Por la calle del desen­gaño
Esta mañana yo pasé
Con male­gría otra vez

Boli­vian River-crossing

I’m cold, I’m tired, my clothes are dirty and I can barely breathe. One of these days I guess.

We arrived in La Paz from Copaca­bana. We left early, once again. Barely awake, we stored our bags in the bus and tried to make our­selves com­fort­able. Maybe even sleep a bit. But the bus was old, the seats dirty and small. As soon as we left, the dri­ver set the radio at full vol­ume. So much for sleep.

A cou­ple of hours later, the bus stopped in front of a river. We took a small boat and our bus was dri­ven onto another one. This is river-crossing in Bolivia. The ride made us feel slightly dizzy. Back on the bus. Only a few more hours to La Paz.

We climbed higher and higher in the moun­tains and even­tu­ally reached the cap­i­tal. The first view is breath­tak­ing. Nested in a val­ley, the high­est cap­i­tal in the world is best seen from above.

First View Of La Paz

Soon enough, our bus was blocked by a demon­stra­tion. A com­mon occur­rence in Evo Morales´country appar­ently. We stayed stuck for a good hour before the dri­ver finally gave up, parked the bus and let us go. Feng and I took a few min­utes to read the map and fig­ure out where we were (hint: in a dodgy neigh­bour­hood). Mean­while, one of the bus pas­sen­gers, an old man, low­ered his pants and started piss­ing behind the bus, in the mid­dle of the street. What the fuck is wrong with Boli­vian men? This wasn’t the first time I saw that. Ear­lier in Bolivia, I was queu­ing for the female bath­room at a bus sta­tion when a guy came around and pissed a few meters from us. Was it that dif­fi­cult to open the bath­room door and do his busi­ness inside?

Demon­strat­ing In La Paz

We even­tu­ally found our way and checked in a hos­tel for the night. We cleaned up a bit and decided to go eat.

We walked along a busy street. The side­walk was tiny and already busy with ven­dors sell­ing any­thing from hair clips to incense. It felt more crowded than in China. Mean­while, cars, buses, trucks were dri­ving at full speed, on the road, on the side­walk, through red lights. It was already hard to breathe because of the alti­tude but the pol­lu­tion made it worse.

The streets were a total chaos. Ven­dors, pedes­tri­ans, tourists, heav­ily armed mil­i­tary and police, cars, buses, trucks, bikes, bump­ing into each other, yelling, scream­ing, push­ing. And mean­while, not a sin­gle food place to be seen. Sure enough, there were a local mar­ket. A few food stalls along the busy road; ham cov­ered with flies rot­ting in the sun, black bread sup­posed to be white, uniden­ti­fied meat and dairy prod­ucts. I will pass, really. I don’t think I’m too picky but I draw the line at fight­ing with insects to eat my food. Hygiene is not one of Bolivia’s strength… We even­tu­ally found a fast food and set­tled for it.

We had hoped to find a super­mar­ket, or even a con­ve­nience store – i.e. not street food. Water is not drink­able in most of Latin Amer­ica and we were used to buy bot­tled water, but in Bolivia, half of the time, even bot­tled water was not drink­able. We sus­pected that bot­tle were refilled, or left in the sun for too long. We walked quite far but did not find a super­mar­ket. We came back to the hos­tel tired and some­what frustrated.

I don’t under­stand peo­ple in Bolivia. Sure, I’m not flu­ent in Span­ish, but I have always man­aged to talk with locals just fine. Most peo­ple love to chat. But not in Bolivia. We would ask direc­tions and peo­ple would sight and not reply. The only time I saw peo­ple smile was when we were at the tourist mar­ket. Sud­denly, peo­ple were very inter­ested in us. Money talks I guess.

I real­ize I’m prob­a­bly not fair. After all, I know very lit­tle of Bolivia and I have no right to judge the peo­ple. Maybe it’s a cul­ture shock. I must admit I found it hard to see peo­ple sit­ting on the dirty roads sell­ing stuffs, kids beg­ging or work­ing, older peo­ple look­ing sick and help­less. I have not seen this kind of poverty any­where else for far in this trip. And some­what, the harsh weather and the alti­tude seem to make poverty even worse in my eyes.

Or it might be another kind of cul­ture shock. I grew up by the sea and I’m not an high­land per­son. Life is dif­fer­ent up there and maybe I just don’t get it.

Land­scapes are amaz­ing in Bolivia and it‘s a colour­ful and inter­ested coun­try. I’m glad we trav­elled through. But La Paz… most chaotic cap­i­tal ever.

Related arti­cles:

1. The Food Saga: The Fish Era
2. Perú To Bolivia
3. The Food Saga: The Sweets
4. A Foodie’s Day in S’pore
5. The Food Saga: The Drinks