Potosi, Bolivia

Potosi, Bolivia is perhaps one of the strangest places on earth. And frankly, I´m shocked to have not known anything about it before my visit to Bolivia. In fact, for about one hundred years (about 1560-1660) it was the largest, most prosperous, booming city in the Western Hemisphere provoking a common Bolivian phrase "vale un Potosi" (rich as Potosi). But today Potosi is as poor as it once was prosperous, and, despite huge advancements in mining technology, workers are as exploited as ever. The cerro itself resembles a giant honeycomb, whose open cells bear mute testimony to its gaudy–and tragic–history. With a local economy tied tragically and swinging like an unpredictable pendulum according to global mineral prices, today only a few things are certain. The work is unbearably barbaric, a form or mining with hand tools and man-powered pulley systems that lower the littlest of the men (or often children) into dynamite blasted-out shafts that extends deep into the heart of the mountain. The average miner will last only ten years before contracting a fatal respiratory illness. For the exception of a few recently formed cooperatives for the laborers, its everyman for himself. Thus each man is earning the cash equivalent of what minerals he hauls out of the mountain each day. There are effectively no labor laws or regulations, so, in search of their fortune, in hopes hitting it big, and the chance to never have to wake another morning to return to that mountain, men will work 10, 12, 15, or sometimes 20 hours without rest. They earn between $8-$12 per day and there is absolutely never a lack of labor. Almost all of them are indigenous Indians that have migrated from the countryside; some of the poorest people in the world that live their lives caught in the cracks, in the margins, of our tragic dance of modern development.

Potosi is the "worlds highest city" and at 4000 meters the altitude is really no joke. For me, a flight of steps equates near heart failure. I can´t comprehend the physical exertion of the miners. To cope, the miners have mouths packed with coca leaves (and rotted teeth), literally dripping with the green juices. The leaf of the Coca plant, a source of enormous controversy in between the Bolivian and American governments, is proven to help alleviate altitude sickness, hunger and fatigue and has been used socially, culturally and ritually by Andean people for more that 2500 years. Initially it was outlawed by Spanish colonialist, until they quickly realized the benefit it produced in their enslaved labor force.

Christian, the Chileno, and I arrived at another unknown dark middle-of-the-night, freezing hour. And again I passed countless pitch-black, shivering hours inside the bus, waiting for day break. But if its between this and paying for a room, I´ll take it, chilled bones and all. At day break, we found a room, and set out to see the mines. There are tours. Oodles of tours where they´ll take you up the mountain, give you a silly full body miners suit to wear, boots, helmet and all and after prancing around in your funny new clothes and posing for smiling group shots, "Hey, look at us, we´re real miners" they do explosive demonstrations so you can ooh and aah at the homemade dynamite. Then they´ll take you into the mine to see how the men work and even hand over a shovel or two to let the bravest group members give it a go. The biggest tourist brute will swing the pick or the shovel a few times, grinning while his girlfriend takes photos, and then collapse in high altitude exhaustion. Sorry to sound like a pessimist, but this is just nauseating. We´re talking about one of the gravest workers rights situations in the world, an emblem of global inequality, and a mine that has taken the lives of over 8 million slave laborers (both literal slaves and economic slaves). This is like getting a pretend number "tattooed" on your arm before skipping your way, camera clad, through a concentration camp. I just couldn´t do it. So Christian and I asked for bus directions to the mine and just took ourselves up the mountain to check it out. Finding a way in proved easy as everyone was keen take a few Bolivianos to walk us around their work sites. And hey, better the money goes directly to them, then to some tourist agency called "Gringo Enterprises" in the city. We visited a few sites. Absolutely chilling places where each gaping entryway into the mountain was blackened by the blood of a llama, its bones and skulls littering the ground, left over from a twice annual sacrificial ceremony to keep the miners safe. At one, I was riveted, my feet cemented in place by the impressionable, unforgettable site of one group of young men marching, trance-like, from one of the shafts. There headlamps produced a strange suspended bobbing light against their blackest of black work environment, like orangish glowing stars dancing from the depths of the mountain. And finally they emerged into the daylight, rocks crunching under weathered shoes, with bodies, and presumably lungs too, powdered ghost white by the fine mineral dust of their dynamite explosions.

Un Chico Chileno

My first encounter with the Chilean was spotting him, hauling booty, across the giant frozen deer lick (if you didn´t grow up in Michigan, maybe it escapes you that this is a referance to a giant block of salt). He was wearing some sunglasses-goggle-things that made him look strikingly like a grasshopper. The carload of us took to hooting and hollaring at him, giving him props for taking on such an expidition by bike. Later we actually met him while our 4x4 stopped off on the "Isla del Pescado", a fish shaped island peppered picturesquly by cacti. We learned he had actually come all the way from Chili, on his bicycle. And then again he and I met, the night the three-day tour concluded, and I was aboard my next overnight bus to Potosi. I´m sitting there waiting for departure and guess who stumbleds aboard, hagarded as ever? Having removed his sun-goggles, it was clear and comical to see that the combination of relentless high-altitude sun, its intensified glare off the blaring white salt flats, and his buggy eyewear had produced serious facial tan lines that made even the worst farmers tan look normal. Now, goggles down, he had an incredibly impressive liking to a racoon. We became instant friends.

Salar de Uyuni

Mom was delyed several days due to a very inconvienant pickpocking incident in the Rodrigez Marketplace of downtown La Paz. But the day she left, I got out of town on the first available bus to the Salar de Uyuni, the worlds largest salt flats. Like Utah, minus the mormons and with a lot more salt. The bus arrived a little earlier than expected (what, am I in Bolivia any more?). And since there is next to nothing one can do when arriving in a new city at 2am, its helpful that in Bolivia it is permitted to sleep in the bus until day break; which I did, shivering in the briskness of the below freezing night. The odd, salty landscape of the Salar is certainly as awe-inspiring as pictures make it out to be. But there´s one thing that pictures can´t convay, the COLD, the very, incredibly, three days of bumping along the desert in an unheated 4x4 and sleeping in equally unheated "hotels" in the middle of the oppressive salt dessert, cold. Not only is it 4:30 am when they hustle you out of bed to be whisked away in the 9-person-packed 4x4 to see various heavily touristed, yet incredible attractions, but its 10 degrees below zero...and we´re talking celsios. And its a good thing the desert doesn´t offer many driving obsticals because our driver, Jose, had only one fuctional eye, the other was either missing or somehow out-of-wack, hidden behind a crazy mess of guaze and medical tape.

Family Time Conclusion Aug 1st-14th

After chasing down monkeys in the forest and eating precariously preserved foods for three days in the Parque National de Madidi, we headed to Copocabana situated gorgeously on the shore of el famoso Lago Titicaka, the worlds highest navigable lake. Copacabana just so happened to be gearing up for its once annual fiesta of the Virgin. Every city seems to have some Catholic Virgin to whom the citizenry attribute scores of miracles. Therefore virginity, though only in women, is very highly regarded. Of course this disparity; virginity in women but not men, is mathematically, absolutely impossible given that it takes two to tango. Thus, the exalted virgin bit is merely a patriarchal sham of organized religion to dominate and control the sexuality of women, if you want to know how I feel about it. Anyway, Copacabana was busy honoring the Virgin by baptizing the hoods of extemely festively decorated cars, buses, taxis and all else motorized with holy wine. Where or how this tradition originated is beyond me but taxistas and bus drivers were arriving in flocks from far flung Bolivian villages to have the Virgin work her magic on their automobiles. Aside from this odd automobile baptism, Bolivians were getting absolutely sloshed in the streets and gorging on the multitude of sweets from the millions of vendors that had set up shop to take advantage of the festival´s crowds. Escaping the furry, we headed via a tourist packed ferry, to Isla del Sol, and arrived there not to long after the advent of electricity. We easily passed two days by hiking ancient Incan terraces and llama watching on this land where, according to dogma, the first two Incan gods (man and wife) rose together out of the lake. Returning to Copacabana, only long enough to catch our onward bus, we were off to Cuzco, the original capital of the Incans and later Repubic of Peru.

Cuzco is an absolutely gorgeous city, chock full of brilliant restaurants, cobblestone streets straight out of your wildest colonial architectural dreams (if you have those), and fabulous fair-trade-option-shopping. We were sure to take advantage, sampling oven roasted Guinea Pig, a national delicacy served roasted, head, little feet, tail and all. We can thank ancient Anden Indians, who were the first to domesticate the Guinea Pig, for our little fury pets today. Machu Picchu was, of course, nothing short of incredible, though unfortunately, Aguas Calientes at its base, is a tourist dump. I happily was able to count on my brother to wake at 4:30am to hike to Machu Picchu, avoiding the slew of tour bus that carry the daily limit of 500 visitors to the top of the mountain. Judging by the dangerously small size of the steps all over the restored archaeological mecca, I´m convinced that Incans had microscopically small feet.

Lastly, I must make comment to our mountain bike trip down the "Worlds Most Dangerous Road". "Our" being only Mom and I...can you imagine Randy (clumsy and absent mind being among the many adj one could use to describe him) embarking on a bicycle ride that involves cliffs and potential death?! We descended about 12,000ft over the course of 42 miles, in about 4 hours. Simply put, the unrivaled feeling of flying by bicycle past a bus full of Bolivians gazing in astonishment out their windows at 40mph is just plain indescribable.

I want it that way...

I am currently sitting in an internet cafe in the corner of the world where Bolivia meets Paraguay meets Brasil. I´m trying, rather unsuccessfully (but oh my is it an adventure) to get to the Rio Paraguay from where I have heard its possible to hitch rides on cargo boats all the way to Asuncion. The river, however, seems allusively out of my reach. More on that to come. However, I would simply like to note what has brought me here this evening; a recent friend who dragged me here demanding I translate Backstreet Boys lyrics for him into Spanish. So after we print out the words to these lovely world hits circa 1999 (?), I´ll be spending the evening laughing with my dictionary. Tu eres mi fuego...mi unica deseo...me crees cuando digo...Yo Lo Quiero Asi. How weird...the words fire and desire rhyme in spanish as well...

Family Time...The Amazon

I skipped out of Cochabamba late in July to sleep fantastically on an overnight joint back to La Paz. This is when I awoke, stumbled groggily from the bus, to a city that was gorgeously blanketed in snow. Within two days I was met by members on my family (Mom, Randy and Joe) brave enough to test their stomachs and patients in a country like Bolivia. We had an itinerary pretty much settled, but judging by certain unplan-ables, like the snow and Bolivias love for erecting political blockades in the streets as a means for getting their way, we knew we were ultimately just resting on luck. But really, when aren´t we though, no? The next two and a half weeks unfolded rather fabulously, riddled expectantly by intra-family annoyances while transversing environments as vast as ancient civilizations on the Isla del Sol of Lake Titicaca, Machu Picchu, Parque National de Madidi on the fringe of the Amazon Basin, gargantuan sprawling cities like La Paz and Arequipa, the tourist trap of Aguas Caliates (but with good food), world heritage site Cuzco and, of course, the death defying "World´s Most Dangerous Road" by bicycle.

We took off immediately by plane for Rurrenabaque (45 minutes), the jumping off point for visits to Parque Nation de Madidi (known most notably for housing 10% of all bird species know to man). I have never, in my more recent days of "adulthood" been arrested by such fear as that afternoon. The pilots were conveniently sitting directly in front of me causing me to conclusively decide I would prefer not to know exactly what they´re up to. Within minutes we were literally bouncing through a mountain pass where the peaks, albeit mighty and remarkable, were cutting wounds in the Bolivian skyline much higher than our meager little flight machine and dangerously close to the planes flapping wings. And yes, these little wings were virtually flapping as the wind currents hurled us through the Andes. I mean really, isn´t the whole point of flight to put you ABOVE the ground. This sight, of looking up in horror to the drastic snow peaked mountains directly outside my window, was soon replaced by that of looking down onto a dirt runway that had seemingly been carved straight out of the Amazon, for our aircraft's landing convenience, in the very recent past. But I was purely elated to see the land rushing up to meet our lovely little craft, even if it was bumpy red dirt.

Within two days of the jungle tour Mom was unfortunately met by a dreadful introduction to the weaknesses of the western gastro-intestinal system...or perhaps the relative harshness of unrefrigerated meats and irrigated by only-the-good-lord-knows-what vegetables. So we idled town the Beni River, a sort of intestinal-shaped passage into pristine Amazon forests, to the romantic sounds of her puking over the side of the boat. Forest walks were met by considerably more flora than fauna. Though, as we were told, this type of habitat actually houses a myriad of animals, however hidden brilliantly by thousands of years of evolutionarily attained tricks and the thick jungle landscape. We did happen upon...or were happened upon rather, by a passing herd of wild boar. We stood frozen while the foliage (like the ground beneath of very feet) not more than 10 meters in front of us shook violently for minutes as they passed in a fury of ugly snorting and a equally wretched smell.

In the same hike, our fabulous guide was able to identify the sounds of Howler Monkeys in the canopy above. "Quieren ver los?" He turned around and asked with the heavy undertones of boyhood excitement. How can you turn that down...yes, of course we want to see then. And we were off on a full sprint, bushwhacking our way after him as he called out responses to our ancestral friends. And believe you me, there was a point in the midst of this little adventure where I was leaping over a downed log, after frantically running blindly through the forest for what surely felt like much longer than the reality, that I swear to god I made internal contact with some long ago forgotten part of my DNA. Ya, sounds a bit ridiculous, but for the following moments, I wasn´t just on vacation anymore, I was part of the forest and needed to catch those howler monkeys. Ok so maybe it was just remnants of a country childhood where any sound was enough to send you on an adventurous rampage after imaginary demons...or my recent viewing of Mel Gibson's historically incorrect, generally sucky but high adrenaline Apocolypto...but it was AWESOME. Eventually, we caught up with them, surely thanks more to our guides cunning than my recently resurrected wild ways.