Potosi, Bolivia Travel Blogs

Will never complain about work again....
Sep 6, 2006 (9 photos)

... which looked like a castle drawbridge but is still used to do for foot passengers. Were a bit hesitant to arrive back in Potosi after a few days ago and bus terminal brought back horrid memories but we quickly bought our bus tickets to leave for Le Paz ...

It's day 300 and I am back on the chicken bus.
Aug 1, 2005 (5 photos)

... in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, it's fun to be back in Bolivia where everything is different and a "tad" more chaotic. I really enjoyed Bolivia when visiting for a few days some years ago, and I am sure I will have a great time now as well. The "Tibet of ...

Potosi
Jun 9, 2008 (15 photos)

... and eight of us re-located to Koala Den Hostel the following morning which came with good recommendations. Good showers and good heat. Potosi is the worlds highest city (4060m - breathe in, breathe out, breathe in..) and a UNESCO site. The city was ...

A few days in the highest city in the World!
Mar 21, 2009

... varieties of farmyard animals that were also on the bus! An interesting journey to say the least! We finally bounced our way into Potosi for about 4pm. We had already decided to book our bus for Tupiza whilst we were at the station. We knew there wasn't ...

A steady stroll on a Sunday aftrnoon
Mar 22, 2009 (16 photos)

... a short walk from the restaurant, Lorna became ill again. Poor girl is just not having much luck on our 2nd visit to Bolivia! We went back to the hostel for a couple of hours whilst she pulled everything together. In the evening I decided to nip out ...

Highest town in the world
Apr 8, 2006 (6 photos)

... by a polishing and then painting of the black soles. Johns 10 year old boots look almost brand new afterwards. My first impressions Bolivia reminds me of some of the small towns that we visitd in China. Ladies sell almost everything by the market: ...

The highest city in the world!!
Nov 25, 2005

Potosi sits t 4100m in a barren windswept plain, and is the highest city in the world. The town is here because of the Cerro Rico (Rich Mountain), the richest source of silver that the world had ever known. The silver rush started in 1545, and the ...

Brush with death aboard a Bolivian bus
Jan 30, 2006 (3 photos)

... bus to Uyuni, about six hours away. The road was gravel all the way (as they mostly are in Bolivia) but in pretty good condition. Minutes out of Potosi, we realised that we´d lost our guidebook, our precious bible, probably left behind in the barber´s ...

I understood what poverty really is...
Apr 16, 2008

... you have joined them, you cannot understand what it means.   Today I have visited the famous mine of Potosi in Bolivia.  Potosi has helped significantly to create the wealth of Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries by supplying them with 3 ...

The Greatest
Nov 30, 2006 (17 photos)

Today I hurt more than I have ever hurt before.  Today I pushed myself beyond breaking point and realised a level of determination that I didnt think I had in me.  Today I reached to summit of a 6000+ m mountain and I will never ...

Potosí
Jan 17, 2006

Sorry for the delay in writing this entry! I´ll skip it in the meantime and write about it in June, I´ll add a link back here at that time. Cheers for now!

The Highest city in the world.
Sep 3, 2008 (19 photos)

Potosi, Bolivia is the most important city you probably have never heard of. In the colonial days, Potosi was the largest and richest city in the Western Hemisphere, and some say in the world - it had a larger population than Paris, London, ...

Touring the Potosi Silver Mines
Sep 4, 2008 (13 photos)

... No - they dump it in the river".  Spicy informed me.  (Another reason to always drink bottled water in Bolivia) The mining operations are run as a co-op, so the miners split all the profits from the extracted silver. & ...

Going Underground
Jan 17, 2006

... up the hill behind the 4x4 car in our shit taxi in the mud. I don{t want to continue, is it due to the altitude, no, I don{t want to die. Mines, hard hard work just walking through. very sad. Days of rain! Not managing to see much of Potosí

The highest city in the world
Aug 15, 2007 (34 photos)

Potosi was our second stop in Bolivia, we took a night bus from La Paz which we both expected be horrendous and it turned out to be one of the best buses we have taken! Although the bus was comfy we did not sleep so well and when we arrived at our chosen ...

Potosi
Oct 14, 2006 (17 photos)

After another memorable bolivian bus experience I am now in Potosi, mostly known for its mine and the tours you can do there. I have been doubting a lot about going in as small spaces and not very healthy gasses aren´t my cup of tea, but after all the ...

Dynamite - I Love it
Nov 22, 2006 (10 photos)

... told me to stand for a few photos holding it and then run was another one of "those moments" On comment on the bus from Potosi to Topizu - it was crap!!! Landslides stopping us for hours, 60 people of a 48 seater bus, windows that didnt open, a seat ...

More Death Defying Tourism in Bolivia
Sep 16, 2006 (35 photos)

... . I bought dynamite for the miners and coca leaves for the factory workers that process the mined rock. The tradition in Bolivia is to chew coca leaves like tobacco. Armed with our dynamite and other products, we were off to the processing factory ...

Potosí's Hellish Underworld
Dec 11, 2005 (15 photos)

... barriers was maddeningly frustrating; and the landscape of the Cordillera Mochara was bleak and desolate. Welcome to southern Bolivia! Bolivia is one of South America's poorest countries and is plagued by political instability. Since independence in ...

Potosi and Sucre: Tio of the Mine and Dinosaurios
Mar 21, 2008 (17 photos)

... mines as well as the mint, serving as mules and turning the mills that made Spanish coins.    After 1825 when Bolivia declared independence from Spain, the mine continued to be important to the country (shown on their coat of arms) but there ...

Descending into the mines
Nov 12, 2007 (9 photos)

... in the world at just under 4000 meters.  The other one is in Peru.  They like extremes in Bolivia.  Originally Potosi was a small native settlement that mined the nearby Cerro Rico for silver.  Then the Spanish arrived.  It's ...

Gunpowder and Coca leaves......
Jan 16, 2005 (2 photos)

Potosi was a a ramshackle mining town- the only place in the world where you could legally buy gunpowder in the markets and shops! We took an amazing tour of the silver mines... the mines are now all owned co-operativily and some of the miners who had ...

The Highest City in the World
Sep 15, 2006 (17 photos)

I'm in Potosi, Bolivia ... The Highest City in the World at 13,430 feet (4070 m). The history of Potosi is quite amazing despite the difficult living conditions like the cold and lack of oxygen associated with this altitude. Potosi was once THE largest and ...

World's Most Dangerous Road and Potosi
Nov 5, 2006 (14 photos)

... threw the potatoes at us with such force she was obviously intending to hurt us, so it really wound us up. Traveling Around Bolivia Taking coaches in the day in Bolivia are bad enough, so there's absolutely no way you'd want to spend the night on ...

Going underground
Apr 1, 2004 (5 photos)

... , which was a little frustrating. All of the places we wanted to see were either closed, or pretty expensive (as I was leaving Bolivia that night, I didn't really want to change any more money than necessary), or could only be viewed on a 2 hour guided ...

The Potosi mines and in the footsteps of dinosaurs
Nov 27, 2004 (5 photos)

... the states but it was an unimpressive ruin. Sucre is an unprepossessing place too, despite being the official capital of Bolivia, except for the dinosaur footprints that have been found in a cement quarry nearby. The footsteps were laid down in the ...

The mine that created the wealth of Europe
Apr 15, 2008 (86 photos)

... profited from this richness and although the mine is still opened today and operated by a cooperative of miners, they have bled dry Bolivia who is now one of the poorest countries in the world.  The Bolivians gave the soul of their earth along with ...

Dynamite
Jul 12, 2006

Blurb, explosives, shaky video and blurred phots to follow of pidgeandpies real life mine tour.

Highest City in the World
Jul 11, 2006

Blurb & Video to follow, when we return to Blighty and proper broadband!

Chutillos Festival
Sep 1, 2004 (5 photos)

Although every day in Bolivia has a fiesta, Ch`utillos in Potosě is one of the biggest and most colourful, and I was lucky enough to get to take part in the fiesta. Warming Up For Ch`utillos The Tuesday before Ch`utillos weekend is the Fiesta of San ...