POTOSI CITY TOUR

FULL DAY

Potosí, city, southern Bolivia, 56 miles (90 km) southwest of Sucre. One of the world’s highest cities (elevation 13,290 feet [4,050 metres]), it stands on a cold and barren plateau in the shadow of fabled Potosí Mountain (also called Cerro Rico [“Rich Mountain”]), which is honeycombed with thousands of mines. Legend attributes its name to potojchi or potocsi, a Quechua word meaning “deafening noise,” or “crash.”

Potosí was “the first city of capitalism, for it supplied the primary ingredient of capitalism – money”, notes the author Jack Weatherford. “Potosí made the money that irrevocably changed the economic complexion of the world.”

The city is also an important symbol in modern Latin American revolutionary movements, made famous by Eduardo Galeano’s book Open Veins of Latin America – which was a gift from Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez to Barack Obama in 2009.

PROGRAM

Tour begins with a visit to the Cathedral, historical streets such as Sucre and Nogales, the Church of San Francisco, Arco de Cobija, the city’s museums (to choose between San Francisco, Santa Teresa or Casa de la Moneda), the Market of Miners and San Lorenzo, the “Casa de la Moneda” one of the most outstanding civil buildings in Latin America that preserves important colonial archives.

PHOTO GALLERY