On my own again

Andrea left this morning, so I am on my own again. She was still in quite a bit of pain and I certainly do not envy her for the two-day trip that is ahead of her, but she is very brave and evidently tolerates pain quite well. Now I am a bit sad, also because while packing this morning I watched a really corny American movie on HBO about losing mothers and family members, and despite myself, tears were streaming down my cheeks for the last half hour. Sentimental fool. AND Rob Lowe played the protagonist, so you can imagine how great it was.

I will leave La Paz today to go to Lake Titcaca, although by now I started liking the place. But it is safer to go now because the road blockades that had hampered traffic around and out of Bolivia have been suspended for a while. I asked various people about these and apparently the problem is that the Bolivian government agreed to sell a lot of their natural gas to Argentina knowing that the Argentinians will sell the gas on to the Chileans, who are the Bolivians' mortal enemies due to the various wars that the Chileans had won against them in the past. There are still demonstrations around town and people are collecting signatures to oppose the referendum that is to be held on the gas issue in a couple of weeks. The opposition claims that the questions are phrased such that they are aimed at confusing people, so the results will not be fair.

I do not know what to make of it all: at the heart of the whole issue seems to be Bolivian national pride, which appears to have been hurt many a time throughout their history. Since I started my trip, I have been thinking quite a lot about the whole nationalism issue. The Brazilian nationalism that I had encountered while traveling there did not come across as aggressive or pathetic, which, in my mind, are the two main attributes of Hungarian nationalism as I know it. The fact that the Brazilians, encouraged by the performer, broke into their national anthem at the end of a lovely concert that I went to in Recife seemed perfectly all right; they are proud of their country because it is a beautiful place and has a lot to offer. If this was at the crux of Hungarian nationalism, then I would be a nationalist: I think Budapest is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and there are some great things about Hungarian culture that I am proud of. Sadly, according to the self-proclaimed nationalists in my country, I am not entitled to feel any sort of pride, because I am not a real Hungarian by virtue of the fact that I do not agree with their political views and that I am Jewish (as far as they are concerned). And that is what I think makes the difference: the Brazilians' nationalism is not directed against someone else in particular - it is a way of asserting themselves in a world where despite being one of the biggest and most populous countries with all the natural riches you can imagine, they remain underdogs; Bolvian nationalism is different (and hence, to me, a bit more pathetic): it is directed against their former enemy who won a war (that they started) and annexed some of their territories; still, Hungarians' nationalism is the worst of the lot by a long shot, because it defines itself by excluding a certain percentage of its own people from the "nation" based on political views and, in some cases, religion or ethnic origin. So that is my conclusion on the issue for now with the caveat that, of course, I cannot claim to know either the Brazilian or the Bolivian "soul" as well as the Hungarian; and one's own people, country, politics will always induce much stronger emotions than any "foreign" one, no matter how well you may get to know it. It is like with reading poetry: no matter how well I can speak English or French, no poem read in either of those languages can touch me the way a Hungarian poem can.

Tragedy! (or, at least, real bad luck)

Ok. So we decided to be adventurous (again), and signed up for a bicycle tour: a ride down "the world´s most dangerous road", from La Paz to Coroico, a small town about 100 kilometers from here. The bike tour involves cycling down for 62 km on a very steep and really busy road which, for the most part, is a narrow dirt road bordered by mountains on the right side and a 600-feet-deep steep canyon on the left. I was pretty scared of the whole thing to begin with, but it seemed challenging and silly enough, and we signed up to go with the most reputable company that had been recommended to us by various people. After 22k on the regular asphalt road you arrive at the beginning of the dirt road and instantly understand why it is so bloody dangerous. Traffic is coming in both directions, and it includes huge, kick-ass trucks and buses that do not observe basic safety rules. We had to ride on the left side trying to avoid looking down into the canyon and, more importantly, trying to avoid looking at the crosses and tombstones that line the road in memory of those who died there...Apparently, about a 100 people die every year in accidents on the road, and - although we were not told that in advance - the occasional cyclist also falls off the edge. Luckily, the tragic event referred to in the title happened before we reached the really dangerous bits. Andrea, who was enjoying her ride down much more than I was, rashly decided to overtake a cyclist she considered to be too slow for her liking, but the cyclist in question got scared and made a bad move, which in turn resulted in Andrea falling off her bike and hurting her shoulder really bad. I had not seen the accident, because I was not too confident and accordingly tried to stay in the back with the guide, so by the time I arrived I only saw my friend lying on the ground, in pain. It was really scary but thankfully she could stand up, and apart from the shoulder pain there was nothing wrong with her. She had to sit on the bus for the remainder of the tour, where she heroically suffered in silence while the rest of the group finished the tour. I carried on half-hearted, keeping my position at the very end of the group, trying to go relatively slowly. I only climbed up into the bus for a short period after we had our lunch next to the Hebrew tombstone of a 23-year-old Israeli girl who died while cycling on the road a couple of years ago. (Despite my best efforts, I also managed to dive head first into the sand, but I survived with a big bruise on my left knee and a few scratches on my arms.) At the end of the tour I did feel a certain sense of satisfaction for having completed the tour but, to be honest, I did not enjoy it that much while we were actually doing it. And this was not because everyone was better than me (including a 63-year-old English lady, who was faster than most boys). I truly do not feel the need to be the best in an activity that is so alien to me. (Unlike Andrea, probably...).

We went to the hospital right away upon returning to La Paz, and it turned out that Andrea had broken her collar-bone. Thankfully, the doctors were really nice and professional, they spoke English quite well and we got tended to right away, so the hospital experience was not nearly as painful as I had anticipated. They put a cast on my dear friend´s upper body (this collar-bone is a tricky one to break) and we will try to survive the next couple of days just hanging out in La Paz. (Andrea is leaving on Saturday to go back to Budapest). So, that is the long and short of the tragic events. Lessons learned? Not sure...perhaps that we do not need to prove to ourselves at every opportunity that presents itself that we are really cool and adventurous despite the fact that we are lawyers and almost 30...

Right now we are chilling out at the Coca museum, which is really interesting and further convinced me that my father´s radical views on drug legalization (ie that all drugs should be legalized) may actually be right...More on this another time though, because we need to go watch the England-Portugal game soon.

For the time being: http://www.cocamuseum.com

Salar de Uyuni

We have made it to La Paz (remember, not the official capital) after a 4-day tour of the largest salt flat in the world called Salar de Uyuni in western Bolivia. Salt flat really just means a huge flat land in the middle of really high mountains covered all in salt. I could make up some scientific sounding explanation about how it came to exist but I am not too sure because our guide was - to say the least - not exactly chatty and would not impart too much information on any of the sights that we saw. So here is what we saw: the salt flat, which is an endless, blinding white plain (about an eighth of the size of Hungary - quite an eerie and otherworldly scenery, I must say, especially at sunrise when apart from me and Andrea there were no living beings in sight for miles and miles; some cool geyser at almost 5000 meter (yes, higher than the Mont Blanc, if I remember correctly); a bunch of lakes, including one that is red due to some special algae; and loads of flamingos that are pink because of these same algae. It was a beautiful and very unusual scenery, but the trip was (again) a bit of a rough and ready affair, especially due to the freezing temperatures (one night it was about 25 below zero), the burning sun during the day and the shitty 4WD that the unbelievably disorganized Bolivian tour operators chose to give our group. They do not seem to have the whole tourism thing quite down yet, but at least when they screw you over it is only by a couple of dollars...

The big advantage of these trips is that you realize how without the comforts of civilization you really are at the mercy of the elements, and your start appreciating those same comforts much more. I mean, I have not p*ssed in a bush as many times in the previous 15 years as I have done in the past four days...but, I am proud to say that we were not the biggest whiners, although you do get a lot of comfort out of a good ten-minute collective whining session when your fingers and toes are so frozen that you cannot move them. Looking back, all that suffering in those hardcore pioneer camps that I attended in the mid-1980s thanks to my primary school Russian teacher, do not seem to have been in vain: it is hard to shock me with lack of comfort. And to give credit to my dear father as well: it might be that the couple of family rowing trips organized by him (with varying degrees of success), also helped to train me for future self-inflicted trials and tribulations.

Our group consisted of pretty cool, easygoing people, so there were no problems there. I will not bore anyone with a detailed account of the horrendous bus trips that we have to subject ourselves to to get from one place to another: suffice it to say, that they involve a lot of intimate physical contact with people you would not necessarily choose to spend time with in the same room; a lot of freezing; and a lot of worrying about surviving without a fatal car accident due to road conditions. So far, so good though. No real complaints.

Potosi II

Still here in Potosi. We spent the morning swimming in a hot thermal lake (Tarapaya) in a canyon (the Devil´s Canyon, unsurprisingly) in the middle of the mountains. It was amazing, especially because we were the only people there save for the locals. I just find it so very surreal to be in these places that we have learnt about in primary school geography class as being the "highest, longest, oldest, whatever-est"; my memories are vague, so I can´t remember what was said about the Andes, but I am sure there was something...

Last night I ran into my Slovenian friend, Natasha, with whom we managed to nail the Japanese thief in Recife. She confirmed what I had already heard from the victim of the crime about ten days ago in Rio (where I accidentally ran into her at a samba bar): our dangerous criminal is still sitting in a prison in Recife...A wave of guilt came over me: after all it is partly my fault that this psycholgically unstable little woman is rotting in a Brazilian jail, which is probably no fun experience.

So exhausted by the way. Even the coca tea does not help. I think it is a combination of the physical strains caused by the cold and the altitude, and the multitude of new information that I have to process in a short amount of time resulting in a strain on the brain. (Still love it though.)

Potosi

Right now I am sitting in front of the computer in an internet cafe in the highest city in the world, Potosi. It is a three-hours bus ride from Sucre, a steep ride uphill on bad roads through the Andes all the way to some 4100 meters. I don't think I have ever been this high up and I was very worried about altitude sickness, but I am happy to say that so far I did not get any of the horrible symptoms graphically described in our guidebooks. You do, however, feel that any physical activity requires much more energy: this morning I panicked when climbing up two flights of stairs left me completely breathless. The solution is to do everything much more slowly and to drink tea made of coca leaves, which is supposed to give you energy and dull the pain caused by pretty much anything.

Potosi is a mining town and was one of the major sources of wealth in colonial times because of the tons and tons of silver extracted by the enslaved Indians from the vast silver mines. Today, there is not that much silver left, but they still mine for zinc and silver and we went to visit one of the mines on a guided tour. The tour involved walking down to a depth of some 35 meters, at times crawling on our knees and climbing up steep alleys, and inhaling a lot of dust. It was amazing though: we could hear the explosions of dynamites really close-by and saw some of the miners at work; this truly seems like the hardest and most stressful job ever. Apparently the conditions are now much better than they were before the 1952 miner revolt, before which all the mines were in private ownership and there was hardly any state regulation (and, accordingly, no safety requirements at all). Now these mines are cooperatives and the activity is regulated but it still seems like a pretty grim existence. Some of the men we met were barely 18 and they spend 8-10 hours a day shoving huge barrows full of minerals up and down the dark alleyways and they get paid only based on how much they mine. The only way they can actually survive this is by chewing coca leaves (they all look like hamsters because they store the leaves in their mouths all day), drinking an almost 100 per cent. alcohol made of sugar cane, and smoking really strong cigarettes all the time. It was depressing but interesting and our guide was a very knowledgeable young man who also explained about the miners` religious rituals, which are a strange mix of Catholicism and the worship of ancient Indian gods and spirits. Evidently, the miners leave Catholicism behind before they go down making the sign of the cross at the point where the light disappears and from then on they worship the devil (called Tio, Spanish word for uncle), who, as Mother Earth`s husband (Pachamama!) is responsible for the minerals (and everything else presumably) under the face of the earth. They have one or two devil statues with huge penises (symbolizing fertility, of course) where the miners sometimes get together and "pray" for whatever it is that they need most.

Otherwise, the town is not as depressing as you would expect it to be: there is a cute center and you can observe once again how the trendy, western-looking people and the really traditional looking ones go about their business side by side. It is freezing cold at night though and the sun is burning during the day, so it is not exactly a classic holiday destination. There are some thermal baths around here that we will probably visit tomorrow, before going to an area in western Bolivia that is even higher and colder, but apparently amazingly beautiful.

Sucre

After an excruciatingly long train trip from the border to Santa Cruz, followed by a similarly long night bus trip from Santa Cruz, we arrived in Sucre, which - I was surprised to find out - is the official capital of Bolivia. I would bet you that on "Who wants to be a millionaire?" you would get away with saying that it is La Paz and, in fact, almost every governmental entity and business is based there, but Sucre kept the Supreme Court and the National Bank. It is a lovely town, surrounded by mountains that are very similar to the Alps, which is why apparently it is popular with German, Swiss and Dutch people.

It is amazing how different this country is compared with Brazil: it is obviously poorer, more traditional, less European, and the people are very different both in terms of looks and behaviour. Of course, I have only been here two days so I cannot make any semi-legitimate statements on anything, it is just a first impression. But it is quite obvious that they are at an earlier stage of modernization, and even though there are a lot of young people hanging out in western clothing, there are plenty of (mostly older) people in their traditional costumes and (unlike the black women in Salvador, who hang out wearing their costumes only to surround unsuspecting tourists like myself and get photographed for money) it is just the way they dress.

Today we walked around the city and ran into an interesting South-African woman living in Denmark, who is traveling around South America with her two little kids, a 7 year-old and a 9-year-old. We spent some time with the older kid in a cafe, while his mother took the younger one to the hospital to get cured from food poisoning, and I must say that he was one of the coolest kids I have ever met. I have always thought it impossible to travel in this manner with children, but it appears doable and the kids certainly do not seem to be worse off for it, on the contrary.

It is so different to be traveling with a friend again. A lot of fun, especially because we get along really well, usually enjoy similar things and also, we have this amazing common language, Hungarian, which is not only beautiful sounding (according to a lot of people that I have met here at least), but is also so useful for being rude about annoying people or situations amongst ourselves. On the other hand, when you are with someone, it changes the way you perceive things: every impression, every experience is instantaneously reflected through the eyes of the other and all is shared and discussed right away. This is not necessarily for the worse, of course, but you do possibly absorb less of the outside world. I still talk to pretty much everyone though...I have realized since starting this trip that I have turned into my grandmother, Lili, who used to drive me up the wall when I was a kid/teenager with her constant need to speak to complete strangers on the street, in restaurants, everywhere. And now here I am, exactly the same (hopefully not annoying Andrea too much).

"[...] she had the consciousness of being nine-and-twenty to give her some regrets and some apprehensions; she was fully satisfied of being still quite as handsome as ever, but she felt her approach to the years of danger, and would have rejoiced to be certain of being properly solicited within the next twelvemonth or two." (Jane Austen: Persuasion, 1809)

I am reading this Jane Austen novel that I bought for two pounds at the Recife airport (special offer on English classics) and this quote seemed oddly appropriate. No more on this.

After a pretty heavy last night in Rio we left for the Pantanal, the largest wetland (I think) in the world in the west of Brazil. The Lonely Planet guide was right again, it was a pretty "rough and ready affair": we slept in the middle of nowhere at a campsite in hammocks or tents, took cold showers and got up every day at 6 in the morning in the hope that we would see some wildlife on our early walks. The result: loads of alligators, who are apparently not dangerous to humans; amazing looking birds, including the TUYUYU (symbol of the Pantanal), which is a huge kick-ass bird with a really long red beak; an enormous anteater, while horse-riding; capivara, which is a funny-looking rodent the size of big dog with a square head; and as we were leaving, on the third day, our guides even brought us a 4 meter long anaconda to the camp, just for good measure. We were pretty lucky, a very friendly little man picked us up with his car at the airport, obviously very concerned for our safety and he took us to the hostel from where we could organize everything really easily, so, again, it was all smooth sailing, cold showers notwithstanding.

I also have to do a bit of mea culpa: we have met the first really friendly and cool Israelis, who were in our group on the trip and we are still hanging out with them now in the border town that we are in right now waiting for the train to Bolivia. A nice couple: a short but very handsome boy with his pudgy but really pretty girlfriend and another girl they met along the way. Unlike most of their fellow-countrymen they do not like to travel in large groups and enjoy speaking English with non-Israelis. Although, shockingly, they do not even have to speak English with some of the locals here, because at least a third of the guides who work for the company we traveled with speak almost fluent Hebrew. When I first heard one of the little Indian-looking natives chatter away in Hebrew I thought I was hallucinating, but it turned out to be true and they claim to have learnt it by working for the tourists. Not only do they speak the language, they also keep reassuring the Israelis that they are indeed the chosen people, because they are just so different from everybody else...The image was just so bizarre, I cannot describe it.

These guides are mostly boys in their early twenties, living all year round in the middle of nowhere, without women, which is probably why they are drunk and/or stoned all the time and act really macho and competitive with each other (one of them likened their camp to a pirate ship). At the same time they listen to the cheesiest (and most unbearable) "Julio Iglesias meets American country music" songs about longing for lovers lost/gone/far away, (one of them practically serenaded me while we were walking around in the jungle), which provides a pretty funny counterpoint to the big alligator-killing knives they all carry around in their back pockets.

In addition to the friendly Jews there was a sweet, very accomplished Welsh boy in our group (studying to be a doctor but also a musician and a sportsman, and I found out some interesting things about Wales), with whom we got along very well, and a weird, new-age, magic mushroom-eating fourtysomething Californian traveler type, who had the very annoying tone of voice of a proselytizer, but that was only one of his many annoying habits. On the upside, he was a great source of entertainment...

Our train to Bolivia is leaving in a couple of hours. It will take us about 15 hours to get to Santa Cruz, and this train used to be called the "death train" years ago because it was so dangerous, but apparently that is not the case anymore. So I have to leave my beloved Brazil and learn to speak Spanish again!

(Sorry for the long post. More from Bolivia.)

Last Day

It was my last day at the creche - at least for the time being - and I got very emotional when we said goodbye, especially because I got these really sweet little gifts from the ladies and they were emotional themselves. I promised them that I would come back, which will not be hard because Rio has become one of my two favourite cities: it is right up there with New York. I always feel that you can really only get the vibe of a city just walking around on your own by day, and taking it in, and then hanging out with people who live there at night. This is what I did in New York in the summer of 1994 and it absolutely stole my heart, and the same thing happened with this place.

What worries me: last night, in my dream I was hanging out in the jungle, standing on a trunk when a tiger or leopard ran towards me and bit my hand really hard, but oddly, nothing happened to me. I think this is a sign of over-confidence...need to be careful with the crocodiles.

Andika

I have pretty much recovered from my illness so this morning I went back for some more to the creche and Andrea came with me. I think I have written about this already, but again I realized that this traveling thing is so great (among others), because it is so tangible that I am learning many new things. For example, by now I know how to find my way up and down the winding alleys of the Favela and the fear and apprehension was replaced by a sense of familiarity and confidence. And there are many things like that. I never had such a feeling of satisfaction while I was working at the law firm: everything that has to do with corporate finance law is so unreal and intangible, shuffling virtual money from bank to bank by creating heaps of documents cannot even compare to doing the dishes in terms of sense of satisfaction, let alone to the things that I am doing now. Anyway, I told the women at the creche today that we are leaving on Saturday to do some more traveling and I felt a bit guilty about leaving them, which is why I bought a bunch of books and toys for the kids (same tactics that I used with my young refugee mentee in London - took her to the cinema to tell her that I quit my job). (I have to confess, that every now and then I feel very touched by myself and how great I am, but that does not last long, as I can always find a reason to go back to my cynical and self-deprecating self.)

I have to also confess that the weather is pretty crap right now, although the thing that makes both Andrea and I feel better is that it is still not nearly as crap as it is in either London or Budapest (sorry). Hopefully the place that we are going to next, the Pantanal, will be drier and very warm and we will get to see lots of crocodiles and anacondas. More on that from there.