1. if arriving by plane, feel terrible because of the altitude. try to drink through it. sleep through free breakfast.
2. get lashed in hostal bar. get taxi to one of 3 gringo-only clubs. enjoy cheap drinks and cheaper cocaine.
3. wake up and feel terrible. order pizza or chinese from nearby overpriced takeaway. watch DVD from library.
4. repeat 2 and 3
5. maybe fly to the pampas to do a tour. maybe cycle down the world´s most dangerous road in a large group.
6. repeat 2 and 3
7. walk through the market. lose bags or wallet to pickpocket whilst trying on ridiculous alpaca sweater. spend next day in police station. await temporary passport.
8. repeat 2 and 3 before moving south to Uyuni or north to Lake Titicaca.
I did most of the above, and had a fantastic time. An interesting twist was a weekend excursion to Cholita Wrestling - sort of budget WWF in a draughty sports hall where women in traditional Bolivian dress top the bill.
This was fucking nuts - the wrestlers attacked people in the crowd, the crowd threw food, drink and plastic bottles at the fighters, real blood was spilled on numerous occasions and the gringos in the best seats found it all hillarious. I liked observing the locals and their reactions. I didn´t like the bus loads of Europeans shipped in from the hostels. But I was very much one of them.
One day, possibly whilst following point 3 of the recipe, I spent a few hours watching an elderly woman in the street facing the rooftop terrace of the hostel. Presumably she had been there since early morning, and she simply sat in on the pavement with a small pile of potatoes in front of here, occasionally gesturing at passers-by if they showed a brief interest. In three hours she sold no potatoes: it looked like a shit life. Its so obvious here how detached most travellers are from the people who actually live in the places through which they pass.
Bollocks creative writing warning:
Let´s say you wanted to visit the ocean. You can never really get to know the ocean, because you don´t live underwater. But you can get some idea, taking some scuba gear and swimming with the creatures. Or you could go snorkelling or, at the very least, you could get a small boat and try to peer over the edge into the water below.
But if you went in a cruise ship and spent the whole time in the bar or the disco as the ship sped accross the waters below, you wouldn´t really see any of the ocean at all. It might not even matter which ocean the boat was sailing on, except that some waters are a bit cheaper than others.
A common response when I ask people what the best thing to do in Bolivia: ´mountain bike the world´s most dangerous road´. Peru?: ´sandboarding in Huachachina´. But really those things aren´t in Bolivia or Peru - they, like me for the last few weeks at least, are on board the traveller ship that passes over those countries. I bet that woman in the street doesn´t sanboard.
Inspired by Nick Hornby, some lists:
Top five Bolivian street foods:
- Saltenas: like a cornish pasty but a wetter filling and olives.
- Jugo de Quinoa: hot, thick, slightly sweet corn-based breakfast drink
- Rellenos: potatoes or rice mashed and made into a ball with meat in the middle. Deep fried.
- Jugo Multivitamina: loads of different tropical fruits blended together with some herbs and cereals. Reputed to help between the sheets.
- Almuerzo Familiar: three-course fixed menu home-cooked lunch. Typical cost 45p.
Top six reputed affects of altitude:
- needing to piss more: ironic (and painful at times) in a country with few toilets.
- cold tea (boils at 80 degrees)
- dry skin (copious amounts of moisturiser, at least amongst travellers. Bolivian faces just flake off)
- sickness, dull headache.
- shortness of breath (lung capacity of Frank Butcher in Eastenders)
- very fizzy beer (foam with beer at the bottom)
Top things Bolivians are bad at:
- Transport: buses that overbook. Buses that don´t leave until they´re full despite the timetable. Planes that land in gardens....
- Football at sea level: Bolivar - (Bolivian representative in the Copa Libertadores this season) Home (altitude 4200m): won 3 drawn 2 lost 1. Away: won 0 drawn 1 lost 4
- Territorial wars: since the mid 19th century, Bolivia have lost large amounts of land to Peru in the north and Paraguay in the east. They used to have a coast, but they lent it Chile to look after and it was promptly annexed, leaving them landlocked. This seems to have caused a nation-wide state of greiving, in some cases denial and a slightly strange obsession with beaches. Bolivia still has a Navy (what looked like four fishing boats on the shore of lake Titicaca), and even has a national Day of the Sea. Typical Bolivian banter:
´Where the fuck have you been?´
´Where do you think I´ve been. The beach?´ - Music: Simon Cowell couldn´t make money out of the Bolivian music industry.
From La Paz, we went north towards Lake Titicaca - reputedly the world´s highest lake and definitely the closest Bolivians get to a seaside. It´s full of trout, which you can eat very cheaply, and fishing boats, which you can´t eat at all. We based ourselves in Copacabana - home to the Bolivian navy, a small stony beach and a few pedalos.
After hiking for a day along the rocky shore of the lake, and a short boat ride, we reached Isla Del Sol - according to the Incas the birthplace of the sun. That the sun was ´born´ on earth seems a little far-fetched to me, but it was very sunny and I got a burned nose, so you never know.
We slept in a tiny hostal with beatiful views of the lake and the mountain range behind. The communities that live on the island have a very basic way of life. It appeared that the men sit around all day whilst the women beat herds of weak-looking sheep with long sticks.
From the Southern shore we took a bus across the border to Puno in Peru, gateway to the floating islands on the same lake.
One of the striking things about the places I have been is the amount of times I have come across people living in astonishingly stupid places. Straight in at first place: islands made entirely of reeds and home to a few thousand indigenous people.
Apparently, a long time ago, a local tribe were escaping from Incas by boat on the lake, found themselves with nowhere to go, laid reeds on their boats and decided to live there. They have stayed for hundreds of years, the male population constantly occupied by the need to repair and renew the reeds as they rot.
As you might imagine, the people eat a lot of fish, and not much else. The combination of unbalanced diet and the labour required to repair the floor mean that most islanders suffer accute rheumatism. And because their world is only a few metres across, they have severe difficulties walking even short distances whenever they venture to the mainland.
The locals were ready for our tour group, and keen to make whatever they could from us - selling the usual tat shipped in straight from Puno, as well as a ride in a reed boat that was actually made from plastic coke bottles left by travellers.
Presumably becafrom the proceeds of such enterprise, some are able to afford solar panels and televisions - a slightly strange sight in a hut made entirely of dead plants. Without tourists, I suspected they might well have packed it in years ago, learned to walk and moved back to dry land.
Next we moved on to Arequipa, an impressive colonial city, from where we took a two day tour of the Colca Canyon, allegedly the world´s deepest. Some trekking would have been nice, but we needed to get back for the football, so opted for a shorter trip in a bus.
What followed was a formulaic, bus-about tour that gave short shrift to the actual canyon in preference to touristy, slightly false, displays of local culture in nearby villages. I chatted with a young girl in traditional dress who kept up an unspectacular, repetetive dance routine for a good hour while a huge speaker nearby played the relevant folk tune. Her favourite music: Eminem.
On the plus side, it meant we spent an evening sipping beer in a local thermal baths, and still got to see close up the condors that swoop over the canyon scavenging for dead prey on the sides.
Travelling is all about learning things about yourself and others which might benefit you upon returning. Watching European football in hostels full of travelers has taught me an invaluable lesson: if you want to find out if somebody is a twat, watch them watch football.
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