Aotearoa to South America and back...

Castle Competition 2010

2010-10-30T12:57:00.000-07:00

Sarah and I are getting a few things in our lives sorted out before our return to New Zealand. The biggest area to be tidied up is pressing, to say the least. Today we have taken steps to ameliorate this part of our relationship that has, for so long, held us back. The issue at hand, “who is the better sand castle technician?”

We are now harnessing the power of social networking sites and calling on you to clear this up for us. Let democracy and the voices of the masses reign. I think it is pretty obvious whose castle is better but for the sake of objectivity we have not provided you with the creator of each edifice.

If you could please take the time to have a look at photos of The City of Sand (top photo) and The Grand Castle of Punta del Diablo (bottom photo) and then vote via the poll in the top right of the widget column we would be most grateful.

To the victor the spoils and, to Sarah and Bevan, a happy-ever-after.

Much later (out of Bolivia)

2010-10-28T10:35:00.000-07:00

Bolivia

We finally got out of Bolivia and since then my experience has been surprisingly similar to when we first arrived in South America. Now on the road there seems to be saturation of experiences and amongst all that what is to say? Life is really fun but also becomes a big list; meeting those people, going there, drinking that and eating this, “notice that different use of Spanish?” and, “the ethnicities of the city?”

Blah blah.

When I started travelling I thought my response was due to a lack of experience but now I actually think it is just an intrinsic part of travelling. Perhaps the real reason you travel instead just reading travel books your whole life.

As it was we left Cochabamba with a swag of generous goodbyes and dinners and left for Santa Cruz. In some ways Santa Cruz was the perfect place to exit though we did not know it at the time. Santa Cruz is very mestizo in comparison to the rest of Bolivia and, generally, a lot more modern. This was a good ‘climate’ to transition into the southern countries of this continent.

In Santa Cruz we drank beer, swam in the pool, commented on the humidity, met some really cool backpackers, watched the sunset and went to the Mariposario (which was so bizarre in its size and Club Med type styling, was I really in Bolivia?) as well as seeing a very excellent art exhibition that was put on for the 200 anniversary of the city. The art exhibition was made of a lot artists working in a lot of different mediums and they were well executed.

The most interesting was an installation called Estacion de Lluvia by Ricardo Lanzarini. He had painted a high ceilinged roof white and then drawn tiny grotesqueries in lead pencil all around the room. To observe the pieces better the artist included two magnifying glasses.

After all this we said our final farewells and tried to leave Bolivia through Paraguay. This did not work out. This is a long story which I will not bore anyone with but involved getting ripped off and put on a very uncomfortable bus to Asuncion which we eventually exited before we got ourselves into an unwanted situation. Later we, somehow, got our money back from the bus company and decided to go to Buenos Aires instead of seeing a new country.

Argentina

Getting out of Argentina was a hassle at first but a total pleasure in the end. After the Bolivian border we were stopped three times within half an hour to have our bags and bus searched. I was getting pretty wound up by the third stop but after that it was clean sailing and we had a really relaxing 42 hour ride which I just loved; we had full-cama and I was reading The Ninja. I almost did not want to get off at the other end.

Overall BA was a total breeze and almost felt too easy. And massive. After being in Bolivia for ten months it was almost like being in the city for the first time again. Only better. I could not believe how big and modern it seemed and how Caucasian everything [sic] seemed. It was a big surprise to be seeing things this way to both Sarah and I.

We stayed here for a few days, checked Malba and drank in the afternoons in Plaza Dorrego. At this stage we had totally embraced the tourist lifestyle and after our “attempt to go to Paraguay” loved feeling at ease. In fact, we had a few laughs going through the city and seeing what parts of the city we had thought looked dangerous before Bolivia.

Uruguay

Getting to Uruguay was a lot of fun. It was a day that included a subway, a bus, a train, a taxi and a boat. The border crossing was almost perfunctory and everyone in Uruguay was polite. The first thing I saw when we landed in Carmelo was an alfajoreres advertisement with Diego Forlán. I am not sure what a better introduction to this country could be.

Since then we have been to Montevideo. I have listen to Up on the Catwalk by Simple Minds, walked around the city, watched working class football teams play on a field next to the sea, stayed at a nice hostel and been charmed by the locals (one of which stopped us in the supermarket, had a chat to us and then invited us to dinner!). I also have to say that though the accent here is the same as in Argentina - thankfully - the Uruguayan Spanish is much easier to understand, “¡¡¡SiiiiIIIIIIIIII!!!”

Now we are in Punta del Diablo staying in a beach side cottage which is ridiculously nice. We are having a great time taking on a ‘vacation’ type mentality and having the sound of the sea wakes us up in the mornings.

Handmade

2010-10-09T08:03:00.000-07:00

Some people might try and tell you that they volunteer to make a difference in people’s lives and make the world a better place. That might sound nice but the real reason you do it is so that you can do fun stuff that you would not usually get to do in your "real" career.

At Performing Life I have had the opportunity to use my professional skills to create some content for their website and write two grants; I once again found myself sitting in front of a computer typing away in Word. It would be disingenuous for me to say that it was not fun to do this. It did actually feel like I was doing something of worth. At the same time I was still just sitting in front of computer trying to meet a deadline and a set of guidelines. It was work that got a tick in both the productive and boring columns.

Well luckily for me I am working with John. One day he came in and was talking about possible performance ideas for the group and the next day I was reviewing an online guide for building stilts and sketching out a basic design. We bought some wood, debated what other materials to use and where we could find them, got stuck on the shin-guard but eventually came up with a solution.

Once we had those matters taken care of we made a prototype which was structurally sound but had two right feet instead of one of each. A small oversight and easily fixed in proceeding sets. The stilt project is a perfect example of why I have enjoyed volunteering. This work was a perfect mix of craftsmanship and invention. The creative aspect of researching and designing stilts and then getting splinters in my hands and the smell of burning wood up my nose from the power drill was the most refreshing working experience I have had in long time.

And then yesterday we finished the last pair and took them to the afternoon class. Did I mention that we ignored conventional wisdom and made the stilts really high? I was skeptical of whether or not the kids would use them or not in the first place. But adding the peril of height to mix made my expectations very low. How wrong I was. The kids were really into them and were used the entire time that afternoon. Making something with my hands, making something that actually worked and having the kids use them has been very satisfying.

This morning

2010-10-05T05:59:00.000-07:00

My coffee is black

Outside the day is quite hot

and I need to work

A fugitive from a killer. A remote outpost. A fight to the death.

2010-09-27T06:03:00.000-07:00

One of Evo’s unpopular new laws was the ban on imported cars from Japan that are over five years old. Reports suggest that previous unregulated car importation has transformed access to public transport throughout the country. More cars, more rides. But also more traffic, more pollution. Meanwhile, there are micros which continue to thrive in Cochabamba, and most other major cities in Bolivia, that look as though they have been around since the seventies.

It is very possible that these were imported from overseas as a hand-me-downs but I cannot find any articles to confirm this. These vehicles recall the yellow school buses from the United States but have stylized paint work and elaborate hood ornaments like the Jeepney in the Philippines.

The paint jobs are all the same and only vary in terms of color scheme; blue-red, green, blue and orange-red. When you get on the bus you can always tell were the owner is from as the front windscreens are covered in stickers of Bolivian football teams (usually Bolivar).

To individualize the buses the owners also add their own personal touches. A lot of buses have images of Freddy Krueger or wolves painted on the back of the bus. My favorite personalization is the Legionnaire themed bus I saw a couple of weeks ago. Why throw-back to the 80s with Freddy Krueger when you could throw-back to a late 90s, Claude Van Damme, straight-to-video classic like this? The best part is the guy must have had this costom made. Today the colors are sun faded, but the quest for freedom continues.

I've never seen a Prime Minister of New Zealand

2010-09-19T11:42:00.000-07:00

This week was the 200 year anniversary of Cochabamba. So not surprisingly we were treated to more marching bands and more public holidays. The event did provide us with one unique opportunity. Evo Morales acknowledged the day by gracing the Cochabambinos with his presence. This was a stroke of luck for me because I really wanted to see him in the flesh and I thought it would never happen. I felt especially lucky about this when I heard he had declined to attend the Santa Cruz annual event.

It is likely that this was because Santa Cruz is part of the Media Luna region which does not have a lot of affection for El Preseidente. In fact they hate him, more or less, in those parts. Evo is busy representing an indigenous majority meanwhile people in Santa Cruz, who are predominately mestizo and progressive/modern, do not agree with his policies.

That is not to say people love him in Cochabamba. There is plenty of graffiti about the town that says "Evo Cabron", "Evo Culo", "Asesino Evo" and "Vota NO". These comments are routinely supported by locals that we chat with. While they do not want to kill him they do not rate him and are looking forward to the day he is out of office. This is also supported by Facebook Data Mining that gives me suggestions to join groups like You Do Not Know HOW MUCH I hate Evo Morales. This surely reflects the inclinations of (the everyday, normal) Bolivians who I am connected to on that site.

Me personally, I can't get with that. There is no doubt he is an average politician and has made mistakes but he has also done some cool stuff. Like the new Constitution that acknowledges the indigenous diversity (plurinational) of the country and more recently the work he is doing to change the media's practice of describing campesinos in defamatory ways. On this latter point I am a little strident. Surely the fact that he needs to pass this law reflects the everydayness of racism here and highlights why people in Santa Cruz fail to connect with his position.

Whatever the case it was really fun to see the president march through Cochabamba this week. It was a really hot day and it must have been hard work walking the streets. The other thing that was great was the support Evo got on his march. Everyone was running up the street cheering for him and chanting his name. I had a big cheesy grin on my face and skipped up through the crowd trying to get a decent photo of the man. It was so refreshing to be around Bolivians actually supporting their president. The reality is that I have not seen Bolivians outwardly supporting him in all my travels. As such I now have a small, but important, bit of context on Bolivia. There are some people living in a city that like who they have running the country.

20 photos to and from work: Saturday 11 September

2010-09-11T05:49:00.001-07:00

Walking to and from Performing Life

On my walks this week I have taken a some of photos in an attempt to capture the everydayness of life for Sarah and I. Absent here are a couple of subjects I wanted to shoot but couldn't. The first is the Potosi beggars (grandmothers with their grandchildren). The second was an image of an older man sitting in a park throwing popcorn to the pigeons. I am still not comfortable shooting the former (and there are enough photos on the Internet anyway) and on the latter... well, I wish I had but at the time did not want to abuse his privacy.

The one thing I have not been able to capture - that I wanted to - is the bird life in Cochabamba. At the moment there appears to be a migration happening due to the change of season. Sadly my camera and my ability as a photographer have not allowed me to frame this part of the city.

Seeing is believing: Friday 10 September

2010-09-10T15:52:00.001-07:00

Thoughts you have when you are leaving

Sarah mentioned to me that I needed to buy some toilet paper today. The mundane nature of that task combined with the year in South America coming to an end (and possibly the influence of watching the first 20 minutes of 2012 last night) got me thinking about the toilet and its place in our life.

But first some background: Travelers

Ask any traveler and they will concur. It happens about ten minutes after a group of them sit down together. They will start going through the motions (pun intended); relating what they have been doing and where they are going next. Then something else happens. Without noticing 45 minutes will have passed and the group will have only just started to realize they have, unabatedly, talked about feces and piss that entire time.

The script for talking about your own excrement normally follows along the following lines:

The psychological trauma of having severe diarrhea for more than a week
The profundity of having a solid shit after two weeks of diarrhea
The worst toilet you ever encountered and had to use (AKA “Excuse to Let People Know You Were in South East Asia Once”)
The most exposed place you ever had to relieve yourself in
“This one time on the bus”
And finally, a half hour digression about how you cannot believe you have just talked about your own piss and shit for so long…

This is a typical meet-and-greet traveler’s conversation. I would not blame anyone thinking that this is either a “tall story” or on the other end of the spectrum “typical, puerile and tedious”. Only the latter is true. It is what it is.

Back to Sarah’s request: What doesn’t seem to get talked about

The first custom you have to get used to in Latin America is throwing you toilet paper in the bin next to the bowl instead of in it (apparently the pipes just cannot handle the excess waste). This is more difficult to do than you might first imagine for three reasons.

The first is that you do not realize how programmed to the practice of ripping, wiping and dropping. Initially you believe that you will stick with your own custom because not flushing it seems unhygienic. Then you start realize that dropping it might lead to the cubicle being flooded with water from a full bowl so you don’t take the risk. The third hurdle to get over is the simple fact that it is reflexive to drop it in the bowl. One of the weirdest conversations you have with yourself in Latin American (after having accidently dropped some paper in the bowl) is “do I pick up that up to avoid the embarrassment of making an unwanted mess here or do I hope like crazy that this thing goes down”. Outside you hear waiters rushing around and a car murmur past the building but there you are, squinting, still wondering what to do.

Anyway. You eventually get used to sitting next to basket of other peoples shit-smeared toilet paper and its presence barely causes you to flinch. It is what happens next that is fascinating to me.

After you drop your paper in the basket you stand up and then lean over to the cistern and flush. Through this act of flushing you naturally glance at the waste. This was the thought that struck me this morning when Sarah she asked me to go to the store. For all my life I have never really looked at my own feces. Now, in September of 2010 in Bolivia, Cochabamba I realize I have, everyday (more or less) for ten months been looking at my own shit. Back home this was not even an issue. It was always covered with the discarded paper.

Something for the marketing team

We travel the world to see new things and experience new cultures. And to not have to work. Maybe this isn’t Machu Picchu but I assert that this is one of the most unexpected and interesting views going. Nothing puts you in touch with your own eating patterns, habits and general health than looking at your fresh turd floating in the bowl. Have I gotten accustomed to this? I really don’t know. But the thing that strikes me about this is that while this is not the Galápagos Islands it is something cultural that I can take home with me. Not a photo, not a colloquialism and not souvenir from a shop.

No milk today: Thursday 09 September

2010-09-09T20:21:00.000-07:00

The day ran out and there is no time to write a blog but some how it has ended with my brain on ice and watching 2012.

We are in Bolivia… they are in Christchurch after the quake: Wednesday 08 September

2010-09-08T04:20:00.001-07:00

After I got over my irritation surrounding (a) The Heralds over-reporting on the earthquake (what do sales figures do after a national disaster?) (b) John Keys demagogic rhetoric about staying in New Zealand instead of going to Europe (why was this even a question) (c) the Save National Radio Facebook groups sanctimonious comment that it is “times like this that people realize what a national treasure this service is and that it must be protected from the tinkering ideologues” (and I love the National Radio) and (d) somnolent articles that assert that “researchers” have figured out that the timing of the earthquake and the level of poverty in Haiti led it to be a much “deadlier” earthquake (thanks for the insight The Researchers) I finally got to wondering about this whole deal.

OK, on that last one I am still irked. A more bald fact could not be present in this situation. I do not see why I should have to accept such shallow reportage on something so serious.

In Bolivia both Sarah and I have been surprised about how many people have asked us about the quake and, of course, if any of our family has been affected. A fair question to ask. Our reaction: on the one hand we both have an unearned sense of pride that someone is asking about our own country and on the other we are unable to fully appreciate the reality of the disaster and therefore give a solid answer with a fitting tone. What is unique about this situation is our distance; figuratively and literally. While Sarah has family in Christchurch we know that they are OK so there is only a moderate level of concern for their wellbeing.

In actuality this event reminds me that we are disconnected. Sarah and I are not part of the day-to-day national discourse about the recovery effort or the sharing of stories of family and friends whose lives have been forever changed by this. We did not grow up or spend “special times” in that part of the world to link us to the place. Consequently, when someone asks us about the quake we are only able to give dry answers with little feeling or context. We are part of the periphery on this one with the rest of the world.

Being on the periphery has been interesting (in no way do I say “interesting” to trivialize the suffering of real people in Canterbury). People are checking the papers from their home towns or cities and reporting back to us what they have read about New Zealand and we in turn are doing the same. Our discourse about the quake relates to that of what other foreigners ask and know. The only advantage we have is that we can also refer to Facebook ‘status updates’ to get an edge on what people are experiencing.

It is this last point that genuinely pleases me. Facebook gets a lot of (warranted) flack. On this occasion I have welcomed seeing status updates from the whole gamut. Like the girl I worked with five years ago who is having a cupcake sale to raise money. Or hearing from people who live in Christchurch casually refer to aftershocks without the heavy-handed emotional style that I would have endured on the six o’clock news. The media is never going to be democratic or egalitarian but at least these days we don’t have to only listen to the Herald for a view on what is happening on the ground level.

Jeezum Crow: Tuesday 07 September

2010-09-07T14:57:00.000-07:00

Today I walked to work listening to Steppin Out by Joe Jackson and found the new entry from TONY along the way. It was in a new area too. I really hope this guy continues this trend for at least the next month; consistency will elevate this average (though competent) stencil style to something bigger and better. The new location of the stencil makes my imagination run wild. I want this TONY project to be as wacky as wacky as the alleged Hexagram Murders.

As I dreamt about this stupid idea a lady strolled toward me walking her dog. A dog on a leash is a conspicuous sight in this part of the world. As it turns out this well-heeled dog skipped up to me and attempted to bite my leg. I was so mad but in the moment did not react (I think, absurdly, that I didn't want to give the dog the pleasure of seeing my surprise). All the meanwhile the lady just kept on walking, did not acknowledge me, did not say sorry or look over her shoulder. Ha ha [...] I was livid.

They day finished up with a rendezvous with Ken Moody. We met Ken via some friends who knew him through the Maryknoll Institute. On this occasion Ken invited us out to see the group Awatiñas. Great to finally see a classic, traditional, Bolivian band play live. On more than one occasion we had made plans to see Bolivia's most famous act, Los Kjarkas, play but it never happened. I am convinced that Ken does not have a lot of dough. Despite this he paid for our tickets into this show anyway thus providing some symmetry in the day following the petty confrontation in the morning.

Days go by… coun’nem: Monday 06 September 2010

2010-09-06T16:15:00.001-07:00

Today I finally found myself back at Casa Cuna. This turned out to be a downbeat visit. Virginia said that she thought I wasn’t going to come back. This made me feel lame but only for a moment. I soon felt even worse was when she told me why they asked me back. They had a present for me.

The present was a hand painted (by Virginia) length of cotton detailing men and woman in traditional Bolivian dress. A thoughtful gift and one that would have taken a lot of effort to complete. There is a lot of detail on this thing.

Besides this Israel looked morose and didn’t want to talk much. He looked lonely. But I am projecting with that; pure conjecture. I do not know what was up with the dude. Virginia gave me some papaya and told me that they are still waiting (until October now) to find out if they are going to get the kids back. Make of this situation what you will… what do you say. Keep hope alive and stop living in the past?

They are good people at Casa Cuna so it was nice to see them. Despite this the overriding feeling after the visit was sadness. It was hours later until I felt better. It took an afternoon run up the Cristo and some wind in my face. After the run I tried to think of something to do to break up my routine. Something new to create modicum of spontaneity in the day. The best I could come up with was buying a Paderborner Brauere from Super Hass instead of Taquiña from the lady on the corner.

Such a cool little dude

2010-08-27T07:22:00.000-07:00

The days are dwindling in Cochabamba (only one full month to go) and with this comes a pang, for sure. But also, there has been time for a new routine to form with Performing Life post-Casa Cuna; run and study an hour a piece before 08:30AM and then off to work.

By far the best part about getting to work is seeing the dudes from the morning performance art class; Wilber, Nelson, Vladimir, Lino and Efrain. Everyday these guys travel from the north-west hills of Cochabamba to Performing Life classes in the city and then back again in the afternoon for school (if you want to be part of Performing Life classes you have to attend school). This is a real commitment. The great thing is that these guys let me practice Spanish and juggling with them before and after their morning class.

At the moment the guy who is working me over the most is Vladimir. He is such a cool little dude. Nine years old. Every morning he wanders into my office with an air of disinterest. He then casually asks if I have my “lados” (his word for my Ben10 Rubik’s cube) that Sarah bought me when we got to the end of the Urkupiña Virgin pilgrimage.

Just like me Vladi has his routine too. Every day he walks in with feet as weightless as a Joe90 marionette and a massive smile. Offhandedly asks if I have the cube then sets to work on putting together the picture of Cuatro Brazos (Four Arms). Quickly losing interest in this he then grabs the juggling balls John has lent me and we battle with new tricks I am trying to learn. Once he is finished kicking my but he asks if there are any games on the computer and then runs out the door to be with the rest of the crew without saying goodbye.

Man, if only my working day back in the real world started like this. It is impossible not to be impressed by the boys in the morning class. It is very hard not to spend the next half hour grinning after Vladimir has paid his morning visit; this guy is my new role model.

Stencils again

2010-08-14T09:34:00.000-07:00

Cochabamba and La Paz

While not as acute as before the compulsion to make a record of all the stencils in Cochabamba has continued. I have to say that the overall style of the stencils has not changed to much over six months. Political and idiosyncratic expressions are still the norm.

I should note that when we were in La Paz many months ago the approach to stenciling up there is almost identical. A lot of anti-war/capitalist/animal rights and playful/humorous-type pieces. At least La Paz had the coolest municipal-type stencil I have seen. A friendly cartoon rendition of a Police Officer. Satisfyingly ironic perhaps?

CBBA Artists

What has been nice recently is seeing new artists emerge while others seem to fade completely. I have not seen a piece by ADM for some time (which “ADM” this is, I do not know).

There is one graffiti artist in Cochabamba, Ash, who is very prolific. So prolific that I wonder if
"Ash" is actually a crew (though how can we ever forget North Shore legend "Ratz"). He has done a stencil or two around town but seems to have shifted his focus to throw-ups and unsophisticated, though competent, bombs. I was walking out of my apartment yesterday and the piece below had just appeared overnight.

An artist calling himself Tony turned up the week before last and he has been very busy by all accounts. He has three or so pieces that have turned up in a myriad of places. His designs are not amazing but his application of paint is uncommonly slick for Cochabamba. Who knows, possibly this work is by an extranjero.

At the same time (literally in the same week) as the Tony pieces a series of stencils that were anti-capitalist and idiosyncratic appeared also. Their size and palette is the same as the Tony pieces so it’s possibly the same guy. The only thing is that Tony seems to go for “recognizability” where as these other pieces are anonymous. My favorite from this series is the facsimile of the National Geographic cover Afghan Girl though it fails to take advantage of the intense eyes of the subject; the key detail.

Mata²rte (Mata Arte)

The most original and talented artist working in Cochabamba is Mata²rte. As far as stenciling goes he does a fantastic job integrating an excellent sense of design, scale (all his pieces are about four feet tall), humor and Bolivian imagery. He also gets around. When we were in La Paz last – 234 kilometers away from Cochabamba – there was evidence all around the city of a visit by him.

I was given a lead that he was on Facebook. As such I sent him a message to get some background on his work but frustratingly he has not responded. I have tried Googling for articles on him but nothing-doing.

The only other record of his work that I am aware is on a blog called Where Are Andy and Jenny? We had the chance to get to know Andy and Jenny while they were in Cochabamba and Andy actually went out on with Mata²rte and another colleague to do “some work.” If you follow the link you can actually see photos of these pieces going up. It is a great record.

Yup

On a personal level it is frustrating discovering a new stencil when I do not have my camera. I went for my 06:00AM run on Thursday and found one in a park I had never been through before. At moments like these I am excited and irritated by the burden of having to come back so that my Pokémon like excess is sated. Once I discover a new stencil I always have to go back. Do you know how big a hassle that is?

The lyrical side of this project is of course watching the city change at a quotidian level. The city is always becoming new with fresh stencils and old with stencils from yesterday eroding from the warm, dry conditions of Cochabamba. With this observation I always wonder to myself if I can stop trying to record every stencil.

I live in hope. With some luck this blog entry will cure me.

Stencil Albums

If you want to look at the whole collection check out:

Here for La Paz
Here for new stencilis from Cochabamba
Here for stencils by Marte Arte

Time to get up

2010-08-10T15:59:00.000-07:00

It has been pretty exciting starting at Performing Life. Working with John is cool and I feel like I am using my area of expertise by writing grants and updating content on the new website. Contrary to this, as all good stories go, is that my previous schedule is incompatible.

I have exercised my remarkable intellect, yet again, and come to the conclusion that I need to change my schedule. I really want those black “X’s” on my daily checklist. From now on I will get up at 06:00AM and go for a run then study for an hour. Following that I am going to eat porridge have a shower and walk to work for 09:00AM.

I have actually already tried to do this. The truth is sleeping-in has seemed like a whole lot more fun so far. The only way to get this underway is to call-myself-out on my blog (is blog a proper-name and needs a capital?), read some science from Oprahdiluvian type websites, tell Sarah, check something T.S.Eliot said and set my alarm.

Thank you "youth culture of digital narcissism." Because of you I am pretty sure I am going to go for a run in the AM now.

The Saga of Casa Cuna

2010-08-06T13:53:00.000-07:00

Part One: the joys of working at Casa Cuna

I have never spent a whole lot of time with children or made plans to have kids myself. Despite this I learnt at Casa Cuna that hanging out with kids was a whole lot of fun. As I developed a relationship with the orphans, or "abandonados de niños" as they are sometimes called, the smell of urine and household cleaner that greeted me when I entered Casa Cuna became the smell of play and laughter.

From my experience the kids were all friends. They got along really well. Yeah they cried but only when they fell over or took each other’s toys (e.g. normal kid stuff). A couple of them were more frangible than others but overall my perception of the children was that they were very happy. And really cute.

Ahhhh Pancho. I will never forget my first day walking upstairs and seeing you with the bathroom - door wide open - and barely balanced on the toilet bowl rim. You had gargantuan, limpid eyes and were making the most astonishing noises. How can someone be so little and create such profoundly violent flatulence? At the time I couldn’t believe it was you!

Part Two: how it functioned

Casa Cuna was founded by Doctor Maria Ferrera but the orphanage was managed fulltime (24 hours) by shifts of two teams of two nurses and during the day with Virginia (the coordinator) and her son Israel and daughters Maria and Ruth. In addition to the people there was Israel’s cat Chulo who was also an orphan found in the street. The nurses worked on rotating 24 hours shifts which would alternate 3 and 4 days per week between the two teams. Virginia worked 09:00-17:00 Monday-Saturday. I describe Virginia as strict but compassionate and the nurses as efficient and well humoured. These things together created a family atmosphere in Casa Cuna.

In terms of funding, up until the end of 2009, Casa Cuna was supported by Millennium. Unfortunately the money dried up in the States and things began to get tough at the orphanage. Amizade (a global NGO that has an office in Cochabamba) made an appeal to get more funds and wrote about it here and here. Despite this set back, while I was there, things looked good. The kids were well looked after and they got good food (they were eating a lot of vegetables, uncommon for a lot of Bolivian children). They also got a lot of attention and structure in their day.

Those of age were bundled into a car and taken to Tiquipaya for school Monday to Friday. The kids were aged one through to seven. I was told that at the age of eight they would be moved to another place, perhaps another orphanage, where they stay until they are about 16 or 17. Frustratingly no one knew where (or wanted to tell me) where this “other place” was or what it was called.

I believe that Casa Cuna got a lot of mileage out of what they had. For example, they washed/scrubbed the dirty old ripped mattresses and hanging them out to try frequently. This shows, in my opinion, their desire for hygiene as well as caring for what they have despite the destitution.

Part Three: what happened next

So what happened?

Well in a nutshell social workers form the government (Sedeges) turned up and inspected the place. The social workers were solemn bunch but everyone from Casa Cuna seemed totally relaxed an unstressed in their presence. I should note that at one point in the day Virginia asked me to not say anything bad about the orphanage. Obviously this struck me as odd. Why would I? Suspicious? Yes.

The assessment was completed and a week later there were no more kids.

I was told initially that they would be back in fifteen days. In the meantime we set about working on the house; painting, gardening, spring cleaning. I felt that it had been implied that the kids had gone on a holiday and that this was all totally normal. Then the fifteen days elapsed, then twenty and then thirty. Still no kids.

On the day I decided to call-it-quits they spilled the beans and told me that the kids had been taken away by the government due to the results of their psychological assessments and signs of abuse to the children. They also told me that they were going through the courts to defend these allegations. I have found this article which I believe is about them. In my opinion the article is "light" and quite ambiguous.

Through information acquired by a friend here in Cochabamba we also found out that an assessment had been completed by the same social workers earlier in the year. Allegedly, they had made recommendations that were not acted on by Casa Cuna and as such the kids were removed. The story of the removal sounded pretty horrible. I am not going to go into here. I will state that I never saw any abusive behaviour in my time at Casa Cuna.

Finally, it has been said that Bolivia no longer wants private orphanages. I have nothing to back this up but it does fit in with Evo’s nationalisation project and perhaps this is part of the explanation.

Part Four: goodbye

So the kids never came back, their cat Chulo died and I said goodbye. Perhaps surprisingly, I got a nice farewell and enjoyed hanging out with Virginia and her family, practicing my Spanish. But what occurred here... I will never fully know. I Emailed Amizade to get there side of the story but nothing has come of it so far.

In the last days, the house still smelling of cleaner and a faint aroma of urine, I played PS1 (NFS and Tekken) with Israel and had some amazing food cooked by Virginia. She also gave me these cool, handmade, chocolates. In spite of this it the farewell that did not quite feel right. I never got to say goodbye to the kids. To have formed a relationship with little-people and then to have them taken away... it is a bitter memory to say the least. This was also compounded by the strange approach by Casa Cuna took to talking to me about “what happened” with the removal. In retrospect it is possible that they were in shock, and angry, and as such did not trust anyone. Maybe they thought I contributed to it. Who knows.

Part Five: final contact?

A week after I left Casa Cuna they asked me to come in for a meeting. Virginia did not tell me what it was about.

As I made my way over I got a text message changing the time of the meeting so I returned home. When I returned to Casa Cuna no one was there. I left my Email address and a note in the door. No Emails have been received as of yet.

Truffi Wars

2010-07-30T11:48:00.000-07:00

I was frustrated when I left home and could not find my usual truffi-taxi. I walked over a couple of blocks to a road that Sarah had recommended. Not a truffi in sight. "Good one Sarah, thanks for the advice," I thought. As I hiked across town I noticed that there were no buses or truffi's anywhere. Then I recalled that my new boss at Performing Life had said that there were truffi drivers smashing out windows on El Prado yesterday. My sharp intellect then put it together that there must be a strike on.

I eventually made it up to El Prado (part of the route I was taking) and I saw the inevitable gaggle of men blocking the road. As they walked along I started to hear wolf-whistling and thought to myself "what kind of protest march is this." Subsequently, I ran up the road a bit to get a better view of proceedings. At this point the march seemed even stranger. What were these bits of wood they were carrying, what could they possibly symbolize; perhaps something Andean?

Well, I say to you, in the moment these are the things you think.

A minute later a mini-van with its truffi line number on its roof then appeared on El Prado. The men swarmed the vehicle and battered it with the sticks, some of which were five feet long. An argument then ensued and then the mob smashed out all the windows of the mini-van.The man circled in red below punctured a hole through the back window with a long staff. He seemed to be the ring leader.

As you can see the photo I took is very undramatic. A minute after it was taken a Police car arrived on the street but did not seem to stop to manage the situation. I got on my way and then realized I was in a mild shock. What the heck was I doing chasing after a group of angry unionists with bludgeoning instruments? What was I doing taking photos of them? This can only be described as bad decision making. What an idiot.

Since witnessing this protest I have checked the back story. Basically what has happened that the truffi line-110 is being challenged by other truffi drivers. Agreements on legal and illegal lines have come to an impasse in Cochabamba and as such cars (almost 100 of them) were attacked yesterday by anti line-110 group. In response to those attacks the pro line-110 people have responded with their own attacks.

Even though nothing happened to me today I have to say that this incident really brought home how quickly curiosity can bring you needlessly into harms way.

¡¡¡Yo soy materialista!!! (#3)

2010-07-27T12:21:00.000-07:00

In Cochabamba there are a lot of s t r e e t v e n d o r s. They sell salteña, snacks, sugar cane (out of wheel barrows), cigarettes as well as non-edible items too innumerable to list here. Probably the nicest thing in terms of street venders in Bolivia is the grapefruit/orange juice carts. These carts are on every other corner and dotted around plazas.

In terms of self-gratification there are few things as simple or as pleasurable as finishing up on a warm Cochabamba afternoon and walking through a dappled plaza to a juice lady and watching the world go by as you suck back a freshly squeezed juego de pomelo. The produce is local, you don’t have to drink out of a disposable plastic cup if you don’t want to and if it is quiet the vendor will chat to you even though your Spanish is weak.

I should note that if you ask how much for a glass you will pay BS$03.50 (NZ$00.70) or even BS$04.00 (NZ$00.80) if you are shy and unlucky. When you figure out what is going on BS$03.00 (NZ$00.60) is the price. I recommend you never ask for cost on this one, just hand over the money*.

* Prices in Bolivia for everything are negotiable most of the time (though not in the severe entrepreneurial spirit found in Asia). For example with a taxi the time of the day, how many people and the quality of the taxi will all effect the price of the ride. There are no meters in taxis and “time spent” is not often a variable a driver will consider. Before you get in a taxi you always discuss price through the window. The same thing goes when you are buying fruit and veg in a mercado. This seems to be a distinct difference when dealing with juice carts.

Did I mention I was a middle-manager?

2010-07-14T10:09:00.000-07:00

It would be a lie if I tried to give you a sound reason for this exercise. I cannot really answer it. All I can say, for context, was that three months ago I began tracking the top six activities that I thought I should complete everyday. If I did anyone of these activities for more than one hour on a given day (excluding making a diary entry) I would get an ´X´ for completed on my daily tracker.

You could argue that the Rule of One Hour is a weak measure. How does doing any of these things for at least one hour actually add up to or even produce a desired result? Well, feel free to reflect on that one yourself. When I started to question the validity in the Rule of One Hour the only conclusion I could make was that this has gone far enough, I am incapable of refining this process and its feeble methodology any further.

Now three months deep I have got some data and I have got graphs.

Graph One

The first graph I made was a bust. Or as Sarah said, "A waste of time." I wanted to see if there was a general pattern to my month; was I doing more/less/the same thing during the first/second/third/forth week of a month?

The below information reflects all activities completed every day over the course of April, May and June. There appears to be little or no trend. The only thing I could establish from this information was that May and June started well and trended down while April started low and finished more productively.

Graph Two

The second thing I wanted to establish was which activity was favoured over others. Below we can see that reading has taken the lead by a country mile. Not surprisingly the next highest activity was completing a diary entry (i.e. is not subject to the Rule of One Hour and therefore is a less onerous task).

All other activities have been completed consistently though with less frequency. It should be noted that volunteering started half way through April and D.W.E. did not begin until June. It is also notable that May was conspicuously less productive though the trend is generally the same. The lack of productivity in May relates to the time taken out to travel to La Paz to see Hester off.

Graph Three

My favourite discovery so far is through the Overall Productivity Per Day of the week graph. With the exception of May which (as explained above) has been an irregular month April and June clearly show us that there may be some truth in that myth about the middle of the week. As far as Executives are concerned the best day is Tuesday.

I must say that while I am not working nine-to-five I am happily amused with the approximate correlation. The other thing this graph reflects is that there are no "dead" days. When it comes to picking my own schedule and choice of daily activities it appears that any-day and every-day is a good time to being "working" on something; TGIF does not exist in this current lifestyle.

Graph Four

The fourth graph is nice and simple. May is shown clearly as a weak month while April and June reflect that I am consistant with struggling to obtain a perfect score of 186/186 (April/May) and 217/217 (June; +31 for actovoty of D.W.E.) with April being my first - and by far - best month overall.

In terms of percentages that means that in April I completed 158/170 (92.94%), May 106/170 (62.35%) and 170/217 (78.34%) in June.

Conlcusion

It is clear that I have found it diffcult to stay motivated to complete all acitivites everyday. If you were my boss, and given that I have choosen all these activites myself, I think it would be fair to challenge me on this. Why should I be kept on if I am not completing jobs as agreed? Has an agreement not been made here?

Motivationally it should be said that there has been "good", clear, performance in some areas (reading and writing my diary). To develop in the next quarter there is much improvement needed in the areas of studying spanish, volunteering, exercising, D.W.E. and writing.

More generally it appears that - despite having an alternative lifestlye currently - there is still a trend through the middle-days of the week where my performce peaks like any other middleclass person. Contrary to this is the fact that I will still produce on Saturdays and Sundays when Monday-Friday type activities are usually in hiatus in a standard nine-to-five type lifestyle.

Weekend trip to Villa Tunari: Day Two

2010-07-07T08:25:00.000-07:00

On our second day we made our way to La Jungla which is a rope swing park in a jungle setting. As Stephanie pointed out it was not unlike the world created in Hook. The only difference being that those Hollywood sets would have had building standards to adhere to. But this is Bolivia after all. There were nails jutting out of boards, ladders on awkward (read: dangerous) angles, platforms three levels up in the trees with questionable integrity and railings that seemed to be there for aesthetic purpose rather than function. The whole time I couldn’t help think of the Cave Creek Disaster.

I probably would not use this facility again but while I was there was no way I could chicken-out. We went around the sky walks, observed all the chicks with their mothers scratching around in the dirt, tried a small swing and a flying-fox that splattered Stephanie with dirty grease then made our way over to their biggest adventure-swing that is about eighteen metres high.

Sarah had no qualms about doing this meaning that my masculinity would be on the line if I did not go myself. After watching half a dozen Bolivians successfully go Sarah and I got our turn. Four stories up on the worst possible platform construction we stoically threw ourselves off the side and had a great time. But there is no way that this thing will not be responsible for a fatality one day. The harness looks about thirty years old and is perishing in places, the carabiner screw-lock was missing, the wire was tied to a branch that could only be about a foot and a half wide and the ties on the wire appeared fastened in an ad-hoc manner rather than with industrial clamping and auxiliary attachments.

The best part for me was the “loading dock” which required you to have the swing lifted over your body. This process turned you, essentially, into a human slingshot. The only thing stopping you from going over the side while the guide fastened you in was a piece of wood that your thighs pressed against. Getting the swing over my head was especially awkward as they are not used to having people of my height on this ride. The design was so poor I almost wished the platform was twenty-eight metres high so that when I went tumbling to my death the fall would be fatal instead of merely crippling.

All in all a fun day. But with an unnecessary air of danger that I do not care to repeat. You can watch me screaming like a little girl below.

Weekend trip to Villa Tunari: Day One

2010-07-07T07:37:00.000-07:00

Sarah, Stephanie and I headed to Villa Tunari last weekend past. As per usual we had the Bolivian charm of travelling over a relatively short distance to find ourselves in a completely new climate. Villa Tunari is a classically hot, humid and sticky unlike Cochabamba which is generally warm and dry. My Spanish tutor expressed sadness about this place as it “used to be a paradise” but is now (besides being a tourist town) a major site for narco-trafficking and deforestation. And indeed, we saw a lot of logging trucks and we had to wait narco-screening checkpoints to get in and out of the town centre.

We arrived at about 21:00 on Friday night and stayed at The Mirador Hostel which greeted us with a dark loose-metal driveway (though only about thirty metres long) and dog that bolted out of the shadows to bark at us and proceeded to bite Sarah’s bag which was hanging from her side. Have I mentioned the dogs in Bolivia?

On the first day we changed hostels then, conceding defeat, spent the morning watching the Germany-Argentina match instead of getting out and about. Once we got that out of the way we headed to Parque Machia which is an animal refuge. Overall its facilities were not outstanding (e.g. viewing platforms were shoddily put together and monkeys were able to chew on or eat rubbish that was still discarded by patrons). Besides this the park was pretty cool.

There about 400 monkeys in the park (Capuchins, Spiders) as well as pumas and coati. On our way back from the emasculated El Ensueno waterfall we got to see one of the refuges pumas on the track being taken for a walk by an Australian and French volunteer. The puma was actually sleeping in the middle of the path so we had to stop and wait before we were able to pass. This worked in to our benefit because we got to chat with the volunteers and observe the cat which had its legs damaged ten years earlier by the previous owner (so that it could not run [away]).

Before we headed to the waterfall we spent time observing the monkeys. While the viewing lacked the drama of our Samaipata experience it was still a thrill to walk around and be able to see something going on in every other tree. There must have been about three-dozen monkeys in the first group we saw. The whole time they were throwing themselves around wrestling with each other on the ground and flying around from branch to branch only a meter or two away from us.

I may return here. To volunteer you have to stay a minimum of fifteen days at a cost of US$150 per fortnight. It would be great to hang in the jungle with some animals for a couple for weeks.

Mystery: Can you Google this one?

2010-07-02T07:23:00.000-07:00

I was walking home from the orphanage this week and I passed a ute with a surprising sticker on the back window. I have never seen this before and cannot imagine what it specifically represents. The koru design in the middle suggests that this brand originates from New Zealand but besides that insignia there is no other salient information therein.

What the heck is this thing? The best result I could get out of Google was a PDF about leaf morphology and Bolivian gift ideas from Zazzle.

Jogging

2010-07-01T18:15:00.000-07:00

I am a creature of habit. With the exception of last week - when Sarah and I were sick (again) - I have managed to go for a run almost every day. This is, among other things, an experiment in trying to get addicted to exercising; with the view that I like I like the idea of having all those endorphins in perpetuity. Sarah and Hester have not enjoyed running here in Cruce Taquiña. I believe that relates to their experience of running on the main road. For me it has been more interesting, and due to the reduced traffic, unproblematic running on the back streets.

Over the last week a couple people have said that Cruce Taquiña is a dangerous neighbourhood. I have to say that I have never felt any kind of threat - while running or commuting - from passersby, cars or any other human related traffic. But there is no doubt that this is a poorer neighbourhood so there is obviously going to be some truth in what people have said. Actually, in the last two weeks two Bolivian style Neighbourhood Suppor t signs (hand crafted of course) have turned up all over the back streets where I run (below). Translated they say “If you are caught stealing here your will be eliminated” and “The thief operating in this area will be burned.”

The worst part of running for me is the “dog problem.” Not dissimilar to my K’ara K’ara experience. Well the dogs here* are not all like those in K’ara K’ara but they are a pest. For instance yesterday when I went for a run one dog just joined me and trotted along the road for bit then departed. Kind of cute really. Then on the way back a dog, about the size of a couple of tennis balls, started yapping at me which led to a larger dog emerging from a front lawn and chasing after me and barking followed by several other dogs. Luckily for me most of the especially aggressive dogs are behind security fences.

The most frightening experience in recent times was when I was running down a sealed road. I had run past a dozen dogs already. No problem, nothing to report. Then out of nowhere three dogs sitting placidly on the side of the road launched into attack position, bared their teeth menacingly and then chased after me. Instinct took over and I stopped and feinted toward them which slowed them for a second before they doubled back at me. I had to stop running and do it again. They retreated but continued to terrorise me with barking and snarling. Once I passed I felt some mild shock then started screaming expletives at them in English. A few people on the side of the road turned and cast me a glance. Yeah I’m just fine thanks.

These gringo-type grievances aside I have been running for enough months now to be wary of the environment but feel experienced enough to feel confident about running around Cruce Tequina. With the recent appearance of the Neighbourhood Support signs it is now obvious that the dogs are trained to molest and intimidate people passing by. In this context I accept them as a signifier of protection against a known danger (that I don’t know that much about). These guys are home security systems.

I look forward to not having any insight into this known-unknown danger.

* As a side note I must say I am amazed by all the different breeds of dogs here. It makes me wonder where they all come from and how interbreeding and owner preference has not led to a less types of them about the place. Yesterday I saw a dog that was half dirty dreads and half shaved (I assume the owner ran out of steam hand sheering the little guy). Clearly he was not intended for this environment.

You can view some of these dogs here.

Dude

2010-06-24T13:51:00.000-07:00

Man, it really sucked when we had our Canon G10 camera stolen. For a lot of reasons. One of the main ones for me was that I lost the opportunity to take good (not great) macro photos. I had started really getting into this. There are so many bugs, so much bigger and more interesting than what we are used to seeing in Auckland, here in Bolivia.

For me New Zealand not progressing in the World Cup shares this level of gutted-ness. It was all so new and surprising up until that point. It was refreshing, it distracted me. It distracted me to the point of having a new view on things. In the case of bugs I had started to humanize them and found them cute and in terms of New Zealand football I started “to believe in One Shot For Glory.” Ha-ha.

The thing is that soccer has not even been a significant part of the sporting imagination in New Zealand. Though, to Wellington’s credit, there are now some real fans and a team that can compete for them. Before this many people had always enjoyed revelling in our previous A-League and national team’s inadequacies. It is that kind of ridicule that has confounded me. It seems to me that people also say that we suffer from T all Poppy Syndrome. So which is it? Are we dismayed by losing or by winning?

While I am massively disappointed about not taking the points from Paraguay I am adopting a Pollyanna-type frame for this and enjoying what the All Whites have accomplished. Why? Por ejemplo: a large group of Paraguayans sat next to us to watch the game. They mocked my vocal supporting and I harassed them with obnoxiously loud clapping every time they failed to score. The truth was we were both irked by each other the whole way through the match. Once the game was over it was accepted as playful rivalry.

This will be something that I will hold onto after I have left South America. From a very Western perspective I really enjoyed the novelty of having “real life” Paraguayans taking the piss and screaming “puta” as we watched the Mundial together. I enjoyed supporting my own country in the biggest sporting event in the world. I enjoyed being in another country seeing other nationalities cheer for their team while they played against Aotearoa. Holy shit. What is not to like about this moment in New Zealand sporting history? Before it was over I got to turn my attention to something in a way I never had before; insects are kind of cute and the All Whites punched well above its weight.

"Someone always knows more [Karate]"

2010-06-15T11:32:00.000-07:00

Aurora

Wow. Don’t know how it happened but my underdog team, Aurora, ended up finishing the season very well. I really got lucky with this. Their last game was for a chance at the title. And not only that it was El Clasico; another game against Wilstermann. Last time they met Aurora won 2-0, and they had shown a lot of fighting spirit in the last couple of games. Things were looking pretty good. I went to buy tickets five hours before kick-off but it was impossible. As I waited in the red-rich line at the stadium people mulled about in consternation. But nobody was going to get more tickets.

We ended up watching the game in a bar on El Prado. Aurora scored first, early on, and then ended up losing by one goal. It was pretty disappointing. The Gurkas took to the street and showed some classy Latin American victory celebrations. I was also jealous of all the men in the bar, in unison shouting out the Wilstermann cadence. If one of my teams ever win something what am I going to shout?

At least I got to watch the game with some beer and friends.

Mundial

I remember saying "weird, next time the World Cup is on I am going to be in my thirties." A strange thought four years ago. Subsequently Sarah and I started to plan a year in Bolivia and the Mundial was forgotten. Later it struck me that I was going to be in South America when it was on. I had created for myself a position where I could watch as much World Cup as I liked, with impunity. There would be no worry about drinking beer and wondering how it would affect work the next day. No Leave Forms to fill out if I wanted to take the day, week or month off.

Then, unpredictably, The All Whites qualified through Oceania. Month by month, day by day the proposition of New Zealand competing has become more and more exciting for me. I would not claim to be the most patriotic person I know but the idea that I am actually going to get to support my own country this time-around is uncommonly thrilling. It is unlikely that I will get to do this again anytime in the future.

Moaning

New Zealand has gotten a lot off stick for making it in to the World Cup. There is no doubt that there are some pretty amazing football-playing nations which have not qualified. It irks me something chronic that people are on our case about this. To criticize us for qualifying in a tournament that somebody else created seems illogical not to mention whinny.

Nobody with normal cognitive functioning is claiming that New Zealand is a powerful football playing nation. But neither should anyone apologize for qualifying.

Game One

With lead up games like England wilting against an inferior side from the USA and Germany handing Australia their asses there were plenty of moments which curdled as I waited for our own game against Slovakia. I ended up surprising myself and feeling sorry for the aging Australian side that was totally out of its depth and sad for England who look like they actually (this time) have a world-class squad. England’s game should have been fun for the "anything can happen at the Mundial" aspect and Germany should have been thrilling except for the fact that it underscored the miss-matches that are on offer at the World Cup. These games were unwanted foreshadowing for our (first; second; third) game.

Here is my two line analysis of what happened after kickoff of game one:

We were the hungrier side in the first half and if this were a boxing-match we would have accrued more points than the slicker Slovakian side but as it was our forwards lacked the finishing to induce fear or concern from anyone on the pitch
In the second half the Slovak’s showed glimpses of their speed, depth and proficiency leading us to look, at times, moribund but our yield-less hunger from the first half was rewarded in the final seconds of the game with an astonishing, pitiless, header to draw us 1-1.

Out of the autobiographic imperative that comes from a blog like this I have to express zeal and ardour for this moment. When the goal was made I wasn’t able to acknowledge what I saw. This was an impossible finish. Then Sarah, Hannah and Phillip (random Kiwi who’d turned up in Cochabamba only hours before) jumped up and went berserk. I kept screaming like I’d been shot in my nut-sacks* and frightening the wait staff at Cafe Brazilian in the process. While this kind of behaviour is not uncommon in Bolivia the place was empty and it was around 09:00AM.

Ya

Ya, sugarcane is in-season now so I am ready with my length and for the next couple of games of football. As the hours pass from that miraculous header I feel incredibly privileged to act like an idiot supporting my own team in an archetypal World Cup moment. The competition will be painfully difficult in the next All Whites games but, too bad, I am still gushing that I have been able to experience this moment in, what seems like, a recreational [football supporting] watershed.

* I am thankful that I don’t know how to do the Haka but now wonder if I should learn the Aurora or Wilstermann cadences as proxy to keep things on the safe-side.

D.W.E.

2010-06-08T10:48:00.000-07:00

Now Hester is gone, and Clea has stopped through, Sarah and I are by ourselves (in terms of amigos de Neuva Zealanda). This means our dynamic has changed. The first big decision we have made in this new situation is to start a competition: Days Without English.

We decided to do this competition on the day of Clea leaving. Despite the sound principal behind this we were both had a lot of trepidation. To get leverage, and overcome our fears, we agreed on a penalty for losing. The penalty is both practicable and more vexing than not complying: the loser has to be the winners slave for seven days.

The first day of D.W.E. was exhausting and exasperating in that “first day of school in a new town” kind of way. Fear, awkwardness and lack of habituation made the experience highly un-enjoyable. Por suerte! The following day things started to flow a bit better. In our favour - usefully – when we went to watch Game One of the NBA Playoffs (finals) we were able to explain to our (fluent speaking) friend, Steph, that we were having a competition and therefore assuage the inconvenience of our limited vocabulary. In the end Steph was a big help with our Spanish. Who would have thunkit? This shit actually works.

The competition has also made us more involved in our tarea and we have both started reading juvenile literature in Spanish. I’ve picked up the very fly Watch Tower illustrated bible entitled Aprendamos Del Gran Maestro. My favourite chapter is titled ´¿Cómo abemos que el Armagedón está cerca?´ (literally: ´How Do We Know That Armageddon Is Close?´, ha-ha!). This combined with our bedroom wall - that is slowly being covered with verb and vocab charts - it has become a fun process.

I must say that having this frequency of Spanish speaking is making Bolivia a lot more interesting for us. It is also starting to make me feel a little agitated. It is, at times, disheartening to be expressing myself with such a limited vocabulary.

My limited vocabulary produces blunt and callow sounding assertions. It is quite funny at first. And then it is just isolating. This feeling of agitation and isolation is the next “brick wall” (thank you Randy Pausch) to circumvent. And in the meantime I am getting acutely in touch with body language, too. Where would we be without our bodies to communicate?

I look forward to finding out what other emotions and reactions I will assign to my life during this chapter. We have agreed that the competition will go for four weeks. After that we will continue to live our lives inside the Spanish language but allow ourselves the pleasure of speaking our native tongue with fellow volunteers and travellers.

Amen.

Prove me wrong

2010-06-01T13:44:00.000-07:00

In short I have been a bit of a dick in regards to being a tourist. And while I have encountered more rancorous and petty souls than myself I must acknowledge up-front that - at times - I have been nonplussed by the Gringo Trail experience. Sometimes my rational brain gets over taken by my emotional brian: ‘Fuck Machu Pichu and Iguacu Falls and fuck Route 36 and fuck the Salar’. In a word I have secretly been (unfairly) a complete curmudgeon.

Last Saturday I did the mother of all tourist attractions in Bolivia: The World’s Most Dangerous Road. You also get a t-shirt for your trouble on this one. The name of this attraction irritates me a lot. Give me some statistics. How many people have died here? How many gringos have died here? There better be at least one a day. This whole thing of selling a mainstream activity as edgy and adventuress drives me crazy.

Before I arrived I thought that this attraction should be called The Disused Road That Was Dangerous But Now Is Just a Place Where Lazy Gringos Go To Fecklessly Fill a Hole Inside Their Vacant Souls. Personally I signed up to do this just so I wouldn’t get stuck at a party trying to explain why I didn’t do it and therefore run the risk of exposing my antipathy about backpacker culture (of which I am one).

Our mate Hesther claimed that she had a great time doing the Dangerous Road so I took my foot of the hater-pedal before we arrived in the morning. When we arrived at Luna Tours we met our two UK companions for the day, had a typical crap Bolivian breakfast and headed out. Our guide, Octavia, was a reassuringly friendly Bolivian dude who rattled through his banter in a practiced though earnest manner.

Economically as possible this was what proceeded:

ONE: Hours of 90s “rock” hits... like Nookie, Wonderwal l, Between Angels and Insects, Boom and Zero. I am not being facetious when I say that this was wonderfully nostalgic even though I was not a fan of any of these songs in their day.

TWO: A myriad of climates... you start of in the freezing and windy Andes (about 3500 metres) and finish in the sweltering heat of the jungle surrounded by butterflies and swifts.

THREE: Amazing scenery... the mountains are larger than life on this ride, they swallow everything. Cars on the horizon looked like Tic-Tacs and people like small grains of quinoa.

FOUR: The Halo moment... the surrounds looked so grand, alien and perfect. The day was perfect and the sky was blue. Then a jet flew overhead, slowly edging across the sky leaving a massive vapour trial. It was a scene straight out of Halo. Amazing.

FIVE: The road actually turned out to be dangerous... OK, sure people had died here and that is not something to be trivialised one iota, but what was frightening for me was the 50 metre landslide that took out the road about halfway down. Possibly occurring earlier in the morning. As the guide transported the bikes across the slip small rocks (i.e. about the size of baseballs) were still falling from the cliff above. At one stage a bigger piece came down and scared the shit out of a guide who was heading across. He gingerly ran towards the other side barely hiding his (appropriate) fear.

SIX: Have I mentioned that this is a lazy activity for lazy gringos? It is downhill all the way so you don’t even have to peddle. While this was a criticism before I had done the ride I have absolutely changed my mind now. The exhilaration of being in this environment speeding down a hill is truly thrilling. No amount of cynicism could take that away from me this time.

SEVEN: A cute kitten at the end of the ride harassing the local tomcat and chickens on the main street.

EIGHT: A swim and a beer at the end of the ride. The pool at Esmeralda, Coroico was really nice and the weather was balmy. It was the perfect way to end the ride and because we went with a smaller tour company there were no other people there at the time. We had the whole place to ourselves.

Thank you The World’s Most Beautiful Road That Is Mostly Disused And Also Quite Dangerous In Some Parts. It was nice to be proved wrong so thoroughly (Walter Benjamin-type criticisms aside). Amongst that beauty I shed a tear I was so amazed. That is no lie.

Dear Diary 3.0 (a couple of days in La Paz)

2010-05-23T16:08:00.000-07:00

Jaded Sunday. We all got home late. I spend the day watching:

Such a surprise to see rugby on the television let alone a Crusaders game. Later India Star again for dinner and then more TV. I am a vegetable after a night on the town. Felt like death in the AM but have managed to regather a bit of my humanity by the evening.

Dear Diary 2.0 (a couple of days in La Paz)

2010-05-22T14:26:00.000-07:00

I woke up early after going to bed late, ate a piece of bread, drank coffee and read my book in the cold and dim breakfast bar. Went and sorted some stuff for next week and took a whole bunch of photos of stencils around La Paz. Generally speaking everyone (Sarah, Hester and Clea) is feeling average. They all stay in.

When I finally get back from the excursion and we headed to the very compact but edutaining Coca Museo. "Feeling tired? Drink Coke!" slogan in the exhibition made me realize how we have come full circle with energy drinks. There must be something about modernity and wanting to "feel right" all the time without having to worry so much about food and rest. The pigeons in the courtyard of the museum drove me crazy with their constant fluttering but the sun streaming down through the tree above and the canopy of birds was some sight.

Everyone crashed afterward so I headed to Oliver´s Travels to watch Bayern Munich and Internazionale. It was full and the thought of standing-room-only for ninety minutes (alone) made me feel like a tool so I headed elsewhere and paid eighteen Bolivianos for Personal size Huari! The game is good and Milito´s goals are classy. In the end Internazionale were far to dynamic on attack and solid in defence but for my money Bayern play a nicer style of football.

When I got back and everyone is still in bed so I started thinking about another beer for the late afternoon. No one suggests buying Coke to get beyond the altitude induced lethargy.

Dear Diary 1.1 (a couple of days in La Paz)

2010-05-22T05:19:00.000-07:00

Our first day, Friday, ended with me accepting my place in La Paz. I ate a curry at Indian Star claiming to be world-class-hot and got a appropriately shameful t-shirt that said as much.

Later Hester and I went to Oliver´s Travel´s for a quiet. Oliver´s Travel´s is well known to visitors for it´s "humour" and candid dislike of Israelis. The bartender told me that the owner "Olly" also wants to put an Israeli flag on the front door with the words "FREE PALESTINE" underneath it and another sign for Easter which says "We cannot open right now because on this day the Jews murdered Jesus".

Earlier in the night our mate Clea got to La Paz with no problems. We are now set for a big Saturday. And perhaps a quiet Sunday.

Dear Diary 1.0 (a couple of days in La Paz)

2010-05-21T14:25:00.000-07:00

We are in La Paz to see Hester off. While we have been here a few times before we have not spent any real time in the city. Time to explore a bit.

In the morning we sourced a sound hostel followed by some average food and coffee then hit the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Plaza which was OK. The gallery had changed little over the last four months but I still enjoyed revisiting the work of Mario Conde. Great palette, tight use of water colour and unique juxtaposition of Bolivian, religious and communist motifs. I will try to buy a piece of his before I leave this country.

Later in the day we had more coffee and checked out the very excellent Museo Nacional de Arte. A mix of contemporary and religious national works. The contemporary work had pedigree which was refreshing. I especially liked the mixed-media piece (La Mina) by Walter Solón Romero. La Mina had great composition and stylised line work (though actually a wood cut). Later we consumed a bunch of stuff from the art shop and headed home.

On the way home we, grabbed a pomelo juice, waved at a baby and encountered the teachers protest which was very peaceful. They are getting a hefty five percent increase to their wage. The problem is that their wage is slim and it only equates to about 30 bolivianos extra per month. It also made me realise that the front page of La Razon was of Miss Santa Cruz. Boobs and smiles are popular here, too.

Anyway. It was a really nice day getting to La Paz and looking at art. Oil, water and acrylic, I love it all. And it recalled the enjoyment had the other day at Palacio de los Portales.

¡¡¡Yo soy materialista!!! (#2)

2010-05-18T11:31:00.001-07:00

One of my favourite purchases in South America. It makes me feel like a boy scout, is compact, manual, austere and does what it says on the packet. The lack of sophistication in the design means that there is almost nothing that can go wrong with it. Or perhaps that is a sign of sophistication?

Sarah and I used one of these first in Jujuy, Argentina. We had to ask for it at the front counter of the hostel we were staying at. It didn’t live in the kitchen with the rest of the obligatory kitchen utensils. A sign of its pilfer-ibility. Subsequently, we walked around for two days looking and eventually found one in a shop front cluttered with a thousand other items. The surly shop lady stopped us from purchasing it then and there*. Later that day we picked one up from a supermarket.

If you cannot reliably open a can when you are on the road your dinner eating experience is greatly diminished. Enough people have asked to borrow this little baby, with comforting monotony, to remind us of this fact.

Last week, on 13th May 2010, Sarah and I celebrated six months of being out of New Zealand. To salute this milestone Hester, Sarah and I went out for sushi at Zhou with our friends Stephanie and Allan. When I got home I wondered what I would write about this development. Outlining another dinner with friends felt fallow or at least unsuitable. Instead I thought of el abrelatas. What a good role model for the next six months. Or a representation of how I would like to preceding months to be: functional, reliable, common place and exceptional in its simplicity.

* a sympathetic reminder that - today - our Spanish has actually improved.

Palacio de los Portales

2010-05-14T13:34:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday our day hike of Tunari fell-through for the fifth time so we headed for an estate of a now deceased mining baron. The estate known as Palacio de los Portales. This place is similar to the Castillo La Glorieta in Sucre (from same period and category of owner) which frequently receives remarks like “[this is an example] of how wealth and taste do not do not always coincide” (though our guide book did not agree with this connection).

It was another superb Cochabamba morning and the grounds were conspicuous for their well maintained, lush presentation. This is an uncommon sight in Bolivia. It was not unlike visiting a compact version of the Wellington Botanic Garden and as such it was a pleasure when we had to wait for our friend Stephanie to arrive.

When our tour started it turned out that the guide was well read. She gave us a sound and appropriately succinct tour of the main house. There is a lot to see on the property (such as contemporary sculpture and other substantial structures like an outdoor concert area and remodelled stable). To have gone through the entire estate would have been lengthy. As it happened the main house supported a story that talked about the biography of Simòn Patiño (he, nor anyone, else ever lived in this house and as such it is in pristine condition), a history of Bolivia and an explanation regarding the property’s construction and the ruthless mixture European styles.

The best part of the morning for me was spent observing a white marble statue depicting a legend related to the St Bernard of the Alps of Switzerland. I got to do this while reclining on a park bench waiting for Stephanie. A classic and popular European myth our guide later said. While sitting a bird was over head hanging out with me. He didn’t make a lot of noise though his mates in the background were trying to get his attention. He just puffed up his chest and rigidly turned his head left and right, up and down. There was a light, cool, breeze that passed between my toes. Outside the grounds cars passed by and drowned out the bird calls reminding me that I was in the middle of Cochabamba.

I liked this moment because it took me back to the days when I could walk up the road and wander around the Auckland Art Gallery in solitude (until the redevelopment at least). In this depiction the dog was bigger than the girl. He loomed, dominating her form; a very masculine image. That aside, I liked the statue because it seemed to draw together the themes of kinship with animals (or at least dogs), fighting against the elements (which works as a metaphor), the notion of us all is being inside a single - shared - environment and finally the symbolism of books.

I also liked that I spent a bit of time thinking about the statue and then, of the hundreds of statues she could have commented on, our guide choose that one to open the tour with this one. It was good to have my own reflections supplemented with some actual facts.

It strikes me as re-assuring that I am typically compromised with my description of the palace. On the one hand I find it hard not to criticize the architecture for being inelegant and on the other I have an overriding memory of enjoying European sculpture at that very site which draws on my own experience of imitating “European culture” back in New Zealand (visiting art gallery).

Overall the Palacio de los Portales was a pleasant way to spend the morning: the dozens of contemporary sculpture, grounds composed by Japanese specialists, a unique story about the long gone wealth of Bolivia and some quiet time to look at a statue. It was a happy substitute for climbing a mountain.

Bolivia Corazón Vegeteriano Estricto: Guide to eating vegan in Cochabamba

2010-05-04T14:16:00.000-07:00

My friend Lauren sums up cuisine in Argentina succinctly here. After my experience in that country I had low expectations about the kind of food that would be on offer in Bolivia. Having now lived here for a period I can say without exaggeration that this is a vegan friendly country in terms of food. It is possibly easier to maintain a vegan diet here than back in New Zealand.

What follows is a somewhat dispassionate overview of what I have found so far. For non-vegans this may be a good article to read just before you hit-the-hay.

Dining

If I want to go out to eat I can go to a bunch of places. There is a vegetarian buffet on the main drag: Avienda Heroinas, fourth floor of the Dumbo’s building. The best almuerzo in town is at Gopel; a Hare Krishna place that provides a four course vegan meal/buffet for 15 bolivianos. There is a second Gopel in close proximity that also does a range of dinner meals including Chinese style dishes that use seitan. Across town (north-east) in Recoleta there is an up market Chinese place called Lai Lai’s that serves two tofu dishes (picante and normal) which are both adequate for two people per portion and always reliably prepared.

The pasta in Cochabamba is not too bad either. Most restaurants do basic plates of tomato sauce with pasta. My personal favourite is the Aglio from El Caracol; a very minimal recipe with chilli, seasoning, pasta and olive oil but cooked perfectly every time (nb. it is not easy to cook rice and pasta well at altitude).

Produce

After the disgrace of Argentina I can only describe the availability of fresh produce in Bolivia as ridiculous. In my neighbourhood of Cruce Tequina there is a market half a block away. This market is representative of all the produce markets in Bolivia.

At this small-medium sized market I can purchase carrots, spinach, white and red onions (white is more expensive in Bolivia for some reason), avocado, potatoes (literally dozens of varieties are available), chili, capsicum, pumpkin, radishes, tomatoes, cucumber, broccoli, corn, maize, and yams. In terms of fruit there is banana, apples, oranges, mandarins, mango, papaya, pineapple, grapes, peanuts, plums (sometimes), nectarines, pears, limes and grapefruit a plenty. And even when you are getting ripped off with gringo prices you still get a good deal. The best deal in my mind is with spinach and chillis; two bolivianos gives you enough for several meals. I have to note that it is a genuine pleasure to able to walk out your front door into a produce market that is so close at hand and so reasonably priced.

There are also heaps of flowers here and it is not uncommon to just pick some up on the way through. They are so accessible and affordable that it is hard not to have fresh flowers all the time in Cochabamba.

Supermarket & Kioskos

Supermarkets and kioskos are the biggest surprise of all. Both Super Hass and IC Norte are both well equipped to look after me. I would claim that they are as good as, if not better, than what we have back home in New Zealand.

In terms of protein there is carne de soya (or TVP back home) which is found everywhere and in at least three different forms. There is also a wide range of fresh seitan products made by Gouronga (available at IC Norte). In the centre of town (on Calle Sucre, a block from Plaza 14 de Septiembre) there is an unnamed health food store that makes its own tofu. For five bolivianos you get one cube of tofu ten centimetres by ten centimetres. A generous chunk. At IC Norte you can also buy Roland tofu in a can, which is a first for me, but the price is not what I would call agreeable.

There are two other very important types of soya products available in Bolivia. Both I can normally get at a kiosko and always from a supermercado: soya milk and ice cream. Nordland provides a plethora of flavours of icecream (coffee, bubblegum, lemon, vanilla, orange, coconut) and sizes (petite pots, 1 litre and 3 litre buckets). Nordland also does soya milk, and although it is competitively priced, the Soy Leche De Soya is far superior and still cheap (only three bolivianos fifty per litre). ‘Soy’ also has the charm of being wordplay on the conjugation of the verb Ser (“to be”).

As a side note all these soya products seem conspicuous to me and warrants looking into. They love meat here (especially chicken) and thus the variety of products to number of non-vegetarians is bewildering. I look forward to finding out why this is at a later stage.

Finally, there are lentejes and frijoles in galore. Supermarkets usually have a whole aisle of dried products and while they only have one type of lentil in Bolivia they have at least half a dozen different types of beans to choose from.

And so

That is it in a nutshell. While the Happy Cow will always be able to look after vegans when they are travelling the world I still had concerns before I arrived in Bolivia. I do not want to have to eat out the whole time (or even regularly). Hopefully this overview of what they have in Cochabamba will be of use to someone who is planning on swinging by Bolivia but is not confidant about their dietary needs being met.

In my opinion this is a great country to eat if you are a vegan.

A good week

2010-04-28T15:37:00.000-07:00

Blurb, yo!

This week Sarah and I got the shits because I had my backpack stolen. The pack had a bunch of important stuff in it. It really challenged us. Very uncool. The twist on this minor catastrophe was that the preceding six days were some of the best ever.

Victim of crime (for the second time in Bolivia)

Sunday was a big downer. I have already written about, and experienced, the potential dangers of travelling through La Cancha but on Sunday being familiar got the best of me. Sarah, Hester and I were in a bus and I had taken a photo out the window. I had done this while we were stuck in gridlock. Looking out the window brought me to the conclusion that this would be a good opportunity to capture the spirit of the market. Hindsight now tells us that this was the antithesis of “good opportunity.”

A few minutes after taking the photo a guy reached up through the window and snatched my backpack from my lap. The window of the bus that is. I never had a chance, he was so quick. We raced off the bus and chased after him. Some people pointed directions but it was impossible. In La Cancha you are amongst the multitudes and there was no way we were going to catch him. And what if we had caught him, what were we going to do? Mercifully I had my wallet in my pocket.

La semana pasada

Besides the low moment on Sunday my week was a flood of brilliant experiences. It was a week that recalled our first seven days in South America. When we arrived in Buenos Aires everything felt worthy of commentary. I was in a perpetual state of wonder. Similarly, this week was stacked in the same kind of way.

The week started with my new Spanish teacher who is excellent, the Climate Change Conference and Eco Village (where I saw the very entertaining band Cartel Afonico). Later in the week I started watching The Wire lent to us by our friends Jason and Emily, I got to write and run every day and I started volunteering at an orphanage called Casa Cuna on Wednesday.

The weekend begun with a great night out seeing another friend (Lindsay) off then on Saturday morning I slept in and read. At midday a massive parade came down our - inconsequential - street (like a mini Oruro Carniva l) and then in the afternoon I played football with the Sustainable Bolivia crew and scored a bunch of goals. Later in the evening I ate the best burritos and drank beer.

On Sunday I went to the local derby between Aurora and Wilstermann in the late afternoon. Aurora levelled the scores 2-2 in the last two seconds of the game. It was an intense ending to the game and it led to a punch-up out the front of the Stadium post-match. Having had enough drama from La Cancha earlier in the day I covered my Aurora jersey with a t-shirt to avoid any unwanted beatings; Aurora fans are outnumbered twenty-to-one.

And on it goes. I could write ten more bullet points underneath each of those moments, or (even worse) 2000 words per item. I could write 5000 word on the orphanage. The point being that it is confronting to be filled with anger (and I am angry) about having my bag stolen while (a) having such abundance in my life and/or (b) spending time with orphans who have no parents and play with broken-ass toys day after day and are happier than any adult I know. In the end I am going to assume that my anger is coming from my own stupidity (i.e. shame) so I will just have to deal with that. In the meantime I will reflect on this week past and keep it all in perspective.

Aurora Football, Cochabamba (the other team)

2010-04-19T18:05:00.000-07:00

I finally made it to a football match in Bolivia thanks to my friends Emily and Jason (who we met back in Sucre; the second time). The game was between Cochabamba (Aurora) and Sucre (Club Universitario). Aurora are known as an underdog that represents the south of Cochabamba. The south is generally recognized as the poorer part of town. The rest of Cochabamba support Wilstermann. My previous Spanish tutor, Delma, had told me about Aurora. She said that it was very easy to go and see them practice during the week. Jason and Emily confirmed this for me on game day, too. This will be another side road, or cul-de-sac, for me to check out.

The experience overall got a strong pass mark. The perennially clear Cochabamba afternoons combined with the stadium which has the stunning backdrop of the surrounding (gargantuan) hills made for comfortable football watching.

I also got to soak up the Aurora scene pre-game because, luckily for me, Jason and Emily were running late. As my jeans stuck to my legs I glanced at the sky and thought of the team (light-blue is their colour), I observed the very modest crowd in attendance while inhaling - with pleasure – the smoke wafting over form the barbequed potatoes and felt the heat of the concrete on my elbows as I reclined and watched the fans amble. It was Sunday afternoon as it should be.

Beyond all of these things the best part of the day was that the team that I was supporting actually won. A highly uncommon experience for me. I will be transparent and acknowledge that I wanted to support Aurora for their underdog status. Now, combining that with the fact that they actually notched-one-up I am in.

¿Que color es mi sangre? Ahora, mio sangre es celeste.

Plastic bottles... where do you go?

2010-04-16T07:29:00.000-07:00

This week I made it to the rubbish dump in search of plastic recycling. To get there Sarah (thanks to her knowledge of truffi’s) escorted me to the right neighbourhood. Well, her and the help of the person next to me on the truffi. The older Cochabambino gave me great directions and instructed the truffi driver on where to drop me off. For this I was thankful because getting to the dump did not end up being as straight forward as I would have liked. I had to hunt for a bridge to cross the river and speak with a local woman who was not convinced I really wanted to know where K’ara K’ara was. In the end this trip was experiential rather than educational in the pedagogic sense. It blended two disparate beasts: adventure and the confronting reality of poverty.

After crossing the small bridge (stolen from The Temple of Doom archives) I wandered up a peaceful hill on a winding dirt road toward (I assumed) the dump. Despite the depressed nature of the neighbourhood there was a calm here that was surprisingly comforting. Comforting until I made it half way up the hill. As I came to the fourth bend I could hear dogs barking. When I appeared around the corner a group of dogs on my right raced toward me barking and bearing their teeth while another group barked and circled to my left. When I walked on they all slowed but continued to aggress. This was the cue to shit my pants. My pace began to halt and then a lady emerged from doing her washing. The lead dog of the left pack turned its head toward her with doe-eyes. Then stopped barking. All the dogs on the left quietened and I was able to pass while the dogs on the right continued the vocal assault.

After the dogs I hardly minded the irritated expression the lady at the top of the hill gave me when I asked for directions. Unfortunately for me the dump ended being visible from where we were both standing. As I approached there was little smell coming from the dump. They must be doing something right. At the fence line I found a sign that says there is a 1000 Boliviano fine for trespassing. I would not be seeing the giant mound of rubbish up close today. Despite this, serendipitously, there were numerous pens (where I had arrived) filled with plastics. I walked about looking at the muddled structures that were strangely organized in terms of plastic categorization. In walkway amongst the pens I spoke to my third lady for the morning who could not understand a word I was saying. I can only deduce that she only spoke Quechau (a really possibility; not sarcasm about my ability to speak Spanish). Five minutes later a man and a lady were just as much help though they did speak Spanish. They suggested to me that plastics do not go anywhere. Groan, surely not, then why are ordered like this?

When I started to take a few photos the breeze shifted and I was molested by the smell of the dump. When I looked toward the tip I could see more dogs roaming about. I counted at least ten per pack but only managed to photo seven together at one time. I got bashful about taking photos quickly and decided to leave. As I walked away I noticed how much debris was scattered beyond the fence line. Worse than that was the shacks erected amongst the mess. To my right I saw three children laughing and playing (throwing rocks at each other) in amongst it all. They sounded happy. Before leaving I spoke to one of the boys playing - in a final attempt - to get information about the recycling. Though he couldn’t help me he did shock me worse than the dogs: he was such a nice kid, totally sweet. His input to the morning left me more unsettled than anything else. Thinking of his face I cannot help wonder what he has to do with recycling; the purpose of my trip.

As I returned to the main road I encountered my sixth lady for the morning and exchanged a warm “buen dia.” She then asked me where I came from. To say she presented as shocked would be a gross overstatement. I let her know I had come from the dump (el botadero) which was returned with a mild questioning stare. I will say this, all the people living around here are cordial (dogs excluded in this value-judgement). I gave her a wave and a hasty “caio-caio.” I should have stayed and practiced my Spanish. She wanted to chat.

So where do plastics go in Cochabamba? This I cannot answer as conclusively as I would like. I can say with some certainty that many of them get piled up in pens next to a shack that houses a ten year old boy and his family. The boy has a dirty face and his demeanour is friendly. His shack is next to a big steaming pile of refuse. I am not sure I expected to see a plastic chipper or a revolutionary recycling programme when I made this trip. Having said this I did not expect to be brought so close to the massive challenges facing a developing country. Out in the K’ara K’ara rubbish dump you can get in touch with all manner of need: educational, health, environmental, waste management, town planning, basic infrastructure (power, water), parenting, employment, animal welfare... on and on the list could go. Wondering where plastics go has led me to the sharp end of poverty in Cochabamba and thus a new set of questions. I am sure I do not need to enumerate them for you.

¡¡¡Yo soy materialista!!! (#1)

2010-04-13T17:34:00.000-07:00

I like my watch because it is plain and it is functional. I bought it at Mercado Central, Sucre with Sarah. I had needed a watch for weeks. It could sound insignificant but when you travel you actually require one. Mobile phones or the Microsoft clock do not feature in the travelling life.

To get this task, which I had been avoiding, out of the way we stopped at the first stall we found. We browsed the selection. Kitsch has always been a distraction; maybe a Barney the Dinosaur watch would be a goer? In the end there were only two legitimate contenders. Both plain. I went with the flatter one. Not slender like a chicks watch, or my dad would wear, but compact (in my mind at least).

The first thing I noticed about the watch was the seconds counter takes up half of the screen. This “function” was very distracting and seemed highly impractical. A watch is to tell the hour last time I checked. But I knew we could change that; Sarah and I worked at it for hours. Unfortunately our efforts went unrewarded. The big seconds - relentlessly ticking away - were here to stay.

A couple of days later I was surprised to find that I was becoming quite affectionate toward the big numbers. Out the corner of my eye I now have a counter that cost 25 Bolivianos. Out the corner of my eye I see my life ticking by second-after-second. It is my life evaporating in a way not dissimilar to the “sands in the hour glass” as described at the start of Days of Our Lives. I am getting more than my money’s worth with this one, clearly.

Easter in Bolivia 2010

2010-04-06T14:53:00.000-07:00

Samaipata

There was a slight tinge of regret about the Samaipata trip. Firstly, this is a Catholic country unlike any I have been in before. I would have loved to have stuck around and observed Cochabamba during Easter. Secondly, there were significant elections going on in Bolivia and I would have liked to have been more active in following it over the weekend. I can only say, somewhat fatuously (I guess), that this is the bane of living in a country that you are interested in.

Our plan - Sarah, Hester and I - was to head to Samaipata and do some day hiking. We were successful in this. After a 15 hour trip via Santa Cruz we spent three good days in the town and, at the expense of sounding monotonous, enjoyed every moment of it.

I went berserk with the camera and took a lot of photos. We ate at some nice places and enjoyed strolling the dusty streets in the evening while locals revelled in carnival like festivity. The popular games in Samaipata were of the gambling kind and were modest in their invention. Flipping coins onto targets. Spinning Wheel of Fortune-type arms against buffers made with metal door handles. That kind of thing.

The Bush (Central-eastnortheast Bolivia)

The highlight over the weekend was when we got to see some monkeys. I will not hold it against you if this sounds typical and therefore boring. But what made this experience so cool was the atmosphere. In this bush (Bosque Nubaldo) there are barely a handful of birds and it is very quiet in this regard.

To see the monkeys our guide, Saul, was calling the monkeys up on a hilltop. None came. Great work Saul. With some keen hearing he established that they were in a ravine just ahead of us. So we made our way down. To call the monkeys a whistle, not unlike a bird call, was used. As we descended into the bush we all began creeping. The whistle continued. Then suddenly a distant response echoed back. We all froze in our spots. Slowly but surely the monkey’s began to emerge. At first all you could hear was their cooing responses followed by silence and then the rustle of branches high above as they jockeyed for position.

After several more rustling branches, some sustained silence and flashes of tail and hind-leg they emerged in front of us. About 200 hundred metres away, high in the tree tops. Their dramatic entrance combined with their enquiring expressions (looking straight directly down at us) was a really special moment in the park. And their appearance, hoary faces and nimble bodies through the trees, being in their world as opposed to a fucking zoo. It was really great. The one on the right kind of looked like Abbath Doom Occulta from Immortal, too. Cool. Muchas gracias Saul.

Besides monkeys we saw dozens of caterpillars, multitudes of butterfly’s, spiders, “Boatman”, a giant slug, a Toucan and a “Jae” bird, fresh puma and bear prints on the trail, strange fungi, familiar ferns, and our first proper condor sighting (so immense) on the way home. An awesome day in the bush from start-to-finish.

Getting Home

It has now become very normal to get on a 12 hour bus which arrives at the destination at 3AM in the morning. This kind of thing does not suck up the same amount of psychic energy as it did three months ago, which is a big relief (this is the kind of bus ride we had to take to get home).

On the other hand the adventure of taking 10+ hour bus trips is on the wane. Not only that, the bus we were on broke down at 02:30AM in the morning. I awoke feeling nauseous and had to step out into the night to get some fresh air. I felt like vomiting but annoyingly could not. The fresh air was also icy and commonly unwelcoming at this hour. I stared gormlessly at the conductor replacing the rare-left tire and felt sorry for myself.

To balance this negative it was very nice to get into Cochabamba with house keys in pocket and know that I would have a bed and a shower and food and familiarity with next-to-no bother. Just a 10 minute taxi ride across town. This is how life is poised at the moment: domestic comfort, time and monetary flexibility to go to new places tempered with mild discomfort and the unreliability of a country that has only been to be politically and economically stable in the last twenty odd years.

Reciclaje de botellas de agua en Cochabamba

2010-03-26T15:55:00.000-07:00

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.

Bolivia and the strange use of Golliwogg-type images

2010-03-20T15:32:00.000-07:00

When you travel picking up on little social differences and curiosities is almost reflexive. You [Westerner] are now the alien in another’s land. The condition is acute. One such difference I have been noticing in Bolivia is with commercial organizations use of the “negro”, “blackface” or “Golliwogg” image.

While long forgotten it is still remarkable that the sitcom Benson aired in my lifetime. And we still have Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima on our supermarket shelves at home, too. We do not bat an eyelid or even wonder what that brand is derived from. In this context I am unwilling to finger point or make claims about a uniqueness here that does not actually exist. What I will suggest is that there is a peculiar and ongoing use of Golliwogg-like images here, unlike in New Zealand.

I first noticed the use of the blackface image in Oruro where they have a fast-food joint named El Negrito. I won’t lie: I laughed and pointed when I first saw the sign, it was so outrageous. Frankly, this one instance was astonishing enough for me but then it started turning up elsewhere. A friend here in Cochabamba told me about Pipochoc also known as “the racist candy” because of its accompanying image. Then there is Blancaflor flour. What is whiter than flour? Or perhaps the Pin Burger logo: This guy is going to jum-down-turn-aroun-an-pick-a-bale right after he gets your papas fritas to your table.

The strange thing about all this is that Bolivia had only a small portion of slaves sent from Africa when colonial rule was in full swing. The reason for this is because there was an abundance of indigenous people to subjugate. The bonus with indigenous slaves was that they came ready acclimatized to the altitude and cold. The “demand” for Africans just wasn’t there like it was in Brazil, for instance. So in essence, I would suggest, the African is generally an unknown ethnicity here. This could be an explanation for the flagrant use of the Golliwogg image.

I should note that at Oruro Carnival the African slave does turn up in some of the performances. There were a (comparatively) small number sent to Potosi to work in the mine. Many of the dances at Carnival are a retelling of historically significant events hence the appearance of Bolivian men in blackface, chains and distressed clothes. It was apparent that the suitability of this was questionable to our American colleagues who knitted more than a few eyebrows. Watching a Bolivian man painted black dancing around with chains on his wrists is confronting. Nonetheless, I believe that this representation is closer to what you might see in the Cape Town Minstrel Carnival compared to, say, the Iranian Hajji Firuz performers.

It would be a push to call Bolivians racist, and I certainly have no interest in making such a claim. Nonetheless it does have to be said that the use of the cartoon is conspicuous and in my mind is as inappropriate as Uncle Ben rice. Before I came to Bolivia I could have imagined a fast-food joint called “Conquistador Burga” that used an image of an Inca skewering a Spaniard for an insignia. Never would I have imagined that something like this would have existed.

Side Trip

2010-03-18T10:46:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-06T12:46:00.000-08:00

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

2010-03-04T12:03:00.000-08:00

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...

Corte de Pelo

2010-02-25T12:58:00.000-08:00

I really needed a haircut and I was getting a rash from my facial hair. Originally I thought this would be a useful cultural experience. I walked up the road and located a hairdresser (un peluquero) and was shocked to discover that it was only going to cost me six Bolivianos for a cut. I was at the right place.

Given my limited Spanish I resorted to pointing at the array of hairstyles displayed on the wall. The best I could find was a picture of a dude that looked like Brian Littrell from the Backstreet Boys. I pointed “esto” and hoped for the best (secretly hoping for the worst). She whipped out her scissors which were designed for fabric cutting and got to work. Each chop it sounded like newsprint being torn, against-the-grain, in half. This was definitely going to plan.

Five to ten minutes later and she was finished. I paid my six Bolivianos (half expecting the price to have increased), waved goodbye to senora and smiled at the mammarifous Cochabambina unabashedly breastfeeding in the doorway and headed home. All I can say was this whole experience was entirely harmless. There was no egregiously bad haircut, ripping off the gringo, 30 minute wait next to a sweaty truck driver or blood. Just a quick, cheap, innocuous, better-than-mediocre (for the price) haircut that only disappointed insofar as it did not make me look like Who’s the Boss era Tony Danza. Wadaimiss?

Festive season in Bolivia

2010-02-19T12:49:00.000-08:00

Globos

So what have I been up to since concluding my responsibilities as a middle manager? The short answer is I have been throwing water balloons. In transit to a new abode Sarah and my eyes were as big as saucers looking at all of the people, young and old, who had taken to the streets to throw globos, buckets of water and shoot water pistols or garden hoses. On major streets there were dozens and dozens of chico's in a relentless skirmish with an equal number on the opposite side. Water projectiles flying continuously. But not only that. Small mobs also haunted the back streets of suburbs and the streets of the inner city while pick-ups and other kinds of flatbed trucks toured the city saturating anyone who comes into view (not unlike an innocuous re-enactment of The Road Warrior). It was all-out (water) war.

In this environment it is difficult to not start participating yourself. Late on Sunday afternoon, the day after the Oruro Carnival, a group of dudes (pictured below) stopped in a pick-up across from the hostel we were at. Having been saturated on numerous occasions (while taking care of simple, quotidian business no less) we finally got with the programme and bought some of our own water balloons. My initial attempt to ambush them was a waste of time and soon it was three against one (though with me in the more desirable, elevated, position).

Now with some experience up my sleeve I look forward to the weekend in Cochabamba where Cochabambino’s have their festival. It will be more of the same.

Oruro Carnival

Oruro Carnival is the kind of thing you read a lot about before you come to Bolivia. In this respect I must admit I was not expecting much (cf. touring the Uyuni salt plains). This curmudgeon perspective was completely unfounded. The Carnival itself is simply brilliant and Sarah and I were incredibly lucky to have attended in 2010. The parade is every bit as spectacular as the guide books suggest.

As fate would have it when we went to book our Spanish lessons through Sustainable Bolivia the director there graciously offered us the opportunity to go with their group. Thank you very much Eric. We got a place to stay and a great stand for a painless 300 Bolivianos.

In fact the only painful part of the carnival was when I almost flaked out in the morning of Carnival. My eyes rolled back in my head, the whole bit. That morning I had only one beer and a bowl of muesli so the cause is difficult to diagnose. Sarah, of course, came to my rescue and nursed me through the midday and I was back on board by the afternoon. Not before projectile vomiting twice in a random Oruro street and sleeping for over an hour, though.

Having now been I cannot recommend this experience enough. Being amongst the colour, noise, energy, spectacle and fun. The dancers with amazing costumes (masks, props, fireworks, cranial flamethrowers, fuzzy “bear” suits) and their joy in performing. Everyone in the middle of a perpetual water fight, the beautiful day, drinking beer and enjoying the company of a new group of very amiable people. This will be a highlight for the year, no question.

Stencils in Sucre and Cochabamba

2010-02-09T14:42:00.000-08:00

Having spent a bit more time walking the streets of Sucre and now Cochabamba I have started observing the graffiti closely. It is one of the benefits of staying in the same place for a while. In Bolivia there is a lot of black, blue and white paint used to support Evo Morales political party Movement Towards Socialism (MAS). These slogans can be seen, ubiquitously, in both obscure campesino hills and throughout the streets of a major cities (though less in the Media Luna area, of course). It is notable that I first thought the painted MAS slogans were guerrilla efforts. It soon became clear that these were is actually a tactic used by Morales. A very organised, "hecho a mano" (handmade), approach to political branding.

Besides the MAS paint jobs there is a lot of graffiti more generally. It is everywhere. Refreshingly I can say that the majority of it is not inspired by the New York “graf” style. Instead it is a mixture of spray-painted slogans (which are brazen and graphically unimaginative) and stencils. Both are found on the walls of both back streets and main streets. I should underscore that this is based on observations made in Sucre and Cochabamba only. Slogans, I would hazard a guess, out-number stencils about twenty to one.

Because there is so much graffiti about the place it would be to much to document it all at once. Therefore, when Sarah and I did a big circuit of the city for purposes of orientation and administration I decided to capture images of stencils (only). I was amazed when I got home. I had amassed about 59 images in total. Stencilling is a lot bigger here than I imagined.

In comparison to slogans the stencils here are slightly more furtive. They hide in corners of buildings and indiscriminate walls. There is a broad amount of content, too. Maybe it is the iconic nature of stencils that has opened up different types of expression in comparison to the usual political, Ebonics or “Jenny-Heart-John” type messages. Whatever the reason it is conspicuous that there is a wide range of flavours on offer.

To make sense of the spectrum of stencils I have attempted to create three categories to classify what is around these two towns. The first is the easy (and not so important) category of “municipal” and “commercial” stencils. Ones which actually have a homemade/handmade feel but are actually put there by the city or private interests.

The second category, equally obvious in a country that has had 188 changes of government in its 500 year history, is “political” stencils. These cover pieces by both activist and political party.

The final category is stencils that are “idiosyncratic" or of "unknown origin." This last category is a little broad and does lead to some overlap with the two aforementioned. Personally I am still trying figure out which I like better: political or idiosyncratic. The former seems more authentic but the latter signals a country that has a distinct youth culture separate from its previous generations.

When you travel there can be a sense that there is not a lot of order. Now that I compile this list I realise that this exercise, this need for categorisation, might be to sate my need for order just as much as the need to look at things for aesthetic pleasure. In any instance I think that looking at this use of public space is a handy way to get a feel for a city and this country. The combination of the amateurish municipal signs, the strong political flavour of Bolivia mixed with a new, contemporary expression in stencils is something that I look forward to reflecting on and seeing more of in my coming travels.

Click here to see a Photobucket slideshow or here for a Facebook collection of the 59 stencils.

Current Events Bolivia

2010-02-03T07:57:00.001-08:00

Worth checking is the Bolivia Weekly blog that highlights stories from the week and also has a Podcast. BW also has a link to Inform that, as Sarah puts it, aggregates Bolivian news story's from around the world. This was a great find for us as it has been "muy difícil" finding current events about Bolivian in English.

Birthday for The Cheetah

2010-02-03T06:46:00.000-08:00

Truth be told it is a little stressful organising your girlfriends birthday when you are miles away from home. There was no where to hide, her birthday would sink or swim based on what I managed to put together (i.e. it was just me and her, no birthday bash with the gang to lift her up). Lucky for me it all went well.

For me the day was all about fundamentals, nothing fancy. An approach that has been reinforced in preceding years through basketball; get the basics right and "luck" should find you.

Her birthday technically started on 01.02.2010 (given the time zones), so I organized to take Sarah to the documentary The Devils Miner on Monday, something which she had wanted to see for weeks. That night I made a list, split the following day into three parts, and hoped for the best.

La Mañana

On the morning of 02.02.2010 it was fresh flowers from Macardo Central, breakfast in bed and a card. As we ate our porridge with cinnamon, apple and strawberries we noticed that it was a killer day outside. It was perhaps the best day Sucre had seen in two weeks.

El Día

The next part of the day was the "surprise" activity of horse trekking. Sarah had wanted to do this for years so it was a great way to spend the day. We both got a little burnt, and Sarah´s horse was old and stroppy (it literally bit the ass of another horse at one point) but the quality of the surrounds and the guide we had made for a perfect day.

La Noche

In the evening we had dinner with the perennially gracious Ali and Sam (a UK couple we have met at our hostel). We ate at a Chinese place. When ordering we got excited about eating tofu for the first time in months and then were quickly told "No tengo tofu." Despite this the food was great, consistent with the company. On return to the hostel I brought out a mini-cake and sung her happy birthday (the cakes in Bolivia would be perfect for a Jean Baudrillard essay, they look like they have been modelled on cartoon images). Sarah had a genuine smile on her face at the end of all this which was a big relief.

Thank you Bolivia for being so pretty and thank you basketball for teaching me about fundamentals.

Leak

2010-01-29T08:24:00.000-08:00

Brass bands (banda de música) are a big feature here in Sucre. I was disturbed by one of these while in my room just the other day: a rag-tag group of gentlemen, not wearing any kind of distinguishable uniform as is customary.

People were throwing buckets of water out third story windows as they stumbled drunkenly down the street playing your standard marching band tune, albeit intermittently. I took a quick snap of these guys as they passed by. It was not until I reviewed the photo that I caught of what else was going on in the street. A moment not unlike that which David Hemmings experience's in Blow Up, you might say.

Getting grifted in Potosi

2010-01-24T11:57:00.000-08:00

I say grifted because it sounds more romantic. As I said before Sarah and I had been feeling sick and grumpy when we arrived in Potosi, and this was the shortest bus ride we had been on since arriving on this continent (a meagre three hours). The town was brown, brown, brown and grey. The odious and very infamous Cero Rico (the cause of millions and millions of Bolivian deaths over the last 500 hundred years) loomed in the background.

When we got off our bus a greasy, round-faced man with the moustache of a fifteen year old boy and a grey puffer jacket that looked like a throwback from the mid-eighties (the kind of jacket I have always associated with the Hardy Boys, God knows why) greeted us and asked if we wanted a taxi. We said “no” and ignored him as he followed us around the bus. After we had our bags safely secured (they just chucked them off the bus and left them on the ground) the same guy was still asking us if we wanted a taxi. I flagged to Sarah that we should go with this guy and she, not so confidently, agreed to follow.

Once at the taxi Sarah was not feeling so great about the prospect of going with this driver. She asked me to check if there was a proper taxi sign on the front (which I did) but by then I had already given him my bag and was not in any mood to be getting caught up in details. All I wanted to do was get to the hostel. As far as I was concerned this was just like all the other beat-up pieces-of-shit we had travelled in since being in Bolivia. So what difference does it make? This is a developing country after all. As such we cannot go around pushing our white middle-class, eurocentric view onto everything. These are poor people trying to make a living. Give the guy a break.

About ten metres after we departed we suddenly had a new passenger in the taxi with us. A smiling South American man who claimed he wanted to travel with us to a hostel as he too was a backpacker. He grinned away, from ear-to-ear, and did his best to be affable despite the language barrier. He was wearing a blue jacket, round spectacles and looked “clean and respectable.” Truth be told, it was at this stage that Sarah and I both new we were in trouble but our packs were in the boot and there was little we could do. Neither of us said anything to each other or the driver. Just one nervous glance to the effect of “what the fuck.”

Finally another ten metres down the road a man in a Police uniform came out of nowhere, slowed the car down and asked to see the drivers papers. A second later he was in the car going through what can only be described as a well rehearsed routine designed to shake us up and disorientate us. As we drove of the “Police Officer” asserted his authority on us. He checked our passports scrupulously and then proceeded to search us for drugs, checking for chalk marks on our arms and rifling through all our stuff (including the bag of our colleague with a shit-eating-grin). Through this process we were dumbstruck. Our stuff was being taken out of our bags and then being handed back to us (a confidence move by our men if ever there was one). He would then shout “drogas” and a variety of other things before then going back into our bags to search further. Meanwhile the driver, quiet and unassuming the whole time, took us to some quiet back streets (though we had not noticed and had no idea where we were going anyway, having never been to Potosi). Blue jacket, shit-eating-grin guy played along, keeping proceedings calm with his amiable insistance of “tranquilla” (be cool) and his backing up of the “Police Officer” as a bonafide lawman.

By the end of it Sarah was starting to get pretty upset and then suddenly it was over. The driver had stopped and taken our bags from the boot and, very preciously, placed them up on a wall next to the car. We were free to go and the “Police Officer” had given all our stuff back. We were both so relieved to be out of the car.

Once out they were gone in a second, the street was silent and we stood staring at each other before both letting out a series of expletives. What just happened? They did not take anything. Or did they? Somehow all the shouting and disorientation had worked perfectly. We were now missing an Ipod, our camera and 700 Bolivianos. I had even checked the camera was still with in my bag minutes before exiting the taxi, I thought I had it covered. I didn´t.

The classic thing about this whole episode was that just days before we had spent an entire morning talking with a very lovely English couple about various scams and how quickly these things happen. We debated at length the need to be on guard, but not so on guard as to ruin your whole trip with paranoia. The wisdom from that conversation was clearly lost on me very quickly.
It is also ironic given my past line of work: you would not be blamed for thinking that I should have better presence of mind and/or judgement of character. Looks like the jokes on me this time. At least I have now had some of my naivete knocked out of me. In the final analysis neither Sarah nor myself were physically harmed and truth be told we will now be better travellers for this experience. You do have to be cautious, you do have employ strategies to safe guard yourself. Thanks for the wake up call Potosi.

Another four weeks gone

2010-01-21T11:33:00.000-08:00

So I am now feeling like one of those people. The last month has been what I would describe as busy in terms of travel and getting around. When I start listing names, places and faces it all gets jumbled pretty quickly. Somehow a month has gone by and I have not updated A2SAAB once.

Since being in Tarija we have travelled to Sucre, Potosi, Oruro, La Paz, Copacabana, Sorata and then down to Uyuni. Almost two towns a week. Having said that moving around this much is not out of the ordinary for your average backpacker. In the many conversations had with fellow hostel dwellers staying more than three days in one place is often considered overstaying.

Sucre

Sucre is very nice and is a very popular place for people to come and stay for their Spanish lessons. We spent Christmas here with Gavin and Sinead, their friend Kieran (check his related blog here), Anna, Hester and Rachael. On Christmas eve we went on the March of Baby Jesus followed by attendence at midnight mass. Christams day was a really nice day with a potluck dinner shared with all the other constituents of the Hostel (Wasi Masi) plus some extras. In the afternoon I drank cheap wine and talked to some Danish guys about Swedish Hardcore (music, not pornography). In the evening we did Secret Santa (I scored a poncho courtesy of Gavin) . Wasi Masi was also good for meeting Tristan, an American in his early 20's who I could talk to about books. He also took us out on the town one night which resulted in a day-long hangover.

Potosi

When Cheetah and I left Sucre we were in bad moods and were not in the best of spirits. This was our first mistake. Once we arrived in Potosi I insisted we take the first taxi we saw. This was the second mistake, a big one. In this taxi we were “taken for a ride” (in New Zealand law this would have constituted kidnapping) and fleeced of our camera, Sarah's Ipod and 700 Bolivianos. I'll write more on this another time though I will state the obvious and note that this was a horrible experience that has left us with very average memories of the city.

Oruro

The next stop was Oruro for New Years. This was a cool town that was conspicuously gringo free. It is also the town, or region at least, that Evo Morales is from. There was not a whole lot going on in this place however we scored an up-scale hotel(Hotel Houston) for a good price and went to a discoteca for the big night. I was fighting off a bad cold and left early on (soon after the countdown) though was happy to wake up hangover free. It is also worth mentioning that I walked into a tinted plate-glass window at the hotel that night. It was easily the most gumby moment of the entire trip and as such it was met with much laughter. My head was OK, my pride only slightly wounded. Days later I could still catch Anna looking off into the distance giggling at this awesome power-move.

La Paz

With some difficulty we left Oruro to La Paz on New Years day despite being told this could not be done by the hotel manager. Once in La Paz we did La Paz related activities (i.e. travelled to Tiwanaku, listened to other gringos talk about there trip to Machu Picchu, Uyuni, et al). While there Sarah and I picked up a new Canon G10 at the very last place we looked (at that stage we had actually given up trying to find the model). The walk home was very nervous as we were still feeling the affects of the robbery, what with a new camera and all. The best part of La Paz was defintely hanging out with Gavin and Sinead. It was really heartening seeing the two of them being a couple soon to be married. They functioned well together logistically and emotionally. It was also inspiring to hear about Gavin's plans to open a book store and his thinking around that. His measured yet enthusiastic approach to that project is definitely something I can respect. Similar to my mates (James, Pascal and Ben) it is really energizing being around someone that thinks about the future and has creative ideas for it.

Copacabana & Sorata

Once we had departed La Paz we were now down to four: Anna, Kieran, Sarah and myself. The next two stops we made were Copacabana and Sorata. These two places were by far my favourite stops to date. In Copacabana the main church was stunning and the day trip up Cerro was really nice. Once at the top we spent the afternoon looking out over Lake Titicaca, it was a relaxing experience and I felt strangely at peace there. Also, the hike we went took to Isla Del Sol was through well maintained farmland. On that hike the sun was out and everything looked beautiful. The local farmers were warm and never failed to say “buenas tardes” or wave hello. A great day with exception to the major sunburn I sustained. Isla Del Sol was just fine.

Sorata was equally charming. There we stayed at a great place called Hostal Las Piedras which had the best breakfast in Bolivia (crepes, good coffee and excellent muesli), checked out the local grotto, went hiking in the surrounding area which included having a local farmer (as organized through the local tour company) take us to the top of a hill that I forget the name of. At the top was a lake that held special importance to the local campasinos. Our guide told us a story about a couple of gringos going scuba diving in it. One of them never returned and his body has never been found. This part of the trip was also favourable as I had just gotten over the cold from New Years.

Uyuni

The final destination for this leg with Anna was the Salt Plains. We bid farewell to Kieran and headed down. Not much to say about this place. Its charm came from meeting David, an old hippy who had become a bread entrepreneur in Hawaii and was now travelling the world with no real home to return to (nb. thank you Simon Gandolfi). The other charm was getting a vomiting bug on the second day of the tour. The effects of which I am still feeling seven days later. Being violently ill was not with out its benefits, though. At 02.30AM I had to rush out of the dorm to evacuate my stomach of my remaining stomach lining. In the process I made noises and strained muscles that I did not know I had. The sound of air exiting my stomach and the desperate gasping for air lead to hard guttural sounds that sounded like bones breaking and spades dragging over asphalt. But once it was over I stood up looked to the sky and I will say, that despite my discomfort, despite the freezing cold (being some 4000M above see level) I saw more stars in the sky than I ever have before, and ever will again, I dear say. If you ever want to understand where the term “milky” comes from then this is the place. An amazing sight.

Sucre (Back Again)

As for today, Sarah and I are in Sucre trying to get our insurance from the robbery sorted out as well as our laptop. The latter we had couriered from New Zealand in late December. A word to those who are thinking of couriering something to Bolivia: DON'T. It is expensive and difficult in the truest sense. It is expensive unlike anything else in Bolivia; it will make your blood boil. Besides that I just finished Robinson Crusoe and am now wondering what to read next. I end on this note in an attempt to excuse the curt and somewhat taxonomic account of the last four weeks.

Currently we are staying in the amazing hostel, La Dolce Vita, which is as good as the reviews online would have you believe. So right now we are taking the-very-good with the-very-average (i.e diarrhea and Bolivian Customs; strangely these two things go very well together, two peas in a pod).

Contrast

2009-12-22T13:41:00.000-08:00

I am far from alone in South America. Some of the people I am travelling with have their own blogs. Sarah´s blog can found here (Note to Bolivia) and our friend Lauren´s blog can be found here (LB in BA).

As previously mentioned on this blog, photos of places we have been can be found here.

We make it to Boliva

2009-12-20T11:52:00.000-08:00

Travelling North

On 12 December 2009 we return to Cordoba to get ourselves up to Bolivia (via Jujuy). It has almost been one month in South America (or month since I finished work) and we were finally getting near our core destination. Before leaving we had to wait about one hour as the bus we were taking had engine problems. The Argentines were once again great role-models: no one cared less about the delay and just chilled out while the mechanic fixed la problema. No one even asked what the delay was or queried a new ETD. On the bus we watched Control with Defoe and Liota. Not a great film but did the trick in terms of distracting us/helping us get to sleep.

Days in Jujuy and Border Crossing

When we arrived in Jujuy I insisted that we take the Lonely Planet recommended hostel., The place is without modcons and Sarah is not convinced this is the place for us. Too bad. We stay and have a relaxing couple of days checking out the Police Museum, Archaeology Museum and CulturaArtes. The Police Museum takes the cake out of all off these as it has a really fascinating, strangley macarbe, collection of Police Chief photo-potraits. The collection must span about 50 plus years. Very haunting. Even more spectacular was the photo collection housed in the upstairs R-16 section. That collection of photos displayed hangings, dead drunks, murders, et al. I have never been one to seek out snuff images online so maybe I am a little naive in regards to this kind of images. It was pretty offensive and at the same time I had to look at them all.

In the evenings we take the time to cook our own meals and I finish When Gravity Fails. If your want a book with a strong anti-hero then this is the one. My favourite memory from Jujuy is taking a shower in the upstairs bathroom. From the shower you can look out a large window over the roof tops of the city. Having a hot shower and staring out at such a sight, with their monumental Church towering over the other buildings was a neat spectacle.

La Quiaca, Villazon and trip to Tarija

We leave Jujuy on 15 December 2009 after having breakfast at a vegetarian place called Tierra Madre. Lucky Sarah insisted on eating breakfast becuase this turned into a long day. The border crossing in La Quiaca was easy but took a long time. Once in Villazon we both felt very fatigued and then found out that buses only leave at 20:00 which means we will arrive in our planned destination (Tarija) at 03:30.

After we eat some pizza and drink two litres of coke at a place called Snack Resteruant Oriental (which was about as oriental as Georgie Pie) we both start to feel a bit better. We bit the bullet and get our tickets and then kill about five hours waiting to depart.

The waiting turns out to be a lot of fun. The bus terminal in Villazon is circus in the best possible way. Upstairs there is a ad-hoc childrens boxing gym. The lady who we buy tickets from is an absolute sweetheart (and which we are thankful for in our weary states). While loitering across the road, waiting for our ride, we observe a lady hand making salteña (a dough pocket similar to an empanada) and she is making a killing. A mixed group of Spanish speaking guys, two with perfect English, approach us for some help. They are having a great time and are full of life shaking our hands and laughing in between personal, light-hearted innuendo. We are unable to help them but their engery is most welcome. Later a drunk guy comes up to us and kisses Sarah´s hand half a dozen times and gives me a massive hug and several handshakes. He returns later but thankfully our bus finally arrives at that time. Before getting on the bus I go to use the bathroom. On my return a derelict is dancing and stomping his feet singing loudly and cheerfully to Sarah (in order to illicit a tip). He is very animated and despite his appearance Sarah takes the whole performance in her stride.

After all this (a long day travelling) we finally ge ton a bus that takes us to Tarija. Our taxi driver is a helpful guy but the Hostal which I insist (again) we take is terrible and overpriced. We leave there first thing in the morning, feel very average, and move to Hostal Miraflores.

A Couple of Days in Tarija

Sarah and I stay in Tarija until 20 December 2009. We spend an excellent week working on our budgetting, spanish, watching MGM movies (the most horrendous being Sleeping with the Devil with Shannen Doherty; I love this film). We check out the palaeontology museum and work on catching up with freinds, family and blog.

On Satruday night Cheetah and I go on a date and drink a bottle of wine. It is the first time I have had alcohol in Bolivia since leaving Argentina. We have a great time talking about our plans for the year and reflecting on where we are at. We are finally in Bolivia, just like we always planned. To say this is a dream fulfilled is a heavy handed statement, but to bad, becasue that is exactly what it is.

Before dinner we walk past an inner city basketball court and there is under 17 teams playing. We sneak in and watch one and a half games. Number 8, surname Choco, is our favourite player but his team finds a world of hurt with a 50 point ass-whupping.

Tarija appears to be quite wealthy. The plaza is very nice, very well maintained. There is begging (often a whole family, sans Dad) in the streets which I found very confronting (to state the obvious). I cannot really comment on this at the time; I am sure the homelessness in Tarija is moderate in comparison to other parts of Bolivia. When it comes to writing about poverty I will be taking my time.

Next stop Sucre; freinds and family.

Rendezvous with Jim and LB

2009-12-17T10:46:00.001-08:00

Wild Stallions in Cordoba

Sarah and I arrive in Cordoba on 04 December 2009 after a fairly painless two-bus trip. We arrive in the AM and the hostel dude is nice enough to let us in early to our room. This is a big relief as we are really keen for a hot shower and some quiet time, away from the hustle of travelling and negotiating a new city. The morning is spent relaxing before heading out onto the street. The people of Cordoba are very friendly and patient to us and I would have to say that if anyone wanted a big city to stay in to learn Spanish this would be the one.

In the evening Jim and LB arrive and we head out to have Middle Eastern for dinner. There is a wait for the table so we go next door to a bar for beer. On the walls there are paintings of horses – some as portraits and some as stallions raging through a river – which are, unintentionally, homoerotic and completely awesome.

The following day is a busy one where we hit a couple of museums. The first one is a natural science one which I cannot recall the name of for the life of me. This place was pretty fun and was the first place that made me realize how important anthropology and palaeontology are to South America, as a generalisation.

The second museum we went to was Palacio Ferreyra. This was a solidly compiled selection of Argentinean art that spanned the last 100 years, give or take. It was really nice to be back in a gallery looking at painting with no rush to be somewhere else. My find of the trip was an artist called Francisco Fader, but now I Google him I see that no such person exists. Something for me to get the bottom of later, I guess…

During the day we also went for coffee and decided to sit inside which is a fairly uncommon choice for us. While we were sipping away a massive squall came though in the street adjacent to us sending leaves and rubbish up in the air and pushing the smaller trees to a 45 degree angle. It was really remarkable and seemed to come from nowhere. It is things like this that make you realize that the conditions work in a very different way when you are on a continent as big as SA.

In the evening we teach LB and Jim the dice game and have a few beverages. Jim wins well. Later we head to town to see some very mediocre jazz (there is a jazz festival on in the city) which is played out the front of a mall. The mall is new but uses an old colonial for its façade, basically an abomination. The coolest part of this scene is seeing the young Latin American Goths hanging out the front of the mall. The full spectrum is represented here, from the obese guy with a trench coat all the way through to the newly beginner Goth who is now wearing all black but is making the pleasing gaffe of wearing a t-shirt with a “Rip Curl” on it. Rad.

Mina Clavero

The umpteenth bus trip and we are now in Mina Clavero. The journey is very unique this time and there are moments when I get glimpses of what Scotland might be like.

When we arrive Jim and I sit in a bus bar which is humble but clean and austere. The lady who serves us is curt but efficient, the locals at the front talk loudly but do not jeer us. We drink beer and play coin rugby, I cannot even recall who won this epic battle but it should be recorded. For now I will say it was me as I do not have any lingering pangs of loss. We drink beer while LB and Sarah go and find a beautiful place to stay. Jim and I joke about how we would never do such a thing (i.e. we would not investigate, just take the first place we found) but then concede that they will probably come back with a great find. Our better judgement serves us right and the girls land us a place that is more or less a cabana with a kitchenette, grassed and garden courtyard, TV and pool; all this for the price of what it would be to stay at a hostel. The place called Los Angeles.

The Week

The week is spent playing dice game in the evenings and doing mini trips in during day. Jim seems to win every other game of dice, and we play a lot. I complete 100 Years of Solitude and begin reading When Gravity Fails. This is a book that I have been obsessed about reading for over a decade. Many moons ago I played a game called Mines of Titan obsessively. The same maker also made another game called Circuits Edge which was developed from When Gravity Fails. Based on the cover of that game alone I have always longed to read it. Childhood dream #34 fulfilled.

The rest of this week is spent attempting to see condors, visiting a massive collection of curiosities, Museo of Rocsen, created by a man you are never told enough about, somehow watching 27 Wedding Dresses for the second time while in SA, drinking Quilmes and going swimming.

Journey to Quebrada del Condorito

One of the attractions in Mina Clavero is the condors. The day we go it is overcast but we do not think anything of it. It has been hot for the last four weeks so I do not think anything of wearing anything other than a t-shirt. When we arrive at the park we are literally in cloud and the visibility is very poor (10-20 meters at a guess). Nonetheless we have a great day looking at birds that are not condors and getting out in nature for a change. The cloud never cleared while we were out here and we never saw a condor. Something to come back for perhaps.

During our trip we come to a sign that instructs us to keep to the track and not to mess with the surrounding habititat to avoid being mauled by a puma or bitten by a snake. It is refreshing to be in a place where there are animals other than birds (as in NZ) about the place. We do not encounter any puma or snake while on our hike.

Swimming

The stand out activity for the week is swimming. At the cabana it was nice to swim in the pool, playing puerile diving games with Jim, but it was the river that ran through Mina Clavero that really made the place. I lack the vocabulary to describe the amazing rock formations that have led to the formation of this river but I can tell you that this is the place that you dream of hanging out in when you are a kid. On our first day we made a new freind: a dog we named Spike. Whether he was stray or not we could never figure out (likely), he did not have tags on him, but he had a great nature. While we were walking along the rocks looking for an appropriate place to swim Spike wandered into some bushes which LB also approached. Therein he located a snake. Spike was our protector from then on. Sarah did not enjoy this encounter and was not happy about walking past or through bushes thereafter. We saw no more snakes that week.

We returned to the river again later in the week. The first trip we made was nice but we kept it conservative in terms of our exploration. Now back again Jim and I were keen to step it up (James had actually been back subsequently and found a spot were the local youths hung out and he recommended it highly). This afternoon turns out to be a crazy one, firstly because Spike turns up out of the blue and secondly because there is a small rapid next to the pool that James brings us too.

Once we arrive we cautiously look around the pool and wonder how to get to the far side in order to jump off the choice-looking rocks. Spike, possibly bored, decides he should check it out first and jumps into the water right next to the rapid. As he does he starts to get sucked-in by the pull of the water and we see his four legs working like mad to get back up stream. I start to get my stuff off to assist our friend but before anyone knows it Jim is in the water trying to rescue him fully clothed towel and all. A few seconds after entering the water Jim has a reflection on the decision and says "what am I even doing out here?" A brief moment later the two are washed down the rapid. We all have a mini-panic and I get front row seat to the sight of Jim with his arms wrapped around Spike looking stoic, though alarmed, going backwards down the rapid. It is all over very quickly and both are OK though there is some mild shock and Spike is afraid to go back in the water thereafter.

The flipside to this mini-catastrophe is that I have observed the strength of the flow of water. I end up travelling back floating down the river head first (doggy-paddle); scampering over rocks to avoid the dangerous parts. I have a boyish grin on my face the whole way. It is just me, my togs, the amazing rock formations and the river.

This all happens on our last full day together. In the evening we drink Quilmes, talk cheesy and big as we have a tendency to do and play the dice game which Jim monotonously wins again.

Out of BA

2009-12-11T05:31:00.000-08:00

Hanging out with Hester and Rachel in the North

So Sarah, Hester Rachel and I made it out of BA on 24 November 2009 and headed straight for Iquazu Falls. When we arrived it was appropriately humid with no pool or cool water in sight. The bus trip to this town was excellent. I have to say that the buses in this part of the world are exceptional. Historically I have found such a journey (eighteen hours overland) horrific in the extreme but with the service that is provided, this type of journey is most enjoyable. When we left BA there were simply miles and miles of flat terrian that was some of the most boring, unintersting landscape I have ever scene. Having said that I was in no mood for sights anyway and spent many, many hours just staring at the back of my seat or out the window not paying much attention to anything; it was a liberating feeling. At some point I started reading 100 Years of Solitude, borrowed from Hester, despite having seven other books to read. I could not put down this book.

Iquazu Falls

Iquazu Falls was fun to visit. I really enjoyed watching the swallows, that are everywhere in this park, swoop down through the air currents created by the falls. At times they would come preposterously close to the falling water and it was a fascinating juxtapostion seeing something so small playing in something so vast and powerful.

While standing on one of the viewing platforms I gave out an involuntary "whoooo-hooo" which I did not know what to make of. This was to be the first of two for the week. In this instance the platform was just below a part of the fall that made it feel like the unfathamable tons of water were going to come crashing down on you, not unlike the thrill of a roller coaster. While walking around this park every other person seems to be smoking inbetween taking hundreds of photos of everything. This place is like a theme park that just happened to be a natural wonder at one point in time. To get around the park you can ride a faux-train making it feel as though you are at Knott´s Berry. I hate to think how many photos on the internet exist of the falls. I´d go google something to investigate that but writing in an internet cafe is surprisingly annoying so I will leave it to imagination. Too many, I am sure.

Salta

After the falls we went overland again (twenty-four plus hours this time) to Salta. This town ended up being alot bigger than any of us expected but despite this it was a mellow place in contrast to the timbre of BA. When we arrived we checked in at the chepest hostel we could find then went to the town square (every town in Argentina has a town square). When we sat down to have coffee a big band was playing in a near by gazebo and the sun was coming through the trees. It was a conspicoulsy nice scene and it felt god to relax.

Salta ended up being a mixed bag of site seeing (Gondala, Colonial buildings) and partying. When we arrived to the hostel it was about 01.00AM and the girls all decided they needed to go through their bags, have showers, find some inconsequnetial item or ask about something that could have waited until the morning. All through this scene there was this dude in the dorm who was trying to sleep. I guess I felt a bit embarrased by this performance as it seemed to go on forever. In any instance we wake up in the morning and have some basic interaction with him. He comes across as overly polite and apologises for his bag on the floor being in the way (!), even though it is not. It is an absurd response to our own bad manners the night before. Making a long story short, Will, turns out to to be a really nice guy who we drink beer and watch the AB v. France game with. He is going back to Bristol to be with his girlfriend and pursue a career in animation in a week.

Following the game the hostel manager took us all out on an impromptu bar tour. We see live music - a cheesy dub-rock-reggae band - which we all have a great time dancing to. Sarah, Will and I get home around 4AM. Hester and Rachel show real steel and see the new day in with some fellow backpackers and shots of gin left over form the previous night.

Cafayate

On 30 November 2009 we all traveled to the town of Cafayate. This place is exactly what we expected Salta to be like. It is a small town with a modicum new buildings, plenty of old, and some dusty roads. It also underscored that dogs do indeed roam the streets everywhere in the north of Argentina. A bonus in this town is that there are donkeys strolling around from time to time and the vineyards make for a nice foreground against the vast Andes behind them.

On the first night we choose to stay in a poorly maintained campsite. The lodging we chose was a cabin the size of a sardine can. The night was a difficult one that drove both Sarah and Hester around the bend. On the plus side the cabin only cost 10 peso each; strangely I am the only person who thought the price made it worthwhile. In the morning we leave immediately and find a really clean place that serves an excellent breakfast in a sunny courtyard.

Further Proof that Watching Karate Kid All My Life Was a Good Idea

So following the terrible sleep we hire bikes, jump on a bus and head out to the desert to look at some canyons, dirt, standard tourist stops (e.g. Garganta del Diablo) and then ride 50KM back into town. Red rocks and vivid green plants. Once out here I challenge anyone to find this landscape anything other than spectacular and sempiternal. In fact I just read a line in Earth Abides that sums it all up, but I will comment on that another time.

So photos get taken and we bust out on the bikes. Setting off on the bike feels great. Being in such a place feeling the wind in your face with the blue sky overhead cannot be beaten. It inspires the kid in me and for the second time I involuntarily let out a "wooooo-whoooo." It is delivered without irony. And is a very simple moment I will cherish in the future, no doubt.

So as it turns out 50KM on a bike is a long way in the sun, in the desert. We did a fairly good job of being prepared. We had water, food, a general plan for stops and getting through it and despite the previous nights sleeping problems we are all in fine fettle. With no words of advice from the people we rented the bikes from we genuinely thought we were set.

Problems encountered were fairly long hill climbs (though to be honest not very steep), Rachael not feeling confident in her fitness, me sweating - like I sweat when I exercise - compounded with the heat of the desert sun, Sarah getting a sting from some unknown bug that freaks her out, having entirely not enough water and Hester getting a flat tire. In terms of the latter I managed to fix that for her/us; a rare moment for me to do some archetypal guy stuff that I can actually do without stress.

By 40KM Rachael has left (wisely hitched a lift back to town), there is no water in sight, and we are at our limits psychically and mentally. Hester is swearing like she has been at sea for two years, Sarah is slipping into her marathon running mode and I am chanting to myself quixotic self-help type things and visualizing Daniel Laruso doing his thing. Somehow we make it back to Cafayate and are all in a mild state of shock and - as the cliche goes - do not know weather to laugh or cry. When we eventually peddle back to the hostel Sarah and Hester have a little cry out-of-relief. Eventually I start to feel very excited, but keep it to myself given the emotion of the situation and because in normal circumstances Hester would probably stab me with what ever was close at hand. It was a real thrill being taken to the limit like that and it is always interesting to find out how you cope. In the final analysis we all did amazingly and I was very proud of Rachel, Hester and Sarah.

And the Rest

The rest of the time we took it easy. We ran into an American guy we met a few days earlier and lunched, did a vineyard briefly and had asado later that night. During the dinner we met some Germans and an American who was fluent in German leaving him with a really striking accent that you could not quite put your finger on. They taught us how to pay Truco which was challenging as we had to play using Spanish words, the cards are different to a standard playing pack and the ranking of cards is not ordinal or by suit. The day after it was time to go, Hester and Rachel off on there own path and Sarah and myself on ours.

Words and Phrases: Settling in to SA

2009-11-26T07:18:00.000-08:00

Bienvenida Sudamerica

So my day has started with a list. It goes as follows:

(a) Org. bus to Salta from Tucuman (b) Book hostel in Salta (c) Update A2SAAB blog (d) Finish Treasure Island.

Tonight Sarah and I will be catching two buses, one to Tucuman and from there another through to Salta. We are travelling with Hester and Rachel for now and are currently having a swell time in Puerto Iguazu (we have just been to the falls yesterday). Come the end of our time in Salta and we will go our own ways, though will see them both for a day or so at Christmas in Sucre.

BA

Up until 23 November 2009 we have been in Buenos Aires. This has been a great city to start the trip in as it has (a) had many freinds already there and (b) it is, as all the books point out, a very European city; in the sense of the latter this has meant that culture shock has been negligible. My first impressions of BA were of course in the negative. Dog shit rules the pavements, the pavements are distressed and crumbling throughout, the people we had to deal with at customs, the flight attendants, and most notably the taxi driver from the airport were surly and distant in the extreme. There was very little to take away from this other than a feeling that this country has seen enough tourists this side of the millennium. Our presence is an inconvenience.

The Taxi Driver

When we arrived at Ezeiza airport we found ourselves waiting over an hour to get a taxi due to a crash. When we finally got on one we were bumped up in the cue because the people before us had too much luggage. Our driver, with his squinty eyes, laconic interpersonal skills and hunched posture was the opposite of amiable. Once on the motorway he was on the tail of a other taxis in the fastlane, within inches of their bumper, sitting on his horn. When he finally overtook a more bourgeois looking taxi he spent a good period of time with his eyes off the road stearing the slower driver down.

Lanes did not exist on this motorway and the driver swerved in and around cars with a confidence that, to some degree or another, softened Sarah and my fears that this dude was homicidal. That was up until he had to exit the motorway. He did so my accelerating accelerating at full speed through the painted shoulder of the off-ramp in an attempt to overtake the vehicle in front of him. The vehicle was an ambulance with its siren on. I looked meekly over the seat in front of me and we were heading straight for the median barrier. Exhausted and, for some reason frightened, I got in touch with the slow motion sensory that executes when you think you are going to die. So we make it in front of the ambulance and pull to an abrupt stop at a set of lights. We stop right behind a cop car. Not a blink of an eye from our driver as he stared out his front windscreen (which was broken long before we ever got in the cab on that day).

Porteños

By the end of our time in BA we are much more familiar with who you average porteño is. People have frequently been uncommonly patient and helpful to Sarah and I. We go buy some epanadas and the old dude who runs the place explains to us in Spanish about the problem with counterfeiting. A female notices that our spanish is egregiously shit and steps into translate with smile on her face. I go to buy a CD off a street performer for mum (Iranian-Spanish music) and the same thing happens again. We go to a Boca Junior game and a guy - old enough to be my father - hugs me, high fives me and pulls me up off the ground when I fall from all the left-to-right jumping that goes on when they score their third goal of four. The cleaners at the Tango Hostel are super friendly and when they are checking the sheets while we are out they re-hang our clothesline more profeciently than we had (I, not we, had done a pretty average job). We went out to the museum at midnight. Why is the museum open at midnight? When we get there we find dozens of families going through looking into their city and countrys history. The people giving the guided tours are men who, although I could not understand them, impress as knowlageble, passionate and engaging. There are many, many more examples like this of how conspicuously “nice” porteños all seem which sits in stark contrast to our first impressions.

General

Overall it is safe to say that there is too much to write about now that we are on the road. Everyday it feels like there are so many crazy little things that happen or observations made. A blog like this could quickly become monotonous in the extreme. We have had a great time so far and have been spoilt for activities while taking each day at a reletively measured pace. We are on holiday right now, there is no other way to describe it.

While in BA we have drunk coffee and gone to spanish lessons from a guy who has heard of JPS and loves Christopher Knox, no shit. We have been tourists (I have really enjoyed this aspect of the trip much more than I expected) and visited Recoleta cemetery, Malba art museum (that has a Warhol exhibition on), La Bomba de Tiempo which is a very fucking out-of-town-gringo kinda of thing to do but had a blast enjoying the precussive mastery of the group and drinking out of a one litre plastic cup of Quilmes. I have been enjoying Quilmes (also known as Kill Me´s by James and I) plenty. On this point James and I had a good day spent doing guy stuff which basically equated to sitting on his rooftop getting pissed. We had a dope conversations and dropped some “where we at” type monologues which was very wothwhile. Later that night we went to Post and continued to drink to much. Sarah, Hester and Rachel turned up out of the blue and we finished the day with them. Prior to there arrival we saw a pizza delivery boy get run down by a blond haired lady in a car at a dangerous intersection (about 15 metres away from us). He got up right away and started called her a whore (“puta” ). He was in the right and actually had a compound fracture so it was not pretty, but at least we didnt see a fatality.

I finshied Old Man on a Bike which dad gave me before I left. The writting was humble and postive in that self-helpy kind of way that I appreciate, the glass was always half full for Gandolfi and that is something that I can respect. It has also made me think that I will make more of an effort to talk to older travellers over the next year. Treaure Island has 30 pages to go. Between this and Raised Fists song Words and Phrases I am feeling good.

Finally, my spanish is going foward all the time and I am enjoying learning but the reality is it has a very long way to go. I am realizing more and more that pronunciation is just as much of a challange as building up a vocabluary. Me and Sarah (The Elephant and The Cheetah) will be spending the following week working on this with a lot more intensity. I look forward to it.

Thanks James, Lauren, Hester, Rachel and Sarah, as well as all the portenos for making the start of this trip a good one. Aroha Nui.

Time to go cross some things off my list. For more photos of the trip so far follow this link.

Wednesday 11.11.09

2009-11-11T00:48:00.000-08:00

Feeling of holiday started with a Corsendonk Pater (Abbey Brown Ale) at the Ponsonby Belgian beer bar with an enjoyable exchange with the short haired, blond bar tender. This was the guest beer, apparently. I have also received an Email back from Langridge which I reflect on. He says "I'd totally forgotten I ever did that, so it was a wonderful surprise. Very proud to be a part of your skin. Hope all is well." Which is pretty damn charming to me. I feel little to complain about in this moment.

Leaving work was good. All went to plan, generally speaking. People were very kind in their words, efforts and time. It was clear that I was incredibly lucky to be given such a send off. Besides the generous sentiments extended at my farewell I was given a blessed greenstone necklace, a wonderful card from all the office, book vouchers, some dough, a special gift presented by a colleague from her South American adventure and a book from Loretta - Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - which was all really too much. Do I really deserve all this? It is a challenging feeling being treated so well by people. But I did my best to acknowledge this in my farewell speech and feel I now make a sincere effort to be gracious in such a situation rather than merely squirming.

In the afternoon I spend a long time going through my bag. It is still to heavy but I will just have to cull while I am on the road, I cannot figure out what to remove at this stage. The pack list, and essentially all my worldly possessions as of today, boil down to the following:

Small Pack
Toilet bag
2 bowls
2 Spork
Travel towel
3 locks
Pouch
Ipod
Shuffle
3 adaptors
Olympus DVR
Memory stick
Camera 1
Camera 2
Laptop charger
Phone charger
Security ties

Backpack
Cards
12 dice
Security ties
9 books
Sharpy
Pen
Sun glasses
Travel pillow

Main Pack
Trail shoes
Chucks
Jandels
Sleeping bag
8 socks
7 underwear
7 T shirts
2 shorts
1 thermal
1 long john
1 light jacket
1 heavy jacket
Jeans
Tent
1 raincoat

Toilet bag
Tooth Brush
Shaver
Comb
Sun screen
Iron tablets
Doxy 100mg
Savlon
Neosporin
Hard surface wipe
Loper 2mg
Paracetamol
Deodorant

Books
Earth Abides
Collapse
Globalization & its Discontents
When Gravity Fails
Treasure Island
An Old Man on a Bike
Hard-boiled Wonderland
The Beach
Robinson Crusoe

Needed
Passport
Travel Insurance No.
Ticket Info
Cert. copy passport

Total Weight: 18 KG

Being a nerd I love lists so it fills me with some satisfaction to have this taken care of. Now only two sleeps to go; family goodbyes and airport fandangos to come.