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Link #21
26 September - 22 October, 2000
Cocapabana to Sucre, Bolivia ( 867km)
The U.S. Embassy in La Paz released this warning on September 27, 2000:
U.S. Citizens traveling in Bolivia should be aware that
many internal highways and roads in Bolivia are impassable due to roadblocks
put up by local associations of Bolivian citizens... Currently, roadblocks
are... on the road to Copacabana (Lake Titicaca), ... and the La Paz-Oruro
highway.
U.S. Citizens should be aware that the situation is fluid,
and new roadblocks may be erected at any time. Although the blockades
are currently relatively peaceful, there are large rocks and debris
on the roads, and the demonstrators have reacted violently when travelers
have attempted to pass through or circumvent roadblocks. In addition
to roadblocks, several groups are organizing demonstrations and protest
marches throughout the country. The U.S. Embassy has no reports that
U.S. citizens are specifically targeted in these actions. Neither the
Bolivian nor the U.S. government is able to guarantee free and unimpeded
travel in Bolivia. It is unknown how long this situation may last.
From a historical perspective, the current situation is nothing new.
Since independence from Spanish rule in 1825, Bolivia's headlines have
chronically reported a series of coups, countercoups, and abrupt changes
in leaders and policies. It its relatively brief 175 year history, Bolivia
has had 191 governments and 62 presidents. Compare that to the U.S.'s
37 presidents in the same time period.
Not only has it lost a few presidents along the way, but also quite a
bit of land. In it's most famous border dispute, the War of the Pacific
(1879-1884) against Chile, Bolivia lost it's access to the sea. To this
day politicians use this as a rallying cry in attempts to unify the voters.
Since losing the sea, each of its remaining neighbors - Peru, Brazil,
Argentina, and Paraguay - have taken turns hacking away its borders. Today,
Bolivia is half its original size.
If Bolivian leaders can stay in office long enough, they face the country's
age-old problems of deep-seated poverty, disunity, and social unrest.
According to 1995 figures from the CIA's
online Factbook, two-thirds of Bolivians live below the poverty line.
The poorest of the poor are the indigenous, the majority of whom live
on the altiplano and speak either Quechua or Aymara. They live in mud
houses and raise what crops they can in semiarid lands. They may or may
not speak the language of the far away cities. One statistic claims that
only 60 to 70% of Bolivians speak Spanish (even then, many speak it only
as a second language). The rich are generally the mestizos of Spanish
or European descent that live in the big cities. They're the ones that
own or have sold off Bolivia's wealth of natural resources. They're the
ones that herald international investment and pass the laws.
Among other problems, it's this growing gap that recently caused Bolivia's
working class to take to the streets. In April of this year a coalition
of farmers, highway workers, small business owners, and a few indigenous
associations held a national strike that lasted four weeks. In the end,
the government was able to appease them; but, like an unrepentant child,
a few months later it turned around and passed a couple of new tax laws
severely detrimental to the indigenous. Meanwhile, the economy tanked,
inflation and unemployment skyrocketed, and many public sector workers
went without pay. Social unrest set in. In September, after struggling
for a few more months without reprieve, the people not only took to the
streets but took the streets. They threw up roadblocks and braved the
tear gas.
On September 23, we crossed the border into Bolivia, into what the U.S.
Embassy accurately called a "fluid" situation. A few days later,
a nationwide, general strike was called.
* * *
After the initial couple days of fear and stress, negotiating the
roadblocks became more an exercise in luck and strategy. Luck in the
number of punctures sustained per day. Strategy in how we dealt with the
angry farmers and their landmined highways. We learned there's a few plays
that every blockade negotiator must run and after that, it's all audibles.
Here's how it usually goes.
1. On the horizon you see a large pile of rocks and other debris accompanied
by anywhere from five to 400 farmers, or campesinos. You roll up
slowly, and when within discernible distance, take your sunglasses off
and let your mouth hang open. The idea is to appear awed, a little humbled,
and very reverential. You must tacitly convey that theirs is a most formidable
obstacle. For the congregations that have embellished their roadblock
with stiff roadkill carcasses skewered on poles, this need not be an act.
2. Barely rolling or walking your bike, you approach the mob and begin
issuing your buenas dias/tardes, extending a hand to be shaken
in solidarity. Then, you wait.
3. Let them initiate further conversation. Your tight bright clothes
and fancy bike usually provide more than enough fodder for questions if
not jeers and jabs.
4. While they banter you subtly scan the crowd, being careful not to
appear too eager and above all not challenging or threatening. You're
looking for the more reserved guy usually carrying folder, a clipboard,
or just papers in his hands or stuffed in a breast pocket. He's your man.
Never the first to open his mouth, he lets his more amiable, or aggressive,
men do the initial talking. He's probably been observing you closely ever
since you rolled up. He's the one you make careful, respectful eye contact
with.
5. When the ruckus quiets down, he's the one to whom you direct your
well-rehearsed plea:
"Good day, how are you?... Your roadblock is very strong, one of
the strongest we've seen. Any news from La Paz regarding the strikes?...
The closure of the roads makes cycling very tough, but at the same time,
we understand and agree with your cause... We've crossed many blockades
in the past few days, but ALL the farmers have been VERY kind to us (bandwagon
effect)... We are a couple of teachers from Canada who have been traveling
through South America for almost a year. While the current situation makes
cycling difficult, we still very much want to travel through your country.
We've heard such great things about Bolivia... Do you think we could pass
through your roadblock and continue pedaling?"
This rarely works the first time, but it's always your best first step.
6. Usually, the leader will respond with any number of questions:
"What are you carrying?... Do you have any food?... Cheese? Do you
have any cheese?... What are the other blockades like?... How much is
your bike worth?... How much does your carrito weigh?... Where
are you going?... Why don't you take the bus?... Are there strikes like
this in Canada?... Why do you have such funny bike seats?..."
7. Then, of course, you answer each and every question, peppering your
replies with jokes if you can. When the questions subside, you again put
in your humble request. At which point, sometimes you're free to go. At
the more resolute blockades, you're obliged to get off your bike and lend
a hand. Sometimes it's a matter of helping to throw rocks and carry boulders
back onto the road after a recent military cleanup pass. Other times,
you hop in the trench they've dug across the highway and shovel some dirt.
After a few vocal grunts and a wipe of the forehead, you're rolling again.
Yes, Canada. We realize we won't be getting any Great American Patriot
awards with this last admission, but decided we'd forego that honor in
lieu of being burned in effigy.
* * *
Yankees traveling through Latin America often carry a lot of extra baggage,
whether they want to or not. The locals with better memories haven't forgotten
the countless overthrown governments, the dollar-supported guerilla groups,
or corporate America's exploitation of oil, lumber, or mineral resources.
Some may remember how CIA-led forces hunted down and exterminated one
of South America's most revered revolutionaries, Ché Guevara. Specifically
in Bolivia, the locals are well aware of the current effort, inspired
and financed by the United States and its time-honored and always politically
correct fight against drugs, to eradicate the coca leaf plantations in
the Chapare region around the city of Cochabamba.
The eradication plan is aimed squarely at the same crop that in recent
years has been such an effective combatant against the pervasive poverty
of the region. The coca leaf itself has been around for centuries, but
it's economic value is relatively new. Stone and ceramic art dating back
to Pre-Christian times, depicts men and gods with bulging cheeks - proof,
say the archaeologists, that the tradition of chewing coca leafs has been
around for a long, long time. Today it is chewed daily by many Bolivians
and is still venerated by the indigenous. Both the Quechua and Aymara
make sacrifices of coca leaves when planting or mining to ensure a good
harvest or a lucky strike. Other Indian groups use them in their healing
rituals, and still others in remote rural areas use the leafs in place
of money. Used therapeutically, coca serves as an appetite suppressant
and a central nervous system stimulant. Indigenous laborers use it to
lessen the affects of altitude and to eliminate the need for a lunch break.
We've been told that workers, both in field and factory, won't work without
their coca. (Sounds like some coffee drinkers we know.)
Apart from hard working Bolivians, there's an entirely different group
of people who can't do without their "coca" either. Cocaine
is the bitter crystalline alkaloid obtained from coca leaves via a series
of complex chemical reactions. Cocaine is used medically as a topical
anesthetic and illicitly for its euphoric effects. Although use has decreased
in recent years, it is still the drug of choice for white collar Americans.
While a Bolivian coca leaf farmer, or cocalero, may get a few
cents for a kilo of coca leafs, a kilo of its derivative can expect to
earn thousands of dollars on the street. Since the U.S. has been largely
unsuccessful at curbing the demand of its citizens, the government has
refocused on the supply side. And so, the war on drugs is now being fought
on the eastern slopes of the Bolivian Andes. The same locals that erected
the strongest roadblocks and provided the staunchest resistance during
the recent strikes, continue to fight tooth and nail against the eradication
plan. Though we're told that in between rounds of tear gas, they still
find time to take a coca break.
* * *
After two long days of weaving through boulder strewn roads, wincing
with each crackle of glass under our tires, and granting a few roadside
interviews, we made it to La Paz. There we rested, ate large amounts of
pizza at a place called Eli's, and made a few phone calls home to let
everyone know we were OK. They were glad to hear from us, but had no idea
what was going on. To be fair, I can't say I remember ever reading much
about Bolivia in Ogden's Union-Tribune.
While the "situation" may not have made U.S. headlines, we
were rapidly approaching celebrity status in Bolivia. "Hey, weren't
you the gringos shoveling dirt on the news?"
Before leaving La Paz, we met up with a French couple on a tandem who
were making their way down to Tierra del Fuego from Alaska. So far, Emmanuel
and Beatrice have pedaled 13 of their 18 month honeymoon. For the past
three weeks they had been trapped in La Paz, unable to cycle out due to
the blockades. By the time we talked to them, they had serious cabin fever
and were hell-bent on busting out, despite the strong urgings of the French
Embassy. With the situation not getting any better, nor any worse, the
four of us decided to make a run for it.
As it turned out, the blockades were no more serious than what we had
already pedaled through. Two days of saddle-side negotiating put us beyond
the worst of it. The third day was actually a pleasure. Empty roads, the
beginnings of the great salt flats, and wide open country. That night
we enjoyed some mineral hot springs and camped just outside of the town
of Pazna. The following day at Challapata, we split ways. Emmanual and
Beatrice were running out of time and therefore needed to keep to the
direct route due south. We decided to take the high road east over the
mountains to famed city of Potosí.
* * *
For three days we cranked over some of the worst roads we've come to
know. Cobbled sun-baked wagon trails that incessantly climb and dive,
yo-yoing between 3800 and 4300 meters. But, man, what gorgeous country!
Grand Canyons way up in the sky. Was very nice to be back out in the boonies
again, camping under the stars and away from the struggle of the cities.
From my journal, day two of our crossing:
10 October, 2000
We're in a pasture bordered by crumbling
rock walls. Furry animals that look like small giraffes loiter in the
opposite corner of the field. Llamas or alpacas, it's always hard to
tell from a distance. It's windy. A sizable dustdevil forms in the adjacent
field. The sun is blazing overhead, so much so that it's tough to see.
An empty sardine tin, a few errant raisins, and orange peels litter
the ground at our feet. A glance at the watch says it's 1:40pm, and
we're at 13,940 feet above sea level.
The thick head from my compressed 23 minute extra-strength
siesta makes fitting these observational pieces together a real chore.
After a few more patient minutes of jigsawing, I get it: We're in Bolivia.
Those are our bikes. Our general direction is southeast, heading towards
the town of Potosí. There's sunblock in the front pouch of the
handlebar bag. OK. I think I'm ready to roll.
The last day had us gaining and dropping 500 meters at a time. The roads
got worse and the pitch became insane in the height of the afternoon.
For only the second time on our trip we were forced to take off our helmets
to prevent cooking our noodles on the slow ascents. After a final organ-repositioning
descent, we reached a lovely paved road and crept uphill for the last
20 kilometers. In town we quickly zeroed in on a hotel, paid the man,
and crashed. The next morning we plugged into our familiar recoup program:
rehydrate, eat, siesta, rehydrate,...
* * *
Potosí served as our base for a few days. There we relaxed a little
and learned a lot. The majority of the facts and figures below come from
Eduardo Galeano's seminal work, Las Venas Abiertas de America Latina,
or "The Open Veins of Latin America." In his superbly researched
book Galeano reveals the incredible and sad history of a continent under
siege from the arrival of Columbus to modern times.
After Francisco Pizarro returned to Spain with the riches he had appropriated
from the Incas, a new expression was born. Vale un Perú,
or "worth a Peru," was the highest praise a Spaniard could bestow
upon a valued object or person. A few years later, with the discovery
of Potosi's Cerro Rico, or Rich Hill, that expression changed.
As Don Quixote advised his sidekick Sancho Panza, the new form of high
eulogy came to be Vale un Potosí.
It is said that the silver extracted from Cerro Rico alone funded not
only the Spanish empire but the colonization of the New World. By the
middle of the 17th century, silver exports represented 99% of all mineral
exports from South America. Yet not all that silver reached its Old World
destination of Seville, Spain. Untold amounts found its way into the hands
of English, Dutch, French, and other pirates of the Caribbean. Even then,
it is estimated that between 1503 and 1660, Seville registered 185,000
kilograms of gold and 16 million kilograms of silver. Enough, they say
to build a bridge of solid silver that would stretch from Cerro Rico to
Seville. Other, more sobering writers say that a second bridge could have
been built with a different raw material.
The census of 1573 put the population of Potosí at 120,000 inhabitants
- more inhabitants than Seville, Madrid, Rome, or Paris and the same population
as London. In 1650, the census topped out at 160,000. By any measure,
Potosí was one of the largest and richest cities in the world.
Yet as is the case with such extreme wealth, only a few owed it while
the rest simply labored for it. The vast majority of Potosí's inhabitants
were indigenous and African slaves indentured to the mines. Everyone over
the age of 18 was pressed to work seven day shifts of 12 hours each. They
ate, slept, and worked underground for four months at a time. Due to the
noxious chemicals and gases, most miners died of silicosis pneumonia after
10 years. For the Africans, unaccustomed to the severe altitude of Cerro
Rico (4200 meters), life expectancy figures were much lower.
In the almost three centuries of colonial rule (from 1545 to 1825), it
is estimated that over 8 million Africans and Indians died from the appalling
conditions of the mines. That second bridge to Seville, they say, could
have been constructed of human bones.
While in Potosí, we took a half-day tour of Cerro Rico. While
modern mining conditions are a little better, the work is still unfathomable.
Their tools are still the primitive handheld devices of colonial times:
hammers, picks, dynamite ramrods, and iron wheelbarrows. Their pay seems
another anachronism. A fit miner working 6 day workweeks for a month can
extract 8-10,000 kilograms of ore. Since only lowest grade of ore remains,
the best he can hope to net is 500-800 bolivianos, or $75-125. Today,
the 37 cooperative mines and 1 private mine employ about 7,000 miners.
At one shaft junction we met Eugenio, a 55 year old miner. He was manually
"drilling" or tapping out a 20 inch hole that he would later
dynamite. Eugenio has worked Cerro Rico for 35 years, a near miraculous
service record even given today's improved working conditions. His day
starts at 4:30am and generally goes until 8pm. According to him, all his
miner friends are now dead. He has four sons, three of whom work in mines
and one who just received a scholarship to study Civil Engineering in
the States. We asked him why he still works in the mines. Through teeth
rimmed with coca leaf residue, he responded, "It's impossible to
forget the mine... to me, it's like a woman."
* * *
From the foothills of Cerro Rico we coasted for a day and climbed for
another, finally arriving in Bolivia's old capital. With the executive
and legislative branches in La Paz, nowadays Sucre hosts only the Supreme
Court. Yet, as its enthusiastic patriots will attest, it's not without
distinction. It's a well known fact, they say, that Sucre is Bolivia's
most beautiful city, a point in which we have no grounds to argue. For
us, Sucre was vale un Potosí.
Also known as The Athens of America, The Cradle of Liberty, The White
City, and The City of Four Names, Sucre was quick to win our hearts. As
if its lush green plazas, colonial architecture, young student population,
and sublime climate weren't enough, our arrival also coincided with the
commencement of Sucre's annual International Festival of Culture. For
us that meant near-free concerts, plays, art shows, and film series. Not
ones to look a gift horse in the mouth (A caballo regalado no hay que
mirarle el diente), we decided to stay and enjoy the town for a couple
weeks. We also found a topnotch language
academy and signed up for more Spanish classes.
While in Sucre, we reunited with some traveling pals. First, Emmanuel
and Beatrice arrived. With their tandem tucked away in Uyuni, they bused
to Sucre and stayed with us for a few days. After burning the last of
their slack days, they returned to Uyuni and resumed pedaling. The following
day, Genevieve blew into town all smiles and full of travel tales. That
night we caught an unforgettable concert in Sucre's main plaza. Two bands
from La Paz and two from Sucre plugged in their traditional pipes, flutes,
and charangos, or tiny guitars tuned to a high pitch, and delivered
an incredible evening of folk fusion rock. Other nights we enjoyed a series
of Cuban films, the national ballet, and an Argentine Tango show. In between
events, we managed to spur our eating and drinking to new heights. Fifteen
days later, our Spanish had improved, our culture quotient had peaked,
and our pants had tightened about the waist.
* * *
From Sucre we returned to Potosí and the altiplano. On the September
23, we set our wheels back in motion. By then the roadblocks had cleared
and "situation" had become much less fluid. The notorious dirt
roads of southern Bolivia however, were just as rock-solid.
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