Money, money, money

An afternoon trip round the royal mint of Bolivia in Potosi. A fabulous building in the heart of Potosi where all the Spanish cash was originally minted before being transported all the way back to Europe. Strange to think that the silver from Potosi created all the dosh for the Spanish years ago and now the Bolivian money is actually minted in Spain - Coins in Spain, notes in France and Canada.

The building itself still has many of the original minting machines, including three giant presses that were donkey powered to take silver ingots and squeeze them down to coin thickness ready for some slave or other to bash the impressions. Sadly, back a few hundred years the conditions in Potosi were rather cold and harsh so the poor donkeys only lasted about 100 days before they croaked it and had to be replaced. They tried Llamas but found that they were too weak to actually turn the machinery.

Sucre tomorrow, down 1500m so hopefully things will be warm.