Last Entry, Bolivia, I can´t understand Chileans and Robbers in Potosi

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Having some 9 hours untill my next flight to Auckland...I feel it´s fitting to write about my experiences in Bolivia for the first time...and about my travels in Sudamerica for the last

La Paz

I arrived in La Paz after an 18 hour ¨cama¨(bed) bus journey from Santa Cruz. Little tip, don´t believe anyone when they say a bus has a bed, you will be disappointed. I arrived to the hostel (Wild Rovers), expecting to feel as though I was in Bolivia. I felt like I was in Ireland. No offense to the Irish, apart from how alcohol has made them all stupid. All I wanted to do was sleep but was hit in the face with songs like ´I get knocked down´ and all things U2. I did bond on an emotional level with these American guys in my room by quoting movies however.

When I did get round to partying on down, I think I requested everything I could think of that was vaguely hispanic and the DJ was like "yeah, thats a really good idea...let me just play swing low sweet chariot one more time." So...not much was done in La Paz...luckily I had a guide because the map I was given at the hostel recommended only Gringo paradises. I came to South America to find myself and live it rough so I don´t have to lie to girls in bars while telling them about the world...not to hang out with some geezer from England who decided to set up a hostel or bar in La Paz because he though it was really cheap to get drunk or high there.

Having said that, I did get to Tiwanaku! It was well interesting to see the remains of this once vast and sophisticated civilisation, but also how many theories there are as to why it collapsed; the most prominent of which being that there was a massive drought and people were forced from their homes. Our guide also provided me with an interesting fact...how the llama got it´s name. When the Spanish arrived, while they forced them to work in suicidal mines and made them slaves, while pointing at a llama asked the indigenous, "como se llama esta animal?" For those ignorant folks out there who don´t know any Spanish...first of all learn it and second of all that question translates to "what do you call that animal?" The indigenous, too busy being slaves to learn Spanish, replied "llama?" And the name stuck. At Tiwanaku there was also signs of the Catholic churches intolerance at Indigenous culture and religion, to be fair a lot a changed since then, as some of the ancient statues had been partly hacked at and the holy trinity had been carved.

In order to get to Uyuni, I had to take a bus to Oruro. It was on this bus trip that I first experienced real culture shock. You see a bit of poverty in La Paz, but being surrounded by tourists and staying away from the nitty gritty meant that I was somewhat sheltered from it. On the bus from La Paz to Oruro however, I really got a sense of the hard lives Bolivian lead. The only thing to distract people from the Grey nothingness of the landscape and buildings is the propaganda posters and graffiti reminding everyone, yet again, that Evo Morales is Bolivia's President.

Uyuni
I arrived in Uyuni early in the morning after taking a train trip where I was sick, couldn´t open the window, which didn´t have air conditioning and where I sat next to a lovely Bolivian woman who for some reason decided to bring about 5 bags...all of which weighed at least ten kilos. To my surprise, the day after was OK. I went to see the Salar, which is more amazing than anyone can describe. Even I, with my literary brilliance, cannot describe the magnificent vast plains that make up the Salar de Uyuni. When I was there, the soil was covered with a layer of water...turning the Salar into a giant mirror. Anyone who wants the effects of being on acid, so I imagine, without actually taking it, should check out the Salar. I remember someone describing the Salar to me; "it's like being inside a Salvador Dali painting."

Luckily I got the Salar out of the way that day as when i got back to Uyuni I was pretty much paralysed with sickness. I'm not sure what it was, but it sucked. My body was deeply confused...I thought urine was only supposed to be in liquid form. Anyway, I decided to splurge and go to a hotel where I watched "Good Morning Vietnam" again and "Real Time with Bill Maher." As a result of all this I stayed in Uyuni for an extra day.

It was on my bus trip to Potosi where I met these crazy Chileans that didn't let anyone get a word in, along with a semi crazy Aussie and a racist pom who was a borderline Holocaust denier. "Hitler didn't get the credit he deserved" the guy told me. Wow, I thought, I can't wait to hang out with you more. He also started to bang on about how many immigrants there were in England, rather than waking up with my head shaved and a "rights for whites" tattoo on my head, I decided against travelling with him and the Aussie and instead travelled with the Chileans for the rest of the trip. If you ever take the trip from Uyuni to Potosi, don't sleep, the views are incredible.

Potosi

I was a bit worried about going to Potosi...as I wasn't sure if my sickness in Uyuni was altitude sickness, and considering Potosi is the highest city of its size in the world, if it was altitude sickness, going there would not be the best idea. Thankfully, it turned out be alright, and thank god, since I was really looking forward to seeing Potosi and its mines.

The History of Potosi best illustrates the rape of South America's resources by the Spaniards and by crony, client state capitalism, as well as the trail of destruction such ruthless behaviour wrought. An extremely depressing and incredible book I was reading at the time, "Open veins of Latin America" by Eduardo Galeano, outlined in detail the extent to which Potosi has suffered under the grip of Colonial powers. Recounting the rape of Potosi's natural wealth in rough chronological order, the first people to take advantage of the veins of silver that lined Potosi's Cerro Rico were actually the Incas. The Incas believed the vast deposit of Silver in the mountain of Cerro Rico was a gift from the gods and therefore, as opposed to the commercial usage of those that conquered Potosi in the years to come, used the silver for the adoration of the gods. It was the Incas which gave Potosi it's name, changed slightly from the original name of "Potojsi," a Quechuan word meaning to thunder, burst, explode.

Under the Spanish, Potosi expanded rapidly to a population as large as London, and became one of the world's richest and biggest cities. Of course, the wealth was exported, and fed the development of Europe. From the early days of colonisation, Bolivia was well and truly burdened with what is now known as the "resource curse." The Spanish well and truly cleared Potosi of its silver, leaving a path of destruction and death; an estimated 8 million Indian lives were claimed from the inhumane forced Labour they were subjected to, most of which suffered slow and painful deaths. To put this into some sort of context, seven out of every ten miners that entered the "mouth of hell," as the Dominican monk Domingo de Santo Tomas described it in 1550, perished.

It was not untill the late 19th Century that mineral barrons discovered, to their delight, Cerro Rico's massive tin deposits. The Spanish had known about the tin in Cerro Rico, but dismissed it as worthless. Now, with the demand for tin exploding in the developed world, these mineral barrons could well and truly capitalise on the easy wealth that lay in the mines of Cerro Rico. By the time Bolivia nationalised its tin in 1952, the tin wealth of Cerro Rico had been well and truly drained. Miners had to work more and more for less, the combined length of all tunnels covered twice the distance of Potosi to La Paz, highlighting the extend of the plunder.

Tin, nationalised 1952, by then most of it was gone and the mine was poor, it had been raped by the tin baron Antenor Patiño about a century ago. Length of the tunnels inside the mine twice the distance from the mine to La Paz. The conditions of the mines for Bolivians during the tin barron period had not improved in the slightest from the time of the plunder of Silver. As Galeano put it, "Bolivians die with rotten lungs so that the world ma consume cheap tin."

This brings us to the present, and my trip down the "mouth of hell." My early impression of the mine was the feeling of being trapped in a time machine. Although I have never seen a mine before, it felt like a mine from the 19th century. There is no lighting, no ventilation, no toilets and the miners don't eat or drink, relying on coca to survive their desperate and depressing working lives in the mine. I watched in awe as the miners lugged hundreds of kilos of rock for the slightest of incomes and couldn't help thinking that maybe th Bolivians would be better off today if the mines were privatised, but of course that itself would bring its own problems.

Our guide ushered of to the devil of the mine, who had been built 300 years before. There are different interpretations of this statue, some believe that it perpetuates the desperate conditions of the mines, others believing that it has blessed Cerro Rico with its offspring in the form of minerals. Offerings lay at the feet of the devil, as well as a cigarette in its mouth. We sat there annd tried the drink of choice of the miners, which contained 96% alcohol, and I felt as though I had just drunk disinfectant.

Before catching the bus to the terminal in order to catch the bus to Sucre, one of my Chilean friend was adamant that I should carry all my valuable on me as Bolivia was dangerous and there was a high chance that people could walk into our room and take everything. Taking her advice, I wore a bum bag that contained my passport, paper tickets and wallet on the bus. A guy about my age dropped some change in front of me. Being the good samaritan I am, I bent over to pick up his change. I handed it back to him, he thanked me, and stepped off the bus. It was then I peered down and noticed that my bag was half open, wallet missing. I freaked. Although it most likely would not have happened if the Chileans weren't there because i would have taken a taxi to the terminal, thank god I wasn't alone at that time. Two of us went back into Potosi to start what I thought would be a public and private sector bureaucratic nightmare. First off, I tried contacting the folks...failure. Then I contacted the bank to cancel my cards. I never thought I would praise a bank, but they were awesome. They organised for me to pick up emergency cash in Sucre...problem sorted. Next up, we went to the police station to get a report for insurance purposes. The cops made us pay for one piece of paper to file the report, that's right, it's costs money to file a police report, and then we talked to a cop that copied everything down in an exercise book. He then told us that the report would be filled out by the following morning. Of course, I thought, it takes twelve hours normally to copy a bit of text onto one piece of paper. Nethertheless, we left, as I didn't want to inconvenience the Chileans more. Trying to think positive, I was thankful that if I had to get robbed, thank god it was near the end of my journey, it was done by a Bolivian that in all certainty needed the money more than me and that he didn't take my passport, which happened to be in the same pocket as my wallet.

Sucre

I didn't quite stop stressing in Sucre untill I collected the last 200 bucks from my bank account...I have not been that happy/relieved in a while. I was now able to explore the amazingly beautiful colonial architecture that was Sucre. Of course, typically Bolvian, there were protests in the main square. Their demands were amongst the most bizarre probably in the history of demonstrations, they wanted more public toilets, and ignorant me, standing there thinking they had more pressing problems to deal with. I regret not doing more sightseeing in Sucre, although I was exhausted from worrying about my financial situation and just wanted to chill.

The 12 hour ride to Samaipata was without doubt the most uncomfortable journey of my life. Thankfully I wasn't sick, had sleeping tablets (which had little effect), and had the company of my newfound friends. My legs were squashed and my neck was killing me, but the scenery, again, was incredible. In addition, the fact that i was still elated that I had money and therefore didn't have to join Bolivia's extensive network of beggars kept my spirits up.

Samaipata

The start of my stay in Samaipata was a bit of a worry. We arrived at somewhere around 5 in the morning after the journey from Sucre, with no idea where we were. I would not be staying with the Chileans for this part of the journey as they were camping and i didn't have a sleeping bag. The hotel I had booked into took me an hour and a half to find, my bag starting to fall apart, I wondered the Samaipata streets wondering if I would have to set up camp in the park in the square. Finally I found it, totally worth it. Pool, private room, beautiful garden and only about $8 a night.

Samaipata reminded me a bit of Colombia in that I was surrounded by fertility. Absolutely everything was green and I'm sure absulutely everything could grow there. On our first day, late in the afternoon, we ventured to a somewhat little known private park. This place easily surpassed the beauty of the waterfalls I visited in Colombia, as well as the scenery of the Valle de Cocora. We sat at the foot of 40 metre waterfalls and explored the twenty metre deep caves beneath them, wandered the serenity of the rainforest and tasted the sweet freshness of the air...a perfect break from the gagging sensation I received from the diesel fumes of Bolivia's stone age buses and trucks. The boys sharpened sticks and attempted Bear Grylls impression while the girls talked about how hot we looked doing the tough guy act.

As I awoke the next day, I had no idea that I would have the opportunity to play with monkeys, but that how the day turned out. After walking about 3 k's in the soaring heat, we reached the animal refuge, where volunteers rescue orphaned and injured animals, as well as showcase themfor the amazed visitors to see. I was bewildered, observing my surroundings when this monkey jumped on me and hugged its tail around my neck. I had a hard time getting him off me after that. Acting like an obsessed 16 year old girl, the monkey refused to let go of her new found love, purching herself on my shoulders.

It was in Samaipata that I said goodbye to my Chilean friends. Despite not understanding any of their Spanish, hanging with them was one of the funniest things about my journey, busting out in song every five minutes and learning some of the maybe 5 million uniquely Chilean phrases and words. I was off to Santa Cruz de la Sierra, but only out of necesity, as it does not offer much in the way of tourist, or for that matter, any attractions. The best thing about Santa Cruz was the hostel...it was a great place to chill out before my epic journey to Australia.

I now sit in an internet cafe in BA airport with 25 cents in my pocket and $20 in my account. And yes, it was definately worth it.

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