Potosí, Faded Glory

(I was in Potosí from August 16 to August 18th.)

The bus ride from Cochabamba to Potosí (10ish hours) was quite tranquil, even though I have a hard time sleeping on bus camas. As I was getting settled, I became quite annoyed by someone pushing repeatedly on my seat. Usually I try to let those kinds of things go, but after about 5 minutes (I was also trying to write) I stood up and turned around to lecture my bus-mate. Turns out an adorable little girl was squirming on her mothers lap, and as I started asking her not to push on my chair, por favor, I started to melt at her toothless smile and giggling. We ended up chatting for a bit, as she told me she was 5 years old by holding her hand up to my face, and then when I told her how old I was, she asked me “How many hands is that? Show me!” She proudly told me she was “from the campo!” and then as I tried to go back to my writing, she tapped my head a few times and eventually grabbed my nose between her chubby little fingers. As the night wore on and I tried to recline in my seat, I heard her say “You are going to squish me!” I felt kind of bad, as she was laying on top of her mothers lap and it was bound to be uncomfortable, but by that time I was dead tired and need to relax.

My experience with Bolivian children, in general, has been amazing. Aside from the looking at me like I’m an alien, they are incredibly outgoing and friendly. They also have a fascination with being photographed, which is such a change from every other photography experience I have had here. In Cochabamba when I was photographing a museum, a group of school children literally jumped on me, eager to be photographed. It’s so nice, such a relief, that they aren’t yet influenced by the cultural issues that surround photography here. Instead, sheer joy and excitement at seeing a weird machine that can take pictures.

I arrived in a very cold (after Cochabamba) Potosí at about 6:30 in the morning, just as the sun was starting to come up over the mountains. I left my luggage at the bus terminal (not without a bit of fear for its safety) and proceeded to walk towards what I thought was the city center. I ended up going down the wrong side of the hill and getting a fantastic view of the shacks speckled on the red-brown hillsides. Also turns out that I was wandering around arguably the poorest part of the city, so as soon as I realized that there were not beautiful colonial buildings in the near vicinity, I hailed a taxi and went to the city center.

Once I was in the right area, I started wandering down the narrow, cobblestone streets gazing at the beautiful, colorful colonial buildings and the grand churches. At that hour the city was perfectly deserted, and there was none of the dizzying traffic of Cochabamba or La Paz. I found my way over to a tranquil little café to have breakfast, and was a bit startled when I emerged to find the city alive with taxis and people advertising the days papers. Of all of the cities that I have visited thus far, Potosí is by far my favorite – it has preserved a charm that makes it feel miles away from any other part of civilization. Perhaps it’s the altitude, the serene setting among the mountains, the sheer visibility of past glory. But I haven’t felt so peaceful or intrigued by any other place that I have been in Bolivia.