However, it has attracted me at the same time. A meaningless town existing for centuries in the most inaccessible place imaginable, accumulating a history of horror, death and human suffering, but at the same time seducing with its bizarre beauty We have long ago reached the altitude of 4.
I'm thinking that this is the end, that there is nowhere to go from here, that maybe Potosi doesn't exist at all, that it was made up And as I'm getting more and more convinced that I am really on the road to nowhere, that Potosi is just a horrible legend and a delusion, I start to see the first outlines of the town, as grey and lifeless as everything around it.
In the distance I can make out the reddish hill, Cerro Rico. They say it's a hill that devours people. Cerro Rico is a cradle of this city - it has created it, raised it, only to mercilessly swallow it for centuries, killing it slowly and relishing the endless suffering of those condemned to be its prey. Cerro Rico is not just a hill; Cerro Rico is hell. Cerro Rico is human greed trapped in soil.
Long ago, in , a shepherd named Diego Huallpa grazed his flock of lamas on the slopes of the hill. Diego started a fire to warm himself up; however, the soil around him had a strange glow. Diego inadvertently discovered the biggest silver ore deposit in the history of mankind. The news of the silver quickly reached Madrid. Overnight Potosi sprung up, the highest city in the world, that become one of the largest cities as well, bigger than Madrid itself, with unparallelled wealth.
Potosi had pavements made of silver, opulent churches, palaces, theatres, the royal mint, and the constant influx of new settlers looking for riches. Potosi became the symbol of wealth, which is why the Spanish language of the time had a phrase "vale un Potosi" it is worth a Potosi for describing immense richness.
However, after reaching the summit of its power, Potosi's wealth started plummeting, people started leaving it, and this process of demise has gone on ever since. At one point Potosi was left with only a couple thousand people, and today's Potosi is just a shadow of its former self.
There is a saying that with the silver dug out from Potosi one could build a bridge from Bolivia all the way to Madrid. However, another story says that the bones of those who died in the mine one could build two such bridges. It is believed that eight million people have died in the mines of Potosi, most of them either natives or African slaves.
They used to be trapped underground for six months at a time, where they worked 20 hours a day. Some died from exhaustion, some from disease, some were killed in numerous accidents, and a huge number of suicides has been recorded as well. This makes Potosi a site of a forgotten, unknown, hushed up genocide, maybe the largest in the history of mankind. I don't even know what made me come to Potosi.
The notion of this town's history, as well the encounter with its present, fill me with a strange feeling of guilt. Did I come to Potosi only to see something horrible and out of the ordinary, so that I can afterwards tell that I've been in such a place?
I know I will leave this town as soon as possible, feeling powerless to do anything, knowing that it was just another place I've seen on my journey With these thoughts I walked past the city center filled with enormous palaces, churches, monuments. Everything seems monumental, magnificent, but at the same time fills me with loathing. What would somewhere else be just beautiful architecture, in Potosi has a different, sinister dimension. One of the reasons why many come to Potosi is the possibility to visit the infamous mines.
In this world everything eventually ends up as a tourist attraction. I gave up the idea right away. Going to the mine seemed like going to the zoo, with people instead of animals, locked not in cages but in a mine. I met Helen by accident. It turns out that Helen works as a tour guide, and goes to the mine almost every day.
I told her I had been toying with the idea of going to the mine before I came here, but since I've arrived to the city my opinion has changed completely.
I am surprised that everyone knows about the inhuman conditions in the mines, yet nothing changes. Here is what Helen told me: "You know, it is shameful that such a place should exist. I am angry every time I think about it. There are children working there, years old. People die at the age of They are simply compelled to work down there. There is nothing else here.
The mines are the source of life, but of death as well. At the same time, someone is getting rich from these people's suffering. That is a shame for all of us, for all Bolivia. I would like to write a book about people who live in affluence using these poor souls. I want to write everything I know, and then I will have to leave this country, to leave Bolivia. I already have the title. Because raw material prices were on the decline for many years, lots of mines closed down.
This gave rise to high levels of unemployment and poverty in this predominantly indigenous region. Estimates are that much silver still remains in the mines. Due to poor worker conditions, such as a lack of protective equipment against the constant inhalation of dust, many of the miners contract silicosis and have a life expectancy of around 40 years.
This was the decree of the Feudal Lord who issued an order that the people who were of sixty-one years of age were to be sent to the mountains. The story of Cerro Rico is one with which few outside of the continent are familiar. When the Spanish conquistadores originally discovered the bounty buried deep within the mountain, they forced millions of indigenous people and African slaves to work and live in the mines. How much money does Omar earn mining at Cerro Rico? This is because many workers had lost their lives while working in the mines.
Silver mining is the primary type of mining that takes place under this mountain. Deltas, river banks, and the bottom of waterfalls are common areas where sediment accumulates. Glaciers can freeze sediment and then deposit it elsewhere as the ice carves its way through the landscape or melts. Why are garnets used in sandpaper? Garnets have a value of 8 or 9 on the Mohs Hardness Scale, making them very abrasive.
Where do most metamorphic rocks form? If you tried to eat it, you would suffer burns before you ever got it in your mouth. If it was poured into your open mouth by someone else, it would cause third degree burns.
Freshly cooled lava can have smell and taste from roasted trees and other organics that it burned up. Consider that Hawaiian lava cooled in the ocean might taste salty unless the salt was washed away with rain water. Cool lava is darn close to pottery ceramics with hardly any taste. While lava can be as hot as F, some flames can be much hotter, such as F or more, while a candle flame can be as low as F. Lava is hotter than a typical wood or coal-buring fire, but some flames, such as that of an acetylene torch, is hotter than lava.
The hottest thing that we know of and have seen is actually a lot closer than you might think. But high in the Andes above the treeline, the rich mountain remains — its contents now in Armada shipwrecks, the jewellery of Arab rulers, and the remaining treasures of the Ming dynasty. Few places in the world were left untouched by its riches. Does your city have a little-known story that made a major impact on its development? Please share it in the comments below or on Twitter using storyofcities.
But then the silver ran out … Read more articles in the series here. Story of cities 7: Philadelphia grid marks birth of America's urban dream. Read more. Reuse this content.
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