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At the beginning of time, the land was dark, and full of stone and precipices. Viracocha, the creator of civilisation, decided to bring light to the world, and called the sun, followed by the moon and the stars, up out of the waters of the great dark lake. Then he summoned a race of giants out of the cold rocks, but they were ignorant and rebellious, so he swept them away, swelling the lake and flooding the land. When the waters receded he made a smaller race of men out of clay and pebbles. Once the best of these had gone forth and founded a civilisation in the high mountains, he began to wander the land as a tramp, leaning on his staff and instructing the people. Then Viracocha, the bearded old man, the white god of the Andes walked west across the ocean, leaving his creations to their destinies.
Before the first gringos arrived in South America – those bearded, shining beings that seemed momentarily like Viracocha returned, until they opened fire and set about dismantling the civilisations that the creator god had crafted – Titicaca was a tourist destination, a pilgrimage site at the heart of the Inca empire. Isla del Sol, the island of the sun is where the sun and man first rose, and ever since then people have been visiting it to pay their respected.
Once the Spanish did arrive, bringing Catholicism with them, a town on the shores of the lake, Copacabana, became an equally important pilgrimage site. Here resides the Virgen de Candelaria, one of the most important icons in the latino canon, with a long history of bestowing miracles.
Arriving in Copacabana I could see why such importance was invested in the place. The town, surrounded by hills and pastures, was far smaller and far prettier than I expected, the streets empty save for the faint murmur of a bustle around the cathedral. A beach – one of the few in Bolivia – spanned from hill to hill in a long, colourful crescent of trout restaurants, boats and fussball tables. The sky and lake mirrored the blue warmth of one another.
Though the streets of Copacabana are heavy with handicraft stall and pizza restaurants, the town doesn’t need gringos. A steady flow of pilgrims flow through town to have babies and vehicles blessed at the cathedral. Hippies from all over South America come to camp on the beaches of Isla del Sol, and to sell jewellery and jugglery on the streets of Copacabana.
Fortuitously, I arrived on a weekend, which meant that the street outside the cathedral was full of stalls selling religious trinkets, and of cars, trucks and vans decorated with ribbons and flowers, there to be blessed by the priest and his holy water, and by families pouring out libations of beer and wine. In her sanctuary – probably the most beautiful church I’ve seen in South America – the Virgen was on display, her holy curtain pulled back to reveal the little icon, surrounded by gold and icon and saints a martyrs.
On the hill above the town – itself a pilgrimage site – people bought model cars or shops or houses or children or whatever it was they wanted most. They cracked beers and poured them over their offerings. They lit candles in grottos, niches and caves, the whole hill stained with black wherever offerings had been made to the syncretic god of the town.
On the morning of my trip to Isla del Sol the sun was strangely absent, and rain was prickling the surface of the lake. As the clouds gradually cleared the enormous mountains off behind the lake became visible, as did the other islands, peninsulas, beaches and bays of the lake. This undoubtedly is the best of lake Titicaca. From high up on the spine of Isla del Sol the entire lake is visible – an immense thing but never quite so large that the horizon swallows the distant mountains. The perfect size to be both amazing and beautiful. Far away I could see the Peruvian side of the lake, and the islands and hills I had already visited.
The island self is a strange mix of pre-Colombian ruins and herds of sheep and eucalyptus groves and barren slopes of brightly coloured, layered stone. At time it looks like Australia, at other times like the Mediterranean, and at other the chill fjordlands of Chile or New Zealand.
The particular sites of the island were not particularly interesting before the weird beauty of the island itself – the ruins of an Inca temple, another labyrinthine ruin inhabited by nervous sheep, a ceremonial stone table, a sacred stone, the rock Titicaca which gives its sacred name to the whole lake – but the path of carefully laid stone twisted between these sites, while on all side the magnificent lake was changing colours and textures and tones.
In a long day I walked the length of the island, spied its many barren peaks and tiny villages and hidden beaches, and at every turn it was easy to see why this should be the sit of creation myths, the birthplace of civilisation and the sun.
In the evening back in Copacabana a spectacular sunset rose out of the lake, the colours changing and blooming as I watched. These sunsets no doubt having settled over the lake for centuries, seen variously by pilgrims from all corners of the old and new worlds, and affecting all of them, causing them all to pause and consider what a beautiful land they had come upon.
I woke up in the new year and knew it was time to move on. As much as I was enjoying Cochabamba, I’d managed less than two weeks of volunteer work, and had fallen into the old, dissolute expat lifestyle. I expected more of my time in Bolivia.
Deciding once and for all to leave wasn’t easy. I had made good friends and had a great Spanish teacher. I’d wanted to live in Cochabamba for a long time, and six weeks didn’t seem like nearly long enough to get to know a city.
Exacerbating the difficulty was that I had very little idea what would happen when I moved on to Sucre. I didn’t know anyone there, which meant it was unlikely I’d find an apartment or Spanish lessons quite as good as those I’d been lucky enough to find in Cochabamba. There was the opportunity for interesting volunteer work there, but the only confirmation I had of that was a single line in an email.
And yet it was time to move on, to wring as much from my time in Bolivia as possible.
So, again, the sadness of leaving, of packing up a recently established life, of putting final ticks in final boxes, and of saying goodbye to the people and places and habits that I’ve come to enjoy so much.
And one final dump of photos; an attempt to capture just why I’ll miss Cochabamba…
After mooching off the Sustainable Bolivia crowd for as long as possible i moved into an apartment in the west of the city. Cochabamba is divided by a river into the older south and the newer and more affluent north. The west is where the new apartment blocks and big super markets are going up. It is a quiet area without the glamour of the north or the ambience of the south.
My apartment looks up and out to the high hills that surround the city. Every day storm clouds come tumbling down over the hills, flinging hail at the city or scattering the heights with snow. Cochabamba is known as the city of eternal spring, but the wet season has arrived and that means daily showers and sublime cloud formations.
My career as a volunteer has been postponed until January, leaving me more time to explore the city and to steal its internet. December saw a mass exodus of volunteers as Christmas approached. After a few weeks on the couch with Jules and Viv we had three consecutive days of painful goodbyes as they tried and failed and tried and failed and tried to master Bolivia’s hectic holiday season public transport.
Suddenly in posession of so many free hours I’ve taken to wandering the streets and trying to take photos without being robbed. So far i have been successful, but it seems like everyone in Bolivia gets robbed at least once, and my time is surely approaching.
When i first arrived every student in the city was preparing for a huge street festival in which each faculty tries to out-dance the others. Bolivian dancing is all about costume and endurance, the same performers cycling through the same steps as their troupe marches through the city.
With the festival over the students went back to making out in the parks and plazas, and i took to gravitating between various street food stalls. Cochabamba is probably more famous within Bolivia for its food than for anything. It is not really a big tourist destination, but it is a great place to live. Besides the food, the city’s universities keep the city young and dynamic. The streets south of the river are narrow and grubby and full of life. North of the river the pace is more sedate, the prices higher and the night life frenetic.
The city’s most famous site is the enormous Cristo de Concordia watching over the city from a hill to the east. Cochabambinos proudly promote their Cristo as larger than the more famous one in Rio de Janeiro (which is now one of the seven wonders of the world).
Despite the high altitude and its attendant problems, despite the dullness of vegetarian options in Bolivia, despite the decreasing number of people who haven’t been robbed, life here is easy. I slept blissfully through a mild earthquake last week. The same day an eerie full moon rose of the city. Strange portents, but for now Cochabamba is peaceful.
My second flight straight across the Pacific, ricocheting off of Auckland and back through time to land in Santiago two hours and five films after i had left. I dreaded the arrivals gate in Santiago, where i vaguely recalled a crush of taxi touts, and backpackers being bundled in $50+ shuttles. There was no crush though, and there were no troubles as i connected from bus to bus, and made my way to Valparaiso.
The moment i looked out the window of that first bus, Chile came flooding back to me. The downtrodden concretey buildings close to the airport, the horses browsing in empty lots, the clusters of leaning shanties, the men idle in the streets and around the bus stations.
At the first bus station i remembered flaky empanadas con queso, and remembered how underwhelming they could be. I remembered sodas with names like Kem, Pap and BIlz, and discovered that they weren’t owned by Coca-Cola. This disposed me towards them, until i remembered their flavours; all of unidenitifiable fruits blended with buckets of sugar and colouring.
I remembered the couples making out loudly in public, pretending no one else in the world existed. I remembered the studied seriousness of their faces as they stared into each other. I remembered that every park and plaza was full of intertwined couples.
I had never forgotten the dogs that lay everywhere, puddles of drool forming on the ground around their jowls. They lay wherever they fell, in the middle of sidewalks and plazas. They moved for no one. I discovered that Chile has cats as well as dogs, but that they band together and occupy particular blocks or parks. And they do not fall asleep in the middle of the street.
I remembered the frontier feel of the country, remote and wild. I remembered the dry earth and the towering mountains. Horses are still important here, so are cowboy hats. I remembered the grit of the country, a blue collar country, driven by its mines, its farms, it ports. I remembered the throngs of men in caps at bus stations, and how loudly they laughed at the films on the bus TV, and how loudly they snored.
But the moment i was off the bus in Valparaiso, i felt that Chile had changed. Three years ago school students had called out to us as though we were the first gringos they had seen. The hostels had been full of backpackers but the streets had seemed devoid of them. Valparaiso, though, was full of expats. Teachers and students and volunteers mingled with the artsy locals and filled the cafes and bars and houses, clinging to their glasses as they watched votes pour in and states turn blue or red.
Last time we had come to Chile for the natural beauty. The cities were gritty but the countryside was sublime. Returning i found that the cities – or such as i saw of them – had grown up. Valparaiso was full of fantastic street art. The strong traditional of Latin American murals was fusing with contemporary street art. The old didactic paintings had become fun and clever. They still expressed joy and pain, but they did so with freedom now. Cats, birds, monsters and musicians covered every available vertical surface.
In Santiago a neighbourhood had emerged that i’d completely overlooked on my first wide-eyed discovery of the city. This was Bellavista, clustered around one of Pablo Neruda’s homes; the only part of weekend Santiago that was bustling and thumping and laughing and cramming into bars and restaurants. Here in Bellavista the full and emerging diversity of Chile was on display. Across the aisle from the perennial punk and heavy metal favourites that resound throughout South America were Japanese anime DVDs. The monopoly of Chilean cuisine – hotdog, hamburger, sandwich, steak – was being broken by sushi, curry and kimchi. The pink and white of Harajuku girls broke up the ubiquitous black clothing.
The Chileans of Santiago seemed to have changed too. They had learned English. They were no longer shy. They invited me to stay with them, to come out the clubs. They bought me drinks. This was not the Chile i had discovered last time. Previously it had been all museums and hostels. Returning, i spent maybe 30 minutes in one museum and nothing more.
In three years Chile seemed to have changed dramatically, but of course it had not. Santiago had been the first destination of my first big trip. Back then i hadn’t spoken to a single Chilean, and had depended on guide books to get me about. I had avoided the subway and the bars. I had been shy about taking photos.
The change was all mine: I had learned to see and to speak, and i had a broader basis for comparison. I had learned travel arrogance, to flip my camera out whenever and wherever i wanted. I had discovered couchsurfing and used it to insinuate my way deeper into the countries i visited. I had enlarged my vocabulary and could ask for directions instead of pouring over maps.
No doubt Chile had changed too, but returning i found i could only map my own changes. How much bigger and stronger and brasher i had become. How much more i knew, how much more presumptuous and over-confident i was. Before leaving Santiago and heading north into the desert i climbed Cerro Santa Lucia again. I looked out over the same city and up into the same Andes. Where before i had been daunted and awestruck, now i was dissecting the place, weighing it up, reducing it to blogs and wondering whether i would want to live there.
The big change of the last few years is that i’ve become a ’serious’ traveller; one of the people who talks too loudly about his own travels and can compare every new site or sight to at least three previously-seen ones. It’s getting harder to be surprised or impressed. I guess this is a common paradox for long-term travellers. Is there a solution to it? Is this why people are always seeking bigger, more terrifying, more remote parts of the world? To try and outrun their desensitisation? From Santiago i ran on north into the deserts, to see if i could do the same…
