HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Another record today – highest city in the world
WORD OF THE DAY: Those damn hills again
Today we leave the Worlds Highest capital city and travel to the Worlds Highest city of Potosi. It is a travel day today, and I think this is what I like about the whole trip are the days in the truck. I love just watching the world go past, listening to music and it also gives you plenty of time to think and mull things over, this is probably the downside, as you sometimes get too much time for the thinking and it can drive you crazy sometimes.
We had our shuttle pick us up from the hotel at 7am this morning. We lose one of the team this morning. Nic is off to explore parts of South America on her own (and a gal pal for 2 weeks) before we meet up with her again in Rio for Carnival in February. We are going to MISS you Miss Nic. You are a ray of sunshine every day and we will miss that. Can’t wait to see you buddy for a PARTY in 8 weeks.
As we waved goodbye to Nic, and to busy busy busy La Paz it will be good to get to a smaller, slower paced city. La Paz was a mass of cars, humans and buildings and the traffic was intense to say the least. We now head out from the business and the scenery today was a drier landscape with massive mountains that looked like that have been cut through with rivers a long time ago. We also climb from 3660m to 4060m today, and I think this is the highest we stay for the rest of the trip. Let’s just hope we don’t get a 5th floor room in Potosi – now that would just be damn mean.
Lunch was a roadside job and I think it has been the most scenic to date. The sun was out, it was a flat piece of land that was scattered with Llama’s, Alpaca’s and Vercuna’s, with massive mountain in the background. Mark had a bag of old carrots in the fridge, so we tried our luck at getting close to one of the animals to feed them, but they didn’t want to have a barr of us and the closest we got was to a black Alpaca 10m before he skittered and ran off. It was an amazing place to stop for lunch. I think it was also the highest place for lunch at 3800m. The things that I noticed driving today was the kids that we saw along the road. We were in the middle of nowhere and they would just be standing by the side of the road with their hats in their hands and begging for money. And there were families, small children, women and men all lolling around on the grass as we drove past looking after their herds of llamas, sheep, vicuna’s and alpaca’s. Once again we are talking the simple life, looking after your assets each day. What a peaceful life if nothing else. Blocks and plots of lands are marked with stone fences. Some of them went on for kilometers and there were plots on the side of mountains and with the stone fences they looked like letters or symbols trying to tell us something. The stone fences were amazing and reminded me of the stone fences in the Aran Islands, they really are a piece of work in themselves.
We arrived into Potosi at 4.45pm and it looks like a busy city. We squeezed under power lines to get as close as we could to the hotel. Some of them were scrapping on the roof of the truck, so this is a perfect example of why we get shuttles into the larger cities, besides the streets a little tight for a turning Rosita as well and then the impatience of the Bolivian drivers makes for an interesting experience. We only had to walk 200m to the hotel that was located not far from the local markets. After checking in we had a free hour to chillax before heading out for our orientation tour if the town.
Potosí is one of the highest cities in the world by elevation at 4,090m and it was the location of the Spanish colonial mint, now the National Mint of Bolivia. Potosí lies beneath the Cerro de Potosí—sometimes referred to as the Cerro Rico ("rich mountain")—a mountain popularly conceived of as being "made of" silver ore, which has always dominated the city. The Cerro Rico is the reason for Potosí's historical importance, since it was the major supply of silver for Spain during the period of the New World Spanish Empire. This silver was taken by llama and mule train to the Spanish Main whence it was then taken to Spain on the Spanish treasure fleets. Cerro de Potosí's peak is 4,824m above sea level.
Founded in 1546 as a mining town, it soon produced fabulous wealth, becoming one of the largest cities in the Americas and the world, with a population exceeding 200,000 people. In Spanish there is still a saying, valer un Potosi, "to be worth a Potosi" (that is, "a fortune"). For Europeans, Peru—Bolivia was part of the Viceroyalty of Peru and was known as Alto Peru before becoming independent—was a mythical land of riches. Potosí appears as an idiom for "extraordinary richness" in Miguel de Cervantes' famous novel, Don Quixote (second part, cap. LXXI). One theory holds that the mint mark of Potosí (the letters "PTSI" superimposed on one another) is the origin of the dollar sign.
It is from Potosí that most of the silver shipped through the Spanish Main came. According to official records, 45,000 short tons (41,000 metric tons) of pure silver were mined from Cerro Rico from 1556 to 1783. Of this total, 9,000 short tons (8,200 metric tons) went to the Spanish monarchy. Due to such extensive mining, the mountain itself has diminished in height; before the mining started it was a few hundred meters higher than it is today. Indian laborers, forced by Francisco de Toledo, Count of Oropesa through the traditional Incan mita institution of contributed labor, came to die by the millions, not simply from exposure and brutal labor, but by mercury poisoning: in the patio process the silver-ore, having been crushed to powder by hydraulic machinery, was cold-mixed with mercury and trodden to an amalgamation by the native workers with their bare feet. The mercury was then driven off by heating, producing deadly vapors. A 1603 report stated that of 58,800 Indians working at Potosi, there were 10,500 mingas (contractual workers) and 43,200 free wage earners. The colonists made a request in 1608 to the Crown in Madrid to begin allowing the importation of 1,500 to 2,000 African slaves per year. An estimated total of 30,000 African slaves were taken to Potosí during the colonial era. African slaves were also forced to work in the Mint human mules. Since mules would die after a couple of months pushing the mills, the colonists replaced the four mules with twenty African slaves.
In 1672, a mint was established to coin silver and water reservoirs were built to fulfill the growing population's needs. At that time more than eighty-six churches were built and the city's population increased to nearly 200,000, making it one of the largest and wealthiest cities in the world. After 1800, the silver mines were depleted, making tin the main product. This eventually led to a slow economic decline. Nevertheless, the mountain continues to be mined for silver to this day. Due to poor worker conditions (lack of protective equipment from the constant inhalation of dust), the miners still have a short life expectancy with most of them contracting silicosis and dying around 40 years of age. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of Indians died under the harsh working conditions. We were going to see the mines first hand tomorrow on a tour, so I am not too sure what to expect.
We left the hotel at 6pm and like most cities we have been too it is built on a hill and we were more towards the bottom of it, so the good thing is that what goes up must come down, so we would get a downhill run on the way home after dinner. So we were shown the local food stalls, the local market where you can buy all your day to day needs and then further up past chicken shops, local take away to the more touristy part of town walking past a park that was all decked out in Christmas decorations, flashing lights, Santa, Christmas stall and this is the first time it has actually felt like Christmas. It was like a mini carnival and there were other people around also wearing Santa hats, so Kate didn’t feel like such a dick here with us wearing ours. Paul and Lizzie have been troopers with the Christmas hat wearing, we have had them on for days, and Kate and Mick haven’t been so festive. Potosi has a great vibe and the whole city looks like it is geared for Christmas. Homes have Christmas trees, shops have decorations up and there are a lot of stalls selling Christmas paper, cards and decorations. It is a shame we don’t get to spend Christmas day here but it was a great lead in.
It’s 2 sleeps till Christmas and if I was back home it would be manic. Shelly would be buying the rest of her billion presents, organizing feeding 50 billion people and also organizing work presents and holidays. The girls would be super excited and we would be opening advent calendars and talking about Santa, the elves and reindeers. My how I miss all that and also my Elkins. Work would be slowing down, all my corporates would be back in town till January, crazy stupid people would be coming in to work for last minute holiday specials in 3 day’s time and I would still be recovering from a month full of Christmas parties and hangovers. But I am in Bolivia, with new friends and we will be doing some interesting things over the next 2 days, so I am with my friends in spirit and I miss you guy’s every day. xx
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