Por Bolivia

Llamas: cute to look at (and they stare right back) and good to eat. Un lomito con su respectivo arroz y salcitas. Mmm mmm.

What´s going on in Mexico?! I have a flight to el DF next month. Several countries (and my mom) are warning against traveling to Mexico and I just got a hold of a friend there that also recommends that "por nada en el mundo vaya." So I´ll have to figure out soon to see if it´s safe enough to change the flight to Guadalajara, or continue seeing more of South America (Colombia?) or just head home early (I suspect my bank account will have more say in this decision than I do); ya veremos...

Now: I flew in to La Paz early this morning (I finally decided to splurge a little after taking several overnight buses) from Santa Cruz. It was beautiful to fly over the rich green landscapes and the snake formations of rivers of Santa Cruz, and then fly over el altiplano and get an up close view of the Intilimani mountain-it was a spectacular sight! I checked into a hostel (where I´m meeting up with a Canadian couple I´ve been traveling with off and on since Rio), called home and just had some delicious rice and potato patties with some fresh squeezed orange juice on the street. Besides being a little short of breath (altitude here is about 3,600 meters above sea level), La Paz reminds me of Mexico city with houses way up on the hills and the fast-paced movement. This is Evo territory and it feels good to be here, where it feels a little less pretentious than Sucre or Santa Cruz.

I´ve been working on this blog post (paragraphs below) for a long time, and I´m still not done really summarizing (so many layers to how I´m experiencing Bolivia), so I´m just going to post what I have now...

Unfortunately I was only in Brazil, and really, only in Rio for a week, but it's been going so well in Bolivia! I've been traveling through here now for about 3 weeks and I´ve been meeting other nice travelers and seeing some beautiful landscapes…but how to summarize experiences in Bolivia without also noting the effects of colonialism, the political tension and la gente…

Entering Bolivia
I was waiting to board a night bus* from Salta to La Quiaca (border town of Argentina with Bolivia) and I noticed a funky dressed girl chatting on the phone with her dad. It was cool to see someone dressed like a backpacker and speaking Spanish (I haven't seen too many other Latino Americanos traveling por aqui). It turned out our assigned seats were next to each other- and she had bought her ticket off some man earlier that day! I asked her if she was on her way to Bolivia, she said yes she was going to meet up with a friend at the border and then head to the Salar de Uyuni (slat flats) and one string of conversation lead to another and we ended up talking for 3 hours (3 am) about school, education, US/Mexican/Argentinian cultures and societies; it was so nice to connect with someone I can call mujer. Her name is Ani and she is from Argentina, works as a nutritionist in indigenous communities and is also getting her PhD in (se me olvido, something to do with nutrition and health); I was so inspired to talk with her and listen to how much she loved what she does and how certain she is about her vocation in life.



Something else- it was nice walking with Ani through the market and passing by women that reminded us both of how our grandmothers worked en los mercados; hers selling and grinding spices and mine (my dad´s mom) selling cheese. There´s not too many people you can share those moments with...



We hung out in Villazon (the border town of Bolivia) where we walked around other mercados and ate tipica comida Boliviana. Below Ani explains how a potato is dehydrated (that video is taking for ever to upload, it´ll go up soon) and later prepared for a meal (also below is a plato de conejo falso, meaning beef.



She suggested that I should join her and her friend (Shawn) to Uyuni (I was on my way to a completely different part of Bolivia) which, from the border would be the closest area to visit. I hesitated at first because that would mean I would have to rethink my rough idea of the order of places I was going to, but we were getting along so well so why not? So I ended up taking a train with Shawn and Ani to Uyuni.

Salar de Uyuni
We got to Uyuni at about 5 am and slept for a few more hours at the train station while we waited for tour agency offices to open and book a 3 day trip to the salt flats. With that last night, it was my third consecutive night sleeping on a bus or train (this means: no shower, smelly clothes, socks, no real sleep and wondering if the lady next to you can smell you; bird baths help but it's not the same!) Below is a picture from a "Train cemetery" in Uyuni.



The trip: three days driving through incredible landscapes making you think you are driving through different worlds. There were seven of us in total (Ani, Shawn, 4 Germans working in La Paz and me). I am so glad that I did end up going with them because I was able to share emotions, feelings, impressions and take funny pictures. El Salar de Uyuni- about 12,000 square kilometers of salt flats. Can you imagine? Looking out and seeing nothing but flat salt earth and seeing the dimensions of clouds (since they're so far away!) Some time in history, this was all an ocean! Then there are areas where after it rains, the water left behind leaves a surreal mirror effect with the sky- we were lucky it recently rained and this view took my breath away.





It was sad splitting, but Ani had to go back to school and work and Shawn and I moved on to Potosi.

El Otro Lado de la Moneda (other side of the coin)
Oh, but many of these wonders and rich resources in Bolivia paid a high price. Take the city of Potosi for example...(skip this if you don't appreciate history or you've heard this one already).

The next stop was Potosi (highest city in the world at 4,060 meters above sea level; you lose breath just walking up a few steps!), a city known for its “Cerro Rico,” full of pure silver and other minerals. Background story (from Galeano, 1971): Inca leader Huayan Cápac went to this city for the curative thermal waters of Tarapaya, where he had also heard of the beautiful mountain of Sumaj Orcko. Once there, he was able to see this beautiful colorful mountain for himself. He suspected there were some precious stones set on the mountain and had miners find precious metals for new adornments to the Sun Temple in Cuzco (so they never used these metals and stones for exportation or trade). He sent miners to the mountain and the legend says that once the miners were inside they heard someone say in Quechua, “This isn't for you; God reserved these riches for those who come from afar.” The miners ran away, the excavation was abandoned and the Inca changed the name of the mountain to “Potojsi” which means “thunder, burst, explode” in Quechua. As Uruguayo writer Galeano wrote, those who “come from afar” didn't take long to arrive and in 1545 a campesino found a shiny sliver of silver on the mountain (after having to spend a night in the mountain looking for a lost llama) and shortly after “se descadenó la avalancha española” (Galeano, 1971, p. 31) (my translation-all hell broke loose).

So this mountain was rich in silver! In gold! In so many precious minerals! Potosi was one of the biggest and richest cities in all of Latin America in the 1600s and supported Spain´s (and really, as Galeano explains, helps all of Europe´s economy) for two centuries! There were over 30 churches and gambling houses in the city and fine linens, fabrics, and jewels were imported from all over the world to here in Bolivia! It´s really hard to imagine all of this while walking through those streets now, passing by the UNESCO World Heritage designation monument at a cross street (now full of tagging), noticing the outskirts of the town still unpaved and learning that miners still work in similar conditions as they did during the silver rush. Forced indigenous miners and African slaves worked in poor conditions (not to mention the already high altitude and bitter cold) in the mountain which lead to the death of millions. It made me rethink about my eargerness to find cheap silver jewelry in the area, which didn´t matter anyway since ironically, you can´t find much silver here anymore; most of it was for export.

Oh, but you´ll find plenty of that in the wealthy, colonial and conservative-anti Evo city of Sucre. The city has a meditteranean feel with it´s white and terra cotta shingles. It´s a beautiful college town (40% of the university supports this town) which is also the official capital of Bolivia where the declaration of independence was signed. Here I learned a little more about Bolivia´s colonial history and it´s "independence" (Spanish fathers overtaken by their criollo sons) and the bravery of badass Juana Azurduy.



I also took a much needed break from moving and stayed for almost a week in Sucre. It´s a small enough town that you can walk nearly every where and the mercado is great- lots of fruits (chirimoyas!), veggies and meals on the third floor for almuerzo, comida y cena. Those 5 or so days revolved around that mercado. I also stayed at a hostel with a big kitchen where one night I cooked carne molida con tomates, arroz con frijoles fritos (cocinando el aceite con un chile y cebolla for that extra kick) and I also showed travel buddies from New Zealand how to make pico de gallo y guacamole, it was delicious!

Next I went to the small town of Samaipata, the jump off point to follow La Ruta de Che, to trace some of Che Guevara´s final steps. It was incredible. I visited the school house in La Higuera where he was shot and that laundry room space where his body was washed and exposed for the media in Vallegrande. I also chatted with inspirational Cuban doctors (and great admirers of el Che) that are working at a small community clinic- medicine and supplies all courtesy of Cuba... I have many more thoughts on this route but I think this is it for now.

After this I´ll visit el Lago de Titicaca, Tihuanaco and then cross over to Peru, I will post more pictures soon. Now I´m hearing some fireworks from some demonstration not too far from here, maybe I´ll go check out what that´s all about.



I can´t say it enough- el Salar de Uyuni was the most amazing sight I had ever seen.

Citation: Las venas abiertas de America Latina by Eduardo Galeano, 1971.