Cochabamba Capers

I had an exciting morning on Tuesday. First, I was asked to take photos of a couple of interviews, which was mildly exciting. But most excitingly, there was a road block just outside of Cochabamba, and Noe (one of the photographers in Los Tiempos) took me along to cover it. The people of a poor barrio (district) were protesting because the government had not completed the surfacing of a main road linking it to Cochabamba city, and the completion of the road was not included in any of the newly published city plans. When we arrived at the site of the road block, at about10.30am, we were faced with queues of traffic that had been waiting to pass for five hours, including several large intercity passenger buses. A melee of campesinos were sitting on benches and standing together lengthways across the road to block the traffic, holding homemade placards imploring the government to complete the road. A couple of hundred metres back from the protesters, groups of armed police were stood around their riot vans preparing for action. There were some agressive verbal confrontations between some angry protesters and a few policemen, and sometimes between the protesters and frustrated car and bus drivers anxious to get moving. But it was only towards midday when things started to happen. The police began to line up with their shields and their guns at the ready, and Noe told me to go and wait out of the way in case it got dangerous. Sure enough, the police began to fire shots into the air and released canisters of tear gas, dispersing the crowds and sending people fleeing in all directions clutching their noses and mouths. There was lots of shouting and the threat of violence, but there was I think only one injury. Within half an hour, the police were able to usher the traffic through again. I'm not sure what will happen regarding the uncompleted road. I got a lift back home on the photographer's motorbike.

Wednesday night, the shortest night of the year, was the Aymara new year's eve. Traditionally (or not, if you listen to my host father) the Aymara people stay up all night and welcome the sunrise, and by extension the new year, with open arms. I'd heard that many people climb up to the Inca ruins in Sipe Sipe, about an hour and a half out of Cochabamba, on Wednesday night and welcome the sunrise from the top of the hill on Thursday morning. Despite much persuasion, I could only persuade Jack to come with me, as poor Gail was ill again. We got a few hours of sleep before leaving at 2am by bus to Sipe Sipe. We'd been told it would take no more than an hour to walk from the village plaza up to the top of the hill, but this turned out to be another Bolivian mis-estimation. It took us two and a half hours to reach the top, one and a half of which were spent stretching our lungs and working our calves to capacity hiking up one very steep mountain. I very much regretted going to the gym earlier that evening, and wished I'd opted for a small bottle of vodka instead of lugging four glass litre-bottles of beer up with us.

It was worth it though, to see hundreds of people wrapped up warm drinking, singing and playing guitar clustered around little bonfires waiting for the sunrise. Some students recognised Jack from his English classes and invited us to sit around their bonfire and share the beer. Unfortunately they weren't bonfire experts so, except for periods of a few seconds when lighter fuel was poured over the embers to produce vigorous flames, we spent the next hour or so gazng hopefully at a few dimly glowing but very smokey twigs. Eventually, light from the sun began to appear and intensify, so we followed everyone else in making our way towards the edge to watch the sunrise and the coming of the new year. It was a magical occasion, as everyone raised their palms towards the yellowing sky, arms outstretched, silently waiting. The atmosphere was only interrupted occasionally when an inebriated youth clumsily tripped over a rock and fell over. The festivities ended quickly and everyone began to disperse once the sun had fully risen. We found a trufi that was heading for Cochabamba, and had breakfast in town before returning back home for a pre-lunchtime snooze.

Jack and I had been planning to go to Sucre for the weekend, and we'd managed to persuade Amy and Kevan to come too. Getting to the bus station 45 minutes before the buses are due to depart is usually plenty early enough to buy tickets, but this time we were unlucky. Obviously everyone was travelling to friends and family for the festival of San Juan on Saturday, and there was no space with any of the companies. I felt a bit responsible for getting Amy and Kevan to the bus stop in anticipation of a fun weekend away and then failing to find space it the buses for them. We decided to postpone Sucre for a week and use this weekend to see more of Cochabamba. Disheartened, we made straight for a bar and spent the evening eating pizza and pancakes, drinking sangria and playing pick-up-sticks. Someone else had Jenga. I'd even been looking forward to the bus journey.

The next day I met Jack early with the hope of finding a tourist agency that hired bikes so we could go exploring the surrounding countryside. No such luck. Instead, we caught a bus to Quillacollo, the original site of the old city of Cochabamba, to see a festival of maize that my host sister had told me about. It was taking place at the Inca maize storage towers just outside the town. It was an enjoyable way to spend a few hours. On the way up in the taxi we passed hundreds of youngsters dressed in traditional clothing (including brightly coloured Andean hats) running from Quillacollo to the site of the festival in a historic race to mark the occasion. Policemen and women, seemingly with nothing better to do that day, tripped over themselves to explain the history, cultural importance, and uses of maize to us, which they'd obviously memorised, or in some cases just read, from the noticeboards behind them. We sampled some real chicha (beer made from maize), chewed some coca leaves, and watched ceremonies performed to win the favour of Pachamama (Mother Earth). Since Jack had a burger at the festival, we had lunch in a vegetarian restaurant back in Cochabamba, and spent the rest of the afternoon searching for an outdoor swimming pool. Two were empty of water, but we eventually found one that was open and functioning and paid our 20Bs entry. It was brain-freezing cold. Not even the most frenzied swimming could make it bearable. So we sampled the eucalyptus and camomile flavoured saunas before calling it a day and going to the cinema. We had a choice between Shrek 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean 3, so for no particular reason we opted for the latter. It was a bad film, bafflingly surreal at points, but quite entertaining thanks mainly to Jonny Depp. That night the family were having a barbecue at home, which, along with bonfires and fireworks, is the traditional way of celebrating San Juan. I got a cheese sandwich washed down by a couple of glasses of vino caliente (hot wine) and some delicious hot egg-nog type drink made from condensed milk, coconut, and cane sugar liquor, before hitting the sack.

I had a little chat with my host father about San Juan and the Aymara new year. It went much like our other little chats: I mention where I've been and what I've seen, and how interesting and fun all these events seem, and he attempts to destroy my enthusiasm with his cynicism. I said how nice it was that everyone celebrates San Juan, and he replied that it's not a traditional Bolivian festival at all but a recent Spanish import, and that whilst in Spain the fireworks and bonfires are nice affairs, here the festivities are out of control, with people setting off fireworks in the streets and setting fire to everything. I suggested that the Aymara new year festivities are a nice symbol of how traditional Bolivian culture is being kept alive and that perhaps they help to provide a sense of unity and nationhood, but he said that it's all lies, that the solstice has only recently been celebrated and that nobody really knows anything about how things used to be done. Hermán maintained that it's not at all a force for unity, because only a small portion of the population is Aymara, and the people of the Cochabamba area are all Quechua, if anything. He suggested that if he went into the street on the eve of the Aymara new year and killed a dog, he'd be applauded, because people consider it 'traditional' and 'Andean' to sacrifice animals, and how barbaric this is. To conclude, he referred to the birth of the Andean cultures on Isla del Sol on Lake Titicaca, where supposedly the Andean society was formed around three laws: do not be lazy, do not steal, and do not lie. According to Hermán, those who claim to be descendents of the historic Andean cultures and who glorify their ideology, the supposedly 'indigenous' majority of Bolivia, are lazy thieves and liars. For Hermán, this is perfectly evidenced by the protests of the campesinos blocking the road to Quillacollo on Friday. Instead of working hard to earn their living and feed their families, these people expect and demand gifts from the government, leeching off the good industrious Bolivians, like Hermán I imagine. Such are the divisions in Bolivian society.

As agreed, I met Jack at 8.30am the bottom of his street in my sports gear to run to the bottom of the hill with the giant statue of Chirst, and up the 1250 steps to the top. We'd attempted it the previous week, at a far less sociable hour of 6.30am, but only made it half way up before we had to return in order to make it to work on time. It had been knackering, for me especially because I was trying to keep up with Jack who, at over 6ft, has legs about twice as long as mine. This time, we had no time limits, and I was setting the pace. After half an hour of running before getting to the start of the steps, we were already pretty tired, but we went for it. I ended up just climbing as fast as I could walking, but Jack tried to run and beat me to the statue. It was exhausting but it felt good to get to the top. I hadn't brought my camera, assuming that the statue wouldn't be open to climb up so early, so (after a long break to let our heart rates return to something approximating normal) we ran back down and back to my house to get it. We got a bus back to the base of the hill, but being the exercise junkies we both are, we refused to take the cable car and climbed it again. It was good training for Huayna Potosí.

The inside of the Cristo is really pretty grim considering the majesty of the well-kept, white statue. It's just dirty bare concrete and loose handrails running up the rusting cast-iron spiral staircases, with graphic signs warning visitors not to urinate inside. Barbed wire fences now prevent tourists from getting too close to the person-sized holes at the end of each arm, from which a few people have reportedly committed suicide. It is no longer possible to climb up into the head of Jesus, but only up to his shoulders, but the views are great from the small holes in the walls of his chest. Or they would be, were it not for the thick borwn-grey cloud of smog that hangs over the city, almost obscuring from view the beautiful green mountains that enclose the city. The viewholes, which from the outside make it look as though Jesus quite likes acupuncture, were at just the right height for me. I'm not sure whether it's a good or a bad thing that I seem to be the same height as the average Bolivian.

I had lunch with the family that Sunday for the first time since my first weekend in Cochabamba. Sunday is Vicky's day off, so Cristina cooks. It was a classic lunch of eggs, cheesy rice, baked bananas and salad. I caught up with Jen, who was busy conducting interviews and reading as research for her book. I can't wait to read it. Amy had gone with Kevan on a tour to the Inca ruins at Sipe Sipe that day, but they (probably sensibly) had opted for a four-by-four ride to the top, rather than climbing the mountain. That afternoon, Jack and I went to a park in the centre of town with our books to chill out after our strenuous morning. We'd wanted to go and lounge in the botanical gardens, but it was shut, so we had to resort to the smaller and busy municipal park. Typically for our weekend, on the one day we wanted to chill out in the sunshine, it was cloudy for the first time in weeks. We stayed anyway. The swings proved irresistable and (should I be admitting this?) the highlight of the afternoon. We endured the drumming band that had chosen this park and this day to rehearse and the campesinos squeezing their hooters to remind us every 5 minutes that they were selling ice-cream, and read our books whilst watching the kids go round the concrete paths on their go-karts (one spoilt little brat even had a motorised version). When it got too dark and too cold to sit out any more, we found an ice-cream parlour and had some cake. Globos need a lesson in what is and what is not a brownie; fruit-of-the forest chocolate cake most definitely is not. I'd been looking forward to that brownie all day. Going to bed at 10pm almost made up for it.