High Times: La Paz

La Paz. The highest capital city in the world. I have been here for nearly two weeks now. Usually, tourists get stuck here because of Bolivia´s notorious roadblocks. But Tash and I are stuck here because we can´t bring ourselves to leave.

We arrived on the 9th January, and immediately began our customary exploration of the town on foot. I had been before, in 2005, and not much has changed. There is less litter, less visible poverty, less strange smells, and more tourists. We soon bumped into two friends we met on the farm where we worked in Argentina, who informed us of a very good, cheap alojamiento (very basic hostel) only two blocks from our expensive, draughty place. So, we changed hostels, and we are still here!

So, for the last week or so, we have been based in the ominous sounding, but completely harmless Witches Market. The witches are a nice bunch actually. A few of them look like centuries old hags, and they are very brash and sometimes downright rude to foreigners, but I like them. One sold me a bag full of leaves from the forest to help with a sore throat I had, and, despite my scepticism, it worked! (Or maybe it was the antibiotics Maria, our hostel owner, gave me?)

On Friday night, we went to a peña in a cobbled street that has been standing since the 1700s. I was nervous, as the audience looked upmarket and old aged, and I felt ridiculously underdressed, but as soon as the lights went down, and the party started it was brilliant.

A peña is essentially a working men´s club for Bolivians, except the entertainment is good. We were treated to traditional dances from all over Bolivia, including one in which a man dressed as a giant devil did battle with a camp-looking angel. The angel won unfortunately.

Then, once the dancing stopped, on came Pepe Murillo and his Bolivians. Pepe is a charango (like a ukulele) player who knows how to work a crowd. He looked like a cross between Adrien Brody and The Fonz, and, after asking everyone in the audience where they were from, he and his band would play a song from that country. He amazingly sang in Japanese and German, and his bassist played a killer rock´n´roll bassline by Bill Haley and The Comets. No surprises who they chose to cover when we said we were from England! (you guessed it, Los Beatles) After Pepe had wrapped up with some Latin American classics, I thought the show was over. But, never!

People coming from Bolivia into Argentina always talked about how they despised the food here. In fact, they launched so much invective at bolivian cuisine I was worried I might actually become thin when I came here. But, they lie! The food here is absolutely...adequate.You can get a decent meal in a restaurant for about a fiver, or go for cheap eats, on the street or with a traditional almuerzo. Almuerzo (lunch) in La Paz is a three course carbrohydrate bonanza. After the starter soup, which always contains potatoes, rice or pasta, some floating vegetables and a bone, what´s for mains? Potatoes, rice, pasta? How about all three, accompanied with a big piece of fried chicken? But, for between 50 - 80 pence, you can´t complain. In fact, I love it! What lets the almuerzo down is the postre (dessert). Usually chocolate that looks (and tastes) like another brown sticky substance, or, my favourite, a banana with a dollop of marmalade. Yum! I usually skip dessert.

The alternative to almuerzo is the street food, which is greasy, cheap, ridden with diseases, and delicious. You can get salteñas (like chicken pasties) for breakfast, burgers for lunch and empañadas (like beef pasties!) for dinner; all three for ten shiny Bolivianos. (one shiny pound)

The other day Maria took us to the market in El Alto. El Alto (literally - high) is the city above La Paz, on a high plateau at the head of the valley that La Paz spills down. Walking around the market, led by a 4" Bolivian, we four gringos (we went with samson and Merlin, our friends from the farm) stood out like four sore thumbs. There were no other gringos for miles, and we were sandwiched into narrow alleyways. I was sure a pickpocket was going to relieve me of my wallet. Sure enough, an old man "accidentally" spilled dirt on my backpack. I knew this was a distraction, so reached for my pocket. Someone elses hand was trying to furtively weasel his way in there! I yanked the thief´s hand away and started yelling "F Off" in the angriest, scariest Spanish voice I could muster. When we got out of the crowd, my hand practically glued to my pocket, I checked my backpack. All present and correct. They had tried to steal from Merlin´s bacpack as well, but everyone knows you can´t steal from a wizard. It´s impossible. Despite nothing being taken, Maria was very upset, and ashamed of her countrymen.

But, other than the near-robbery, the market was brilliant. Without Maria to lead us through the labyrinthine maze of streets, we would have become very, very lost. They had 4 streets of mobile phones, about 5 city blocks crammed with clothes (all genuine designer of course), you could purchase puppies if you so desire, chickens, (dead or alive) car parts, flags, police uniforms, TVs, buttons, amplifiers, cheese, llama wool, llama foetus, llama jumpers or llama meat. Anything! It was a hectic, chaotic place. Like a giant Argos superstore with no rules, and a million checkouts. Madness.

We have been culture vultures in La Paz too. It´s not all greasy food and crime fighting! We went to the excellent National Art Museum, which displayed works by Bolivia´s Indigenous Movement, who, instead of placing light bulbs on the floor, chopping sharks in half or flinging poo at the ceiling, make real art that says something.

There are many more tales to come from La Paz, but for now, I´m off to haggle with a witch about a llama foetus.

La Paz - Me Encanta

Bolivia: Counting Condors.

The Condor. It is, essentially, a big vulture. It is, therefore, an ugly bird. Its head is bald, and its beak hooked, so it can rummage through the carcasses of fallen animals without blood congealing on its feathers. However, when I use the word big, read, absolutely bloody huge. Yes, it is the size of the bird that makes it magnificent, and beautiful.

The first Condor we saw was with Rufo, when we were doing the Che Guevara tour (blog on that coming soon!) In the distance we saw a bird, gliding on unseen thermals. To my untrained eye it seemed like any other bird of prey. Elegant and menacing on the wind. But Rufo knew it was a Condor. We had been driving down a perilous, cliff hugging stretch of road, with Rufo cautiously guiding the 4x4. As soon as he saw the bird though, he threw caution off the cliff, and accelerated to a speed that nearly changed the colour of my pants. The condor was descending, and Rufo wanted to race it to get a good view. I would like to see a condor, I thought, as we sped around a tight hairpin bend, but I would also like to survive. When I tried to voice my thoughts, however, they came out in nothing but a whimper. When we got to the point where the bird should have been, we saw the last of it's tail feathers float behind a wall of rock.

Three days later, we were off with Rufo again, this time with the sole purpose of seeing condors. It was our third tour with the great "gordito (chubby)" guide, and this time we had an Australian couple, a Mexican, an American and a highly irritating German girl in tow.

It was a 4 hour trek across a ridge, up steep hills that Rufo, in the traditional Bolivian manner, assured us were "slight inclines." (It is a strange quirk with Bolivians, that distances and measurements seem to mean nothing to them. They are not trying to annoy or fool you when they say the shop is 5 minutes away, and 2 hours later you're gasping for water in the peaks of the Andes. They just measure things in their own, speecial way. Similarly, if you ask a Bolivian for directions, they will give you them, whether they know where your intended dedstination is or not. So, you have to ask half a dozen people the same question, and cross reference the answers!)
The walk, however, was beautiful. Every dozen metres you climbed, the landscape seemed to change, becoming less green, more harsh. Eventually, we got to our vantage point. On a narrow ledge, we looked down to a small rock escarpment, a hundred metres below. A waterfall plunged over the edge, and huddled around the rocks were the birds.

The place Rufo led us to was like an airport for Andean Condors. At any one time there were seven or eight birds by the waterfall, playing with eachother, drinking and pruning themselves. All the time there were new arrivals, or departures. Condors would swoop down the valley, circle once or twice, and come in to land. They were enormous. We were close enough to appreciate their size as they flew overhead. The wingspan can reach three metres. You can see the shadow of a condor on the valley floor as it glides imperiously hundreds of metres above. And they are masters of the air...some would take off in twos, and fly around the valley in tandem, in a formation sychronised to a perfection that would impress the Red Arrows. Rarely flapping their wings, they can glide for hundreds of kilometres without stopping. Some of the condors we were watching may have flown to that point, in landlocked Bolivia, from the Pacific ocean. As they glide, you can appreciate their size and formidable weight, as they are not buffeted by the wind, as the other smaller birds we saw (vultures and hawks) were. They have an elegance and a grace incongruous with their ugly features. In flight they are stunning, but on the ground they are horrendous.

Apparently, the place we were that day, deserted and isolated, is the best place to see Condors in the world. I wasn't sure, until rufo said, "Vamos" (Let's go!) As if on cue the condors begin their grand finale. Four or five would take to the sky at once. Above and below, and on every side there were condors. I was trying to count them, but in the end we could only estimate. We saw between 40 and 50 of the birds that day. We had to walk for seven hours, and the 3 hour descent was through a rainstorm that turned the pathway to a river, but I was grinning like a maniac all the way down. Drenched but happy. Becuase, like seeing the ferns in Amboro, seeing condors brought me close to nature, and close to a presious animal that we almost wiped out. to see so many, flying with a liberty we can only dream of, was an amazing experience. They are sky-kings, giants of the air, the mightiest birds of all. Condors.

Bolivia: Dinosaur Food,

We arrived in Bolivia through the dust of the Chaco. A 26 hour slog on a rudimentary bus brought us from Asuncion in Paraguay, through the forested desert wilderness that is the Chaco (accounting for 60% of Paraguays territory, but only 3% of its population,) to the idyllic Eden that is the village of Samaipata.

Three hours from the oil boomtown of Santa Cruz, Samaipata is a village nestled where the Andes meet the Amazon. We arrived on 17th December. "Samaipata" in the Inca language, Quechua, means "rest in the high place." And that is exactly what we did. We spent 12 days in that paradise, and, when we did leave, it was hard to wrench ourselves away.

That 12 days was not all rest and relaxation, however. The first thing we did, after checking into our hostel, La Posada Del Sol, was contact a local guide named Rufo, and visit the ancient cloud forest in Parque Nacional Amboro.

About an hour from Samaipata, we left the road and within five minutes were in the eery silence of the forest. Five minutes after that we were gazing in wonder at the Park's horticultural showpiece..."lecho gigante" giant ferns! They lived up to their name, towering above us and providing shade, like enormous, organic umbrellas. Some were over a thousand years old, and they have been growing in that part of Bolivia since the time of the lumbering giants that ate them for breakfast - the dinosaurs. In Australia and New Zealand, the only other part of the world where they grow, they are known, therefore, as "dinosaur food." It may sound corny, but walking in that forest, surrounded by oversized plants, and deaf to the noises of man far away, it felt like walking back in time. We were walking with dinosaurs, conquistadors, and the enigmantic revolutionary Che Guevara.

Rufo's grandmother was a traditional healer, and so he knew the names and uses of many of the plants we passed as we walked under the great canopy of trees. One, called boldo, was a treatment for asthmatics, and immediately slowed our breathing rate as we climbed through the clammy undergrowth towards a "mirador" (viewpoint). Another medicinal plant was altogether more sinister...Rufo told us many Bolivian women had died after ingesting the innocuous looking, but highly toxic leaves to perform home abortions. For that reason, it was called "trebo maldito," or "god damned trebo."

Rufo said that it was an unusually silent day. Indeed, aside from the occasional bird call, we did seem to be alone. However, rounding a corner and chatting, we came face to face with a metallic blue humming bird, hovering in the centre of the machete made trail. The way it stayed perfectly still, its wings beating in a motionless blur, had a surreal beauty.

Eventually, after following a smooth stream that was like a water park slide up a steep valley, we reached the mirador. The view was worth the walk. A perfectly clear sky, light blue and shimmering in the midday heat, stretched out over an infinity of unbroken forest. To the other side, row after row of formidable mountains, gradually getting higher. It was a humbling sight; the kind of view that makes you feel small, and wonder at the majesty of the natural world. In the 21st century, the power of nature is diminishing...or we are forgetting how to listen to, and live in harmony with, nature. But on that grassy clearing, surrounded by a sea of trees and a wall of stone, I felt a kind of primal connection to the world we live in, the world we rely on, that we are poisoning slowly. Like I said, it was humbling, but in a way empowering too. I felt, seeing that forest that no chainsaw will ever touch, that it isn't too late to learn, and to change, the way we are. For that, just being able to feel that, the call and voice of nature, when I usually live next to London (the Big Smoke) and Heathrow, was a privilege I will never forget, and an experience I will cherish forever.

Glacier Perito Moreno (13th November 2010)

Weeks of debating, vacilating, arguing and dilly-dallying finally brought me, Natasha and our newfound friend Alice to El Calafate, to see the Perito Moreno glacier. This was Patagonia proper, where the wind challenges all and people are scarce. We had been debating whether to come here because it is expensive and isolated...would it be worth going South for a glacier?

We got up early on the 13th and went to get our rental car. The bus to the glacier was a rip-off, so we teamed up with a lovely American called Kate and her Argentinian boyfriend Rodrigo, and rented a sexy machine...a VW Golf! Rodrigo nicknamed it "The Landrover."

It was an incredible experience, and Tash was in her element. Freedom. No bus schedules to stick to, just open road. We took a detour before heading to the glacier, down 50km of unpaved, bumpy madness, with the road stretching ahead, and snowy peaks on the horizon. Tash was like a rally driver, loving every second. I was terrified! Our detour took us to Laguna Roca, a milky turquoise, deserted lake. We savoured the fresh air and the view, Alice found a tree stump that she was very fond of, and we had our mandatory lakeside stone-skimming competition.

Then, after the "Land Rover" did a spot of off roading, we rejoined the main road to the glacier.
The entrance fee was 75 pesos for us English, 25 for Rodrigo, and only 8 for Kate, as she was a student! Absurd! I don´t mind paying, but I do mind being ripped off just for being foreign!

So, with my wallet considerably lighter, we set off down the final stretch of winding, cliff-hugging road. Lago Argentina stretched out below us, to the feet of the towering mountains, and on the surface of the lake we could see tell-tale signs of the glacier; icebergs, solitary and somehow imposing, gleaming in the Sun as they slowly melted.

Finally, we rounded a bend and there it was; bigger than I could have imagined, like an icy tongue tearing the mountains down, 5 km wide and 60 metres high. We were still a few kilometres away, but the excitement in our car was palpable. Kate was from Montana, and had seen glaciers before, but nothing like this. We finally got to the carpark, and went to the wharf where they do boat trips to the glacier...no more boats! Dismayed but not defeated, we drove 10km to another small dock, and got our tickets with two minutes to spare.

Once on board, we jostled for a decent viewing position out on deck with the million or so other tourists, before stopping in front of the glacier. I have had a month to reflect on how I felt, staring at that geographic marvel, and I still cannot really put it into words. Not only is it one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen - a thousand blue hues, a cold-warm colour that changes constantly - it is also one of the most astonishing things I have ever heard.

Up on the balconies situated opposite the beast (I will call it that becuase it constantly moves and changes like some organic being, and its sheer size makes it a beast) you see and hear the glacier calving; blocks of ice the size of shopping centres break off the main body of the glacier and tumble into the lake, thus creating the lake. Destructive creation. After you see this unearthly spectacle, and shockwaves lap up against the shore, you begin to hear it, as the sound takes a few seconds to catch up. First, an ominous crack, as though bvehind the ice some monster prowls. Then, a creaking groan, and finally a thunderous roar. After watching, entranced, for a few hours, we began to anticipate the grand moments of calving. The sound was like mixing classical music and heavy metal. After each climax, silence would descend, and everyone would wait, wanting this natural orchestra to strike up again.

From the top of the balconies, you could see the glacier stretching back into the mountains,hidden and unaccessable. Since arriving in South America, we have seen volcanoes, deserts, mountains, and now this...all these natural phenomenon make me recall geography lessons back at LRGS, with my enthusiastic teacher, Mr. Talks, trying to persuade us how great glaciers and things really were. But black and white diagrams and technical terms do not do the natural world justice, especially not for teenagers in classrooms. You have to see it. And now, having seen it, I understand what Mr. Talks was talking about. Geography is amazing, and this continent has reignited my passion for it.

So, glacier Perito Moreno. Awesome in the truest sense of the word, but impossible to be confined by adjectives. A relic of the Ice Age, and a highlight of this trip. Definitely worth going South!


More photos Click Here!

On Words

This alphabet, these lines
With meaning,
A path to the divine,
A way of gleaning
Truth, or pretending.
Giving permanency
To mind-swirls,
Or persuading fools,
Ensnaring girls,
A library, never ending.

Powerful words, you are my friends,
But you are futile in the end.

Travel Haikus 1

The mountain conquered,
We descend through snowy woods,
Back to the wild world.

It´s rare in the West,
For time to be your best friend
Not an enemy.

No news today,
No morbid stories to bore me.
I feel much better.

Why do I travel?
To be happy and content,
And not ask questions.

With her at my side,
There is no road or mountain
We cannot conquer.

Daily objectives,
See the new, write, be amazed,
Are what we live by.

Sizzling asado,
Share the meat, pass round the wine,
True purpose of food!

On the road, recall
What we all take for granted:
Comfort of England!

In Argentina,
A dog rode atop a car!
It was not a dream.

New collectives form
Every day, no nucleus,
They soon will decay.

Where we will be in
A week is a mystery.
Unknown joy and fear.

I don´t know the names,
In English, at any rate,
Of creatures we see.

Naturaleza,
Fuerte y poderosa,
Mas que la gente.

She looks so serene,
Lying in ways I can not.
Asleep on the bus.

Where are the people?
Emptiness, bleak and humbling.
Patagonia.

The West would be best,
If we had a spare planet.
We will invade space.

I try to ignore this:
Ultimately in our world,
Numbers outweigh words.

With a gurgling growl,
The whale cuts through the water.
Magnificent beast.

Odd-looking dancer,
colour, your gift to this land.
Desert flamingo.

Wales And Whales

Near the Patagonian coast, in a valley sheltered from the incessant winds that whip in from the Atlantic, there is a village called Gaiman. In Gaiman there are many quaint little teahouses, where one can see love spoons, teatowels adorned with stranglely named castles, and flags emblazoned with bright red dragons. Yes, Gaiman is a Welsh settlement!

We had arrived late afternoon - Tash, myself, Alice and Missy. We had been travelling together since Bariloche. They studied in Wales, so wanted to come here, and Tash and I have a good Welsh friend, so wanted to come here!

Gaiman was a bizarre little place, and nothing like what I expected. Places never are! I had an image of a charming village with sandstone houses, smoke billowing out of chimneypots and well-manicured gardens. The reality was a non-descript village that could be driven through and instantly forgotten. It was only when we looked closer that things took a turn towards the surreal. Welsh dragons above restaurant doors, street names like Juan Evans, and very Welsh teahouses everywhere. These places did have well manicured gardens! The place we went to was run by a portly, friendly lady, but sadly she spoke Spanish. I was half expecting a "hello boyo," when I stepped through the door.

We lowered the average age in the tearoom by a few decades, and ordered the mandatory huge plate of cakes. It was an insane amount of food...scones, flans, Welsh cakes, bread, all washed down with a lovely pot of tea. I think my arteries hated me that day.

After buying a postcard for our friend LLoyd, we shuffled back on the bus with bloated bellies, and headed to Puerto Madryn for the main attraction in this part of the world: Whales!

We were up at 8, as we had to get a bus early to Puerto Piramides, a tiny village on the Valdes Peninsula, from where we took our boat.

Waiting for our boat to depart, we stood on the shore and could see black shapes in the distance; fins poking out from under the waves, surely too big to be real. They seemed very close to the boats, and this got us all excited.

When we boarded, I got on first - by luck more than by planning - and secured us seats at the front of the boat before people started jostling for positions. Then we were off, racing out of the bay, the wind in our hair, eyes peeled for a glimpse of the magnificent Southern Right Whales. We had nearly two hours for our tour. I am no Ahab, and so thought it might take a while to come across a whale. Come to that, maybe we wouldn´t see anything. But, within five minutes we could see a fin the size of a man splashing playfully on the water. The guide told us that some of the whales like playing with the boats, but what this calf (yes, a calf...it looked big enough to be an adult to me, it was at least 6 metres long!) was doing was making noise to call its mother, who was plumbing the depths of the ocean for krill. After watching the fin, mesmerised, for a few minutes, we saw a gleaming ridge of a back break the surface, and then an enormous double pronged tail. It was magnificent to behold.

I would have been more than satisfied with this glimpse of a calf, but soon we could see whales on all sides. See them, and hear them too. They make a thunderous, husky growling noise as they surface and breathe, blowing fountains of spray into the air. One was so close to our boat it sprayed us from its blowhole!

Just watching those creatures was beautiful, even with dozens of people on the boat, all pointing, shrieking and gasping. Despite that, there was more than one moment when everybody fell silent, and tranquility reigned as we all gazed in awe and admiration at those elegant behemoths of the deep. The adults were bigger than our boat, some 16 metres long, and moved almost in slow motion, poetically.

Often seeing wildlife is a tainted experience, as many species are endangered precisely because of our existence. As our cities grow, so their kingdoms shrink. But, the Southern Right Whales of peninsula Valdes are a heartwarming success story. Our guide bombarded us with encouraging facts. The population has grown on average 7% a year for the last 15 years, so now, in the peak breeding month of October, there are over a thousand whales in the bay. So, it was with light, not heavy hearts that we watched calves playing with their mothers, rolling and tumbling over eachother. They are noble, powerful creatures, but peaceful and graceful too.

I was upset when we had to go back to the shore.