Backtracking on backpacking (part 3)

The art of boliva so far...

Backtracking on backpacking (part 2)

So after Copa I went to La Paz the defacto capital of Bolivia.

I am going to break this down into a few sections....

1) El Alto

2) City of Markets

3) The Cemetery

4) cool extras...

5) In a different post ART so far in Bolivia

Alright so I won't have too much for some of these sections but let's start with the first thing you see (if you are traveling by road) on the way to La Paz.

1) El Alto 
 

Well first off you see the tiny towns on the plateau of the altiplano. The altiplano is a giant expanse between the mountain stretches of the Andes. This area seems to be extremely dry and cold... It's not necessarily the most attractive landscape in the world but if I was herding, I'd bring my sheep  there. 

The above picture was taken at Tiwanaku, which was an ancient city on the altiplano- should give you some idea of what it looks like. 

After you see the small towns you start to see the outskirts of El Alto. This city was built as the main access point for air travel to La Paz (which is in a valley). El Alto went from being the airport town on the cliffs above La Paz to being as big or bigger than the main city (all within the last 50 years). The poor flocked to this area, people looking for jobs in the city who couldn't afford to live there... A million people who built cheap and quick... And El Alto ends up being one of the most depressing and ugliest places you've ever seen.  Thousands of red brick buildings without windows and paint jobs (so they don't pay taxes on them). Entire makeshift blocks without stores or signage. Overwhelming amounts of people, a reputation for robberies and pickpockets, and yet there are places of beauty in it all. Market stalls of indigenous Aymara women with their multicolored shawls.  A street or two of well placed bricks. A street with finished buildings, beautiful glass work with artistic designs, their paint allowing the building to stand out in the dry red surroundings...

If I were a more courageous man, I'd have spent some time in El Alto instead of driving through it several times. I imagine there are a ton of cool things rarely seen by outsiders... I'd probably leave my camera at home though. 

2) "What do you mean THE market, the whole city is a market!"  ~a fellow traveler.  

La Paz is a beautiful city without many supermarkets. As a local tour guide shared, "We all go to the mercado for everything."  All of South America has markets, but as the traveler who I quoted said, La Paz is like one big market... You can't really go more than a block without seeing the outdoor stalls, and sometimes you walk into a building and it is full of indoor stalls. Sometimes you turn a corner and the entire street has been taken over by the cholitas (Aymara street vendors). In some places people set up shop in temporary carts in front of businesses, sometimes with tents to cover their products. In other places permanent covered markets exist for blocks, meaning you have no idea where you  are when you exit. I got lost in the toys section (pictured above) I entered through the electronics section and eventually left through the snack foods block. 

Now there are areas without vendors, or rather with more western stores... But these are in the wealthier areas of town where they have actual malls. The majority of the people however are in the markets.

The lovely thing is that boliva is so cheap that you don't mind spending a few hours in the market. The sensory explosion around you will catch your eye... Some beautiful veggies, a toy you haven't seen since 1987, a brand new DVD player, a nice shirt... Pretty much it's all going  to be cheaper than you'd expect.  And when it isn't, you go to the stall next door. I got 2 bags full of fruit for 3 bucks(I had to give them away because I bought too much).  I bought carrots, asked for 5, the cholita gave me like 10 for less than a dollar. This is a problem in Bolivia. Stuff is so cheap you don't bother bartering for a better deal.

It should also be noted (according to our guide) that one should not assume these market vendors are poor. In Aymara culture it is considered shameful to be seen as lazy... Meaning if you aren't working 14 hours a day you are a bad person. The guide suggested that many of these women might be owners of multiple businesses around town... Perhaps even millionaires, but because it is also shameful to show off your wealth in western ways... They stick to the traditional- gold or silver teeth. 

3) I went to the general cemetery while in La Paz.  

A few things that stood out...

Pop bottle vases. They usually take off the label, but about 1/3 of the vases are 2 liter bottles. 

Apartment buildings for the dead. I don't know if these are family plots- like buy a row... But all of the plots look like this, except these ones are multi-story. 

The majority look like the above...

The plots themselves aren't always in the best of conditions. Broken glass, plaster chipping, etc...

But they are attended to. In my walk around the cemetery I saw almost zero plots without new or recent flowers. Some of these graves were for people who died 50 years ago but there were fresh flowers.  I saw three funeral progressions, parades of people in black, sometimes with beautiful music (from single soulful singer and acoustic guitarist, to full on marching band)... But I didn't see anyone crying. Hundreds of mourners and no tears.  I wonder if they know they will have 50 years of visits to continue their relationship and mourn...

4) Extra extra read all about it!

Protests

Bolivia is known for protests, both violent and peaceful. People show up with their bodies because democracy through votes hasn't been a possibility. 

While in La Paz I started hearing chants and fireworks. There was a march in progress down the Main Street. Thousands of people, more than half women (when you say women in this country always assume a child is on or near them).  

They only had 4 or 5 signs in the whole march. These people speak with their bodies...

Someone translated the sign for me and told me these are second hand clothing sellers who are being threatened with a tax. They import clothes from around the world and sell them in the markets... If they are taxed they won't make a profit. 

I can't imagine the difficulty of organizing thousands of people with a cause like that. 

Tiwanaku

I also took a day trip to the ancient(mostly classical-middle age) site of Tiwanaku. The site used to be along the banks of Lake Titicaca but over the years the waters have receeded (now it is quite a distance).  The site is famous because it was a ceremonial site of the Tiwanaku, a precursor empire to the Inca that took over much of what is now Bolivia and southern Peru. Some suggest the first Inca were a family of Tiwanaku nobles who migrated north.  

The site if Tiwanaku has not been well preserved, some of it has been reconstructed to give a picture of what it might have looked like. 

The site is also famous because there is a lot of speculation over whether it is too technologically advanced for the time period. Some historians(crazy people) have suggested that aliens helped guide the Tiwanaku to power, similarly the Inca and any other large civilization... More likely though these groups used what was available to them and learned from each other. 

Are some of these heads depictions of aliens?

Giant stone blocks, carved into gates, monoliths, temples etc.

Good times in Tiwanaku... Though I wish I had woken up early enough to shower that morning.

Lastly here are some random shots of La Paz... Mostly big buildings.

Walked up to the bell towers through this narrow stairwell.  One of the first attempts at revolution from Spain was plotted in this church building. Franciscans... Eh?

Zebras at crosswalks.

Roof of the monastery.

Park in front of the cathedral.

backtracking on backpacking so far in Bolivia (part 1)

Where does one start... How about the beginning.

I took a bus from Cusco, Peru to Copacabana, Bolivia with a brief stop in Puno for breakfast and an opportunity to buy some cheap gloves before the sun rise...

My first stop in Bolivia was at the border where I paid a reciprocity fee visa. This is a visa fee (ooh I got a sticker in my passport) required of US citizens because the US raised visa fees on South Americans. Bolivia is the first country I've been to that has enforced it but many of the South American countries have a fee on the books which can be optional for border guards. 

I was prepared for the visa requirements, over prepared really, because they only asked for half of my documentation... And of course the money. 7 crispy twenties is what they asked for, but the guard rejected 4 of my 10 notes because they had small tears in them. I ended up giving him a roughly equivalent amount of bolivianos to satisfy the requirement and was the first person back on the bus (Americans were a second line). 

While we were at the border there was also a bit of a hassle for Israeli citizens. The Bolivian government attempts to be an ultra progressive supporter of all underdogs in the world(perhaps more on this later). So similar to the reciprocity fee being reactionary to US policy, theBolivian  government recently put extra restrictions on Israeli citizens due to the recent war in Gaza. I heard an older Israeli man describe the two lines as something he remembered his parents going through about 70 years ago... (not technically accurate as Jewish citizens of other countries were not being detained). Politics are not always clean. Israelis typically are one of the biggest groups of travelers in Bolivia (and much of South America), so this policy seems extra hurtful to them.

So as far as I know, everyone got in. 

Copa is basically a tiny little tourist town that acts as the first Bolivian city across the border as well as an access port to the islands of Lake Titicaca. The most famous island is probably Isla del Sol which has religious pilgrimage significance for people who follow Andean religions, and used to be visited regularly by people within the Incan empire.

The villages and ruins of Isla del Sol look a lot like smaller versions of the Sacred Valley sites. Unfortunately I got sick on the day I was going to spend on the island so I only ended up spending an hour in one of the towns nearest to Copa.

Copa also contains a few old Inca sites, but they aren't much to see anymore. 

The town itself contains a beach with lots of little paddle boats that look like swans, geese and ducks- as well as some tented restaurants where you can get local food for cheap (chicharron de trucha, papas fritas,arroz y coca cola por 25 bolivianos- pieces of fried trout with fries, rice and a coke for about 4 bucks).

Copa also has a Christian pilgrimage site,  in the massive beautiful church. 

And tons of tourist restaurants with hippie looking guys trying to sell you drugs outside of them.

Other than that it's some hills to walk up... One of which used to be an Incan astronomical observatory.

Good times, but like most people it was more than ready to leave the tourist spot as soon as possible.