More South American Stories

We are now is Cusco, Peru, but I am going to try and finish up our Bolivian adventures before I move on to Peru.

While in Bolivia, we went on a four day trip to the Salar de Uyuni, which is a HUGE salt flat area in the southern part of Bolivia.  At one point we could see into both Chile and Argentina.  It is way bigger than Bonneville.

 

 

Here  I am in a chair made of salt at a hotel made of salt.  The walls were made of salt bricks, whitewashed with more salt.  We stayed at a different salt hotel, but it was just like this one.

This is Mike standing next to a pile of - you guessed it - salt.  We toured a plant that turned this salt into table salt.  If you lived here, you would never have to buy salt.  Just break off a piece of ground and put it in the soup.

The whole place looked like this, with the ground broken into hexagonal shapes.  It went on for miles and miles.  We were there in the dry season, and in the rainy season the whole thing is covered in really shallow water.  It is hard to visit then, although warmer.  We were pretty cold.

Here I am, standing on salt.  This is what it looked like for most of the trip. 

Our driver and guide made lunch for us every day while we were out.  They set up a nice table and the food was great. 

 

Our guide, Victor, set up these great photos.  It was really fun to see them.

We also learned that flamingos do not just live in Florida.  We saw so many here at the various lagoons.  The color of the lagoons is determined by the minerals in the water.  It was really cold, and I am surprised these birds did not mind it.

There were literally hundreds and hundreds of them.  You weren't supposed to get too close, and we respected that, but there were a lot of tourists that seemed to be ignoring that very reasonable request. 

Anyway, after we finished the Salar de Uyuni trip, we decided to go to the city of Potosi, which is famous as the source of more silver than anywhere else in the world.  It is said that the Spanish took enough silver from Potosi to build a silver bridge from Potosi to Spain and still have enough silver left over to ship it to Spain over that silver bridge.  While that may be hyperbole, it is true that Bolivian silver propped up the Spanish empire for literally hundreds of years.  Potosi is an interesting city, built at the foot of a big mountain where all the silver was found.  It is still mined today, and there is still some silver, but there is more copper, zinc, tin, and other metals.

We took a tour of one of the mines.  The miners still have a very hard life and the techniques are pretty much the same as they were in the 1500s.  I had mixed feelings about taking the tour, from both a safety standpoint and because I felt sort of intrusive about it.  But after some soul searching and talking to locals, we decided to do it.  The tour begins with a trip to the mining market, where we bought gifts for the miners.  We bought dynamite, coca leaves, and large bottles of water and soft drinks.

This is one of our fellow tourists inside the mine.  It was dark and very close inside.

This is me holding two sticks of dynamite with the wire and blasting cap in my teeth. Mike was way more enthralled with the dynamite than I was, despite the picture.

Another one of us inside the mine.

That is my back as I head deeper into the mine.  It did not seem to be very stable.  I just kept telling myself that there were no reports of any dead tourists.

 These are some of the tools that the miners use.

 

 

 

Here I am with my bandana over my face because of all the toxic dust in the air.

This is the little god-like thing that the miners regard as the deity who rules the underworld where they work.  They believe that Jesus rules the heavens, but "tio" rules below.  They give tribute to him with cigarettes, liquor, and coca leaves.

Here I am with a couple of the miners.  They were taking a break from their incredibly hard labor.

We had to walk over this bridge, and it was scary as hell.  It was a long way down beneath it.

Well, this will be it for a while now.  We are trying to decide at which one of the incredible restaurants we are going to eat tonight.  There is still more to tell about Bolivia, before I can begin to describe the wonderful things about Peru.  I am glad we get to stay pretty much as long as we want to - the boat is safe and sound in a quiet estuary, so we are free to wander on.  Life is good.

"With freedom, books, flowers and the moon, who could not be happy?"  (Oscar Wilde)

My Take on This Amazing Country

Before I launch into more stuff about what we have done here, I thought it might be a good idea to describe some of the interesting things we have discovered about Bolivia and the Bolivians.  It is like no other place we have been.

Firstly, they like their pizza, and it is really good. Even the smallest, most remote place we have been has a pizzeria.  They use those special ovens, and even though I don't like pizza, I can tell it is good by the smell, the look of the crust, and the raptures everyone goes into while eating it.  I can make pizza and it is good because I can make a good crust, but I think they have me beat. 

Second, they have the US beat on displays of public art.  As I read somewhere, and it is true, even the smallest of villages have at least two Blessed Virgins and one Bolivar.  There are statues of everyone who ever did anything noteworthy in Bolivia.  And the buildings have murals painted on them.  I love that.  The parks are filled with fountains and sculpted plants.

Third, there is graffiti everywhere.  It cannot be used as the marker of a bad neighborhood, because it is literally in all different parts of every town.  It is not scary  because if you look closely, it is all boyfriend/girlfriend stuff rather than cryptic gang crap. 

Bolivians are very friendly and always want to know where you are from.  And even though officially the US is not in favor here (we have no embassy, we were kicked out a few years ago along with the DEA) no one has ever treated us badly.  I think speaking Spanish helps, even though I am far from fluent.  However. this trip has been a real immersion experience for us because there are many times when the people we are dealing with speak no English.  We have even decided when we tour a museum or church or whatever, we choose the Spanish language tour instead of waiting for an English one.  Both of us are learning a lot from that, and I don't think we miss much.  When we went on our trip to the Salar de Uyuni (a giant salt flat area that I will tell more about later), although our guide spoke English, we told him we wanted to speak Spanish as much as we could.  So that is what we did. When we ran out of words, we switched to English.  We helped him learn new words as well, so it was a fun exchange.  People are very curious about the US and how things are done there

The shopping is to die for - I almost wish I lived in a cold climate so I could buy some of the gorgeous sweaters and other knit goods out of alpaca, which is the softest wool I have ever felt, even giving cashmere a run for its money.  But all those lovely things would do is sit in my closet, probably getting ruined in some way.  I think we might get some ponchos, though, because once in a great while it gets chilly on night watch.  We were eating dinner one night at a rooftop restaurant- I forget exactly where - and it started to get pretty chilly once the sun went down.  We were dressed for the sunny day, and the waitress brought two ponchos over for us to wear while we were eating.  They were wonderfully warm and comfortable.  They also sell silver jewelry and I am seriously contemplating new earrings and maybe a bracelet.

The mountains are absolutely huge and impressive and almost dwarf the Colorado Rockies.  All the towns are surrounded by volcanos (God forbid these dormant giants should ever decide to wake up, it would be a horrible disaster) that all have mythological stories about them.  In fact, the religious aspect of Bolivia is another wonder.  Everyone is pretty much a devout Catholic, but with overtones of the original polytheistic religions of the indigenous people.  For example, the earth itself is thought to be the Goddess Pachamama.  There are many rituals associated with her, and she is also associated with the Virgin Mary.  It is easy to see why Catholicism works here, the church seems to be very tolerant about this.  Even the shamans, who would be considered witch doctors in the US, always have pictures of Jesus and different saints around their shrines while at the same time they are conducting their various rituals, like burning llama fetuses and other objects in an attempt to bring good fortune or cure various problems.  This is something even upper and middle class Bolivians take very seriously.  They consult these shamans (for lack of a better term, they are called "brujos" here, which means witches, but there are nuances that make it pretty well untranslatable into English) and fortunetellers on a regular basis. 

Another interesting thing here is that there are many, many people here for whom Spanish is a second language.  These people speak Ayamara or Quechua, depending on where you are.  There is also sort of a mixture of Spanish and these languages, which means that you can be chatting along nicely in Spanish only to encounter a word that you can't understand.  And some people, like in the markets, don't speak much Spanish at all.  This country has a HUGE indigenous population that never really culturally assimilated to the Spanish culture, and ever since Evo Morales was elected, there has been a resurgence in the various indigenous groups asserting their unique cultural ways.  There is true diversity here, and although there is still some discrimination against the indigenous population, it is not very evident to an outsider.

Now a word about Evo Morales, who is certainly controversial in the US as he does not like us, is a former coca farmer, and threw the DEA out.  Most people here seem to like him well enough.  The indigenous and poorer people really like him.  The income of the poor has doubled since he came into power, and the percentage of people living in what is considered abject poverty has dropped from 40% to about 17%.  The rich people do not like him very much, as he nationalizes things and did this deal where it is now limited how much land one entity can own, making things better for small farmers but delivering a big hit to agribusiness.  There is no real freedom of the press here,  but then that is pretty much the norm all through South America.  He did some fancy footwork to allow himself to run for a third term, and I think he suppresses dissent, again something not uncommon in this neck of the woods.  He is planning to do something with gasoline (Bolivia is working on dealing effectively with its oil resources) that I do not completely understand, but people are not happy about it as it is believed the price of gas may rise.  But having said all that, he seems to be well liked, even though he makes incredibly stupid statements that he later has to take back.  So I guess only time will tell on that one.

About coca.  Coca growing is a big business here, and not just for the drug cartels to make into cocaine and sell to Europe and the US.  People use it here for many things.  Coca tea is for sale in any grocery store.  It is supposed to aid digestion, help with the altitude, and other things.  It does not make you high in any way - actually it is soothing, like any other herbal tea, like chamomile.  People do chew the leaves (Not exactly chew, more like sucking a huge wad in one side of your face), especially people who do hard physical labor.  There is no stigma at all to it.  The leaves are sold openly in the markets.  When we visited a working mine in Potosi (again, more later on that) we were expected to buy bags of coca leaves in the miner's market as gifts for allowing us to gawk at them while they worked.  You can't get high off the leaves, and all I felt (yes, of course I tried it) was that my cheek got numb on that side.  I did not notice any help with the breathlessness effect of the altitude.  I had more effects from chewing betelnut in Taiwan.  But it is a way of life here, and I have not noticed any coke freaks hanging around causing trouble.  In fact, we have been approached way less by drug dealers here than in any other place where we have spent time.  (Mike's pony tail and beard seem to attract them).  I haven't even seen too many drunks, even though these people are not afraid of their alcohol.  The Bolivians believe in any excuse for a party, and a party involves lots of drinking.  As a side note, Bolivian beer is very good.

So that is all for today.  I have been sitting in my hotel room (while Mike takes a midday nap) because it was pouring rain outside.  But since the rain has stopped and the sun is coming out, it is time to get outside and explore more of the wonderful city of Sucre.

"Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet."  (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

 

Amazing Bolivia

When we told people at the marina we were going to spend a month in Bolivia, one man said he couldn't imagine what we would find to do in Bolivia for an entire month.  Well, I can state with confidence that we could spend a year here and not get bored for one second.  Let's see, where to begin?

We began by going to visit some pre-Incan ruins between La Paz and Lake Titicaca, known as Tihuanaco.  They are mostly made of mud,  but there is some stonework that is simply amazing.  I can't see how they managed to fit these stones together so tightly.  I have pictures, but need to get on the other computer to post them, so that will have to wait.  No one knows how old these ruins are, or even for sure what culture built them. 

Next, we took a bike ride down what is described as the World's Most Dangerous Road, so named for the HUGE amounts of accidents that have occurred on it.  Since a new road has been built, it is not quite as dangerous as there are few motor vehicles on it.  It is mostly for bikes now, but it is still not for the faint of heart.  You start at about 15,400 feet and went down 64 kilometers, dropping 11,000 feet.  Luckily we stopped a lot to keep the group together, or I would likely have killed myself.  It was the best bike I have ever ridden, however.  It was not technically difficult, but you had to be real careful of our speed.  Not only that, but the edge is a sheer drop off.  I just tried not to look at that part.  I did not fall down once, so I was pretty proud of myself.  It was freezing cold at the top, so I was bundled up as though I was in Wisconsin in the depths of winter.  It got a bit warmer as we went down the mountain, so it was comfortable by the time we ended the ride.  We all had a beer, and we got to tour an animal sanctuary.  The monkeys were pretty cute, but you had to watch that they did not climb on you and try to get into your pockets.  Then a van took us back up into La Paz.  It was so much fun - and not all that difficult except for the speed management issues.

After that, we went on what is pretty much the most exciting thing I have ever done.  We took a six day trip from the high Andes mountains into the Bolivian Amazon basin.  We began with three days of biking.  It was the same company we went on the other bike trip with, and we got the same guide.  The biking was much more difficult than the other trip, and not just because there was plenty of uphill riding.  We were on a road, but it was a rough dirt road strewn with rocks and lots of hairpin turns as it was a switchback.  The first day I did pretty well, although always bringing up the rear.  There were ten of us - two Canadian guys (Newfies, to be exact, the best kind of Canadians), two New Zealanders, four Belgians, and me and Mike.  Our guide is Australian, and the other guides were Bolivian.  Between all of us, there were five languages spoken.  It was a great group.  Mike and I were old enough to be the parents of all the other riders, but it did not matter.  We all got along great, and most of us are now Facebook friends.  Our guide is going to meet us in Ecuador in December and will sail with us to Panama.  We met two others later on in Potosi and had a great lunch.  Anyway, the first night we stayed in a nice hotel after a hard day of bike riding. 

The next day it was back on the bikes for more thrills and excitement.  I was doing really well until a motorcycle came tearing around a curve and hit me.  (Clipped, to be exact.)  It knocked me off my bike and right into a rock cliff - which was good because if he had knocked me to the other side of the road I would be dead now at the far bottom of something I couldn't even see down.  I was not hurt, just sort of banged up, so I quickly jumped back on the bike before anyone noticed there was anything wrong.  Unfortunately I forgot to see if the bike was still working - and immediately did a header right over the handlebars because the back brake was no longer working.  I landed flat on my face.  All I could think was that I had broken my teeth and would be spending the next eight months in and out of the dentist's office.   By that time, Mike and one of the guides had come to my aid.  Miraculously, my teeth were all intact.  I did bruise my chin and ended up with a scrape on my upper lip that looked like a Hitler mustache.  I rode in the van for a bit until we broke for lunch, and then my bike was fixed and I was on my way once again.  That night we stayed at a VERY primitive hotel with straw mattresses and the dirtiest  bathroom I have dealt with in a long time.  But we did get to clean off the road dirt in a waterfall.  I slept like the dead on my surprisingly comfortable straw mattress. 

So after eating breakfast we were off again for another day of biking.  I was doing fine until for some reason I am still not clear on, I did another header over the handlebars.  I landed on my head this time, and all I have to say is thank God for inventing bike helmets.  I wanted to keep riding, but I knew I was too beat up after the previous day and would likely keep falling and thereby upsetting all my fellow riders.  So I rode in the van with one guy who was feeling sick and another guy with a bad shoulder.  That night we stayed in a slightly better hotel in a tiny little town at the river where we planned to catch our boat for the rest of the trip.  The town was like a wild west town, and there were no other tourists.  We got to sing karaoke with the locals, and I made some new friends - these lovely local girls who showed up later and tried to convince us to stay for the weekend, when there would be a big party in town.  It sounded like fun, but we did have to be on our way.

The next day we began our boat trip.  The boat was a big dug out long boat.  One of the new river guides stood in the very front giving instructions to the man in the back who was handling the outboard.  It was sort of like white water rafting, with the boatmen steering around sticking up rocks and shallow spots.  We got some good video of the action.  The area we went through was a gold mining area, which was interesting to look at although it made the river muddy because it was all sluice mining.  There were  big operations with bulldozers and all, as well as little operations with one guy up to his waist in water with a homemade sluice.  We camped out - I had forgotten how much I like sleeping outside.  We did this for three days.  On the second day we hiked up to a waterfall and swimming area again and although the water was cold it was wonderfully refreshing and fun.  We had a cook along and she made wonderful meals for us, some of which were eaten as we motored along on the boat.  I really enjoy being on a boat when all I have to do is ride and not have any responsibility for anything.  We had a campfire each night and roasted marshmallows and  to know each other better.  On the last day we ended up in a town called Rurrenabaque, and spend the night at a nice comfortable hostel.  We all enjoyed beer, pizza, and pool and then said good bye - that was hard as we all got to know each other well and got along great.  Mike and I stayed an extra day, and then flew back to La Paz.  Everyone else left the day before, but we wanted to explore the little town a bit.  This had to be one of the best things I have ever done.  (The Hitler mustache lasted for about a week and a half.  It is gone now, as is the chin bruise.  My record for exciting falls without getting seriously hurt remains intact.) 

Anyway, I have done enough typing for one night.  I have more adventures to tell about, and some great pictures.  Right now we are in the city of Sucre, and there are some great restaurants, one of which we will try out tonight.  So - more to come!!!

"Help someone when they are in trouble and they will remember you the next time they are in trouble."  (From the wall at Oliver's Pub in La Paz, Bolivia)