Reciclaje de botellas de agua en Cochabamba

Hanging Out

When I go for my afternoon run I am distracted constantly by side alleys and roads. Usually delimited by mud brick, there is a dog and sometimes a bike from the 1960’s quietly leaning against a wall. Always there is an enigmatic air. Where do they go? Can I go down there and if I do will it lead to equally enigmatic places? When things like this strike me in “real life” (read: when I am holding down a nine-to-five) I cannot even contemplate investigating. I do not even have the time to play let alone explore. What could be more frivolous than following street after alley after street for the sake of curiosity?

Mientras tanto: En Bolivia Bevan paseos por las calles, una flâneur

Water from the tap here in Cochabamba is not fit for consumption without treatment. Day after day we are required to buy bottled water and I cannot help but think “where does all the plastic go?” I also recall Nándor Tánczos calling for people to self-regulate their purchase of water bottles back in New Zealand. His claim being that the differences between the water from the tap and that in a bottle were negligible. He also claimed that there had been an unprecedented uptake in the purchase of bottled water and, as such, there is now a whole lot more rubbish in the rubbish-tip.


Well, political views aside, what is happening with recycling in the here-and-now in a city that is addicted to bottled water? I have no idea.

Yesterday Sarah and I gathered up our four dozen empty bottles and took them to a hole in the wall on Avineda Simon Lopez where a twenty-something girl wearing a dirty leotard, arse crack and an ill fitting top took them off our hands and endeavoured to pay us five B’s for the pleasure. We declined the 5 B’s but I did ask where the bottles go next. While not 100% certain I was pretty sure she said “Nosotros tomando los botellas a K’ara K’ara.”

That I believe. But do they actually recycle these bottles at K’ara K’ara? What are they doing with them at the very notorious K’ara K’ara rubbish dump? Right now I do not live in the real world. Time or a trip to K’ara K’ara to see what’s up.

Side Trip

Can we stay in Bolivia?

The Chile-Bolivia border must be one of the prettiest frontiers in the world. The snow capped mountains and alpine lake that creates the backdrop to the processing centre is spectacular.

We made it back from Chile with 30 day stamps on our passports. What we really wanted was a 90 day visa. This issue combined with being on a bus that was nothing short of a cocktail of bad smelling farts left us feeling frustrated. The bus picked us up from Arica at 01:30AM (only half an hour late) and brought us to Cochabamba direct. It felt like a long journey.

Now in the sobering light of “home” (Cruce Tequina) we are comfortable with approaching the appropriate people to get a visa extension. In retrospect we are thankful that we were not turned away at the Bolivian border.

Arica

Sarah and I jumped on a bus to Chile six days prior to all this and went to the sleepy surf town of Arica. We spent the week not thinking about budgets, enjoying the very excellent Arica Surf House and most importantly swimming in the ocean. The beach was not even that great but having been so far away from it in Bolivia we were excited nonetheless.

Arica is a surreal town where there are literally no clouds in the sky; this is the driest city on earth. We have all used the phrase “not a cloud in the sky” but to actually be in a place where there are literally no clouds is, quite frankly, a disturbing sight. There is something unnatural and almost sinister about this phenomenon.

All in all I did not want to leave Cochabamba because the place treats us so well. In the end I had such a great time swimming, watching small fish launch themselves out of the sea and the birds soar above the Arica cliffs, a perfect sunset every night, not to mention having the opportunity to wear a floppy, avuncular hat. It was yet another sign that Sarah and I are currently living a charmed life.

Writing a couple of words about someone's [new] album

Sometimes it is hard not to think that music reviewing is a big load of shit. Case in point: the review I wrote on the Trans Am record Sex Change for a magazine in New Zealand. The review I wrote was tepid a best (all 120 words of it. Ha-ha). I wrote the review a long time ago. Subsequently, I have listened to the record consistently ever since. Now, today, ahora, I am not really sure of the value in my original criticism.

To contradict myself I have no desire to apologise for writing a less-than-flattering review; I do not think I necessarily disagree with what I wrote. At the same time it is hard to reconcile claiming to be indifferent about something while still listening to it regularly (i.e. gaining pleasure from the album repeatedly).

The only thing I can settle on is that you cannot listen to a record for a day, or a week, and be sure what the long term value or affect will be. Like the Mad Butcher says: the most precious gift you can give life is your own time. When you are reviewing something you have to make your mind up about something very quickly and spit out a response as rapidly as possible.

Perhaps my problem is that I have confused reviewing with criticism. The former is simply about style and estimation and as such it does not deserve a second thought once see the “your Email [to the editor] has been successfully transmitted” message displayed.

If I ever review again I am going to flip a coin on partiality and focus on style. Like a drunken joke at a party that you are not sure you meant or not.

Give it a rest already

So as it turns out our fears about leaving the comfortable city Sucre - and travelling to the city that few gringos visit - were unfounded. In a nutshell we have been totally spoiled since we got here. At the beginning Sarah did some serious leg work and found a bunch of different places to stay. It is to her credit that we ended up with options.

In the end we went with a house in the area known as Cruce Taquiña (north-west Cochabamba; in close proximity to the Taquiña brewery). This house had been found by two Germans – Kristen and Till – who had been hunting since being robbed twice at their previous premises. Both of these guys are incredibly talented, hard working (volunteering at a local school) and good-natured. On top of all this the place is very nice and VERY affordable.



So now we are settled we have bought a bed, table and towels and established some routines around going to the produce market which is a mere 30 metres away, the kiosko that is literally across the road (supplying us with beer and wine) and the Internet cafe which is next door to the kiosko. These activities are positioned around our main endeavour which currently is, of course, learning Spanish.


Spanish is fun so far. My tutor is called Delma. She has a warm, clement proclivity and is good at encouraging me while simultaneously putting pressure on to up-my-game. The lessons are through Sustainable Bolivia which has also been a handy place to meet people. As far as we can tell SB is the social nexus for 80% of the gringos in this town. Through SB we have met a bunch of decent folk. I cannot recall the last time I made this many acquaintances and was not been apathetic about it. This Saturday will be football in the ante meridian with SB (I am hopeful that it can fill that gap the basketball used to take care of). The game will be against a team of locals.

I could go on all day about how all my needs are currently taken care of. It is enough to make anyone sick, to be honest. Being vegan in this town is great, the hills behind our home (and in fact Cochabamba) recall Kapiti Coast without the coast (i.e. are mountainous), there is excellent weather and climate, the truffi system is brilliant, Hester has arrived, La Cancha is immense and contains real-life-pickpockets. When I go for a run in the afternoon the neighbourhood is unlike anything I have seen before: dusty, cobble stoned, massive incomplete brick-houses and soupy-green swimming pools, cows walking free, children looking at me like I am an alien and men clapping me on mordantly.

It is all coming together very nicely in Cochabamba. And all this makes me wonder what is going to happen in a week when we have to renew our visas. We will be taking a trip to Chile. If this was a movie and not real life now would be the time where the nemesis/antagonist materializes in a merciless yet surreptitious way...