Witches

The Lonely Planet guide book describes a small section of La Paz as being the Witches Market. Here you can find dried Llama fetuses, potions, and offerings to burn. What the guide book doesn’t tell you is that there is a much larger, far more interesting Witches Market above La Paz in the poor neighborhood of El Alto.

El Also began as the shanty town that grew up outside the city. It has grown very large and is now a suburb of La Paz. It is the poorer part of town, but , being on the rim of the valley that surrounds La Paz, El Alto has a fantastic view of the La Paz.

Being the poorer part of town, it has a host of fun and interesting markets you won’t find downtown. The ‘real’ Witches Market is one of these places. The street is unpaved and lines with shabby little huts. In front of each hut is a little wood burning stove where they place offerings to be burnt. In front of many of the huts is a sign describing the services offered. You can have advice on buying a new car, or love potions made, information on your next travel or how the weather will affect your business.

People here didn’t want to be photographed, but I did manage to sneak a few shots.

More images from this series can be found on my web album.

Condos for the Dead

All cemeteries have their own personality. The architecture of La Paz cemetery gives it its character. Many of the building look like apartment building designed in the 70s. Some building looks as if sections were added on without any plans or any forethought. Walking thru the streets of this cemetery remind me of walking thru a semi run down section of old town Pomona (a suburb of Los Angeles). Even this village for the dead has its nice parts and its slums.

Families hire the many workmen to close, upgrade, or repair a vault. The workers have their own storage area on the edge of the cemetery. When hired, they would take their wheel barrel, tools, cement and other supplies to the vault where the family would site and watch them work. Many workers were busy adding tiles, replacing broken glass, and plastering the front of a vault.

More images from this series can be found on my web album.

Out of the Blue

Place yourself half way around the globe in a country you have never been before in a city you have never thought much about. Walk down a random street in this city on a random day at a random time. You look down the street and you see someone you know. What are the chances of this? Very slim. This is what happened yesterday.

In the city of La Paz, in the country of Bolivia, on a random street, I saw a friend of mine from Amsterdam. Neither of us knew the other would be traveling in that country or at that time.
We spent the day together and went drinking in the evening at a discotheque where only locals frequented. We danced with some locals girls who invited us onto the dance floor. We both had too many beers and found ourselves staggering and crawling back to our hostels.
Aside from the hang over in the morning, I had a great day.

Don’t splash!

Hot water is not something you take for granted in Peru or Bolivia. When you go to a new hotel or hostel, you always ask if they have ‘agua calentie’ (hot water). Even when they say they do, doesn’t mean you will get a hot shower. If they have a hot water tank, you have to be one of the first people to shower.

The most reliable hot water system is the hot water on demand systems that use electricity. The shower head is a melon sized unit with two electrical wires running from it to a power source hidden somewhere in the wall. The system work by heating the water as it passes thru the shower head. If the water runs thru the shower head too quickly, the electric heater cannot heat all the water quick enough. Therefore, low water pressure equals hot water and high water pressure is cold water.

The creepy part of this system is the electrical wires attached to the shower head. What happens if the shower head gets wet? Some people have said they felt a slight jolt when using this system. I felt a jolt once when I tried to adjust the setting on a unit in Puno, Peru (the shower head has high, medium, and low setting you can adjust). Having the wires there is a little unsettling.

In my current hostel in La Paz, Bolivia, the showers use this same system. Here, however, it is a bit creepier. Inside each shower stall, to the left of the shower heads, is a 220 volt switch to turn off the power to the shower head. This switch is not water proof. You can see the wires attached to the bottom.

When I shower, I try not to splash.

Traffic!

Public transportation in Bolivia and Peru consist of busses. Outside of Lima, the most common busses are the small mini vans that were so popular in the USA before SUVs. These mini vans can hold about up to 23 passengers when they are squeezed in. In addition to the passengers is a person operating the side door. This person’s job is to let people in and out, collect the money, and to yell the names of the destinations. Every one of these guys screams out the name so fast you cannot recognize them. Luckily, in La Paz, they have cards in the windshield with the destinations written on them.

There are so many of these mini vans that if you miss one, you can easily wait 30 seconds for the next one. I figure they must all be independent. The massive number of the vans, mixed in with larger busses, taxies, and private cars, fill the streets completely. If you combine the number of vehicles and the lack of strict traffic laws, you have comic driving conditions.

In La Paz, there are few traffic lights or stop signs. At intersections, drives honk to alert unseen cross traffic of their speedy approach. When there are cars coming from several directions at an intersection, the cars just rush into the intersection and force their way thru. Cars are cutting each other off regularly. They force themselves between other cars and they never pay any attention to pedestrians.

The remarkable thing about this system is how efficient it is. It is loud with everyone honking, but the traffic flows. Amazingly, I have not yet seen an accident. I have a theory why there are so few accidents. Drivers here think and pay attention. They don’t have a concept of ‘right-of-way’. Nobody has priority. Each driver knows that another car can appear at any time from anywhere to compete for space.

This made me think about the system that exists in the USA. In the USA, drivers believe they are entitled to their space on the road. This space cannot be violated. People defend this space. When their space is invaded, road-rage is the result. It can be considered a slightly arrogant system. When you combine the idea of personal space on the road with lawyers, you get a system where people stop thinking for themselves; they drive on auto-pilot and don’t take responsibility for their own actions. Problems are solved by calling a lawyer. I know this is a very critical view of the traffic system in the system in the USA does work very well.

Both systems (USA and South American) work, but are completely different incompatible with each other. Put a driver from one system into the other system and there will be problems. What drivers would you think are better?

Juicy!

Each morning in La Paz I have gone out for breakfast. I wonder to the market where the fruit sells seem to live. There I find the juice ladies who blend fruit for people. Yesterday, for only 60 cents, I had a large (pitcher size) glass of orange and banana juice. It was delicious. That much juice in your stomach tends to fill you up completely and leaves little room for food. One chicken or beef pastry is enough to fill me up.

Yesterday afternoon I had another, smaller, glass of juice that contained oranges, a banana, and several strawberries. Wonderful!!!!

I think I rate countries by their juices. In Thailand they have wonderful juices you can buy on almost any corner. Their watermelon juice is perfect! In Egypt, they blend juices for a few pennies per glass. Sugar cane juice is also common, and delicious, in Egypt.

In the USA, England, or The Netherlands, fresh juice is usually a do-it-yourself job. There are a few restaurants with an orange juice press, but nothing more than that.

I always miss these little juice stands when they are not around.

Crossing Lake Titicaca

Instead of building a bridge of steel or stone, they built one out of barges. To make the short crossing of Lake Titcaca on the road from Copacabana to La Paz, at least 30 barges are used. Each one can hold a buss and a large car. They fight for position on the shores and bump into each other as the pull away.

The motors on the barges are simple 50hp outboards motors. On the barge carrying my buss, the motor had to be started manually by removing the cover and winding a rope around the starter. Once the buss was in place, the driver could not see the other end of the barge. He would walk away from the motor, look around the buss, and return to correct his path.

When docking and pulling away from the dock, several people with poles would direct the end of the barge into place. If the barge got stuck in the sand, they would all use the poles to push away from the shore and try again.

While on the water, the busses would rock back and forth with the waves. I noticed that nobody was brave enough to sit or stand next to the busses. Everyone would crown at the end of the boat away from the busses.

More images can be found on my web album.