You Know You´re in Bolivia When (2)....

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You Know You´re in Bolivia When (2)....

1) Police disperse political protestors with tear gas.

2) Your food is very tasty, but arrives 90 minutes late.

3) The military parade past the president with the goose-step.

4) You know your laundry has been done because it comes back wet and shrunk.

5) The arrival of a train is greeted with a great popular celebration including the ringing of bells and the blowing of whistles - presumably to acknowledge the wonder of the train turning up at all.

6) The peace of a Saturday afternoon in broken by numeorus jeeps circling the town carrying flags and making loud political broadcasts through large megaphones.

7) The jeep carrying supporters of the president´s party has a large picture of Che Guevarra on it.

8) Mothers carry their babies in woolen sacks on their backs.

9) The exchange rate for your foreign currency fluctuates by as much as 50% depending on which town you are in. No rates are ever publicised - you must rely on the number a grumpy old woman shows you on her calculator.

10) You are asked whether you have any smaller change when trying to buy anything with a 10 Boliviano note (worth about GBP 1.00). Store owners go to the shop next door to change the money.

11) The roof of a bus is a suitable means of transporting a bicycle. The roof of the main container of a petrol tanker is a suitable means of transporting the petrol company´s employees. The back of a lorry is a suitable alternative means of transport for passengers unable to reach La Paz due to the bus strike. A two wheeled cart is a suitable means of transporting cow and pig carcases to market. The railway line is an acceptable alternative to the pavement.

12) You can eat the llamas. And even order "whole llama" in the restaurants.

13) Hunting of vicuna is illegal. But the army are short on rations so in the absence of any other enemy they shoot the vicuna to supplement their diet.

14) Small children sleep under the seats of a bus.

15) Streets either have no name at all or three different ones.

16) It is too expensive to mint your own coins, so you subcontract the work to another country (Chile).

17) Cigarettes cost 1p each and are laced with marijuana. You can buy 12 litres of beer for a pound.

18) Your bus has loud Bolivian rock music on the radio and a television to watch terrible films. There is however no toilet on board. A strong bladder or an empty coke bottle are the only options to endure an eight hour journey over bumpy unpaved roads.

19) The seat next to you on the bus is occupied by a dog.

20) You can buy dynamite, fuses and nitrates at the local market.

21) There is a queue of more than a hundred people outside the Western Union offices by 830am.

22) Your public minibus is too full of people to make it up a steep hill; and despite revving the engine and producing large clouds of black smoke, it rolls slowly back down to the bottom.

23) The sounding of car horns is a national pastime.

24) Asbestos occurs naturally in the working environment.

25) You are kept awake half the night by firecrackers going off.

26) The streets of the second largest city are blocked by a parade of zealous children celebrating the arrival of the relics of a religious educationalist in the city. For an unexplained reason the same celebration requires his glass coffin to be paraded through the city in the back of a white van.

27) Hot drinks are served in plastic bags.

28) You are helpfully provided with a map of the city by a friendly policewoman. Unhelpfully it is entirely wrong.

29) Every town has an improbably large number of hairdressing salons.

30) The keys on the computer you are using have been worn away so that all the characters are illegible. Someone has usefully written the letters back on with tipex.

31) Everyone smiles and laughs - and accepts all of the above as a highly entertaining joke.

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Comments

[sue cole]

Sound an interesting place!
Hi Ian Life in Uk seems very boring and ordinary. Pot holes in the road presenting the most topic of conversation for motorists after all the snow this Winter. India provided Jeremy with an experience never to be repeated but I found the whole experience interesting and facinating. However, Bolivia seems it could be very challenging. I'm sure you will go with the flow and have a good time. I hope you get this but still not too sure of the ins and outs of funtioning on Facebook!!