You are currently browsing the monthly archive for April 2009.
I arrived in La Paz with half a kilo of trail mix and the forlorn hope that it would last me long enough to get my thirty day Bolivian visa extension, as well as a tourist visa for Paraguay. Before midday I had a Bolivian stamp, a Paraguayan visa, and an untouched bag of fruit and nuts. I was in shock. Where was the Byzantine bureaucracy? Where were the endless frustrations? I hadn’t even had time to be nervous in the immigration office. As always, La Paz was full of surprises.
I spent a night in La Paz on either side of my trip to Coroico. I had come for purely administrative reasons, but within minutes of stepping out onto the streets, my feet almost completely numb in the morning cold, I was remembering just how much I loved this city.
With all my business carried out so quickly, and having walked the gringo trail thoroughly enough on my first visit, I was left completely free to enjoy the city itself. I gorged myself on the vegetarian street food unavailable in the rest of the country. I ate at least once a day in a Lebanese restaurant. I found the best book exchange in South America. I made business contacts with tour operators and hotel staff. I peaked in at the free galleries in Sopocachi, the trendy, leafy neighbourhood full of students and ambassadors and transsexuals and punks. I ate trail mix in every plaza in the city. I salivated over the packed shelves of international supermarkets. I stared into the twisted, leering faces of traditional masks from all over the country at the magnificent Ethnographic Museum, where there are a hundred representations of the devil and only one of an angel. I priced and haggled over things I didn’t want in the witches’ market. At every twist and contortion of the city I felt overwhelmingly that I would love to live in the city.
At an elegant theatre of faded red velvet and private box seating I sat down to watch a part-traditional part-contemporary performance, and found that half of the crowd was attired in the same jacket and scarf as me. At a narrow bar behind an anonymous door I sat down to watch one of Bolivia’s more popular bands play, and found the audience a curious blend of all the tattoos and haircuts, all the subcultures and attitudes that are missing from Sucre.
I spend a sunny afternoon reading in plaza San Pedro, by the notorious prison. Groups of backpackers and a few rugged solitary gringos were skulking about, lingering briefly by the gate before retiring to a safer and less conspicuous distance. No touts offered them prison tours; these apparently are still unavailable, although I wonder how long before money wins out and tourists find their way inside again.
The sky cleared and cleared with every hour I spent in La Paz. By my last day there the high snowy peaks that surround the city were glowing in late afternoon sunlight. Before it dipped below the canyon walls the sun also gleamed off the many highrise that cluster around the main avenue running the length of the city. There are a great many tall buildings in La Paz, but none of them peak out of the steep canyon that are built into. The poorer, shabbier plain brick houses that cling to the canyon walls have better views.
When I hopped a bus back to Sucre I was hoping I would have another chance to come to La Paz during this stay in Bolivia. And I was hoping that I would have a chance to come back to Bolivia and to call this city home.
The bus left in darkness, the entire city reduced to twinkling gold and silver lights in the thick night. The gold lights denote streets, and the silver clusters are houses, but like everything else about La Paz this generalisation is broken a thousand times, the city defying expectation and imposition, and remaining full of surprises and enchantment.
It was snowing as the bus crested the mountains surrounding La Paz. The road curved away and into emptiness, mist and cloud hanging low over the road, obscuring everything in shifting, coiling white. Above the road stark and towering black crags soared and could be glimpsed through the white for brief moments. Jagged cascades of water tumbled down by the road.
A little lower and the damp earth was visible, birds scuttling among the low bushes and lonely shepherds wrapped in tarps hunched by the roadside. Long skeins of abandoned stone fence unravelled across the highland fens, and great Grendeline electricity stanchions loomed out of the mist.
A little lower and the great depths plummeting away from the road were visible. The sheer black cliffs began to give out to steep green slopes. Further coils of pale road were piled against the cliffs. Rusted signs leaned along the roadside.
A little lower and we emerged out of the cloud, the road looking up and down long, verdant canyons. Windows opened, layers were shed and the bus crawled around trucks and tractors working to clear fresh, muddy avalanches from the road.
A little lower and silhouettes of vultures were pasted against the sky. Branches and leaves lashed out at the passing bus and the dust of the road coated everything in yellow. We reached the bottom of the canyon and passed alongside a river, letting people off at the most unlikely of locations, their bus stops nothing but a tree among a thousand other overgrown trees.
And then we arrived in Coroico, a pretty town of step cobbled streets and fading little buildings clustered on a long green spur overlooking the valleys and looked over by the towering mountains. Coroico is the largest town (population 5000) in the Yungas, an area stretching north from La Paz to the Amazon basin, and encompassing tropical lowlands and stark highlands. It produces the country’s best coffee and coca, as well as an abundance of fruit, and traces of gold in its riverbeds.
African slaves that survived the mines of Potosí ended up settling in the Yungas, where the humidity and warmth was a welcome relief after the frigid mines. They mixed culturally with the local Aymará people, adopting traditional dress and indigenous language, but marrying mostly among themselves, so that now, more than a hundred and fifty years later Coroico and the Yungas are home to most of the few black Bolivians. These people don’t fit into the usual polarised race politics of Bolivia – where people are either brown and indigenous or white and ruling-class – and as such are a marginalised, forgotten minority.
At 1700 metres above sea level Coroico feels unlike anywhere else I’ve been in Bolivia. People dress more scantly and all drinks are served cold; two things I have grown quite unaccustomed to, but totally necessary in the heat. In the evening an arsenal of bugs seek out unprotected flesh, and the central plaza falls quiet far earlier than in the highlands.
Situated at one end of Bolivia’s most famous road and conveniently close to La Paz, Coroico is becoming something of a resort town for visitors. Most of the hotels have pools, and there is very little else to do except eat and swim and lie in a hammock. Although I managed to lose hours by the pool or pilfering books from the hotel book exchange (the only way I could justify the cost of staying in Coroico), I found the town pretty-but-boring. To busy myself, and to earn more time in the pool I scaled a tall hill behind the town, and found the humidity more difficult than the altitude anywhere else (the hill reaches 2450 metres and as such is still lower than any other place I’ve been in Bolivia). From the summit a magnificent view, gusts of butterflies and many many hungry insects.
I went to Coroico to relax and to see another side of Bolivia. After two nights I found I had no desire for further relaxation and that I couldn’t find anything more to see of this other side of Bolivia. The hotel and the pool scene just weren’t doing it for me, and I found myself eager to be back in the highlands where the pace is less relaxed and swimming seems ridiculous and cycling actually is dangerous.
It seems I can’t come to La Paz without getting caught up in some profound existential dilemma. On my first trip the question was of whether or not I would visit San Pedro prison (i wrote about that too, here); on my return it was whether I would cycle the world’s most dangerous road.
The World’s Most Dangerous Road, also known as the Death Road, was so dubbed by the Inter-American Development Bank, based on the number of fatal traffic accidents on the road. The road is a thin and muddy thing, wrapped around precipitous peaks and cliffs and linking the mountain passes around La Paz (over 5000 metres above sea level) with the humid little village of Coroico (1700 metres above sea level) in 70 short kilometres. Two vehicles can barely pass each other on the road, and with the thick mists and heavy rains that cling to the mountains, the slightest miscalculation can send vehicles plunging hundreds of metres straight down into the jungles below.
The main tourist strip in La Paz is festooned with advertisements for the Death Road; guided tours of the road are a combination of bussing and mountain biking down the road, from the frosty heights to the tropical valleys where hot showers, swimming pools and buffet lunches await.
Lonely Planet gives serious, precious page space to the Death Road, urging readers to choose their tour agency carefully, as a lax mechanic or slightly faulty bike will lead to almost certain death (they also report 8 gringo deaths on the road since tours started more than ten years ago. Compared to the more than twenty annual bus or truck accidents that earned the road its reputation, the probability of gringo fatalities is incredibly small). The recommended agencies charge more for peace of mind; the price of a tour is about the average monthly wage in Bolivia.
Since the last Lonely Planet guide to Bolivia came out a new and wider road has opened up, giving the buses and trucks that had so much trouble with the original road a safer means of descent. This means the Death Road is today used almost exclusively by tour groups.
When I arrived in Coroico I found myself one of the few gringos in town not to have cycled the road. Talk around the hotel pool was of how the road wasn’t quite as dangerous as adventurers had expected. The scenery was spectacular, sure, but where was the death-defiance?
I held my tongue and didn’t point out the contradiction between paying for the safest tour outfit possible and still expecting to encounter death and destruction. I also resisted the urge to point out that while the road might not seem dangerous enough to many gringos, to the hundreds upon hundreds of families that have lost people on the road, it is no doubt quite dangerous enough. The crosses and flowers that line the road (and every road in Bolivia) should be a testament to the road’s danger.
Today the Death Road is probably the safest road in Bolivia. It is the only road in Bolivia not menaced by speeding, drunken, test-messaging bus drivers. It is the only road in Bolivia on which every commuter wears a helmet, a reflective vest, and on which every vehicle has been tested and tuned before every trip. It is the only road on which every five to seven travellers have their own guide trained in first aid. It is the only road on which all travel is cancelled during inclement weather (the biggest bike agency in town strongly advises against cycling the Death Road during the rainy season, but in spite of this will still take you if you really really want to go). It is the only mountain road that is reserved for one way travel. Given what the road has become, cycling it is far safer than cycling downtown La Paz, or just about any other part of Bolivia.
Needless to say I couldn’t bring myself to cycle the road, settling instead for watching the stunning, changing scenery from a cramped bus that safely traversed the new road (and cost less than the per person toll for using the Death Road). Every tour includes a free ‘I survived the Death Road’ t-shirt in its package; I just couldn’t reconcile myself to the idea of owning such a shirt. How could I wear it in Bolivia among Bolivian friends? Where could I hide it while in Coroico, where for generations anyone wishing to leave the village actually did risk death in the back of a truck on that notorious and once-dangerous road?
So no world’s most bizarre prison tour for me, and no world’s most dangerous road for me. Another superlative activity passed up using the excuse of cultural sensitivity. I wish someone would put that onto a t-shirt. I survived the world’s silliest conundrum. I survived Bolivian bus drivers. My other car is a rickety old farm truck full of campesinos and potatoes. I chose the boring, sensible path and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.
I passed Sábado de Pasión and Domingo de Ramos camping by lonely, abandoned churches in the countryside, and returned to Sucre as Semana Santa – Holy Week – was beginning.
Holy as the week was supposed to be, Sucre did no celebrate in a big way. It is too peaceful, and perhaps to self-focused to go in for the truly rapturous celebrations. Other cities in Bolivia, cities more unabashedly indigenous and traditional, held bigger, longer, more frequent processions and festivities. The first half of Sucre’s Semana Santa passed for me in Spanish classes, surprise Champions League results, and hours spent at the computer.
Holy Thursday came around and the bars filled ahead of the midnight alcohol prohibition. It was a beautiful evening to be on the streets, as every church in the town threw its immense doors open, and a steady flow of pilgrims streamed in through and out of the portals, the same faces appearing by every shrine or altar I visited. This one of the rare chances to see the treasures of all those colonial churches accessible to the public without having to pay an entrance fee.
Down by the central market at la Iglesia de San Francisco – one of Sucre’s oldest and most important churches – the scaffolds and tarpaulins were cleared away and the restoration process was put on hold for the night. Inside the impressive carved ceiling and gilded altars contrasted with the coarse, sanded walls, the regal saints looking down on the murmuring congregation from behind sheets of protective plastic.
In la Iglesia de Santo Domingo mass was taking place, but the priest could barely be heard over the chuckling children and greetings of families and neighbours. People knelt by the statues of a bloodied Jesus while the young and the old dozed in the pews. It was a lovely scene; the church opened up as a public place and filled not with solemnity but vivacity. A hymn rippled through the crowd, softly sung without accompaniment.
At midnight a veil of rain trembled over the city, but this didn’t the stop the customary procession up to one of the hills overlooking the city. The hill has no special importance – it is just the one that isn’t festooned with broadcasting antennae – but this in no way deterred the crowd from praying by the stations of the cross and lighting candles.
For the remainder of the long weekend the streets emptied and houses filled with parties and dinners. The occasional procession was ushered through the streets by bands and banners, but the more important business this weekend was food and family. Gringos assembled to meld their own Easter customs with Bolivian tradition. On Good Friday evening I sat down to a typical seven-course meatless meal that was made up of various signature gringo dishes – lasagne, pizza, humus, fried things. The local ban on alcohol could not be reconciled to the need for wine though, and red flowed freely. On Sunday I sat down to a Dutch brunch heavy on cheese and chocolate. It was a weekend of great ease and satisfaction, Sucre at its prettiest and most sociable.
The alcohol ban lifted, the bars filled, and by Sunday evening meat and booze were back on every table. The brief hush and mumble of another Semana Santa passed, and cars retook the streets. The figures of wounded Jesus and pious Maria were cast back into shadows and cobwebs as the churches closed the doors and the holy places were shut up, and life carried on as before.
My time here is passing, and as I become more and more aware of my decreasing number of remaining days I plan more and more trips, trying to balance where to spend time with who to spend time with. Condortrekkers continues to slow grind towards official registration, and the commencing of official tours. Until then there is only so much that I can do to help the organisation out. It is, for now, at the mercy of lawyers and civil servants, which in Bolivia is a very very grim place to be.
Finally in the first week of April we trekked out towards Maragua, as much to save the sanity of Randall the director as to explore the countryside, looking for campgrounds and hiking trails, potable water and hospitable farmsteads.
The long tail end of the wet season hangs heavy over Sucre, and the nearby mountains that generate storms and hail were our destination. Out here the land is amazingly green, and the crops not smashed down by hail grow tall. Freshly-carved wooden ploughs wait by farmhouses, for their chance to carve up the wet earth.
We descended from the mountain highway by a restored pre-Colombian trail of smashed red stone, looking out over the valleys, and the ridges of tortured stone thrown up by the groan and strain of tectonic millennia. Stone of all colours could bee seen as we stared out towards Maragua crater – purple stone, blue stone, red stone, white stone.
Far down below and we followed a river swollen with recent storms as it wound through eucalyptus groves filled with raucous parrots. Pungent smoke wisped up from farmhouses in defiance of the pillar of cloud that loomed over the cordillera, eventually covering the sky. We quickened our pace as thunder broke overhead, but no rain fell by us.
We pitched our tent in a lovely meadow, by a desolate church and the parched hulks of old trees. We filled our bottles with brown water and watched the sun creep under the cloud cover to illuminate the cliffs we had earlier descended. In the evening we cooked by moonlight and the clouds gave way before the stars.
The second day was immense, as we crossed the river and ascended into the crater, through the many coloured strata of the mountains. The crater was formed by erosion, and was once underwater; tiny marine shells are still dug up here and sold by the local urchins. The shallow walls of the crater form and endless series of arches-within-arches, a prehistoric procession of monumental snails. At the centre of the crater is a tiny village of church and houses, divided up by barren arroyos of smooth purple and crimson earth. It is a beautiful place, all long grasses and whispering crops and distant lonely cows.
The hike up and over the crater was breathless and deceptively long. Up high the breeze picked up and followed us along paths in the sides of mountains, into more precipitous country of fertile valleys and jagged peaks and tiny houses built as punctuation to the magnificence of the landscape.
We came eventually to our destination, a sloping rock face criss-crossed by giant footprints sunk into ancient, solidified mud. Millions of years ago dinosaurs had crossed this field, before it had been crookedly thrust up high into the mountains. The tracks appeared and disappeared and stumbled over the top of one another and invited speculation about the forgotten narrative behind them. Though they are eroded and worn they are also majestic and awe-inspiring, and demanded that we stop to appreciate them, and siesta in their presence.
The afternoon as long as the morning, plunging into valleys where the lamentations of a solitary donkey echoed off the stony faces, and where men played Sunday soccer, the enormity of the mountain vistas around them momentarily forgotten. I always wonder how much these people enjoy their setting, but judging by the locations of the standing stones, the tiny cemeteries and the coarse stone houses here, the people are very very aware of and amazed by the beauty of their lands.
As the sun sunk low we descended smooth slopes of bright red gravel and luminescent shrubs, arriving on the muddy banks of the toxic river that flows out of Potosi. in the vast riverbed there was no potable water and nowhere to pitch a tent. We had come to investigate some thermal baths built around natural hot springs flowing out of one of the mountains here, but the baths had been obfuscated by a landslide that was rumoured to have been triggered by a territory dispute settled with the hard logic of dynamite and detonations.
We filled out bottle with hot water and found a tiny clearing behind the adobe wall of an unoccupied house. In our tiny tent we slept a jumble of awkward limbs and angles.
Our final day was the shortest, one more ascent out of the red earth and back into the fertile valleys, the peaks overhead wreathed in morning cloud, the rest of the sky radiant. Our destination was a beautiful one-road village of dozing dogs and shaggy donkeys and overgrown flower thickets. We passed along the road and its adobe houses, and settled by a bend in the road to assemble a formidable breakfast of leftovers that had soon drawn every hungry school child away from their Monday morning activities. They clustered at a safe distance and only passed us by at a nervous run. Some crept close enough to share fruit with us, but most could only find the courage to speak in the company of numerous cronies and with comforting fingers firmly wedged in mouths.
We left the town in an open-topped truck crammed with people and their wares, bound for Sucre. The sun and the dust coated us and my foot screamed for freedom from the child and the bindle wedged upon it. From early on in the trip we could see Sucre away across the ridges, but it took hours to ascend and descent and ascend and descend and finally shudder into town, exhausted and bruised and burnt but content with having found a way out into the magnificence of the countryside.
