The Muddy-Pants Diaries

9 November 2005 (Wednesday) – La Paz, Bolivia

By last night, Henry and Emmy had gotten all lovey-dovey, and I appeared to be quite a bright lamp-post, heh. So, I was happy to leave them alone today to their own dreamland and their baby talk (baby English from Henry and baby Spanish from Emmy). Yep, yesterday at Tiahuanacu, I was doing loads of translation work between the both of them. Today, I am free to do what I want.

Yes, free as a bird!!! Wow, it felt great suddenly to be wandering around all over by myself again!

La Paz is made up of modernly-attired citizens and traditionally-attired citizens. Great mix! The traditionally-attired women of La Paz are called ‘cholas’ and they have a distinct dress. They wear multi-layer skirts and petticoats to make their waists wider. I guess, the wider it is, the more attractive the woman is. So, you would see these VERY ATTRACTIVE pear-shaped women lumbering all over town. Their skirts can be really lovely, intricately but subtly embroidered (not in contrasting colours). They usually wrap themselves in yet another intricately but subtly embroidered gigantic shawl that has lovely long tassels at the ends. And the most distinct feature is the bowler hat. Here in La Paz, the bowler hats are shaped differently from those in Puno. In Puno, the hats have a slight hour-glass shape. Here, no.

I had seen a restaurant near the tourist street of La Paz selling juice for 10 bolivianos. But a short walk away to Mercado Lanzo, near Plaza San Francisco and you get great juice in huge glasses for 1.50 bolivianos!

And wow, salteñas are juicy meat or chicken empanadas and they just taste amazing!! Remember back in Quito when Ismael brought us to a place called Empanadas Bolivianas to taste some really big and juicy empanadas. Well, this was exactly it. You have to eat it holding it like a cup, otherwise the juice would just come trickling down everywhere.

I meandered everywhere without really checking the map, following my nose and instincts. There are just lots of people on the streets, lots of markets everywhere selling anything from stationery to toiletries. Who needs shops? The shoe-shiners of La Paz all wear a ski-mask to protect them from the harsh sun. Gosh, in a way, they all look like terrorists! And Immigration was worried about me being a terrorist!

Along the roads, be careful to watch out for the huge number of micros and trucks that drive crazily up and down, overtaking one another, turning without signalling, blaring their horns constantly, stopping suddenly to pick up more passengers. There is no peace here, as people are always shouting the destinations and their products for sale. What noise! What chaos! What energy!!

When I got hungry, I returned to Mercado Lanzo and gosh, a lunch of rice, fries, salad and meat for about 3.50 bolivianos (less than US$0.50)! How can you beat that?

Not only are the food and drinks cheap (if you know where to go), the people here in La Paz are simply amazing, with their cheerful smiles and curious questions. When I hopped around in agony after tasting the hot chilli of the salteñas, people around me smiled and made some pity comments. When I was drinking my juice, I chatted with the guy next to me like we were old pals. When I ate lunch, Doña Angelica slicing the beef wanted me to take photos and have them sent to her. We ended up snapping many pictures with the various ladies working at the food stalls – Mary, Manuela, Beatriz, Doña Olga…

More wanderings led me to Av. Montes where the authorities were closing the road. A huge line of crowd had gathered along the avenue, waiting for something. I asked a police and he told me there was a bicycle race and the cyclists should come by here in about 15 minutes’ time. Great! I stood there and waited. Strange that they only started setting up the railings to block pedestrians and traffic merely 15 minutes before the arrival of the cyclists! I hoped they had time to get everything ready. Soon, a few cars and motorbikes with cameramen zipped by. Then, 2 cyclists in yellow attire flashed across. The guys behind me said they were Colombians. After quite a while, a group of cyclists zipped by. The guys searched for Bolivians, and seemed to conclude they were not amongst this second group either.

Gosh, La Paz is just amazing! I really love it here. I just feel a great sense of fascination with everything on the streets – day and night. The whole city is a street market! However, many people who had come to La Paz took one look at it and said it was ugly, polluted and noisy and they moved on. In fact, many people who had arrived with me from Copacabana had left or were leaving today.

I returned to the hostel at 5pm as I sort of had an appointment with Henry (if he still remembered) to go to a guy who reads fortunes with coca leaves. I was sitting on my bed, noting down my expenses when he came barging into the room. He threw himself down on his bed, panting away. I greeted him, “hola” and asked him how he was doing. Then, I asked if he still wanted to know his future. I proceeded to tell him what had happened today, where I went, what I saw, etc… before it dawned on me I was conducting a damn monologue. I paused and studied Henry. He looked a little off. I politely ventured, “¿Algo para contarme?” (Something to tell me?)

It turned out he was in Emmy’s hotel room, chatting, when her strange brother returned and knocked on the door. She told him to give her a minute, but her brother just started screaming and whacking, banging and kicking the door like a mad man. Well, perhaps, that description was not that far off. Henry jumped into the toilet and when her brother stormed into the room, he slipped out. Later, as he walked down to the lobby, Henry saw Emmy’s dad and he made his second escape.

Gosh, Henry is a film-maker and this is just like a scene from a movie! I laughed at him non-stop. He had left his haversack, his money and one of his socks there. We tried to analyse how Emmy copes with having such a strange brother. Oh well.

Later, Emmy dropped by our room with his things and Henry did not seem interested in going for fortune-telling anymore, so I left to do some shopping.

I had resisted buying an alpaca sweater since Ecuador. But I realised that what I had was really insufficient for anything higher than La Paz. Everyone also advised me that I would need something more (and something alpaca) by the time I get to Potosi and Salar de Uyuni. Finally, I caved and headed out and bought a sweater.

8 November 2005 (Tuesday) – La Paz to Tiahuanacu to La Paz, Bolivia

Diego, the eternal Indian chief, was trying to organise the group today to go to Tiahuanacu. I told him Henry and I were heading off separately and he looked slightly hurt. Ahem, sorry.

We went to Emmy’s hotel at the agreed time. She overslept! But she got ready in a jiffy and we took a local bus to the cemetery. When we neared the cemetery district, we asked the bus guy where we could get off for the Tiahuanacu bus and several passengers pointed out the direction. Later, loads of helpful people pointed out to us where to go to get the bus. All in different places.

We finally found a bus to the border of Peru that PASSED by Tiahuanacu so we bought the tickets and waited in a hole-in-the-wall, drinking some mate de coca. Gosh, in this tiny cafe, a sandwich cost just 1.50 bolivianos. We had been paying between 5 to 9 bolivianos for a lousy sandwich in Copacabana and Isla del Sol. See what I mean about overcharging tourists?

It soon started to rain as we pulled out of La Paz. We had not brought along any rain jacket, just things for the sun as we expected to be baked under the harsh sun at this altitude. Oh oh…

As the bus we took did not bring us right to the front of the museum and ruins, we had to walk for about 1 km from the main highway. Halfway through, we saw another ruins. Although we had not bought the tickets, we persuaded the guy to let us take a look at this site since we were already here. We would purchase the tickets later.

This site was called Puma Punku. There was no one here at this point, so we took our time to browse through the fallen stones and interesting stone masonry. As I had said, Henry was mighty knowledgeable in this, and he acted as our guide to explain what the rock structures represented. We saw Andean crosses, little doors that represent Door to the Sun, lots of rounded holes tunnelled through, ‘I’ shaped holes used for making bronze. Although not well-restored, it was interesting for us to discover other carvings like hexagons, evenly-spaced lines, slightly-eroded Tiahuanacu designs.

When we reached the museum, we were shocked it cost 80 bolivianos (US$10) to enter. But for me, I had always wanted to visit Tiahuanacu and for Henry, he had studied about this site, about how it was aligned at 45 degrees to the vertical, in line with Cajamarca, Cusco and Copacabana. He tried to persuade the ticket guy that he is Peruvian, his friendly neighbour, on a South American paycheck, not an American gringo! But nope, he still had to pay 80 bolivianos.

There were many monoliths of carved designs, in general, showing a face, two arms carrying something and lots of motifs of condors, snakes, the cactus plant called San Pedro for hallucination and other symbolisms. Henry explained many interesting details to us. He even had a book called ‘Ayni’ which was about the repeated symbol of crossed arms used in many ancient civilisations, including those from Mexico, representing the act of reciprocity. We then studied the arms on the monolith. Although it appeared to be holding something with the arms NOT crossed, we realised the hands were in reverse. Imagine, if you hold something round on your right hand, another person looking at you would not see the fingers facing outwards and pointing to the right. The fingers would be facing inwards and pointing to the right. Yet, the designs had the fingers out and pointing to the right. We realised this could only be possible if the arms were CROSSED and we were actually looking at his LEFT hand on the right side. (Hope you got what I mean) Fascinating!

After this museum, it continued to pitter patter. It was getting really cold but, as I predicted it could continue to rain, it was better than we headed out to the ruins now and then, hide out at the second museum later. So that was what we did, admiring the empty ruins in the rain, gathering mud on our boots such that we were walking around like ducks with wide webbed feet. There was the famous Puerta del Sol – Door of the Sun. And the other gateway where a monolith was placed directly in line when the sun would rise exactly in front of it on some special dates. All very interesting and wet.

Back at the second museum where we saw more potteries, an Aymara mummy, some bronze tools and a whole school load of visiting children, aged between 7 to 9. As we waited in the lobby for the bus, the curious children kept staring at us. One little boy broke the ice by shaking hands with me and soon, the entire swarm of them flooded towards me, extending their hands. Then, on their note books which they had religiously copied the points around the museum, they wanted my autograph. So, I signed like, I don’t know, 50 of my name in Chinese. I was just pounced on. I could not see a thing outside. I later learnt that so were Henry and Emmy. Hahaaa…

It rained heavier by then and we froze all the way back to La Paz. Today, it was not possible to see La Paz from the top of the basin. It was entirely covered in clouds.

That night, more out of pure self-torture than curiosity, we watched a Bolivian movie. It was so horrible that it was good. It was hilarious and cracked me up tonnes of times, although I did not always understand every word they said. I was just watching with my jaws wide opened. I could not believe what was going on. It was so so so so bad. Well, another Bollywood in the making, perhaps!

7 November 2005 (Monday) - Isla del Sol to Copacabana to La Paz, Bolivia Indeed Henry was not killed by hailstones last night and I got my torch back, hehee... [Continue reading this entry]

6 November 2005 (Sunday) - Copacabana to Isla del Sol, Bolivia Lake Titicaca, the highest commercially navigable lake in the world, is shared between Peru and Bolivia. I had previously visited the Uros Floating Islands, made of reed, and ... [Continue reading this entry]

5 November 2005 (Saturday) - Puno, Peru to Copacabana, Bolivia

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2 November 2005 (Wednesday) - 3 November 2005 (Thursday) - Chivay to Colca Canyon to Arequipa, Peru We departed rather early, around 6am, and drove towards Cruz del Condor. But along the way, we stopped at several towns like Yanque and ... [Continue reading this entry]

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31 October 2005 (Monday) - Arequipa, Peru I wanted to show Fernando the glass jewellery I made and searched for them in my bag. THEY WERE GONE!!!!!!!!!! Shit!!! What could have happened?? I took everything out of my bag and there was no ... [Continue reading this entry]