The silver city beneath the Cerro Rico
Potosí stands at about 4,000 metres beneath the Cerro Rico, the red mountain whose silver funded the Spanish Empire from the 16th century. The wealth built baroque churches and the Casa Nacional de Moneda, the royal mint, now a fine museum of coins and colonial art. The cost was borne by indigenous and African workers forced into the mines. Mines are still worked by cooperatives, and tours go underground, a dusty, cramped and sobering experience. The town is a UNESCO World Heritage site.