La Paz

The day after trekking Isla Del Sol, we caught the local bus (cheaper than the gringo bus) with Ellie to La Paz. The scenery is amazing even if the road is extremely bumpy and winding. Also, on the local bus, we stop in the middle of nowhere to let people on and off even when there is no indication of any sort of bus stop. It is pretty cool how this works that you can flag down the bus in the middle of the countryside with no problems. I would not like to find out what would happen if the bus was full. We had plenty of space, so there was no problem, but I can also imagine the bumpy, windy road to La Paz with people packed into the aisles, making it uncomfortable for everyone involved (like the buses in Quito). Anyway, we got to La Paz without a problem and found a hostel called Adventure Brew. It has its own microbrewery, kitchen access, places to hang out, tv room with dvd player, pretty much everything you could ask for. We decided to dorm it for the first time on this trip and it was fine. We were with good people in our room, including a kid who will be attending Bard in the fall and on our last day, a Vassar grad (02) showed up in the room next door to ours.

Since we arrived pretty early, we decided to do some exploring and wouldn´t you know, we ran into Jackson again. He and his group were about to go to the World Bank for a presentation and we decided to tag along after his program director gave it the ok. First of all, it was all in Spanish, so it was a little difficult for me, but I got the general gist of the standard propaganda that the World Bank spews to make itself seem positive, helpful and indispensible to developing countries. There was a lot of talk about the Millenium poverty goals yet the economist refused to give even a working definition of poverty here ("Poverty is like love. You can't really define love, but everyone knows what you mean when you say you're in love"). He did talk about increased urbanization but mostly in terms of how this affects government expenditure and thus loans taken. To say that loans need to be taken in order to pay back loans is one of the more ridiculous things he said. This was quite interesting since it is not an everyday experience and it is a look into one of the shackles of neo-colonialism. They were also bragging about how their money was used by the government (World Bank conditional loans) to build so many meters of bridges and kilometers of roads and whatnot. And what also was kind of frustrating was their position on bilingual education. They said that they want to increase educational access for all, but in Bolivia, which has large indigenous groups that don't necessarily speak Spanish, there should be education in the native language in addition to Spanish. His response to this question was that it really depends on the situation and that it is fine when the indigenous students make up 100% of the class, but that when they aren't the full class, then it shouldn't necessarily happen because it is an unfair advantage (gift, privilege, not quite sure what the right word is) over the other students. The program director also invited us to other events with the study group, but we didn´t make it to any others. Regardless, the experience at the World Bank was a good one just to see what they are doing here and what they have to say. It is also slightly difficult to believe that they really know what is happening on the ground level when they are based in an incredibly nice office in the business center of La Paz, so clearly removed from the poverty that is evident less than a mile away.

Jackson and his group had annother presentation to attend, so we left for dinner (BBQ) at the hostel and a sampling of the beers made there. They had a kolsch style, a bitter and a dark bock, all of which were very good and a welcome change from the somewhat unexciting pilseners that are all over Latin America. We then met up with Jackson and some of his friends for hummus, pita, spinach pies, hookah and chilean wine at a Lebanese place relatively nearby.

In the morning, we tried to have an ambitious start and promptly failed to get out as early as we had planned. We followed the walking tour given by our Lonely Planet guidebook and it took us through a lot of the places that we had explored the day before. It was mostly markets, but they were pretty awesome. There is a witches market that sells everything from llama fetuses to love potions, all sorts of charms and home remedies to stuffed cats and owls. This place was awesome to walk around just because of the strange variety of things, however disgusting some of them might seem. We also went through markets selling more traditional knicknacks and knockoffs. Sarah got a small backpack since hers is starting to fall apart and I got a hat because this altitude makes the sun so much stonger. We made it down to Plaza San Francisco and this place is nuts. It is chaos to a degree that I have never experienced. But it also has all of the street food one can possible ask for. Fresh orange and grapefruit juice is about $0.20 a glass, Salteñas (mini meat or chicken pies) and Tucumanos (fried pies with potatos, onions and either chicken or hard-boiled egg and all sorts of different sauces)are about $0.15 each, stuffed potatos with meat are around $0.30 and there is all sorts of different fresh breads, fresh popcorn (sweet or salty), roasted peanuts for very very cheap. We ate just about every single lunch on the street while we were in La Paz. Then at night, just like the street meat in NYC, there are stands with kebabs, burgers, sausages, hot dogs, fried eggs and french fries.

Enough about the street food, I tend to get carried away because it really is incredible. We also went into the museum adjacent to San Francisco that allowed us access to the crypts, the choral rafters, the roof of the church and a very impressive collection of religious art. The religious art of South America is similar to that of Europe, but also contains elements of indigenous beliefs and is quite cool. There are still some Franciscan monks living there, but they have ceded most of the area to the museum. After the museum, we also checked out the presidential palace and the cathedral in Plaza Murillo. From various revolutionary attempts and coups, the presidential palace is still pockmarked from bullets. The cathedral there is gigantic and very nice, but overwhelmingly gigantic. After dinner that night at an Israeli restaurant, with grand plans to go out to meet up with Jhinuk (co-worker from Cusco volunteering here too), we decided to take a short nap that didn´t end until 2 am, thus negating the evening plans.

Our third day was spent at museums. We checked out the Museo de Instrumentos Musicales, owned and operated by Ernesto Cavour, the famous Bolivian folk artist. It was a magnificent collection of ancient, new and novel musical instruments (the five guitars in one shaped like a star or the combination charango/guitar). Quite a few of the instruments were also open for use so we got to try some different things that were pretty cool. We then went to the National Art museum with a standard religious and colonial art collection and a very cool Bolivian modern art collection. However, the coolest part was a temporary exhibit of photographs, mostly by Latin American artists, of painted bodies. Some of them were painted so that half of the body was a skeleton, or muscles while others were really imaginative. There was one of two women, one of which was painted like a pillar, so well that it took a little while to figure out it was a person and the other woman was leaning on the pillar. Unfortunately, we were kicked out of lunchtime. We saw most of it, but never made it back to spend more time there. We also went to the Coca Museum, documenting the uses of the Coca plant over the centuries. It is amazing that the cultures here have used it for thousands of years as a medical plant and for work while the Western nations have used it for recreational drugs and thus are putting pressure on Bolivia to abandon Coca use even though it is completely different here. Yet another example of culturally insensitive foreign policy when the root of the drug production problem lies in the demand of the industrialized nations. We called it a day after that and went back to the hostel for a comfort day of movies and pizza delivery. It was awesome to have a day like that since we haven't had one since we left home.

Our fourth day was rather frustrating. It was a day of errands. We had to go up to the bus station, only to find everything closed for lunch and then we went to the post office for the 2 hour process of sending two packages back home. There were all of 5 people there, including us, trying to send packages, and I cannot figure out why something that should be so easy should take so long. But they had to be packaged properly and have the right forms filled out and on and on and on. Then they refused to ship Sarah's package because it didn't weigh enough. So even though mine was a full 1.5 kgs heavier than hers, mine also cost about $10 less. Where is the logic in that? After that debacle, it was street lunch and back to the bus station. One window of the company we bought our tickets through said I was not allowed to buy tickets for tomorrow's bus but then right next door I was able to do it without a problem. Things are so frustrating sometimes. So once again, it was another relaxing afternoon. We finally met up with Jhinuk for dinner at our hostel and it was great to see her and hang out. She is starting on a giant mural this weekend so it is really cool that she gets to put up some public art.

The next and final morning of La Paz, we packed our stuff, checked out and got into a van for a day trip. There were a few frustrating things. First of all, we are staying in the annex of the hostel, only a block away, but even though we told the travel agent, he did not relay that information and the guide was kind of angry that we weren't at the main location until we showed her the receipt with the annex written on it. Also, we were supposed to have been provided a snack, but the agency never gave it to the guide and the guide also decided not to mention this until we were really hungry in the afternoon and asked where the snack was. AHHHHHHHH. Otherwise it was really cool and beautiful. We went to the top of a mountain called Chacaltaya (5,600 meters) that had snow(!) on it but amazing views of the other mountains and the countryside and even La Paz. On a clear day, they say that you can see Lake Titikaka. It was not much walking, but still really hard because of the altitude. We then drove to the south of La Paz to the Valley of the Moon. It is called that because the landscape really looks lunar, it is amazing. Apparently it is all river sediment, extremely hardpacked, that was formed when the river was much higher. Pictures will really have to do the explaining for me, because I don't know quite how to describe it. Let it be left at the fact that it was really amazing to see something so strangely naturally formed like this.

We then went back to La Paz, ate some lunch (finally, since there had been no food and the tour ended at 4 pm), and relaxed until our bus. With the help of sleeping pills and a relatively smooth road, the overnight bus was not that bad. We arrived in Potosi around 6:30 this morning and will be here for two days before going to Sucre. This town is known for its former glory as a silver mining town and used to be one of the richest in South America. So we will check out the mines and write more later.