La Paz

Last Wednesday we got back to Cochabamba after an exhausting trip to La Paz and then Tocoli, a small village right on Lake Titicaca. It was an amazing excursion but my body felt broken afterwards (and my stomach too). Anyway, I think the easiest way for me to write about La Paz is to just break it down for you all in a list.

The city of La Paz

Dead animals for sale

Wednesday March 12th

1. Morning flight to La Paz, not the capital city of Bolivia technically, but where all the government offices are. Also, a city at a very high altitude.

2. As soon as we arrived we got straight onto the bus to head over to UPEA, the public university in El Alto. La Paz and El Alto are two separate cities right next to each other. La Paz is the more wealthy part and many of the students at the public university in El Alto come from the campo and they have a very large indigenous population in their student body. We got a brief introduction to the university which is largely controlled by their student government. Also, although the classes are taught in spanish, all of the professors are required to speak Aymara, the indigenous language, making the university more accessible to indigenous students. After that, we broke into small groups and got to talk to students in the history major. The two girls I spoke with promised to friend me on Facebook but I am still waiting.

UPEA

3. After lunch we headed to Teatro Trono, an NGO working with street kids and teaching them different performance arts. We got to see a little bit of a breakdancing class and took a tour of the building. It was a really cool organization that seems to really be having a positive impact. They have a radio station, a black box theater, a fake mine in the basement, and lots of classrooms for various music/dance classes.  The kids put on performances and sell tickets and the organization receives additional funding from an organization in Denmark.

Teatro Trono's very own KWUR

Breakdancing 

4. Walked around El Alto a bit. We went to a market place where many of the kids that work with Teatro Trono live. Our guide also pointed out a bunch of hostel-like places where there is unfortunately a lot of child prostitution. It was a pretty intense and upsetting walk around, but also really interesting. Plus, they were burning Palo Santo every which way so the scent reminded me of my trip to Peru.

5. Laura, Olivia, Maddy and I went out to pizza as a pre-celebration for Laura's birthday which was going to be that Sunday when we were in the village (she got sick unfortunately and never made it to the village so she spend her 21st birthday sick and traveling back to Cochabamba...so sad) Anyway, we got delicious pizza and I drew on a napkin which they had under the glass on the tables so if anybody makes it back to the pizza restaurant to the left of Hotel Gloria in La Paz, Bolivia, be sure to check out my art work. After that Maddy and I attempted to go to the discoteca recommended by the guy at our hotel but since it was a Wednesday night we were two of 6 people there. We decided to walk around the city a bit instead then call it a night.

Thursday:

1. Olivia and I woke up to a knock on our door from Maddy and Laura (at like 8am) and they had already eaten breakfast. Crazy people. Anyway, we got up and went to the hotel breakfast which was AWESOME. I got to eat mini pancakes with bananas, yogurt and banana, and scrambled eggs (not with banana). It was an excellent way to start off our day.

Souvenirs everywhere!

2. We had basically the whole day free so I walked around with a few people from my group and did a lot of shopping. I bought far more than I meant to but it was all gifts, at least that is what I'm telling myself. There is tons of awesome shopping in La Paz, it is a tourist's heaven.

3. Went to a cuban restaurant for lunch and had the most awesome avocado, chicken, and tomato sandwich. I could've eaten like four of them but I controlled myself.

4. Went to the central plaza and fed pigeons. I felt like I was back in venice because the pigeons were not afraid to sit on your head and eat directly out of your hand. It was kind of horrifying but also fun.

In the central plaza enjoying the rain

5. Went to an evening talk by Mujeres Creando, a feminist group working to create their ideal community. They talked about how community should be one body made up of two halves, one male half, one female half. They do street art make their message accessable and it was fascinating to hear their point of view. By the end of the talk though I was starving and really sleepy.

6. Went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner. Heck yeah.

Friday:

1. Woke up at the crack of dawn to go to a meeting at a government office. We talked about Andean cosmo-vision and the importance of being connected to Mother Earth. He argued that the government should incorporate the traditional Andean values into law, but at the same time those traditional values don't represent all of Bolivia. It is the constant struggle of a country that has such a diverse range of cultures.

Government Meeting

2. Headed to Melting Pot Bolivia and the restaurant Gustu. It is a cooking school working with local Bolivians and the restaurant attached to the project is considered one of the best in the world. After talking to some of the students we got to try the food. It was incredible. Best cinnamon roll I have every had in my life by far. I considered switching my final project to being about them simply so I could eat there every day for a month.

So delicious

Coca salteñas, humitas, and yucca things on a stick

Maddy and I went around a scraped humita
skins that others had left behind

For mom, all their wine is Bolivian. And there is a lot of it!

3. Most of us went to Valley de la Luna. See picture.

Nina and me at Valley de la Luna

Casa de los Ningunos

4. We had a charla (talk/discussion) with Casa de Ningunos, basically a co-op of young adults in La Paz living a sustainable lifestyle and creating their ideal community. We talked a lot about how many different conceptions there are of what community is/means. They also do sustainable lunches where they teach people about conscious eating. They were super fun/cool people. They seemed so nice and genuine I just wanted to keep hanging out with them. Perhaps I should do my final project on them instead?






5. Olivia, Maddy and I went to a random discoteca after dinner. We got a pitcher of Hawaii (a delicious tropical drink) for like five dollars and we were shockingly the only tourists there. Although I was exhausted the next day it was a fun way to end our extremely busy, but exciting time in La Paz. 

Carnaval

To my avid readers, I profusely apologize. I have been horrible about keeping this updated and so much has happened, so don't worry you have several exciting blog posts to look forward to, assuming I will have time in the future to write them.

I have been kind of avoiding writing my post about Carnaval but here goes:

A few weeks ago was Carnaval. Carnaval is a huge deal here in Bolivia, it is a holiday filled with partying, food, espuma (foam), water balloons, and borrechera (drunkenness). We started off the holiday right the Thursday before Carnaval with Día de Comadres, ladies night. One of our spanish teachers showed up to class that afternoon with giant fake eyelashes and super high heels so we knew right away that this holiday was serious business. Unfortunately my host sister had a lot of homework that night so I went to Mandarina, a discoteca in Cochabamba, with Maddy, Line, Tasha and Tasha's host sisters. We quickly made a new friend, Laura, who stuck with us the whole night. Before we took our taxi home Maddy and I split a pizza (mozart) so overall it was a great time.

That Saturday we met up at 4AM to get our bus to Oruro where we were going to watch the most famous parade for Carnaval in Bolivia. My host family had left for Oruro the night before so I called a taxi and met up with the group. It was less than enjoyable to wake up so early, but alas, the crowds were going to be huge and we needed to beat the traffic. We arrived at a hotel there, ate breakfast, dropped off some of our stuff, then headed to our seats to watch.

The parade was incredible, so many colors in these amazingly intricate costumes. My host sister is really interested in photography so she got a photo pass to be in the street with the performers so I got to see some of her closer-up photos. Apparently some of the costumes cost upwards of $2,000 (yes that is US dollars) and they make new ones every year! It is craziness! The music was loud, there was tons of espuma and water guns, and lots of good cheer.

After we ate lunch in the hotel I was starting to get a little warn out. I tried to meet up with Olivia and Maddy to walk around bit and ended up getting caught in a crowd in which I couldn't move at all. I don't think of myself as particularly claustrophobic or afraid of crowds but this was unpleasant. But just wait, while I was stuck in that crowd behind the bleachers some guys thought it would be hilarious to start peeing off the top bench. Thats right, they were peeing onto innocent people who couldn't move out of the way! Rude. So anyway, after this I was covered in sweat, foam, beer, and possibly (I'm still trying to tell myself it didn't get on me) urine. Carnaval was starting to be a little less enjoyable.

Luckily, I met up with Olivia and Maddy and they knew that food was the only way to make me feel better. We got some street food and 2 liters of rum and coke for 10 Bs (that is about $1.50, and yes it was indeed 2 liters) and headed back to keep watching the parade.

Me, Laura, and Abby

Olivia and Maddy in their festive hats

About a half hour after we went back to our seats I saw police running through the street in the middle of the performers. It took me a few seconds to realize that something was definitely not right. I looked down the street to where the police were running and saw that a pedestrian bridge that crossed over the parade had fallen. I immediately realized that there were people in the stands below that bridge and most likely performers crossing underneath, not to mention I had seen from the window of the hotel earlier that the bridge was full of people watching.

The bridge before it collapsed

The view from the hotel

I immediately went into panic mode and started watching what was happening, I just shut off what was happening around me and freaked out. I knew that my host family was somewhere in the crowd but I had no idea where. It was completely horrifying to be less than one block away from something that I was sure at that point was a terrible accident. Eventually our group left the stands and went back to the hotel. It took a while, but I was able to get in touch with my host family and was reassured that they were all okay. Needless to say, the feeling of the day shifted completely and we left on a much more solemn note than when we had arrived earlier that day.

I had never before been so close to such a huge accident. It turns out that four people were killed on the spot and according to my host mother two more have died since. There were more than sixty people injured, the large majority of them people from poorer backgrounds who were on the bridge to watch because they couldn't afford to buy a seat. I guess there has been a lot of criticism both of crowd control and poor construction of the walkway. I don't know or care whose fault it was, it was just a life changing experience to witness such a horrifying accident.

By the time we got back to Cochabamba I was so emotionally a physically exhausted all I wanted to do was get in to bed. BUT, I managed to shower. Getting my sheets dirty with dried espuma and possibly urine was too much even for me.