EC-Rider Travels

The Bolivian travel experience was not quite the same …. 5.30 start (again!) as we needed to leave extra time to get to the airport to negotiate all the road-blocks. Cynthia was hopeful that many of the ‘blockaders’ might be having a Sunday lie-in, and though some of the children on the side-streets were, the ones on the major roads were very much in operation. My boarding pass eventually got us through, but everyone else was being made to turn-back. I feared for Cynthia’s return journey.

Needless to say, there is a major petrol crisis as the tankers have not been allowed into the city. We went past queues of four or five blocks long and about three cars and five motorbikes deep. It looked as though there were only a couple of pumps operating at the station, so goodness knows how long they will be there (in the boiling heat) and how long the petrol will last. In theory a decision should be made tomorrow, but once again, according to Cynthia, it is a totally corrupt government who she believes is starving their people into submission. Cynthia explained that the election of the current President was rigged and a census will expose this. The government is therefore keen to postpone the census to 2024, the results of which will not come out until 2025, when the President is due to stand down.

The airport was complete chaos with many, many people asleep on the floor. The plane, due to board at 8am, failed to do so, with no indication that it had been delayed on any board, and not a soul to ask! Having said no one speaks English in Brazil, they really, really don’t in Bolivia, not even hotel/airport staff. Unfortunately the very little Spanish I managed to absorb from my three month audio-lessons walking around the park with Beanz, was still somewhat lacking!

Eventually, after about an hour, everyone waiting at my gate got up and headed up to the other end of the very small terminal. Down the stairs and on to a plane in the middle of the tarmac. There were no checks so I was slightly concerned whether I was on the right flight! There did not appear to be a single other tourist getting on but many circular Bolivians in national dress and even one lovely lady with her baby in a beautiful coloured aguayo on her back. Ironically the uniform of the Bolivian airlines in the smartest I have ever seen!

It was a beautiful 40 minute flight over the Andes until we came to a slightly flattened area where much to my surprise there was a run-way. It was different to coming into Heathrow! The airport is only six years old, tiny but apparently soon to serve international flights – I am not sure they will be direct from London! With some apprehension I awaited Mary, my suitcase, who I had left amidst the chaos of Santa Cruz airport and was amazed to see her coming round the corner. I was also a little nervous about the guide I was (hopefully) soon to meet, with whom I was spending the next five days on my own!

Worries were soon allayed, as I saw the smiling face of Noel (so appropriately named) in his denim jacket and leather flat cap! Noel is a musician and has lived and performed all over the world, playing four or five different instruments including the pipes and charango (an eight stringed mini-guitar). He speaks five languages fluently including the local indigenous language, Quechua. We have a charming driver called David, who does not speak English.

The Itinerary was to do a city tour today, but Noel pointed out that it was perhaps not the best day to do so as most things are closed on a Sunday. He instead suggested we went to a local Quechua town called Tarabuco about forty minutes away, where they were holding their weekly market. My best! And oh my goodness this exceeded all expectations …

As we entered the market there is a ‘charming’ statue of Pedro Kalisaya the leader of the Tarabuco army who defeated the Spanish killing their leader Capt Herrera in 1716. The statue is of Kalisaya eating the defeated Captain’s heart. Most welcoming!

The main square was full of colourfully clad Quechuans selling their brightly coloured wares, some really beautiful and mostly hand died and woven. There were also musical instruments, rather tough leather items and gorgeous sombrero hats. Noel picked up the charanga and played a nice welcome song for me and conversed with all the locals in their language.

We then went into the market proper where everyone was sitting on the floor selling their wares – all the same – endless different delicious looking fruit and vegetables (again the area boasts over 500 different kinds of potato!), camomile, spices and masses and masses of coca. Most of the market traders were chewing this which Noel explained is what keeps them going through the day. Many of them will have walked hours to get to the market, carrying their wares or if they are lucky, with the help of a donkey. They chew coca, mixed with legia making a juicy sweet ball in their cheek called a acullico which creates the juice. This is swallowed every few minutes and it acts like a drug keeping you awake, giving you energy and preventing hunger. They use it extensively in the mines where they have to work all day and it is too dusty to eat anything.

Nearly everyone was in traditional dress which varies according to the community they come from and particualrly the pattern of their cloth and aguayo or q’ipina (carrying blanket) or style of hat. There was one who wore a wonderful embroidered pillar-box hat which depending on the angle it was worn denoted if she was married or not! It was the most amazing sight and again I think I was the only foreigner. We then went into the covered market where there was more of the same and the most enormous area where the traders were all having lunch. It all looked delicious until you saw where they were cooking it and washing up!

We wandered around this very pretty, very primitive little town, Noel filling me with many facts and figures which needless to say I cannot remember and we ended up in a funny little restaurant (apparently the best in Tarabuco) for a pretty disgusting lunch!

After lunch we headed back to Sucre – which to the Bolivians is the capital of Bolivia. Not, La Paz as we had all been taught – this is just the legislative capital. There is no rioting or protests going on here and Noel has a very different view on the political situation to Cynthia. He is very much on the side of the Government, believing they have done great things during their fifteen years in power and indeed he told and showed me significant evidence of this.

Primarily that when they came to power, 48% of the population were living in extreme poverty, on the equivalent of $1 per day and this has been reduced to 18%. Many, many schools and hospitals have been built and over 20,000km of highways reaching more of the remote communities. Huge numbers have been connected to mains gas, free of charge. Gas, water and electricity is heavily subsidised and costs very little (approx $1.50 per month). They have done a major levelling up programme encouraging all children to go to school by providing a grant (approx $250) to buy supplies and uniforms; pregnant women receive $250 to encourage them to go and have hospital checks and anyone over 60 (!) can claim $350 per month and double at Christmas. That would go a long way here. The additional income comes from nationalising the country’s huge hydrocarbon industry which until 2006 has been largely in the hands of foreign, public and private companies. As a consequence Bolivia’s GDP increased significantly and their inflation has been consistently around 1.5% – the lowest in South America and indeed much of the world. Noel saw such a marked difference when he returned home to Bolivia after living in the US and Europe for 15 years.

Although still poor, it certainly seems that Bolivia is not the backward South American country I always thought it was. I was also led to believe that it was the most dangerous country of those I was going to and which again Noel refuted and insisted I would be perfectly safe to go out on my own this evening … and so I did.

I headed to the main square which was utterly beautiful and in full Holloween mode with hundreds of adorable Bolivian children all dressed up. I visited the lovely church of St Francis and then went and had supper in a sweet little cafe, Noel had recommended. My very first solo ‘out, out’ experience …. ever!

I returned to my charming hotel, well B&B, which is a mixture of a Spanish villa and French boudoir- hysterical and not a word of English spoken anywhere. It does however have the most lovely terraces and I could not resist a photo of the night sky over this very pretty city.