Open veins

Journeying

My legs ache for space, my backside throbs dully. I twist again and try and imagine I am vertical as my head props up awkwardly against a stiff headrest. Why did I agree to do this 143 hour journey by bus?  Oh yeah, to avoid feelings of contradiction as I fly above the melting climate-warmed Andean peaks on my next adventure. The sheer devastating impact of flying means that choosing to fly when I have an option feels ever more like a choice to condemn the environment of my grandchildren or probably even my children. It is a contradiction that as a Brit in Bolivia is impossible to escape.

Yet in the day, aches and doubts dissipate and I settle back into the journey that has taken us through the whirling landscapes, climates and eco-systems of the Andes. The diluted light in the cloudy altiplano of Bolivia, the brilliant browns and gold hues of the dry coastal desert in Peru patterned by wind into intricate swirled designs, along thousands of miles of sea where early morning mist mingles with the wave crests, winding up lush-green countryside in southern Ecuador dotted with farmhouses strangely reminiscent of Wales, stirring in our seats as we are swept into the stream of lights that suck us in along with thousands of other vehicles into the megapoli of Lima and Quito.

One journey stands out: a long bumpy ride on a badly sloping seat from the industrial city of Guayaquil in Ecuador to the border with Peru. The journey is not remarkable for its beauty as it takes us past miles of monotone-green banana plantations and scrubby small towns.

Yet over 7 hours, a series of passengers enter the bus like part-characters from a Dylan Thomas play. The charismatic seller of herbal medicines who empties his suitcase of sachets with seductive words, the weary, sun-etched men with blunted plantation machetes who slump into seats, school children in smart uniforms who clutter the aisles with chatter, the street sellers who crowd the bus with the smells of warm corn and meat and then are gone, the women who enter the bus with mysterious purple-blue blocks which turn out to be live crabs, their tied claws vainly swaying, thankfully far enough away from my sandled bare feet.

New year travels

Happy new year!! I have been on the road, for more than 70 hours now, travelling with Juliette and then with Graham through Peru and into Ecuador. I have a blog percolating but for now, you will have to make do with some photos. Click on the photo of Volcano Tungurahua erupting to see my gallery. You can also visit my friend Graham's flickr website for which he will be very grateful as he is rather obsessed with his webstats.

Guess where? Bolivia?

No London! It was good to find out on my return trip that there is a part of London that is for ever Bolivia. The photo was taken at the Carneval del Pueblo. Click to see a gallery of photos from my return tip to Britain.

Colcha K

Hailstones kills 200 animals in Colcha K, Potosi:
"Residents of the area have called for immediate help from local authorities...the population of the community of Pozo Cavado, for example, said that they base their living on rearing llamas, sheep and goats: the natural disaster killed their only source of income" (Today's news, La Prensa)

In the evening gloaming, the village stretched out lazily down the valley. The flickering-green trees, fields of fertile crops and stalky-grass, that spread up from the trickling stream, contrasted with the monotone-brown hills and the vast open flat plain that spread out at the valley mouth.

In the distance, under thickening rain-black clouds, a woman hurried towards the village with a flock of contented llamas trotting ahead. The adobe-brick village seemed to be asleep; the large black church door like a half-shut eye.

Balancing Act

I have the sad news to report that Graham, one of my best friends, shrunk whilst we were on holiday down in the south of Bolivia. But it has its advantages as he can now do little tricks whilst Juliette does her yoga. Click on the photo for a slideshow...

Dislocation

I arrived home in a hugely misplaced patriotic fever. Red and white flags fluttered from car doors, flats and pubs as newspapers hysterically hyped the next match despite all the evidence of England's numbingly dull play.

The old football song "it's coming home" catchily echoed out of car windows. Some days later, the flags all looked rather limp in the wiltingly hot sun and the only thing that came home were the overpaid players.

It's a strange time to return to your homeland when every street corner is hyping a sense of nation. People asked me before I travelled back what I was looking forward to and despite trying I found it hard to think of anything except friends and family.

After 18 months away, here I was finally back in my home-country with a heightened sense of itself and I felt dislocated.

California

I have uploaded some photos of my trip to  California on flickr that you can check out before I blog on it.

Respecting Bolivia

Another guest post, this time by my dad who has just been here in Bolivia with mum for just under three weeks.

Her face looks out from the top of a rust-red conical triangular shape.  Is it the Virgin Mary dressed in the robes familiar from so many Bolivian paintings and statues?  Or is it Pachamama, the earth mother, looking out from the summit of Cerro Rico, the silver-bearing mountain outside Potosi?  Both probably. 

The anonymous artist of this painting which was explained to us in the National Mint at Potosi certainly intended to draw both the old religion of the indigenous peoples and the ‘new’ religion of Christianity into his picture of the mountain which provided huge riches for the Spaniards and other European nations, and huge suffering and death to indigenous peoples and African slaves.

Holidaying during the revolution

Apologies for going silent just when Bolivia hit the news. The truth was that I was idling down jungle rivers as Evo announced "nationalisation" of its gas, and scaling colonial churches roofs as the Government signed a new "just trade" deal with Venezuela and Cuba. There is a huge amount to write about what's happening and I will post lots soon, but meanwhile here are some photos of a three week trip I have been on with my folks visiting Bolivia for the first time. Click on any photo to see the full set.

Coca country

The two campesinos squinted towards the camera in the faded sepia photo. Behind them, I could make out several blurred donkeys loaded up with bags of coca ready for the five day trek from Chulumani to La Paz.

The owner of the the photos on the hacienda wall, a quietly erudite American woman called Tilby, explained that the photo had been taken before the road was built in 1940. The journey to Bolivia's capital takes only five hours now, but as I gazed past the photos on the walls I could still make out a family picking coca leaves from neat rows on a slope cut out on the opposite valley wall. Their field made up a worn threadbare patchwork kilt that covered the hillsides right up to edge of a rainforest that swirled in misty rain.

"That side of the valley was all trees a few years ago," explained Tilby who had lived there with her Bolivian husband for 27 years. "But coca is the only reliable source of income here and is part of the history here. You can see Incas with mouths bulging with coca, the Spanish built this hacienda to farm coca. Now it enables these valleys to survive as campesinos can produce crops a few times a year for a good price, whereas the price for coffee is always going up and down."

"Of course, more is produced than is used for traditional purposes, but is that the farmers fault or the fault of those who convert it into cocaine?" she continued. 

Coca has been part of my life in Bolivia. I drink it as my pre-bedtime hot drink, I occasionally chew it with friends, I have scattered it in Aymaran religious ceremonies, I have written about the constant conflict it causes with the US administration, I smell its bitter-sharp tang on the breath of indigenous leaders during seminars. But here I was in the region where it was made. Coca Country.