Dude

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 Tall 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]"

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:

1. 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
   
2. 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.

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

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, Wonderwall, 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.