An apology (re-edit)
New posts have been a bit thin on the ground. Its not like there has not been anything to write about. In Bolivia the cafe bit of internet cafe has yet to be sussed out. Shoulder width cubicles, dirty keyboards with selotaped keys, wires tangling around your feet, network game players killing each other in stereo sound, naked women flickering on computer monitors. Its hard to concentrate.
La Paz was tiring, edgy, the cold nights, the trash, urine streaked streets, the belching bus fumes, but there are fun bits and things that just catch you by surprise and make you wonder how and why. There are fun things, but the novelty wares thin. I leave for Sucre, warm, rich colonial town with pretty parks and squares, pleasant if a little boring.
On to Potosi, not a great start as brown flood waters blocked the streets. It was not the best time to look for accommodation. Stayed in the most dire place, a cell for a bedroom, no furniture, a strip lamp, cardboard piled under the mattress to stop it sagging, not that it worked.
The red mountain towers over the town and brings its only employment. The mining tunnels were all bit random which is not surprising considering the miners seem to spend a lot of time chewing coca and drinking 96% alcohol. Told not to brush against the walls to avoid disturbing the asbestos fibres! Experienced some underground detontations, which were distinctly worrying. No whistles of safety proceedure. 10 second fuse and you just run round the corner. You look up to see where the dust is falling from and there a few tons of rubble above your head held back by casually placed plank.
Went with a tour group and purchased some supplies for the miners. My group were quite dull and would not try any of it, not the 96% alcohol, or the filterless cigarettes, or even nibble the coca leaves, let alone play with the high explosives. I did. It was fun, outside I made a bomb, a big one, TNT is really smelly and bright green, I dropped the nitroglycerine detonator, whoops (you should have seen their faces). A miner lit it for me (im not that daft). It went off with a very satisfactory noise and little stones fell on my head. This is how bombs are in the movies. I guess I have to apologies again. Its every boys dream. Another one off the list. Now where to find a space rocket....
Its the anniversary of the town, its cold, dark and wet and any body who is anybody is marching. Does the local taxi association really have to march through town, or the three people from the tourist office with a flag on a pole bigger than their office really need to (I wonder where they keep the flag pole). I wonder whether all the money on uniforms, guns, instruments, would not be spent better elsewhere, like public toilets (peeing is the street is the norm) or drainage. I am sure goose stepping through the town square with roman eagle topped spears is not going to improve things. This goes on for hours. So while the men march down the street in second hand gestapo uniforms (that's a lie actually, but you get the drift) the girls, and this has to be emphasized, normally dress very conservatively, you wont see a bare midrift here, but now, and there are hundreds of them in neat rows, coming down the street in white micro skirts and knee boots. They have legs, they have other bits too, I now understand why the whole male population (miners) has stood here patiently in the cold for hours. The expression on the teenage boys is a joy, they are in teenage heaven, temporarily they have been transported away from this crappy mining town, so I guess its all worth it after all.
Sexism, I guess I have to apologies again, damn.
La Paz was tiring, edgy, the cold nights, the trash, urine streaked streets, the belching bus fumes, but there are fun bits and things that just catch you by surprise and make you wonder how and why. There are fun things, but the novelty wares thin. I leave for Sucre, warm, rich colonial town with pretty parks and squares, pleasant if a little boring.
On to Potosi, not a great start as brown flood waters blocked the streets. It was not the best time to look for accommodation. Stayed in the most dire place, a cell for a bedroom, no furniture, a strip lamp, cardboard piled under the mattress to stop it sagging, not that it worked.
The red mountain towers over the town and brings its only employment. The mining tunnels were all bit random which is not surprising considering the miners seem to spend a lot of time chewing coca and drinking 96% alcohol. Told not to brush against the walls to avoid disturbing the asbestos fibres! Experienced some underground detontations, which were distinctly worrying. No whistles of safety proceedure. 10 second fuse and you just run round the corner. You look up to see where the dust is falling from and there a few tons of rubble above your head held back by casually placed plank.
Went with a tour group and purchased some supplies for the miners. My group were quite dull and would not try any of it, not the 96% alcohol, or the filterless cigarettes, or even nibble the coca leaves, let alone play with the high explosives. I did. It was fun, outside I made a bomb, a big one, TNT is really smelly and bright green, I dropped the nitroglycerine detonator, whoops (you should have seen their faces). A miner lit it for me (im not that daft). It went off with a very satisfactory noise and little stones fell on my head. This is how bombs are in the movies. I guess I have to apologies again. Its every boys dream. Another one off the list. Now where to find a space rocket....
Its the anniversary of the town, its cold, dark and wet and any body who is anybody is marching. Does the local taxi association really have to march through town, or the three people from the tourist office with a flag on a pole bigger than their office really need to (I wonder where they keep the flag pole). I wonder whether all the money on uniforms, guns, instruments, would not be spent better elsewhere, like public toilets (peeing is the street is the norm) or drainage. I am sure goose stepping through the town square with roman eagle topped spears is not going to improve things. This goes on for hours. So while the men march down the street in second hand gestapo uniforms (that's a lie actually, but you get the drift) the girls, and this has to be emphasized, normally dress very conservatively, you wont see a bare midrift here, but now, and there are hundreds of them in neat rows, coming down the street in white micro skirts and knee boots. They have legs, they have other bits too, I now understand why the whole male population (miners) has stood here patiently in the cold for hours. The expression on the teenage boys is a joy, they are in teenage heaven, temporarily they have been transported away from this crappy mining town, so I guess its all worth it after all.
Sexism, I guess I have to apologies again, damn.
posted by Richard at
4:42 pm
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