Marci Soifer

Last Thursday evening, as Chris, Fiona, and I sat around contemplating the pending weekend, I asked if they wanted to join me while in a venture out to the local synagogue for Shabbat services. They sort of nodded, and Chris said, ¨that sounds good. But, we were thinking of going to Potosi (Southern Bolivia) this weekend. Do you want to come with us?¨ I paused for a moment, and said, ¨sure¨. I could stand a weekend away from La Paz.

Friday came, I went to work for the day, came home to pack up my backpack, fastened my sleeping bag to the bottom hooks of my pack once again, and headed off to the bus station with them. We were planning to take an overnight bus on Friday night, arrive on Saturday, spend time and see what there is to see, sleep in a hostel for a night, and then take the overnight bus back on Sunday night...arriving just in time for work on Monday. Why not? We didn´t have a hostel in mind, didn´t know what exactly we wanted to see, or when the bus ran. But, we were going. Rightfully so.

Chris and Fiona had tried to get bus tickets earlier in the day to assure that we would have seats on the Bolivian ¨bus cama¨, which is really just a fancier bus...in that the seats lean back and all, and there is probably a bathroom. However, when they had gone to get the tickets, they learned that not one bus cama going that evening to Potosi had a seat, or an aisle free. That meant that it was a regular, old local bus for us.

The bus station in La Paz is a funny place. It is probably the largest building for miles, in the north end of the city...where it stands like out a sore thumb on a main road, surrounded by small fruit stands and a mess of store fronts the size of doorways. The building is a large, burnt orange set of walls, with an open cover of black corrigated steel...not likely to be tin. The circle drive in the front bustles with taxis, locals trying to sell anything they can carry and shout about, other locals trying to haul their large, plastic, painted plaid bags to a departing bus, and backpackers...with their backpacks. The inside is the same mix of chaos and chaotic people, but the perimeter walls are lined with bus companies and bus company employees shouting about their destinations and the center of the building is a few lines of vendors selling transportation essentials...like tissues and M&Ms.

I liked it there. Felt very real to me.

We had tickets on the regular bus, newly purchased chocolate products in hand, and I had already switched from contacts to glasses for the night. We headed off to find that the bus wasn´t really too bad at all. In fact, while the seats were crowded and didn´t really lean much, I was perfectly happy. I took out my sleeping bag, hopped in, and waited for the 10 hour ride to begin. Chris and Fiona were in the two seats just in front of me.

Unfortunately for me, and for her actually, a random girl in the company of a few others (with seats in other places) had purchased the seat next to me. I know that she said a million times to them how sad she was that she had to sit next to me...a gringa...and not any of them, and I know that she didn´t think that I understood Spanish. I was sorry for her, and for me too actually...when she busted out her roasted chicken in a plastic bag to eat with her fingers during the beginning of our ride together. I slapped on my IPOD, drew my wallet into my shirt for safety, and forced myself to stare out the window.

We drove through some kind of fair happening in El Alto, with a mess of roasted meat and bright colors. I was intrigued at this festival and it´s purpose, aside from the massive number of very obviously impoverished people who were wandering through the booths, until I got distracted. While our bus had no empty seats, a host of people got on at our one stop in El Alto. What were these people doing? Well, they set up camp in the aisles. Apparently, bus companies in Peru give out food, feature bathrooms on all buses, and play bingo with their customers en route, and bus companies in Bolivia just try to make as much as possible by selling out every single space...not seat...on the bus. The people laid out blankets in the aisles, leaned against the plastic bags they carried, and went to sleep. I was thrilled that I had gone to pee a few times before departure, so I did not have to deal with this. Chris, however, was pretty infuriated.

We did stop along the way, but still managed to make it there somewhat on time. Not that I cared much...since I had no place to be. But, we arrived, and I was wide awake by then, since I had woken up with the sun at 6 AM.

We collected all belongings, I had a teary goodbye with my seat mate...ummmm...or just asked her to move out the aisle, and we got out of the bus, to figure out where to go next. A taxi driver took us the first hostel that we found in the Lonely Planet, giving us a chance to see this new city...and what it looks like at 8 AM on a Saturday morning. The outskirts of the city are run down, sparse, and not particularly interesting, with stray dogs wandering, large, cement roads, and people seated against the sides of building structures asking for money. The main part of the city felt different...quaint streets made of laid brick, buildings of an array of colors with quirky doors, signs, and decorative fronts, plazas and parks, and markets here and there. The city is completely uphill (the highest elevated in the world-Potosi-look it up---rivaled with another small city in Asia)...unless you walk the other way, and features many alleys and nooks. It felt accessible, unchanged over time, in a personal way...as if time had come and gone and people had moved in and out, and nothing in this whole place had ever been moved.

That is not to say that tourists don´t come through here...because they do. As stroes started to open, places showed off their featured tours to the local mineries, which is their featured tourist attraction. They city apparently has a great wealth, due to the mines. And, 60% of the city depends on either the profits from the mines themselves (because they work in or around them) or work with the tourist industry, interested in mine visits. These agencies advertise a tour, with the complete miney outfit involved as well (boots, helmet, and coveralls). We were going to get in on that action.

After some relaxing in the hostel, a little eating, and a stroll around the block, we had booked our tour. We departed in the afternoon from our hostel, and were greeted by an English speaking guide who pointed us in the direction of a red mini-van with ragged tires, rusty doors, and an exhausted sounding exhaust. When the guide opened the door with a heave, and the door nearly fell to the floor, I laughed...and got in. Chris, Fiona, and I were joined by another couple from New Zealand. Immediately, as my foot entered the van, I was struck by this woman´s shrilled English started in with complaints about the rediculous state of this 27-year-old red van...asking me questions about where I was from and who I was...and telling me about her and her boyfriend´s traveling. Oh, I love these backpackers...my favorite.

Chris, Fiona, and I huddled in the back, hoping to hide from this woman, Bridget, although she was two feet away. Her boyfriend, a tall, dark, handsome, but totally silent Dave character, sat in his own seat, hunched over his own body. Bridget started in...they are on a world tour, saw NY and loved it, saw Canada, saw Central and South America, don´t like Bolivia much, are going to Europe after this...blahblahblah.

I was thrilled when 10 mintues were up (a long 10 minutes) and we reached the top of the city, where the door of the red van again opened and we hopped out. There we were, in the middle of the Miners´ Market. Here, stand after stand featured the same set of supplies the miners require and desire each day. You know, the usual things like hard liquor, home-made cigarettes, coca leaves, and dynamite and dynamite detinators. Yes, that is right...it is totally legal to sell and buy dynamite in this country. I could have bought it. You could have bought it. A child of 3 years old could have bought it. It is really important to the miners to use of these supplies each day, as the alcohol helps them stay in the dank, difficult conditions with their senses about them (they use it for smell and to actually quench thirst), the coca leaves are chewed all day and the empty bag helps them tell time, and the dynamite, well, that´s to keep working.

We purchased some packets of a little of each supply and went to our tourist vendor´s dressing space, if you will. Here, we got ourselves some miner´s outfits. I have a picture of this...literally, hysterical. In my helmet, coveralls, big, Wellington boots, and the battery pack and headlamp secured around my waist, I felt like Derek Zoolander. Well, maybe more like his family members.

We drove uphill some more, to a portion of the city that literally perched on top of a mountainside overlooking the entire city...including the seperate barrack looking structures where the miners live. The entry is a mess of clay and nearly burried train tracks, at the foot of dark, dank hole. And, that is sort of how the whole thing seems. With a smell of pungent fire, alcohol, and chemicals, we tromped through the mud, along the train tracks inside. Headlamps as the only light, we walked alowly, and had to move aside on the ocassion that a group of miners working on Saturday (with mud up to the knees as they had been digging, pushing, and pulling in the wet conditions) would come by with their cart of collected stones.

This mine is mostly for precious or valuable stones. And, the carts are seemingly just rocks, but the men take those out to women who are paid to use mallets to discover just how much of the stone they can uncover to find value. 2 tons in four hours, ricking their lives in these dangerous conditions, inhaling all kinds of toxis fumes, and they get paid a fraction of the men they work for. You know how it is...they get paid better than anyone in Bolivia, which doesn´t say much, but they may only live to 50.

We went through paths to here and through there, watching holes and chutes everywhere. We gave out our gift bags of supplies to the men we saw, and asked them if we could take pictures. They said they don´t like pictures, but we snapped a few of them smiling. I am sure it was the only time they smiled all day.

One of the really interesting parts of the mine was how much Andean lore they bring into it. They supposedly are allowed to worship the devil inside, as he is the god of darkness. And, they have statues in a few corners, where they go a few times a week to pray to the Tio, their devil god. The statues happen to have been decorated with cigarettes, empty bottles of alcohol, and streamers from Carnaval. Supposedly, the devil takes care of them in the darkness of their world.

When we left the mine, we noticed a small shack next to the entry. This shack held a family, who supposedly watchs over the mine. I watched a little girl and little boy play outside the entry, knowing that their lives would revolve forever around that entry. Their faces were sad, for kids, and with heavy expressions. Pigs walked past them, their feet too heavy to follow. They stood expressionless, eye-ing us and I´m sure wondering who we were and what we thought about their world. Their world. The best way to make profit in the country. The best way to loose your life, or your mind.

I was not at all sad to say goodbye to Bridget, or her rather beautiful, but totally lacking personality boyfriend when the outting was over. We shed out outfits, and headed back to the city. At dinner, over three bottles of wine, Chris, Fiona, and myself both decided that we were done seeing Potosi and would head to Sucre, another famous and supposedly beautiful Bolivian city that was 2.5 hours away. We also decided that it was time to try out the Bolivian kareoke places. I sand a mean All-4-One tune, and an equally spectacular Boyz II Men song. And, I had to be really serious about it...to match the Bolivian vocalists. Standing up, walking around the place with my mic, and belting out the bad notes...like I didn´t even know they were bad. Quite good.

The next day, we paid a taxi driver a little bit (really little) of money to drive us to Sucre, which was a classly breathtaking Andean adventure. Green mountainsides, lined with lilly pad-like bushes and clouds that cast suck a dark shadow because they are so pronounced that you feel like they should be statues-permanent. Winding roads, through small villages of adobe huts, and women trying to sell bottles of drink, locally grown fruits or corn, and bread to any passing car.

Arriving in Sucre was sort of whimsical. The place looks like Arequipa, Peru, but more beautiful. The streets are all laid brick, the plazas have tamed gardens and palm trees (it is a bit warmer there), and the buildings are all white, classic archictecture, complete with black gates, characteristic doorways, and well-kept courtyards. There is a mix of poverty, which is noticable in the beggars, the boys with calloused feet and no shoes walking past, and the less impressive structures on the outskits of the main city. I was astonished to see how many nice restaurants and bars lined the streets, feeling like this might be the tourist center of Bolivia. This, and one drag of La Paz. Well, maybe that is because we stupidly went to the gringo restaurant that Bridget had recommended in Sucre. Why we went there? I do not really know...and we didn´t like it. Too much English...too little Bolivia.

We decided to head up to the top of the city, to a juncture where there is an outlook of the whole city. While it was amazing to see the red cielings and white buildings, organizing the city, we decided to go into the nearby monastary to get a tour. I am not really sure why, or why not, but we ended up with our own personal tour from a Spanish speaking monk, complete with a viewing of costumes, prayer centers, chorus quarters, and a historical journey of the monastary. I wasn´t that into it, but I really appreciated the pristine gardens and breathtaking views over the city.

By the time we had finished taking a few deep breaths in this spot above Sucre, we started back to the bus station. A pit stop at the grovery store, to supply our en route dinner, brought back many memories of my days traveling with Mollie. Not only because I purchased my own supplies for cheese sandwiches, but because I found our favorite Argentine candy bar...which I hadn´t seen since the Mollie traveling days.

The bus cama, which cost more than our local bus, lacked a bathroom and video watching equipment. I was disapointed, but took it as a sign that it was time for me to go to sleep. The now 12 hour ride was sort of like a sauna, and sleeping was a bit of a challenge, but I managed somehow. I guess anything is possible when you press your face up against the window. Oh, South America.

We rolled into the La Paz bus station at 7:45 AM, and I was at work by 9:30, smiling. And, now I have seen a little more of this country. I won´t be able to see much more...other than the Salt Desert. But, these are supposedly some of the highlights. I can see it.