Bolivia Guide
The southern Altiplano
Potosí
Set on a desolate, windswept plain amid barren mountains at almost 4100m above sea level, POTOSÍ is the highest city in the world, and at once the most fascinating and tragic place in Bolivia. Given its remote and inhospitable location, at first glance it's difficult to see why it was ever built here at all. The answer lies in Cerro Rico ("Rich Mountain"), the conical peak that rises imperiously above the city to the south. Cerro Rico was, quite simply, the richest source of silver the world had ever seen. The silver extracted from this mountain turned Potosí into the richest jewel in the Spanish emperors' crown, and one of the wealthiest and largest cities in the world – in the early seventeenth century it was home to about 160,000 people, far bigger than contemporary Madrid, and equal in size to London. However, this wealth was achieved at the expense of the millions of indigenous Andean forced labourers and African slaves who died working in the mines and silver foundries. Though it was said that you could build a bridge stretching from Potosí to Spain with the silver of Cerro Rico, others have pointed out that two such bridges could have been built with the bones of those who died mining it.
Today, Potosí's legacy reflects both the magnificence and the horror of its colonial past. The city is a treasure trove of colonial art and architecture, with hundreds of well-preserved buildings, including some of the finest churches in Bolivia. But though the silver veins were almost all exhausted centuries ago, the labyrinthine tunnels that perforate the scarred mountain are still worked for tin and other metals by thousands of indigenous miners using techniques little changed from a century or more ago. A visit to these mines has become as essential a part of a visit to Potosí as any of its museums or churches, and is fascinating for the insight it affords into both the working lives of the miners and the customs and beliefs that help them survive.