Sucre, Capital Plena

(I was in Sucre from August 19th to August 21st.)

I arrived in Sucre from Potosí after a 3 hour taxi ride in which our driver used both lanes of traffic to round the corners at 120km/h in a speed zone of 40km/h. About halfway through the ride, as I was attempting to sleep in order to avoid constantly worrying for my life, a burning smell began wafting through the taxi. Our driver pulled over to check the brakes, which were obviously burning at this point, and then told us “Everything is fine, no worries.”

The next morning I headed off to Tarabuco, a small Quechua town about 3 hours outside of Sucre famous for its textiles. The bus ride there gave us beautiful views of the countryside, stark mountains and valleys with a few cacti here and there, an incredibly blue sky contrasted against the reds, oranges, and yellows of the terrain. The town itself was pretty ordinary, and while the textiles were certainly beautiful, I was a bit disappointed that I had seen most of the merchandise previously in La Paz. I got bored walking around, and a bit annoyed by the less-than-passive sales techniques of the vendors (“Mamaciiiiita, por favor…”) I wandered to the edges of the town, past the tourist-friendly parts, to see the mountains and the countryside. It was incredibly rural, with a bit of farmland, some animals sleeping peacefully. I saw few farmers dressed in traditional textiles herding a line of pigs, and I saw a few women taking a break in the shade of a large tree. It was such a relief to get away from the bustle of the inner markets.

Back in Sucre, I was a bit disappointed by how many museums and churches were closed, contrary to the indicated hours of operation. The city is filled with gorgeous white buildings, which gives it a very peaceful air (even if some of the buildings are a bit dirty.) I got a chance to see the Textile Museum, which had a beautiful array of weavings and explanations of the traditions, and also the convent La Recoleta perched on top of a hill, affording a gorgeous view of the city. While I was waiting to buy my entrance ticket into the convent, I saw a woman sitting in the office – it took me several minutes to realize that the skin hanging off of her face was not because she was old, but rather because she was so thin (and yet she was still carrying a heavy load on her back.) I could see the ribs protruding from her chest, and as I looked down at her legs I realized that her calves were thinner than her knees.

Later that day I sat down in the main plaza to take a break, and was immediately approached by an outgoing shoe-shine boy who wanted to polish my beat up converse. I politely declined the offer, but started chatting with him about his life…he was 12 years old, he claimed that he was in school, and his parents lived in the countryside. After about 5 minutes I found myself surrounded by a group of about 5 shoeshine boys, all trying to get me to buy them food or give them money. Unfortunately the original boy wandering away, and I was left to fend off the others, who weren’t nearly as charming. I kept telling them “No, it is not my responsibility to buy you food or give you money.” Part of my really wanted to indulge them, but I knew that it would just reinforce annoying behavior, and more than anything it would continue the wrong kind of relationship that locals have with tourists. Eventually I had to get up and leave because they would not leave my alone.

I think the most interesting part of Sucre for me was seeing the signs everywhere that were protesting about the capital. In contrast to the “La Sede No Se Mueve” signs in La Paz, everywhere in Sucre there were signs saying “Si, La Sede Se Mueve” or “Sucre Capital Plena.” The signs were even more visible there – in people’s windows and on cars – and there was even a car driving around the main plaza playing a propaganda song. There were also students who had tied themselves to the main building as part of a hunger strike. From my understanding, the controversy over the capital has economic and cultural components. I don't have a firm understanding of the controversy, so I can direct you to this article.

So now I am just milling around La Paz, waiting for my parents to arrive tomorrow evening. I’m eager to see their reception of Bolivia – at first it was such an alienating, foreign place to me, but now I feel so comfortable here. I’m also eager to practice my skills as family tour guide, because my parents don’t speak a bit of Spanish. Should be interesting…

The Most Terrifying Experience of My Life

After visiting several churches, convents, and the Casa de la Moneda (the museum that details the refinement and use of the silver mined in Cerro Rico, the silver mine that fueled the wealth of the Spanish empire in the colonial era,) the next day I decided to go on a tour of one of the cooperative mines that still functions inside Cerro Rico. When I walked into the tour office the guides (all ex-miners) were chatting in Quechua, and it took me a while to realize that their second language is Spanish. Our first stop was to get our protective clothing, which consisted of bright orange rubber pants, a rubber jacket (held shut with well-used Velcro), rubber boots, a bandana for the face, and a hat with an attachment for a lamp. I was one of the four tourists who opted to take the tour in Spanish, because I figured that the guides would give more details in a language they were more comfortable with (and the rest of the people were annoying British and Irish tourists, so I needed to get away).

Our guide Rolando took us to the Miner’s Market to check out the supplies that the miners take inside the mountain – Bolivian dynamite, fertilizer soaked in diesel fuel (to augment the capacity of the dynamite), coca leaves, soda, 96% sugar cane alcohol. After milling around the market and buying “gifts” for the miners, we went to one of the “ingenios” (silver refineries) to see how they grind up the rock and then purify the minerals with a variety of noxious chemicals. Traveling to the mine entrance (4200 meters) in a severely underpowered bus, I was extremely glad that I had opted to be in the smaller, Spanish speaking group - I heard one of the British girls say “I didn’t buy coca for the miners because I just didn’t have enough money…” I pretty much wanted to smack her for being so ignorant of the mining conditions and the poverty.

I wish that I had been able to take better pictures inside the mine, because I don’t think that anything I say can possibly describe the experience (but here I go anyway.) As we went into the entrance, trying to stay out of the way of the workers manually pushing huge mine cars of ore down the rickety tracks, I was thinking to myself “this isn’t so bad, I can handle this, all I have to do is duck down a bit.” Sure, I was hitting my head every 5 minutes on the ceiling, but I was able to breathe and I didn’t feel the least bit claustrophobic (as I had been warned at the beginning). Our guide turned to our group, asked us if we wanted to go on a “small adventure,” and we nodded in consensus. He brought us over to a 2x2’ hole about 5 feet up in the wall, and motioned for our group (made of me and three very tall, very athletic men) to follow him. I went right after him, and when I had stepped into a small, dark hole I started to have panic attacks. My heart was racing, I was having a hard time breathing, and every part of my body was screaming “GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN!” I watched Rolando climb through a hole about was wide as my hips, and I told him “I don’t think I can do this, I’m very afraid.” He looked at me and told me not to worry. At that point I decided that what scares you probably makes you stronger in the end, so I put beside all my fears and started crawling through the incredibly claustrophobic areas.

After about 15 minutes of climbing up and down passageways (at one point I had to shimmy on my back, the ceiling about 3” from my face, and then down a vertical hole), we came to our first group of 5 miners working a small hollow, surrounded by deposits of gold, silver, and lead. We talked to them for a while about their work, their age (one man was 17, looked about 30, and had been working the mine with his dad since he was 14). They had been in the mine for over 24 hours, sleeping, eating, and working. We offered them a few gifts, including the alcohol (which was an awkward experience, certainly meant to bridge the cultural gap, but in reality it had no such effect.) The mixed the alcohol with a bit of soda, and then offered it to our group in a small cup made out of the top of a plastic bottle. We had to offer a little bit to Pachamama, the goddess of the earth, and to the Tio, the evil spirit of the mine, by pouring a tiny bit on the ground. Luckily for me our offerings were quite big, because the stuff we were drinking was quite strong.

As we climbed deeper and deeper into the mine, it became harder to breathe because of the incredible amount of dust in the air. All of the work was done manually, with a hammer and pick, and there were no ventilation systems. When we were on the third level, the heat and feeling of claustrophobia became almost unbearable, and I had to take the bandanna off of my face because I couldn’t bear the feeling of something constricting my breathing, even if it was moderately filtering silicone particles out of my face. After seeing the areas where they lift the ore from the lower levels to the top level to be taken out of the mine, our guide decided to take us back up to the surface. We scurried up a long, nearly vertical shaft for about 20 minutes, and when we finally emerged from the mine, I was thanking the higher ups that I was alive and able to pull air into my lungs. By the end I was glad that I had been chewing on a large wad of coca the entire time, because the combination of altitude and lack of air left me feeling dizzy and exhausted. We were the last group to emerge from the mine, after crawling around for about 2.5 hours (and boy did I feel it in my legs the next day.)

I'm incredibly glad that I went on the tour, but it was the most terrifying and exhilarating experience of my life. Looking back, it's one of those things that you appreciate afterwards, but while it is happening it is horrible. I can't imagine how those miners can work down there, and I now have a tremendous amount of respect for the miners and their way of life. I suppose it also gave me a greater appreciation for the lack of communication that exists between tourists and manual laborers in Bolivia, because in the end our lives are completely different. There is no way I can begin to understand what a miner's life is like.

Potosí, Faded Glory

(I was in Potosí from August 16 to August 18th.)

The bus ride from Cochabamba to Potosí (10ish hours) was quite tranquil, even though I have a hard time sleeping on bus camas. As I was getting settled, I became quite annoyed by someone pushing repeatedly on my seat. Usually I try to let those kinds of things go, but after about 5 minutes (I was also trying to write) I stood up and turned around to lecture my bus-mate. Turns out an adorable little girl was squirming on her mothers lap, and as I started asking her not to push on my chair, por favor, I started to melt at her toothless smile and giggling. We ended up chatting for a bit, as she told me she was 5 years old by holding her hand up to my face, and then when I told her how old I was, she asked me “How many hands is that? Show me!” She proudly told me she was “from the campo!” and then as I tried to go back to my writing, she tapped my head a few times and eventually grabbed my nose between her chubby little fingers. As the night wore on and I tried to recline in my seat, I heard her say “You are going to squish me!” I felt kind of bad, as she was laying on top of her mothers lap and it was bound to be uncomfortable, but by that time I was dead tired and need to relax.

My experience with Bolivian children, in general, has been amazing. Aside from the looking at me like I’m an alien, they are incredibly outgoing and friendly. They also have a fascination with being photographed, which is such a change from every other photography experience I have had here. In Cochabamba when I was photographing a museum, a group of school children literally jumped on me, eager to be photographed. It’s so nice, such a relief, that they aren’t yet influenced by the cultural issues that surround photography here. Instead, sheer joy and excitement at seeing a weird machine that can take pictures.

I arrived in a very cold (after Cochabamba) Potosí at about 6:30 in the morning, just as the sun was starting to come up over the mountains. I left my luggage at the bus terminal (not without a bit of fear for its safety) and proceeded to walk towards what I thought was the city center. I ended up going down the wrong side of the hill and getting a fantastic view of the shacks speckled on the red-brown hillsides. Also turns out that I was wandering around arguably the poorest part of the city, so as soon as I realized that there were not beautiful colonial buildings in the near vicinity, I hailed a taxi and went to the city center.

Once I was in the right area, I started wandering down the narrow, cobblestone streets gazing at the beautiful, colorful colonial buildings and the grand churches. At that hour the city was perfectly deserted, and there was none of the dizzying traffic of Cochabamba or La Paz. I found my way over to a tranquil little café to have breakfast, and was a bit startled when I emerged to find the city alive with taxis and people advertising the days papers. Of all of the cities that I have visited thus far, Potosí is by far my favorite – it has preserved a charm that makes it feel miles away from any other part of civilization. Perhaps it’s the altitude, the serene setting among the mountains, the sheer visibility of past glory. But I haven’t felt so peaceful or intrigued by any other place that I have been in Bolivia.

Cochabamba Heat and Urkupiña

(I was in Cochambamba from August 12th to August 15th.)

Traveling by bus from La Paz to Cochabamba was an interesting experience, not only because I was seated in the only section of the bus with two crying babies, but also because it was my first real view of the vast expanses of the country between cities. Leaving El Alto I had a terrific view of the Altiplano—the small dirt-colored mountains with shacks scattered here and there, the endless dead looking fields. As we got closer to Cochabamba the climate became noticeably warmer, and the flatness gave way to larger mountains and valleys speckled with small bushes and cacti, a few flowers here and there. The variety of socioeconomic classes traveling by bus was also astounding…there was a collection of tourists, businessmen, and campesinos.

When we got to Cochabamba I left my luggage at the station (not without worrying for its safety, even in the “guarantee” of left luggage), and went off to find an internet café. I ended up stripped off several layers of clothing (a shirt, my socks) in the café, causing several people to look at me with the “what the devil is that gringa doing?” expression. But I’ve gotten used to the colder climate in La Paz, so at that point I was pretty much drenched in sweat and I didn’t care how weird it looked.

After Anna (I was in Cochabamba to visit her) got out of her classes, she took me to her house in the suburbs of the city, a pleasant little middle-class barrio full of fenced in houses and flowering trees. Señora Ellie, Anna’s host mother, is an adorable little woman who lives with her extended family and multitude of pets. After I set my things down in Anna’s room we sat down for dinner. While Anna had told me about the ridiculous amount of food Señora Ellie piles onto her plate and expects her to eat every night, I was not really prepared for the sight of my plate – a platter of white porcelain piled about 3 inches high with chuño cooked in peanut sauce and a reddish potato stew served over a bed of potatoes. Balanced meal, right?

The next day we wandered around the town, which seemed surprisingly similar to La Paz, much more so than Sucre or Potosi. There is certainly a warmer climate, which means that there is more vegetation and flowers and color, and there is also a distinct lack of hills. I also noticed that the cholitas have a very distinct method of dress – because the indigenous culture here is mostly quechua, the women wear shorter polleras (skirts), sombrero-like hats (instead of bowler hats), and more colorful textile clothing. And yet the buildings, the bustle, and the general dirtiness of the city felt very familiar to me. It really annoyed me, however, when a man approached Anna and me on the street and warned us “You have to watch out, you have to be careful, those people are looking at you and it’s dangerous to be here!” If you look at all like a tourist, you elicit such a strange range of reactions here in Bolivia. But the assumption that you are helpless (specifically women) and that you have no idea what you are doing drives me crazy.

On Tuesday we headed off to Urkupiña, the folkloric festival for the Cochabamba department. It’s held in Quillacollo, which has a similar relationship to the main part of the city as El Alto does to La Paz, and drew in a large crowd of not only city-dwellers, but also campesinos. After wandering around for 20 minutes, guided by a very vague and hand-drawn map, we finally found our seats. The dancers, accompanied by local musicians, danced down the streets surrounded on each side by cheering crowds of people. The colors of the costumes, along with the energy of the dancers, was incredible – depending on what dance and what part of the country, the costumes were full of sequences, ruffles, feathers, traditional textiles, elaborate masks. The parade, I guess you could call it, was so much more alive (even with the horribly out of tune Bolivian bands) than any celebration in the United States.

By 6:00 the entire crowd was drunk, and by nightfall people was singing and dancing in the streets, now heaped with piles of beer cans and food wrappers. I had no idea how to do any of the dances, but because I was standing along the side moving to the beat and one of the only gringos in the area, I was repeatedly dragged into the crowd to join the dancers. There were, of course, the fair number of sketchy and drunk men, but thankfully Anna and I were able to avoid any issues. It was tremendously liberating that people were excited to see foreigners participating (in contrast to the usual mistrust and hostility). It’s sad to me that it seems like flowing alcohol is a necessary prerequisite for cultural mixing, but it’s still thrilling that people were friendly, and came up to us asking “Where are you from!?” and “How do you like Bolivia?!” All of the revelry was of course accompanied by the “look at that fool of a gringo dancing” and the customary “make the gringo drink” (people would come by and demand that you take a sip of their beer, and if you refused they would look at you with a confused and offended expression), but I have never felt so part of Bolivian culture. In all my time in La Paz, I have never been able to break down that barrier, and I have never been so filled with energy. The color of my skin, the difference in my education…in the moment that I was attempting (rather badly) to dance tinku in the street, none of it mattered.

At the end of the night the crowd was quite out of hand, and the streets were so filled that the dances were unable to proceed. We left at about 11:00 when they were performing dance #56 of 80. The night had been generally quite good-spirited, but after Anna’s camera had been stolen and another tourist’s bag had been slit open, we decided that the atmosphere was decidedly a bit more dangerous. The next morning Anna and I recounted our adventures to Señora Ellie, and as I explained my perception of Bolivian men and their wandering hands, Señora Ellie’s reaction was priceless: she told us that we had to “kick them where it hurts,” complete with a demonstration and high pitched squeals and giggling.

Picture Slideshow

Now that my time here is (sadly) coming to an end, here's a slideshow of some of the photo highlights, enjoy.

It Wouldn't Be a Bolivian Experience Without a Blockade

I have finally come back in La Paz after traipsing around the country for more or less a week and half. It feels good to be back at home base, although I’m dead tired because I spent 24 hours trying to get from Sucre to La Paz due to the good old, classic Bolivian blockade.

I left Sucre at about 6:00pm last night on a 12 hour bus ride to La Paz. The ride in bus camas ( as they call the buses that recline to more or less a 45-degree angle and have more leg room) are generally pretty tranquil, but I find it a bit hard to sleep in the cramped quarters. I had a pleasant surprise when I awoke to something small hitting my chest with a thud, and realized that someone had vaulted a gum ball through the air and onto my chest. The gum ended up tangled in my headphones and also in the ends of my hair (I had to cut it out with a swiss army knife.) I wanted to yell out a serious of Spanish and American swears, but as it was about 12:30am and most of the bus was fast asleep, I decided to just let it go.

At about 2:00am we stopped at the side of the road, and at the time I though we were ahead of schedule or taking a break. At 6:30am, when the sun came up, the bus was still parked at the side of the road, and from what I could tell without my contacts in – we were in the middle of nowhere a good hour and half before we were schedule to arrive in La Paz. After the man in the seat in front of me stuck his head out the window, he announced to the bus that we were, in fact, stuck in a blockade, and that there were “hartas flotas” (a ton of buses) in a row. A few people decided to try their luck at walking, but my seat-mate (a nice Bolivian man studying tourism) and I decided to wait it out a little while to see what would happen. Our bus driver managed to drive down the wrong side of the road a good half a mile, but when we realized that we weren’t going anywhere further, we joined a group of quechua men and started trekking down the road.

At the head of the blockade, which I would guess was about a mile long, we could see a group of people parading across the road. To avoid confrontation we hiked over a small hill (I was carrying about 50 pounds worth of luggage and gifts) and then made our way back over to the road, only to see that there was a definite shortage of taxis or minibuses transporting people away from the blockade. After hiking down the road for about an hour (the view was gorgeous, the sun was just starting to come over the hills), we finally ran into a taxi driver who piled six very grateful people into his rather decrepit car and took us to the center of Challapata…only to find that there was another, larger blockade.

My amigo and I set off walking again for another half our or so, this time past an even longer line of flotas and transport trucks. We walked past the main protest area, filled with miners from the Oruro area, who gave me a lot of funny looks because I was not only the only gringa around, but I was also walking with a Bolivian man. (According to http://www.abi.bo/index.php?i=noticias_texto&j=20070822104411, the miners were protesting the suspension of mining due to the danger of water contamination.) Eventually we saw a flota that was turning itself around to go back to Oruro, and after it made its way across the dirt and salt ground (the town is close to some salt flats), we squeezed our way onto the bus (after literally fighting the crowd of 150 people). Luckily there were quite a few empty seats, and by the end even the aisles were crammed with people.

So from Challapata to Oruro (3 hours), and then Oruro to La Paz (3 more hours), my amigo and I managed to make it back to the city only about 8 hours after we had been scheduled to arrive. But like I said, my time in Bolivia wouldn’t have been complete without a blockade.

Sucre

The white city. They aren´t kidding.



(The students who have tied themselves to the building in the picture are protesting about the location of the capital, if you remember back to the Cabildo and the “La Sede No Se Mueve” signs. Here it reads “Si, La Sede Se Mueve.”)














(Capilla de la Virgen Guadalupe.)




(Inside of a church.)


(And another church.)


(And another…)


(Convento Santa Teresa.)


(Textiles for sale at the Museo de Textiles ASUR.)






(Courtyard of one of the many Universities.)


(View from the top of Iglesia La Merced.)










(Courtyard of the hostal where I am staying.)

Tarabuco

(The outskirts of Sucre, on the way to Tarabuco, a pueblito famed for its textiles.)




(The baskets are full of strips of llama meat drying the sun. The finished product is called charque, and it’s like a very flavourful and lean version of beef jerky.)






(Wandering around the market.)




(Most of the textiles are made from alpaca wool, and they generally sell from between $2 and $20.)




(Wandering around the outskirts of the town.)

Tour of the Mines in Cerro Rico

(Walking through the miner’s section of town on our way to get outfitted with mining gear.)


(Miner’s market.)

(Visit to the mineral refineries called Ingenios. This particular machine is grinding up the rocks into pebbles.)


(Machines mixing rock paste with lovely chemicals like arsenic.)






(Silver sediment on my hand, after washing the soot that came out of the chemical baths with water.)


(View of Cerro Rico.)


(View of the Miner’s Barrio and below.)


(The Little Bus that Could.)


(Miner’s house.)

(More or less at the entrance of the mine, in the small but informative museum.)


(My guide Rolando sitting in one of the larger holes we crawled through.)






(The fuzziness of the picture is from all of the soot that was in the air.)

(Me and Rolando, hanging out in the mines…sigh.)


(Finally able to breath again, Rolando holding a dynamine bomb of Bolivian nitroglycerine, fertilizer, and diesel.)




(The dynamite bombs exploding on the hillside.)