Framedlight

The 4th May was a Saturday. We had wanted to do a tour of one of the mines in the afternoon as then we could look in to some of the churches in the morning (they are all shut Saturday afternoon), but we were told that there was a football match on in the afternoon and no one would be working down there. Mining is so central to Potosi that mine tours are on the tourist agenda. I felt first of all that it was exploitative as the conditions in Cerro Rico are renowned but I felt more comfortable with it as time went on. Cerro Rico has been tunnelled for silver since the 16th century and the way things are done has not altered much since then. It is such a dangerous operation that every mine (and there are 5,000 entrances on the mountain, not all in use) has its resident Tio, or statue of the devil who has to be appeased for the miner to be kept safe. Above ground, the miners are Roman Catholic, below ground darker forces come in to play. Most miners can only expect to work for 20 yea...

We had arrived in Potosi about 11pm the night before, after a bus journey accompanied by some trashy films and loud music. Our hostel, Koala Den, was a beautiful colonial building with the rooms built around a central courtyard painted in zingy red and orange. Mairi at Koala Den We had a look around the town. Potosi is a fascinating place and a World Heritage Site. It is hard to believe that in the late 16th century it had a bigger population than London did at the time (200,000), in spite being one of the highest cities in the world at 4090m. We were well acclimatised by the time we had reached here, and I don't remember ever feeling the height. Potosi grew rapidly from a small indian settlement to a vast city because of the mountain that overshadows it. Cerro de Potosi or Cerro Rico, Rich Mountain,  was the source of most of the silver exported to Spain from their colony in, what was then Peru. The inside of Cerro Rico must look like a Swiss cheese, and indeed the mountai...