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March 31, 1999
High Plains Backpacker: La Paz journal, Day 3
Hi everyone. Here's the latest installment of my journal High Plains Backpacker, which covers my September 98 trip to Peru and Bolivia.
This episode: La Paz, Day 3.
And please excuse any typos or minor errors, especially with my Spanish. I'm still editing the text.
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Thursday, Sept 10
La Paz: March of the Cocaleros
Susanne and I both had a hard time sleeping last night thanks to the infections we developed back in Cusco. My sinus infection seemed to be improving, but Susanne's cold still hadn't bottomed out yet. Because there was a good chance our Tiwanaku tour would be cancelled again due to the protester's roadblock of the main road, I let Susanne sleep in while I checked with the hotel front desk. Before I could even get the question out of my mouth, one of the women behind the counter shook her head and said, "I am so sorry... The protesters are still blockading the road to Tiwanaku, so there will be no tour today. I am sure you will be able to go tomorrow - the protests never last this long." If they've never lasted this long, I thought to myself, it seems like they're already breaking new ground. I had a bad feeling tomorrow wouldn't be much better.
Katrina, the freckly faced desk attendent, was also working that morning so I asked her if she could help me out with a trip to the pharmacist. "Your friend isn't feeling well this morning?" she asked. "No problem. Tell me her symptoms and I will write them down. My father is a pharmacist, you know." Katrina then proceeded to walk me through a medical consult: "Is she coughing a lot? Is the cough coming from her throat or from her lungs? How long has she had the cough?" And so on, as she scribbled notes in Spanish on a slip of paper. "Take this to a pharmacy and they will get you what you need. He will probably give you some cough syrup and some Contac."
Armed with the medical confidence supplied by a Bolivian pharmacist's daughter, I walked down the road to the local pharmacy. As I walked in I noticed a man sweeping the floor, with several chairs turned upside down on a counter. The man gave me a stern look and pointed at the clock on the wall; I concluded he wouldn't open until 9 o'clock. That gave me 45 minutes to walk down to a cafe and get some breakfast. The Lonely Planet recommended the Cafe Torino, about a block down the hill from Plaza Murillo. Cafe Torino was a spacious split-level cafe adjacent to the Hotel Torino and its ritzy restaurant. I ate the resident Desayuno Americano, a platter of toast, eggs, coffee and orange juice, as I was serenaded by a radio playing classic 80s pop: The Bangles, Journey, Culture Club. Before I even finished my coffee I knew that the squealing voice of Steve Perry singing "Don't Stop Believing" would haunt me for the rest of the morning.
After cashing a traveler's cheque I stopped at a bakery for some croissants before returning to the hotel. Considering the mediocre experience we had at the Republica's "restaurant" I figured Susanne would appreciate the fresh bread. I stocked up on half a dozen small croissants for three bolivianos. It was now around 9:30am, so that meant I could go to the pharmacy and pick up the cold supplies for Susanne. The old pharmacist who had shooed me off earlier now welcomed me with a bright "Buenos dias, se?or... Como esta?" I handed him the slip of paper that Katrina had written, hoping the note would make him realize I spoke practically no Spanish. Nevertheless he immediately started to quiz me about her symptoms in Spanish. "Uhh.... Yo hablo Espanol solamente poquito," I stuttered, hoping that made sense. I pointed to my throat and made a gutteral noise - a feigned phlegmatic spasm that I hoped would convey some meaning. "Ok, ok," the pharmacist said, thumbing through the drugs on his wall. I continued my theater of the afflicted routine with some wheezes and a sinusoidal snort, to which the man gave me another "Ok," as if he needed no more demonstrations in order to make his diagnosis. Eventually he returned to the counter and handed me a bottle of purple cough syrup and several packets of Contac cold medicine, just as Katrina had originally suggested.
By the time I returned to Hostal Republica Susanne was up and around, sitting by the bed and reviewing her journal. I handed her the pills and the cough medicine, which she swallowed immediately. My stomach twisted as I watched her consume the purple liquid. "Ugh," I said with a grimace, "I don't know how you can drink that stuff so easily." "It tastes pretty good," she replied, licking the spoon clean. The sight of her drinking the syrup put an awful taste in my mouth, so I quickly suggested we get some coffee at the hotel restaurant.
Our bag of croissants sprawled on the table, we enjoyed our coffees as a group of British backpackers settled in for breakfast. Wondering about last night's ceremony at Plaza Murillo, we asked them if they knew if any British VIP was in town. "What'd they look like?" one of them asked. "Middle age, grey hair, overweight," I started to reply. "Well, then," another one of them cut me off, smiling. "Whoever it was, they definitely sound like one of ours."
After nibbling on several of the croissants Susanne and I left the hotel, heading for Plaza Murillo. As we approached the plaza we heard a series of police whistles accompanied by clapping. Down the hill to our left, we saw a procession of some sort making its way down Avenida Potosi, surrounded by a large crowd of pedestrians. Excited about the possibility of witnessing a protest march, I ran down the hill, holding my camera in my right hand to avoid having it swing arbitrarily around my neck. As we reached the crowd we realized it was a student protest - not college students, mind you, but primary and secondary students. Hundreds of uniformed children marched silently down the avenida. Many of them were holding elaborate standards representing their schools, while others carried simple cardboard placards. From what I could figure out, it appeared they were protesting the amount of federal funds (or lack thereof) earmarked for education. Based on this assumption, Susanne and I were both rather surprised: "Can you imagine US students striking for a day to protest the quality of their education?" Susanne remarked. Several well-armed policemen separated the crowd from the protesters, lining the stree with wooden barricades. The whole scene struck me as unusual. Like it or not, "free expression" wasn't the first thing that came to mind when I thought of Bolivia. The recent end of years of military repression had turned the circumstances around, I guess.
After the tail end of the procession passed us Susanne and I returned uphill, arriving at Plaza Murillo before continuing down Calle Commercio's pedestrian mall. Commercio once again was teeming with shoppers, though today it seemed there were many more soldiers than there had been the evening before. In fact, the soldiers were all standing around with large metal barricades stacked up at each street corner. Susanne and I looked at each other: what was going on? Neither of us could tell if these security forces were here under extraordinary circumstances or if this was de rigeur for downtown La Paz. Certainly the local civilians weren't going to give up the secret easily. Apart from the two of us, every other pedestrian ignored the security squads as if they were a pair of street cops noshing on a box of donuts.
I was really struck by this nonchalance, this lack of concern towards the security police. In so many western countries, especially the United States, this show of force would be seen only in an emergency, such as a riot or a terrorist threat. Even in Israel, where armed security forces are common throughout Jerusalem's Old City, there's a palpable tension in the air, a sense of paranoia in which any civilian could actually be a terrorist. But here in La Paz it was different. No one seemed even slightly phased by the heavy police presence. To the uninitiated, the streets of La Paz seemed like martial law, but to the locals it was just the way things were.
As we approached the Avenida Santa Cruz section of the Prado, more police officers were standing around with barricades, though this time the barricades were actually in place to redirect traffic. Perhaps the student protesters had looped around the downtown area and were returning to Plaza San Francisco. Then again, perhaps it was an entirely different protest. Either way we'd soon find out. Once we reached Avenida Santa Cruz it became readily apparent what was going on: hundreds of campesinas and campesinos were staging a sit-in along the Prado! I almost couldn't believe my eyes - the biggest thoroughfare in La Paz was completely shut down by the protest. Susanne and I immediately removed our lens caps from our cameras. "If we get separated I'll meet you in front of the church," I said to Susanne. It was time to play photojournalist.
There were several thousand people scattered along the Prado and Plaza San Francisco. On the avenida itself, small groups of Aymara women squatted on the pavement, chatting with each other, weaving cloth, chewing coca leaves. It was as if a large village market had been magically transported from the countryside into the center of La Paz. Many of the women held checkered rainbow flags - the symbol of the Altiplano's indigenous peoples. Aymara men soon arrived, dumping baskets of dried coca leaves onto the pavement. These were the cocaleros - Bolivia's traditional coca farmers. Coca farming is a sensitive subject in Bolivia, for coca is cultivated for legal, personal use as well as for illegal processing into cocaine. In some parts of Bolivia, like the Yungas region, most of the coca is grown for legal purposes. But in other districts, like Chapare, the vast majority of coca goes into the cocaine trade. These cocaleros had marched hundreds of miles from Chapare to protest President Banzer's coca eradication policies. Because American aid to Bolivia is pegged to Banzer's destruction of illegal coca crops, Banzer has aggressively complied with these conditions.
To the cocaleros, most of whom are dreadfully poor and uneducated, eradication has lead to more suffering. In many cases Bolivian anti-drug raids have destroyed coca crops (and any other crops nearby) without offering any kind of crop replacement assistance to the farmers, leaving the cocaleros destitute. In other cases, crop replacement policies have completely flopped. One reason farmers cultivate coca is because it isn't perishable: once you dry out the leaves they're good for months. However, if you want to farm bananas or other perishable fruit, you've got a limited amount of time in which you can bring your produce to market. Unfortunately, many cocaleros are so poor they can't afford anything more than a donkey cart, so transporting an entire fruit crop to market before it spoils is next to impossible. On top of all this, the cocaleros charge that Banzer's anti-drug squads have used force as a tactic against many farmers, killing some cocaleros in the process. So while the US and the Banzer government view coca eradication as a necessary step in the war on drugs, the Aymara cocaleros see it as a violent attack on the only way of life they've ever known. To date there has been no solution that has proved satisfactory to both sides.
I walked the length of the avenida, observing the campesinas as they settled into their groups along the asphalt. On several occasions I noticed people selling food, drinks and newspapers to the campesinas as if they were hocking beer and peanuts at a baseball game. Apparently the campesinas weren't planning to go away anytime soon. Beyond the Prado, along the upper part of Plaza San Francisco, hundreds of protestors were hanging off a marble wall, unfurling Aymara flags and large placards reading "Banzer=DEATH," "Banzer Stands for the Yankees," "Police Forces: Leave Chapare!" and (literally) "Yanqui Go Home!" It was a different crowd here, largely younger and dressed in jeans instead of traditional Aymara costumes. Perhaps they were students supporting the cocaleros.
I soon spotted Susanne, who was on the plaza just across from the Iglesia San Francisco. Beyond her I could see a column of protesters marching up the Prado, shouting slogans, waving more flags and placards. I got Susanne's attention to let her know where I was before darting into the march, walking backwards to get some pictures. Susanne motioned to me as if to say, "Is that a good idea?," to which I responded with my own wave of the hand to reply, "Don't worry about it." I was positive that I would be fine this time, but Susanne certainly had good reason to worry: less than 20 years earlier at this same spot, Bolivian military helicopters opened fire on a protest, killing hundreds of demonstrators. But things were different now, I hoped; today would not be the day I became collateral damage caught in an accidental crossfire.
I continued to snap pictures of the marchistas. Men held their flags high when they saw I had a camera. I probably could have spent all afternoon here but realized that five rolls of protestor photos would quickly begin to look alike. As I left the march one of the campesinos handed me a leaflet outlining their cause and their demands. On the back of the leaflet I found a series of slogans highlighted in bold, uppercase letters:
LA LUCHA ES DE TODOS! FUERA TROPAS DEL CHAPARE! DIOLOGO CON LOS COCALEROS S?, BRUTALIDAD POLICIAL NO!
MARCHISTAS POR LA VIDA, COCA, SOBERANIA, TIERRA Y TERRITORIO
THE FIGHT IS FOR ALL OF US! GO AWAY, THE TROOPS IN CHAPARE! DIOLOGUE WITH THE COCALEROS YES, POLICE BRUTALITY NO!
MARCHISTAS FOR LIFE, COCA, SOVEREIGNTY, EARTH AND TERRITORY
I soon returned to Susanne's spot along the Prado to see what she wanted to do next. "Let's walk up by the protestors along the marble wall then head back towards the Witches' Market," she suggested. We crossed the plaza and arrived at the upper end of the hill, where the well-dressed college students were staging their support protest. Susanne and I both began to take pictures as one of the students yelled over to us, "Norte Americanos?"
"S?," I replied, "Estados Unidos."
"USA!" he yelled back, smiling and waving us over to take more pictures. The next thing we knew, several of them came up to us and were encouraging us to join them for a group photo. Susanne and I looked at each other grimly, wondering what we were getting ourselves into. "Ah, so what," I said. "I'm sure the DEA won't mind." As we handed them our cameras, the protesters offered us some props - for me, a campesino flag and a large handful of coca leaves. Susanne, to her chagrin, was draped in a large, green plastic coca leaf. Susanne stared back at me, giving me a "what the hell are we getting ourselves into?" look. I could only laugh as she donned the coca costume. Before we could even think of changing our minds they took a group photo of us, surrounded by dozens of protestors holding up signs proclaiming "Todos Somos Cocaleros" - "We Are All Cocaleros." The crowd of protesters roared in approval. One of them handed the camera back to Susanne so she could get a closeup of me with the checkered rainbow flag of the Aymara and the handful of coca. As Susanne removed her coca costume I offered to return the coca to one of the students. "No, no," he said, shaking his head. "Your souvenir." He folded a small Todos Somos Cocaleros sign into an envelope and handed it to me. "Gracias," I replied, stuffing the stash into the paper.
"Remind me to get rid of this before we return to DC," I said to Susanne as we parted company with the protestors. We both shook our heads and laughed.
Posted by acarvin at 03:25 PM | TrackBack
High Plains Backpacker: Last Day in La Paz (day 4)
Hi everyone. Here's the final installment of my journal High Plains Backpacker, which covers my September 98 trip to Peru and Bolivia.
This episode: Last Day in La Paz (Day 4).
And please excuse any typos or minor errors, especially with my Spanish. I'm still editing the text.
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Posted by acarvin at 03:08 PM | TrackBack
March 30, 1999
High Plains Backpacker: La Paz Day 2
Hi everyone. Here's the latest installment of my journal High Plains Backpacker, which covers my September 98 trip to Peru and Bolivia.
This episode: La Paz, Day 2
And please excuse any typos or minor errors, especially with my Spanish. I'm still editing the text.
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Wednesday, September 9
La Paz: In Search of Pachamama and a Hearty Lasagna
I awoke just after 7am with a bit of a headache. Both Susanne and I had been plagued by a nasty head cold since our departure from Machu Picchu; since Copacabana I had wondered whether it had grown into a full blown sinus infection. As far as I could tell the worst was past for me; I was no longer waking up in the middle of the night to blow my nose every other hour. Susanne's cold, on the other hand, seemed to be running a few days behind mine. Hopefully she wouldn't have too many problems, especially now that we were in the warmer and cozier surroundings of La Paz.
Susanne and I got breakfast at the Hostal Republica's small restaurant. They had a desayuno Americano for 15 bolivianos that included both ham and sausage - a little more arterial poison than I could handle. Instead I chose the desayuno Continentale, a 10 boliviano plate of stale toast, butter cookies, coffee and pineapple juice. The small cookies went well with the rich coffee but the toast was by far the worst I've ever had - I could see they had two dozen pieces of toast in the oven at once, dessicating slowly at a low heat. "Tomorrow let's eat somewhere else," I said to Susanne, thumping the petrified toast on the table.
We didn't have much of an agenda for the day apart from walking around and getting to know the city. I suggested we start off the morning with a stroll to Plaza San Francisco, the home of the exquisite Iglesia de San Francisco. After leaving the hotel and walking a half a block down Illimani we turned left to walk downhill along Calle Loayza before heading right along Avenida Potosi. Calle Loayza makes a steep drop towards the Prado, La Paz's main commercial thoroughfare, three blocks away. There's a 50-foot drop between Illimani and Potosi that forced city planners to incorporate a set of stone steps down the sidewalk, just to stop people from sliding down the embankment. I could see why so many people have compared the streets of La Paz to San Francisco, California - San Francisco at an altitude of the Rocky Mountains, perhaps.
As we turned right on Potosi the avenida flattened out into what appeared to be a banking district. Small casa de cambios occupied the space between large banks with armed guards standing out front. We followed Potosi for five or six blocks until it terminated at a busy intersection of the Avenida Mariscal Santa Cruz - one of the many individually named sections of the Prado. After dashing across the avenida and dodging the morning rush hour traffic we found ourselves at the edge of Plaza San Francisco, the home of the oldest major church in La Paz, the Iglesia de San Francisco. The church was founded in 1548 by Fray Francisco de los Angeles and was built soon after. Sixty years later a snowstorm collapsed the original structure; over a century past before the iglesia was rebuilt in the mid-1700s.
Both the church and the plaza were constructed out of brownish grey stone blocks: earthy clay hues that would have rendered the entire image as a sepia- toned daguerrotype if it weren't for the dozens of brightly dressed campesinas occupying the plaza benches. Several hundred people in all mulled about the plaza, reading newspapers, gossiping, getting shoeshines, selling trinkets. As Susanne and I entered the plaza an older gentleman approached us and held out his hand just below my face. "Trilobite se?or?" he started to ask as I politely waved him away. "Did he say trilobite?" I asked Susanne. "I think so," she replied. "It looked like a fossil." The sedimentary rocks of Bolivia are well known to brim with bounteous paleontological treasures, but it struck me as odd that the local touts would hawk fossils as readily as the local street children offered shoeshines.
Susanne and I walked around the plaza, people-watching and taking pictures as unobtrusively as possible. A trio of soldiers stood outside the church entrance; I tried to get a photograph of them with my telephoto but one of them spotted me and gave me the evil eye. We worked our way to the church itself, curious to see if it was open for visitors. Indeed, I spotted several families going in and out its massive wooden doors, so we put away our cameras into our daypacks and entered the church. The interior was decorated in the typical Andean colonial style, not unlike the cathedral in Cusco. One different I did note, though, was the plentiful light that beamed through high stained glass windows. While Cusco's cathedral was dark and sombre, Iglesia del San Francisco glowed from the rays piercing through the portals. Twenty or so parishoners sat along its aisles and prayed; several campesinas kneeled. Susanne and I paced the perimeter of the interior, making our best effort not to interfere with the parishoners. Along the church walls stood large altars, each manned by a resident saint that appeared to have been sculpted in wax. Perhaps they were plastic or frescoed plaster - I couldn't tell without more light. Near the far end of the church I noticed one statue, San Francisco de Los Angeles himself, who possessed a neon halo radiating a bright day-glo blue. "Neon inside a church?" I whispered to Susanne. "I haven't seen religious neon since that streetside mission in southside Chicago." Actually, the more I stared at the luminescent saint the more I liked it. Perhaps they're on to something here.
Returning to the bright, busy scene along Plaza San Francisco, Susanne and I walked towards the street along the left side of the church. We were at the bottom of Calle Sagarnaga, the steep cobblestone road known as Artesenia Alley because of its abundant folk crafts shops. Sagarnaga was the lifeblood of the La Paz shopping scene, at least as far as visitors are concerned: sweaters, leather goods, wall hangings, silver, pottery, even musical instruments could all be found within a few steps of each other. I imagined we'd spend a good part of the next few days right here, shopping for all those knick-knacks and curios we'd managed to neglect buying in Peru or Copacabana. Even if we didn't actually purchase much along Sagarnaga, I quickly felt as if I could spend hours wandering the shops and stalls, watching campesinas haggle with itinerant visitors day and night.
While there were ample opportunities to keep busy here in this artists' colony, our next stop would be a market with a much darker side. Somewhere not far from here we would find this place which goes by many names, including El Mercado de Hechiceria (the Market of Witchcraft) and El Mercado de los Brujos (the Market of Wizards). To local Aymara campesinos, though, it is simply known as Laki'asina Catu: the Witches' Market. For years the Aymara have come to the Witches' Market to purchase potions, powders, talismans and other magical items that carry weight in the spiritual world. Whether you were looking to improve your fertility or to place a curse on your mother-in-law, you'd probably be able to find the right mystical tool at the Witches' Market. Everything I've ever read about the market has always highlighted one particular item - preserved llama fetuses. Llama sacrifice has been an important element in Aymara ritual for centuries, especially when it comes to consecrating a new home; even today you'll find many businesses sacrificing a llama to commemorate a new office building. Yet the average Aymara family cannot afford to buy a full-grown llama, so over time the campesinos adopted the practice of offering llama fetuses as a sacrificial substitute. Dead animals, potions, curses: the Witches' Market sounded like a throwback to a medieval Andean epic. I was eager to find out whether its reputation was a well-earned spookfest or simple tradition played up for the turistas.
Susanne and I walked the short distance up Sagarnaga before taking a right on the next street. I was under the impression that the Witches' Market would be somewhere near the end of this block, yet all we found here were several wood shops, each with stacks of freshly varnished desks and chairs piled along the curbside. I pulled out my Lonely Planet and flipped through its pages to find the map of central La Paz. After staring at the map for a moment I realized we were still one block below the market. "We should have continued up Sagarnaga for another block before making that right," I said to Susanne. "I assume if we take a left on the next street and head uphill for one more block we should be able to find it." We passed two or three more wood shops before reaching Calle Santa Cruz (not to be confused with Avenida Mariscal Santa Cruz, which is probably one of the many good reasons why they refer to that avenida as the Prado instead). Santa Cruz was an archetypal La Paz street, a crowded thoroughfare of shops and market stalls sloping high up a steep hill. Susanne and I both took our time mounting the hill; even though we've probably adapted to the altitude by now, we saw no reason to kill ourselves this early in the day. Both sides of the calle were lined with sporting goods shops - trophies, soccer cleats, game balls and uniforms. I had mentioned to Susanne several weeks earlier I wanted to get a Bolivian soccer shirt in La Paz. It looked like we'd found the place to buy it. "Let's come back here later and find that shirt," I said.
We soon reached the corner of Santa Cruz and Linares, the intersection that marked one end of the Witches' Market. Calle Linares was a long, rolling hill covered in rounded cobblestone - the kind of pedestrian-unfriendly cobblestone I've tripped over on so many occasions, from the winding passageways off Edinburgh's Royal Mile to the alleyways of Barcelona's Barri Gotic. Further up the road I could hear music playing from a charango shop. Nothing seemed really out of the ordinary until I saw several market stalls lined along the left side of the street. Young campesinas stood guard over their alchemist's paradise of magical goods - statues of the goddess Pachamama; plates of powdered sulfur, iron ore and assorted mineral dusts; tiny glass bottles of mysterious tinctures, solutions, and other elixers of toil and trouble. There was no mistaking it; we had found el Mercado de Hecheceria. The Witches' Market was much smaller than I expected: hardly a market at all in the typical crowded-with-shoppers sense, in fact. There were no more than three or four women selling things here, and at that particular moment we were the only customers in sight. Then again, it's not every day that the average campesino has to build a house or alleviate a curse. The Witches' Market was an open-air specialty shop. You come here when you need to.
We, of course, didn't exactly need to be here, but the idea of a real-life witches' market was too intriguing to pass up. The campesinas didn't seem to mind our browsing, as long as we didn't jump in their faces, snap pictures and run off like other tourists have been known to do. The colorful concotions and the staring faces of the Pachamama statues were the first things that caught my attention. I then looked down to a large cardboard box just below the table and noticed what appeared to be shriveled My Little Pony dolls with matted hair, big cartoon eyes and absurdly long legs. It took me a moment to realize that I had been staring at dead llamas fetuses. I really had no conception of what they might look like; for some reason the haphazard arrangement of these strange, freeze-dried creatures in a discarded appliance box caught me off guard. "I take it you've noticed the llamas," I said to Susanne, staring at the fetuses. "Of course," she replied. "First thing I saw."
I walked closer to one of the market stalls and perused the selection of Pachamama statues. Several dozen of them occupied a wooden shelf, most no taller than six or eight inches. "Pachamama, s?," the campesina said to me, pointing to the array of stone figures. Many of the statues showed Pachamama as a campesina with a young child and several small animals clinging to her back. "?sta es Pachamama y su hija Mama Coca." Pachamama was the mother earth goddess to both the Aymara and Quechua, while her daughter, Mama Coca, represented the power and the bounty of the sacred coca leaf. "Pachamama," the campesina continued, pointing to the images on the statue. "Mama Coca, y animales: la rana, la serpiente, la tortuga..." The frog, snake and turtle were all talismans of good luck, as were the images of Pachamama and her child: to possess the statue was to possess the protection of the goddesses and their familiars.
While I wasn't in the market specifically for spiritual protection, I liked the idea of bringing home a Pachamama statue for myself, perhaps for my mom as well (she collects pre-Columbian figurines). I found one particular statue carved out of a white soapstone whose thin goddess faces reminded me of a Modigliani painting. I asked the campesina how much she wanted for it. "Veinte bolivianos," she replied, just under four dollars. Before I would proceed with the haggling process I asked her to hand me the statue. I placed it on a flat surface to see how well it would stand. To my disappointment it immediately leaned to the side. I gave the statue a slight tap, causing it to tumble over into my hand. My little Pachamama was cursed by a dangerously high center of gravity. After trying to stand the statue once again I returned it to the campesina. "No, gracias," I said to her, hoping she would sympathize with my plight. "Malo, malo," she replied, shaking her head as she returned the statue to its place on the shelf. "Malo means bad, right?" I asked Susanne. I didn't intend to be a bad customer - perhaps I'd have better luck later. There was plenty of time to find the right Pachamama.
We continued along the sloping cobblestone of Calle Linares, eyeing the Witches' Market stalls and music shops. Each music shop had its specialty items, usually zampo?as, flutes and other wind instruments, as well as guitars, charangos, and assorted implements for strumming a tune. I seriously considered buying a charango - the 10-string, eukalele sized instrument would be small enough to bring home - but the better hand-made charangos easily surpassed 500 bolivianos. Unless I was serious enough to learn how to play Andean music I wasn't sure if I wanted to make the investment. I was also in the market for another sweater, though from what I had seen along Sagarnaga, the sweaters here were pricier and more limited in variety compared to the ones I had seen in Cusco. In hindsight that was a little frustrating, but hopefully I'd still be able to spot a bargain somewhere in town.
The Witches' Market petered out by the time we reached Sagarnaga. On the other side of the intersection I could see a variety of colorful streamers strung from one side of the street to the other high above the cobblestone. The streamers instantly reminded me of Kathmandu, which had been decorated generously with streamers for the Newari new year during our 1996 visit. Most of the streamers were in Spanish but one announcement caught my eye: Internet Cafe. I pointed at the streamer and smiled. "Shall we check in with home?" I asked. Susanne agreed, so we stopped briefly at the cafe - an office on the second floor of a courtyard hostal - sending emails to our families and catching up with the latest news.
After using up most of our 30-minute Internet allowance Susanne and I returned to Sagarnaga hoping to find a good place for lunch. Back in Copacabana our friend Scott had recommended a place called Lobo, known for its cheap eats and backpacker crowd. I noticed that Lobo was a block or so east of Sagarnaga on Calle Illampu, also only a block further up the hill. We proceeded to walk high up Sagarnaga, passing a variety of tour agencies and hostals. Sagarnaga appeared to become more of a typical business district here, with appliance stores and wholesale fabric shops lining the left side of the road. It didn't seem like we were going to find much of interest in this part of town, so we hung a right on Illampu and walked until we found Restaurant Lobo.
Just as Scott had described it, Lobo was a backpacker joint: menus were available in both English and Hebrew. In fact, just as we were settling in to place our order, the two Israeli women we had met on the bus ride from Copacabana walked through the door. "Long time no see," I said to them.
"Is this your first time at Lobo," asked the brunette woman, who appeared to have recovered well from her seasickness. "This is our third time." As they wandered off to find the Hebrew menu Susanne and I both ordered veggie lentil burgers. A few minutes later the waitress returned with two plates, each covered in huge round slabs of processed lentils on top of open buns slathered in butter. "Now that's one hell of a veggie burger," I said. "I just wish they hadn't coated it with butter," Susanne replied, scraping it off with a knife. Considering we were eating in beef country I was surprised they even had lentil burgers in the first place, let alone delicious ones. I soon slumped over, having gorged myself to full satisfaction.
After paying the check we went over to the Israelis to say goodbye to them. Before leaving I asked them what else they've done in La Paz. "Have you been to the prison?" the brunette replied.
"Is there much to see there?" Susanne responded, surprised as I was with the question.
"Oh, it is sad," she replied, "the conditions there are not very good. You really should go."
"Okay," Susanne answered. "We'll think about it."
"The prison?" I said to Susanne as we descended the stairs to the street below. "I have no idea either," Susanne replied. "Perhaps they knew someone who was arrested and spent some time there." I couldn't figure it out but it sounded like it could have been interesting in a Midnight Express sort of way if there were time available for it. For now, though, my only major concern was some serious shopping time along the Witches' Market.
After leaving the restaurant we backtracked to Sagarnaga and walked down the hill towards Calle Linares and the Witches' Market. Immediately to our left we found a string of witches' shops that had opened since our initial visit earlier this morning. One older woman with a small shawl wrapped around her head was selling more Pachamama statues. I looked at several of the statues and found two that I particularly liked, which of course made it harder to decide which one to buy. "Cuanto cuesta?" I asked her. "Quince bolivianos," she replied - about three dollars. As I examined the Pachamamas I realized the two statues were almost mirror opposites of each other - one with Mama Coca hanging on to Pachamama's left shoulder, the other with Mama Coca on her right shoulder. "I bet these would make good bookends," I said to Susanne.
I held the two statues up to the woman and asked for a llapa, a discount for buying more than one. "Veinte bolivianos," I offered. The woman shook her head and repeated, "No llapa, no llapa - treinte bolivianos." Thirty bolivianos was no bargain, so again I insisted on 20 bolivianos. Eventually the woman relented and began to drop the price, but she froze at 25 bolivianos - just under five dollars for the two statues. That was good enough for me, so I agreed to the price. She then proceeded to tie a rainbow colored braid of alpaca yarn around each statue's neck and wrapped them neatly in several layers of newspaper. Susanne asked if she could take a picture of her. Normally the women of the witches' market frown upon photographers but they're sometimes persuaded when the request follows a successful business transaction. The woman nodded her head in approval and straightened her shoulders for the photograph.
A few steps up the curb sat an older gentleman neatly dressed in a suit jacket and hat, sunning himself on a stool. He was an image straight out of an old European photo album. I approached him, saying "Buenos tardes, se?or" as I pointed to my camera. He looked at the camera and smiled, replying "S?, se?or." Assuming he wanted a couple bolivianos for his time I asked him how much he would charge. "No bolivianos," he replied. "Coca, coca..." A barter of coca leaves for a picture? That would be fine with me but I didn't have any coca, nor did I know where I could get any (though I probably could have approached any campesina in the local shops and asked her for some). "Permiso," I replied, "no tengo coca, se?or. Dos bolivianos okay?" "Okay, okay," he muttered as he suddenly got up and walked away. Where was he going? The man crossed the street and grabbed a small sack, pulling out a colorful red cap and a poncho. Apparently he though I wanted him to pose in Aymara costume. "Oh no, se?or," I said, hoping not to lose face in any way. I pointed at his jacket and hat and smiled. "Bueno, se?or." "Okay, okay," he again replied, settling back down on his stool as I squatted on the pavement to take the photograph.
We spent the next hour or so shopping in the many artesenia co-ops along Sagarnaga. I had read somewhere that the more expensive shops tended to be further down the street, towards the Plaza San Francisco and the Prado, while the cheaper stores were usually higher up the hill. I guess it's all a matter of shoppers' endurance - if you're wealthy and lazy you won't want to bother with climbing all the way up the road. The inverse would be those of us who were willing to cough up a lung conquering the steep hillside in search of a good bargain - if you climb it, you'll get a discount for your effort. Calle Linares appeared to be the treeline between retail and bargain prices: all the shops we visited below Linares had inflated prices for most of their goods, especially sweaters. I was actually quite disappointed with the sweater selection. Most shops sold the same collection of a dozen or so varieties for prices starting at $30 to $40, much more expensive than the shops in Cusco. Other stores sold unique sweater patterns at inflated prices of $70 or more. I really enjoyed poking my head from one store to another but found it hard to get serious about buying anything today. Perhaps tomorrow or Friday would be better.
As we descended Sagarnaga towards the plaza Susanne pointed at a man across the street. "Isn't that Scott from Copacabana?" she asked. Indeed it was Scott, the long-haired blonde guitarist we met at the Hostal C?pula. We called out his name and got his attention, clearly surprising him in the process. "Hey there," he laughed "welcome to La Paz!" Scott had spent the day shopping and was clearly more successful than we were, holding several small bags in a fishnet sack slung over his shoulder. "I'm doing all my Christmas shopping here," he said. "Where else can you shop for 30 people and not bust your bank account?" Scott pulled out a small watercolor he purchased from an art gallery across the street. It was a pretty black and white La Paz street scene. "I got this from an artist in the shop over there," he said. "I might have to go back and get some more." Scott then asked if we had any dinner plans tonight. "This is my last night in La Paz so I want to go out in style," he said. "There's a great Italian place called Restaurante Pronto in the Sopacachi neighborhood. It's really classy but they don't care if people show up dressed like us." Like us?, I thought? I knew I hadn't shaved in a few days, but... He wrote down the name of the restaurant and "Sopacachi" on a small piece of paper. "It's kinda hard to find," he continued, "so why don't we meet at Cafe Montmartre around 7:30? It's right around the corner from the restaurant and every taxi driver will know where it is." Susanne and I both thought it sounded like fun so we agreed to meet him at the cafe.
After parting company with Scott we visited the art gallery he had just recommended. The resident artist specialized in watercolors and oils, with styles ranging from abstract to primitive. Susanne and I found a few nice paintings of rural villages and Aymara campesinas, including one marvelous blue watercolor of a campesina standing on a hillside as a storm came in. Susanne strongly considered buying it but decided to hold off and see if she still had the urge later in the week. We then stopped at a small cafe inside the mall and split a piece of angel cake over a couple of Cokes (including my first glass bottle Diet Coke - I think old fashioned glass bottles were gone by the time Diet Coke came out in the States). As we sat in the courtyard enjoying our snack we noticed a quartet of mannequins propped up near the exit, each dressed in garish polyester. Their accoutrements were bad enough, but the mannequins' most haunting features were their faces - 1950s howdy-doody teethy grins straight out of an abandoned Montgomery Ward. Papa mannequin looked like a bald Jim Carrey in the middle of a knee-slapping pratfall; Mama mannequin bore the false eyelashes, greasy rouge and marachino lipstick of an old French whore; Brother and Sister mannequins were characters in a late-night pay-cable B-movie horror flick - "The mannequins are alive, and they're out for blood!!!" "Why on earth would anyone be inspired to buy that clothing after looking at those awful things?" Susanne asked. "Comedic irony?" I wondered.
After paying the tab Susanne and I continued our walk past the Iglesia del San Francisco and Plaza Murillo until we reached our hotel. The Pachamama statues I had been lugging around were beginning to put a strain on my back so I was eager to drop them off in the room. When I approached the front desk for our key the resident travel agent informed me that tomorrow's trip to Tiwanaku would probably be cancelled due to a blockade along the main highway. Apparently a group of cocaleros - native coca farmers - were blocking the road to protest President Banzer's coca eradication policy. "The protest may end tonight," she said, "so check with me tomorrow morning and we'll see if you can go. Otherwise you can visit Tiwanaku the next day."
Susanne returned to the room while I discussed our options with the tour agent. Meanwhile, the hotel receptionist, a cherubic, freckly redheaded woman named Katrina, asked me out of the blue, "Do you know anything about the Internet?" I was rather surprised by the question - rarely has anyone ever brought up my profession without my prompting on our trips outside of the US. "Sure," I said, "I do a lot of work with schools and communities on the Net. Why do you ask?"
"I just finished taking a course on Windows 98 and Microsoft Office and was wondering how difficult it is to learn how to go online," Katrina replied. Windows 98? Microsoft Office?, I thought to myself; where did she learn her English? Reading Bill Gates biographies? "It's really easy," I said. "Internet software has gotten smart enough for anyone to learn how to do it."
"I really want to learn about the Internet," she continued, "but it's so expensive in Bolivia. Not even most big businesses can afford it. Only a couple of companies offer Internet access so it's almost cheaper to get an account in Peru and make an international call rather than pay for it here."
"Well, that's the way it often starts for countries new to the Internet," I said. "A few companies will use the Net, their employees with introduce it to their friends and families, so the demand will spread. The government may begin to use it, increasing the number of people who want it. Eventually prices will come down but it may take a few years."
"Prices won't come down here, thanks to our president," Katrina grimaced. "Banzer is an old man who probably won't run again, so he just doesn't care about helping the rest of us. Our last presdient, he was really connected to the people, but he lost to Banzer. Sanchez was educated at Harvard and spoke Spanish like a Norte Americano. Banzer's campaign ads would say 'how can you trust a president who speaks Spanish like a Gringo?' Now Banzer is president and we're stuck with him."
"I have to ask," I interrupted, "Where did you learn your English?"
"In Texas," she smiled. "I spent seven years in Houston when I was a kid. But then I moved back to La Paz and didn't speak English for nine years until I got this job about a year ago. At first I didn't speak it well but the more I get to practice the better it gets."
We continued to chat for a while until I realized that Susanne must be wondering what had happened to me. I wrapped up my conversation with Katrina and returned to the room, where I found Susanne sitting on the bed looking over her journal. "What happened to you?" she asked.
"Internet and politics talk," I replied. "And no, I didn't start it." I looked at our travel alarm clock and saw that it was just after 4pm: that gave us some time to relax, maybe go for a walk, then head to Sopacachi for dinner with Scott. I looked at one of the maps in my LP guide and estimated it would take us about half an hour of walking to reach Sopacachi from our hotel. "Let's check out Murillo Plaza for a little bit," I suggested. "We can then head back to the hotel around 6pm, grab our jackets and walk down the Prado to Sopacachi. We should get to Cafe Montmartre around 6:30, which'll give us plenty of time to grab a drink before we meet Scott." I removed the Pachamama statues from my backpack and propped them like bookends on a night stand, placing my journal and sketchbook between them. "That'll look good on my shelf," I said.
Posted by acarvin at 03:16 PM | TrackBack
March 24, 1999
Undeserved Honors: Apparently I Have "Impact"...
A couple of weeks ago I got an email from Kathy Schrock, the webmaster and namesake for the popular Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators website. In it she congratulated me and said it was nice to see our pictures on the same page. Unfortunately, I had no idea what she was talking about. It turns out that the edtech newspaper eSchoolNews had named me as a member of its first annual Impact 30 index, which profiles a list of the 30 most influential people in education technology today. It was surprising to see my name on the list, but perhaps more shocking was the fact that I was highlighted as one of five Newsmakers and Opinion Shapers, which also included Arizona senator/presidential candidate John McCain and Linda Roberts of the US Department of Education. I'm still not exactly sure what the folks at eSchoolNews were smoking when they made up their list, but nonetheless, I'm both touched and honored by their decision.
Posted by acarvin at 04:08 PM | TrackBack
Conference Notes
During the last week in February I attended the fourth annual Consortium for School Networking conference here in Washington. For the first time in a while I had the stressful distinction of presenting twice in less than 24 hours. On the first evening of the conference, I was a respondent for a dinner banquet debate on the question, "Should text books replaced by laptops?" Dr. Jack Christie of the Texas Board of Education (pro laptops) duked it out with edtech skeptic William Rukeyser (anti laptops, sort of). I took the position that the debate was based on the wrong question, and instead we should be asking, "In what context should laptops be used over textbooks." I wasn't booed or hissed at, so on the whole I felt pretty good about my three minutes of banquet rhetoric.The next day I presented a lunchtime speech on DTV and Education. The speech was essentially the same speech I gave at Tel-Ed in October, so if you'd like to read it, you can find it online.
Posted by acarvin at 04:06 PM | TrackBack
March 20, 1999
High Plains Backpacker - Copacabana to La Paz journal
Hi everyone. Here's the latest installment of my journal High Plains Backpacker, which covers my September 98 trip to Peru and Bolivia.
This episode: Copacabana to La Paz.
And please excuse any typos or minor errors, especially with my Spanish. I'm still editing the text.
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Tuesday, September 8
Copacabana to La Paz: Altiplano Roadshow
Butch: Kid, the next time I say, 'Let's go someplace like Bolivia,' let's go someplace like Bolivia.
Sundance (looking over the cliff): Next time. Ready?
Though our alarm clock wasn't set to go off until 8:30am I woke with the sun a little before 7 o'clock. We really had no reason to get up this morning; our bus for La Paz would depart at 1:30pm, giving us the entire morning to hang out at the hotel. I remembered seeing a sign at the C?pula restaurant saying it was closed for cleaning on Tuesday mornings. Indeed, when I went to the restaurant for breakfast I was told the dining area was closed, though I could sit on the outside patio and have some coffee. The brisk windchill coming off Lake Titicaca discouraged me from sitting outside; I'd have to find breakfast in town instead.
Back in the room I left a note for Susanne, who was still asleep:
"Sus- Going to town to find food and cash a traveler's cheque. Restaurant upstairs is closed this morning. I'll be back around 9. -ac"
Susanne was never much of a breakfast person so I figured she would mind me slipping out early for some grub. I walked down into town to Avenida 6th de Agosto, where I could find the greatest concentration of restaurants. I soon wondered, though, if Tuesday morning cleaning was a tradition in Copacabana because most of the cafes were conspicuously closed. I eventually resorted to Snack 6th de Agosto - the one where we had lunch yesterday - and ordered their Desayuno Americano, a standard 10 boliviano plate of two eggs, toast, jam, butter, papaya juice and coffee. The papaya juice was especially good - thick as molasses. But just as I wrapped up my breakfast I was shooed away by the owners, who (surprise) were closing the restaurant for cleaning.
Before returning to the hostal I also needed to cash a traveler's cheque. Since we were checking out of our room we would have to pay the bill of 300 bolivianos, about $55, for three nights' stay. Susanne and I still had around 250 bolivianos on hand - plenty of money to get us settled in La Paz, but not enough to wrap things up at the C?pula. The Lonely Planet book said there were only two reliable places to get cheques cashed in Copacabana - the Hotel Azul and the bank next store to it. The bank appeared boarded up and abandoned so I tried the Azul first. The man at the reception desk told me they didn't change money there, but a new casa de cambio had just opened up down the street. I went to the new bank and stood in line with two people as the bank manager swept the floor inside in preparation to open for business. Around 8:45 a guard allowed the first customer to come in; ten minutes later I was given the goahead to enter. Before I even reached the counter, though, a bank employee informed me that they would only exchange cash here. No traveler's cheques at a casa de cambio? I asked if there were any places in town that would take my cheque. "Hotel Azul, se?or," he replied. I guess I'd have to pay our hotel bill with a credit card.
Susanne was getting up when I returned to the C?pula around 9:15am. While she got dressed I went to the man at the front desk to make sure I could pay with a credit card. "No problem," he said, taking the plastic from my hand. He then told me that there would be no credit surcharge for use of the card, as was the case in Peru. I guess I'd just have to see about that when I got back to the US.
Susanne and I packed up our bags and moved into the hotel's public room just after 10:30am. We could stay there as long as we wanted, so that gave us about two hours to make some hot mat? de coca and write in our journals. We were joined by Scott, the longhaired American who had watched the movie with us the night before. Scott was a college student from Catalina Island who had been traveling around Brazil and Bolivia for the last month, and was getting ready to catch a bus back to La Paz before flying home. Scott grabbed the Spanish guitar off the wall and began to play songs. "Here's a song I wrote for my mother," he said as he strummed his melody. He was pretty good and not at all shy about demonstrating his talents.
"I'm a big Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin fan," he said, playing a song from The Wall. "Let me give a shot," I said, asking for the guitar. I retuned the guitar to open-G and started to play "Fearless." "Old Floyd!" he smiled. "Very cool." We both fiddled around on the guitar for while, with Scott playing original tunes and me showing off my random repetoire of Zepellin and Rush songs. Before we realized it, 1pm was just around the corner. The three of us, joined by the Norwegian couple, descended into the city to catch our buses.
"Which bus are you on?" Scott asked.
"Vicuna Tours," I said. "What about you?"
"6th de Agosto Tours," he replied.
"Well," I said, "since it appears this is goodbye, you better tell us the name of your band so I can remember it when you make it big."
"And," he said.
"And," I nodded. "OK, I can remember that..."
As Scott and the Norwegians headed to one corner of the main plaza, Susanne and I walked to the bottom of Avenida 6th de Agosto, where we had originally been dropped off by the bus from Puno. There was no bus there yet, so I asked a local merchant where it was. "No bus aqui," he replied, looking at our ticket and pointing to a row of buses on the far end of the plaza. Susanne and I walked across the dusty, windswept plaza to a pair of buses, both labeled Puno- Copacabana-La Paz. No one had boarded the bus yet, so we waited around for a few minutes. A familiar face then leaned out of a hotel doorway: it was the redbearded fellow from San Jose who had shared our minibus to the train station in Cusco. "Good to see you," he said with a noticeable Spanish accent. We talked for a while and discovered he was beginning a two-year round-the-world trip. "Where are you from?" I asked. "Costa Rica," he replied. Aha - the San Jose I saw on his luggage tag wasn't in California. It was the capital of Costa Rica.
Around 1pm people started to board the second bus. I showed our ticket to an old man and he instructed us to get on. He didn't seem to have been paying attention to the ticket, so once we had settled onto the bus, I asked, "La Paz bus?" The dozen or so people on the bus all shook their heads no. "Puno bus." Susanne and I quickly tugged our backpacks off the storage racks and climbed aboard the second bus. As we waited a second ticket man inspected our receipt. "Not this bus," he said. "Segundo bus." "No, not segundo bus," replied as he motioned for us to reboard the Puno bus. Susanne and I were both rather annoyed with our predicament to say the least. A young travel agent then came from out of her office and looked at our ticket. "You must take Vicuna Tours," she said. "Follow me." Once again we walked across the plaza to the place where I had asked the merchant where our bus was. Lo and behold, the same bus we had taken three days early was now sitting in front of his shop. "Vicuna Tours," the travel agent smiled as she escorted us onto the bus. Now we could get on our way.
Our bus departed around 1:40pm, half full with backpackers and a handful of Bolivian tourists. The bus turned away from the lake and drove past the cathedral. Less than 50 yards past the cathedral we were suddenly in farmland, freshly plowed and swarming with sheep, goats and piglets. "I had no idea this was back here," I said to Susanne. "I wish we'd gone for a walk." After submitting our names to the police departure checkpoint the bus weaved high up and around they Copacabana valley. We noticed a film crew shooting in a red clay canyon not far from the road. "I wonder if Newman and Redford will ever shoot another film together," I pondered. "Only if the script is right," Susanne responded. I could picture Butch and Sundance racing up the red clay hillside, trying feverishly to get away from the posse of trackers. "We'll jump!" "Like hell we will!," I hear them bantering all the way up.
As the bus drove higher up the valley an incredible site appeared before us: the hauntingly blue waters of Lake Titicaca flanked by backdrop of the snowcapped peaks of the Cordillera Blanca. "Get a picture!" I barked enthusiastically. Susanne leaned out the window and snapped a picture. "People will think we used a blue filter for this," she said, staring at the mountains. The bus now descended quickly towards the lake. I could see a river-thin piece of the lake being crossed back and forth by ferries and barges. We had reached the Straits of Tiquina, a maritime shortcut our bus would take to get to La Paz.
At the waterfront we were told to exit the bus and pay one and a half bolivianos to the Bolivian navy to cross the strait. "Bolivian navy?" I thought to myself, not wanting to argue with sea-faring officers from a landlocked nation. As our bus was loaded onto a barge, the dozen of us boarded a small launch. A pair of Israeli women said across from us, one of them looking a little queasy. "I hate boats," she said. "I never wanted to take one again in Bolivia. No one told me we'd take a boat on this bus ride."
"It's a short trip," I promised, trying to talk her through the five-minute crossing. "Because we're crossing here we'll save at least two hours of driving time going around the widest part of the lake. So where in Israel are you from?..."
Before we knew it our sailing time on Lake Titicaca had come to an end, and the young Israeli had managed not to throw up on any of us. Our bus arrived on the shore a few moments after our landing. It quickly drove off the barge and parked on the far end of a small plaza. While Susanne and the others walked to the bus I paused at a street vendor selling empanadas. "Tiene empanadas con queso?" I asked. "S?," the shy campesina replied. "Cuanto cuesta para una empanada?" I continued. "Uno boliviano," she answered. I handed over a boliviano coin and received a bagful of four empanadas in return. Not what I expected, but it was more than enough food to keep us snacking for the next two or three hours to La Paz.
Susanne managed to doze off as the bus bid a final farewell to the shores of Lake Titicaca. The highway continued along the bleak altiplano plateau as freshly plowed farmland stretched across the landscape for mile after mile. Around 3pm we encountered a barricade obstructing the highway: the the road was under repair up ahead, so we'd have to drive on a dirt road parallel to the renovation work. Our bus slowed to a crawl, kicking up incredible amounts of dust and debris as it traversed miles of dirt, rubble and mud. Images of luggage and backpacks thrown skyward crisscrossed my mind as the bus heaved, crashed and twisted from the rocks and potholes below. And throughout the racket, Susanne slept like a cat. I envied her serenity as I held on for dear life.
The bus returned to the highway pavement and continued its eastward track to La Paz. How much further would we have to go? The owner of the Hostal C?pula had commented that morning we should arrive in La Paz no later than 5:30 or 6pm, though if we were lucky we'd be in town by 5pm. According to those predictions we had at least an hour to go. But La Paz seemed so far away: apart from the glacial peaks of Huayna Potosi to our north and Nevado Illimani to our east, all I could see around me was more flat altiplano farmland. Then again, I'm pretty sure that Nevado Illimani stands just east of La Paz - somewhere between here and that massive mountain is La Paz, below the horizon in a deep crater-like valley.
Susanne awoke as the bus driver played a game of cat and mouse with another bus, speeding up and passing it every time the rival bus passed us. As we made our third or four pass, a large bang shook the bus. I realized we were all leaning down and to the left just as the smell of burnt rubber filled the cabin. Susanne and I looked at each other. "Flat tire," we said in unison. The bus limped to the side of the road and parked in the dirt. The driver opened the door and waved us to go outside. Donning our jackets and cameras, Susanne and I stepped out into this barren landscape. Apart from the sound of a light breeze and the occasional passing bus, all was quiet along the altiplano. Far to our right a farmer tended his land as his sheep grazed in a pasture. To our left was more barren farmland, Huayna Potosi standing majestically in the background. And somewhere straight ahead - how far I still didn't know - La Paz patiently waited for us. For now, though, we were stranded in the middle of nowhere.
As our driver removed an extra wheel from the right side of the back axel, Susanne and I climbed along an embankment along the road. "Despite all of our travels," I said, "we've never gotten a flat tire. I guess that streak had to come to an end; might as well be in middle-of-nowhere Bolivia, I guess." "Oh, this shouldn't take to long," Susanne replied. "We might as well enjoy it." She was right: at the rate our driver was changing the tires we'd probably on the road in less than half an hour. The flat offered us an added diversion, unexpected as it was, to take pictures and hang out in the countryside. Susanne and I took pictures of each other along the road and in front of Huayna Potosi. I squinted as my eyes adjusted to the powerful rays of the altiplano sun, sinking lower to the northwest. I wondered if we would get to La Paz before sunset. Probably not.
By 4:20 we were on our way again, barely 20 minutes since the flat. Within another 10 minutes of driving the deserted farmland transformed into streets increasingly crowded with buildings, pedestrians and traffic. I read a storefront sign to my left: "Bodega El Alto." El Alto? El Alto is the outlying area of La Paz, along the upper lip of the La Paz valley. The entire time our bus was incapacitated I was convinced we were at least an hour from the closest city. In reality, we were probably no further than 30 minutes from downtown. But where was La Paz? There was still no sign of its famous, overcrowded lunar landscape.
The bus squeezed through traffic jams of minbus taxis and produce carts before reaching what appeared to be a tollway. A few moments after passing through the tollbooth, the buildings to our right thinned out, revealing an immense, crater- like gash in the altiplano extending for miles to the east. One thousand feet down into the center of this deep bowl we could see the crammed city of La Paz, a maze of skyscrapers and adobe-brown apartments coating the entire valleyside. Most of the people inside our bus rushed to the right side, staring out the windows in awe. I've heard of people describing this descent into La Paz as spectacular, but spectacular doesn't do the view justice. Having spent the last two hours crossing the flattest of countryside, the La Paz valley was sudden jolt, as if the earth itself had opened up and revealed its fiery core. The cityscape was nothing short of stunning.
The bus descended clockwise into the valley, limping along at 30 miles per hour due to its paucity of tires. Several cars and buses honked at us as they tried to pass the bus, frustrated by our pace. Large billboards advertising everything from American Airlines to the Intel Pentium II Processor loomed over the highway. "Ahh, the big city," I thought to myself. I didn't know what to expect from La Paz. I knew it was overcrowded and polluted; many people had warned me of "a lot of poverty" as well. Perhaps the most interesting first impression had come from Scott at the Hostal C?pula. "Wherever you go you'll see a lot of protesters," he said, "and they'll be trailed by police in full riot gear: shields, helmets, tear gas launchers and all. But it's really no big deal..." I couldn't imagine the capital of Bolivia being a hotbed for social activism and freedom of assembly - Bolivia still holds the record for the highest number of coups in the Western Hemisphere. But coups, Bolivians now hoped, were a thing of the past. The last several elections have gone smoothly, though the current president, General Hugo Banzer, was himself a former military strongman. Perhaps allowing freedom to protest was one of his affirmations of political legitimacy; I suppose we'd soon find out how legitimate it really was.
La Paz at rush hour was a shock to the system, especially after having spent the last several days in a lakeside village. The streets were teeming with activity. Businesspeople carried briefcases and chattered on cellphones while trying to hail a taxi. Street children with wooden shine boxes clamored to find a dusty pair of shoes they could clean for a couple of Bolivianos. Campesinas sold American cigarettes, their infants wrapped tightly to their back in colorful blankets. La Paz was a city of both the Old World and New World, though I don't mean architecturally speaking only. Everywhere you looked you could see well- dressed urbanites and traditionally costumed campesinos competing for sidewalk space. I had only been in town for a few minutes, yet just through looking out my bus window I could see La Paz was a city divided, culturally, linguistically and socially.
Our bus squeezed through the tight colonial avenidas, just missing the thicket of telephone and electrical wires suspended over every intersection. For whatever reason I noticed the wires before anything else here; they hung over every street like turn-of-the-century cable car power lines. Each time our bus turned a corner I expected our luggage strapped to the roof would be swiped away by a snapping cable, sending showers of sparks to the ground and setting our belongings on fire. But before such a conflagration could begin we pulled over along Calle Illimani: "I think our hotel is somewhere along here," I said to Susanne. Looking out of the left side of the bus, I saw a painted white sign with the words "Hostal Republica." By some strange coincidence our hotel was the official downtown drop-off point for Vicuna Tours. Door-to-door service free of charge. Once we were able to get our backpacks off the bus roof we only had to cross the street to settle in for the rest of the week.
Susanne and I dropped our bags in the reception room while I asked about our reservation at the front desk. When we called the Republica from Copacabana they told us we might have to take a room without a bathroom; fortunately a doble con bano privado was still available at $24 a night. A women working next to the front desk introduced herself as the resident tour agent. She showed me a list of prices for local tours, including a $15 day trip to the ancient ruins of Tiwanaku. Tiwanaku was high on my to-do list for La Paz so I told her I'd talk with her tomorrow morning about tour arrangements for either Thursday or Friday.
A young man brought us to our room on the far left corner of a beautiful open courtyard, decorated with checkered marble tiles and a wide staircase to the right. The turn-of-the-century Republica was once the private villa of a former Bolivian president, though for some time it's been regarded as one of the most charming colonial hotels in La Paz. Our room was long and thin, with two beds, large windows and a lovely view of the courtyard. The bathroom unfortunately smelled like rotten eggs. At first I thought it simply needed to be cleaned, but as I tested the sinks and the toilet I realized it was the sulfur-heavy water supply that was causing the mild stink. "We'll just have to keep that door closed," I said, wriggling my nose at Susanne.
By the time we had settled into the room I noticed the sun was getting ready to set. "Let's go for a walk," Susanne suggested. Plaza Murillo, La Paz's most picturesque public square, was only a few blocks away, so we grabbed our cameras and walked single file along the slim sidewalk. Even here along our small avenida there was a continuous flow of taxis and businesspeople walking from work. One thing I did notice was the traffic lights: people here obey traffic lights! Susanne and I have been to so many cities like Cairo, Calcutta and Phnom Penh where absolutely no one pays attention to traffic lights, signs, or rights- of-way. La Paz, though, maintained a orderly, yet always high-strung, pattern of traffic congestion where cars would speed as fast as they could until they hit a red light, then slam on the brakes until they could again speed off at the next green signal.
Most streetcorners were occupied with campesinas and their meagre convenience stands selling bottled water, cough drops, chocolate, cigarettes and empanadas. La Paz has seen a steady influx of rural Aymaras and Quechuas coming to the city in the hopes of fleeing the poverty of the countryside. Instead many of them have only found urban squalor. Most of the campesinas we saw in this part of town seemed to be making a decent living selling goods, but the adobe shantytowns stretching high up the El Alto hillside stood as a constant reminder of the deliniation between the very rich and very poor that call La Paz home.
Four blocks west of the hotel we reached Plaza Murillo. Along with being the best place in town to feed pigeons, Plaza Murillo is the heart of Bolivian politics, with its grand cathedral serving as the presidential palace on one side and a bright yellow, Spanish colonial residencia serving as parliament on another side. In the center of the plaza stand towering statues and sculptures dedicated to the glory of Bolivia. Plaza Murillo, though, hasn't always been so noble a place; in fact its very name comes from the Bolivian patriot Don Pedro Domingo Murillo, who was lynched here in 1810. History then repeated itself in 1946 when president Gualberto Villaroel was dragged from the palace and hung by a mob off a plaza lamp post. Bolivia has had a long history of shady politics and intrigue, having experienced more coups than practically any othe nation on earth, some as recent as the early 1980s. But the 1990s have been a fairly stable and prosperous period for Bolivia: inflation has been cut from five digits to 10% a year and the last several presidential elections were smooth (despite president Banzer's status as a "reformed" former dictator himself).
Sunset at Plaza Murillo is an unforgettable experience. Thick beams of light provoked the yellow parliament building to glow in rich, warm hues. Huge flocks of pigeons flew overhead, first settling on the stone balcony of the cathedral, then swooping down to the plaza, then back the the cathedral. Those pigeons that remained on the plaza feasted on the showers of corn kernels thrown by families gathered on benches. A little girl stared in fascination at the two frollicking puppies her parents had just purchased. Old men in bright yellow and white uniforms wheeled around carts of ice cream, calling out "Chocolato! Vainilla! Mango!" like peanut sellers at a Yankees game. Plaza Murillo was Bolivia at its most relaxed.
Yet interspersed among the crowds of grandmothers, young lovers, and schoolchildren were camoflaged policemen, heavily armed with shotguns, tear gas cannons and grenades. Plaza Murillo is Bolivia's White House and Capitol rolled into one, and the government here makes no bones about displaying a little public force. To Susanne and me the soldiers stuck out like sore thumbs, though the residents of La Paz were clearly used to their presence, paying no attention to them. Likewise, the soldiers seemed to loiter about, leaning against lamp posts and cracking jokes with their armed comrades. The soldiers were just another everyday aspect of life in La Paz, invisible to the denizens of Plaza Murillo - except for Susanne and me, who constantly noticed them lingering in the periphery.
As Plaza Murillo faded into dusk Susanne and I returned to the hotel to drop off some things and get a recommendation for a restaurant. Neither of us were very hungry so we asked the woman at front desk if there was a good place to get some cheap chicken. "Pollo Copacabana," she suggested. Our Lonely Planet book said Pollo Copacabana was a local fast food chain akin to Kentucky Fried Chicken. That was fine with us; neither Susanne and I wanted to make much out of finding a place to eat tonight. We again walked down to Plaza Murillo and continued along Calle Comercio, a pedestrian mall closed off to traffic. Commercio was packed with hundreds of people strolling and window shopping. Along the center of the boulevard campesinas set up tables stacked with goods ranging from socks and bras to chocolate covered marshmellows. Electronic shops and clothing stores had their doors propped wide open, blasting music up and down the mall.
About three blocks past Murillo we found Pollo Copacabana, a consumate standing- room-only fast food joint. One of first things Susanne and I noticed, though, was the fountain soda machine behind the counter. "Uh oh," I said. "No bottled drinks. Not a good idea." Assuming that we could find another place to eat somewhere around here, we turned the corner and found a much smaller chicken restaurant, the words "Pollo Dorado" emblazoned on a neon sign above. Looking inside I saw a long room with cafeteria seating and grumpy customers huddled over their food. Again, not very appetizing. "We passed a couple of restaurants by the hotel," I said. "Wanna check them out?" "We're in no rush I guess," Susanne replied.
After walking the 15 minutes back to the Hostal Republica we found the Retaurant del Sol. Susanne and I entered its courtyard seating area and looked around. A rowdy group of young men occupied two tables pushed together, piling a dozen or so large bottles of Cerveza Pacena on a neighboring table. We stood around for a minute anticipating the inevitable arrival of a waiter but none ever came. The kitchen was located up a small staircase so I started to walk up to see if I could find anyone. As I reached the top of the stairs a waiter stepped outside, staring at me in wonder as to why I was going to the kitchen. Before I could ask for a menu he said, "No food tonight. No chef. Only beer tonight." Plenty of beer, I could tell from the sound of things. I looked at Susanne, a little frustrated. "Well," I said, "there's that other place a block towards the plaza."
The Restaurant Girosol was a mystery from the moment we entered. The front door led us to a high staircase; a large man with a cigar and a limp walked several steps ahead of us, sweating and gasping the whole way up. Inside we found two small rooms. The large man joined another man, also chomping on a cigar, and immediately began a heated game of backgammon over a shared bottle of cognac. A waiter stood behind the bar, leaning over to read the newspaper. He briefly looked up as we entered, then chose to ignore us and read his paper instead. I motioned at him to get his attention for a menu. Again he looked up, staring at me as if I had interrupted him from a pivotal paragraph in the sports section. The waiter briefly left his post behind the bar, dropping a solitary menu on our table.
The Girosol offered typical Bolivian fare: roasted chicken, fried steak, trout, and pork. Susanne and I both ordered the chicken. As the waiter disappeared into the kitchen, Susanne and I looked at each other. "I think we've stumbled into a mafia joint," I said. "I know," she replied, "I was about to say the same thing..." The waiter returned, handing me the menu yet again. "Solamente uno pollo," he said, shaking his head. Leaning outside the kitchen door I saw another cigar smoking overweight man, his white dress shirt covered with a greasy apron. The chef, I presume. I looked again at the menu and asked, "Tiene trucha?" If I couldn't have chicken, hopefully they'd at least have trout. The waiter looked to the kitchen to gauge the chef's reaction. The chef closed his eyes and shook his head. "No trucha," the chef mumbled. "No trucha y solemente uno pollo." Once again I looked at Susanne, looking for a way out. "I think we should go," she said. We gathered our belongings and stood up, backing out to the steps as both the waiter and chef stared at us. "We had no business in that place," I said as we reached the street. "Let's just go to Pollo Copacabana and get this over with."
After walking by Plaza Murillo for the fourth or fifth time tonight we eventually returned to Pollo Copacabana, crowded as ever. A campesina was selling bottled sodas outside, so I purchased a Fanta and an agua sin gas in lieu of the soda fountain machines inside the restaurant. Susanne and I both order a plate of fried chicken accompanied by greasy french fries, mushy fried plantains shaped like tater tots, and a special sauce blended out of ketchup, mustard and salsa. Gourmet food it wasn't but it would do for tonight.
We walked upstairs in hopes of finding a free table but there was none to be found. Returning downstairs to the counter seating area I noticed two free stools, one being used as a footstool and another supporting a woman's purse. As I turned to Susanne to figure out how we should ask for the stools in Spanish, the woman with the purse picked it up and put it on the counter, smiling brightly at Susanne as she offered her spare seat. Simultaneously a young man lifted his foot off the other stool, his girlfriend prodding him in the ribs as she smiled at me. The other diners at the counter automatically parted in two, leading us to an oasis of free space. No one would ever do that for me in Washington, I thought to myself. Susanne and I dived into our chicken platters, observing the passing crowds along Calle Comercio through a plate glass window in front of us. As we ate our dinner and talked I occasionally noticed the woman with the purse glancing at us with a big smile as her teenaged daughter pulling at her coat in hopes of going home soon.
After wrapping up dinner we strolled slowly along the mall, its crowds having increased significantly since we first arrived. "Did you see the way that woman smiled at us when she offered us the stool?" Susanne asked. "It's really amazing how one simple smile from a person can form your first impression of an entire city." I'd thought the same thing as well. Even though La Paz was Bolivia's answer to New York or London, almost all the people we encountered seemed happy and gracious to us. It was a marked change from the cold stares we received throught Copacabana. I knew I was going to like this city a lot.
Back at the hotel, as we got ready for bed we heard the sounds of small explosions in the distance. The first one or two bangs I actually thought they might be gunfire, but as they continued for several minutes I concluded they must be fireworks. "At least I think they're fireworks," I said, wondering aloud. Susanne opened our window and leaned her head out into the courtyard. I heard her ask one of the hotel employees, "Que est la boom boom?" The woman answered her but I couldn't tell what she said.
"Que est la boom boom?" I asked, smiling. "Well," Susanne replied, "at least I got an answer with it. She said they're fireworks from the campesinos." The local Aymara must be celebrating some kind of ceremony, I concluded. At least the boom booms weren't Boom Booms, so to speak. I climbed into bed, tucking myself under the many layers of alpaca wool blankets, and went to sleep with the echos of fireworks exploding in the distance.
Posted by acarvin at 03:06 PM | TrackBack
March 19, 1999
High Plains Backpacker - Copacabana journal, day 2
Hi everyone. Here's the latest installment of my journal High Plains Backpacker, which covers my September 98 trip to Peru and Bolivia.
This episode: Copacabana, Part 2.
And please excuse any typos or minor errors. I'm still editing the text.
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Sunday, September 6
Local Tensions
Old Miner (to Butch and Sundance:
"You've got to get used to Bolivian ways... You got to go easy... (patooiee! Damn it...) like I do. Course you probably think I'm crazy, but I'm not... (patooiee! Bingo!) I'm colorful... That's what happens when you live ten years alone in Bolivia - you get colorful..."
I looked out our bay window just after 7am. The remnants of last night's squall were long past and Lake Titicaca had returned to its peaceful blue self. While Susanne snoozed a few extra minutes I headed outside to the C?pula's restaurant for some breakfast. Like much of the C?pula the walls of the restaurant were made of large panes of glass; the morning sun shined brightly over my left shoulder as I wrote in my journal, sipping a cafe con leche. I hadn't had a decent coffee since we arrived in South America largely because the local milk was unpasteurized (and therefore not reliably safe.) The C?pula restaurant, which prided itself on its hyper-hygienic conditions, served boiling hot coffee with pasteurized condensed milk. The syrupy milk quickly transformed the weak Bolivian coffee into a hot mocha milkshake.
Susanne joined me as our waiter brought out some fresh wheat bread and my fried egg. Susanne ordered a bowl of meusli, yogurt and fruit, something I probably wouldn't have dared ordered in any other restaurant on Lake Titicaca. The stereo system played a variety of folk guitar songs. I noticed one particular duet performed by two men that reminded me of a Simon and Garfunkle song - this must be Bolivia's answer to Peru's "El Condor Pasa," I thought. Perhaps I would hear 101 versions of it as well.
Susanne and I had both brought our journals and intended to write for a while after finishing breakfast. Not long after our waiter had taken away Susanne's empty meusli bowl I felt an acidic itch in my eyes. "Do you feel that?" Susanne said simultaneously. "I think they burned something in the kitchen. "Onions," I replied. "Onions and garlic. This is really getting uncomfortable." The morning chill made opening the windows a poor option so we packed up our things and returned to the room to sort out our day plans. Since we hoped to visit Isla del Sol tomorrow, today was our only full day to explore Copacabana. As it was we had already seen much of the town yesterday so we decided to start our morning with a climb of Cerro Calvario, the large hill immediately behind our hotel.
The two adjacent hills of Copacabana, Cerro Calvario (Calvary Hill) and Nino Calvario (Little Calvary), are strategically located just east of the town center. Both hills offer an excellent vantage point of Lake Titicaca and the surroundings as well as serve as an important piligrimage site for the local faithful. Cerro Calvario in particular is home to a re-creation of the 14 stations of the cross recounting Jesus' last procession through Jerusalem. The current stations were added to the hill in the mid 1940s. Little Calvary, in contrast, plays host to much more ancient stations - stone moniliths erected by the Inca for astronomical observation. While Cusco and the Sacred Valley in Peru may have been the home of the Inca at the empire's peak, the Quechua creation myth traces the origin of the people to here along Lake Titicaca and Isla del Sol, just off the shore from the Copacabana peninsula. The ruins atop Little Cavalry are some of Bolivia's last tangible remnants to its Inca past.
Though most pilgrims and visitors climb the hills from their southern face, our hotel's location on the western slope gave us our own private base camp. Susanne and I began our hike by walking from the hotel along an unpaved road line by several small homes and sheep farms. An old man walking down the hill stopped just ahead of us, unlocking the gate to an adobe house. "Buenos dias, se?or," Susanne said to him. "Buenos dias, mi se?orita, buenos dias," he replied. Soon after, two women in traditional Aymara dress passed us on the path. "Buenos dias, se?oras," I greeted them, but both campesinas looked straight and and walked on without acknowledging my hello. "You know," I said to Susanne a moment or two later, "that's happened to me several times now. The older men of Copacabana are certainly friendly enough, but none of the women here would ever give us the time of day." "They're not comfortable with us," Susanne replied. "We're the ones intruding on their town, and they just aren't used to it." In all of our travels I had never encountered a place where the locals looked upon visitors with such icy contempt. I hoped we had simply crossed paths with just the wrong people - but what if all of Bolivia was like this?
Susanne and I made our way slowly up the side of the hill, taking regular breaks to catch our breath. "Think of this as crosstraining for the hilly streets of La Paz," I said rather dryly. "And I thought we would have passed the worst of these hills at Machu Picchu," Susanne replied, gasping between words. Just ahead of us we could see the stony main path used by the pilgrims. We crossed over the dirt and loose stones in order to gain access to the path and the better traction it might offer. Four or five Bolivian families descended the path as worked our way upward, with several others following not far behind us. I hadn't expected so many people climbing the hill today - perhaps Sunday mornings were an auspicious time to visit it.
After ten minutes of walking and pausing for air we reached a level platform that sat on a knoll between the two hills. The platform was a stone plaza, about 100 feet square, at the center of which stood a tall statue of Jesus. On the far side of the plaza, on the edge facing the lake, several families individually engaged in Aymara cha'lla rituals. Each family was attended by an old man serving as both priest and shaman. As is the case with many indigenous cultures of South America, the local Aymara indians adopted Spanish Catholicism and blended it with their own native traditions. On this particular occasion the cha'lla ceremonies appeared to serve multiple purposes, including the baptism of a baby, the confirmation of a young girl, and the blessing of a newlywed couple. On the far center of the plaza, the shaman placed a silver chalice of smoking incense on the ground, sprinkling ash into the four winds. He then lifted the chalice and held it to the forheads of each member of the family, resting his other hand on the backs of their heads as the smoke enveloped them. The newlywed couple, meanwhile, held hands as the shaman shook a bottle of chicha and sprayed its contents onto the ground. Chicha, an indigenous Andean alcoholic homebrew, is now a popular carbonated beverage available in bottles; on many streetcorners in Copacabana I've seen families sitting around rusty cardtables consuming it, but this was the first time I had seen it used during a ritual.
Susanne and I paced the plaza, observing the ceremonies while doing our best not to intrude. Because of my telephoto lens I was able to snap some pictures without disturbing them, maintaining a respectable distance throughout our visit. On the far left of the plaza, just below Cerro Calvario's hillside, I spotted a pair of dark brown alpacas grazing in the grass. I took a quick picture with my telephoto before going over to investigate. An older gentleman with a large poloroid camera sat behind the alpacas and smiled at us as we approached. "Cuanta cuesta para una photografa?" I asked. The man responded with an extended answer in Spanish which we both took as him explaining that he would photograph us with his camera if we wanted. I tried to explain to him we wanted to pay for pictures using our cameras, but he shook his head and raised his Polaroid. Meanwhile, Susanne petted the larger alpaca, stroking its thick brown hair. We could easily see the differences between alpacas and llamas now that we were up close. The alpacas were smaller with huge round eyes, almost like a cartoon character's, stubbier legs and thicker torso, not to mention the softer and longer wool. I again tried to offer the man money for a picture with our cameras but as I raised my camera at the alpaca he angrily spouted away in Spanish. Neither Susanne nor I had any interest in getting a Polaroid of us with the alpaca so we thanked him and retreated to the plaza, as he stared at us wondering why we wouldn't pay him to take our picture.
As we stepped away from the alpacas a thick spray of chicha splashed both of our jackets. A shaman had shaken a bottle for one of his ceremonies, spraying both of us in the process. I touched my finger to my jacket and tasted it - unfermented homebrew beer without the hops, I thought. Susanne turned to me and said "I think he did that on purpose." Perhaps she was right; we were the only gringos on the plaza, and for all we knew our welcome had worn thin. Neither of us wanted to make an issue of it so we decided to continue our climb up the big hill. We wound back and forth as we followed the steps to the top, passing the 12th and 13th stations of the cross. Visiting pilgrims had placed small stones on each station; the piles had grown so high I witnessed several landslides in miniature as people attempted to balance just one more stone on the station.
As Susanne and I reached the top we could see the entire summit was paved with stone, both modern and ancient. A series of marble crosses peppered the length of the plateau, with groups of campesinas manning tableside shops along its left and right edges. At first the contents of each stall struck me as odd: toy trucks, doll houses, miniature plastic suitcases. Was this where locals would take their kids on the weekend to buy them toys? It then dawned on me that the toys were just props for cha'lla ceremonies: if you wanted to own a bigger house, you'd buy a plastic house and pray for it. If you wanted a new car, you could choose from miniature hatchbacks to pickup trucks to sedans. All the great material things in life were here for the asking.
Susanne and I walked to the far end of the summit. More stone steps descended to near the water's edge, but we sat down up top and quietly observed the action around us. Another shaman attended to an elderly couple that had purchased a toy van. The shaman extinguished a candle and opened a large bottle of chicha, sharing its contents with the couple. The wife lifted her glass into the air, then spilled some chicha on the soil by her feet - an offering of the first sip to the earth goddess Pachamama. Susanne and I desperately wanted to take a picture of the ceremony and tried to think of a tasteful way to do it. But we were too close, too obvious to get away with any photo without being extremely rude, so we kept our cameras at our side, choosing not to make a scene.
As we watched the ceremony and enjoyed the view of the lakeshore, a man in his late 40s came next to us, saying "Buenos dias amigos." I didn't know if he was just being friendly or trying to sell us something as he started to speak quickly in Spanish. He read the confusion on our faces and finally asked, "Habla Espanol?" "Un poquito," I replied self-consciously.
"He wants to know if you know there are stairs going down the other side," we heard a young American voice speak. An Hispanic teenage girl in jeans and a t- shirt stood to our left, staring at us with a quintessentially teenage "Jeez, don't you know anything?" look on her face. Her parents and younger brother then appeared, having overheard what she said. "Are you from the US?" the mother asked us in English. "Yes, we're visiting from Washington DC." "We're practically neighbors!" she replied. "We're visiting from Alexandria." Yet another small-world experience. "Wow, I actually live in Arlington," I replied, "so we really are neighbors. "Our son was born in Arlington, " she said, pointing to her obviously embarrassed boy. "Very small world."
"Do you know what they are doing?" the husband said to me quietly, pointing to the elderly couple with the shaman.
"It's some kind of cha'lla ceremony, right?" I responded.
"Yes, they're asking for the things they want to receive one year from now."
"I didn't realize the ceremony had a specific date attached to it," I replied, interested in his Bolivian-American perspective.
"Well, they're not asking for these things to appear out of nowhere next year," he said. "It's more like setting a goal: over the next year I will work hard for something. This is what I want to work for." The daughter and son then tugged at their mother's shirt, apparently wanting to explore the other side of the summit. "I hope you enjoy Bolivia," they said to us, smiling.
"See you on the Metro someday," I replied.
Susanne and I briefly posed for some photos before beginning our climb down the hill. A young girl appeared from behind one of the stations and smiled at us. I smiled back and pointed to my camera, hoping I could take a picture of her. She giggled and darted behind the station. I slyly followed her and surprised her on the other side. Again she laughed and ran to the other side, biting a fingernail as she waited for me to catch up. Once I got back to the other side, though, she vanished. I guess I wasn't fast enough for her.
I was interested in climbing the other hill to visit the Incan monoliths but Susanne was eager to return to town, having had more then enough climbing for the day. At the bottom of the hill we passed a small chapel, deserted save a minibus decorated in flower garlands. I suddenly remembered there might be more cha'lla ceremonies going on by the cathedral. Saturday was usually the big day for locals to have their vehicles blessed, but I figured some might just as easily save it for Sunday as well. Susanne and I were both in need of a drink, though, so we stopped at the Solar Cafe for a coke and a mate. The small garden cafe was empty of patrons, so we asked a waiter if the restaurant was open. "S?, por favor," he replied, pointing to an available table.
Susanne and I sat down, pulling our journals from our backpacks. I noticed the strong scent of fresh dill in the air; behind me a large dill plant swayed in the breeze. "Now if only they could put some of that dill on the local trout, then they'd have a big hit on their hands," I said. The waiter quickly stepped out of the kitchen and dropped a small bowl of sourdough bread on our table. "Uno mat? de coca y una Coca Cola, por favor," I asked. After disappearing in the kitchen for a few minutes, the waiter reappeared with two large bowls of steaming hot soup. Susanne and I looked at each other, perplexed. "No sopa, se?or," I said. "Coca Cola y mat? de coca solamente." The waiter stared at us for a moment, then shook his head in annoyance before walking back into the kitchen with the soups. "Did he just assume we were ordering the set-menu lunch?" I asked. "Looks like it," Susanne agreed.
Our drinks hadn't arrived yet and I was tempted for us to leave the restaurant. As it was, though, we had already started to munch on the sourdough bread - bread that was probably intended for the soup we never ordered. Susanne wasn't overly concerned about the incident and insisted we stay for our drinks, which arrived a few minutes later. "We at least have to pay for this bread," I said. "I think this guy is ticked off enough as it is."
We sat there in the garden and did our best to enjoy our drinks as if nothing had happened. Each time the waiter subsequently passed us he made an effort to not look over at us. "This is crazy," I said. "Let's just pay and get out of here. We can try again somewhere else." "What's the big deal?" Susanne replied; she was intent on finishing her Coke. Our original plan had been to write in our journals for a while but the ackward tension with the waiter killed my concentration. I sat back and smelled the fresh dill, observing an eyelash floating in my mate.
About ten minutes later a group of eight German tourists sat down next to us, ordering the set-menu lunch and a round of Pacena beers. Our quiet garden transformed into a brauhaus as the Germans had a merry time drinking and reading aloud sections from their Lonely Planet Bolivia book. "Okay, I guess we can go now," Susanne said. I managed to request the check from another waiter who had missed the entire soup incident. But then the first waiter returned, bill in hand. There was no mention of the bread on the bill. "El, pan, se?or," I said. "Cuanta cuesta?" "No, se?or," he shook his head shyly, clearly embarrassed about the whole thing. "Por favor," I insisted. "Cuanta cuesta?" "Ok, uno boliviano," he responded - about 18 cents. I paid the bill and threw in an extra four bolivianos before exiting through the garden cafe gate.
A block south of the Cafe Solar we found another restaurant I believe was called the Inka Wasi. Its garden was crowded with diners so we found two seats on the inside, which was decorated with dark wood paneling and Aymara handicrafts. A waitress brought out two large bowls of sizzling soup and (thankfully) brought them to the table behind us. Perhaps the set-menu almuerzo wasn't a bad idea after all - and at 10 bolivianos for a soup, entree, fruit and coffee you couldn't beat it. Susanne ordered an omelette while I requested the almuerzo, despite having no idea what was included in the lunch. A waiter soon returned with my own bowl of hot soup - peanut soup with corn and quinoa. I had heard about Bolivian peanut soup but didn't know exactly what it would be like. I had expected it to be a thick, creamy soup - perhaps peanut butter sandwiches of yore clouded my expectations - but instead I received a light vegetable soup seasoned with ground nuts and grains. Not bad. The soup went especially well with the spongy squares of bread served on the side.
Not long after Susanne received her omelette the waiter unveiled my surprise main course, a cold potato salad with peanut sauce, sliced cheeses, olives and onions. I was a little hesitant at first to eat a cold salad in Bolivia but from the nature of the cooked potato and sauce I chose to assume that the meal was well cooked before being thoroughly chilled. Just in case I swalled four Pepto Bismol pills in order to coat my stomach with a pre-emptive strike of medicine. The salad itself was strange to my tastebuds: the cold, peeled potatoes were generously coated in a peanut sauce with a consistency a little thicker than Thai satay sauce. The cheeses, onions and olives were pretty straightforward but the overall combination of flavors worked well. "It's pretty good," I said to Susanne. "Wanna taste it?" "Forget it," she replied, digging into her omelette.
Having wrapped up lunch Susanne and I walked the two blocks uphill to reach the Copacabana Cathedral. As expected we found the plaza in front of the cathedral crowded with large groups of Bolivians getting their cars blessed. On the far left of the cathedral a bus crowded with talkative travelers was anointed with flowers on its hood and around its front lights. A group of young men standing around a red pickup truck poured beer over its warm engine, causing jets of steam to rise in the air. Two girls and a boy remained impatiently in the bed of another truck as their parents waited for an old man to read prayers to them. Throughout the ceremonies other cars that had been previously blessed drove by slowly, honking their horns and waving like a bunch of fraternity brothers arriving at a campus tailgate party.
The whole scene around the cathedral had a festive atmosphere but there was a palpable tension between the traditionally dressed campesina women and the small groups of gringo tourists, including ourselves. The campesinas of Lake Titicaca are well known for their discomfort with visitors; many of the women refuse to be photographed while others demand large sums to have their pictures taken. Meanwhile, several tourists, including me, had large zoom lens mounted on their cameras which allowed us to capture pictures at a greater distance. I took several pictures early on in our visit but became much more uncomfortable with the situation after pausing to watch the events around me. A pair of European men with huge telephoto lens stood behind a telephone pole, sizing up their targets at shooting. Another man used the hit-and-run tactic, getting shots of angry campesinas up close and walking away swiftly, gambling that the women wouldn't go after him. His method gave "drive-by shooting" a whole new meaning.
As I watched the game of cat-and-mouse unfold around me I quickly began to feel extremely ackward, like I had crashed a family's private funeral. Most of the Bolivians getting cha'lla performed on their vehicles didn't seem to mind us - they too had their cameras out in full force - but the Aymara women working in the souvenir stalls and the nearby market clearly did not approve of us being in their neighborhood. I could tell Susanne felt the same way so I motioned to her to see if she was ready to go. She nodded her head and grimaced. We walked down Avendia 6th de Agosto to visit the many souvenir shops along the road. Not far beyond the cathedral we saw a drunk old man being led towards us by his family, who were obviously trying to get him home as gracefully as possible. As he passed us close to our right, he looked at us and was suddenly overcome with an expression of shock. "Gringos!" he shouted at us, falling back against the wall behind him. His family, more embarassed than ever, picked him up and took him away. Susanne and I both broke out in hysterical laughter.
We didn't have any major plans for the afternoon so we briefly shopped around for a hat. Since tomorrow we would be going to Isla del Sol, I needed to prepare for the powerful sunrays we'd receive in our two-hour lake crossing. I had brought my green knit cap to keep warm but it wasn't suitable for blocking the sun from my face. After visiting three or four shops I finally found a floppy black hat with red stripes, about the size of an Australian outback hat. "You're going to wear that?" Susanne said, trying not to laugh. "I'm not buying this as a fashion statement," I retorted. "All this hat has to do is get me to Isla del Sol and back. Then I can give it away or something."
Susanne and I spent the remainder of the afternoon back at the hotel. The midday sun had warmed things considerably so we took advantage of the hammocks hanging in the garden. I grabbed my camera to take a picture of Susanne lounging in her hammock. As I got ready to snap the picture I heard a rumbling noise accompanied by the sounds of baa's. About two dozen sheep stampeded down the small dirt road to the right of our garden, throwing up dust and dirt into the air. "This'll be an interesting picture," I said after I clicked the camera shutter. Susanne became a little chilly so she soon returned to the relative warmth of our room to write in her journal. I stayed outside, writing and reading on a marble table next to the hammocks.
An hour or so before dinner I decided to gather my drawing supplies and walk behind the hotel to sketch a picture of Lake Titicaca. The hotel hillside offered an incredible view of the lake and the town below, but a small glade of trees obstructed some of the view. I continued past the hotel along a dirt path until I found a ledge on the side of the hill, just beyond a small farm. I could hear the sound of a young boy commanding his puppy to wrangle his small flock of baby goats and piglets as I sat on the ledge, sketching the azure expanse before me. I tried to picture the snowcapped peaks of the Cordillera Blanca on the far side of the lake but the fires set by local farmers left a thin haze in the distance, obscuring the mountains into faint shadows. As the sky darkened from the descending sun the lake too darkened to a spectacular sapphire blue. I realized at this moment how glad I was I had brought drawing supplies for this trip. Though I had initially purchased the pastels in order to capture Machu Picchu, it was this random opportunity to sketch Lake Titicaca high up on a hillside that made me realize you only have such opportunities so many times in life. When on earth would I again see Lake Titicaca? Perhaps never. With my blue pastel pencils and sketchbook in hand I could comandeer this scene before me, seizing this moment all for myself.
Susanne and I went to dinner just before sunset at the Hostal C?pula restaurant. We both ordered the soup of the day - carrot soup - which came with delicious pieces of olive oil garlic bread. Because I'd had such a large lunch that afternoon I stuck to a small vegetarian omelette and a cup of instant decaf coffee. We had brought along our journals just in case we wanted to write during dinner, but the restaurant made the unfortunate and painful decision of playing "The Best of the Carpenters" on the stereo system. I had no problem enjoying my soup as "Just like me, they long to be, close to you" flowed through the ether, but as "Rainy Days and Mondays" became "We've Only Just Begun," and "Ticket to Ride" flowed into "Goodbye To Love," I began to lose my apetite. We eventually called it a night and returned to the room, where the only music I could hear was an anonymous Bolivian folk tune that had drifted into my head.
Posted by acarvin at 03:00 PM | TrackBack
High Plains Backpacker - Copacabana journal, day 3
Hi everyone. Here's the latest installment of my journal High Plains Backpacker, which covers my September 98 trip to Peru and Bolivia.
This episode: Copacabana, Part 3.
And please excuse any typos or minor errors, especially with my Spanish. I'm still editing the text.
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Monday September 7
Titicaca Follies
Butch: Well, you know, it could be worse. You get a lot more for your money in Bolivia, I checked on it.
Sundance: What could they have here that you could possibly want to buy? Butch: All Bolivia can't look like this.
Sundance: (infuriated) How do you know? This might be the garden spot of the whole country. People may travel hundreds of miles just to get to this spot where we're standing now. This might be the Atlantic City, New Jersey of all Bolivia, for all you know.
Butch: Look, I know a lot more about Bolivia than you know about Atlantic City, New Jersey, I can tell ya that.
Sundance: Ah-hah! You do, huh? I was born there. I was born in New Jersey, brought up there, so...
Butch: You're from the East? I didn't know that.
Sundance: The total tonnage of what you don't know....
Our original plan for today was to check out of the Hostal C?pula and catch a boat to Isla del Sol, where we would spend the night before heading to La Paz tomorrow afternoon. But as we went to bed yesterday, shivering from yet another unforgiving Titicaca night, Susanne and I agreed that sleeping over on the island would probably be more cold than we could bear. "I can't wait to sleep under the stars of Titicaca" quickly changed to "I don't want to get any colder than I already am." Our new plan was to stay one last night at Hostal C?pula and visit the island as a long daytrip.
After eating breakfast we headed into town down Avenida 6th de Agosto, where we stocked up on food supplies for the day: vanilla crackers, wafers, giant roasted peanuts and a bag of pasankalla, the local gargantuan variety of choclo popcorn coated with carmel. There shouldn't be a problem buying more food on the island, but neither of us wanted to be left totally high and dry just in case. Down at shore, though, I noticed things were particularly quiet - there were no boats waiting to be taken out, nor any tourists looking for transport to the islands.
We approached the ticket office that sold passes for the daily 9am tour of Isla del Sol. Several men stood inside a kiosk and shook their heads in frustration. "No boats," they said. No boats? The men spoke little English and neither of us had an exact idea of what they were saying, but it appeared that all of the morning trips had been cancelled due to high surf and winds. "Nada hoy?" I asked. "one o'clock, maybe," they replied, though with little confidence. We were now stuck in Copacabana for the day with little left to do except kill time and wait. Today was going to be a long day.
With little else to do in this small town, we decided to visit Copacabana's market, a few blocks from the cathedral. Compared to other markets we've seen in South America, Copacabana's was rather restrained. On one side of Avenida Pando campesinos sold fruit, vegetables and fresh bread from wooden carts, while butchers and clothing stalls lined the other side. An middleaged cobbler hammered sandals out of worn strips of tire rubber. Not many people actually seemed to be buying anything; instead people stood around their stalls, chatting away and chewing coca. Perhaps we had missed the action earlier this morning - or perhaps there was no action to be found at any time of day. The quiet morning market did little to alleviate our wrestlessness.
Susanne and I briefly stopped by the catherdral, where we mulled around the plaza visiting souvenir carts. The cathedral was deserted compared to yesterday's circus, and as far as I could tell we were the only outsiders around. Yet once again we felt the icy stares of the local campesinas as we casually browsed from one cart of souvenirs to another. Even the women selling the trinkets didn't seem to care to have us hanging around - how on earth could they expect to stay in business like this? As hard as we tried to feel comfortable here, someone always seemed to make it clear to us we weren't very welcome.
Neither of us could come up with any good solution for wasting away the day, so we returned to the hotel to drop off the unused supplies for Isla del Sol and picked up our journals and sketchbooks. Perhaps we could whittle away the hours by writing - lord knows how far behind we've both gotten this week. I suggested we return to the Inka Wasi for a lazy lunch; the meal we'd had there yesterday was quite good and the atmosphere seemed suitable for writing. We walked along the road in an attempt to find the restaurant. At first I thought we must have been a block or two off, for its gated garden was nowhere to be found. I then noticed a large wooden door that was bolted shut and sealed with a large padlock. The door was shaped like the restaurant gate - the Inka Wasi was closed today.
"If this place is closed, that means the only decent place to eat in town is back at our hotel," I said. "What does Lonely Planet suggest?" Susanne asked. I pulled out our guidebook and looked for a restaurant. The book strongly recommended "Snack 6th de Agosto," which we had passed numerous times along the avenida. Snack 6th de Agosto was a typical Copacabana garden restaurant: ample outside seating and a few tables indoors as well. The menu, unfortunately, was typically Copacabana as well - fried chicken, fried meat, fried fish; chicken sandwich, egg sandwich, cheese sandwich. There were no culinary masterpieces to be found in Copacabana, at least not today in this part of town.
Susanne and I sat in the garden, where we ordered chicken and egg sandwiches. As we waited for our food we watched three or four large groups of tourists walk down the avenida. Usually lugging huge backpacks, sometimes wearing shorts and sneakers, the tourists were as conspicuous and numerous as ants at a picnic - and as unwelcome, at least in the eyes of many of the locals. "We knew it would be like this," I said to Susanne. "The Lonely Planet book even says that the Aymara of Titicaca are often known to be cold to outsiders."
"Yes, I know," she replied, "but it really bothers me that there are places like this where everyone would prefer it if we never had come in the first place."
"I wonder how much of this is because of recent tourism and how much of this is inherent in the culture," I continued. "If we had come here five years ago, would the locals have minded so much? Would they see us as an annoyance or as an eccentricity? As it is, the Aymara don't always understand how we gringos can afford to leave our livelihoods and our families behind in order to waste our time traipsing around the world. And now that the tour books declare Bolivia as one of the last untouched cultures on earth, we're all suddenly drawn to it, and therefore wreck the pristine environment we've come to observe."
"But it's not always like that," Susanne responded. "Think of our visit to Laos. Five or ten years ago, no one visited Luang Prabang. When we went last year it had clearly been 'discovered' by tourists already, but the locals were the kindest, the friendliest people we ever met."
"You're absolutely right," I continued, "but I wonder if that's partially because the people of Laos have always had contact with the other communities around them. We tourists were probably seen as just another group to meet and do business with, so there's no hard feelings. Here around Titicaca, the first group to visit the Aymara were the invading Quechuas of the Inca empire. Not long after that, the Spanish came in and took over. No wonder they're suspicious of outsiders - what good things have outsiders ever done for the people here?"
"And it's only going to get worse," Susanne noted. "Look at how many gringos are already in Copacabana. It's too beautiful a place for tourists not to visit it. I just hope the residents can make it work for them."
It's not often we've ever felt guilty about our travels over the years; visiting hilltribes in Thailand might be the only major exception. But it's a similar pattern of events here: an ancient culture with a fascinating history and legendary handicrafts begins to attract pioneering visitors. The pioneering visitors bring hard currency, which cause some of the locals to change the environment enough to make it more welcoming to future visitors. With each new round of visitors, more services and amenities are added as more traditions fall by the wayside. In the end the local population is divided among those who wish to take advantage of the tourists and make money off of them, and those who steadfastly hold on to their old ways and insist their community would be better off without them. Tourism's Cause and Effect. Who's right and who's wrong? They both are. We all are. Copacabana, sadly, has developed the reputation for being a quaint little resort community, yet few too many people involved in promoting it ever bothered to ask permission of its residents. It's a tangled web of tension between commerce and tradition and we're stuck smack in the middle of it.
Neither of us were very satisfied with our sandwiches so we strolled up the street to the Inti Huayri cafe to relax over a couple of cokes. As we walked to the cafe I noticed several other restaurants were called Snack 6th de Agosto. It suddenly made sense to me. Before Lonely Planet there had been one Snack 6th de Agosto in town. Lonely Planet then published a glowing recommendation of the restaurant, saying you could find it along Avenida 6th de Agosto, of course. As soon as the book made its way to Copacabana, every other restaurant along the avenida changed its name to Snack 6th de Agosto. Who knows if we ate at the original Snack or at a mere poseur 6th de Agosto; either way the confusion served as simple proof of our theory of tourism's cause and effect.
We had intended to journal inside the cafe but the tight quarters coupled by a loud conversation between the owners and some visiting friends changed our minds. We instead quietly sipped our Cokes, listening to Bolivian marching band music on the radio. Neither of us really wanted to waste the entire day without getting at least some amount of writing done, so we again departed in search of another setting, another cafe where we could spread out and work. Down the road, not far from the lake, Susanne and I discovered yet another Snack 6th de Agosto. This particular Snack had a large, deserted garden cafe with folk music playing over the speaker system. I sipped a bottle of Pacena beer - my first Bolivian beer, I think - and huddled over my journal, hoping the words would begin to flow. We managed to get a little writing done but quickly became restless. "Perhaps this just isn't meant to be," I said to Susanne. We must have passed the time somewhere, though, for it was now around 4:30pm. For a slow day it seemed to have gone by rather quickly.
Back at the hotel we caught an early dinner at the restaurant. Since tonight was to be our last in Copacabana, I splurged for an order of salmon trout broiled in lemon juice. We finished eating soon after 7pm and wondered what we would do for the rest of the evening. I remembered the hotel showed videos each night in the common room. Susanne asked someone at the front desk what was playing tonight and he replied with the linguistically ambiguous "The Mascara." After poking her head into the common room she realized the video in question was going to be "The Mask," with Jim Carrey. Neither of us had seen it before so we decided to watch it.
As we walked outside to our room we noticed that the skies were totally clear. Thousands of stars glittered above us. "Maybe now we can find the Southern Cross," Susanne said. Both Susanne and I were eager to spot the constellation at least once in our visit to South America, yet every other night in Copacabana had been cloudy. We spotted a young Aymara man walking outside the hotel. Susanne quickly approached him and asked him to point it out for us. "Donde esta le Cruz de Sud?" we asked, hoping Cruz de Sud would mean "Southern Cross" to him." "Esta no aqui," he replied. "Onze, onze y media a noche." It sounded like it wouldn't rise in the sky until after 11pm, but he pointed north instead of south, which confused me. We'd have to try again later, I guess.
After securing our daypacks in the room we returned to the common room, where a Norwegian couple and a longhaired American in his early 20s already occupied the main couch. Susanne and I grabbed two chairs next to a tall Dutch man who was showing off the largest black cowboy hat I had ever seen. "I have a really big head," he said, "so I asked them for the largest hat in the shop." The movie began promptly at 7:30pm: English with subtitles in Spanish. I've never been a big Jim Carrey fan so at first I paid little attention to it, spending some time in the adjacent kitchen playing a Spanish guitar quietly while boiling a kettle of water. The water boiled for 30 minutes - plenty of time to kill any nasty bugs. I brought out mat?s for both Susanne and the Dutchman, while I steeped a blend of mate de manzanilla (mint tea) and coca leaves. Despite the habit I developed in Cusco, I was never a real fan of the taste of mat? de coca, so the mint helped soften some of the bitterness.
Watching The Mask was a great way to wrap up the evening, especially after having such a disappointing day. I probably learned more Spanish from reading the subtitles than I had in the last nine days of traveling. Scott, the longhaired American, picked up the guitar after the movie ended and played as the group trickled off to their rooms. We mentioned to the Dutchman we had been looking for the Southern Cross but hadn't found it yet. "I think I know where it is," he said, offering to give it a shot. We stepped outside in the frigid Altiplano air and looked around. "There," he said, pointing to the southeastern sky. High over the city valley I saw a large, bright constellation in the shape of a kite - the same constellation I had seen a week earlier on our busride out of the Sacred Valley. "I am pretty sure that is it." So we had known the Southern Cross all along and just hadn't realized it. We stared at the constellation for a few moments. "Well, we've seen the Southern Cross now," I said. "Where do we go now?"
"La Paz," Susanne replied.
Posted by acarvin at 02:03 PM | TrackBack
March 18, 1999
High Plains Backpacker - Cusco to Puno journal
Hi everyone. In January 1998 I posted the first of several journal entries from my September 98 trip to Peru and Bolivia. I promised I'd post the rest of my journal in January. Well, it took a little longer than expected, but I've finally wrapped up typing it all up. The following messages will include my journal entries for Puno, Copacabana and La Paz. If you'd like to see my previous posts, visit http://groups.google.com and search for "High Plains Backpacker." [or search my blog now that they're archived here.-ac]
So, without further ado, here's my entry for Cusco to Puno.
ps - please excuse any typos or minor errors. I'm still editing the text.
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High Plains Backpacker:
Friday, September 4
Altiplano Railroad
I hit the snooze button at least twice this morning. A few minutes before 7am I finally rolled out of bed and put on some shoes. For all we knew, Luis could be stopping by in 20 minutes to take us to the train station but my stubborn, sleepy head continued to argue for a 9am departure time. I needed to check with the front desk.
"Cuando el tren... Cuando el tren.... Dammit.... Susanne!" "Cuando el tren para Puno sale," she muttered, half asleep. "Cuando el tren para Puno sale." I repeated yet again. "Why did I have to study French in high school? Cuando el tren para Puno sale..."
"Cuando el tren para Puno sale?" I asked the man at the hotel reception, brimming with linguistic confidence. "Ocho," he smiled.
Uh oh - eight o'clock. Luis would be by in less than 15 minutes. "Susanne!" I yelled as I entered the room. "Get up! Gotta go at 7:15." Fortunately we had never really unpacked the night before so it only took a moment or two to get our backpacks in order. The harder task was waking up and getting dressed with enought warm layers to withstand the chilly Cusco morning. Around 7:10 I stepped outside the hotel gate to the Plaza de Armas, just in case Luis arrived early. "No one's ever early in South America," I muttered to myself. Yet within a minute or two Luis and a driver pulled up in their minivan. "Good Morning, senor!" Luis greeted me. "Is your lady friend ready too?" As I turned to yell for Susanne she came through the gate, tightening her backpack around her waist as she walked. We were on our way with plenty of time to spare.
We briefly stopped at a small hostel north of the plaza. After waiting a few minutes a bearded young man with fiery red hair down to his shoulders boarded the minivan with the largest backpack I've seen in years. He looked strikingly similar to Dr. Bob Bakke, the flamboyant paleontologist who always seems to have a special on the Discovery Channel. He climbed behind Luis and started chattering away with him in fluent Spanish. I saw the luggage tag on his backpack: San Jose. Aha - he had that Bay Area thing going on alright.
The five of us drove through the empty streets of Cusco before reaching the southern train station. I had forgotten Cusco had two major train stations, one for Machu Picchu trains and the other for Puno and Arequipa trains. We approached the station from behind and were let through a security gate by armed guards. With the crowds of touts outside the station I felt better knowing we'd be allowed to drive right up to the terminal without having to worry about pickpockets. After buying a bottle of agua sin gas we boarded the train, only to find that someone had already placed their luggage in the small rack above our seat. No problem, I figured; we'll just place our bags in one of the many other racks that were still available. The backpack above us, though, was one of those huge trekking packs that towers well over your head when you wear it, and nearly half of the bag was drooping over the side of the rack, two feet above Susanne's head. I could tell already I'd have to watch that thing for the next eight or nine hours.
The train soon filled up with fellow travelers, including several groups of German, French and British backpackers. A young Dutch couple sat directly across the table from us. They never said they were Dutch - they hardly said anything at all - but they were both reading large books that were clearly written in Dutch. To our right, just across the aisle, were two middleaged French couples. Almost as soon as the train departed for Puno they pulled out a sack of fresh bread, a large chunk of cheese and eight small containers of yogurt. These folks knew how to travel, I thought as I looked at our meagre water bottles and pieces of semi-stale carmel pastry.
For the first half hour of the trip Susanne and I both attempted to write in our journals. Both of us had fallen terribly behind already - in my journal we were still on our first train heading to Machu Picchu. The Puno train offered a much smoother ride than the narrow-gauge Machu Picchu train, but not smooth enough for either of us to write legibly. "I tried that on our train to Cusco," the Dutch woman across from us said, pointing to my journal. "I gave up before you did." I looked at the page or so I had written that morning and quickly realized that I could barely read anything I wrote. It was difficult enough reading my poor penmanship when it's written on a stable surface. There was just no way I was going to get very far writing today. I returned the journal to my daypack, looked out the window and watched the sunrise over the Andean hillside.
The morning passed quickly as the train continued south, gently rocking back and forth down the track. Cusco was now about 100 kilometers behind us. We were now in the Altiplano - the Andean high plains. Even though the Andes stretch far down the western slope of South America, not all of the range is made up of soaring snowcapped peaks. Between here and Lake Titicaca (another five hours to the south) and continuing into western Bolivia, the Andes flatten out into a lofty plateau surrounded by rolling hill country. I've heard the Altiplano described as bleak and desolate, but here at least the scenery was acre after acre of plentiful farmland, small villages and grassy hillsides. Herds of cows, sheep and alpaca graze the fields on both sides of the train. I was particularly excited to see alpaca in their traditional surroundings. Every llama and alpaca we had seen up to this point had been for the benefit of tourists only (though the llamas of Machu Picchu primarly served as natural lawnmowers). Now we were far from tourist country, surrounded by farms and pastures. It was as if Montana had been transplanted south of the equator and dumped on a plateau 13,000 feet above sea level.
As we continued southward I paid more attention to the herds of black and white sheep. On some occasions the train would ride just alongside a pasture, allowing me to get a closer look at the grazing animals. Suddenly it occured to me that I hadn't been staring at sheep - they were long-haired alpacas! Farmers shear their alpacas once every year or two, and if you wait long enough the alpaca wool will get extremely long and busy. These "sheep" were actually alpacas in dire need of a shave. Most of them had been grazing in the grass so I couldn't see their distinctively long necks. Now that I was a little closer I spotted numerous alpacas with their heads held high, like someone with a funny sense of humor had cloned a sheep with a small giraffe.
Apart from the beautiful countryside the train ride itself was uneventful. A pair of German backpackers, one of whom had stacked their pack so poorly above our heads, annoyed the bulk of the train car by beginning to smoke. You could see passengers' discontent spread as the smoke drifted further down the aisle. One of the Frenchmen next to us sniffed the air in disgust and mumbled "Fume" to his companions. A few minutes later a train steward entered the car and promptly ordered the Germans to take their cigarettes outside between the cars or to put them out. "Thank goodness," I said, "We're actually in non-smoking then." The Germans continued to cause trouble by trying to climb onto the train roof from outside the car. Once again they were rebuffed by the stewards and told to sit down.
We then made a quick two-minute stop at a country village, which gave me enough time to step outside in search of something to eat. Several campesinas approached me with buckets of candy and peanuts, but nothing substantial. Someone, I figured, had to be selling empanadas, sandwiches or something filling. "Pan, por favor," I yelled out from the train. One of the campesinas near me turned her head and repeated, "Pan!" which was then repeated by yet another woman. A moment or two later a young woman ran up to me with large round loaves of fresh bread. "Pan, senor!" she smiled. "Quanta cuesta para uno pan?" I asked?" "Uno sole." I guessed the loaf would actually cost a fraction of that, but with the train about to depart I wasn't going to argue over 30 cents. I paid the campesina and returned to our car as hungry backpackers all eyed my warm loaf of bread, its fresh smell overpowering the smoky odor left by the German fellows.
There wasn't much to do on the train so every now and then I'd wander outside to the small platform between the cars. I brought my camera with me and did my best to steady myself to get some pictures of the countryside. "Why don't you sit down," a tall Italian man said to me, pointing to the outer steps as he smoked a handrolled cigarette. This is how people fall out of trains, I thought to myself. "I am quite serious," he said. "Sit down with you back to this wall and place your foot here," pointing to the edge of the doorframe. "If you do this and hold on with one hand you can then take good pictures with your other hand." He then quickly squatted to the floor and demonstrated. It seemed reasonable enough, so I got down and planted my right foot squarely into the doorframe. There wasn't much room to get comfortable, but my pressed foot indeed locked me into place. With the cool late morning wind rushing through my hair I leaned outside the train and snapped some pictures. "Trains are wonderful, are they not?" the Italian smiled, taking another drag from his cigarette.
Just before noon the train stopped at a small market town halfway between Cusco and Juliaca. Unlike most other stops which usually lasted for 10 seconds or less, we spent 15 minutes here, allowing many of the passengers to get outside and stretch. Susanne stepped outside to walk around the platform while I again leaned out the door, this time purchasing a two plastic bottles of Diet Coke and Sprite. Once the train started to roll we discovered the bottles had been shaken a bit; the Sprite fizzed all over Susanne. She wasn't pleased.
Lunch was available on board for 20 soles, about seven dollars. Not exactly a bargain by Peruvian standards, but I was hungry so I ordered the roasted chicken. Around 1pm the chicken arrived with an onion and avocado salad as well as a thimble-sized pisco sour. The chicken was surprisingly delicious and generous: a roasted half chicken with a tangy (and messy) barbeque sauce. Even Susanne, who hates chicken on the bone, enjoyed it. It was by far the best food I've ever encountered on a train. I certainly made a mess of it, though, and was in dire need of Susanne's collection of Wet-Wipes in order to get the sticky red sauce off my fingers.
Not long after 4pm the train pulled into Juliaca, a major transportation hub just northwest of Lake Titicaca. I had initially thought we were going to depart the train here; there were a series of switchbacks between Juliaca and Puno so it was actually much faster to catch a minibus from Juliaca instead of enduring the rest of the train ride. Back in Cusco, though, Luis insured us that the switchback process didn't take as long as it used to, so we would be met by our local guide, Carlos Quispe, on the tracks in Puno between 6pm and 7pm, depending on when the train arrived. As the train sat in Juliaca, I walked around the car to stretch my legs, poking my head out the door to see what was going on. About five minutes into our stop a thin Peruvian with dark Aymara Indian features climbed onto the car and asked loudly, "Su-san Cornwall?" Susanne and I immediately looked up and introduced ourselves. "My name is Carlos Quispe," he said, tilting his large hat above his head so we could see more of his face. "We are driving to Puno. You must get off quickly."
We were both surprised to see Carlos in Juliaca so we rushed to grab our bags off the luggage racks, to which they had been secured tightly for the bumpy train ride. Carlos carried Susanne's bag as we departed the train and walked to a minivan parked across from the train station. "We weren't expecting you here," I told Carlos. "I know," he said, "but it will be two hours before the train gets to Puno, and we can drive there in 45 minutes, so I thought I would pick you up here. We will be in Puno before 6pm." I wondered if this courtesy was going to cost us an arm and a leg but I appreciated the chance to get off the train an hour or two early. Susanne and I were joined in the minibus by a young Irish couple, Joe and Fiona. They were heading to La Paz by way of Puno after having spent a few days in the Peruvian Amazon.
The drive to Puno passed quickly as we talked to Carlos, Fiona and Joe. I told Carlos we planned to go to Bolivia the next day. "I can help you get to Copacabana and La Paz, if you would like," he said. The bus ride from Puno to Bolivia shouldn't cost us more than five or ten dollars, so I told him we could talk about it at the hotel in Puno. The sun began to set over the Altiplano, which had now become flat, desolate farmland with steep hills far in the distance. "This could be the Dakotas, in America," I said. "It certainly looks like the Far West to me," Joe replied. I continuously adjusted the window curtain to my right in order to get out of the direct sunlight. We were just below 4000m, above 13,000 feet; the high altitude and thin atmosphere was a recipe for severe sunburns, especially near Lake Titicaca. "From now on we use SPF 30," I said to Susanne, dabbing some suntan lotion on the right side of my face and neck.
Around 5:30pm the minibus began to descend into a steep valley, revealing the city of Puno below. Puno is Peru's largest port along Lake Titicaca, which we could now see to the east. Sometimes called the blue lake for its uniquely deep blue waters, Titicaca was an immense azure expanse stretching as far as the eye could see. I've always wanted to visit this lake ever since seeing Jacque Cousteau documentaries about it as a kid. "The highest lake in the world," it's often labelled. While not exactly true - there are even higher, yet much smaller, navigable lakes in the Andes - at 3820m altitude Lake Titicaca is still an impressively lofty place.
As we descended into Puno the streets became crowded with hundreds of pedestrians weaving in and out of traffic. I'd never heard anything good about Puno - "there's no history there..." "nothing to see or do..." - but I could already tell that this was a lively little city. Every sidewalk was a never- ending market, with scores of campesinas selling fruit and vegetables, pots and pans. "There are 40,000 people in Puno," Carlos commented, and every last one of them seemed to be out and about tonight. After dropping off Joe and Fiona at their hotel, Carlos drove us to Hostal Isla. "It's a nice place," he said, "but if it's too loud I will take you somewhere else." I noticed a large discotheque next door to the hostal - not a good sign. Susanne didn't seem to mind the noise but I asked if there were any quieter places nearby. "No problem," Carlos smiled, "We can go to Hostal Zurit instead."
I wasn't familiar with Hostal Zurit but was eager to check it out. Susanne looked ready to drop for the night, but I said it would probably be worth going elsewhere if we want a good night's sleep. We followed Carlos uphill through the pedestrian-packed streets. Our heavy backpacks combined with the steep altitude (3000 feet above Cusco, 13,000 above Washington DC) caused us to lag behind Carlos, who darted in between campesinas and food carts like a cat prowling after a mouse. After walking a block or two we reached Hostal Zurit, a deserted, multistory building with an immense atrium. It seemed comfortable enough for one night - certainly quieter than the Isla, so we quickly settled in our room on the second floor. Carlos told me if we still wanted to go to Copacabana tomorrow his tour bus could take us there for $10 each. That sounded fine with us so I paid him in soles. "I'll pick you up at 8am tomorrow," he said. "The bus will take about three hours, depending on how long you wait at the border."
By 6pm we were both getting hungry so we walked up to Avenida Lima, two blocks north of the hostal. Carlos recommended several restaurants on Lima, not far from Puno's main square. We walked up the crowded streets to the square, which was decorated with perfectly trimmed topiary animals. "A little piece of Disney on Lake Titicaca," I said. Avenida Lima was a long pedestrian walkway packed with restaurants and cafes. Carlos had specifically recommended Restaurant Don Piero's, though he also said most of the other restaurants along Lima were both good and safe for gringos. Don Piero's had a solid reputation for tasty food but I could tell from the outside window it lacked any atmosphere. Across the street I noticed another restaurant with a darkened interior and Andean music coming from inside. Three men with menus stood outside the restaurant, eagerly awaiting the opportunity to share them with us. They smiled as I approached them and asked for a menu. The food selection seemed fine, so Susanne and I went inside.
We both ordered chicken from the "Speciales de casa" side of the menu. Susanne asked for the arroz con pollo while I selected another chicken dish which I later realized was Spanish for "dry chicken." I grimly wondered what I had gotten myself into. Along with a couple bottles of sprite we also requested another agua sin gas. The young waitress brought out our drinks, leaving the mineral water on the table with a pair of empty glasses. I opened the water and began to pour it when I noticed the water was heavily carbonated. Strangely, the bottle's label read "agua sin gas," just as we had ordered, and not "agua con gas," which is clearly what we got. I called over the waitress and tried to explain the situation. "El agua no esta agua sin gas," I said, to which she confusedly replied, "No, senor, agua sin gas," as she pointed to the words on the label. "Si, si, agua sin gas," I said, also pointing at the label, "para agua sin gas esta agua con gas," as I then pointed to the fizzy water coming out of the bottle. Neither of us had an explanation for the situation but eventually she realized something was amiss and brought us a fresh bottle. I gave the bottle a light shake and opened it. No bubbles. "Ah, agua sin gas," I smiled. "Gracias."
A few minutes later our food arrived piping hot and smelling delicious. Susanne's arroz con pollo was a huge platter of paella engulfing a quarter roasted chicken, while my dinner was a similarly sized chicken piece smothered in steaming onions and a white wine sauce. The food was fantastic, perhaps the tastiest food of the trip. "Why can't more Peruvian restaurants offer arroz con pollo instead of egg sandwiches and french fries?" I said. We wondered if some of the tasteless food we had previously experienced was actually a side effect of the altitude medicine Diamox we were taking. Diomox, as we had discovered, left most food with an iodine taste, but it seemed our bodies were adjusting to the twice daily doses of pills. "I suppose confused tastebuds isn't that bad of a side effect for altitude medicine," I said. "Imagine if the the side effect was flatulence - all of us tourists would be known to the locals as Gringos con gas." Susanne and I both roared with laughter, trying our best to contain ourselves. "Gringos con gas," Susanne cried, "That's just awful..."
Our stomachs stuffed and our thirsts quenched, we returned to Hostal Zurit after a lazy stroll along Avenida Lima. It was too bad we had made our plans based on Puno's poor repuation. I think we would have had fun hanging out here for a day or two. Tomorrow, at least, we were heading to the Bolivian town of Copacabana, which had the reputation of being a lot prettier and less crowded than Puno. Copacabana would also serve as our departure point for Isla del Sol, a small island on Lake Titicaca known for its ancient Aymara villages, historic Inca ruins and Aegean-like vistas. I had high hopes for our first few days in Bolivia.
Before going to bed I visited the hostal's front desk to request a pair of extra pillows. Susanne and I had looked up the word for pillow in our dictionary - "almahadon." None of the hostal staff spoke English, so I hoped I'd pronounce it correctly. Downstairs I found a young man reading at the reception desk. "Tiene dos almahadon," I stuttered in Spanish. "Almahadones?" he asked, as I placed my hands on the side of my face, imitating someone asleep. "Okay, no problem," he replied in English. The pillows appeared upstairs several minutes later.
As we settled in for the night Susanne and I heard what sounded like a large crowd chanting and marching down the street. "A political rally?" I asked. Susanne decided to go down and investigate. A few minutes later she returned and said, "A political candidates and his supporters. The election is in October - and somehow I managed to learn all of this in Spanish." Indeed we had seen seen many buildings spraypainted with political grafitti regarding certain candidates. At first I thought the grafitti was done as vandalism but the more of it I saw across Peru I realized that people were probably spraying their own houses and buildings in support of their candidates. High-gloss posters and sign would be financially prohibitive here in the countryside, so graffiti made a compelling substitute.
I thought of political rallies and songs from Evita as I fell asleep, the campaign rally growing quiet as it marched away.
Posted by acarvin at 02:49 PM | TrackBack
High Plains Backpacker - Puno to Copacabana journal
Hi everyone. Here's the latest installment of my journal High Plains Backpacker, which covers my September 98 trip to Peru and Bolivia.
This episode: Puno to Copacabana.
And please excuse any typos or minor errors. I'm still editing the text.
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