Bits and pieces of Bolivia

Here comes the promised bit on Bolivia! It is hard to know though where to start, as the country is so different to anything that I´ve seen before. Maybe it is just better to start from where I left off last.

After my three-day salt plain tour ended, I headed to Potosí, only three-four hour ride from Uyuni. The city is around 500 years old - that is, the streets, plazas and churches are pretty much the same as then, only of course the houses might have been renovated a bit. The fact that the city is five hundred years old might not be that strange, but given the way how it was built in a hurry (the silver rush - they say there was so much silver they could have built a bridge between the Americas and Spain), the city is really something worth seeing. There are these narrow winding streets which they say were built so to avoid the wind blowing, as it anyway gets really cold there. It is summer now and I was wearing a sweater throughout the day, so I guess they have a point.

View of Potosí and the Cerro Rico.

Just one of the steep streets of Potosí.

I decided not to go to the mines of Potosí, which are a big touristic attraction, as it was supposed to be both physically and mentally hard. Note that it was only a day or two after my horrible altitude sickness, and I was still getting breathless when walking up just two flights of stairs. From what I heard, the people in the mines still work in horrible conditions and the life expectancy is pretty low due to that and the contaminated air. Even though I did not see the mines, I got a glimpse of what it is in a small museum of the "Tio" - really supposed to be Dio, God, which the indigenous people could not pronounce correctly and which the Spaniards used to keep the miners scared so they would not leave the mines. I also went to see the "Casa de la Moneda" which displays the way the coins were printed five-hundred years ago. It has the only printing machine in the world from that era. Huge. Basically takes two stories of the building. And to hear and see how people had to work is just astounding. Makes you feel bad even though you had nothing to do with the colonalization. What was also interesting was that the dollar sign is derived from the sign they used for the coin in Potosí (PTSI written on top of each other)!

Chance encounters...

Last thing in Potosí I did was to go and see the oldest church of the city. I hesitated to go, as I had to wait two hours for it to open, which meant I would arrive even later in Sucre where I was going next. I am so happy I did go, as you got a great city view and I also earned a ride to Sucre! There happened to be an Argentinian couple with their Bolivian uncle waiting to see the same Franciscan church, and we started talking. The uncle lived in Sucre and they were visiting Potosí by car. Long story short, they offered me a ride! It was great to have a chat for the two and a half hour ride that we took, discussing the conditions, customs and politics of Finland, Argentina and Bolivia. What was even more amazing, they offered me to go with them the next day to the Glorieta castle just outside Sucre, so I also got a private ride there and company the next day.

Charming Sucre.

Sucre itself was from a completely different world comparing to the other Bolivian cities, with its white-painted facades and wide clean streets. What I also appreciated was that it offers quite a variety to tourists. Aaaand it is a lively student city! I spent five days in Sucre as it felt such an easy-going city. In Sucre I met up with a couple from the Uyuni tour, and we did a four-hour walking tour around the city which was really nice! It included a couple of museums, such as the textile museum, a viewpoint where you could see the city from and more facts about the city than my Spanish head could handle...


My second night in Sucre I had the pleasure to meet some young Bolivian guys. These are the best moments, meeting the locals, although you should always be aware of course, especially if you are a woman and alone. It was a thursday night, and as the carnaval time was closing up there was a "Día de compadres" which meant that the men partied together without their wifes, girlfriends. To make it fair, next week there was the ladie´s Thursday of course. Anyways, on this Thursday I went to dine alone at a restaurant (which I picked by the way solely for the Bachata they were playing!). Already when entering I could feel I was noted by the guys at the next table. And sure enough, it did not take more than five minutes before one of them came to ask if I wanted to join them. So, I ended up having dinner with five young and lively Bolivian 20-something year-old guys. We had a fun night talking about various things, and the guys kept bombarding me with questions so that I started wandering where on earth did they even come up with them. And what a joy there was when we realized that they too were business students! The funniest conversation though happened when we continued to the near-by plaza to have a walk and get some fresh air. And yes, I was aware I was alone with five young men. Even I know that it sounds pretty interesting to go for a walk with a bunch of tipsy Bolivian guys. It was not what I had planned for the night for sure. But maybe you could look at it this way as well: at a night when all the men were out drinking, I had five body guards at the Plaza to protect me :D

But so there I was, and one of the guys started talking to me about his personal dilemma of his skin colour - he was, indeed, lighter-skinned than the Bolivians usually. I do not know how he got to the subject since I only remember asking him about his girlfriend (this was a fascinating subject since according to the guys the girls there are highly possessive). We ended up talking about finding his true self within the society of Bolivia. And all this in Spanish, I keep surprising myself... In the end I got huge thanks and a remark that he now sees the world differently after having gotten a view of an outsider. Oh, and I also received an invite to a party next day. To which I actually would have gone, only if the guys would have managed to keep their promise of meeting me at the main square. Texting them later, it seemed that everybody was equally confused of what happened, and at least half of the guys had such a hangover they could not even go partying. Maybe it was better this way, and at least I got a fun night of "compadres"!

Bolivia, the land of the cute little kids, colours and smelly streets

Kids playing with waterballoons in Sucre.

In Bolivia there is carnaval time in the end of February and end of March. Even though it was not the carnaval week yet, people were already getting into the mood. This meant that kids were out everywhere throwing water-filled balloons at people and trying to hit you with shaving foam. Not to mention the water-guns the children were going aroung with! I was lucky not to have more than my shoe wet on one occasion, otherwise I succeeded in dodging those cute angel-faced but oh-so-bad-intentioned little kids. Throwing water seemed also to be a great way of flirting among the teenagers, and many times the passers-by just happened to be collateral damage. Another thing related to the carnaval are the colourful decorations they sell on every street corner, and also the dead baby llamas that are meant to be sacrificed.

There would have been a big Carnaval (a Unesco recognised one, actually) in Oruro, but I decided to skip it as I would have had around a week to wait and did not feel like killing time in Bolivia. So I continued my way to La Paz, the world´s highest capital. I definitely did not like it as much as Sucre. For me, I felt the only amazing thing was the location. But what a location! I cannot describe it, you have to see it to believe it. I was lucky to fly in to the city, to get a view of how the city is spread around the valley and the highlands...
 

Just a small glimpse of La Paz.

 Describing Bolivia is really hard. Based on my two weeks (of which about a week I spent being sick), I would say Bolivia is a lot of colours, Cholitas (the traditional-dressed ladies), suspicious hygiene, dirty streets but beautiful nature, folklore music, great traditions, and a nation still trying to find itself after being exploited and having lost a lot to its neighbouring countries. What definitely strikes the tourists first is the way in which a large part of the ladies are dressed, in traditional costumes and hats. The second I think is the height of the people. Sometimes it would be hard to tell a person´s age. At times this was not only due to their height, but also because the children many times acted just as grown-ups did - with low income even the children have to start taking responsibility in a way you would never think they would in Finland for example. If not by selling something then by taking care of their younger siblings. Sometimes both at the same time. Makes you really think what an easy childhood you have had.

To me it seems that the Bolivian people are very nice. Nobody really speaks English so I do not wonder why people sometimes find them unfriendly. Even I got the feeling that some Bolivians really are unfriendly, maybe because they are suspicious about the tourists. To conclude, I would say that Bolivia is not a bad place nor a dangerous one. Instead, it has a lot of originality and character that many other countries lack, even though it might not be that developed. Even so, I was happy to finally enter Peruvian soil after two weeks, such a different world it was.