On the road from La Paz to Uyuni, I stopped in Potosi for 1 day, 2 nights. Potosi is one of the highest large city in the World (200,000 inhabitants, 4,100m). It also used to be known as the richest city because of its silver mine, still in operation today. It was the major supply of silver for Spain.The sacred mountain, Cerro de Potosi, ‘made of silver’: it is the World’s largest silver deposit.But Potosi is also a place of sad history: it is estimated that 8 million people died in the mines since the extraction started, in the 16th century. The Spanish were using forced labor: indigenous, then slaves from Africa. Today, about 7,500 miners work there. And we can visit it! With an American couple, and a retired miner as a guide, we crawled into the galleries.It is said that Potosi is the only place in the World where you can buy dynamite in the street! A stick like that one (the small one in the first photo!) costs 3 dollars, and miners use them everyday, looking for silver. To stay awake and cut the hungriness, they chew leaves of Coca. The same leaves I was chewing going up the Huayna Potosi.It was actually quite physical. The galleries are sometimes very steep, very narrow, etc… and we are at more than 4,000m high.We met Tio, the God of the mine. Weird. It is a tradition for the miners to give him cigarette, alcohol, etc… to protect themselves and for the fertility of the mountain.We saw some silver:Then visited a silver extraction plant:Interesting anecdote: apparently, the dollar symbol $ comes from the SI of Potosi! The city contains a lot of beautiful old buildings: churches, monuments…The streets are however tight and, with the altitude, there is a lot of pollution.These are my last days in Bolivia. Shoe polisher is the most common job here.Bolivians are a bit crazy:I was very impressed with Peruvian food and Peruvian passion for it. But it’s not the case in Bolivia. Fried chicken, rice and fries is the dish you find everywhere everytime. After a few weeks (days?), I did not know what to eat anymore. It is also not recommended to drink tap water and eat crudites that were washed with tap water. Everyone falls sick in Bolivia at some point. I had food poisoning twice. But we are in the cheapest country in the Americas, and a breakfast or a basic lunch (like the one on the following picture) costs about $2!In Potosi, I went to a fancy place, I wanted a nice steak. For the first time, I was asked how cooked I wanted it. This dish cost me $18. But well worth it!