Potosi

Another mystic place from the history book, where one never thought one would be standing personally...the spanish conquistadors never found el dorado,but they found a mountain that consisted almost entirely of silver: The cerro rico, the rich mountain of Potosí. Here at 4080 meters they founded their first city in south america,and started to exploit incredible wealth. A place of glory for the spanish and place of terror and suffering for the indiginous people, who were forced to work under terrible conditions and millions died over the next 300 years, when it was called the "mountain that is eating humans".
The mountain is still towering 4800 meters over the city, and looks like on the old spanish paintings from the 16. century,when Potosi was the largest city in the Americas and had about the size of Paris. And still today the e city lives from its mountain, and still thousands of miners work under terrible conditions and with pre-industrial techniques inside the mountain. We wanted to understand this place of glory and suffering, therefore we did not only visit the marvellous palaces and impressive churches of the old town,but also bought coca leaves and dynamite ( no joke) and entered the mountain to visit the miners working....difficult to describe this experiene, seeing the suffering and poverty, like the only 17 year old miner, to whom Isa gave a new pair of gloves as a present. Yet this is also an integral part of latin american history that may not be denied, and belongs to a trio that is destined to get to know the reality of the continent.Read more