MY TRIP TO BOLIVIA - 20.10 to 30.10.2005

The start of our trip

The trip itself began in a very funny way: we had the opportunity to fly from Bogotá to Santa Cruz de la Sierra (on a 4.30 a.m. flight of Lloyd Aero Boliviano) in the same plane where the Sub 15 Colombian national Football Team was traveling in order to attend to one match.

But why was it funny? First, because, at least for Colombians, one of the things you most associate Bolivia with (and specially cities as La Paz) is with being occasionally the host for football encounters for which football players need to have very intense preparations prior the games, since the height of the city affects so much. Second reason why the flight was so funny, is to realize how absolutely ‘unknown’ are the national Latin American airlines for us, being one example, Lloyd Aero Boliviano, the leading Bolivian airline that since several years has being flying from main Latin American capitals to and from Bolivia, being Bogotá on of them. And we never were aware of the check-in counter that is there in the Bogotá International Airport El Dorado.

Me, sick in La Paz, and drinking "Coca mate"

First impressions: the start of an Andean experience

Bolivia is one of these countries where you certainly feel you are in Latin America. The country of the ‘cholitas’ (these impressive women that dress with colorful skirts, long braids of extremely straight black hair, hats and bags on their backs) is maybe the land in our subcontinent that more reminds you the wonderful indigenous heritage that Latin America has. Just being in the waiting gate in the airport of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, waiting for the plane that shall bring us to Cochabamba, our first stop in Bolivia, you could just look and hear what to be in an Andean country means: people with this genuine indigenous features, outfits and the music that you could see groups performing on TV and even signals are sometimes written not only in Spanish or English, but in quechua (indigenous language). It was simply amazing to see through this, how representative it is still the percentage of the population that keeps it traditions, its culture, its language.

Signal still written in indigenous languages

Bolivia today: the challenges

The situation of Bolivia on a political level is however very tough, political situation that has strong implications also in its social and economical systems. The country in the middle of an election process is been flooded by political campaigns through all means: commercials on television, posters everywhere, plus the non-stopping conversations of the people hoping that their candidate will be chosen. In a way, you can feel a strange combination of negativism but hope at the same time of the future of the country, but more than the future, is also about the present: who will bring finally the energy to homes and cars today? – says the motto of one of the candidates for president.


Bloqueo

Daily while trying to get by terrestrial means (car and specially bus) from one Bolivian city to the other, there is a high possibility of being stopped by a “bloqueo”. A “bloqueo” (street blocking) consist in a group of people going with their gas tanks and standing at the middle of the main streets and making impossible for cars and buses to pass. It never gets particularly violent (at least not in the “bloqueos” that we were present, but it becomes anyways a very frustrating situation that completely affects the stability and order of the cities.

Corruption is also a very critical problem in Bolivia, not only on a government level, but also on a citizen base. “He robs, but he does stuff” – is how people would describe a relative “good politician”, people practically accept the fact of corruption being a normal thing. “With or without bill?” – is also another common question when people buy stuff and according to your needs and if you want to report for taxes or not.

What Bolivians consume and day to day life

Internet consume and communications: While walking in the streets of Cochabamba and La Paz one very particular thing that you could notice in how many Internet Cafes there are and how full they are all the time, even a quite unusual day as a Sunday evening, when you expect all commercial places to be closed. The reason was very simple: not many people have computers at home, but more than that the price for one hour Internet, for example, is extremely cheap, not even 1/3 USD. So, while entering to one of them you could of course see people doing serious work, but you could also see a lot of people just playing games and doing random surfing. Quite funny. In general communications are also a very consumed, not only in a formal level like almost everybody owning a cell phone or finding in the streets a lot of locals to make phone calls – but they also consumed in informal level, by finding lots of people on the street also offering mobile phone calls payable per minute.

Motels: many of them in specific zones, as in other Latin-American cities. For non-Latin-Americans we clarify that for us the concept of motel, is not simply s short stay hotel as in many other places in the world, but a place where rooms get rented for couples to have “romantic meetings!”

Contraband: a serious issue, but very common at the same time. In Bolivia (and the more you go to cities that are close to borders the more evident) you are able to get extremely cheap devices of all kinds as a result of the contraband. Stuff brought from Chile and Peru that are openly sold in even very comfortable shops and other locals. Not only simply because of the existence of the shops you know that consume of this kind of goods must be high, but even if you would not know the business behind, you can see lots of people owning lots of electronic devices (MCP3 players, USB sticks, digital cameras, etc) that understanding the economical situation in Bolivia, otherwise they would not be so easily affordable.

Big supermarkets and malls – not many!: people buy rather in “tiendas” (small shops that you find almost in every corner) and on public markets.

Bolivian Landscape from La Paz to Cochabamba

To live in Bolivia in comparison with the other cities in Latin America is not expensive. Food and transportation are very cheap. You can pay for a taxi ride around ½ USD if not less. You can have abundant food (especially in cities as Coachabama) for ridiculous amounts.

Bolivian cuisine

The Bolivian cuisine is definitively one of the best-kept secrets in the world.
The most traditional Bolivian dressing is the so called “Yajua” that is a sauce made out of tomatoes and with medium spicy taste that they put in almost all plates they eat, no matter how and no matter when. While talking to some people about the fact that there are no Mc Donalds in Bolivia, they said that one of the reasons that Mc Donalds left, was that they could not adapt to the preferences of Bolivians while eating, as for example, offering Yajua with all the food that is being served. This is something that no matter if we are talking about a Fast Food restaurant, all locals where Bolivians got o eat offer (and without even the need to ask for it, it’s like offering something as usual as salt or pepper).

Other particular plates that made a great impression for me were anticucho, chicharron, pique and charque. Let’s go then one by one … and of course all of them are accompanied by Yajua!

Anticucho: is a very thin sliced piece of heart of cow. The perfectly grilled piece of meet in inserted in a stick and you can eat it accompanied by yucca or potato. Another very special feature about anticucho is that it is served with spice peanut sauce, lots of it.

Chicharron: fried pork pieces, which they usually eat with yucca and potato. The difference with the chicharron that you can also find in many other Latin-American countries (for instance Colombia) is that this chicharron is not particularly crunchy, since as we were told it is cooked for hours in its own fat and in big pans with lots of it, which makes it be well cooked, tasty, but not very crunchy.

Pique: it is just a mixture of pieces of meet, sausages, French fries, paprika, tomato and onions, all of this with ketchup and mayonnaise on the top! Even if it sounds like “fast food” and well, it is since pique is commonly sold in fat food places (but not only) , pique is also one of the most common Bolivian dishes.

Charque: charque is a dehydrated meet of Llama. It is cooked (almost fried!) in very thin stripes, so thin that my people when they see it say that it looks like a pile of hair. The amazing thing about charque is first when you get told about the whole dehydration and conservation methods for food that indigenous people practiced, even before the colonization by the Spaniards. They took the food they had especially meet, vegetables, and fruits and put it to very low temperatures that they found in the high mountains of the Andes. It is unbelievable to see potatoes, peaches and of course the meet being reduced to such small dry pieces, that you can simply put into water and cook and they recover their normal size and taste, it is like magic.

In general in Bolivia people eat 6 times a day. They start the day with breakfast, then they have the ‘media mañana” (half morning), then the lunch, then the “media tarde” (half afternoon), then the “tea time” and finally the dinner. Corn accompanies many of the plates.

And what about typical drinks? They are as gorgeous as the food and it is very difficult to say which the best one is. In terms of non-alcoholic drinks, the main representatives are the wonderful ‘Mocachinche’. Mochachinche is a fresh cold drink made out of peach. It is very simple to prepare: you just need to get dehydrated peach (also conserved the same way that the charque is) and put it to cook in hot water. Once it’s done and you see that the peach gets its natural size and the water gets peach color and taste, you bring it to the fridge and after a couple of hours you have one of the best drinks ever. In terms of alcoholic drinks the winners are the ‘chicha’ that is done of fermented corn, together with the “garapiña” that is done of fermented pineapple. Many times garapiña is even served on a real pineapple!

The people

The people are definitively the best asset of Bolivia. It is incredible to see their unbelievable levels of hospitality and their desire to learn new things, as well to get to know youon a personal level. Maybe one of the most unforgettable experiences that we had in Bolivia was to be part of a “beach” party where all people had to dress in a tropical style, as if we all would be right just in front of the sea For those that do not know, Bolivia (together with Paraguay) is one of the Latin-American countries that does not have access to the sea. It was so special to see then how people, in the party, and even on a serious note in other conversations you can see how people dream about the sea and how much they enjoyed their first see experiences outside Bolivia. In the party site it was cold! – that is why it was so funny to see people on light clothes (beach clothes!) in the party.

Beach Party