On-the-Road Tales

Decided to explore downtown today. Went to the Coca Museo yup, museaum dedicated to the coca leaf. It was very cool. It really gave a wonderful history of the leaf and some startling facts. The spanish tried to outlaw the leaf among the indian slaves bc the church insisted it was interferring with them converting the people, they did until the spanish realized the indigeinous people were much more productive with it sine chewing the leaves wards off the effects of cold and fatigue. SO instead they mandated it but controlled the distribution so the indians were further indebted to the Spanish. Crazy. Freud was the first user of the drug in its form as cocaine, that explains something. & currently, whille the US makes up only 5% of the worlds population, it consumes 50% of the worlds cocaine. Wow. That is why they are paying Bolivia to eradicate it.

Stopped in the contemporary art museum, the mansion it is housed in was designed by Eiffel, as the tower man. Cruised by Plaza Murillo where the palace and cathedral are. There were some soldiers in Red uniforms. Bolivia lost its access tot he sea in the war of the pacific over 100 yrs ago. There are placards posted about which rougly translated say – it is our god given right to have sea access, give it back to us. Hence they still have a navy stationed on Lake Titicaca so make sure Peru does not get any ideas about snatching any more water. These guys in red have something to do with that because it looks they are guarding a vessel of sorts.

It does not take long walking around La Paz to determine being situated in a bowl creates some air quality problems. The non-emission friendly cars, trucks and buses spew nasty fumes at every choked intersection. Hence, it feels like you are sukcing on a tailpipe all the time. While individual born at this altitude, I have read, have larger lung capacity and greater ability to absorb oxygen, that does not apply to us, sea level types. So dodging and weaving vehicles to corss a road usually result in a needed rest on the other side to gasp some cleaner, albeit, thin air.

As dusk fell I headed back uphill towards my hostal. Some of these roads are so steep they should offer crampons to make the ascent! As I am hiking I stop near a stall to get my whereabouts and realize from the contents displayed next to me, I have ventured into the Witches Market. Yep, not sure what the hell the stuff they are is or what it is for but it incredibly colorful and interesting looking. I would guess it is a shopping market for those involved more in natural healing than spells and wicca but what do I know. There are figurines, and candy type things of every pastel color and dried herbs and of course the staple product, dried llama fetuses. Where does one get so many dried llama fetuses? Are there that many pregnant llama among those killed for skins and meat? What does one do with this creation? These are probably thing I will never know the answer to but I decide to scurry out of there. Mom told me to stay away from the market in case they cast a spell on me so I follow her advice! 60 seconds standing in a dark alleyway next to little women with dark eyes and dead animal overhead is cultural experience enough for me!

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 14th, 2007 at 2:59 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.