Evo Morales and the Inauguration of Obama

The first few days in La Paz, were somewhat rough for me. The weather was also pretty shitty with a lot of rainy days but that nothing seemed to stunt the boys. There was a day to see the Pre-Inca ruins of Tiahuanaco, which is Bolivia's most significant archeaological site with megaliths - a ruined pyramid and a ritual platform. I barely made it through the day however, and ended up sleeping on a couch in a restaurant off the site, while the boys meandered through the two museums and the sites. I desperately wanted to do the trek by bicycle down the 'World's Most Dangerous Road' to Coroico, but of course, no one would do it with me and most importantly my stomach also seemed to disagree with the idea. So instead we did a walking tour around the city center and took it easy.

(I did manage of course, on January 20th to head into an internet cafe and watch the inauguration of our 44th President, Barak Obama via CNN.com. And of course, I cried. I will say though, it was hard to find patriotism amidst the capital of Bolivia when it is in the middle of an election and three Argentinians who want nothing to do with the US. Luckily, though, Obama beamed beautifully in the largest crowd ever drawn in the Mall. And his speech somehow seemed to give me a bit of confidence, that change, was not just merely a slogan.)

On Thursday, after about 5 days or so, also the day we had planned to leave at night and head for Potosi, we spent the morning in the largest market I have ever seen. La Paz, in general is a city consisting only of various markets. There are no supermarkets, which I discovered in my quest for gatorade and definitely no shopping mall or centers. The city is all feria. The largest one, open only Thursdays and Sundays contains everything imagineable to man kind, set up in little tents or store fronts -El Alto. We spent most of Thursday there, looking around, shopping, haggling, and of course eating. It was truly amazing. Bikes, electronics, used clothes, new clothes, shoes, sweaters, sunglasses, sofas, car parts, tools, any type of house appliance, and some empanadas and soups.

After the fair, we headed back down to the city center, because due to the vote of the referendum, to amend the constitution, due to pass on January 25th, Evo Morales was to speak in the main plaza that night. Evo Morales, the first indigenous President to be elected, was supporting the vote for si, a yes to pass the new constitution. Amazingly, the more conservative side, for no, was propagandizing that a vote for no was choosing god. Elige No, Elige Dios. Pretty incredible to see how intertwined religion and politics still were within Bolivia. The new constitution was, in a bland and horrible generalization, to put more power in the hands of the people as a whole over their water and natural resources. It also was to unite the people autonomously and create a better political system - supposedly an unbiased system without corruption.

The night previous, we watched a town meeting organized by the people for Si. If that sounds a little antiquated, it probably was. But for Bolivian standards, it was unbelievably progressive and modern and to me, beautifully astonishing.
The Evo protest was colorfully interesting, which drew quite a large crowd. There were flags all over the place, marching, singing, coca leaves being thrown all over the place, a burning of some sort of political outfit. It all seemed pretty festive, but unfortunately we had to duck out there and head to the bus station to make our bus. So we never actually got to see Evo speak. Heard it was incredible, though definitely not the same.

So we took a long night bus ride to Potosi, the world's highest city at 4060 meters. Its backdrop, the Cerro Rico, an enormous mountain looming over the city is the city's main forum for income. It currently has over 165 mines, since as early as 1545, when they found ore deposits within the mountain, the mountain proved to be lucratively full of silver and wealth. We took a tour of the mines, which was interesting and of course claustraphobic and terrifying. The miners spend usually about three days out of the week, for full days inside mining. They are usually alone, and can't eat due to the horrible smell of arsenic. So they drink water and chew on coca leaves. It seemed drastically lonely inside and definitely risky, since there are avalanches quite often. Our guide, Roperto, told a story about when he was a miner and got stuck in one of the mines for three days. After that, he gave up the job and headed into the tourist industry - the only other trade in the city. While there, we also toured La Casa de Monedas to see how the first coins were crusted and minted.