Potosi - Bolivia
9/19/05
We left Uyuni for Potosi at 10 a.m. and surprisingly the landscape was very similar to the one in Altiplano. The road was a simple dirt path in the middle of the dry mountains. There was no plantations, no river, nothing. We just saw two small villages in which people live in very poor conditions.
Many houses were made with blocks of raw clay mixed with stones and dried by the sun. At each rain it melts a little bit. After 5 hours of trip we arrived in Potosi, a city at 4070 meters of altitude.
What they called 'the bus station' was actually just a corner on the street where we got off. The people living here really have an original and strong character.
Potosi was first a miners settlement at the bottom of Cerro Rico, a mount that proved later to have much more plata (silver) than expected; the temporary disorganized settlement became a town, still today, disorganized.
It received so many people that Potosi was on the 18th century the biggest city in South America, but of course most of the silver was sent to Spain and Potosi remained poor.
Walking around we saw lots of school kids. It seems that every school has its own outfit which consists of black pants for boys, a black skirt for girls and an apron whose color changes depending on the school.
At the end of the day we went to look for a restaurant for dinner and we found one with a great view of the city.
9/20/05
We visited La Casa de La Moneda where we had a very interesting guided tour through the big building that occupies a whole block and houses today not only the old machinery used to produce coins with the silver from Cerro Rico, but also paintings, mummies and samples of all kinds of minerals encountered in Bolivia. We also learned a lot about Bolivian and Spanish history.
One of the exhibitions had this awesome safe box used by the church to collect money from the people. It had a very sophisticated locking system with a fake key slot at the frontal face of the box to mislead any potential robber. It is not so easy to see on the picture, but note that the two openings to drop money are strategically placed at the hands of the figure of Jesus Christ. These safe box were then taken all the way to the church in Spain and they were open only there.
This painting is very important in Potosi and it describes not only local life but how the church did to christianize the local Indians. Because the main god was Pachamama (Mother Earth), the church ordered to paint Cerro Rico which represents the traditional conical figure of the Virgin Mary. On the top of it are the religious Christian authorities and the king of Spain. In smaller importance, and size, are on the left the sun, and on the right the moon, also considered gods by the local Indians, whom are depicted mining the Cerro under the protection of Virgin Mary.
We then walked around the city and admired the old remaining colonial buildings.
There are many stores like this, you can't get in, there is a fence on the door and you must order from outside.
The square was full of cholitas, the name given to the women dressed the traditional way. They sell salteñas (a salty pastry with a meat filling), juices and other little things.
We saw a parade with kids dressed with different traditional clothes. They were celebrating the 'student day', day on which they parade and party.
We walked all the way to the new part of the city...
... and went back to the bus station to buy a ticket to go to Sucre. On the way there are people selling fruits just like this.
At the end of the day we travelled to Sucre.
We left Uyuni for Potosi at 10 a.m. and surprisingly the landscape was very similar to the one in Altiplano. The road was a simple dirt path in the middle of the dry mountains. There was no plantations, no river, nothing. We just saw two small villages in which people live in very poor conditions.
Many houses were made with blocks of raw clay mixed with stones and dried by the sun. At each rain it melts a little bit. After 5 hours of trip we arrived in Potosi, a city at 4070 meters of altitude.
What they called 'the bus station' was actually just a corner on the street where we got off. The people living here really have an original and strong character.
Potosi was first a miners settlement at the bottom of Cerro Rico, a mount that proved later to have much more plata (silver) than expected; the temporary disorganized settlement became a town, still today, disorganized.
It received so many people that Potosi was on the 18th century the biggest city in South America, but of course most of the silver was sent to Spain and Potosi remained poor.
Walking around we saw lots of school kids. It seems that every school has its own outfit which consists of black pants for boys, a black skirt for girls and an apron whose color changes depending on the school.
At the end of the day we went to look for a restaurant for dinner and we found one with a great view of the city.
9/20/05
We visited La Casa de La Moneda where we had a very interesting guided tour through the big building that occupies a whole block and houses today not only the old machinery used to produce coins with the silver from Cerro Rico, but also paintings, mummies and samples of all kinds of minerals encountered in Bolivia. We also learned a lot about Bolivian and Spanish history.
One of the exhibitions had this awesome safe box used by the church to collect money from the people. It had a very sophisticated locking system with a fake key slot at the frontal face of the box to mislead any potential robber. It is not so easy to see on the picture, but note that the two openings to drop money are strategically placed at the hands of the figure of Jesus Christ. These safe box were then taken all the way to the church in Spain and they were open only there.
This painting is very important in Potosi and it describes not only local life but how the church did to christianize the local Indians. Because the main god was Pachamama (Mother Earth), the church ordered to paint Cerro Rico which represents the traditional conical figure of the Virgin Mary. On the top of it are the religious Christian authorities and the king of Spain. In smaller importance, and size, are on the left the sun, and on the right the moon, also considered gods by the local Indians, whom are depicted mining the Cerro under the protection of Virgin Mary.
We then walked around the city and admired the old remaining colonial buildings.
There are many stores like this, you can't get in, there is a fence on the door and you must order from outside.
The square was full of cholitas, the name given to the women dressed the traditional way. They sell salteñas (a salty pastry with a meat filling), juices and other little things.
We saw a parade with kids dressed with different traditional clothes. They were celebrating the 'student day', day on which they parade and party.
We walked all the way to the new part of the city...
... and went back to the bus station to buy a ticket to go to Sucre. On the way there are people selling fruits just like this.
At the end of the day we travelled to Sucre.
posted by Adriano and Angie | 4:48 AM
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