The Blaus - South America and Europe

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."

posted by The Blaus @ 4:43 PM