TRAVEL AND TOURS

An imperial village splendid and ostentatious is blessed by a majestic mountain of which infinite tons of mineral are extracted. Parties and banquets filled the fine old houses, people beat their breasts in silent churches; only the miners where condemned to the labyrinths of dark tunnels. Stories, myths and legends, made the city of Potosi and from it came all the silver that opened the doors of modern times for the world.

During the vice-Royalty, the silver extraction in the Cerro Rico of Potosi transformed this city into the biggest in America with more than 160,000 inhabitants. Then, everything was opulence: exquisite churches and elegant mansions were built, conspicuous architects and celebrated artists arrived.

People say that with the silver extracted from the bowel of the Cerro Rico (or Sumaj Orcko, majestic mountain), it could have been possible to build a gigantic bridge to connect Potosi with Madrid; but, they also say that this fabulous work could have been made with the bodies of those who died in the tunnels.

In 1553, the city of Potosi -capital of the department of the same name in the Southwest of Bolivia- was given the title of imperial city by Carlos V, King of Spain. At that moment of history it was difficult to foresee the decline of the splendid village that nowadays preserves only a few gleams of its splendid past.

Silent and solitary streets in Potosi (4,070 m.a.s.l.). Old houses, narrow sidewalks. At the end, the image of the Cerro Rico dominates the highland; even now dozens of miners get lost in its tunnels and mine entrances, but nothing is as bad as it used to be. There are no longer deliriums of silver in this old Imperial Village, that in 1987, was declared Cultural Patrimony of the Humanity by UNESCO.