Friday, March 4th - Uyuni to Potosi, Bolivia

We were up and on our way about 8:30 after breakfast at the hotel.  We had another private bus and it was very comfortable.  However, in my opinion, the driver was a maniac and drove way too fast and too wildly.  The road of course was through the mountains and very windy.  He was covering the whole road and it was a two-way hi-way so at times other vehicles were hooting at us.  I had to take a Gravol and so did a few others.  I think it was his driving and not necessarily the windy road that caused that problem.

The scenery was fantastic.  At the start we were still in flat dry desert conditions with the rolling hills in the background.  At that point we just had small clumps of grass and small bushes to add to the picture.  Eventually we got into areas of more green, especially when we came near a river or stream.  They might be dry but at least they supported some vegetation.  Where irrigation was used we had fields of quinoa growing.  The plants were very green and sometimes had yellow or red flowers, which we assumed indicated the maturity of the plant, but it turned out to be different varieties.   Then we were up and down hillsides and had more absolutely beautiful views of the countryside.  Llamas and vicuña were seen several times along the way.  There were lots of stone homes and corrals, as well as looser stones in the fences that surrounded the home area.  Most of the homes had thatched roofs but some had tin.  The many small oases that dotted the landscape made for lovely homesteads.  

As we drove we we going lower lower at times and then higher at other times until we eventually reached the city of Potosi, the highest city in the world at over 4,000 metres.  Potosi also used to be the most important city in Bolivia and in the world because of the silver mines - more on that later.  Back in the 15th or 17th century (I'm not sure which be assume both centuries were important) Potosi was supposedly the largest city in the world by population.  While London and Paris only had around 50,000 people (one 45,000 and one 60,000), Potosi had 160,000.  It grew in size for a while but eventually started to decline.  The city itself is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

After arriving in Potosi we had a walking tour with Korinna but a couple of us skipped that to do another tour.   We did join the group for lunch though.  The walk to the restaurant was short and the pedestrian street, Padilla, was very nice with lots of little shops along the route.  The restaurant didn't have any of its usual soup, salad and lunch special left so we had to order from the menu which slowed things down a bit.   However, the meal was delicious.  Several of us ordered the trout and it was nicely done and really tasty - one of the best meals I've had since arriving in Bolivia.  While the rest of the group finished their lunch, two of us left to catch the English tour of the Mint Museum or, in Spanish, the Museo Casa de la Moneda.

The Mint was a very important feature of Potosi.  The building we were touring was not the original building but rather the second one which was built when the first one was deemed too small.  This building was huge with many buildings of several storeys surrounding several (five I think) outdoor courtyards, the main one of which had a large fountain in the middle and high curved archways leading to interior doors or passages to other courtyards and hand carved wooden balconies above.  The buildings were brick wth walls several feet thick, some intricate design work in the bricklaying itself to adorn the courtyards, and strong sturdy beams inside leading to a dark wooden trussed ceiling and wooden floors throughout.

The Mint had displays of many of the minted coins from "the old days" and they were quite interesting; so were the processes they went through to do the minting.  The earliest processes involved hand cutting or hammering a piece of silver then pounding it as flat as they could get it before passing it to someone else to hand carve or chisel the designs in it.  Some of these early coins were quite thick and somewhat crudely carved although given that they were done by hand they were also very nice.

Then they had two floors (about the time they moved into this building) where four donkeys would walk around downstairs turning a big pillar turning a bigger horizontal wheel that went up through the floor to the next floor.  There they had four other wooden machines with several big cogged wheels around them and eventually the turning wheels helped press the silver down and make it thinner.  The upstairs machines were large - probably ten feet high and wide - and each operator faced into the centre.  Silver bars were put on the machine and gradually the turning wheels would reduce bar to .5 mm silver.  The one room held three sets of these four station machines with the same number of donkeys below.  From here the thin silver would go to be cut, no longer by hand but by machine and then to be engraved, which was eventually also done by machine.  

The whole process (old and new) was interesting to see.  They had steam equipment and boilers and then electrical equipment as the years passed.  A lot of the original equipment is still on display.  Some of the early machines were made in Spain and shipped over (by sea to Buenos Aires and then by cart from there), like the pressing machines above.  Other machines in later years were US made.  At one point Potosi made most of the coins for South America and made the coins for Spain and other European countries as well.  It was cheaper for the Spanish to send the equipment over, have the Bolivians mint the coins because the silver was there, and then send the coins back.  And that worked well for the Bolivians as they had some good employment for the people.  They did not mint gold here until much later and not for that long.  These days, the Bolivians do not mint any coins here.  Canada mints most of their coins for them but some are also done in two other countries that I now forget.

The Mint, because it was one of the richest places in town, was well fortified and it had its own supply of riches.  We went through part of the art gallery and it was quite lovely, probably housed in one of the executive suites or offices of the old company.  The art work was done by Bolivans and other South American painters who learned to copy the style of painting done by the Europeans as the Spanish brought the European art over and tried to educate them on such things.  The Bolivian works were just as nice as any in Europe and had their own distinct South American flare with a bit more colour and more subtle ties to the earth, as that was their religion before the Spanish arrived.

Now I could leave the Mint at this point and pretend all was fine but, as in almost all colonial periods, all was not fine.  The working conditions in the mines were terrible.  The Spanish couldn't keep enough of the locals working in the mines because they were dying so they had to bring black slaves in from Africa.  Some reports say that over two million workers died in the mines over two centuries, and other reports say the situation in the mines is no better today.  We had the option of a tour down into a silver mine but GAdventures material and our guide both recommended not doing it saying the situation was not safe.  Some of us had been looking forward to that tour but we decided to skip it after all the stories.  Then again, one of our colleagues from the College, sent an e-mail saying not to miss it so who knows what the real story is.  I am; however, assuming the mines here aren't quite as controlled and as safe as the mines back home so I was happy to skip the tour, especially when we only had the one afternoon in Potosi.

After touring the mint we had about half an hour to kill so we had an Ice cream in the main square. This square, whose name I forget, is a lovely open space with lots of seating, a monument in the centre that is surrounded by arches, trees, grass, flowers and lots of people relaxing and enjoying the afternoon.  There was a big white building and a big yellow building just across from the square and both looked like they might be government buildings.  There was also a church on the one side of the square.  It was nice to just sit and blend in with the locals and do some people watching, but that only lasted for a few minutes as we had to go join the others for the next part of our tour.

The Museo San Antonio de Padua or "San Francisco" church was our next stop.  The tours had finished for the day.  The last English speaking tour was at 4:00 and we were not out of the mint by that time.  We were meeting other members of our tour group at 5:00, which was the last entry time to go up on the roof to view the city from above.  

The church is made of a light stone -and has a curved front entrance with minimal adornment and a high square brick bell tower on the side where we entered.  There is a large courtyard in the centre with an arched walkway all around it. There was lots of artwork on the walls as we walked through but since we weren't on the tour I don't know if it was significant in any way.  The interior of the church had big heavy square pillars that rose into high arches about the main aisle.  There were small domes between the arches on the side aisles.  The interior was basically white in colour with what looked like a silver altar piece at the front.  We didn't see much of the church in detail as we just walked through the back on our way to the roof access.

The roof was covered in red tiles and you could see the many domes sticking up on each side of centre aisle.  We climbed up to the spine of the church and walked across the walkway on the top.  It was narrow but okay.  Then we climbed up the tower at the other end - several storeys high and not the most stable walking and climbing conditions but it was a great view of the city, countryside and mountains once we were there.  Potosi definitely looks like a big sprawling city from this viewpoint but you can tell it is well laid out and has many straight roads running through it.  We needed a guide for this excursion which seemed strange before we started.  However, after we were really walking on the roof and narrow walkways and stairs with no railings it was pretty nice to have someone controlling the traffic as people were moving in both directions as the 4:00 tour was finishing and we were starting.  

The temple and convent and crypt at the San Franciscan Church are supposed to be quite impressive as they are from the 16th and 17th c and some of the art is from as far back as 15th c, again from famous Bolivian and other indigenous painters.  I guess I'll have to see all that on another trip.

Potosi has a lot of old buildings in it.  The 15th and 17th centuries were big for the city so I guess it makes sense that there are old colonial style buildings around.  Most of the old buildings are brick and they a re several storeys high.  The streets are narrow in places but the buildings have high wide arched entry ways thought which you can see large courtyards inside.  Many of the buildings have beautiful wooden carved balconies that overhang the street.  There are still many churches in the city but at one time many centuries ago there were over 60 churches and convents in the city so the Spanish Christians obviously had a big effect here.  In some places we even heard about the results of the Spanish Inquisition reaching the Jews and others in Bolivia.  The natives in the area had their own religious beliefs and in many cases the missionaries found a way to meld those beliefs into the Christian beliefs.  Pacha Mama, for instance, was Mother Earth to the locals and highly revered, and that was honoured and became carrying for the earth and all its bounty.  The pictures of the Virgin Mary here in Bolivia all show her with a pyramid style gown and that is to represent a mountain or the earth so the Virgin Mary also became Mother Earth to many.

Anyway, after the view from the top of the church we climbed down and walked back to our hotel where we had jut a short break before having to meet the others for a briefing on the next day of our tour and then we all went out for dinner.  After that it was bedtime.