Pictures

Hello all,

It has been a very long time since a real post, and I am sorry to disappoint again.  The truth of the matter is that not much has changed.  You will find picture on the right hand bar.  Two new albums are up.  One is a catch up album from the past 2 months since our arrival here in Bolivia.  The second is of our recent trip to see the salt flats of Uyuni and the surrounding lakes.  It was phenomenal.  Beautiful.  Fabulous.  We traveled with a recent friend Sarah, who shared our love of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  We read the first book aloud on the trip.

Email if you want to, I've got some time on my hands!

And Now

Well it all went really well here in La Paz, although much faster than I thought it would.  I'll be heading back to Sucre in a couple days to figure more stuff out with Caitlin.  As of now, I need to get more proactive about Las Yungas coffee and cacoa cooperatives.  Maybe I'll get there sometime by the end of April?

A few days ago

3.29.2011

So I have entered a new phase in my trip.  As the end approaches, I have decided that I cannot wallow in indecision until it arrives.  Thus I will start a project.  The objective is to learn as much as I can about fair trade in Bolivia.  Although this is obviously my interest, I have been enabled by Dave Holman, a Carleton alumnus from 2006 who runs a chain of bookstores here.  He also sources a good deal of apparel and some coffee and chocolate exclusively from Fair Trade suppliers.  The first step then is to visit some of the co-ops he works with and take pictures, make profiles and talk to people.  Obviously this is to Dave's benefit (for marketing), but it has also given structure to my otherwise empty time ahead of me.  So far in the service of my new project I have sat next to a retired Bolivian general on a plane, and visited one chocolate factory (who doesn't love large vats of chocolate!) 

On another front, the comfort and contacts I have made in this country are starting me thinking about ridiculous prospects for the coming years.  One friend who I first met in the south of Chile is considering starting a hostel here in Sucre.  What if I invested in his project?  What if I came back to Sucre every year or so for a few months and worked/helped set up the place and laid down roots of sorts? 

Of family and coca

So if you think La Paz is high up, try 4500m (14,700 feet) and then hike at that altitude or higher for 4 days. . . well you get the point.  My mother and brother succeeded in doing all this with my and Caitilin last week.  We climed over mountain passes over 5000m up and craned our necks to peer at glacial fields on various mountains about three hours outside of La Paz.  It was really a treat to have them with for the last week as we got a chance to push our lungs to the absolute limit, expecting them to somehow breath with about 55% as much oxygen as they are used to at sea level.  Coca was completely necessary.  We chewed all the way up.  Whatever can be said of cocain trafficking in Bolivia, the leaves themselves are not to blame--they are to be praised.

To complete our relaxing vacation together my mom treated us to two days on beautiful Lake Titicaca (3600m).  Well we did try to relax in this perfect cabaña looking out on the lake.  It was made for a writer.  It was made for a novel.  And I am sure we all would have writen one if we had not been all but forced to march accross La Isla del Sol by our diabolical boat tour man (I had to argue with him to let people out to pee one hour before the destination, even though we were stopped anyway at the port.  The boat itself was already 40 minutes late and were only given 4 hours on the island, the walk took the entire time).  Luckily we had our paradise to fall back into in Copacabana. 

One day, many good meals and a few alpaca sweaters later, the family departed.  It was far too short, but who could complain.  Noah even brought me a copy of an LSAT exam to help me pass the time for the rest of the couple months we have left!  We were sad to see them go, but then we saw the enormous pile of new books shiped to the Spitting Llama.  From its stacks we found a copy of Timeline by Michael Crichton and The Golden Compass.  We promised to read both aloud before going home. 

The bus to Cochabamba cost us 25 bolivianos or about 3.5 dollars.  It was the most comfortable I´ve taken here, and I wasn't even cold (of course I am just speaking for myself there. . .) which is saying a whole lot.  But sadly we arrived at 5:30am.  Caitlin was in her haze and somehow we had to find our way to a hostel in the first city since Valparaiso that we have been warned against.  Supposedly there are many muggings here before daylight.  The day only became stranger as the sun rose.  First we waited until 6:30 under our newly purchased bus blanket.  Then after a couple hours sleep at the hostel we struck out into the sunny world.  Finding a cafe place run by a loquatious frenchman (who insisted on only speaking french), we settled into coffee, chocolate, and reading Crichton.  Interupting our reading however came the frenchman's friend, dressed well in his leather shoes and sunglasses.  We were told (in french) that he was in the drug trade here.  Quickly the conversation went from our nationality to my judaisim (which he spotted apparently), to the holocaust.  The drug lord had some good friends who had been survivors... One bottle of wine and 50 pages later we left the cafe.  In search of a veggetarian restaurant (the french owner insisted he didn´t know how to make food without meat, "je suis un bon Français!" he told me) we passed a couple poping each others zits and a woman walking around with a child-sized chair on her head.  Reading out loud was about all we could do to keep sane. 

So today we went to visit Dave Holeman who runs The Spitting Llama bookstore, and I'm hoping he can give me a little direction for this coming month.  Otherwise I go with Caitlin back to Sucre and read a whole lot. 

For those of you who may still be paying attention to my life, it might please you to know that I am alive and well. I apologize for the time it has been since last I posted, but so it goes. I also apologize for the paltry amount of information, emotion and experience I can convey on this blog, especially in trying to cover such an extended amount of time. Now that that's out of the way here is my attempt:

I went to Valle de la Concepcion to be around wine, and get to know a family that made it. In both of those I had moderate to complete success. As in, I successfully surrounded myself with wine, and tried to get to know the family that I was living with. The Quiroga family makes a thoroughly inorganic “vino patero” or artisanal wine. They grow thoroughly inorganic grapes of a few varieties which they sell to Kohlberg which is the larges wine producer in the region. The person who makes sure that the wine and grapes are thoroughly inorganic is Simbar, the perhaps lover of the divorced head of family Doña Chela. I did not get to know him, but did learn to avoid contact with him. He is the kind of person who is so diametrically opposed to change, any alternative idea, and must be involved at every minute level, that being around him made everyone including myself on edge. In contrast, the rest of the family was warm and inviting. Still it is hard to say I got to know anybody in particular.

As my last post indicated I picked a lot of peaches. This continued. After the first week Kendra my friend from Patagonia showed up and helped me pick peaches. We spent many days relaxing, watching movies, chatting idly, and others doing hard labor for half the day and then relaxing and watching movies. It is hard to express how sleepy this town was. Even Tarija, the main city of the region, only 30 minutes away, closed all shops (including eateries) between noon and 3:00. You can imagine what happened in the rural town of Concepcion. But when work needed doing all hands joined in. This was finally evident on the last two days of our stay (Mar. 1^st). This was the wine making day. The store closed, everyone convened in the Bodega and work began. Grapes stained our hands and made all my peach and membrillo* cutting scars look like x-men scars. We stomped on so many grapes. Sadly they insisted we wear boots.

There is of course much much more. Including our almost adventure with an amateur archeologist (El Profe) who digs up bones in the countryside. But that is for another time in a personal email probably.

We made it to Sucre a week ago and met back up with Caitlin who has been working at a not-for-profit trekking company Condor Trekkers. They donate all their profits to local communities and organizations. So yesterday we got back from a three day trek through the gorgeous and bizarre geology of the Altiplano. Being back with Caitlin meant a return to thinking about Camus, the connection between ideas and language, and just a general confusion about the world and its order. All is well.

My mom and brother show up in three days! Wish them luck with the altitude.

Mapa

A new low-tech version to help you locate me and the route taken so far if you wish. (I'm in Tarija)

Peaches and Grapes

We crossed the border at La Quiaca-Villazon—yet another constructed difference in the vast and peculiarly similar people-scape on either side.  Bolivia, “Moneys!”  We proffered the border guard our crispest 135 dollars.  Odd that money marked my fist experience here where otherwise I have spent  a total of 25 dollars in the past 11 days.  No matter.  First impression not ruined.  The popcorn here is much chewier than I'm used to. 

It is tempting of course to write about the difference and similarities between places, but that doesn't really tell you much about Bolivia.  Except of course the one difference important to me which is a severe lack of avocados.  None in fact.  The season apparently is not until June sometime, but I don't buy that.  I think it's just the reagion. 

So as a brief update I will just say that I have harvested tons (quite literally) of peaches, which are in season, then peeled them.  For hours and hours.  If there is one thing to take away from my experience thus far it is that old women can and will peel things faster than me.  They will also be very quiet until they are not, in which case it all starts to come out.  The house is filled with women, seven in fact, and as far as I can tell I am only one of two men who sleep here.  The men who do show up do the typical man things such as machete branches and oversee pesticide spraying (wasn't WWOOF supposed to be organic!?). . .

This is a vineyard, so the wine flows freely, as it has all over town.  Sadly the harvest doesn't happen for a couple weeks, so you'll have to wait for pictures of me stomping on grapes (you'll also have to wait for camera to be found as well. . . not hopeful about that.)  I should probably leave it at that for now as the internet is pretty sparse.  I'm having a good time and reading a whole lot, so I have time to read long emails (cough cough) if you write them!