So many fun towns, too little time

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So, now we're in Sucre. We've taken a bit of a diversion from our planned route (clearly it's a rubbish plan as we never stick to it), but with good reason this time. After leaving the jungle we jumped on a bus to Cochabamba (I'll admit that I'd never heard of it either until Ellie mentioned it in the bus station) but although that went off without a hitch, it was in fact a wonderfully scenic journey along winding mountain/valley roads, the same couldn't be said for our attempt to get to Samaipata. As Bolivians are want to do, without warning, some union or other decided to protest about something or other (the people here have many things to vent their anger about), and they figured blocking the roads to Santa Cruz (which we needed) would be the best way of displaying their ire. Fortunately, we noticed this on the news as we were heading out of the door to the bus station; lucky. Cue, chanage of plan, last minute on the way to the terminal. Ellie and I were frantically thrashing through the guidebook and notepads to workout what to do, because sitting on a stationary bus for an indeterminate amount of time wasn't an option. We settled on the former colonial mining town of Potosi, which was just about managable and had a bus leaving at a convenient time. So we were saved, but I've gotten ahead of myself with talk of Potosi and Sucre without mentioning our few days in Cochabamba...



The city of Cochabama is reputedly the bohemian/student/hipster city of Bolivia. On arrival at night it looked like any other South American town, the streets are crammed with people going to and fro, and vendors selling every conceivable trinket or foodstuffs. The bus station was a cacophany of voices all wailing and shouting "La-Paz-La-Paz", "Potosi-potosi" and other various cities as touts try to get the most people possible crammed on to their buses or overcrowed collectivos (little people carrier-like vehicles which have extra seats installed that fold in to the aisles; if these things crash you are toast). Outside the night air wass full of sirens and more shouting as taxis atttempt to battle their way down the crowded roads and the drivers without work try to claim a fair from those recently disembarked from sweaty buses. Luckily our hotel was near by and we got away from there quickly. We slung our bags into the hotel (very nice Virginas Hotel was too, cable TV, big room, comfy bed) and dashed back out into the night to find sustenance as it had been 6 hours since we ate a proper meal. We stumbled upon a Chinese restaurant near the plaza which was adequate for our needs but was far from fine dining and I'll probaby forget about that meal fairly quickly. We left exploring until the following day, light always aids one in findings things I find.



Like so many places in South America, Cochabamba has a Jesus at the top of the nearest hill. This one is the highest in the world (or so the blurb at the bottom of the statue proclaimed), it used to be the biggest but then some place in Poland trumped it a few years ago. It's not quite as imposing as it's twin in Rio and definitely lacks the majesty of that one. The hill doesn't tower over Cochabamba like the Corcovado does in Rio so the effect of the statue is muted. I felt a bit sorry for the statue, totally irrational, but it just wasn't particularly impressive, but visiting it was an adequate way to pass a morning, the cable car ride being the rather tragic highlight! The rest of the town seems fairly standard considering that it's origins are colonial era. The old plaza has the standard cathedral, judicial and governemnet buildings and was a pleasant public space. The Archaeology Museum at the University was small, but interesting (even if the promised tour didn't happen as you need to have a minimum of 4 people...a bit of a poor show I thought). There were loads of Inca-era mummies which were rather creepy (little skulls peering out at the world through holes in the reed baskets in which they were encased) and the paelontological display were informative. The food here is pretty good, we ate in Casablanca, a restaurant with no idenity, it has probably 100 dishes (Ellie had spagetti verde and I had Feijoda) on the menu, the music was eclectic and there didn't appear to be a "type" of customer. Another mention should go to the restaurant at Buenos Aires Hostal (the hostal bit looked like a bit of a dump though). The food was all Eastern Bolivian, the hot sauce was incredible and the chicken was devine, and it cost £1 for two courses and a jar of homemade lemonade!

Cochabamba is mostly reknowned for it's market and the Palacio Portales a grand home, for a mining magnate inspired by European architecture. It was very ornate, the dining room had a grand staircase and Roman Emperor style chairs, unfortunately you aren't allowed to take photos of the interior. The market was crazy, huge and busy. You could probably by anything there, it spanned around 5 city blocks or so and stores sold everything from touristy artesan crafts to fake sports wear, meat and cheese to mobile phones and household appliances. It would be easy to get lost in there, we almost did. We had some delicious fruit juices in the market, but at the same time as we were enjoying them it was hard to avoid the poverty of the country as it's hand was, literally, in front of your face asking for money. Kids and older people tend to congregate in these types of areas, begging for food or, more often, money. We've tended to offer to buy them food and drink as you can't be sure where the money goes and Bolivia has a huge issue with solvent abuse and alcoholism. It's shocking to see the level of deprivation that afflicts a significant proportion of Bolivia, but the government is unable to deal with it currently; it can't even tackle corruption or lack of education. Buying a kid a milkshake and empanada allievates one's own sense of shame/anger but it's not going to be a solution, tomorrow that kid will be asking someone else to ease the ache in his stomach.

Anyway, I guess that was a bit off topic and a little bit depressing (the world isn't fair or nice all the time) so allow me to get back on track and to mention Potosi. This town is 4,200m above sea level and was Spain's greatest source of Silver back in the good old days of colonialism (for Spain they were good, for the colonies they were bad, obviously...I don't want to come across as an imperialist, Sean Penn would be after me). The mines are still going and that's the reason most tourists come here, it's primarily why we're here. However, the mines are not all that Potosi is, oh no, the centre is a stacked with colonial architecture and there are several ornate churches. Our hostal is was a dump and the owner a bit of an idiot but the less said about that the better except to say that don't stay at Hostal Felimar! But, again I digress, the church of San Francisco was exceptional, you have to go on a tour but that's not such a bad thing when you get to go up to the Italian inspired multidomed roof or in to the catacombes and the cloisters (which are decorated with ornate 18th century biblical oil paintings). We even got to meet one of the resident monks, Franciscan I'd guess. Yes he did have the robe an cowl, no sadly he didn't have the Friar Tuck hairdo...they just don't try anymore...



The plaza was rather pretty and the Charlie Chaplin inspired cafe was plain weird, even the owner had the trademark moustache (I may have imagined him speaking Spanish with a French accent too)! Crazy. But the mines are the big attraction and we ended up spending our afternoon on the organised tour (Koala Tours, very good) with our guide Carlos. The mines are still in use, he reckoned there were several hundred enterances and around 12000 miners (several thousand of these children, although not officially) although the ore quality is down to 60% now, which is a long way from the hayday of 95%. It's dangerous, they don't do health and safety here, and miners have to buy everything they use. Although the government owns the mines it doesn't have much in the way of responsibilities towards the mines or miners. It means the miners form cooperatives and share the money they make, after selling it for one tenth of it's eventual market value to overseas companies. The conditions are pretty aweful, it's hot, cramped and airless. Sulphur fumes propigate the air making you gag repeatedy, at 4,800 and severl hundred meters underground the work is backbreaking, I tried to do some of the digging and I could barely keep up the pace for a few minutes before having to quit, these guys are down here for 8 hours at least! It's probably the scariest experience of my life. They don't have any technology to give warnings of cave ins, the number one cause of death (our guide told us this once we were in the mine. Thanks Carlos, not very reassuring), they blast more and more rock each day and our guide book suggests the whole mountian could just implode...I tried hard not to think of these facts when I was down there. The miners worship the "Tio" which is a bastardisation of Dio (God) and is a representation of the Devil. They have a shrine in every mine shaft and they make offerings to him (once a year they kill a llama) to keep them safe and make them rich. The logic goes that the devil inhabits hell, and that's underground, or something like that, I wasn't too sure. Anyway, watch the film The Devil's Miner you'll never complain about work or Monday mornings again I promise you. I was so happy to leave the mine and I'll not be heading down one again.

I would however, not object to having to go to Sucre again. As seems to be a prerequist for any place in South America, Sucre's town centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I'm not joking when I say that almost every bloody place on this continent is protected by UNESCO, I'm not even sure how UNESCO protects places or what they would do if you, say, graffitied a site or set fire to it. If anyone knows exactly what the hell these guys do send your answer and a self addressed envelop to the usual address. The city used to be the capital of Bolivia and it's a lovely place. All the buildings in the centre are whitewashed with terracotta rooves and it all feels very regal, with the university, the former mansions with their gleaming courtyards (one of them is now a museum), the courts and plazas. We're staying in pretty nice hostel (Dolce Vita), which is run by a Swiss couple. Our room was hugh, there was a lovely courtyard, a forcefully imposing cat and a fantastic DVD collection (we watched Hanna, awesome and Bridesmaids, surprisingly disgusting and funny). It was relaxing just walking about the place but we headed to the old monastary on the hill (La Recoleta) to view the town from the faux cloisters and to watch the local kids try to recreate the Gangnam Style dance (thanks to cable TV and MTV I unfortunately now know what this craze is). Bizarrely a bunch of youths (god I feel old) were playing football, with seemingly no effects of altitude, on the courtyard. One of them unleashed a viscious half-volley at the "goal," jumpers for goalposts, and narrowly avoided decapitating an American woman who stupidly decided to walk across their "pitch." The kids and myself (mental age clearly not keeping up with my physical age) found that most amusing, the American lady and everyone else clearly didn't. It was the number one rule in the playground, never walk across a game, American's should play more football so that they learn these essential rules of life. There as one fat kid playing, in attempting to run with the ball through the cloisters, thinking he'd be safe from the opposition with a wall between him and ould be tacklers, his dastardly scheme was brought down by a kid diving feet first through one of the arches, plucking the ball cleanly, and sending tubby crashing head over heals to the tiles. Without so much as a glance at the prone teenager the game continued, in the cloisters, although Ellie intervened and punted the ball back to a less conjested area of the courtyard....spoilsport. I wanted to visit the museum attached to the church as they are rumoured to have a 1400 year old cedar tree in the actual cloisters, sadly we rocked up as they were closing for a few days.To ease the disappointment of seeing an ancient tree (sad, I know) we headed back to town to the Cite Hotel for awesome iced coffees and a mirador on their roof terrace which gives pretty decent views of the Cathedral. It was a bit cold by then so we retreated inside to keep warm and drink the coffee, in retrospect a warm drink should have been purchased, that would have been sensible. In the evening we wanted to try one of the many recommended restaurants, however, mother nature decided to throw a hissy fit and the skies opened. The resulting deluge was accompanied by a truly wicked cacaphony of thunder and the night was lit up by sheet lighening. I'd forgotten how much fun thunderstorms were until we came travelling. I can't remember the last one in the UK, but there is something about them that makes you feel like a child again, perhaps its the awesome power of nature, I don't know, but I know that I enjoy the booms and crashes, like a war is occuring amongst the clouds and I'm privvy to just a part of it. The downside was that steeping outside for two minutes resulted being soaked, wet to the bone. So we "made do" with a local parrilla (BBQ place). As it turned out it was a great decision, almost as good as having fried sausage and rice in the market that afternoon. The adage goes that you should eat where the locals eat when travelling. To a point this is correct I believe. The exceptions tend to be when the restaurants are dirty and although the locals have developed a tolerance to this, you haven't and will invariably spend a day locked in the bathroom rueing your stupidity and wanting your mum, or when there are good restaurants that locals tend not to be able to afford to go to. In countries like Bolivia both of these exceptions are, sadly, ubiquitous. The parrilla was neither, thankfully.



We headed for a day trip to Tarabuco, a little village a short distance from Sucre. A huge market takes place here every Sunday. It used to be a meeting place for the various outlying villages and hamlets, but at some point in the past someone thought tourists would like to be part of this and now it's also a huge opportunity for the locals to make money from selling artesan handicrafts and for (some, not all) white people with zoom lenses to treat the locals as exhibits. The locals for their part don't mind being photographed here, but when a tourist with a huge zoom lense starts snapping away at a woman eating corn from five metres it all seems a little intrusive and rude. Even sneaky shots would be better than brazen paparazzi-ism (is this a thing?). Sadly, too many tourists treat it as their own private freakshow and see no wrong in wontanly taking photographs of whatever they choose. This kind of behaviour is fine in a museum or in a forest, it's a bit different poking a camera in someone's face and expecting them to play a chimp and be happy about it. The voyeurism aside, it was quie fun to walk about the markets, eating mangoes, chewing coco leaves, bartering for goods, watching the older folk making jokes with people they see but once a week and seeing all the different indigenous costumes on display. Each village has it's own hat and there are rules about how you have to wear them (single people have to display this by wearing hats differently to the married folk), but the men tended to wear three-piece suits, smoke cheap cigarettes or chew hamster-cheeks of coco leaves, and the women would wear white blouses and layer-upon-layer of skirts so that they looked almost as wide at the hip as they were tall! At one point we saw a guy sheparding his donkey through the plaza, which just doesn't happen in the UK, sadly. The locals are proud of their history, especially their role in the independence movement, and quiet rightly I bet you'e thinking. I'm with you all the way, except for the manner in which they have decided to memorialise it. There is a statue in the plaza of a warrior straddling the corpse of a dead Spanish soldier. Fine, you're thinking, what of it? Well my compadres, the statue is in full technicolour glory and the warrior is holding his foe's bloody, probably still beating, heart in his triumphant, clenched, upraised fist. It's a bit much for breakfast time on a Sunday. And with that lovely image ingrained on your brain I bid you hasta luego!

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Photos

JC
This guy gets everywhere

Palacio Portales
Perhaps yellow isn't the best choice of decor? Still an impressive building.

Roof of Fransiscan Church Potosi
Roof of Fransiscan Church Potosi

El Tio
The Tio of Potosi

Mining Life...Cramped
Not for the claustrophobic....

Sucre
View fromLa Recoleta

Sucre Cathedral
View from Cite Hotel

Sucre Plaza
The Most Colonial of Colonial Places!

Mmm...Beer
Dutch Beer

The Result of Bartering
Ellie loves a bargain and loves bartering...the old man seemed to enjoy it too so I'm not sure who got the best deal.

Man and Donkey
Tarabuco Market Day

Celebrating Success?
Gory, Technicolour Statue

Comments

[mlmcadams]

Keep on traveling! =)
Thoroughly enjoyed it, Keep safe, having fun, and writing us back! Maria