Sunday, April 30, 2006
What I learned in Bolivia:- Dogs sometimes have homes! this is only in the cities or larger towns, and we still seem plenty of street dogs, but even those who have homes don't have groomers....
- Dirt roads don't have to be full of pot holes - they're not bad in places where there is not much rain (although we did have to ford some streams in our bus) Costa Rica still maintains it's title of worst roads in Latin America...
- No Bolivian buses have bathrooms - the buses will generally stop once or twice along a long route - but one of our buses actually stopped at a store/restaurant (during a 6 hour trip) at a spot with NO BATHROOMS - the passengers had to go looking for bushes (this was unfortunately the day I sprained my ankle, so Kepfram had to carry me into the bushes & then back out again... what an experience!)
- I learned to dehydrate myself before getting on a bus.
- On long bus rides the extra driver sleeps in a compartment UNDER the bus, next to the luggage compartments.
- Bus drivers here double as mechanics - in fact the only travel issues we've had in our journey so far has been in Bolivia - on 2 out of the 3 bus trips we took.
- TP does not come standard in hotel rooms - even those with private baths, neither do towels.
- Especially useful to know for the last morning in a hotel room - you can use the bed sheets to dry off and thus avoid having to pack wet towels for your journey.
- Bolivia is full of arid, mineral rich highlands and tropical lowlands - but has no sea access - and therefore a LONG history of political/economic problems.
- Bolivia is the poorest country we'll visit (poverty rate about 65% of the population with extreme poverty for over 35%), and as a result the least expensive - meals and hotel rooms for $2 per person...
- It's actually cheaper to eat out here than to shop for food in the supermarket!
- Common houses here are still mostly made of adobe and sometimes stone, with better constructions made of cement (there is still very little wood, at least in the highlands).
- In the cities there are baños publicos all over the place (of course you have to pay to use them) - you still see men peeing in the streets - these bathrooms are so common in fact that I wonder if poor people's lodging could be lacking certain facilities...
- Bolivian people are much more chatty than Peruvians or Ecuadorans, therefore Kefram and I have had plenty of opportunity to practice our Castillano (don't call it "español" - the Spanish are the conquerors, the theives, the exploiters...)
- We observed many Bolivians using the "vos" form when speaking to each other.
- There are HUGE herds of llamas and many wild vicuñas in the highlands of Bolivia.
- All the salt in Bolivia's salt flats is harvested by one community, and just used for local consumption.
- There is no science to putting iodine into salt in Bolivia, we took a tour of a salt "factory" where they told us that they use 1kg of iodine to 600,000kg of salt - when asked how they measure it out, the guide sort of shrugged and told us they put in the amount that feels right...
addendum:
- Since we left Bolivia on April 30th, we weren´t there to witness the reaction to President Evo Morales´s nationalization of the Bolivian gas industry on May 1st (International Labor Day). If you want to read more about this story, try Wikipedia.
Kepfram & Ellie, 2:40 PM
