Life presents some hard choices.
An extra half hour in bed or a plateful of the best pancakes in South America.
Fortunately there is often a third way.
We made the 8am departure but at a price. Maple syrup oozed from my pockets and pooled in my seat for the rest of the day.
The drive to Potosi was much like every other day for the last two weeks. Plunging ravines, towering cliffs, endless plateaux, lamas, isolated villages, steep winding roads and dust, dust and more dust. One day South America will blow into the sea in one enormous cloud.
At 2pm we rolled into the highest city in the world at a nose-bleeding altitude.
At 4,100m the atmosphere contains only 50% of the oxygen at sea level. Stand up too quickly and you get your own private firework display. Walk up the stairs and prepare for the lights to go out.
At 4,100m the atmosphere contains only 50% of the oxygen at sea level. Stand up too quickly and you get your own private firework display. Walk up the stairs and prepare for the lights to go out.
Potosi is one of a very long list of places that so nearly made it big but failed at the last hurdle. Founded on the basis of its silver deposits in the 15th century, it went on to produce so much wealth that it was said that Potosi could have built a bridge of silver to Madrid.
The city's mines bankrolled the Spanish expansion in South America but so rich were the deposits that local labour could not support the demand.
The city's mines bankrolled the Spanish expansion in South America but so rich were the deposits that local labour could not support the demand.
What followed is the darkest and unfinished chapter in Spanish history.
Slaves from Africa and South America were forced to work the mines in conditions that largely prevail today. Unknown millions died. The human cost rivals the Holocaust and the Russian purges, but is largely unknown today.
This is the story of one town but was repeated endlessly across the new Spanish territories.
Slaves from Africa and South America were forced to work the mines in conditions that largely prevail today. Unknown millions died. The human cost rivals the Holocaust and the Russian purges, but is largely unknown today.
This is the story of one town but was repeated endlessly across the new Spanish territories.
The mines are mostly worked out but co-operatives still dig.
The life expectancy of today’s miner is under ten years from first going underground.
The life expectancy of today’s miner is under ten years from first going underground.
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