The highest city in the world has a dark underbelly

Potosi, built at an altitude of 3976 metres, is the word’s highest city and a monument to Spanish colonial rule.

Its streets are lined with grandiose architecture reminiscent of the city’s heyday when Indian and imported Negro slaves mined enough silver out of a nearby mountain to prop up the entire Spanish economy for hundreds of years.

Potosi fell on hard times in the early 1980’s when the bottom dropped out of silver. However the mine is still operational and tourism has bolstered the local economy.

One disturbing trend you’ll notice in Potosi is the lack of old men. Most boys enter the Cerro Rico mine which looms over the city as young as eight to start hacking a living from the mountain’s innards. By the time they’re 40, their lungs give out from breathing the caustic dust of the mines.

The result is old women sitting beneath tarpaulins on the mine’s surface, chipping away at tailings with small hammers looking for silver to support themselves as their husbands and sons are all dead. In the 400 years of Spanish rule, it’s estimated eight million men died working the mines, and the fatalities continue. 

However this dark underbelly adds an extra zing to life above ground and makes Potosi an especially vibrant and colourful place. And it’s beautiful. If you look out over the terracotta roofs to the distant mountains, it looks like Spanish villas transported to Tibet.

For adventurous types who want to experience first hand what goes on below ground, there are numerous tour companies who take small groups into the belly of the earth – but be warned. Miners work with live dynamite and the mine shafts are burrowed holes into the darkness. You’ll never be so glad to see the sky after an hour or two clambering around their dusty depths.

Afterwards, you might want to head to the hot springs around Tarapaya (about half an hour's drive from Potosi) where medicinal thermal pools of varying temperature lie waiting to calm your nerves and clean away the dust. The most beautiful spot in the area is the natural Ojo del Inca (the former bathtub of the Incas), a deep, emerald lake around 30°C with a dead-on view of red and orange rocky mountains.