On Carnival

You couldn’t walk anywhere without getting hit by a drive-by water balloon or have a bucket dumped on you from a balcony.  On the last days before lent each year the entire continent of South America erupts into the worlds largest party: Carnival.  In Bolivia (as well as most of South America) Carnival is far bigger than Christmas or any other holiday.  Bolivia takes Carnival so seriously that when Chile invaded Bolivia in the War of the Pacific in the late 1800s, Bolivia waited until Carnival was over to respond.  In Cochabamba the entire city morphs into the battleground for the biggest water fight I’ve ever seen. 

            On Sunday we had a cook out with my extended host family although it didn’t take long for the family meal to turn into an all out water fight with buckets of water and hoses. Everyone participated from the little kids to the great grandparents!  After a while the water fight died down into conversation and dancing but the occasional water bucket was dumped down someone’s back.

My host Family

Water Fight

Dancing

My host mom Lucy with Lauren and I

            On Monday and Tuesday, however, the whole city got involved.  Walking down the street, you had a better chance of getting soaked than in sea world’s splash zone.  Avenida America, the main drag through the north of the city, became a battleground with people on the sidewalks waging war against the people in the cars.  Families drove down the street drive by water-gunning, pickup trucks carrying water balloon militias, and even fire trucks with the fire hose artillery drove down Avenida America and fired on the infantry on the sidewalk armed with water balloons and water guns.  Ladies armored in plastic ponchos sold water balloons to both sides, frantically filing them up to stay up with demand.  

            The best part of the whole ordeal was 1) everyone participated from little kids to grandparents and everyone in between and 2) everyone was very good-natured.  If you nailed someone in the back of the head with a water balloon they wouldn’t get mad; they would only turn around, throw one back, and give you a thumbs up.  In one sidewalk skirmish I dropped my keys in the action and one of my assailants ran over a block to return them.

            The following Saturday, the entire city shut down for the parade.  And Bolivia takes parades seriously; the parade lasted for 24 hours over a distance of over 4 miles.  The parade groups were anything but hastily thrown together; on the contrary the “fraternidads” practice all year for the Carnival Parades.  The costumes are unbelievably colorful and elaborate garnished with everything from bells to sequins to giant taco suits.  

Trying on a Giant Taco Suit

On Being Robbed at Gunpoint

You don’t think all that clearly when you’ve had a gun shoved in your temple, or at least I didn’t.  One moment I was walking down the street in a group of about eight people and the next I had my back against the wall with a gun to my head.  The muggers took everything except my keys: 200 Bolivianos (about $30), my cheap cell phone, and my wallet.  Fortunately, the only thing in my wallet was a copy of my passport: no IDs or credit cards. 

            Ultimately, everyone was okay and no one in the group lost anything important, only cash and small items.  I don’t agree with their method of obtaining it, but I’m sure they needed the money more than I do.  This event just serves as a reminder that you can never let your guard down even if you’re in a well-lit area in a sizeable group because none of that matters when the muggers have guns and you don’t. 

Cochabamba, Bolivia: First Impressions

Bolivia certainly takes its cakes seriously: Like coffee shops in New York, there are bakeries with beautiful cakes underneath the glass on every corner in Cochabamba.  As a lifetime lover of sugar and delicious foods that are bad for me, the cakes were hard not to notice as my mom and I spent our first day in Cochabamba walking around the downtown area.  The exquisite chocolate flakes and the glistening icing kept from me only by a thin layer of glass and refrigerated air called my name until I bought my first piece of happiness on a plate.  

 

The site director for the Amizade program was giving us a brief tour of downtown and we bought me a Bolivian cell phone and visited a guitar shop; known for its handmade in Bolivia classical guitars.  It was difficult not to notice how cheap everything is in Bolivia.  Even the most expensive, masterfully handmade guitar made from the finest woods was only 3,500 Bolivianos or a little over $500 US.  A taxi to anywhere in town is never more than a $1.  A meal for two at the finest restaurants including dessert, drinks, and sides is no more than 70 Bs or about $10 US, however, a perfectly satisfying meal for two can easily be had for less than a $2 US.  While I’m talking about food, it isn’t just the cakes that are delicious: Cochabamba is known as the place to eat in Bolivia and it certainly lives up to its reputation.  Everything from traditional foods like anticucho (cow heart), guinea pigs, pique machhu (steak, sausage, other meats, and vegetables) to exotic foods like sheep testicles and cow tongue (which are both delicious by the way) to Italian food and fried chicken (and Bolivians LOVE fried chicken; there is practically a fried chicken place on every block) is delicious.

Pique Machu: A traditional Bolivian Dish

Cochabamba is a modern city that is far from primitive; there is excellent healthcare, and a 3G network faster than in the US (I can skype consistently on it; in fact most people who have internet use the 3G network because it’s faster and cheaper than what they can get in their homes). However, Bolivia is the poorest country in South America and also has by far the highest population of indigenous people and this is obvious everywhere you look.  While many people dress similar to we do in the US there are a large number of people wearing the traditional clothing.  Many of them sit on the sidewalk and sell agricultural products (by the way, the avacados along with most fruits are huge and delicious; fresh from the Amazon basin only a few hours drive away).  There are a lot of beggars with children, which is really sad.  Clean water is readily available to people who can pay for it, but for those who can’t it is harder to come by.

Photo courtesy of Lauren

My first several days here in Cochabamba I three times went to La Cancha, one of the largest open-air markets in the world.  The market is basically whole city blocks of vendors packed on top of each other selling literally anything you can think of from cleaning supplies to books to pirated movies to fruits and grains of every variety (Bolivia and the surrounding countries have an incredible biodiversity including thousands of kinds of potatoes) to raw meat (even in the market cakes are refrigerated but raw meat never is).  You can wander around in the market for hours never repeating territory and never knowing quite where you are.  Although the locals claim there is some kind of organization to La Cancha, I certainly didn’t figure out as the guy selling human hair and dried baby alpacas was right next to the shoe repairman who was right next to the guy selling cell phones and TVs.

Photo courtesy of Lauren

Photo courtesy of Lauren

Dried Baby Alpacas: Photo courtesy of Lauren

The Raw Meat Section at La Cancha: Photo courtesy of Lauren

Fruit fresh from the Amazon

Human Hair on the right

The complete and total disregard for copyright laws is amusing.  Presumably pirated or smuggled Hollywood movies and popular music complete with packaging like you would buy it with in the US are readily available on every corner, from classics to new releases.  Paying more than 10 Bs or $1.50 for a movie would be absurd.  Copyrighted books from textbooks to novels can be copied and bound in any copy shop for less than 50 Bs or about $7.50.  While legally obtained books are available, for many people these imported products are just too expensive and the only way they can afford to read or study in school is to copy books in the copy shops.  Like china town, designer purses and designer jeans are readily available for cheap and you can choose a brand name to be sewn on (a lot of US clothing companies use Bolivian labor to manufacture their products).   There are a number of restaurants that are obvious rip-offs of US chain restaurants as well.

Driving is complete and utter chaos, but I think that deserves a blog post in itself so keep checking back J. 

Cochabamba is famous for its year-round pleasant climate.  Cochabamba on average gets less than 18 inches of rain a year (comparable to notoriously dry Tuscon, Arizona) and my first week here was blue skies and sunny.  We are now getting record rainstorms like Cochabamba has never seen before, but its still light compared to what we see in Morgantown nearly weekly.
Bolivians are very politically involved.  Seemingly a result of a corrupt government that won't get anything done without protests and strikes.  More on this in another blog post.

Men discussing politics in the Plaza Principal

The Plaza Principal: The Main Plaza in Cochabamba

Puno, Peru

We don’t know for sure how long the Uros people have been living on floating, artificial islands on lake Titicaca, but we do know they pre-date the inca civilization which rose in 1450.  The Uros people have built 54 floating islands out of the totora reed, which they also use to eat, to build their homes, and construct their boats.  Every 15 days they add a new layer of the reed to compensate for the reeds decaying off the bottom and after about 20 years they have to start over and build a new island.

            Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world at an elevation of nearly 4000 m above sea level.  It is nestled in the Andes mountains on the border of Peru and Bolivia.  

“Puno is a quiet, safe city,” we were told by our tour guide.  Of course after being woken up no later than 4:30 AM by multiple marching bands and fireworks I can only agree with the latter based on my experience.  We happened to have stumbled upon the first night of the Virgen de la Candelaria celebration: one of the largest festivals in South America.  The next night we went out and joined in the festivities.  Hundreds of bands paraded around the streets with thousands of costumed dancers dancing to their band.  We later found out that communities from all over the region organized groups of over a 1000 people to compete in the music and dance competition which is part of the festival.  Our tour guide the next day explained that her community (about 2 hours from Puno) had over 150 musicians and 1000 dancers that had practiced for months in preparation for the festival.  Some groups had brass bands, while others had drums and zamponas (panpipes) only: All the groups were costume coordinated, well organized, and enthusiastic dancers.  

            The safety precautions taken with the fireworks, or rather the lack there of, was a show in itself.  Giant fireworks were set off in the middle of the huge crowd and occasionally and errant firework would send the crowd running.  Sparks showered the crowd in the bleachers with giant fountain like fireworks set off above the crowd.  The fireworks and the marching bands continued pretty much all night.  Of course, this was only the first day of 18 days of celebration.

            I have since left Peru and I am now at the La Paz airport in Bolivia to fly to Cochabamba.