Potosí

Potosí was born of a mountain. In 1545 Diego Huallpa, an Indigenous prospector, is traditionally credited with finding silver on Cerro Rico, and a mining town grew almost overnight at its foot. Within decades it was producing fabulous wealth: silver from the mountain, coined at the Potosí mint, was carried by llama and mule trains to the Pacific coast and on to Spain with the treasure fleets, or east to Buenos Aires and across the Pacific to Asia. Around 1600 it was one of the largest cities in the world, and its churches, mansions and gambling houses were famous across the empire. One theory holds that the city's mint mark is the origin of the dollar sign.

The wealth rested on forced labour. Under the mita, thousands of Indigenous men from across the Andes were conscripted each year to work in the mines, carrying ore to the surface in sacks and baskets, exposed to pneumonia, accidents and mercury poisoning; thousands fled their villages to escape the draft. In the 18th century Guanajuato in Mexico overtook Cerro Rico, and the city declined. During the independence wars it changed hands repeatedly, and Simón Bolívar is said to have waved a flag from the summit of the mountain.

Tin later revived mining across the department, and the city remained a provincial capital. The historic centre and Cerro Rico have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987, but in 2014 UNESCO placed the site on its list in danger because uncontrolled mining threatens to degrade the mountain.

Potosí's culture grows out of the mines. Miners, many of them Quechua, work in cooperatives on old seams, and underground they keep the custom of offering coca leaves, alcohol and cigarettes to El Tío, the lord of the underground, whose figures sit in the tunnels to protect those who work there. Above ground the Virgin and the saints are honoured, and the two worlds meet in ceremonies of thanks and protection for the mountain and those who enter it.

The colonial past is everywhere. Large churches with richly decorated interiors were built when Dominicans, Franciscans, Augustinians, Mercedarians and Jesuits all had houses in the city, and several churches have carved stone fronts. The mint holds colonial paintings, and the city has a long tradition of religious art and silverwork.

The year's great festival is Ch'utillos in late August, when dance troupes from the city and the surrounding communities parade through the streets. Northern Potosí's tinku, a ritual combat between communities, has become a popular folk dance across Bolivia, and music of charangos and panpipes accompanies most celebrations. Potosinos are reserved with strangers, proud of the city's place in world history and sharply aware of the price paid for its silver.

The municipality of Potosí had about 219,000 people at the 2024 census, making it the largest urban centre in its department. The city lies at about 4,070 metres, which makes it one of the highest cities in the world, and its streets climb from the colonial centre towards Cerro Rico, where many mining families live.

Mining still dominates the economy. Thousands of miners work the mountain, many of them in cooperatives, alongside the larger open-pit San Bartolomé mine on its slopes. Ore prices set the city's fortunes, and the degradation of the mountain by uncontrolled mining worries heritage bodies. Government offices, the university, commerce and tourism provide much of the rest of the work.

Days begin early and cold, with miners heading up the mountain and markets opening in the half-light, and the sun warms the streets by midday before the temperature drops sharply in the evening. The national shortages of fuel and US dollars, blockades and strikes are felt strongly in a city that depends on the price of minerals and on road links to the rest of the country.

Potosí's best-known dish is kala purka, a thick, spicy soup served with a hot stone in the bowl; its Quechua name means 'boiling stone'. It belongs to the hearty cooking of the high Andes, built on corn, potatoes — including chuño, the freeze-dried potatoes of the Altiplano winter — quinoa and meat, and suited to a city where nights are cold all year.

The everyday main meal is lunch, often a set menu of soup and a main course, and the Mercado Central is the place for the cheapest meals in town, with counters serving soups, stews, juices and api, the hot purple-corn drink taken on cold mornings. Salteñas, the juicy baked pasties found across Bolivia, are eaten mid-morning, and street stalls sell fried snacks and grilled meat.

Coca tea is offered everywhere to ease the altitude, and the miners chew coca leaves through the working day, a practice tied to the work underground. Beer is the usual drink, and singani, Bolivia's white-grape brandy from the southern valleys, is drunk at celebrations and offered, with other spirits, to El Tío in the mines.