“A mask of gold hides all deformities” - Thomas Dekker
Last weekend we traveled to Sucre, the other capital of Bolivia, and Potosi, the mountain that provided silver and tin for over five hundred years. We flew from our homebase in La Paz to Sucre on Thursday morning and hired two taxis to take us to Potosi that afternoon. The takeoff in the airport in El Alto was a little frightening because the airplane had to reach higher speeds in order to take off at four thousand meters above sea level. However, the flight allowed me to see more of the rugged Andean terrain and allowed me to appreciate the difficulty that communication and travel presented up until the post-modern times. We arrived in Sucre around noon, had a quick lunch, and headed up to Potosi. The trip took about two and a half hours and involved a winding mountain road that sometimes had 360 degree curves. Most people in the taxi fell asleep on the drive; however, I stayed awake to watch the impressive mountain vista and the small villages we passed where people eked a meager existence in the harsh climate and terrain. We arrived in Potosi in time to take a tour of Casa de Moneda, a Spanish colonial money factory where the silver from the mountain of Potosi was transformed into coins. The place was a fortress that boasted almost two hundred rooms, which were used for melting silver, molding coins, and storing the treasure. The museum had an impressive collection of ancient artifacts as well as various minerals from the mountain. The most memorable artifact in the museum was the collection of machines for thinning silver. The machines took up four rooms and looked like a device used by the Inquisition to torture innocent people. In some places in those rooms footprints of the workers were imprinted into the wood. I left the museum awe-stricken by the enormous wealth and power that Potosi once represented. In the courtyard, the face of a clown (the symbol of Potosi) smirked at the backs of the leaving tourists. There is a story behind a clown as well - supposedly, he was carved by a French architect that chose the clown to mock the Spaniards and their greedy ambitions in the New World. After the tour we had dinner and took a walk around the city. The cathedrals and the colonial architecture loomed over us in a dark shadow of the city’s past, present, and future. And, of course, everywhere in Potosi, the mountain of riches watches and wonders at the greed of the human race. Because of the five hundred years of non-stop mining, the top of the mountain has fallen in and the working conditions in the tunnels are becoming more and more dangerous for the miners. We did not do a mining tour, despite the numerous advertisements throughout the city, but we went closer to the mountain to visit the miner’s market on Saturday morning. We saw little shops with tools for the miners, and we saw several trucks taking the men for the morning shift up the mountain. Some of those men will never come back from the tunnels of Potosi. And those who do come back, will only have a life expectancy of about thirty years because the air in the mines slowly sucks out the life of a person, hour by hour. After visiting the market, we walked down back to the main plaza and decided to take a tour of the Spanish convent, probably one of the richest places in the city. The convent was established in the 1700s and is still a functioning establishment. Here, the Spanish sent off their young daughters with a huge dowry to become nuns and to never see the light of the world again. The girls who arrived here were never allowed to see anyone, nor to own any personal belonging. Most of the rooms have now been converted into a museum - to store religious paintings, ancient books, and other relics of the past, such as self-mutilating tools. Many of the walls in the hallways were covered by golden-framed mirrors; looking into one, I could imagine a scared seventeen-year-old girl walking the same hallway three hundred years ago and knowing that her future is bleak and hopeless. Even the bodies of the dead nuns were not allowed to leave the convent - they were buried there and some skeletons still lie in open graves in the floor. Needless to say, I was very happy to leave that place. It was fascinating, but in a very morbid sort of way. The last sight we visited in Potosi was the cathedral on the plaza. The catherdral was in the middle of renovations but amazing nevertheless. The church was gigantic - I can’t even imagine how difficult it was to build at 4100 meters above sea level. However, one of the columns did have a pyramid with an eye - the symbol of the Masons. I guess nothing is impossible for them. We got to climb fifteen or so flights of stairs to see a bird-view of the city of Potosi from the bell tower of the church. After the visit to the cathedral, we headed back to Sucre. Potosi was a great visit to see the colonial legacy first-hand and to appreciate the bloody price that wealth sometimes costs.
