Crossing Borders

I have been traveling since Thursday night and it has been a giant bundle of unexpected craziness. Hopefully I can do the trip justice in this post.

We left Cochabamba on Thursday night on the 11pm bus to La Paz (the capital of Bolivia) which is about an 8 hour ride. This meant I had to say goodbye to my wonderful host family, which was harder than I thought it would be. And now when I think about it I get really sad all over again. 

Can't believe I left my 2 year old brother.

When I got to the bus terminal in Cochabamba, we found out that the buses possibly would not be leaving because of a road blockade that had formed during the day by the campesinos on the one and only road that goes to La Paz for Cochabamba (this happens alllll the time). If there is a road blockage, no buses can leave because (obvi) they cannot get passed the blockade. Who knows what they were protesting, but luckily the blockade broke up and we boarded the bus a little after 11. We lucked out, too, paying 70 bolivianos (10 bucks) for cama-style seats there were super spacious and comfortable. 

We got to La Paz at about 7am and felt the altitude change immediately (La Paz is about 3,800 meters above sea level, thus being the highest capital in the entire world). I had a pretty intense cold (still do) and had a nice fever keeping me warm for the bus trip, but my fever was no match for the frigid La Paz air and I immediately was freezing and got exponentially sicker within about 5 minutes of getting off the bus. 

Our time in La Paz was relatively uneventful as we were only there for the day on Friday. The city is very urban and the downtown is surrounded by huge steep hills of slums. This picture that I found on google displays the hills (didn't take any pictures in La Paz): http://palinstravels.co.uk/photos/flc/main/flc_241_01_l.jpg

In Bolivia, it is normal for the richest people to live on the lowest land and the higher up you get on the mountains, the more poverty you will encounter. 

We left La Paz at 8am for our trek to Copacabana and Lake Titicaca. Try to picture us, however, at a hostel that caters to backpackers and we each have... one HUGE suitcase that ways more than I can lift,  a backpack with all of our valuables (computers, passports, etc.), a large duffle bag with all of our extra stuff (mine has medicines, pillow for buses, supply of water, hygiene products, etc) and lastly we all have sleeping bags. We can barely make it 3 steps without everything falling apart. Our bus, however, was parked about 7 blocks uphill from us. La Paz, it should be noted, does not have paved sidewalks, so we are hauling all of this stuff on dirt/rock roads. 

Two hours into the bus trip, we are told to get off the bus, go buy a boat ticket and take a boat across the lake while the bus goes across on a separate bus. So off we trekked with our luggage. 

A boat taking little vans across the lake. The same type of boat that took our bus. 

We got to Copacabana, but immediately found it was ferial (festival/holiday) in Copacabana and pretty much everyone in the world was visiting the city to celebrate the virgin (Mary? I'm guessing?). So, all roads were closed in the city which meant no buses (more importantly no taxis) could drive in the city, so we trekked again with our luggage through the cobblestone streets in search of our hotel. 

Ferial in Copacabana is obscene. Everyone is drunk starting at 10am, people were passed out in the streets and along the water at 2pm as we were walking around the city. There is trash EVERYWHERE. I was always shocked by the level of trash in Cochabamba, but Copa was worse. Everyone just throws all of their trash out their car window or drops it on the street as they walk by. This applies to diapers, tampons, candy wrappers, beer bottles, you name it. The lake is also the destination for all of the town's sewage. A few meters from the swimming area is a stream of sewage that runs out of a pipe that, presumably, comes from the city's center and straight into the water. 

Our second day in Copacabana was spent in Isla del Sol, an island about 2 hours by boat from Copa. It's definitely a tourist destination and nothing else. Nobody really lives on the Island other than the people who own the dozens of hostels and hotels. The boat ride is 35 bolivianos, an entrance fee to the island is charged as soon as you step off the boat. Then, little girls leading an alpaca on a rope approach and, if you take a picture (which I didn't), they immediately run to you demanding payment for your picture. They sure know how to exploit the tourists. We tried to hike on the Island, but we couldn't get more than half an hour away from the boat dock without someone demanding more money from us to use the trails. It was certainly pretty, but I definitely wouldn't recommend the trip. 

We marched our luggage to our bus from Copa to Cuzco at 6pm (a solid KM from our hotel), trying to avoid hitting the cars swerving through the streets and the numerous street venders. We took the bus about 15 minutes, before de-boarding and walking to the Bolivian migration station at the border of Peru. We successfully exited Bolivia and walked across the border, getting our passports stamped at the Peruvian migration station. We re-boarded the bus and prepared for probably the coldest 10 hours of our entire lives. Even my raging fever couldn't keep me warm on this one. I didn't manage to sleep on on the 10 hour trek, which was a bummer. I also probably prevented a lot of the other passengers from sleeping due to my coughing. Whoops. We paid travel fees to pass through Puno, and got to Cusco at about 5am. We took a taxi to our hostel, where the front desk conveniently could not find our reservation. I showed him our email confirmation, but his response was something like, "well, you should really call in advance. You can't just expect us to keep your reservation after we confirm it." OKAY. 

We camped in the hostel lobby for a few hours, where the app on my phone said it was 5 degrees celsius. Finally, we got to check in at about noon and we have beds at least for tonight and tomorrow! Tomorrow we are planning a horseback riding trip (stoked!). 

The plan is to head to Machu Pichu on Wednesday and it will require about a day of hiking. I haven't decided if I will go yet, because there is a $140 entrance fee. Machu Pichu sounds cool, but eating for the three weeks I will be in San Francisco before my first paycheck this fall sounds a lot more fun. 

This will probably be my last blog about my travels in South America this summer. Thanks for reading! If you'd like to keep following my blog about my normal life (outside of the South America), follow lucasinsanfrancisco.blogspot.com 

The Amazon with the Burson-Ryans!

Last week, my co-intern/partner in crime Annie and her awesome parents invited me to go to Villa Tunari in Bolivia's portion of the Amazon with them for a few days. We had an awesome trip, chalk full of amazon-esque adventures in addition to my overall happiness to spend time with a family that resembles my own!

We left from Cochabamba Tuesday morning on a large bus headed to Chapare, which is about 4.5 hours via bus (and not that many KM, but everything moves slow in Bolivia). Annie and I watched episodes of friends on her tiny ipod nano and ate enough peanuts to make at least 3 jars of peanut butter.

Our hotel was a few KMs from Villa Tunari and was pretty much the cutest thing ever. Each room is a little cottage, in the middle of the forrest, a ten minute walk from the river. The hotel even had an open-air hammock lounge above the restaurant. The first afternoon, we went down to the river and exclaimed over the size of the ants that were marching down the path as well, carrying leaves to, presumably, build some sort of missile or military base considering how much material they had.

Ant inspections

Just LOOK at how big they are!

We got down to the river in search of the Pozas (hot springs) advertised at the hotel, but soon came to realize that "hot springs" and "river" are pretty much the same thing as far as the local Amazon-dwellers go. We went down the river a bit until we found a deep enough part to swim and Annie rapidly transformed into olympic swimmer mode while I doggy paddled with the fishes. 

A nice swimming hole 

On the first night we ate at the restaurant at the hotel, which had delicious chicken and played cards with the parents. I officially learned Gin-Rumy (no idea how to spell that) which is exciting. After dinner, Annie and I took a taxi into town hoping to meet some locals and get more information about the TIPNIS dispute, but alas, Villa Tunari is pretty dead at 9:30pm on a Tuesday. 

The second day we went to Parque Carrasco, a giant national park with all sorts of endangered flora and fauna. We took a really sketch tram across the river and got a tour of the rain forests, including but not limited to: butterflies, coca plantations (not sure if the one we saw was actually legal), and penis shaped trees. 

Make-shift tram across the river

Literally a penis tree

The coca harvest

We didn't have any signal on our Bolivian phones in the park so we couldn't call for a cab back to the city once our tour was done. Strangely, Bolivia is not really equipped to handle tourists, so they dont have things like shuttle buses or pre-organized tours of the big national parks in the Amazon. It seems like the country could so easily capitalize on tourism since they have such beautiful places... but apparently the amount of cocaine production near the amazon is pretty dangerous and it keeps tourists out. We ended up walking pretty far on the main road until we found a bus stop for locals. A taxi came by and we piled a ton of people in a station wagon and got back to Villa Tunari without a problem!

Kickin' it in the back of the wagon

On the third day, we went to a different national park. There were monkeys in this one and we were warned not to bring any valuables on our hike since the monkeys are known to steal things. Sure enough, about 15 minutes into the hike, we came across a monkey who promptly climbed on Annie's shoulders. After lounging for awhile, he jumped off and ran towards Annie's mom, snatching her water bottle before she could even grab for it. He hid up in a tree for awhile playing with the bottle, getting frustrated when he couldn't get it to pour into his mouth. After he got bored with the bottle he came back to us, climbing back on Annie. Then came the deadly mistake. I turned away from Annie, and my iPhone in my back pocket became visible to the monkey. He lunged for it and got his little monkey hands on the phone, but luckily I reached back and grabbed it as well. Annie used her super human strength to pull the monkey off me and I ran away. The monkey then followed us at a stalker-esque distance for the next 15 minutes. 

The little thief with the water bottle

View from the top of the park

Monkeys in the Amazon

I traveled to the Amazon Rain Forest with the beautiful Burson-Ryan family this week. A thorough blog to be posted in the next few days, but for now-- here is a short little video of the monkey that stole our water bottle.

Las Peliculas Mejores del Verano

This summer I have watched a lot of really excellent films. Some of which with my host family and others with my friends or in the FSD office.

La Mala Educación

This a classic Almodóvar film, with a host of complexities of identity and really wonderful character development. The film follows a boy who is sexually abused in his youth and grapples with this abuse as he transitions to female later in life. His brother and his ex-lover play intricate roles in his development, as a film about the little boy's life is produced within film.

Ciudad de Dios 

 This is a Brazilian film about a specific flavella in Rio (called City of God). The film is really beautifully shot, although it is extremely violent. Somehow intermixed with the violence, the film manages to pretty fully develop its characters. I finished the film with a lot of questions and some confusion, but overall the it's a really powerful piece.

El Piel Que Habito

Another Almodóvar film that is absolutely stunning. The acting is fantastic. The film follows a man who we find out via flashbacks has lost both his wife and child to suicide related to traumatic life experiences. The man is a surgeon and a chemist and starts to experiment with the re-creation of skin. He manages to transform an unlikely person into a mirror image of his wife and then... dun dun dun. Watch it!

Home

With every adventure that life brings us (or the adventure of life itself) there is a time when the adventure must come to end. For my summer in Bolivia, this time is imminent. I am leaving my host family and Cochabamba in less than two weeks, and in three weeks I will be sleeping in my own bed in the States.

Although I have missed San Francisco during my time in Bolivia, I haven't felt an aching or a longing for familiarity that I half expected might occur during my time abroad. I feel like I have lived really fully here. But I think today I hit a little bit of a turning point, and I am ready to come back. I am ready to return to the completely different life that I have set aside for the last 2 months.

I think this feeling of completion was influenced by a lot of factors. The first being that there are people in the States who I care about a lot who are going through very difficult times and it pains me to not be there with them in a time when they really need support.

I was going to go to my host-cousin's birthday party tonight at a fancy club in the north of the city, but I got to the club and there was a huge line out the front door of girls dressed in six inch heels, with three layers of make-up on, and big burly boyfriends hanging all over their waists and I thought about the last time I was at a club where my friend Manuela pointed out all of the guys at the club who were standing around the edges watching and waiting for the next girl they were going to hit on.... and then I though about the 30 BS cover to get in if you are a guy (less if you are a girl-- sexism?). And I looked down at myself and my clothing that doesn't really fit my body right because I can't fit my female-bodied self into clothes I feel comfortable with. And I can't get into clubs without someone at the door giving me a hard time because I look like a 12 year old boy, and once I am inside, what bathroom am I going to use because the highest percentage of hate crimes happen in male bathrooms, but I also can't really use the female one...

So, I just got out of my cab, hailed a different cab, and left.

And then I opened the letter a kid from my program had written me (he wrote everyone a goodbye letter) because he is leaving Bolivia tomorrow since his program is over. In the letter he wrote about his experiences with Christ and his christian faith and how he believes that "homosexuality is a sin" but he is a sinner, too so he won't "point his fingers at me." Give me a fucking break. Not only am I not a homosexual, and thus comments about homosexuality are not relevant to my identity, I also have gone so far out of my way to use only male pronouns to describe myself, introduced myself only as Lucas, had the support of all the USF girls in making sure that they never used female pronouns around me... Why do people have to assume that trans people are all homosexual? Not that I don't love all the homos in my life (because I DO love them), but I wish the non-queer community could figure out that gender identity and sexual orientation function independently of each other.

So, I am ready to get back to the States, start testosterone, and move closer to the point in my life where I will not have to defend my identity every day. I am also really missing those SF dive bars.

Documentary: "La Identidad de Justicia: Mujeres Trans en Cochabamba"

"The Identity of Justice: Trans Women in Cochabamba"

The accumulation of my work in Cochabamba, Bolivia. The documentary below is 14 minutes and investigates the experiences of transexual women in Cochabamba, Bolivia. It focuses on discrimination, HIV, and Sex Work

La Identidad de Justicia: Mujeres Trans en Cochabamba (English Subtitles) from Lucas Waldron on Vimeo.

Political Graffiti - Null Votes and Cocaine Roads

The walls of Cochabamba are covered in graffiti. Some of it illegible, some of it statements of teenage adoration, but most is rooted in political adversity.

As displayed in the picture above, the walls of Cochabamba are often canvases for political messages, such as the frequent "nulo = nulo" messages spread across the city. This particular statement references several different elections in Bolivia's history when large percentages of the population chose to cast "null votes" instead of voting for candidates or reforms that were viewed as biased. For example, in 2011 there were elections to choose 56 new judiciary officials in Bolivia. The candidates, however, were chosen by Evo Morales' administration, the MAS party (socialist party), that many Bolivians view as extremely corrupt. Since the opposition was not represented in the election, about 48% of voters cast null votes, and 20% of eligible voters abstained from voting, even though it is compulsory. The ballots, however, were counted only including legitimate votes, thus only representing about 30% of the population. Graffiti around the city expresses discontent over elections like this, where null votes sometimes account for a higher percentage than any of the candidates.

Tipnis is another political topic that frequents the walls of Cochabamba, normally in the form of statements like "Defiende Tipnis" -- "Defend Tipnis." Tipnis is a region of Bolivia between the departments of Beni and Cochabamba, bordering the Amazon rain forest. The region is a protected land, home to many species of flora and fauna in danger of extinction, and home to several very rural indigenous communities. The MAS government of Evo Morales wants to build a road through the Tipnis. The reasons for this road are heavily debated. The government's political line is that the road will bring more resources to poor and rural communities and connect Bolivian communities in a manner that will improve the economy. Pretty much every Bolivian I have talked to about this matter, however, calls bullshit on the government's argument.

According to the Cochabambinos that I have spoken with, the road is a manifestation of the political control the Cocaleros (Coca growers) have on the government. The Coca Leaf is a plant grown in Bolivia (and other Latin American countries) with varying uses. Certain kinds of coca leaf are used for chewing, tea, and human consumption. Other kinds of coca leaf are used to create cocaine. And Bolivia is the third largest coca producer in the world. In the region surrounding Tipnis, the Cocaleros control nearly everything. They also do not produce the kind of coca that can be used for human consumption, and where their crop goes after it is harvested is a mystery to everyone... The argument of most Cochabambinos (and environmental organizations) is this: Evo Morales is a cocalero (this is not an argument so much as a fact since he self-identifies as such) and his administration is run based on the support of cocaleros. The cocaleros want a road that will make it easier to transport their coca crops, most of which is made into cocaine. Additionally, the cocaleros need to move off of their current land because the coca crop destroys the soil. You can only grow coca for 4-5 years (or harvests) before the soil is completely lifeless and unusable. Thus, coca plantations are constantly migrating, leaving a trail of destruction behind. If a road were to be built through Tipnis, the cocaleros could easily settle in this region and start new coca plantations. The weather and soil are ripe for coca growing and coca is an incredibly lucrative crop because of how much money the production of cocaine can produce. Environmentalist foresee this migration, and know that the Tipnis region will be destroyed if the cocaleros move in. Additionally, the indigenous communities in Tipnis don't want to the cocaleros in their communities because they do not want more drugs moving through the region. With drugs comes severe environmental impacts, not to mention violence and political corruption.

As of now, the indigenous communities have marched to La Paz (on FOOT) to protest the creation of this road. In return, the cocaleros have also marched. Construction has not started, but may be imminent. Thus, heavy political activity exists in Cochabamba in opposition to both the construction of the road and the corruption in the government based on the control of the cocaleros.