Bus Cama and Bolivian Futbol
We finally rode a bus cama. In case you don't know what a bus cama is, its a bus whose seats fold down into a bed for those really long trips (which is unavoidable in South America, seeing how HUGE the countries are down here). However, much to our disappointment the bus camas in Bolivia are NOTHING like the ones in Perú, as in they aren't really bus camas just seats with a little bit extra leg room. And for much more money. Our whole experience in the Cochabamba bus station was a disaster. No one seemed to know which bus we were supposed to get on or where our bus even was. I guess we'll just have to wait till we get back to Perú to try out the real thing.
Anyway, we arrived in Sucre in the early morning hours, groggy and disoriented as usual. At least this time we had a reservation and knew exactly what to tell the taxi driver. After a quick rest we headed to Tarabuco a pueblito about 2 hrs from Sucre that has a huge market on Sundays filled with artisans goods. We ended up spending all our money within the first 15 minutes of arrival. But like we agreed its kinda hard to come away with a bad buy when it comes to Bolivian weavings. They are all so colorful, bright and just amazing pieces of art that you can easily close your eyes point to one at random and come away happy.
There was another passenger in the taxi ride to Tarabuco who had some awful views of the Indigenous population and the whole Constituent Assembly going on in Sucre this week. She told us that all the poor people are animals, with no reason and no brains. We felt tempted to remind her that in fact all humans are a form of animals and that maybe the the poor people who make up more than half of Bolivia's population where tired of having their rights walked all over and wanted a better standard of living and therefor voted Morals into office. But we just let it go, its not our country after all and who are we to pick a fight.
Today in general has been a hard day. Everywhere we looked their was poverty staring us right in the face, mostly in the form of the very old or very young. It's always staring us in the face, but there are days where one is able to push it to the periphery of one's mind and see it as a part of life. Then there are other days (more frequent) where it just wrenches your heart to see kids as young as five wondering around pestering to shine your shoes (even if you're wearing sneakers) or for a few pesitos for food with blood shot eyes from sniffing too much glue. We ended up giving half our dinner away to several street kids and an old man selling weavings. What must these people think of us? We must seem so rich to them, coming all the way to Bolivia from the USA, the land of plenty. And in comparison we are.
On a brighter note, we managed to see the local futbol team. Always an adventure. Futbol has a totally different meaning then any sport played in the USA. I mean fans or bloody fanatic, to the extreme! There were people who where listening to another futbol game going on in La Paz while watching the live one. And the obscenities yelled at the opposing team would make any decent person turn red. They also resort to throwing fruit, setting off fire works, and bringing live bands into the stadium. The game we saw was tied much to the aggravation of both fans. Sam and I escaped before it turned too ugly.
Tomorrow we're off to see dinosaur tracks! Crazy I know!
Anyway, we arrived in Sucre in the early morning hours, groggy and disoriented as usual. At least this time we had a reservation and knew exactly what to tell the taxi driver. After a quick rest we headed to Tarabuco a pueblito about 2 hrs from Sucre that has a huge market on Sundays filled with artisans goods. We ended up spending all our money within the first 15 minutes of arrival. But like we agreed its kinda hard to come away with a bad buy when it comes to Bolivian weavings. They are all so colorful, bright and just amazing pieces of art that you can easily close your eyes point to one at random and come away happy.
There was another passenger in the taxi ride to Tarabuco who had some awful views of the Indigenous population and the whole Constituent Assembly going on in Sucre this week. She told us that all the poor people are animals, with no reason and no brains. We felt tempted to remind her that in fact all humans are a form of animals and that maybe the the poor people who make up more than half of Bolivia's population where tired of having their rights walked all over and wanted a better standard of living and therefor voted Morals into office. But we just let it go, its not our country after all and who are we to pick a fight.
Today in general has been a hard day. Everywhere we looked their was poverty staring us right in the face, mostly in the form of the very old or very young. It's always staring us in the face, but there are days where one is able to push it to the periphery of one's mind and see it as a part of life. Then there are other days (more frequent) where it just wrenches your heart to see kids as young as five wondering around pestering to shine your shoes (even if you're wearing sneakers) or for a few pesitos for food with blood shot eyes from sniffing too much glue. We ended up giving half our dinner away to several street kids and an old man selling weavings. What must these people think of us? We must seem so rich to them, coming all the way to Bolivia from the USA, the land of plenty. And in comparison we are.
On a brighter note, we managed to see the local futbol team. Always an adventure. Futbol has a totally different meaning then any sport played in the USA. I mean fans or bloody fanatic, to the extreme! There were people who where listening to another futbol game going on in La Paz while watching the live one. And the obscenities yelled at the opposing team would make any decent person turn red. They also resort to throwing fruit, setting off fire works, and bringing live bands into the stadium. The game we saw was tied much to the aggravation of both fans. Sam and I escaped before it turned too ugly.
Tomorrow we're off to see dinosaur tracks! Crazy I know!
posted by Sepi & Sam at 6:21 PM
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