In Potosi - All suited up in my mining and ready to head into Cerro Rico

have you ever fallen in love with a place the moment you saw it? Sucre is fantastic. After coming from cold, smoggy, and terribly sad Potosi, Sucre was warm and inviting and incredibly beautiful. Ignoring for a minute my aptitude for social deviance, I kind of like the fact that every house has to be whitewashed once a year. Conformist, yes, but also linda. There are colonial historic buildings evverywhere and i forsake the four hour round trip to see the dinosaur tracks in favor of just strolling around. Its the kind of place where you dont mind if you get lost (which I always do) because around every corner is something beautiful or fascinating. Out of the many museum choices, I elected the Museo de Arte Indigenia, one of the best explained and well laid out Ive been to in Bolivia. Each of the many indigenous communities near Sucre has a distinct weaving form, and the changes over the years are well explained. Whats more, they do a great work of ensuring fair trade and livable prices for these weavings when tourists are purchasing. Kind of interesting, just as you leave the museum there are tons of women selling their weavings who badmouth the museum and try to lure you in with "cheaper prices."
In Potosi I braved my fear of tight enclosed spaces and immersed myself 2 km into the center of Cerro Rico, the famous mountain of wealth which the Spanish killed for, and in which 8 million indigenous people died. Our tour guide was a current mine worker, who gives tours on his days off, and was attempting to learn English, which was comical in the least. We bought coca leaves and 96% alcohol to bring to the miners, and even set off an explosive of our own. Also in Potosi I went to the Casa de Moneda, and to my delight the machines to press the coins were made in none other than Philadelphia. These were also beautiful, until you saw the ruts in the ground around the machine, made by countless revolutions of slaves pushing the gears, wearing away the ground beneath their feet. After slaves became socially unacceptable, they were replaced with mules, whose average lifespan was 17 days, if you can imagine.
That night I splurged and bought myself a whole $20 hotel room, fabulously elegant and complete with a charming doorman and three floors of cascading flowers and an abundance of hot water. Every other night had been on a bus or in cold box of a hostel room. Comparision heightens appreciation. maybe ? in any case, my first experience traveling truly alone was truly rewarding, and I only wish I had more time. not that it was vacation ... err .. um... I was clearly doing important anthropological research =)

The problem with blogs is that you can never even begin to explain all of what you´ve seen, and then you get disheartened at your inability to write in english (though perhaps this is a result of your improving Spanish?) and end up with long lapses and your parents wondering where you´ve been for the past two weeks.

·skip forward from Uyuni·

Sunday is by far my favorite day in Cochabamba. We wake up late and cook for the entire morning, then have a leisurely lunch of two hours or more. Then we sit outside in the afternoon sun and chat, or play a little cacho, and then watch la favorita (a fabulously entertaining soap opera, which is only made more hilarious by the fact I only see it once a week and have quite a bit of catching up to do). This Sunday I received the news that the Minister of Education had canceled classes until Thursday ¨due to the cold.¨ Since my school is a boarding school, the director decided to cancel all week.
Good News - I have a whole week to travel!
Bad News - With all these cancelations and holidays, I dont know how my students are ever going to learn english or their other course material...

I wanted to go to Potosi last night, but for some reason all the buses were full. Not wanting to lose an entire day of travel, I decided to go to Oruro instead, which if you look at a Bolivian map isnt exactly on the way...

i got to oruro and realized the bus they promised me would leave for potosi tonight doesnt exist, and booked myself a quiet little hostel room for a good nights sleep.

In the morning I secured a ticket to Potosi for 10pm, giving me the day to roam and explore. First went to an archeological museum which was rather disorganized but had an incredible collection of Carnaval costumes. Oruro started out as a mining town, but as stores of minerals depleted it became increasingly run down. Its lasting claim to fame, however, is Carnaval, for which preparations take place all year and the entire towns tourism rates supposedly spike by 5 times in the month of febuary. There are over 20 different distinct types of dance, all with their own intricate costumes and beautiful history of the dance. Not being much of a dancer myself (with many friends hurt toes to confirm that) the whole production of it is fascinating to me. Later I strolled down avenida La Paz, in which all of the costume workshops are housed. Caught in the act of staring wide-eyed at the colorful array, one lady invited me in and explained her work, and the process of spending months on just one costume.

I had a delicious lunch of vegetables and pasta (how very anti-bolivian, i know) and fresh tumbo juice. Ive decided I kind of like eating by myself. Once you get over the initial odd stares from other diners, its actually kind of peaceful.

after walking what seemed like the entire city to find the best ice cream ( and I did!) Went to another Museo which was inside what used to be a mine... some incredible stories about the conditions and triksy little ways people would smuggle out metal in their clothes and sell it on their own .

I hiked back over to the terminal and skyped my family - ended up talking to parents and cass in pa, zach in va, and me over here in ba. =) the internet is pretty swell.

More adventures in Potosi and Sucre to follow....

Hollandish Neanderthals

Wednesday afternoon begins the epic and adventurous trip to Uyuni. Mateo Lucas and I are all in high spirits on the short four hour bus to oruro. We dont yet actually have tickets to Uyuni, but have been assured there will be ample space on multiple buses. We should have two hours of leeway time in order to secure tickets and even get some dinner.
Alas, this is Bolivia.

The bus rolls up and we have 30 minutes before the last buses leave. Lucas runs to an internet cafe to submit the final portion of his grant (which was written on scrap paper on the bus) as Mateo and I scramble to find seats. Turns out there's a roadblock between Oruro and Potosi, so everyone who would have been going to Potosi is now trying to go to Uyuni. We end up splitting up, Mateo on one bus, and Lucas and I on the other. As we get on the bus, a man in uniform guides us to our "seats" and puts my luggage in the overhead compartment. Then another lady and her two kids gets on and says we're in her seats. Distraction and aggravation ensue, and finally they send lucas to another seat, and I get wedged in between three little wawas on either side, which will then cry and drool on me all night.
After 10 hours on this freezing cold bus, we awake from a restless slumber in the icy town of Uyuni. As we go to get of the bus, I realize my backpack isnt there. Remember that guy who worked for the bus company? He didnt. Sly foxes those theives. So here I am in the middle of winter, in the coldest part of Bolivia, without a change of clothes or even a hat to my name.

Spirits not so high, we find Mateo and book our three day salar tour, which will leave at 10 am. with a couple hours to kill, we head to the market and deck me out in an absolutely ridiculous amount of artesan clothing - socks, gloves, a hat and sweater. ( P.s. tourists are the only people who think this clothing is cool. Bolivians are walking around in the same made in china crap most of the U.S is.)
We then meet our traveling companions for three days - two girls from Holland on vacation and an American who teaches in Cochabamba and set out in a quite cosy Jeep with the six of us and the guide, Edwin, packed in there. The salar (salt flats) is our first site, and is absolutely incredible, just as everyone says. We eat a picnic lunch and climb about on this cactus covered island for a bit before continuing on through the desolate landscape.

We get to our hostal type thing for the night and as we are unloading realize our sleeping bags are still at the office in Uyuni. Some level of miscommunication between ourselves and the driver. At this point I can only laugh, and wonder who I offended this horribly to have karma kicking my ass this royally. The other girls are awesome though, and we have a great dinner and stay up talking after dinner until the power turns off... the generator only runs for two hours each day. Mateo, being his ridiculous self, keeps asking them to speak "hollish" and wondering what "neanderthal," by which I think he meant netherlands, dances are like.

The next day is even colder, but we see a series of incredible colored lakes... all of the different minerals give each lake a different appearance.Other stops include the "army of rocks" which is this really eerie serie of gigantic peices of coral which somehow got deposited in the middle of a now-dry basin millions of years ago. Tonight we are at another salt hotel, but higher in altitude. Its too cold to sleep. Im grateful when the alarm rings at 5 am, because at least then we're in the car and body heat is mildly abating the peircing cold.

Our first stop and probably my favorite site was the geysers... so eerie at 6 am but really strangely beautiful as well. If you ever forget that the earth is a powerful force, theres nothing like boiling sulfur holes and jets of water shooting 60 ft in the air to remind you. We then went to the thermal hotsprings, which, once you siked yourself up enough to strip down in the icy air in order to get in, were absolutely divine. We all wanted to stay longer, but the Edwin insisted we start our 9 hr trek back to uyuni so that we arive before dark. we got our second flat tire, but this time the road was too sandy to use the jack, so the guide drives up on two rocks, and then bolsters the axle with more rocks in order to get the tire off. I wonder what the appropriate course of action is if our guide gets crushed by our jeep. But he's a pro, and we arrive in Uyuni safe and sound, say goodbye to our friends, buy bus tickets home for tomorrow night and check into a hostal for a nice hot shower.

We're all pretty exhausted but decide to go out for a little bit. We end up at a pub talking to a french boy and german girl, and so we're all communicating in our non-native tongue. one of the best parts of traveling is the amazimgly diverse and interesting people you are bound to meet. We're playing Cacho embarassingly poorly, and the bartender keeps stopping by our table to teach us new tricks. The bar is supposed to close at one, but the bartender didnt want to go home either and so taught us a new dice game - mentiroso, kind of like liar's dice but with only two dice. Since today is Uyuni's birthday, the festivities began at Midnight, and so we head out to the square to dance, because continually moving (and drinking) is the only way to keep your mind off of the frostbite that has probably consumed at least two toes.
The next morning we watch speeches and a parade, waiting for the supposed appearance of Evo Morales, who we never actually did see, and then head inside to watch the World Cup. Afterwards we have 2 hours before our bus comes to get dinner, which we figure should be plenty. Then we realize after we have already ordered, that our waitress is fairly drunk. In fact, Im quite sure 90% of the town was stumbling around drunk. At the table next to us, a 60 year old man is bellowing out love ballads, and some other sloppy man comes over to talk to us. He tells us he's a tour guide for the salar and has a tour leaving early tomorrow. Suddenly, Im very glad we paid a little bit more for our tour company, and avoided whatever drunk/hungover guides we might have had otherwise.

This is a horrifically long blog post, but you're about to get to the best part !

Our bus is supposed to leave at 8, and we've asked several times by 8 45 if it has showed up yet. We ask again and they tell us "oh, that bus is cancelled. theres another one tomorrow though!" again we scramble to find a bus that can get us out of this forsaken town tonight... there appears to be one left, but with no seats. The driver promises us a spot, but then 20 more "centrales" or people who just sit in the aisleway get on, and theres no way theres room for us. We scramble again and find another, and brace ourselves for a ten hour journey, sitting in an aiselway, on an already sketchy bus. Sometimes, all you can do is laugh.

i get wedged in between more kids, but this time a group of cousins ages 6 to 13, who are all absolutely adorable and fascinated by our very presence. We have to sing them a round of "row row row your boat" in order to coax them into sleep. When we arrive in Oruro, they give me a little origami flower they made, and say goodbye using all the fun new english words (however unsuited to the context) they just learned. =)

Im out a camera, cell phone, and lots of warm clothes. But enriched by the beauty of Bolivia and warmth of friends. This could be equally the worst, and also the most enjoyable, trip I've ever been on.

in this week of "vacation," Profe Hernan had planned to do some check ups on clay stoves which he had already installed in some houses and to possibily build another for a different family.

i thought sacabamba was rural until we traveled out to the actual "campo." thirty bumpy minutes by pick-up, seemingly straight up the mountain and we arrived at a small adobe building nestled in among the mountains. from here you could see other houses, but they looked practically unreachable by car, or even by burro. Much to my surprise, two of my students poked their heads out when we pulled up, excited by suprised to see me two, and making fun of my involuntary shivers. I was freezing cold, but trying hard not to show it as these 10 and 5 year old kids were gallavanting about in sandals. I asked them how they get to school each monday. "Caminamos. porsupuesto." probably a 2 hour walk, they have to be a school at 7, meaning they trek in the chilly darkness each monday starting at 5.

their house was two rooms, one for sleeping, and one for cooking. The entirity of the kitchen was coated in dark black soot and charred. I cant imagine what the inside of the mother's lungs look like. This is one of the benefit of the clay stove - relatively easy to make, with available materials minus the metal chimney. But it has huge health benefits, and more efficiently burns wood (which is key, because they kids and women are the ones tasked with finding/harvesting firewood here, and there is less and less of it each year). One snafu they've encountered is helping the women to adjust to this new form of cooking, after generations of just cooking on stones, it seems a little strange to have a stove. Teaching them the maintenence of their own clay kitchen is the most important, otherwise when it beccomes clogged with soot and such some women might revert to stones and use the stove simply as a shelf.

poverty has always been kind of abstract to me.
even in cochabamba, when you see beggers on the street, they have a few bolivianos in their cap. the families i saw today had enough potatoes (for that was pretty much their diet) for a week. i dont know what happens after that. I used to be a proponent of the theory that you dont need material possession, and that poor people can be happy with their culture and their lives full of other satisfaction. that type of poverty appears to be a dream for these people. and im starting to think its a dream we tell ourselves as well, so be dont have to handle the guilt of the immense inequalities in the world.
today it was very, very real.