Potosí and Sucre

This past weekend, we went to Potosí and Sucre. For all of you Latin Americanists, you should already know what and where both of these places are. But for you that are not, Potosí was once the world's colonized largest city at the high of its silver production. The mountain is literally called Potosí and inside there are many mines that, even to this day, extract silver and many other minerals.

While there, we visited the Casa Nacional de Moneda. It showed how the Spanish created a system to extract the silver and then make it into currency. It had more silver than I have ever seen in my life. It was a really cool and interesting place. They were definitely very creative with how they made the machinery to turn pure silver into currency, crowns, chairs, etc. After that, we visited a Clandestine Convent. Basically what this means is that once the girls joined the convent, they could not leave nor have any contact with the outside world (via family, friends or materials). Up until Vatican II, they could not even see the priest at the church. They had all of these special compartments and doors to avoid human contact.
It was really interesting to see because both of these places showed us how "Potosí had seen better days". Potosí is now a very poor city, but at the height of colonialism, it was rich and Spaniards were flocking there.

The next day we took a 3 hour bus ride to Sucre, which was Bolivia's original capital and still the home of the nation's Corte Suprema. This town reminds me a lot of Oxford, MS except a much bigger version. It was a very "homey", clean, and unique town that somewhat revolved around the university there (which is the oldest in Bolivia). We went to a lot of museums, then walked up this huge hill to see what I think is the best view I have ever seen. Pictures do not do it justice. After that, we watched the Entrada, which is basically a dance competition/parade between various fraternities (but not like Ole Miss greek life- these were fraternities of departments and majors). It was really cool because each fraternity would dance a specific, but different dance that was from Bolivia. We saw dances from the lowlands to the highlands. It was really funny because I was sitting by Leighton, a fellow Ole Miss student and member of a different sorority, who was with me on comparing how lots of these dances were vary similar to sorority dance competitions! It was too funny!

Overall, we had an amazing weekend. This week is our last week of classes and then we start our projects. This weekend we are going to Lake Titicaca on a more relaxing (less museum intense) trip. We are excited for another great weekend exploring Bolivia!