A rainy day in the highest city in the world

After the astonishingly rich breakfast buffet - yes, expectations are sinking - we use the sluggish internet connection to update our blogs and to bring some order to the mass of images.

In the narrow and steep streets of Potosis it is amazingly fresh today, just 12 degrees and again and again some rain falls. We take a walk through the center of the historic city many wonderful colonial buildingswhich, however, often require a little more care. Even here in town many Indian women in traditional Quechua dress to see.

On a tour of the inhuman ones Mines of the Cerro Ricco we renounce. The already thin air at an altitude of almost 4000 meters above sea level in a dusty mine tunnel would probably not be good for Niki's asthma. The fabulous one Silver and tin abundance of the mountain Cerro Ricco made the city grow into one of the largest cities in the world in the early 17th century and still live on it today. The Inca already had silver mined at Cerro Rico. Later the Spaniards took over the mines and left them Indigenous and imported African slaves under hair-raising safety and environmental conditions for themselves in the largest silver mine in the empire toil. It is estimated that up to 8 million indigenous people have lost their lives in the mines.

We want to take a look at the other top attraction in town. The Royal Treasury Casa de la Moneda served the Spanish coin production. An English tour has just started and we are therefore waiting in the neighboring restaurant until the next one. Unfortunately it is not clear whether this will take place at all, so we conclude Spanish guide at. You can see from local art from the 17th and 18th centuries, to the most diverse here minted silver coins and the most diverse tools required for this. The two-story machine, driven away by mules, is particularly impressive.

Then we make our way back to the hostel, where we plan the onward journey through Bolivia and then watch a film.