Bolivia vs Brazil

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Before we tell you about our boat journey up the river Madeira, we thought we´d add some of the things that we talked about when we left Boliva and were cosily ensconced in Porto Velho.

The border crossing between Bolivia and Brazil is more than just a linguistic divide, or a bureaucratic formality, it is a line between a country that is incredibly poor and one that is "the poorest of the rich or the richest of the poor" in the memorable words of one of the first Brazilians we met.

Bolivia is an example of what happens to a society that has the misfortune to sit on huge deposits of mineral wealth. Everyone that has ruled Bolivia has shafted Boliva at some point in time (Since the spanish arrived anyway). Before the Spanish arrived the average height of the indigenous in Bolivia (acording to skeletons and mummies found, and spanish accounts) was nearly 6 foot tall - now you´d be hard pressed to find one that tall. Malnutrition was unknown, and society and economy were finely tuned to the environment. A sophisticated religion provided the moral basis for this relatively egalitarian society, one that still inspired massive indigenous rebellions 250 years after the spanish conquered the region. The Spanish arrived and were delighted to find the worlds biggest silver deposits. They mined these using the indigenous peoples as slaves and the wealth left Boliva for Europe, hardly touching the vast majority of the people that lived on top of it. After the Spanish were kicked out, they were replaced by the local white population who continued using the indigenous people as slaves to mine silver, and then other minerals. Not long after independence the British came to Bolivia and it was British capital that allowed a more efficient exploitation of the nations vast mineral wealth.

Some of this wealth allowed the local white elite to live in luxury, but again the indigenous lived in semi slavery and conditions of abject poverty. After the British came the Germans, and then the Americans...each one came, took what they wanted after paying off the local elites and left the indiginous in conditions as bad as the last lot. So Bolivia has not been able to keep any of the wealth that it has produced for the rest of the world. When it has tried to foreign governments made sure that it didnt last long. Once the Brits even used Chile to conquer the south of Bolivia, to make sure that the Bolivians would not be able to levy a tax on all the saltpetre (essential to make gunpowder) that was being mined. The Chileans agreed not to levy a tax on British owned mines and so Queen Vic and all her aristo mates in London were happy to ensure a rapid Chilean military victory...it helped that the Bolivan army was made up of indigenous soldiers who had very little reason to fight and die for a Bolivia that treated them worse than animals.

The effect of all this is visible in Bolivia. What infrastructure exists is old and worn out. This means everything that is owned by the state is shoddy, cos until now no-one in political power in this country ever wanted to, or was able to invest in infrastructure in such a way to prevent chronic decay. This then affects the schools, hospitals etc and means that until now most rural people in Bolivia had never seen a doctor, and few teachers. Another effect is severe racism at every level. There are few indigenous doctors or teachers, and those professionals that did deal with indigenous people did so at arms length convinced of their own superiority. One guy told me that the reason that few indigenous people will look at a white person in the eye or address one directly is because until the 50s they could be punished for insolence for doing so...All this in a country where over 60% of the people define themselves as being pure indigenous people.

Poverty also has other symptoms. Hygeine is low down on the list of priorities, you will have to travel far to find soap or toilet paper in a toilet. Washing up liquid is expensive and in one roadside place I saw plates and cutlery being rinsed in filthy water before having the next meal placed on it. Outside the cities toilets are often outdoors, and consist of a hole in the ground. Some would have a wooden seat, spattered with piss and smeared with shit. Sewers are often open air, which is actually OK in the altiplano where there is little oxygen and its very cold, but in the north that shit really stinks. Poverty also meant that we saw many kids who must have been under ten working as shoeshine boys, as money collectors on buses, as street vendors and as beggars too. These kids were everywhere, with chapped faces from the dry wind, and that pinched look of hunger that I had often read about but never seen before.

Poverty was also evident in more basic ways. People often wore battered clothes and shoes. We saw few mobile phones. In shops and hotels people listened to the world cup on the radio, not on the TV. What cars we saw (with the exception of Uyuni) were generally old and rusty, and certainly did not have alloy trims, or boom boxes or any of that pimp my ride shit.

All of this made a huge contrast with Brazil, 500 metres over the river Madera and another world. In Brazil they even had TVs on the street to watch the footie. People wore fashionable clothes and flash trainers. Mobiles rang all over the place. The taxis were all souped up volkswagens. Government offices had polished linoleum floors and air conditioning, not to mention flat screen computers. In Bolivia we were used to dirt or concrete floors and I think I only saw a computer outside an internet cafe once. On a superficial level the ridiculous number of Brazilian flags meant that you would never get confused as to where in the world you were. If you wanna make money in Brazil invest in yellow and green dyes or paint and this time next year Rodders...

Brazil was, to be honest, a kind of relief after Bolivia. Bolivia is not an easy place to be if you hate seeing poverty - although the friendliness of the people, and the unbounded optimism we found there were great. One guy said to me "You see Bolivia now? Come back in ten years and you will really see something!" another fella said "This country has been exploited for others for 500 years, but now its ours and things will get better." I really hope so, although there is so much to be done...Good luck amig@s.

Anyway, we arrived in Brazil somewhat confused by the sudden change in language and anxious to get somewhere where we could dump our bags. Before we could do this though, I had to get a yellow fever jab as I had somehow lost my certificate, thankfully this was free and relatively painless. From the frontier town of Guajara-Mirim we got a taxi to Porto Velho about 3 and a half hours away. The road was actually paved, and the journey painless. We arrived in Porto Velho (pop 300 000) to find that cos it was now saturday afternoon everything was "fechado" (closed). These brazilians take their weekends seriously and we couldnt find anywhere to change any money, or a cash point that would accept a foreign card. Gutted, we had no food, no money and everything was shut until monday. Lady luck intervened and we eventually found a cash point that took our British cards (thank you Bradesco) and we were so overjoyed that we went for a pizza. We had nothing to do until monday so we took it easy watching footie on the telly and loads of ER on cable. By the time monday arrived we were seriously bored and so we booked ourselves on to the boat to manaus that was leaving on tuesday afternoon. All we needed was a hammock each and we were game on.

The next day we headed to the boat just as the Brazil-Ghana game started. Suddenly everything was fechado again...the streets were deserted, no cars, no people...just the yellow and green flags fluttering in the breeze. As we neared the boat Brazil scored and I thought that world war three had broken out. A cacophony of bangs and shots rang out all around us as joyous brazilians fired off fireworks into the air. Sirens blared. With eardrums ringing we made it onto the boat where we hung up our hammocks on the mid deck of the "Cuidade de Manicore". As the afternoon wore on more and more people arrived until there were hammocks tied to everything on at least three levels all around us. This was gonna be cosy. Finally we set off, with the boats bar blaring "forro" music over the placid brown waters.

The journey took 4 days and was pretty uneventful. It would have been really relaxing if we could have got the hang of sleeping folded in two, wedged between a ten year old kid, an evangelical missionary, a father and 3year old daughter and the geezer sleeping over Marcela´s hammock. The bar blasting damned Forro until 1am every day didnt help (Forro is like Brazilian country and western and an acquired taste). But in general the journey was great fun, the people on the boat were safe, and it was amusing to watch the resident pissheads getting wasted on beers every day from 11am onwards whilst playing cards and dominoes. Occasionally they would head to the stern where there was a water container that they would use to splash water all over themselves, and sometimes they would half-heartedly dance a little Forro with each other before returning to the serious business of getting battered. (Don´t you ever believe all that "latin americans dont need to get wasted to have fun" talk - rubbish, they drink as much as brits do, only maybe less violently). We also enjoyed conversations with our missionary friend, who concluded his failed attempt to save us from Satan by saying that if we didnt believe in big G then we should go forth and tell the world that God didn´t exist. This made us laugh as we had just spent hours telling him we believed in live and let live. He also believed some serious crap about The Exorcist being a documentary and proof of the existence of satan, that humanity should stop scientific research cos what we know now is what big G wants us to know and what we don´t know is what he don´t want us to know...plus much, much more. The food was pretty good and the beer was cheap in the bar...they even did a fish BBQ on the last night, which I would have enjoyed if I hadn´t been dying of what I thought was either Dengue or Malaria (damn that page in the lonely planet!). A boat in the amazon is not a nice place to be ill, and I was glad when we arrived at Manaus harbour. (The river is huuuuuuuge, and theres this well cool part where two rivers meet to form the amazon river - one of them has black water and the other yellow water and the two don´t mix for ages, making it look a bit like sailing on a river of guinness for a while.

In manaus (the hottest city on the planet) we went to hospital, where I was treated with great attention and effiency - they diagnosed me, whacked me on a drip, filled me with painkillers and did a blood test, all for free. Thank you Brazil, from the bottom of me heart. oh, I didnt have malaria, but I did have a vicious stomach virus.

In Manaus we watched yet more footie, including the england portugal game. Thanks for that Sven. We visited the famous theatre with the rubber bricks, but my recovery prevented much tourism here...well that and the fact that we were told not to go out after 8pm cos the area was extremely dangerous...and it felt it funnily enough. Especially after the guy from the hostel showed us the stab wound in his back....We also watched the brazil-france game. Again the city stopped. Streets empty, no traffic. All was fechado. Only the breeze moved. Groups of Brazilians sat in pavement cafes watching the match. Frustration turned to fear and by the end drunken brazilians were hurling their shirts to the floor in disgust. Minutes later the dreaded Forro was blaring and they were drunkenly dancing around waving their shirts around their heads. I felt right at home.

A couple of days later we headed north, stopping at Boavista before getting a bus to the Venezuelan border. As we crossed the border it rained like I have never seen before (not even in Manchester), but this couldn´t dampen our excited spirits now that we were in the famous Bolivarian Republic.

PS: Apologies for the length of this blog, but we had a lot to catch up on...from now on they should be more normal in length.

Much love,

Victor and Marcela.

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Photos

Over there is Brazil...
View from Guayara-Mirim

Sunset river Madeira
View from the boat...

River madeira
Its so hot...

Manaus
Brazil is playing...

Fechado
Sunday bloody Sunday

Sunset
Day 3 sunset...

Venezuela
Hugo´s there?

Comments

[Carpy]

Che su madre!!.... peganse un pique po weon!!!... se pasaron!!!... He estado tentado en escribirles.. pero el tiempo pasa y gracias a Dios el trabajo abunda!.... Supongo que con este viaje van a poder postular a sacar una nueva versión de The Lonely Planet.. weon .. una locura todo lo que han pasado... pero la raja... nada que decir.. simplemente un viaje con sus altos y bajos... pero de seguro que se acordarán por un buen tiempo de esta increible experiencia. Gracias por las recomendaciones que han ido entregando por el camino!!!.... ninguno ha concretado pero se aprecia la ayuda!!!.... C U GUYS SOMETIME SOMEWHERE!!