Potosí, Bolivia and Cerro Rico

Potosí is the highest city in the world, with a population of around 120,000 people perched on a plateau at 4,100 meters (13,400 feet). I think it is the most interesting city that we´ve seen in South America. The mountain that looms over the town, Cerro Rico, funded the debts of the Spanish Empire for three hundred years as its silver lodes were exploited and shipped to Madrid, and its past imperial splendor has now deteriorated into rotting mansions and twisted, narrow streets of elegant but crumbling houses. Everywhere you look the tiny cobblestone roads are lined with carved-stone church fronts and beautiful colonial buildings, from the massive royal mint to modest houses painted bright colors and lined with wooden balconies. Fortunately, the larger civic buildings and now the Cathedral are being restored, but from above I can see that many of the roofs are fallen and the houses abandoned.

Besides the architecture, there is Cerro Rico itself and the horrifying mines within. Potosí was founded around 1545 at the base of the hill when the Spanish discovered indigenous mines there. Despite a stupid prevailing myth repeated in our guide books, the native people had been extracting silver from three mines on Cerro Rico long before the Spanish came. During the colonial period, over eight million slaves (originally African, but mostly indigenous) died while extracting the wealth of Andean soil for Castillia-Leon. For three hundred years the lodes provided tons of high-quality silver for Spain until they were depleted in the mid-Nineteenth Century, coinciding with Independence, when the city declined rapidly. In the Twentieth Century, the mines and the city revived as they began to extract tin, which was important during the World Wars and beyond, until the price collapsed. Now, the state-owned mines are closed and the mines are worked by miner-owned "cooperatives" that extract depleted ore with concentrations of tin, antimony, lead, and silver from about 0.1 percent to 1 percent. The miners, who are as young as ten-years old, work in despicable, Medieval conditions that usually kill them within fifteen years from lung silicosis, cave-ins, or other accidents. We talked to one ex-miner who worked in the largest, most dangerous mine where at least one man dies every week and the bodies are rarely recovered. It is estimated that the entire mountain, riddled with tunnels, will collapse within five years, killing many of the 15,000 people who spend each day under its bulk. Naomi and I were able to visit on a terrifying and enlightening tour one of the colonial mines that is still being worked. More on that later.

Here is a sunset view of Cerro Rico above the red-tiled roofs of the city.There are many beautiful colonial churches in the city, some of which are open for visiting. We were able to explore, with a guide, the working monastery of San Francisco, including the roof and bell tower. In this church we were also able to visit one of the restored catacombs and tunnels that underlie the entire colonial city. This one had been drained of water (a river used to flow through the area) and emptied of bones, but all the adjacent catacombs are still filled with water and stacked to the ceiling with old Franciscans. We tried for a week to get into another church called San Augustine with famous catacombs and tunnels, but were unable to convince anyone to let us down there. Here is Naomi on the roof of San Francisco, with the tower and another city view behind.Here is the carved-stone portal to another church. There were so many stone doorways like this, on most of the churches and on many of the old mansions. They were so intricate and beautiful, and incorporated many indigenous motifs since they were usually carved by the locals.The beauty of Potosí´s architecture was amazing to me, and led me to many good walks around the maze of streets. The buildings were brightly colored, and these green wooden balconies were all over the place. Here is a newly-restored government building on the central plaza with a classic balcony.With the tiled roofs and ornately carved balconies, some streets looked strangely like China Town in San Francisco, while others looked like Italy. Here is a house corner with a wrap-around balcony and a classic double doorway below, separated and supported by a single column.This was the street below where we stayed. It was filled with secondary schools, and the children´s bright uniforms at lunch time really set off the multicolored houses.Here is a row of nice old houses, each with its green, wooden balcony. Looking down the street, you can see one of the twin towers of the Cathedral, covered in scaffolding for the restoration.This used to be one of the most beautiful mansions in Potosí, according to our guide book. It felt both sad and inevitable to see the condition that it is in now. Peering in the door, I saw an old, cobbly courtyard with dry fountain and some nice, ancient-looking trees, but it was covered in trash, old bike parts, and mangy dogs. The stone doorway was mostly destroyed. The tile roof was sunken and broken. The little plaza in front in the street used to have a fountain and gardens, too, but now it is a small, dirty market.While wandering in one narrow and deserted side street, we found an unadvertised and locked church with another beautifully carved portal in red stone. On the side of the building, a tall wooden door opened into a high, bare, whitewashed room with a cold stone floor. On the far wall were its only features: two stone benches, a bell-rope, and a small, peeling green window with a revolving door. I cannot imagine the life of the nuns on the other side of that wall.--Ryan