Potosi is one of the most important Spanish colonial settlements on the whole continent and at 4090m one of the highest cities in the world. A magnificent museum Casa de la Moneda is placed in the old city mint, where the silver from the nearby towering Cerro Rico has been transformed into coins for centuries and had a great influence on the development of currencies all around the world. From the dollar sign, to the serrated edges of the modern coins, for many of typical money features, it is possible to find parallels that lead directly back to Potosi. It is a city of great controversy, where for centuries the richness of the land has been exploited by foreigners, while using the tough and climate-adapted working force of the area. Up until now, the workers continue to dig out the vast silver treasure in extreme working conditions with many of the miners being underage and most of them catching deadly disease at some point in their working lives.
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Finally reunited! :) Manca's parents have made it to Santiago after a looong trip from Slovenia and it was time for well deserved hugs and kisses after more than eight months of separation. Although tired, we haven't really given them a lot of time to rest since we had planed a pretty long road-trip for the next three weeks. First day, we strolled around Santiago and visited a viewpoint offering a smoggy look over the huge city. A six million metropolis is not something you see everyday and especially for Manca's parents, the novelties and surprises were practically constant. The next day for example, after briefly visiting Valparaiso, we stopped at one of the many Pacific beaches to cook dinner and sleep wild just meters away from thundering waves. The road led us north, retracing the long drive through Atacama that we did a couple of days before. This time, we made a detour in the charming town of Vicuna, where we observed the endless vineyards and went for a very interesting star-gazing tour in the Mamalluco observatory. The hand of the desert was waving us goodbye as we finally reached Antofagasta where just a comparably short drive to San Pedro de Atacama was separating us from some amazing sightseeing. A crown event of any Altiplano visit is the famous Laguna route - an off-road passage which runs through the remote southwestern part of Bolivia passing several high-altitude lagoons, volcanoes and deserts on the way. A mixture of sandy, gravel and rocky roads with practically no services for 500 kilometers requires some preparations and despite having only 2WD drive on our car, we decided to take our chances. We filled up with gasoline, bought provisions for some days and took off. After a hundred kilometers of well maintained gravel road, we drove off the piste and into the mountains. The rocks on the track were big and we could only advance slowly but already when we reached the first of the lagoons with hundreds of flamingos calmly stomping around in it and feasting in the nutritious waters we realised there is a special experience in front of us. Still southbound and once again in the freezing Altiplano, we continued through barren and dry landscape while regularly stopping on the way to observe and take pictures of the free-roaming llamas, alpacas and vicunas. But before we continue with the marvelous landscape of the Sajama National Park it is time for another edition of "everyday Bolivian experience". This time - fueling up the tank :) The government regulates the fuel costs and defines different prices for foreigners than for Bolivians. If a local can buy fuel for around 3,5 BOB/L (0,45€), the official price for the foreigners is about 8,7 BOB/L (1,1€). But as usual in South America and especially in Bolivia, almost everything is open for discussion. If you are cunning enough to ask for a service without the receipt, some gas-station employees will happily enter the local price into the computer while actually charging you a slightly higher price. We usually ended up at 5 or 5,5 BOB/L which meant that we payed far less than we should have and that the employee went home with some extra daily paychecks in his pocket. But it hasn't really worked out every time and it very much depended on the mood of the employee and our bargaining skills. Many times we would visit as much as five places before being able to fill-up for a lower price - but with our way of travelling every cent counts and we tried to haggle as much as possible :) Back to our travel itinerary... National Park Sajama is just at the northern Chilean border and encompasses the volcano Sajama and its close surroundings. The volcano, also the highest Bolivian peak at 6542m, is mostly surrounded by wilderness, filled with vicunas, rhea birds (a South American variety of emu) and plenty of thermal springs and geysers. We spent two days soaking up in the hot thermal water and trying to stay warm during the night when the temperature dropped under -10°C and our water bottles were freezing inside the car where we were sleeping (we didn't dare to use the rooftop tent). We filled two 5L plastic bottles with boiling geyser water and left them under our bed - we're not really sure if they actually helped in a way. After heating up the car-engine on the powerful Altiplano sun (we slept at 4500m again) so that our cooling system became liquid again, we continued with great anticipation towards our next destination. |
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February 2019
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