Last days in Bolivia

Hello everybody,

Yes I’m still alive. It has been a while since you’ve heard from me. Since my La Paz dip much time has gone by and while most of you probably spent their holidays somewhere, I decided I wanted to do something useful and therefore I spent more than a month in Serere, north of Rurrenabaque, doing voluntary work. More about this further down.

First back to La Paz again. I have been waiting in La Paz almost a week before doing a little tour of two days with Andino Tours around the Huayna Potosi. I did this tour with Desiree, a Dutch Girl, who studies biology in Utrecht (funny but it reminds me of something), our guide Isaac, and two Altiplanitas, that were guiding the mule that was carrying our luggage. It is funny to see their reaction when I wanted to sit next to them. I took a large stone to sit on and both Altiplanitas ran away, probably afraid that I was going to stone them to death. Well I didn’t hear them say JAHWEH.

The altiplanitas were very shy, one of them was called Ruth, but the other one was too shy to say here name (I called her Ruthless), and most of the time the Altiplanitas didn’t say anything, although it seemed that we were quite amusing, because they were always giggling,


giggling altiplanitas

and especially Ruth was most of the time looking at me with a funny face. I got the impression that I looked a little bit like her donkey, and that she was very amused that suddenly it could talk.


Ruth

Needless to say it was a marvelous walk in the mountains. The altiplano here is about 4500 meters high, there are very beautiful lakes, and the landscape is very bare. There are still people living here, although we saw at least three abandoned villages. Those people are now living in el Alto, the fastest growing city of Bolivia, and one floor above La Paz. It is easy to understand why they go. The altiplano is very cold, there is not more to do except herding llamas and Alpaca’s, and there is no pub!

We walked two days in this landscape with the main peaks Condoriri, with its special shape,


Condoriri

and Huayna Potosi. Maybe you remember my picture from the previous blahblah I produced, this time we walked around the massive, and we camped in front of the south side of the HP at an altitude of 4800 meter,


camping in front of the Huayna Potosi

which resulted again in a lot of beautiful sunsets, and I warn you I have many beautiful sunsets
this journey!


Sunset1

The people here are quite tough, I must admit that! While Desiree and I were starting to freeze, the Altiplanitas were sitting outside our tent in a windy and cold environment wearing their normal clothes without many additives, drinking coca tea. Because it was THAT cold I didn’t mind having some of this, but as I could have remembered from Uyuni, I’m not a very good sleeper on coca, and as a result I didn’t sleep that night. Or maybe it was the cold?

Probably it was more than 15 degrees below zero, and dressed with three pair of socks, three trousers, a t-shirt, two thick sweaters, my normal coat and my rain jacket, two pairs of gloves, a scarf and a hat, I inserted myself in my sleeping bag, only nose outside to discover that it took at least two hours to get the temperature in my tent above zero. Maybe I also should have worn my boots!

Luckily for me Desiree had the same problem, …………………………she told me next morning.

I never saw that many ice crystals when it started to get light. Luckily my eyes weren’t frozen, and no crystals hanging at my nose. When I got out our guide was already busy, and a few moments later the altiplanitas were arriving from there hotel a kilometer further away, some sort of windy shed. We were by then watched by a little girl, that gave us even more the feeling we were some wimps. She was wearing a short skirt and even worse she was walking on flip flops, while we – still shivering - were wearing our whole wardrobe. And yes the altiplanitas were laughing again. Was it because of this, we might have looked a little bit ridiculous with all these clothes, but I don’t laugh that much when I see altiplanitas. Why don’t these people behave like normal human beings, and wear some alpaca short socks, just to make us feel comfortable?


I have warm feet

When the sun had warmed us a little bit, we were able to move again and we had coffee with frozen buns. Then we started the second day walking and we crossed a mountain passage ca. 5300 meter above sea level. There was a nice breeze (it stormed), while crossing it, the view to both side gave differing landscapes, and in the distance we could see Chacaltaya (see previous story). The rest of the day we were walking around the HP, and many artificial lakes that are there to generate electricity for La Paz. The lakes have different colors from deep blue, turquoise to milky white in the direction of the glaciers, and this color is mainly caused by calcium carbonate.


Pass

The HP is one of the mountains that can be climbed by non expert climbers, it is possible to get to 6000 meters, and there are two ways for climbing it. An easy one and a very difficult one, the French route. I didn’t do any. I was hesitating –there was a pub!- but when we were in front of the main massive, and we saw some other tourists I decided not to do it for two reasons. First the tour is three days, one day practicing ice climbing for three hours, and the rest of the day waiting, the next day there is the walk to the first camp at 5300 meters. A relatively easy walk, and you arrive at one in the afternoon. Then you wait again until the next day.


Huayna Potosi

Reason two, day 3 starts early. Most agencies start the last climb at 100 am. That is a time I’m normally in my bed (yes boys and girls, since I’m traveling I lead a very regular and boring life!) and I hate to get out of bed when it is dark (that hasn’t changed). MY BIG EGO telling everybody that I have been standing on a mountain more then 6000 meter, couldn’t beat my lazy inner me that likes to snore the night away! And by the way I went by car to almost 5500 meter, and that too is higher than the Mont Blanc. That should be enough to impress you people back home.

That said and not done, the HP massive is an impressive piece of ice, and it is understandable people like to climb it. Well who knows next time in my next life.


Surrealistic Colours


Back in La Paz I had received an e-mail from Rosa Maria Ruiz. I had sent an e-mail a few days before to her with some questions about doing voluntary work somewhere in the vicinity of Rurrenabaque, that dreadful place north of La Paz which I had left without doing any touristy crappy tour (see my previous blahblah, search for Rurrenabaque). Rosa Maria leads an agency called Madidi Travel, and the reason I was interested was an article in the National Geographic, which told about Madidi Park, Rosa Maria’s work in this park which dealt with ecology, conservation, and preserving indigenous territories. I walked by their agency in La Paz, which was only a few doors away from Hostel Cactus, the hostel I was staying. They could use volunteers and why not, it was time to settle down for a while and I really had the feeling I wanted to something useful, and that feeling didn’t go away after going to bed which I normally find VERY USEFUL.

After having two conversations with here we agreed I would do some voluntary work in Serere, but first I had to renew my visa, because it would end somewhere in the middle of August. So the end of July I left La Paz and went to the well known town Yunguyo in Peru. My Spanish seems to be improving because for the first time I express my anger to an asshole that sold me a bus ticket to Copacabana and told me the bus would be leaving in 20 min. Well that bus was full, so had I had to wait for 2 hours. I think he understood my message because they gave my backpack priority when they were packing the bus.

Crossing the Peruvian border was a formality and I stayed one night in Yunguyo which was a totally uninteresting little village in the middle of nowhere. One good thing there was the prices. A dinner for only 0.5 euro.

Next day I took the taxi to the border, and crossed it but unfortunately the border patrol men were only giving me 30 more days free in Bolivia, they were not willing to give me 90 days more. Staying longer in Bolivia might cost me money.

From the border I went straightly to Copacabana, which is situated at the border of Lake Titicaca. The lake is beautiful but Copacabana is a horrible touristy town again. I don’t know about you but I’m traveling to see new cultures, not to see pizzeria’s, artisanas that everywhere look the same, and not to mention the disco’s, pubs, and all the tourist organizations. I think I’m getting allergic for this sort of traveling and it makes me afraid of going to Peru, because from what I hear of others, it is ten times worse there.


To the madonna

Copacabana has an interesting cathedral, and a Madonna high up the mountain that overlookes Copacabana. She performs miracles, and there is a road up this mountain with the main stages in the suffering of Jezus. I didn’t understand some of the rituals because many people were throwing little stones at the stages. I thought Jezus was popular here, but it reminded me again of a scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, where the highpriest (John Cleese) is stoned to death by an angry mob for the mentioning the word JAWEH).

Another interesting thing has certainly something to do with the Pachamama ritual from the old cultures. Many families from Peru and Bolivia come to Copacabana to ask the Madonna for favors. They hire a sort of priest (normally older men from the village) that performs a service and they give offerings in the form of fake money, wierook, beer!, and many things I couldn’t make up what it was. In the end there are fireworks probably to scare away the bad spirits.


Pacahamadonna

Later I heard that the Madonna of Copacabana is a disguised Pachamama. It was the only way the Spaniards could make her acceptable for the native population.
The main view from this mountain on Copacabana is very beautiful


Copacabana

and Lake Titicaca is really a world wonder. The intense blue colour of the water, the size of the lake and the surroundings make it very serene, and it is easy know why the Inca’s said the lake was sacred.


Lago Titicaca

Next day I took the boat to Isla del Sol, which is situated in front of Copacabana. Christiana told me that the north part of this island is beautiful, so I went to the north and not to the south part. And yes the north part is an oasis of tranquility after hectic La Paz, and the touristy crap of Copacabana. I arrived in the morning at 9.30 am at a little village of ca. 100 houses called….. with a group of tourists that later would go back to Copacabana, and only a few people stayed here during the night. There also MAYOR drawbacks to a non touristy place (yes I always have something to complain!). If you order breakfast at 9.45 it might be served at 12.00. The people are very relaxed here and it takes some time to peel an orange and bake an egg.

I walked around the island for the rest of the day. Fist I went to the one of the capes and sat there for an hour or more. There was a great view on the massive of Sorata, with Mount Illampu as the main peak.


Mount Illampu

At the end of the day I walked to another part of this part of the island. Maybe I could make a picture of a nice sunset here! It really is an idyllic village, the people and animals live very peaceful here, you can feel that they absolutely have no stress at all, and many people look like they enjoy this way of life. An amusing thing is the people that go back home after a day working hard. They also take their work home. In this case this doesn’t mean that they bring their paperwork but their herds (pigs, cows, donkeys, goats).


Isla del Sol north part


Happy cow



Lake Titicaca2


Happy me

Next morning it goes the other way around. All the animals march to the fields followed by the shepherds. One shepherd was remarkable. It was a very very old woman (probably as old as my mother!). She hardly could walk, her nose was almost on the ground and every now and then she had to rest. In front of here was a pig with one young that were walking much harder than she could, so in the end she was sitting on the beach while the pigs were on their way to the mud. It really touched me to see this old and vulnerable woman still doing here normal thing. I thought she really looked sweet.


Going to the office

The second day I walked from the northern part to the southern part. This walk was very enjoyable because there were many views on the mountain range in the distance combined with the true blue color of Titicaca and the ochre colors of the island. New material for some paintings probably. The people on this island are very friendly, but have no respect for grey hairs. At least two young girls were bursting into laughing when they saw me. And I even wasn’t walking nude (which I normally do when I am walking on islands of this size). Believe it or not, it can make old grey man make very insecure when young girls are starting to laugh on the mere sight of you. Should I start swallowing Viagra already? And how do they know?


Island walk

Finally I arrived on the south part of the island, and there you can see the horrible influence tourism has on the normal life of the people here. Everywhere are restaurants, hostels and hospedages. It seems that people now only live from tourism. I spoke to a young woman and she told me that five years ago there was hardly anything for tourists. (The same will probably also will happen on the north part of the island. There you can see that many people are building extra rooms next to their homes, and it won’t take long before people will start a restaurant, and who knows when the first disco will be opened.)


Island walk

It certainly is a drawback of tourism, although for the people here it is of course easy money, and a lot easier then their way of making money now. But I’m a romantic and I like to see people in an idyllic and romanticized version of life with nothing to scratch their ass.


Island walk2

Back in La Paz I have a final conversation with Rosa Maria about what I will do for her. First I’m going to join a group of Franciscans that are traveling to Serere, first by 4WD, and the second part by boat. I will make pictures of the journey, and furthermore I will do some writing for their website. In Serere we’ll talk further what must be done.

So next day I join the Franciscans Judd (he is a priest in Camden, New Jersey), Charlie (a second order Franciscan, he’s living in Springfield, USA), Enrique, a Spanish priest that has been working in Bolivia for almost 26 years, he now works in Mozambique, and Octavio, he is living in New Jersey, originally from El Salvador, he is professional photographer and also Franciscan. Further Rosa Maria joins us and the first part of the trip Iggy ahum……….. Father Ignacius brings us by 4wd to Guanay. The trip will last 4 days and during this time I can have a look into the inside of the life of Franciscans, and I must admit that I was very positively surprised by the sensitivity, kindness and openness of these people. The Franciscans have as their slogan ´´working on issues of peace, justice and care of creation´´. And although I’m normally very cynical about this sort of thing, the Franciscans I met here gave me an absolute feeling of sincerity.

At the end of the first day, after driving down the death road again and this time in good weather (see my previous blahblah, in case you have forget) we spent the night in Carmenpampa (near Coroico). Carmenpampa is a university and founded by the Franciscans 12 years ago with the main goal of teaching people from the countryside in the countryside so that they would return to their communities after their study instead of staying in La Paz or any of the other cities in Bolivia with universities. The place is run by Franciscan sisters and in only 12 years they have managed to build a nice campus. Also here the atmosphere was very warm and incredibly positive. I felt sorry I had to leave this very pleasant place with a lot of laughter and coziness. Sister Damon (Demon for friends) invited me to stay a little bit longer (but at least three years) because they were looking for an art teacher. Well who knows, it really is a place where I would be happy to live, although teaching art is a little bit different from making paintings for a hobby.

Next day Iggy brings us to Guanay, where we shall take the boat to Rurrenabaque. By then I feel very comfortable traveling with interesting group, although it is funny to see that some Franciscans not always have a strong believe. Especially Jud is from time to time a bit worried about Iggies driving, and he sometimes fears to see his maker very soon. I however am totally confident. I can’t imagine our creator is willing to crash a car with this bunch of defenders of the faith!

In Guanay we hop on the boat. At the beginning the Kaka river transports us along the many little camps with gold hunters, which live a tough life hoping for more wealth. These people live in very poor circumstances, digging into the mud for not more than 50 Boliviano’s a day (5 euro). Most of the time they find gold particles that tiny that people are wearing or should wear reading glasses don’t see anything at all.


Gold seekers picture by Octavio Duran

One very big attraction here and along the banks of the river are the little sand flies that are very fond of human flesh. I, a little bit naive expected only mosquitoes during the night, so I’m wearing shorts. After a few hours my legs are starting to look as if I have the measles and it is itching like crazy. And they are everywhere, those fucking little bastards. Next day Jud and Octavio are swimming in the river and when they get out there flesh looks like little strawberries. Well shared grief is half grief!

The landscape varies continuously. We sometimes maneuver through steep canyons, but also we can see the great planes which are characteristic for the Beni basin. We ride many rapids, although unfortunately for me they are not very big but the Franciscans already think this is really heavy, and they are glad when we pass them. In different spots the muddy water of the KaKa river mingles with sometimes blue colored little streams, which reminds me of the Encontradas de las Aguas in Manaus.


Encontradas de las aguas

One of the many highlights is the Beu Canyon, and we are lucky because we see here the Ara militaris, a rare macaw species. Here I’m a little bit much jealous of Octavio because his material is far superior compared with my cheap and lousy camera. He’s able to shoot animals that I only can dream of, but ok his equipment is about 30 000 dollar and mine only 260. The Beu Canyon has petroglyphs here, they don’t impress me much, but amazing are big silvery flat rocks, which look like they were made by giants. The reflection and the texture of these stones are very strange, and the combination with some black stones makes a beautiful site.


Beu Canyon

We camp two nights on one of the many sandbanks in the river, and fortunately the sandflies have gone home during the night. Octavio turns into a little child and he starts to build fires, the second night he finds in Enrique a brother in arms and together they manage to build five very big fires.


Campfires on the banks

Although the Franciscans are nature lovers, they are not very experienced campers, and I help them putting up their tent. I am sleeping under some plastic shelter in a mosquito tent, because Rosa Maria thought I had a tent. During the first night we are visited by capybaras, the biggest rodent in the world but only Rosa Maria hears them. The rest is snoring too loud to hear other sounds.

Sunrise on the river Beni

At the start of the second day we are welcomed by the toucans through their characteristic sounds. Octavio makes pictures and later in Serere I see how good his camera is. With some photoshopping you even can retouch the colors. I didn’t see then how beautiful these toucans were. (Picture made by Octavio Duran). I consider throwing my camera in the lake, but since I have no alternative it might be wise until I have a decent replacement.


Toucan picture by Octavio Duran

Along the river there are many birds and we f.i. see eagles, macaws, parrots, kingfishers and vultures. We find a very nice waterfall, where we wash our somewhat smelling bodies.


waterfall

On the fourth day we get close to the place where Rosa Maria used to live. It is called Charque and it is in Madidi National Park. Until a few years ago Rosa Maria was involved in Madidi but the article in the National Geographic changed here life somewhat drastically. The Bolivian government was not very pleased with the article because of this Chinese investors decided not to invest in a big building project (a dam was planned in Madidi, and the costs were about 3 billion dollars). The Madidi park management (that by the way sells mahogany to the foreign wood industry) decided to throw her out of the area, and they burned Charque, although there is until now no real proof who did this. It was a beautiful place but nothing of it has survived it, an investment in capital and manpower of ca 3 million was destroyed. Rosa Maria is emotional but also happy to see that the macaws she dearly loves are still alive.


Macaws in Charque picture by Octavio Duran

They are beautiful and they recognize Rosa Maria.
Many other places in Madidi National Park, where Rosa Maria had built lodges suffered the same fate, and during my stay in Serere I hear a lot of amazing stories about how things go in Bolivia. Later maybe something more on this topic. (Well one little story now, because the dam was never to be, the sun of a former president never received his 10% commission!, and this guy according to Rosa already doesn’t know what to do with all his money.)

After our visit to Charque we visit the old neighbours of Rosa Maria. They live in a very primitive settlement and it gives a good impression how people live here. I’m afraid I wouldn’t like to change positions. It is ok for them not to have television, but it would be nice to have some more stimuli from time to time. The animals that walk around are in a very poor condition, the chickens and the ducks probably have survived many attacks on their lives because the plucking (?) process has robbed them of most of the feathers, and the dogs (about 12) are very thin.

After this short visit it is time to go to Rurrenabaque but on the river there are many people Rosa Maria is familiar with so we stop from time to time to have a chat. One of the boats is bringing palm leaves to Rurrenabaque, and there are two young girls that look smashing. Those are certainly not altiplanitas. We arrive in Rurrenabaque where a big thunder storm is breaking loose, and after this we go by boat to Serere.


two girls picture by Octavio Duran


Serere is a private protected area of ca 4000 hectares. Rosa Maria bought it a few years ago, and when she started having troubles with the government she decided to invest into this area. She hopes with the money earned in Madidi Travel to buy more land and make it a protected area too. She thinks this gives more hope for conservation than a park owned by the national government in Bolivia (later more on this topic). It is tropical rainforest and in the area are five lakes with many birds and caiman. The cabins are in the forest, and it is a very nice place to have your office, because all around you it is green, there are many birds, and sometimes you can see the monkeys by passing while making a lot of noise. After about two weeks spending my time here it really started being my home and all the animals around me were friends that passed by. You relax while you work, and I have been working rather a lot. Normally my days were starting at 9.00 am and I worked till 10.30 pm.


Flower

I’m sleeping alone in a cabana, on the first floor, and to get there I have to climb a ladder that is not very stable if you don’t pay attention. As a result I fall from the ladder and land on my back, some three meters lower. My fall is broken by my elbows and my ass!!, and I am glad this wasn’t the Toro Toro canyon!

Further more there is a big place where people can sit, eat and relax, and can see wonderful sunsets on the Lago San Fernando. I developed a habit of making a picture almost every night because every night the sunset looked so beautiful it was impossible to resist my feelings to make another one.


Lago Gringo

Spectacular were the nights here, sometimes you could see lots of fireflies circling around the lake, and with the reflection it looked like a fairy tail, then other nights the frogs/toads were on the loose and the concerts they were giving were incredible, what a sound a tiny animal like the frog can produce. They have a sort of vibrator under their throat, this they use to produce the sounds.


vibrator throat frog

Sometimes you can find very big toads that are trying to catch little mosquitoes.

giant frog

One of the attractions is to look for caiman during the night, and with torches you shine around until you see a red spot, which is the eye of the caiman, I made some very nice shots of caimans, and sometimes they are bigger than thought.


eye of the caiman

My activities were making pictures to put on their website building a pictures database, building an access database, and writing stories for their website. After a few days I concluded that the website they had was not very well designed and in some places not structured so I decided to design a new website. It probably is not yet on the internet because the building will be done by Tim, a guy in La Paz who built the fist web site. If you’re interested to know how it looks, this is the link http://www.madidi-travel.com/. Here you can also read more about how the local and national governments deal with protection and conservation. It really was a lot of work this time, because I wanted the site to look very neat, and especially the pictures should give a very good impression of Serere. I hope I have succeeded, I’m rather content with the result.

Back to my Franciscan brothers, they stayed for three days, and in this time I really get fond of Enrique. He is the older priest that now is working in Mozambique. Although he only speaks Spanish – which is for me a good practice- and so sometimes it is difficult to communicate, he is a very gentle and calm man and his way of laughing makes you laugh.

The Americans were giving me lessons in American politics. I was surprised to learn there are Americans which have thoughts that resemble more the European way of thinking. They were very cynical about what was going on in America and I’m afraid poor George is not very popular within the Franciscan society.

The Americans aren’t heroes when they are in the jungle. Charlie is walking around dressed as bee holder wearing some sort of mosquito net and gloves. At night he’s glad I’m walking him home to cabin, because you never know what might show up. Well maybe Charlie is right, while I’m writing this in my Serere cabin a jaguar is patrolling in the vicinity. This morning it attacked a pig they keep here as food. The pig survived but has some wounds, that aren’t lethal, but the jaguar smells it and wants more! Later that night we start searching for the jaguar but after three hours we come back with only some fresh tapir marks. These marks show that a tapir is around, and next morning it is seen by the cook, close to his sleeping place. A night walk is very exciting. You spot the animals by shining a light around, and sometimes you see a red spot, the eye of something. By the way when we leave Serere we found fresh jaguar marks on the road we had been walking. It probably was close that night, but jaguars don’t like (to eat) humans, and it probably hid in the bushes.

Also Judd is not a hero. One night we hear a loud cry, as if somebody saw his final hour, and I’m afraid Judd is stabbed to death by an intruder. It turns out that Judd was intimately approached by two spiders in the bathroom (The spiders were killed by the FRANCISCAN), and as all women know, spiders are very dangerous so I can understand his fear for death. I have a not yet published picture where Alejandro, one of the guides is being spied by a Tarantula. Alejandro is walking here, not knowing in which incredible danger he is. That spider is waiting to strike, sting and kill. Poor Alejandro…………………


Spider waiting for the kill

In the meantime I’m working on my pictures, to put them in a database and to do some photoshopping on them. In the end I made around 1000 pictures and together with pictures of Octavio, Judd and Enrique there are around 2000 pictures, so it wasn’t too difficult to make a nice selection. After a few days the padres leave and I stay alone in Serere with Jairo, his wife Laura and two kids. It gives me the opportunity to make long days working, and sometimes to explore the area.
There quite a few monkeys here, and especially waking up by the sound of the howler monkeys is special. Although they aren’t big and only live in small groups of 4 individuals (one male, three females!) they produce a noise that sounds like a football stadium. There are also capuchin monkeys and squirrel monkeys.


Capuchin monkey picture by Octavio Duran

It is funny to see that after a month in Serere they start knowing me. In the beginning, there is big panic when they see me, and they are fleeing higher up in the trees. Now they think I don’t mean any harm, and they stay in place, or even sometimes they climb lower to look at me. Judging their looks they are very surprised and it seems like they are rubbing there eyes as if they can’t believe that such beautiful creatures can exist.


Capuchin2 picture by Octavio Duran

One of the nice things of staying in the jungle for a month is that you can get a good impression of the abundance of life forms here. In the beginning it is difficult to notice anything at all, too much visual input, but after a few weeks you start to discover the enormous amounts of beautiful insects, frogs and butterflies you can see here. There is a place near Lago San Fernando where the butterflies and frogs gather, and I have been creeping many days in the mud next to the other pigs to see all the little animals there.


One of the many beautiful insects



Serere surprises everyday because you see the strangest insects. There are many odd looking caterpillars, one of them you can see below.


Caterpillar


Poisenous frog

Butterbeauty


Butterfly 2

The crew of Serere is helping me and as soon as they see strange creatures they search Bien Laden, which is my nickname here. Fascinating are the leaf cutters. These are little ants that have the habit to cut leaves, and bring these leaves to their nest, where ca 8 million ants are living in a complex that can be 15 meters wide and 5 meters deep into the ground. Day in day out you can see them march from their nest to a tree, and when the tree is almost leafless they change course and find another three. You can see them march for more then 50 meters with leaves that are at least 20 times as large as they are.


Leaf cutters

Serere is named after a big, beautiful and clumsy bird. Together with Rosa Maria and Alejandro we go searching them in a distant spot on Lago San Fernando and later at Lago Gringo I can see a pair of Sereres that I can sneak at. In the bushes while being eaten by the mosquitoes, I stay there at least half and hour to make pictures. One nice trick I learned here was using a sound recorder. When playing the sound the Serere produces, they start looking rather strange because they hear one brother, but can’t see one. Sereres are not very good flyers so it is comic to see a Serere falling into the water, when it tries to flee when we are approaching in a boat.


Serere bird

This is also the first time I have the honor of getting some parasites. A few days after I have been stung by some flies, my wounds are not healing, no they are growing, and sometime I feel something strange. It feels like somebody is pulling the hairs on my arm. When Rosa sees my arm, she says I have hookworms, and that it is better not to let them get too big. So first we try to kill (six of ) them with an insecticide, which is successful for one of them, which I can extrude one day later. The others however not, and next day Alejandro smokes some cigarettes and concentrates the nicotine in a black piece of shit, that he puts on my heavy (war)wounds. These hookworms don’t like it and try to get out before they are dead. This way two more come out but the other three didn’t like to leave, and choose my arm as their grave.


Wasp

Two days later my hand looks red, swollen and hard. A strange place to have an erection! Might be handy with fistfucking though. It seems I have an inflammation, and one of the guides Rodolpho seals my hand with some papaya pancake, and some days later the inflammation seems to starts to lessen. And now it is almost gone, and probably the hookworms too. I survived some very fierce enemies!

After one month I return to La Paz, leaving behind a few friends I have made in Serere, especially Alejandro, El Capitan and Ricardo have been very helpful and kind, and I will miss their friendship and laughter. In the end I finally started to understand their dialect a little bit, and I certainly hope to see them again.
.
I’m now doing some final work in the madidi office in La Paz, and it is time to make up my impressions after almost 4 months Bolivia. The country is magnificent, the variety in nature is enormous, from La Paz at 3600 meters to the tropics at 200 meters is only one bus journey. The people in Bolivia are very colorful and diverse, so you really can enjoy days just watching people.

The backside of the country is the enormous corruption and the division of poverty and wealth. A few people here have everything and the rest has nothing. The families that have everything, control political life, and to make sure that they stay in power they have members in all political parties. Politicians here have two golden rules, get as rich as possible, and as soon as possible. They sell all the resources they have for peanuts to foreign companies, as long they get a good share.


caiman

In the country side, nature and resources are exploited. Foreign companies gain concessions to extract wood from the forest by giving the local people in charge large amounts of money. This means that for only 1000 dollars they gain the rights to extract large amounts of timber. The rights to extract silver and oil were also sold for peanuts, but the politicians involved receive enormous amounts of money. Other examples you can find on the madidi website.


Tree in Serere

If further look for the cultural differences, they are big, and because also the differences in life standards are big (the east part is much richer than the altiplano) there are many people in the east part in favor of more autonomy. This resulted in a movement in May that was very powerful, and it still is a ticking time bomb. When the blockades were at its height there was a general fear it could end up in civil war, but when the president resigned the situating became more at ease. I wouldn’t be surprised though that in the near future the situation here will be uncontrollable. The division between the rich and the poor is too big. Too many people have nothing to loose.

So for the last time in LA Paz, I will end my story with a few sunsets of Lago san Fernando. Who knows I will be here again some time in the future. Time to go to Peru!

Sunset1

Sunset2