Located in Southern Bolivia, Potosí and Sucre are two cities that will crop up in most travel guidebooks as places to visit when in Bolivia. Potosí, one of the world’s highest cities at 4090m, is a mining city and famous for its large silver deposits. Sucre is often referred to as Bolivia’s most beautiful city and is technically (constitutionally speaking) the country’s official capital.
We headed to Potosí and Sucre after our three day tour of Uyuni’s incredible salt flats. When planning our three weeks in Bolivia, my friend and I did um and ah a lot about Potosí and Sucre. We eventually decided to visit, but only briefly. Read on to find out what I thought of Potosí and Sucre and whether they’re worth the visit.
Potosí
Potosí is Bolivia’s mining city and well known for its large silver deposits and silver mines in Cerro Rico. It was our first port of call after our salt flats tour and we caught an evening bus from Uyuni arriving to Potosí at around 10pm.
The silver mines in Cerro Rico are Potosí’s main attraction. Given that we didn’t want to visit the mines, we only planned to spend half a day there before heading on to Sucre. You might be wondering why we didn’t visit the mines. We decided against touring the mines because it wasn’t an activity that we wanted to support. I’d heard about the poor and dangerous working conditions miners faced and a tour to me felt a bit unethical and a tourist trap. That said, people do tour the mines and view it as a way to help support the miners’ livelihoods by taking small gifts for them e.g. coca leaves, alcohol, cigarettes, dynamite. Also, mines aren’t the safest of places and we didn’t want to put ourselves in that environment.
During our half day in Potosí, we visited the pretty Plaza 10 de Noviembre and explored the surrounding streets and markets.
Sucre
Sucre, Bolivia’s most beautiful city with its white washed buildings that will take you back to the Spanish colonial era, is the country’s constitutional capital (La Paz is the seat of government).
We spent two days exploring the lovely Sucre. It’s a great place for relaxing and taking it slow but we didn’t feel like there was that much to do. In the morning we wandered the streets, gazed out over the city from La Recoleta viewpoint, people watched in the main square – Plaza 25 de Mayo – and drank a two litre banana milkshake in the afternoon.
We were sat in the restaurant for hours until closing drinking the milkshake, it was a challenge and a laugh to finish! Ordering two litres did get us odd looks and questions about whether we knew what we’d ordered which we did. What can I say – the deal was unmissable!
With the two litre banana milkshake!
The Seven Waterfalls Adventure
We’d decided to visit The Seven Waterfalls (Las Siete Cascadas) for our second day in Sucre located 8km outside the city. This was mainly because we wanted to do something active and we felt we’d already seen Sucre’s centre. There were tours available but we chose to go solo and have a go ourselves.
With our backpacks packed with food, water, suncream, a towel and anything else we thought we might need, we caught a ‘Q’ colectivo towards Alegría (costing Bs 1,50) to the start point. From what we’d read, we were definitely under the impression that it would be a pretty straightforward walk. We couldn’t have been more wrong!
All smiles at the start
It was one heck of a day! From a clear path and easy walking, our walk quickly escalated into a ridiculous physical challenge: climbing the valley’s steep side using the plants as handholds; descending back down through what looked like remains of burnt trees back to the valley floor; free climbing down the rock face of a waterfall; then having to scramble up the valley’s other steep gravelly incline slipping and sliding to the top after realising we couldn’t walk back along the river bed; realising we were on the wrong side of the valley and facing a sheer drop when we thought we’d found a good place to cross…
I honestly questioned whether we’d make it several times and couldn’t help but picture the worst case scenario. Thankfully and to my immense relief we made it back to the start point in one hot and sweaty piece and lived to tell the tale…I might be being slightly overdramatic!
Sweaty and shiny but all smiles – we lived to tell the tale!
So, we went chasing waterfalls which unfortunately turned out to be quite underwhelming on the waterfall front. We lost count of what waterfall we were on; it was hard deciding what counted as one. We kept asking ourselves if a trickle of water counted?!
I wouldn’t go expecting beautiful waterfalls. We also went in the dry season so the lack of water really should have been no surprise; however, we did forget that small fact at the time. I’m not sure how the waterfalls shape up in the wet season – I’d like to hope more impressive! It was an experience, albeit a slightly disappointing one.
Final thoughts on Potosí and Sucre
Whilst both nice places, I’d describe our time in Potosí and Sucre as passing moments rather than stand out highlights. That said, I’m a lover of epic landscapes so Potosí and Sucre already had a harder time of making it into my highlights, which seem to involve beautiful scenery and views like Colca Canyon, Salkantay Trek, Rainbow Mountain, Ilha Grande…you get the gist…
Neither of the two are must visit places, for me they’re more passing through places. Of the two, I preferred Sucre. So long as you’re happy to chill, then you could spend a few days relaxing at the cafes and enjoying the architecture. Also, if time is of the essence and you’d like to visit one of them, I’d skip Potosí and head to Sucre.
Have you been to Potosí or Sucre? What did you think?
