First a quick update of the goings on in Sucre but I have stolen a few excerpts from Mark's mammoth general mails partly to spice things up and partly because well he's already written what I was thinking and I'm just too lazy to type it out gain.
Day 70 to 73: Old friends
After Kieren headed home Mark and I had a few days to kill before we needed to be in Sucre for our Spanish school so we decided that a slow trip south would be a great idea and a stop or 2 on the way would be interesting. We were just about to leave La Paz when we heard the exciting news that 2 fellow travelers from home would be popping into La Paz and so we decided to hang about for a day or so so as not to miss them.
It was so awesome to see Steve and Lisa Barrett who have been traveling all over the world from Asia to the USA and now South America. We had a great evening laughing about the funny and sometimes crazy travel moments we'd all had (they've got a blog too with some hilarious anecdotes so check it out http://stevenandlisartw.blogspot.com). While killing time waiting for these dudes to pitch we had searched for a couch surfing opportunity in Potosi, a popular touristy town near Sucre, and found a really interesting and cool looking Italian dude called Marco who had invited us to join them for a fiesta so with only 2 days left before we needed to be in Sucre we made a move and bode Steve, Lisa and their other 2 travel buddies, also from South Africa, a fond farewell.
Marco, however, did not live in Potosi but rather a little place called Llallagua, in the province of Potosi, in the middle of freaken nowhere and is as much of a tourist attraction as is Vanderbijlpark or perhaps Croydon. The only reason that Marco is there is that he is a volunteer, along with a several other Italians, from a European NGO helping the local populations with farming techniques in an area that once thrived when Tin was worth something. But none the less Marco had informed us that there was a huge catholic festival celebrating some or other virgin taking place, which one we're not sure because every week there is another festival celebrating some or other virgin, and although he'd mentioned that all the beds were being busy we were still most welcome.
Day 74 to 75: Llallagua
We decided that a totally random town sounded perfect and so off we headed to nowhere. When we finally got Llallagua, which felt like it was slap bang in the middle of the Alti Plano desert which it may well be, we were faced with 50,000 reveling Bolivians. Suddenly we realised that we did not have the correct phone number for our host Marco and we figured there was no way to find him as he would not be checking his mail over the weekend so we made our way through the drunken crowds and checked into a hostel. What we didn't know at the time was that this hostel, and pretty much the rest of the town, had no running water so that meant that the toilets had not been flushed properly in who knows how long and smelt of rotten urine and excrement which was so strong that it literally smacked you in the face. Mark was not able to go near the toilets without gagging so he decided to rather pee in a bottle on the roof when needs be after discovering that spitting toothpaste out the window did not impress the local revelers below, so anything else would have caused a riot.
Once we'd dumped our bags we began to wonder around town hoping we'd bump into the only Italian looking guy around when we suddenly spoted our first gringo. At first I was a little shy to be presumptuous and just approach this lady assuming she must know the only other gringo in town but then realised it was our only hope. True as Bob, she'd just given Marcos friend a lift to his house and had Marcos friends number. Needless to say Marco was gob-smacked when we got hold of him on his friends phone, firstly how on earth had we got Mikael's number and secondly he hadn't yet seen a our mail confirming our pending arrival.
Next thing we knew it was like we had been reunited with long lost friends and were on our way to a house party with Marco and a bunch of Italians. They made the best Italian food ever, Pizzas and all sorts and we got to hang out with some really awesome and interesting volunteers and practice a whole lot of Spanish because those luck Italianos already know 90% of Spanish just buy speaking Italian. There were also a couple of locals at the house party who then later invited us out to one of the local spots where we could enjoy the local festivities.
The local spot proved interesting and with most of these things you land up drinking and doing things you wouldn't normally do but to avoid offending anyone so you just go along with it. First we were fed some beer called Chicha, not to be confused with the taste Chicha maize drink of Peru, from a big old oil barrel served in what could have been a dog's bowl. The Chicha didn't actually taste too bad, in fact it tasted a bit like sorghum beer sweetened with red juice. Half the time in South America we avoided brushing our teeth with local water let alone drinking the stuff mixed in a barrel that everyone was just dipping their bowl in and out of but hey we hoped the alcohol would kill anything that could kill us. Next the music picked up and so were we! Lucky me got the Mom and she seemed pretty determined while Mark got to dance with her younger daughter. I laughed so hard at first, Mark just looked so uncomfortable and the beat (I can't call it a song) just went on and on forever and the Mom didn't even seem to want to stop when we knocked down the shrine to the Virgin someone that seems to be in every home, bar and bus station, you name it, it has one. I had to think of an escape plan .. ah I got it I could ask where the loo was! So I politely said “¿Donde esta el baño?” What I didn't realise is that this would be seen as an invitation to come long to the loo - I mean hey who needs to point when you can go along and watch?! After the harrowing loo experience the Italians were fortunately making a move so Mark and I slightly less politely made a run for it!
Outside of this very welcoming crowd we were clearly not welcome in Llallagua judging by the insults that were hurled at us as we cruised the streets later that night. As Mark mentioned in his mail, its not that surprising as to the locals a foreign face just means some rich dude that has come to rape their land and take more of what has already been taken from them. Prejudices can be so hurtful but to the locals all gringos get painted with the same brush. The damage that gringos have done over the years is bare to see but still the anger and hatred is so destructive and pointless especially since we are just 2 people who have nothing in common with the US and their colonial Spanish history except the colour of our skin. Unfortunately, as white South Africans we are painted with the white racist supremacist brush by many of the people the world over, some of whom are even honest enough to admit that they were scared to host us because they were worried about our prejudices. This is understandable given South Africa's history but what they don't realise is that their prejudices about us are as destructive and as bad as those of the old South Africa. I guess all we can do is change these perceptions one person at a time.
After an interesting, fun and sometimes smelly time in Llallagua we headed for our destination of Sucre and the town that was to be our home for the next 3 weeks. Thanks again to Marco and his friends.
Day 76 to 95: Sucre
We were on our way further south in the direction of Sucre the capital city of Bolivia,
which is known and I can now confirm is one of the most beautiful cities in South America. Still the Capital of Bolivia, it has taken a back seat in terms of importance since the arrival of Evo Morales as the countries President, up for re-election in December. Being the first indigenous President in Bolivia, he is seen by many in Sucre as a left wing puppet and he is seriously disliked by many people in the capital city. In fact, Evo has only been to Sucre a few times in his tenure as President due to being so unwelcome. Sucre was always the colonial head quarters and so the rift between the wealthy Spanish descendants (upper class) and the poor indigenous people appears to remain rife. To the poor and indigenous population Evo is a hero and they adore him and to the rich he is an uneducated fool that is slowly destroying the economy and buying votes by distributing food and money to the poor uneducated just before the elections. A few parallels between South African and Bolivian politics could be drawn here but but lets just hope at the end of our Presidents tenure we don't stand so divided - so far, from what I've read, so good!
We arrived in Sucre in the early morning at around 6 and had a couple of hours to chill in the park outside the school before it opened. From the moment we arrived in Sucre we fell in love with this gorgeous city known as 'La Cuidad Blanca', the white city, because of all the white colonial buildings. Once the school opened we wrote a big fat 6 page Spanish exam and then were taken to our new families whom we would be living with for the next 3 weeks. We both hit the jackpot, we were both a couple of blocks stroll through the city to school, had great rooms, I even got my own bathroom fully kitted out including urinal, and our families were so welcoming. Every morning I awoke to a lovely continental breakfast waiting for me on the porch and then when I returned from school got a 2 or 3 course lunch. Dinners we were left to fend for ourselves which was actually quite nice because it meant you didn't need to be home for dinner but if you were about when dinner was being dished out you were sure to be offered some.
The kids at my home are so adorable and just unbelievably well behaved. There must be about 6 of them milling about. I am actually being hosted by their grandparents but I and their 3 sons with their families all live in different rooms or quarters dotted around the 5 story 'house'. The corridors are like any South African school, outdoors, with a kitchen, dinning room and living room all leading onto the porch or quad on the ground floor which is shared by all. The kids have slowly warmed to the strange bearded man that is now living on the top floor of their home. Every now and again I see them peering round my door and then either getting shot with some toy pistol or get pleaded to play on the laptop. The other day I thought it would be a great idea to ask them to help me put up my new tent on the roof deck which proved great fun but did leave me stressing that I would land up with hole in my brand new tent as they proceeded to attack each other through the thin tent walls. Trying to control a bunch of 3 to 8 year olds in pigeon Spanish is quite a task I'll tell you! I think I must have said 'cuidado', take care , about a thousand times in various different tones hoping it would register differently each time.
After packing up the tent the kids insisted in carrying it back to my room which resulted in even more chaos. Each one of them spotted something new and exiting in my room and then proceeded to fight amongst themselves deciding as to who gets to play with what first. Laptop, celphones, cameras, hats, sunglasses you name it were flying round the room with flashes from the camera going off all over the place. Amazingly thought these kids are so tolerant of each other – the one even smacked the 3 year old in the head and on an average day a kid would have screamed blue murder but no she just started giggling and then whacked him straight back which ended in a fit of laughter rather than tears. Toño (Tonyo - same name as the Mexican puppet in the Nandos ads), around 6 years old, is a bit of a rabble rouser but is just too funny sometimes – last I saw - him and his brother had each other in some kind of backwards, laying down neck lock but I haven't heard any screaming yet so all should be good.
This city is just too easy to settle in. As Mark and I need to keep up the fitness we've been doing some altitude training in the beautiful central park and even joined a gym for 40bob ($4) for the whole month. The gym is just too funny, the equipment and décor all looks like its from the 80s and there are pictures everywhere of Arni at his weight training best but thankfully this has all been complimented with one giant picture of a weight training lady with huge implants. In general, its pretty standard to have a picture in your restaurant, bus station ticket booth, internet café etc. of a half naked gringo lady pinned up somewhere near the picture of the Virgin Mary.
Visas
When we arrived here we had only got a 30 day visa which was now coming to the end of its validity so Mark and I popped in to the immigration office hoping to walk out half an our later with an extension. The offices were beautiful but looked more like a Cape Dutch home than an immigration office. We were immediately invited into one of the officials well kitted out offices where we explained our need to which he rummaged through some papers then said yes it was possible. But first we needed to make 3 colour copies of our passports and visas and pay 198bob ($20) so off we ran to find a shop that would now make colour photocopies! This was just the beginning and after a day of jumping through hoops and doing the cancan on one leg we eventually had a file full of papers and were told to come back the next day to collect our passports with visas intact. Fortunately, when came to collect them they were ready but not without having to run off and make a couple more colour copies that wanted added to the file.
Potosi
Potosi, the town we never got to on the way to Sucre actually has a very interesting history. Mark's Bolivian sister invited him to go with her to the city of Potosi because she was doing some work with an organisation called Free Voices that is helping some of the many child mine labours that still exist in Potosi today. I never did get to Potosi but did watch a very interesting movie called Devils Miner which is a famous 'arts' movie highlighting their plight, a movie I can highly recommend.Here are some extracts from an entertaining rendition by Mark about his trip to Potosi:
“Since Dave and I never made it to the city of Potosi before I thought that it would be a great opportunity to see the city and also practice my Spanish with my sister because it is a 2,5 hour drive in the car. So I skipped school, actually changed my classes to another day, and at 6am in the morning Liliana and I headed off to Potosi.
Potosi is a really fascinating and sad city. In 1611, it was the richest city in the world, way bigger than London or Paris and in many ways the wealth centre of the world. The city has apparently produced enough silver over the years to build a bridge from Bolivia to Spain however since the demise of Silver and the discovery of larger silver mines elsewhere in the world the city of Potosi has turned into a ghost town of old colonial buildings where the streets stink of
poverty.
Just like Africa, the city was raped of all its minerals and which were then sent over the sea to be used by some stupidly rich person that has conned the world into believing that they are special just because they have the title King or Queen. The city is nothing more than a placed raped of all it once had to offer and left to rot. Today its one of the poorest cities in Bolivia and the world I would imagine while copious amounts of Gold and Silver sit in some castle in Spain for tourists to gasp at. Today there are only numerous old colonial buildings which are beautiful as can be but the sadness of the city is impossible to ignore.
So we arrived around 10:30 after a long windy taxi ride uphill to Potosi. It is claimed to be the highest city in the world at over 4,090 m. It lies beneath the Cerro de Potosi — sometimes referred to as the Cerro Rico ("rich mountain") — a mountain popularly conceived of as being "made of" silver ore, which has always dominated the city. Cerro de Potosi’s peak is 4,824 meters above sea level. This gorgeous mountain stands over the city and is where all the silver was once
found. It was literally a mountain of silver and over the years has lost serious altitude as the mountain has been mined away from the inside. Even though you can see the destruction of the mining on this once proud mountain, it is still absolutely gorgeous and naturally one of the most interesting mountains. It is totally arid and looks like an old volcano yet is still completely striking and hard to take your eyes off.
Potosi also has a very real African connection since in order to compensate for the diminishing indigenous labour force, the colonists who dared not work themselves made a request in 1608 to the Crown in Madrid to begin allowing for the importation of 1500 to 2000 black African slaves per year. An estimated total of 30,000 African slaves were taken to Potosi throughout the colonial era. African slaves were also forced to work in the Casa de la Moneda as acémilas humanas (human mules). Since mules would die after couple of months pushing the mills, the colonists replaced the four mules with twenty African slaves. Today there is still a small African community in the Yungas region, where it is tropical and warm. This community are the descendants of the slaves that fled the Spanish colonists and settled in this warm region.
There are two famous things to do in Potosi. The First is to visit the mines and see the labours at work. I missed the mine tour because I did not really have time but also felt very uneasy about the whole situation. It is a form of tourism that does not sit easily with me. The mines are active working mines and the miners are real workers slaving away for a pittance. Being an active working mine it feels slightly strange that you can pay some agency money to go and watch others suffer. It feels like a zoo and I was not that keen to be part of a form of tourism where rich tourists get to gasp at real human beings in their very hard and sad lives just trying to survive on what little they have.
The second famous thing about Potosi is 'La casa de Modeda"'which is the old mint where the African slaves were brought to work. It is here that a huge amount of the world’s coins were once made. It is a gorgeous old building that has been turned into a museum since the mint was officially closed years and years ago.
Unfortunately, there wasn't a Spanish tour where I could have practised my Spanish and so I had to go with the "Ingleesh" tour which meant that it was me, an Irish couple, 3 poms, 2 Germans who could not speak English but thought it better than the French tour, 1 person from the USA and 4 elephants. Yip, I am sorry to be rude and nasty but my shattered ball bags we really had an elephant family join us for the trip. In fact in turned out to be the highlight of the tour by miles.
We had a bery bery nice Bolivian tour guide who coulda speeka bery bery well igleesh and his eyes nearly popped out his head when he saw the elephant family join the group. The dad weighed in at around 370kg and lucky the Casa de la Moneda was an old fort with giant doors or else this family would not have been able to see anything. I am pretty convinced that the sole reason that MacDonald’s share price has plummeted recently is due to the fact that elephant family is away for a while. To be fair Mom was not that big and only looked like a buffalo but there are only two things bigger than dad in this world 1) sonny boy who has eaten enough pies to solve starvation in Africa and secondly his sisters bum which alone I predict weighed in at an even 450 pounds!! I spent the entire tour staring at them and laughing at the guide who I think was petrified that they were going to go through the "colonial" wooden floors which have been there for 400 years but were about to met there match. At one stage we were looking at these giant scales that weighed the tons of silver back in the day and the USA dude popped up his hand to ask a question and I thought "oh no, please God don’t ask what I think you are going to ask" but luckily he never asked if the scaled would have handled elephant family because I know the answer already. He only wanted to know who designed the scales! I guess that mine and his mind were in totally different places.
There were 2 interesting things about the mint. One is that Potosi used to make all the money for Spain and Europe in general and also other parts of the world. However it stopped years ago and now in fact the world makes money for Bolivia as they out source their money making. I must admit that I never knew that countries outsourced money making but the Bolivians get Canada, Spain and Chile to make their money now. The second amazing thing is that it proved my horrible prejudice wrong and in fact I owe a huge apology to all the people from the USA because I thought that elephant family were from the mighty US of A but in the end they turned out to be Canadians! They were very proud to give the guide a coin from Canada that looks just the same as the Bolivian coin because it was made in the same factory (mint) in Canada somewhere. Fascinating isn't it!!!!”
Parties, Fights and Old friends return
Steve and Lisa had some time to kill in Bolivia while waiting for their passports to be returned with their stupid over priced UK visa they didn't even want it but had to get because they would soon be connecting in London to continue their holiday in Italy so after hearing how fantastic Sucre is they just couldn't resist a little visit. We spent lots of time with these guys which was great and we even managed a visit to a local market which by now I've seen enough of but it was fun exploring together especially since Steve was sporting a lovely bright pink bag.
At the end of our first week of classes the school organised a braai for all the students on Friday night. There is not too much interesting to report from the braai except that, as Mark mentioned even with his vegetarian hat on, the Brazilian dude that appointed himself the braai master would have been throw out of SA because on the official braai master scale he was not even a 2/10 which means that he is not even allowed to hold the tongs for the braai master in SA never mind actually go near the sacred braai. After spending a bout 2 hours trying to start the fire with by heating coal on the stove and then insisting we should not compliment this process with balls of newspaper he finally managed to muster up enough heat to slow cook the steak for 1 hour 45 minutes until it was good quality leather. But not to worry when we saw things were heading south with this braai and that our assistance was not going to be appreciated to stood well away making sure the great SA braai was not dragged through the mud.
After the braai we all headed to the local gringo bar to meet up with Steve and Lisa and take the party to the next level however around midnight Steve and Lisa had to head home because they had a 'curfew' at their hostel. Even they admitted the next day that this was a poor excuse to leave a party and that, being newly-weds, they had in fact continued the party when they return to their hostel room.
Its a pity they had to head home early because after their departure things headed down hill. We went to a hideous club called Mitos where you would have sworn the local Bolivians had never seen a beautiful English girl. Emma, a beautiful English girl, had joined us at the club where she became the entertainment of the evening as all the local Bolivian men would literally walk up and stand 2cm away from here and literally stare straight at her breasts for at least 15 minutes while drooling a little bit. This did prove quite entertain at first but then got a quite annoying as my levels of irritation grew.
Now this is where things got really out of hand. I had headed off to the bar to get a round of drinks but had had to resort to the 'emergency' hidden pocket where I had stashed my crisp 100bob notes I'd earlier drawn from the ATM. The bill came to just under 50bob so when I got a few coins change I questioned where the other 50bob change was but the arrogant bar lady, who I hadn't liked the look of in the first place, just pulled up her nose and deceitfully shook her head walking off. I had grown annoyed with people ripping one off just because you happen to have white skin therefore must want to just throw our money away so amazingly after a night of booze I managed to convince myself that hopping over the bar and collecting the 50bob myself may not be looked upon lightly by management and instead did the next best thing. I actually started hurling lemon pieces at the little thief shouting in my best Spanish, you thief you little *%^* thief give me my money! This of course roused the attention of the bounces and surprisingly after listening to my rather fuming explanation of how I knew I'd given the little *%^* thief 100bob and not 50bob they eventually gave me the right change.
So now I returned to our circle of mates with the drinks in hand and still irritated that people like that little *%^* thief actually existed when some stupidly drunk and fat local dude that could not stop drooling at Emma's breasts thought that it was time to pick fight with me. So after some pushing and pretending that he was very tough which itself was quite a good show, the drunk idiot was 'held back' by his friends. You know how it goes...push out the chest, hurls some swear words, pretend that you can’t actually get there to fight because your friends are holding you back and all round try and act as tough as you can. Fortunately, as I had earlier roused the bouncers attention they were close at hand and the idiot was led away. A few moments later the director of our Spanish school, who was also there, came over and apologised as it turns out the stupid drunken fighter was in fact one of the school's teacher's brothers! This was when I realised the place was full of idiots it would be impossible to enjoy myself so promptly headed home.
The others left soon after at around 4:30am and began to walk home when they were joined by a local dude who turned out to be to be the business because he was apparently a sniper, yip that’s right he told them that he was a sniper trained in the Bolivian Special Forces (like Bolivia even have a special forces, the poor country has had 4 wars and has been smashed in each one, even Paraguay whipped their bottom and stole their land).
Here's Mark's tale of the night that followed: “He said that if we ran he would have to shoot us, I thought this the funniest thing ever and so of course told him that it was amazing because I was in fact also a sniper from the SA army and that I was on a secret mission in Bolivian to kill all snipers in Bolivian. He loved this and walked arm in arm with me the whole way back. Luckily Emma was there or else who knows what might have happened with my new best friend.....
Around 5am, I dropped Emma at her place and then headed home except there was one major problem; I did not have keys to my house. I was way too scared to wake the family up at 5am in the morning and so decided very wisely that I would just sleep in the plaza which was 100 meters from my house. My plan was to have a quick nap in the plaza on the bench and then head home at 7am a more reasonable hour to wake up the family.
Lucky for me, as soon as I reached the plaza I was met by the local hobos who also thought the plaza a good place to sleep (must be the benches or something) and I was instantly invited to join the hobo party. It was a party of 2 with 4 bottles of 'Ron', Rum, and I was lucky enough to be the honoured guest who got to have as many sips of the 'Ron' as I pleased. You can just imagine how many sips I pleased after seeing the bottle being rammed into the slobbery mouth of a hobo that has not brushed his teeth in years. But, of course one can't be rude and so I joined the party. In the end it was the best Spanish lesson of my life because hobos are so tolerant with your speaking ability and we ended up chatting about all things including South Africa for hours. It was the craziest thing but the one hobo knew more about South Africa than anyone that I have met here so far including all the very well educated and even more than many South Africans. It is crazy and you would not believe but there are hundreds of people here that have never heard of SA and do not even know that it is a country. We think that we have quite an important country with so much history etc. which of course is true but to many people here SA does not even exist. My teacher for example has never heard of Nelson Mandela and I had to explain where SA is and what our history is and that we are a real country and not just a region in Africa.
Anyway, this hobo was incredible he knew everything including all the dates of all significant events in SA, freedom charter, the congress of the people, Sharpeville, Soweto Riots, Rivonia trial and much more. He knew all the political heroes and when they died and so we chatted about SA for hours in the plaza while enjoying the quality 'Ron' that was on offer. In the end we sang our respective national anthems to each other while kneeling on the plaza floor with fist against the heart in front of the 'Casa de la Liberacion', the house of liberation, and hugged for about 10 minutes before he passed out and I headed home because it was now 7:15am and time for breakfast.
In the end it was an incredibly long and tiring night but I suppose that every now and then the fool inside needs his moment just so that we can be reminded of how lucky we are that we don't always have to sleep in the plaza on a bench with a bottle of 'Ron'. It also showed me that the most unexpected people sometimes have the best stories and are the most interesting. So often we write someone off before we know anything about them just on the bases of their appearance or where they live or some other silly reason. I think that everyone has their story and we should take the time to listen because we never know what we can learn from all kinds of people. I will never forget my friend in the plaza that shared his 'Ron' and his time and showed me so much about the prejudices that I have. I am highly recommend a night in the park but suggest that one should skip the 'Ron' because that will surely come back to haunt you the following day.”
What I find is quite bizarre is that when one wonders home after dark the streets are totally deserted and well lit so you feel quite safe but unfortunately they are strewn with rubbish and packs of well groomed dogs rule the roads. Partly for 2 reasons there are many street stalls on the pavements in the day that just leave their rubbish behind and the other is that it is common to just put your rubbish and your dog out on the street at night which just means they help to spread the rubbish all over the streets. Apparently dog food is just not affordable so they deliberately put their dogs out at night to find food and that at about 6am every morning, before any one gets up, an army of rather poor looking people leave the city spotless. What's odd though is that these people seem to be completely un-resourced by the state, no one has any kind of uniform to speak of and they all seem to find their own brooms and bags to clean the street with using any thing from a giant leaf to the standard grass broom you'd find in SA.
Bullfighting
One of the Saturdays we heard that there was some kind of running of the bulls at a festival just out of town so off we went in a local 'colectivo', I love the word 'colectivo' its just so much more descriptive than our boring old name for them 'minibus taxis'. We got to the festival along with every other person who'd decided to be collected in our 'colectivo' along the way making it quite cosy by the time we got there. The festival was just like any other and as usual the local music was going on at full blast - I think it might actually be illegal to play music here without making the speakers distort a whole lot - Julie would love this place! Mark summed up our feelings about the local music quite nicely: “The truth is that it is simply awful. Every song sounds exactly the same and if you go to a festival or any party there is always at least 5 places right next to each other all playing music at the same time which you would think would make a huge racket because you simply can’t play Elvis, Whitney Houston, Black Sabbath, the doors and Brenda Fassie all at the same time. However, here it’s perfectly normal to play a whole cacophony of music because they have the same irritating beat and whining granny going on and on forever. It's true the songs never end, ever!! I swear they are trying to kill me slowly. You can’t even tell that they are different songs playing because they are all so similar, one constant beat, some squeaky old accordion and a whining granny dancing in the mountains. Ok I realize that I am now being very insensitive to the local culture but the truth is that they do actually have some amazing bands and musician here it’s just that you have to go to some of the live music at the local bars to hear it.”
To the whine of the local music we went off to find this bull run. In fact it wasn't a bull run or even a bullfight at all rather it was just a ring with a bull in it. When we arrived at the ring the crowd had all gathered and were patiently waiting for the bull to be let into the ring. When the bull was let in we patiently awaited the matadors arrival (can you believe this word actually means killer in Spanish derived from the word 'matar' which means to kill) but fortunately we had been pre-assured that no animals were going to be slowly tortured to death, as was the case of the bullfight I watched in Madrid a couple of years back, so no matador did ever arrive. Slowly the crowd grew more and more rowdy and restless and this is when the first drunken teenager hopped into the ring! And judging by the crowds reaction this is what they had come to see, at first we were a little uncomfortable about attending and event where we may well see drunken teenager get maimed or even worse trampled to death. We continued to watch for a while which actually got quite entertaining when one dude ran in slapped the bull on his bum grabbed his tail then got swung in circles for a while until he got thrown off.
While all this was going on one of the other bulls in the holding pen awaiting his turn got bored and decided to spice things up a little by scaling the stone wall and making a dash for the road but not without first running through the stalls sending people flying and screaming in all directions. After all this excitement the other drunkards struggled to provide entertainment and there was little incentive to get any closer to the now angered bull. We soon got bored and headed off but later heard that they had managed to spice things up again by pegging money to the bulls horns providing a great incentive to attempt getting close to the bull!
When I see things like public drunken bullfighting I wonder how their society can allow these kind of things to take place, entertainment at the risk of someone being maimed to death (or perhaps just a good way to get rid of stupid drunk people from society), but then at other times I've often found the countries I've been to in South America so far so progressive in the way they save energy never leaving a light on and using power saving bulbs everywhere while internet access is cheap and readily available to all. The other day I was in one of the 4 internet cafés in my block and what was obviously a homeless mute child walked in, he handed over his 2bob ($0.2) for 1hr of internet and proceeded to log onto gmail, msn messenger etc getting on with it chatting to friends, reading articles and looking things up. Such a simple thing had given this essentially helpless mute street child access to a world of communication and information! When I get home I ask that you hold me to this but I will dedicate much of my time working out how we can make this a reality for all South Africans because I have for long realised the internet can be such an empowering tool but have now only witnessed it first-hand. Not only does it empower one but what with all blogging and chating that goes on these days freedom of speech and democracy thrives on-line, we only need to look to Obama's election and his on-line election campaign to reassert this. Its no surprise countries like China, Iran and Zimbabwe are clamping down on internet freedom (I'm pretty sure Malema will have ago at it soon too)!
Locos (a nick name for Sucrians as they were once the only city with a 'loco' house in Bolivia)
We've met so many cool people traveling but one couple we met here at the school really stood out. Just when we thought we were a little bit “loco”, crazy, this Canadian couple comes along and tells us they sold their house and car to buy a one-way ticket to South America and have no real plans to return home in any hurry, now that's balls I tell you! Its only later getting to know them better that we found out that life circumstances brought them to question the out of the box life model they were pursuing and rather go on this amazing journey. Its going to be very interesting following Peter and Dalene's stories and how their travels evolve (http://hecktictravels.blogspot.com) and I wish them the best of luck!
As I write this chaos is erupting outside my house with drums, trumpets a trail of parked cars being left behind with their alarms all going mad. The bands and school kids are in the street practising their march for next weeks festival which we are sadly going to miss but best I go get some sun and enjoy my last weekend in this beautiful and vibrant city. Ah yes there go the fire crackers and all the alarms again, no festival is complete without some hideously loud and dangerous fire cracker being set off – thank heavens they have been banned in South Africa, if not for my sanity then the poor dogs sanity!
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