She tells me her name is Naomi. ´Is this your place?´ I ask, impressed. ´No no, solo trabajo.´ I dont believe her for a second, this middle aged, glamourous woman and the owner of the world´s first cocaine bar. I´d be cagey too.
So we found Route 36. Emerging blinking with the kids into the sunlight after 12 hours of darkness on Halloween night, we feel another box has been thoroughly ticked. The place has no windows so you never know how horrifyingly light it is outside. It is full of vampires, people who thrive on darkness and deviance, and it shows me the glaring coca contradiction in pure crystaline form.
Coca is an essential product for the people of Bolivia. Not only because of the economic benefit. It is tightly bound in their tradition, a ritual. It is thought that 90% of the population chew coca leaves. They stave off hunger, cold, pain. They reassure and provide nutrients and energy. They give the overworked a crutch, something sparkley to help you feel good.
Rewind to a silver mine in Potosi, the highest city in the world. We are shown the distressingly narrow mines by an ex-miner. We stoop then crawl into the hot tunnel, scarves protecting mouths from the asbestos dust, but due to the exertion at altitude we are all soon breathless and boiling, forced to remove the scarves in order to breathe. Greeted with a shaft that winds down further still, so narrow we have to wriggle on our bellies and i feel a rising panic. Get me out. NOW. Rushing backwards, I don{t care to look for the tiny rocks of silver with the others, i need fresh air in my lungs and sunlight on my face. We feel a hint of coolness and a see glimmer of light ahead. I run into the light and relief floods my lungs as i breathe easy once more.
The miners work 14 - 18 hour days in these conditions without food or water. We didn{t even go as far into the mines as they do - not even halfway and I was forced to turn back. Coca gets them through the day, eases the pain of their lives. The average life expecatancy is 40. And yet they continue - to ease the burden of their families poverty, each hoping that they will be the last miner in their family.
"My father coughed up blood, suddenly, his eyes started rolling. There was no warning. He died before he was 50. I can feel the lung disease too" he says, this ex-miner who spent 8 years down there before his command of English enabled him to become a tour guide. Saved by education.
In the coca museum we read a part of a poem referring to the coca legend. God said to the Andean people;
"Guard the leaves with much love and when you feel the sting of pain in your heart, hunger in your body and darkness in your mind, take them to your mouth and softly, draw up its spirit which is part of mine.
You will find love for your pain, food for your body and light for your mind.
But if your torturer, who come from the North, the white conqueror, the gold seeker should touch it, he will find in it only poison for his body and madness for his mind for his heart is as callous as his steel and iron garment.
And when the COCA, which is how you will call it, attempts to soften his feelings it will only shatter him. As the icy crystals born in the clouds crack the rocks, demolish mountains."
It will only shatter him. And that is exactly what cocaine does to Western Society. Crime, addiction, greed. A plant which so benefits one shatters another. I think of the zombies trooping into the daylight from Route 36, dazed, vacant and tasting the demolition.
Sunday 31 October 2010
Friday 29 October 2010
Planet Bolivia
What to say.
Fresh off the back of a four day tour of the Bolivian wilderness. Fresh is the wrong word. I am anything but fresh. I now know what it truly means to slum it. Extreme changes from searing sun to below zero, air so thin you catch your breath getting in and out of a jeep. Stone beds, rationed electricity, 4am alarms, gobsmacking sunrises. Sweating in the odd boiling, but also freezing climate, the last four days have been a lesson in just how hard life can be if you are born in a country such as Bolivia. The villages we stay in are built mainly from mud and dry stone walls. They are accessed by a rubble strewn track suitable only for 4 wheel drive. They make their living swapping llamas for food. The nights are so cold the streams freeze. The days are so hot they only come out as the sun rises and falls. The llamas are fine whatever the weather.
Bolivia is literally like nothing I´ve ever seen. The landscapes are so extreme and changable it´s difficult to believe. Laguna Verde at the foot of a 5000m Volcano is actually gorgeously bright turquoise and green. Mineral deposits make it so. Laguna Hedionda (foul-smelling lake) is toxic and sulpher-saturated, black and oil-slick sticky. Laguna Colarada is bright red. All have robotic flamingos of varying pinks strutting through the shallows.
We approach a series of geysers emitting serious steam. Boiling mud belches from the centre of the universe. Such a hostile environment I have never seen. Chinchillas bounce around and we spot a sly young fox eating abandoned tourist crisps. Last night we slept in the Salt Hotel. A building made entirely from salt, we lick the walls and laugh, light-headed with altitude and beer. The majority of the tour has been conducted above 4000m. At one point we nearly reached 5000m. The pressure on my cranium keeps me awake. And the excitement.
This morning, after hooping while the sun rose on the pure white salt flats, we visit an island in the salt where many cacti grow. We met one that is over 1000 years old. The cracked salt plains are a lake bed that is 12000km squared. Pure white, further than the eye can see. So bright it hurts your eyes. It fills during rainy season to create a perfect mirror.
Our Bolivian arrival hinted at the harshness and extremity this country has to offer. Spewed off a bus at the 7am border, into the freezing blue light and headlong into a 2 hour wait because the officer didn´t like our emergency passports and their predictable lack of an entry stamp.
Once we are in, it´s all smiles, freshly squeezed oranges and women in bowler hats. Hilarious, wonderful, filthy cheap and no ATM´s. We jump on a bus which fortunately costs pence and i spend 3 hours with my sarong stuffed into my ears to bar the ´Casio keyboard on steriods´(Andy) from perforating my eardrums.
Tupiza. Bolivian wild west. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid kicked it here. We mount two untrustworthy steeds and ride off into the red rocks through a canyon, one hand holding the sombreros, the other the reins. Pointless as the horses do whatever they like.
We are properly and securely into the groove. I don´t know or need to know what day it is. My most valued possesion is the Spanish i am collecting like hard-earned coins. I am amidst a continent i have dreamed of seeing for at least as long as I´ve known a certain boy. This dream has been running uninterrupted for nearly a decade. And now we are living it.
I apologise for my smugness. But I cannot contain this feeling. What it is to be ALIVE.
Fresh off the back of a four day tour of the Bolivian wilderness. Fresh is the wrong word. I am anything but fresh. I now know what it truly means to slum it. Extreme changes from searing sun to below zero, air so thin you catch your breath getting in and out of a jeep. Stone beds, rationed electricity, 4am alarms, gobsmacking sunrises. Sweating in the odd boiling, but also freezing climate, the last four days have been a lesson in just how hard life can be if you are born in a country such as Bolivia. The villages we stay in are built mainly from mud and dry stone walls. They are accessed by a rubble strewn track suitable only for 4 wheel drive. They make their living swapping llamas for food. The nights are so cold the streams freeze. The days are so hot they only come out as the sun rises and falls. The llamas are fine whatever the weather.
Bolivia is literally like nothing I´ve ever seen. The landscapes are so extreme and changable it´s difficult to believe. Laguna Verde at the foot of a 5000m Volcano is actually gorgeously bright turquoise and green. Mineral deposits make it so. Laguna Hedionda (foul-smelling lake) is toxic and sulpher-saturated, black and oil-slick sticky. Laguna Colarada is bright red. All have robotic flamingos of varying pinks strutting through the shallows.
We approach a series of geysers emitting serious steam. Boiling mud belches from the centre of the universe. Such a hostile environment I have never seen. Chinchillas bounce around and we spot a sly young fox eating abandoned tourist crisps. Last night we slept in the Salt Hotel. A building made entirely from salt, we lick the walls and laugh, light-headed with altitude and beer. The majority of the tour has been conducted above 4000m. At one point we nearly reached 5000m. The pressure on my cranium keeps me awake. And the excitement.
This morning, after hooping while the sun rose on the pure white salt flats, we visit an island in the salt where many cacti grow. We met one that is over 1000 years old. The cracked salt plains are a lake bed that is 12000km squared. Pure white, further than the eye can see. So bright it hurts your eyes. It fills during rainy season to create a perfect mirror.
Our Bolivian arrival hinted at the harshness and extremity this country has to offer. Spewed off a bus at the 7am border, into the freezing blue light and headlong into a 2 hour wait because the officer didn´t like our emergency passports and their predictable lack of an entry stamp.
Once we are in, it´s all smiles, freshly squeezed oranges and women in bowler hats. Hilarious, wonderful, filthy cheap and no ATM´s. We jump on a bus which fortunately costs pence and i spend 3 hours with my sarong stuffed into my ears to bar the ´Casio keyboard on steriods´(Andy) from perforating my eardrums.
Tupiza. Bolivian wild west. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid kicked it here. We mount two untrustworthy steeds and ride off into the red rocks through a canyon, one hand holding the sombreros, the other the reins. Pointless as the horses do whatever they like.
We are properly and securely into the groove. I don´t know or need to know what day it is. My most valued possesion is the Spanish i am collecting like hard-earned coins. I am amidst a continent i have dreamed of seeing for at least as long as I´ve known a certain boy. This dream has been running uninterrupted for nearly a decade. And now we are living it.
I apologise for my smugness. But I cannot contain this feeling. What it is to be ALIVE.
Friday 22 October 2010
Mendoza
Wine wine wine.
The town of Mendoza is basically wine capital of Argentina.
Whilst here:
We ate the steak of our lives. Fatter than my bicep.
Andy thought he had tonsillitus. It turned out to be a mouth ulcer.
We cycled round some of the most immense bodegas (vineyards) tasting and loving the fruits of Argentina in the sun.
The malbec was so smooth it was like drinking a doormouse (says Andy).
Andy´s handlebars came off.
We swam in some hot springs in the mountains.
And ate one too many empanadas.
The town of Mendoza is basically wine capital of Argentina.
Whilst here:
We ate the steak of our lives. Fatter than my bicep.
Andy thought he had tonsillitus. It turned out to be a mouth ulcer.
We cycled round some of the most immense bodegas (vineyards) tasting and loving the fruits of Argentina in the sun.
The malbec was so smooth it was like drinking a doormouse (says Andy).
Andy´s handlebars came off.
We swam in some hot springs in the mountains.
And ate one too many empanadas.
Wednesday 13 October 2010
In Patagonia
Puerto Madryn. Those two words display a fusion of two languages, two cultures. In 1865, 160 plucky welsh men and women from all over Wales sailed a ship called Mimosa from Wales to Brazil. Finding that Brazil was not for them, they pushed on, down the coast, to the isolated Chubut Province, landing at what is now Puerto Madryn. They lived in caves all winter. (Hardcore in the ice and snow of Patagonia) Then hiked a few kilometres to create the towns now known as Gaiman, Dolavon and Trelew. They wanted to create a "little Wales beyond Wales", and in a way, that is what they have done.
I walk into the Ty Gwyn Tea Shop in Gaiman. There are pictures of welsh chapels and love spoons hung on the walls. Doilies and daffodils adorn the quaint pine tables, all set for tea. I could be in Treprior (old family farm) and I begin to shake. A woman hears the bell and emerges wearing an apron. A deep breath: "Siarad Cymraeg?" I ask hesitantly. "Ahhh ydwy! Croesawa Gaiman! Ble ach chan?" (Ahhhh yes! Welcome to Gaiman! Where are you from?) The welsh rolls off her tongue as if she´s from Abereiron. She even speaks English like a Welsh person, with a lovely, heavy accent. I´m completely overexcited, and immediately want to phone my mam, my mam-gu. She serves us a tray of bread and butter, welsh cakes, bara brith, scones and endless tea. Proper tea. I discover that this woman has been to Kidwelly Castle, has driven through Newtown and that her family are from Lampeter. She speaks welsh at home, and Spanish of course. Her kids learn Welsh in school. This is far more welsh than the part of Wales I grew up in. I keep shaking my head and grinning in disbelief.
Puerto Madryn is also the breeding ground for the Southern Right Whale. On a grey, drizzly afternoon, we take a boat trip to get up close and personal. A dinghy full of expectant tourists holding impotent cameras, we head for the nearest fin. It is a mother and a rare white calf. Like an albino, mottled and ivory white. The whales are not intimidated by the boat at all, and we spend the 2 hours absoltely surrounded by these massive creatures. Hearing, feeling their breath, watching them dive away from the gulls trying to peck at them, seeing the babies lolling over their mothers, tired with milk. Being so near the whales is incredible. Much much bigger than our boat, we are staring them in the eyes. So close I could reach out and stroke them.
We also go to a penguin colony (a million penguins, so many they become passe) and get pretty close to the obese elephant seals slobbing along the shore. At one point two alpha males nearly have a scrap, and one has to peg it (i use that term loosely) for fear of attack from his fatter opponent.
Nestled in the highest valley in Argentina, just before the many rivers reach their Pacific destination, finishing their nutritious journey through the Andes, is a town called El Bolson. A ´non-Nuclear zone´, it is full of hippies. Everyone we meet has moved here from other parts to build their own homes, raise kids, work on their crafts to sell at the beautiful market.
Completely by chance we end up staying with a man called Augustine Porro at Le Casa Del Viajero. He has built this beautiful place himself and he shows us round a couple of log cabins. "My children were born here" he points upstairs to one of the bedrooms. "My wife built that house" he points to the stone farmhouse which is now their main abode. We live, for a few blissful days, in a log cabin at the base of Mount Piltrequitron, by the crystal clear River Azul. We hike up the valley, through the forest, following the river to reach the canyon. The Cajon De Azul, where water thunders hundreds of feet below us and snow-capped mountains stretch high ahead. Further down, we dive into the deep river, and scramble out breathless. Ice cold glacial water. So pure you can drink it. The Welsh chose their Latin American home wisely. This is paradise.
I walk into the Ty Gwyn Tea Shop in Gaiman. There are pictures of welsh chapels and love spoons hung on the walls. Doilies and daffodils adorn the quaint pine tables, all set for tea. I could be in Treprior (old family farm) and I begin to shake. A woman hears the bell and emerges wearing an apron. A deep breath: "Siarad Cymraeg?" I ask hesitantly. "Ahhh ydwy! Croesawa Gaiman! Ble ach chan?" (Ahhhh yes! Welcome to Gaiman! Where are you from?) The welsh rolls off her tongue as if she´s from Abereiron. She even speaks English like a Welsh person, with a lovely, heavy accent. I´m completely overexcited, and immediately want to phone my mam, my mam-gu. She serves us a tray of bread and butter, welsh cakes, bara brith, scones and endless tea. Proper tea. I discover that this woman has been to Kidwelly Castle, has driven through Newtown and that her family are from Lampeter. She speaks welsh at home, and Spanish of course. Her kids learn Welsh in school. This is far more welsh than the part of Wales I grew up in. I keep shaking my head and grinning in disbelief.
Puerto Madryn is also the breeding ground for the Southern Right Whale. On a grey, drizzly afternoon, we take a boat trip to get up close and personal. A dinghy full of expectant tourists holding impotent cameras, we head for the nearest fin. It is a mother and a rare white calf. Like an albino, mottled and ivory white. The whales are not intimidated by the boat at all, and we spend the 2 hours absoltely surrounded by these massive creatures. Hearing, feeling their breath, watching them dive away from the gulls trying to peck at them, seeing the babies lolling over their mothers, tired with milk. Being so near the whales is incredible. Much much bigger than our boat, we are staring them in the eyes. So close I could reach out and stroke them.
We also go to a penguin colony (a million penguins, so many they become passe) and get pretty close to the obese elephant seals slobbing along the shore. At one point two alpha males nearly have a scrap, and one has to peg it (i use that term loosely) for fear of attack from his fatter opponent.
Nestled in the highest valley in Argentina, just before the many rivers reach their Pacific destination, finishing their nutritious journey through the Andes, is a town called El Bolson. A ´non-Nuclear zone´, it is full of hippies. Everyone we meet has moved here from other parts to build their own homes, raise kids, work on their crafts to sell at the beautiful market.
Completely by chance we end up staying with a man called Augustine Porro at Le Casa Del Viajero. He has built this beautiful place himself and he shows us round a couple of log cabins. "My children were born here" he points upstairs to one of the bedrooms. "My wife built that house" he points to the stone farmhouse which is now their main abode. We live, for a few blissful days, in a log cabin at the base of Mount Piltrequitron, by the crystal clear River Azul. We hike up the valley, through the forest, following the river to reach the canyon. The Cajon De Azul, where water thunders hundreds of feet below us and snow-capped mountains stretch high ahead. Further down, we dive into the deep river, and scramble out breathless. Ice cold glacial water. So pure you can drink it. The Welsh chose their Latin American home wisely. This is paradise.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
