Sucre, Bolivia: Week One

It´s the beginning of my second week here and so far, this place has been great. You can eat for like 4 dollars a day and literally buy ANYTHING that you need in the streets....anything. Sucre is beautiful, super tranquilo and I haven´t gotten robbed yet so, to the country of Bolivia, I apologize for all the terrible things I said about you and how dangerous you probably were before I got here. Actually, out of all of South America, I feel the safest in this city. This is my third favorite place after Valparaiso, Chile and Cuzco, Peru.

I´ve been ¨living¨ with a Bolivian family. However, technically I don´t live with them, I live in the same apartment complex as them. The abuela owns the building, I live on the 4th floor and eat lunch with them every afternoon. Everyone is super nice..it´s just not exactly the homestay I was expecting. Either way, I have my own space. Which means that I can leave my things all over the place if I want, eat cookies in bed and play my music as loud as I want.

Classes have been going really well. 6 hours a day is intense but I´m pretty sure I now have the ability to talk someone into letting me take their daughter on a date/buy a gun from them (which I think is something I need to do in preparation for Colombia anyway). I´m speaking nothing but spanish with my teachers. Today, we had an entire 2 hour long conversation about the ills of Bolivia. Sucre, I think is pretty different from the rest of the country. There´s a huge controversy here about which is the capital, La Paz or Sucre.

Both cities lay claim to it but the president, Evo Morales,  lives in La Paz. She was telling me about the Sucreseans fighting in the the plaza with pretty much everybody, state police, a band of what sounds like terrorists called ¨los ponchos rojos¨ and even their own police force (since the city police are funded by the national government and not the city they work in, even sucre´s own police were fighting them) Someone in my family also told me that her husband lost his job because she spoke out against Evo Morales at a rally. It sounded insane. Everyone in the states that know about international affairs considers Evo Morales a blessing because he's the first "indigenous" person elected president here but he's really more of the same: a dictator. I keep forgetting that this is a developing country, these things just kind of happen here and it´s considered normal. 3 people died (mainly students) and it happened 2 year ago. Man.

I'm playing "walley" tonight which is Bolivian volleyball, and you'd have to see it to believe it. First of all, it's played inside....in a squash court. You can use the walls, your head, elbows, feet, basically whatever. There are basically no rules. Kind of like Bolivia in general.

Bolivia

Made it to Sucre, Bolivia after a 40 hour bus ride. Jesus. Here's the breakdown of the trip here:

Part 1: Bus from Asuncion, Paraguay to Santa Cruz, Bolivia. I will definitely have to get better prepared for the buses and traveling overland from here on out, especially as I go more north on the continent. The buses ain't like Argentina, Chile or even Peru. No bathrooms, no TV screens, no air conditioning, tiny seats, overall shoddy bus condition (by Argentinian standards). What I really wasn't prepared for was getting to the border, the guy asking for my visa fee of $145, me saying "gee, well the consulate website and the lady at the consulate in Paraguay told me $135" The guy shook it off and said something about it being a different price on the border. I mean, the extra fee couldn't have been for building maintenance. The border control is literally a shack in the middle of the Bolivian chaco. Maybe they need extra money to replace the corrugated steel roof every ten years? Who knows? However, I gave him the new amount of $145, and then he grinned and said something about a "propina" (tip) and pocketed the money. Good thing I had a little extra Dollars with me.  Whatever. I"m sure he needs the money more than I do, $10 in Bolivia is like $70 in America.

Part 2: Another thing is once you get into Bolivia, unless you're near one of the 3-4 main cities, the roads are, well, dirt roads. I say this because after getting to Santa Cruz, Bolivia after the grueling 25 hour bus trip from Asuncion, I got directly (like minutes after I stepped foot off the bus into Santa Cruz, some random guy working for a bus company, grabbed me, could sense that I was going to Sucre and literally dragged me) onto a bus to Sucre. A distance of 160 miles anywhere else? Like 3 hours max, right? It's like 15 hours in Bolivia. Something I wasn't prepared for. Also, I found out that I left my sleeping pills in Asuncion by accident...oops. Atleast the ride was pretty when it was light out. When I got into Sucre, it was raining and I checked into my hostel so I don't really know what the city looks like. I probably didn't mention this, but I'm going to take some intensive language classes and stay with a family here in Bolivia.  I'm finding the school tomorrow to hopefully begin classes and explore more...and possibly finally get robbed in South America. If it's going to happen anywhere, it'll be Bolivia. Here's hoping....

Rio Paraguay to Concepcion....then back to Asuncion

Spent a few days killing time in Asuncion. For a capital city, its not much. Some badly maintained building and parks BUT I DID see a Paraguayan rap battle. Basically just a bunch of teenagers spitting to some paraguyan hip hop beats with crowd applause deciding who was the best. Pictures are posted above. In all honesty, for an amateur affair, some of the kids weren't bad. Bought some pirated DVDs. Most of which I got completely ripped off on. What are you going to do though right? That's what I get for trying to screw the RIAA.

There was this boat called the Cacique II that goes up the Paraguay river, which is a tributary to the amazon, for two days and lets you off more north in Concepcion Paraguay. My plan was to do this and to my surprise, it worked. I was joined by two Australians and an old Irish guy from my hostel who wanted to find the Jesuit mission in Concepcion. The problem is that the Cacique II is NOT a passenger boat. It mainly carries eggs, chickens and lime. which I was inhaling for most of the two days on river. There WERE rooms but mainly made for the mates on board, just about the size of a shoebox and it was hotter than a bum's anus inside the cabins. I did meet some nice Paraguayans who made me play a bunch of American songs on the guitar. Then after being a half bottle deep in Pisco they let me drive the boat. It might of been because I was drinking, but piloting a boat is easy. I only hit like two sea otters.

We got into Concepcion which is by far the smallest town I've been into. The Irish guy just got off the boat muttering "I'm going to look for the Jesuits" and walked off by himself.  He's about 65 and doesn't speak a word of Spanish.  I respect the man. This town literally has ONE stoplight and not much else. We got picked up by Peter, a German who owns a farm a little outside of town with his wife, three kids, and tons of animals. I didn't WWOOF here, only relaxed. The food was amazing, Peter was hilarious and obsessed with "boobs." He also got me sleeping pills which is perfecto. I got some creative juice flowing to write again. They had a beautiful setup and I had a private room with a fan.
On my way back, ( I was going to take a bus to Filapelphia, PA (no relation) and then into Bolivia. Unfortunately, it turns out that Americans have the ass end of getting Visas into Bolivia, probably thanks to the illustrious W being president for 8 years. While I was being driven there, Peter asked if I'd gotten my Visa yet and I nonchalantly replied that I hadn't.  I was just going to get it as I crossed into the country per usual.  He looked at me like I was crazy and told me that I needed to prearrange a Bolivian visa before leaving the country....I had to bus all the way back to Asuncion, effectively making the boat trip north up river useless, just to apply for the Visa. Spent a day running around to different spots getting this and that; passport photos, police letters, copies, proof of yellow fever shot. I think I'm all set to go now. I'm waiting in the hotel lobby to get on my bus to Bolivia. Heard its 30 hours +. Hurray.