Unlike Peru and Bolivia Argentina doesn't have a big indigenous population. The area was sparsely populated and many of the hand full natives that there where in the south got massacred in 1879 in the "Conquest of the desert". So often you more have the feeling you are in South Europe, or Bavaria, depending on the place you are, then in South America. But like I said also in Heaven. After Cusco I went to the Colca canyon, the second deepest canyon in the world. The deepest is a bit further up but cannot be walked through because of it's wild river. I hadn't done any serious exercise for months so I still had difficulty walking the steep streets of La Paz where I was a few days later. Firm on the gringo trail between Colca and La Paz is also Copacobana on the shores of lake Titicaca (whats in a name?) but I didn't stay there. Not staying there alsomeant missing out on the Poncho museum as I saw when I passed that with the bus. Well you can't see everything right? But still it's a shame. So together with the Taj Mahal and Macchu Pichu stands the Poncho Museum of Copacobana of tourist attractions that I missed out on.
Taking a stroll through the Colca canyonLa Paz is a fascinating city. Actually it was the first real big city I was in South America. Of course I was in Lima, but only for a few days and mostly only in the suburb I was staying in and it's so spread out that you don't know where to start. But La Paz surely made a impression. Arriving is already a spectacle. You enter it from one of the hill sides, passing a statue of Che Guevara done by the amazing metal sculptress Hans Hoffmann. Now with the new socialist government of Evo Morales, the first indigenous president in South America and former coca farmer and probably also the first president to go on a hunger strike (he was getting a bit fat, maybe that was the reason), the former state enemy (he was (im)mortalized in Bolivia since if he wasn't killed there and of course if that one picture of him was never taken he would never have become the pop icon he is now, images of him are seen everywhere in South America) is getting a different kind of attention from the government then before. Okay that is a long and not very clear sentence. Let's just say that old Che is looked different upon by the new government.
So you pass his statue and there in the valley below you, crawling up from all sides, is La Paz. The highest capital in the world at a altitude of 3660 meters.
Statue of Che Guivarra by Hans HoffmannBolivia is the poorest country in South America and you can notice it. Almost no cars on the road, a lot of adobe houses, many of them abandoned and in ruins, a high unemployment rate, social unrest (protest are often seen on the streets of La Paz, a few days after I left I saw images on TV of crowds getting dispersed with water cannons on the same street I had been roaming for some days) and so on and so on.
Doesn't matter how bad the economy is and how poor you are, you need clean shoes. And that's where the lustrabotas (shoe shiners) come in handy. This looked down upon profession is done by many young men who, in order not to be discriminated, hide their faces behind ski masks and also dress in a hip hop kind of fashion (sweatshirts with hoods, caps, baggy pants). You can see them everywhere on the streets trying to get as much costumers as possible by all the time judging peoples shoes, pointing to them and offering to clean them. Actually I had mine cleaned and still they where pointing to them so they don't judge to hard.
Lustrabota day dreaming about shoesI decided to do a little project on them and spent some days taking pictures of them and trying to talk to them. But it's hard because my Spanish is still very basic and also I felt uncomfortable talking to guys looking like every moment they where about to rob a bank. So most of it was done secretly with a lot of hip shots with my camera (actually I think half of the pictures I took on this trip is taken like that). But I will go back later and try to get some portraits and small chitchats. I talked to a few of them who where really nice although some of them didn't tell me the truth concerning how much they made. Apparently the earn between 1 and 2 Bolivianos per shoe shine. That's 10 to 20 euro cents. I think more often 1 then 2 Bolivianos. Average amount of costumers must be between 20 and 40 a day depends on how much they work. Many of the younger shoe polishers go to (evening)school so they don't work the whole day. So they make about 4 to 6 euro a day. The guy who did my shoes must have been really glad with the 20 Bolivianos (2 euro) I gave him, a half days work.
Lustrabota with his toolbox
In La Paz I also visited the coca museum.. It gave me some insight on coca and how it's used by the indigenous population. Actually it's one of the few things left for the native people that isn't destroyed by the Spanish (they tried to abolish it but then they found out that it was quite helpful in the silver mines: the slaves could work longer, work"days"of 48 hours where no exception, before they would perish) So the use of coca is giving the Indian population some connection with their roots and is considered sacred. It also comforts against cold, fights fatigue and hunger, helps you deal better with the high altitude and is used to predict the future. So it's quite a wonderful plant. The Incas also used it as a anaesthetic, while we in Europe used to use alcohol or a bang on the head as anaesthetic. Unfortunately the use of coca is not being advocated by a lot of other countries in the world. Since out of coca you can make cocaine. Did you know that Sigmund Freud was the first official cocaine addict? He advocated the drug and died later of nostril cancer, which means he must have powdered his nose quite often.
After La Paz I went south over the Altiplano. Alti means high and plano means flat and that's just what it is: a very flat highland. In the South Western part of Bolivia you have the salt planes of Uyuni. Miles and miles (for some reason that sounds better then kilometers and kilometers) of white salt. The deepest point being 10 meters deep. It's very crowded with tourists who all want to make funny pictures of each other (since you have a white flat background you can make funny optical illusions). Of course I wanted to do the same. Unfortunately I didn't buy a toy dinosaur so no pictures of me getting threatened by a huge dinosaur, but I have a picture of me jumping out of a hat which came out very nice. So yes, for hours you ride over this arid terrain where nothing can live only punctuated by some islands inhabited by many cacti.
Next day you visit some lagoons (a red one, a green, all with some flamingos), you see some volcanoes, lay in the hot springs, marvel at some geysers and that's it. It's nice but it's a tour and I really don't like tours. So next time I will go with bicycle to enjoy more freedom. Also the driver wasn't one of the social kind, he hardly talked and couldn't explain much about the area. And the woman of the agency was a greedy bitch, not to mention the woman of the hotel I stayed when I came back from the tour: I was shaving my head (head not beard, that will stay, don't worry Stoyan) when suddenly she came around and pulled the plug out and said "basta". Apparently electricity is very expensive in Bolivia and even in a touristy place like Uyuni the people don't earn enough to let a gringo use some electricity. My head was half shaven! I asked her if she was loco and pointed at my head, but she said it looked okay. I almost lost control, but I kept cool and just put the machine back into the socket and went on shaving. Good thing she didn't know about my computer, mp3 player and loudspeakers who had used so much of her electricity. She would have gotten a heart attack.
In Uyuni there is also a train cemetery
So I wasn't to sad to leave this godforsaken place. I went to the highest city in the world and also formally one of the richest cities: Potosi at 4060 meters the highest city and with a huge silver mine behind it, it was (past tense) indeed one of the richest cities. But at what a price: approximately 8 million (that's half the population of Holland) Indian and African slaves died during the colonial area in the mines. Even today the mine gives and takes. Many miners die after about 15 years working in the mines because of lung diseases. The average lifespan is about 45 years old. For my western mind it's unthinkable that you would risk your life for making a living. But that is what poverty does to you and also love of your family members. If you don't work you family has no food, so you do the job in the knowledge that you seriously shorten your life.
You can do a tour in the mines. I did it, met some miners, there weren't many though because next day it was the Friday before Easter and many went home earlier. To bad I missed the Friday ritual: going to there god "Tio" (a deprivation of Dio, it was invented by the Spanish to get the slaves into the mines) to offer cigarettes and alcohol and also to drink the alcohol itself. Since offerings have to be pure, so is the alcohol: they drink alcohol with a alcohol contense of 96%!!!!!!!! I can't believe they don't burn their throats. Well I guess if you are a miner in the mines of Potosi you don't really care to much about health issues and maybe it's a good medicine to get all the dirt out of their throats.. The work is done almost in the same ways as in the colonial times, although now they can use dynamite. But for the rest everything is done manual.
Being in a crazy catholic country I hoped I could witness some loco locals crucifying themselves with Easter but my sensational lust had to be tempered because the celebration was all very civilized and boring. On my last night in Potosi I was walking down the street when suddenly the person in front of me dropped some name cards on the ground. He stopped to pick them up, I couldn't pass him, neither could I go back because behind and besides me where 2 other persons. I suddenly realized what was going on and in a Hulk like fashion I stretched my arms and pushed the fuckers away. One of them got angry with me, I apologised because maybe they didn't try to rob me, but then I thought again, I also read about this kind of thing happening but then in a different slightly situation: they are very cunning. Thank god I'm a street wise person, well kind of and I saw through there cunning plans. I also had my money belt tucked into my pants, so it would have been very difficult to get something from me.
Now here is something interesting: a poster of Alfa y Omega,a self pronounced prophet from Peru, who links Christianity to aliens.
(if you look carefully you can see some UFO's behind Moses)
I saw it in this vegetarian restaurant in La Paz I always went to.
Rosita from the vegetarian restaurant, behind her a poster of Alfa y Omega in his UFO
which has very little leg room.
After Potosi I went to Tupiza, according to the guidebook the town and surrounding landscape makes you want to stay longer. I had seen enough after 1 day. Maybe I travelled to much in my life and it is getting more difficult to get excited from scenery's that you see. It was okay yeah but not mind blowing. The only remarkable thing is that in a village nearby Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid found their ends. So after finishing the distilled form of coca that I still had I crossed the border to Argentina. (it was a hard job, but somebody had to do it). I can understand people get addicted to it because the rush only last for a hour or 2 and then this uncomfortable feeling starts sliding in and you want to go back to the first feeling again which means buying more of the Bolivian marching powder.
So now Argentina, the north west still has a bit of a Andean feeling to it. Also here the women wear hats, although more flat and more in the gaucho style (Argentinian cowboy) then the Charlie Chaplin style that's popular among women in Bolivia. I wonder where this tradition of women wearing hats is coming from. A friend of mine told me it was a kind of rebellion against the Spanish colonisation. Argentina is more expensive then Peru or Bolivia, I had a 33 euro night bus, that almost blow me of my socks. It also seems that being a artisan is the biggest profession in Argentina. You see so many young (and not so young anymore) people trying to sell their handmade jewelry on the street.
In the small towns (more villages actually) in the north you expect Clint Eastwood to turn around the corner any time. Walking around the city centre of Buenos Aires makes you more feel like you are in Paris or London then in South America. It's the birthplace of tango, that sensual dance full of passion and desire first danced between men waiting for prostitutes in brothels. Apparently at some places this tradition is revitalised because I heard there are many gay tango clubs. Which sounds very photogenic, I was planning to visit some (only out of photographic interest of course) but they where very difficult to find. Of the addresses I found on a gay site I went to look for 3 tango clubs and they had all moved or vanished, it took me some hours to walk all this distances since Buenos Aires is huge and I didn't know which bus to take. So I kind of gave up on that idea. I did however photographed an amazing tango show what was more a combination of tango and an acrobatic circus act. It was amazing. At one point one of the male dancers had the woman he was dancing with with her back on his upper leg and he played her like a bandoneon (the accordion like instrument used in tango music).
Acrobatic tango
Also I wanted to photograph Tierra Santa, the first and only religious theme park in the world. With a reenactment of the resurrection every half hour and more interesting shows. All the personal is wearing the clothes that were in fashion in the Middle East in the times of Jesus. So unlike the poncho museum I was really looking forward to visit it, also because you had the hill where Jesus got crucified with a few guys on the cross (they don't have actors for this, they use clay or some other material figures) with airplanes flying over about every 20 minutes on their way to the airport. So yes I was really interested in visiting this tacky theme park and at the entrance I took my camera out of my backpack eager to start shooting when a guard came up to me and explained to me that I couldn't enter. Did he noticed that I, unlike all the other visitors, am not a good Christian? Could he see who was genuine interested from a religious point of view and who just wanted to see this freak show? No, as he explained to me the reason was that you can't enter with a professional camera. I tried to explain that my camera is semi professional and that there are much more professional cameras then mine, and that I really wanted to see it, but to no avail. So like God forbade Moses to enter Israel, I was not allowed into this Kingdom of Kitsch. Damn, I could leave my camera behind at the entrance but what use would it have had to go then? So that was really a pity but it gives me something to come back for because I really like Buenos Aires, to the point that I would like to live there. The nightlife is very good, you can go out every night till very late. In Amsterdammost bars close at one during the week. And did I mention the women already? I think I did, but will mention them again. I mean even the president is quite a sexy women. The only bad thing that happened to me is that I got ripped off at a change office. I was looking at a change office and then a guy in a suite came to me and said he had a better rate (4.74 instead of 4.72, not that much better) so I went with him. I thought of him to be a very slick looking guy but you shouldn't always judge the book by it's cover right? And in this office another guy was calculating for me on the calculator how much I
would get. I wanted to calculate myself later but he distracted me with questions about my country and calculated himself again, I even saw the figures he was typing and it looked okay but later on I did some calculations myself and noticed I got ripped of for about 10 euro. Well I don't have any money anymore anyway I believe (I lost my bankcard and cannot check my account, but actually also don't want to know how much I have or have not left) so that doesn't really matter anyway. So okay I'm no that street smart as I first wrote.
After Buenos Aires if time permits I will go to the Iguanza waterfalls, apparently they are quite amazing. Then into el republica del plantanas Paraguay, the country outside Africa with the biggest corruption and also mennonites: a kind of Amish that speak some German dialect. And then back to Bolivia, I wanted to visit the tinku, the most bloody fiesta in the world. But it's already very soon. I wouldn't have much time to spent in Paraguay. And also I heard the people at the tinku festival are not very keen on gringos with big cameras that come to "see the show". And they are all totally drunk and very aggressive. A guy I spoke to said he got harassed all the time, people throwing stones at him, poking him with sticks etcetera. I hope the mennonites are more peacefully. Maybe I will go to the tinku next year. Well if you made it to here: congratulations, because it was a long mail. I promise the next one will be shorter, also because I'm flying back to Hollanda within a month.
bye
Kurt
Photos from Peru can be watched here
Photos from Bolivia can be watched here
A slideshow about the lustrabotas here
A slideshow with photos from Argentina here
A slideshow with photos from Paraguay here
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