Day 7 Potossi

Jo and I had booked an early bus to Potossi because we were trying to make the last tour at Casa Nacional de Moneda, which was supposed to be one of the nicest museums in La Paz. As soon as we got into Potossi, we booked it over to the museum and ended up making it just in time, backpacks and all.  The Casa de Moneda is now just a museum, but it used to be the National Mint.  Now I think Bolivian money is made in Canada. (?)

Turns out that you had to pay extra to take pictures, which Jo and I were far too cheap to do.  So, we did the next bext thing: snuck pictures!  I'm telling you: it wasn't easy to do.  There was a security guard following us the whole time, so we had to wait for just the right moment to sneak a pic in.  We live on the edge, Jo and I.

This is the type of quality you get when you are sneaking pictures.

 

Displays of Bolivian currency throughout the years.  Money is no longer made here.  The last coins were minted here in 1953.

The coin-making machines used to be run with burro-power!  These mule-driven wooden cogs were used to beat the silver to the width required for the coin making process.  These were replaced by steam-powered machines in the 19th century.

The Casa Nactional de Moneda was in awesome condition, and was really, really a gorgeous place.  It was used as a fort at one point, and I can see why.

The raw mineral room.

And the archeology room.  There were lots of skulls and some crazy, creepy mummified children I wasn't able to get pics of.

Jo had to keep looking behind his back for that pesky security guard.

One of the many alleyways.  This place was large and in charge.

The tour ended up being really, really interesting and well worth the rush to get to it.  We couldn't do it the following day because it was closed and we weren't planning on staying in Potossi for that long, so I'm glad we got an opportunity to check it out.

This is Potossi's mascot, a strange smiling Greek man (or woman?)  I was told why this is the face of Potossi, but I've forgotten.  I could look it up, but I'd rather just use my imagination.

Here's Jo, happy that he had proved me wrong.  I had been sure that we wouldn't have time to catch the tour.

But, I'm glad I was wrong.

Look how cheesy this photo is.  I don't know which one of us decided it would be a good idea to give the thumbs up sign, but I sure wish we hadn't.  The guy who took this photo (Efrain) was a tourguide into the mines surrounding the city...but more on that later.

Our backpacks were beginning to feel heavy, so we took off to find a room for the night.

We were actually trying to find a hostel from the Lonely Planet guidebook, but we came across an alleyway that took us to a quiet, pretty little place that we ended up taking for 90bs.  Here's our room at the Victoria Hostel.

And then, we were off to explore!

This is the alleyway to our hostel.

And a random street shot.  I quickly fell in love with the crumbly, colonial architecture of Potossi.  Jo had told me it was a charming city and he was very right.

Another random street shot.

And some pretty building, although I have no idea what it is.

A church.

And one sekseh man.

We hadn't had time for breakfast and we were both starving.  Plus, it was raining cats and dogs (where does this expression come from, anyway?) and we needed to get out of the rain.  Jo had some saltenas at a random little shop and I stopped in at a little place called Cherry's and had this omelot:

While Jo had some mate de coca, made with whole leaves (as opposed to teabags.)  We discussed our plans over our snack.  We both decided that the Uyuni Salt Flats would be our next destination, so after eating we headed off to the bus station to get us some tickets.  We ended up making a lot of trips to bus stations on this trip.

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Here's a picture of the outside of the Casa de Moneda.  All closed up; we had booked the last tour of the day.

And, of course, the doors.  I've never heard of anyone loving doors as much as Jo loves doors.  It's so strange.

Check out these zebra crosswalks outside the plaza.

We stopped at a street vendor to try these puffy corn things shaped like a tube.  Although stale, they were delicious.



We got a ride up to the bus station.



We bought our tickets to Uyuni at the station.  These are all random shots I snapped as we headed up to the bus station:

After getting back from buying tickets, we booked a mine tour with "The Real Deal" company.  A nice guy named Efrain had found us as we were leaving the Casa de Moneda and he sweet-talked us into a mining tour with him.  We did do our homework and compare tour operators.  There was another one called Koala Tours that we had heard good things about, but we decided to go with the Real Deal because they seemed like a good group of guys and their company wasn't as big as Koala Tours.  Potossi is a city built around its mines, and they are an essential part of the economy.

On the way back to the hostel, we found this backpacker hangout that sold "McLlamas," and we knew we had to come back to try.  Well, Jo knew he had to come back and try.

Oh, and they also sold tuna balls. Hehehe.

After a rest at the hostel, we did, indeed go back to the Koala Cafe. It was dark and we were both hungry.

Jo sure did enjoy the juicy McLlama! I really wanted to try some authentic sopa de quinoa, but they were out, so I had a lentil burger instead.  We chatted with a nice french girl while we ate, who recommended we go check out the Christmas decorations in the plaza after we ate.  So we did.

Since it was the day after Christmas, there was still a festive spirit in the air and the plaza was full-on decked out for the holidays. Observe:

And then, it was off down the dark alley and off to bed!  We had a mine tour to look forward to in the morning, so we wanted to get a good night's sleep.