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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On many occasions during our travels, we have found ourselves in a middle of beautiful landscapes just by leaving the main road behind to make a detour on many of the rural dirtroads connecting the smaller villages. This is when we really appreciate the possibility to travel with our own car since a bus ride to these remote places would include a great deal of planing and way more time to get there. One of the most enchanting places we found like this was Tinajani canyon, somewhere in the middle of the Peruvian mountains on our way towards Titicaca lake. Our wild campsite was surrounded by towering rock formations and a charming little river that seemed uncapable to actually dig out the place even with all the millions of years considered. We hiked to the cliffs of the canyon and picked up a friendly dog companion on the way that wouldn't leave our side afterwards. He was a bit too enthusiastic to defend us from the howling wind at night by barking at it:) The next day, just a few kilometers down the road, we encountered a vast field of the endangered plant puya raimondii or "the queen of the andes" that once again blew our minds by their crazy shape and size. From the beautiful Cordillera Blanca, we continued our way south, making a short stop in Lima on the way. The city is huge and the traffic chaotic. Arriving from the north, the shanty-towns didn't seem to have an end while we were slowly advancing into the city. We parked the car at our accomodation and continued by bus. It is amazing how a half an hour bus-ride can take you from dusty barrios and filthy street markets through broad colonial avenues directly into fancy modern areas with sea-view apartment buildings and chic restaurants. The huge differences still amaze us even after some months of travelling in South America. In the fancy part, we were finally able to buy a replacement lense for our camera though and enjoyed some of the metropolitan benefits like marvelous cafeterias and restaurants before quickly continued from the city to advance through the central Peruvian highlands towards the cultural capital Cuzco. At this point of our travel we already knew that Manca's parents are joining us in Chile in beginning of september so we needed to speed up our traveling pace a bit. We spent the last days in Ecuador in a great company of fellow travellers in Cuenca and enjoyed the best coffee of our lives in the Ecuadorian caffein capital Loja before succesfully and smoothly crossing our first border with the car. We quickly got to know a brand new aspect of the continent as we found ourselves in the middle of vast desertlands of northern Peru. If someone dropped us there just out of the blue we would have guessed to be somewhere in northern Afica. The distances got longer, we were passing through rural lands and often sharing our campsite with farm animals while staying at very friendly locals. Friendlyness aside... this is by far the dirtiest place we have ever encoutered. The roadside was constantly covered with layers of plastic bags and any other trash imaginable. Unfortunately this patern extended far into the desert all the way to the beaches and the Pacific ocean. |
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February 2019
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