Trips to Bolivia

TRIPS TO BOLIVIA: POTOSÍ

Altitude: 4.070m

During the colonial time, the extraction of silver in the Hill Rico de Potosí, turned to this city into greatest of America, with more than 160,000 inhabitants; then, everything was opulence and to primorosas churches and elegant large houses were constructed, arriving architects and famous personages from all the arts.

They tell that with the extracted silver of the entrails of the Hill Rico or Sumaj Orcko (majestic mountain), it would have been possible to construct a gigantic bridge that united Potosí with Madrid; but, they also count, that fabulous work, would have become, of equal way, with the bodies of the enslaved natives who died inside the caverns.

In 1553, the City of Potosí - capital from the department of the same name in the southwest of Bolivia it received the title of Imperial City from Carlos V, king of Spain. Then of history it was difficult to anticipate the decline of the magnificent town, that at present only conserves some timid sparkles of its lavish one happened.

Quiet and solitary streets, old houses, narrow paths. To the bottom, the image of the Hill Rico dominates the plateau, but no longer there are deliriums of silver in this old Imperial Villa who in 1987 was declared Cultural Patrimony of the Humanity by UNESCO.