Potosí, Bolivia

Potosí is a nice little city with a buzz to it, we liked it so spent an extra day here.  At 4060m it's also one of the highest cities in the world.

The bus ride from Uyuni to Potosí took about six hours. The road is mostly paved, which made for a pretty smooth ride. It was also scenic, although having just finished the Uyuni tour, we were a bit blasé about it.

We stayed at Hotel Cima Argentum, a little out of the centre, but one of the nicest places we've stayed at this trip. We had reserved a double, but they were full so bumped us up to a suite for no extra charge.  

The staff were very helpful and friendly.  They took in our laundry even though we were a little over the deadline, no problems.  (it was pretty cheap too, less than $1 for jeans, and about 50¢ for tshirts)

We relaxed and cleaned up (very nice shower, good pressure and lots of hot water).  We decided to walk into the centro, about a 15 minute walk.  The streets were crowded with people and cars and minibuses. A little hectic but nice buzz.

We ate at El Mesón, I had trout and Heather had llama skewers with pineapple and rice, both were excellent.

The next morning we were up early because we wanted to catch the 9am tour at Casa Nacional de Moneda (National Mint).  Breakfast at the hotel was great (including freshly squeezed juice, eggs and great bread -- Bolivia has really good bakeries).

The National Mint tour was pretty extensive. They had mule-driven wooden cogs that were used to flatten silver ingots, old coins dating back to the 1700s, minting equipment through the centuries.  It was cool.

We toured the Cathedral, in which we climbed the bell tower for great views of the city and of Cerro Rico, the "rich hill" full of silver.  In the 1500s, Potosí was one of the wealthiest cities in the world because of the silver mined from Cerro Rico.

We tried unsuccessfully to find silver and tin souvenirs, but apparently they sell them in La Paz.  

We weren't up for anything big for dinner, so went to 4060 for pizza and beers.  (It took me a while to figure out that the name of the bar was its height above sea level). The bar was packed, we were lucky to get a table.  The pizza was actually quite good. The beer, Potosina, was okay.

The next day we continued our hunt or souvenirs, and did find a couple places selling antique stuff. We bought a silver-plated walking stick, and a nested weighting set (I think made from copper). We bargained down to about 75% of the original asking prices, I don't think they overquote too much here.

An oddity of Potosí is the number of dogs running around the street in nice sweaters.  Some of them don't even look like they have owners, but they do have nice threads.

We didn't visit the mines, a common tourist activity.  I had seen them the last time I was here, and they're quite dangerous. 

The last night in Potosí we ate at El Fogón, one of the few misses for food on our trip. At least the wine (Campos de Solana malbec from Tarija) was good, i was surprised that we were able to finish the bottle at this altitude.