On Tuesday we took a bus north from Tilcara, Argentina to the border. The bus trip was through incredibly colourful beautiful mountains. When the people in the front seat got off we nabbed their seats and basked in the marvelous views. The mountains are barren and are undulating stipes of red and yellow. Occationally we passed a bunch of cacti that looked like large people standing and waving.
After arriving at the Argentinian border we departed the bus and walked across the bridge to Villazon Bolivia. Immediately we were struck by the noice, excitement, confusion, and colour that is Bolivia. The women wear their traditional dress and it felt like coming home to see the hats and shawls and full skirts. The women are short and with the full clothing and carrying packs of babies, bricks, vegetables, they look as wide as they are tall. It´s a relief to be back in Bolivia also because we found Argentina too expensive for our slim budget, but the main pleasure is seeing traditional people going about their daily lives, away from the posh comfort that lures most tourists.
Yesterday we took photos from our hostel window of people walking by on the street. The colours and shadows were strong. Then I set off to do some sketches on the street. It´s a little scarey to go off alone in a strange town and then to actually paint but once I find a spot for my little stool and become a fixture of the street, I settle in and totally enjoy myself. First of all a boy selling icecream started watching me paint the orange juice ladies squeezing their oranges. Then more and more people gathered, even policemen. As I finished sketches, different folks would borrow them and run off to show their friends. Of course they also showed the orange juice ladies!
At three oclock we hopped on the train to Tupiza. It was more breathtaking scenery of mountains, arid plains and beautiful dry washes. Unfortunately the train also played movies and I got sucked in watching a Michael Douglas thriller in Spanish. I alternated between worrying about the little kidnapped girl and savouring the fantastic Bolivian scenery.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Wednesday, January 29 2009
The bus station of Tilcara
Is crowded with beautiful young women
Waiting for buses.
Self absorbed, they stand
With their packs and bed rolls
And sleeping bags.
These girls don´t acknowledge me,
This large women in tee shirt and shorts
From another place and time
Who sits on a bench
Clutching packs and watching madly.
The beauties pose in groups.
They move their heads or shoulders
And preen,
Knowing that the world is watching them.
Their eyes are piercing blue,
Or richly dark with full arching brows.
Their hair shines as it`s tossed
Over shoulders, tucked behind ears
Or swung as they lift their chins
To smoke or drink matte.
Berets, alpaca hats with ear lungs,
or shimery bright scarves are worn
With pizzazz and purpose.
Their eclectic outfits
Run the gamut from flowy trousers
With knee length crotches
To mini skirts with
Fluorescent leggings.
Dr Martin boots, Converse All Stars
Or flip flops are the footwear of choice.
Tops are colourful spandex
Often strapless,
Often reveiling flat tummies.
Tanned curving bodies
Are adorned with tatoos,
Discreetly creeping up the neck,
Behind the ear, under the arm,
Or on the lower back.
A local girl in drab sweater,
skirt and worn woven shawl sits
Beside me on the bench.
When she returns my smile,
I see that all her upper teeth are missing.
Her eyes are very wide apart
And dull.
She holds her tiny son,
Dressed in woven shirt
And trousers and peaked cap.
He appraises me with his
Enormous dark eyes
Full of life.
Is crowded with beautiful young women
Waiting for buses.
Self absorbed, they stand
With their packs and bed rolls
And sleeping bags.
These girls don´t acknowledge me,
This large women in tee shirt and shorts
From another place and time
Who sits on a bench
Clutching packs and watching madly.
The beauties pose in groups.
They move their heads or shoulders
And preen,
Knowing that the world is watching them.
Their eyes are piercing blue,
Or richly dark with full arching brows.
Their hair shines as it`s tossed
Over shoulders, tucked behind ears
Or swung as they lift their chins
To smoke or drink matte.
Berets, alpaca hats with ear lungs,
or shimery bright scarves are worn
With pizzazz and purpose.
Their eclectic outfits
Run the gamut from flowy trousers
With knee length crotches
To mini skirts with
Fluorescent leggings.
Dr Martin boots, Converse All Stars
Or flip flops are the footwear of choice.
Tops are colourful spandex
Often strapless,
Often reveiling flat tummies.
Tanned curving bodies
Are adorned with tatoos,
Discreetly creeping up the neck,
Behind the ear, under the arm,
Or on the lower back.
A local girl in drab sweater,
skirt and worn woven shawl sits
Beside me on the bench.
When she returns my smile,
I see that all her upper teeth are missing.
Her eyes are very wide apart
And dull.
She holds her tiny son,
Dressed in woven shirt
And trousers and peaked cap.
He appraises me with his
Enormous dark eyes
Full of life.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Tuesday
Well we had a good couple of days in Tilcara Argentina. In the guide book, it was listed as a small quiet village with an artist colony. Unfortunately it is neither.
No artist colony and it is overrun with thousands of young Spanish kids having fun.
Oh well. It is beautiful. Tilcara is situated in a valley between very glorious gorgious colourful mountains. I did three quarter sheet paintings yesterday despite the sun (it is ever so slightly cooler) Last night we ever put on long sleeved shirts as it was only 80 degrees. Two of the cleaning ladies where we are staying also wanted me to paint their portraits so I stopped one painting mid ptg and obliged and they were thrilled.
Jim´s anxious for me to pack up as we´re off to Bolivia. You can check out his blog if you´re interested at www.wyattjim.blogspot.com
No artist colony and it is overrun with thousands of young Spanish kids having fun.
Oh well. It is beautiful. Tilcara is situated in a valley between very glorious gorgious colourful mountains. I did three quarter sheet paintings yesterday despite the sun (it is ever so slightly cooler) Last night we ever put on long sleeved shirts as it was only 80 degrees. Two of the cleaning ladies where we are staying also wanted me to paint their portraits so I stopped one painting mid ptg and obliged and they were thrilled.
Jim´s anxious for me to pack up as we´re off to Bolivia. You can check out his blog if you´re interested at www.wyattjim.blogspot.com
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Saturday January 24
Intense heat,
Dripping sweat, we order cervaza frio
And bask in the cold gold
Cooling from the inside.
Too soon the big bottle is empty
And we´re on the bus.
The bus that cost allot
And should be so comfortable,
But perhaps South Americans
Are shorter in the leg.
I relax in the comfort of air conditioning
Only to be roused by loud Spanish rock videos
On the buses television.
Almost naked women
Thrust, bump and jiggle
Their flesh,
To the incessant steady beat
Of song after song after song.
Then hours of loud Spanish car crashes,
Gun fights, brawls.
I bury my head in my book
To avoid the violent images
But the noice is relentless,
Like Chinese water torture,
Hammering away at my soul.
After five hours,
A chubby Latin in bus uniform
Delivers cold flattened sandwiches
Which taste wonderful.
Anything to escape the boredom.
And a glass of fruity fizzy pop,
Which means an hour later,
I have to brave the stairs of the bus
While it heaves and rocks,
To find the filthy disgusting loo.
Eventually, after many hours,
The noice ends.
Almost heaven,
If only I could straighten my legs and arms.
I doze until morning.
At 6AM, we arrive in
The strange dark city of Salta, Argentina.
Fifteen hours on a bus.
We get a taxi,
Book into another expensive hotel,
(Again listed in South America on a Shoe String)
And sleep.
Sleep until the traffic roars,
Sleeps until the sun is up
But the shadows are still long,
Sleep until the morning air is fresh.
Then we are ready to embrace the day
And start another adventure.
And we did have a marvelous day hoofing it around Salta yesterday after the night on the bus. It`s a lovely city, quite upscale from what we are used to. Lots of good plades to stay, places to see and places to eat. (And you can eat the salads). Salta is situated in a large valley surrounded by enormous hills. The centre area is filled with glorious old architecture. We toured several churches, one museum of history and two museums of art and we both survived our first gondola ride up a mountain. There we shared cervaza grande and still managed the over 1000 steps to get back down to town. Today though my legs still feel a little rubbery.
This morning, I did a quarter sheet painting of a balcony with flowers (always one of my favourite subjects). It´s all about the fabulous lighting and the shadows.
While I was working I had lots of people stop and talk, although almost entirely in Spanish. One girl had amazing English. I asked her where she learned it and she said she learned it from watching television!!!! Also a woman came out onto the balcony that I was painting and watered her flowers!!! I grabbed the camera and this will definitely be a subject for a studio painting once I am home again in Nova Scotia.
Dripping sweat, we order cervaza frio
And bask in the cold gold
Cooling from the inside.
Too soon the big bottle is empty
And we´re on the bus.
The bus that cost allot
And should be so comfortable,
But perhaps South Americans
Are shorter in the leg.
I relax in the comfort of air conditioning
Only to be roused by loud Spanish rock videos
On the buses television.
Almost naked women
Thrust, bump and jiggle
Their flesh,
To the incessant steady beat
Of song after song after song.
Then hours of loud Spanish car crashes,
Gun fights, brawls.
I bury my head in my book
To avoid the violent images
But the noice is relentless,
Like Chinese water torture,
Hammering away at my soul.
After five hours,
A chubby Latin in bus uniform
Delivers cold flattened sandwiches
Which taste wonderful.
Anything to escape the boredom.
And a glass of fruity fizzy pop,
Which means an hour later,
I have to brave the stairs of the bus
While it heaves and rocks,
To find the filthy disgusting loo.
Eventually, after many hours,
The noice ends.
Almost heaven,
If only I could straighten my legs and arms.
I doze until morning.
At 6AM, we arrive in
The strange dark city of Salta, Argentina.
Fifteen hours on a bus.
We get a taxi,
Book into another expensive hotel,
(Again listed in South America on a Shoe String)
And sleep.
Sleep until the traffic roars,
Sleeps until the sun is up
But the shadows are still long,
Sleep until the morning air is fresh.
Then we are ready to embrace the day
And start another adventure.
And we did have a marvelous day hoofing it around Salta yesterday after the night on the bus. It`s a lovely city, quite upscale from what we are used to. Lots of good plades to stay, places to see and places to eat. (And you can eat the salads). Salta is situated in a large valley surrounded by enormous hills. The centre area is filled with glorious old architecture. We toured several churches, one museum of history and two museums of art and we both survived our first gondola ride up a mountain. There we shared cervaza grande and still managed the over 1000 steps to get back down to town. Today though my legs still feel a little rubbery.
This morning, I did a quarter sheet painting of a balcony with flowers (always one of my favourite subjects). It´s all about the fabulous lighting and the shadows.
While I was working I had lots of people stop and talk, although almost entirely in Spanish. One girl had amazing English. I asked her where she learned it and she said she learned it from watching television!!!! Also a woman came out onto the balcony that I was painting and watered her flowers!!! I grabbed the camera and this will definitely be a subject for a studio painting once I am home again in Nova Scotia.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
January 22, 2009
A couple of things that I find amusng in Resistencia.
The pet shop that sell pets rats and their food also features rat poison right up at the checkout!!
The famacia (drug store) is called Klap Famacia
The welcome mat at our hostel features welcome on one half and goodbye of the other (I´ve never seen this before)and neither of which anyone here can read since it is totally Spanish speaking.
The highlight of our hotel is that it has the worlds biggest swish when the toilet is flushed. I just imagine it grabbing me and sucking me into the centre of the earth.
The pet shop that sell pets rats and their food also features rat poison right up at the checkout!!
The famacia (drug store) is called Klap Famacia
The welcome mat at our hostel features welcome on one half and goodbye of the other (I´ve never seen this before)and neither of which anyone here can read since it is totally Spanish speaking.
The highlight of our hotel is that it has the worlds biggest swish when the toilet is flushed. I just imagine it grabbing me and sucking me into the centre of the earth.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
January 21, 2009
Like Cameleons, we dash
from one patch of shade to the next.
The air is noticably cooler,
The intense colours muted.
We weave from the shade of giant trees,
to the full shadow of awnings,
to the tiny strip that edges store fronts
when the sun is overhead.
Jim sings:
Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun.
And it´s true.
The streets are empty,
Gone are the scooters, the cars and the walkers.
It´s siesta time.
Even the supermarcado is cerrado!
Yesterday in Asuncion, Paraguay, Jim and I went out to our favourite bar for breakfast and on the way discovered that the door to the museum of culture was not locked, not exactly open but not locked. In we went and found a worker upstairs who showed us to the third floor and put on lights for us. One gallery was all Paraguayan and the other European, none of it memorable. Then we headed to the bus station. One of the hazards of our kind of travel is that it´s hard to plan ahead.Getting to a bus station even once in large unfamiliar cities and speaking almost no Spanish is a challenge and so usually we just get to the bus station and then wait until there´s a bus headed where we want to go to. Sometimes it decides where we want to go to! Yesterday we arrived at the station at 10 and booked a ticket on a bus for Residencia, Argentina that left at 3. Last night at 11 we arrived. Our Lonely Planet , South America on a Shoe String is somewhat out of date.
The first hotel we asked the taxi to take us to had been closed for three years.
The second one cost twice as much as was in the book but thankfully had a room.
Some of our worst meals have also come from places in our guide. (La Vica Verde)
but to be fair, we´ve also had some of our best meals at places in the guide: Bar San Roque, with its spiffy black suited and crisp white shirted waiters (food to match) and the Lido Bar with it´s curving bar and behind it´s plump middle aged waitresses, in kneelength straight orange skirts, striped shirts and tiny orange pill box hats held on with two enormous bobby pins. Perhaps the orange theme is relevant since the jugo de naranja is the best orange juice in the world. Definitely two of my highlights of Paraguay are the fabulous orange juice and coffee con leche just the way I like it.
This morning we woke up in Resistencia, Argentina. and set off to explore before the heat limited our ramblings. In the big square on opposite sides there were two large demonstations brewing. Horse drawn carts were clipping by and being parked. Their drivers marching to protest for the workers party. While on the other side of the square, protestors for ???????? had spent the night in tents and were gathering up bedrolls and children. Resistencia seems a perfect name for this town.
Now I haven´t been in a good protest since 1982, when Danica (a new born) and I made the front page of the Truro Daily News with our placard against uranium mining at the Bob McCleave inquiry. I am good at making placards. So when we next have a demonstration or a protest in Portaupique, I volunteer to do the signs, Jim says he´ll rouse the rabble. Now we just need a drummer, some protestors and a cause.
from one patch of shade to the next.
The air is noticably cooler,
The intense colours muted.
We weave from the shade of giant trees,
to the full shadow of awnings,
to the tiny strip that edges store fronts
when the sun is overhead.
Jim sings:
Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun.
And it´s true.
The streets are empty,
Gone are the scooters, the cars and the walkers.
It´s siesta time.
Even the supermarcado is cerrado!
Yesterday in Asuncion, Paraguay, Jim and I went out to our favourite bar for breakfast and on the way discovered that the door to the museum of culture was not locked, not exactly open but not locked. In we went and found a worker upstairs who showed us to the third floor and put on lights for us. One gallery was all Paraguayan and the other European, none of it memorable. Then we headed to the bus station. One of the hazards of our kind of travel is that it´s hard to plan ahead.Getting to a bus station even once in large unfamiliar cities and speaking almost no Spanish is a challenge and so usually we just get to the bus station and then wait until there´s a bus headed where we want to go to. Sometimes it decides where we want to go to! Yesterday we arrived at the station at 10 and booked a ticket on a bus for Residencia, Argentina that left at 3. Last night at 11 we arrived. Our Lonely Planet , South America on a Shoe String is somewhat out of date.
The first hotel we asked the taxi to take us to had been closed for three years.
The second one cost twice as much as was in the book but thankfully had a room.
Some of our worst meals have also come from places in our guide. (La Vica Verde)
but to be fair, we´ve also had some of our best meals at places in the guide: Bar San Roque, with its spiffy black suited and crisp white shirted waiters (food to match) and the Lido Bar with it´s curving bar and behind it´s plump middle aged waitresses, in kneelength straight orange skirts, striped shirts and tiny orange pill box hats held on with two enormous bobby pins. Perhaps the orange theme is relevant since the jugo de naranja is the best orange juice in the world. Definitely two of my highlights of Paraguay are the fabulous orange juice and coffee con leche just the way I like it.
This morning we woke up in Resistencia, Argentina. and set off to explore before the heat limited our ramblings. In the big square on opposite sides there were two large demonstations brewing. Horse drawn carts were clipping by and being parked. Their drivers marching to protest for the workers party. While on the other side of the square, protestors for ???????? had spent the night in tents and were gathering up bedrolls and children. Resistencia seems a perfect name for this town.
Now I haven´t been in a good protest since 1982, when Danica (a new born) and I made the front page of the Truro Daily News with our placard against uranium mining at the Bob McCleave inquiry. I am good at making placards. So when we next have a demonstration or a protest in Portaupique, I volunteer to do the signs, Jim says he´ll rouse the rabble. Now we just need a drummer, some protestors and a cause.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Monday January 19
When we awoke yesterday in the depressing cool noisey box that was our room at the Plaza Hotel, I got out the guide book and started reading about alternative accomodations. I also unshackled the window of it¨s metal cladding, opened the curtians, folded back the windows and turned off the annoying thrumming of the air conditioning. When Jim came in after his shower he was surprised. Especially when I told him I wanted to check out a different pension up the road!! He´s a good man.
Much as he thought I was crazy, up the road we went. We´re now in a gorgious old old house with a central courtyard and blessed quiet. We then hopped on the bus and after getting off and walking for a couple of hours in extreme heat we found the only book store in Paraguay that carries some English books. Heaven. I felt so indulgent since we spent 680,000 quierani. (don´t panic too much 100,000 is $ 20 US.) I now have four books to read, John Updikes, Seek My Face, Margaret Atwoods Moral Disorder and Dave Eggers What is the What, also a book by an unknown to me author Anne Enright, The Gathering and it won the 2007 Booker. For everyone who knows me, you´ll understand how hard it was for me to be without a good book.
No doubt we will now find a book exchange with cheap or free English books but in case we don´t I´m all set. I didn´t buy a table cloth because I´d have to carry it and now I happily will have to carry four new books.
Much as he thought I was crazy, up the road we went. We´re now in a gorgious old old house with a central courtyard and blessed quiet. We then hopped on the bus and after getting off and walking for a couple of hours in extreme heat we found the only book store in Paraguay that carries some English books. Heaven. I felt so indulgent since we spent 680,000 quierani. (don´t panic too much 100,000 is $ 20 US.) I now have four books to read, John Updikes, Seek My Face, Margaret Atwoods Moral Disorder and Dave Eggers What is the What, also a book by an unknown to me author Anne Enright, The Gathering and it won the 2007 Booker. For everyone who knows me, you´ll understand how hard it was for me to be without a good book.
No doubt we will now find a book exchange with cheap or free English books but in case we don´t I´m all set. I didn´t buy a table cloth because I´d have to carry it and now I happily will have to carry four new books.
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