Blazing through Bolivia

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After Uyuni, it was off to Potosi. Potosi is the capital of the department of Potosi in Bolivia. It is claimed to be the highest city in the world at a nominal 4,090 m (13,420 feet). Good thing we were acclimated because we were higher on our salt flats tour. Still, this was a pretty high city. I got winded just walking up hill or waking up the stairs to our room. It was founded in 1546 as a mining town, it soon produced fabulous wealth, becoming one of the largest cities in the Americas. So we arrived in Potosi after a seven hour bus from Uyuni. The bus wound itself up dirt roads along huge cliffs. We were told to take this route from Uyuni to avoid the dangerous Uyuni- La Paz road, but I cannot imagine how a road could be more dangerous. We had to stop for a bit on our journey because another bus had gotten stuck in the dirt. There were tons of local people crowding into the aisles of the bus and they stood for the entire six hours. The bus was stinky and hot, but about half way through they saved my life and gave us all a free cold bottle of Coke! Man... You got to love Coke sometimes!

But we arrived and got checked into our hostel. The main activity to do in Potosi is to see the nearby mines, where workers work in horrendous conditions. You are led by ex-miners into the mines where you spend two hours crawling around to see how the miners work everyday. I really wanted to do this tour because I wanted to experience this first hand, but after talking to some people who did it, I did not think my semi-claustrophobic self could do it. I have been in caves on this trip, but spending two hours in the small conditions really scared me. Plus, apparently it is really hard to breathe down there. The tunnels smell of sulfur and the walls are lined with asbestos. So, I decided I was out on the mines, which made me disappointed, but I think it was a good choice.

The next thing we looked into doing while we were here was to go see the Tinku festival. The festival happens once a year in a town about five hours drive from Potosi. It seemed like a once in a lifetime opportunity to go see this local festival. We would spend two nights in a local village, drinking, eating and preparing for the festivities with them and then we would head to the main town where 6,000 local villagers would come to participate in the Tinku. Now... for what the Tinku is...

Tinku is ritualistic fighting between two classes of people, usually the people who live in the lowlands fight those who live in the highlands. They fight each other to obtain dominance for the next year and the blood that is shed is given as an offering to ¨Panchamama¨ or earth God. The thing that really got me is that sometimes these people fight to the death and often whole groups of people begin to fight each other due to the high consumption of alcohol. When deciding if we were going to go, we sat down and talked with a tour agent who told us everything and showed us pictures. He showed us a picture of a dead guy on a stretcher and said, ¨it happens.¨ We also saw pictures of the bloody fights and I asked him about our safety and if I could leave it if all became too much. He said that once we got there, their guides were unable to ensure our safety and if I wanted to I could hang out in our accommodation when things became too much. But... the real reason we decided not to go (as if the above reasons were not enough) was when he said the drunken locals may challenge one of the boys to fight or they may just attack them because we are tourists. Ok... there was my final answer. No- we were not going. I’m sure when you actually get there it is not so bad, but we decided not to find out. I am a bit disappointed because the first two days sounded amazing, it was just the fighting I did not like.

So what did we do in Potosi? Not much! We walked around the town, enjoying the chaos of our first real Bolivian city. There were people everywhere and the whole town felt like it was walking in the streets. There were some amazing buildings and churches in the city and we had some great street food. We ate from a lady in one of the squares who fed us some meat with potatoes for about 50 cents. We asked her what type of meat it was and she answered us, but we had no idea what that was. We also had these amazing hamburgers and fries from a street vendor where they pretty much deep fry everything and serve it to you with a spicy sauce. But other than that... we were pretty boring in Potosi. I am still a little disappointed with myself for not trying one of the two above things, but in the end I think I made the smart decision.

The next morning we left for a three hour bus to Sucre. Sucre is the judicial capital of Bolivia, the Supreme Court is still here, even though most of the government is in La Paz. In 1991, Sucre became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was our first big Bolivian city. We met up with Clint and Shannon (the Kiwi couple) at our hostel. It was random, but we had booked into the same place. Apparently, they had come looking for us in Potosi, but we never met up. They had wanted to go to the Tinku festival as well, but were nervous about it and wanted us to go with them. If we had met up in Potosi we all probably would have gone for sure! It is funny how things work out. So...we went with them to grab lunch and to head to the Indigenous Art Museum in town. We did not expect much, but the museum ended up being really awesome. There were tons of textiles that were produced by the local indigenous tribes here. The museum explained to us the ways they make the textiles and how they weave it together. They even had an indigenous woman sitting there and weaving textiles so we could see how it works. Sucre is the gateway to numerous small villages that date from the colonial era, the most well-known of which is Tarabuco, home of the colorful "Pujllay" festival held each March. Most of these villagers are members of one of the indigenous ethnicities. Many dress in clothing distinctive to their respective villages, which were all on display at the museum. The last rooms in the museum were dedicated to burial traditions of the indigenous people. There were two skulls that archaeologists had uncovered. One had long braids still attached to it and the other was a younger man with a deformed skull showing his high rank in society. I swear I have seen more skulls on this trip than any other time in my life. The burials are so different than ours and really interesting to see.

The next day we headed out to Tarabuco. It is a small village about 75km from Sucre. It is famous for its Sunday market and we wanted to get a bit of the local culture so we headed out there on Sunday morning. Of course our bus was filled with gringos, but once you got there and separated it sometimes seemed as if you were the only whitey around. Many of the people there were dressed in traditional dress and all the women had their bowler hats on. We saw some baby llama fetuses in the market (apparently they put them under their doorsteps for good luck) and I managed to buy some souvenirs. We would be walking along in these small streets and get pushed out of the way by an old Tarabuco woman or man. They were in a hurry for some reason and I think our browsing was slowing them up. We also saw a man who had a giant skinned snake and was selling the oil (we think) from the snake. We watched for a while as he rubbed this oil all over this old lady and her legs. It was pretty weird. We ate lunch with Clint and Shannon in the middle of the market. We had fries, grilled chicken and rice for a little over $1. Plus we got to sit and eat with the locals. The lady that owned the food stall actually kicked a family out of their chairs so we could sit down. Sometimes it pays to be gringo! We arrived at our bus home at 1:30pm for the 1 1/2 back to Sucre. At 1:35pm the bus pulled away without five people that had come with us. It was the only bus in South America on time! I’m not quite sure how those people ended up getting back to Sucre, but we saw a couple of them later in town so we knew they had done it.

We checked out of our hotel early the next morning and were picked up by Ronaldo, our rock climbing guide. Yep, we had decided to do some rock climbing the next day. Ronaldo took us just outside the city to an 80 foot cliff to learn how to rock climb. I had never done anything like this (well minus the 20ft wall at Rock ´n Tumble) so I was a bit nervous. When we arrived at the cliff it looked as if it was straight up and there was no way I would be able to climb this thing. Of course, I was strapped in first and ready to climb. Ronaldo gave me some advice, ¨follow this crack,¨ and that was it. I was off to fend for myself. I tried to follow his advice by following the crack and although I was out of breathe by the time I got to the top, I did pretty well. I was able to climb it fast enough and I didn’t slip and fall once. Plus, there was another group there climbing next to us and I flew by some of those boys! Chris and Jeff took their turns and I thought we were all doing pretty well. We spent the next four hours there climbing different routes that Ronaldo set up for us. Some of them were definitely more difficult than others. There were a few times that my feet would slip and Ronaldo would have to catch me using the rope and it would take all my arm strength to pull me up and get me going again. One time in particular the route seemed pretty difficult and when I got down I asked Ronaldo if I gave him a work out having to save me so many times from falling. At the end of the day we made both the guides race against the clock to see how fast they could climb the walls. Our guide Ronaldo could climb it in 58 seconds. Pretty damn fast! The second guide did it in 1 minute and 8 seconds. Then it was Chris and Jeff’s turn. Chris managed a 1minute 45 seconds and Jeff scaled the wall like Spiderman in 1 minute 4 seconds- faster than the second guide! I guess that was his competitive nature coming out. Just as I was about to go, we were told it was time to pack up so I don’t have a time, which is probably a good thing. I came away with arms that felt like jelly and quite a few bruises and scratches on me from climbing and slipping. It was such a fun day and I am a fan of rock climbing now, although I’d like to get better at it!

That night it was off on our first Bolivian overnight bus to La Paz. We opted for a more expensive bus for comfort and security reasons and we managed to bus ride ok. It was hot then cold and the temperature in the bus couldn’t make up its mind, but after so many overnight buses we are pretty good at dealing with it.

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Photos

Welcome to Tarabuco!
What a detailed statue

A man selling snake oil
He has the snake and the skin on display

Comments

[Courtney Enriquez]

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Alright... less than 2 months 'til it will have been a year... when the hell are you coming home??? Continue to make memories for a lifetime!!! Court