Return to Sucre, overnight in hotel. In its heyday in the sev-enteenth century, Potos was the wealthiest city in the New World, with the wealth of its silver mines the focal point of the Spanish colonies in the New World. Tour the Casa de la Moneda, formerly the Royal Mint and now an excellent museum evoking that boom period. Overnight in our hotel. We visit a working mine within the famous Cerro Rico, the mountain which dominates the city.
Miners continue to wrest silver ore using traditional methods.
In the afternoon we return to Sucre, and take a walking tour of some of the main colonial monuments and museums. Included are the Casa de la Libertad and the Cathedral. We fly back to La Paz. We camp by a stream adjacent to a natural hot spring surrounded by snow-capped peaks at the base of Sajama. Sajama's snows provide a year-round supply of water which supports a sizable local population of alpacas along with a small community of herders.