MUNGO EATS Latin America

We left Sucre today, bound for Potosi’.  We passed by Potosi’ on the way to Sucre, but decided not to stop on the way through.  Potosi’ almost proved more trouble than it was worth.  The highway was fine, slow, but fine.  We had to work our way uphill again, back up to 4200m.

Generally, our troubles start when we first get to a new town.  Our guide book usually has a map of most major towns, but the maps usually only include the historic centre of the town.  Depending on the town, you can drive for 15 or 20 minutes before you even find a road that is on the map.  The map of Potosi’ proved to be worse than most.  There are no signs saying “historic centre this way”, which a lot of the towns have.  Also, there are no street signs on the corners of streets, and the only indication you get of which road you are travelling on , are little, tiny names written under the house numbers (the letters are about 1 cm tall).  To top it all off, the map we had of the centre of town, only had about 1/2 of the streets actually named on it.  So you are driving along a road, finally manage to read some 1 cm high letters 2 or 3 feet away, look for the name on you map and IT”S NOT THERE!  Or you do find one road on the map, but cannot find your place on the map, because you can’t figure out what crossroad you are on.  FRUSTRATING!!!!!  Sometimes I REALLY HATE being navigator.  The good news is that I don’t get car sick doing it anymore…BONUS! 

Anyway, after driving around for what seemed like hours, we finally found a hostel, that had a room, which we paid for.  After we had our room paid for, we went to look for the parking lot that the hostel used.  We found it fairly easily, although, no one initially answered the door.  Eventually a young teenaged (maybe!)girl, answered the door and said that we could park there, and showed us where she wanted us to park.  After Kevin had pulled into the designated spot, the young gal changed her mind.  Seems she thought we were too long, and we should try a different place.  She tried to get us to move to a parking spot which would have required parallel parking, with the trailer, and was on top of this, to short.  I told her NO!  So she hummed and hawed and hummed and hawed and finally decided that we could park against a far wall, but  there was a vehicle that needed to be moved to do that.  She went to get the keys to the car that needed to be moved, then asked Kevin to please move the car!!!  Kevin couldn’t believe he had to move someone else’s car.  It was an old beater of a car, so he agreed.  First he couldn’t unlock the door, then he couldn’t get the car started, when it came to the point that we were going to have to push a strangers car into a new spot, he said NO!  Luckily, the girl’s mom got back at that point.  She decided that we could pull into the spot next to the one that we were in, but first, they had to move ANOTHER car out.  Okay!  They got the keys to this car, and handed them to Kevin, AGAIN!  He didn’t even try to move this car, refused right out.  I told the lady that she should move the car, but she said she did not know how to drive.  Finally, they got some other guy to move the car…don’t know who he was.  In any case, we finally got our parking spot and DID NOT leave our keys with the garage!!!  I wonder if the owner’s of those cars know that complete strangers are being asked to move their vehicles. 

By the time all this hostel finding/parking crap was done, it was 3pm.  We still had not had lunch, and we still had to visit the “house of money museum”, which is why we came to this town in the first place.  Hunger won out, and we got a quick bite to eat, before catching the last tour through the museum before it closed.  The museum is the old mint, and it was pretty cool to see how they used to mint currency.   

Potosi’ is a city, which was “created” because a HUGE silver deposit was found in the mountain behind the town, a mountain now named Cerro  Rico or Rich Mountain.  Legend has it that a llama herder discovered the silver, when he started a fire on the mountain to keep warm and silver flowed out as the fire burned.  In any case, the town was built for the sole purpose of mining the silver.  The silver  was so plentiful, that you could get ANYTHING made out of silver.  At it’s peak, the city had a population larger than London and MUCH richer.  The indigenous peoples and black slaves were forced to work in the mines under horrific conditions.  Miners were expected to put in a 36 hour “shift” and many, many , many died in accidents and also with lung problems.  Eventually, the silver ran out.  The rich folks left and the town survived on mining tin, for a while.  When tin was no longer worth mining, the town population plummeted.  Now the mines are worked by private people, trying to find any silver left behind.  The conditions are still terrible, the tunnels unsafe, and whatever silver is found, belongs to the miner themselves.  More and more, the town is surviving on tourism, and many people tour the mines and visit the miners in the mines.  This was one tour that I could not take!!  Too sad, too scary!  I think I will be glad to leave Potosi’ tomorrow!