fireworks for her and then later discovered when some of us went to leave that the club liked to lock its doors.... talk about a potential fire hazard. After returning from the club at midnight (the taxi tried to rip us off) we had to bang on the hotel door for a full 10 minutes before being let in.....
So... that was Potosi.
Ciao...
Mez
