We manage to get off early this morning, at 7:20. It's good because a big day is waiting for us. There isn't just a big hill for half a day and the afternoon of descent, it's rather sawteeth. We climb 200m, then down 150m, and that for 70 kilometers. The landscape is beautiful, especially in the morning until Porco. After Porco, the high voltage power lines are really ubiquitous and spoil the landscape a little. But, Bolivia is a poor country and cannot afford to bury them, even in beautiful places. A bit of a pity but it's a lesser evil, obviously.
The arrival in Potosi city itself is the worst for the moment. Potosi is a big industrial city, and the tourist and cultural center is at the top of the city. We
start a climb that finish exhausting us after our multiple climbs all
day long, while breathing the exhaust gas of many vehicles, and with all the
horns. We end up in a hotel in the center, very well without being the luxury.
We decide not to visit the mines, the big "attraction" of the city. They are still in operation and more than 15,000 miners work there every day for a pittance. We'll visit another one if possible as part of a museum and with a less voyeuristic eye.
The center is pretty, with lots of churches or church facades. We feel that the Spaniards occupied the place long because there are many buildings of the colonial era. We visit one of them, Santa Teresa Convent. It's a convent of the Carmelite order for girls of the European aristocracy. Six sisters are still in a part of the convent, we visit the museum part. It's very well filled. And for good reason, all the families of the women who entered (rather children, they were 15 years old!) had to provide a very important dote: we can see mirrors with polished silver, paintings, dishes... The funny thing is that all this is only for the museum, the sisters weren't allowed to see them because it would have been vanity and lust. Other little anecdotes, they could only talk for two hours a day, and had no mattress, to remember Jesus suffering.
