Hoy fiz uma puta caminhada nas montañas ao norte de Cochambamba. Acordei cedo com o irmäo de Daniel, chamado Rodrigo, com quem estamos quedando de couch surf aqui em Cochabamba. Seu pai nos levou até a beira da cidade, já quase uns 3 mil metros, e seguimos subindo por várias horas mais.
Quando chegavamos já ao pé da tal montaña llamada el Piramide, já nao sabia se teria folego para subir toda... mas seguimos, chegamos ao topo, e de lá ví um outro pico, com uma rocha arrendondada, que seguia mais além da piramide. Descansamos um pouco neste primeiro pico e descidimos continuar até o próximo.... Logo que continuamos percebi que havia um terceiro pico entre a piramide e este outro arrendondado... Mascando coca, tomando agua e bolachas nos picos, seguimos de um para o outro, e depois o outro... escalamos as rochas to pico arrendondado, já a uns 4 mil metros fácil, e decidimos näo baixar ainda mas continuar...
Havia de lá mais três picos, seguindo do oeste à leste. Da piramide seguiamos direito ao pico do meio entre estes mais altos, e pensávamos baixar depois deste... subimos este outro pico, do qual já näo se vê mais da cidade de Cochabamba, escondido atrás da piramide... Chegamos ao topo, e nossa ruta planeada para bajar já se tornava täo íngreme que näo se podia descer... Duas alternativas: voltar por onde viemos, ou seguir deste pico para o outro a mais de 5 mil metros através das rochas que os ligavam, fazendo um crest da codilheira.
Chegamos ao segundo pico, e lá nos quedamos mais um tempo.... putz, que lindo é estar lá. Fotos nao foram tiradas, e bem por que nenhumas fotos poderiam realmente capturar a beleza daquele lugar, a altura em que estávamos, e a emoçao de ter subido tanto já em só umas 4 ou 5 horas. É uma experiência única que deve ser vivida pessoalmente para realmente poder aprecia-la.
Já depois começamos a descer do segundo pico para um passe, e de lá pelo braço leste do vale, oposto ao que tinhamos subido, contornando várias lagoas e riachos e cachoerinhas de montanha bellísimas! Bajamos forte até la laguna Wara Wara, wara significando ''vento'' em Quechua, e o lugar fazendo jús a seu nome. Lá tomamos nosso almoço, e sacamos que deviamos continuar a descer em um passo mais forçado, pois ainda haviam uns 10 kilometros para voltar, e já era entäo umas 4 horas...
Mas pra descer todo Santo ajuda, e foi fácil. Tomamos quase que uma linha reta, cortando a carretera que descia do lago, e cruzando até várias vezes la senda que bajava por dentro de las curvas de la carretera. Já cerco de las 6 y media, bajavamos hastá lo começo de la ciuidad... llegamos a las 6.45, y tomamos un taxi colectivo hasta lo valle de la ciudad...
Ducha, descanso, y depois um bom burrito alá fajitas, con mucha chela y alegria. Rodrigo dormiu des de que voltamos, e já nos buscou quando já tarde tinahmos saído, mas Daniel e Eliza me acompanharam, e encontramos alguns outros amigos depois do juego de Bolívar con un equipo cruçeño. Bolívar gaño dos a uno, e provabelmiente vá a gañar el campeonato nacional en los próximos juegos de la final. (Juegavan en Cochabamba por que havian empatado ya en los últimos dos juegos en La Paz y Santa Cruz).
Agora estou morto de cansado... foi um lindo dia. Estas montanhas säo as mais belas que tenho visto des das Rochosas no Colorado e Wyoming... Realmente incríveis. E a experiência de subi-las é até mais emocionante, pois näo levavamos os tradicionais equipamentos Coloradenses como mapa com altitudes, tarps, e first aid kits de medicamentos Europeus... ao invés levavamos o basico Andino: muita coca, agua, galletas, solo un abrigo cada, um canivete, päo y sardina. Nao há los guardaparques y no há rutas ciertas... solo se sube y baja por donde se puede, so no las carreteras y una senda en el final.
Pois mira, além da piramide, já nao se via nem ouvia a cidade... Já estavamos acima da tree line, já seguiamos nas supra-renais e coca mais que nas próprias pernas... Já miravamos abajo como condores, e já com aquela rocky mountain high de querer chegar ao próximo pico e querer subir ainda um pouco mais, e um pouco mais...!
E isso tudo gracias a el couch surfing. Realmente é o melhor modo de se viajar.
Ahora para los gringos que no compreenden nada de nuestras lenguas... pô, tem que se virar as vezes, né¿!
The mountains north of Cochambamba, in the Tunari National Park, are abso¡fucking!lutely gorgeous. It is an amazing challenge to hit 4 thousand meters and keep going, and it is amazingly ecstatic to bag not only one 5k+ peak, but from there to another right on the same stretch!!! Then down a mountain pass over a delicious cold cold Andean lake, and a straight line down along the opposite arm of the valley we went around. Reward: good food, local brew, and a priceless experience. Amen.
sexta-feira, 4 de dezembro de 2009
terça-feira, 1 de dezembro de 2009
Cochabamba
A estrada de La Paz para Cochabamba é relativamente boa... plana, através do planalto seco do noroeste boliviano, depois que a estrada separa-se do caminho para Oruro começa a atravessar uma serra, muitas montanhas marrons, mais baixas que no Peru, e depois de muito sobe roda e desce, chega-se ao vale aonde se esparraaaaama a cidade de Cochabamba.
Mas, de estilo especialmente nosso, o fato do ônibus ''ter'' um banheiro a bordo näo quer dizer que este näo tenha ''acabado''... haviam vários baldes entulhados no banheiro, que aparentemente näo funcionava... umas 8 horas de viajem, com várias paradas no caminho aonde näo se tem a oportunidade de descer para usar o banheiro, e uma curtíssima de 15 minutos para almoçar, de onde o ônibus vai saindo sem nem verificar se todos estäo abordo! Putz... é foda quando neste paísinho metade do que se como e bebe dá diarréia...
Mas amanhä seremos recebidos por um couch surfer daqui, quem sabe descansados e mais animados possamos vir a curtir esta outra louca cidade boliviana! Amen!
And now for all yall gringos...
Cochabamba is a sprawling city at a valley that takes a loooong time to wind down after crossing several mountains on the way from La Paz. The mountains aren't as tall or as beautiful as in Peru, and the first half of the trip is across the dry brown bolivian plateau... Mind: just because the bus company says there are bathrooms, doesnt mean those work. and that matters when you are in an 8hour trip, and with a bad stmoach....
shiiiit
write more soon
Mas, de estilo especialmente nosso, o fato do ônibus ''ter'' um banheiro a bordo näo quer dizer que este näo tenha ''acabado''... haviam vários baldes entulhados no banheiro, que aparentemente näo funcionava... umas 8 horas de viajem, com várias paradas no caminho aonde näo se tem a oportunidade de descer para usar o banheiro, e uma curtíssima de 15 minutos para almoçar, de onde o ônibus vai saindo sem nem verificar se todos estäo abordo! Putz... é foda quando neste paísinho metade do que se como e bebe dá diarréia...
Mas amanhä seremos recebidos por um couch surfer daqui, quem sabe descansados e mais animados possamos vir a curtir esta outra louca cidade boliviana! Amen!
And now for all yall gringos...
Cochabamba is a sprawling city at a valley that takes a loooong time to wind down after crossing several mountains on the way from La Paz. The mountains aren't as tall or as beautiful as in Peru, and the first half of the trip is across the dry brown bolivian plateau... Mind: just because the bus company says there are bathrooms, doesnt mean those work. and that matters when you are in an 8hour trip, and with a bad stmoach....
shiiiit
write more soon
segunda-feira, 30 de novembro de 2009
La Paz!!!
La Paz is a big city... harsh, sure, but also somewhere you can find a more calm, more clean, more quiet part of town where to enjoy some quality food and drink. Mira, Sapucachi is a great place to live, and would have been wonderful to couch surf if any of the 5 people we tried contact were to have responded (laaaame). Having rested and gotten more used to the city, it was even possible to enjoy walking about town, checking out the main university (UMSA), and having a good vegetarian buffet for 24 bolivianos (about 3usd).
It is indeed Latin America... UMSA students occupy an entire building demanding (something about) summer courses, the police in heavy riot gear chill outside the front door of the building and people go by casually... The electoral offices have huuuuuuge lines, and, again, heavily armed police all about. It turns out the (conservative) courts nixed almost some half million voter registrations... yet, all seem quite sure of an Evo victory. The questions pertain mostly to whether they will also control both houses of congress, and which mayor offices, etc... Note: many leftists here are quite dissatisfied with Evo and MAS, making even a ''voto nulo'' campaign (none of the above, nix the elections). Especially around UMSA. Moreover, most peasant organizations are organic with MAS, taking on complete electoral support now... the other side of this coin is a weak Via Campesina of independent social movements as in Brazil... The work now is mostly with MST-Bolivia, which I will hopefully visit around Santa Cruz later this month, the last week or ten days before returning to Brasília.
Till then, off to Cochabamba for the week, back for the elections (I may possibly tag along a Spanish delegation that will be observing the elections in some indigenous communities of the Altiplano, cross your fingers and toes!!! Otherwise, I will be at Plaza Murillo!). Then next week meeting some other backpacking friends and heading south to Oruro, Uyuni and Potosi. Then taking a flight from Sucre to Santa Cruz, since, hehehe, there are no real roads that way ;)
It is indeed Latin America... UMSA students occupy an entire building demanding (something about) summer courses, the police in heavy riot gear chill outside the front door of the building and people go by casually... The electoral offices have huuuuuuge lines, and, again, heavily armed police all about. It turns out the (conservative) courts nixed almost some half million voter registrations... yet, all seem quite sure of an Evo victory. The questions pertain mostly to whether they will also control both houses of congress, and which mayor offices, etc... Note: many leftists here are quite dissatisfied with Evo and MAS, making even a ''voto nulo'' campaign (none of the above, nix the elections). Especially around UMSA. Moreover, most peasant organizations are organic with MAS, taking on complete electoral support now... the other side of this coin is a weak Via Campesina of independent social movements as in Brazil... The work now is mostly with MST-Bolivia, which I will hopefully visit around Santa Cruz later this month, the last week or ten days before returning to Brasília.
Till then, off to Cochabamba for the week, back for the elections (I may possibly tag along a Spanish delegation that will be observing the elections in some indigenous communities of the Altiplano, cross your fingers and toes!!! Otherwise, I will be at Plaza Murillo!). Then next week meeting some other backpacking friends and heading south to Oruro, Uyuni and Potosi. Then taking a flight from Sucre to Santa Cruz, since, hehehe, there are no real roads that way ;)
domingo, 29 de novembro de 2009
Loki at me, I can be in Gringoland wherever I go!!
There is a hostel chain in Peru and Bolivia called Loki. They are committed to providing a safe and fun environment for backpackers. By safe they mean you can be surrounded by nothing but Ausies, Kiwis, Brits, USers, Germans, Israelis, and most other brands of pasty folk speaking English with the widest diversity of accents... By fun they mean that they actually pack in 200 such gringos in the hostel with its very own burger-n-guinness bar. Result: a piece of Gringoland in the heart of La Paz.
Don't get me wrong: if you don't speak any Spanish, and if you don't *want* to speak any Spanish, this is a wonderful place for you! You can watch the rugby or basketball or UEFA game and try to get laid with that hot blonde Kiwi or that cute Irish redhead... There are costume parties sometimes, and an all English speaking tourism agency right there, so you only need to leave the building on a tourist bus with a foreign guide to an extreme adventure experience in, which is this country again? No matter... the mountain bike is still gringo made, so you can trust it and break your arm on the steepest route of the world, or you can rent gringo made gear to scale that 5000m mountain with some name you can't and don't really care to pronounce.
Best of all, you can repeat this diversity of experiences in some three other cities! Can you imagine how wonderful, to be able to travel with the same gringo folk through the same drinking nights with the same gringo music across various different places? A hostel-hopping good time!
The diversity of a corn cereal isle in a USer supermarket!
In how many different places can we replicate the same lifestyle you could have had without ever having flown half way across the world and into a completely different country?
I bet I can paint corn pops blue and sell them in another box and make bank. As long as I can include it at Loki's complementary breakfast, until 1pm for the hungover!
Don't get me wrong: if you don't speak any Spanish, and if you don't *want* to speak any Spanish, this is a wonderful place for you! You can watch the rugby or basketball or UEFA game and try to get laid with that hot blonde Kiwi or that cute Irish redhead... There are costume parties sometimes, and an all English speaking tourism agency right there, so you only need to leave the building on a tourist bus with a foreign guide to an extreme adventure experience in, which is this country again? No matter... the mountain bike is still gringo made, so you can trust it and break your arm on the steepest route of the world, or you can rent gringo made gear to scale that 5000m mountain with some name you can't and don't really care to pronounce.
Best of all, you can repeat this diversity of experiences in some three other cities! Can you imagine how wonderful, to be able to travel with the same gringo folk through the same drinking nights with the same gringo music across various different places? A hostel-hopping good time!
The diversity of a corn cereal isle in a USer supermarket!
In how many different places can we replicate the same lifestyle you could have had without ever having flown half way across the world and into a completely different country?
I bet I can paint corn pops blue and sell them in another box and make bank. As long as I can include it at Loki's complementary breakfast, until 1pm for the hungover!
sábado, 28 de novembro de 2009
La Paz...
鄭小塔: ...tell me more about la paz
me: there is a huge sprawling slum on the higland above... (The famous city of El Alto.) then you drive along a big highway on the edge of a mountain, (like dangling off a cliff) and below in the valley is the ''rich'' city, that looks like the same big slum, but with big buildings here and there... it looks like a boiling bubbling mass of people inside a bowl made of mountains. the mountains are beautiful, snow capped, but the lower you go, the dryer it gets... the more brown... until you get to that ugly brick exposed brown.. the city is all in construction. it looks like everything is a half done construction... so no one can really live in it yet
...and when you get down here... the cars twist all around each other, and the people move in between them like water through rubble. the honking is even worse than in peru, smaller cities, sure, then that might explain... and the streets all go either up or down... nothing is flat. nothing is straight for too long. it is as though the life of the people here falls crookedly onto each others', like the buildings and the street lines adjusting themselves to the harsh ground all around.
鄭小塔: ....haha, i guess i like chaotic cities... i think i'll like la paz
me: :)
if only it were safer...
鄭小塔: em..how's the man got robbed?
me: (a fellow Brazilian who came from Peru the same day) he got into a taxi... the taxi picked up another tourist. drove into an alley with both of them. other men showed up, said they were police, needed to investigate their passports. looked through his passport and bag, took his laptop, gave the passport and bag back to him. and they took away the other tourist... they probably took alot more from him. maybe took everything, and dropped him off in some far away place... it is really horrible.
me: there is a huge sprawling slum on the higland above... (The famous city of El Alto.) then you drive along a big highway on the edge of a mountain, (like dangling off a cliff) and below in the valley is the ''rich'' city, that looks like the same big slum, but with big buildings here and there... it looks like a boiling bubbling mass of people inside a bowl made of mountains. the mountains are beautiful, snow capped, but the lower you go, the dryer it gets... the more brown... until you get to that ugly brick exposed brown.. the city is all in construction. it looks like everything is a half done construction... so no one can really live in it yet
...and when you get down here... the cars twist all around each other, and the people move in between them like water through rubble. the honking is even worse than in peru, smaller cities, sure, then that might explain... and the streets all go either up or down... nothing is flat. nothing is straight for too long. it is as though the life of the people here falls crookedly onto each others', like the buildings and the street lines adjusting themselves to the harsh ground all around.
鄭小塔: ....haha, i guess i like chaotic cities... i think i'll like la paz
me: :)
if only it were safer...
鄭小塔: em..how's the man got robbed?
me: (a fellow Brazilian who came from Peru the same day) he got into a taxi... the taxi picked up another tourist. drove into an alley with both of them. other men showed up, said they were police, needed to investigate their passports. looked through his passport and bag, took his laptop, gave the passport and bag back to him. and they took away the other tourist... they probably took alot more from him. maybe took everything, and dropped him off in some far away place... it is really horrible.
Frontera hasta La Paz
A long day it was to cross borders into Bolivia... a bus, a van, another bus, a boat, that bus, a walk, a taxi... Never assume you know what is to come, always keep a spare few coins and short bills for the travel. And keep safe. A friend was robbed first few minutes in La Paz, hurray, a classic game of 'I took a wrong cab at the wrong time and place'...
MAS posters and grafiti all about... yet in a gringo oh so gringo hostel. A contrast I cant even begin to describe...
Remember that consolidations come from struggles, that are waged far afield from the resulted stays... Kataristas and comunistas and capitalistas all pull the centering state apart...
Defend it with the paid flag wavers¿
Sure MAS will be reelected.
But what is to come¿
What can they do, if a liberal twist remains in the unwillingness or inability to truly decapacitate and decapitate the oligarchy¿
Call it 'revolution', call it 'patria o muerte', invoke the ghosts of el Che all that you want....
no GueMing, no cutting necks, no truly systematic change... and that, even for only a possible gneeration...
for old Bolsheviks were buried in the 30's.
and we now look onto a whole new century.
what is to come¿
what is to be done¿
MAS posters and grafiti all about... yet in a gringo oh so gringo hostel. A contrast I cant even begin to describe...
Remember that consolidations come from struggles, that are waged far afield from the resulted stays... Kataristas and comunistas and capitalistas all pull the centering state apart...
Defend it with the paid flag wavers¿
Sure MAS will be reelected.
But what is to come¿
What can they do, if a liberal twist remains in the unwillingness or inability to truly decapacitate and decapitate the oligarchy¿
Call it 'revolution', call it 'patria o muerte', invoke the ghosts of el Che all that you want....
no GueMing, no cutting necks, no truly systematic change... and that, even for only a possible gneeration...
for old Bolsheviks were buried in the 30's.
and we now look onto a whole new century.
what is to come¿
what is to be done¿
Titicaca
The life of the lake is dying. The peasant people's that used to compliment their farming with fishing can no longer do so, and so submit themselves to the industry of tourism, where a proletariat hussles up and down mountains 30 kilos of gringo pampering gear, or the harshness of a faked culturicity of dances that are simply pra inglês ver.
Yet a short time can yield a rich experience... the islands's very geography makes more or less sheep, more or less papas and maize grow. The families hold micro-plots throughout, integrating interests and spreading risks and tasks... 3 years rotation and 3 years fallow... no llamas or sheep enough for fertilizer, but also no chemicals that vitiate. A self-sufficiency that can't sustain the gas and oil and rice and clothes that come from the continent... And so, where are they to go¿
When canadian trout catch is sold at 20 centavos de Sol per kilo....
When no fish outside farms can yield the weight and wealth for complimenting the dry peasantry...
When tourism is the harsh and degrading and ocasional support it is...
Can there be a turn to an electoral populist compromise as here in Bolivia¿
Can there be a solidification of a mass movement that escapes the repression of the 'terrorists'¿
Peru, and I have left it, is left alone...
...leave it to them to shift the gears of our continents path, from the Chilean economic 'growth' or the Colombian military ossification, to the populist innovations of Bolivia and Venezuela.... donde quedan los Peruanos¿ Donde vamos nos Latinos nos quedar¿
Yet a short time can yield a rich experience... the islands's very geography makes more or less sheep, more or less papas and maize grow. The families hold micro-plots throughout, integrating interests and spreading risks and tasks... 3 years rotation and 3 years fallow... no llamas or sheep enough for fertilizer, but also no chemicals that vitiate. A self-sufficiency that can't sustain the gas and oil and rice and clothes that come from the continent... And so, where are they to go¿
When canadian trout catch is sold at 20 centavos de Sol per kilo....
When no fish outside farms can yield the weight and wealth for complimenting the dry peasantry...
When tourism is the harsh and degrading and ocasional support it is...
Can there be a turn to an electoral populist compromise as here in Bolivia¿
Can there be a solidification of a mass movement that escapes the repression of the 'terrorists'¿
Peru, and I have left it, is left alone...
...leave it to them to shift the gears of our continents path, from the Chilean economic 'growth' or the Colombian military ossification, to the populist innovations of Bolivia and Venezuela.... donde quedan los Peruanos¿ Donde vamos nos Latinos nos quedar¿
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