Trash Tourism, Riots and a Long Bus to Argentina

Of course ¨trash tourism¨ is a compelling title, but you will have to be patient and wait for Andy to post on the landfill we visited in Sucre. It is his industry after all. Instead I will just mention the visit to Sucre´s landfill in passing response to Brendon´s comment, and move on.

Here is the raving review of Sucre, the real capital of Bolivia.

Sucre has been the only city so far to which Andy and I have deemed a city that we could live in. The weather is mild, the streets are clean (though superficially, as Andy will explain), there are urban parks, white colonial buildings and nice people. Unfortunately the city is also accustomed to violent rivalry with La Paz for the title of capital, as well as other spurts of uprising. We witnessed a riot between campesinos (rural farmers) and police directly infront of our Spanish school concerning land rights. The campesinos threw rocks, breaking the windows of our building and the neighboring official buildings. The police responded with rubber bullets and tear gas in defense. A little gas leaked into our school, so we shut ourselves in the kitchen until it passed after about 20 minutes. Strangely enough, everyone was more annoyed than afraid. Though we were directly infront of the line of rocks and gas, nothing appeared to be threatening because we were clearly exempt from the fight.

The issue at hand was land rights, though nobody seemed to have a very clear explanation of exactly what land was in question. The riots were predicted to stop when a ´solution´ was met. Therefore, the riot was between two parties, we were safe in a buliding, and the uprising didn´t seem to make much of an impact on the city. If you recall the recent Berkeley tree sitters, they were peacefull and still made it into the NYTIMES . This riot hardly made people stop and look. I suppose after the several students were killed in the capital rivalry protests about 2 years ago, land isn´t a stop and stare issue. Note: this was the only english news I could find on the issue with a quick search. It says 1 student was killed, but I have heard that 3 were. It is a huge issue for the people of Sucre and one of the numerous reasons they hate Evo, for he never addressed the killings publically. No further opinions because as I said, I never found out the details of the protest. These are rather my observations about the impact of recurring violent protest in a city. It seems to have lost effect. Most people we spoke to commented on the aspect of racism - campesinos, or the indigenous population, vs. the urban police or law makers. We also heard comments like ¨pobre policia¨. Poor police man, instead of poor campesino. No sé.

Besides the riot, which really had no effect on us whatesoever so don´t worry, Sucre gave us a much needed rest. After the isolation of the farm, Andy and I were thankful to meet some young people, including Brendon, a Canadian hydro-geologist that was good enough to take us on a tour of the landfill, and Luli and Hernan, from whom we rented our apartment. Luli and Hernan took us to see some amazing Bolivian music, and invited us over for tea and snacks. They were so nice to us. They also had a cockerspaniel named Spock, excuse me, ¨eMr. eSpock¨, named after startrek, that delighted us with his presence. We took more Spanish classes, studied all the time, and generally did nothing much but enjoy having a well lit place of our own. When I come back to South America, I will certainly go back to Sucre for the nice people, young population, great weather and interesting political situation. Don´t let the riot story scare you from visiting.

Now we are in Argentina after about 24 hours of busses and taxis. The border was easy and beautiful, and the driving is agressive, but not towards pedestrians like in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador. Get ready for the best part... GAS HEATED SHOWERS! We had our first one for about 5 and a half months in our hostal today. Let me tell you, those electric showers just don´t do it. The advertisement for ´hot water´in hostals started to loose meaning with electric showers, but meaning has returned and it is such a luxury. I have yet to make many observations except that Argentina has more money in cirulation, and this is apparent on the streets and in the city organization. However, so far we have only seen a bit of Salta, which is in the north. Tomorrow we take an 18 hour bus to Buenos Aires to stay with Andy´s cousins for about a month. Finally we are reaching the destination that has been our excuse for travel this whole time! We are quite excited to lay some roots for a month and maybe find some hostal work or volunteer jobs. I think I need to get to a gym as well. Too much greasy food on the road.

The Argentines seem to welcome us with any sort of help. They are quite friendly so far, but they speak extrememly fast and have more of a Spain accent which substitutes the c, s and z sounds for th. They also substitute the y and ll sounds for a ja sound. We are not used to this and it will take time.

By the way, we have flights home out of Uruguay for Oct 24!

Look forward to Andy´s post on waste management in Sucre.

Lauren