MICHA.ELMUELLER

Bolivia is quite nice so far. We have spent some time in a very quiet city called Tupiza in order to get accustomed to the height (altitude sickness should be taken seriously). A further stop was the salt flat “Salar de Uyuni” nearby the city Uyuni. One might recognize the dried out salt sea from typical photos where the size relation to other objects (mountains, trees, etc.) is missing. A lot of tourists utilize this to take “funny” photos which look like photo-shopped (it is easy to find examples online). We were unsure if it would be worth going there, but in hindsight the visit was very well worth the effort. The salt flat is quite impressive.
We participated in a small tour with some other travelers. On such tours it can be gruesome funny to compare the prices which the other travelers on the same tour actually paid (i.e. negotiated). Of course, nobody paid more than the two Swiss doctors. And of course, nobody paid less than the scruffy rastaman backpacker who chose to tag along last minute.

Since a couple of days we are in Sucre now. I like it a lot here. The city is beautiful. Even though it is the Bolivian capital it feels small and one quickly knows the different streets and directions. There are many vegetarian restaurants to discover and so far all of them offer a “meal of the day” as a lunch. This most often includes a soup, a meal, a dessert, and a drink. The price is normally ~3 euros. Also there is decent coffee available here! As in India, Mexico, and Guatemala, I found that Bolivia has the same characteristic: These countries grow a lot of coffee — oftentimes you even see wild coffee growing — but due to poorness they export all the good coffee and in the overall majority of cases you get some kind of black water if you order a coffee. In Sucre, however, it is feasible to find a decent coffee.

In terms of books, I have gotten unsure about the spanish edition of Jurassic Park. Puh! I have tried to read the first pages, but quickly realized that my vocabulary is way too small. So, I couldn’t resist the urge to read Stuckrad-Barre’s recently published autobiography “Panikherz” instead and have finished the book by now. It was a very interesting read and I think I have read it at a fitting time in my life. It also urged me to read more about Udo Lindenberg, Harald Schmidt, and Stuckrad-Barre himself. The book is quite long though and I think the overall work would be better if some stuff would have just been left out. On the other hand, Stuckrad-Barre leaves out anything related to women in his life. I see how one can argue for this decision (though he never explains why), but I still feel that the book would have benefited from at least some information or explanations, since this leaves some empty spots and yields unanswered questions.

A couple of days ago I had an experience which I briefly want to retell. We were taking a long distance bus late at night. After packing our luggage in the bottom of the bus (without any valuables in them), our tickets were controlled and we could enter the bus. We got into our seats and I placed both our small backpacks in the tray right above us — side by side. There was only one other guy in the bus besides us (a couple of seats behind us). Right after we sat down, Val asked me to get something out of her backpack. I got up and wondered why my backpack was no longer side by side with hers, but rather orthogonal. I thought that I must have somehow rotated it or that the ground of the tray may be slippy. After sitting down for a couple of moments I remembered something to take out of my backpack as well. I got up and only barely noticed the other guy passing me with his blanket and leaving the bus. My backpack was no longer in the tray above us. For a moment I wondered and thought that I might be mistaken, but after some quick glances it hit me. Fuck! I immediately went after the guy, out of the bus. But it was too late. He had already disappeared. I looked through the crowd, quickly ran to different streets, looked around the bus, looked into nearby shops. No chance. Away. I got back into the bus. Val had started looking around in the bus and found the backpack 6 or 7 rows behind us, on the ground, behind a seat. What a relief! And nothing was stolen! I double checked everything. I imagine that my getting up again and again might have come as a surprise and so the guy decided to leave everything before being caught. Wow, what an experience. I am still puzzled by how quickly he managed to get to the backpack and move it so many seats without us noticing. The whole thing happened in under a minute! We are usually very careful and protective of our stuff and were the only two people in the bus besides him. The ticket controlling, having the backpack right above me, and the nearly empty bus made me feel secure, but this experience once again reminded me of being more careful. When I found a pair of unknown shoes in my luggage in Thailand (blog post), that was kind of funny, since I had already anticipated that the luggage might get searched. This time it was more scary, since it was a very close call.

Another thing that we have noticed so far: In most of the restaurants it happens that only I (the male) get asked what we want to order or that only I are asked to taste the wine before it is served. It also happens that taxi drivers ask explicitly me (“Señor, …”) where exactly to stop, though Val has been telling him the way before. When we order the bill its always me who gets it handed to. Whatever you might call that — macho, old-fashioned, etc. — it does not feel right and I dislike it.

To me the culture here seems to be very friendly, concerned to look after, but also kind of dopey in a well meant way. There are countless little things at which I have to chuckle. To illustrate a characteristic that seems to be recurring: We visited a park today and a guide described to us how dangerous the following descent will be and how important it is to be concentrated. Once we started descending we noticed that all the railings and things to hold on to had just been painted freshly! And that on a sunday morning :D!

Another thing which I need to quickly retell. Last saturday there was a “Night of the Museums” in Sucre — free entry into many museums. We discarded our plans to attend this event after seeing the huge queues in front of the museums. But the most intriguing thing was who was in the queues. The crowd consisted of basically purely natives, many many of them teenagers or young adults. I think this would be very unusual in Germany. As it turns out, this event had been created to enable the local (poor) population to visit the museums. It seems as if “visiting a museum” is seen somewhat different here, maybe for exactly this reason: it is a privilege.