Potosí, Bolivia

A few years ago I read a book about the history of Latin America, the Open Veins of Latin America. The book had a section about Potosí. Since then I knew that one day I will visit this city, the city with the ugliest history of colonisation.

It's fair to say that the mountains are made of silver here since they can contain up to 40% silver. In the 16th century 60% of the world's silver production came from here. You can guess who was bringing up that silver from the mines… Yes, that's right.. The indigenious population of the area dropped by 50% in just a hundred years. Some of them might just flee. Most of them died.

In the last few hundred years they produced 60000 tonne Silver. It would be worth 10 times as much as the GDP of Hungary in 2021. It sounds like a lot, but if you look around in the city you can only find a few nice churches in the city. All the rest was making someone else richer.

I arrived by bus from Tarija in the middle of the night. It was freezing. The temperature was around 0. Even though it is summer, at the altitude of 4000 metre the nights are cold.

I didn't book a room this time, but I was lucky. Right in front of the bus stop there was a hostel for a reasonable price so I just stayed there. It wasn't a usual hostel, there was no common space, no kitchen, or lobby, but the rooms were nice and clean. There was no heating though, so on the bed there were three layers of thick blankets. I could see my breath but under those blankets I wasn't cold at all.

I went out to get some food. There were a number of food carts on the street, but there was nothing written on them. No menu. No prices. Nothing. I just went there and looked at the food that other people were asking for and it looked okay so I asked for the same. I got fried potatoes with some fried sausages. It was okay.

On the next day I went for a walk to discover the city and I got lost real bad. It's funny because I'm always proud of myself, how good my sense of direction is and how easy I navigate in unknown places. It backfired this time. I didn't make any safety measures. I didn't know the name of the place I stayed, I didn't know which street it was. I didn't even pay attention on the way when I was leaving the hostel. At some point I felt hopeless. I made countless circles on the same streets and couldn't find out where I was coming from. It took me more than two hours to get back there.

But once I did find my way, I didn’t mind the extra walking hours. I walked through almost every street in that area. I’ve seen nice buildings, ugly old buildings, ugly new buildings, markets, shops, parks and in the centre there are some really beautiful buildings.

I don’t think that I would ever want to live in this city, but it has a special vibe. It is mostly poor, but the centre has some European glance and I love the view of the city, the way those houses are climbing up to the mountains like a forest. It looks stunning.