28 de Abril - Cusco, Peru
Here in Cusco, we have enjoyed a forced break from being on the go while we await availability on the Inca Trail. We`ve spent evenings playing Spanish Scrabble (with letter tiles like LL, RR and Ñ you can spell words like llama, churro and año) over dinner while sipping on Inca Cola. Inca Cola is the Peruvian-produced rival to Coca Cola, but they are nothing alike, aside from the fact that they both contain caffeine. Inca Cola is flavored with lemongrass and tastes like bubble gum. It is a flourescent yellow color and it is less carbonated than other bottled beverages (we have noticed that drinks like Sprite and beer behave strangely at high altitude). Another beverage that we have discovered here in Peru is Chicha Morada, which is a refreshing purple maize juice drink that looks and tastes a bit like grape juice. Another beverage we have sampled that is also made from maize is Chicha de Jora, which is a frothy beer that is served in a large ceramic mug and sipped with a straw. Chicha de Jora is the alternative to beer, which is expensive here (as it was in Bolivia). A medium size bottle of Cusqueña (the local beer) costs the same as a 3 course meal. We are enjoying the food and drink in this city that caters to the tastebuds of Gringos and also offers the best of traditional Peruvian cuisine, while exploring the less epicurean offerings of Cusco as well.
Cusco (Qosqo in Quechua) is a beautiful locale set in a bowl-like valley amidst green rolling hills. This city is the epicenter for tours to Machu Picchu and other Incan Ruins in the Sacred Valley. Cusco is a modern city of tourism peppered with traces of its history as the ancient capital of the Incan empire. On almost every central street you can find remains of Inca stonework, built by skilled masons hundreds of years ago, which inspire awe and wonder. How were the Incas able to construct walls, temples, and edifices from these heavy stones (often weighing over a ton) that fit together like pieces of a puzzle? We hope to learn more about these hypotheses on our trip to Machu Picchu.
We´ve spent our days walking around the city (to get into shape for the Inca Trail) and getting lost in the windy, narrow cobblestone alleyways of the San Blas district. The streets hidden high up on the hill have names like Siete Diablitos (Seven Little Devils).
We have visited two incredible museums here. Today we went to the Museo Inka to brush up on Incan culture before our hike on the Inca Trail begins tomorrow. We admired Inca ceramics, weavings, wood carvings, metalwork, agricultural innovations and architecture, which provided us with a window into the Incan world. We were even more impressed with the Museo de Arte Precolombino, which houses examples of jewelry, pottery, shells, and wood carvings from civilizations like the Moche, Nasca and Huari. This museum also gave us an idea of how Peru`s ancient people viewed their world and the creatures that inhabited it before the arrival of the Europeans in South America in the late 15th century. Our favorite feature of this museum were the enlightening quotes on the walls about the important influence of pre-Columbian art on the artists in rest of the world (quotes from Pablo Picasso and his peers).
Our Spanish is improving daily. We conducted a pop quiz at breakfast this morning to see if we could name everything on the table as we ate, and then continued to name everything in the restaurant. This is a true measure of progress, because we knew none of these practical nouns when we arrived here 4 months ago. Not that our vocabulary is limited to items found in a restaurant, we have picked up so many words by watching subtitles on TV and from hearing other people speak. We have been writing new words down and trying to commit them to memory everyday. We have made friends with Edoardo, who works at our hostel. He is studying English and Health at the local university. We have breakfast with him every morning and he teaches us Spanish (we speak in English and he speaks in Spanish, so that we can practice and teach each other) and he tells us about his hometown Huancayo in the Peruvian jungle.
We have managed to learn a few travel tips from Dutch travelers (we have learned a thing or two about futbol from them as well...they are soccer fanatics and PSV Eindhoven made it to the semi-finals this year). The Dutch are great travel companions and there are many of them traveling in South America. In fact, they are expert travelers. They have been world travelers since the inception of the Netherlands. Foreign travel, trade, and colonization are part of their rich history. We have spent some time with this Dutch couple that we met in Bolivia, who caught up with us in Cusco. This is the couple that had expired visas in Nigeria. They have told us many stories about their travels in Africa. Another story that we found interesting is that in every hotel room in Ethiopia there is a bible and a condom in the drawer of the bedside table. An ironic combination of things. According to the Dutch couple`s observations, there are high awareness levels about AIDS in Africa today. Condoms are widely available and inexpensive, but unfortunately they are low quality.
The Dutch couple suggested that we go to a restaurant on the main plaza for dinner one night, where we discovered the otra menu (other secret, local menu) under their tutelage. Outside of each of the restaurants and shops on the main square are shoe shine boys, kids selling cigarettes, women and their children selling woven finger puppets, and touts who stand outside of each of the restaurants trying to usher Gringos inside for a free drink or some other tantalizing special offer. The kids who sell woven finger puppets on the street are undeniable. We have bought tons of these finger puppets from these little hustlers. Warning to friends at home--if you have children, you will most likely be receiving one of these woven finger puppets as a souvenir. These Peruvian kids run up to us with a finger puppet on each digit and beg us to buy from them...comprame por favor...so that they can eat lunch or dinner. Peru has well trained young salesmen and saleswomen. They won`t stop following you until you echo the promise of "maybe later." The touts are the most crafty of everyone you encounter, we learned this from the Dutch. They sell you on a menu del dia, in which they offer a 3 course meal for 10 soles ($3 dollars) to get you inside their eatery, then when you sit down at a table they hand you the tourist menu with a la carte items that are each more expensive than the 3 course menu del dia. Bait and switch. The trick is to ask for the other menu everywhere you eat in Peru, even if you did not see it advertised outside the restaurant. Thanks to the Dutch, we are managing to save some money here in Peru, where things are much more expensive than they were in Bolivia.
Cusco, overall, is a beautiful city. It has very well restored churches, classic buildings, cobblestone streets, and small walkways everywhere. The city actually reminds us a lot of Potosi, Bolivia from how it looks. Potosi, however, is much more run down, and without a the large tourist attraction of Macchu Picchu nearby, Potosi has not had the influx of money that Cusco has. We see many of the same features in buildings though, especially the large second story balconies made of carved wood that we have only seen in Potosi before. This is an excellent city to walk around, and even though we have been here for longer than planned, we have enjoyed the time and the city a lot.
22 de Abril - Leaving Bolivia
After spending 37 days in Bolivia, we had mixed feelings about leaving for Peru. It wasn´t the same sadness that we experienced when we left Argentina. I had tears in my eyes when the taxista bid us a safe journey at the bus terminal in Mendoza as we departed for Chile. Leaving Bolivia was different, especially since it took us about a month to identify and understand so many of the important subtleties of life in Bolivia. We were just starting to get into the groove of traveling in Bolivia, but we were also ready for a change.
We have both been fairly ill in Bolivia over the past month (either from altitude or stomach bugs), so we have hopes that our health might improve in a different country. A big part of the issue has been diet. We were warned by our guidebook not to eat salads or uncooked veggies in Bolivia, but it is hard to live on meat and starches alone for a month, so we broke that rule quite a bit. When it comes to starches, Bolivia has no shortage of these. It is good to see that most Bolivians don´t go hungry (especially in the poorest country in SA), but we noticed that many of the middle-aged Campesino women are overweight. They are round and beautiful, and I couldn´t imagine them to look physically different, but they must live on a diet of nothing but starches, which can´t be healthy. They grow a type of grain called Quinoa, which is an ingredient in most soups. They eat what seems like hundreds of types of potatoes prepared in a hundred ways, including dried potatoes, yucca, boiled potatoes, and fried potatoes. Rice and corn (or maize) are also staples here. At dinner a few nights ago, we ordered a chicken dish that came with sides of mashed potatoes, pasta and rice. It is common to get both french fries and rice with just about every meal. As a Canadian family told us in Rurre, their son (who loves french fries and is rarely allowed to eat them at home) said that he would be happy to never see another french fry again after spending a month in Bolivia. I can´t believe that I am writing this (as the junk food junkie I am), but I have to agree with the kid.
Another lesson learned about food in Bolivia is that Bolivians don´t do takeout...not even at the Chinese (Chifa) restaurants. We learned this the hard way in Sucre. We asked for our comida para llevar (to go) at a Chinese restaurant and they tried very hard to accommodate us. They put everything in plastic bags (including won ton soup), and carefully packed all the sauces into small tube-like plastic bags. We brought all of this food back to our hostel and discovered that we wouldn´t be able to eat any of it without plates, plastic utensils or napkins. In the end, we had to go back to the restaurant and explain that we had changed our minds and we would rather eat there instead. They took all the food out of the plastic bags and served it to us with very suspicious looks. Silly Americans. Conversely, in Copacabana when Billy was sick and didn´t want to stray too far from the bathroom in our habitacion, I asked for half of my lunch to go to take back to the hostel to my husband. They sent me packing with soup and rice on the ceramic plate and bowl it was served on. They gave me their silverware too, all of which I carried like a waiter on wheels down the street to our hostel. They trusted me to return all of these items, which I later did. The concept of para llevar hasn´t caught on in Bolivia yet, except in Chifa restaurants in La Paz.
The concept of time in Bolivia is something that we were finally beginning to understand after some interesting misunderstandings and mishaps. "Un rato" (or "un ratito") in Bolivia is one of these things that took us awhile to figure out, but is very essential in understanding how things work and it helps to prevent you from tearing your hair out from frustration at times. "Un ratito" is an unquantified amount of time, and you hear this expression spoken in just about every interaction. It is not equivalent to "wait a second" or "wait a moment" and I´m not sure if it has a literal translation in English. It basically means that you have to wait awhile, and the answer you seek is uncertain. This sums up the Bolivian concept of time, which is very foreign for North Americans like us who are obsessed with time because we generally have so little of it. After awhile we began to adjust to this idea of a nebulous amount of time spent waiting for something. You learn not to be bothered by setbacks like flat tires, cancelled flights, or laundry that is missing or isn´t ready when promised. There is also the expression "en punto" which means exactly on time...sort of like "on the dot" or "on the hour." We have often heard this said about the departure time of buses or planes (it is a great ticket sales technique), and it generally means that the bus or plane will leave when it is good and ready to leave, or when the ticket agents have successfully sold every seat. We are happy that we are not necessarily pressed for time here, because these delays are much easier to digest since we aren´t on a tight schedule. Sometimes this actually works in our favor. Like the time I accidentally left my pillow (almohada) in our hostel and realized my mistake just as we were boarding a bus to leave Cochabamba. The bus was scheduled to leave en punto, but in reality Billy (my hero) had 20 minutes to run back to the hostel and get the pillow. He arrived at the bus terminal just in time for departure.
Then there are the Bolivian showers. In over a month in Bolivia, we still hadn´t mastered the art of taking a perfectly hot shower. There are a few secrets that nobody tells you about the showers. First of all, there is no guarantee of the availability of hot water for a shower all the time. Water is a scarce resource in some parts of Bolivia. You have to check with the hostel for the shower hours. The showers are all electricly heated by a device that is attached to the shower head. You are never to touch the shower head or any part of the pipes in the shower, because if you happen to be standing on something metal, you will probably get the shock of your life. There are no hot and cold nozzles, there is just one nozzle, which you learn (with practice and a lot of trial and error) to control the temperature with. The more you turn the nozzle to the left (to let more water in), the colder the water gets. There is a very delicate balance, which you achieve by slowly and carefully turning the nozzle to the right (less water=more hot water). And just as you have the water temperature perfectly hot, someone in the hostel flushes the toilet and you are left standing in the cold with soap in your eyes. When the water eventually comes back on, you are scalded and you go through the process all over again. We learned to appreciate the consistency of cold showers in the jungle, where there is no fussing over hot water and you emerge from the shower feeling like a very clean icicle.
Aside from these mostly amusing inconveniences, sometimes Bolivia felt so comfortable that we forgot that we were away from home. In Sucre especially we would have a sudden realization that we were in Bolivia when we´d see Bolivia on a passing car´s license plate. Then there were the times that we were very aware that we were far from home, like when we went shopping at the witches market or when we happened upon the brown, smelly, polluted river that snakes through La Paz.
But as with everywhere you go in the world, the people are very much the same. The girl´s giggles sound the same, and you are sure that they are laughing about the same things that make little girls giggle everywhere. People are discontent with their government and they struggle to fight for better living conditions, political justness, better business practices, and human rights just like we do at home. People have similar dreams of prosperity and success, like the kid we met in Sucre who was tending bar. He was a student of tourism at the local university. He dreamed of buying a small airplane that he could use to fly around his beautiful country and travel from the jungle to La Paz in less than an hour. He´s the one who taught us that the Bolivian greeting is to kiss only once on the cheek (not twice like they do in Argentina). I must´ve turned bright red when I went in for the second kiss and he quickly schooled me in the art of the Bolivian greeting. Luckily he advised Billy that men just shake hands with eachother before Billy could practice his Argentine-learned manners on this unsuspecting Bolivian guy. People say "salud" when you sneeze, they say "buen provecho" before and after dinner (perfect strangers walk into restaurants and say the equivalent to bon appetit to everyone dining out of sheer politeness). Bolivians are extremely polite and very down to earth and often think of Argentines (especially those from Buenos Aires) as snooty. There are small and large disputes with bordering neighbors here as there are at home and everywhere else in the world.
We began to observe so many unique subtleties about Bolivian culture and communication. When you see someone making a hand signal the way we would say that something was "so so" or "just alright," with their hand extended, palm down, fingers together and moving from side to side, you know that means "no hay" or "there is none." We´ve seen this one a lot. We learned it from a taxi driver who gave that hand signal to every person trying to hitch a ride on our route. There is also the word falta, which is similar, but different. Falta means that something or someone is missing. We often hear the bus driver yell, "¿Quien falta?" after a pit stop on a long bus journey, just before the bus speeds away, and if we are lucky, we haven´t left anyone behind. Or, like when we first arrived in South America, and we weren´t as astute with numbers in Spanish, we would hand the largest note we had to the person at the cash register and hope for the best. If we had not given them enough dinero to cover the bill, we would hear them say, "Falta cinco pesos." Luckily, we quickly deciphered numbers, as they are essential to almost every interaction here. The way that Bolivians add "ito" or "ita" to the end of words is so endearing that you can´t help but adopt it. On Isla del Sol, we met a little girl who fell in love with Billy and soon learned that she could sweet talk him with the words "una mas" when she wanted him to pick her up over and over again and spin her around in the air. She taught us that even the smallest things are treated with reverance and given a name that reflects this. She had a tiny little plastic baby doll that she called her muñecita (her little doll). We even started to hear the slight accent in Bolivian Spanish, which was confirmed by a women we met from Barcelona. The Bolivians don´t roll their Rs most of the time, and the result is that the Rs sound like Zs. So, Rurrenbaque sounds like Zurzenbaque.
In Bolivia we even began to appreciate South American pop music, which we thought was hideous sounding 3 months ago. There is a song called DA ME MY GASOLINA (give me my gasoline) that we hear everywhere we go, and we have caught ourselves singing along with it. In La Paz we heard the song and asked a local if it was a song about Bolivian disapproval of President Mesa´s controversial deal to export natural gas in 2004. We learned that this song is actually Venezuelan and is more likely about the resentment of US attempts to destabilize Venezuela´s socialist government in order to gain control of their natural gas resources. Little did we know that we´ve been humming the tune of a very anti-American song all this time. Beyond that, there are cheezy love songs (that everyone here knows the words to) and Brazilian sounding dance songs that we hear on the very strange South American reality TV shows that are beginning to grow on us as well.
We have adopted many Spanish expressions that come in handy in all kinds of situations. A lot of them are the same things we say in English.
Igualmente - The same to you
Estas equivocado - You´re wrong
Ya veo - I see
Es una pena - It´s a shame
Nunca sabes - You never know
Muy rico - Yummy food
Por si acaso - Just in case
Nunca digas nunca - Never say never
Some expressions, however, are completely lost in translation from English to Spanish. "Speaking of the devil" is not an expression that is understood in South America. I made that mistake and will not make it again. It was impossible to explain what I meant by speaking of the devil, and I gave it my best shot, then began profusely apologizing for the comment. Billy thinks it is the equivalent of a very offensive insult based on the reaction of the Bolivian woman who was on the receiving end of it.
The day before we planned to leave Bolivia, we looked at the Bolivian stamps in our passports and realized that we had accidentally overstayed our visas by 7 days. YIKES. Upon entry, North Americans are supposed to get 90 day stamps to remain in the country, but we didn´t check our passports when we entered Bolivia in Uyuni, so we wrongly assumed that we had 90 days here. Apparently, this is some sort of scam that the immigration offices are notorious for pulling in order to make a little money off of unsuspecting tourists. In the end, we couldn´t sweet talk our way out of the situation and paid the Bolivian immigration officers $20 in order to exit the country. Not as bad as a story we heard from a Dutch couple who overstayed their visas in Nigeria and spent a night in jail, then had to pay hundreds of dollars after being intimidated by Nigerian immigration officers with very large guns.
The final factor that gave us pause about leaving Bolivia was the safety factor. We read in our guidebook that Peru is fairly dangerous (especically Cusco after dark, and we happened to be arriving in Cusco after dark). We had become so comfortable traveling in Bolivia without any incident that we were worried about tightening up the security to travel in Peru. It turns out that Cusco is Gringoland by day, and we are staying in the charming, artsy barrio of San Blas, which seems to be very safe.
Bolivia was not an easy place to travel, but the experience was well worth the hassles, and once we figured certain things out, we were able to go with the flow much more flexibly. Every country we visit after Bolivia will have big shoes to fill.
20 de Abril - Copacabana & Isla del Sol
Our last few days in Bolivia were a wonderful and relaxing way to end our experience there. After flying into La Paz from Rurre (our first flight since we arrived in South America over 3 months ago), we hopped on a bus to Copacabana. Copacabana is a small town on Lake Titicaca, and it is very sleepy and peaceful. Not the hottest spot north of Havana that Barry Manilow sung about, but just as worthy of notability. Our little hostel had fruit, candy, and mate de coca on offer 24-7, and we´re convinced that one of those three treats helped Jen fend off the altitude sickness this time around. Billy, however, got sick with what seemed like altitude sickness, so we layed low the first day.
They say that there are three rules to follow to avoid altitude sickness--
1) caminata despacio (walk slowly)
2) comer un poco (eat very little)
3) dormir solo (sleep alone ¡wink, wink!)
The predictability, prevention and treatment of altitude sickness is a large grey area for us, but it probably didn´t help that we ascended to 7,100 meters in an unpressurized plane during our flight to La Paz. Who knows? We have a hike on the Inca Trail to look forward to, which involves an ascent that sounds fairly rigorous, so we will be following at least one of the rules above and walk slowly as we make our way to Machu Picchu.
Once we had rested and recovered, we spent a relaxing day walking around Copacabana to see the sights, including a beautiful moorish-looking church in the center of town where Catholics go to have things blessed (mostly water, but during certain times of the year people drive their cars up to the front of the church and have them blessed too). We sat in the sun by the lake, and were reminded of lakes at home. Jen thought of Lake Tahoe and Billy reminisced about Lake Michigan. The temperature is cool at that altitude, but the sun is bright and warm. It is hard to determine whether the sky or the lake is a truer color of blue, both are so vibrant. Lake Titicaca is the world´s highest lake (in Copacabana we were at a similiar elevation to La Paz), and the thin air at that elevation does something magical to the color of the sky and the water. That evening we hiked to the top of Cerro Calvario, one of the hills overlooking Copacabana, to watch the puesta del sol (sunset). When we arrived at the highest point on the hill, we sat down to catch our breath and enjoy the view of the city and Lake Titicaca, which stretches as far as the eye can see. A teenage Bolivian girl ran as fast as she could up the hill behind us to ask us for a pen (boligrafo). She must have seen me carrying my journal with a pen stuck inside. We talked with her for a minute and asked her about her life, but she was anxious to get back down the hill with her new writing instrument and sprinted down the hill as fast as she had appeared. She made us realize that we are lucky to have boligrafos, and that we should use them.
The next day we set out for Isla del Sol, an island about 3 hours away from Copacabana by boat. We hiked from the north end of the island to the south end, where we stayed the night at a family home. The people on the island were so friendly and warm. The island itself was beautiful with barren beaches, lots of farm land, and views of the snowy peaks of the Cordillera Real in the distance. We visited Inca temple ruins at both ends of the islands. Most of all, we enjoyed the slower pace of insulated island life as sheepherders gathered their flocks, donkeys transported loads of water and food up and down the hilly island, and farmers harvested their land. The island was the idyllic Bolivian setting. Visiting the island was like stepping back in time. It actually rained one day on the island of the sun...in fact, it hailed because it was so cold, but it was otherwise arid, warm and sunny and lived up to it´s name.
16 de Abril - The Pampas, Bolivia
After the long trip to Rurre, we were able to make a 3 day tour through the pampas on a boat for the next day. The pampas is a lowland area that has many rivers and swamps, and some jungle cover along the banks of the rivers. It is a great place to see the wildlife of the Amazon basin, as all of these small rivers and tributaries are runoff from the Amazon. There is a very diverse ecosystem of wildlife that we were able to observe first hand, and it was particlarly pleasant as only one other person was along with us on the tour, and she was from Barcelona and spoke perfect English, so we had a free translator.
After a three hour ride down a very bumpy road, we got to the place where we launched the boat from. The boat was a long, thin boat, perfect for cruising down the river and quickly moving in and out of the growth and swamps that connect to the river. The water is very murky, almost the exact color of milk chocolate, so it is impossible to see what is beneath the surface. The first thing we noticed along the way were the amazing variety of birds that soared overhead. We saw tucans and other colorful bird species that you would expect to find in Amazonia, but there were also a lot of very large birds with long necks built perfectly for dive bombing their dinners out of the river. We would see these huge birds of all different colors come barreling out of the sky and then splash into the river, and a few seconds later just a neck would appear out from under the water, sometimes with a fish in its beak.
As we continued down the river the first day, we came across a few different groups of monkeys that were jumping from tree to tree along the river. We pulled into the brush to get closer to one of the groups of squirrel monkeys (they are small and very colorful, with bright yellow tails), and about 5 of the monkeys jumped onto our boat. One of the women we were transporting was eating a banana in the back of the boat, and they all rushed her to get the banana. One of them even jumped on Jen´s head to get the back of the boat. It was fun having all the monekys so close, but we could tell they were used to being fed by tour groups, so they were very eager to come close to see us and get any food they could. We also came across a few packs of Capuchin monkeys, and saw a rarer type of larger red monkey. The red monkeys (we called them howler monkeys) made a sound that is like no other monkey noise we have ever heard. It sounds something like a gale force wind blowing in the distance, and it is very eerie. Every morning we were there, we woke up to the sound of these monkeys and their frightening howls off in the distance, and it always made us happy to be indoors at night. The river is also infested with alligators and caiman (larger alligators), which we would spot from time to time lurking in the brush, or swimming across the river. We even saw one large one with a small deer in its mouth twisting its kill around in the water.
At about 6pm we arrived at our lodge, which was very unlike what we would think of at home as a "lodge." It was merely a structure built on stilts right on the bank of the river, with bunk beds and mosquito nets. There was a bathroom attached also on stilts, but if you wanted to shower you had to put on knee high rubber boots and wade through almost knee deep mud to get to it. It was so hot that a shower was a necessity, so we all took turns with the boots wading through the mud to the one shower, hoping not to encounter any anacondas along the way. After the shower, we got back on the boat and went to a different place along the river that had a sign outside that read "we serve cold beer." It had a lookout of the sunset over the savannah, so was the perfect place to end the day. It was still a strange place to have a bar, as nobody really lives out there, only people on boat tours are on the river, but the guy who owned the place was very proud of his jungle bar. At the exact moment that the sun goes down, the mosquitos come out...like clockwork at exactly 7pm. This is nothing like what mosquitos are like at home, there they come by the millions in a swarm. It is literally impossible to stay outside as you just jump around waving your arms around your head trying to get the buzzing to stop. We had to get back on the boat and get moving or we would have been eaten to death. We jumped back on the boat, and with the sun fully down, headed back to camp. We each had flashlights, and would shine them into the banks of the river looking for alligator and caiman eyes. Their eyes turn bright red when a light is shown directly at them at night, so they are easy to spot. That was when we realized how dangerous the place was, we saw at least 15 pairs of red beady eyes staring at us on the short trip back to the lodge.
We arrived back at the lodge, slept quite poorly as it is very hot, and the jungle is very loud with all kinds of noises at night. The next morning we went Anaconda hunting. This involved a 2 hour trip further down river, where we got off the boat (which was a first into the jungle for us), wearing rubber boots, long pants, long-sleeved shirts to walk through more mud looking for any serpents we could find. It was not a great time for searching for anacondas as it was wet season, they are easier to spot during dry season, so we were not too hopeful we would find one. After about 5 minutes of the journey, the last thing on our minds was anaconodas. It was incredibly hot, and with long clothes we were dripping sweat. Plus, the mosquitos there in the mud are just as bad as they are at night, and we were constantly getting them in our mouths and eyes. When walking behind someone, you could see on their back at least 100 mosquitos nesting. Plus, the mud was hard to walk through, and sometimes we would almost come out of our boots because they would sink in to the mud so far. Needless to say, we could have stepped on a 40 foot anaconda and not even noticed, we just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. This part was not fun, and reminded us of the Vietnam War movie Apocolypse Now, when one of the characters says after a bad experience walking through the jungle, "Dont get off the boat, never get off the boat." That was good advice.
In the afternoon after the anaconda debacle, our guide took us to a spot to swim. Since we had seen so many alligators, and knew there were piranas in the water, we thought the swimming spot was in a different body of water somewhere else. We were wrong about that. They took us up river a bit to a wide open part of the river that they told us was safe because the pink river dolphins swam there, and scared off the alligators. So, like good gringos we jumped in, after our guide did of course, and looked for the dolphins. After a few minutes, these amazing creatures appeared, they look very large when in a small river, but are the size of large dolphins in the ocean, but they have pink or grey skin (depending on their gender or age, I think). They came in packs of two and three, and swam all around us, sometimes jumping, but always coming up for air, and protecting us from all danger, as they are the kings of the water in the Amazon. They were beautiful to watch, and seemed so incredibly out of place in the jungle river.
After our swim, we went pirana fishing. Again, this was about 2 minutes down river from where we were swimming. We just attached raw meat to the end of a hook, and threw the line over the side. It was amazing how quickly we got nibbles on the line. Every time we threw the line in the meat was eaten bit by bit. Finally, our guide got one to bite enough of the line that he was hooked, so he caught him. Piranas are very colorful, and they have what looks like little baby teeth (but they are sharp). It was a little disconcerting that we had just been in the water with so many of them, but apparently they don´t like people, unless they are bleeding.
After fishing we returned to the lodge, and basking on the shore literally 5 feet from our door was an alligator. The guide says he is always there, and there is nothing to be afraid of. So, we got out and walked along the planks of our house, looking right in the eyes this alligator. The thing would barely move, but sometimes he would get startled, and turn around and point his head towards us. He would also make a hissing noise, which did not sound like he was trying to make small talk. The only problem with this alligator being there was that we wanted to shower, and didn´t want to walk through the mud with him right there, capable of coming to get us. The guide said there is nothing to worry about, he would not run and attack, so if we wanted to put on the boots and go to the shower it would be no problem. So, with an alligator lurking, we put on the boots, and wrapped towels and sarongs around us and went to the shower. He never moved an inch towards us, thank God.
The next morning we awoke to two alligators on our shores, but by then were used to them. We watched them as we ate our breakfast, slowly lurking, waiting for something unsuspecting to come by. After breakfast we made necklaces out of palm seeds and other natural materials found in the pampas, which was quite fun, and something we are both wearing still, and then we got on the boat and went back down river towards home. It was on this adventure to the pampas that we realized that we have changed quite a bit since we left home. I don´t think either of us thought that we would walk through mud infested with alligators by ourselves for anything, much less to take a shower, but the whole thing seemed pretty normal to us at the time. The pampas trip was really incredible, and seeing that much amazing animal life in the water, trees, air, and mud was fantastic. If it wasn´t for the mosquitoes, the place would have been perfect.
13 de Abril - La Paz to Rurrenabaque, Bolivia
Our next stop from La Paz was a trip to the jungle (Northern Lowlands), which is not all that far away, but by land it involved traveling over a very steep mountain pass. The number one tourist activity organized from La Paz is a mountain bike trip down the "world`s most dangerous road," but we decided to forgo the bike trip since we had to make the journey on a bus. The bus ride was harrowing enough. The trip down the steep pass is about 5 hours, but the whole journey from La Paz to Rurre (as the locals have dubbed it...short for Rurrenabaque) took about 16 hours. We left La Paz at 11am and arrived in Rurre in the madruga (before sunrise). It was not a tourist bus, it was a local bus, which meant a lot less leg room, and a lot more stops along the way. The trip began with the usual parade of vendors selling food and drinks in La Paz as people were boarding and loading their belongings. The journey started off with the usual chaos. All of that was nothing compared to making our way down the road by bus.
The ascent by bus is up the back side of a large mountain at the rim of La Paz, and climbs to about 13,000 feet. The air is cold, and the mountain is pure rock with some bits of snow. We were right at the cloud line, so we didn't see very much during the first part of the journey. After we hit the summit, the descent was the scary part, and the scenery turned into a tropical jungle with waterfalls and birds everywhere. It is a one lane dirt road, so when another large bus came from the opposite direction, we would be forced to slam on the brakes and then reverse a bit to find a spot wide enough for both buses to pass. The road is cut into the side of the mountain, and when looking out the window, you can literally see nothing but the drop down into the valley. For hours we just descended on this small road that drops off into the valley. You get used to the high adrenaline levels after awhile, but at first it is quite scary. The road also has parts that are washed out all the time by waterfalls, so men are constantly working to build the road back up. The bus also passes under about 6 waterfalls on the trip, and the water literally falls right on top of the bus, where all our luggage sits. Each time we would scramble to close our windows just in time to avoid getting splashed by the water.
After we survived the most dangerous part, we kept on driving through the valley where we would often have to cross rivers in the bus. There are no bridges, so we would just drive through 4 to 6 inches of rushing water, but the driver clearly knew the best places to cross the river, as it was never a problem. We understood why they told us that the bus ride is anywhere between 15 and 24 hours, and can sometimes take 4 days. If there are heavy rains, you can't pass the rivers. So, just as it turned into night, after we stopped for dinner, in the distance we could see the sky lighting up with lightning. It was a spectacular sight, but we hoped that we wouldn´t get trapped in a thunderstorm. Luckily, the storm was always ahead of us, and we arrived in Rurrenabaque at 4am, ahead of schedule.
We walked into town and found a hostal that was open, and slept for a few hours. Then we went into town to try and arrange a river boat trip into the pampas (neo-tropical savannah) the next day. Just as we woke up, a huge tropical thunderstorm came through town, and for 3 hours completely drenched the town. We took refuge in a small computer shop to get our photos burned to disk, and in the shop there was a juke box for music videos. A group of very impoverished Bolivians crowded around the machine as different people put a 1 Boliviano coin in to watch one video. It was very surreal to see and hear the Michael Jackson Thriller video playing in this setting in Bolivia. We noticed a little girl who was standing at the back of the pack, she was completely dirty from head to toe, with no shoes, long ratty hair, and she carried an old basket full of fruit. She was mesmerized by the videos as were all of the other locals. After a bit, the large group got up and left the machine, and she stayed behind. She slowly approached the machine, then quickly retreated. She got up enough courage to go back to the machine, and very carefully selected the video she wanted to see, and reached deep into her pocket and pulled out a coin and inserted it into the slot after much hesitation. As her video started, she watched it with huge eyes, like she was watching something from another planet. She proudly pulled up a chair and sat down to enjoy this luxury. It was probably the saddest moment we have experienced on the trip. Watching this little girl, who had nothing, put her only money into a video machine to transport her to a world that was completely out of her reach, really got to both of us. Her eyes were transfixed to the screen like nothing we have ever seen. She watched a female vocalist with fake nails, make-up and the latest hairstyle singing about some trivial subject set in a clean, white room with luxurious white couches and furs. This is where the poverty of South America meets the so called glory of North America, in a little shop in a small jungle town in Bolivia. We will both never forget that girl, and she epitomizes a lot of our impressions of Bolivia.
11 de Abril La Paz, Bolivia
We are now back in the Bolivian altiplano, which is what they call the highlands. La Paz is the highest capital city in the world, and sits at about 11,500 feet. It is quite a spectacular city, it is basically in the shape of a bowl, and occupies and entire canyon. There are beautiful snow-capped mountains all around outside of the bowl, which give the city a very dramatic backdrop. When driving into the city from above, all you can see is a huge metropolis of adobe type houses (terra cotta color) built into the canyon walls, it almost looks like a giant ant farm with sky scrapers right in the middle making up the financial district. As with any capital city, it is bustling with traffic, and people selling wares on every street corner. The locals call themselves Paceños, and Paceña is also the name of the beer produced here.
The night we arrived in La Paz, we checked into a hostal that has been converted from an old colonial style home, which is beautifully restored and located on the outskirts of the city center. When we went out to get dinner it started to rain with a thunder and lightning storm. We ran through the wet streets to a nearby restaurant and felt right at home in a very chic spot in this city that has a similar population to San Francisco. We sat at a comfy booth near a huge picture window that had a view of the busy city streets and the electrical storm above. The streets in La Paz are teeming with micros (buses that transport Paceños around the city center). These micros are delapidated former US school buses, and many of them are painted in red, white and blue. There are also smaller vans that transport people around the city, and each of the vans is equipped with a guy who sits in the front seat and yells out the van´s destinations.
Our first day here we took it easy as we acclimated to the altitude, and went to the Coca Museum. At this altitude Jen was struggling just to walk at a brisk pace, while old women with loads on their backs run uphill yelling at the top of their lungs. They say that babies born at higher altitudes have larger lung capacity, and we believe it. The Coca Museum was a fascinating little place, dedicated to the history of coca in the Andean region. Coca has been chewed by the Andean people for over 5000 years, and is a very important and distinct part of their culture. It helps with the amount of oxygen needed in the lungs, and is therefore perfect for people working in the altitudes of the region. There are also many rituals involving marriage and communal offerings that center around Coca leaves. Then about 150 years ago the Gringos came and discovered how to take synthetic chemicals and engineer the coca leaves into cocaine. As we all know, even Coca Cola started as a drink made with cocaine (and still uses the extract from the leaves for flavor). Cocaine is clearly an addictive drug that is quite far removed from the coca leaf itself. The story from the introduction of cocaine to the present day is a very disturbing piece of history, and another reason to question the motives of the American government.
Once cocaine was declared addictive and illegal by Americans, then we decided the next step was to erradicate the plant that grows naturally in South America, no matter what cost to the culture of the people here. In fact, none of the chemicals that are essential in actually making cocaine are produced in Bolivia, they are all produced in the States and Europe, yet that does not stop us from prohibiting the growth of coca, not the chemicals that companies like DuPont make. The hypocrisy is astounding, and probably the main source of Andean resentment towards the US.
We still see and feel the turmoil of the coca problem in Bolivia today. The farmers that have been growing the plant for 5,000 years see no reason why they should stop because we take their plant and chemically engineer it into a dangerous drug, where 50% of world consumption occurs in the States. We are blaming them for our problem. That is why there is a constant political struggle here between the Coca farmers and the government (the govt has to acquiesce to American wishes due to the amount of money we give the country to fight the "war on drugs.") It is very common for the coca growers to create road blocks that cripple traffic between major cities, to get the attention of the government. We have, fortunately, not been caught in any of these roadblocks yet, as the coca growers and the government are currently negotiating terms of a new agreement, so there is peace at the moment.
After visiting the museum, we had a lot to think about and more reasons to be embarrased to be American in Bolivia. We used our energy walking around the city. It is just full of people selling everything, and literally thousands of shoe shine guys. They all wear ski masks that cover their entire face, they look like muggers, we are still not sure why they cover their faces like that. We have tried to take pictures of the older Bolivian women, they are so distinct looking with their colorful garb, long braided hair, and fedora hats, but they hate to be in photos. Everytime we try to take a picture of them, they pull their hat over their faces to hide from the camera.
We have visited more witch markets where they sell larger dried llama fetuses (actually not fetuses, but just llama babies), the main squares where the old colonial government buildings are brightly painted and very impressive, to a few of the churches of the 16th century, and to San Pedro prison. We were not allowed in the prision as the US government has intervened and no longer allows tourists to enter, but this might be the oddest place in the world.
The prison is located right downtown across the street from a beautiful plaza, and not only do prisoners live in there, but so do their familes, kids and all. The prison does not have cells, they actually have apartments, that the inmates have to purchase. There is a real estate market, complete with good parts of the prison and the bad neighborhoods, depending on how much money you have to spend on a nice place. The families come and go as they please, and visitors can come in and stay with them if they want. There are restaurants in the prison run by prisoners, the whole thing is very crazy. Many inmates used to run tours for travelers (very safe, never a single problem), but that has stopped due to American influence. It was dissapointing that we could not see this place, as it would have been a really interesting experience. The guards were nice to us, and let us peek into the courtyard, which did not look very different from the plaza that the prison is located across from.
We have found the pace of La Paz to be nice, it is slow and not hurried in any manner. There are small sidewalks though, and a lot of traffic in the streets (so passing peole is quite dangerous), so the slow pace sometimes means we are walking behind the slowest person on the street for quite awhile. This can be quite frustrating, especailly for Billy, who likes to walk as fast as he can everywhere.
Every evening we watch a nightly game of soccer played outside our hostal in the street by the local kids. We are on a hilly, cobblestone street, so it is far from ideal conditions, but we watch them have fun and every once in awhile retrieve an errant ball and kick it back to them. They reply with a "thank you, baby."
6 de Abril - Villa Tunari, Bolivia
One of the main reasons we came to Villa Tunari was to see Inti Wara Yassi, the animal shelter created about 15 years ago by Bolivians to rescue wildlife in hopes of returning them to their natural habitats. The idea of the shelter is to obtain monkeys, pumas, rare birds, and a few other animal species that have been captured and then sold as pets into black markets around South America. The wildlife rescue center is owned and run by Bolivians, but is mostly staffed by foriegn volunteers. To volunteer at the camp, you must dedicate a minimum of 15 days in order to get to know the animal that you are assigned to well enough so that the animal is comfortable with you. Most of the volunteers are European or Australian, and many have been there many months. We went to investigate volunteering oursleves, but decided it was too much of a time commitment, especially after talking to the locals about the wildlife reserve.
We think the idea of the refuge started very nobly, to return captured animals back to natural wildlife, but the reserve has basically turned into a zoo. The people in Villa Tunari think that the whole thing has become a bit of a joke, and the owners of the refuge have bought up 3 hotels, so they are apparently profiting greatly from their venture. In the end, not many of the animals ever leave the refuge, they seem to stay there for the free food, and the 25 acres of jungle provided to them.
We decided to visit just as tourists for the day, and we had a great time. When we walked into the refuge, a Capuchin monkey immediately jumped up on to Jen`s shoulders and remained there comfortably as we walked deeper into the reserve. The monkey had a litle leash around his neck, which means he is new to the refuge, and not totally free to mingle with the wilder monkeys until he is assimilated to his new environment. As we kept on down the path, we saw different types of monkeys everywhere. There were little multi colored squirrel monkeys jumping great distances from tree to tree, and larger all black spider monkeys swinging from branch to branch. We were still timid around them, and did not know if they would bite or be a nuisance, so we walked cautiously.
We traveled up a jungle path to a mirador (look out point), where a different capuchin monkey jumped between us and just lay spread eagle on our shoulders eating maracuya (passionfruit) as we walked up the path. Jen was his favorite, and he looked so happy on her shoulders. Every once in awhile a different monkey appeared from within the trees and scared the little guy, and he would run off and hide, but he would always come back and find us, and run and jump right back on Jen´s shoulders, each time with a different piece of food in his hand.
Ater we hiked around the grounds for about an hour and a half looking at the Parrots, Macaws and other tropical birds they were working with, we went back to the main monkey hangout where the volunteers feed them 3 times a day. We were there about an hour before feeding time, and the monkeys obviously knew the schedule, because they started appearing out of nowhere in great numbers. Then out of the forest came a large spider monkey mother who had its little one month old baby clinging to her stomach and they both went right into Billy`s lap. The mother wanted to cuddle and protect the baby, and would often wrap one arm around Billy´s neck and the other around Jen´s neck just like a mother would do to her two kids. The baby had almost no hair, and looked like a bald alien, but had these huge black eyes that would stare right at us as her mother sat in Billy´s lap. Then the father came over and sat on top of the mother while still on Billy´s lap. The whole family was there. It was really an incredible experience, as their tails, arms and legs wrapped around us for protection and comfort. We understood why the different volunteers became so attached to the monkeys they looked after. The monkeys would even groom us (especially Billy`s hairy legs). When they were eating in our arms, they would put pieces of their food in our mouths...that is how monkeys share. We were really happy with the experience, but happy we did not invest two weeks in the "project."
The next day we went to a place called Guacharos in Parque Nacional Carrasco that is just outside Villa Tunari. We drove past the coca fields, where farmers had coca leaves and rice drying out in the middle of the street, along with other spices and natural goods they grow in the region. We went on a 2 hour walk through the jungle, stopping in a dark, wet cave that was full of sleeping bats (Jen did not like that part at all), and learning about the natural habitat of the area from our guide. We were able to see and hear the birds that the park is named for (the guacharos), which are nocturnal and live in another cave within the park. The best part of the walk was crossing a river on this contraption that was like a caged platform that slid across two wires high over the river, all manuevered by hand.
We really enjoyed Villa Tunari overall. It is a quiet and sleepy little town in the center of Bolivia. It was warm and humid and we appreciated the change of atmospere and climate. We stayed at a very sweet family owned residencia and were treated like part of the family. Every afternoon the owner of the alojamiento greeted us with a cold glass of jugo de maracuya (passionfruit juice). We were sad to leave a town full of such friendly people.
After our hike we boarded another bus for Cochabamba, the third largest city in Bolivia. We are here until tomorrow when we head to La Paz, the capital of Bolivia.
5 de Abril - Getting to Villa Tunari, Bolivia
It is amazing that we are able to write a blog from the jungle of Bolivia. We are in a small town at the frontier of the lowland jungle in Central Bolivia. We left Sucre on an overnight bus to Cochabamba, arrived in Cochabamba at 6am, then hopped on a 4 hour bus to Villa Tunari. We came here to see the lowlands of central Bolivia, to do some hiking in one of the national parks (Guacharos in Parque Nacional Carrasco) with an ecologist guide, to visit a wildlife rescue organization (Inti Wara Yassi) and to possibly arrange a boat tour of the jungle. It turns out that we won`t be able to go on a boat tour of the rivers of the Amazon basin here. The timing doesn´t work out for us, so we will try to do this in the northern part of the Amazon basin instead (in Rurrenabaque) after we visit La Paz.
The bus ride from Cochabamba to Villa Tunari was incredible. Until now, we had only seen the driest parts of Bolivia where water is hard to come by. As we advanced further into the lowlands of Bolivia, we began to see abundant rivers and manmade lakes. There is much more terracing for farming on the hillsides here, and the scenes outside of the bus window reminded us of our memories of remote and tropical South East Asia. It was breathtaking to watch the land transform from the city sprawl of Cochabamba into the tropical mountainous gateway to the lowland jungle of central Bolivia. The weather became more and more humid and warm as we continued the journey. The mountains were covered with green ferns, palms, banana trees, viney rubber trees...very lush and wild vegetation. We started to see butterflies all around and birds in the trees. There were low hanging misty clouds hovering above the purple mountains as the sun rose and we made our descent. This is why we love bus travel, as uncomfortable as it can be, we wouldn´t notice these subtleties if we weren´t traveling by land. We are lucky to have the time to cover so much of South America by land.
We made one stop halfway through our trip to Villa Tunari, which was a checkpoint for drugs and illegal chemicals. Everyone got off of the bus and the gringos were asked to open their backpacks for a quick search while dogs sniffed all the luggage on board the bus. The lowlands are where much of the coca is grown in Bolivia, so there are a few checkpoints on the road between Cochabamba and Santa Cruz. In our Spanish class we learned that the drug laws in Bolivia are basically dictated by the war on drugs that the US has launched. However, very dissimilar to the way the law is enforced in the US, here people caught trafficking cocaine are guilty until proven innocent.
Anyway, back to the bus rides in Bolivia...we wanted to devote some time to stories about some of our bus rides in this country, because they have been entertaining experiences for us. Jen is reminded of her bus travels in Laos when we stray from the gringo trail here. For instance, on the bus from Uyuni to Potosi, we sat across from a family of 4 who occupied 2 seats, and the grandmother was traveling with a kitten in her bag that we could hear meowing throughout the 6 hour trip. That same bus stopped and picked up new passengers along the way who had to stand in the aisle because there were no seats for them. The buses also stop for vendors, who board the bus with everything you can imagine from popsicles to fresh fruit to fried fish with rice and potatoes and all the dressings. The buses that leave on time usually pretend to pull away from the station for about 10 minutes while last minute travelers rush on board. In Cochabamba, we learned that the buses do not leave until they are full, even if they promise to leave at an exact time (en punto). There are no bathrooms on board the buses, so when the bus stops, everyone disembarks and finds a place to squat if there are no baños nearby. Jen had an interesting encounter with a borracho (drunk) while she was doing her business behind a building, so now we go together to find a place to pee. On the overnight bus from Sucre to Cochabamba, we made a stop somewhere at about midnight and we witnessed a very comical situation. There were two harmless borrachos coming from the danceclub nextdoor who were taunting and bothering a neighboring shopkeeper. She had someone inside the shop fill a cup with water and pass it to her through the window so that she could throw water on these two guys. Two buses had stopped at this spot at the same time, so all the pasajeros (passengers) from both buses stood around this spectacle and laughed at the show as the two borrachos got what they deserved.
One last thing about the buses. The luggage is usually tied to the roof of the bus in Bolivia. The bus agencies have designed their ticket offices perfectly for loading the luggage on top of the tall buses. The ticket office (where you check your baggage) is usually on the second floor of the bus terminal and has a backdoor that opens to the parking station for the buses. Once you check your bags, they are weighed, and then they are lowered onto the roof of the bus to a young boy standing on the roof of the bus who ties everything down. This is quite a task for mochillas (backpacks) that weigh as much as ours do (a whopping 17 kilograms).
We have mastered the art of bus travel in South America. We have become quite superstitious about bus travel here, because we have heard many scary stories about the dangers of bus travel (in Bolivia especially). In Potosi, we happened to pick up a local newspaper and read the front page story about a bus accident that occured on the road between Uyuni and Oruro that killed 7 and injured 45 people on board (the story reported that the driver was drunk). A friend of ours who has done a lot of travel in South America wound up in the hospital with a broken back as a result of a bus accident on the windy road between Potosi and Uyuni. So, needless to say, we are usually anxious about the journey ahead as we board these infamous buses, and we have developed a few rituals that we perform without fail in order to calm our nerves. Jen has a lucky outfit that she has worn every time we ride the bus. The lucky outfit consists of a t-shirt that reads, "War. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing." The t-shirt is accompanied by a pair of cotton navy blue draw string pants, which were purchased with comfort in mind, but have become a symbol of protection like a security blanket. In La Paz at the witches market, we purchased an amulet, which we were told would guarantee safe travel if one of us kept it in our pocket at all times during a journey. So, Jen carries this strange glass vile in her pocket when we ride the bus anywhere. Inside this sealed vessel are various flourescent color seeds, oil, and small golden charms in the shape of a bus and other travel related miniature figures. The neck of the vile is tied with rainbow colored llama wool, to make it officially authenticated by the witch who sold it to us. So far so good, and we will continue to carry on with these strange habits as long as we are traveling by bus in South America.
3 de Abril - Sucre, Bolivia
Today is our last day in Sucre, after spending 10 days here taking Spanish classes at the Academia LatinoAmericana de Español. The two of us were placed at different levels. Jen was in the nerdy, snooty class that was far advanced over Billy´s class. She had 3 other girls in her class, and they learned vocabulary and conjugations in past and present tenses in the morning, and then headed out into the streets during the second half of class to practice with the locals. They went to the central market, to El Patio for salteñas (the best breakfast in Sucre), and to get ice cream at the heladeria (Chirimoya...a kind of custard apple...is the best flavor). Billy had his own teacher since nobody else was placed at his level (he was relieved to know that there were people who tested below his level), and did far more basic exercises, like singing along with Bolivian songs and being forced out into the plaza to ask strangers for directions. On his first day of class, he was shown flashcards of famous people and when George Bush was presented he quickly responded with "El diablo." We both feel more comfortable with Spanish, and learned a lot from our classes, especially about Bolivian culture.
Yes, everything we needed to know about Bolivia we learned in Sucre. Spanish classes were extremely helpful because we finally had a chance to ask all of the language related questions we had been storing up for 3 months and in addition we learned a lot about Bolivian culture and customs. We may take another week or two of classes in Cusco and/or in Quito. This same language school has branches in both of those cities, so we could easily pick up where we left off.
Sucre is a very conservative town, it is the Judicial capital of Bolivia, and home to almost 350,000 Catholics. Our teachers told us about how conservative it is here, and how the community looks down upon a lot of dating rituals that we consider very normal in the States. Yesterday when the news that the Pope died hit the town, all the churches rang their bells for 30 minutes, and we saw people in the streets weeping and wailing. Although almost everyone in Sucre is Catholic, they also worship Pachamama (mother earth), who is the Incan God that was worshipped before Colonialism. There is an interesting mix of traditional Catholic practices and traditional Indian practices, and the two seem not to be at odds at all. Both seem to live in harmony. A common practice is to give offerings to Pachamama, because Pachamama gives the community life. This type of ritual is something that Catholics do to show appreciation for their more pagan roots.
After our classes, we spent afternoons exploring the town. Our favorite place is the Campesino Market, about one mile outside the center of town. This is the market where all the people come from the Campos (or small rural towns) to sell their produce and goods. Campesinos literally means country-folk or farmers, specifically referring to the indigenous population in Bolivia. The market is enormous, it takes up an entire section of town with little stands lining the streets with fruits, vegetables, housewares, spices, clothes, electronics, shoes, and anything else you could possibly want. There is a section called the witch (bruja) market where we found the most interesting things from offerings for Pachamama to llama fetuses. The people that work in the fields and that weave the colorful sweaters, ponchos, rugs, and wall hangings that are so common in Bolivia set out offerings to Pachamama every morning. Part of these offerings are bought in the witch markets, and they include dead owls, llama fetuses, certain spices, flowers, and other dead animals that look like road kill. They sell these dead animals hanging upside down from their stands, often bumping their heads into the dead llama fetuses or the owls wings. It is good for a few photographs, but not a place to stay to long. We hear that there are much larger witches markets in La Paz.
After classes we usually went straight to lunch before exploring. Every place in Sucre has a set menu for lunch, usually for $1 per person. Lunches included soup, a choice of entrees, usually spicy chicken and potatoes with rice, and a dessert. Lunch is the most important meal of the day in Bolivia. On Bolivian food...locotos are really spicy peppers that seem to be in all the picante sauces and are even a popular topping on pizza. We have been eating plenty of locoto in llajua (a Quechua word), which is a spicy salsa that is eaten with bread and is the traditional Bolivian accompaniment to lunch.
Yesterday we went to two great museums. One was an anthropological museum of textiles and weaving (displaying and selling work of the indigenous people in this area of Bolivia). The second museum (museo etnografia y folclore) had beautiful masks, clothing and photographs on display...again all from indigenous cultural ceremonies and celebrations (like Carnival, but specific to Bolivia). Apparently Bolivia is one of the only countries in South America that has an indigenous population and they are very proud of their heritage.
There are a couple of famous Bolivian painters that we have come to know here in Sucre. The one artist that is our favorite so far is Mamani Mamani. Apparently, he has made quite an impression on some NYC art collectors and museum curators. His name is unusual, isn´t it? When people get married here, the custom is to take both the wife´s maiden name and the husband´s last name and combine them. Mamani is a very common last name in Bolivia, and this artist happened to marry a woman with the same last name (no relation), so their family name is Mamani Mamani.
We got to know our neighborhood and the people in it quite well. There is a little team of shoe shine boys who hang around our hotel. These kids are no more than 7 years old, and will offer to shine your shoes even if you are wearing flip flops. They are all cute little guys, and run around exactly as you would imagine a shoe shine kid in a third world country. They are dirty from head to toe, carrying just their small box with them, and a hat for collecting money. There were also a few families and older women that sat in the same place every day with their hats out begging for money or food. This is the first city where we have seen a lot of begging since we arrived in South America. Although Sucre is clean and safe, there is a great deal of poverty here, but the people are always nice and never pushy about panhandling. One boy today yelled at us as we passed him, "Gringos, da me plata." which means "Gringos, give me money." He was definitely the exception, not the norm.
Speaking of Gringos...there are 3 theories about the origin of the word gringo. I wondered if the word held a negative connotation, so I asked my Spanish teacher about it and did some research to learn the history of the name we have developed as travelers in Latin America. The first theory is that the word was developed during the Mexican-American War, when the Mexicans overheard American frontiersmen singing a song that contained the words "Green Grow the Lilacs." Green grow or Gringo then became the name for the Americans. The second theory is that during the same war the Mexicans overheard the orders of American troops who were wearing green uniforms. The soldiers would command "Green go!"...which turned into Gringo. This is the theory that my Bolivian teacher believed and told us about. The third theory claims that Gringo comes from the Spanish word for Greek, which is Griego...as in it´s all Greek to me...assuming that Americans were speaking unintelligible gibberish to the Mexicans. The only truth that these 3 theories seem to share is that the word became a name for foreigners in Mexico, Central America and Latin America and is still used today.
Some other interesting things that we learned in our classes...there is a name for the time in between midnight and 6 in the morning. It is madruga. There is even a verb for this late night/early morning time for activity...madrugar. It is also used when referring to waking up before dawn. So it seems that Argentina is not the only country of night owls in South America. Perhaps we will see for ourselves when we get to a big city like La Paz.
On Bolivian music...La cumba is the name for the traditional South American music that we hear everywhere. It has a very recognizable beat and we hear it blaring on car stereos and in dance clubs everywhere in South America.
Not every learning experience in Sucre has been taught in the classroom. We got a lesson in Bolivian Correos (post or mail) by attempting to send a package home from Sucre. We went to the post office and explained that we wanted to ship a package to the US. They informed us that we would need to go to the central market to buy a box and tape, then pack our items in the box and address it with a thick black marker, and finally return to the post office the next day at 10am en punto. The process was very different from going to the post office at home, where you can buy all the shipping supplies and labels, and it can all be accomplished under one roof and in one visit. So, like good little Gringos, we went to the central market with the intention of finding a shipping supplies tienda (store or shop), where we could purchase all the necessary items. Instead, we learned that the only boxes for sale there were old, used boxes that the vendors kept around just in case Gringos like us needed them. So, we bought a box in the best condition possible, and it happened to contain cans of pineapples in a former life. At the end of this boxes career, it will have traveled from Thailand to Bolivia and then on to the US. We found tape at another stall in the central market area, and borrowed a thick, black marker from the front desk of our hostel to address the package to my mom. I had a bit of deja vu at this point, because years ago while traveling in Ireland I sent a suitcase home to my parent´s address, which finally arrived at their doorstep 9 months later. At that point, I had almost forgotten all about the suitcase, and it was like looking through a time capsule when I opened it up and rediscovered all the treasures from my European travels. Anyway, after all that trouble with this package in Sucre, we actually began to see the logic in the process. Why don´t we send packages in used boxes at home in the States? Wouldn´t it be an environmentally friendly way to do things? We could minimize waste and feel good about recycling at the same time. These are lessons that we will take home with us and try to incorporate into our lives at home.
We taped the package up with extreme care and set out the next morning for the post office. When we arrived, we were surprised to find that the package part of the post office was closed. The day before the gentleman working there told us to report back at 10am en punto, so we looked at our watches and discovered that we were a bit early. A post office official came out and lectured us in Spanish that we were wasting our time waiting around the post office this day, since the office was clearly closed. I had faith however, and I really didn´t want to lug this box to the next Bolivian city just to go through the process again at another Oficina de Correos. Soon enough, the kind gentleman we spoke with the day before appeared at the office with his 4 year old daughter in tow. He had made a promise to us, and he kept it, despite the fact that this was his day off. We were so grateful to him and his simpatica little daughter (who played with rubber stamps and shouted destinations at us while she waited for her dad, she was clearly a postal worker in training). Sometimes we are disappointed that things here don´t work the same way that they do at home, and we shake our heads at the lack of centralization, systems, and organization. And then there are the times when we appreciate the differences, especially when someone goes out of their way to help us like this kind Bolivian post office worker did in this situation.
We have really enjoyed spending time in one place and getting to know the town and the people, but are also ready for a different place to explore. Tonight we make our way to Cochabamba.
Our mistake, we have been spelling the word chau the Italian way. The correct spelling of the word for the expression "goodbye, but not forever" in Latin America is CHAU. So, chau for now.
