Potosi

We arrived in Potosi for a quick 1 night stopover, however on arrival we were told the next day was local election day, which meant everything in the entire town would be shut including the buses!!

Potosi used to be one of the richest towns in the world as a result of its silver mines, which are still in operation today and are the major tourist attraction. We chose not to do the mine tour, not only because its extremely dangerous but we were not comfortable exploiting the horrible working conditions the locals endure. We did however watch the documentary The Devil's Miner, which shows how 1000's of men and sadly 100s of children sacrifice their lives to support their families with an income.

Being stranded in this town with nothing to do didn't turn out to be so bad, as our friends Luisa, Anabel and Ellen arrived on the same day, so we had each other for company at least. We pretty much just ate and drank all day while watching the locals vote in the main square.