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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