Travels Revisited

Just now I re-read a post I wrote three years ago about a trip I took with classmates to Puerto Rico. It was wonderful to revisit the details but also disturbing to realize how many of those details I had actually forgotten in the meantime. So, I made a pledge to myself to write up in more detail as many of the Bolivia/South America trips we took as possible. Yes, the experience is not as fresh in my mind as it would have been right after each trip, but I am sure I still remember more now than I will five or ten years from now. This is a pre-New Year's resolution -  to capture in writing the following trips:

- Isla del Sol, the birth place of the sun

- The Jesuit Mission towns in Eastern Bolivia

- Potosi (or how the Spanish Empire bankrolled its conquests) & Sucre (the other Bolivian capital)

- Puno and the Urus floating islands on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca

- Torres del Paine and other highlights in Chilean Patagonia

- The Bolivian Amazon (forget Brazil, Bolivia's Amazon region is more pristine and cheaper to visit)

Goodbye Bolivia, Hello New York

I had the good intention to write this before I left Bolivia (which was actually 2 months ago at this point). But moving across three continents, planning a wedding celebration and then ultimately trying to settle in my new city (New York) somehow got in the way. (Excuses, excuses.) I miss Bolivia. I miss the crazy landscapes of La Paz and actually writing this post now is helping me feel closer to my Latin American home. (For anyone wondering why I refer to Bolivia as home, this may be helpful.)

Highlights of my last month in Bolivia (some of them involving neighboring countries):

1. The first glimpse of Machu Picchu before sunrise (and getting up at 2 am to hike to the entrance). Machu Picchu (and Peru in general) has been on my destination list for a long time. Vaguely since I first started learning Spanish in 2000 and more definitively since I sat next to a Peruvian woman, who told me all about Peru's sights and wonders, on a bus in Costa Rica in 2005. It helped significantly that La Paz is not that far away from Cusco and Machu Picchu. Long story short, I was excited to finally get so close. Milos and I had thought about hiking the Inca Trail, but in the end opted not to, since it gets very crowded in June-August and is quite expensive. We figured we had hiked similar trails in Bolivia with only our guides as companions and this would not be able to compare. So, we decided to take the train (finally running after the landslides of last February). There are then two options to get to the site itself. Take a bus or hike. There is no daily limit on the number of people let into the site but there is a limit on the number of people allowed to hike Huayna Picchu - the peak that rises behind the ruins in all classic postcard pictures of Machu Picchu (400 people per day). We had been told that climbing to the top of Huayna Picchu is a must, so we were determined to be among the first 400 in line the day of our visit. This meant hiking up to the site, since the first bus would not get us up there early enough. (We had been told that aiming to be there around 5 am should be fine.)

We arrived by train to the village of Aguas Calientes (or Machu Picchu Pueblo as it is now known) and decided to do some recon on the trail up to the site.  It was pretty much a walk on flat ground for 30 mins to a bridge and beyond that the trail started going up an endless set of steps. Some guards stood by the bridge; out of curiosity I asked them at what time people start coming by this way in the mornings. "3 am and if you want to climb Huayna Picchu you shouldn't be much later than that." So, we quickly changed our wake-up time from 4 to 2 am. Very few things can make me get up in the middle of the night, but I figured that the climb to Huayna Picchu would be worth it.

So, at 2 am we woke up and at 2:30 am we we off. We got to the bridge in 20 minutes. There was already a group of 20 or so people gathered there, waiting for the bridge to open (which wasn't until 3 am, it turned out). As they opened the bridge at 3 am, I almost felt like a contestant on the Amazing Race, rushing off from the starting point. Steps and more steps. People would huff and puff, stop to rest, as did we, but apparently less than the others (which we didn't even realize at the time), because by the time we got up to the entrance (an hour or so later), there were only 2 people in front of us! (Yeah, we overshot it a bit.) We were actually not sure at first whether we were in the right place, since there was no-one around. But soon enough, more people started coming and 30 minutes later the line had really started forming. Every newcomer (who, disoriented at first about where the line actually begins and where it ends, would usually head towards the front) was greeted by angry shouts of "Fila, fila!" (Queue, Queue!) and headlamps being shined on him/her, until s/he got his/her bearings and headed towards the back of the line. We had almost 2 hours of that to bear until opening time.

At 6 am, we were let in, stamps for Huayna Picchu in hand. Although quite a few people had been waiting in line, somehow the crowd dissipated as it entered the site. No photos do Machu Picchu real justice. It covers a huge area, which you only realize after you start climbing up and down the various terraces and trying to get from one end of the ruins to the other. In the onset of dawn and surrounded by silence, I had the feeling that I was seeing it as its earliest visitors must have seen it. There are no tell-tale signs of modernity or time more generally. Just the signs of an ancient civilization hidden among green mountain peaks. I stared at the ruins and it was like time stood still. There are very few places where I have experienced this feeling. The sun's rays began to illuminate the ruins, more people started entering the site, and then that quiet moment passed. I was back amongst photo-takers, backpackers, and women sporting crystal skulls. For anyone headed to Machu Picchu, I strongly recommend either getting to the ruins really early the morning of, or staying until the site closes. For me, those were the most magical moments.

2. Playing with a bunch of cute Peruvian kids in Ollantaytambo. Ollantaytambo lies in the Sacred Valley. Apart from being a departure point for the train to Machu Picchu, it also boasts its own ruins. (Although no Machu Picchu, the ruins are definitely worth a visit, and the village itself was one of the highlights of the trip for me - with its narrow, cobblestone streets and mountain-water canals.) While exploring its streets, we passed by a group of kids (5-8 yrs old). One of them started saying something to me. I didn't quite understand at first, but then figured out that he was asking me to take a photo. I told him to get all his friends together and I would take one of all of them. They gathered very excitedly and hugged each other, ready for the shot. As soon as the picture was taken, they ran up to me to see it (oh yes, they know digital cameras). "Again!" they cried. So I took another one, and then another one, and another one. I think I ended up taking 5 or 6. I had to tell them that was the last one. At which point, one of the smaller kids came up to me and said, "Cárgame" (Carry me). I thought this was an odd request, but he was so cute I couldn't refuse. It was hard to get him to let go afterwards. In the meantime, the older kids started getting water from the canal and splashing us. It turned into a bit of a water fight, with the younger kids still pleading "Cárgame, cárgame." In the end, I had to literally extricate myself, as one little girl hugged my leg with both hands and would not let go. It was comical and endearing at the same time.

3. Seeing a pink river dolphin. When I first read in the Lonely Planet Bolivia that you could spot pink river dolphins in some of the rivers in the Amazon, I was intrigued. I had no idea such a dolphin existed. When we finally made it to the Bolivian Amazon in July, I couldn't wait to get on the river. Then we were told that they were actually pretty difficult and rare to spot. Well, I guess we were very lucky because we saw one on two different occasions during our 3-day tour. Perhaps it helped that there were only the two of us and a guide in the boat; we were a lot quieter than some of the bigger groups, who had no such luck. For anyone curious as to what a pink river dolphin looks like, it would be better to consult google images. We only saw its back for a few seconds before it disappeared again underwater. But, no, it is actually not pink in color.   

On another note, the difference in the level of tourism between Peru and Bolivia is staggering. Peru's tourism is very well run and organized. We saw tourists of all age groups in Cusco. Of course, this has its pros and cons. Pros mostly for the country itself, because the revenues from tourism can be substantial (and unfortunately Bolivia has not really tapped into them yet). And cons to some extent for the tourists - everything may run pretty smoothly, but you will always be surrounded by hundreds of other tourists and don't get to enjoy nature and the sights quite like we did in Bolivia. There is something to be said for untouched and remote locations.

Of course, now I am in New York and this is as far removed from remote as one can get. Despite having been here for a month now, I am still adjusting. There are many aspects about this city that I love - the diversity, the ability to find anything you could possibly be looking for, the international feel. But the hustle and bustle, the noise, and the pushing on the subway definitely don't make that list. We debated with a friend the other day, "Why do New Yorkers have so much patience to wait in line to get ethnic food at some food fair, but when it comes to waiting 2 minutes for the next subway train, that patience is non-existent?"

Well, I am sure I will be asking myself a lot more questions and gathering a lot more impressions as I get to know my new city. And I have made a decision to document all this here in a new series, New York Stories. After all, it's not healthy that looking for a job take up all of my time.

Is There Such a Thing as a Perfect Market?

I had always thought that the ubiquitous Economics-class phrase perfect markets was just that: a phrase that did not reflect reality. After all, for perfect markets to exist we need perfect information, in real time, immediate; no participant with the power to set prices; no barriers to entry or exit. Well, I think I found the closest thing to a perfect market that I will probably ever find: minibus fares in La Paz. Perfect information? The "sidekick" of every minibus driver yells the fare out for everyone to know before they board (that includes other minibuses running the same route). As soon as one starts reducing or increasing fares, the others follow suit. This happens in a matter of minutes. No participant with the power to set prices? The only thing that exists is a ceiling on the fare set by the government (2.30 Bolivianos); other than that each driver and his sidekick decide the fare independently. No barriers to entry or exit? This I am not so sure about. Most minibus drivers belong to a syndicate, but I know for a fact that some do not. How easy is it to do this without belonging to a syndicate? I don't know. Perhaps I should chat with one of the drivers one of these days to find out.

Evo, Chicken and Gays

Some things the Bolivian president says linger long after he has stopped speaking. You may have read in the news last month about Morales's comment about chicken and gay men. It basically went something like this, "the chicken that we eat is full of female hormones. Because of this, when men eat chicken, they experience deviations from being men." (El pollo que comemos está cargado de hormonas femeninas. Por eso, cuando los hombres comen esos pollos, tienen desviaciones en su ser como hombres.) Of course, there was outrage from the gay community, and he has since had to apologize publicly for his comments several times. However, the more interesting thing is how this faux-pas has been adopted in the Bolivian vernacular. "Oh, I don't think you should eat that chicken," say my male colleagues to each other at work. "I think you may have had too much chicken lately," if you want to really annoy a macho Bolivian. "I'm going to stick to beef, thank you." And so forth.

The more shocking (but I guess not really surprising) reaction came from my colleagues one day. We were celebrating someone's birthday at work with the habitual mid-morning salteñas* and everyone was gathered around the table. The chicken joke came up as some people reached for the chicken salteñas. One of the directors (a woman) said to the guy making the joke, "Well, what about if someone among us is homosexual? How do you think these jokes would make him or her feel?" There was a very brief silence, and then people burst out laughing. The thoughts behind the laughter: Someone among us, homosexual? What is this, a joke? And so it goes. Instead of discussing such topics openly, people just hide their insecurity on the issue behind their laughter. 

Evo sure knows how to stir things up.

* Bolivian stuffed pastry, similar to empanadas, but better.

Aiming for the Top

The climb to the summit of Huayna Potosi (6088m, 19974 ft), 24-26 April 2010

Warning: This is a long post, but I wanted to capture my impressions while they are still fresh in my mind. I hope you enjoy it.

Since the very first time that Milos read about the “easiest 6000+ m climb”, he had it in his mind that we should do it. I was a little less excited. I hate the cold and was picturing myself out-of-breath the whole time. (Hey, I still get out-of-breath during more high-intensity cardio workouts at the gym and we’ve now been in La Paz for 8 months. So as you can imagine, I had my doubts as to my physical abilities at high altitude.) But nevertheless, we added it to our Bolivia travel checklist back in October and then forgot about it for a while. The best period to make the climb is between May and September, so we decided to put off the decision until then.

Well, fast forward to mid-April. Somehow Huayna Potosi came up again, and we decided to ask a couple of agencies that do mountaineering trips about prices and the general itinerary. Milos got even more excited after this. I still had my doubts. The biggest one was whether to do the climb in two or three days. Three days allows you to spend more time at various altitude levels – 4700m, 5200m, and then finally 6088m – and acclimatize. But they told us since we already live in La Paz (at 3600m) we were pretty well acclimatized and could do it in two days if we wanted to. The advantage to doing it in two days is that you spend only one night at high altitude, where it is often hard to sleep. We asked people who had done it before for advice and we got different recommendations – one person said, do it in two days, another said do it in three. Then I started hearing about the people who hadn’t made it to the top. In the end, we decided that getting in more time to rest between climbs would probably increase our chances. Or if not that, at least calm my mind.

The night before our climb, I couldn’t sleep very well. I had an upset stomach and kept getting chills during the night. I thought to myself, “Great, we finally sign up, and now I get sick.” But since we had two more days until the actual final climb to the summit, I decided to take some Cipro and sit it out. We met our mountain guide, Felix, at 8:30 am and drove to a house in El Alto to grab our equipment, which we would learn to use later that same day: climbing boots, crampons, harness, ice axe. We then drove to the base camp of Huayna Potosi at 4700m (approximately 1.5 hours outside of La Paz). After an early lunch, it was time to practice some ice climbing. We walked for 30-40 minutes to the edge of the glacier where we put everything on. Climbing boots resemble ski boots – they are quite heavy and inflexible. Then we practiced walking, climbing up a 70-80 degree wall, rappelling down, etc. It felt just like rock climbing (well, except for the bulky boots and ice axe in hand). Having never used crampons before, I was quite amazed at how well they grip to the ice. After about an hour or two, we walked back to base camp and relaxed for the rest of the day. On the way back, Felix told us how in the 1980s the glacier had extended much further down. We would have been walking on ice instead of rock. Many of the neighboring peaks had been covered in snow back then. Sadly, much of this snow is now gone, and the glacier (like many of Bolivia’s glaciers) has receded significantly and continues to do so at a disconcerting rate. That night we were alone in the lodge at base camp. During high season (June-July) apparently this and the other 1-2 nearby lodges are full to capacity and the surrounding area is dotted with tents. The accommodations were pretty basic but comfortable and warm enough: sleeping bag on a mattress in the middle of a big room.

The next morning, we set out to high camp at 5130m. We retraced much of the route we had taken the previous day and then continued up the rocky slope. We reached high camp in about 2 hours. On the way, we passed several groups of climbers making their way back down. Felix would stop to chat with each group’s guide about their climb. With the exception of two people (out of about 12 we passed), none had made it to the summit. Talk about discouraging statistics. Felix told us that approximately 70% of people who attempt the climb, make it to the top of. Just three days before that, he had made the trip with two Brazilians. They hadn’t made it either. He told us the most important thing is neither to be negative nor overly confident about the climb. The goal was to set your mind to it and then just take it one step at a time and go slow. Apparently, many people overexert themselves at the beginning, only to have zero energy left for the final climb to the peak. That afternoon, we had more time to relax. The peak of Huayna Potosi towered above the lodge. I spent most of the afternoon gazing at it and making peace with the mountain. I thought it couldn’t hurt if I didn’t feel intimidated by it. Late in the afternoon we were joined by four French guys and their two guides. The nine of us were the only ones staying at the lodge that night. After an early dinner, we went to bed at 6:30 pm. Felix was going to wake us up at 1 am and after a quick breakfast, we would start the ascent to the summit.

I didn’t sleep very much between 6:30 pm and 1 am. The wind was howling madly outside and for some reason I couldn’t fall asleep (perhaps it was the altitude, like everyone says). I just dozed off a few times. At 1 am, Felix greeted us with the news that we would have to put on more layers. Apparently, the wind wasn’t usually this strong. I put on almost all the clothes I had brought with me. Two layers below my skiing pants and five layers below my winter jacket. It turned out it wasn’t that cold after all, but I was happy with all my layers. At around 2:30 am we set out to the edge of glacier, donned our crampons and fixed the rope to our harnesses. Felix led, I followed, and Milos came last. The four French guys were also tied in twos to their respective guides. And so we set out, headlamps on, one slow step at a time. There was almost a full moon so we could actually make out a little more than just our immediate surroundings. I tried to concentrate on the walking and not to think about anything else. I knew we had a long way to go. Felix had estimated six hours. One-two, one-two, one-two I would count off in my head. Breathing was getting harder, but somehow I managed to keep a rhythm. At times, I felt a nauseating feeling rise up from the pit of my stomach, but I tried to suppress it. I just pretended it wasn’t there. I knew that if I started thinking about it, I would not make it far. The first portion of the climb was fair, the incline wasn’t too steep. The wind was strong, but not super cold. And it helped to have others in our group. I just focused on making it to our next rest point. I wasn’t even thinking as far as the summit. There was a long way to go. I had been told that when people make this climb in the middle of the night, they often ask themselves what the hell they are doing there. I had suspected that I would ask myself the same question, but I didn’t. I guess by that point, I was determined that I wanted to be there and my only goal for the next however many hours was to make it closer and closer to the summit. Why I was there was an irrelevant question. As we continued to make our way up, the French guys gained on us and slowly disappeared out of sight. We passed a couple who were debating turning around. We trudged on.

Felix had told us that many people turn around at the pequeño palo, a 50 m section with a 45 degree incline at approximately 5700m. You need to climb up on all fours, and the wind right after that section is always strong, as you end up in an open pass. Make it past that section and you are halfway to the summit. But climbing up the wall takes a lot of energy out of you. We started taking breaks more often. Milos started having a hard time breathing and had to stop frequently to catch his breath. But we managed to keep a more-or-less steady rhythm. We passed another couple who were wondering whether to turn back. The girl wasn’t feeling well, but the guy wanted to continue. Their guide was waiting for them to decide what they wanted to do. We continued.

The next section was fairly flat, but at this altitude even walking on flat ground was quite tiresome. We would make brief stops to catch our breath, drink some water, and eat chocolate for energy. I didn’t look at my watch. I didn’t want to know how long I had to go. I kept the rest stops as my intermediary goals. We had to step/jump over a few crevasses but all in all it was a pretty uneventful stretch. As we stopped for another break, Felix told us we had just one more steep section to go and then we would be right below the peak. At that point, we saw that the last couple we had passed had decided to continue. They had caught up to us. The girl still wasn’t feeling very well, but had decided to power on. We talked them into continuing with us. The sun started peeking out from behind the horizon and it revealed a whole new world: glistening snow and ice formations, mountain peaks in the distance, La Paz and El Alto down below.

With ever more frequent breaks we made it to the last stretch before the summit. We would have to hike up a stretch of medium steepness (approx. 30 degrees), then climb up 70-80 m stretch with a 45-50 degree incline on all fours, then walk carefully along the ridge at the top towards the summit. People were inching their way up. Some were already at the top. The goal was in sight. By the time we made it to the 45-50 degree section, some people were already coming down. The problem was that they blocked half of the path up and made it even harder for us to climb up. This section truly felt like being on a vertical rock face (although I realize it was far from 90 degrees). With each step, we had to dig the ice axe into the slope, make a step up digging the crampons into the ice and then push/pull ourselves up in order to repeat the same steps again. The problem with being tied to someone else is that you have to keep up with the average speed. Milos needed to stop more often to catch his breath. I wanted to keep a steady pace because I felt that if I stopped too much my legs would just refuse to continue climbing. The people coming down didn’t help either because they limited our reach. I don’t know why they hadn’t waited for us to climb up the wall before coming down. But somehow we made it all the way up. The other girl gave up, but at least at that point she was able to join the group coming down, so that the guy could continue with the guide. He made his way before us on the ridge. Felix told us not to look down. On the left-hand side was the slope from which we had just come; on the right-hand side was a free-fall area, a vertical drop that seemed to have no end. So, yes, it was better not to look down. Luckily, the wind wasn’t very strong at that point. We edged along and sooner than we knew it, we were there. We were at the summit, 6088m above sea level! We made it up in 5 hours. I could hardly believe it. My eyes teared up. The summit itself is pretty small in area. There is nothing marking the top. It was just us, the other guy (who turned out to be a New Zealander), the two guides, and the magnificent panorama all around us – the rest of the Cordillera Real peaks to the north-west and south-east, Lake Titicaca to the west, parts of El Alto to the south, and the clouds above the Yungas to the east. We spent about 20 minutes on top basking in the sun, enjoying the views, and assimilating what we had just done. Then it was time for the descent. Yes, unfortunately, there isn’t time for too much relaxation since you have to be pretty alert on the way down and can’t let your body go into “rest mode.”

As we made our way down, I understood why this climb is done at night. (Well, the more technical reason is that the slope is more stable at night when the temperatures are lower.) But the psychological reason is that in the ignorance of darkness chances are lower that you will get discouraged. You can’t see how far you still have to climb. All you see is the area within a 2-meter radius and you press on. Walking the same route in the daylight is a completely different experience when you can appreciate the scenery around you – the heaps of snow, icicle formations, crevasses in various shapes, the imposing slopes. The more we descended, the more my disbelief grew. We had climbed all this? The descent gives you a completely different perspective. We made it down to high camp in about three hours. We then took an hour to eat and gather our strength for the descent down to base camp (another 1.5 hours). Oh, and before we left high camp, we added our names to the other writings that dotted the walls of the lodge. It was a tough but very gratifying experience. And it gives me a whole new appreciation of the world of mountaineering and all the people who make summits such as Everest or K-2. Felix suggested we join him on his next climb up Mt. Illimani (6462m) on 1 May. I think we may skip that one, but I may consider another climb in the future, who knows?

Am I Becoming Paceña*?

*resident of La Paz.

When I was told that I would be going to Santa Cruz for work, I couldn't wait. Santa Cruz is Bolivia's biggest city (bigger than La Paz or El Alto) and is the capital of a department in the Eastern Lowlands that is as different from the Altiplano as can be. The best part: I hadn't been there yet. I was looking forward to experiencing the warmer weather, more relaxed lifestyle, and more liberal point-of-view of cruceños (Santa Cruz residents) that I had heard so much about.

The differences are apparent as soon as you land at the airport. Viru Viru International Airport in Santa Cruz is much bigger and modern-looking than the El Alto airport that serves La Paz. As soon as you step out of the plane you get the whiff of a tropical climate (Santa Cruz lies at 450 m above sea level compared to La Paz's 3600 m). I felt like I had just arrived at a resort destination. The ride to the Pro Mujer office was along a flat road lined by palm and jacaranda trees. There were no steep, curving descents, no rocky hillsides like from El Alto; in fact, I couldn't even spot a hill in the distance.

Santa Cruz is laid out in concentric rings. This makes it fairly easy to judge distances (second ring, close to the center; eighth ring, far). Because the surrounding area is flat, there are no natural restraints to growth and supposedly the city is growing at astounding proportions. The city center is small, with relatively narrow one-way streets. The avenues that form the rings are much wider (usually two to three lanes in each direction). Unlike La Paz, Santa Cruz is a shopper's paradise - plenty of fancy-looking clothing stores with big windows displaying the latest fashion line the streets. It also has a lot of restaurants, bars and cafes, most of them with outdoor seating. (One forgets what it is like to live in a place with really hot summers.) People also dress better, drive fancier cars and in generally like to show all of that off. However, that's all mostly in the central areas. Drive a little bit further out and you will see the same dusty, garbage-strewn streets as you see in El Alto. With a couple of differences: in Santa Cruz most people are dressed in short sleeves, skirts/shorts, and sandals, and not bundled up in multiple layers like people in El Alto; and then there are the horse-drawn wooden carts ... much like the gipsy carts one can sometimes spot in the less glamorous parts of Sofia. It is too cold for open carts at 4000m. More than anything, the outskirts of Santa Cruz reminded me a lot of Nicaragua - one- to three-story buildings, dust, tropical vegetation, scorching sun.

When it comes to the people, there are also considerable differences. There is a long-lived animosity between cambas (the inhabitants of the lowlands) and collas (the inhabitants of the Altiplano). Most times it takes the form of jokes and innocent leg-pulling, but sometimes it borders on discrimination. Personally, the first thing I noticed about the people in Santa Cruz (or at least the ones in customer-service positions) is that they seemed to be in a bad mood and definitely less friendly. There was no exchange of greetings, no smiles. I was really surprised, as I hadn't yet experienced that in other towns and cities in Bolivia. Most had the attitude that you were bothering them by requesting their attention. I guess I had gotten "unused" to that kind of attitude although it is also pretty common in Bulgaria, for example. My "favorite" example is from a big-chain supermarket. A colleague and I went to buy some water; she was at the register in front of me. She handed the girl a 20 Boliviano bill to cover the 3.20 Bs charge. The girl's comment was, "Don't you have 3.50?" Wow, it's not like she got handed a 100 Bs or 200 Bs bill. My colleague told her that she didn't have change. The girl then tried to give her gum as change instead. My colleague wouldn't have it. At which point the girl angrily exclaimed, "You are supposed to have change when you come into a supermarket." Hmmm, and here we were thinking that it's the supermarket that is supposed to have the change. After all, you are not a little kiosk on the street. But, I guess we were wrong. I am not trying to be smug or anything, but this kind of thing has never happened to me in La Paz. And it's not so much the fact that she had no change that bothered me, but her attitude. Instead of being apologetic, she was mean and made it out to be our fault. That is one example. But there were multiple instances during my three-day stay in Santa Cruz when I felt that people were rude to me for no reason. I am not quite sure what it is, perhaps people there think they are better than everyone else. After all, Santa Cruz is the richest city in Bolivia; people are used to abundance and don't have to deal with a harsh climate (the region has the most fertile land and is the agricultural mecca of the country; in addition, it is rich in natural resources). They don't have to work as hard as the people in the Altiplano to make ends meet. Maybe that's why they don't feel the need to be nice to customers. Or maybe that's the normal state of being and nobody really notices it or cares. Or maybe these were all just coincidences, and people are in fact super nice. Or maybe I have become the adopted paceña (as my colleague sometimes calls me) and am defending "my city". Either way, it left a bad taste.

Another big difference are the men. While in La Paz men don't really pay much attention to women on the street, in Santa Cruz they stare blatantly, whistle, and sometimes shout out obscenities. I guess, the hotter climate brings out the more sexually liberal spirit. In that sense, the Altiplano parts of Bolivia really seem to be an exception to the Latin American guy stereotype.

All in all, I think I prefer La Paz over Santa Cruz. I will give it another try though in a couple of weeks when Milos and I will be making a trip to the city and the Jesuit mission towns in its vicinity. Hopefully, the rural parts of Santa Cruz department will make a better impression on me than the city itself did.

Reminiscences

The other day, I realized that I have only four more months left in Bolivia. Time has flown by. It got me thinking about what I have gained from being here - a place that was unknown to me seven months ago. Some things were obvious: it has helped me improve my Spanish; it has helped me learn more about the inner functionings of an organization that provides both microfinance products and health services and education; it has allowed me to explore places that I had never thought I would visit. 
Other things were less tangible. For example, it is almost impossible for me to imagine going back to the "developed" world. The place where everything functions, where driving infractions are taken seriously and punished, where time is respected, where such a thing as "customer service" exists. It seems like I lived in that world in another lifetime. I have gotten so used to riding on often crowded minibuses to work, that I can't imagine getting on a subway where, god forbid, you make eye contact with someone. That is just one example - the concept of personal space is very different here. 
While coming down from El Alto a couple of days ago, I saw La Paz sprawled out before me, lights twinkling all the way in the distance. It is one of the views I enjoy and will miss the most. I thought about all the frustrations I felt at the beginning and how I don't feel them as much anymore, although nothing around me has changed. I guess I have. I realized that you can only feel frustrated if you come with preconceived notions of what a place and its people should be like, of what is the "right" way to do things. Once you overcome that, it is much harder for the differences and so-called quirks to get to you. This should have been clear to me. After all, I have lived in foreign countries before. I guess deep inside I knew that but I had never voiced that thought coherently before. What is infuriating at first, can become endearing over time.
I am not certain of the point when I started feeling less like a tourist and more like a someone who actually lives here. Perhaps it came at the time when I started relating more to my colleagues, or the time when merchants would quote me the local and not "tourist" price, or the time while talking with our organization's clients (women of low socioeconomic and education levels) they asked me when I would come back to talk to them again. Whenever it happened, one thing is clear. It is harder to leave behind a place once you cross that line. Once you have let the local people and culture get to you.

Carnaval, Day of the Sea, and Other Bolivian Fun

When you hear the word "Carnaval" you probably think of Rio de Janeiro or Mardi Gras. Well, the Carnaval in Bolivia has something in common with those celebrations: the origins in celebrating before the beginning of Lent, dances in colorful costumes, lots of drinking and partying. But it is pretty unique in at least one respect: the water and foam battle that wages between carnaval-goers, not only during the days of Carnaval, but also at least a week before and after the actual celebrations. Water-balloon throwing, party foam spraying, water-gun shooting... people here take it so seriously that you either participate or can expect to be the target of everyone out there. We decided on the former... and since we were feeling more at home by the time Carnaval rolled around in February and we were in Oruro (where the biggest Carnaval celebrations in Bolivia take place), we decided to target... the tourists, especially poncho-less tourists (yes, we can be cruel like that). It was fun! When back in La Paz, I thought the battles would be over ... until I got foam sprayed on me by someone in a passing car as I stood on the sidewalk. After that, I had to watch my back and would not leave the apartment without a can of foam spray. One week later, we went to Puno, Peru, where we learned that Carnaval celebrations happen a week after they do in Bolivia. And, we were in the midst of the foam battle again (for some reason the Peruvians in Puno did not resort to water), especially since people seemed really intent on spraying you in the face or the ears and would not give up until they did, chasing you down the street spraying foam like maniacs. Thinking back, it is almost hard to believe those scenes were real.

Well, now it is March. And I learned that in March, specifically on March 23rd, Bolivians celebrate the Day of the Sea... or rather mourn the loss of the sea. I have written about this mourning before; however, little did I expect that I would see it embodied in marching band parades, street BBQs, and signal flag decorations in La Paz's Plaza Avaroa...a square named after the colonel Eduardo Avaroa who defiantly fought the Chilean forces until his last breath in the War of the Pacific. (Some might say that he lost Bolivia's sea access, but to Bolivians he is one of their biggest heroes because he fought valiantly until his death.) March 23rd, from what I understand, used to be a holiday commemorating Avaroa's death, but since Evo Morales's government has been in power, it has evolved into the mourning-of-the-sea day, with newspaper headlines stating boldly that Bolivia has not had sea access for 131 years, has lost terrirories with important natural resource reserves, and reports quoting Morales saying that he will not give up until a deal has been reached with Chile to get access to the sea (in some form) back.

We are also still in election mode over here. Local elections for mayor and governor will take place on 4 April. It is expected that MAS (Morales's Movimiento al Socialismo) will win a lot of the seats. The candidate for La Paz region caused quite a stir when he was caught driving under the influence back in February. His license was taken away. The most "interesting" piece of the story, however, is that he was indignant when asked to appear in court since he had already served a "sentence" issued by the indigenous "court" in his community. The sentence: he had to make 1000 adobe bricks in 4 days. Which he did and therefore saw no need to appear in the real court for his real sentence. Well, at least Morales had the sense to make him step down as candidate.

On other fronts, I am getting better at the Bolivian whine.

I experienced the worst bus ride of my life -- a 7-hour torture in a crammed bus, including people standing and leaning on you in the aisles (I think I would have had more sympathy for them if they had been locals... but, no, they were Argentine tourists), cold coming in from the windows, and the seat back in front of me almost jammed into my chest.

I got to conduct focus groups with clients at work. I have to say, getting these normally reserved women to talk and listening to them has been one of the most gratifying and humbling experiences I have had so far. Especially when at the end, they asked me when I would come back again. I will miss them when I have to wrap up my work here.

Crisp Dollar Bills

"As as a rule of thumb, the more fucked-up a country, the more said country insists on crisp bills." - Eric Weiner, The Geography of Bliss

The moment I read this statement, I had to write it down. Because at least in my experience, it holds true. In Bolivia, people demand the crispest of dollar bills. The tiniest of tears or even holes from a staple will be the cause for your bill to be rejected. The same was the case in Nicaragua. At the same time, over in Chile, people have no problem with torn or crumpled dollar bills. Am I onto something? When I think back, during the toughest economic times in Bulgaria in the 1990s, torn, stained or crumpled dollar bills (or other foreign currency, for that matter) were not accepted either. Each bill you handed to a bank or foreign exchange bureau cashier would be examined thoroughly (the only thing missing was the microscope). Well, nowadays people back home don't seem to have any problems with less than perfect bills. So, why is that? Is there some unwritten rule that states that as a country heads up the ladder of economic development, its tolerance for torn bills increases? The logic somehow doesn't add up. Still, I would love to have data that would let me explore the level of correlation between a country's GDP and its acceptance of non-crisp bills. Just for fun.

Highlights Lately

From a unique bowling alley to a festival and an invitation to a Bolivian wedding, these have been some of the highlights for me in the last few weeks.
Highlight #1: Bowling in a place where you have to set up the pins yourself.
At first I didn't believe it when a former Peace Corps volunteer in Bolivia told me such a place existed in La Paz. So, we had to check it out. It was exactly as he remembered it from five years earlier; well, perhaps a little dustier and run down. Sure enough, someone has to set up the pins manually and send the ball back to you once you bowl. We took turns being "the pin machine". One game sure took forever but I bet we burned off twice as many calories as we normally would have. And it does make you appreciate automated bowling alleys.
Highlight #2: Shoeshine guy stops bothering me to get my shoes shined every day.
A shoeshine guy frequents the street corner where I pass by every day on my way to work. Until about the time around Christmas, he would never let me go by without trying to convince me that my shoes needed shining. After I got them shined a few times, he stopped "harassing" me every day. Perhaps because he realized that I would come to him for shining whenever I needed to. Now he just greets me with "Señorita, buen dia". His sudden restraint has made me want to get my shoes shined more often (how's that for a psychological effect?). After New Year's, I had decided that I would give him a tip the next time he shined my shoes. Well didn't turn out to be much of a surprise for him, given that as soon as he started polishing, he started saying "Señorita, everyone has given me something for Christmas except you. Why? See this lady that's coming out of the supermarket, she just bought me something." At first I thought he was making it up but sure enough, the lady approached and handed him some food. So my planned tip in the end turned out to be requested, but it still helped cement our commercial relationship. And it's nice having someone to whom to say hello on your way to work.
Highlight #3: Alasitas Festival (a.k.a. Festival of the Miniatures)
The Alasitas Festival is celebrated on the 24th of January every year. People (mostly women) set up stands in the main marketplaces and sell miniatures - miniature houses, miniature cars, miniature diplomas, miniature food items, basically anything you can think of in every day life, you can probably find in a miniature during Alasitas. The idea is that people give these miniatures to family and friends and whatever you get as a miniature is then supposed to materialize in your real life. It's a cool tradition and somewhat reminded me of the Bulgarian баница с късмети (where you place different fortunes in a filo dough feta cheese pie; each person draws a piece of the pie and finds out what his fortune for the new year will be). I bought a miniature shop. Not that I want to become a shopkeeper but it was just too cute to pass up - with miniature cereal boxes and packets of pasta and rice. How can one resist? These women can put any dollhouse maker to shame.
Highlight #4: Isla del Sol
I finally made it to Isla del Sol on Lake Titicaca this past weekend. So peaceful and at the same time full of life. Reminded me of rural Bulgaria to some degree, with donkeys, sheep and cows roaming free and children running around on the muddy, cobblestone streets. And nothing comes close to the lake's changing colors.
Highlight #5: Invitation to a Bolivian wedding
I was truly touched today when I received an invitation to my first Bolivian wedding. One of my colleagues took me completely by surprise when he came over at the end of the day and handed me an envelope tied with a ribbon. I looked at him with badly masked confusion. Then he clarified. "It's my wedding. We are having a small lunch and I want you to come." This gesture makes me take back everything I had said previously about people at work not being inclusive. It might sound silly, but to me it was a special moment. Like I had finally broken through some of the barriers and become part of the Pro Mujer family. Needless to say, I can't wait! Will report back afterwards.

Feliz Navidad!

In the last few weeks, people at work have been talking a lot about "canastones". From what I could tell, these were baskets of goodies traditionally handed out before Christmas. I had imagined they would contain some chocolates and perhaps a bottle of wine or champagne. Well, I was in for a surprise. On Friday, we each received our canaston. Instead of a basket, we received a custom-ordered backpack (with our name and the Pro Mujer logo) plus a big plastic bag filled with .... what I can most easily sum up as non-perishable food items. There was a package of spaghetti, a jar of mayonnaise, canned peaches, canned peas, condensed milk, some packaged cake, powdered mix for pudding, powdered mix for Jello-O, a jar of Nescafe, Bolivia's version of Spam, quite a few other things, and a bottle of wine (at least I wasn't wrong about that). Wow! They certainly have me stocked up through the New Year now. It was all so heavy that I needed help bringing the bags home.

On another Christmas note, a new movie theater opened up across from where we live. Actually it's a mall, but only the ground and basement floors are ready at this point, i.e. the movie theater and food court. Apparently, that's enough to have a grand opening. Despite the fact that the rest of the building is still very much in construction (as you can see here) - with steel poles sticking out, unpainted cement slabs gracing the next 1-2 floors (and the building is supposed to have 10 floors of which 7 are still missing), and construction materials surrounding the place. Safety standards are a little different here. It is a good theater though. We saw Avatar in 3D there yesterday and it was impressive (plus I really liked the movie itself).

We won't really be celebrating Christmas this year. It feels odd to do so when it's 20+ degrees Celsius out and we don't really have close family and friends around. The whole Christmas spirit has largely passed us by. But the travel spirit is still very much alive, so we'll be making our way to Chile instead, which I can't complain about at all as an alternative.

Don't Get Mad, Get Civil

It took a while for me to notice that Bolivians in general don't raise their voice. You hardly ever hear quarrels on the street, public transportation, between customers and vendors. I guess they just don't like to argue. If you are not happy about something or want to complain you employ the "whine" I have mentioned previously. Being used to almost constant grumpiness and complaints back home (Bulgaria) and the eternal quest for perfect customer service in the U.S. (so much so, people often end up telling others how to do their job), this "state of things" in Bolivia, took me by surprise. I felt like a jerk when I had to argue with a woman to change our cinema tickets to another movie only minutes after we had bought them (as a result of a misunderstanding by both me and her). But in my world, when something isn't done right, it has to be fixed. And if it can't be fixed, you at least have to let off some steam. Shows what I know. This weekend showed me that perhaps, just perhaps, I may be wrong.

We traveled to Coroico for the weekend, a town approximately 2 hours away from La Paz, in the warmer Yungas region. We had it all planned out - where we would stay, what we would do, how much money we would need. In general, we try not to take our credit and debit cards around with us out of precaution for having them stolen. All was well until the time came for us to check out. What we had thought would be the cost of the room (and therefore what we budgeted for) turned out to be the cost per person. Gulp. We didn't have enough money to pay our bill. We were about $15 short. There are no words that can truly capture how I felt once I realized this - embarrassed doesn't begin to cover it. We had no credit cards, no debit cards, no other money at all. I explained that when we booked and been told the cost, no-one had clarified it was per person. (Granted, we could and probably should have verified, or at least over-budgeted.) But what was done was done. We remembered the hotel site mentioned they accepted Paypal. However, their account wasn't working or something of the sort. I mentioned that I know one of my credit card numbers off by heart, but that didn't work either. The card had to be scanned through a reader. At this point, I thought that the lady at the reception would get really mad or at the very least lecture us for being so stupid. Instead, she was super calm and helpful. There wasn't a hint of an attitude. She asked us if we lived in La Paz and then told us we could deposit the remainder we were missing into her account the following day. She would cover the bill for the time being. I apologized profusely several times. And all she said was, "No se preocupe" (Don't worry about it). I am still in a state of astonishment - not only at her reaction but at her level of trust towards us. Fine, we are not talking about hundreds of dollars here, but still. Maybe there is something to this more zen-like attitude.

Bolivia's Elections

This post comes somewhat late. After all, Bolivia's presidential and parliamentary elections are later today. I am not going to delve into a lengthy analysis here, but I do want to mention a few things, just from personal observation and conversations with various people.

From what I can tell, there has been very little coverage of Bolivia's elections outside of Bolivia. Even, The Economist (a publication I highly respect) managed to publish only one piece (that appeared online only) back in September. By the time the piece came out, several of the presidential candidates mentioned had dropped out of the race. Unfortunately, Bolivia is largely out of sight and out of mind for most people. So, what can I report on that might change that at least somewhat?

Few question that Evo Morales will be re-elected - the uncertainty revolves mainly around what percentage of the vote he will actually win. Will it be higher or lower than the 53% percent he secured in 2005? Either way, polls show him leading his opponents (Samuel Doria Medina and Manfred Reyes Villa) by at least 30 percentage points. (And according to a new electoral law, even if Morales doesn't win a majority of the votes, if he leads the runner-up by more than 10 percentage points, there is no need for a runoff.) It is really hard to predict what that percentage will be, mostly because polling here tends to be unreliable (and most often underreports support for Morales, given that few polls are conducted in the most rural parts of the country). Most of my colleagues at work will not be voting for Morales, they told me. Why? They think that his government could have done more for the people. Many things could have been improved, they claim. (I just want to note that most of my colleagues are not of indigenous descent.) They applaud the concept of greater equality and more opportunity for the country's indigenous population, but inclusion is not everything. You need educated and competent people running the country and in their opinion (and that of many other people of non-indigenous descent), Morales's government is not made up of those individuals. Now, in El Alto, one of Morales's strongholds, things are very different. There, Morales is God. Two weeks ago, we were on a day trip out of La Paz and drove through El Alto. A huge march was taking place, with rows and rows of people (mostly women and mostly indigenous) filing through the streets. To them, Morales personifies greater rights and improvements in their standard-of-living (Morales started several cash payment programs - to children in public schools, to the elderly, and to pregnant women and promises more; in addition, his government claims to have made significant investments in public works - building health clinics, roads, water connections.)

For these elections, a new biometric system has been put in place. When we arrived in August, the registration process was in full swing. It is quite a feat to register more than 4 million Bolivians in the span of less than a year. (Voting here is mandatory, and everyone received an appointment to register for the new system and provide their fingerprint.) Some say that the new system will ensure a fraud-free process. Others claim that the whole system has been financed by Chavez and Venezuela and is therefore rigged. Members of the elite especially like to argue about the prevalence of fraud during the registration process. And some even fear a full-blown socialist revolution taking place should Morales be reelected - with all foreigners being kicked out of the country and all industries being nationalized (very exaggerated in my opinion).

One other interesting thing is that Morales has refused to debate with the opposition candidates. Not quite sure why that is. Given his strong lead in the polls and influence over state television and radio stations, it seems he would have nothing to fear. It has been somewhat hard to get a clear understanding of the issues at stake and the canditates' stand on them. As one of the blog posts (on issues) cited below mentions, in Bolivia the elections do not center so much around issues but around identity, alliances and class lines. And, a final thought - much as was the case with the Bush administration, many claim that it is actually the Vice President, Alvaro Garcia Linera, pulling the strings when it comes to key decisions. And that he is the one to be feared for extremism and human rights abuses.

What do I think is going to happen later today? My prediction is that Morales will win less than 50% of the vote, but that is more of a guess than any scientific projection. In any case, it will be interesting to follow the results, especially those of the parliamentary elections, since they are projected to be closer to call.

And finally, I can recommend the following, if you would like to read up further (albeit with a delay) on the presidential candidates, how the electoral process works in Bolivia, the issues, and a number of opinions of the elections (WSJ, Heritage Foundation, and political science professor Miguel Centellas's blog).

What Would You Like to Know About Bolivia?

I realized that you may have questions about this place. So, here is your chance to ask them, and I will do my best to answer them. Whether it concerns politics, the economy, its people, or every-day life, it doesn't matter. Ask. I think the resulting discussion and opportunity for me to do some research can turn out to be quite interesting. So, what's on your mind? (And, please, don't leave me hanging :) )

Bolivia's Mythical Sea Access

Bolivia is a land-locked country, but that hasn't always been the case. There was a time (which ended in 1883-84) when Bolivia enjoyed access to the Pacific Ocean. A time that most Bolivians would like to see return. Many of them think about this quite a bit, as I have come to discover. How did they lose their access to the sea? Like most countries that lose territory, it happened in a war, against Chile. (As a side note, Bolivia has sadly lost all of the wars it has fought. And since its independence in 1825 it lost over half of its territory to neighboring countries.) What I hadn't realized is that before Chile gained that territory, it was divided in two parts by Bolivia's territory - so there was Chile, Bolivia, then Chile again. I am sure the Chileans were very happy to see their country become one undivided territory. But back to Bolivia's sea access. The topic has come up several times in conversations I have had with the guides or locals we have met on some of our trips. The predominant view seems to be that had Bolivia not lost its sea access, the country would be more developed, richer, and better off than it is currently. One man kept talking about some "impressive" (according to him) mine in Chile that would have been on Bolivia's territory had they not lost it. Mostly, there is a sentiment of great loss and hope that what has been lost will be recovered one day. (This monument pays homage to this hope.) Bolivia still has its navy for example, stationed presently on Lake Titicaca.

The question of whether Bolivia would have been better off had it not lost its sea access is a contentious one. Of course, one can see how having cheaper channels for transportation of goods, especially for export and import would help. How not having to depend on the whims, policies, and sometimes the good will of neighboring countries would help. On the other hand, however, all of that matters little if these resources and advantages (and the rest of the economy) are not managed rationally and smartly, governed by the right policies and their thorough implementation. So, as much as some would like to believe that things could have been very different, I am afraid that they probably would not have been that different. (But, a counterfactual is hard to prove either way.)

However, I can relate to Bolivians' sense of loss. Bulgaria lost much of its territory to neighbors during wars to end up with the approximately 111,000 square kilometers its area covers currently. We can try to blame many things on history - if it wasn't for the Ottomans, then the Communists... and before them all, the Byzantines. But, at the end of the day, history only plays a role in teaching us (hopefully) not to repeat the mistakes of the past. It is what we do at the present moment that matters. And instead of wallowing in hopes that events of the past may be reversed we should take charge of what is happening right now. I think Bolivia has to stop yearning for the sea and focus its energies on the resources currently at its disposal. Its lithium reserves in the Salar de Uyuni for example, which apparently make up 50% or more of the lithium reserves in the world. And its amazing nature resources - there are so many opportunities for real eco-tourism, for carbon offsets, and much more. The sad thing for me to see is that among all this plenty, the majority of people here still live in poverty. But I guess this situation describes many developing countries. Noticing it is not hard; it's fixing it that's the tough part.

Traversing Southwest Bolivia: Salar de Uyuni to the Chilean Border (and Back)

Date of trip: 30 October – 2 November 2009

The southwest part of Bolivia is one of the most remote corners of the country, almost exclusively popularized through tours of the Salar de Uyuni (Uyuni Salt Flats). Without these tours, I doubt that the majority of tourists passing through Bolivia would ever make it down there. We took the opportunity to visit one of Bolivia’s top attractions over the long weekend of Todos Santos (All Saints). You need three days and two nights to do the standard tour of the Southwest and that’s exactly what we had, if we made two overnight bus journeys there and back.

We left on Friday evening on what was to be a 12-hour journey to Uyuni on a cama (sleeper) bus with bathroom and heating on board. They were right about the bathroom. However, the heating consisted of a woolen blanket awaiting each passenger on his/her seat. Gotta love people’s exaggerations here sometimes. All in all, it was not bad however. The blanket came in very handy, as it got pretty cold during the second half of the trip. Highlights from the bus ride included: 1) The driver forgetting to shut the bus door. There was no way to communicate with him and make him aware of this fact since he was sitting in a separate compartment with a separate outside entrance and no access from the passenger portion of the bus. So, I had to call the ticket office in La Paz, to get them to call the driver, to tell him to shut the door. This happened twice. (The second time, Milos tried to signal to him by waving his arm out the door while the bus was moving slowly. The bus driver was not looking in his rearview mirrors. Oh well.)

2) The bumpy ride during the last six hours of the trip. An hour or so outside the town of Oruro (approximately six hours into the trip), the nice paved road is replaced by uneven gravel. (Actually sometimes it feels like the bus is simply driving over no road in the desert.) In addition to the constant vibrations and shaking, we also had to put up with the dust/sand that was constantly coming in through the bus windows that kept sliding open because of the vibrations. A thin layer of dust settled over everything, including my face. But it was all part of the adventure.

3) Being “propelled” out of your seat if you shifted positions. The reclining seats were great (and there was plenty of leg room). Only problem was that they didn’t really “click” into their reclined position. Thus, every time you shifted a little bit in your seat, the seat back would “unrecline” and seat your upright pretty fast. This was repeated numerous times during the course of the night.

Twelve hours later, we arrived in Uyuni. First impressions: dust everywhere and most buildings don’t have a second floor. We wandered around to find the agency with which we had booked our tour. That wasn’t hard. The center is approximately three by three blocks. Once we dropped off our stuff and changed, we went to have breakfast. At 10:30 our tour would start.

We were curious to find out who our travel companions would be – six tourists + a driver usually travel together in one Toyota Land Cruiser on these tours. We weren’t disappointed. We were joined by two American girls, one Australian girl, and one Croatian guy (yes, can you believe it! How did three people from the Balkans end up in one jeep in Southwest Bolivia?!?!) All great company. The driver, Cornelio, was super nice (and as we would later learn, also a very good driver and maintenance keeper of our vehicle). Uyuni thrives on these Salar + Southwest Bolivia (or Sud Lipez, as the area is known) tours. There are probably more than 50 companies in Uyuni that offer these tours – again, some better than others. Things to watch out for when booking are the condition of their vehicles, the type of food they plan to serve, whether they plan to fit 6 or 7 (very uncomfortable) tourists in your jeep, and how responsible the drivers are. (We had heard stories of drivers getting drunk or driving like maniacs, sometimes resulting in fatal accidents.) Also, it is good to ask whether the jeep has a connection for an iPod or other MP3 player. The drives can get pretty long and monotonous at times (especially on the last day driving back to Uyuni from the Chilean border).

We were off! Our first stop was the train cemetery just outside Uyuni. Steam locomotives and their compositions had been left to decay here after rising coal prices made their use prohibitive, and Bolivia switched to diesel locomotives. Cornelio told us that all the trains were German or British makes, and had been used until the 1930s. The cemetery had a sad feel to it. With a little bit of signage and more history retold somehow, it could turn into a pretty nice museum. After all, it is a unique place. Currently though, it did give more the impression of piles of metal simply rusting away, while plastic bags littered the surrounding area.

Next up, we stopped at an artisans’ market where salt figurines of animals and alpaca wool products were sold. Nothing too interesting or worth buying though. Plus, we were eager to get to the actual Salar.

You enter the Salar and you feel like you are in an alternate universe. An expanse of white as far as the eye can see. (Well, I guess this whiteness gets broken every once in a while by the jeeps that traverse it.) The Salar was formed through the transformation of several prehistoric lakes. Underneath the surface salt crust is a pool of brine consisting of salt, lithium chloride and magnesium chloride in water. The depth of this brine can vary from several centimeters at the edges of the Salar to several meters in the center. It is 10,500 sq kms in area (4,000 sq miles) – the biggest salt flat in the world. Supposedly, it also holds 50 to 70% of the world’s lithium reserves, which have still not been exploited. (Although we recently heard that the Bolivian government will give the rights for exploitation to the Russians – ah, if only they knew that they can be bigger capitalists than the Americans, but alas. Sadly, the benefits of this deal will probably not trickle down to the ordinary Bolivian people.)

Around lunch time we arrived at Isla Incahuasi – one of several “islands” (more like oases) in the Salar. Supposedly, these were the tops of ancient volcanoes which were submerged in the prehistoric lakes, leaving behind a collection of coral-like rock formations and now also hundreds of giant cacti. The island is a complete contrast to the Salar – brown and covered in cacti. Then, came the time for the amusing pictures. Given that flatness and vastness of the Salar, one can really play with distance and perspective here. People standing on top of Coke bottles or Pringles cans; giant people stomping on miniature folks; one person holding another in the palm of their hand. These are only some of the ideas people have come up with. We, of course, came up with some of our own (pictured below). No Photoshop here. Only a matter of playing with distance and positioning.

We spent the first night in a “salt hotel” off of the Salar. (There actually used to be one on the Salar, but because of ground contamination, its operations were halted and it has now been turned into a museum.) Pretty basic accommodations, but good enough. All six of us shared one room. The beds and the furniture in the eating area were made of blocks of salt, and salt crystals lined the floor. Dinner was eagerly awaited. And it was pretty good. Although we still can’t quite get used to Bolivians’ love of carbohydrates. They like to eat pasta with rice, or potatoes with pasta, or any combination that allows you to eat as many carbohydrates as possible. It is quite amazing!

Second day – we got up around 6 am and were off by 7. The whole second day is an exploration of lagoons and volcanoes to the south of the Salar. First stop, a lookout point over to Volcano Ollague (5865m) in the distance. Gave us the chance to clamber up some interesting rock formations. Next stop, Laguna Cañapa and our first glimpse of the pink flamingoes we had heard so much about. Three species of flamingo frequent the lagoons of Southwest Bolivia, and they don’t seem to be disturbed by the frequently high sulfur content. I had been used to seeing flamingoes wading or standing around in nature videos/films. Well, these flamingoes spent all their time with their heads buried in the water. Apparently, they suck in several times per second in order to take in the algae and brine shrimp that they feed on and expel the water and silt. They also get their pink coloring from the high beta-carotene content of their diet – a fact I had not known until this point. After lunch at Laguna Hedionda (by far the most sulfuric one) and passing by several other lagoons, we entered a stretch of sand desert, broken only by strange rock formations along the way. We stopped at one such outcrop of rocks to look for viscachas (the Andean version of the rabbit, with long tails). After more than 30 minutes of trying to spot one, we were ready to give up, when someone suddenly pointed one out – sitting proudly on a rock. It’s amazing to see that any animals live in this landscape. But viscachas, vicuñas (something like a cross between a llama and an antelope), rheas (related to the ostrich), and flamingoes seem to do quite well in this climate. (Not to mention, the Andean cat and a couple of others that we didn’t spot.)

Just before dinner time, we arrived at Laguna Colorada (The Colored Lagoon) – named as such because of its stark brick reddish color (apparently because of similarly colored algae). Here we spent the night. Pretty basic accommodations once again, but given how tired we all were, I don’t think anyone cared. Dinner and a warm bed was all that was needed. The next morning we would be getting up at 4:30 am.

Third day – a bright and early start in order to see the geysers at Sol de Mañana at sunrise and make it to the hot springs in time for breakfast. The sulfuric fumes rising from the mud pots at Sol de Mañana while the sun slowly rose up from the horizon made for an eerie experience. In the midst of the fumes, you couldn’t see the person standing a few feet away from you. At the hot springs, we debated whether to take a dip. It was pretty chilly outside, so I wasn’t sure I wanted to be faced with that cold on the way out of the hot water. In the end, though, I decided I shouldn’t miss this experience and took the plunge. The water was heavenly. And it wasn’t so bad on the way out either.

After breakfast, we continued our way south, all the way to the Chilean border. The last highlights before the border were the Salvador Dali Desert (named as such because of the strangely shaped single boulders that dot the sandy landscape) and Laguna Verde (a turquoise colored lagoon, again frequented by flamingoes). At the border, some people transfer to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile instead of making the traverse back to Uyuni. We said goodbye to our Australian companion here. Then (around 9:45 am) we started the drive back to Uyuni, stopping only for lunch at the village of Mallcu Villa Mar. Desert after desert landscape changed before our eyes. In one part, we also drove through several green pastures and small rivers, with herds of llamas enjoying the lush grass. Once we got to the paved road, it was a fast and uneventful drive back to Uyuni, with only the occasional “Llama Crossing” sign signaling that we were still far from real civilization.

Uyuni, dinner, and another 12 hours on the bus – this time with no bathroom on board, despite what we had been told. We were so tired though, that we couldn’t care less. I slept most of the way back to La Paz (even through the bumpy stretch). Had time to take a quick shower before making my way to the office and back to the “civilized” way of life.

I missed the desert already.

In the Footsteps of the Incas

Date of trip: 17-18 October 2009

The Inca Trail that most people have heard of is the one leading to Machu Picchu in Peru. And because of this very popularity, it is also quite crowded (or so I have heard). Well, Bolivia also has quite a few Inca trails of its own. Few people know this. I only realized this once I arrived in Bolivia. But the beauty of these Inca trails is that they are largely free of traffic. Or so we’d heard. So, we decided to tackle one of them, supposedly the easiest one, which runs mostly downhill – the Takesi trek. I would subsequently learn that downhill isn’t always good. But that comes later.

We started out early on Saturday morning – the two of us, two Danes we had met in La Paz, a guide, and a cook. (The cook was almost an hour late in the end, but I guess that should not be surprising at this point. We enjoyed a cup of tea while we waited.) The 2-hour drive to the beginning of the trek passes through several communities, the Palca canyon, and offers some great views of Mount Illimani. By the time we reached Mina San Francisco – the starting point of the trek – I was itching to get out of the car. The air was cold and it was quite windy. The first part of the trek is uphill for about 1.5 hours (depending on your pace it could be done in as little as 40 minutes, but at that altitude, approximately 4,000m or 12,000ft, it was hard for us to walk fast). I was somewhat out-of-breath, but for the first time I felt that my body had adapted somewhat to the thin air. The views around us were pretty similar to the other ones we had seen at that altitude – plenty of rocks and brown, barren space. It seemed like a moon landscape. By the time we got up to 4600m, all that seemed to surround us were piles of rocks. From that peak we started the descent on a mostly preserved “paved” Inca trail into the valley.

We had lunch in the village of Takesi. A sign at the entrance to the village informed us that 20 women and 22 men lived there. It was probably fairly outdated, since we saw only one woman (and very few houses). One of the most striking things about the Takesi Inca Trail is that it descends to approximately 2200m over 30+ kms. The landscape changes many times over, from barren peaks to lush valleys, from dense tropical forest to wide open plains. The contrasts are phenomenal. Over the two days of our hike, we didn’t come across a single other tourist and we saw very few locals. You really have the feeling that you have that space all to yourself and can fully immerse yourself in its energy. Over the course of the first day, we trekked for 8 hours. At the 7th hour, my knees were starting to hate the downhill and I couldn’t help but keep asking myself, “Are we there yet?” That was the point at which I noticed that the dense tropical vegetation was giving way to more tame varieties – flowers started appearing; the dirt path underneath our feet was quickly replaced by a thick carpet of green grass. It felt like I had entered some fairy tale world. I almost expected to see the witch’s house from Hansel and Gretel appear at any second. We were nearing Kakapi – a community where we set up camp for the night. We camped on a ridge overlooking a green valley. It was quite amazing to wake up to that view the following morning. We were a four-hour hike from civilization in either direction. Remote and free.

It was difficult to get up the following day, especially because my knees were still quite sore and I knew that more downhill awaited us. (I had already started wishing that the trek would continue uphill. It felt much easier to walk uphill than downhill at that point.) But at least I knew that the trek would be shorter – only four hours or so – until we reached the end of the trail at the Chojlla mine. We passed two more communities, a hydroelectric station, an aqueduct, and had to cross a river via a makeshift “bridge” consisting of a pile of logs, as the real suspension bridge had collapsed a few years back under the weight of a group of kids on a school outing (sadly, a couple of them had died in the accident). My favorite part of the trek that day was the last 1.5 hours or so on a smooth, even path with a slight upward incline. It felt great on the tired knees.

The adventure didn’t quite end with the end of the trail. After a quick lunch, we started the drive back to La Paz (the driver who had dropped us off the day before at the start of the trail had come to pick us up). To my dismay, the first 30 kms or so were on something very much resembling the Death Road (a narrow, gravel road winding along the side of the mountain), except it was probably not known as such given the lower volume of traffic. It also started raining pretty heavily. My heart stopped for a second at the prospect of having to squeeze by another vehicle every time I saw a bus or truck head towards us from the opposite direction. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time, especially since our driver (experienced as he may have been) would gesticulate to his companions or turn over to talk to them in the middle of a curve. My relief was immense once we joined the main, paved road. Back to El Cumbre, and back to La Paz.