As the leader of all illegal activities in Cochabamba, I am an influential and respected man.

There's a little gym right around the corner from my hotel, and I went and worked out yesterday. I was actually really amazed at how good I felt afterwards - then I thought about how I've basically had no exercise since I got here other than walking around. I wore shorts to the gym, and walking there I realized I was the only one wearing shorts, even though it was probably 85 degrees, and I also realized that I had never seen a Bolivian wearing shorts. I got whistled at from a car.

One thing I've noticed about South America which is strange is the lack of motorbikes. I mean in Asia and India, there are probably ten little scooters and ten more tuk-tuks for every private car. It makes sense, because a brand-new scooter is only like $1000, and a used one can be just a couple hundred bucks. And they're thrifty with gas. I don't know if there's something cultural against scooters here, or if for some reason they're just not sold, but there are hardly any around. More in Cocha, mostly cool old 50's beaters that apparently only came in red. Kind of "Motorcycle Diaries" style.

Another thing I like about Cochabamba is that they have siesta here. Almost everything shuts around noon, and reopens three or four hours later. It's kind of annoying for me sometimes, because I usually want to go do stuff after lunch, but I would think it would be great for them: work half a day, go home and eat, spend time with family and friends, take a nap, and go back and work just another half day. It seems like in a lot of America, after a long day and commute, people aren't up for doing much except having a drink in front of the television. But if the day could be broken up into two half-days, it seems like it would be much more relaxing. Sure, you eat dinner later, but so what?

The Sabbath can be even more annoying for me, because really everything shuts. The biggest problem is that hardly any restaurants are open. But I'm starting to appreciate Sunday's as a day to hang out and play guitar, go over my Spanish notes, read, and be reflective. From that point of view, It's actually kind of nice to have a whole day set aside each week for that stuff, which I guess is the point of Sabbath anyways.

I got ahold of the guy I came here to meet, Ismael Saavedra. Ismael started his adult life in the Bolivian Air Force, then went to university in La Paz where he got a doctorate in political science and law; he later went on to produce several critically acclaimed films, such as "Panama Deception" (Acadamy Award, 1993). He currently works as Academic Director at the School for International Training here in Cochabamba. My friend Kate, who did some work with him on a coca documentary last year, told me that he's a great guy and will be an excellent resource for scoring interviews. And I guess he speaks four languages. I mean, all I need for someone to make me feel stupid is to speak Spanish at a moderate pace.

Of course, now that I'm here I'm not sure if I'll want to leave. I jumped the gun a little bit on Cochabamba, I think. Sure, the drivers here don't use their signals, won't stop at red lights, and refuse to turn on their headlights at night; and sure, I almost got beat up by some guys in a bathroom, but generally the people here are more outgoing and friendly than other places in Bolivia. People even smile at me regularly here. The weather is really nice. The food is leagues better than other places I've been in Bolivia. And every time I go out, there's at least one girl that wants to make sure I don't eat alone. It's kind of absurd, actually: whenever I go out to eat, I never finish my meal by myself. Last night these girls told me I was Brad Pitt for them (trust me, this is something I never thought I would hear in my life). I guess if you want to be rich and desireable, you don't need to work hard at it or be a movie star, you just need to go someplace where your money is worth more and the color of your skin is exotic. It's going to be a bit of a drag to go back to someplace like La Paz to interview people when the people there are hostile or indifferent to me and the food is awful.

Oh, if you're wondering why I almost got beat up in a bathroom, the short version is that I was dancing with the younger sister of a drunken, violent Bolivian who had just gotten out of boot camp (I sympathize - from what I understand boot camp would make anyone grumpy). I mean, we weren't all over each other, by any means - but let me explain how dancing works in Bolivian clubs: guys stand in a line, and girls stand in another line opposite the guys (it's real important that this doesn't get mixed up, as I found out - I kept getting pulled back into the "guys line" when I would try and spin with my partner). The guys and the girls stand about four feet apart, and apparently aren't supposed to look at each other or touch. I guess the goal is to just bob around, possibly with your hands in your pockets (yes, some guys had their hands in their pockets), and look bored. Which is easy, because it's pretty damn boring. Towards the end of the night, my friends were getting me to do silly things - they'd give me a dance move, and I would grossly exaggerate it. I think they thought I was really drunk, but really I was just trying to relieve the oppresive boredom of dancing in a line. Anyways, the brother of one of the girls showed up, and decided he didn't like me I guess. But nothing happened, really.

The difficulties of travelling

My sister is worried about me. She says that hearing the way I've been getting angry at people, like with the guy honking at me for crossing the street, makes her worry and wonder how long it is before I get strangle-mugged by one of these people. Well, first of all, let me say that in my experience bad things happen usually in seemingly random ways - like because someone thinks you're gay, or just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time - not for running your mouth at a pushy hotel owner. But my sister is right when she told me that these people don't have to be nice to me, and that they don't owe me anything. In fact, I probably owe them a lot more than they owe me. She also reminded me that as a rich white person in a poor, non-white world, I would obviously be taken advantage of, and she would do the same thing if she were in the shoes of a poor Bolivian. And I have to remember that much of the world's current economic inbalences and injustices are based on historical racism, whether or not I had anything to do with it. And now, I'm suffering from reverse racism, because I am so obviously the one with money, and a symbol of historical injustice. I agree with those things too.

I guess I think that this is one of the real opportunities that come with the Adventure Grant - coming to terms with these issues. Because it's really, really hard to be here and be dealing with these things. Just to remind the reader of some of the difficulties I face: poor language skills - never being able to express myself the way I want, never knowing what I'm ordering to eat, never being able to tell jokes, even having a hard time just making friends; cultural and economic differences which leave me isolated and excluded; regular threat of theft or assault; being so alone - the thought of going ten months without the kiss of a lover or the embrace of a family member, missing ten months of my niece growing up, having no outlet to talk about what's so funny or absurd or hard about being in a totally different culture. I think all the little things that have happened to me have been building up, and now every little thing is starting to appear in my mind as not only a cut at the Rich Western World, but me personally. And it makes me angry. And of course, it's false and it's unhealthy.

Where do you draw the line? That is the question every traveller has to answer for themselves. How much money do you give? Myself and every single other backpacker here has so much more than virtually all of our hosts. Just the fact that you can drop $1000 on a plane ticket is evidence that you are rich beyond the dreams of most of these people. The girls I have been hanging out with, who are in private schools and seem like middle or upper-middle class, have never even been to La Paz. What is it like for them to think of my globetrotting? Or to project onto me media images of Western life and affluence? But this is the problem: I can't solve poverty, and I shouldn't think of it as my problem to solve. Like I said, every traveller has to make a decision about how to rationalize their wealth in a world of poverty. Most people rationalize it in their favor: they're not really that poor, they're scammers, giving undermines work, etc. Some of this has some merit: I think the argument that work provides self-worth is true (the problem being that in our country, the idea of jobs that provide "self-worth" and get people off Welfare are jobs that pay $5.15 an hour washing dishes at a TGI Friday's while the corporate owners get $40 million Christmas bonuses) - in fact, one reason I never give money to kids is because I was told in Cusco that beggar children make more money than adult laborers. This makes the parents feel unvalued, and they turn to begging; it destroys family structures and causes a slew of social problems, like depression and alcoholism. And I don't think that these attitudes arise because travellers are cheap, per se (although definately some of them are). Instead, I think these attitudes arise from a confrontational mindset of being besieged for you money every hour of every day: tour operators, taxi drivers, locals you meet in a bar, beggars, theives. The attitude becomes "No way I'm going to be taken advantage of!" And if people think that beggars are trying to take advantage of them in some way, they don't give. But when I think about it, that siege mentality is not the one I want to have when I travel. It cuts you off from experiencing anything profound.

And I think it is appropriate, socially and morally, to give. The rules I have for myself are pretty simple: I always give if I have some change, and don't give to children (not only because of undermining adult jobs, but because kids should be in school getting an education - the only way to break the cycle of poverty. If families think their kids can make more than the adults begging, do you think the kids will stay in school?). The way I think about it is that if even just the backpackers all contributed a small amount, then there would be plenty to go around. I guess I think I need to make my contribution, but I shouldn't feel like I have to make a contribution for everyone. So that's my rationalization: sure, I'm rich, but I'm doing my part. I don't know if it's the best answer, or even if there is a "best" answer to the problem. But it's my answer for myself.

It feels good to give, too. I think that giving cultivates compassion within me, which in turn makes it a little easier to deal with situations where someone isn't being so compassionate. One part of me chides myself for this, because it's a feeling that is born out of such a gross inequality of wealth, but the flip side is that I do nothing, and I am sure that something is preferable to nothing, for me and for the other party.


The money line gets even stickier once you're out with people in a social setting. For example, when I was out the other night, this one guy was trying to get me to pay for everything, to give grossly outrageous amounts for a "taxi," etc. And in fact, I was rushing to buy all the drinks for the group, I bought this guy some food, and paid for the "taxi." But at what point are you being generous and at what point are you just rubbing in their faces that you're rich compared to them? And at what point are you being generous and at what point are you being taken advantage of? An interesting dichotomy I've noticed here is that Bolivian men are always trying to get one more Boliviano out of me, and Bolivian women are loathe to let me pay for anything. Maybe the men are wondering what they get out of haning out with the exotic, rich foreigner who is so impressive to the girls? Maybe the women don't want to feel like there are strings attached to the gifts? I don't really know, but as I said, drawing a line with money is very, very difficult.

And money isn't the only line to draw: when you are taken advantage of or treated shabbily, when do you turn the other cheek and when do you stick up for yourself? There have definately been times, like when I was given the run-around by the kid at the hotel about my room key, that I felt like I had to "teach" someone that they can't treat me that way. But I don't want to feel like I'm in a war, even though sometimes that's not far from the truth. What am I really suffering? Not so much. And what am I really taking away when I withhold my money over what I perceive as an offense? Maybe quite a bit. In the end, I think what I have forgotten is that I won't really be able to change things here, not much anyways. But I can have a huge influence over myself. A huge influence over whether or not I'm placid or angry; happy or depressed. And I remember, too, the words of Gandhi in Satyagraha, about spreading your message with love, and being the change you want to see in the world. In the end, my anger probably won't change anything, except in me. I guess the trick is to stick up for yourself, but do it in a way where you want to help make the situation better, not punish the other person. Easier said than done though.

And I think these things, money and attitudes, are intimately connected. It's hard to say how much of the attitude I get is because I'm a foreigner (like getting hit with a small bag of trash by some punks the other night), and how much is just Bolivian worldview. In the case of the former, I should really be looking at these things as lessons and reminders of the abundence I get to experience in America. I was thinking about trying to buy soap the other day, and how I went to like 50 stores looking for it. But then yesterday I thought about how you can go to an aisle in any supermarket in America, and just that one aisle is bigger than any supermarket here (let alone the tiny shops that are the norm), and half the aisle will be dedicated to pickles. I mean, how absurd is that? It's about as absurd as spending an hour trying to buy soap, but just in a much more affluent way. And I'm sure when I get back, all of that stuff will become so apparent. But for now, unfortunately, I have to struggle with so much in day-to-day living that those lessons are easy to miss.

I guess in the end, I need to try and be more understanding, even though it's really hard. I need to remember that in most ways, looking at anyone on the street here is like looking in a mirror: that pretty much anyone I see is someone that has hopes, dreams, and fears not unlike mine. And that if the tables were turned, I might begrudge wealthy Bolivians who swarm throgh my country, with the ability to buy whatever they want, who seem to be armed with the assured attitude that it's OK that the people in the country they visit work all day for basically nothing. That is, after all, one of the reasons I was given the money to come here. I need to remember that.

Just a couple other comments on Cochabamba

There's almost no sign that Cochabamba was the site of violent protests that resulted in several deaths and hundreds of injuries just a week ago. There is a memorial to those killed outside one of the local churches, and the main plaza features message boards calling the city to action. But mostly everything is peaceful as people once again go about their daily lives. The most constant reminder of the unrest is the graffiti scattered around the city: "long live the organized town," "2/3," (referring to the presidential decree that amendments to the new constitution will be passed by a simple majority instead of a 2/3 majority), "If it's a democracy, it's a constitution," "respect our voice." I did see a couple MPs on the street my first night, but I think that was just a coincidence - there is a military base here, after all.

My guidebook says that there have been problems supplying water to the city, and my hostel says that guests should limit their time in the shower, because there is not much water here. Which is funny, because my map shows a lake directly adjacent to the city, and there's scores of fountains all over.

Popular here are gambling machines that look like they operate kind of like slot machines: they each have a theme, mostly football (or what some call "soccer"), but sometimes race cars or Wild West. You put in your money and bet on a team or a car, and a bunch of lights flash, and one of the teams is picked randomly to "win," and if you picked the winning team you get a payout. They kind of remind me of pachenko machines actually, even though there is no moving ball or anything. There are signs up saying "no minors," but that doesn't stop 12 year olds from playing. Maybe that would be an interesting sociological study for someone: gambling addiction in unregulated places like Cochabamba.

There's a little sign up in my hostel that says "we're Catholics here, and we're not interested in changing, so please don't ask." I guess they're tired of all the Mormons and Seventh Day Adventists and whatnot trying to convert them!

I was riding in a combi late last night (a share taxi), and there was this boy who was maybe 10 riding with his campesino parents. He had this strange look of resignation on his face, kind of a bored serenity. It was sort of inspiring and depressing at the same time, like this kid had mastered the eastern philosophical view of detachment, but also like he'd just given up already, and at such a young age.

I was sitting in the plaza today, and had the damnedest time trying to explain to a horde of shoe-shine boys that you don't shine hiking boots, and if they were clean, there'd be no point - not to mention how weird I would feel having someone kneeling at my feet, cleaning my boots. At first there was just one, and eventually he stopped trying to shine my shoes and we just talked about where we were from and our families. But one by one, more and more shoe shiners were attracted to our bench, and each time, I had to explain for several minutes that I didn't want my shoes shined. But once that was over with, it was fun to talk with them. I even learned my numbers in quechua (the language of the Incas, still very much in use today) up to ten. Of course, they were still going to ask me for something - and who can blame them, after I told them how much my shoes cost ($65, which totally took them by surprise. That isn't even that much for Gore-Tex boots. Imagine if I had something fancy that had cost $220!). Anyways, they somehow knew my weak spot, and wanted me to buy them ice cream. 7 bolivianos for 7 shoe shine boys - not even a dollar (one of them was maybe 17 or 18, making him more of a shoe shine man, but I couldn't well exclude him for that). Could I really turn them down on a hot day like today?

The truth comes out...

So that guy who will probably go down in history as America's worst president was at Fort Benning, Georgia a few days ago, where he gave a uniquely honest glimpse into the true motivations for war in Iraq: the President implored us to "Imagine what would happen if these extremists who hate America gained control of energy reserves." Holy shit! We'd sure be in a lot of trouble then! You know, it's not exactly like we have control of energy reserves in Iraq now. And what's the problem? $55/barrel oil? Man, Bush is right, this war is totally worth the $505 billion we've spent already - for that kind of money, the government could have just given every American citizen almost $1700. $1700 can buy a lot of gas... but what do I know about public policy? The important thing to focus on now is achieving "stability" in Iraq, which is what everyone now claims to want, on both sides of the isle. Call me crazy, but wasn't Iraq pretty stable under Saddam? I mean, is this what it's come down to, American lawmakers basically wishing for the situation we destroyed in the first place?


In local news (that is, Washington state local), the Washington State Supreme Court has overturned Seattle City Light's ability to offset its carbon emissions by paying for environmental improvements outside of the utility. The three main programs SCL used to achieve carbon neutrality were: buying biodiesel for Seattle Metro buses; paying for upgrades to cruise ships docking in Seattle so the ships could plug into the grid instead of running diesel generators; and paying for pollution control technology in a Dupont chemical plant in Kentucky that releases freon into the atmosphere (freon is a potent greenhouse gas - much more so than CO2). While the Superior Court ruled that the program acted in the interest of ratepayers - which it does, because global warming is destroying the snowpack that gives SCL ratepayers dirt-cheap electricity - the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that the program acted outside the scope of the utility's charter. This has delivered a major blow to the city of Seattle, which is attempting to meet what would be its requirements under the Kyoto Protocol, if the US were to ratify it (several other cities have followed suit, including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago).

The worst part of this whole scenario, though, is the public reaction: some people think that you can't just "spend money" when you should be "cleaning up your act,"(forget the fact that the money SCL was spending directly benefitted the environment. Do these people even know what they're criticising?); other people don't like SCL and think that any ruling against it is a good one (very intelligent policy making); other people don't see how fighting global warming is in ratepayer interest (even though the Superior and Supreme courts seem to). This is a shame, because the SCL program was innovative and effective. I suppose between the media painting a picture of global warming as "we all die tomorrow" or "nothing will ever happen," it's no wonder people have inane ideas about policies to address the problem.

To read the full Seattle Post-Intelligencer article on the courts ruling, and to see what people are saying about it, go to http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/300406_citylight19.html

Cochabamba - City of Eternal Spring

How could a city with a slogan like that be bad? Well, it's a little hotter here than the spring I'm used to in Alaska, but the climate is nice. It's probably 85 during the day, and just warm enough at night to go out without a jacket. Cochabamba reminds me a little of Arequipa - it has a large, arcaded central plaza, and some of the buildings have interior courtyards. There's lots of international boutiques, like Guess, Benetton and L'oreal. There's even a whole strip of antique shops (if anyone wants a turn-of-the-century Pullman typewriter), so somebody around here has some money. It feels like the demarcation between the wealthy urban population and the poor, migrant campesino population is more distinct here, as well: all the beggars are indians (a point of PC: the aboriginal population here uses the word "indian" to describe itself) in traditional clothing, while the city-dwellers look much more European.

This is the first Bolivian city I've seen with dumpsters: the usual procedure is to pile huge mounds of trash next to the tiny municipal trash cans on street corners the night before you know the city comes by to empty those. And I saw a sex toy shop, too, that even advertised gay toys, which was surprising in a place that seems like it holds onto a lot of its traditional values.

There's a variety of food here, too; I had some good Mexican food last night, Hare Krishna for lunch, and there's a well-decorated Italian place that is supposed to be good. And the bars are actual bars, like with some thought put into the decorum and individual atmosphere, as opposed to the places in La Paz which are mostly places to get drunk. At least the fluorescant lighting in those places is bright enough so if you're totally wasted, you can still get mug to mouth.

But one of the things that really bothers me about Bolivia, namely that the attitude of the people towards me ranges from indifferent to hostile, seems to exist here as well. I was looking at hostal rooms today, and I went into this place where the guy was totally put out that I wanted to see a room (this is not a unique experience). At first he pretended that he didn't understand what I was saying, so I had to ask a couple times a couple ways, and then he let out this big sigh and was said "alright, let's go." Then he got really upset and gave this lengthy explanation about why I can't sit on the bed (to test the softness). I mean, this is a guy who sits around all day doing almost nothing - I would think he would enjoy the break in monotony of a customer, but I guess not.

Also, I was crossing a street today, when I had a green light, and after I had started across a car approached the intersection behind me and wanted to turn right. Well, I was already in the intersection, so he had to stop while I passed through, but that didn't stop him from honking the horn at me for a good 10 seconds. I turned around and pointed at the green light, and he just shook his head like I was some sort of idiot. In fact, Bolvians generally are the least-patient drivers I have ever seen. I mean, they use their horns a lot in Calcutta, but it's to signal other drivers, or is otherwise for reasons I never recognised. But here, horn use is always used to signal impatience. Like today, when a bus stopped to load a passenger, stopping traffic behind it, every car layed on its horn as it had to stop, and didn't let up until traffic started moving again. Talk about road-rage! Basically, the horn is used for the entire duration of any inconvenience while driving.


But I need to back up a little, to pre-Cochabamba. First of all, Mike came back - again. This time though, just to accost the guy who works at the hostal I was staying at and get his camera back. I guess he came by and pretended to have money, and then snached the camera from the guy who worked at the hostal and ran off. Ironically, I'd seen Mike earlier that day, who said to me "what happened to the 100 bolivianos, man?" like I'd really screwed him or something. Then he said "well, how about you just give me another 50 and you can keep the camera." I laughed and said I didn't want the camera, and I'd paid 100 for it already, which is more than it's worth. Then he said "look, man, I lied to you. I just got out of prison, and I'm on the street right now." Mike, you're not helping your case by telling me you lied and that you're an ex-convict. "What do you want for the camera, man? I've got like four grams of coke on me, or some weed." No, Mike, I don't want to have something that could land me in prison in Bolivia of all places, just so I can go get high in my room by myself. Or even better, maybe with you! Yeah, that sounds like a blast. "Well, I'm gonna be selling this stuff up in the plaza, and I'll be at Oliver's Travels tonight, so I'll see you there." Sure you will, Mike. Sure you will.

Anyways, I guess the irony was that I knew where he would probably be that night, so I wanted to take the cops there so they could catch him with drugs. At least that way he couldn't hustle anyone else. But then the woman who runs my hostal explained to me that it would probably take $20 or $30 to get the cops to do anything. Man, that frustrated me, but imagine living your whole life like that - needing what to us is like $200 or $300 just to get the cops off their duffs! I guess there's something to be said for cops who are ideologically motivated.

So I left La Paz for Cochabamba, minus the money and the camera. The bus to Cochabamba was about 8 hours long, and there was no shortage of characters. First there was this guy who was trying to sell gold chains. Who buys gold chain on a bus? Then there was this guy who got up and talked for a while. I didn't get it all, at first he was talking about how long he's lived in Bolivia, and I figured he was going to ask for money. But then he kept talking, and I heard "... in the year 2018..." and a bunch of references to Christ and God and the Bible (which is the same word in Spanish, but with Spanish pronunciation: "Bib-lee"), and then he dropped the bomb: in the year 2018, the anti-Christ will appear on earth, and plant microchips in our hands, which will control our thoughts, and then he'll want to put 666 on our foreheads, making us the Devil's slaves. And something about raising capital for the anti-Christ, and belief in other gods, but of course there is no god but God, and bla bla bla... I didn't really hear his call to action, maybe he just wanted to make sure we were all on the lookout for people trying to put microchips in our hands. But he was standing in the middle of the bus, right next to my row, and I was trying really hard not to laugh. I mean where does this story come from?! I've heard it before, with various twists to the details (I think the year used to be 2000, before that year came and aboslutely nothing happened).

So yeah, now I'm in Cochabamba, and maybe I'll meet some film school students. A friend of mine is also supposed to introduce me to a teacher at the film school who might be able to help me get interviews with governmental officials, but I'm waiting to hear from her. I didn't know I was going to come here until the day before I actually did, so I wasn't able to give much warning.

Mike came back

So Mike found me in an internet cafe the other day. Of course, "all the Western Unions are closed on Sunday, and I was wondering if I could get a little something from you, just for lunch." I told him no, and he put his hand on my shoulder and adopted this demeanor like I was the most cold-hearted sonoffabich in the world. "Well you just chill out and have yourself a good day then." He turned to leave, and I asked if he even wanted his camera back. He said "yeah, I have a lot of good pictures on there," even though it looked to me like the film was brand new and had no pictures. So he said "You're in the Presidential, by Plaza Mendoza, right? Maybe we can go over there when you're done here." I had this vision of my getting a knife held to my throat in my room, so I tried to be evasive about where I was staying - I mean just a second ago he had no money for lunch, so why would he have money to get the camera back? He said he was going to wait outside for me, but when I went out 5 minutes later he was gone. I knew I had told him where I was staying the night we met, because I didn't need cash or a passport the first night I stayed, so I went back to my hotel and explained the situation. Later that night, Mike came by my hotel while I was gone and was asking for his camera. I have a really hard time understanding the woman at my hotel, to the great amusement of her son (this is really going to be fun when I get to Argentina, or Brazil!), so I didn't understand what all had happened, but I guess he said he was going to come back. Which he did, this morning, but I wasn't there again. Today I left the camera with my hotel, and explained that he can have it if he surrenders some cash. The more I deal with this guy, the more confused I am. What is his deal? He's done so much to make me think that he just needs dope money, but he's also done just enough to make me think that maybe he's cracked in the head but really does want his camera back.

I went to a pharmacy today, about a suspected fungus on my hands. The first place I went to tried to tell me I had some sort of toxin in my liver or something, and wanted to sell me some powder that was for "energy, endurance, and detoxicant." It had vitamins B1 and C, plus glucosamine. And it was expensive. Well, that seemed like a crock, and one more strike on the pharmacy system of medicine. So I went someplace else and got some cream, which I assume is for fungus, although the closest word I know in Spanish is "mushroom."

I'm going to Cochabomba tomorrow. The protests have apparently died down, and the few remaining ones are peaceful. I have a month left on my visa in Bolivia, and thought I would give Cochabomba and the gas nationalization project a chance (hopefully there's something decent to eat in Cocha). I was thinking of going to Buenos Aires, but apparently this is the worst time of year to go, with the city being mostly empty of people who are vacationing to escape the 95 degree heat and high humidity. So I'll try Cochabomba, and if that doesn't work, I'm thinking of going to Patagonia.

Once again, going out drinking in La Paz proves to be strange and hilarious

So I went into this local bar last night, a grubby little affair with oppressive fluorescent lighting and PVC tablecloths (for the record, I have seen fluorescent lighting done well in some places - virtually all the lighting here is fluorescent - but this wasn't one of those places). It looked like a blue-collar place, all middle-aged working-class Bolivian men, out drinking to get drunk (as is popular here. America doesn't have the market cornered on binge drinking). I took a seat at a table next to a woman and her husband, who looked in their late 40s or early 50s. The woman looked like she had some African blood in her family tree (definitely a rarity in Bolivia - we're pretty far from the Caribbean here), had several gold-rimmed teeth (quite common here), and had died her hair the horrible, pseudo-blonde that Bolivians seem to like (black hair doesn't go blonde easily, but I guess it makes them feel like Pamela Anderson or something). Her husband didn't have much hair left to die, and was totally passed out, head in his arms.

I ordered a beer and the woman, Doris, started talking to me. She asked me about Bolivia, and how I liked it, and how I liked Bolivian music (these are questions I hate: "actually, I kind of loathe Bolivia, especially your awful, Casio-keyboard bastardization of your traditional music that you play way too loud everywhere I go"). She also told me to be careful, because people will put things in my drink, or beat me up, and take my money. After a while it became evident she was flirting with me - especially once she gave me her phone number. I was trying to drink my beer faster, and then I noticed two Bolivian men standing next to me, practically on top of me, smiling at me. I said "hello?" a bit put off by their demeanor and by what Doris had been telling me. They pointed at my beer, and at Doris, and said some stuff I didn't really catch before walking away. "They want to kill you and take your money," Doris politely informed me, rolling her eyes as if to say "here we go again." "I have to go now," I thought to myself in distress. I'd had some beers before coming to this place, and was definitely starting to get drunk, and was getting pretty nervous too. I shotgunned my remaining beer and went to pay my tab, and the first bill I pulled out was a Bs. 100 note. I tried to quickly replaced the bill in my pocket, not wanting to flash my money around too much - but I must have gotten flustered and dropped it, because the note was missing this morning. Anyways, I paid my tab, and as I went to leave, Doris put her hand to her ear like a phone, and in a stage whisper said "call me!" I laughed all the way home, from the nervous release of escaping a potential danger, and for the pure comedy!

I had two really depressing thoughts in the past couple days. The first occurred when I was sitting out on the street at night, and a sweet stray dog came up and lay her head on my leg (most of the strays are sweet here actually; it's strange. They're all really nice, meek, and healthy-looking. Not like the mangy, mean dogs you see in Asia). As I sat there petting this dog, I was reminded of how unconditional a dog's friendship is, and how they want to be friends just for friendships sake, and how basically I've had no friends since I've been here. Friendship is something I haven't even come close to in the three months I've been in South America. The locals are either disinterested, hostile, or just after my money (or maybe they're as old as my mom and want sex); other travelers for the most part aren't traveling to make friends - they have their own itineraries and most of them already are traveling with someone. Especially when I'm on a 10-month trip, my pace is so different than virtually everyone else's that it's impossible to meet people to travel with, even for a short time.

The other thought occurred to me after watching the "Borat" movie. That wasn't my favorite movie, but I did laugh really hard in a couple parts; I laughed the kind of unbridled, hysterical laughter that I also haven't had in 3 months, because it's a laughter that can only come if you can let go of all your other concerns - for me, it was the laughter that could come from the anonymity and shelter of a darkened theater. For the most part, I have to spend all my time watching my back, struggling with the language, and trying to figure out why the Hell I'm in Bolivia on this grant. I never have the chance to laugh like that, or act silly, or even tell jokes. I'm always passing arcades or shops in the street playing cheesy dance stuff like "Jock Jams" (y'all ready for this?), and I always have the urge to start dancing in the street. But without anyone to share the joke with, I would just feel even more like a foreigner, and I always suppress the urge. It's like I'm just a shadow of my former, American, English-speaking self. And an un-funny, un-fun, unhappy shadow, at that. It's like a big part of my humanity has been stripped away, leaving more of my animalistic, survival-driven self. And I thought traveling would be fun.

I have officially been taken for a fool

So there's massive flooding in the East of Bolivia, in Santa Cruz province, and a state of emergency has been declared. I guess all the scientists were right about global warming: more frequent, more severe weather patterns. All the scientists except the Exxon-funded ones, I guess.

So last night, I was out and about at a little past 11, and this guy, Mike, approached me with a story about being rolled by some cops. Corrupt, fake, who knows. Same thing really. It's like those stories out of Iraq about gunmen "dressed as Interior Ministry commandos" kidnapping and killing people: they're dressed like Interior Ministry commandos because they ARE Interior Ministry commandos. But it's a neat bit of doublespeak for the press to say "dressed as" - a technical truth that doesn't reveal the total breakdown of Iraqi society as much as the whole truth would.

Anyways, Mike tells me that he got his money belt and passport taken after the cops wanted to "search him for weapons," and now he can't get a hotel, and everything is closed (most stuff in La Paz shuts down at like 9pm). This seemed plausible to me: the cops, Western Union being closed, no money for a hotel. He wanted to let me hold onto his camera in exchange for a little cash for a room, which he would pay back tomorrow. Sure, I'm suspicious of stuff like this, and Mike seemed like a bit of a tweaker - he teaches anthropology "at his own university" in New York (but didn't seem to understand my question about cultural or historical anthropology), and kept trying to show me these "faces" in these little rocks he had that had something to do with the "research" he was doing in Bolivia. But he wasn't any stranger than the people who come to Macchu Picchu to experience some great spiritual awakening (a la that stupid book, "The Celestine Prophecy"), and the camera had film and batteries in it, and I didn't give him much cash, and it would really suck to be in his position if he were telling the truth, and this is a serious run-on sentence. So I gave him like $10 and took his camera, and we agreed to meet the next day in the Plaza to exchange money and camera, and he offered to take me to breakfast.

The next day, I was sitting in front of the church, and Mike walks by really fast, right in front of me (planned, I'm sure), and I call to him but he doesn't stop, I hurry to catch up with him and he starts talking about how there's $1000 wire from his wife "just waiting for him" at the Western Union, but he can't get it without a passport, which is being processed at the embassy "right now," but he can't decide if he wants me to get my passport and accept the money from the Western Union for him or if we should go to the embassy so I can pay for the passport renewal. And about the time I'm thinking "I just bought a new camera, didn't I?" Mike says "the cops are right behind me, they think I'm harassing you." "Are you?" I think to myself, and I come to a stop. Two tourist police come up next to me (they were women, which I mention because I bet you were picturing two men, as I probably would if someone were telling me about "two cops," but like I said in a previous post, a lot of cops here are women), and Mike takes off through traffic, across the street. The tourist cops explain something (I didn't get it all because they asked if I spoke Spanish, and with a grim look I said a little, and they launched into this explanation in Spanish. I guess the tourist police, who are supposed to speak English, are just as anxious about using their second language as I am). Anyways, they say some stuff like "he's going to take your bag and your passport," and "he's dangerous." Then they asked me where I was staying, and tried to give me directions back to my hotel, like I was the Country Boy in the Big City for the first time. Look, I may be naive, but I'm not stupid, OK? But I'd still trust two friendly cops over a tweaker traveler that has strange stories and now wants more money when he should no longer need my help any day. At any rate, Mike had vanished. I figure he thought he was made, and took off.

I got off easy, probably (even though I wouldn't have gone anywhere with Mike - I really only got a taste of his hustle). So now I am the proud owner of what is probably an overpriced, Canon camera. At least it has a fresh roll of film and good batteries. The funny thing to me was, who was this guy? He obviously had a complex hustle worked out. Who comes to Bolivia to do stuff like that? (Mike said he was from New York, and the tourist police confirmed he was an American, although I didn't understand quite how much they knew about him). I'd met idiot travelers who ask for money before: once, I met this guy on Khao San road (backpackers ghetto in Bangkok) who "was out of money, and just needed 100 baht to get to the airport" or something like that. And I said "what, you expect me to believe that you came all the way to Asia from the US, traveled around, somehow totally ran out of money, and have no friends or family back home who can help you?" The guy didn't even bat an eye, and said "yeah, man, I need help!" Well, I told him where to stick it. Mike though, he had something complex worked out. Weird.

The barbers of La Paz continue to harass me as I pass their shops; I'm beginning to resent the implication that I've become so hideous that they would be remiss in their duties as barbers to not try and convince me to get my hair cut. I seem to be the only one being singled out. Maybe that's because most travelers wear funny hats, and I don't have my funny hat on today.

Just a very brief update...

... The borat movie wasn't as good as I'd hoped. I laughed quite a bit, something I hadn't done in a while, so that was nice. But most of the sharp wit and clever satire from the show was missing. Plus, it felt a lot more staged than the show.

And the only people that laughed out loud seemed to be gringos. That's all I could really tell in a dark theater.

My verdict: wait for the video.

That's all. I'm having a scheduling crisis due to red tape and visas, visiting friends, and the Amazon being really big and hard to get across. More to come.

Cream of Tartar: it puts the "snicker" into "snickerdoodle"

I had some pretty good snickerdoodles while I was in Oruro, from a bakery right near my hotel. The cool thing about Bolivian baked goods is that they're dirt cheap (these cookies were about a nickle apiece, and big too) and sometimes they're pretty good, the downside is that they're usually six days old and not all that great.

So I made the decison that I'm ready to get out of Bolivia. I don't like the food and don't much care for the people, and that's like 2 of the top three reasons to travel (the other being natural scenery or doing drugs and getting laid, depending on what kind of traveller you are). The country is starting to get to me - I haven't been the compliant traveler lately (my usual persona), instead I'm becoming the hot-head traveller. I got into this thing with my hotel when I left about them telling me I would have a key and not getting one: I asked for a discount on my first night, and they offered Bs. 5, a discount I could have gotten on every night if I had known I was going to stay five days. So I insisted on Bs. 10 for the first night, and offered Bs. 140 for my whole stay (which was all the money I had, actually, besides Bs. 5 for a taxi), and reminded him about lying to me several times about the key. They said no way about the discount (didn't say anything about the accusation), and after some bickering I went to leave without paying anything. The kid behind the counter grabbed me by my backpack, and I swung around and must have looked pretty mad, because he backed off in a hurry. I asked if Bs. 140 was OK, and he said it was. Once again, it wasn't about the money, it was about admitting fault (this was the kid who kept lying to me about the key, lest I try and go to another hotel I'm sure) , which they obviously didn't want to do - they just thought they'd try and placate me and get rid of me. So after a stop at an ATM, I grabbed a cab, and the cabbie tried to charge me three times what the fare should have been. I got an appropriate fair (which is usually easy if you know what it should be), and then got to the bus station, where I was in luck: a bus was about to leave, and it looked fairly comfortable. There was a man trying to find fares to fill the bus, and I asked the price. He said Bs. 23. Now, I knew the local fair was Bs. 15, and I had paid Bs. 20 on my last La Paz-Oruro trip, and when the bus is about to leave you can usually ask for a discount if they need to fill seats. So I asked if Bs. 20 was OK, figuring I could get the price I had paid last time, and he said sure. Then I saw in his ledger he was writing my ticket number and a price of Bs. 23. I asked again if Bs. 20 was OK, and again he said that it was. I only had a 50 from the ATM, so I gave him that, then he walked off to try and fiill more seats. So I stood right next to him for maybe 5 minutes until he started to dig out change for me - change on a Bs. 23 fare. I protested, and he said "no, it's a Bs. 23 fare", as he hunched over his hand looking for the rest of my change. I didn't feel like arguing, so I smacked him on the sholder and told him to give me my money. I was pretty angry. The past couple weeks I've just been getting this feeling like people here think they can treat me any way they want just because I'm a tourist. I don't need my ass kissed, but I would like to be treated with the respect I think everyone deserves to be treated with. I mean in Peru wanted your money, but at least they were polite about it on the whole.

So when I got off the bus in La Paz, I was just wating for the other shoe to drop: someone to try and steal my backpack, or for my bag to have "walked" at one of the stops. But it didn't. La Paz has treated me fine so far, as it has the past couple times I've been here. Thank God I'm back in the big city, where people treat each other right.

So I've been treating myself since I've been here, eating lots of ice cream, and going to movies. I'm going to see "Borat" tonight, which should be interesting to see how Bolivians react to the humor. I bought a bottle of my favorite wine, and some soap that has "moisturizers and sophisitcated white orchid" in it (actually, every soap here has somthing fancy in it, like rose petals). I also bought the most expensive, softest toilet paper I could find (my old stuff was sandpaper. Not the best. In fact, I'm convinced the stuff that is supplied in hotels - if there's anything, you've lucky if there's a toilet seat - is made from recycled sand and pink dye). I also impulse-bought a clock from a watch repair guy that had this little crany with a couple clocks for sale just down an ally from the main road I just happened down (what is it about watch repair that makes those guys want to work in the smallest space possible? I guess it might be unnerving to repair a little watch in a big, lofty room). It looks like a clock from an era when they put tailfins on all the cars. It was made in Shanghai (no date though), and is the old wind-up kind. I thought it was kind of cool, and it was only a couple bucks, so I thought what the hell. Then I got it back to my room and noticed how loudly it ticks. It's funny, we become accustomed to so much noise with modern living, but something like that might really drive me crazy. Time will tell (come on, that's a clever pun!).

So I'm putting together some other things: I set up the opportuniy to see a Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF, see entry on "going green for Christmas") solar power project in the Amazon. The project is in a nature reserve, 40 hours by boat from the nearest town, in the north-west corner of Brasil. There's a boat from Manaus about once a month, and right now I'm shooting for April (I have some friends coming to Peru in March). I don't think I can make the February 2nd sailing, since I don't have a visa for Brasil and from what I've read there's a huge amount of red tape to jump through. I have to have proof of travel, both into and out of Brasil, which will be the biggest hassle, and even if I had that now it'd probably take a week to get the visa. On the plus side, I read on this guy's blog that you can just get an itinerary from any online travel site (without actually buying a ticket) and print it off, and it will probably work. It's not like they're going to call the airline from the embassy or anything. Sounds like fun, and way simpler than actually booking flights into and out of Brasil. Did these places actually have to deport a lot of broke travellers before these rules were in place or something?

Apparently Bolivia is going to implement the same "reciprocal" visa fees that Brasil has (It's $100 for a Brasilian to apply for a US visa, so it's $100 for a US citizen to apply for a Brasilian visa). The problem is, no one know when this might happen. The Bolivian government says March (sometime or other, no specific date), but who knows. The tourist and business representatives, plus the US government, are lobbying for the visa rules to not go into effect at all. But it will definately be a pain if they do, since I'll probably be someplace besides Bolivia in March, but wanting to transit through the country again. Maybe they'll let me get a transit stamp, like in a lot of other places. Cross your fingers for me.

One thing I've noticed I do a lot is going into the voice recording program that comes with Windows to check if the microphone on whatever computer I'm on actually works. To get to this program, you go into the "accessories" folder, and then into the "entertainment" folder. Well I'd just like to tell Microsoft that I don't get much of a kick out of recording my own voice. In fact, this should be on one of those new Apple commercials where they make fun of PC's: Apple computers come with games, PC's come with... something to record your own voice with. Cool. Does anyone know any Apple ad execs so they can get moving on this idea, and then give me a bunch of money?

Anti-Americanism? Big surprise...

Proving once again that he can always make America look more like an ignorant, self-important world bully, President Bush said on "60 Minutes" last Sunday that Iraqis should be thankful for US intervention in Iraq:

"We liberated that country from a tyrant. I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude. That's the problem here in America: They wonder whether or not there is a gratitude level that's significant enough in Iraq."

"What an asshole!" I thought as I read this quote. Can the president really be that out of touch? I don't think most of us wonder, I think most of us know that Iraqis have little reason to be grateful for US intervention in their country (even if supporters of the war won't say so louder than a whisper). Beginning with the destruction of their culture due to the unwillingness or inability of American troops to do things like safeguard the National Museum, and culminating in the civil war that kills hundreds of Iraqis a week, I don't imagine many Iraqis have anything to be thankful for, or much to look forward to, in 2007.

It's no wonder that around the world, from Iran to Venezuela, national leaders are defining themselves not by what they stand for, but what they stand against: the United States. Just days ago, according to Business Day, "Anti-US leftists behind a South American national- isolation drive stood together yesterday as presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia feted Ecuador's incoming leader, Rafael Correa."

And what are the loony ideas of the American-educated economist? Renegotiation of debt, ending the lease of a US military base (used to fly sorties into Columbia as part of the war on drugs), an independent judiciary, and representatives that live amongst the people they represent, according to this Reuters article. Hmm, shouldn't those last two ideas sound familiar to lawmakers in the US? Oh, I mean, what a crazy nut!

The shame of all this is that the US has the wealth and the clout to be a positive world player, but instead we're reaping the results of more than 50 years of support for genocidal dictators and disastrous wars.

Let me tell you, if I were in charge things would be different. The first thing I would do is scrap obsolete military programs: the US spends over $6 billion a year to maintain a nuclear arsenal of thousands of warheads - for some reason. In case we need to blow up the moon? Or the F-22 fighter, a plane that costs $335 million apiece (averaging R&D costs across the expected number of planes) and is designed to shoot down other planes (unless you count the ground-strike capability tacked on at the last second in a lackluster attempt to justify the project). How many planes did Iraq field in the last war, exactly? What country in the world has planes that are more advanced than our old fighter jets? The ironic thing is that the pentagon didn't even request any F-22's in the 2007 budget, but congress ordered a bunch anyways (the plan is 20 every year for the next 4 years), because a lot of people have jobs building F-22's. God forbid we eliminate jobs that produce equipment without a need. That would really suck if we had to spend that money on paying those same people the same salary to do things like help people, or at least produce something that would be useful to society. How quickly we forget the warnings of our respected leaders, such as this quote from the man who coined the term "military-industrial complex:"

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron." - President Eisenhower - From a speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16, 1953

Well, that's all I have to say about that. I got tapped by a car today, a guy that was stopped at an intersection while traffic ran in the perpendicular street. I started to walk in front of him, and then for some reason he decided he should ease into the intersection, even though there was still opposing traffic. He tapped me, buckling my front knee, and then hit his brakes and waved me across. What a prince! I mean, I've been to places like India where they drive like maniacs, but in Oruro they drive like assholes. It's unreal.

The continuing quest for Milky Ways

Hi. This post is mostly for those of you who THINK you read my last post, but then I updated it today. I saw on my sitemeter that four or so people had visited already, and that's most of my readers, so the four of you, go back to the last post, and pay particular attention to the bottom part and the conflict in Cochabamba.

Today I continued trying to get reservations for La Diablada, but have decided that it isn't feasible now. I posted a comment soliciting help on Lonely Planet, and am going to look into booking over the internet (although my hopes aren't high). Otherwise, my only other plan is to try and call people in a couple weeks, although I have my doubts that an unpaid phone reservation will be reliable.

I went to see a movie called "Silent Hill" last night, which was a bit crap. I kind of picked one randomly, since it's only $1.25 to see a movie here (in the higher-priced seats, the cheap balcony is only $.75), so I thought I'd take a gamble. I read today on Internet Movie Database that the film was based on a videogame, which actually is quite apparent - the atmosphere and static visuals are quite good, the plot, acting and dialogue are not (in fact there is no plot at all really until the last 20 minutes). Thinking back, the movie feels just like a videogame, like a scene where they show a big interior courtyard and my videogame mind instantly began pathfinding through it (ie, figuring out which ways got you to the next area of the game, which looked like they had items or clues, and which were dead-ends). I guess I'd actually say that for a videogame movie, it was alright. Like probably better than "Doom," the movie, staring The Rock, but not as good as, say, Mortal Kombat II, which is probably the greatest cinematic masterpiece of all time.

They have another movie at the theater called "Acechada," which I haven't been able to translate, and it's kind of driving me mad. The closest I have been able to come is that it's a conjugation of the verb "acechar," which means "to lie in wait" or "to bushwhack," depending which dictionary you use. It has Samuel L. Jackson and Ashley Judd, and it seems like with the tool of the internet I could figure it out, but so far no luck. It could be that the translation is poor or doesn't fit well; the Spanish title for Silent Hill is "Terror on Silent Hill" - they seemed to add in "Terror on" for no apparent reason.

The movie theater in Oruro is a turn-of-the-century stage theater that's been converted for movies, which is kind of cool - there's three sections of seating; high, ornate ceilings; and cool murals and stuff, so that was kind of fun. The volume is really, really loud though. Fortunately I happened to have earplugs with me, which didn't hamper my understanding of the movie one bit.

Oh yeah, and I also went to about 180 stores before I found one that had a solitary Milky Way for sale. This isn't as maniacal as it sounds; there are maybe 34,480 stores between the plaza and my hostel, so I just had to look every couple feet to confirm they weren't in supply of my sugar of choice (until I get back to someplace with decent ice cream, that is something besides frozen water that tastes vaguely of cinnamon). And when I say "store," don't think "7-11" or anything like that, think more like a table set up on the sidewalk with some random candies and crackers on it. They're really into plain, unsalted crackers here (galletas de agua, or "water crackers"), at least judging by how many are for sale everyplace.

Everyone is out practicing their dances, trying out their costumes, and harmonizing their instruments for Carnival. Since I don't think large, indoor public spaces exist here, this happens in the street or on sidewalk corners. In fact, a group is going by right now with bright purple shirts and rusted metal platform shoes with large spurs attached, dancing with pink ribbons. It's the first time I've seen Bolivians acutally smiling and being festive. It's pretty fun.

Man, I'm totally sick of Bolivia right now. Or traveling. Or both.

There are times I think you must be a masochist to want this grant. I guess it's too late for me to say that for those of you who are going next year though, huh?

Yesterday my train was supposed to leave at 1:22am, but there was a mudslide or something, so it left 8 hours late. Not that anyone bothered telling me that. I just sat at the train station for a long time, the train station with banks of lights that don't work and no employees on duty. The train station where these two drunk Bolivians kept trying to get me to let them "watch" my bags for a Boliviano. Eventually I started asking people, who all told me different things about the train (naturally): it would be here soon, it would be here at 5, it would be here at 8. The bathroom attendant (the only person I could find that actually worked there) told me 5am at the earliest, so I thought I'd check back then. Fortunately, my hotel was across the street and the owner let me have my room back even though I'd checked out. I came back at 5, and at 6, 7, and 8. When I came back at 8 I checked out of my room for good, and went and got some breakfast. The train actually did leave at 9am, after which I had to put up with a 30 minute fight between a group of rude, jackass Argentinean backpackers and a rude, jackass woman who couldn't read her ticket. The woman wouldn't move until an attendant told her to; the Argentineans (one of whom wanted her seat) wouldn't stop yelling at her until she did.

The rest of the train ride was no fun: the Argentineans had stayed up all night drinking beer and playing pool in the train station, and so wanted to sleep and were pushy about all the windows being down; the Bolivians wanted to watch the movies that were on really loudly. Of course these desires weren't compatible, and it was a tense train car. For myself, the movies were dubbed in Spanish, and there wasn't really enough light to read - plus the movies were really loud, which didn't help.

When I got to Oruro, I stayed at the first hotel that wasn't a dark, windowless cave (as the rooms around train stations tend to be). I was shown a room, which I accepted, and then we went back downstairs to fill out paperwork. I asked if I got a key for the room, to which I was told yes. After I'd checked in, I was told there was no key now, but would be one that evening - 7 or 8pm. Well, I didn't want to leave my stuff unlocked in my room, but I hadn't eaten since 7am, so I went out to quickly grab some street food, and then came back and hung out in my room until 8, picking pubic hairs out of my sheets (the cheaper places don't tend to change sheets here. If you make a fuss, they'll pretend they don't know what you're talking about, unless there's blood or something in the bed). Of course, when I went downstairs, there was no key - oh, but tomorrow there'll be a key! (No, the next morning there was no key). They didn't have any other rooms, and I didn't want to move by that point, so I kept my valuables close at hand that night.

Today, the only good restaurant I'd found in Oruro is closed. And it's closed tomorrow. And I'm in a bad mood for it. And I'm back in a town where I'm almost run over several times a day, and am constantly being honked at, like it's my bad I tried to walk when I had a walk signal. The government still hasn't set the prices for La Diablada, so people continue to highball me on prices. And that's annoying me too - both completely unnecessary government price structuring and people trying to take advantage of me. One place I asked today had these three guys in their early 20's at the desk, and when I asked the one who approached me what prices were for Carnival, he looked back at his friends, who told him somthing that made him do a double-take, and on friend nodded an emphatic yes, as if to say "do it, do it, he'll buy it." He asked for $25 a night for a room with no bath that normally costs $4 a night.

One other little thing that is becoming a big thing is that there's a million little stores, none of which carry anything really, so if you want something specific it takes all day to find. And when you find it, it's behind glass and unpriced. For example, I wanted to buy some soap today, and had to go to several places to find it, and when I found a place that had it there was several brands and kinds, all behind glass. So then I have to ask if the prices are the same. No, they're not. Well, how much are they? OK, now there's 10 kinds of soap to choose from, can I look at them? Alright, you gave me one to look at. This isn't getting us very far. Fine, I'll just take whatever one you handed me. The whole thing becomes exhasperating after a while. I don't know if they're worried about shoplifting or what, but can't stuff be where I can look at it? And can't there be prices, and some centralization of stores? I mean there will be four shops in a row selling kind of the same stuff, but all a little different, so you invariably end up going to all four.

So yeah, I'm tired of filthy sheets, crappy food, obnoxious travelers, and people lying to my face either out of laziness or to avoid a confrontation, or greed, or some combination thereof. None of these things on their own are really a big deal, but taken together over several months, they're starting to drive me crazy. And this is before you add in the constant loneliness and compromising effects of having the communication skills of a five year old (yes, I consider myself up from 4 to 5. I guess that's an improvement).

Anyways, I'm heading back to Cusco to take Spanish lessons, since I liked the school there and can take group lessons (I haven't been able to find any group lessons in Bolivia). I was even starting to like Cusco at the end. My friend Jason is going to meet up with me in Peru, too, so it makes sense to start heading back that way. I want to visit the film school in Cochabamba, but unfortunately the city is very tense right now, with regular bus traffic cut off from roadblocks. There have been several confrontations between pro-autonomy groups and those that support the central government MAS; there are reports of 3 dead and hundreds wounded, and the military has been called in to help restore order. This confrontation has been brewing for a while now, and stems from the move by MAS to rule that articles written by the new constitutional assembly will be approved by a simple majority, as opposed to the original 2/3 majority mandated by the assembly (basically, MAS failed to get 2/3 of the assembly seats and so changed the rules so that they could get whatever they want in the new constitution). The main requests of pro-autonomy groups is to be able to directly elect departmental governors, who are currently appointed by the president, and to be able to enact departmental-specific legislation. The year-old constitutional assembly has still done nothing beyond argue the 2/3rd rules.

More information on the recent conflict here.

Don't lick the walls in the Salt Hotel - sure it sounds fun, but it's just dirty salt. Trust me.

So I did the touristy tour of the salar, and overall it was pretty great, but I still didn't know anything about the people who subsist off the salt. So I decided I needed to go to Colchani, a small town of only about 200 people that we'd passed through at the end of our trip. I'd seen piles of salt around the town, and knew that Colchani was the place to have my questions answered.

The first obstacle was just getting there. At first I looked into a taxi, which would cost $20 each way. Not as economical as I was hoping. So then I thought maybe I'd rent a bicycle - Colchani is only 30 minutes by car, so by bike I figured maybe an hour (vehicles can't exactly set land speed records on this road). I couldn't find anyplace that rented bicycles, so I thought I would ask Chris, the Massachusetts native that runs Minuteman Pizza. He'd offered help before, and is a friendly guy.

Not only did Chris tell me about the rutas, or small local buses that connect rural Bolivia, but he gave me a bag of sunglasses to give to the salt workers - something most of the people that work in the blinding environment of the salt flat can't afford. So I went to the offices for the rutas, and was told that there was a bus going out at 11 the next morning, with one returning the following afternoon at 4pm. That sounded perfect. The woman told me I didn't need a ticket or a reservation, that I just paid on the bus.

The next day, I arrived outside the ruta office around 10:45. There I waited for over an hour until the bus showed up. After 45 minutes of negotiating cargo underneath and on top of the bus, we finally got moving just before 1pm. But before that happened, there was the matter of a seat for me. I just got on and took a seat, but noticed that people were getting on board with numbered tickets. I got pushed farther and farther back as people claimed their seats, until the woman from the office came on to talk to me and to tell me I could sit on the little folding chair in the back of the bus. I don't know how all this confusion arouse, but I suspect a combination of my poor Spanish skills and Bolivians generally not giving a shit about helping gringos ("Do I need a ticket?" "Nah, just get on. Or don't. Whatever."). At any rate, I got a seat, which is more than a couple other guys got, and we were off for a sweaty, bumpy ride to the small outpost of Colchani.

When I got to Colchani, I got off the bus only to be confronted by some guy demanding money for the ride. Since no one had come through to check tickets or collect fairs, I was ready to surrender some cash, which I was told would be in the amount of Bs. 4. The man said no, it's a Bs. 5 ride. I wasn't prepared to argue over $.12, but this is one of those things that happens in Bolivia where you suspect you're being fleeced a little (I had some juice in the market, and asked how much before I ordered. I was told Bs. 1.50, and then when I went to pay she said Bs. 2.50. Sigh). Anyways, after being told to go in several different directions and backtracking quite a bit (this in a town of 200 people that you can spit across), I finally arrived at the hotel in town, a cheesy, touristy roundhouse made of salt bricks. The place was completely empty - not even the owner was there. After some shouting, she came from her house next door, and removed the yellow corrugated plastic from the door way that had been keeping me - and the semi-tame vicuna - out of the building. I asked for a room, and she said it was Bs. 25 a night, which was what I was paying in Uyuni, only my room in Uyuni had sheets that had been changed since the last guest, and there was electricity, and running water, and the bathrooms didn't smell like stale cat urine, but I didn't have much of a choice, so I just said that Bs. 25 was fine.

After depositing my stuff, I went out into "town." Generally, Colchani looks like it was hit by carpet bombing. There are no trees, not even grass, really. No market, no restaurants, no vehicles (besides the 50's era mining trucks), no plaza, even. Just half-finished or half-collapsed adobe buildings, some with corrugated metal roofs, some with just leaky straw ones (I know they leak because that's what my hotel had). The air was still and quiet, and the whole place was one that you wouldn't want to spend 10 minutes, let alone live in. This is the home of those people you hear about who live on less than a dollar a day.

I wandered out into town and asked how long it would take to walk out to where people were working the salt, and was told an hour. That seemed like a long time in the oppressive mid-day sun, so I thought I would try and hire one of the many bicycles I saw around. I met these teenagers who told me I couldn't rent a bike, but I could go by car. I didn't understand at first, but they took me to the edge of town where several large piles of salt were arrayed, and a man was shoveling salt out of his blue, '55 Toyota flatbed. This was Nirmo, who was to be my guide for the day. He was wearing a ski mask to keep the sun off his face, and when he removed it, he looked like he could have been 40 years old, as sun parched and weather hardened as his skin was - but he turned out to be only 22. I gave him some sunglasses, and after loading the radiator with water from a jug in the cab (a ritual that would repeat throughout the day), we climbed into the truck - although not before he cranked it in the front to start it. From there we started out, at not much faster than walking speed, towards the flats. We chatted about where we were from and our families, and I gave him a Pez dispenser for his 6 year old daughter, and a magnet with Mount Baker on it, which he really liked and stuck onto his metal dash. We stopped and met his sister and her husband ("they have a daughter too," he explained, which I understood to mean that I was to part with another magnet, this one of the Space Needle). Neither of them had sunglasses either, so I let them have their pick from the bag.

We kept going to where his brother Eddie was working (he had sunglasses already, and Bolles at that. I wonder where he got those?). Eddie had already used his pick-axe to tear up the salt, here only about an inch thick, into a foot-deep pile. He and Nirmo continued to hack away at the salt, creating mounds a foot deep and 12 or 15 feet long. Once that was done, Nirmo backed the truck between the mounds, and we all began shoveling the salt into the flatbed. They were happy that I offered to help, although they definitely thought I was strange (if they didn't already). I was helping some, but mostly I was trying to shoot, which was just as well as I tired pretty quickly shoveling wet salt to shoulder level into the truck - I couldn't believe these guys did this all day, 6 days a week.

In the meantime, I asked about the salt, and their work, and Nirmo asked me about life in the United States: what kind of cars we have, how much money we make, how much my camera cost; about Iraq, and Osama bin Laden. I was embarrassed to talk about money (this was before I even found out how much they made busting their backs on the salt), and was honest but not completely honest - I told them what my hourly wage was, but omitted the money I made in tips waiting tables. I told them that an inexpensive camera was about $150, but an expensive one could be as much as $2000 (carefully omitted how much I had spent on my own camera).

Eventually we'd collected a load of salt, but when we went to leave, the truck broke down. First it was a flooded carburetor, and after that some sort of electrical connection. In all, we spent
about an hour (or at least Nirmo did) tooling on the ancient Toyota, and by the time we were ready to go, the sun was beginning to fade. I had meant to conduct an impromptu interview with Nirmo, about salt prices and processes, how much he worked, what he thought about his life, etc. I also had planned to ask what he thought about Evo Morales, just to see what he said. But I sensed that they were ready to go home, and I was pretty fatigued, my cold being at its peak and my stomach not having had food since 7am that morning. So we agreed to talk the next day.

Not to keep you in suspense, the nuts and bolts of the salt trade are this: Nirmo and his family work 10 to 12 hours a day under the sun (rain means the work is off), 6 days a week. In these hours they collect two truck loads of salt. After it is collected, the salt is pulverized, and then cooked to remove water and other impurities. Then it is sorted into 40 Kg. bags, which is sold to a wholesaler and distributed all over South America. For each 40 Kg. bag, the family receives Bs. 8, or $1. Each truck load yields about 100 Kg. of refined salt, or $2.50. This means that the family of eight makes about $5 a day. Like I said, these are the people who make less than a dollar a day.

Discounting the hour of repairs where the sun and my hunger and sickness were making me feel faint, the hours I spent with Nirmo and Eddie were definitely some of the best of my trip. Not only was I recording spectacular footage in a spectacular setting, but I felt like I was doing something that required my own initiative, something that was really off the tourist track. I don't know exactly what is so satisfying about this, and maybe it's just the ego trip of feeling like a "real" traveler, but at any rate I had a fantastic time, and felt like I had made some new friends.


Forgoing the interview turned out to be a mistake, because it was pouring out the next day, and no one was working the salt. I say Eddie with a group of friends, but when I went up to talk to him, he seemed nervous, embarrassed even. He wasn't as outgoing as Nirmo was, and I excused myself after a few minutes. The group asked me some questions, and were really curious when I took out my notepad to make sure I got Eddie and Nirmo's names right, but I really couldn't tell if they weren't sure how to act around me, or if they were just asking polite questions.

I later spent a few hours filming the town in the rain. The weather lent a particular bleakness to the place, as the roads and fields became ankle-deep muck that was barely navigable. Once the sun came out in the afternoon, I began to think about getting out of town (I had purchased a train ticket for that night, and no restaurants meant I was really, really hungry. There was a solitary street vendor in town, selling - once again - something that I didn't trust. I subsisted on chocolate and chips for my time in Colchani). The night before the hotel owner had told me there was a return ruta at 2pm, but when I asked again in the morning she said there wasn't one and that I should try and flag down whatever vehicle was heading towards Colchani. I wasn't sure if she was putting me on, since we'd gotten in a fight the night before: I got back from the salt flats after dark, and she told me I would be sharing my room, which bothered me - I was sick, I wanted to go to bed, the party was going to arrive at 10pm and leave at 4am. I asked if this meant I would be paying less, to which she replied no. It wasn't even the money, or the fact that I had to share my room, but the feeling that Bolivians think they can treat tourists however they want. I'd just gotten back from my salar tour where that happened the whole time, and I was sick of it. So we got in an argument, the only time I've ever been traveling and not been the compliant tourist. In the end, she said I could pay Bs. 15 instead of Bs. 25, and "never come back." She left, and I went and found her and gave her Bs. 25, and said that sharing the room was fine, but explained that in the future, she needs to tell people that they're going to share their room when they check in. She handed back Bs. 5 and a candle for my room, and said she understood. I ended up having the room to myself.

But even though I'd felt like we'd burried the hatchet, the next morning she told me the hotel was booked that night and I would need to leave, and that there was actually no ruta at 2pm. So the next three hours found me asking several people about transport back to Uyuni, and getting several different answers. Some people told me that because of the rain, no buses would run that day. Some people told me there were two busses that day, but they had already come through. Some people told me there would be a bus at 4pm. Others told me that my best bet was to find an extra seat in one of the Land Cruisers that were regularly rolling through to have lunch and buy salt trinkets.

I decided that the latter was my best bet, so I started asking around. People seemed surprisingly unwilling to help: "Hi, I'm stranded with no ride and no room in small town where the locals tell me it's dangerous to walk back to Uyuni. Do you have an extra seat in your car?" "Sorry, no, we don't at all. We have six in our car. We're totally full. There's no way. Sorry." I had seven people in my car, and not for a 30 minute ride back to Uyuni, but for 4 days through the whole salar. But no matter. Eventually I found a group willing to take a seventh person, and we made it back to Uyuni, just in time for Minuteman to open for dinner (I had a large pizza, which is about 18", half pesto-Mediterranean (pesto, kalamata olives, sun-dried tomatoes, fresh tomatoes, mozzarella and feta) and half "Reggie" (mozza, gorgonzola, mushrooms, sun dried tomatoes, carmalized onions, pepperoni). And a large beer. That's right, I was excited enough for that to tell you exactly what all I had. And it was gooood).

So yeah, a good couple days in a completely depressing little town. People said I was crazy for even going, but I think it's crazy to just cruise through a place and do the touristy stuff, and move on. Dozens of Land Cruisers roll through Colchani every day, at most to have lunch in a Salt House, but oftentimes not stopping at all. I think if you want to understand a poor country like Bolivia, you HAVE to go to places like Colchani, at least once. I think it'll make a nice little video, too (sorry I don't have any pictures. Most of what I got was video).

I'm on the train tonight back to Oruro, to make reservations for La Diablada (hopefully the government has gotten the prices sorted out). From there, I think more Spanish lessons for a couple weeks.

If anyone wants any salt, I know where to get you some

It was a crazy four days on the salar de Uyuni, the world's largest, highest salt flat - over 4,600 square miles of salt over 11,000 feet in the air. The scenery was awesome, the tour was awful. But more on that later. First, let me explain how this works - it's not complicated. Seven people and a driver in a Land Cruiser for four days. Food, water and gear are packed on top of the truck. With me were Cyril, Serine and Patina, from France; Adam and Jennifer, from England; and Alice, from Australia.

Our route ran backwards from the standard one: we began at the train graveyard, continued to the red and green lagoons near the Chilean and Argentine boarders, and didn't hit the actual salar until the fourth day. This meant that the first day had the most driving, which in a way was just fine, because we weren't sick of the Cruiser or each other yet.



The train graveyard, within walking distance of town and sort of tacked onto the tours, didn't appeal to me a whole lot - until we got there. This is the place where engines come to rest, from all over Bolivia, from all across the 20th century. The engines were as old as 1907, and for some reason were never really stripped for their iron, but instead left as public graffiti space (including the best graffiti ever, see picture). There were perhaps two dozen engines in all, and a few miscellaneous traincars as well, all rusted, looming hulks from a bygone age of transportation. Unlike something like this back home, we were free to clamber all over whatever we pleased, roll train wheels around, and do all the things that would be prohibited for liability reasons. There was also a heard of llamas wandering through the yard when we were there, adding to the bizarre feel of the place.





After a few hours of traveling through hot desert, we arrived at the strange little town of Culpina K. Standing in the plaza, you could see the edge of town any way you turned. I'm not totally sure why this town exists, except maybe to showcase some confounding wooden... sculptures? in the plaza that looked like the had been modeled off of something from the 12th century used to showcase the severed heads of those who had misbehaved. Lunch was quinoa (which originated in the Andes and is farmed profusely in this area) steaks, and peeled cucumbers and tomatoes. This was to be the best meal we would get over the next four days (generally the food was terrible, and four of us got sick from it - just one reason I described the tour as "awful" earlier), and I was reminded that outside of the United States, people of Western European culture really love their mayonnaise. I would see two bottles of mayonnaise drained over the next four days, and my only contribution was to add some to my tuna, which I then placed in bread with cucumbers and tomato - and was subsequently ridiculed for by the rest of the group members, who consider tuna to be an addition to pasta, not a sandwich.

Mostly the food was undercooked chicken, rice, or plain pasta for dinner and lunch, and stale bread for breakfast. We were all pretty excited to get back to Uyuni for some good pizza (at Minuteman, the pizzeria run by a guy from Massachusetts).

The rest of the day was spent in the car, rolling through sparse desert and quinoa fields (I guess quinoa grows fine in sand), while yellow caution signs warned us to look out for llamas. About an hour before the sun went down, we arrived at our palace for the night, a concrete building that used to house workers for the adjacent abandoned borox processing plant. We took a hike in the surrounding hills, which were populated only by a single type of scrub plant - which were nonetheless prolific enough to give the impression of a prolific green landscape - and a bitter cold wind. After a dinner of raw chicken, rice, and French fries (which caused illness #1 in the group), we hit the sack in our linen-less beds.




In the morning we headed through desert that was even dryer and sandier, stopping at a couple of flamingo-specked lagoons surrounded by borox, until we arrived at Laguna Colorado - a massive expanse of shallow water at about 13,000 feet, populated by three types of flamingo - the Andes, James, and Chilean - and an algae that stained the water red. Unfortunately, after sitting in a car for four hours from the last stop to get there, we only stayed about 15 minutes before our guide ushered us back into the Land Cruiser. The unfortunate thing is, although we thought we would miss other things if we didn't hurry, we spent the last hour and a half of daylight sitting at our hostel playing cards (one more reason the tour was no good - the guide was no good. But even more on that later).

The next big stop was at the next big lagoon - Laguna Verde, the Green Lagoon. Nestled at the edges of the Chilean and Argentine boarders, in the south-western most corner of Bolivia, this lagoon was inhabited only by a strong wind and a strange, soapy foam. Apparently 16,000 feet is too high for flamingos, but the wind was strong enough to whitecap the waters and nearly blow us over.



Fast forwarding through the next few days, past smaller lagoons filled with flamingos, Andean foxes (Zorro Andino), vicuna (more svelte than the llama, see picture), the Stone Tree, mummies, mountains that are colored like a painters palette, and Dali's rocks, to the last night before the salar: the arrangement, and main reason I chose this tour, was that we were supposed to get up early to watch the sun rise over the salt. Instead, the instant it started raining on our last night, our guide explained that es mucha lluvia, entonces no es possible vamos en la manana para la salida del sol. Translated, this means "it's my birthday tomorrow, and I want to go get wasted with my buddies instead of getting up at 4am to drive in the dark, even though it's going to stop raining in 20 minutes." Instead, we were supposed to leave at 7:30, although this turned into 8:30 since that's how long it took from the time we had some of the women at our hostel go to find our guide and the time he arrived, bleary eyed, back with the car (he would nod off while driving later in the day. What a champ).

But we did make it to the salar, which was surreal and spectacular, especially once we got to the part where the rain had settled from the night before: the salt acts as a giant mirror, making it impossible to tell where the sky ends and the ground begins. We walked on water, were shrunk to palm size, and hid behind giant cacti on Fish Island. I don't think I can say much more about it other than that it was awesome and unreal and spectacular. But I'll let the pictures do the talking:

This blog is at half-mast for James Brown

If you're wondering why I'm not at half-mast for Gerald Ford, it's because I think Brown deserves more respect - the man that pioneered hip hop, created funk, and said "I'm black and I'm proud!" What did Ford really do other than pardon a criminal? Oh, I mean "heal the nation." I hope if I'm ever a felon the president will want to "heal the nation" by pardoning me. I heard on Democracy Now! that Gerald Ford gave the green light to the Indonesian junta to invade East Timor, which killed 200,000 people, and that the US supplied 90% of the weapons to the Indonesian military, which would have made Ford a criminal, because donated US weapons aren't supposed to be used in acts of aggression. But he's still a guy you could sit down and have a beer with. Like our current president. Actually, GW seems way too stressed out of late to enjoy a beer with. I bet he'd get all squinty and snippity after a couple drinks. Or maybe sobby, which would be even more uncomfortable.

I'm in Uyuni now, waiting for the tour agencies to re-open so I can talk to them about tours on the salar. There's 70 or so agencies here, so it's good that there's an independent, privately-run rating agency. They archive response forms from people who have taken the tours, and you can search by most any criteria - vehicle, safety, price, food, or accommodation. It's really cool actually, way more comprehensive than anything I've seen in a touristy place before. It was originally a private-public venture, but then the less-than-stellar tour operators complained to the government and they pulled the funding (when I asked the government tourist office how I can choose an agency, they just said that there's about 70 of them, and here's a map of where they all are. Thanks). Then the Swiss and French governments provided seed money for a private project, which is now funded by proceeds from an adjoining restaurant (I had some fruit and granola there, which had a staple in it that I almost swallowed. The rating project is good though).

I'll probably take the standard 4-day tour of the salar and the area to get a feel for it and figure out what I can film about. I had the idea to buy a bicycle (lots around here) so I could tool around the area on my own, although I'd have to travel in the morning/evening probably or I'd turn into a little pink raisin out there. I also don't know what kind of food is available in the area, although I know accommodation is out there. So we'll see once I take the tour.

I took the train here, which was really fun - lots of flamingos and storks in shallow marshes; those gave way to gently rolling ground that looked like a giant golf course, and these weird, perfect semi-sphere mounds with long, yellow, spikes. They looked like otherworldly hedgehogs or something. That turned into the desolate flatness of the area around Uyuni. Go two blocks from the train station and everything is dusty lots, unpaved roads, and high earthen walls that look like there's not even anything behind them. Beyond that is a dusty, hot, lifeless-looking plain.

At least there's good pizza to be had here.