Showing 1-16 of 16 results
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Photo of the Day: Potosi Bolivia Panorama
Blog: Two Backpackers - 15 June 2011
Read more… Ethics of Tourism: Mines of Potosi Bolivia Related posts:Photo of the Day: Cerro Rico in Potosi Bolivia Ethics Of Tourism: Mines Of Potosi Bolivia Photo of the Day: Mountains And Plains in Bolivia © Aracely for 2 Backpackers, 2011. | FOLLOW US ON TWITTER | JOIN US ON FACEBOOK | Permalink
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Potosi
Blog: The Road Chose Me - 50,000kms of ebb and flow - 15 November 2010
A visit to the world’s highest city, Potosi (4060m) is an absolute must for any visitor to Bolivia. The enormous Cerro Rico (rich mountain) is visible from practically every street corner and rightly so, as it’s single-handedly responsible for the town. Centuries ago the Bolivians knew the mountain was full of precious metals and mined [...]
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Potosi, Bolivia…
Blog: Viva Latin America! - 3 November 2010
Arriving anywhere at 2am isn’t going to be good, let alone a mining town like Potosi. We were expecting to arrive at 3am so when everyone started to get off the bus we asked the driver and found out that a once-in-a-lifetime event had happened: a Bolivian bus had arrived early! The bus ride itself [...]
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Photo of the Day: Cerro Rico in Potosi Bolivia
Blog: Two Backpackers - 30 October 2010
Potosi Bolivia has always been dominated by mining for minerals, specifically silver. The storied past surrounding the infamous Cerro Rico (Rich Mountain) is heart breaking and one that you can’t escape even walking through the narrow streets of downtown Potosi. In this photo of the day, Cerro Rico and the danger it poses to miners [...]
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All that glitters ain’t silver. Potosi, Bolivia
Blog: Chronicles of a year-long break-up - 7 August 2010
Potosi was quite a pleasant surprise. We had heard from travellers who had already been there that it was just your average industrial town with not a lot more to offer than the huge silver mine at its core. So when we came over the last of many mountains on our smokey, bone-jarring ride from [...]
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Ethics Of Tourism: Mines Of Potosi Bolivia
Blog: Two Backpackers - 1 June 2010
When I first heard that in Potosi there are organized tours allowing visitors to see how miners work, my first reaction was “Why? What do tourists do there, take pictures?” At first thought, to be very honest, I was sickened that people do this. Imagine a group of gringos who are dressed in protective clothing, rubber [...]
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Touring the Central Highlands - Potosi and Sucre
Blog: Mood to Travel - 25 May 2010
Backpacking, Uyuni, Bolivia [Enlarge]
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The Potosi Mines - Bolivia
Blog: A Travel Diary from Mexico, Central and South America - 16 May 2010
When I read one description of the Potosi mines I wasn’t all that keen on visiting. It said they have been described as “the mouth of hell” and that visitors should be aware that a trip down into them is both physically and emotionally draining. However, out of sheer curiosity (Sophie’s, not mine!) we made the long journey south from La Paz. An overnight bus to pretty much any destination in Bolivia will get you in at about 6am. I have thought a lot about why they schedule them like this.
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The Potosi Silver Mines – Quite A Workout
Blog: Viva Latin America! - 16 May 2010
Not that that’s the point, obviously. You’re meant to go to these mines and be appalled at the medieval conditions in which these miners spend their days. You’re not meant to look at it as good exercise for the week. Right, the background is as follows: the Spanish show up in Bolivia and start conquering [...]
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Day 84: Into hell and back
Blog: Diaries of a Vagabonding Couple - 10 May 2010
Miner pushing trolley through the tunnel It is hard to imagine that Potosi used to be Latin America's largest and wealthiest city, having once upon a time financed the Spanish empire for over 2 centuries. Potosi's nearby Cerro Rico ("rich mountain") was historically mined for its silver, a commodity plundered during the Spanish conquest on the back of forced labour. A painful past, 8 million
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Day 83: Who said Bolivia was dirt cheap?
Blog: Diaries of a Vagabonding Couple - 5 May 2010
Calle Jaen - the most beautiful street in La Paz. Like Quito, the barrio clings to the mountainside in the distance. After a day in the capital, we set off on an overnight journey to Potosi, a small colonial town towards the south of Bolivia. The bus ride felt like a night in the ice hotel. We were the only foreigners and came well prepared with all our warmest clothes. But having seen how
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A side note on Bolivia
Blog: Cogs Watch - 28 February 2010
As it would happen, the day I wrote my 'I love Bolivia' post (below), I got a confronting insight into a very ugly side of the country: the dangerous and unregulated child labour. We went to see a documentary called 'The Devil's Miner'. I've mentioned it before in my Potosi post. It follows 14 year-old Basilio Vargas who, raised without a father, is forced to support his mother, brother and young sister by working in the once silver-rich Cerro Rico mines of Potosi.
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Salar de Uyuni - it's flat. That is all.
Blog: Boodle's Adventure - around the world in 365 days - 15 January 2010
Since our mammoth bus ride from Lima to Cuzco of 21 hours (+ extra time for the flat tyre) we have taken to making sure that our bus journeys are max 12ish hours. This means that we often end up in little towns with nothing to do. Our next 'little town' was Potosi. It's only claim to fame being that it is the highest city in the world - supposedly (we have also been told that Lago Titicaca was the highest lake in the world. Apparently that's wrong...) and the mine tours that you can do here.
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Potosi and Salar de Uyuni
Blog: Cogs Watch - 13 January 2010
Our plan was to move south from Sucre and that's just what we did - Potosi and the famous Bolivian Salt Flats were next on our list. With the thought of a three day, two night jeep tour around the Salt Flats ahead, Potosi was a nice place to chill out.
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Going down the mines
Blog: Itinerant Londoner - 17 October 2009
If the Death Road turned out to be nowhere near as scary as I’d been expecting, my next big excursion turned out to far more. Potosi was once the biggest and richest city in the whole of the Americas – and at one point even bigger than Madrid, the imperial capital, and all because of one [...]
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Bolivian Sojourn: Potosi, By the Numbers
Blog: AlpacaSuitcase - 7 September 2009
The story of the town of Potosi and its Cerro Rico ("Rich Hill"), the mountain of silver that bankrolled the Spanish Empire for two-and-a-half centuries, is one that can be told with numbers:13,420 = The elevation (in feet) of Potosi, the highest city in the world, almost two and a half miles high.
Showing 1-16 of 16 results
