Source: Cobden Centre
by Elias Sánchez
“Stepping out of Potosí’s new bus terminal—gateway to one of the world’s highest cities and, once, one of the richest in the Spanish Empire — I was met not with crisp mountain air but with a gritty breeze thick with diesel. Black exhaust curled from the engines of buses and trufis, their motors straining up Andean slopes at over 4,000 metres. … Two bolivianos bought me a seat …. In the rear-view mirror another trufi shadowed us, belching soot into the thin air — a convoy of combustion. Even with my nose covered, the stench clung. The haze has a cause. In 2005 Bolivia introduced sweeping hydrocarbon subsidies, halving diesel and petrol prices. Nearly two decades on, these subsidies have metastasised into a fiscal burden.” (08/26/25)
https://www.cobdencentre.org/2025/08/the-price-of-cheap-fuel/