Tucked deep in a corner of Bolivia, near the border with Chile and Argentina, the southwestern desert area of Lipez and the salt pan region of Uyuni are of an extraordinary natural beauty, rough and harsh in mountains, spectacular rock formations and the vestiges of volcanic activity of the past in dormant conic summits and of the present in bursting geysers and fumeroles; and in the meantime the Desierto de Lipez is pristine and delicate with its lagoons, oases of serenity and calm, the silence only broken by the choir of flamingos massively flocked together on the shallow edges. The Salar de Uyuni beats it all, an expanse of 12,000 square kilometres with nothing but pure salt, the largest salt pan in the world, the most mindblowing one as well. Spanish colonial rule did not pay much attention to it all, the focus was solely on gathering as much gold and silver as possible. And silver there was! And is! At Potosí the Cerro Rico has been tunnelled, carved and drilled without interruption since 1545 until today. Young people are still sacrificing their health, exposed to the dust of silver, zinc and arsenic as they carve and hack their way deeper and deeper into the mountain's belly. Silver mining is what Potosí is about and what has given the city its pride and grandeur of yesteryear, its aspect of prosperity in monuments, churches, convents and mansions still standing today. And the young men in the shafts of Cerro Rico keep on drilling, while the clock of their life expectancy keeps ticking fast … Prosperity is nowhere as relative as in Potosí.