131218: Breathless in Potosi

Cerro Rico, the mountain that eats men

Today we said Goodbye to Sucre and headed up to the world's highest city, Potosi.

On most of our holidays we hire a car (or once and never again, a motorhome) and drive between places.  As we aren't doing a circular trip, we are using public transport more.  Usually Joan has this planned to a T with an excel spreadsheet, but for various reasons, this year there are "significant" gaps in our plan.

There used to be a "Ferrobus" that ran between Sucre and Potosi.  Effectively a bus which ran on the old, disused railway lines, it was slow (about 8 hours) and was notorious for its slow speed derailments.  Sadly, it seems to have been discontinued.  Other travel options included coaches or a shared taxi.  We have considerable luggage despite Joan not bring 31 different outfits as she usually does, so a shared taxi didn't seem the greatest idea.  So we asked Carmelita if she would run us.  In comparison with coaches or shared taxis, the cost was high, but we have paid more for a second class return from Scarborough to York for the two of us - 15 years ago!

Carmelita was quite determined we were going to have the tour of La Recoteta that we missed yesterday.  We're still on UK time, and waking early so we were ready when she turned up at 8.45 am.

We took a couple of photos of our flat.

So we headed up to La Recoleta where some lasses in traditional dress were waiting outside the church.  Bang on 9, a woman came out of the church and gave them some water in a couple of plastic pop bottles.  We asked and found out this was Holy Water.

Our tour guide was not as interested in the former Franciscan monastery as we were.  Also in most places photos we not allowed.  There were four cloisters, and a chapel and library.  We recently went to the monasteries and convents in Meteora, Greece, and the churches were embellished with gruesome deaths of Catholic martyrs and saints.  Here was no different. The main painting in the monastery was the death of the Franciscan monks at the hands of the Japanese in Nagasaki in 1595.  Joan recalls that when she lived in Japan she was told a significant Catholic congregation still exists in Nagasaki today.

We also were shown the spot where a local politician was murdered in the monastery.

There was the millennial tree in the courtyard which had a trunk 4 metres wide.  It is meant to be 1,000 years old.

Throughout the tour we were accompanied by a lame, half blind dog who came in with us from the street.  The Bolivians do not seemed phased by this.

So onwards and upwards, Carmelita drove us up to Potosi, just under three hours away.  Our ears popped as we ascended.  There were a few houses, scratching a life out of the arid land.  The rivers either were empty or had less water in than the stream the flows through our garden.

In the bottom of the valleys, nearest the river beds, corn, wheat, barley and quinoa were being grown.

The road was a toll road or peage and cost about £1 for the 130 km journey.  We saw a very fine bridge that used to be the old road where a young lass tried to sell us cooked ears of maize.

Once at Potosi, Carmelita struggled to find our hotel due to Christmas markets and roadworks.  But eventually we got there and did the obligatory selfies!

Our hotel is near the old bus terminal. We wanted a self-catering option and we found out that we had hired a whole floor to ourselves with four bedrooms. From the room we chose, you can see some of the slopes of Cerro Rico- the hill where the silver mines are.  More of this in later blogs.


Slightly lightheaded, we were amazed when a coach went by with three live sheep tied to its roof.

After unpacking, and somewhat disorientated, we headed to the centre, only to find we had been heading in the wrong direction.  There were lots of small stores selling tyres, car mats and various bit of automobile.  Already puffed out with the thin air, we caught a taxi to the centre which was in the opposite direction.

Cerro Rico, which is the hill that overlooks Potosi, is known in Quechua as "thunder mountain" and it was true to its name.  The lightning flashed and it poured.  We dashed into a nearby restaurant, El Fogon, for cover.  Luckily it did veggie food.

The place was quiet and service was slow.  Kevin ate a spinach tortilla and Joan a quinoa burger, whilst watching episodes of the Simpsons dubbed in Spanish and then an incomprehensible show where young lads and lasses jiggled in front of the cameras with very few clothes on! After dinner we decided to walk home to our hotel about 25 minutes away.  The streets were packed with people selling all kinds of goods, including weird and wonderful street food.  We needed milk, beer (por supuesto), wine, milk and coca tea to help with the altitude.  The shop we visited was tiny and gave us a small Santa hat for our wine.

But back at the hotel the wine was sweet and undrinkable so we watched CNN who, let us say, are less complimentary about PM May's efforts than the UK press.