February 11,2009

At seven this morning we arrived by overnight bus to La Paz; it was a hellish trip best quickly forgotten. This morning as we drove along the alto plano to the valley of La Paz, it was just getting light, the moon was full, local buses were piled with colourful packs on the roofs and colour indigenous folk were gathered on the road sides. It felt like coming home. La Paz is the only place that we will visit on this trip that we visited last year. We´re even staying in the same divey Hotel El Torino that we stayed in a year ago. One of its best features for me is that it doesn´t have a television. Our room has the same Snoopy sheets and the book exchange most of the same books! The location is wonderful, the price is right and there´s a great little cafe next door for breakfast!

We are coming to La Paz to do some work on our Bolivian Art Project. Last night on the bus¨, I was thinking about what art education could do or why it might be important to encourage it here. I think that art education fosters decision making skills and creative thought and that both are essencial for leaders. Creative thought is useful for anyone in any country but it is especially useful in a poor developing country such as Bolivia that is just finding its feet economically and politically. In addition, on a personal level, making art is a form of self expression and enhances self worth.

The past several days we explored Sucra, the original capital of Bolivia. Sucra is a fantastic colonial city, most of the core was built in the 1500s. I´d love to return here for a month or more. Indigenous folk were demonstrating, milling about, hunkered down cooking on little charcoal cookers or working and relaxing on the streets of Sucra. Almost all wore their tradional dress.It seemed like life was being lived out on the street. I saw my first young infant out of it´s colourful carrying poncho. The baby had only it´s face showing and was a tighly wrapped package bound with a long white woven strip. I saw women releaving themselves in the street; with their full skirts it was very discrete. They just squatted over a road drain and their full skirt hides everything. Across the street from the hospital were seven funerias, all with their caskets on view to the street.

Jim and visited several museos. Two were fantastic. The Museo of Indigenous Craft was a private museum started by an anthropology foundation. There were gallery after gallery of amazing weavings and pottery. Some pieces were several thousand years old. Each area around Sucra still has its distinctive woven patterns, colours and clothing. Lucky for us, there was a paper translation in English of all the labels. A highlight was two young women sitting on the ground each weaving an intricate amazing piece from their culture on frame looms. I could have sat there for the three months until they finished.

Yesterday, Jim and I visited the Museo of the Constitution. This building from 1500 was initially built by the Jesuits as a church and later became a university, then the seat of government where coalitions, constitutions and agreements were brokered and now it is a museum. We were very fortunate to get an English guide (I suspect that he was much more than a guide as he was frequently interrupted to sign letters and forms). This fellow gave us an amazing one hour history lesson as we toured the actual rooms where many of the historic agreements were signed.

February 9, 2009

Whenever I travel I love to try many of the local foods. However as soon as I get sick, all foods become suspect and I´m back to my safe choice of plain boiled noodles.Since I´ve been sick allot on this trip, my exploration of new foods may have to wait for future times.

Yesterday, at a road check point, our vehicle was surrounded by local women selling snacks. These long narrow plastic bags of food had white marble sized balls on the bottom, maybe goat cheese, maybe bean balls, and on top was a slurry of brown ground meat. I´d have loved to have tried them but just didn´t dare.

Two days ago, at the miner´s market, I watched two tiny girls cook empanadas on a tiny cooker in the street. The older sister, maybe seven years old, kept the charcoal under the pot of oil and deep fried the little stuffed goodies. After she scooped them out into a basket, her little sister, fished them out with her fingers and arranged them on a plate and sold them.

So many culture have little packages: cornish pastries in England, egg rolls in Asia, perogies in the Ukraine and perogs in Latvia. The South American empanada comes stuffed with beef, chicken or cheese and ham and when freshly cooked are fantastic!

Saltenas are another little package we´ve had lately. They seem to be baked not fried and are filled with cubes of potatoe and beef.

I really loved the chippa from Paraguay. These are yummy yellow spicey crescent shapped rolls that are probably flavoured with anise and probably have goat cheese kneeded into the dough.

In Boliva, we get a dry tasteless large flat roll for breakfast. These remind me of eating cardboard. To be fair, they usually come with a large pat of butter and perhaps if I slathered on the butter they´d taste okay.

Sunday February 8,2009

I came to Postosi with hopes of finding small silver trinkets for all my friends and family. I am leaving with a story and no trinkets.

Potosi was built upon it`s mountain of silver. For 250 years, its` silver financed all of the Spainish empire. When 80% of the indigenous people had died, African slaves replaced them as mine workers. Over 8,000,000 men died from their work in the mines. Today all the mines are co-operatives but even today once a miner starts underground, slithering into small ladderless shafts, few survive more than ten years. The underground air is very hot and filled with dust, asbestos and silicon. When the miners are underground they feel closer to Tia, the devil-god of the underground.

Yesterday, Jim and caught a local bus to the miner´s market where dynamite, picks, wedges and all the basic necessary mining tools are for sale. Then we walked up the mountain of silver to be a part of the annual miner´s fiesta.

All the dancers and miners and bands met in front of their respective mines. They started drinking and partying and dancing their way down the mountain.
There were many many brass bands all with lots of tubas, trumpets and relentless drumming. Older women danced by in their beautiful orange dresses with embroidered hems and lace shawls. Their hair was tied with ribbons and huge pompoms and they wore large flat hats. Little girls and old women danced by in long red full shirts, black bowlers, white blouses, and lace shawls each tucked with a fancy blanket.
Many of the male dancers in elaborate costumes wore shoes with 5 inch soles and huge spur like bells on the back. There was lots of drinking. Even the people carrying the religious litters had their cans of beer propped next to the Virgin.

The miners, wearing their hard hats, cigaret in one hand, can of beer in the other and carrying flasks made of llama legs danced by. Always a little booze was dribbled on the ground for Pacha Momma. Men in dragon-like costumes, blues, green or reds, swayed down the mountain. At the end of the green dragons, one plump girl in a full gathered ultra mini skirt, strapless top, over the knee green boots with high gold heels and bright green bowler hat with peacock feathers shimmied by. Throughout the parade there were many such girls. Some wore clear raincoats over their glitzy revealing costumes.

All along the route, women in everyday clothes hunkered down beside tiny deep fryers and barbeques, complete with sheep heads and bits of meat with fur. They cooked, nursed their infants and sold food and drink to the hungery.

All of this sounds like a fun, a civilized party, but the fierceness of the miners life and the control and horror of Tia was present at this wild drunken party. In addition to the hundreds of miners with wedges and hammers that did an almost brutal lunging dance down the mountain, there were hundreds of people not in the actual parade who were shooting off enormous water guns, and fire crackers. They hurled water ballons and sprayed cans of foam at everyone in the parade and everyone watching it. And the explosions of dynamite were continual. Initially we could see and hear the the dynamite going off on the mountain side. Eventually the detonations got closer and closer until when they exploded, I experienced the boom and shake in every pour of my body. For just that second, the world stopped. Then it was over, my eyes opened and my heart resumed beating.

We watched the first four hours of the miner´s fiesta, and then we walked back to Potosi dogging waterballoons, spray foam and water from the big water guns. The miner´s fiesta continued all of yesterday, all night and all day today. Tomorrow life in the mines begins again for another year.

February 6, 2009

The trip to Potosi by local bus was awful. Usually you can pay extra and get a bus with a bathroom and slightly more leg room. This wasn´t an option here but we were fortunate to be able to book seats. Once you are in your seat, the bus is packed with as many other locals as can fit in the aisle. The locals usually travel with babies, small children and enormous packs and so it can feel claustrophobic with a backpack in your face and someone almost sitting on your lap. I did manage to do sneak a sketch of one old man standing in the aisle. After a few minutes, I realised that all the other aisle folk were watching me watching him!

The trip was six hours on remote bumpy gravel mountain roads (95% of roads in Bolivia are unpaved). After three hours we had a fifteen minute stop-- no bathrooms at all. The men just lined up on the mountain edge and I walked back down the road and tried to find a little privacy behind a potato plant.

All of this would have been okay (I do love adventures) except I felt very nausiated for the entire trip, even with the gravol. After we reached our hostel I was very sick all night. I am just now thinking of rejoining the land of the living. Before we came on this trip, Jim and I both tried Dukerol, a $ 160 option to stop vomitting and diarreaha for three months. We can both attest that it doesn´t work!

February 5, 2009

A lazy day in Uyuni after our recent four day adventure in the outback of Bolivia. The shower felt good, as did a real bed. All the important chores were taken care of; clothes to laundry, photos on cds, travellors cheques cashed, sun screen purchased. Also a couple of post cards were written and mailed and a bus ticket for tomorrow to Potosi has been purchased.

One of the highlights of Uyuni is supposed to be a train grave yard three kms from town. Jim and I walked there this morning. The way was filled with a terrific stench and the ground was littered with garbage. There were no people anywhere. Eventually we came to the start of the old trains which were spewed ahead of us. I got one shot of some old box cars. Suddenly we realized that we were being closely watched and followed by two young men who appeared up out of a gully beside us. Jim immediately grabbed my hand and we turned around and headed quickly back to town. The two men continued on down the tracks for a short distance, glancing back at us regularily, no doubt hoping that we would continue into the mass of old trains where our cameras and money would have been easy pickings.

February 4th, 2009

Running vicunia, blending with the red, brown sand.
Bumping, thumping and jiggling over sand, rock, and gravel,
For over 1000 kilometers on no roads,
We travel in a four by four truck.
Four days and only two flat tires and one broken water pump.
A wonderful trip.

The mountains surround us,
In soft reds, yellows, gray-greens.
The alto-plano, our very high plane
Is often at 5000 metres.
We rumble past red rock fins,
Herds of ostriches and llama,
Abandoned gold mining towns,
With piscatchios scrambling
Up and over the old stone walls.

Occationally we pass coloured lagunos.
Sharp green--Laguno Verde
Sharp red--Luguno Colorado
These lagunos have large areas of white salt flats,
And occationally mounds of salt which are surrounded
By pale green circles.
The reflection of the mountains is broken
By the bands of salt.
As we get closer, we see that every laguno
Has flamingos,
Often many thousands of flamingos.
Glorious pink, and white and black flamingos.
They walk magestically, stooping to fish.
Their huge bodies with graceful long necks and heads are
Balanced on two tiny stick-like legs.
Legs that seem unending because
They become reflection and extend until
They meld with the relected up side down body.
Suddenly, the flamingos take to the air
And glide past with slowly pumping wings.
The birds and their reflected parade of pink,
Dazzles my eyes.
Until now, I didn´t like flamingos.
Perhaps, they were falsely pink,
Like blue hydrangeas.
Perhaps even falsely shaped
Like fashion models for Florida parks,
Or plastic phoneys for
North American lawns to celebrate birthdays.
Now I feel blessed.
My eyes tear.
The world is a wonderful, amazing place
Because it has flamingos.

We race with a red four by four,
Piled on the roof like our vehicle,
With luggage, spare tires,
blue drums of gasoline,
Yellow bombas of propane,
Food, bottles of water,
A red pick axe.
Our cook Sylvia tries to sleep
In the front seat.
She too was sick in the night.
Soon the red four by four is gone.
¨Driven by a young Heffa´, says Gerando.

We are again alone in this vast landscape.
We spew a huge cloud of dust behind.
Occationally we see patches of coarse yellow grass
or a green mossy rock,
But mostly nothing else growing.
Huge rock shapes sometimes jut out
Of the altoplano.
They´re called stone trees.
Daly painted these rocks,
And now I stand in the cold fierce wind
And try to capture them.
Later I paint in the tiny adobe village,
That we stay the night in.
I paint until the sky is rent with lighting,
And hail pelts down.
The next morning the land is a white snowscape,
Until the sun burns through.

In the jeep, we creep, rocking and bumping
Down a stone gully,
A winding bouncing route
Surrounded by enormouse loose rock walls,
Even driving under bits of overhanging rock at times.
Eventually the gully widens
And we drive again on gravel or sand.

With no trees or plants,
It´s hard to find a little privacy
So I pay the 5 Bolivianos
And get my four little squares of tissue,
And the privilege of using
A seatless, waterless, toilet,
In a tiny adobe hut.

The road again becomes especially brutal.
We pitch and dodge
And inch over and around boulders.
Eventually we leave Gerardo to drive alone,
And we walk for ten minutes
To escape the jarring.
Our lunch destination is worth every moment
Of bone rattling.
We stop near an active volcano.
Smoke rises from a vent
And geysers bubble and spew in
Many holes around us.

On day four, well before dawn
We are woken and we climb out of
Our beds made of salt bricks,
In our salt block hostel.
We pack our bags by flashlight.
Then we are off across
Sala de Uyuni,
The world´s biggest salt lake.
It is 1400 square kms and 40 metres deep in places.
As the horizon lightens
We turn off jeep´s headlights
And drive alone in this flat gray landscape.
The sun breaks the horizon.
The vast white surface is suddenly
Marked with fantastic tiny salt ridges
That pattern the sufface with hexigonal shapes.
It is cold at this high altitude
Until the sun rises and warms us.
We arrive at a coral mountain.
Enormous cactus,
Some 1200 years old,
Catch the early light.

I sit alone on top of this island
And paint,
Internalizing the vast white quiet of salt,
Savouring the tall thick prickly cacti,
In dusty greens and oranges with strong mauve shadows.
The cati rises into the morning sky
From the pale bone-coloured coral
With its pitted, blossoming surface.
In the far distance,
Beyond the Salar de Uyuni
Is a ancient volcano.
All I can feel is love for the world.
And gratitude to have taken this adventure,
Into the beauty that is Bolivia.

January 30, 2009

Yesterday we walked around Tapiza. It´s a colourful village although the buildings, the roads and the surrounding mountains are mostly brown. It was market day and I loved walking up the market road. This is a market for locals, cheap aluninum cookware, coloured plastic containers, shoes, blue print aprons and the fantastic gathered skirts as well as fresh goat cheese, buns, spices and vegetables. I kept grabbing-sneaking photos of the women buying baskets, climbing into or out of the back of big trucks or just walking. I love the shapes and the colours. Jim thinks I probably already have photos of every possible combination of clothing, activity and lighting but still I am moved by the women´s shapes and colours and so I keep snapping the photos. After my camera was stolen in Bolivia last year, I replaced it with one with an 18 times optical zoom. Now I can really creep in on images unnoticed!