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Hot chilli woman
Tarabuco markets
A young violinist packs up her case after busking for the last hour, and leaves the pleased crowd that formed around her.
A thick crowd has formed around what I learn to be a local comedian. The comedians voice can be heard clearly even though I´m sitting closer to a Peruvian flute and wind instrument group who are setting up with large amplifiers playing pre-recorded drum beats and bass lines.
The comedians crowd erupts in laughter.
This city square is bordered by white and yellow, two-story buildings, some of which are museums, some restaurants, some fashion shops. In the centre, large jacaranda and magnolia trees are surrounded by small flower beds which are lined with triangles of thick green lawn.
Blue has escaped! He runs toward Green in a flying kick, which is quickly dodged. Green tackles Blue to the ground, narrowly missing the rose bushes, and pins him to the grass with knees holding arms and subjecting Blue to further pressure and typewriter torture to the chest.
An older woman walks past me and through the crowd that is growing around the flutist. She wears the traditional dress of a massive, pleated, dull pink skirt which is covered at the front by a checkered apron, a black bowler hat on her head, and her shoulders are covered in the bright lined colours of a blanket which is tied at her breast and tightly carries a baby on her back.
A group of half-a-dozen young guys are edging the comedy crowd. They wear baggy jeans and backwards or sidewards flat-peaked caps which carry New York or Los Angeles baseball team symbols, and when two of them leave their mates, they give the secret homeboy handshakes and masculine embraces. As they walk off, they each blow on little colourful bamboo flutes that sound out a quick little tune.
A three year old girl runs and jumps and dances around the square in front of me with half her dark-skinned Bolivian bum showing from her pants being a slightly too big.
She is all smiles and has not a care in the world.
I am seated on one of many park benches, across from a young couple who are hand in hand, snuggling, whispering, giggling. Next to them is an man, around forty years old, in an old t-shirt and tracksuit pants. As he reads the newspaper, I wonder if the shiny black business shoes he is wearing have just been serviced by one of the several persistant shoeshine boys.
Green lets Blue up. They run around for a while, but the "fight" is over. Blue looks tired but doesn´t want to give up without getting at least one punch in. The determination on his face makes this obvious.
The comedy crowd bursts into laughter again, which is muffled by the Peruvian flutist with his loud but peaceful music.
The air is full of sound, but not annoyingly so.
It is clear that everyone is here for the enjoyment the entertainment brings, and while this is probably no different to the majority of cities throughout the world, it
seems unique, as the hustle and bustle of everyday city life has completely halted. The beeping horns and
parking-where-ever and no-indicator-using and red-light-running traffic has slowed to a minimum. Families, young couples, old couples, singles, the poor and (I suppose) the rich, all congress, to wind-down.....to relax, before the next day of choas.
I am in Cochabamba, the "City of Eternal Spring". It is 7.30 on Wednesday night, and the full moon brings with it a perfect temperature, which adds to the wonderful sights and sounds of this beautiful Plaza.
Bolivia
The crossing from Argentina into Bolivia wasn´t a problem at all. The uniformed Immigration officer laughed at his desk TV as he stamped my passport, paying me no mind at all. With the help of a German girl who spoke English, I found myself on her bus that was going through Tupiza. Great news for me as I didn´t have to stay in the loony-bin border town of Villazon for a night!! When I arrived in Tupiza three hours later, it was raining very heavily. After being let off the bus a couple of hundred metres from town, I finally found a hostel that wasn´t full, and was soaked to the bone.
The next day I organised a horse ride around
Welcome to Bolivia
Border town Villizon the nearby canyons and rock formations of the Cordillera de Chicas. Tupizas claim to fame is that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were shot dead about 40 kilometres from here, in San Vincente. The scenery, to me, wasn´t that fantastic, but getting amongst it on horseback was what made it fun, particularly seeing as our cheeky guide was keen to race me...only that
he did it riding backwards! A fifteen year old Bolivian bouncing around in a reverse gallop is a very funny sight!!
From here, the bus to Uyuni proved very uncomfortable, but the exceptional scenery took my mind off it. The picture changed so quickly it was like viewing it through one of those flick-the-pages-cartoon-books. One minute there is rocks of all formations, all colours, patterned like raspberry-ripple icecream, which turns into desert to the horizon, scattered with small sand dunes, then what looked to be rich green pasture edging the brown sand, with goats and llamas eating from it.
Once in Uyuni, I booked a day trip to the famous Salar de Uyuni, the worlds largest salt flat, at 11,000 km², it was formed 40,000 years ago when the prehistoric Lake Minchin dried up.
It contains around 10 billion tons of salt, some of which is harvested. Our guide told us it was harvested by hand as they can only use the top 5 to 8 centimetres of salt due to its colour. The Salar is also dense with lithium, of which many international corporations want to get hold of. For once, the Bolivian Government may hold onto their hats and harvest a natural resource to benefit its own country. Well, that´s what the hope is anyway.
I had been travelling with an American bloke called Todd for a few days, and we hung out till I left him in Sucre a week or so later. A well humoured, 6´5" tall bloke, who is obsessed with altitude and its effects, and is also in love with Obama and the greatness he will do towards getting the U.S out of Bush-ness.
After Todd started the Salar de Uyuni day trip in fantastic fashion by arguing with a high maintenance Bolivian woman who demanded the front seat of the Landcruiser
(seriously lady, he is 6´5", you´re 5´nothin, what are we gonna do, fold him up??), we drove into the great white expanse of the salt flats.
It had been raining fairly heavily in the region for the previous day, and this transformed the salt flats into a gigantic mirror for the sky. It was very weird driving at 80 kph and seeing nothing but sky all around. No ground, just sky. It was one of the most beautiful sights I have seen.
Next stop; Potosi, the highest city in the world at 4060 metres. A quick, basic, history lesson for this town; the Spanish found silver in the mountain they named Cerro Rico (Rich Mountain), which overlooks Potosi, in 1546. Over the next 200 years, thousands of African slaves were shipped to Potosi to work in the mines, and died due to the conditions and brutal labour. Some say, the silver extracted from Cerro Rico helped the Spanish to become one of the "great" empires. The silver depleted around 1800, then tin became the main resource. The minerals are still mined today, just not in the same quantities that millions of slaves died for. Someone told me the other night that over 40%!o(MISSING)f the worlds silver is
still in the mountain, but it has stayed in there due to the usual story if
Streets of silver - Potosi
With the 4800 metre high Cerro Rico lerking behind the negligent and corrupt Government.
After spending nearly three hours underground in these unbelievable mines, I was well and truly ready to EXIT. The temperature jumped from being chilly to sweaty by simply walking, or crawling, around a corner. I couldn´t believe how the mine shafts were held up; with sometimes massive, sometimes tiny, railway sleeper-type bits of wood and large rocks was all that (what looked like) were holding up the mined earth above us. The coco leaf chewing miners would fill up a one-tonne trolley with earth and rock, then push it up to ten kilometres before seeing sunlight.
In Sucre, the
constitutional and judicial capital of Bolivia, a visit to the artisans museum showed the intricacy of the traditional sewing and weaving patterns, a very delicate and exact art that´s for sure! Even more impressive was the name for a glass of beer, middy size;
chop, schooner size;
superchop. Very cool and well worth a mention I´m sure you´ll agree.
Cochabamba is a pretty town, and is overlooked by the worlds tallest Jesus statue (yep, bigger than the one in Rio) which is on San Pedro hill. I was given advice by the taxi
driver on the way to the bottom of the hill to nt climb it after 6pm due to robberies and other trouble. No worries mate, it was 4.45pm!! Heaps of time!! He dropped me off and I bought a bottle of water from a street stall lady just before the bridge which leads to the hill trail. She said someone was stabbed on the trail at 4pm the day before! She explained it very simply to me several times before I looked up to the Cristo de la Concordia (Jesus statue) and decided to take the hint, cut my losses and do it another day...which I did a few days later...in the morning...in the cable car!! Big wuss I know.
From here, I visited La Paz, the
administrative capital of Bolivia and mountain biked down the World´s Most Dangerous Road (WMDR). It was named the WMDR years ago due to the amount of people and vehicles that went over the edge of some of these cliffs. Now the "commercial hardcore bikers" have latched onto it and are talking the road up in a big way, but within rights too, it´s a pretty crazy ride. It is easy to
WMDR
EASE into the corner!!! imagine if you go over, that´s it, ka-put, say good bye. In a few spots you might survive after bouncing off a few rock faces and getting caught on a spiny tree, but mostly, the road is deserved of it´s name. The views were amazing, a while I was pushing into a few of the corners a bit fast, I made sure I didn´t show off due to the whole "falling over the edge and; 1) probably never being found or 2) if found being found a mince paste type texture" thing. The ride was still awesome though, and gave me my first real South American adrenalin shot.
Another crazy thing in La Paz was the "Cholitas Wrestling", which is advertised as being women wrestlers, you know, that whole fake wrestling thing, where they bounce of the ropes and hit the other person whose reaction is always much bigger than common physics allows. Well, the event started off true to reputation, totally fake, with a few (maybe) accidental cuts to the head and a bit of blood flowing around. There was a few female wrestlers, and all of them got hammered, all fake of course, but none of them
Cholita punishment
"I told you, that skirt does NOT go with your eyes!!" won. Anyway, the main event was the final fight of the night, which was two blokes dressed in skin tight black outfits with gimp masks on, fighting two other blokes who had head masks like green-faced zombies, and wore large grey trench coats,
as well as each lugging a cattle windpipe and lungs around. They looked absolutely crazy. As they slapped the gimps around the wrestling ring, bits of lung flew off everywhere, including into the crowd, who were getting quite restless. By the end of the fight, which went on for at least ten minutes, the zombies had smashed the gimps over the tiny railing and
into the crowd. All the gringos (foreign travellers), who started off chanting and yelling and laughing, stood back and watched in disgust at the pieces of cattle innards flying around and the gimp wrestlers getting hammered. Some of the gringos were even throwing plastic chairs at the zombies, who threw them straight back with even more intensity. It was definitely an eye-opener!!
I had decided to travel to the jungle to volunteer with Inti Wara Yassi, so caught an overnight bus to Santa Cruz. At 6am the bus stopped in the middle
Bag swap - Tarabuco
I met this farmer and his wife walking home from the markets, and helped him out abit by carrying his half-bag of wheat for an hour or so. Their journey home takes 3 hours. of the highway and everyone got out. I jumped out and looked along the winding highway filled with stationary trucks, buses and cars, tightly packed as far as I could see. I grabbed my pack and set forth, heading for Santa Cruz. After two hours walk I could see thick smoke coming from a bridge but still had no idea as to what was going on. The bridge, which gave service over the Rio Piray, was full of men and women chanting, with tyres lit and street vendors everywhere. It was quite strange, but they all happily let me pass. Then over the other side, I caught a taxi the remaining 45 minutes to Santa Cruz. Protests are a very common occurrence in Bolivia, and I imagine this one, halting so many industries, would have a great affect.
Finally got to the jungle, where I spent 26 days volunteering at Parque Ambue Ari, which I have written a separate blog for (
click here if you want ).
After time at Parque Ambue Ari, I ventured to Copa...Copa-co-bana (just like the song), a touristy town on Lake Titicaca. This immense lake, located on the border of Bolivia and Peru, sits 3,812 metres above sea
Yovana and Delia
Lake Titicaca campsite helpers level, making it one of the highest commercially navigable lakes in the world. By volume of water it is also the largest lake in South America. The lake has many islands within it, one named Isla del Sol, "Island of the sun", and is one of the lakes largest islands. Geographically, the terrain is quite harsh; it is a rocky, hilly island and are no motor vehicles or paved roads. There were magnificent water-to-horizon views, and the sunsets were spectacular.
While walking around Isla del Sol, I ran into a girl named Jayne. Jayne and I both had the same idea about camping on the island, but couldn´t find anywhere appropriate. Jayne is 23, giggly, loud, spontaneous, funny, messy, adventurous, but above all; fun. We got along immediately, and finally found an
awesome camping spot overlooking the southern side of the Lake. As we were setting up our tents, we quickly made friends with two beautiful little local girls, Yovana and Delia, who cleaned all the llama crap away from our tent areas. They were both very cute. It was a great night, and waking up to the indescribable view of the Lake and snow-capped mountains was...ummm....indescribable...
The
next day after breakfast, Jayne the nutter, bet me a race back up the hill to the tents; whoever lost had to carry both the big backpacks back down the hill to the ferry. I happily kicked her butt and won, then felt guilty as hell when she fell down some stairs while fully-loaded with heavy packs, tents and sleeping bags. She was insistent on finishing with no help (there is a fine line between ignorance and determination, especially with Jayne!!), and as we approached the bottom, a group of older tourists were walking up the hill. I would of looked like a slave-driver as I led, skipping down the stairs, carrying only the small daypacks and my new jungle-bamboo walking stick, while Jayne followed, battling each step, looking like a loaded-up donkey. The oldies came closer up the stairs, and the first male said in a loud, strong Aussie accent "Lose a bet, did she?" Ahh! I was saved!! Now I didn´t feel so bad!! They all had a laugh at poor Jayne as she slowly took the last steps, while also giving encouragement in true Aussie swimming carnival fashion.
We then returned to Copa...Copa-co-bana, and met some
more great people that night. The next day we crossed the border into Peru.
Bolivia has been an amazing country to visit, and I have loved my time here very much. The landscapes are phenomenal, alot of the Bolivian people not so friendly, I suppose within reason too, and the towns and cities all have similar areas of rich verses poor, of which the latter definitely dominates (as a side story; in my time in Bolivia, I came up with the saying "A job´s not finished till it´s least half-done", which is very true, even in the big cities, where thousands of buildings and houses look incomplete, many with an extra storey built on top with a missing roof or wall. I later found out this is because the government cannot tax the building owner on an unfinished building, wow! Nice loop-hole!!).
I have loved Bolivia, lets see what happens in Peru!!
Awesome! Excited!!
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