Eleven Pictures and Eleven Poems

5/2/10: Copacabana, Bolivia

From Isla Del Sol.

it’s too cold outside
to go swimming at this beach
but I wish we could

he lives on the beach
makes sudden grunting noises
and startled, I jump

matching, non-matching
best four dollars we have spent
(except fish massage)

lake titicaca
highest navigable lake
in the world. boo-yah.

I am out of breath
hiking up so high so fast
we can’t miss the boat!

birthplace of Incas
and the mighty sun itself
wait, how does that work?

there is a kevin
hiding in this photograph
Inca warrior

window to the lake
it’s a maze in these ruins
someone come find me

a pair o’ donkeys
I gave one my apple core
now they just want more

wait up, wait for me!
who is growing these flowers?
can we eat lunch yet?

blue window, door, sky
I like the color blue too
let’s just move in here

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Picture of the Day: Action shot of the feeding of the donkey.

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What Could Possibly Upstage Feast of the Cross?

5/1/10: Copacabana, Bolivia

It’s a little known secret about our trip, but the entire thing has been based around this one day. We didn’t really want to hike the Annapurna Circuit or play with baby pandas or watch predators chasing prey across the Serengeti. What we wanted was to be in Copacabana for the Feast of the Cross, the second biggest festival in the city each year.

Our trip is now complete.

I guess this guy assumed no one could tell the difference between his face and that of a gorilla.

This group decided synchronization was overrated – they'd go for the cute factor.

It was actually more fun photographing the spectators than the parade.

Three cholitas.

Different groups came from all across Bolivia this weekend to parade around this tiny city of Copacabana in elaborate costumes, allowing themselves to be judged by rigid old people not dressed in any sort of costumes. We’re actually not sure who won, but to be honest, we ended up getting a little bored of the endless line of paraders. So instead we packed up a bag, grabbed our hotel’s dog and went to go hike up a nearby hill.

Technically one would say the hotel dog grabbed us.

About halfway up the hill, the dog found a friend. And when I look back on our trip two months from now, it’s the little things like this that I’ll cherish. (Don’t get me wrong, I’ll cherish the big things like hiking Annapurna a lot more than these little things, but I was trying to throw a bone to the little things just now.) Because I’m pretty sure in Virginia this won’t happen.

There just aren’t that many people dressed up in llama suits in Virg- wait, that was a real llama? But look at the thing! There’s no way something so hideously cute and unrealistic could be a real animal! It looked like a sock puppet from Lamp Chops! Well, even better. There just aren’t that many llamas in Virginia, andthere are even fewer dogs that will spend almost ten minutes trying to find a good angle to sneak up on the llama to sniff its butt. Yes, we watched this scene for ten good minutes, and the entire time I was waiting for the person in the llama costume to angrily pull off the mask and walk home demanding their paycheck. That never happened, but the dog did eventually give up and we headed to the top of the hill.

The view of the city was amazing.

So while perhaps calling the Feast of the Cross the reason for our world trip may have been a bit of an exaggeration (if you want the truth, we didn’t know it was going on until last night), we ended up having quite a memorable day anyway. (Thankfully for your sake, the day didn’t involve me making Copa, Copacabana rhymes.) And to cap the day off, we relaxed in our hotel hammocks and partook in my new favorite hobby: reading.

Actually my favorite hobby is still sports, then guitar, then poker, then TV... but reading might actually have moved into fifth place!

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Picture of the Day: I extended my right arm, put my left around Zhou, told her I was about to take a picture, gave the three second countdown… and this is what happened…

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Her Name Was Lola…

4/29/10: Copacabana, Bolivia

[Editor's Note: I apologize in advance.]

La Paz was nice enough, but there was a Siren’s song of sorts pulling us away from Bolivia’s capital. It started off faint as an old lady standing in the heat, but gradually grew louder… “At the Copa, Copacabana…” (Side note: growing up I always thought the Sirens were women, but this was definitely not a female voice.) As soon as we decided that we had to ditch La Paz last night, we booked two tickets for the 7am bus this morning. The reasons for such an early start were actually two-fold:

1. Music and passion were always the fashion at the Copa, Copacabana
2. Rumors of a blockade preventing buses out of La Paz were running rampant

Sound familiar? (The second reason, at least. Although I suppose the first line sounds familiar as well.) The bus we wanted actually leaves at 8am on most mornings, so we were expecting a prompt 7am pickup to beat the blockade. Nope. A. Nopacabana! (Oooh, this will never get old!) The bus came limping in at 7:30, all dirty and beaten up, almost as if it had just squared off with Bugs Meany while Encyclopedia Brown was using the restroom. Five minutes into our ride the driver realized this, and we immediately switched to a much more colorful, although not much more comfortable, bus.

Zhou and I immediately fell asleep on this new bus, and I’m pretty sure I dreamed of us sitting in the Vatican next to the new Popa, Popacabana! (Or maybe I didn’t, but wanted a rhyme here.) I awoke just after nine, with La Paz still clearly in view and the new bus rumbling along bumpy side roads. What in the world? Then I saw a line of other trucks and buses and realized what was going on: the locals had created a blockade and there was no way out of the city.

At each bridge we came to there were a bunch of angry La Pazians surrounding a tire burning in the middle of the road. Each and every vehicle hoping that this was the escape simply turned around to try the next road. After more and more failures, it appeared that we had lost all hopa, hopacabana! Dreams of music and passion began to fade, and I awoke Zhou so together we could mopa, mopacabana! But just as it appeared that we were at the end of our ropa, ropacabana! we found an opening. A line of buses passed through it faster than Taco Bell passes through the stomach. Fast forward three hours, and we had made it!

…

First story from Copacabana: this afternoon I had my first official argument in Spanish! We had our laundry done for 10 BOBs per kilo, and when I went to pick it up, the guy wanted to charge us 15 BOBs per kilo. He said since they did it in three hours that we had to pay extra, only he hadn’t told us before. It was actually a bit of a light-hearted argument, with me taking several minutes to construct each sentence in my head:

Ok, I want to say, ‘but you didn’t tell us it was extra to do it in three hours.’ The problem is, I don’t know how to say but, tell, extra, or do. So let me see. I can start with ‘no habla’ and then ooh! I can say ‘mas’ and, ok I got the whole thing now. Here goes. “No habla mas Bolivianos para tres horas.”

He then came back with a reply that I didn’t understand, so after another minute’s thought, I whipped out my best line of the conversation. “Yo redondo manana y comprar.” This was supposed to mean I’ll come back tomorrow and pay then. Only I know ‘comprar’ means ‘buy’ and I’m really not sure what ‘redondo’ means. I’d actually used it twice earlier in the day at internet cafes and people seemed to understand, so I thought I’d whip it out again. Can anyone who actually speaks Spanish tell me if this is correct? Anyway, the point is that I enjoyed that line, even though the guy responded that the laundry was already done. So we ended up agreeing to meet in the middle – I’d pay 50 BOBs instead of 40 or 60. We actually had a laugh about it at the end, and I feel safe going to sleep tonight. And you can rest assured that I’ll be dreaming of Barry Manilow.
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Picture of the Day: In this tiny town sits one of the most ornate churches I’ve ever seen. But we weren’t allowed to take pictures inside, so you’ll have to settle for this shot.

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Worst Night EVER. II.

4/28/10: La Paz, Bolivia

Yesterday’s post left off with the two of us slumbering happily in our cama seats, me curled up on the window side and covered with our new blanket that we bought in Sucre. Things were going wonderfully. I was dreaming about fruit salad. I was just about to take a bite (side note: have you ever noticed that you always wake up right before you’re about to eat something really delicious in your dreams?) when I woke up confusedly and noticed that the bus lights were on. I checked my iPod. 1:15am. Hmm, bus lights shouldn’t be on. Maybe we were having a toilet break?

Then I noticed that the driver was talking to a girl in the front in Spanish. I only caught the end: “but I have a flight in La Paz at 9 in the morning!”

Uh-oh. Probably not a toilet break.

At this point, everybody on the bus was awake. The driver explained that there was something wrong with our bus and that we would have to get off and get on another bus, which would take us to Oruro, where we would have to get off that bus and get on yet another bus, which would then take us to La Paz.

Great.

We got all of our stuff off the old bus and trudged outside into the cold Bolivian night. The bus we were getting on was right behind us. I walked up the stairs of the new bus. It was a regular bus with about 50 seats, and it was packed with locals. There weren’t any seats together, and I could only count a handful of seats that weren’t taken. This couldn’t be right. I went back down the stairs and then back up, hoping that this time, the situation would be different. It wasn’t. So I went back down the stairs.

Z: Kevin, there are only like two free seats on this bus!
K: Well, go up there and get the seats for us while I put our stuff away!

Zhou: panicker. Kevin: thinker.

It turns out that I had grossly underestimated the number of free seats, because all of the people on our old bus managed to find an empty seat on this second bus. I ended up in the third row from the back next to a grouchy man, and Kevin was about five rows in front of me. Then we were off. The light stayed on as a man walked through the aisle. I noticed that money was exchanging hands, and in my semi-delirious state I thought to myself, “Wow, they’re already giving us a refund! I wonder how much it is…” Then I noticed that everyone around me was getting money OUT. Stupid Zhou. That guy wasn’t giving us a refund, he was collecting our fares.

The one bright spot in all of this is that the grouchy man next to me didn’t like the fact that his seat wouldn’t recline, so he moved to the only empty seat at the very front of the bus, which meant Kevin could move back and sit with me. We both tried to sleep in our tiny upright seats, but the road, which had seemed so smooth and comfortable on our first bus, was now bumpy and filled with endless potholes. I eventually lay down with my head in Kevin’s lap and tried to sleep. I squeezed his hand tightly every time we went over a large bump. I’m not sure why I did that, and I don’t know how I thought it would be helpful; I guess I just figured if our rickety bus fell apart after hitting a particularly big pothole, it would be better to go down holding hands. I think I slept for an hour. It was awful. Poor Kevin didn’t sleep at all.

We got to Oruro around 4:30am. It was cold. And I mean really cold. Kevin and I had both put on our new hats, and I also had my new gloves and leg warmers on. We got off the bus and bought – yes, bought – tickets for our third bus to La Paz. It would leave at 5am. Luckily, this bus was a bit nicer than our second bus. Our seats actually reclined, and I managed to sleep through most of it, only waking up a few times to wonder vaguely what those ice blocks were attached to the ends of my legs and then realizing – oh, right – those were my feet. We arrived in La Paz at 9:00am.

A bunch of us from the first bus went to the El Dorado (our original bus company) ticket window to demand a refund. One of the better Spanish-speakers explained what had happened. The woman at the window gave us all 50 Bolivianos back, adamantly refusing to give us any more. We had paid 150 Bolivianos each for the first bus ticket, another 15 Bolivianos each for the two other buses, and we got a measly refund of 50 Bolivianos. This was not right. If Kevin and I hadn’t been so tired and hungry, and if we knew how to really speak Spanish, I think we might have tried to stay and argue for more money back. But instead we resigned ourselves to our fate and just vowed never to ride El Dorado ever again. Take that, El Dorado!

As luck would have it, today was one of the few times we hadn’t booked a hostel in advance. I won’t bore you with the details, but basically we ended up walking around La Paz for an hour and a half looking for a place to stay and discovering that every place seemed to be booked up. I was getting more and more frustrated with every stop, and I was as close to tears as possible without actually crying. We finally ended up going back to the second place we had looked at, a place that was just a 10-minute walk from the bus station.

We checked in, and I collapsed on the bed. And the hunger, the tiredness, the frustration, the dashed-cama-hopes – it turned out it was too much, and I just started to sob.

Z: I… haaate… hate… buses! (sniff sniff) And! (sniff) I… I… haa… hate… Bo… Bo… Bolivia. (gulp) I… hate… ev… every… everything!
K: You don’t hate everything. You don’t hate puppies, do you?
Z: I… hate… puppies! (sob) I… hate… ev… every… everything!
K: Take that back! You don’t hate puppies!
…
K: Why don’t we go get some ice cream?

With Kevin’s help (Kevin is unnaturally calm in such situations, I don’t understand how), I eventually pulled myself together. We went out and got some lunch, not having eaten for the last eighteen hours. After lunch we walked to the Plaza Murillo. I didn’t have ice cream, but I did have some jello.

Those are my crying eyes. And my “don't you even think about taking a bite of my jello” eyes.

They love feeding the pigeons.

After a nice long nap this afternoon, I felt sufficiently recovered to walk around La Paz a little bit. We did a bit of shopping and ate some dinner. And now that I can look back on the entire situation with refreshed and objective eyes, I can type this last sentence with confidence.

Worst night ever.
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Pictures of the Day: Llama fetuses, which we did not buy, and a cute cloth “painting,” which we did buy.

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Happiness is Ice Cream and a Fully Reclining Seat

4/27/10: Sucre, Bolivia

For the last three days, we had been planning on taking the Dino Truck out to see the dinosaur tracks just outside of Sucre. But then we thought about it some more, and the thing is – neither of us is that interested in dinosaurs. For me, I think this stems from my disillusionment of the scientific community in general and dinosaurs specifically when I found out that Brontosauruses (Brontosauri?) don’t really exist. I don’t know how someone could put one dinosaur’s head on a different dinosaur’s body and create an entirely new species that never existed and have this go undiscovered for years! Years! Have you not seen the eighteen Land Before Time movies? Well, I hate to break it to you, but Littlefoot wasn’t real!

You might be able to guess from that last paragraph that we didn’t go see the dinosaur tracks. I think this made us both feel a little bit guilty about “not doing anything,” though probably Kevin to a greater extent than me. Because honestly, I consider a day spent walking around and shopping and eating ice cream quite a full and satisfying day. And a cultural experience at that – because how is eating a banana split in Bolivia not a cultural experience?

My wafer is a harmonica, in case you can't tell what's going on in this picture.

Anyway, even though we never saw the tracks themselves, I’m reassured that they exist by all the pictures we looked at when we were trying to decide whether or not to go see the dinosaur tracks. So I’m happy. What we did do today (besides eating ice cream and ruining my appetite for dinner) was spend most of the day walking around Sucre, looking for matching leg warmers for my new hat and gloves and just wasting time in general until our 7pm bus to La Paz.

Now this is where the excitement heightens! Remember how we’ve been trying to book fully-reclining cama seats on our last few overnight trips? The first time we decided to upgrade to cama it turned out that we were 20 pesos short, and there weren’t any ATMs near the bus station so we had to go semi-cama instead. The second time we tried to book cama, the cama seats were all sold out so we booked semi-cama instead. And even though we had left the land of good buses (Argentina) and were now in the land of crappy buses (Bolivia), I was still determined to have one – just one! – experience of riding cama on an overnight bus. So of course we decided to get cama seats for our overnight to La Paz. The guy at our hostel recommended a good agency to book our tickets through. (Normally we book all of our tickets at the bus station in order to get the best price, but the bus station was a bit far away, and the hostel guy assured us that the agency would only charge 10 Bolivianos commission per ticket.) So we booked our tickets for 150 Bolivianos (roughly 21 USD), and hoped that the bus would live up to our dreams. Well, ok, my dreams.

This is what you would call “exceeds expectations.”

I pulled the curtain down so I wouldn't have to look at Kevin on the bus ride.

The leather seats were super comfortable, and I was thrilled to be on our first cama ride. I didn’t even mind that there was no toilet on the bus and happily paid one Boliviano to use the Potosi bus station toilet during our 10pm stop. We both fell asleep shortly thereafter, expecting to wake up the next morning at 7am, fully refreshed and in La Paz.

But I should have known that it wasn’t meant to be. Because the cama curse still exists in full force.

TO BE CONTINUED… (dun dun dun!)
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Puzzles for Postcards

Hidden Sports (Find one sport hidden forward or backward in each of the three sentences, must be at least five letters long)

Carl was born in Jamaica and raised in Vietnam, but he’s in Netherlands right now for work.
Jeremy Shockey thought long and hard about being a professional golfer before his NFL days.
Lincoln may have been known for his top hat, but even Boflex would like to sell Abe’s abs.
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Picture of the Day: Bye, Sucre.

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