Bolivia is said to be the poorest country in South America. At the time I heard somewhere that 60% of the people didn’t deal in the money market, they still bartered. There was said to have been 150 coups over a period of 125 years and, would you believe it, while we were on the way in to Bolivia (on the train) there was an attempted coup. This was a fine example of just how people live in these circumstances. And I would say this also was one of the most poignant lessons for me of the journey, no matter what, life goes on! People need to sleep, eat and drink and whether it be an unstable political situation, a war or an earthquake people must continue to meet their needs. They say generally when there was a coup the locals would stay indoors for a few days, until the shooting died down, and then venture out if it is safe and even if it isn’t safe they must find a way.

News came through of the coup while we were on the train. I think we were held-up for a long period of time and people started shuffling and questioning. It appeared at one stage we might have all had to alight and walk the final distance into Santa Cruz but eventually we got underway and pulled into the station. While in Santa Cruz we heard nothing more about the coup but a couple of days later we met a European woman who had been in the city where the coup actually took place, Cochabamba. She said she had the radio going and suddenly military marching music came on and then a blasting out of statements about why, what or how things were happening. In Bolivia we saw soldiers stationed at the post office and telephone exchanges. I think the media, radio stations etc became central installations to be taken; also the transport routes, roads and railways. The attempt only lasted a couple of days and it failed. But because Bolivia had gone through so many before it was all a bit of a yawn. They say the Generals take turns being President, once the incumbent General gets enough money into the bank the next one takes command.

Because Bolivia’s economy was going so badly there was a huge and vibrant black market. This meant that on journeys such as this across the boarder numerous Bolivians took the opportunity to smuggle in all kinds of day-to-day items including margarine and shoes and everything in between. Can you guess what happened on the train? We, being naive tourists, were sitting ducks for smugglers. You wouldn’t believe how many, well at least three or four Bolivians, came up to us and asked if they could store some goods under the chair near us. It’s hard now to believe we could have been so stupid another one of those thousands of decisions that have to be made. I shudder to think what might have been in the boxes and bags that were placed there but most probably they were simple every day items that the locals would have been charged for smuggling.

Santa Cruz was a lovely looking city with many old adobi, mud brick buildings, with quaintly tiled roofs. To my mind the Bolivians were much richer than the Brazillians, they had their culture which was evident in many ways including the architecture.

They say when South America was being colonised the Indians were pushed back into a central area and this area became Bolivia, Peru, and Equador. They also say that when the Spanish were in Bolivia they instituted a system of dress that represented a regionalization of the local Indians and this is what is evident today. Anyone who has seen a picture of Bolivians will have seen the hats, the dresses and the ponchos I am referring to, they are beautiful. The richness of Bolivia was evident in the quality of food that was commonly consumed in little bars and restaurants. It was usually simple chicken or meat broth with vegetables much better than the beans and rice commonly available in Brazil. The babies were plump in Bolivia and you often saw parents cuddling or playing with their babies. Another contrast was the place of dogs and pigs in everyday life. Often there would be a dog under the table which people dropped bones and leftovers to. In one restaurant the kids were shooing out a pig who decided it wanted to wander through while the patrons were eating. I didn’t see the ghastly diseases in Bolivia that were evident in Brazil and it was rare to see a sick animal. A popular feast treat in Bolivia was guinea pig, a delicacy that we didn’t indulge. I don’t mean to romanticise Bolivia, there was poverty, it is simply the contrast that I am referring to.

Bolivia marked the beginning of a new era in our trip in that the exchange rate improved immeasurably so that everything became much cheaper (for tourists at least). So the standard of our hotels and restaurants also improved. We could have a good room for say US$6 a night instead of US$10-$15 or $20 as had been the case.

Bolivia is well known for beautiful weavings. Often in the market place there would be numerous women selling and practising their skill. A funny thing though, the women liked using the modern artificial dyes, which to our eyes was gaudy, whereas traditionally they had used natural dyes which in turn made a nicer, more earthy colour. While in La Paz we bought a couple of weavings which were about twenty years old and therefore using the natural dyes, they were US$25 so very cheap for what we were getting. I also lashed out and spent $40 on a lovely poncho which I later sent sea mail to my nephew in Germany which unfortunately never arrived so that was the end of that.

Whilst in Bolivia or Peru, I’m not sure which, we met an American woman who was putting together information about the weaving style and technique so as to publish a guide to sell in America. I’m sure she could have done very well with such a book. You would often see women walking down the street using one of their hand spindles and spinning wool whilst they walked.

From Santa Cruz we went by train up to Portosi the highest city in the world standing on the altiplano much of it being 4,000 metres above sea level. I learnt that Bolivia has three types of terrain, firstly the altiplano which is a huge flat plateau that stands along the top of the Andes ranges. We went for hours on trains along this altiplano. Bolivia also has jungle as well as the areas in between. The train trips along the altiplano were amazing. From the window throughout our journeys you would regularly see people working in the fields. Often a group of women sitting together and using an ancient method of sifting the seed from the sheath of wheat or corn. At other times you would see people hoeing the field by hand, with mattocks and pure man power. It felt like going back in time at least a hundred years.

Again, I don’t mean to romanticise Bolivia. As I said before we had seen a number of documentaries about South America before going there. There was a ‘4 Corners’ on the ABC about Bolivia and in this they documented the health, social and economic problems Bolivians suffered in the tin mines; many, many dying from lung disease.

Portosi is a great example of the colonization process. In the days of the Spanish occupation two to three hundred years ago it was one of the richest places in the whole of the continent. The mountain that stands just beside the city was said to have been literally filled with silver. Bob read a book whilst we were in the region called ‘The Open Veins of Latin America’. In this they say that six million Indians died in the mines in the mountain. The Spanish extracted the silver and shipped it back to Europe. At the height of wealth apparently the streets were literally paved with silver bricks.

There were still numerous mock silver items to be bought. The markets were amazing but indicative of the current local poverty. We saw chunks of meat for sale, some with fur from the animal still on them. Horse and cow hooves were for sale, these were used as a base for the broth. I heard it was also possible to buy horse eye soup and even horse nostril soup.

On the trip away from the city we sat opposite a family who along the way bought a pigs head to devour. It was amazing to watch the father point out to his children the tasty bits to eat in the ear and the snout; everything was eaten. Before getting on the train we saw a man lying on the ground in the sun. He was covered with frost and looked like he might have been dead. I don’t think he was but he was lying in the sun thawing out from the previous bitterly cold night. This also was a feature of the altiplano, because the air was so thin it didn’t hold the warmth of the sun so you could stand with your face to the sun, warm on the front part of your body, but cold on the back.

We pretty much went from Portosi to La Paz the capital of Bolivia. La Paz is set in the mountains but still along the altiplano. It is a pretty city. If people weren’t travelling on the train, sometimes the roof, they generally travelled on the back of trucks.

In Bolivia, Peru and Equador there was a scarcity of toilets. In the break of one of the trips a woman squatted down in front of us, on the dirt, slightly moved out the folds of her skirt and preceded to urinate; a trickle ran out for all to see what she was up to. In the markets, I think more in Peru than Bolivia, you would often see little piles of excreta or hear people relieving themselves in the street. At one point I was looking for a toilet and I asked a woman sitting in her doorway where I might find one, she asked me do I want to do number one or number two started laughing and pointed behind one of the trucks. If, or when you did find a toilet they were usually a hole in the ground cemented over so you put your feet on the sides and squatted. Amongst the snaps is an ad which shows a boy peeing in the water and it says: better to drink the beer su Cerveza Potoshna.

Another time in a restaurant I asked for a toilet and in the middle of the day they pointed out the back in the open area between the buildings. Needless to say I learnt to hold on pretty well. In this same restaurant the people before us walked in and asked for a drink. The waiter simply turned to a table of people who had finished their drinks and preceded to transfer the glasses from one table to another; that is until the second lot spoke up and asked for the glasses to be washed. I sometimes wonder if it was at this restaurant that I picked up the amebic dysentery.

We bought a few weavings from La Paz in Bolivia which I still have. The famous pan flutes are played by the Indians of Bolivia and Peru so one night we went out to a music venue to hear some live music. Another feature of Bolivia, though, is that there is a nightly curfew. This means that everyone should be indoors by 10 pm. If they are not they are liable to be stopped and questioned by the military. If you don’t have a good explanation you could find yourself in gaol. I mentioned earlier about the police with machine guns in Chile well in Bolivia and Peru this police and gun relationship took on another dimension. Police at boarders have guns. I guess you expect that but there were also check points outside the cities. We were taken off the bus a couple of times in these countries to be further questioned by these gun-toting police. At one point one of the policemen was sitting there reading a comic upside down, whilst another interrogated us about our jobs back home and various other questions. The questioning didn’t get nasty but it could have quite well. We felt relieved to get back onto the bus. Along the way we heard stories of at least seven women being held by these police with guns and some, if not all of them, being raped.

From La Paz we did a three day walk from the altiplano, up over a mountain at an altitude of about 4,500 meters or more and then down into a valley to about 2,000 meters, all downhill towards the edge of the Amazon basin. At this point I still wasn’t walking well so the trek was slow for me. I remember Bob went ahead at various times and then doubled back to meet up with me. We also had problems with water. It was strange because we could hear water from the track and many times we crossed the stream but just couldn’t see it. It took a very long time and we became really very worried. I think it was here that we eventually had to stop for the night. We had a cucumber amongst our food and used this as a means of getting our liquid for the day. I think it was also here that after eating what we had for dinner Bob threw up so we went to bed pretty unhappy and uncomfortable. We were very glad to have a drink when we eventually filled up. I remember this being a nice walk but really nothing to write home about. When we were coming back from the trek we took the mode of transport used by the locals, the back of a truck. It was just amazing. We were literally loaded on like cattle and there were so many people that I couldn’t actually stand up straight; it was very uncomfortable and it was very cold as well. In fact it was quite freezing, as you might imagine on the back of an open truck in the night in the mountains of South America but I guess all the bodies together must have helped considerably. It seemed like we would never reach our destination. I think we were on there for three to four hours.