Citizens! I would like to immediately dispel the nasty rumour that we've spent the last month in Potosí, Bolivia. After becoming acclimated to the altitude we beat cheeks for Sucre for a week of Spanish lessons. From there we caught a bus to Cochabamaba and had the best street food of our lives (pique macho* which had cubed steak, rather than those pounded strips of mystery meat, and burgers that were more like meatloaf that had been fried in the juice of said pique.) We ate here 5 nights in a row and as we watched the food cart we calculated that the gentleman was making 2600 Bolivianos an hour ($371/hr!) If that ain't Lowgrade, I don't know what is.The main purpose of the trip to Cochabamba was to visit the hospital where we'll be volunteering for a month.On the morning of the visit, we caught a trufi that was heading that way and before we'd gotten out of town we hit a terrible traffic jam. Our undeterred driver simply drove over the curbed, grassy median and we proceeded towards our destination in the opposite lane of traffic. It was really exciting, though there was a curious lack of traffic coming towards us. Soon we were stopped by a 3ft berm of soil. Roadblock.
See, down here, when they want social change, rather than vote incompetent leaders into power with the hopes of them yielding to their special interests, they just block the roads and pray the economic toll will force politicos to action. These roadblocks are typically aided by the police since the protesters are often not-so-peaceful. Anyway, this particular bunch seemed pretty calm. Just sort of sitting there eating empanadas and salteñas and shouting "No hay pase!" at nobody in particular.As it was only 10km to the next town, we decided to walk. There were 12 such roadblocks on this section of highway, with a 20km stretch of loaded semi-trucks trying to get into town. In the next town we caught a taxi for the remaining 15km. During the visit, the road blocks had expanded and now roads were impassable clear to the hospital. We could have stayed at the hospital's guesthouse, but we elected to walk the 25km back to town, stopping for a beer midway. The 20ish-total-mile jaunt was actually very pleasant. The cities are usually too claustrophobic to walk side-by-side so it was a pretty enjoyable stroll.
Our friend Caroline (who is visiting for three weeks) was flying to La Paz within a couple days and with the roadblocks we were starting to get nervous. We started pricing plane-tickets from Cochabamba ($38 for an hour flight) when the blockade finally lifted. The bus ($5 for 8hrs) was more to our liking.... another example of how socialism is great for the tourist.
Walking around La Paz, with a couple days to spare we heard in perfect English, "Either of you two wanna buy a bike?" Frustrated that some street vendor hired an Englishman, we spun on him to discover our friend Tom!
We'd met Tom in Coyhaique, Chile and celebrated New Year's with him. We had hitch-hiked out of town and passed him on the way (he's cycling from Ushuia, Argentina to the North coast of Alaksa.) The next day, while we were trying to get another ride, he passed us. We then passed him and he us and this demoralizing game of leap-frog continued for several days as a constant reminder that we were traveling the same speed as a cyclist on gravel roads.We met up with him again a couple weeks later in El Bolson, Argentina, another reminder of our slow pace. And here we are, 3 months later, meeting him in La Paz, Bolivia. We grabbed some beers and caught up and he's in town for three weeks waiting for a friend to join him. We'll certainly have him stay with us in Seattle (and sorry Michael, I told him he could stay with you in San Francisco... and you as well, Gramma, in Salem.)
*The only English translation of Pique Macho we've seen is "Male Itch."
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