Monday,Feb 26 2007, 03:16:17 PMSalar de Uyuni

Sunday, February 25, 2007     7:45 PM      San Xavier

 

          Well here I sit in the bus on the way to Santa Cruz to go and get my money for the month. What an interesting few weeks packed with carnival, getting stuck in the desert, a visit to the former richest city in the world, and a fun few days in San Xavier. It all started on the 15^th of February when I went in to Santa Cruz to buy a few things and meet up with my traveling companions for the Carnival this year. We were going to the Salar de Uyuni, which is the worlds largest salt flat and one of the must see’s for anyone coming to Bolivia. First I had to get there which proved to be a little bit more difficult than I thought it was going to be.

 

          This rainy season has been particularly brutal here in Bolivia. It has been raining non stop and several of the roads have been flooded out due to mud slides that have occurred over the past month. Let’s just say that wet roads are a pretty big deal in Bolivia where only 2% of the roads are paved. Dirt roads plus 20 inches of rain in a week doesn’t really make for that good of a time. So the Salar de Uyuni is next to Chile and the Atacama dessert which is pretty much on the other side of the country from where I live. Our plan was to ride a night bus to Sucre from Santa Cruz, normally 12 hours, and then continue on from there. The road turned out to be washed out to Sucre and even if they were leaving it was taking 30 hours so I had to buy a plane ticket. At this point I should have read the writing on the wall and realized that our trip was doomed from the start!

          So we all arrived in Sucre which is a beautiful historical colonial city at a little under 10.000 feet. Everything was great in Sucre and when I met up with my traveling companions, 6 girls, we took a 2 hour taxi to Potosí. I guess mistake number two was going to one of the most deserted places on the planet with 6 girls! Now Potosí is an interesting city that most people have never heard of. During Bolivia’s colonial days the Spanish discovered a mountain high up in the altiplano that had large amounts of silver in it. It turned out to be the richest silver vein that has ever been discovered and the story goes that the Spanish could have built a bridge all the way to Spain with the amount of silver that the they took out of the mountain over 4 centuries. So over 400 years the Spanish Kings and Queens took all of the silver out of the mountain and financed the their luxurious lifestyles and palaces in a large part due to the silver dug by the indigenous peasants that were forced to work in abysmal conditions in Potosí. At one time in history Potosí had more people living in it than lived in London and it was also the richest city in the world. It is currently the highest city in the world at 4100 meters which is about 14000 feet. The history books say that the gutters of the rich mine owners were made of pure silver, and that the street between the mayor’s office and the church was paved with silver bricks. Fast forward 400 years and Potosi is still the highest city in the world which makes it extremely hard to breath. Potosi is also one of the poorest cities in Bolivia as the mountain has been virtually stripped of all the precious metals. There are still several mines where local people work together in cooperatives in order to make about 2 dollars a day extracting tin ore and some silver. The conditions are abysmal and haven’t improved much in the last 100 years.
The life expectancy is only 14 years after entering the mines and in fact the miners are eligible for pensions once their lung capacity has diminished by 50 percent.

         

          So of course once we got to Potosí we tried to get transport to Uyuni, which is the jumping off point for the Salar, only to find that all of the buses were booked and we would have to wait until the next day to travel the 8 hours on the school bus to Uyuni. Now Uyuni is a pretty interesting town. As we were pulling in to Uyuni my only thoughts were, this is where George Lucas got the inspiration for Tattooine, the desert town where Luke Skywalker grew up. I mean here is this town where there is almost no vegetation and nothing anywhere nearby except for the salt flat. I swore that I was going to roll in to town and find Jawas running around. All we found were a bunch of foreign tourists, a lot of Llamas and perhaps the best pizza in Bolivia. It turns out that there is an American that has established a pizza restaurant in Uyuni that is truly top notch.

          We finally booked our tour, 75$s each, and prepared to leave at 10:30 in the morning. It turns out that the land cruiser, in typical Bolivian fashion rolled leisurely up an hour late. We didn’t even make it to the Salar before we popped our first tire. Sign number three. The first day went relatively well other than that and the salt flat is truly one of the most interesting, strange, and surreal places I think that anyone could ever visit. We stayed the night in a hotel where the beds, floors, and walls were made completely out of salt.

          The next day was when our troubles really started. We left our hotel, and unbeknownst to me the last bit of civilization we would see for a while. Everything seemed to be going well. We made it about 20 minutes before our muffler fell off. Well it didn’t fall off completely. It was still attached to the frame by one bolt. After the driver realized he didn’t have the right size wrench to take it off he came up with a great solution. It turns out that we would, “just drive until it fell off and then pick it up so you guys make sure to keep your eyes out” Obviously I objected to this on the grounds that driving with no extra tire with a sharp piece of metal dragging behind us couldn’t be that good. After convincing the driver of the folly of his logic I used gringo force and Natasha’s leathermen tool to finally get the muffler off of the car. This made for some noxious fumes for the other 2 days of the tour.

 

 So we continued on until we arrived in a secondary salt flat that is about 60 miles long. We were at least 4 miles from anything other than salty dirt when our rear tire popped. It turns out that this was our last spare as the first tire we popped was never repaired. So here we were in the middle of the dessert with no spare tire. Luckily the driver had a spare inner tube, yes they do that in Bolivia, which come to find out was like all of our inner tubes – patched at least 20 times each. We started to jack the back wheel up and I was thinking to myself, damn this 2 foot jack is not big enough for our car. Here we were in the middle of the dessert with a jack designed for a Honda civic using it on our SUV. Turns out I was right as the car fell off the jack and the rotor was sitting dug in to the sand. After we patched the tube, replaced it, and inflated the tire again . . . with a freaking bicycle pump . . . we started to work on getting the rear wheel out of the sand. Our driver’s solution for this - use the highly pressurized propane tank we have for cooking to support the entire weight of the land cruiser while we jack the SUV up little by little. Hmm, 2 tons resting on a propane tank . . . only in Bolivia. After three hours of slowly working the civic jack in to position we finally got the tire on.

So we climbed back in to the SUV to find that it wouldn’t start. Now we are at almost 3 hours lost and it turns out that the distributor cable was “fregado” or broken. How do we fix it, with precision engineering, he decided to fix our distributor cable with speaker wire. Yes a carbon cable with speaker wire! It really didn’t work out to well and we limped along the rest of the trip at a great 20 miles an hour. I was really pissed off as the vicuñas, a wild relative of the llama, were running faster than us at one point. We finally rolled in to the next stop at about 10 pm and the driver promised to fix the car for the next day. I guess there was a large supply of speaker wire at the hotel or something.

The next day didn’t get any better and the trip pretty much proceeded in the same fashion until our vehicle struggled back in to Uyuni 2 days, five more flat tires, and more motor trouble later.

The Salar was impressive and lakes at 5,200 meters, about 18,000 feet were very impressive. If anyone wants to know that some form of life can exist anywhere on this planet, I can think of no better place to witness this than the abysmal dessert of the altiplano, the photos tell the story.

When we finally got to Uyuni I demanded to see the manager of the company we went with so we could get our money back. I was told that this was impossible until tomorrow as it was fat Tuesday or the last day of carnival. I decided, in all of my fury to take a little deposit or guarantee so that I was sure the owner would show up the next morning. I got on top of the land cruiser and stole the propane gas tank and told them they would get it back when the owner talked to us. So here I was, steaming, walking through the cold streets of Uyuni carrying a confiscated gas tank. We finally did get 200 of our 500 dollars back.  The Salar is one place I will never ever visit again in my life despite its strange beauty.

 

Geoff

Monday,Feb 12 2007, 01:06:46 PMWelcome Dinner, off to the Salar

Saturday, February 10, 2007 10:26 PM San Xavier Well here I am after a great night. The feria productive, which translates roughly as the producers fair, held a welcoming dinner here for me in San Xavier. They are the group that solicited my help. They seem really with it. I mean they brought up setting the date for their next meeting, the 26th of this month which is utterly incredible in Bolivia. I mean that is like 16 days away. I was shocked. I mean here I was eating a great dinner that they organized and put together, and there they were planning for the future. Who would have thought this could happen here in Bolivia. Maybe I am just running on a high, or perhaps I am in shock after living with the realities that were San Antonio for over a year. I suppose I also feel a little bit guilty right now because I feel like I am just living to nicely. I guess over the last year I got used to the fact of the way I was living and even more frustrating, how work was going. Or for that matter not going! Either way I am in a much better place now and am ready to kick ass and take names and for now at least, it seems that the group is going to be there right along side me. So besides working with the guides, and the rest of the artisan makers there seem to be a plethora of opportunities. I think I will try and do at least one business simulation during the first three month with a small group of high school kids and I might teach a 10 course small business course at the soon to be opened alternative technical high school. This school is where they teach kids to be mechanics, electricians, vets, etc . . . After talking with the director he said that there was a big lack in learning on how to actually run your business and he needs someone to teach a few classes on the basics. So that might be another option. That is it for today, still rainy and muggy around here. If it clears up tomorrow I am off to the pool in Concepción! Geoff

 

Monday, February 12, 2007 9:20 AM San Xavier So I went to the pool over in Concepción yesterday and it was a pretty good time. I had to pick up a sleeping bag from the volunteer there because I am going to the Salar de Uyuni, a huge salt flat at one of the most remote places of the earth on Friday. Because this salt flat is located above 10000 feet it gets pretty cold at night. Well that is it for now I hope everyone has a good mardi gras, carnival, and for those of you who are in Chicago, Wisconsin, Michigan etc. . . every time it takes you 5 minutes to get ready to brace the cold outside just think of me sitting by the pool sipping a fresh squeezed passion fruit juice. Geoff

Friday,Feb 9 2007, 12:07:31 AMthe end of january beginings of feb

Tuesday, January 23, 2007                  7:50 AM San Antonio de Lomerío

 

            Well here I am successfully completed my last arrival to San Antonio de Lomerío  in the micro. As I wrote last time, I will be moving away from San Antonio, and getting a site change in Peace Corps jargon. I do not feel a bit nostalgic for the 20 de Enero, the name of the micro line, as the last ride out here was more of the same. In fact it was a little disturbing riding on the micro this time.

            Chris, Vanessa, Lauren and I went Friday to buy tickets for Saturday, the 20^th, to ride back to San Antonio and wisely decided to buy tickets for the Sunday instead. You see the 20 de Enero, or 20^th of January was that Saturday and the micro got about halfway before he decided that he would rather sit and drink at the party for the micro’s birthday then go to San Antonio. I guess I really can’t blame him at all. But celebrating a cooperative’s birthday is indicative of the party before responsibility kind of attitude that is prevalent in Bolivian culture.

Well because of our genius, we bought tickets for Sunday. So Sunday we arrive and take our seats on the Micro at 7 AM when a lady gets on crying and they put a box at Vanessa’s feet. It turns out that the lady had her dead baby in the box, which was a coffin. Our first feelings were disgust and general discomfort knowing that there would be a dead baby between Vanessa’s feet for at least 10 hours. Then after we got over our initial phase of disgust, we felt so bad for the mother. I mean here she is having lost her baby and now she has to ride with it in the micro for hours and hours. Needless to say it was one of the saddest micro rides that we ever had and another sad story to add to the books about Bolivia. This even fails to mention the poles that were poking Chris and Lauren in the back, and the non-working T.V. that was mere millimeters from Vanessa’s head. I guess the stickers on the micro did say it was “lujo” or luxury. Thank goodness that I completed my last ride in the micro, an 11 hour ride that I will be trading it in for a 5 hour greyhound style bus ride.

Chris also turned thirty the other day and I guess he decided that it was time to grow up a little bit and that hippy decided to cut his hair!. Ha. It is a totally different look and I gave him a little bit of hell by telling him I would now consider hiring him for jobs other than cutting grass or cleaning pools.  He even donated his hair, some 13 inches or so to one of those groups in the states that makes wigs for kids with cancer. Well that is the news for now, off to breakfast and then to break the news to my friends in town that this Saturday will be my last day in San Antonio

 

Geoff

 

Friday, January 26, 2007                     9:02 AM San Antonio de Lomerío

 

            Well I broke the news to everyone the other day that I was leaving town and my family is sad that I am leaving but most of the people understand that I want to achieve something with my remaining year and that it just wasn’t going to happen in San Antonio. I told one lady here in town and she was like, well what about our accounting classes we businesses owners wanted to do. I responded by saying, that was four months ago, and you guys haven’t even brought it up again with me. Yeah she said, “but Lucio was supposed to organize it, it goes to show that he is just all talk.” I then got pretty mad at her because I was like, what is wrong with you. Everyone here always wants to blame the situation on someone else and almost no one has initiative and even if they do they never have the follow through to accomplish their objective. I guess the typical San Antonio work attitude was summed up the other day when Chris was walking from one of the water tank projects. He walked by a house where one guy was digging a hole, and another was lying in a hammock. He asked the guys what they were doing and the guy in the hammock, waking up from his stupor, replied, we are working. Chris and I were thinking, working on what, your tan, your coca chewing techniques, what! Hay San Antonio. That and my counterpart Juan hasn’t come by to see me yet. I went by his house twice to talk with him and asked his wife to have him come by when he got back from the countryside. I told her it was really important and here I am 3 days later and he hasn’t come by yet. It is so typical of the reason why I am leaving. Here he is the president of the artisans and I have something important to tell him, I go by his house twice, and he can’t even take the effort to come by my house one time, a whole 250 yards away. Oh well I guess I am off to greener pastures. San Xavier is even mentioned in Lonely planet and I quote,

 

            “Founded in 1691, this pleasant little settlement is the mission circuit’s oldest town and is becoming a favorite holiday destination for wealthy cruceño, “people from Santa Cruz” families. Martin Schmidt arrived in 1730 and founded the region’s first music school and workshop to produce violins, harps and harpsichords. He also designed the present church, which was constructed between 1749 and 1752. It sits on a forested ridge with a commanding view over the surrounding hills. Restoration work was completed in 1992 and the newly restored building appears pleasantly old. San Javier is quite proud of its cheese factory, which you can visit. In addition, there are some inviting hot springs 14 km northwest of town. A further 6 km along is a natural pool and waterfall, Los Tumbos de Suruquizo.

 

Sleeping and Eating

The four-star Cabañas Totaitu, easily the mission circuit’s nicest accommodations, occupies a dairy farm 4km northwest of town. Ammenities include a pool, golf and tennis . . . . .

 

So either way I look at it, San Javier seems to have a lot of potential for work and seems to be on its way to development. The first thing I plan to do when I get there is a battery drive to collect used batteries, that normally get thrown out into the ground and eventually contaminate the water, and bury them in an environmentally safe way. I figure I can advertise on the local radio, and visit the schools, maybe even the communities and that it will be a way for me to get to know the town well as well as a quick win. Well that is it for today I have to finish packing.

 

Geoff

 

Monday, February 05, 2007    7:06 PM                                  San Xavier

 

            Da Da Da. Here I sit in San Xavier having arrived here today in San Xavier after watching what was perhaps the worst played Superbowls in a while. I mean you know something is wrong when a Prince hit from almost 20 years ago was probably the highest quality thing that happened in a 3 plus hour broadcast. On Saturday and Sunday I made a marathon run in the land cruiser with Armando from our office to go and move all of my things out of San Antonio. I arrived back by plane to Santa Cruz from Cochabamba where I had meetings all week and then Armando and I left for San Antonio at 12PM. We arrived in San Xavier at about midnight. We put my stuff in my new room the next morning then made a run for it back to Santa Cruz so that I could buy a few last minute items and to watch the SuperBowl.

 

Well this morning I went down to the bus terminal through several flooded out Santa Cruz streets. Let me tell you how fun it is to ride in a 1970’s era Toyota Carola through water that comes in by way of the floor board. I guess I need to get a picture for you guys but taxies in Santa Cruz generally come with only two things, a driver who may or may not be drunk, and a seat of varying quality. Functioning door handles are only a crap shoot with odds at 3:4 and windows that roll down are about a fifty-fifty proposition.  Oh and the driver being drunk, that is probably about a 1:5 depending on the time of day. So we had to ride through some streets with some high water as the rainy season has been brutal this year thanks to our good friend el niño, otherwise known as the niño . . . but then such is life

            Here is when things get really good though. I get on the greyhound-style bus recline my seat back, and settle in for the 4 and a half hour ride on an all asphalt road. It was cake! I mean compared to what it used to be. When I passed by the mud road exit to San Antonio I did make some vulgar gestures and said a few bad words about the road. It actually looked more like something I would imagine a mad taxi driver in Italy doing after being cut off. But alas I arrived here in San Xavier and had a nice lunch.  Then did a little unpacking, called my counterpart with my cell phone that now works in San Xavier and we hung out for a while. After that I went down to the internet. Then to the market where I bought spinach, tomatoes, peppers, carrots, and other vegetables and made a salad. Something I really haven’t been able to do for dinner for the last year. Well that is it for today, off to go and take a real shower!!!

 

Geoff

 

Tuesday, February 06, 2007    9:28 PM          San Xavier

 

            So I had a good day in San Xavier and I still feel like I am in not supposed to be in living conditions this good. Today Magno, the head guide and most probably the guy who will be my work counterpart, showed me around San Xavier and introduced me to some of the key people here in town. I got to go by the hospital which is the best in the Chiquitania. I also got to meet the Cuban doctor who is working courtesy of the Cuban government here in Bolivia along with about 200 other of her colleagues. For those who didn’t know Cuban doctors are considered the best in Latin America as one of the benefits of their “experiment” has been major benefits in health and plenty of doctors. I suppose enough of them to send some to Bolivia. I also met the other Cuban here in town that is teaching literacy to people here in town. He is the only black guy for miles around and is teaching people to read in the outlying communities as well as those who live in town and are not already literate. The Cubans also have one of the highest literacy rates in Latin America. I still would never want to live under their system of government, but there is something to be said for a country that sends doctors and professional teachers to a country instead of troops and missiles. Maybe we could learn a thing or two from the dirty commies after all. LOL

            I also found my lunch place today which turns out to be owned by a guy named Marco, who lived in LA for ten years and loves Mexican food. So I have definitely found some people in town that are interesting to say the least. On the Mexican food note I did dig up several Jalapeño plants in San Antonio and put them into pots to bring here to San Xavier. They are still alive and I hope they make it through the transition to the big city.  If you would like to learn more about San Xavier and the rest of the Chiquitania and Jesuit Mission circuit you can check it out at www.chiquitania.com and about San Xavier specifically under the San Xavier part of the website under missions.

            I also found out today that in addition to internet access, cell service, surrounding natural beauty and so forth that San Xavier has a cable t.v. company which means ESPN and sports center, and a bottled water delivery service. I also had a meeting with a lady form the mayors office, with her initiating the contact and everything. In addition to that I met the American guy in charge of the American NGO World Concern here in Santa Cruz. They specialize in micro-finance loans and have recently added San Xavier to one of their communities where they will work. That is all for today.

 

Geoff

 

Thursday, February 08, 2007              7:56 AM                     San Xavier

 

            So here I am in San Xavier and it has been a good few days. Daniel my boss, was passing through San Xavier again yesterday and stopped to stay the night here along with two other people. So for dinner we went to Luigi’s the Italian restaurant. It was really good and I had the fettuccini bolognaise. Yesterday morning started out pretty well. Jack, the World Concern guy, invited me to attend the first distribution of the 150$ micro-finance loans here in San Xavier, and we talked of ways that I could hopefully collaborate in the coming months. He said that they would be having some donors come through in May and would like it if I could give a presentation of the affects that the micro credit has had in town, levels of savings, access to banking services, and other such themes.  After that I went and showed Vivian, the worker in the mayor’s office, the powerpoint presentation for the ecological latrines and we agreed that we would like to do a pilot program in the outlying communities and that I would do my best to bring in a basic sanitation volunteer to teach the method.

 

            Magno then gave me a tour of the lookout points in town, and the rock that the indigenous people based their religious festivals around. It is so beautiful here and there seem to be so many people already working but just looking for that extra little boost, little bit of technical aid etc . . . I talked with the kinder garden director and I think that I am going to go and read books, the ones Kay gave me, once a week at all three of the kinders here in town. Magno also lent me the movie The Mission, starring Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons that is based on the Jesuits push into this part of the world. I highly suggest renting it if you want to get a taste of the area I am living in. Ok that is it for today, I am going to go and bike to the 4 star hotel and check out the pool and “golf”

 

Geoff