We boarded our bus on a bright cool morning and reluctantly said goodbye to Copacabana. We are generally agreed that this sleepy little village will become a major tourist destination in the future. We drove through the now-familiar Altiplano, still dry and brown as it shakes off the last of winter and eagerly awaits the life-giving rain. Already, some fields are turning green as the first crop springs up. 
An unexpected stop has us meet one of Bolivia's oldest and most respected celebrities. An elderly gentleman by the name of Paulino Esteban welcomed us to his home. Senior Paulino is famous for designing and building the read boats "Kon Tiki" and "Ra" used by the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl, who sought to prove the plausibility of ancient communication and travel between various Polynesian and Incan civilizations. Senior Paulino has been to Norway several times and is regarded as a master in his craft, as well as one of the last living connections to those expeditions. I had read about Heyerdahl's exploits in National Geographic, so this encounter was a treat, and Senior Paulino proved to be a delightful host.
Then, our crossing of Lake Titicaca in a rickety old water taxi had us wondering where the life jackets were. I couldn't help humming the theme from "Titanic" in my head, but we made it safe enough and continued to the mountains, rugged and gleaming in the distance. As we neared El Alto, a sister city to La Paz, we were jolted back to reality. El Alto is huge, unfinished, indigenous and absolutely chaotic. Few buildings were complete, most were brown brick and rebar. There were no sidewalks, only rubble where people walked, dogs barked and pigs rooted the soil. I wondered what this place would look like in the rainy season: nothing but mud, probably. The traffic was an absolute mess: no suggestion of lanes or order, just a constant slow, merging creep forward with horns blaring and pedestrians only shrugging at the last possible second before being hit by vehicles or animals or other pedestrians. I've never seen such insanity in an urban setting in my life: it was a mess !!
We picked up Gloria, our local guide near a market selling God-knows-what. She is a woman blessed with immense knowledge and a rapier wit. She entertained us with stories as we journeyed to the little known site of Tiwanaku. This was an old, pre-Inca culture which may have flourished around 1300 to 2000 years ago. They built large truncated pyramids and other temples and stellae that are only now being excavated. Then, they disappeared. Like the Maya of Central America, there are many theories as to their disappearance. But then came the Inca, whom Gloria compared to the Romans, and then, of course, came the Spanish. Gloria hoped that further excavation would reveal more of these ancient people, whom she considers to be her ancestors.
We backtracked through the post-apocalyptic chaos of El Alto into La Paz, which was a bit more finished, a tiny bit less chaotic and more Spanish. We passed a bizarre iron and steel statue of Che Guevara in one square. It's ironic how Che is a bit of a hero here, even though he was betrayed by the rural indigenous Bolivians he was trying to organize, and was killed here. But now, under the socialist president Evo Morales, Che's legend has been slightly rehabilitated.
As we neared our hotel, Gloria had us close our eyes on a highway cut-off. When we opened them, La Paz was laid out in all its glory below us. It was a tupendous sight, as we beheld a city of 2 million people cradled into a bowl created by the surrounding Andes.
Then we reached our hotel and I gave in to the virus that has been palguing many of our trip-mates. I'm sicker than a dog with a sinus head-cold as I write this. I missed the folklorico dinner-show that Lou said was really good. I'm staying in tonight and tomorrow, so La Paz will remain a mystery to me. Lou will have to soldier on without me.
No comments:
Post a Comment