A touch of history…and a splash of mustard
After a few days laying in bed my fever finally broke (with a few recurrances of relatively low-grade temps of 100), so I headed out to eat some proper food. I had been invited to a restaurant on the corner by the owner (one of those who kept talking as I kept repeating that I was very sick and wanted to return to my bed). I planned to get a soup and some juice. I ended up with some huge bowl of soup with porkchops piled high and some strange black veggies that were very bitter. To drink, well, no juice…they suggested a fruit carbonated drink. Not being a fan, I opted for the other suggestion which tasted and looked like a sweet tea except for the fact that it had something resembling testicles laying at the bottom. I had seen it on the streets and was interested to try it, though I left the testes be.
After another day of rest, I headed off to La Paz, a city famous for being the Highest Capital City in the World. The guy next to me was very nice; we talked between my little snoozes and as we approached La Paz, he pointed out Illimani, the famous mountain peak rising above the city. I dropped my stuff at a hotel (own room, shared bathroom, no toilet paper provided, no heat) and walked around the town a little. There’s a beautiful church (San Francisco), beautiful when it’s illuminated at night, and I went in to take a look. There was a mass going on. Being the good Catholic I was in days of yore, I could tell they were at the part where everyone offers peace to each other – paz in Spanish. So I offered paz and a handshake to some of those around me…paz in La Paz. I got such a kick out of that.
I have to admit to being very lazy in La Paz. I didn’t do much on a daily basis (though you might have noticed a surge in the number of blog entries a while back…that’s what I was doing). I would be there until my bank card arrived, and, well, even though it was sent Express through the US Postal Service, you just don’t know how express things are in Bolivia. I checked out a few museums…a really cool music museum displaying the hundreds of different types of instruments native to Bolivia and the world; The Coca Museum, which was fairly interesting, though I felt like I had already learned most of the info from talking to people; I also ended up in some textile museum, which I entered by mistake, but had a personal tour by the owner who was extremely nice and made everything very interesting. There were a few museums dedicated to the history of Bolivia, including an entire museum dedicated to the War of the Pacific, the thorn in Bolivia’s side. Bolivia and Peru vs. Chile in the nitrate-rich Atacama desert. Chile wins and takes over the area, land-locking Bolivia. They still lament their coastal loss; every March 23rd there are protests throughout the country…and this happened over 125 years ago!
I started to feel bad for Bolivia, though. They just kept losing land to all their neighbors. They lost a rubber-producing area in the Amazonian north to Brazil and a whole area in the east to Paraguay – over what? Oil. No. Oil prospects…oil has still yet to be found in the area. So, Bolivia kept getting smaller and smaller (and poorer and poorer) while losing these resource-rich areas to surrounding countries, as well as their coastal exit to export any resources they still had left. Poor, poor Bolivia.
Getting a healthier dose of the history of Bolivia, I decided one day to venture out to the ruins of Tiwanaku, recently in the news as the place where Evo Morales attended a spiritual indigenous ceremony immediately prior to his inauguration ceremony. On the way to where I could find some sort of mobility there, I felt something wet had landed on me, but I kept walking. After about 5 seconds of wondering what it was that had landed on me, I reached my hand back to my hair. Yellow mustard!
You bastards! I just got my clothes washed!
I had heard of this. What they do here is throw something gross like yellow mustard on tourists and then help them wipe it off while helping themselves to a few things in their pockets at the same time. Well, I looked around and some guy pointed up, indicating that it had come from above. Suspect #1. I walked to the corner, and another guy was with him now, Suspect #2, both with newspaper to help me clean myself…how convenient. “Oh, too bad. Put your bag down here.” Do you think I’m stupid? No thanks, I like my bag right where it is around my neck, in my arms. So they helped me wipe it off, the one guy concentrating on my backside, the other guy gracefully sliding his finger into my pocket just before I ripped it out. That sent them both away, with nothing gained.
I crossed the street and all the women who had been watching asked me if they robbed me. No. “But they threw mustard on you.” Yes, but I know their tricks and am smarter than them. They didn’t get anything. I sat down on some steps and continued to wipe the mustard off (the old scummy slimeballs didn’t really have any help to offer, of course), though I couldn’t really get all of it off, being that most of it was on my back.
I got on the little bus and we started to head out of town. I smelled like yellow mustard. I hate yellow mustard! Give me dijon mustard, brown mustard, whole-grain mustard, honey mustard — Mmm! But yellow mustard?! Blech. And now I smelled, reeked, like blech! What a bunch of assholes, seriously.
Tiwanaku is about an hour outside of the city. On the way we stopped at a police check area, where they came on asking for our documents. Well, I didn’t have mine on me; I tend not to bring it with me in public in case, for example, I get mustard thrown on me and people try to rob my belongings. Luckily I hadn’t met one of the corrupt cops in Bolivia; I got away with simply answering where I was from, when and where I entered the country, and how much time I had been given to stay in Bolivia.
Continuing on, I had no idea where Tiwanaku was exactly, but I had told the driver (or, someone…was it the driver? I wasn’t entirely sure) that I wanted to go there, so I was hoping for them to drop me off there. But then I saw signs as we passed and didn’t say a darn thing…we just kept going while I knew that we were passing it. I just couldn’t bring myself to ask for him to stop.
After a good 15-20 minutes, we stopped and everyone got out. Not sure where we were, but it looked like we were at another police stop, or perhaps the border with Peru. Either way, I had no documentation and wouldn’t be going any further. I confirmed with the driver that we had passed Tiwanaku, and I started walking down the long, straight highway back from where we had just come.
It was an interesting enough walk…gave me my first real look at the altiplano, cut right in between 2 mountain chains on either side. After 15 minutes I met a farmer working on the side of the road who greeted me with a “Good afternoon. La Paz?” No. Tiwanaku. “18 kilometers, straight down this road.” Thanks! Eighteen kilometers. That’s about 11 miles; it was about 1:00…I knew that I could never walk and make it while the ruins were still open (I was having flashbacks of the Phish Coventry trek I made into the fairgrounds), but I picked up the pace and went for it, counting my steps in a musical rhythm while picking mustard out of my hair.
After about an hour I met a group of people on the side of the road. “And where are you going?” the one older gentleman asked me. Tiwanaku. Is it far? “Yes. You should rest.” Well, if I rest, I’ll never make it, I said, and continued on. I had finally worked up the courage to wave down a minibus to get a ride there (this is not a very courageous act), but they were all full. Finally I found one that wasn’t and got a ride to the turnoff, from where I walked another mile or so.
The price of entry was $10, about 3 times as expensive as I thought, and I was very happy to have brought a little American currency on me, because I would not have had enough in Bolivianos (can you imagine that?). The museum had some of the best-preserved statues that I’ve seen in a while. The site itself was less impressive. Piles of rocks representing a temple, other rocks gathered in an area, representing a temple. There were a few parts that have been well-restored, including the subterranean temple (with faces coming out of the walls), and the Door of the Sun, which it’s most famous for. The funniest thing is is that I don’t even know if what I thought was the Door of the Sun was actually it. I didn’t get a guide because I had so little money on me, so I’m not really sure what most of the stuff was.
By now it was something like 5pm and I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. I went into the town of Tiwanaku to look for something to eat but instead jumped on another minibus back to La Paz. I slept most of the way and was relieved when we weren’t asked for documentation at the police checkpoint on the way back to the city. I do remember that our driver was a very horrible, slow driver that beeped his horn a lot for no reason. He also didn’t really go to La Paz…he dropped us off in what I think was El Alto, a suburb at the top of la Paz, and pointed to the corner across the street, telling me I could get another minibus to the center from there.
Tired, thirsty and starving, I took care of immediate needs and got some bread and water people were selling on the street (this is one good thing…it’s usually very easy to find something quick to eat and/or drink). Then I got to finding out how to get to a place where I knew where I was…I really had no idea (the El Alto hypothesis came more of a reality as we approached La Paz). Al Centro? Al Centro? Are you going to the center? No. No. No. No one was going to the Centro. I walked further up the street. No. Back down the street. No. Now, this place was insane…minibuses and vans not going anywhere, just stuck behind each other in a serious traffic jam, with people screaming their destinations. Of course I knew none of the destinations. I only knew I wanted to go to the Centro.
OK, well, let’s cross the street. Al Centro? No. Cross the other street (I don’t even know what direction we would be headed in). Al Centro? No, of course not. Finally I asked someone where I could pick up a bus from to the Centro and headed in the direction I was pointed. Al Centro? Sí. Ah! Sí! Al Centro! Perfecto! And so I made it to the center of town (well, close enough….due to traffic I hoofed it a bit) just in time to make it to the post office and find out that no, my bankcard had not yet arrived and I would be spending more time in La Paz.
It just so happened to be St. Patty’s Day and I had originally figured there would not really be anything special going on, given that it’s Bolivia. But I really did have quite a day (still smelled like mustard), but was lucky enough to pass a pub claiming to be Irish and went in. It was full of travelers…I hadn’t seen so many white people in one place for quite a while. As I opened my mouth to speak, Spanish naturally came out, and I quickly checked myself, converting to English (it was then that I realized that besides calling home I hadn’t spoken English since I left Vanessa in Manuas, Brazil something like 6 weeks before). And so, in English, I ordered a pint. It came fresh, cold and, of all things, green.
Tags: Bolivia, Tag Index
Tania