Further Wanderings

After a long break from writing, we finally continue the ‘blog with more travels in Bolivia.
Just as after a long break from travel in Sucre, off we went bound for Potosi.

Potosi is a fascinating place. By some measures it’s the highest city in the world, at 4100m above sea level. And it’s really kind of in the middle of nowhere. No lakes, rivers or good agricultural lands anywhere nearby. The reason for building a city in such a forbidding place was Cerro Rico “the Rich Mountain,” which sits behind the city and contains one of the richest silver veins ever found. In the 16th and 17th century the Spanish conquistadors exploited the mountain to its fullest using thousands upon thousands of indigenous and African slaves. Thousands upon thousands of these slaves died in the process while the colonials took the riches of the mountain and in addition to enriching their home country, turned Potosi into one of the largest and richest cities in the world at the time.

The legacy of the colonial mines lives on in the rich ornamentation of the city, which sits scattered amongst the more modern but much less glamorous recent constructions. Meanwhile the mining of Cerro Rico continues.

A altiplano pueblito (village-ette) on the way to Potosi

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The trip to Sucre was one of the nicest overnight bus trips I’ve ever taken. We both slept like babies! Having woken up at 04:30 that morning and taken a dramamine before departing doubtless had something to do with it.

We arrived in Sucre at around 04:30 but, though I thought I’d been mistaken when the ticket lady told me so in Spanish, we were permitted to stay in the bus resting for a couple more hours after we arrived (indeed, after the few people who wanted to venture out into the city before sunrise were let out, we were pretty much locked IN the bus.)

When the sun came up we were turfed out of the bus and left to find our way into town. People were happy to point us in the right direction, and in about 20 minutes we were at the hostel where we’d booked a single night, just because we didn’t want to have to deal with finding any place to sleep that early in the morning when we would (presumably) already be very tired. It took about 15 minutes for someone to answer the door, but we eventually found our way in.

As mentioned in the last entry, Bolivia loves a marching band

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I'll do things a bit differently for this entry. First because there's not THAT much to say beyond what's in the photos themselves, and second because there are just SO many pictures. So as we've done at times ... [Continue reading this entry]

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When I first heard of Torres del Paine this was the natural "translation" of the name. Which, if you take it word by word, is actually two thirds correct :) Our plan for tramping/hiking/trekking in Parque Nacional Torres del Paine ... [Continue reading this entry]

It's a bit unfair on Punta Arenas that we had to visit it immediately on returning from Antarctica. Just about anywhere in the world would suffer in comparison. Even leaving aside the scenery and wildlife we'd just spend ... [Continue reading this entry]

Our first two days in Antarctica seemed to fly by. It was one of the most exciting and fascinating places I've ever been. Even so, you still began to get used to some of it. The sight of ... [Continue reading this entry]

Antarctica. The last continent. The final frontier. Land of icebergs, penguins, glaciers, the fabled ground first charted by hardy explorers like Amunsden, Scott and Shackleton. And we were going to be amongst the few people to ... [Continue reading this entry]