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Published: November 20th 2005
After Potosí, I got a taxi all the way to Sucre. On some routes in Bolivia (but only some and I don’t know why those and not others) instead of taking a bus, you can take a shared taxi to get to your destination. You turn up a the bus station and wait till the taxi is full. Then you leave. I travelled with Christian and Josée and we went one better. We got a taxi just for the three of us to take us door to door from our hotel in Potosí to the one of our choice in Sucre. All this for USD13.75 for all of us. Even better: our driver had a modern car and the road was beautifully paved!
Sucre is still the official capital of Bolivia even though all but the judiciary has moved to La Paz. It is quite attractive: lots of colonial buildings and all buildings in the centre painted white. It is also “low” in altitude (“only” 2790m) and has a nicer climate than the higher cities. The day I arrived had nice weather. However it was unseasonably cold and wet the other days so I didn’t get to see Sucre at
Peña at the Law Faculty, Sucre
Those guys will be lawyers one day.its best.
Sucre is a university town and has a studenty vibe. The weekend I was there they had a film festival dedicated to Ernesto “Che” Guevara to commemorate the 38th Anniversary of his death (in Bolivia). Che is quite a popular figure here in many circles. I decided to go along and see one of the films. They actually showed us two films: “La Higuera”: named after the place he was executed, being a badly shot film of the 30th Anniversary commemorations of his death; and “Hasta la Victoria Siempre”: a Cuban propaganda film from 1967. Both in Spanish and with quite poor sound quality: so I didn’t understand much of what was being said.
As I left, I bumped into Christian and Josée again. We went for dinner and then ended up at a student concert celebrating the anniversary of the founding of the law school. There was a folk band playing: all law students and a great vibe. I ended up getting far more drunk than I meant, but had a crazy night with Christian and some local lads we met. We were drinking Singani, a local spirit that they drink with a hot cinnamon
flavoured mixer. And beer.
All in all it was an intensive night, speaking lots of French and lots of Spanish. Had some really interesting conversations with Christian about Quebec (funny how when you go abroad, you meet not so much locals as other tourists but can still learn lots about places other than your own country: just not the country you’re in!). However, trying to speak both Spanish and French is confusing me and I’ve resolved to avoid French till I’m out of South America!
Didn’t see much of the following morning! In the afternoon, I went to visit the Dinosaur Tracks. In 1994, a cement works at the edge of town discovered dinosaur tracks on a strata of rock. This is now a national monument and it's open to tourists. It was once a flat, muddy plain and various dinosaurs: Saropdos, Titanosauros, Anguilosaurios and Teropodos apparently walked over there leaving their footprints. The rock is now at an almost 90 degree angle and you look up at the wall. They keep discovering new prints all the time, but the cement works is still being used and although one giant face has been protected, they have not yet
found money to protect the fragile rock from the elements. Also, a huge part of the rock face is not in the protected area and will eventually go into cement. We got to ride in the hugely cheesy “Dino Truck” to get there from the centre. We then walked to the cliff and they laid on a shoeshine boy to clean our shoes afterwards.
As it was Saturday afternoon by that point, I wasn’t able to visit any of the other museums in Sucre. I any case, it was chucking with rain. Sucre is a nice place and I just chilled for a bit. As I was still a bit green gilled, I turned down the chance to visit the “Oktoberfest” at the German-Bolivian Cultural Institute.
Been finding that I’m a lot hungrier than at higher altitudes. High altitude does funny things to people. Some people get headaches. Others can get really ill. I find I lose my appetite and get breathless when walking up hills or doing any exercise. People say that if you’re born and brought up at altitude then you develop big lungs and you produce more haemoglobin and you can cope with it. If
not, and you move to high altitude, you need to go down every six months or so to stay healthy.
There is a lot of poverty in Bolivia. Beggars (mainly indigenous women) come up to you all the time. You get hardened to it after a while but it is still difficult. These people have nothing and even though I don’t consider myself wealthy, I obviously am compared with these people. Where do you start and where do you stop in helping others? I think that by coming here as an independent traveller, staying in small hotels, using local tour operators and buying things from street stalls and small shops I can do a small part in helping the situation. However I wouldn’t claim any more than that. Back home, I was living in a wealthy part of London and working in the richest county in the UK. Surrounded by people with huge amounts of wealth gives you a warped idea of how “poor” you are. It's not that I wasn't already aware, but this trip has been a healthy reminder of how lucky I am to be a white, educated, healthy person living in the west and having
some money. Visiting a poor country and seeing people with almost nothing puts things into perspective.
Then, I left for the airport for a flight back to La Paz. Internal flights here are really cheap and as the roads are bad, become more worthwhile. On the way to the airport, the taxi driver was saying that as there was a bit of cloud in the sky, my flight might be cancelled. I thought he was joking as although it was a cloudy day, it wasn’t misty and would not look abnormal in Scotland. He wasn’t joking! I ended up waiting a couple of hours at the airport as we waited for “better” weather. Luckily, it came and we got on the plane. I’ve never got on a plane with so little security before. No one screened us or asked for ID. I asked for a window seat as I wanted to get a view of the mountains and La Paz. Apparently I didn’t need to as they usually do that for the tourists on the plane. I did indeed get a great view of the Cordiella Real, El Alto and La Paz as we came into land.
Shared
The "Dino Bus"
I thought it was to drive us over to the wall. It was just to drive us through town to get to the site, with everyone waving at us! a taxi into La Paz with an Aussie girl called Sue. We ended up in the same hotel in La Paz (different to when I first visited). I never did stay in a decent place in La Paz. Hotels were a bit scruffy and hot water intermittent. But I spent so little time in them that it didn’t really matter.
Sue told me that she’d been in a crash on a bus in Bolivia. I’ve heard so many tales like that: the roads are a nightmare and drivers reckless. Glad I decided to fly from Sucre to La Paz!
The following day, I went on a tour of Bolivia’s most important archaeological site: Tihuanaco (or Tiwanaku in Aymara).
In most people’s minds, pre-Columbian South America is characterised by the Incas. It’s Inca-Inca-Inca everywhere you go. However, the Incas were only an empire for 200 years (and only really had 100 years of dominance) before the Spanish arrived and defeated the empire overnight. Of more importance over a longer period of time, was the civilisation of Tiwanaku.
Tiwanaku existed for more than 2000 years until they suddenly disappeared around 1200AD and no one really knows why. The
Cathedral, Sucre
Most of the buildings in the centre are white. Makes for an attractive townscape. capital was just south of Lake Titicaca and the empire included western Bolivia, some parts of Argentina, northern Chile and southern Peru.
So little is known about Tiwanaku, but it is clear that it had a great influence on the later Incas. One living legacy is the Aymara language which is still spoken around lake Titicaca in both Peru and Bolivia. By contrast, the language of the Incas (Quechua) is spoken far north and south of this area (the area of the Inca empire) but the Aymaras have kept their identity. Apparently too, during the Inca empire, nobles had to learn Aymara. Interesting to see how history shapes the present.
Unfortunately, not much remains on the site. When the Spanish arrived, they used it as a quarry to build churches. But recently, the authorities have done quite a bit of reconstruction. It’s debatable on the merits of this approach, but there is also a lot of excavation work going on which is uncovering lots of information about the past.
The site consisted of pyramids and temples. The pyramid is the largest in the world by area, but was never particularly high.
There are also two museums.
The Cordiella Real
The eastern range of Andes, near La Paz. One grizzly exhibit had deformed skulls that have been uncovered from graves. The heads are unnaturally high and presumably children had been made to wear some kind of head brace so their growing skull goes upwards. There are also sculptures of animals important to the people. In particular: condor, puma and llama. These were also of significance to the later Incas.
One thing that really caught my eye was an exhibit on some of the other civilisations that were eventually subsumed into the Tiwanaku empire. One was called the “Wankarani” (British readers of this blog may find something slightly amusing about this name...) and they lived around the modern area of Oruro (between La Paz and the Salars). It’s amazing to think that this civilisation lasted for 1000 years before being forgotten. Anyway, they left these amazing looking abstract llama sculptures. I really liked them but they didn’t sell any postcards or books and you were not officially allowed to take pictures. I managed to sneak one though!
Many locations in the world have a "Something that you do" when you go there. In Paris, you go up the Eiffel Tower; in London, you go to the Tower
of London; in Edinburgh, you visit the castle. In La Paz, you go for a cycle ride down "The World's Most Dangerous Road".
It was pioneered about ten years ago by a Kiwi who now lives in La Paz. Funnily enough, I met his American mother-in-law on the trip to Tiwanaku and had some fascinating conversations with her. They have just had their first child and she had come down to see it.
Anyway, this road takes you for 64 km down 3600m vertical descent from a high Andean pass at 4700m to the semi-tropical town of Coroico. You start off on tarmac and it's a nice fast descent for a few miles. It was a misty day when I went and the glimpses of mountainside we saw reminded me a bit of the Scottish Highlands.
Then there was a bit of an uphill section. This was quite difficult due to the altitude and I was puffing and panting but managed not to stop to push!
This part of the route was not the "World's most dangerous" bit though. That started after the road works about half way down. At this point, the rules of the
La Paz and El Alto
El Alto is on the plateau on the left, La Paz in the great canyon. road change. Vehicles must drive on the LEFT hand side of the road (unlike in the rest of the country). This means that downhill traffic will pass on the edge, Uphill drivers have priority and rather than brake at bends (and lose momentum) they just honk their horns. For most of that stretch, the road is only wide enough for one vehicle to pass, but there are informal passing places and one vehicle may have to reverse for them both to get past. We sat at the beginning of the dangerous bit for quite a while as the road had been closed for an hour or so for repairs and so loads of traffic was suddenly released onto the road and we waited till it died down. It was quite amazing watching the manoeuvring going on. People really do die on this road, including tourists who cycle down it for fun!
Cycling down was certainly exhilarating. Definitely more so than the Cotopaxi descent I did in Ecuador as in this case there was real traffic on the roads and lots of blind bends. Very frequently there was a very high, steep, drop off and at no point was there
El Alto
Note how sprawling it is. At night, it's dark as there are so few lights. a safety barrier.
At the pass, it was freezing cold. About half way down, it stared to get warm and by the time we got to the bottom it was really warm. It was the first time I'd experienced warm weather since London. (On the altiplano it can be warm in the sun, but here there was warm air).
Then, we had the four hour drive up. I kind of wanted to stay a day in Coroico, but didn't have the time. The journey up wasn't so scary as we had been told so many times before that our driver was an expert who had driven it so many times... I certainly wouldn't want to drive the road though, that would be dangerous! I have more control and am a lot smaller on a bike. Whether it really is the World's most dangerous road, I'm not sure. I think that mountain biking on the motorway between the International Airport and the Green Zone in Baghdad would be a lot scarier!
I had one more day in La Paz before I went to the rainforest so I hit the museums. There was an interesting Silver and Gold museum with
El Alto
Note the weird, German-style churches which are unique to El Alto in Bolivia. lots of Inca relics which was worth a quick look. Then, a museum mourning the loss of Bolivia's coastline. Bolivia and Peru went to war with Chile in the 1880s. Chile fought back and won, taking Bolivia's coastline and some of Peru (after briefly occupying almost the whole country!) as booty. The war is kind of complicated, as both sides seem to have a point on who started it, but it is a very sore point in Bolivia even today. Despite sharing lots of border, Bolivia and Chile do not have diplomatic relations. Bolivians blame a lot of the country's problems on the loss of coast and any politician who wants to get anywhere has to say they will try to get it back. I'll be going to Chile in a couple of weeks so it will be interesting to see it from the other side. Anyway, I'd never heard of the conflict before coming here and if you're interested in reading about it, you can
here. It seems sad that Spain's former American colonies squabble and fight so much. It's in marked contrast to Britain's former American colonies who worked together after independence and became the most powerful country
Relief map of Bolivia
Note how high the altiplano is, yet how almost half the country is lowland rainforest, pampas and chagos. in the world.
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Beth
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The American mother-in-law-responds
Nick, I have greatly enjoyed your journal, particularly the section on Bolivia, as I revived my first experience there through your words and pictures. But---- since I have that Kiwi son-in-law---the one in the mountain biking business in La Paz, your photos and comments on New Zealand were well-received, as well. Thanks!