in the beginning there was nothing....

and then, there was Chancho... 

... He enjoyed his world. His world alone.

He enjoyed roaming around freely and carelessly, with nothing in sight.

 But then, mechanical vehicles appeared.

and he wouldnt like it.

"This is my land" he would say, "get away from here" and he would chase them off...
and off... and off...

 "Go away", he´d yelled  

"Go away, I said", he would repeat

he would repeat...

and repeat, but no reply...

so he decided to try to enjoy it....

...the end.....

Blancura

and once again I find myself sorrounded by white. 360 degrees and all I can see is white.
yes, it is cold.
but no, its not snow.
The white today comes from salt. Milliards of thousands of kgs of salt sorround me, for kms and kms on, as far as my eye can see.

This beauty coming from a dried up lake at 4000mts above sea level. A dried up lake that makes for a waterfall of fantasies....

La otra capital

y el viento nos trae a Sucre, la (otra) capital de Bolivia.

Una capital blanca. Blanca en más que sus casas y monumentos, más que en sus calles y avenidas.
Blanca en la tranquilidad que se respira al caminar por una calle.... Blanca en la cordialidad de la gente que se detiene al verlo a uno perdido... Blanca en la certeza en si misma de las cocineras que te dan a "degustar" sus platillos antes de comprarlos... Blanca en las sonrisas de la gente que se sienta contigo en la misma mesa a conversar y enseñarte un poquito de lo suyo... Blanca en los sonidos de los pasos de unos cientos de jóvenes que se juntan a las 8 de la noche de un miércoles para practicar sus danzas típicas en un parque del centro....

Gracias Sucre por enseñarnos una otra cara de Bolivia....

el camino de la muerte

and leaving La Paz, a mere two hours drive from that La Paz chaos, on the road leading to the Bolivian rainforest, lays a road that many have called "The death road" but I would rather call it "The beautifull landscape" road

built by the Paraguayans prisioners of war of La Guerra del Chaco, this serpentine road takes us from about 4000mts above sea level to right above 1500mts a.s.l. And it's all downhill! :D
deeper and depper into the rainforest we go, going from brownish peaks to green valleys ....

what we found tough was that the most dangerous part of the road was to keep our eyes on the road with so much beauty all around us :))))


hope the pics could be more and better, but when you go downhill, you dont want to stop to take a pic -much less when the road is all gravel ;)

Paceños

Chaotic, crowded, frantic, messy ... and plain bizarre.

Before coming I had heard La Paz sat on a valley, but as I come close (and down) into the city, the valley looks more like a bowl to me, a giant stone bowl made out of mountains and within it little sprinkles of houses with some even pouring out of the bowl as the houses go from the valley into the sides of the mountain to later creep into the peaks...

and, as if this wasnt strange enough, in this mixture of small sprinkles, right in the middle of the bowl, some huge spoons raise up: a whole neighbourhood of skyscrappers breaks into the sky contrasting with the whole 3-floors up city average...

Inside the city, the mess doesn't stop. Chaos goes on as 1000´s of people and cars cross the main arteries of the city, as little zebras try to put some order ;)


but amidst all these, people still keep their town spirit. A "good morning" and a "Welcome to my country, hope you like it" warmed me at every stand I stepped in.....

y del mercado con su api y pastel mmmm  ni hablar.....

Isla del Sol

I´ll omit the speech about the peace of the lake and the beautiful views from the island. Instead, I´ll touch on a religious belief, one that we happened to see once there. San Ignacio´s day. The day when the band starts playing at 2000 and doesnt stop till 0700 the following morning with the townsfolk dancing alongside.

"They are drunkards" my friend would tell me but it takes more than alcohol to dance all night at -5C, right?