World Coins

Potosi, Bolivia

Riding a bus into Potosi is like sitting in a lunar module, the ridges and mountains you cross are craggy, red, dusty, like some barren distant planet. You wonder why you’ve chosen to go there, knowing it’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but thinking it’s only so because of some glorious past that owes itself to silver mining.

Then you come down off the last ridge, and Potosi sprawls across the almost burgundy scape below, at an incredible 4060 metres above sea level, easily one of the highest cities in the world. The cathedral and church spires poke into thin blue sky that you feel you had to break through to get there. But despite the stark barren cold seeping into you, and knowing the night will be worse, you start to realise that the journey might well be worth it.

As soon as you are on the ground, walking through the plaza, the air, or lack of it, catches up with you and you need to take deep inhalations just to keep moving. It’s winter time, too dry for snow. The wind is caustic, burns into you. The Indians wear ponchos, the mestizos overcoats, and almost everyone’s in woollen hats of some description. It’s a frozen world, the sun disappears and stars come out and lights come on. The lights kind of surprise you, remind you that Potosi is on planet Earth, in Bolivia, a city of over 150,000 people.

It was once the richest city in the Americas. When the Spanish arrived in the early 16th Century, the Incas were already mining Cerro Rico (the rich mountain). The conquistadors took over the practice, extracting silver for Spain, a process that continued for another 300 years. The mountain still stands, like a gigantic red anthill. The city spreads right to the foot of it, a series of terracotta roofs and a plethora of churches. For, where the money was, the church was never far behind.

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