Potosi... Highest City in the World.

At 4100m above sea level, Potosi is the world's highest city and boy, was it cold. To be honest, we even forgot why on earth we'd come here each night as we shivered to sleep in our unheated hotel room. To be honest, the main reason we had ventured to this UNESCO world heritage site was merely because this freezing city was on the way to Sucre from Uyuni: this is rather unfair of us considering its tragic history. Let story time begin...

In 1545 the world's biggest ever silver rush began. One evening a llama herder had been out on the looming mountain behind what is now Potosi and had been caught after dark. When he made a fire for the night he noticed a silvery substance trickling out beneath it: that substance contained deposits of silver ore and of course, it didn't take long for such news to reach the Spaniards who immediately began mining 'Cerro Rico', or ´rich mountain´. Undeterred by the fact that the mountain was in was of the most remote and inhospitable areas of what is now Bolivia, the Spanish imported millions of African slaves and conscripted them, along with millions of indigenous people too, to work in the mines. It's estimated that there must have been millions of deaths (I heard nine million but no one can be sure) due to the appalling conditions the workers were subject to.

Cerro Rico can be seen at the end of most streets, a reminder of the city's past horrors

Over the next 20 years, Potosi became the world's richest single source of silver and the population grew to 100,000 (160,000 by the beginning of 17th century) making it the largest city in the Americas. The silver from Potosi apparently held up the Spanish economy for the next three centuries. Wow. Yet again though, looking at this town, you wouldn't exactly know it: despite gaining UNESCO world heritage status in 1991, Potosi isn't exactly a Cusco with beautifully maintained buildings or any real sense of grandeur besides, granted, a rather large number of fine churches and the Moneda (more on that later). I later learned that by the time Bolivia gained independence from Spain in 1825, Potosi's population was back down to just 30,000 following a long-decline in silver production.

Tourists can still go on visits to the mines and we met a few that did; from those that are still open, only minerals are being extracted as the silver has been completely depleted. However, Chris and I didn't think such a visit was for us: today's miners are still working under nightmarish conditions and their life expectancy is reduced by ten years due to working there. Tours come with warnings of the potential risks involved including explosions, exposure to asbestos or silica dust, runaway trolleys... the list goes on. We knew our mums would not have been happy had we gone a-visiting. Tourists are encouraged to bring gifts for the miners like alcohol or cigarettes and the whole idea has weird parallels to a zoo visit where you're encouraged to feed the animals while they're locked up in a cage, if you ask me. It wasn't exactly the kind of day out Chris and I had in mind, that's for sure.

More appealing to us however was a visit to the Moneda. This was where the minting of coins took place and it's magnificent. It's more like a fortress in all honesty, with metre thick walls and barred windows. We benefited from a guide during our visit and he really helped bring to life how rich and important this city once was in the world with it´s streets almost paved in silver. The building itself is a delight to walk around and it also contains the magnificent wooden machines that were used to mint the coins. The guide explained how much of Europe's coins were minted here at one stage yet today, the huge irony is that today Bolivia's coins are minted in Spain.

Also on display along with a collection of minerals and shiny rocks were some remains of children that had been dug up. These toddlers hadn't been mummified yet they were still eerily preserved though they had died over 150-200 years ago. The year round cold temperatures along with the mineral content of the earth they were buried in kept them so well preserved, our guide said. It was quite creepy to look at them, fully dressed in smart suits or beautiful dresses which made them look like dolls, their luscious curly blonde or ginger Spanish heritage locks flowing over their faces which still held skin. Gosh. You certainly wouldn't have liked that, Mum.

Apart from one lovely meal out one evening (at Nayjama - we recommend) we didn't do much else in Potosi. Oh, we did go to the cinema one evening for a pound to see the only thing showing: Nightmare on Elm Street... great. We just needed to delay our return to our freezing hotel room a little longer so trotted off to this tiny, ancient cinema with the hardest seats known to man. We had the shock of seeing young, Bolivian parents taking their 6 year olds in to see this film. I think the three sets that we saw only lasted about ten minutes though as one by one they left, screaming child in hand. We couldn't believe it when we first saw them but maybe they just hadn't realised what kind of film it was, surely?!!